Tag: Quiz-Things

I got this quiz from Ken Levine, oddly enough!

• A-Available/Single?

Let me hear your offer first! (OK, I’m taken. Yeesh!)

• B-Best Friend?

Probably The Wife. (Crap — I screwed that up with “probably”.)

• C-Cake or Pie?

Either, really. I don’t see the point of the cake/pie divide. Carrot cake, apple pie — how could I choose? Of course, this answer assumes choosing between the two for eating purposes. I’d definitely choose a pie over a cake to take in my face…but then, come to think of it, I’ve never been hit in the face with a cake, so I don’t have a fair comparison to make. Hmmmmm.

• D-Drink Of Choice?

I don’t have a drink of choice. I’ll drink coffee or tea, Pepsi or Coke, rum or whiskey, wine or beer. I go with what I’m in the mood for. (The vast majority of what I drink, anyway, is good old water!)

• E-Essential Item You Use Everyday?

My 11-in-1 screwdriver. (I have a number of answers for this, actually: my diagonal pliers, my flashlights, my cell phone, and more….)

• F-Favorite Color?

Purple.

• G-Gummy Bears Or Worms?

Ick. Not a fan of the Gummi stuff. I don’t like the sensation that my jaw is literally bouncing off the item I’m trying to chew.

• H-Hometown?

Buffalo!!!

• I-Indulgence?

Ice cream.

J-January Or February?

January. I like when the year is new, and the football playoffs are in full swing.

• K-Kids & Their Names?

Haley.

• L-Life Is Incomplete Without?

Love, laughter, et cetera.

• M-Marriage Date?

May 17. (In 1997.)

• N-Number Of Siblings?

One.

• O-Oranges Or Apples?

I love both, I really do! I probably tend more to apples because they’re less work and they go great with peanut butter.

• P-Phobias/Fears?

You want to see me flinch like nobody’s ever flinched before? Get a rubber band and make like you’re going to shoot it at me. Seriously. For some reason, that irrationally scares the shit out of me.

• Q-Favorite Quote?

I can’t name a favorite quote, so here’s a quote: “The fate of this man or that man was less than a drop, although it was a sparkling one, in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea.” (TH White, The Once and Future King)

• R-Reason to Smile?

Any time David Caruso opens his mouth on CSI: Miami.

• S-Season?

Fall.

• T-Tag Three or Four People?

OK, they’re tagged. They just don’t know it.

• U-Unknown Fact About Me?

My favorite Friend was Chandler Bing.

• V-Vegetable you don’t like?

Well, broccoli isn’t technically a vegetable; it’s pure evil in plant form. That leaves artichoke.

• W-Worst Habit?

Not writing enough.

• X-X-rays You’ve Had?

Aside from the normal ones, I had x-rays when I broke my collarbone in seventh grade.

• Y-Your Favorite Food?

Pizza. Or wings. Or kung pao chicken. Or a nice salad. Or a taco. Or a big burger. Or…you know.

• Z-Zodiac Sign?

Libra!

Well, that was a time-waster….

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Stolen from SamuraiFrog:

If I were a month, I’d be October.
If I were a day of the week, I’d be Thursday.
If I were a time of day, I’d be late “prime time” — late enough to feel energized by the night, but not so late that the bed’s siren call is summoning me home.
If I were a planet, I’d be Mars.
If I were a sea animal, I’d be an orca.
If I were a direction, I’d be north by northwest.
If I were a piece of furniture, I’d be a well-worn chair surrounded by bookshelves.
If I were a liquid, I’d be the water in a mountain stream.
If I were a gemstone, I’d be sapphire.
If I were a tree, I’d be a maple.
If I were a tool, I’d be a Japanese-style handsaw that cuts on the pull-stroke.
If I were a flower, I’d be a rose of any color.
If I were a kind of weather, I would be the cool, crisp air of October that makes everything seem brighter.
If I were a musical instrument, I’d be the entire orchestra. (A conductor is a musician whose instrument is the orchestra.)
If I were a color, I’d be red on the days that I’m not blue or purple or green or yellow or orange.
If I were an emotion, I’d be melancholy laughter.
If I were a fruit, I’d be a white peach.
If I were a sound, I’d be a purring cat. (Or a lightsaber igniting.)
If I were an element, I’d be one of the noble gases. Stable and reliable.
If I were a car, I’d be a Subaru Outback.
If I were a food, I’d be a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza.
If I were a place, I’d be the Serenity.
If I were a material, I’d be nicely-worn blue denim.
If I were a taste, I’d be cinnamon.
If I were a scent, I’d be the scent of baking pizza.
If I were an object, I’d be a drinking vessel of some sort.
If I were a body part, I’d be the eye. (Seriously, I have no idea how to answer this.)
If I were a facial expression, it would be laughing.
If I were a song, I’d be “People Get Ready”.
If I were a pair of shoes, I would be a pair of Birkenstocks.

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Last week it was “The Ninja Meme, part 1”. This week it’s…guess what!

26. Whose responses to Stealing do you want to read the most?

Aside from Roger, I don’t know of anyone else who does these regularly. SamuraiFrog does them occasionally…probably the same way I do, checking to see if the questions are interesting and acting accordingly. I probably should peruse the links at the end of each S.S. quiz, though.

27. What color shirt are you wearing?

It’s a light gray sweater with bits of colored yarn (blue, brown) scattered throughout.

28. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets?

I’m not sure I’ve ever slept on satin sheets. I suppose it would be OK.

29. Can you whistle?

Yes, but not terribly well. I can produce tones by whistling, but I’ve never developed my whistling skills sufficiently to producing actual music. This is probably because I find whistling generally irritating. (Except for a cat my parents once owned, a beautiful Himalayan named Tribbles, who would come when my father whistled “The Impossible Dream”. And only “The Impossible Dream”.)

30. Favorite colors(s)?

Purple! And then red, blue, yellow, green…I really tend to like all colors, with the main exception of brown, which doesn’t really do anything for me.

31. Could you be a pirate?

Sure, I guess. But probably not a very good one. I’d be like this one pirate in a scene from The Simpsons, when the pirates are all burying their treasure; I’d say, “Hey, Cap’n! Suppose instead of burying the treasure, we used it to by things! Things we like!” And on the show, the guy who says that gets shot by the Cap’n. But yeah, I’d be that guy.

32. What songs do you sing in the shower?

I don’t sing in the shower, really. Maybe once in a while. When I do it’s probably a show tune of some sort.

33. Favorite girls name?

The Daughter’s.

34. Favorite boy’s name?

Quinn. Also Anakin.

35. What’s in your pocket right now?

Nothing. I don’t carry a lot of stuff around in my pockets.

36. Last thing that made you laugh?

Well, when we got in the car to come home from church earlier, we had the radio tuned to a station that’s doing all-Christmas, all the time. The song that was on when I turned the key was “Frosty the Snowman”, sung by Willie Nelson. I had no idea he did “Frosty”. I laughed with delight, because Willie Nelson rules.

37. Best bed sheets as a child?

I had a set of Star Wars blankets and whatnot at one point. I don’t recall if there were sheets. I do recall the blanket.

38. Worst injury you’ve ever had?

I sustained a broken collarbone when a local bully pushed me off my bike. That dude is high on my “fantasy revenge list”.

39. Do you love where you live?

Absolutely. I just wish the governance around here wasn’t so messed up.

40. How many TVs do you have in your house? How many HDTVs?

Just one, in the living room. For bedroom viewing, we use my laptop for watching movies or downloaded programs.

41. Who is your loudest friend?

No idea at all.

42. How many dogs do you have?

Zero. Our current living situation is not conducive to dog ownership.

43. Does anyone have a crush on you?

I have no idea. I rather doubt it, though.

44. What are the most fun things you ever did?

Whale-watching with The Wife; roller coasters and the Giant Wheel at Cedar Point with The Wife; Disney World with The Wife; road-trips to Ithaca and Pittsburgh and Toronto with The Wife; cooking with The Wife; getting pied by The Wife; Christmas shopping with The Wife; seeing Star Wars movies with The Wife. Sense a theme here?

45. What are your favorite books?

I’m not listing ’em here, since books are a major subject of this blog.

47. Favorite Team?

The Buffalo Bills and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Because I like teams with long, rich traditions of winning…that were followed by long, poor traditions of losing.

48. What songs do you want played at your funeral?

“Into the West” by Howard Shore, sung by Annie Lennox. And “People Get Ready” by Curtis Mayfield. And “Last Dance” by Donna Summer. (I guess. I’ve never really thought about this before.)

49. What were you doing at 12 AM?

I was probably dropping off to sleep.

50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up?

“Stop pawing at my hand, you idiot!” Our cat Lester likes to drape himself across the back of The Wife’s pillow and wait to be petted in the morning. But when he decides he’s waited long enough, he’ll start pawing around, looking for a hand. Often-times he finds mine.

OK, that’s it. Huzzah!!!

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This week it’s called The Ninja Meme, part 1.

1. What do you add to your coffee?

Raw sugar. Occasionally, if I’m in the mood, I’ll add milk or half-n-half. Very rarely I’ll use a flavored creamer, but 95 percent of the time, I just add sugar. I subscribe to the old Turkish proverb: “Coffee should be strong as hell, black as death, and sweet as love.”

2. What are you reading now?

Cordelia’s Honor, by Lois McMaster Bujold, in an attempt to get into the Miles Vorkosigan series. I read this before some years ago and found it nice and entertaining but not particularly compelling. This time, however, I’m finding myself a lot more involved in the story. I’ll report more when I finish it.

I’m between nonfiction books at the moment.

3. Do you own a gun?

No, nor do I have any intention to. I have no problem with gun ownership and I have little taste for eroding the 2nd amendment, but on a personal level, guns give me the serious willies.

4. Are you registered to vote?

Yes. I’m a registered Democrat. This year, in fact, marked the tenth anniversary of the last time I cast a ballot for a Republican (former Congressman Amory Houghton). The only election I’ve skipped was 2002, when we had moved to Syracuse just a month prior to voting. I had no idea who the local candidates were or what the local issues amounted to in that time frame, so I abstained.

5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments?

Sometimes, but not terribly so. My current doctor is super nice.

6. What do you think of hot dogs?

Love ’em. In fact, I rank hot dogs high among my favorite foods. (They have to be grilled, or at least pan-seared so they have some texture. Steamed or boiled dogs do nothing for me. I do make exception to this rule for sidewalk hot dog stands, though.)

7. Favorite Christmas Song?

“Little Drummer Boy”. My favorite version? Bing Crosby and David Bowie.

Honorable mentions to “Angels We Have Heard On High”, “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”, and “Silent Night”. For more modern Christmas songs, I’m partial to “Happy Christmas (War is Over)”, “Same Old Lang Syne”, and “River”.

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?

OJ and water. I tend to have coffee a bit later on in the morning; I don’t get right up to coffee.

9. Can you do push ups?

A few, but not enough. (Note to self: start going to the gym again.)

10. What was the name of your first boyfriend/girlfriend?

Errr…well, it depends. First date? Tammy. First girl with whom I had a “thing”? Chris.

11. What’s your favorite piece of jewelery?

My wedding ring. Close second: the star sapphire The Girlfriend (later The Wife) got me the Christmas before our wedding.

12. Favorite hobby?

Reading, writing, blogging, walking, listening to music, ogling power tools, using power tools, waxing poetic about bib overalls.

