Tag: Quiz-Things

Since I can’t help myself when it comes to stealing quiz-things, here’s a quiz-thing from Messrs. Tosy and Cosh. Apparently this is supposed to gauge how advantaged you are when you enter adult life, or something like that. I’m not sure I buy the methodology, but hey, I’m always one for bolding stuff that applies to me!

So, the items, with occasional comment:

Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor

Were the same or higher socio-economic class than your high school teachers (Geez, I have no idea. Some of ’em, probably. Others, probably not. I didn’t hang out with my teachers or go to their houses to see what kind of china they used or what cars they drove.)

Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children’s books by a parent (Absolutely!)

Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 (Trumpet, piano, swimming)

The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively (Well, you don’t see too many long-haired hippie types in overalls on the teevee these days, so….)

Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18 (Yeah, what a good idea that was.)

Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs (I wish I’d have gotten off my ass in college and found a part-time job to help out. This is one of few things I’d do differently if I got to re-live my life.)

Went to a private high school

Went to summer camp (Ahhh, the Bristol Hills Music Camp! One of the greatest experiences of my life.)

Family vacations involved staying at hotels (Sometimes yes, sometimes it was the camper. Never really cared, as long as there was a pool and, when I got older, an arcade.)

Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 (I honestly don’t know. I never lacked for clothing, although I was never the one demanding the latest styles and whatnot. To this day, I have never owned a single pair of Levi’s.)

There was original art in your house when you were a child

You and your family lived in a single family house

Your parent(s) owned their own house(s) or apartment before you left home (I’m leaving this one unbolded because I genuinely don’t know when the mortgage got paid off, and I’m pretty sure that it was none of my business, anyway.)

You had your own room as a child (I don’t remember ever not having my own room.)

You had a phone in your room before you turned 18
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course

Had your own TV in your room in High School (No cable, though, ran to my room, so I either used the aerial antenna on the house or just used the teevee as the “monitor” for my VIC-20.)

Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16 (I never flew until college)

Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family (OK, I’m cheating here, counting canoeing and kayaking trips as cruising. Hey, it’s what we did. A part of heaven had better be just like the Clarion and Youghiogheny Rivers, or I’m going to be mad when I get there!)

Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up (Not terribly often, but we did go. I still have a few very vivid memories of the year I was in kindergarten, and we went to Chicago to see the Treasures of King Tutankhamun. As I grew up, school took this function over more and more.)

You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. (Well, my parents generally didn’t tell me how much bills were, although I did hear the occasional kvetching over high bills or the like. Also, once we settled in Western New York in 1981, we used wood for our heating exclusively until the gas lines finally got laid up to my parents’ house, sometime while I was in college, I think. And even then they continued using wood for some years, until the wood stove itself gave up the ghost. I have fond memories of getting up on icy winter mornings and stoking the great iron beast with wood, of huddling around the stove as it heated up, of the terribly uneven heat of the thing as sometimes we’d overstoke the thing and end up with a ninety-degree house, of the cat who’d lick the stove when it wasn’t containing a fire [with no apparent ill effect, as that cat lived to be twenty] and the occasional hilarity when Dad would mislay his checkbook and invariably become convinced that he’d thrown it into the stove. [He never actually did turn out to have thrown it in there, so far as I can recall.])

Received a beating from my mother when she discovered a wire hanger in my closet. (I sure learned my lesson that day: plastic hangers, or nothing!)

(OK, that last one didn’t happen.)

So yeah: the Rockefellers we weren’t, but neither were we the Ingallses.

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As the Prime Minister often says during Prime Minister’s Questions, I refer my right honorable friend to the reply I gave some moments ago.

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I snagged this from SamuraiFrog, because if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s snagging quizzes for the blog. Except for the dirty quizzes. Because those are, well, dirty. Ick!

Favorite traditional Christmas song: I love Christmas songs, the old ones, that is. “Angels We Have Heard On High” is a favorite, and it’s also The Daughter’s favorite. (In fact, at her very first Christmas church service, when she was all of six months old, when that one got to the melismatic “Gloria” part, she noted everyone around her singing and joined right in.) “Hark I Hear the Angels Sing” is great. Each year, the service we attend at our current church ends with “Silent Night”, sung by the congregation in candlelight, with no organ accompaniment; it’s moments like those that put me in touch with The Mystery.

