Life's ABCs

   From various sources (including IndigoBlueGreen{I got it from Cin}), here are Life's ABCs...

Altitude. What is the highest altitude you have ever been at without being in a pressurized cabin? Standing on the slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily, at 2500M, or about 8200 feet.

Boxing. Sport or just people beating each other up? Sport. Not one I have any interest in watching, but definitely a sport. UFC? More of the just people beating each other up side.

Cars. What do you do in traffic jams? Sit.

Distance. What's the longest distance you've ever walked in one day? I have absolutely no idea.

Eighties. What is your favorite movie from the 80s? In order to answer the question, I had to refresh my memory about 80s movies in general. My first stop was a website that listed every movie made - one page per year. I got through all of 1980, and up to the Ds for 1981 and realised this was a much larger task than I had the time, or the inclination to perform.
   My next strategy involved a web search for lists of the "best movies of the 80s," the results of which led me to believe that the vast majority of Internet users were born between the years 1970 and '75. I've never seen so many John Hughes references together in one place before in my life. Yeah, I thought The Breakfast Club was a pretty good movie, too, but the best movie made between 1980 and '89? Come on! Every single cast member currently resides on the "where are they now?" list.
   Oscar.com wasn't any help either. It seems I have seen precisely 50% of the films that won Best Picture honours during that decade. The five I haven't seen, I have no desire to see, either. Out Of Africa? Terms Of Endearment? Puhlease! Might as well just ask me to watch Titanic.
   I did jot down a quick and dirty list of movies from the eighties that I liked. Looking back at Oscar.com, I see that Rain Man is on both lists. But where is The Empire Strikes Back? ET- The Extraterrestrial? Die Hard? Anyone...Beuller...Beuller? (That's just a pop culture cliché, not a suggestion Ferris Beuller's Day Off should be mentioned - although I did come across several people who think it's the finest film ever made - in the history of the universe. Really.)
   OK, after much thought, speculation, and laughing at people who still have a crush on Molly Ringwald, I have decided that my favourite 80s movie has to be, Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Why? I don't know. I'm making this up as I go.

Fun. What's the most fun work you've ever done, and why? Fun? Work? Not sure I've ever put those two terms together before. OK, that's not fair. I've had several fun jobs, but they were fun because of the nature of the workplace and the co-workers, not because of the nature of the jobs themselves.

Gas. Do you put gas in the car when it is half empty...a quarter...running on fumes? I tend to put gas in the car when the price goes down. I don't know what it's like south of the border, or in other Canadian provinces, but here in Ontario, buying gas is like a game of chess. At-the-pump prices go up and down like yo-yos, with ten cent per liter (think thirty cents per gallon) daily swings a common occurrence. So when gas is running about eighty-one cents per liter (USD$2.60/gal.), and you see it drop to seventy-four cents, you pull in and fill up. It doesn't matter if the tank is full, and it's all you can do to squeeze three bucks worth in.

Hayride. Ever been on one? Yes.

Internet. What are your favorite music-related internet websites? MySpace. Close your mouth, the flies are getting in. Yes, I said MySpace. Yes, I know you have heard me rant in the past about how much I hate MySpace. Probably several times. And I do, truly I hate it. I mean, 99.9% of all MySpace pages I have seen are painfully eye-searing examples of horrendously bad design, jam-packed full of mind-numbingly inane content. However, MySpace were the first service to offer all kinds of easy to implement widgets like animated photo album displays, and the like. Their little streaming audio player widget works well, and is just the thing to allow upcoming amateur and indie musicians to easily get their work out to a larger audience. The musical community on MySpace is among the most vibrant on the web, and it is the place to go to find new and interesting artists.
   Runner up: the new kid on the block, YouTube.

Junk Mail. What do you do with it? Put junk in its place.

Key. Do you have keys to cars and doors and things that you no longer own? No.

Lost. Have you lost anything lately? Probably.

Missing. Name one thing you did in the past that you no longer do but wish you did? I'm married. Think about it.

No-frills. Tell us about the cheapest motel/hotel you've ever stayed in. I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I may not be required to incriminate myself.

One hundred. Ever driven faster than one hundred miles per hour? I'm not a real speed demon. I have, at times, pushed it a bit. Still, I think the fastest I've ever driven any car was about 150. Uh...that's kilometers per hour, not miles. Pretty fast, but its not 100MPH. Plus, I scared the crap out of myself.

Postal. If you could send a package to your postal worker to show your appreciation, what would you send them? Cookies. Everyone deserves cookies.

Quick-frozen. Name three things currently in your freezer. A big bag of peas. Never opened. We don't eat 'em. They're for icing down knees, or other injured body parts.
   Three (3) different flavours of ice cream. I think there are three more in the chest freezer downstairs. What? I buy them on sale.
   Fish. Lots of fish. Mostly Tilapia and Rainbow Trout, but I think there's some salmon in there as well. I think I've eaten more fish in the last year than I have for all the rest of my life to date. Good for the cholesterol, don't you know.

Radio. What three songs from your own collection would you play right now if you were in charge of a radio station's playlist?
King Crimson - Epitaph
Traffic - The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
Led Zeppelin - Dazed and Confused

Suck. What is your favorite thing to suck through a straw? Root Beer.

***Extra Credit: Name something you can do with a straw besides suck things into your mouth with it. Spitballs.

Tunes. What was the last music you bought? Sarah McLachlan - Wintersong. It's her new Christmas album.

Underwear. Do you wear it daily? Yes. But no bra. (Yeah, I just didn't bother changing Cin's answer for this one)

Victoria's Secret. Ever shop there? No. What's that place in the mall called? Oh yeah, La Senza. I've shopped there.

Weird. What if some nice, polite, peaceful aliens landed at your house one day. What would you do? Offer them coffee. And maybe ice cream.

X-ray. What parts of your body have been x-rayed? Lots of teeth. Wrist, once. That's all I can think of.

Yard sale. What is one (or more, if you can remember) thing(s) you have bought at a yard sale or "pre-owned" on EBay that you still have today? I don't go to yard sales.

Zoom, zoom, zoom. Ever been in a car when it unintentionally left the road? Ooh. Have I! I was driving home from the curling club one night before I was married. It was nasty, snowy weather, and I was driving cautiously when my tire caught a runnel of snow/slush on the road. It seemed like I provided a proof of the existence of instantaneous translocation of matter. One second I was on the road, pointed south, the next I was in a deep ditch, pointing north. Zoom, indeed.

Tags: memes, life's ABCs