13. Do you work with people who idolize you?

I have no idea if any of them “idolize” me. If they do, I hope they stop; I’m more than aware of my massive imperfections! I like the fact that I’m generally liked, though.

14. Do you have ADD?

Not to my knowledge.

15. What’s one trait that you hate about yourself?

My tendency to fly off the handle, sometimes.

16. What’s your Middle name?

None: I just have an initial, ‘C’. I should get the story someday as to why that’s the case.

17. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment.

“Hey, why don’t I have a middle name, anyway?”

“Wow, is my butt comfy!” (I just bought a new cushion for my desk chair and I’m trying it out now. Huzzah!)

“Goodness, there’s a lot of chicken in our fridge.” (We have leftover KFC and a leftover rotisserie bird in there right now.)

18. Name 3 things you bought yesterday.

Yesterday? Geez…coffee, a bagel, and a half a sub sandwich for lunch.

19. Name 3 beverages you regularly drink.

Water, orange juice, coffee.

20. Current worry right now?

Wow, I wish the Christmas season had an extra week or two in it. There’s a lot I wish I had time to do!

21. What side do you dress to?

I don’t know what this means. Thinking about it, I suppose I put my left leg in pants first…I guess…hmmmm. With overalls, I always fasten the right shoulder strap to the bib first. (By the way, that 90s trend of wearing one strap unfastened was pretty goofy.)

22. Favorite place to be?

Wherever The Wife is. (Awwwww!)

23. How did you bring in the New Year?

Like this.

24. Where would you like to go?

The Smithsonian.

25. Name three people who will see today.

I think there’s something mis-worded here! Three people who will see today? Or three people whom I will see today? The latter seems funnier, so: three people who will see today are actor Howard Hesseman, British singer Seal, and the guy who plays Eric Delko on CSI: Miami.

Hooray!

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Somewhat along the lines of Sunday Stealing, Wednesday Wickedness offers quiz-things, but with a twist: the W.W. quiz questions are inspired by quotes from famed personages. I haven’t done one yet, but I’m going to start now, with Groucho Marx:

1. ‘A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.”
What is a superstition that many have that you think is crazy?

Just about all superstitions are crazy, aren’t they? I can’t think of one that isn’t. I myself am not very superstitious, except for always saying “Bless you!” when people sneeze.

I suppose I could get political and say that the notion that cutting taxes will raise revenue strikes me as a deeply crazy superstition, or I could call Creationism or climate change denialism “superstitions”, but those seem more errors than superstitions to me.

2. “A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.”
What were you in the hospital for the last time that you were admitted?

I have, to date, never been admitted to a hospital. I’m sure that lucky streak is bound to end someday, but for now, everything I’ve ever done has been in a doctor office visit.

3. “Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.”
What payment do you make that seems ridiculous?

None of my current payments seem ridiculous to me.

4. “Humor is reason gone mad.”
How would you describe your sense of humor?

I guess I’m all over the map, huh? I’m a guy who loves intricate wordplay, complex puns, the types of zany comedic situations that fill the Monty Python movies; I love geeky humor like what you’ll find in The Big Bang Theory, and I got a huge kick out of the raunchy humor of The Hangover. I like oddball, off-kilter humor like O Brother, Where Art Thou?, observational oddity humor like Seinfeld, meta-weirdness like The Far Side and Pearls Before Swine.

Oddly, slapstick humor doesn’t tend to do a whole lot for me, aside from pies in the face (which are more of a participatory thing for me anyway), unless it’s worked into one of the above categories for more comic effect. I don’t care for the Three Stooges, for instance, but there were some inspired slapsticky things that happened on Frasier.

5. “I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.”
Who was the last person that you wanted to beat with something or other?

I don’t really ever genuinely want to beat anyone with anything. But I do use the beating metaphor on occasion. One of my coworkers and I like to joke about how we’re going to snap one day and run around The Store, beating people on the head with stale French baguettes. Another friend and I like to quote James Earl Jones from Field of Dreams: “I’m gonna beat you with a crowbar, until you go away!”

