After Mark mentioned that he found my blog via the “blond joke” meme, I’ve been thinking about memes a little differently. I would sometimes feel guilty when I joined in a meme, because I thought of them as a crutch for when I don’t have anything witty to say. But looking back, I see that I lot of my voyages into unknown blogs have been the result of following a meme. They are easy and fun and a good way to mix things up. Also, I need to lighten up.
Don found a good one: 25 Favorite TVelevision Characters.
As with Don, I’ll be dispensing with the “no cartoons” rule. In fact, this list is nearly all cartoon characters. I’m adding an additional qualifier that I can only use one character from each show, otherwise this this list would just be every major character, supporting character, minor character, and uncredited extra that ever appeared on Firefly, and that would have been even lamer than the following list of cartoon characters.
- Spiderman – My most favoritist of all superheroes
- Wash (Firefly)
- Aoi Sakuraba (Ai Yori Aoshi)
- Lionel Hardcastle (As time goes By)
- Phil (Sugar, a Little Snow Fairy)
- Chi (Chobits)
- Armstrong (Fullmetal Alchemist)
- Larry the Cucumber (Veggie Tales)
- Gromit (Wallace & Gromit)
- Radical Edward (Cowboy Bebop)
- Sosuke Sagura (Full Metal Panic)
- Frylock (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
- Basil Fawlty (Fawlty Towers)
- Statler & Waldorf – The Hecklers (The Muppet Show)
- Reki (Haibane Renmei
- Sledge Hammer (Sledge Hammer!) I was 15, okay?
- Die Fledermaus (The Tick)
- Homer Simpson (The Simpsons)
- Whiz (Kidd Video) Again, I was 15.
- Bugs Bunny (Duh) The guy’s still funny after all these years.
- Max Headroom (Max Headroom) My first taste of cyberpunk.
- EMH Doctor (Star Trek: Voyager) A great character in a mediocre series.
- Ohjiro Mihara (Angelic Layer)
- Cosmo Kramer (Seinfeld)
- Less Nesman (WKRP)
A year ago I might have put someone from The Sopranos into this list, but that show lost its way a long time ago. It’s now in a rut so deep it could be more properly labeled a canyon. The story is just grinding along, having lots of stuff happen that never seems to lead anywhere. American television. Meh.
This was harder than I expected. It took me a long time to come up with 25 names. I think the problem is that in my 35 years I have not seen 25 shows that I really loved. I have Spiderman at the top of the list, but the truth is that while he’s one of my all-time favorite characters, the various television incarnations of him have not impressed me. I put Cosmo Kramer on the list because I think the character is funny, but I’ve only seen Seinfeld 4 times. If I had obeyed the “no cartoons” rule in the original meme, I could not have come up with 10 names, let alone 25.
Netscape 1997
What did web browsers look like 20 years ago, and what kind of crazy features did they have?
Trashing the Heap
What does it mean when a program crashes, and why does it happen?
Internet News is All Wrong
Why is internet news so bad, why do people prefer celebrity fluff, and how could it be made better?
Linux vs. Windows
Finally, the age-old debate has been settled.
Hardware Review
So what happens when a SOFTWARE engineer tries to review hardware? This. This happens.
I’d have put Spock in there, which probably ages me pretty accurately.
Good one. Spock would have been better than Cosmo, anyway.
Memes require us as hosts for their survival, so I think I’ll try and concoct my own list. If Spock isn’t on it, you’ll know I’ve finally been replaced by an alien duplicate.
I am lucky enough to have known TV when it was good.
1Rhoda Morgenstern
2Ted Knight
3Barney Fife
4 Bob and Emily
5 Howard, their nieghbor
6 Tom Posten as the handyman on Newhart
7 Lavrne
8 Lenny
19 Squiggy
10 Matt Dillon
11 Data
12 Doc (gunsmoke)
13 Paladan
14 The Rifleman
15 Captain Kangaroo
16 MaMa (Peggy Wood)
17 MaMa (Vicki Lawrence)
18 Joe the Bartender (one of Gleason’s characters on his variety show)
19 Ralph Cramden
20 Norton
21 Alice
22 Less Nessman
23 The Fonz
24 Every Character on the Dick Van Dyke Show
25 The Cisco Kid
Oh, it gladdens me to no end to see Browncoats on the interwebs.
Ben