Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, rain ruining my U.S. Open (tennis) background noise, why my coffee beans are late (again), or dinner/drinks with two excellent people, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
If you could have dinner with three people from the history of the world, who would be at your table? The only condition for this game is that the people you choose have to be real (this is mostly to prevent one of you from choosing He-Man or Bugs Bunny). They can be game developers, actors, musicians, etc. It’s your dream dinner for four and I’d love to hear your picks! Here are mine:
Muhammad Ali: “The Greatest” would headline my dream dinner. I’d choose the Ali that was banned from boxing and speaking out against the war in Vietnam. Ali was already an extraordinary athlete with unmatched speed for a heavyweight boxer, but his stance against the Vietnam War made him so much more. He lost three prime years of his career, but inspired so many people while he was away from boxing. He became more than just an athlete. He became an icon.
John Lennon: My feelings about Lennon are similar to my feelings about Ali. He was already a renowned performance artist and songwriter, but his post-Beatles activism made him so much more. I love that he used his fame to spread positive messages and to get people to think. I also love the continued to write great songs when doubters thought he was washed up. I’d love to have ’70s John Lennon at my dream dinner.
Steve Jobs: My last spot was a tough choice. As I mentioned to you last year, I’d love to have a one-on-one dinner with Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto. For some reason, I’m being a stickler with my dinner-for-four scenario and am disqualifying Miyamoto because he would require a translator (sorry Bill!). The final spot goes to Apple’s Steve Jobs. This would be 2005 Jobs, fresh off his Stanford commencement speech. In addition to getting his thoughts on making products people are passionate about, I’d love to hear about how he felt about getting booted from Apple, elevating Pixar, and returning to make Apple better than ever.
So that’s my dream dinner for four. Now let me know who’s sitting at your table (please)!
This is a good one!
My round table dinner would consist of Warren Buffet, Lorne Michaels, and last but not least, the one and only, Steve Stoute.
I would just love to pick their brains and get as much knowledge as possible.
What if Jimmy Buffet showed up instead of Warren?
I would kindly ask Jimmy to remove himself from my dinner table, if that doesn't work I would insult his choice of clothing. If all else fails I would walk out lol.
John Hammond, Nikola Tesla, and Archimedes.
Yeah, I'm going back a bit.
What is the members of the band Tesla showed up instead of Nikola?
Actually thought of you while reading the Voltron comics. One of the settings is the Nikola Tesla Center in Toronto.
I'd be a little pissed.
What if instead of Muhammed Ali, you got the prophet Muhammed and his cousin Ali?
There's a museum up there (not sure if that's it, because I thought it was closer to Niagara Falls since that's where Tesla built the first ever hydroelectric dam) that has all these little inventions by Tesla. Most of them deal with magnetics, but it's really cool shit.
Spell Ali's name right. He's Muhammad!!!
I can spell Cassius just fine, thank you very much.
Now I want to watch Ali vs. Ernie Terrell. He humiliated Terrell for his refusal to call him Muhammad Ali. It was nuts watching him beat the crap out of him while constantly saying, "What's my name?!?"
I'm not refusing to call him Muhammed (which is a proper spelling, just not his)… I'm just saying if he wanted me to spell it right, he shouldn't have changed it.
Note: I know why he did it, and I mostly agree with the sentiment. My only issue is that he in the same turn kinda denounced his American heritage and culture in the same turn. Even for the time… that's a little extreme. I understand it was an extreme movement on purpose and I agree with that whole side… but he wanted to raise children and still reside and earn in America at the same time.
Besides… Cassius Clay is an awesome name to have. It sounds like some ancient warrior. I can even hear the MK voice saying "Kassius… Wins… Fatality."
To be fair, when he changed his name he was young and being manipulated by smarter people in the Nation (of Islam, not Domination).
I did this to Big Blak, so it's only fair I get myself as well.
"I'm not sure if you guys saw it, but the sign said long haired hippie people need not apply… yet the Five Man Electrical Band is more than welcome."
