Thursday, July 20, 2006

The OLOGY Meme

So here we are again. I don't have a hell of a lot to talk about, or at least nothing I feel like talking about, so I've done the usual: borrowed a meme from DM at GreenDuckies. Enjoy!

GRUB-OLOGY

What is your salad dressing of choice? Honey Mustard.

What is your favorite fast food restaurant? Boston Market.

What is your favorite sit down restaurant? The Cheesecake Factory. It is almost ironic, though, that I don't like cheesecake. But their food is wonderful, the service is really good, and the other desserts are just fabulous.

On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant? I almost always leave 20%. If the service was merely perfunctory, I go to 15% (I've never had bad service); if someone in my party has made a nuisance of him- or herself, I'll bump it up to 25% to salve my embarrassment.

What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? I don't really think there is one. I get sick of things so quickly. But for the sake of argument I'll say cheese and crackers with fruit.

Name three foods you detest above all others. Avocadoes, celery, and squash.

What is your favorite dish to order in a Chinese restaurant? Steamed salmon with asparagus in black-bean sauce. Or else orange chicken. Or maybe honey-walnut scallops. I love Chinese food.

What are your pizza toppings of choice? Linguica, artichoke hearts, and olives.

What do you like to put on your toast? Whatever it will hold... butter of course (it isn't toast without butter), and jelly or apple-butter or peanut-butter and bananas.

What is your favorite type of gum? I don't chew gum. It bores me.

TECHN-OLOGY

Number of contacts in your cell phone? Hell if I know. I could go get my phone and count them, but I don't want to.

Number of contacts in your email address book? Again, I don't really know. I have three different email address books, I've added people rather indiscriminately over the years, and I've never cleaned any of them out.

What is your wallpaper on your computer? I use Webshots as my wallpaper program, which shuffles between hundreds upon hundreds of pictures, changing the wallpaper every four hours. My selections are of scenery I like, flowers, castles and other architecture, and of course hunky underclad men. Right this minute, though, I am displaying some decayed-looking Irish castle:


What is your screensaver on your computer? Same as the above, except when in screensaver mode it shuffles through the pictures every thirty seconds.

Are there naked pictures saved on your computer? Oh, not really, only about 2.5 gigabytes. The average picture is about 100k, so that's about, what, twenty-five thousand pictures? That's not a lot, is it?

How many land line phones do you have in your house? Just one line, with two extensions... one in the kitchen and a portable that floats around the house.

How many televisions are in your house? Four... one in my room, one in the Grandmother's room, and two in the living room (one for watching and one for playing video games).

What kitchen appliance do you use the least? The bread machine? The Fry-Daddy? The electric skillet? The automatic rotisserie? We have lots of small appliances we never use. But of the large appliances, the one I use the least is the dishwasher. I hate doing dishes.

What is the format of the radio station you listen to the most? Classical music (KDFC 102.1). But I don't really listen to it much, it's mostly ambient noise.

How many sex toys do you own that require batteries? Just one. And none that don't. Actually, it doesn't require batteries, they just make it vibrate, which is more entertaining than utilitarian. If a sex-toy can, indeed, be considered utilitarian.

BI-OLOGY

What do you consider to be your best physical attribute? My brain is by far the most useful and well-developed part of my body. Or, if we're limiting ourselves to external physical attributes, I'll say my skin: it's very soft and smooth.

Are you right-handed or left-handed? Some of each... I was born left-handed but taught to write and draw with my right hand. So my left side is stronger, I tend to pick things up with my left hand, and use my left hand for anything that requires strength or stamina; but my right side is more agile, I use my right hand for anything requiring delicacy or a steady touch.

Do you like your smile? Oh, God, no. I look like a rotting jack-o-lantern when I smile, all lopsided and a little bit scary.

Have you ever had anything removed from your body? In order: testicular duct cyst, age 18 months; two canine teeth growing upward in the roof of my mouth, age 9; lymph node under the chin which turned out to be infected with tuberculosis from a cat scratch, age 15; wisdom teeth, age 22; middle lower left molar, age 34 (the rest of my teeth are coming out within the next year or so).

Would you like to have anything removed from your body? I wouldn't mind having all this damned disgusting fat sucked out, and some of the extra skin tailored off. I have no qualms about liposuction, and if I could afford it, I'd be all tight skin and visible bones right now.

Do you prefer to read when you go to the bathroom? I keep a lot of magazines, Readers' Digest and Vogue and Vanity Fair in there... I don't do a lot of reading, though, just short bits and looking at pictures. I'm not there for all that long at a time.

Which of your five senses do you think is keenest? Smell. I can smell the subtlest differences in things, I can smell things from a great distance, and I can often tell the ingredients of my food by sniffing it.

When was the last time you had a cavity? I have one now, actually. It's very small, though; and since I'm having them all removed soon, anyway, I don't feel like getting it taken care of unless it starts to hurt. I haven't had a cavity filled for a couple of years.

