[The 14th Colony]

Alrighty then, the Wise One (thanks Amberstar!) shall step forth and answer mightily!

1- What form of physical contact between friends, family, or spouses do you think the majority of people find most important? Think again. The answer in my mind, IMHO, is not so much pleasure but emotional value.A) A kiss.B) A hug.C) Holding hands.

Holding hands. We kiss lovers for pleasure and family quickly to say hello/goodbye, but we hold hands a lot longer. A hug gives the same warmth and emotional value as holding another person’s hand, but you can’t do it as long. Spouses, and boyfriends and girlfriends hold hands walking through the park, across town, for that feeling of connection during normal routines. When you greet a bud or a mate, you shake hands. It has meaning. When someone is troubled or afraid, you take his or her hand and hold it. It’s comforting. Parents hold their children’s hands in public for safety, and children become accustomed to their parent’s comforting hand. Sometimes people put their hand on your hand to tell you how nice you are or how much they like you, ect. All in all, it comes down to the touching of hands between people that I think has the greatest emotional, touching, and comforting feeling, and long-lasting value.

2- If you could eliminate one thing from the whole wide world that would result in the greatest benefit to mankind, what would it be? A) Sickness and debilitating diseases.B) Poverty and starvation.C) Hatred, intolerance, and indifference.

Hatred, intolerance, and indifference. Without those, there is no war, no racism, no causing or allowing other people to suffer; no ignoring of those in need; no arguments over land, beliefs, race or color; no greed at the expense of others. I’m sure that without C), A) would be lessened and B) would be eliminated altogether. Without C), B) would not be allowed to happen.

3- Do you think that our society has advanced in a productive, healthy, conscientious way? Have we really come that far in the last few hundred years? Why or why not?

Every answer I have has a contradiction standing by. The human race is extremely productive in building and expanding and making lives easier, but it also produces pollution and weapons and endless conflicts. Health and medicine has taken enormous leaps and bounds and many illnesses have been cured and wiped out. On the other hand, vast majorities of people takes less care of their bodies and eat, drink, smoke, and live unhealthily. Conscientiously we have come very far from the days when lepers were cast into the wilderness. As compared to thousands and even hundreds of years ago, there are more charities and organizations and causes to help people with their problems, and groups that ensure that those in pain and need are not alone and helpless, than ever before. Yet, despite the charities and help groups and the people who run them, society as a whole is far more rude, inconsiderate, indifferent, greedy, selfish, and at times even murderous than before. This is my opinion, I do not have numbers to back my claim that we’re going downhill in the human soul department, but people can feel it. With exceptions, you can’t rely on or trust people anymore, and you can’t turn your back at work without being back stabbed, or lied to and manipulated right to your face. And then you have sectors of society that haven’t advanced an iota in the last thousand years, who want to fly planes into our buildings and blow themselves up in the street to kill women and babies. The majority of society has come far, but we still have a long way to go. And at this rate every step forward is three steps back.

4- Are you the same person you were when you answered 14th’s first survey? I don’t mean your name, DNA, or Social Security number, ect. Your beliefs, ideals, personality, and so on.

Well, when I wrote 14th Colony’s first survey (cause in case ya didn’t know, I’m 14th!), I would not have written my last answer that way. I have clinical depression and as time goes on I get further and further down and notice much more of the negative than the positive in the world. I used to have ups and downs making me really productive during the ups and miserable and lethargic during the downs. I thought at the time I was bi-polar but I don’t show the signs of that anymore. Now I only have downs and never ups. Gee, it would be nice to be bi-polar. At least I would have occasional ups instead of consistent downs.

5- If you had to evacuate your home in the face of oncoming disaster, aside from loved ones and pets, what three items of particular emotional or symbolic importance would you take with you; what things that mean the most to you as far as your inspiration, your interests, the things that make you or add to what you are, would you take with you if limited to just 3?

All my drawings from when I was a kid and a teen. I was extremely artistic back then. All my short stories, song lyrics, poems, my finished novel, and all my unfinished book outlines and summaries. My Lego city. It’s the only thing that reminds me of my forgotten talent and potential.

6- What films or books, in your opinion, have given a strong message and left an impact on society, either American or worldwide?

American History X, Shindler's List, Roots, Dances With Wolves, Rocky,

7- If you are, or have wanted to be, a screenwriter, name a film that you would have liked to have been involved in because of its uniqueness and/or contradiction to accepted visual styles and methods of storytelling (not BSG). Or in general, for any reason, what film? Why?

"Riot". It was a cable TV movie from a few years ago, telling 4 stories during the L.A. riots from the viewpoints of 4 different people. In each story, the 3 other people were seen in the background or foreground at some point, briefly. In another story, telling about one particular person, you don’t realize until the end that he/she was the person you briefly saw in the previous story or the one before that. Suddenly, you find that the background person you caught a glimpse of in a previous story who you didn’t care about, was now important to you. One story was about a Korean shopkeeper. You learn about him and care about him, and when his shop is broken into by a mob and catches fire, you care about him, but not about the unknown man who stupidly runs into the shop seconds before it explodes, killing everyone inside.In another story, you follow through the day a black man, and in another story, a white cop, and in another story you meet a Mexican teen who spends the day with his girlfriend and tries to stop another friend from joining in the looting. At some point a fight breaks out in one store as the owner tries to save his merchandise and then a fire starts. The friend chose that distraction to run in and steal what he could, and the Mexican teen ran in to try to save him from the fire and get him out away from all the trouble. Seconds later, the store exploded. It was a fascinating approach to telling those stories, and I would like to have done it or something similar.

8- Your favorite foods, and drinks:

Count Chocular cereal, macaroni and cheese, fettuccini alfredo, toasted tuna melts, garlic shrimp with linguini and butter sauce, cheesecake, Golden Grahams cereal, everything bagels w/ cream cheese and loxspread, diet Pepsi, diet A&W Root Beer, milk, Chalupas, tuna fish sandwitches with melted cheese.

9- Your Top Ten favorite films:

Star Wars saga (counted as one), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lord of the Rings (that's right, all 3 counted as one!), True Lies, Dances with Wolves, Rain Man, The Abyss, Lion King, Aliens, Forest Gump.

10- Your Top Ten favorite TV shows:

ER, NYPDBlue, Fraser, Seinfeld, Alias, ST:TNG, West Wing, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, Las Vegas.

11- Your Top Ten favorite TV personalities, and fictional character personalities, based on the growth you’ve seen in the characters:

Sidney Bristow, John Carter, Mark Green, Howie Mandell (when he appears on the Tonight Show), Andy Sipowitz, Dennis Franz (I like not only the character he plays, but the personality of the actor himself), Katie Couric,

12- Are there any celebrities whom you thoroughly disliked for a long time, only to later start to like them and enjoy their shows, acting, appearances, routine, ect.?

Pauly Shore, Gilbert Gottfreid, Carrot Top, Christopher Walken. I thought Pauly Shore was obnoxious and annoying, Gilbert Gottfreid was irritating and very unfunny, Carrot Top was annoying in the way he always laughed at his own jokes and his hair was ridiculous and his gags were dumb, and I hated Christopher Walken’s smugness, arrogant voice, and fixed features and expressions. Now I think Gilbert is a witty distraction and amusing, Carrot Top grows on you for some reason and I like his gags, and Christopher Walken is one of my favorite actors and his characters are always devious or intriguing. I still don’t like Shore.

To be continued: