Tag: Quiz-Things

Yup, what would a return to blogging be without a quiz. I grabbed this one from Steph Waller after I saw it on her MySpace page (although she did it as a bulletin, so I’m not sure how to link her answers). Anyway:

1. You have $5 and need to buy snacks at a gas station. What do you buy?

Hmmmm. A Big-Gulp drink (probably Pepsi or Diet Pepsi, although once or twice a year I get a hankering for Mt. Dew or Dr. Pepper), and then maybe a Slim Jim and a bag of Combos (the pepperoni pizza flavor). Combos are, to me, like crack. Many snacks are like crack, actually.

2. If you were reincarnated as a sea creature, what would you want to be?

I’m stealing Steph’s answer here: one of the creatures from The Abyss.

3. Who’s your favorite redhead?

When she colors her hair, The Wife! (When not, Leah Thompson.)

4. What do you order when you’re at IHOP?

I haven’t been to an IHOP since I was seven or eight years old. But they are building one quite near Casa Jaquandor (it used to be a bar/restaurant called Kelsey’s), so I’ll be able to answer this sometime soon.

5. Last book you read?

I’ll abstain from this one, in favor of a longer post on recent reading for a later time.

6. Describe your favorite pair of underwear.

I don’t have favorite underwear. I’m a guy. Underwear is purely utilitarian in nature, and I give it no thought whatsoever except for when I suddenly realize that it’s time to buy some more.

7. Describe the last time you were injured.

Physically? I cut myself at work a lot. I’ve never yet knicked myself on a power saw or shot my own fingers through with the nail gun, luckily.

8. ????? No question????

Huh? OK, folks, use comments to suggest a Question Number Eight.

9. Rock concert or symphony?

I suppose it would depend…but in truth, I have never been to a rock concert before. Not one. I’m not sure how this has come to pass, but there it is.

10. What is the wallpaper of your mobile phone?

I don’t have a mobile yet. Or a cell.

11. Favorite drink?

Spiced rum and cola. Or seven-and-seven. Or Southern Comfort in cola. Or vanilla rum and root beer. Spiced rum also blends very nicely with Vernor’s Ginger Ale. And, if you can get the mix exactly right, a blend of peppermint schnapps and root beer will taste just like birch beer. (Get the mix wrong, however, and the result is not unlike some of the nastier brands of mouthwash.)

12. What type of top/teeshirt are you wearing?

As of this writing, a light shade of green.

13. If you could only use one form of transportation for the rest of your life what would it be?

I can’t decide between a Danube-class starship, a YT-1300 light freighter, or an Aston-Martin DB5 with all the optional extras installed.

14. Most recent movie you’ve watched at the movies?

The Simpsons Movie.

16. What’s your favorite kind of cake?

Carrot cake, with enough frosting to stop a clock. (A cake’s primary function is as a frosting-delivery device.)

17. What did you have for dinner last night?

As of this writing: A pulled-pork sandwich, fries, and an appetizer platter from Zebb’s. As you’re reading this: who knows?

18. Look to your right what do you see?

A floor fan, my CD collection, the teevee, and The Daughter.

19. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?

For laced shoes, yes.

20. Favorite toy as a child?

Hmmmm. Not sure, really. I had lots of toys, and the various obsessions thereof came and went.

21. Do you buy your own food?

How else would I eat?

22. Do you think people talk about you behind your back?

Of course they do. Everybody talks about everybody, and really, except for cases of nasty rumor-mongering, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

23. When’s the last time you had a sour gummy worm?

Never. I don’t like “gummies” all that much, no matter what critter they’re shaped as.

24. What’s your favorite fruit?

Blueberries, strawberries, white peaches. And apples — we’re heading into prime apple-eating season. I love eating an apple on a crisp fall morning!

25. Do you have a picture of yourself doing a cartwheel?

Absolutely not! Do I look that acrobatic in nature?

26. Have you ever eaten snow?

Sure. I find that November snow is the best for pure eating, but January snow is the best for use in omelettes.

27. What color are your bedsheets?

Right now, a lavender-type color.