What is the heaviest item you lift regularly? My great blubbery carcass? Hoisting myself out of a chair has become something of an olympic event. But if we mean inanimate objects, I'll say the Grandmother's mattress. She likes to change her sheets once a week, but she can't lift the corners of the bed anymore to get the fitted sheets on, so I always make the bed for her.

Have you ever been knocked unconscious? No. I've always wanted to, though.

MISC-OLOGY

If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? Nah, I'd prefer to be surprised.

If you could change your first name, what would you change it to? Richard. People call me that all the time, anyway, it might reduce confusion. Or else Charles, which is what I would have been named if Grandmother had gotten her way about naming my father.

How do you express your artistic side? I write, and I perform in drag.

What color do you think you look best in? Blue, I think. Maybe red. Actually, I look best in black, but people get all pantsy about whether or not black is a color. I say it is, but it's so controversial I try to avoid it.

How long do you think you could last in a medium security prison? I don't know... I'm fairly adaptable, but then I also don't deal well with tacky people. All I can say is that I don't intend to ever find out.

Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake? Not by mistake, no. Oh, wait, I did once swallow a baby-tooth that fell out while I was eating a muffin, I guess that's technically non-food.

If we weren’t bound by society’s conventions, do you have a relative you would make a pass at? Hmmmm... my nephew's pretty cute. And I have a distant cousin I've long had the hots for. Of course, they're both straight, so it wouldn't matter, would it?

How often do you go to church? Just about every week. Although I'm not myself a Christian, I started driving Grandmother to church several years ago as an ongoing Ninth Step; and though at first it was a painful chore, I've since convinced Grandmother to change from the San Leandro congregation to the Walnut Creek congregation, and have gotten where I rather enjoy it... much nicer people, the sermons are always very interesting, and there's almost always one really cute boy to look at: my current church eye-candy is the boy on the right in this video (isn't he adorable? My attraction is completely non-sexual, though... he's pretty like flowers are pretty or vases are pretty... so I don't feel guilty gazing at him in church). And we always go to brunch afterward. It's kind of a nice family ritual we have.

Have you ever saved someone’s life? Not so far as I'm aware.

Has someone ever saved yours? My mother pulled me out of the Stanislaus River when my stepfather tried to teach me to swim, at the age of about seven or eight, by the Sink-or-Swim Method: flinging me off a rock into a very deep pool. I opted for Sink, mostly to spite him and also because it was very beautiful under the water. I'm pretty sure that's the closest to death I've ever been.
DARE-OLOGY

Would you walk naked for a half mile down a public street for $100,000? Do I get to wear shoes, or at least flip-flops? Is it warm enough out? Can I have sunscreen? If so, then I probably would.

Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100? Uh, yeah? Hell, I'd pay him! But yeah, I'd kiss anybody for $100. Men, women, dogs, reptiles, whatever. Kissing isn't that big of a deal.

Would you have sex with a member of the same sex for $10,000? Darn tootin'! And a member of the opposite sex. I'd do both at once. I'd feel uncomfortable, and they definitely wouldn't be getting their money's worth, but I'd be willing to do it.

Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000? No. Thank God, I do have limits! But I have a terrible fear of being dismembered, even on so small a scale. Maybe for two million, but still I don't know. The idea makes me very queasy.

Would you never blog again for $50,000? Hmmmm... yeah, I think so. It's not like I do this all the time anymore. And it's not like I have this big readership depending on me. And it's not like I don't have other things to do with my time and thoughts. So yeah, I definitely would.

Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000? Sho'nuff! Though I can't imagine why anybody'd want me to. And I'd hate every minute of it. But I don't worry about people seeing me naked, I just don't like being naked.

Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000? That sounds really painful; I doubt I'd be able to carry it off without hurling or passing out. But yeah, I'd certainly try.

Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000? No, I don't think so. Even the life of someone I felt was nothing but a canker in the eye of humanity. I just don't think I could bring myself to do it.

Would you shave your head and get your entire body waxed for $5,000? I've always wanted to get my whole body waxed... so I'd do that for free. And head-shaving? Sure, why not? I've long been curious what my skull looks like, I haven't seen it since I was five.

Would you give up watching television for a year for $25,000? Oh, fuck yeah! I don't watch that much television anyway. But I would keep it a secret... I dislike when people say they never watch television, like they're somehow better than everyone else.

But you know, all of the above is kind of sticky... with my finances the way they are, I'd do just about anything for large sums of money. To give you an idea of how strapped I am: I'd perform anilingus on Dick Cheney for enough money to get out of debt (about $35k). Any more than that is just gravy!


HUNK-OLOGY
Okay, I added that one. But it was the easiest segue I could think of to the end of the post.

But before I go, I must admit something that slightly embarrasses me: I have fallen suddenly and very deelply in love with Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco. I don't really care about the music, it's cute and fluffy and the words don't make sense; but the videos have a very lush and vaguely gothic aesthetic, and all four of the boys are just ever-so-pretty-pretty.

But Brendon in particular (pix here, here, and here), I just want to put stuff in that boy's mouth... strawberries, chocolates, spoonfuls of pudding, whatever comes to hand. Here he is looking unspeakable in their latest video: But It's Better If You Do.

And now back to our regularly scheduled beefcake: