The Ol' Seven Six

Saturday 6.

1. Take the quiz: What happened the year that you were born?

In 1976 (the year you were born)

Gerald Ford is president of the US The US celebrates its bicentennial, marking the 200th anniversary of its independence The Viking II sets down on Mars' Utopia Plains Promising, "I will never lie to you," Jimmy Carter is elected president of the United States Israeli commandos rescue hostages from Entebbe, Uganda The Concorde begins flights from New York to Europe George W. Bush is arrested and fined for driving under the influence of alcohol Cray-1, the first commercially developed supercomputer, is invented by Seymour Cray Freddie Prinze Jr., Reese Witherspoon, Colin Farrell, 50 Cent, Fred Savage, and Shannon Elizabeth are born Cincinnati Reds win the World Series Pittsburgh Steelers win Superbowl X Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup Rocky is the top grossing film Filming begins on George Lucas' Star Wars The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is published The Eagles Their Greatest Hits compilation becomes the first album in history to be certified platinum "Tonight's The Night" by Rod Stewart spends the most time at the top of the US chart Charlie's Angels and The Muppet Show premiere

What Happened the Year You Were Born?

2. Of the events mentioned, which would you most liked to have witnessed in person?
Bush getting a DeeWee. I could use the laugh at his expense.

3. Of the people mentioned, who would you most like to meet in person?
I don't really care if I ever meet any of them.

4. Of the people mentioned, who would you least like to meet in person?
See 3.

5. Which of the events do you think had the most profound effect on history?
I'd say it's a tie between Carter's election and the Cray-1 [considering both the Camp David Accord and the effect that computers have come to have on our lives].

6. Which of the events do you think contributed the most to our culture?
Gotta be the filming of Star Wars.

And that does it for me. :D

sbt/sbc

Stuff

Booking Through Thursday.

1. How many unread books do you have in your house, right now? (Your own books, that is--not ones that belong to other family members--and not counting things like school books, if you have them.) Clearly, an estimate will do.
Man, I dunno...300, give or take 100.

2. To the best of your recollection, what is the OLDEST unread book in your collection? How long has it been waiting?
You mean the oldest one that I haven't even cracked? That would be a 1921 edition of H. G. Wells' The Outline of History.

Or do you mean the one I've had the longest? I have a few dozen left over from when my family was given a huge load of books, back when I was about 10. I think I had all the ones I read before that.

3. Do your TBR books (that's "To Be Read," if you didn't know) haunt you, make you feel guilty that you haven't read them yet?
Sometimes, especially when I'm in the library or book-hunting on Amazon. I'm gradually assimilating the idea that I may very well die before I read every book I own.

***

Thursday Threesome.

::Plaid Kittens Attack!::

Onesome: Plaid-- Yes? No? Wouldn't even consider it? Makes the outfit? Makes terrible wallpaper?
Good for kilts and sassy little Catholic-schoolgirl-style skirts. Red and black plaid can be worn as part of a Goth look. Regular plaid...uh. No. Not unless it's on a flannel shirt [and try getting a flannel shirt that's NOT plaid; they make 'em, but you gotta hunt a bit].

Twosome: Kittens-- Cutest things in the world? Creatures from another planet? Things other people have?
I love 'em. My sinuses don't. And I live in a no-pets building, so I do not have a kitty. :(

Threesome: Attack!-- of the Killer Tomatoes! Okay, what's your vote for the worst movie title of all time?
I looked up several bad movie title lists, and I...I just can't make up my mind. There are so many to choose from. Some good candidates:

Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
Doctor of Doom and The Wrestling Women vs The Aztec Mummy
Franken Hooker
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter

Each one of these gave me an instant "good gods, I don't EVEN want to know" reaction. So it's a six-way tie. Come to think of it, "Six-Way Tie" would be a pretty crapalicious name for a movie, too...

Bah. Enough of this.

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

Honk If You Hate People Too

Sunday 7.

Name seven pet peeves other drivers commit.
~Talking on the phone, unless it's a dire emergency. [I can get on my high horse now, since I've mostly broken the habit of eating while I drive. :-P ]

~Tailgating, especially at night when their lights shine right in all of your mirrors.

~Not turning their highbeams down when approaching at night.

~Passing when there's another car coming the other direction, so both you and the car in the other lane have to slow down to avoid an accident.

~Drunk driving. Thank the gods I've never known anybody killed or seriously injured by a drunk driver, but it still pisses me off because there's no excuse in the world for it.

~Parallel parking 2 or 3 feet from the curb. USE YOUR DAMN MIRRORS. I passed parallel parking on my driver's test in a huge-ass aircraft carrier of a van that I'd only driven once before; you can jolly well get your stupid monster truck just a little closer to the curb, especially if you have a whole half a block to park in.

~People who drive the wrong direction in an angled parking lot. Even if the arrows are invisible, you should be able to see the direction by which way the spaces in that lane are pointing.

I also gotta agree with Patrick about the ones he listed, too, although weaving in and out doesn't bother me too much unless they're cutting me off or being a hazard. I've been in places where it's hard to figure out what lane you need to be in, so sometimes it looks like you're weaving when you're not trying to. But other times, yeah, somebody's really just trying to get to the stoplight 3 seconds earlier.

***

blargh. Ever feel tired and cruddy, lie down and take a nap, and then wake up feeling more strung out than when you went to sleep?

Yeah.

sbt/sbc

Hooray for boobies!

Saturday 6.

1. What do you generally find more offensive in a film: too much bad language or too much nudity?
pfft. That's like asking Prince whether he's more offended by too much eyeliner or too much Spandex.

I don't care for sex scenes in movies [unless I'm actually watching it FOR that], but nudity doesn't really bug me. And what is this "too much bad language" you speak of?

2. You're touring an art museum and find that it has a special exhibit promoting the beauty of the human body that features live nude models. Would you walk into that room?
Depends on how much of a prudish mood I'm in. It's totally irrational, but I'd be more embarrassed on behalf of the naked people than myself. If I were alone, I might walk past. If I was with somebody, I'd be dragging them in. Why? ~shrug~

3. What if you personally knew one of the models: would you walk into the room then?
I'd definitely go in then, if only to say hi.

4. Take the quiz: Do you have a dirty mind?
It says my mind is PG-13. It didn't ask about slashfic, though, so that kinda skewed the result.

5. You're cleaning house and you find pornography: would you be more upset if you realized that it belonged to your spouse, your child, or your parents?
I'd be pissed that they didn't share it with me. If it was my kid, I'd be more or less concerned depending on the kind of pornography. If it was your usual run-of-the-mill porn with unnaturally proportioned women being treated like objects, I'd be very worried. If it was just naked people or people having mutually satisfying sex, then I'd be less concerned. If the kid was old enough to be having sex, and I looked in their room and found how-to videos or books teaching them how to communicate their needs and satisfy their partner, I'd be elated. I've felt for a long time that sex ed should focus not just on how it's done and how to avoid disease, but also how to make it mutually enjoyable.

I think I'd be slightly weirded out by my parents having porn, though, but I think I'd get over it as long as they weren't sitting there going, "See, hon, we did this one last week..."

6. If a local referendum gave you the chance to outlaw all pornography in your state, would you want to see that pass or fail?
Fail. It wouldn't make a damn bit of difference anyway unless they either a] conducted routine searches of everybody's house and computer or b] cut off Internet access to the whole state. There has always been porn; there will always be porn. I'd personally prefer to see less of things like rape porn and other stuff that glorifies the objectification of people; but as for just pictures or videos of people fucking, I don't see what the problem is. As long as you're watching it in the privacy of your own home, I don't get why it's anybody's business.

***

Saturday 8.

1. a high-paying job (with great benefits and minimal actual effor) at krappe hours ... take it or leave it?
Take it. If the only thing that sucks about it is the hours...well, I already have a job with sucky hours, and it also has sucky pay and sucky insurance, and I come home sore as hell every day. I'd go somewhere else, but the pay sucks even worse everyplace else, and I can't afford a pay cut unless I want to default on my student loan.

2. do you have a "one that got away" in your past romantic life?
Not quite; there's one ex I wouldn't mind renewing a friendship with, though.

3. what is one job you would never take, no matter how much they paid you?
Prostitute.

4. what behaviour is completely unacceptable in someone you're dating?
Pretty much everything, since I don't date.

5. have you ever dated a co-worker? how did that work out?
No. Nononono. Frida has more sense than that. I may be a nitwit, a psycho and an only marginally reformed skank, but even I have more sense than that.

6. have you ever been sexually harrassed, witnessed someone get sexually harrassed, or had a friend be sexually harrassed in the workplace?
Yes.

7. the opposite of #3 ... aside from being paid to loaf around and relax on a beach somewhere (or your lazy activity of choice), what's your dream job?
Making art and music.

