User:Danaimband/Opinions

Personal Favorites

Movies

For a list of my favorite movies by year, including the 10 best movies I like, please see this list.

Food

For the Official Culinary tour of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, which is a 600-plus mile roadtrip along many of the roads of the South involving some choice-places, please see this list.

Television

• For a list of my favorite TV shows (ranked by year), please see this list.
• For a list of my favorite TV stations, please see this list.

Books

1. Year of Living Dangerously written by Christopher Koch
2. If You Give A Mouse A Cookie written by Laura Numeroff
3. The Spook Who Sat By The Door written by Ivan Dixon
4. Kiss of the Spider Woman written by Manuel Puig
5. Danny, the Champion of the World written by Roald Dahl

Magazines

1. Psychology Today
2. Omni
3. Billboard
4. PC Magazine
5. Architectural Design
6. The New England Journal of Medicine
7. Pro Wrestling Illustrated
8. South Carolina Magazine

Newspapers

1. The State - Columbia, South Carolina
2. The Charlotte Observer - Charlotte, North Carolina
3. The New York Times - New York, New York
4. The Times - London, England
5. The Register-Guard - Eugene, Oregon
6. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - Atlanta, Georgia
7. Chicago Sun-Times - Chicago, Illinois
8. The Seattle Times - Seattle, Washington
9. Detroit Free Press - Detroit, Michigan
10. Asheville Citizen-Times - Asheville, North Carolina

Musicians

Musicians (and the best album(s) by the Artist)

1. Herbie Hancock - Perfect Machine
2. Chick Corea - Tap Step, Eye of the Beholder
3. Stevie Wonder - Journey through the Secret Life of Plants
4. Herb Alpert - Rise
5. Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
6. Miles Davis - Water Babies, Bitches Brew
7. Elton John - Madman Across the Water
8. George Harrison & Ravi Shankar - The Concert for Bangla Desh
9. Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge over Troubled Water
10. Genesis - ...And Then There Were Three...

Game Shows

1. Password (1961-1967) & (2008) - CBS & (1971-1975) - ABC / Password Plus (1979-1982) - NBC / Super Password (1984-1989) - NBC
2. Concentration (1958-1973) & (1987-1993) - NBC ; (1973-1978) - SYN
3. Now You See It (1974-1975 / 1989) - CBS
4. Musical Chairs (1975) - CBS
5. Wheel of Fortune (Daytime Network Edition) (1975-1991) -NBC/CBS/NBC

Places to go Shopping

• Wal-Mart Supercenter, Forest Drive, Columbia, South Carolina
• SouthPark Mall, Charlotte, North Carolina
• Fry's Electronics, Sacramento, California
• Coddingtown Mall, Santa Rosa, California
• Meadowood Mall, Reno, Nevada
• Publix, Gervais Street, Columbia, South Carolina

List of Computers I have owned (in Order)

(*) - denotes that the computer was still working in excellent condition when got new computer.

1. July 23, 1985-October 22, 1990 Apple Lisa 2/10 (*)
2. September 15, 1990-March 9, 1991 Dell (80286)
3. February 11, 1992-March 22, 1996 Televideo (8088)
4. March 9, 1993-April 4, 1998 IBM PC-XT (8086) (*)
5. March 30, 1996-April 4, 1998 Acer (80386)
6. April 16, 1998-February 9, 1999 IBM PS/2 (80286) (*)
7. September 9, 1999-October 4, 1999 IBM PCjr (8086) (*)
8. October 4, 1999-February 4, 2001 HP Brio (80386)
9. August 22, 2002-November 11, 2002 Compaq Presario (80486)
10. November 5, 2002-May 5, 2004 Compaq Presario Notebook (Pentium 4)
11. May 5, 2004-August 9, 2005 HP Pavilion (AMD Athlon)
12. August 9, 2005-April 30, 2006 Gateway Notebook (AMD Athlon)
13. April 30, 2006-May 3, 2007 Apple iBook G4 (*)
14. May 4, 2007-April 16, 2009 Apple MacBook (Core 2 Duo)(*)
15. April 20, 2009-June 3, 2010 Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (*)
16. June 3, 2010-April 23, 2011 Toshiba Satelite Notebook (AMD Opteron) (*)
17. April 27, 2011-December 23, 2011 Hewlett-Packard Mini 210 (Intel Atom 64 bit) (*)
18. December 23, 2011-November 6, 2012 and June 1, 2015-(present) Toshiba Satellite Notebook (AMD A6 Quad Core) (*, first time)
19. November 10, 2012-December 17, 2013 Compaq Presario CQ-57 Notebook (Intel Celeron B800)
20. December 9, 2013-October 11, 2014 Lenovo ThinkPad T500 (Intel Core i3) (*)
21. October 12, 2014-June 1, 2015 Dell Inspiron (Intel Core i3) (*)

Personal Preferences

Food

Preferences of Styles of Food (and major Restaurant):

1. Greek
2. Japanese - Benihana's of Tokyo
3. Italian - Romano's Macaroni Grill
4. Mexican - El Torito
5. Chinese

Restaurants

• Sonic Drive-In, a Oklahoma City based retro-styled drive-in restaurant that serves American cuisine.
• Chick-Fil-A, an Atlanta based non-traditional chicken fast food restaurant.
• Bojangles', a Charlotte based chicken fast food restaurant.
• Waffle House, an Atlanta based sit-down diner/restaurant which serves American cuisine.
• Romano's Macaroni Grill, an Italian-style chain of casual dining restaurants.
• Whataburger, the regional hamburger chain that specializes in hamburgers, chicken and fish sandwiches, based in Corpus Christi.
• Huddle House, a Waffle House-like restaurant.
• Ted's Montana Grill, the restaurant co-founded by media mogul Ted Turner.
• Ruth's Chris Steak House, the most premiere non-casual steakhouse in the United States.
• CiCi's Pizza, the endless pizza, pasta and salad bar buffet-styled family restaurant.
• Papa John's Pizza, a famous pizza chain restaurant founded in 1984 by John Schnatter.
• Cracker Barrel, a Tennessee-based Old-fashioned General store and homestyle cooking restaurant.

