1. Is there a movie or book you saw or read more than 10 years ago and still think about? Tell me about it. 2. How many languages do you know, anyway? 3. What other language(s) would you like to learn, if any? 4. Do you deal well with clutter? 5. Are facecloths necessary?
1. Can you tell me more about your user icon? 2. Ten years ago, did you expect your life to be like this? 3. Have you a favourite piece of clothing? Tell me about it. 4. Have you any particular comfort rituals? 5. Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry or what?
1. Where will you travel next? 2. What makes you angry? 3. Have you ever had a pet? Please tell me about it. 4. How did you choose your username? 5. Tell me something frivolous.
1. Where will you travel next? For business, likely either Boston, Denver or San Francisco. For pleasure, probably Maine, but I have my eye on Umbria or Quebec or Hawaii. My passport has expired. Need to fix that. It was about stamped out anyway. I’ve never been to Scotland, yet have been to the UK and Ireland multiple times. Friends of mine are in Scotland now, biking across the fen I suspect. Off the subject, if asked who you think the most parsimonious people in the world are, how would you answer? For me there are a lot of candidates, including the Germans, and this is what a German colleague asked me one time. “How was copper wire invented? Two Scots picked up a penny at the same time.” 2. What makes you angry? I am slow to anger, and there are not a lot of things that bring me to a boil. Real or perceived personal injustice gets my dander up. For family and friends, as well as myself. Transgressions made by my kids when they know explicitly what they should not do. My ex-wife also seems to know how to push my buttons. All she has to do is open her mouth, and some insult usually tumbles out. Sometimes my Dilbertian boss makes me angry. Hmmmmm, I guess I’m angrier than I thought. Have I mentioned our President? 3. Have you ever had a pet? Please tell me about it. Yes, lots of them, from childhood into adulthood. Haven’t had one for the last five years though, because allergies have arisen and I live alone and travel for business frequently. My last pets were family pets, a neurotic impure shepherd rescued from the pound, and a Heinz cat also from the pound, a Christmas present for my daughter. The cat would crawl up on my chest while I was in full slouch on the couch, inches from my face, and I’d give it a good face, neck and head massage. This cat would close it’s eyes, and purr, purr, purr. It would invariably begin to drool while this was going on so it became self-limiting. And I was highly allergic; I would have to wash my hands before doing anything, because if I inadvertently rubbed my eyes, the result was itching agony. The cat was a hunter, too. Birds, mice, lizards. Yuck. 4. How did you choose your username? I used to sit and watch Disney movies with my children when they were very little. One of these movies was Aladdin. One of the characters in the Disney movie was a wise cracking parrot named Iago. I can be a wise ass myself, so I became a Iago fan. 5. Tell me something frivolous. You mean not including the first four answers? Any book purportedly written by George Bush.
1. Tell me about one thing you'd like to do some time in the next ten years. 2. Discuss heroism. 3. What do you get out of writing fanfic? 4. Tell me about a memorable meal you've had. 5. What question have you always wanted to be asked in an interview?
1. Tell me about one thing you'd like to do some time in the next ten years:
I’d like to fall in love, completely and utterly lose myself in another person, even if only for a little while.
2. Discuss heroism:
I read a quote from Emerson last weekend: “a hero is no braver that an ordinary [person], but he is braver five minutes longer.” My first hero was my father: the sadness of age is that, so often, we grow up to realize that few of our parents and childhood icons are truly heroes and learn instead that they were merely bigger than us. I think that the root of heroism is choice, the choice that results in Emerson’s five extra minutes, whether it is expressed as peace over war, poverty over plenty, or danger over security. I think most heroes are made by the strength of their character rather than the strength of their body; by the violence they forestall rather than the violence they do; by the lives they change more than by the lives they save—it’s not how long you stand in a fight that matters, it’s how many times you get back up.
3. What do you get out of writing fanfic?
Writing fanfic is part wish fulfillment, part craftwork, part self-indulgence. I love writing like a physical pleasure, and fanfic lets me play with my writing—build streams of dialogue, explore pacing and character, develop scenes—without getting buried in the process of plot and world-making that so often derails my original work. Fanfic is masturbatory literature— writing for the person that you love the most (to paraphrase Woody Allen)—and, unlike personal creative writing, has an unusually immediate product-to-praise ratio which has an addictive appeal all its own: there is fanfiction out there that far exceeds its origins in craft, characterization and scope but even the crappiest fanfic hack with a sub-adolescent sense of grammar can achieve a certain following if they are prolific enough. While I write fanfic primarily for myself, I can’t pretend that I don’t find the praise attractive.
4. Tell me about a memorable meal you've had:
The first time I went to New York in March of 1997, my friend Jennifer and I ate at a bar/restaurant around the corner on 8th Avenue from our hostel in Chelsea. It was called the Viceroy, I believe and we both had the daily special, which was slice Angus beef on a bed of mushroom and sundries tomato risotto. It was really good. I was just getting into that stage when I started asking for my steak rare instead of medium rare. I suppose I must have stressed the ‘rare’ part a little too firmly (Toronto restaurants at that time had a problem understand that rare meant “pinky-red” in the middle, not a flesh-toned sliver surrounded by grey-y-brown) because when the plates arrived my steak was a deep magenta that looked particularly raw in the Viceroy’s moody lighting. Jen asked if I wanted to send it back as I looked down at my plate with an expression of unappetized horror. But this was New York and the waiter intimidated me. So, I took a drink of my red wine (also the first time I’d ever ordered a glass of wine to go with my meal in a restaurant) and dug in: wow. The thing about really rare, really tender beef is that it only needs to be seared in the pan to seal in the juices. It might have looked raw but it tasted so good. And, combined with the risotto, the textures and flavours blended to create this incredible flavour in my mouth; I’ve never tasted anything quite like it since. That meal made me a confirmed lover of really rare red meat, in all its form and varieties—a passion that I continue to indulge at any opportunity. In fact, I’m hoping that when I return to Scotland, I’ll be able to try so rare Hielan’ Coo in Whiskey-Sauce.
5. What question have you always wanted to be asked in an interview?
“Win or lose, how are you planning to celebrate on Oscar night?”
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2003-06-05 06:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-06 07:22 pm (UTC)1. Is there a movie or book you saw or read more than 10 years ago and still think about? Tell me about it.
2. How many languages do you know, anyway?
3. What other language(s) would you like to learn, if any?
4. Do you deal well with clutter?
5. Are facecloths necessary?
no subject
Date: 2003-06-05 06:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-06 07:27 pm (UTC)2. Ten years ago, did you expect your life to be like this?
3. Have you a favourite piece of clothing? Tell me about it.
4. Have you any particular comfort rituals?
5. Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry or what?
no subject
Date: 2003-06-05 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-06 07:30 pm (UTC)2. What makes you angry?
3. Have you ever had a pet? Please tell me about it.
4. How did you choose your username?
5. Tell me something frivolous.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-07 12:23 pm (UTC)2. What makes you angry? I am slow to anger, and there are not a lot of things that bring me to a boil. Real or perceived personal injustice gets my dander up. For family and friends, as well as myself. Transgressions made by my kids when they know explicitly what they should not do. My ex-wife also seems to know how to push my buttons. All she has to do is open her mouth, and some insult usually tumbles out. Sometimes my Dilbertian boss makes me angry. Hmmmmm, I guess I’m angrier than I thought. Have I mentioned our President?
3. Have you ever had a pet? Please tell me about it. Yes, lots of them, from childhood into adulthood. Haven’t had one for the last five years though, because allergies have arisen and I live alone and travel for business frequently. My last pets were family pets, a neurotic impure shepherd rescued from the pound, and a Heinz cat also from the pound, a Christmas present for my daughter. The cat would crawl up on my chest while I was in full slouch on the couch, inches from my face, and I’d give it a good face, neck and head massage. This cat would close it’s eyes, and purr, purr, purr. It would invariably begin to drool while this was going on so it became self-limiting. And I was highly allergic; I would have to wash my hands before doing anything, because if I inadvertently rubbed my eyes, the result was itching agony. The cat was a hunter, too. Birds, mice, lizards. Yuck.
4. How did you choose your username? I used to sit and watch Disney movies with my children when they were very little. One of these movies was Aladdin. One of the characters in the Disney movie was a wise cracking parrot named Iago. I can be a wise ass myself, so I became a Iago fan.
5. Tell me something frivolous. You mean not including the first four answers? Any book purportedly written by George Bush.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-05 07:00 pm (UTC)*NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO*****
Date: 2003-06-06 07:27 am (UTC)P.
(HEE!)
Re: *NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO*****
Date: 2003-06-07 03:22 pm (UTC)8P
no subject
Date: 2003-06-06 07:38 pm (UTC)2. Discuss heroism.
3. What do you get out of writing fanfic?
4. Tell me about a memorable meal you've had.
5. What question have you always wanted to be asked in an interview?
no subject
Date: 2003-06-07 03:22 pm (UTC)I’d like to fall in love, completely and utterly lose myself in another person, even if only for a little while.
2. Discuss heroism:
I read a quote from Emerson last weekend: “a hero is no braver that an ordinary [person], but he is braver five minutes longer.” My first hero was my father: the sadness of age is that, so often, we grow up to realize that few of our parents and childhood icons are truly heroes and learn instead that they were merely bigger than us. I think that the root of heroism is choice, the choice that results in Emerson’s five extra minutes, whether it is expressed as peace over war, poverty over plenty, or danger over security. I think most heroes are made by the strength of their character rather than the strength of their body; by the violence they forestall rather than the violence they do; by the lives they change more than by the lives they save—it’s not how long you stand in a fight that matters, it’s how many times you get back up.
3. What do you get out of writing fanfic?
Writing fanfic is part wish fulfillment, part craftwork, part self-indulgence. I love writing like a physical pleasure, and fanfic lets me play with my writing—build streams of dialogue, explore pacing and character, develop scenes—without getting buried in the process of plot and world-making that so often derails my original work. Fanfic is masturbatory literature— writing for the person that you love the most (to paraphrase Woody Allen)—and, unlike personal creative writing, has an unusually immediate product-to-praise ratio which has an addictive appeal all its own: there is fanfiction out there that far exceeds its origins in craft, characterization and scope but even the crappiest fanfic hack with a sub-adolescent sense of grammar can achieve a certain following if they are prolific enough. While I write fanfic primarily for myself, I can’t pretend that I don’t find the praise attractive.
4. Tell me about a memorable meal you've had:
The first time I went to New York in March of 1997, my friend Jennifer and I ate at a bar/restaurant around the corner on 8th Avenue from our hostel in Chelsea. It was called the Viceroy, I believe and we both had the daily special, which was slice Angus beef on a bed of mushroom and sundries tomato risotto. It was really good. I was just getting into that stage when I started asking for my steak rare instead of medium rare. I suppose I must have stressed the ‘rare’ part a little too firmly (Toronto restaurants at that time had a problem understand that rare meant “pinky-red” in the middle, not a flesh-toned sliver surrounded by grey-y-brown) because when the plates arrived my steak was a deep magenta that looked particularly raw in the Viceroy’s moody lighting. Jen asked if I wanted to send it back as I looked down at my plate with an expression of unappetized horror. But this was New York and the waiter intimidated me. So, I took a drink of my red wine (also the first time I’d ever ordered a glass of wine to go with my meal in a restaurant) and dug in: wow. The thing about really rare, really tender beef is that it only needs to be seared in the pan to seal in the juices. It might have looked raw but it tasted so good. And, combined with the risotto, the textures and flavours blended to create this incredible flavour in my mouth; I’ve never tasted anything quite like it since. That meal made me a confirmed lover of really rare red meat, in all its form and varieties—a passion that I continue to indulge at any opportunity. In fact, I’m hoping that when I return to Scotland, I’ll be able to try so rare Hielan’ Coo in Whiskey-Sauce.
5. What question have you always wanted to be asked in an interview?
“Win or lose, how are you planning to celebrate on Oscar night?”