The Pharyngula mutating genre meme

So we've been called out. A southerner now in England has thrown down the gauntlet and has questioned our ability to maintain a blog. The last time I knew a southerner that talked smack while pretending to be an Englishman, I was a sophomore in college taking a British literature class. The professor was a guy from Alabama that spoke with a really fake British accent. But unlike the aforementioned literature professor, this blogger I speak of doesn't speak with a fake accent (as far as I know) and he doesn't wear cheap tweed jackets with elbow pads.

Anyway, the challenge it to answer the questions in this meme. Now, most people wouldn't know what a meme is. Heck, I don't even know quite how to pronounce it! But from what I can tell, it's defined as "A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another." Or in more layman's, blogger terms, its a way to get something posted on your blog for the day while also getting other people to visit your site. Clearly, we might be in need of something like this as our last post was almost a week ago.

To get back to the point, this one should be particularly appealing to us as it has something of a biological theme...albeit a loosely biological theme. Being a developmental biologist, I'm familiar with the term "pharyngula" but I'm not sure that most people would. Basically, its a very early stage in vertebrate development at which time all vertebrate embryos pretty much look the same. Do a google image search and I bet you'll see that this is true. The relationship to this posting is that all of the people that have done this before have all started with the same basic format, but they have then made a minor change or two to a question. Not enough to drastically change it, but just enough to distinguish it from the other posters.

Here's the deal:

There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, “The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…”. Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

•You can leave them exactly as is.
•You can delete any one question.
•You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change “The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…” to “The best time travel novel in Westerns is…”, or “The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is…”, or “The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is…”.
•You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form “The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…”.
•You must have at least one question in your set, or you’ve gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you’re not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

The Lineage:

P: Pharyngula.
F1: Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.
F2: Flying Trilobite.
F3: A Blog Around the Clock.
F4: archy.
F5: Why Now?
F6: Rook’s Rants.
F7: PSOTD.
F8: Kathy F.
F9: DVD

The Questions:

I'm going to have to make a few changes here because otherwise I wouldn't be able to answer much here. Sorry, but alien encounter songs in sci fi? Anyway, here goes.

The best recent skit on Saturday Night Live is: “The Barry Gibb talk show"

The best “bad” movie in chick flicks is: “Blue Crush“.

The best non-pop song in pop is: Well, I'll take this to mean a song that's played on the pop stations that doesn't bear any resemblance to Britney Spears or Fergie. Lately, I've really enjoyed the song "Teenagers" by My Chemical Romance.

The best flavor filling in sandwiches is: Grilled cheese with tomato and onion, otherwise known as "The Sconnie" at the Old Town Pub in Madison, WI.

The best beer is: Madtown Nutbrown from the Ale Asylum.

The Victims:

Well, we're not really established in the blogging world and as such, we haven't really known other bloggers much. Jenelle recommends we tag her high school friend Jamie.