Candy / Snack Foods

• Nerds
• Sour Punch
• Runts
• Fun Dip
• Beef Jerky
• Triscuit

Beverages

• Mello Yello
• Pibb Xtra
• Canada Dry Ginger Ale

Automobiles

• Smart Fortwo
• Hyundai Accent
• Kia Rio5
• Honda Fit
• Chevrolet Aveo
• Toyota Yaris (3 door)
• Nissan Versa
• Kia Rondo (smallest SUV, I would get)

See Also

Entertainment

• Movies by Decade

Life

• My Blog

People who I have written to (and gotten responses)

Media

Musicians

• Herbie Hancock (gotten an personalized autographed picture)
• Chick Corea (gotten an personalized autographed picture)
• Ron Carter (gotten an personalized autographed picture)
• John McLaughlin (got a personalized autographed picture)
• Wynton Marsalis (got a personalized autographed picture)

Religion

• Billy Graham (got a signed picture)

Local Television

Total of 73 personalized signed pictures as of April 5, 2008:

KPIX in San Francisco, California (10 pictures)

• Ken Bastida, Wendy Tokuda, Roberta Gonzales, Dana King, Tracy Humphrey, Kate Kelly, Juliette Goodrich, John Kessler, Allen Martin and Dennis O'Donnell

WLTX in Columbia, South Carolina (10 pictures)

• Darci Strickland, J.R. Berry, Andrea Mock, Jim Gandy, Bob Shields, Nat Roers, Curtis Wilson, Scott Ryan, Matt Barrie and Jennifer Tomazic

WIS in Columbia, South Carolina (9 pictures)

• Hannah Horne, David Stanton, Dawndy Mercer, Ben Tanner, Brooks Garner, Judi Gatson, Joe Pinner, Rick Henry and Craig Melvin

KXTV in Sacramento, California (8 pictures)

• Cristina Mendonsa, Dale Schornack, Bryan May, Monica Woods-Gray, Patty Souza, Gregg Lalka, Kelly Jackson and Dan Elliott

KFSN in Fresno, California (8 pictures)

• Wayne Armstrong, Graciela Moreno, Nancy Osborne, Margot Kim, Angelo Stalis, Dan Taylor, Dale Yurong and Liz Harrison

KNTV in San Jose, California (7 pictures)

• John Farley, Shannon O'Donnell, Lisa Kim, Diane Dwyer, Brent & Laura Cannon, Mike Inouye and Craig Herrera

KGO-TV in San Francisco, California (7 pictures)

• Spencer Christian, Pete Wilson, Dan Ashley, Eric Thomas, Cheryl Jennings, Kristen Sze and Sandhya Patel

KCRA in Sacramento, California (4 pictures)

• Adrienne Bankert, Chris Riva, Eileen Javora and Walt Gray

KTVL in Medford, Oregon (3 pictures)

• Shannon Young, Kevin Lollis and Matt Montgomery

WNBC in New York, New York (3 pictures)

• Chuck Scarborough, Sue Simmons and Janice Huff

WSOC in Charlotte, North Carolina (2 pictures)

• Kim Brattain and Blair Miller

KTVU in Oakland, California (2 pictures)

• Ken Wayne and Mark Curtis

Network & Syndicated Television

CNN (2 pictures)

• Anderson Cooper, host of Anderson Cooper 360°, former host of The Mole. (got a signed picture)
• Wolf Blitzer, host of The Situation Room and Late Edition. (got a signed picture)

GSN (1 picture)

• Chuck Woolery, former host of Wheel of Fortune, Love Connection, Scrabble, Greed, current host of Lingo. (got a signed picture)

Syndicated (1 picture)

• Rossi Morreale, current of host of Temptation (the remake of Sale of the Century). (got a signed picture)

Radio

• Diane Rehm, host of the NPR program The Diane Rehm Show. (got a signed picture)
• Terry Gross, host of the NPR program Fresh Air. (got a signed picture)
• Michel Martin, host of the NPR program Tell Me More. (got a signed picture)
• Neil Conan, host of the NPR program Talk of the Nation. (got a signed picture)
• Garrison Keillor, host of the NPR program A Prarie Home Companion. (got a signed picture)
• Kojo Nnamdi, host of the NPR program The Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU in Washington DC. (got a signed picture)
• Shadoe Stevens, radio host of Top of the World & Rock this World, former announcer of The Hollywood Squares, and announcer of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS. (got a signed picture)

Government

United States Senators

• Dianne Feinstein, Senior Senator of California
• Lisa Murkowski, Senior Senator of Alaska
• Lindsey Graham, Senior Senator of South Carolina
• Kay Hagan, Junior Senator of North Carolina
• Edward Kaufman, Junior Senator of Delaware

Governors

• Mike Easley, former Governor of North Carolina (1 letter, 1 response)
• Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina (3 letters, 3 responses)
• Ted Kulongoski, Governor of Oregon (1 letter, 1 response)

Mayors

• Bob Coble, Mayor of Columbia, South Carolina (1 letter, 1 response)
• Pat McCrory, Mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina (1 letter, 1 response)