8. my new boss was totally shitty to me this week "on principle," and even snapped at me quite bitchily; my colleagues were horrified. you have the support of your colleagues, but not your boss ... you love your job - what do you do?
Go over the boss's head. Either the upper management will bring the boss in line, and s/he won't have any choice but to treat you fairly; or the boss will get back at you somehow by either finding an excuse to fire you or making your job so horrible that you have to quit for your own sanity. No matter how much you love your job, if your boss hates you, you are guaranteed to end up hating your job. The sucky boss will make sure of it, and you'll end up having to leave anyway. At least if you report the boss to his/her boss, there's a chance things will work out okay. If there's an investigation, they'll question your co-workers, and they'll back you up.

Hope it works out all right for you. I know what it's like to work with somebody who has it in for you and/or has no respect for you. It's hell.

***

And that's about it for me today.

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

Catching Up Without Depeche Mode

Okay, maybe just a little Depeche Mode. If I can find my black eyeliner.

Saturday 8.

1. the millionaire "secret santa" has passed. do you contribute to charity?
Occasionally, yes, if I can give cash. I don't usually give to charities that I think might sell my contact info to other charities [I'm looking at you, ACLU, you bastards], but if there's a chance to give anonymously, then I will.

2. if you had a million dollars to donate to any charity or group, where would you give it?
Planned Parenthood.

3. do you think that the tax deduction benefit is worth giving?
I don't know. Depends how much you're giving, I suppose.

4. do you patronise goodwill or any other community charity store?
Um...I do go to thrift stores sometimes. Does that count?

5. do you give money to people who are begging?
If I have it, yeah.

6. many cities are starting ordinances that bar or limit charities from giving out free food/clothing to homeless people in municipal areas. do you agree or disagree with this limitation, and why?
I don't know enough about it to agree or disagree; but unless they're gonna provide jobs and housing for these people, I'd like to hear a damn good excuse why they should only get fed twice a year. I'm also glad I don't work for the ME's office for any of those cities, because I have a feeling it's gonna get busy.

7. many homeless are mentally ill and it is difficult to locate them, diagnose them, and monitor their medication/intake. do you think that the federal government does enough for the mentally-ill homeless in your country, and why?
Absolutely not. One third of the homeless in the U.S. are mentally ill. There are 4 times as many mentally ill people in prison as there are in hospitals and group homes, and a good many of them are in prison because they're homeless, jobless or both and can't get adequate treatment. It's disgusting.

8. how "giving" are you with friends? have you been burned in the past lending money/time to someone who either does not pay you back or is ungrateful/expectant of your time/money, or have you had relatively good experiences with giving/lending?
I don't lend money, unless it's an amount I can afford to lose for good. Generally I just outright give it.

***

Saturday 6.

1. If you knew you would die the following day, what would you do with your blog: edit some parts of it and leave it up for posterity, leave it as it is, or delete it?
I'd leave it.

2. Other than your own blog, what single website do you visit the most?
Man, I don't know. I go to my friends page on LJ a lot, and to CNN, and to Yahoo Mail. I'd say it's a 3-way tie between those.

3. How many different email accounts do you currently own, counting work and home?
I don't even know anymore.

4. Take the quiz: How addicted to the internet are you?
It says I'm 42% addicted.

5. Are you more likely to visit the internet the first thing in the morning or the last thing at night?
First thing at night, although if I've already gone to bed for the afternoon and can't get something out of my head [like trying to remember the name of a movie, for instance], I may get up and go look it up.

6. Who was the last person you had an email/instant message conversation with? When was the last time you saw that person in person?
I'm currently in an IM conversation with somebody I have never met in person.

***

Sunday 7.

Name seven celebrities whom you'd be happy to go a year without hearing another word about.
Pfft. Only seven? Okay.
~Tom Cruise
~George W. Bush
~Monica Lewinsky [she's suffered enough; leave the poor thing alone]
~Brangelina [does that count as 1 or 2?]
~the Pope
~Jesus
~Britney Spears
~Britney Spears' lady parts
~John Lennon [yes, he was a great man, but for gods' sake, give it a rest already]
~Justin Timberlake
~Pretty much everybody in People magazine

That's more than seven, but it's so easy to get carried away with lists like that.

***

Curious as a Cat.

