Five² for Friday, 21 Aug.

Caroline’s recent “Five Things” posts reminded me that I haven’t done one of these in a while. And because I like her gimmick, I’m stealing it. To make up for lost time, here are five lists.

Five recent obsessions

1. Fantasy football.
2. Real football.
3. Chicken wings.
4. Polka dots.
5. Christina Hendricks (Daaaaaaaaaaamn).

Five recent stressors

1. Clara’s oil pressure (or lack thereof).
2. Neo-Nazis in Baltimore.
3. The MARC train’s unreliability and general shittiness.
4. 90°F+ and humid weather for the last week.
5. Quipu has been grumpy lately.

Five things that cause me white-hot, apoplectic road rage

1. Sitting at a green light.
2. Driving less than 10mph over the speed limit.
3. Driving slower than I am.
4. Double-parking on narrow streets with spots available.
5. Slowing to a crawl around corners or curves.

Five New Yorker articles I never thought I’d care about, much less read all of

1. “Wilder Women: The mother and daughter behind the Little House stories.”
2. “Rich Bitch: The legal battle over trust funds for pets.”
3. “All He Surveyed: How Palladian was Palladio?“
4. “Itsy-Bitsy Teeny Weeny” (abstract only)
5. “The Olympian: How China’s greatest musician will win the Beijing Games.”

Five nervous habits/tics I have

1. Cracking my knuckles
2. Cracking my back
3. Bouncing my legs up and down, often at different speeds
4. Fiddling with my chain-bracelet
5. Picking at my cuticles

Would “District 6/9″ be too obvious?

I saw (500) Days of Summer a couple weeks ago, but Caroline wrote something first (and better than I would have). So I’m going to just focus on District 9. This actually works out pretty well, because I am the kind of guy who reads a lot of news and social commentary, is mildly obsessed with military esoterica, and generally prefers “flying shrapnel” explosions to the “emotional breakdown” variety.

In case you haven’t heard, District 9‘s premise is pretty intriguing. A huge alien mothership enters the atmosphere and hovers over Johannesburg, South Africa. After three months of waiting for the ship to do something besides shade parts of the city, engineers cut a hole in the ship and find… aliens! They’re neither benevolent nor malevolent, however–they’re pretty docile and oddly primitive (except for their weaponry, which they never seem to use and cannot be fired by humans). The South African government ultimately sets up a camp for the aliens, mockingly called “prawns,” which rapidly devolves into a slum guarded by private defense contractor Multi-National United (Sure, it’s a stupid name, but real-world mercenary companies have pretty dumb names too: Custer Battles, Sharp End International, and Xe Services, formerly Blackwater).

Fast-forward twenty years, and racial xenophobic tension is starting to boil over. MNU is put in charge of relocating the million aliens from the D9 shantytown to a new camp far outside the city, and point man for this gigantic undertaking is…a middle manager. Inexplicably, Wikus van der Merwe, a good-natured, spineless bureaucrat, is the tip of the spear.

You’re at the edge of the map. Here, there be spoilers.

More…

Not a trick question.

If you have a meeting scheduled on Wednesday, and said meeting is moved forward two days, when is the meeting scheduled for now?

Seriously, answer. Explanation after the jump.

More…

Yikes.

Via @Rands, here’s a way to get some interesting facts about people (and yourself): your Permanent Record.

There’s a lot of contradictory information (I have not, in fact, ever supported the Republican party), but it’s just accurate enough to make you nervous (my old home address, all my immediate family members’ names–and I do not like marketing calls! Correct!). The site also suggests that I’m used to “the pitter-patter of little feet.” I suppose this is true–Quipu’s feet are very small.

Additionally, Caroline does like both dogs and cats, and is pretty close to her family (whose names I will not disclose, but are correct).

Scott, however, seems to have gotten away…scot-free?

Finally, as a fun side project, start calling your acquaintances and asking about their family.

Television rules the nation.

Why isn’t everything on demand?

I’m serious. I can watch 30 Rock, Mad Men or Breaking Bad online, but not on demand. I don’t like many TV shows, so I don’t watch all that much–but I’d watch a lot more if I could be guaranteed continuous marathons of Mythbusters or Top Chef.

Beyond my selfish reasons, it seems to make good business sense. Hulu only shows three unskippable 15-30-second ads in a half-hour show. I’d happily sit through network-length commercial breaks if it meant I could watch anything, and the ability to reliably track viewing patterns would guarantee more effective ad targeting and guarantee more impressions than DVRs, which can easily skip commercials (not to mention the aforementioned increase in TV-watching).

The technical ability’s clearly there, too, so what’s holding this up? Is it concern over cannibalizing DVD sales, or some sort of contract arcanum?