MOUTHOLOGY
Q: What is your salad dressing of choice?
A: No favorites. I like most of them, although I'm not much of a salad eater. The best salad I ever made (and the first one I ever liked) was when I put almost everything on my lettuce that was on the salad bar (I mean all the stuff that is meant to go on lettuce, that is), including several different dressings. I blame my experimentation that night on the hard construction work I had just completed (I was starved) and the two or three strong beers I had just drank. I've never been able to duplicate that perfect salad since then, even though I have tried many times.
Q: What is your favorite fast food restaurant?
A: I don't have a particular favorite anymore (used to be Burger King and Arby's). Most of them (even the pathetic McDonald's) tend to hit the right spot at one time or another. But then on some days I regret having eaten fast food as soon as I'm finished. Oh, for the record, I can definitely say that I don't like KFC and Long John Silver's (especially the latter).
Q: What is your favorite sit down restaurant?
A: By that, I assume the surveyor means "relatively formal." I've been to very few formal restaurants in my life (not counting the relatively high-class one in which I worked for 18 months as a bartender/waiter), so my opinion is probably not the best informed. I ate at an Olive Garden in 1999 for the first time, and I was in awe of my seafood pasta plate, so much so that I dreamed all year long of going back again, and I did (when our school group went back to another technology conference). But Olive Garden is not a realistic option for me. There are only three of them in Nebraska, and all of them are at the opposite end of the state (the location of those conferences). Another one is in Rapid City, SD, four hours north. The closest two, according to Switchboard.com and Google Maps, are in two different towns in Colorado, both of which, coincidentally, are EXACTLY 149 miles away.
Q: On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant?
A: It varies, depending on the quality and friendliness of the service. Having once been a bartender/waiter myself who went to great lengths to be fast, courteous and sincerely friendly (in a restaurant that, I am proud to say, excelled at that sort of thing), I know first hand what I might reasonably expect of the people who wait on me. People shouldn't get tipped simply because they are wearing a waiter's or waitress's uniform. I don't care how little actual salary they make. They have to earn those tips. That's what tips were originally supposed to be all about.
Q: What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of?
A: French fries.
Q: What are your pizza toppings of choice?
A: I like all of them, except green peppers, which once gave me terrible indigestion for two days straight. They don't do that anymore, but I will never be able to forget the awful aftertaste I had for those two days.
Q: What do you like to put on your toast?
A: Butter, jelly, peanut butter, honey.
TECHNOLOGY
Q: What is your wallpaper on your computer?
A: Right now it is the default OS X Tiger background (various shades of blue with a few subtle curving lines). Until last week, it was plain blue. I used to love to set photos as my desktop pictures, but two or three years ago I decided that seeing the same pictures day after day diminished my feelings for them. I also don't like cluttered patterns or photos that have many contrasting parts because that tends to make reading icon titles difficult. They may also be subtly distracting when working with photos in Photoshop.
Q: How many televisions are in your house?
A: No fair. More than two, but only because they became mine by default, not because I wanted them. Except for a few Turner Classic Movies and repeats of "Everybody Loves Raymond," "Andy Griffith," "The Simpsons," "Stargate SG-1" and the most outstanding new series in over a decade, Pushing Daisies, I hardly watch TV anymore. [P.S. It's ironic that the writer's strike occurred at the same time that my favorite new show in over a decade premiered. -- P.P.S. If you haven't seen Pushing Daisies, you will be lost if you tune in now (assuming it comes back on this season). You need to watch all the episodes from the beginning, in order. However, that link above is still well worth a look.]
BIOLOGY
Q: Are you right-handed or left-handed?
A: I'm Left-handed, but I am also fairly ambidextrous because I broke my left arm in 6th and 8th grades and an important bone in my left hand when I was a college sophomore. The latter required me to wear a cast for about three months, believe it or not.
Q: Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
A: Yes.
Q: When was the last time you had a cavity?
A: My teeth are mostly healthy; nonetheless, for all I know, I probably have one or two cavities.
Q: What is the last heavy item you lifted?
A: A full-fledged, heavy living-room chair. I lifted it up onto a storage bench in the garage that is as high as my chest. It was the only practical place to store it so that it would be out of the way (aside from the city dump) while waiting for a family member to come and get it (which probably won't happen).
Q: Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
A: No, but in junior high school I made myself pass out on purpose by holding my breath in a certain way. My cousins taught me how to do it, and, regrettably, I was successful. That was a very stupid game. Not only did it make me lose part of my most recent memories when I woke up, but it also made me nauseous.
BULLCRAPOLOGY
Q: If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
A: No way (although it would provide the necessary incentive to get ones affairs in order and to make sure some very spoiled cats wouldn't end up with the wrong people).
Q: If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
A: This is an alien concept to me. I cannot imagine having such a desire. I am, however, grateful to my parents for some of the names that they didn't name me.
