Things you will endlessly lecture on if given the chance (aka woe to anyone who asks me about muppets when I'm drunk)

- quitting smoking

- jane austen (so embarrassing)

- kraftwerk

the upper peninsula of michigan

- whatever nonfiction i'm reading at the time

- new york yankees baseball teams of the early, mid and late 1990s
- good nutrition & the state of food politics in contemporary north america (sometimes with added "phenomenology of food and what can heidegger tell us about how we eat" bonus) <--- guaranteed party-clearer
- super smash bros. (n64 and melee)
- strategy in settlers of catan
- r. kelly

Have you successfully quit smoking, slocki? I'm trying (and succeeding), I mean I need to quit but the impetus right now is "have no $$$," and I'm worries once I have $$$ I'll be like "oil well, what'll a little while longer hurt?"

-Idaho, Idaho culture, Idaho counties and Idaho politics
- Also Wyoming
- Also Utah
- Also, marrying the above three, mormons and their x-treme weirfness

- the inadequacies of various word processing programs, specifically grammer & spellchecking.

- the different political biases of different newspapers.

- why all types of pasta are redundant aside from spagetti, tagliatelle, penne, and lasagne.

- the under/misrepresentation of my area of the country on TV.

- the decline of the IT hardware business in the UK.

- reality TV and the cult of meaningless celebrity.

- System analysis and design methodologies.

- The history of various games consoles, illustrated with various "interesting" anecdotes.

- why it's vital that Han shoots first.

- why it's vital that Han shoots first.

OTM

ILX itself is kind of a testament to my answers to this question already

The economy, politics, and sometimes feeling irate?

and BABY BOOMERS

Tomboto dittoto

you guys are neglecting my litany of musings on ILNFL and ILG

OMG I can imagine having ultimate drunk ragefest at baby boomers w/tombot.

Oh yeah and on dragon quest too!

don't forget offensive line play as the microcosmic metaphor/tea leaves of a team's entire season and the playstation 3 as being doomed from the start

im tempted to start a 'favorite tombot rant topic' poll

I'm a baby boomer, you guys can rage at me while I rage at Democratic Party.

This is totally going to shock anyone who doesn't know me off-board, but, umm ... I don't think I have any of these topics? I might be wrong.

I complain abt baby boomers to my mom-in-law more than anyone, the woman who said "there's nothing weirder than being filmed for the woodstock movie while yr on mescaline and then watching that while on mescaline." She is the only one who is not a DOUCHE about money and future generations. OTOH she is addicted to stealing Coach/D&B/BCBG purses.

- David Mancuso/ Nicky Siano

well, you future generations are certainly gonna steal all our goddamn money.

- good nutrition & the state of food politics in contemporary north america

our library has hosted quite a few talks about this! i think the most recent one was about the farm bill. (marion nestle works at this school)

on a related note, my own answer to the question:

- the importance of establishing easily accessible archives for research purposes
- the best diners in the north-central new jersey area
- why disco was important (i actually did give this lecture to a friend who claimed otherwise)
- eurovision

one of my major topics is a multi-part defense of NJ

- strategy in settlers of catan

^^^ this!!!

also
• free trade
• canada's "new" government
• photoshoping images

Abbott, I would seriously like to get drunk with you and discuss the muppets.

I'm very, very good at it! It's probably the best thing to do when drunk. If I ever see you around, we are SO. ON.

- the role of Taiwan in Sino-Japanese relations (LOL HONORS THESIS)
- China in general
- MY OPINIONS ON THINGS.

Abbott I actually kind of want your opinions on Blankets.

haha jessie i would talk to ANYONE who asked abt my thesis a month or so ago but now that ive been working on it for a while i HATE talking about it and speak in as vague terms as possible

my roommate is a china politics nerd too btw so i hear more than i need to about taiwan

-whaling
-imperialism, but only specific areas
-Armenian national identity/diaspora
-cooking
-Jesus (actually, I think I am more likely to talk about Jesus when drunk than any of the above...once, this led to me and a couple other nerds singing Jesus Christ Superstar through at a disintegrating party and then the Catholic making me and the Jewish guy promise to go to afternoon mass tomorrow, which we actually did, and kinda liked.)