28. What’s your mom’s favorite flower?

Hmmmm. I haven’t the faintest idea, really. We had peonies and rhododendrons in the yard, and when she was a gardener she’d plant a lot of marigolds, but I’m told that was more an anti-rabbit thing than a fondness for marigolds (apparently rabbits don’t like the scent of marigolds or something like that, so if you surround your veggies with them, the bunnies won’t eat them, or so goes the theory). She has live plants in her home, but a lot of them are potted evergreens.

29. Do you listen to classical music?

Of course! (And for people who are afraid of classical music or think it’s “too hard”, come on! It’s just music. You listen to it just like any other music.)

30. Do you have a “wacky noodle”?

On the advice of counsel, I’m not only not answering this, but I’m not even going to look up what “wacky noodle” means.

31. Do you watch Spongebob?

Not often, because we don’t have cable, but I find that show fairly amusing when I do. It’s pretty zany, which appeals to me.

32. Last food you ate?

A couple of cookies with my morning coffee. (As I’m writing this. When you’re reading this, I may have just had lunch!)

33. Do people consider you intelligent?

I hope so! But then, I can also be a complete clod.

35. Is your away message on?

Not at present. I only IM on AOL, and I’m not signed on right now. (I used to use Microsoft’s IM program, but I haven’t in a long time. I should also look into Google’s version.)

36. Have you ever tried gluing your fingers together?

Why would anyone do this?!

37. What curse word do you use the most?

I get a lot of mileage out of “shit”, I’m sorry to say. And thanks to Gordon Ramsay, I now find myself muttering to myself, “Oh, f*** me senseless!” when I encounter random daily dumbness. I do swear too much.

38. What time is your alarm clock set for?

Too frakkin’ early, that’s what time! On normal work days I get up at 6:00 am. Sometimes I’ll get up earlier if there’s a special job to do for which I need to be at The Store early (particular maintenance jobs that have to get done before the respective departments open up, for instance). I’ve also sporadically risen that early so I could get in my daily walk. I’ve actually come to really like the way the world feels at 5:00 in the morning; I just hate that one has to get up at 5:00 in the morning to see that world.

42. What CD is currently in your CD player?

Nothing for now; I’m pretty religious about removing CDs from the player when not in use. Earlier, however, I was listening to a CD of Kullervo by Sibelius (London SO, Sir Colin Davis conducting). I know terribly little about Sibelius; the only work of his with which I’m more than passingly familiar is his Violin Concerto.

43. What movie do you know every line to?

Star Wars Episode ___: _________.

44. What is your favorite salad dressing?

I don’t have a favorite, really; I rotate through a bunch of ’em. When I’m at a restaurant I tend to get ranch a lot, which is really kind of boring, when you get down to it. I love poppyseed dressing, so maybe today I’ll get a bottle of it. I don’t eat enough salad. I love salad — but only if the greens are dark and leafy: romaine, arugula, baby spinach, all those. I detest iceberg lettuce. Iceberg lettuce is the only food on the planet that is more useless than the plain ricecake.

45. Would you ever date someone covered in tattoos?

If The Wife wants to get tattoos, sure. Otherwise, no, because The Wife would kick my ass.

46. Do you sleep in the same bed with your pets?

Yes. And the one that usually sleeps with us snores and takes up a mammoth amount of space.

47. Do you enjoy giving hugs?

Yes.

48. What part of your name do people mis-pronounce?

There’s a very common way people pronounce my last name which according to my relatives is wrong, but I never correct people anymore. It just doesn’t seem useful to do so.

50. If you were to become famous, would you drop your last name?

Yes, and I’d take the new last name “Arbuckle”. Why? Why not?

OK, that’s it. I’m not tagging anyone, so grab and go if you like.

UPDATE: Huh. On further reflection, it seems that a bunch of questions are missing from this quiz: Numbers 8, 15, 34, 39, 40, 41, and 49 are all MIA! So, readers, go ahead and fill in the blanks with those questions, if you please!

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I goofed a bit, folks, in writing this post, the “Seven Things” post. See, I wrote the intro first, saved it as a draft, and then came back later and wrote my seven things…but I forgot about the proviso I’d written in the first part of the post, in which I indicated that I’d list six true things and one false one.

So…all those things are actually true. And now I feel bad, so here are another seven things, with one genuinely false statement. Ye Gods….