Q: What color do you think looks best on you?
A: Possibly blue, since I have inadvertently accumulated tons of clothing that contains blue; but I honestly don't know the answer to that question for sure. That's an objective question, not a subjective one, at least as far as I'm concerned
Q: Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake?
A: Probably, but I guess I didn't consider such an event worthy of storage in my long-term memory, because I don't remember. This is all that comes to mind: I think I accidentally swallowed a loose tooth while eating when I was a kid, and I know I swallowed part of another tooth (an already weak tooth) when I was in my 30s because it broke while I was eating either some corn nuts or ice.
Q: Have you ever saved someone’s life?
A: I honestly don't remember for sure because I tend to forget scary memories on purpose. Some distant memory of such an event seems to be way back in there somewhere, but I may just be imagining it.
Q: Has someone ever saved yours?
A: I would have to say yes, but not in a dramatic way. A doctor simply stopped a minor thing from becoming a major thing.
DAREOLOGY
Q: Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
A: Nope. I'm not "enlightened" enough to do that. But more power to anyone else who chooses to do it.
Q: Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
A: No, I'm not that desperate. My dad accidentally cut off about a quarter inch of his little finger in shop class when he was in high school, and I seriously doubt he would ever have repeated the procedure for money if someone had asked him.
Q: Would you never blog again for $50,000?
A: Hey, I would even cancel my internet account for $50,000.
Q: Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
A: You should have asked me that when I was in my 20s or early 30s. I almost certainly would have said no, but at least I would have been more open to considering it than I am now. Personally, I don't have a high regard for the artistic or aesthetic qualities of the male body (to put it mildly), not even my own when it was in peak condition.
Q: Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
A: Yes, since there is no stipulation on how quickly one has to drink it.
Q: Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
A: Not in 1,000,000 years (to the power of 20,000).
DUMBOLOGY
Q: What is in your left pocket?
A: There is nothing in either of my front pockets because I hate having things in them, especially keys and change. When I worked at the school, I had a master key because I needed to get into every room in the building to work on computers. I had to carry it everywhere with me. Most people seem to put their work keys on their keychain with their home keys. Not me. I didn't even put it on a key ring all by itself. I just kept it all by itself in one of my front pockets, just like Barney Fife keeps a single bullet in his shirt pocket. ;-) I kept my car and house keys in a drawer at work during warm weather and in my coat pocket during cold weather.
Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
A: A qualified, yet resounding, yes. This movie is really impossible to categorize. I came very close to hating it at times while I was watching it, yet I was so intrigued that I couldn't quit watching. It is nothing like I had expected when I had first learned about it. It is completely real and accurate in so many ways, yet so weird and unfairly insulting in others (especially of people who enjoy fantasizing about time travel ;-). Nonetheless, the insults, depending the recipient, are so right on target that you cannot help but laugh (even though you fear that you may be unfairly laughing -- just a teeny little bit -- at yourself). In a couple of places, I laughed a good old-fashioned hysterical laugh, the sort of laugh that continues for hours and days afterward, every time I remembered what it was that had first caused me to laugh. So, to sum up: I came close to hating the movie while I was watching it, in spite of how often and how hard I laughed. It was only in hindsight that I truly started to appreciate it. On the rare occasions that a short clip of the movie has been played on some TV program, I couldn't help but smile a smile of affection at A.) the characters, B.) the verisimilitude of the plot and C.) the memory of how hard I had laughed while watching it -- in spite of myself.
Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
A: Carpet.
Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
A: Unless you are a 7-foot-tall basketball player, what on earth would be the point of sitting in a shower? To me, that would be a hindrance, not a benefit, especially with the water hitting you right in the face. As for most infirm senior citizens, don't they usually take baths? Besides, I have an aging, bare-bones metal shower stall. It would be very unpleasant, completely impractical and somewhat humiliating to sit in it.
Q: Would you live with roommates?
A: Yes, depending on who they are. I had roommates, off and on, until I was 31.
Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
A: None, I hate that piece of leather or rubber that goes between your toes. The ones that do not attach at all, I hate even more. They are pointless and impractical for me. I find them to be more of a chore than a comfort, like eating with chop sticks. Related note: I accidentally uprooted my big toenail in college so that it was sticking straight up in the air from the very back end of the toenail (yes, it @#$%ing HURT!!!!!). This happened only a couple of hours after I had broken the aforementioned mentioned bone in my hand in a separate accident (yes, when it rains on MW, it pours on MW). The next day I went to the doctor's office (both accidents happened on Memorial Day, so sleeping that night had been quite an ordeal). He gave me a localized pain killer -- AT MY VERY VOCAL DEMAND -- before I allowed him to touch my toenail (because it hurt like crazy even when the wind from a fly's wings touched it). After getting it removed (and getting my arm put in a cast), I had to wear sandals for a few weeks. They were OK, but not enough to make me stick with them once my toe was back to normal.
Q: Last time you had a run-in with the cops?
A: What does "run-in" mean? Does that include traffic stops? The last time I remember getting a warning ticket for speeding (which was totally inadvertent on my part because I had sworn off speeding in the early 1980s) was in the fall of 1993 for going 63 in a 55 zone. My only other warning had come in April 1979, for going 61 in a 55 zone. As for actual "run-ins" with cops, I've only had two. The first time was in July 1976 (at age 15). My best friend and I were at the Fish Hatchery in Spearfish, SD. He was fishing legally on the neighboring creek, and I was in the hatchery trying to touch some of the fish with my hand (I don't like fishing). Without my knowing it, my friend threw his line into the hatchery from his spot by the creek (there was a semi-secluded opening into the hatchery from the creek). He thought he was being really sneaky (he had certainly fooled me), but the manager caught him and dragged both of us to his headquarters. He made us stand there while he called the police. I defended myself vigorously because I was innocent (I didn't even have a fishing pole!), but he didn't believe me. I also defended my friend vigorously because I still thought he was innocent. I was really angry at being treated that way and was very loud and irate and obnoxious. I had always been a very self-righteous, law-abiding kid, and I didn't appreciate being treated like a criminal. The manager thought I was nuts, and my friend, who naturally wasn't about to confess to the guy, told me several times to be quiet. I complained even as the cops put us in their car and took us straight to......... my friend's parents' Winnebago camper at the campground outside of town (that was before this country became a police state). Only then did my friend confess to me. He and his family had a good laugh at my expense. I must admit that I had gotten carried away, in part, because I had frequently fantasized about defending myself against an unjust accusation some day. The second "run-in" was a lot scarier. It took place in on a quiet Sunday in July 1983. That same friend and I and several others went swimming next to the Big Bend Dam on the Missouri River at Fort Thompson, SD. We were diving/jumping off of the spillway retaining walls (at the far end of the dam in the picture at the link) and sliding down the moss on the closed spillway slope (I still shudder at the thought of what would have happened if they had opened the spillway gates while we were on that slope). As we were returning to my car, a reservation cop was waiting for us (thankfully, he had not actually seen us swimming or sliding). He said, with a long pause for dramatic effect in the middle, "I'm going to have to arrest you boys................, if you don't leave right now." We didn't argue with him. We thanked him very kindly and left.
Q: Who is number 1 on your Top 8?
A: Which Top 8 are you talking about? I never mix my Top 8s together.
LASTOLOGY
Q: Last Friend you talked to?
A: Beth.
Q: Last person who called you?
A: Beth.
Q: Last person you hugged?
A: One of my aunts, I think, last June.
Q: Last person to stick their foot in your face?
A: I have no idea.
FAVORITOLOGY
Q: Number?
A: 13.
Q: Season?
A: Fall.
CURRENTOLOGY
Q: Missing someone?
A: Sometimes, but only when I get lazy and let my thoughts wander a little too freely.
Q: Mood?
A: I try to avoid them if I can help it (big "if").
Q: Listening to?
A: Nothing.
Q: Watching?
A: Nothing.
Q: Worrying about?
A: This dreadful temporary job I will be having for the next three months (in a financial/tax-return place, of all places, thanks to my friend Beth, who works there). I don't know how I got myself into this situation. The two of us just kept digging my hole deeper and deeper. She is thrilled. I'm not. There is still a remote chance that it might not happen, but it isn't looking good.
RANDOMOLOGY
Q: First place you went this morning?
A: Nowhere.
Q: What can you not wait to do?
A: Move away from here, but only when it is realistic and practical.
Q: What's the last movie you saw in a theater?
A: The newly re-mastered edition of Gone With the Wind in the fall of 1998 (yes, it was that long ago) at the Eagle Theater in Chadron, NE. My old professor friend talked me into going with him even though I didn't want to. I fell asleep about 60 times throughout the movie. No matter how hard I tried, I could not keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time (I was very uncomfortable, too). I remember almost none of the movie. Prior to that, I had not been in a theater in about five years or more. The last movie I may have seen in a theater was City Slickers while on a date with a girl I soon regretted knowing. I could be forgetting one movie in that span of five years, but it hasn't come to mind after years of trying to remember what it might have been.
Q: Do you smile often?
A: I used to smile almost all the time, and with the utmost sincerity. Now, not so much, unless I am with people I really like (a real rarity around here). I still laugh a lot, though (at humor on TV, at my cats and at my own sarcastic humor).
Q: Are you a friendly person?
A: Absolutely. I consider friendliness to be extremely important. Even so, in the last few years I have been finding it easier not to maintain my usual high level of friendliness. The only other time I had trouble being friendly to strangers was when my love of my life and I had to part ways through no desire of our own. Yet, at the same time, I became twice as friendly (sincerely) to all of my friends because I truly appreciated them for being there for me.