But usually, this does not happen, because usually I don't start going on about any of my obsessions when drunk unless someone prompts me. Really, I'm not that ridiculously awful to be around.

- why the real value at Taco Bell isn't to be found on the Value Menu
- can't think of anything else at the moment

- how there is nothing whatsoever that you can do to prevent, stall, hinder or obstruct the gentrification of whatever area you don't want to see gentrified, that is unless you are a trillionaire

burt reynolds: awesome without mustache, cheesy with mustache

why the real value at Taco Bell isn't to be found on the Value Menu

I am actually interested in hearing this riff. Particularly if I'm also drunk, and it's 1 in the morning, and we're on the way to Taco Bell.

BLASPHEMY!

xpost

- why Norman McLaren's Lines Horizontal is FUCKING AMAZING
- why modern advertising is extremely detrimental to capitalism
- film grain vs. pixels
- AUDIO: vinyl for listening to music, 96Hz 24-bit poly-wav for everything else, HERE'S WHY
- the works of Haruki Murakami, and how I printed his face on my hoodie

Did you guys know I'm in college?

the upper peninsula of michigan
Idaho, Idaho culture, Idaho counties and Idaho politics

I have lectured on both of these topics (the latter much less knowledgeably than the former) within the last week.

Most recently I went off about various Unix daemons to a group of friends who didn't know what I was talking about and didn't know why I would know about these things.

Han totally fired first, and I can discuss that at length at the drop of a hat. Along with how the only "real" Star Wars movies are the first three, original release. None of this CG-doctored crap that was added later.

Viggo, his movies, his art, his politics ... it's kinda sad. Also, how his son really, truly needs to meet our daughter. ;D

Religion.
Journalism.
History.
The history of religious journalism.
The journalism of religious history.
The religion of historic journalism.
Books books books books
Writing.
Role-play gaming.
Anything, really. It's sad.

Most recently I went off about various Unix daemons to a group of friends who didn't know what I was talking about and didn't know why I would know about these things.

Once I was talking to a client on the phone, and started going on about Shroedinger's Cat, and he freaked out a bit and hung up. I later realised that because of my manic delivery he thought that I actually had a cat in a box with a canister of poison gas and that I was threatening him or something.

did you open it and find out?

Well it was something like this:

Client: "I'm just calling to see if those parts I ordered have arrived."
Me: "Well we've just had a delivery, but I haven't opened it yet. Your stuff could be inside the box, but it might not be. A bit like Shroedinger's Cat."
Client: "Erm... sorry, like what?"
Me: [getting excited] "Shroedinger's Cat! It's like I've got a cat in a sealed box with a poison gas canister! And there's a 50-50 chance the canister will go off and kill the cat! But because the box is sealed you don't know if the cat is dead or alive until you open the box!"
Client: "Er... I'll call back later thanksbye" <CLICK>

Unlimited Texas Hold Them Poker Card Game.

-the use of war dogs by Allied forces in WWII
-WWII in general
-why the sociopolitical & -economical aspects of Max Brooks' World War Z were more interesting than just the zombies, including his satire of modern american cultures and openly advocating for a return to New Deal sensibilities.
-Grim Fandango, and how it is a cultural product even as it synthesizes several different cultural products
-the experience of watching college athletics v. professional, which quickly morphs into a discussion of Univ. of Michigan football vs Michigan hockey, and eventually it just dissolves into me telling stories of the shit we would pull at hockey games.

-also, politickin' and the controlling ideologies of batshit rightwing fuckheads.

- Bourbon
- The familial conditions that lead to how people i know became the people they are today
- Why the lack of bourbon in my glass is a travesty of life altering proportions
- How amazing my wife is
- Tony Rice and his guitar playing
- Blues music
- Whatever nonfiction I'm reading at the time - This is SO OTM I cannot even express it. I was SUCH an asshole about fast food for like months after Fast Food Nation
- Why SUVs really, really suck

Idaho, Idaho culture, Idaho counties and Idaho politics

OMG joygoat what did you say?

Also, maria, you have no idea how many times I've busted into JC Superstar in public.

