Here it is, Friday, and this little exercise has come to an end. I hope it's been as enlightening for to read these few things as it has been for me to dig a little bit and dredge some of them up.
I think I did such a good job that I'll take the whole weekend off and not bother to post anything.
Enjoy your respective weekends too, eh?
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76. For the most part, I can't stand TV. I'm good with a little bit of Discovery Channel, but even that's gotten too sensational. If it wouldn't wreck my marriage, I'd cancel the cable and reserve the TV just for playing movies.
77. I pretend to use the Force, complete with a small hand-waving gesture, when I walk through automatic doors. Also, I utter a faint "doo-doo-doo" sound when I flip open my cell phone to make it sound like a Star Trek communicator.
78. One of my favourite mindless activities is chopping wood. A nicely stacked cord of quartered firewood is its own reward.
79. A healthy dram of fine single malt scotch, poured over ice and enjoyed lingeringly while staring into the embers of a fire is one of my favourite ways to wile away an evening.
80. I've only ever fainted once: the morning after I had my wisdom teeth removed and I stood at the kitchen counter in my bathrobe, Amy beside me. I said, "My head feels a little funny," and the next thing I recall I was staring at my wife's (then girlfriend's) horrified face with my cheek pressed to the floor. Scared the CRAP outta her!
81. For a very brief time in high school I was rather good at shoplifting CDs. I came incredibly close to being caught one day, and have never nicked anything since.
82. My first ever job - as the fry guy in the kitchen of an A & W - was the greatest incentive I ever received for post-secondary education.
83. If there were a movie made about my life, the role of me should be played by a younger John Malkovich, and my wife should be played by Drew Barrymore.
84. It wasn't until I had kids that I could really, truly appreciate the sincerity behind sentiments like, "If you try to harm my boys I'd be willing to rip off my own arm and beat you to death with the bloody stump."
85. The distance and relative tenuousness of some friendships as I age sometimes drives me into a brief melancholy. A part of me still wants the eternity I foresaw on the playground.
86. There was this one time I may have accidentally set my face on fire with alcohol. Sambuca, specifically. In my defence, I was a little inebriated already and surrounded by engineers. My eyebrows grew back.
87. I once started to date the second-highest ranked women's squash player in North America (she won a gold medal at the Pan-Am Games), but then she moved to a different city -- a decision I helped her reach.
88. I love to use big words.
89. My fear of pissing somebody off sometimes drives me into an indescribably annoying spiral of inaction.
90. I find it easier to get along with women than with men since women are, generally, more emotionally honest with themselves. But man, I'd hate to have to work in a group of 'em. Rowr!
91. I long ago resigned myself to the inevitable association that is made between owning a truck and helping friends move. I am normally able to score beer and pizza out of the deal, so it works out in the end.
92. My first ever two-wheeled bike was a hand-me-down from one of the daughters of my babysitter at the time. It was a pink BARBIE bike and had solid rubber tires. And pink handlebar tassles.
93. My wife once wrote "I love you" on the very last page of my notebook at work, and I love accidentally rediscovering that it's there every few weeks.
94. My favourite driving game is to try to make a word (or words) using the first three digits from the license plate of the car in front of me. Since most standard plates follow the convention of three consonants followed by three numbers, the only rule I set for myself is that the letters have to stay in the same order, but I can add as many vowels as I want in whatever order I want. My greatest success came when I saw a plate that began with "PRT". I got EIGHT different words adding just vowels. SCORE!!
95. Another big pet peeve is Alanis Morisette's song, "Ironic". Because it's not. If it were called "Shitty", that would describe all the situations she sings about in the song. None of them is ironic. But you know what? That's ironic!!
96. I chose not to go to my Great Uncle Jack's funeral because I thought that funerals were just rituals for the living - the dead got nothing out of it. Well, yeah. That's exactly the point, and that's why I should have gone.
97. At 14, I was by far the youngest pall bearer at my grandpa's funeral, and I still think of it as a great honour.
98. My favourite book is The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien. I've read it from cover to cover six times.
99. I bought an expensive fountain pen last year and highly recommend them. The tactile pleasure I derive from slowly making words appear is second to no other writing instrument. It's the closest my hand-writing comes to being acceptable to me.
100. There was a bar on the seventh floor of the Students' Union Building at my university called RATT. (Room at the Top.) Some evenings, after having a few, we'd do stair runs to see how quickly we could run to the bottom floor. My best time was seven flights of stairs in 35 seconds. I was always disappointed that I never managed to break the half-minute barrier.
Part, pert, port, apart, aport, party, prate, pirate, pyrite, purity, purty (does cowboy-speak count?) and pret (does French count?). That was fun!
Posted by: Paula | Friday, 24 August 2007 at 07:47 AM
You, uh, got me beat there, Paula. I didn't count the 'cowboy' or the French though. But I did get 'prat', which you missed. So I'll take some small solace in that.
Durned smart chicks...
Posted by: Simon | Friday, 24 August 2007 at 08:18 AM
#76 - Basically I agree. But I catch myself staring at the tube more often than I like. It's often on for "background noise" and I can't seem to ignore it.
#78 - I have enjoyed the chopping before...but now have no Earthly reason to do so.
#79 - Got a bottle of Oban for my ministerial duties in Iowa. We're trying to make it last.
#86 - I'm...not quite sure how to respond to that image. Ol' Flamin' Face Fraser.
#90 - Generally true for me. My closest friends tend to be guys, but if I had to choose a gender to socialize with, women tend to be easier for me for just the reason you mention.
#91 - No body ever askes for help from my Mini ;)
#93 - That's cool. Moonshot packs my lunch occasionally and hides a littl enote or card in there. It's a nice pick0me-up during my day.
#94 - I didn't get 8...but I did get "Operate"
#96/97 - Well put.
#100 - My college stair game was to see how long a swing I could make down the steps without touching the stairs. Basically, landing to landing with a swing from the handrails. In retrospect, I'm lucky to be alive since that reach for the furthest possible handhold usually meant that if I missed...I'd have faceplanted down the stairs. Silly college kids.
Excellent list, Simon. I've enjoyed it immensely. It's one of those memes (sorry, Si, but it is a meme) that is truly silly...unless it's done well with thought and honesty. I expected no less from the Simian and was not dissapointed.
Have a great weekend if I don't talk to you before then.
Posted by: Moksha Gren | Friday, 24 August 2007 at 08:24 AM
On #83, I want to play me in the movie, and PLEASE let Drew Barrymore be my wife! *swooooooon*
On the fountain pen thing... from a kid till now, I still have awful handwriting.. and I don't think anything would make me feel better about it.
Great list Simon...!
Posted by: Dave | Friday, 24 August 2007 at 10:45 AM
76 - When TV is good, though, it's surprisingly good. Probably because there's so much crap all around it.
80 - I, too, have fainted only once. A big kid running to the bus smacked into me and I bounced off the bus. I was unconscious before I hit the ground. Next thing I knew I was looking up at a bunch of cute high school girls saying, "Are you okay?" Even in first grade, I thought that part was cool. Now, it would just be kind of sick.
81 - I have participated in shoplifting myself, and then one day just swore it off. Glad I did. The cassette tape tuck into my tube sock I used more than once (my shoplifting days were over by the time CD's came around). If I may, I wrote a story about one of my experiences here.
82 - Dishwashing did it for me.
84 - You're being far too kind.
85 - I'm bothered when people I got to know on a plane say goodbye. That's gotta be weird.
89 - But then I remember I have a black belt in crazy, and I'm okay.
90 - I'm generally like that, but with me it's because I don't hunt, watch Sportscenter, or leave my family for five hours to go knock a little white ball around. Around these parts, all the above make me a little strange.
93 - You (relatively) newlyweds are so cute.
94 - This is always, always fun. Does pervert count, or did I mess up the rules?
96-97 - Funerals get me down because I'm afraid to die.
98 - Score! My favorite, too, but I think you knew that.
100 - I'm ashamed that the two things I thought when reading this one were a) That band used to rock, and b) you're damn lucky you never slipped. That said, I still listen to that band sometimes and I still race down stairs!
Posted by: Mark | Friday, 24 August 2007 at 06:26 PM
#76 - Can't stand the TV being on all the time. We got rid of the one we had in the living room upstairs, which was only gathering dust, and now our only one is the home theater downstairs. I do watch some series, but I'll usually turn on the TV just when they start, and turn it back off once the credits roll in.
#77 - If we ever get a cellphone again, I'm SO getting the 24's CTU phone ringtone (you know: doo-doo doo-rloo) - my sister has it on hers, and next time she's in town I'm asking to answer her phone for her just so I can go "Bauer".
#80 - Well that's a long way to fall down.
#94 - We sort of play this game too, but our rule is the shortest possible word using said letters (ie. adding as less letters as possible). Yours is more of a Boggle type of game, isn't it?
Posted by: Émilie B | Friday, 24 August 2007 at 10:03 PM
Good job on the big list, btw. :)
Posted by: Émilie B | Friday, 24 August 2007 at 10:05 PM
#94 - I have a similar licence plate game, but yours is clearly for a more refined crowd! Mine involves taking the letters of the licence plate and turning them into a three word phrase (Ontario plate? Bonus four word phrase!)with the dirties words I know. It's good for a laugh, and depending on who you play it with, you can really increase your dirty word vocabulary. :)
Posted by: Monique | Thursday, 06 September 2007 at 05:28 PM