MadMup.com

Welcome to a new feature on MadMup.com. I’ve lived longer than most of my readers have, so maybe there’s a thing or two I can warn you about. And, as I’ve heard it said, “If you can’t be a good example, you’ll just have to serve as a horrible warning.”

• a small Blizzard from Dairy Queen is every bit as good and filling as a medium, with slightly less “bad stuff” in it
• it’s worth it to take a long trip to see friends you don’t get to see often
• your outlook on life really does make a difference on how life affects you
• you should re-try things you know you don’t like every so often, just to see if your tastes have changed
• if your closest friends and most trusted advisors are telling you there’s something you need to change in your life, it’s possible they have your best interests at heart and you should listen to what they’re telling you

Watch for future episodes of “Things I’ve Learned,” where we’ll talk about things like how there’s a Seinfeld episode for just about any topic and why cats are a perfect example of selfishness.

I’ve gotten some good feedback on the crossword puzzle in the last post, including one friend who called me 4-5 times about it to update me on his progress and try to weasel answers out out of me. I never gave him (or anyone!) the answers, but something I said during his last call spurred him into figuring out the last answer he was missing and he’s the first (and only, so far!) 100%.

If you just want the answers, click here. If you want the long, drawn-out version of the answers, read on!

Across
1. My favorite author – Steinbeck, as in “John.” My favorite book of his is Of Mice and Men.
7. I apparently looked like one in high school – Muppet. My current screenname is an adaptation of it.
9. I have participated in the growth of The World’s Largest Ball of __________ – Paint. It is located in Alexandria, IN.
13. The Cynical _______. I met her in Dallas. – Tyrant. And you know? She wasn’t really all that tyrannical. Nor cynical!
14. I was in a wedding here earlier this year – Canada. Specifically, a town called “Yarmouth.” I think it was named after what a pirate tells you to shut when you’re talking too much.
16. My other 20-year friend – Josh. This one lost a little with the inclusion of the word “other” since the “first” one doesn’t come until later in the puzzle. incidentally, Josh is the one who got the 100% on the puzzle.
19. Internal organ that Internetians are most likely to steal – Kidneys. This is based on the urban legend of the people waking up in a bathtub full of ice and missing one. And by “urban legend” I mean “actual fact, you better believe it because it will most certainly happen to you, I’m not kidding.”
21. My “catchall” entries, “_________ of Nothing” – Apropos. Taken from a line in “All I Wanna Do,” a Sheryl Crow song that I don’t actually like that much.
24. I have played every game in this series and finished most of them – Tomb Raider. I know what you’re thinking, but it isn’t because of Lara Croft. I love the gameplay of the series – it tends to be just the right amount of difficulty for me without being too hard.
25. I spend too much time and money here – Best Buy. More money than time, really.
28. My favorite movie – Batman. Batman Begins is a better Batman movie, but this 1989 movie is more fun to watch.
29. Evil (but cute!) cat – Nutmeg. Beauty, as they say, is only skin-deep. And if she had her way, she’d flay you in the name of “research.”
30. My second-favorite superhero – Spiderman. There’s supposed to be a hyphen in there, but that doesn’t translate so well into crossword puzzles. Plus, this way you can pronounce it like it’s a last name: “Hi, I’m Jeff Spiderman. I just moved in across the way and your dog’s been in my garbage.”
32. He’s white & nerdy and so am I – Weird Al. I’m not as nerdy as the song claims he is, but I score pretty high on the chart.
35. Subject of an interesting book I read recently – Cadavers. The book was Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.
42. I am resistant to it – Change. Especially pennies. Ha! Really, I like routine and rarely enjoy variations.
43. I have had mixed results dealing with this site. Current status: I don’t trust it. – eBay. I’m right around a 50% success rate and it has done nothing to help my faith in my fellow man.
44. My current ringtone – Mahna Mahna. It was featured on the first episode of “The Muppet Show” and it instantly cheers me up when I hear it.
46. The name of the improv group I’m part of – One Size Fits All. That is so not true.
48. I can only play up to “Medium” difficulty – Guitar Hero. While I have played a few songs on Hard, I can’t do it very well and I don’t enjoy it.
49. Fellow I’ve collaborated with on four Theater Hopper strips so far – Joerules. That’s his screenname, but he really does, art-wise.
50. My term for a person (me) who refuses to watch movies on videotape – DVDlitist. See, the last “D” in “DVD” ends in the same “E” sound as the “E” in “elitist,” so that’s why that works.
51. I occasionally make this kind of cake – Twinkie. But it’s been a long, long time. Too long, I suspect.
52. I write these for videogames – Reviews. For two-and-a-half years now. Weird.
53. My favorite group – The Beatles. I realize the clue is misleading – group of what? Stars? Muscles? Latin participles?

