Top Five Skills
Top Five is a show where the hosts categorize, rank, compare, and stratify everything… from cars to gadgets to people and movies. From stuff that is hot, and things that are not nearly as interesting – it’s Top Five.
This week, we ponder skills we lack that we wish we had.
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Stephen Schleicher began his career writing for the Digital Media Online community of sites, including Digital Producer and Creative Mac covering all aspects of the digital content creation industry. He then moved on to consumer technology, and began the Coolness Roundup podcast. A writing fool, Stephen has freelanced for Sci-Fi Channel's Technology Blog, and Gizmodo. Still longing for the good ol' days, Stephen launched Major Spoilers in July 2006, because he is a glutton for punishment. You can follow him on Twitter @MajorSpoilers and tell him your darkest secrets...
7 Comments
What a great episode! Definitely in my top five favorite episodes of Top 5.
Here are my top five skills in no particular order:
Speed reading.
Drawing/painting better than a third grader.
Book binding.
Fluency in Spanish.
Photography.
I could go on and on. But this is Top 5 Skills, not “The Infinite List of Things I Am Inadequate At.”
Thanks for yet another great show.
Conjugation?
Yup!
If you’re really interested in martial arts (and, by the way, stage combat is a martial art just like any other– don’t let anyone tell you different) don’t worry about style. Stylistically, martial arts don’t really diverge until you get to the higher levels. You’ll spend 3-5 years just learning the basics and, basically, a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick. Style doesn’t make much difference.
Far more important is the dojo you choose. Martial arts is inherently dangerous (even stage combat) and you must be able to trust the people who train you to keep you safe. If you can’t do that, nothing else matters.
Top 5 Skills
Conjuration: This skill is often ground to high level by summoning a dagger, or soul trapping a helpless opponent. It would be cool because if I was hungry, I could simply appear a sandwich. Unfortunately, it would probably be made with demon salami.
Flight: The secret to flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss. No luck so far; I’ll keep you up to date.
Drawing: It’s cool
The Spark: Characters in the girl genius online comic have an attribute called “the spark.” It makes people into mad engineers who break the constraints of reality.
Speaking in Verse: I would love to, at any time, speak in perfect meter. Both Shakespherian Characters and the gravemind from halo could do it. I would like to as well.
This was a great episode. Interesting topic and wonderful discussion! Thanks for putting it together.
I have a lot of overlap with the team, but here are five that I’ve particularly been thinking about in recent years:
Meditation – There are so many benefits to meditation, but the main thing I want to learn it for is emotional control. It would be nice to have a pause button on my tendency toward instant anger.
Yoga – Some really good friends of mine are accomplished yoga practitioners, and I’d like to take some classes and work toward a regular practice.
Dance – My only real physical skills are things like yo-yos which require precision and knowing where parts of my body are instinctively. It would seem like that would transfer directly to dance, but I have a lot of fear and shame that I need to overcome in order to even begin to move to music. I’d like to take some steps in that direction.
Expanded musical ability – Like Stephen, I play trumpet and a bit of piano and ukulele, but I feel like I’m missing some of the fundamental music theory skills that would let me do things like jam with a group or compose songs on my own.
Fencing – I had a friend in high school who was a fencer and I learned a few things from her. I took a fencing class in college (with Matthew, in fact), and my current boss was also a competitive fencer in her youth. I kind of feel like it’s something that’s been following me around all my life saying, “Learn me!”
due to schools letting out in the next couple of weeks, what are 5 things (excluding comics) that you recommend do during the summer.