Blog Tag-I'm "It"

In general, I am not much of a follower of trends or fads.  One look into my wardrobe would make that abundantly clear.  This is especially the case with Internet “pass it along” kind of things. Nonetheless, something has come along that has grabbed my attention.  Caroline from the Big Book Little Book Blog tagged me in this little game where they ask eleven fellow bloggers eleven questions.

The rules, as I am told, are as follows:

• Answer the eleven questions that were asked of you by the person who tagged you!
• Make up eleven new questions and tag eleven new people to answer them!
•  Let them know you tagged them!
• Use a lot of exclamation points! (Okay, I just made this one up.)

It's your round at the pub and I've asked you to surprise me. What drink would you buy me and why?

A glass of ice water.  Surprise! 

Okay, take two.  I am not much of a drinker, but I feel that everyone should have a pint of Guinness in an authentic Irish Pub on St. Patrick’s Day at least once in his or her life, as I have.  This is despite the fact that it tastes like motor oil that has been wrung out of dirty sweat socks.  So, enjoy! The restrooms are over there, by the way.

If you had to spend the day as a character in a book who would you be and why?

Aragorn, from The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, was just a total dude from his first scene to his last.  Noble, brave, loyal, intelligent, and leader of a badass army of ghosts…what’s not to love? 

What was the last thing you read/watched that made you cry? (Real tears, preferably with snot bubbles!)

I am concerned that answering this question will cause me to have to turn in my “man card”.  Let’s just say that about five years ago, I had an elderly dog that I loved very much, but whose health was in decline.  At that time, I made the mistake of reading the terrific canine tome Marley and Me by John Grogan, which ends in the manner most dog books and films inevitably do.  ‘Nuff said?

I don’t DO snot bubbles, by the way.

They say that you learn something new every day. What was the last thing you learnt?

I learned that you should never, ever, no matter how friendly you are with her, remark to a very pregnant woman she is “as big as a house, in a good way”.  Never.  Not even once.  Trust me on this!

Marmite: Love it? Hate it?

It’s a British thing, so being a bloody Yank, I had to look “Marmite” up.  According to www.marmite.com (really!), “Marmite is a nutritious savoury spread that contains B vitamins, enjoyable in a sandwich, on toast, bread or even as a cooking ingredient. You'll either love it or hate it.”  Considering that Marmite a) is actually a yeast extract paste with added vitamins, vegetable and spice extracts, b) is considered 100% vegetarian, and c) originates in Great Britain, then I’d have to say I am best suited for the “hate it” camp. 

I truly love you Brits, but you have to admit that your cuisine can be kind of suspect.  “Toad in the hole”?  “Bangers and mash”? Seriously?  If I ever go to the U.K., I’ll be bringing a whole suitcase full of PB &Js.

Which literary love interests would you snog, marry and avoid.

This response could be an entire blog post in itself, so I’ll it simple and brief.  Disclaimer: I didn’t put a great deal of thought into these.

• Snog
: Dr. Ellie Sattler from Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. (Don’t judge me, people!  I have a thing for smart women and for blondes, and not often enough do the twain seem to meet.)

• Marry
: An adult Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. (After  she’s graduated from Hogwarts, has a terrific, high-paying job in the Ministry of Magic, and can both support my staying at home to write tripe like this and keep me from getting destroyed by evil.)

• Avoid
: Lady Macbeth from MacBeth by William “Crazy Willie” Shakespeare. (Wouldn’t you avoid that crazy chick too?)

What's your usual order from Starbucks/Costa?

It takes me a whole lot of mental preparation to offer a stranger cash in exchange something “tall and skinny”, for fear of being misinterpreted.  As it is, I go into higher-end coffee shops with intentions of ordering something rakish and sophisticated, but inevitably freeze, mumble “large hot regular with just creamer please”, and then pretend to become very interested in the napkin dispenser.  Meanwhile the barista is looking at me as though I just stepped off the set of “The Beverly Hillbillies”.  It’s hard to truly savor a $4 cup of java after a humiliation like that, so I usually get my coffee at the gas station near the interstate instead.

What is your oldest memory?

I remember sitting on my mother’s lap when I was three and she was pregnant with my first brother, feeling him kick and talking to her about the new baby coming.  At least, I think that’s what the conversation was.  I was three.  I might have been talking to her about whether dinosaurs ate cheese puffs.  It’s kind of hard to say from this vantage point many years later.  These days I’m lucky if I can remember what I heard on the radio five minutes ago.

Paperback, hardback or Kindle? Which of these is your favourite reading format and why?

E-books, totally.  I never thought I’d say that, but I am hooked.  I really wasn’t looking for one, but I got a Kindle for Christmas in 2010.  Once I started using it, getting comfortable with its features and its feel in my hands, I fell in love with it.  Since the Kindle stole my heart, I’ve read only four or five books for pleasure in paper formats.  The amount and variety of reading that I’ve done has skyrocketed though, thanks to the Kindle.

My major exception for e-books is instructional texts.  I still like to have pages to turn and margins in which to write for that kind of book. Plus, you can’t hide a comic book behind a Kindle in class. 

What is your favourite quote/saying?

“This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.” 
~Polonius, from Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78–82

The speaker at my high school graduation was a favorite English teacher of mine, who made this the centerpiece of her address.  Yes, I actually listened to the speech and have remembered what she said after all these years.  Someone once told me I am the only person who ever paid attention to a high school commencement speaker.  That’s probably true, but I am glad I did.  I’ve always tried to “keep it real”, and I think that Mrs. Stone’s advice passed on from Shakespeare has been there in the back of my mind as a reminder to do so.

If you could bring back any TV show for another series (season) what would you pick and why?

There was an animated program from Japan adapted for American TV which I watched religiously when I was about ten called Star Blazers.  The show was on our local ABC affiliate every weekday afternoon at 4:30, and it was “appointment TV” for my friends and I.  Everything stopped when Star Blazers came on.  The program was an early Japanese anime series, created for audiences there in the early 70s.  It was dubbed in English (not terribly well) and brought to the States in 1979. 

In brief, it was a sci-fi cartoon about the crew of a resurrected World War II battleship that has been retrofitted to become the most butt-kicking spaceship EVER! They are on a mission to save the Earth by traveling to the edge of the Solar System to retrieve a formula that would save the planet from annihilation by radiation poisoning.  The catch was, they had to do it in less than a year, and some really nasty outer-spacey guys, the ones who radiated Earth in the first place, were constantly trying to thwart their mission by blowing them to smithereens.

I recently saw some original episodes online, and man, does it look CHEESY!  I didn’t notice that at all when I was a kid, but then again, a lot of things I thought were terrific in the late 70s would fall into the cheesy category today.  With the advances in animation technology that have been made, I am sure that the already-totally cool Star Blazers could become even better if it was remade in 2012.  Of course, if that ever did happen, my mind would again be blown, as would those of hundreds of thousands of other middle-aged guys who were once wide-eyed Star Blazers fans like myself in the late 70s.




My questions:

• What would be your second choice for a book to take to a desert island, if your first choice was eaten by a beluga?
• MacDonald’s or Burger King, if you had to choose, and why?
• What was the last album (CD, MP3, whatever) that you purchased?
• What genre would you love to be able to write well in, but have never attempted?
• Would you eat green eggs and ham?
• What is worse for you than bending back a fingernail?
• Who do you admire that is not related to you?
• What is an alternate name for your blog?
• Where would you spend your dream vacation and why?
• What is your rejected pen name?
• Why did you decide to answer these questions?

Bloggers I am tagging:

• Larry Enright @LarryEnright
• Mike Wood- Blog of Wood
• Kit- Blogging Dangerously @blogdangerously
• Mayor Gia @MayorGia
• Thomas Wilson- Storyteller @StorytellerTDW
• Ruby Barnes- eBook Author @Ruby_Barnes
• Johnny Virgil-Fifteen Minute Lunch @johnnyvirgil
• Piper Bayard @PiperBayard
• R.S. Guthrie- Rob on Writing @rsguthrie
• Kathy Lynn Hall- Red Mojo Mama Musing @RedMojoMama
• Handflapper- Handflapping @Handflapper