I know I’m an acquired taste—I’m anchovies. And not everyone wants those hairy little things. If I was potato chips, I could go a lot more places, but I’m not. –Tori Amos

A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else. –John Burroughs

Dusting is a good example of the futility of trying to put things right. As soon as you dust, the fact of your next dusting has already been established. –George Carlin

Favorite Movies: American Beauty, The Silence of the Lambs, The Departed, Iron Man, No Country for Old Men, Ink, The Shawshank Redemption, Tropic Thunder, History of the World Part I, Zodiac, 11:14, Spirited Away, The Iron Giant, Coming to America, Babe, Cats Don’t Dance, Gone with the Wind, Singing in the Rain, There Will Be Blood, Star Trek, American Psycho, Sin City, Chicago, The Wizard of Oz, Sideways, Little Miss Sunshine, GoodFellas, Alpha Dog, Star Wars, A Scanner Darkly, Closer, The Sixth Sense, Mystic River, The Green Mile, Babel, The Breakfast Club, Election, Despicable Me, Megamind, The Matrix, Chicken Run, Kill Bill, Clue, Ice Age, Se7en, Children of Men, The Social Network, The Constant Gardener, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Amélie, The Avengers

Favorite Novels/Novellas: The Jungle, Catch-22, Things Fall Apart, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, Moby Dick, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, We, Brave New World, 1984, Oryx and Crake, Heart of a Dog, A Small Place, Flowers for Algernon, Roadside Picnic, The House on Mango Street, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, just about everything by Roald Dahl

Favorite Short Stories: Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder”, “All Summer in a Day”, and “There Will Come Soft Rains”, Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”, Updike’s “A&P”, Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily”, O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”, Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”

Favorite TV Shows: The Twilight Zone, Law & Order (Mothership, SVU, CI), basically anything that aired on Disney, Nickelodeon, or Cartoon Network during the '90s and early '00s, Heroes, Cold Case, The Office, Community, Robot Chicken, Game of Thrones, SNL, MADtv, The Soup

Favorite Musicals/Plays: 42nd Street, Fame, The Phantom of the Opera, Rent, West Side Story, The Lion King, Avenue Q, Hairspray, All Shook Up, Chicago, Twelve Angry Men, The Music Man, Annie, Little Shop of Horrors, The Producers, Wicked, Mamma Mia!, Oklahoma!, The King and I, Young Frankenstein, Billy Elliot, Rock of Ages

Favorite Artists: René Magritte, Rob Gonsalves, M.C. Escher, Fernando Botero, Michael Parkes, Dan Dunn, Jim Warren, Scott Prior, Chris Van Allsburg, Frida Kahlo