Oh no, not another one...

Meggie has tagged me with one of those dreaded memes. Funny, I always though she was my friend. No, I'm joking, Meggie. She also awarded me a distressingly pink, but appreciated nonetheless, prize:


So how could I not do her meme? OK, here goes Meggie.

1. Name one person who made you laugh last night?
Arnold Schwarzenegger claiming that marijuana was a leaf, not a drug.

2. What were you doing at 0800?
Sitting in bed, drinking coffee, reading the paper. I'm a student. We do that sort of thing.

3. What were you doing 30 minutes ago?
Watching the news.

4. What happened to you in 2006?
The cat died, finished Graduate Diploma of Psychology, went to New Caledonia, 25th wedding anniversary, had a nipple pierced, went to Scotland for my niece’s funeral, audited a chocolate factory.

5. What was the last thing you said out loud?
“Thank you.”

6. How many beverages did you have today?
Coffee, decaf, water, soup (does that count?), beer, more decaf.

7. What colour is your hairbrush?
Yellow. Do you have a problem with that?

8. What was the last thing you paid for?
Coffee – tall latte.

9.Where were you last night?
Home.

10. What colour is your front door?
Brunswick green with stained glass inserts.

11. Where do you keep your change?
I drop it in local playgrounds to give the children a cheap thrill.

12. What’s the weather like today?
Sunny, mild, windy.

13. What’s the best ice-cream flavour?
Vanilla.

14. What excites you?
What sort of excitement? Are you talking about getting me agitated? Then it would include lying politicians (tautology?), climate change deniers, slick salesmen and door-to-door purveyors of fine religion. Are you talking about jumping up and down cheering? Nothing really. Are you talking excited, as in aroused? The feel of skin on skin.

15. Do you want to cut your hair?
No. Had a haircut on Tuesday. Actually, I had them all cut on Tuesday.

16. Are you over the age of 25?
Years?

17. Do you talk a lot?
Enough.

18. Do you watch the O.C.?
I have no idea what the O.C. is.

19. Do you know anyone named Steven?
Yes. A few.

20. Do you make up your own words?
Squurrox.

21. Are you a jealous person?
I don’t think so. A little envious, at times.

22. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘A’.
Alan. I also know an Aïda.

23. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘K’.
Kaye.

24. Who’s the first person on your received call list?
Beats me. What’s a received call list? (Who's writing this list?)

25. What does the last text message you received say?
“Excellent. I’ll see if she’s free. A plus tard!”

26. Do you chew on your straw?
No. Don’t use straws.

7. Do you have curly hair?
Some.

28. Where’s the next place you’re going to?
I assume you don’t mean bed or the shops. Thailand.

29. Who’s the rudest person in your life?
The Liberal Party, en masse. No, sorry, the Liberal Party, excluding Petro Georgio.

30. What was the last thing you ate?
Hot corned beef and mustard sandwich. With a beer.

31. Will you get married in the future?
No plans to.

32. What’s the best movie you’ve seen in the past 2 weeks?
The best because it is also the only one. “Sleeping with the Enemy”. DVD. My wife was doing a family violence assignment.

33. Is there anyone you like right now?
Yes. (Shhhh!)

34. When was the last time you did the dishes?
Yeah…whatever.

35. Are you currently depressed?
No.

36. Did you cry today?
No.

37. Why did you answer and post this?
I’m starting to wonder that myself. Is there anyone still awake out there?

38. Tag 5 people who would do this survey…
No.

OK Meggie, that's the best I can do.
...

Too much information.

I have been tagged by Bee. Or should it be stung?

It is a fancy sort of tag, a Swiss Army knife affair with questions for almost all occasions.

The first one is based on my middle name. Using each letter of my middle name, I have to find a word that describes me.

I don’t have a middle name. What does that say about me? Indescribable, presumably.

The next one is a series of questions.

1. If you could have superpowers, what would they be? There is no obligation to be unselfish, save the world etc.

Well, I think I would like to be able to understand how people think. Not read their minds, but to understand what drives them. That's the psychologist in me.

If not that, the ability to turn water into wine so I could be both useful and entertaining at dinner parties.

2. Stranded on a desert island with a CD player and 10 CDs, what would they be?

Oh, bloody hell! This will be telling.

1. Mozart’s Horn Concertos
2. Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto
3. Beethoven’s 9th Symphony
4. Carmen with Maria Callas.
5. Gregorian Chants (Monks of Silos, Spain).
6. A Night Wasted with Tom Lehrer.
7. Cat Stevens
8. Edith Piaf
9. Cabaret with Liza Minnelli
10. The Red Dwarf theme.