1. I once had to get a tetanus shot when I paddled my kayak through a barbed-wire fence. (No, not at high speed, but I did get scratched a bit in trying to push my way through the fence.)

2. I own exactly two neckties, and the last time I wore one was when I had a job interview four years ago.

3. It’s been a long time since I had the stuff, so I can’t be too sure if it’s still the case, but I used to like Vegemite.

4. I have never owned a pair of Levi’s.

5. The first Major League Baseball game I ever attended saw the Phillies fall to the Pirates. This was in 1983 or so.

6. My graduation gift from my parents, when I graduated college, was a Persian kitten.

7. My favorite comic strip as a kid was…(oh, lord)…Family Circus.

OK, folks, there it is. One of these really is false. I promise!

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It missed my notice until the other day that Mark hit me with the venerable “Seven Things” quiz-meme, and before I could get my entry done, Aaron hit me with it as well. I’m sure I’m expected to do fourteen things, but no dice: I’ll still do seven. Harumph.

So, this is just seven things about me, or something like that. But I’m doing a twist: one of these items is false. Try and guess which one. I dare you!

1. When the Bills first appeared in the Super Bowl (SB XXV, against the NY Giants), I was in college in Iowa and no place in town served Buffalo-style chicken wings at the time, so I had to make do with a big box of KFC’s “Hot Wings”, which were apparently not terribly popular in that town as every time I went in there to order Hot Wings, they had to fry them to order. I chalk this up to the generically bland cuisine in Iowa, where four shakes of the pepper shaker can render some dishes too spicy for local palates.

2. I never wore overalls in public until my junior year in college, at which time I took a lot of ribbing for wanting to fit in with all the native Iowans (very few of whom actually wore overalls, so I’m not sure what they were getting on about anyway).

3. The sharpest, most agonizing physical pain I have ever endured in my life came when I was in seventh grade and I had a very bad cold that settled into my ears, giving me an ear infection for the ages. That was bad enough, but the doctor prescribed two antibiotics, one to be taken internally and the other in the form of ear drops. Problem was, my ear canal was swollen shut to the point where the drops couldn’t get in, so my mother jammed the dropper down in there.

4. It’s the epitome of the cheesy ballad, but I can’t get enough of Carrie Underwood singing “Inside Your Heaven”.

5. In second grade we lived in Elkins, WV, where one of my best friends was the son of a coal miner. When I went to his apartment once, he showed me the room where his entire family slept, mom and dad and his siblings alike, in a series of beds lined up against one wall. (That kid was just a great guy, too — Randall Riley was his name. He loved fishing. For only having spent one year in Elkins, some of the friends I made there stand out very strong in my memories — as does my teacher, Sandy Pnakovich, who I recently learned through a bit of Googling died in hospice care a few years ago, of some form of cancer, I suspect.)

6. The first science fiction novel that I remember reading, outside of media tie-in books like the Star Wars novelizations and James Blish’s novelizations of Star Trek episodes was The Time Machine by HG Wells.

7. As much as I enjoy wit and funny wordplay, I also love a good madcap slapstick farce…and yet I cannot stand the Three Stooges. Laurel and Hardy? I like them…and I could watch Abbott and Costello until doomsday. But the Stooges? Not a fan.

OK, that’s all. I’ll actually tag some people now, although probably not the required seven: Kellie (whom I don’t think I’ve ever tagged before), Roger (who’s probably done this already), Steph and Nettl (tagging both halves of a couple here!), and sticking with the couples-tagging, Scott and Kim. Oh heck, what’s one more to get the required seven for the Seven Things quiz? Vicki, here it is!

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I snagged this from Samantha says. You answer each question with three words, and only three words. Three. “Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.”

Here it is. (Yes, I cheat a bit as far as what constitutes a “word”. This I do because I always cheat on Internet quizzes.)

1. Where is your cell phone?:

It doesn’t exist.

2. Your boyfriend?:

Ummm…er…no.

3. Your hair?:

Longer than yours!

4. Where is your father?:

Home, I suppose.

5. Cheesecake?:

I’d love some!

6. Your favorite thing to do?:

Buy more books.

7. Your dream last night?:

She was there….

8. Your favorite drink?:

Spum and cola.