And why stop at vocal music? In my college years, the orchestra’s Christmas program always included Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite and Anderson’s Sleigh Ride, both of which are dear favorites of mine. And there’s the genius of Vince Guaraldi’s music for A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Favorite contemporary or modern Christmas song: I’ll define this fairly loosely, with “Modern” meaning, “written since 1900” or thereabouts. That said, I adore “The Little Drummer Boy”. I just love that song to pieces. And yes, the definitive version for me is that wonderfully corny Bing Crosby-David Bowie duet. That thing makes my heart melt. I do like “White Christmas”, although it’s kind of ubiquitous this year. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is a bittersweet gem of a song, but the original version, the one sung by Judy Garland, not the one with the lyrics altered for Frank Sinatra. (Although that one is Sinatra, which is always fine as that goes.) “Do You Hear What I Hear” is always lovely. Bing Crosby was a great singer of Christmas music, I’ve found. And call me crazy, but I love “Feliz Navidad”.

Least favorite Christmas song: I’ve added this question to the original, because you can’t love all the Christmas songs that are out there, can you? So, that said: I hate “Carol of the Bells”. I just hate it. I’ve never heard a rendition of it that I liked. With respect to SamuraiFrog, I can’t abide that Chipmunks song, either. Or “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth”. Or “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”, because all I can think of is, what if the kid had come into the bedroom fifteen minutes later.

Christmas song that makes you cry: Any of them, if I’m in the right mood.

Real or artificial tree: It used to be real, but we received an artificial tree as a gift a few years back, and since then, that’s what we do. We get the pine smell by burning pine candles and incense.

Favorite Christmas edible treat: Decorated sugar cookies. Caramel corn. Chocolate. English toffee. Peppermint ice cream. Christmas is a time of wonderful food.

White lights or multi-colored: White, although I like multicolored too. And you have to have lots of lights. Nothing’s worse than a tree with not enough lights. On a lighting-related tangent, one of our family traditions (inherited from The Wife’s family) is that after our Christmas Eve service, we drive around looking at the lights on all the houses for a while before going home to presents and family together-time. Also, there’s a church in Ellicottville, NY that has in its yard a white marble statue of the Virgin Mary. It’s a very simple statue, not gaudy or ostentatious in the way that many such things are. They don’t do it anymore, to my knowledge, but they used to light that statue up during Advent with a pair of blue floodlights. It was among the most gorgeous things I have ever seen.

How many Christmas parties will you go to this year: One, it seems, at The Wife’s workplace. I like Christmas parties and wish I got to attend more of them.

Favorite act of kindness to perform during this season: The best ones are the small ones, I think.

Favorite sounds of Christmas: Music. Pots and pans in the kitchen. The tearing of wrapping paper, followed later by the sudden snappings and rustlings as the cats attack the torn sheets that litter the floor. The Daughter’s squeal of “This is it!” when she opens the gift she really wants. And silence.

Favorite things to wear: I made a red and green sweatshirt last time I did tie-dying; I like to wear that a lot in Christmastime, along with various combinations of red and green. (Under the overalls, of course.)

Favorite Christmas movie/TV special: Of course, A Charlie Brown Christmas; Linus’s recitation of Luke chapter 2 may be the single best animation voicing ever. I also like Rudolph, although not as much as Charlie Brown. (I have to admit that I’m not a fan of the Grinch.) I actually liked The Polar Express, and I didn’t hate the motion-capture animation, either. Love, Actually takes place at Christmastime, although I’m not sure I’d consider it a “Christmas movie”. Ditto Lethal Weapon and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. I recall Christmas viewings of Holiday Inn, with certain family members of mine, after several beers, waxing indignant over the inherent insanity of casting Bing Crosby as a romantic lead.

I honestly don’t like It’s a Wonderful Life, and in an embarrassing admission, I’ve never seen A Christmas Story.