3. If you were a smell, what would you be?
Fresh basil.

4. If you were a bird, what kind would you like to be?
Eagle.

5. If you were a bird, whose head would you poo on?
No-one. I am a civilised bird.

6. Are there any foods your body craves?
A good steak. Crisp chips. (NOT fries.) A cold beer on a hot day.

7. Favourite time of year?

Summer because it is warm.
Autumn for the colours.
Winter for the bulbs and sparse beauty.
Spring for the lovely blossoms and acid green new growth.

8. Favourite time of day?
Mornings, after a warm, balmy night.

9. If a change is as good as a rest, which would you choose?

Change. There will be plenty of time to rest, soon enough.

10. If you could invite five people living or dead, past or present to a dinner party, who would they be?

My immediate five male ancestors. And their wives. Love to hear them comparing their lives.

◊◊◊

Now, the rules of this game is that I have to pass this on to four other people. I’m a rebel. I do these things but I have never tagged. What does that say about me?

Send your answer on the back of a stamped, addressed envelope to anyone but me.
…

A selection.

Hann tagged me with the following list of questions:

1. Where is your cell phone? On my desk. Somewhere.
2. Relationship? Married.
3. Your hair? All the wrong spots.
4. Work? Two years ago.
5. Your sister? Never had one.
6. Your favorite thing? Pick one...um...gardens.
7. Your dream last night? Don’t remember.
8. Your favorite drink? Depends on the time of day. Now? Coffee.
9. Your dream car? None.
10. The room you’re in? Study.
11. Your shoes? Size 13.
12. Your fears? Folk dancing.
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? Healthy.
14. Who did you hang out with this weekend? Family, Toastmasters, Lifeline telephone volunteers.
15. What are you not good at? Too numerous to list. Folk dancing, certainly.
16. Muffin? Warm, moist and spicey.
17. Wish list item? Struggling to think of something.
18. Where you grew up? Melbourne, Australia.
19. The last thing you did? Breakfast (Herb scone & cheese)
20. What are you wearing? Jeans, shirt, jumper, woolly socks, jocks, t-shirt, watch, ring.
21. What are you not wearing? Kilt, skis, tutu, latex jumpsuit.
22. Your pet? None but feed the birds.
23. Your computer? iMac.
24. Your life? Lucky.
25. Your mood? Contented
26. Missing? Very little
27. What are you thinking about? Repotting a fern
28. Your car? Toyota Echo.
29. Your kitchen? Lovely.
30. Your summer? Distant
31. Your favorite color? Blue.
32. Last time you laughed? Today
33. Last time you cried? Tuesday, at the movies.
34. School? Ongoing
35. Love? Yes.

...

Pieces of eight.

Meggie, in a comment to one of my posts, said that she should have included me in the ‘8 random’ meme but that I could volunteer if I wished.

Why not?

But how do you decide on eight random things to tell people about yourself? It is hard not to be selective. So I wrote out eight lots of eight things in the following categories and let Excel’s random number generator choose eight from those eight eights. Pieces of eight.

Eight books I have still to read
Eight foods I love
Eight physical things
Eight things I do each day
Eight things I've done but don't want to do again
Eight things that are on my desk in front of me
Eight things that give me the irrits
Eight unusual or memorable things

And the eight (very) random things about me are:

1. Salesmen who keep calling me “Mr Kennedy” give me the irrits. You just know that they are reading off a script, Mr Kennedy, and do you know what, Mr Kennedy? I start counting how often they use my name. So, Mr Kennedy, why do sales people persist with this myth that people like you more if you use their name a lot? Once or twice I can understand, Mr Kennedy, but enough is enough. Don’t you agree, Mr Kennedy?

2. Hug my wife is a daily ‘must do’ and pleasure.

3. People who go to war also give me the irrits. Not to be confused with people who are forced to war by others attacking them. And also not to be confused with the soldiers that are sent to war, and bravely go where idiot politicians send them.

4. Vanilla ice-cream is a favourite food. Eaten slowly, with a small spoon.

5. I worked at a plastics factory in Libya for 18 mths. Never made any plastic while I was there. Learnt to make my own beer.

6. Bit the bullet and changed career from chemistry to psychology when 51. Still studying psychology.

7. As a young boy I used to make rockets. Exploits were curtailed when the neighbours asked my father if he was doing blasting in his back yard. Seldom found the rockets again but, as we lived in the country, they were landing safely somewhere out in a sheep paddock. One did take off horizontally into a dog kennel, much to the alarm of a resident bulldog at the time.

8. One of my jobs had me climbing on factory roofs testing stack gases, the gases going up their chimneys. A pretty precarious past-time at times. One factory, a sand-paper factory, draped a large roll of sandpaper over their building so that I had a non-slip surface for climbing up the roof.

That’s it.

Now, being as I wasn’t really tagged, I don’t feel obligated to tag anyone else.

…