The summer I was thirteen, which was 1977, my dad took me to see The Spy Who Loved Me. I didn't know anything about James Bond. I knew it was rated PG and my mother didn't love the idea. Then the movie started, and before the credits even came up, Bond skied off the edge of a cliff into nothing, and fell, and fell, and then the parachute opened and it was a Union Jack, and the whole theater cheered. I was gone. I have been gone for twenty-two years.

I'm thirty-five now. By day I'm a loan officer at a bank in Louisville, which is about as far from Her Majesty's Secret Service as a man can get. My most dangerous assignment this year was a car loan for my brother-in-law. But I have read every Ian Fleming book at least three times, I have every one of the movies on tape, and I still have the Corgi Aston Martin I got when I was seven. This page is where I keep the file.

Rules of this dossier: My opinions are my own and are final, the same as at work. If you disagree, my e-mail is at the bottom. I'll consider your application.

Five men have played Bond in the official films. Here they are, best to least, with reasons. This took me a week.

ITEM: Corgi Aston Martin DB5. Christmas 1971, from my grandmother, who had no idea what it was and bought it because the man at the store said boys liked it. Silver, with the machine guns that pop out of the front, the bulletproof shield that comes up in the back, and the ejector seat: you push the button and the bad guy in the passenger seat flies out through the roof. The bad guy went down a heat register in 1975 and was never recovered. The car has been on my desk at work for eleven years. Customers ask about it. It's a good way to start a loan meeting.

ITEM: Ian Fleming, the complete set. Fleming wrote twelve Bond novels and two books of short stories, starting with Casino Royale in 1953. He died in 1964, the year I was born, which I've always taken personally. My set is mostly old paperbacks, picked up one at a time at used bookstores and flea markets over twenty years, all of them read to pieces. The prize of the collection is a 1955 paperback of Casino Royale under the name the American publisher gave it, You Asked for It. Two dollars at a flea market in 1991. I nearly fainted.

ITEM: My favorite of the books. From Russia, with Love, with On Her Majesty's Secret Service right behind. If you only know the movies, the books will surprise you. Bond in the books gets hurt, gets scared, gets bored, and drinks too much, and is a lot more interesting for it. Some of the movies have hardly anything to do with the books. The Spy Who Loved Me is the champion there: Fleming only let them use the title.

ITEM: The tapes. All eighteen official films on VHS, on a shelf in order, labels out. My wife Stephanie says it's the only shelf in the house I keep organized. She is correct.

Here's what's been announced, and only what's been announced. I don't deal in rumors. That's how you get bad loans.

Pierce Brosnan is back for his third. Sophie Marceau is in it, which makes me happy, since she was so good in Braveheart. Denise Richards is in it. Robert Carlyle, from The Full Monty, is in it, and if he's the villain I think he'll be a good one. And Desmond Llewelyn is back as Q, which is the most important news of all. He's been Q in every Bond film since From Russia with Love in 1963 except one. When Q shows up, the movie can start.

The title, if you've read the books, comes from the Bond family motto in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. In Latin on the family coat of arms. Somebody over there knows their Fleming, and that gives me hope.

Operational plan: My friend Joe Baskin and I have already put in for a half day on Friday the 19th. Opening night, first show, center seats, no talking. Stephanie is coming to the second showing on Saturday, because she knows I'll want to see it twice.

Every official Bond film from Dr. No to Tomorrow Never Dies, best to worst, one line each. Prepare to be angry.
>> OPEN FILE 4

Licence to Couch. Rafael Ibarra and his roommates play GoldenEye on the Nintendo every Tuesday night, four players, and they've written down their house rules. Rule one is about Oddjob, and they are absolutely right about Oddjob.