The World Famous Fives

It’s 1:20am, and that means it’s prime time for a blog entry before I go home. Not wanting to think too much at this time of the morning, I’m opting for an installment of the World Famous Fives. A Top 5 with myself, that is:

Top 5 movies and/or TV shows that are randomly connected in some obscure way to myself:

1. Anaconda – Half of it was filmed in Manaus, Brazil, where I served an LDS mission. The other half was filmed in Arcadia, CA where I grew up.

2. Silver Bullet – The part where Gene Wilder is running to the train? That was filmed in South Pasadena right outside where my dad used to work at Boller & Chivens.

3. The Wonder Years – Filmed next door to Arcadia in Temple City.

4. True Stories – Nobody has seen it more times than myself, I’m sure. In fact, nobody else has even heard of it, let alone owns the DVD, but it’s the movie that inspired the name of one of today’s iconic music groups–Radiohead.

5. Amazing Stories – The episode where the kid and his grandpa trade places? My friend Joseph from sixth grade had a part in it as an extra.

Top 5 books:

1. War and Peace – Tolstoy (I’ve been reading for nine and a half years and I’m almost done, it’s really that long, but man, it’s good)

2. Anna Karenina – Tolstoy

3. Leadership and Self-Deception – Read it for five minutes and your life will never be the same, unless you’re really good at forgetting what you read.

4. The Worthing Saga – Orson Scott Card’s best book, although no one else I know who likes Card seems to have read it.

5. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert Pirsig – The first 2-3 times it’s pretty boring, but then it gets pretty interesting the fourth and fifth times.

Top 5 things about running an ad agency/web development firm/design firm/consultancy:

1. Never being bored.

2. People being impressed by your business card, as if they couldn’t get one printed up that says “President” on it down at OfficeMax.

3. Getting to meet lots of people from different companies/industries.

4. People taking you to lunch.

5. Thinking about how much money you’re going to make some day.

Top 5 skateboard videos:

1. Mouse

2. Video Days

3. Sight Unseen

4. In Bloom

5. Love Child

Top 5 lame things you’ve done:

1. Stayed late at work while my wife is home alone.

2. Threatened a 12-year old kid at the Springville skatepark after he broke a glass bottle on the halfpipe and wouldn’t clean it up.

3. Lied to my dad about whether or not I had practiced trumpet one day when I was in eighth grade.

4. Ate ten gallons of ice cream in less than a week my first year of college. Five of mint ‘n chip, five of bubble gum. And two blueberry pies, because they were on sale at Frontier Pies for $1 a piece. I can’t resist that kind of a deal.

5. Failed seven college classes after attending them the entire semester and doing all the work.

Top 5 professors from college classes:

1. Leon Parson – Told me I had to start competing against the best professionals while I was a student or I’d never be one of the best professionals myself.

2. Gary Hansen – Didn’t let me get away with much. The kind of teacher who is hard on you in a way that makes you want to do better.

3. Craig Bell – One of the nicest guys ever with the most ideal family you can imagine.

4. Owen Cherrington – Always supportive and positive.

5. Allen Hackworth – My English professor at BYU-Idaho, then Ricks College. He took an interest in me my first year of college and would let me talk his ear off for hours. A self-confidence booster.

Top 5 movies:

1. Groundhog Day

2. True Stories

3. Strange Brew

4. My Mother’s Castle

5. The Remains of the Day – Anybody know where I can get the action figures from this one?

Top 5 albums:

1. Dinosaur Jr. – Bug

2. Dinosaur Jr. – You’re Living All Over Me

3. Dinosaur Jr. – Where You Been

4. Dinosaur Jr. – Green Mind

5. Dinosaur Jr. – Without a Sound

Top 5 Radiohead Songs:

1. No Surprises

2. Lift

3. Life in a Glass House

4. Killer Cars

5. Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong