Q&A With Grey: Favorites Edition

"Challenge: can you post another Q&A within six months?"

No. I cannot.

"What are your favorite and least favorite kinds of questions to answer?"

A long time ago, in a state far away, I did an event with some friends where my job was to pick questions from the audience. Right before the show started, pretty Derek turned to me and said, "Please don't pick superlatives." And I said, "What's a superlative?" "Best, worst, favorite, least favorite." "Aaaaah."

The show begins, and those were probably half the questions in the bowl. But Derek, having had much more experience with Q&As, was totally right. On the spot, those questions are pretty hard to answer. But also, as I've grown up, I've found the whole concept of a favorite '$X' has become more... abstract and situational.

Favorite things seem to be more important the younger you are, which makes sense because you don't really know who you are and so define yourself by the world around you. And it's also practice for the tribal affiliation games we NEVER escape even as adults. Which can make trying to answer these questions super unfun when people take the answer waaaay too seriously.

So a question about my favorite is by far my least favorite, but Fahrenheit is still my favorite. Come at me!

Anyway, if you're ever at a show or submitting questions to a Q&A, to raise the odds of getting an answer, try turning it a bit. For example: "Whose videos do you watch the most?" That's an easy answer. RedLetterMedia by a mile.

I started with the highly produced gateway classics and over the years progressed to mainlining the hardcore stuff. It's hard to say why I so like watching guys I don't know view movies and instructional videos I never will but it's strangely comforting and engaging. And let's not talk about how many hundreds of hours of RedLetterMedia I've had on while animating since starting my own channel.

I'm glad YouTube doesn't track and timeshame unlike some other services I could mention. I also picked this question because I can't bear watching RedLetterMedia keep inching closer to a million subscribers any longer. Can we get these guys their gold play button already? Click and subscribe.

"What's your favorite joke you've hidden in a video?"

hmmmm I'm gonna let this one slide because, oh man, do I love hiding stuff in videos! And it brings me tremendous joy when people find all the things! For example, have you found all the bees? There's a lot of them now.

Again, no favorites, but a recent one I'm pleased with is this dude in the airport reading The Hobbit, and then the Fellowship of the Ring, and then the entire Rings Trilogy. Implying the wait to board that flight was really long.

"Favorite integer?"

No, I don't-

"Favorite colour?"

I-I shouldn't have-

"Favorite Magic colors?"

Well, black and blue obviously but-

"No getting around this one. Favorite Youtuber?"

You know, these people are my friends! It would be really weird to pick a-

"Favorite podcast?"

No, I already explained-

"Favorite movie?"

"Favorite Liberian county flag?"

"Favorite world leader?"

You can't be serious-

"Favorite law of physics?"

"Favorite conspiracy theory?"

"Favorite tree?"

What!?

"On a scale of 1-10, what is your favorite color of the alphabet?"

Ah, no, okay. This is my fault! I shouldn't have opened this door-

"What is your favourite spelling of favorite?"

Okay, enough of ...

"What is the most persistent physical object you own?"

Ooh, that's a good question! Like it must be my original wedding ring. I can't think of an object that's been with me longer. I currently wear a second edition, which will eventually become the third most persistent object in my life.

rings hit each other

"What's the second most persistent?"

Well, while moving office recently, I found it hiding in an envelope at the bottom of a box. Sure I had thrown it away. Positive in fact! But somehow this specter evaded my many moves and purges.

I have NO idea how it shadowed me, hiding nearby for a decade. So to explain this thing. Back in the long ago, I quit teaching, packed all my belongings, bundled my savings, heading off into the sunset with the sure knowledge I was to achieve the project of my life. To escape the system. To become self-employed. To be free! And I... totally failed.

Burned through my savings and returned to London, humbled, having to find another teaching job. That year of failure was not a great time and what I thought would be my Mjolnir with which to forge my new life was instead a cursed object.

This original MacBook Air! The laptop sold on its thinness and lightness. The machine I spent a significant portion of my savings on as it seemed perfect for the life of peregrination before me. This laptop was a disaster, with catastrophic thermal problems making it run painfully slow.

And during this dark time, I lived in Hawaii with family to save money. Now, Hawaii... doesn't believe in air conditioning. Because the island is 'paradise' and the weather is 'perfect'! It isn't! I have such a visceral memory of being inescapably hot and sweaty trying to work while heat poured out from the keyboard, melting me... melting my dreams.

I thought I had long gotten rid of this totem of the absolute failure of a younger man. But it's weird! Now that it's been so long, I kind of want to mount it on my office wall as #neverforget. I don't think I really will, but... I haven't thrown it out yet.

"What is one topic you will never discuss?"

How... am I to answer this question?

"Is there still hope for the Catan video?"

Intense sounds ...No.

"What are your tips on improving one's ability to read?"

Spend less time on the Tweetbooks and Snapstagrams. I kind of left a lot of the internet... Temporarily? A while back. I don't know if you've heard. I've only made a vlog and talked about it repeatedly on my podcasts.

Anyway, I think Internet comments train my brain to have a short attention span. So less of the Reddit = more of the books, which I think is a net positive. But I do miss the Wild West of the Internets. Sometimes I can hear the memes calling me.

Now, anything you want to have more of in your life, like reading, also try to decide ahead of time what you're going to have less of to make space for it. Saying you want to do more X without also saying what you want to do less of is a recipe for failure. In life, there are no solutions, only trade-offs.

"How come you don't mention D&D more often?"

Despite, as you might imagine, the child me being right in the demographic for D&D, I never played it! So that's why I don't mention it. The closest I ever got was baby's first D&D: HeroQuest, which I loved playing as the dungeon master.

"Does it frustrate you how all the months have different numbers of days?"

It makes spreadsheets very untidy, so yes.

"Have any answers from the previous Q&As changed?"

Man, every time this gets asked, I have more videos to check. This time through, I noticed I've previously mentioned a proportional Senate as one of my top three changes to the Constitution. Which was totally surprising to current me to see.

Maybe past me meant a Senate run by MMP. If so, I didn't make that very clear. Anyway! I'm still pretty firmly against the Electoral College, not because of the original idea but because of what has changed in the last... centuries. But the House and Senate system seems like a pretty good way to try to balance the power of the states and the people.

"What's your favorite exit?"

The exit of my people: the Irish exit. Goodbyes are uncomfortable. When you're done, you're done! Just go.......

poof

[soft thoughtful electronic music]