6. “I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.”
Would you ever like to change something about your face?

Aside from having The Wife hit it with a pie once in a while, I’m generally fine with my face. It’s got me this far in life. (Maybe a slightly bigger chin…but nothing else!)

7. “I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.”
I read an article recently that asked if marriage was still relevant. Other than to raise children do you see the point?

I don’t know about this. I’m not sure that the government should be involved in marriage at all, anymore. But as long as it is, then I think it’s relevant — as a legal matter, marriage is, I suppose, society’s recognition of the commitment of two people to one another. And I do think that to some extent, marriage still implies and helps to create a stability of a relationship. But this may change. I’m not sure how much longer people will be getting “married” in the traditional sense.

8. “If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again.”
Do you find that you tend to repeat your stories?

Yes, I do, and sometimes it gets annoying when (a) I realize I’m doing it, and (b) other people point out that I’m doing it.

9. “There’s one way to find out if a man is honest – ask him. If he says, “Yes,” you know he is a crook.”
Do you find most people that are in your life to be honest?

I find that most people believe that they are honest. Whether or not they actually are can be open to some interpretation. I don’t think that anyone is 100 percent honest, but I don’t think that there are all that many people for whom lying is as easy as drawing breath.

10. “Wives are people who feel they don’t dance enough.”
Have you ever felt that your significant other did not go out with enough?

Occasionally, yes. But I know she has thought that about me at times, too. We both seem to easily fall into ruts of familiarity and then not realize we’re in the ruts for a bit longer than it should be healthy.

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I’ve missed a few of these, so here’s a new Sunday Stealing quiz.

1. If you could interview anyone on your blog (alive or dead) who would you chose and why?

This is a common question, so I’ll try to give an answer I haven’t given before. Leonard Bernstein.

2. What do you feel is your strength as a blogger?

An almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.

OK, that’s actually one of the secret weapons of the Spanish Inquisition. I like to think I can string words together in a way that expresses the jumble in my head in a way that doesn’t suck.

3. Can you share a little bit about yourself that you have not already mentioned on your blog?

You know, once you’ve been doing this almost nine years, it’s hard to find anything like this that I’m still comfortable mentioning here! I suppose that the pies in my face in the post two down from this one might qualify, but it’s there, so…if I haven’t mentioned it yet, I’m not likely to!

4. If you were forced to change the name of your blog, what would you change it to? Why?

Opinionation in Overalls. Or Blatherous Babble in Bibs. Or Droning in Dungarees.

5. What do you think is the most fulfilling part of being a blogger?

I love the writing, and when I write a post that I particularly like, I dig the feeling of satisfaction I get as I click “send”. But the nature of blogging is the interaction, really. I like it when I get good, thought-provoking comments or links back from other peoples’ blogs.

6. What would you do with your last day if you found you had only one more day to live?

Find a bakery and start the biggest pie fight I could.

7. You’ve been doing medical research for decades and have finally found a cure. What was it that you found a cure for and why did you choose this particular ailment?

Oh, man…that’s a tough one. Cerebral palsy, which took my son? Or pancreatic cancer, which took my mother-in-law? or could I widen my scope out far enough to eliminate all cancers?

8. What is your most guilty pleasure?

I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. I freely and openly admit to liking all of the things I like.

9. Answer only one. What is your favorite book, movie or TV show?

OK, fine, I’ll play by the rules, despite my instinct to cheat on questions like this.

Book: The Lord of the Rings
Movie: Star Wars: A New Hope
Teevee Show: Firefly

10. What do you think is the very best smell in the world? The one smell that can take you back to a time and place of a very vivid memory in your past?”

OK, I didn’t cheat on the last one, so I’m cheating here.

