Ask Ingress

[Ingress Neverwhere]

Got a question for the ToO's resident perditorian?

Then ask it here!

-Kim

[KODY 105]

What is your favorite sport? Board game? Movie? Fast-food restaurant? Color? Middle name? Singer? Brand of cereal?

[Catspaw]

Whoa, I think KODY covered the basics!

If you could recommend only one book and one author to your friends/fellow ToOers, which ones would it be, and why?

And what exactly is a perditorian and why is it relevant to you?

[Ingress Neverwhere]

What is your favorite sport? Board game? Movie? Fast-food restaurant? Color? Middle name? Singer? Brand of cereal?

My favorite sport to watch would have to be baseball, specifically the Chicago Cubs. My favorite board game is M*A*S*H Trivial Pursuit.

Favorite movie... my all-time favorite is Harlan County War, but my favorite for laughs movie is Clue. And while it's not fast fast-food, my fave fast food restaurant is a drive-in restaurant in my hometown called "Sam's". My favorite color is purple.

...are you asking what my middle name is, or what my favorite middle name is? The singer who is tops on my list is Idina Menzel, but I am also fond of Mandisa. As for the cereal... Golden Grahams, or any cereal with chocolate in it (mmm...chocolate...)

If you could recommend only one book and one author to your friends/fellow ToOers, which ones would it be, and why?

Hmm...one book by one author, or one book and one author, separate?

And what exactly is a perditorian and why is it relevant to you?

A perditorian, as explained in the Enola Holmes series by Nancy Springer, is a finder of lost people and things. Enola's goal, when she's old enough to not be forced into going to boarding school by her older brothers, is to be the world's first scientific perditorian. She has already used her deductive and reasoning powers to find many people in the book series, including Dr. John Watson.

Even though it's a children's/young adult book series, Enola is one of my favorite female literary characters. And being a perditorian sounds like a pretty cool profession. Other than that...it's not really that relevant.

-Kim

[Catspaw]

If you could recommend only one book and one author to your friends/fellow ToOers, which ones would it be, and why?

Hmm...one book by one author, or one book and one author, separate?

And what exactly is a perditorian and why is it relevant to you?

A perditorian, as explained in the Enola Holmes series by Nancy Springer, is a finder of lost people and things. Enola's goal, when she's old enough to not be forced into going to boarding school by her older brothers, is to be the world's first scientific perditorian. She has already used her deductive and reasoning powers to find many people in the book series, including Dr. John Watson.

Even though it's a children's/young adult book series, Enola is one of my favorite female literary characters. And being a perditorian sounds like a pretty cool profession. Other than that...it's not really that relevant.

-Kim

Sorry, I should have clarified - one book and one author, separate.

I am unfamiliar with the series, but it does sound interesting! It does sound like quite the fascinating profession!

And in reference to your answer to KODY, M*A*S*H Trivial Pursuit sounds like fun!

[KODY 105]

What is your least-favorite AIO saga? Most favorite? Most favorite multiple-part episode and why?

What is your favorite book of the Bible and why?

[Ingress Neverwhere]

Sorry, I should have clarified - one book and one author, separate.

Okay. The book I would recommend is Harpo Speaks!, by Harpo Marx. It's a wonderful look into the life of the "silent" member of the Marx Brothers, and not just his career on vaudeville or in the movies. For someone who never spoke a word onstage or on camera he's really quite verbose. And he's almost as good a story teller as he is a harp player. This book is a must-read (if not must-own) for any Marx Brothers fan.

See, now you're asking the impossible, asking a bibliophile to recommend just one author! But, after hemming and hawing and paring down the list, the one author I'd recommend would be Neil Gaiman. He's best known as the author behind Coraline and Stardust, as well as work on the DC comic series Sandman. Gaiman is a fantasy writer primarily, though sometimes his writing brushes the science fiction. And it's all very good; I remember the first time I read Neverwhere and being extremely reluctant to put it down. His newest release, The Graveyard Book, recently won the Newberry Medal for children's literature.

I am unfamiliar with the series, but it does sound interesting! It does sound like quite the fascinating profession!