Favorite Christmas episode of a TV Series. I’m adding this question, too. The Christmas episode of My So-Called Life is amazing, as is the one from the first season of Once and Again. There’s the Seinfeld episode where Kramer becomes a department store Santa and starts telling kids Communist propaganda. And yes, the Brady Bunch episode where Cindy asks Santa to give Mommy her voice back so she can sing in the Christmas church service. The brilliant Millennium‘s second season episode “Midnight of the Century” is amazing. The first season of The Wonder Years, where Kevin searched for the perfect gift for Winnie Cooper, was terrific. And while Friends had a lot of fine Christmas-related episodes, the one where Ross dresses up as “the Holiday Armadillo” in an attempt to get his Christmas-focused son interested in Hannukah is still one of the funniest TV episodes I know.

Eggnog or hot chocolate: Hot chocolate. I do like eggnog, but nobody else in the family does, so I rarely have it. Of course, hot chocolate mixed with coffee or a shot of espresso is best.

Favorite Christmas book: Huh. I genuinely can’t think of one, other than Christopher Moore’s The Stupidest Angel.

Christmas books on my “to read” list: None that I know of, although I suppose I should re-read A Christmas Carol one of these years. I haven’t read it since eighth grade.

Peppermint or cinnamon: Both. Two of my absolute favorite flavors.

What’s on the top of your tree: An angel with lights.

Traditional Christmas meal growing up: A turkey dinner, virtually identical to our Thanksgiving meal. These days we seem to have ham a lot, because I’m always in the mood for it. (Except for a few years back when The Wife got sick at Christmas and wasn’t in condition to cook, so I whipped together a pastitsio and we had our “big meal” a few days later when she was better.)

Online shopping or traditional “go to the store” shopping: Both. For things I know I’m not going to be able to get in a store around here, I go online. But I love to shop in real stores. Christmas shopping at Vidler’s should be legally required of every Erie County resident.

Something you received as a Christmas gift as a child that you still have: A nesting doll in the shape of a sailor, with his wife and kid inside. I got that in first grade.

How many Christmas cards you have mailed so far: None. I am so bad at getting cards out to the people who don’t read this blog. Ugh. There’s one dear old friend of mine – two, actually, they’re married to one another, I played trumpet at their wedding – who always send us a card, but whom I never send anything. Wow, I’m a horrible person. I think I’ll send her the link to this blog right now. Be right back….

Favorite source for Christmas ideas: You mean, how do I decide what to get people? I just kind of wander about until I think of something and a person to go with it – “Hey, ____ might like that!” That sort of thing.

Coordinated/themed or hodge-podge tree decorations: Hodge-podge. I find themed Christmas trees a bit disturbing.

What’s on the top of YOUR Christmas wishlist: I don’t really have a Christmas list this year. I just want some happiness for my family.

Roles you’ve played in Christmas plays/programs: I was never in a Christmas play or program as such. My college had a yearly Christmas musical program that involved each of the three major musical ensembles, so I sat in the trumpet section thereof.

Wrapping paper or gift bags: It depends; I tend to do both to a small degree. I also like to hide presents inside other presents: boxes within boxes, something tiny inside a nifty leather pouch, that sort of thing. (And when giving one’s wife a new pair of overalls, the bib pocket is an ideal place to hide jewelry!)

When do you put up the tree: When we get around to it, really. We’d love to have it up earlier, but we usually have to wait until work schedules align so that we’re all home some night. Our tree still isn’t up for this year, sadly enough. The earliest I think we ever put it up was two years ago; we had it up a week or so after Little Quinn’s death, just a few days into December.

When do you take the tree down: When we feel like it. Maybe we tend to put it up late so we compensate by taking it down late (we’ve been known to have it up as late as the first week of February). I don’t really understand the impulse some folks have to rip it down within a day of Christmas ending. A Christmas tree is a beautiful thing; why remove something beautiful that quickly? I may not be wild about stores having Christmas merchandise for sale in October, but I have no problem with Christmas lights being up that early.

Do you have a nativity scene: Yes. It’s a pretty standard affair. We also have a number of Christmas ornaments that depict the Nativity.

Hardest person to buy for: Nobody. Gift-giving became a lot easier with the advent of gift cards and my shift in gift-giving philosophy to giving stuff that reflects my tastes rather than the receiver’s. I like to give copies of books and music that I love, for instance.