Pizza baking. I love the smell of a cooking pizza, and it invariably reminds me of the good times I had working at Pizza Hut. Now, there were some bad times there too, and in no way would I ever want to go back to that part of my life, but I do fondly recall some of those times.

Roasting turkey. This reminds me of holidays in my home as a kid.

And then there’s that “city smell”. If you’ve ever walked down a busy street in a vibrant city with lots of restaurants and cafes and whatnot, you know that smell. It’s a thousand different food smells and urban smells and other smells wrangling together. Whenever I smell it, no matter what city I’m in, I’m whisked away to the first time I recall really noticing that smell, when I was walking along Yonge Street in Toronto with my sister one winter.

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I haven’t done a Sunday Stealing quiz in a while, so here’s this week’s edition.

1. What do you consider your hometown to be?

If I’m talking to people around here, I’ll say Orchard Park. In a more general sense, I just say “Buffalo”, because I consider the whole region to be the “Buffalo” region. I’m a big fan of regionalism, actually; I think a lot of Buffalo’s problems could be helped along, if not solved, by allowing the city to annex suburbs. Unfortunately, that apparently can’t happen in New York the way the laws are right now.

If by “hometown” we mean the place I was born, then it’s Pittsburgh, PA. But we moved from there when I was only two or three, and while I have always had strong emotional ties and a deep love for that city, it’s not my home anymore.

2. What’s the hardest part of your average day?

Mid-afternoon, usually. That’s when my attention and motivation levels sag a bit as I start to make the mental transition to evening.

3. The easiest? Why?

Morning and evening. Those are when I’m the most fired up.

4. What beverage do you reach for to quench your thirst?

If I’m thirsty, then it’s water. I’ve cut quite a bit down on drinking pop and alcohol over the last few years, and I indulge in those when I’m specifically in the mood for one of those, not for when I generically need to wet the proverbial whistle.

5. What is one not-so-secret goal you have for your life? I’ll let you keep your secret ones to yourself.

To write something that makes someone else say, “Hey, I’ll pay you a nice sum of money to let me publish that.” (I’m somewhat flexible on what qualifies as a ‘nice’ sum of money.)

6. What physical pain do you fear most? For example, I’m trying to decide how bad my jaw pain needs to get before I risk a potential needle from my dentist. So, for me, throbbing is preferable to jabbing.

Probably sharp chest pains, I suppose. Never had any, but I’m not wild about the notion.

7. Where do you find solace?

Home. That’s what home is for.

8. What makes you the saddest when you read/see the news?

Children dying. Of anything.

9. What do you eat for a favorite snack?

Heavens, I like to snack. I need to cut it down, really — but there are tons of things I like to snack upon. Cheese and crackers. Apples and peanut butter. Apples and cheddar cheese. And, of course, too many kinds of crunchy-and-salty things that come in bags at the store.

10. What movie could you/would you watch more than two or three times and still enjoy just as much as the first time?

Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Casablanca, My Fair Lady…pretty much any movie on my Top 100 list.

11. What boy/girl first made you cry?

Not really sure. It was probably this girl I had a wicked bad crush on when I was a sophomore in high school. Her name was Deanna. She was nice and friendly to me, and then…she wasn’t. Ouch! I wonder what ever happened to her….

12. What brand of coffee/tea do you drink most often?

8 O’Clock coffee, mostly, although I also buy some nice flavors in The Store’s brand. For tea, I’m all over the place. I love Rishi Tea’s Green Mint — absolutely adore the stuff. It’s wonderful.

13. Dig in the dirt with or without garden gloves?

Depends. If I’m just repotting a single plant or two, then no gloves. If I’m doing quite a bit of work in the dirt, then I put gloves on. Since we live in an apartment, this isn’t much of an issue — more often I have to do this kind of thing at work.

14. James Taylor or Carly Simon?

What an odd dichotomy! I think I like more Carly Simon songs than I do James Taylor songs, so I give the nod to her. I guess. Hmmmmm. (Plus I just like the name “Carly”.)

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