It's very good especially for, as I said, a children's/young adult series. I'm hoping that Ms. Springer will go a while with it, as I'm interested in seeing how she writes Enola's reaction to a certain incident at Reichenbach Falls.

And in reference to your answer to KODY, M*A*S*H Trivial Pursuit sounds like fun!

It is! And all it takes is a Trivial Pursuit game board and pieces, and the questions from an old M*A*S*H trivia board game.

What is your least-favorite AIO saga? Most favorite? Most favorite multiple-part episode and why?

Hrm. Least-favorite AIO Saga...that's a tough one. Right now I'd have to say it's the whole "Best Small Town" saga. Maybe it's because I'm still a relative "newbie" when it comes to AIO, but it just didn't interest me that much. I might change my mind next time I decide to ILL the album and give the full saga another listen, but for right now that's where it stands.

Most favorite AIO saga? Definitely the "Leonard Meltsner/Meltsner Family Saga". I thought it was interesting seeing the contrast of Eugene as he is now - Christian, philanthropist and inventor/scientist - against what he used to be like as reflected in his father. It had mystery, in Eugene's search for his dad; adventure in the Meltsner and Whittaker men taking on Dalton Kearn, and a happy yet bittersweet ending.

Most favorite multi-part episode I'll have to give to Plan B, Parts 1 - 4. Even though it earmarks the departure of one of my favorite characters for a couple of years, I love the air of mystery surrounding it as well as the emotional impact with the loss of Mitch, Eugene and Katrina. Katie Leigh really shone in that arc.

What is your favorite book of the Bible and why?

Whoo. Another toughie. My answer would have to be Ruth. Short as it is, I love the story of Ruth's loyalty to her mother-in-law and how she chose to follow her back to Israel rather than going back to her own people. I can identify a little bit with Ruth's feeling like an outsider. My Bible is a study Bible and one of the questions in the margins is why God chose a Moabitess to be an ancestor of David; the answer given is that by doing so, God showed that his new covenant would be with all people who believed and not just the Hebrews.

-Kim

[Catspaw]

Sorry, I should have clarified - one book and one author, separate.

Okay. The book I would recommend is Harpo Speaks!, by Harpo Marx. It's a wonderful look into the life of the "silent" member of the Marx Brothers, and not just his career on vaudeville or in the movies. For someone who never spoke a word onstage or on camera he's really quite verbose. And he's almost as good a story teller as he is a harp player. This book is a must-read (if not must-own) for any Marx Brothers fan.

See, now you're asking the impossible, asking a bibliophile to recommend just one author! But, after hemming and hawing and paring down the list, the one author I'd recommend would be Neil Gaiman. He's best known as the author behind Coraline and Stardust, as well as work on the DC comic series Sandman. Gaiman is a fantasy writer primarily, though sometimes his writing brushes the science fiction. And it's all very good; I remember the first time I read Neverwhere and being extremely reluctant to put it down. His newest release, The Graveyard Book, recently won the Newberry Medal for children's literature.

I love reading and find it super hard to narrow down so many favourites as well, so I know it can be quite the challenge! The only place I've seen Harpo Marx is on an episode of I Love Lucy, where he was quite hilarious (and silent, of course!) so I don't quite qualify as a Marx Brothers fan, but the book does sound really interesting! Good storytellers are the best. I haven't read anything by Neil Gaiman, though I have heard of the two books you mentioned, since they made films within the last few years. Thanks for satisfying my curiosity!

And in reference to your answer to KODY, M*A*S*H Trivial Pursuit sounds like fun!

It is! And all it takes is a Trivial Pursuit game board and pieces, and the questions from an old M*A*S*H trivia board game.

Very creative! They make all kinds of random versions of games (Star Wars Risk, POTC Monopoly, and on and on) so I assumed you meant that it came that way, not that you had to create the game first!

[Ingress Neverwhere]

Very creative! They make all kinds of random versions of games (Star Wars Risk, POTC Monopoly, and on and on) so I assumed you meant that it came that way, not that you had to create the game first!

Thanks! Yeah, my mom bought the game cards off of e-Bay (don't ask me what happened to the rest of the game it went with, lol!) and we decided to use those one night instead of the usual Trivial Pursuit cards, and a game was born!

-Kim