People who shit loudly

- what the UK needs to do to win Eurovision
- what changes could be made to the voting to make it truely representitive of individual people's votes
- why Terry Wogan's block voting conspiracy theory is rubbish

The Burgess Shale

- Bourbon
- Why the lack of bourbon in my glass is a travesty of life altering proportions

HAHAHAhahahaha OTM

Dressing as Leatherface got me no play on Halloween...

Idaho, Idaho culture, Idaho counties and Idaho politics

OMG joygoat what did you say?

Basically I was talking with some friends about how when I mention Idaho to people who've never been there they think how insane it must be, full of skinheads, nothing to eat but potatoes, and...well, that's about it. Racists and potatoes. Maybe Mormons too. And now Larry Craig, I guess.

I live right next door to Idaho and cross the border at least once a week if not more, and obviously this isn't the case. It's part of the case, of course, and it's fun to contrast the state politics with those of my much more liberal state.

It's just fun learning that lots of stereotypes aren't all that accurate. Plus Idaho is super pretty, based on the PBS show I saw last night.

70% of Idaho is extra pretty, though good chunks of southern Idaho are just cheat grass dotted with the occasional Russian olive. panhandle = k-gorgeous.

How I make photos.

You make AWESOME photos.

- why much of reality TV is actually brilliant (specifically wife swap)
- anti-TV snobbery in general
- the "Port Royal Experiment" and Reconstruction in South Carolina
- media consolidation
- antipiracy laws in general
- words that exist in Dutch but not English
- whatever I happen to be learning about at the time (now RF engineering)
- too much about my weird family and family dynamics
- gay marriage and having lesbian parents
- stereotypes about Montana and anywhere that's not NY or CA

i do go on and on

I should phone beth parker and request that she get on this thread.

the crapness of the local music scene

the poor quality of mid 80s vinyl

butter is better than margarine

bleh, reality television

the poor quality of mid 80s vinyl

YES, especially RCA vinyl - I have some Bowie reissues from 1984 that are so thin they're practically flexidiscs. It's almost as if (conspiracy theory approaching) they were making crap quality vinyl to soften people up for re-buying everything on CD.

bleh, reality television

Don't get me started!

some things I don't really get into detail about on ILX but that I will seriously talk your head off about IRL esp inebriated:

- systems engineering practices and management of complex organizations especially of the technical variety
- information presentation and UI design
- overuse of jargon in my field vs more mature professions such as public health
- risk communication, risk management, and the role of insurers
- mental models
- all of the above tied together in a vague cloudy shape of an unwritable thesis on why "operator error" is a lame copout when investigating or discussing accidents/system failures
- two-factor authentication: why it is stupid and useless
- the similarities between information security and maritime safety

- why I want to quit being an "analyst" and become a manager

- why a parliamentary system is vastly better than the 2-party system we have here
- why the electoral college is shit
- why the drinking age and driving age should be reversed here
- why drugs should be legalized

I actually agree on the last 3--not enough experience on the first to have an opinion.

I got my drivers license at 17 after a joke of a test , and how I didn't get myself or others killed my first year driving I don't know.

- the hotness of Mary-Louise Parker, Radha Mitchel and Dana Delany

Rose McGowan's ass

I got a little drunk last night and talked about Wallace, Idaho. HAI ABBOTT>

HAI 5IVE!

I lived in the Gem State when I was a kid but then we sold out and moved to glamorous Oregon, which is another place I like to talk about when i'm drunkened.

OMG where did you live? Probably Wallace, eh?

o ya

-why the Wire is the greatest thing ever
-why there are many great American television shows (generally only if someone slags off television or claims to 'not watch it', etc...)
-Richard II
-Henry II of England
-Girls Aloud are proof that chart pop is not dead (this might only happen at a Smiths-themed indie dance night)
-Previous to this season, why Bolton Wanderers are a fine football team, and how their 'tactics' aren't as horrible as many believed, and why it is great that a team on a limited budget has to do what it needs to, etc... (can't make many excuses this season, mind)

I mostly like the premium cable shows (Like Sleeper Cell and Dexter, the two Showtime shows I'm a big fan of)...