If you could follow your heart and do something that would take you outside your daily existence, what would you do? How would you accomplish it? Why?
I'd travel the world in total luxury. How would I do it? If I knew that, I'd be on a private beach in Greece or something, not sitting around my apartment hiding from the -13° weather outside. Why? Because working is Teh Suxx0r, and so are MN winters.

What is your most favorite saying? What one thing (word or phrase) do you say the most?
That's easy. "Fuck."

What one job in history would you have wanted?
It'd be nice to be an assistant to Leonardo da Vinci. [Did he have assistants? He must've.] Think of all the cool stuff I'd learn. And I'd get to meet Mona Lisa in person.

***

Man, I just wanna go to bed. Think I might do just that.

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

Books, bulbs, and, um...broccoli or something, I don't know

Booking Through Thursday.

What are you reading right now? (Well, obviously, you're reading THIS right now, perhaps I should have been more clear. What book(s) are you in the process of reading? (grin))
I have set aside Starhawk's The Spiral Dance for the time being and am currently reading Castle Kidnapped by John DeChancie and trying to stay interested in Plato's Republic.

***

Thursday Threesome.

::Strange Little Bud::

Onesome: Strange-- twists and turns on the web? Do you recall how you ended up here at the Back Porch? ...just curious.
I don't remember. I think I went through The Daily Meme.

Twosome: Little-- by little we branch out and bloom. How often do you post per week? Is that more or less than six months ago?
Depends on the week; usually it's anywhere from one to ten times. That's about the same as six months ago.

Threesome: Bud-- break time is coming later this year. ...but are the bulbs in your area pushing up through the soil yet?
o_O

'kay, what kind of bulbs come up in January?

~does Google search~

Well, I'll be damned. Apparently some bulbs DO come up in the middle of winter, if it's a really warm winter, which it actually has been. Huh. In any case, I live in an apartment, so the only bulbs I ever see are screwed into light fixtures.

And that about does that.

sbt/sbc

Humped

Wednesday Mind Hump.

1. What do you dream about lately (literally or otherwise)?
I dream a lot about houses and libraries [and, if I drank a lot of water before bed, bathrooms].

2. Tell us about a dream you had that you fulfilled and what you did to make that dream come true.
Well, I had a dream to overcome my fear of drowning and learn how to swim. So I signed up for a swimming class through community ed and learned to swim. :)

3. Name a few songs with "dream" in the title.
Hm...
~Aerosmith, "Dream On"
~Smashing Pumpkins, "My Daydream"
~Fleetwood Mac, "Dreams"
~Billy Joel, "River of Dreams"
~Heart, "Dreamboat Annie"
~R.E.M., "I Don't Sleep, I Dream"
~Sting, "The Dream of the Blue Turtles"
~Talking Heads, "City of Dreams"
~Eurythmics, "Sweet Dreams [Are Made of This]"
~Tori Amos, "Sweet Dreams"
~Heart, "These Dreams"
~Crowded House, "Don't Dream It's Over"
~Everly Brothers, "All I Have To Do Is Dream" [or just "Dream"--I can't recall]

A few whose artists I can't remember: "Beautiful Dreamer," "Dreamin'" [Sheena Easton, maybe?], "Dream Lover," "He's A Dream" [from the Flashdance soundtrack]

Anyway, that's what I came up with from memory and from looking at my mp3 library. I could just go to a lyrics site and do a search, but that sorta takes the fun out of it.

Well, I'm out of questions; and it's a good thing, too, because that's about all the humping I have energy for.

sbt/sbc

The land of the greed and the home of the strange

Saturday 6.

1. Are you hoping to lose weight, gain weight or stay the same weight by the end of 2007?
I wouldn't mind losing a couple pounds, but I'm not going to knock myself out trying to do it.

2. Now that Saddam Hussein has been executed, are you more worried or less worried about possible terror attacks?
Neither. I'm having a hard time scraping up enough give-a-fuck to get scared, frankly.

3. Who was the last performer you heard sing on television? Did you sing along?
I don't remember. Oh, wait, I do remember, it was the National Anthem at a Stanley Cup game. No, I didn't sing along. I've had to sing that damn thing so many times that if I never hear it again, it'll be too soon. They only ever sing the first verse anyway. If they'd stop singing that one and sing another one [there are only like 3000 to choose from], then I wouldn't mind.

4. Take the quiz: What is your career personality?
It says, "Your Career Personality: Quiet, Sevice-Oriented, and Practical"

5. Of the listed careers, which is the most appealing?
Well, I'm already working on the top one on the list, which is artist.

