Eight Things (again!!)

Zounds, I’ve been tagged by PZ Myers for the “Eight Things” quiz-meme thing. I could just link the answers I gave when someone else tagged me with this a couple of weeks ago with the fine phrase from Prime Minister’s Questions in Britain, “I refer the right honorable gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago”, but hey, that’s the lazy way out and I’m all about…well, that’s not true, I have nothing against being lazy. But anyway, eight things:

1. The first baseball game (MLB) I attended in person? 1984, I think. Phillies 2, Pirates 1, at Three Rivers Stadium. Early in the season, so it was cold and I ran my father’s wallet down by drinking a hot chocolate every inning. In college, I would discover a drinking game called “Beer an Inning”, in which you do exactly that: you must consume a beer each inning, and if the inning ends while you’ve got beer in your bottle, you must chug it. Sounds easy, but a couple of double-plays will mess you up hard.

2. The first football game (NFL) I attended in person? 1997 season at Rich Stadium. Broncos 23, Bills 20, OT. The Bills were behind 20-0 when Todd Collins got benched and Alex Van Pelt came in and nearly rallied the Bills to the win. This was about halfway through the season, so it was really cold and drizzly and unpleasant in the stadium…and the hot chocolates had to come out of my wallet, so we only had one or two. I gave up on Todd Collins as a player during this game, when he threw an interception that was returned by a 300-plus pound defensive lineman more than seventy yards for a touchdown, and all Collins did was lay down on the field and watch the guy go the distance. The Broncos went on to win the Super Bowl that year.

3. I’m done apologizing for the fact that I like to eat at Applebee’s.

4. I make pretty good fried chicken. Not that often, because you know, that stuff’ll kill you if you eat it too often and still, no matter how good your chicken is, it’s never quite as good as any that comes in a paper bucket. But still, my chicken’s pretty damn good.

5. I like rum. (OK, I used that one next time. I like Southern Comfort too, then.)

6. I have to admit that I envisioned Digby as a male, but I think that’s because I knew a guy in college whose nickname was Digby. There’s nothing particularly male or female in Digby’s blog writing, so I just went with my personal association with the name.

7. I know I linked Charlie Stross’s essay on space colonization the other day in Sentential Links, but let me just note that my general instinctive response to well-reasoned, scientifically-sound arguments that we are likely to never leave this Solar System is a very immature, “LAA LAA LA LA LA LA I can’t hear you LA LA LA LAAAAA!”

8. For lack of anything else: The Daughter just turned eight the other day. Her best friend, who lived next door, moved with her family to Alabama this morning. Unless something dramatic changes, she’s never gonna be a big sister again. Her last report card this year was excellent. She likes to read. She can’t swim yet, but she learned at age five how to run a feeding pump. She likes anime. And many are the days when she’s the sole reason why I don’t elect to elevate from this sorry plain of existence for something more to my liking.

I’m supposed to tag people, but I won’t do so specifically. I’ll just let this suffice: if you’re a Buffalo-blogger, consider yourself tagged. Heh.

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