Down
2. My term for hiding out in one’s home and avoiding contact with others – Turtling. The teenaging, mutanting, and ninjaing are all optional.
3. I bought a miniature version of this Inuit statue – Inukshuk. I have it displayed in a bookshelf at the top of my stairs and see it every day and it still reminds me that “people have been here before.” it’s comforting.
4. I have two friends with this name – Brian. One in Wisconsin, one in New Mexico. They are both smarter than me.
5. My work and my life – Computers. It’s depressing sometimes. One good EMP blast and it’s all gone!
6. They are on every plane everywhere. Watch out! – Snakes. you might think this is an oversimplification but I can assure you that it is not.
8. Where I grew up – Wisconsin. It made me the hearty outdoors-loving soul you see today. Okay, so maybe not. But I do like cheese!
10. A hobby I’m trying to start – Origami. It isn’t going well. I enjoy the end results but get frustrated with the foldings.
11. My term for an online person – Internetian. I’m not sure which way I like pronouncing it, though. Making the last “T” a hard one is easier to say, but making the “TI” a “SH” sound makes it akin to “Martian,” which appeals to me.
12. My birthday – May six. Only six months away!
15. The country in which my farthest-away friend lives – Australia. It is also a continent!
17. The subject taught by my favorite teacher ever – Literature. She also taught English, but it is her Lit classes that were the more memorable.
18. Brand of chocolate that tries to ruin my life with the sayings on its wrappers – Dove. It has tried to get me to flirt, which is not a good idea at one’s job, I don’t think.
20. My favorite director – Tim Burton. There’s something about his warped view of the world – odd, but not scary – that appeals to me.
22. Where I side in an age-old debate – Ninjas. One ninja in one night could do away with a whole boatload of pirates, so I don’t even know why this is a debate.
23. _________ From School, a series I swear I’ll finish eventually – Memories. Wouldn’t it be great if I finished at least one thing I started this year?
25. I am afraid of them – Birds. Another misleading clue, as there are a hundred things that could go in here. Like “germs,” for instance.
26. _________ & Noble: where I get my hot chocolate fix – Barnes. When I was in first grade, I had a sorta-crush on a girl with this last name. Coincidence? Yeah, I think so.
27. All I Need To Know About Life I Learned By Watching _________ – Seinfeld. Seriously, I’m compiling a list.
31. Embarrassing character on my luggage – Darth Maul. But not anymore!
33. One of my 20-year friends – Dave. Who, at last count, was still missing three of these answers.
34. Nice cat, named after a Star Wars character – Dala. She is just about the sweetest cat that has ever lived.
36. Best. Boardgame. Ever. – Scrabble. I’m hoping to play a game or two of it this weekend!
37. My favorite NFL team – Dallas Cowboys. Some day they’ll be good again, I swear.
38. State I’ve only been to twice but have had a life-long interest in – Texas. And my two visits to it haven’t ruined that interest. I’m planning to go back in December. Maybe I should move there…
39. According to at least one friend, I have too many of these to keep track of – Quirks. I found that most people wanted to guess “movies.” Owning too many movies is another quirk, I guess.
40. My favorite female singer – Sheryl Crow. I can think of nothing else to add here.
41. My celebrity crush – Winona Ryder. *swoon* Uh… can guys swoon? I guess so, because I just did.
45. My home town for now – Lafayette. For all you stalkers out there, that’d be the Indiana version.
47. I finally bought a 30Gb version earlier this year – iPod. And I’ve enjoyed it for the most part, too.

So there you go. Hope you had fun with it, because I did!

Years: 1982-83
Teacher: Mr. Johnson

I think it was Leo Tolstoy who asked “War! (huh-yeah) What is it good for?”* If Mr. Johnson’s teaching methods are any indication, it’s at least good for instructional films on the topic. My entire fifth grade experience can be nearly summed up with the phrase “war films.”

Mr. Johnson seemed really old to me when I was in fifth grade and even now I don’t really have concept of how old he was. I believe he was a veteran, but I don’t know which war it was. My guess would be the Korean War, as I’m pretty sure he was too young for World War II and a little too old for Vietnam. That’s all speculation, of course. All I know is that we watched film after film of World War II. They were the black and white newsreel type, and when they were done, they always elicited the same response in all of us:

“Backwards! Backwards!”