Easiest person to buy for: The Daughter, unless she’s asking for something freakishly expensive. (She still believes in Santa, so shhhhh!)

Worst Christmas gift you ever received: Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but I don’t recall receiving any gifts that I hated or were sheer crap. I don’t remember it, thankfully, because I was only two at the time, but apparently I received a pair of Ernie slippers from my sister and I would have nothing to do with them. So began a lifetime of sibling hostility that only ended when we took up lightsabers and…OK, that didn’t happen. But it’s amazing how guilty you can be made to feel for stuff you don’t remember doing, especially when you have a perfectly good reason for not remembering it, as opposed to not remembering it because the incident involves a large bottle of bourbon!

When do you start shopping for Christmas: I used to start really early. Like, October early. In recent years, I’m scrambling late in December. I’ll be finishing my shopping this week, for instance. Ugh. I hate waiting that long.

Have you ever recycled a Christmas present: Nope, unless you count the bottle of liquor that I received at a work party one year. I don’t remember what brand it was, but it was something I didn’t care for so I toted it around for years until a couple of guys helped us with out last move. These guys were good guys, but they were the type of fellows who would drink anything you handed them. Sure enough, they were gleeful when we handed them twenty bucks and that bottle of whatever-it-was.

Travel at Christmas or stay home: We stay home, although we don’t rule out traveling someday. Sadly, it’s now becoming tradition that at some point Christmas day we drive out to Little Quinn’s grave.

Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer: Yes. I could do it here, but even if I did, you could just haughtily suggest that I Googled them.

Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning: Christmas eve, after church and our annual “drive around and look at lights”. We find that opening Christmas eve makes Christmas day a lot less hectic. We do keep a couple of The Daughter’s gifts in reserve to be “from Santa”.

Most annoying thing about this time of year: Hmmmm, tough one. Sanctimonious “more Christian than you” types who kvetch about the “war on Christmas”. (A special subset thereof is people who whine about how we can’t put Nativities on the town park or whatever. You want to put up a Nativity? Put it on your own lawn.) People who grunt about how much they hate Christmas, for no good reason. People who let their internal meanness show anyway. People who drag their kids on long days of shopping and openly yell at their children in the stores.

What I love most about Christmas: Snow. Quiet. Food. Light. Music. Good wishes, shared among friends. Bells. Cats in the wrapping paper. Red, green, silver, gold. Hugs. Family. Love. Luke, chapter two (and Linus’s recitation of part of that book thereof in A Charlie Brown Christmas, surely the greatest single voiceover in animation history).

I tag everybody! Huzzah!!!

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Another quiz-thing from Erin, who didn’t specifically tag me but rather tossed out an open invitation. It’s “Eight Things” of various sorts. I’m also adding a new category, at the very end. Here we go!

8 things I am passionate about:

1. Pizza in all its forms
2. Good writing
3. Science Fiction
4. Fantasy
5. Liberal politics
6. Workwear
7. The proper use of the English language
8. Ice Cream

8 things I want to do before I die

1. Watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (extended editions) back-to-back-to-back.
2. Watch the Buffalo Bills win the Super Bowl. The Buffalo Bills. Not the Toronto Bills, the San Antonio Bills, or any other Bills.
3. Write something that gets read widely.
4. Travel to Great Britain and see various locales related to the Arthurian legends.
5. Go to New Zealand and walk the Milford Track.
6. See the populations of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and other Upstate New York locales start to go up again.
7. Meet more of my favorite blog-friends in person.
8. Thank George Lucas in person.

8 things I say often

1. “For the LOVE of GOD!”
2. “Yeah, that‘s a good idea.”
3. “Oh, my, my, my my my. What a mess.”
4. “Oh noes!”
5. “Yeah. I’ll get right on that.”
6. “Lester, DOWN!” (often repeated several times, while Lester mulls over whether I’m addressing him or some other cat named Lester.)
7. “So do you have homework tonight?”
8. “Ahhh, f***.” (I admit it. This tends to be my first utterance upon hearing the alarm clock in the morning.)

8 books I’ve read recently (Some of these I’ve blogged about here, but I’m not going to dig through archives for links to posts just now.)