9. Your dream car?:

XP-38 Sport Landspeeder.

10. The room you’re in?:

Hmmmm. Rather messy.

11. George Bush?:

Ewwwwwww! It burns!

12. Your fears?:

Marshawn breaks leg.

13. Nipple rings?

I hate piercing.

14. Who did you hang out with last night?

My lovely daughter.

15. What you’re not good at?:

Basketball. I stink.

16. Your best friend?

She’s not here.

17. One of your wish list items?:

Tale of Genji.

18. Where did you grow up?:

All over America.

19. The last thing you did before survey?:

Got water bottle.

20. What are you wearing?:

Shocker! Not overalls!

21. Tattoo on the small of a back?:

Meh. No opinion.

22. Ketchup?

Like mustard better.

23. Your computer?:

My true love.

24. Your life?

Better soon, please!

25. Your mood?:

I want pie.

26. Missing?

She’s not here.

27. What are you thinking about right now?:

Three-word answers.

28. Your car?:

Meh. It starts.

29. Your work?:

Love it so!

30. Your summer?

I’ve had better.

31. Your relationship status?:

Off the market.

32. Your favorite color(s):

Purple, pink, blue.

33. When is the last time you laughed?:

Haaaaa! Just now.

34. Last time you cried?:

Waaaaa! Just now.

35. High school?:

Coulda done without.

Well, that was fun, eh?

(BTW, what’s with the Wikipedia article for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch being tagged for “not citing references or sources”? What reference works or sources exist from which one might base reliable knowledge of the Holy Hand Grenade? I think the Wikipedians tend to believe that when they defecate, it comes out in the form of hewn marble.)

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I saw this over on Tom the Dog‘s blog, and it struck me as a fun idea to do myself — and then Messrs. Tosy and Cosh beat me to it. But anyway, here’s a list of stuff I like a lot, in alphabetical order!

1. The String Quartet number 2 in D, by Alexander Borodin. An achingly gorgeous work from one of the masters of Russian Romanticism.

2. The “Battle of Yavin” track from John Williams’s score to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. For my money, this is the best extended cue of action music ever composed.

3. Coinstar machines. I know, it takes a chunk of my money just for the convenience, but Lord, if there’s one mind-numbingly boring job that I can’t stand, it’s rolling loose change. I’m only too happy to sacrifice a few bucks to have a machine do it in minutes.

4. “Dancin’ in the Street”, as performed by David Bowie and Mick Jagger at LiveAid (and later filmed that same night for the MTV video). It’s got a good beat, and I can dance to it.

5. Glass-walled Elevators in tall buildings. I love riding glass elevators. Every building should have a glass elevator!

6. Nathan Fillion as Captain Malcolm Reynolds. The first really cool spaceship captain since Benjamin Sisko. He had so many good lines over the short run of Firefly, and Fillion always struck just the right note.

7. Yosemite Sam’s quintessential expression of awe or dismay, “Great hornytoads!”

8. Lieutenant Horatio Caine of the Miami-Dade Crime Lab. “Alex. Who do we have here?” (said while standing akimbo and facing directly away from Alex, who is kneeling over the body).

9. That decrepit castaway-guy, played by Michael Palin, who launches each episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus with the single-word line, “It’s….”

10. “Raisuli Attacks”, from the score to The Wind and the Lion, by Jerry Goldsmith. The best short action cue I’ve ever heard (it’s about two minutes long).

11. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King. The best book on writing I’ve ever encountered.

12. The tragic love triangle of Lisen, Amairgen, and Galadan in The Fionavar Tapestry — a haunting tale that’s all the more special since, by the time the events of the book take place, two of the three members of that triangle are dead.

13. Mirna from The Amazing Race. I loved her so.

14. The six symphonies of Carl Nielsen. Fascinating works, each of them — and I haven’t heard them in too long, I’ve just realized.

15. October. The best month of the year; I live for October. Baseball reaches its post-season; the NFL season’s narrative is starting to take shape; the weather (at least in these parts) is stunning.

16. Pie, the perfect food, whether savory or sweet. Expanding the concept to include pizza. On the plate, or in the pan, or arcing through the air toward an unwitting victim, pie is perfect!