It’s surprising how often he let us do it. I’m not sure what the appeal was, but we always wanted to see the exact same film we just saw, only in reverse with no sound. I’m sure it was funny to see all the soldiers, tanks, and planes going backwards, but I’d bet it was more because that took up more class time. It’s the eternal struggle of students versus teachers: teachers want to teach, students don’t want to learn; teachers want to utilize class time, students want to get the teacher off-topic. In that sense, it’s much like the war films: ground is won, ground is lost, there are casualties, and every so often, somebody brings out the heavy artillery and concessions are made and reparations paid. Getting a diploma is like getting a signed peace treaty – “We will no longer pursue this war. You can no longer badger us and we won’t try to make you learn anything else.”

Mr. Johnson couldn’t see all that well and he was pretty gruff. If you were in the back of the classroom you could goof off fairly safely if you weren’t too overt. Bad kids had to sit in the front row. I remember this because I sat in the front row a lot.

I didn’t always sit in the front row, though. I know for a fact that I sat in the back-right corner of the classroom for a while. I know this because my efforts at class clowning were aided by the wall in that corner. Mr. Johnson would frequently leave the classroom for brief periods of time and we were expected to behave. I, of course, took these opportunities to not behave. For a short time I accomplished this by doing headstands up against the wall very briefly. Unfortunately, one day I wasn’t brief enough and Mr. Johnson saw me when he came back in. A firm believer in “let the punishment fit the crime,” he had me do a headstand in front of the room against the wall for an extended time. I’m not sure how long it was, but it felt like hours. I was told later that my face had been super-red. I’m sure it was dangerous to make a kid stand on his head for a long time, but that’s just how Mr. Johnson rolled. He also didn’t waste time sending kids to the office – if you had earned yourself a spanking, you got it out in the hallway. Anybody that happened to be in the hallway at the time was privy to all of the proceedings. Whether that was meant to be an example or another facet of the punishment, I’ll never know. It served as both.

Fifth grade is the year I start having memories of what the other kids were doing. My previously-mentioned not-friend-yet Josh knocked the clock off the wall above the chalkboard one day, right as Mr. Johnson came back into the room. Josh was pretty tall, and I think he was showing how high he could jump. The look on his face as he caught the clock and looked up to see Mr. Johnson can only be described as “mortified.” I may have secretly delighted in his getting in trouble, I’m not sure. Josh was popular. Really popular. He was smart, athletic, and funny, a sure recipe for success in school. We weren’t friends, on my part probably because I was jealous and on his part probably because he had enough friends already, and, frankly, why bother? Again, this is speculation on my part, and I leave it to Josh to give his side of the story should he ever be inclined.

This was the year Larry K. joined our class and he and I started a destructive friendship. Whether it was shooting the bratty neighbor’s kid in the leg with a BB gun or almost burning down his house by using kerosene in the wood heater, Larry was a never-ending source of danger. Our class took a field trip to his family farm, and I remember he showed me a family of baby raccoons that were hidden away in the barn. I also remember him telling me later that they were no longer alive, and I got the distinct impression he might have had a hand in it. The thing about Larry was that he was given to telling expanded versions of the truth, so it was difficult to distill actualities out of his conversation. At the same time, if the conversation was about destructive behavior, it was easy to believe he was being factual.

We already had one set of non-identical twins (is that “fraternal”? I can never remember) in the class, but this year we got a set of twin sisters who were, by nature of being new, weird. That’s just how it works: new kids are weird kids. I’m sorry. That’s nothing against them, it’s just how the rules work. We didn’t make them, we just followed them. They were identical twins, and, as it happened, they were born on my birthday, making us ersatz triplets. We didn’t really play that angle up until we got to high school, but it was strange to me to share my birthday, and with twins, no less! Because they were new and weird, though, we (the guys) concocted a scenario in which Scot J. was in love with one of the twins (Kerry), mostly to give Scot a hard time for some now-forgotten reason. I hear rumors that Scot’s a millionaire now. Hmm. There’s a life lesson in there somewhere, but I can’t decipher it.

Though we got a small morning snack break in fifth grade, we stopped having two recesses. It was Life’s way of teaching us that with age came less fun and it was usually disguised as “more responsibility” or “character.”

Two things I remember being very popular in fifth grade: fruit roll-ups and The A-Team. Fruit roll-ups I got to experience fairly regularly, in all their difficult-to-eatness, The A-Team, not so much. My brother and I weren’t allowed to watch TV aside from occasional parentally-approved things, but The A-Team certainly wasn’t on that list. I caught an episode or two here and there, but most of my appreciation for Mr. T has come after the fact. His in-your-face no-nonsense fool-pitying approach to life should be a lesson to us all, I feel.

Sixth grade meant moving into the “other half” of the building, and into a whole ‘nother phase of life.

*This is a Seinfeld reference, lest you think I am misinformed.