Granted there is a lot of idiotic television in the mainstream but the medium is enjoyable for programming because unlike a movie, they don't have to rush the story and can do more with character development as a result.

depoliticization of the common man
technology is morally neutral (in fact may even be considered immoral)
various theological issues
the wonders of saints
1857 war of independence aka sepoy mutiny

The Portland Trail Blazers
Ethiopia (warning: more enthusiasm than actual knowledge)
Japanese poetry
My kids
Bertolt Brecht & the early Brecht-inspired plays of John Arden
Colin Blunstone's vocal performance on "She's Not There"
"The Electric Company" & "Welcome Back, Kotter" (Muppets were already taken)

oh my god no wonder i have no friends

You can talk abt muppets, too, and have some drunken geexoring with Thermo Thinwall.

SQUARE ONE! is another I will love generously and verbosely, PBS kids' show abt math...I was thinking of starting a thredd on it

-the art of ray caesar
-why 'dirty realist' writers like carver, wolff, bukowski et al are not boring
-the horrors of working in customer service

ps. did you totally love fraggle rock?

(ps. was to abbott)

Dued, eternal love for the Fraggle Rock. And Jim Henson's Storytellers!

- ecology and why environmental/public health is, like, important, man (ARMCHAIR)
- how epidemiology is actually super-cutting-edge and basically just the statistical analysis of phenomenae(ARMCHAIR + W33D)
- alpine style v. siege style and why the difference is RELEVANT and IMPORTANT
- why The Great and Secret Show (VII 5.11 A4 WI) is just as worthwhile and important as some stupid painting a jerk made or a stupid Bob Dylan album, even though it's just some guys being hungry in a portaledge on baffin island
- continental v. martime snowpack
- weather is actually the most amazing and awe-inspiring thing going, and we ignore it at OUR PERIL

fraggle rock was the best

Oh man wld totally chat for hours abt epidemiology

I kind of had a crush on all the male fraggles

at age 5

I also think I might adopt this because HILARIOUS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur

- Any tangent that involves being devil's advocate in the current conversation
- Why the crap liquor you think is awesome really isn't
- Hunter S. Thompson, how he is misinterpreted by idiots
- The use of liquor and drug to detach, or alternatively interpret, social politics
- Combination of last two topics
- What a scam fossil fuels, biofuels, and processed food are, yet how I work for a company involved with the latter two
- Differences in computer technologies and how people can't design a usable interface

(wiki article leaves out the part where the rig crew got stuck drilling at 1250 feet - after pulling out the drill, it started hopping up and down at heights of five to ten feet - said drill weighed 40 tons btw - and only AN HOUR LATER did they abandon the rig after noticing it was listing a bit to one side. from shore, said crew then watched entire oil rig disappear into a lake which had up until that morning been about 6-7 feet deep)

mh and I would either get along real well over some dranks or we'd kill each other

Maybe both! My normal conversations are usually seen as 'arguments' by some because I think that if things are worth talking about, they're worth picking apart! Oddly enough, I do this less the more I drink and just start thinking everything is pretty great.

The historical importance of Highcross Street in Leicester.

I have had two people LITERALLY kill themselves in front of me while I went on and on about this to them recently. Never go out for a drink with me.

^WAHT

literally?????

Yes, it was horrific. I had just started on the later part of the nineteenth, when, as I'm sure you will be aware, the streets importance began to seriously decline with the loss of the county jail.

When I say "killed themselves" it was more like a murder/suicide.

My ability to lecture people about Leicester will surely result in only more carnage, I should seek help really.

Also "Why parts of Norfolk and Suffolk should be left to fall into the sea - and not the parts everyone thinks, either..."

- The Wire
- Galaxies, astrophysics (but not cosmology or quantum mechanics or other bong-hit pop sci, which is the only bit of my job anyone actually wants to talk about at parties)
- Why satsumas are the best citrus fruit and how people who confuse them with mandarins or (especially) clementines are worse than paedophiles
- If you or I were in a film, who would play us?
- The film Shadowlands

There is a great McSweeney's list about this called something like "Topics my father will talk about at great length if mentioned". I will copy it out when I get home.