*in tune*
If you like Pina Coladas (doo, doo… doo, doo), then go sit over there.
EDITED FOR JOKE #2:
"Jimmy, Jimmy… dude, that salt shaker you've been looking for… yeah dude, I just saw it out back… some bum was staring at it, so you may want to hurry… yeah, yeah, yeah, right through this door…" SLAM… LOCK… "sucker".
LMFAO!!!
Tough. Tough. Tough.___
David Gilmour, lead guitarist and vocalist from pink floyd–i think you guys know how much i love that band__
Sir Issac Newton– The most brilliant scientific mind that ever existed_
im having trouble with the third, im thinking perhaps Mozart, ill come back to it :)
I disagree and think Archimedes is the most brilliant mind that ever existed. What he did at the time he did it changed everything and is still changing everything.
Archimedes had also already known most of what Newton gets credit for, but Newton really defined the physics of motion for us. This has also helped us drastically with no discredit to Newton… but Archimedes would whoop his ass on the streets.
I agree with N8 but it's TC's dinner not ours haha.
Here is a little vid from another modern hero of mine, Neil Degrasse Tyson, astropysicist–speaking about Issac Newton
Loved his rant on Real Time with Bill Maher. http://youtu.be/tKdaRcptVz8
Patrick Warburton
Phil Hartman
Shel Silverstein
GREAT call on Phil Hartman,
he was the all time MVP of Saturday Night Live
Unfrozen caveman lawyer FTW
Hartman died during one of the Atlanta E3's. Everyone was talking about it. One of the last things he did was the Blasto game for PlayStation.
I can't think of 3 ppl I'd like to sit down with for a nice dinner. I'd rather have a bunch of ppl at a crawfish boil…lots of beer and larger than a 4 top table.
However if I must choose 3 other ppl then I choose Randall Stephenson, Lowell McAdam, and Karl Bode. I want nothing more than to berate the first 2 for totally f'n up the system we have in the US and I want the third to offer up support for my ranting. I can easily swap Bode out for Obama, Genachowski, or Ron Paul.
How about RuPaul instead of Ron Paul?
No thanks. I see enough transsexuals in NOLA everyday. :)
Replace "NOLA" with "South Beach" and the same thing pretty much goes for me.
-M
I actually came VERY close to having dinner with Ron Paul (it was a fundraiser), but I did get to meet him with my wife and have a little chat with him (as well as an autograph). If I could actually sit down and have a dinner with him, I would like to invite 90% of the ass-clowns in Washington so that they can sit down and take some notes… starting with basic (Austrian) economics like: “what is money” because they seriously don’t know.
Oh, how I wish that was actually a joke.
-M
Nathan Mayer Rothschild
Woodrow Wilson
Bobby Kocklick
We will have dinner in a tightly-enclosed, sealed room with car exhaust circulating through the air vents instead of air. Dinner will consist of molotov martinis, rat poison ratatouille niçoise, roast duck a-la salmonella, Wagyu kobe steak marinated in a light cyanide sauce, and for desert: plastique peach pie topped with arsenic applesauce.
You could technically substitute Bobby Kocklick for Lou Holtz, but I figured that the guy should be dying soon anyway…
-M
The list of interesting people I would want to have dinner with would be way too long, so I did the opposite. And yes, I would gladly sacrifice myself as well if it meant ridding the world of these *$&%@! (during their time) and the world would be a much better place because of it.
One of the people I would like to have dinner with (without having to kill them) is Albert Einstein (no offense to Thundercracker).
-M
In all fairness… Wilson was more ignorant than evil in comparison to your other picks. He had no idea what he was doing except fulfilling a promise he made to people who funded his campaign to the point that he couldn't have won without them.
Years later on his death bed, he realized what he did and spent the rest of his days apologizing for the Fed.
The other 2 however… know and knew exactly what they were/are doing.
Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, Jesus Christ