26 Comments

Haven't seen Top Gun : Maverick yet. And the last time I saw the original Top Gun was about 25 years ago in a hotel room in Budapest. It had German dubbing and Hungarian subtitles.

Best summer job: Riding around Chicago on an ice cream bike and selling ice cream at the beach when I was around 14.

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That sounds like a sweet summer job! 🍦

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A tale from the front lines of customer service. Always entertaining!

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Gonna have to go back to the archives, but I think I’ve got a few more tales from the front lines of customer service.

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Great story! I don’t know if there’s a movie I’d “bleed” to see, but I’m first in line for an adaptation of this defunct German theme park ride in which ALF fights The Gremlins, starring Sandra Bullock.

https://youtu.be/rzsoUdo6vYg

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If this video gets more attention you might have to bleed for your place in line.

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Great story! So curious why Mr. Bandage was bleeding so profusely. Did you ever figure out what happened?

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Thanks! I’d love to say we figured out what happened, but we never did. Naturally, speculation ran wild that summer, and my favorite theory was that the man had escaped some of of CIA mind control experiment.

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Sounds totally plausible

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Your Arnold knowledge is commendable. Respect.

There's zero chance I'd watch a movie six times in a row, but if I had to, Aliens or the original Predator would be plausible candidates. Also, something fast and quippy, like Casablanca.

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Haha, thanks! I had a lot of fun earning my Arnold bona fides. You’re making good choices in the unlikely event you’re forced to watch a movie six times in a row. I once stayed at a Morocco-themed hotel that played Casablanca on loop 24/7 and while I didn’t watch it the whole way through, let alone six times over, I did tune in for 15 minutes bursts throughout the weekend.

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So I’m weird because I can’t think of any anti-war movies that I’ve seen (mostly because I abhor war movies, even satirical ones), with one exception: The Monkees’ movie Head.

As for favorite summer jobs, I quite enjoyed getting hired in special collections at the University Library. My first task was doing inventory of all of the 17th century English pamphlets in one of the environmentally-controlled rooms. I had to pull each one out and confirm the title on a list. It sounds boring but when you’re a history grad student working with 400 year old documents, it’s pretty awesome.

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I don’t think I’ve seen the Monkees movie, but I don’t think you’re weird if you can’t think of an anti war (or war) movie. Maybe fortunate is another word. As for your summer job it actually sounds super cool. I was a student librarian in college. I worked at the science library so it was mostly journals and I’m not much of a science guy, but I LOVED the fact that I was allowed to read on the job. Some shifts late at night all I did was read, watch the front desk, and collect a paycheck. Heaven!

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Head is a very strange movie. Jack Nicholson was involved in making it. It’s definitely worth checking out.

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If Jack was involved, it's gotta be at least a little strange!

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It wasn’t just a summer job, but my favorite job was working behind the counter in a donut shop. Mr. Lucious would let us eat as many donuts as we wanted. As a skinny and high 17 year year old in the 60s, let me tell you, I could eat a lot of donuts.

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Mr. Lucious sounds like a wise and generous boss. And what a gig! High times and all you can eat donuts. Living the dream!

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What a wonderful story. Everybody wins! Right? Right?

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Everyone wins! Except The Mann, which is no longer a going concern. Of course, movie theaters are in a tough spot these days, so maybe that’s for the best.

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Introducing: Rogers and Clarke!

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ISHTAR! but with the Ryans, gosling and reynolds! this could work!

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With both Ryans it can’t fail!

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First off, wonderful tale.

As for question one, I always have a tough time with nostalgia meals. And this was an imperial feast of nostalgia. The kind Emperors throw to convince the nobility to pretty-please not throw a coup with gumdrops on top.

Script grumbling aside: I have to give everything involving turning, diving, and whoosh sounds its flowers. I may go through an Ace Combat 5 run just because of this flick.

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I know what you mean. There’s usually something melancholy about sequels - like trying to capture lightning in a bottle twice and realizing that you can’t really do that, but you CAN remind everyone of that time you caught the lightning, and maybe if you tell the story well and everyone pretends to hear it for the first time, you can feel some of original feeling. Maybe. But then there are video games, which offer endless nostalgia at zero calories, because every time you level up it’s a whole new world, even though you’ve run this mission a million times.

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Well put. I sometimes wonder if there's something off with me as a consumer, most people seem to get over that melancholy pretty easily.

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I wonder the same thing about my consumerism.

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