Hang on, forgot three.

- The history of the state of California
- The history of Sydney, Australia
- Teddy Roosevelt

- neko case
- johnny cash
- water resources law and property rights to water in australia
- sustainability policy and/or the triple bottom line
- the australian labor party
- our abominable local 'newspaper' (the west australian)
- the bell litigation
- the merits of harm minimisation in dealing with alcohol and other substance use problems
- corporate governance and corporate social responsibility

also
- driver errors/behaviour

two of the topics in my list formed the subject of two separate honours theses. Pity my friends. Astonishing they still speak to me at all really.

Just remembered:

- The Evils of Nationalism and Amoral Patriotism

Twin Peaks
Sociolinguistics
Why we are all going to die and my apocolyptic nightmares that I hope never come true
Dresses
British magazine journalism 1980 - present day.
If I am very drunk: how wonderful you are and why I don't appreciate you enough.

- good nutrition & the state of food politics in contemporary north america (sometimes with added "phenomenology of food and what can heidegger tell us about how we eat" bonus) <--- guaranteed party-clearer

i got way too high last night and did this lecture basically in full in front of a few ppl i dont know that well and i think they dont ever want to talk to me again

i actually went to my room to get "the question concerning technology" to read bits of it to them

i must also drink with Kate and learn how in the hell she does it! I MUST KNOPW!

Marvel Comics 1972-1978
Frank Zappa

- ethanol/hydrogen fuel

i only lecture to audiences of more than 6 people

i have these other things called conversations tho

this thread makes me want to have sooo many conversations, or be a lecture audience. where do y'all live again?

Swedish film
Spanish film
Mystical philosophy
German film

haha rrrobyn congratulations on your fancy "social skills"

where do y'all live again?
http://photos-d.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v150/103/125/36910239/n36910239_35469211_4596.jpg

Hrotsvitha.

Also, that article I just read in, was it the Atlantic or Harpers? I forget. I didn't like it when I read it but I've been thinking a lot about it lately.

Tennyson.

Kids I teach, and teaching them.

- Any tangent that involves being devil's advocate in the current conversation

ha this is me

- triathlons
- the joys of junk food
- shitty parents
- shitty hipster music fans
- sex
- magazines, newspapers, and books
- why large organizations are doomed to fail
- the music business

i don't really speak unless i'm drinking

I dare you to find a more Muppety beat than this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUJyX62HTxc

Which is the victory song from their Gamecube game

Dig that bass!

public sector pension schemes and the variant strands thereof and the considerable differences between each

Public sector recruitment policy and the role played by public sector unions in determining said policy. And Robespierre.

and the link, presumably

Would that a link existed.

the public service loan forgiveness program

...and marble madness

hamlet

why bands in the local music scene aren't successful

-Whiskey
-Silent and early sound films

* alex trebek
* linguistics
* how much i hate andrew jackson
* whatever the hell i just read about on wikipedia (usually "on this day")
* jazz musicians nobody else has heard of

-pro-wrestling.

Yakuza games
The noise Morrissey makes in Rubber Ring pretending to be a lift
Whatever weird internet thing that I would never talk about normally

american wites

photography

kraftwerk

2001: a space odyssey

this is why no-one invites me to parties

multilingualism and minority languages

xp wkiw

full solidarity with fellow 2001 obsessives

ILX

I was really drunk on Saturday and I think the cab driver got a full hour on English history, Celts -> Normans w/ the occasional Brexit digression.

Virginia Woolf
Mid-career Elvis Costello
Lawns, why they are stupid
Local history
Cahokia
Patronizing sports bars while not even remotely liking sports
Stonewall Jackson's flank march at the battle of Chancellorsville
X-linked intellectual disability
Post-impressionist painting
Erotic thrillers
Eggs Benedict

Any topic about which I know slightly more than the listener(s) (thus exploiting my relative breadth of knowledge/interests without exposing its correlative lack of depth, what up my fellow mega-dilettantes)

Patronizing sports bars while not even remotely liking sports

opposite

dance dance revolution
babies, sorry

Haneke