17. Presque Isle, in Erie, PA. Hey Buffalonians, if you’re looking for a perfect day trip in summer, this is an amazing place to go.

18. The “Rangefinder” game on The Price is Right. A quick, fun game that got a lot more fun when they had some hard-of-hearing old lady playing it, and she couldn’t hear the timbre of the audience’s screaming shift from exhortation to stop the rangefinder’s motion to horror at her almost-certain failure to stop it on time.

19. Ted the lawyer on Scrubs, played by Sam Lloyd. This guy has one of the most inherently funny faces on television.

20. Les Troyens, the masterpiece opera by Hector Berlioz.

21. “Until the Last Moment”, by Yanni. There, I said it: I have some appreciation for Yanni. I love his Live at the Acropolis album. I’m sorry, so very, very sorry. (No, I’m not. Deal with it.)

22. Darth Vader. Because he’s well, Darth Vader.

23. Real, home-made Whipped cream. The stuff from an aerosol can? Blecchhh!

24. Chris Farley’s security guard in Wayne’s World, the one with more information than he should have had…and Wayne, later on, noting how useful that information turned out to be: “Aren’t we lucky we were there to get that information? It seemed extraneous at the time.”

25. The Simpsons: Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel.

26. Zantor, the evil emperor from the Star Wars fanfic of my youth.

This isn’t a “tagging” kind of thing, so grab and go if you’re so inclined.

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TeflonJedi tags me with the Meme of Four. And just for fun, I’m going to morph the rules here before I send this quiz out into the wild. I’m going to add a question to the quiz, at the bottom (but just before the one in which I tag four others), with the expectation that those tagged will add their own question in addition to answering the one I add myself. Does that make sense? Basically I want to see how big we can make this quiz by passing it around!

Wow, this coffee is good this morning!

Anyway, the quiz:

Four jobs I’ve had or currently have in my life:

1. Grocery store maintenance guy.
2. Pharmaceutical sales rep with a telesales company. (Worst job ever. The workplace itself was fine, very nice people and all who really tried to make me into a decent salesperson, but I’m just not temperamentally attuned to sales. At all. I’d face an uphill battle selling freshly-slaughtered blubber at a steep discount to a village of starving Inuits.)
3. Assistant restaurant manager. (I wasn’t bad at this, but ultimately I decided that restaurant management just wasn’t my cup of tea.)
4. Technical services assistant at a college library. (This was mostly fun, albeit occasionally dull and menial. Any assignment that involved working in the Rare Books room was golden — I loved those old books.)

Four countries I have been to:

1. Canada
2. Mexico (although I’m not sure I should count it, since I was no more than three years old at the time and I have no memory at all of this trip)
3. Gondor
4. Florin

Four places I’d rather be right now:

1. Sitting on the porch of an old farmhouse somewhere in the hills of southeastern Erie County
2. Riding a hot-air balloon over the autumn hills of Western New York’s Southern Tier
3. Hiking the Scottish Highlands
4. In her arms

Four foods I like to eat:

1. White peaches, filled with the nectar of the Gods
2. Potato salad, made with lots of mustard and loaded with diced onions, chilled to just above the point of freezing and eaten at sundown on a very hot day
3. Boyer’s Peanut Butter Smoothies
4. A salad consisting of nothing other than mixed greens (but no iceberg lettuce, as that stuff is just horrible), a can of water-packed tuna, and a generous amount of Italian dressing

New Question! Four personal heroes, past or present:

1. Marv Levy
2. Adolph Herseth (former principal trumpet of the Chicago Symphony, and possibly the greatest symphonic trumpet player of all time)
3. Leonard Bernstein
4. Carl Sagan

Four people I would like to tag:

1. Lynn (Your new blog name and design aren’t official until your first tag-quiz!)
2. Belladonna (My favorite source for introspective blogging, which is why I almost always tag her with stuff like this.)
3. SamuraiFrog (Unless you’ve already done this one, since you seem to get all of these.)
4. Messrs. Tosy and Cosh (Who would probably just grab the quiz and do it anyway, even if I didn’t tag him.)

Of course, there’s nothing saying that you can’t grab the quiz and do it anyway, even if I didn’t tag you. Just remember to add a new question!

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