1. The Griffin and Sabine trilogy, Nick Bantock
2. The Morningstar trilogy, also Nick Bantock
3. A Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs
4. The Rest is Noise, Alex Ross (still reading it)
5. Fray, Joss Whedon
6. Kingdom Come, Alex Ross (the other Alex Ross)
7. The Nasty Bits, Anthony Bourdain
8. The Bible (Genesis and Exodus thus far. An ongoing project.)

8 songs I could listen to over and over

1.”Fernando”, Abba (Seriously. I love this song. There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, Fernando!)
2.”On the Street Where You Live”, Lerner and Loewe, from Brigadoon My Fair Lady. (How on Earth did I type Brigadoon? Yeesh! But for a Brigadoon song, there’s always “There But For You Go I”.)
3.”I’m All Right”, Jo Dee Messina. I’m not a big country fan, but this song just sticks in my head in a big way.
4.”People Get Ready”, Curtis Mayfield. (I especially love the Rod Stewart-Jeff Beck cover from the 80s.)
5.”Into the West”, Howard Shore, from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Sung by Annie Lennox.
6.”Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”, the Platters.
7.”I Dreamed a Dream”, from Les Miserables.
8.”Scythe Song”, Dougie MacLean.

8 things that attract me to my best friends

1. Ability to get my more obscure jokes
2. Their interesting things to say
3. Their reliability
4. Their loyalty
5. Their refusal to pass judgment on things
6. Their steadfastedness
7. Their laughter
8. Their dislike of the New England Stupid Patriots (OK, this isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker. But it helps!)

8 (or more) things that I am thankful for this year

1. Books.
2. Music.
3. Movies.
4. The Store.
5. Coconut cream pie.
6. Pizza.
7. Yeungling Lager, chilled almost to the point of freezing.
8. Spiced Rum.
9. Vanilla Rum.
10. Coconut rum.
11. Chocolate.
12. Overalls.
13. Friends, in real life and online.
14. This blog.
15. The readers of this blog.
16. A roof above my head.
17. Paper to write on.
18. Stories in my head to tell.
19. The Wife and Daughter.

By way of a meta-blog note, posting will be light over the weekend. Happy Thanksgiving, and may the Force be with you all!

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Ah, I see that Erin has tagged me with the vicious Seven Things Meme, wherein bloggers are supposed to provide seven facts about themselves. For a long-lived blogger like myself, this meme gets harder every time it comes around, since I run through a roster of facts in my head and rule them all out on the basis that I’m really, really sure that I’ve already posted them before in a previous iteration of Seven Things. So, here we go:

1. My idea of an ideal vacation these days consists not of journeying to some far-flung and exotic locale, but simply packing some clothes, getting in the car, and driving somewhere, with only these rules: No driving on Interstates or expressways of any kind, and No eating at chain establishments (except for local chains that you’ll only find in a single city, like Ted’s in Buffalo). The Wife and I recently took such a journey, and it was as magical a weekend as I can remember. The best way to find good food? Drive into a town and eat at the place whose parking lot is full. Especially if the windows all have neon beer signs and the place’s name includes the word “Inn”.

2. I’m not sure what my objection is, but I can’t stand Dancing with the Stars. I literally hate that show. I was on the fence about it for a while, but then I decided that I really can’t abide the show in any form. I suspect that this is because the show tried to convince me that Mario Lopez is sexy.

3. Despite living in the Buffalo area for seven years now (minus winter of 2002-2003, when we lived in Syracuse), I’ve never eaten at Louie’s, and I hadn’t eaten at Mighty Taco until just two years ago. Why? I dunno.

4. The Wife’s first gift to me, back when she was The Girlfriend, was, if memory serves, a teddy bear with a lavender ribbon around his neck. I think she doused him with perfume. He’s still around the apartment somewhere, although the ribbon may be gone; The Daughter probably has him in her stash of animals. I named him Bertrand, after Bertrand Russell. (I was a Philosophy major; what do you expect?) We ended up with a number of stuffed animals together, and we named a lot of them, although I only remember two: Bertrand the bear, and Barry the stuffed bison that we bought at the gift shop near Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park. (Barry for Barry Bonds; this was 1992, when he was leading the Pirates to their third straight NL East title and well before any hint of steroid use.)