6. Of the listed careers, which is the least appealing?
I don't think I'd want to be a concierge. I'm not THAT service-oriented. I like helping people; I don't like groveling for shitty tips from rich stuck-up people.

sbt/sbc

Saturday 8 goes to the dogs...

Saturday 8.

1. i have a nasty head cold. when was the last time you were sick, and what ailed you?
I had a cold not too long ago, maybe a month or two ago.

2. i left my contacts out last night by accident, and they dried out. ugh. do you wear glasses or contacts to correct your vision? if so, for how long?
I only wear them when driving someplace unfamiliar. I lucked out on my last eye exam and didn't have to have a corrective-lens notation thingy put on my new license. So I don't technically need them; but if I'm driving someplace where I need to read a lot of street signs, I try to bring them along. They pretty much only work for distances anyway; close up, they just do strange things to my depth perception and make me kinda queasy.

3. a stray dog was found wandering in our neighbourhood, which is rare. he was so thin you can see his ribs, spine, and hipbones. we took him in and are searching for the owner, although i really don't want to give him back due to his condition. what would you do if you found the owner of this dog after taking him in?
Uh, I wouldn't take him in. My place doesn't allow pets. I'd take him straight to the humane society.

4. i have two friends who are interested in taking the dog. after putting up "found dog" posters all over, how long would you wait to hear from the old owners before giving him to a new home?
Again, I'd just take him to the humane society. I'm not running a kennel.

5. i am bringing the dog into the vet on monday to rule out a weird parasitic-worm thing for his weight loss, as i don't see the owners contacting me. my husband says that i've done more than i should for this pup, but i want to make sure he's OK health-wise. would you take the dog to the vet and spend your own money, or would you take him/her to the animal shelter first?
See 3.

6. at this point in your life, if someone offered you a free young dog/cat of a breed/mix that you wanted, would you take it?
No. See 3.

7. switching gears... a 10-yr. old boy in texas asked his uncle why saddam had a noose around his neck after seeing a news feed loop on a spanish-speaking news channel. the uncle explained they were going kill him by hanging, and the boy asked if that's how you kill "bad people." the uncle answered 'yes' and the boy was found later with a bedsheet around his neck hanging from his top bunk. people are saying that he 'mimicked' the hanging; i think he killed himself purposefully. do you think his death was a suicide or an accident?
I don't think that's as important a question as why a 10-year-old kid thought that either a] nooses were fun to play with [if it was an accident]; or b] he was bad enough to be put to death. But then, as you pointed out, it IS Texas. As for the question you asked, I don't have anywhere near enough information to guess whether it was a suicide or an accident. If the kid had a history of imitating dangerous shit he saw on TV, I'd say accident. If he lived in an abusive household with people who made him feel worthless, I'd say suicide. But I don't know and I'm not going to guess.

8. a bride in austria jokingly answered "no" to the question of "do you take this man," causing the official to call off the wedding immediately. not even the sobbing pleadings of the bride could prompt the official to continue with the wedding, and the couple will have to wait 2.5 months before they can marry again. do you think this was too harsh, that the woman got what she deserved for larking about during such a serious ceremony ... or perhaps she should thank her lucky stars and run for the hills with some hot czech nationals?
I think she has a very strange and careless sense of humour, and the official doesn't have one at all. I wouldn't do something like that at a wedding, just to be on the safe side. I also think Austria must have been having a really slow news day.

***

same bitch time, same bitch channel...

Curious, New Year Edition

Curious as a Cat.

What one question would you ask a legitimate psychic, knowing you'd get a truthful answer?
When am I going to die? That way, I could make some plans for the rest of my life; if I knew I was only going to live to, say, 35, I wouldn't worry about getting my student loans paid off early. If I knew I was going to live to 90, I'd redouble my efforts at being healthy, so I don't have to spend so much time in a nursing home. And it'd give me a chance to get my affairs in order.

And if it turned out that knowing wasn't a good thing, well, I've lived my whole life NOT knowing, and it's sucked so far. I'd find some way to cope.

Who would you like to be deserted on an island with?
My friends. I almost said "my friends and family," but honestly, as much as I love my family, I'd probably end up strangling them [assuming they didn't strangle me first].

***

bleh...I succumbed to the temptation of taking an "evening" nap [10-noon, that's evening for me] and now I'm all sluggish and am totally not going to get to bed on time. Thank goodness I don't have to work tonight.

sbt/sbc