5. My first gift to The Wife was a little Laughing Buddha figurine that I bought at the gift shop at the mall in Olean, NY. That gift shop isn’t there anymore. (In Olean, most things aren’t there anymore.)

It wasn’t quite what she expected for a first gift from a still-new boyfriend. I bought it for her while at home for spring break; we’d been dating for little more than a month, and I got a bit of a freakout when I tried to call her at the house where she was staying (in our Iowa college town; I was at home in WNY), and was informed by her landlord that there had been a death in her family. I worried a bit before I remembered that she had told me that her grandfather had been quite ill, and that’s who it ended up being. The upshot was that I returned to college from spring break and immediately met my future in-laws. That was just slightly less nerve-wracking than some of the musical auditions I’d done in my life to that point.

6. In high school, I went on exactly one date. It was an OK date, I suppose; some girl (wow, I don’t remember her name!) I met while playing in the All-County Band and I went to see some movie with Nick Nolte in it and then we went for ice cream at Friendly’s. Not a disaster, but I clearly didn’t make much of an impression, since the next couple of times I tried calling her for a follow-up date she said she was busy each time. How naïve was I? It took me that long to recognize that for a brush-off. Whoops!

7. And there was the girl that I didn’t ask out. She was a very sweet person, quite short with lovely red hair and a terrific smile. I had a monster crush on her, and yet I never asked her out, although I did give her a rose at Valentine’s Day. Yes, you read that right. I gave her a rose. On Valentine’s Day. Didn’t ask her out. Yeah, I’ve kicked myself ever since for that one – not out of any dissatisfaction with how things eventually turned out for me, love-wise, mind you! Just out of a “Wow, you were a putz back then!” older-me-wanting-to-kick-younger-me’s-ass kind of thing.

A story about that girl (whose name I do remember, although I’m not going to post it here): I once got her in trouble in Trig class, and I felt a bit bad about it afterward, although she thought it funny and laughed it off. She sat in the seat ahead of mine, and we’d gab a bit in the off-moments in class and discuss our mutual disdain for the Trig teacher (whom I loathed, because while this particular teacher was wildly popular amongst the kids, she got that way by choosing one or two kids per class who’d be the brunt of her every joke, and guess who got to be one of her designated class clowns that year). But anyway, on the day in question, I actually fell asleep in Trig class. (Nothing against the teacher on that score, really; I can count on one hand the number of times I fell asleep in a class in high school. Now, in college, I slept through a lot of classes, but not in high school.)

So anyway, I slept through about fifteen minutes of class, and then I came to, just in time to be called on by the teacher. I, of course, had absolutely no clue what the hell the question was, to say nothing of the actual answer. I glanced from the teacher to my friend, the lovely red-head, who was grinning ear to ear as she beheld my expression of total horror. I just kind of gaped like an idiot, not saying anything, until the teacher moved on to asking someone else the question, at which point I tried to hide behind my book as my friend the lovely red-head began giggling. And she continued to giggle, and giggle, and giggle, until finally the teacher took note of her giggling and chewed her out.

That may be the angriest I’ve ever been toward one of my teachers.

Anyway, that particular class session couldn’t end fast enough, and I was pretty well mortified and planned to get upbraided pretty harshly by the lovely red-head for getting her in trouble; but to my pleasant surprise, as soon as she came into the hall she dissolved into the laughter that she had to get out of her system. She wasn’t mad at me at all.

I’ve always wondered whatever became of her. And I’ve always wondered if she ever thought along the lines of, “Geez, why doesn’t that doof ask me out? He gave me a rose, for Pete’s sake!”

So there we are, and now I must tag people. Yeesh. I choose…my, I don’t know. I’ll tag Steph and Nettl — but each has to post seven things about the other! Heh! (Other than that, go ahead and tag yourselves, folks.)

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Hooray! A Halloween quiz-thing! This one comes courtesy SamuraiFrog and Messrs. Tosy and Cosh.

1. What is your favorite work of horror fiction?

As is my typical form, I can’t name a single one. In terms of novels, Steven King’s ‘Salem’s Lot was truly unnerving. I also admire Robert Cormier’s Fade, a young-adult novel about a not-so-nice kid who develops the power of invisibility. John Bellairs’s Gothic novels for young readers have more than a few unsettling moments; the scariest ones are The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring and The Curse of the Blue Figurine. (By the way, Hollywood, if you’re looking for a good author to mine for movies, Bellairs is just sitting there, waiting.)

I’ve read a lot of horror short fiction as well, and the one story that has stuck in my head for years is Graham Masterton’s “The Secret Shih-Tan”. It’s not supernatural, but it’s damned creepy.

2. Who is your favorite monster?

Monsters, eh? Well, let’s see — I’ll go with the Flukeman from that episode of The X-Files.

3. What horror movie gives you the most chills?

The Exorcist.

4. Freddy versus Jason?

Freddy. He’s an actual character, not an unstoppable doofus in a mask.

5. Ghosts or goblins?

Well, that depends, doesn’t it? You can do great things with either, although ghosts tend to be more creepy in an unsettling way than pure goblins. Goblins you know are made-up beasties, but ghosts have that human quality.

6. What is your scariest encounter with the paranormal?

I don’t believe I’ve ever had an encounter with the paranormal, so probably typical stuff like bumps in the night after I’ve watched a scary movie or teevee show.

7. Do you believe in ghosts?

No, but I’d like to live in a world where they were real.

8. Favorite Halloween costume?

My mother made me an awesome Captain Marvel costume when I was a kid. That thing ruled.

9. If you had an unlimited budget, what would your fantasy costume be for this Halloween?

I’d love to be one of the Riders of Rohan.

10. When was the last time you went trick or treating?

For myself? First grade, I think. After that I preferred to stay in and hand out the candy. We take The Daughter out each year, obviously.

11. What’s your favorite Halloween candy?

I’m the only one in the household who likes candy corn. I buy myself a bag every year and grin as The Wife and The Daughter whine about how gross the stuff is.

12. Tell us about a scary nightmare you had.

I genuinely don’t remember any scary nightmares, although I do recall going to my grandmother’s house in Pittsburgh on overnight stays and being terrified when this awful sound rose up from the basement. Turned out it was the automatic garage door opener; my uncle was a mailman and left for work really early each day.

13. What is your supernatural fear?

I don’t have any.

14. What is your creepy-crawlie fear?

I’m not a big fan of insects. Spiders don’t bother me, so long as they don’t try to board me as a passenger. Large bugs, though, trigger my often-overpowering Squish ’em! instinct.

15. Would you ever stay in a real haunted house overnight?

You mean, a house reputed to be haunted? Sure. I don’t believe in the supernatural, as far as houses go.

16. Are you a traditionalist (just a face) Jack O’Lantern carver, or do you get really creative with your pumpkins?

Oh, who the hell knows. Every year we buy a gorgeous, wonderful pumpkin that would make an outstanding Jack O’Lantern, and every year we forget to carve the damned thing until November 1. And sure enough, we did the same thing this year. Pity, because I love the toasted seeds.

17. How much do you decorate your home for Halloween?

We have an apartment, so not much at all. We should. I love that there are Halloween lights these days.

18. Do you think Halloween is too commercial these days?

No, but it bugs me that on Halloween you can’t buy Halloween candy anymore because stores have the Christmas stuff up already. Come on, folks.

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PZ Myers has created a new blog-meme thing, and he’s tagged me as part of his initial attempt to turn Blogistan into his own personal petri dish. How appalling!!!

Oh well, here are the rules:

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.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

OK then. PZ gives his own set of questions to start with:

1. The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…

The Anubis Gates, by Tim Powers.

2. The best romantic movie in historical fiction is…

Cold Mountain.

3. The best sexy song in rock is…

Gloria, by Patti Smith.

OK, time for my modifications, with my own answers:

1. The best near-future novel in SF/Fantasy is…

Firestar, by Michael Flynn.

2. The best romantic movie in historical fiction is…

Shakespeare in Love.

3. [deleted original] The best opera recording in classical music is…

Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, Sir Georg Solti/VPO.

OK, I hope I did that right. Now, to do this right, some tags: Tosy and Cosh, Samurai Frog, TeflonJedi, Lynn Sislo, and — in an further experiment with plugging memes into collectives — the crowd at No Fear of the Future.

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