Looong survey
Mar. 1st, 2007 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trixtahGanked from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
epi_lj and serenejournal
1. Tell me about the last really, really bad book you've read. Or just what makes a book bad in general, if you can't think of any specific one.
The Architecture of Desire by Alain de Botton. I'm not a geek about it, but I do like nice architecture and I do like considerations on arranging space and buildings. I knew Alain de Botton was a pompous wanker, but I read the blurb on the book, read a few pages, flicked through the book and was sucked into buying it. Not a cheap buy either. God, it's terrible. He is a pompous wanker. I think the few pages I read that looked ok were the only pages that were ok. Some of the pictures of buildings were nice, but some of them (which I thought were negative examples, but which turned out to be praised by the idiot) were vile. That and the high-faluting, pseudo-philosophical, quasi-academic prose drove me up the wall. Avoid.
2. If you had a choice, would you rather have a name that was easy to spell that you shared with lots of other people, or a name that was unique to you that you had to spell all the time?
I don't much care, except I really would not like a name that was obviously humorous in English, such as Incontinentia Buttocks. :-)
3. What makes you cry?
Odd things. And I don't cry frequently. Sex. Gorgeous music. Some book and movie scenes (god, I can't get over sobbing through the last scene of Gladiator. How embarrassing!) Having my motives wrongly called into question. Feeling trapped or lacking in options. Being rejected (after something was "on").
4. Ever lived anywhere drastically different from where you live now? What's most important about where you live (actual house/apartment, what's available in the area, weather, etc)?
Hell yes. What's important about where I am at present is that I'm in the same city as my partners, and that, within that city, I'm not living in the wilds of married-with-children suburbanville. I haven't lived in a gay ghetto for years, but if this town had one, I would.
5. How do you explain mythology in a less intolerant way than "this is what people used to believe." ?
Like Serene, I fail to see what's intolerant about that statement. The only difference between religion and mythology, as far as I can tell, is that the one you believe in and the other, you don't.
6. In various profiles, you select your religion, then you have an option for how much your religion is part of your life. How do you answer those questions? And, if it applies, of the two choices "laughing about it," or "very serious," which one should a devout Discordian choose?
I say I'm pantheist or agnostic. Funnily enough, I think I'm quite serious about those beliefs. I wouldn't have the faintest idea what Discordianism is about (the little I read about it just seemed like some kind of geeky in-joke that I don't grok, oh well).
7. Do you have a dream house/living space? What kinds of rooms would you have?
Hell yes, I have a dream living space. I don't know the shape of it yet, but I'd like it if the land was shared and the building constructed in such a way as to minimise its footprint and in accordance with sustainable principles. Rammed earth? Straw bale? Bring it on. An open living and eating space. A functional kitchen. Separate space for guests (perhaps a separate building, if on communal-type land). A bath and a good shower. A separate toilet - I hate toilets in bathrooms, with a passion (and yes, mine is in the bathroom at present). An exercise and play room (something like tatami matting on the floor, or a similarly giving surface). Thick soundproof walls (which will be intrinsic to my preferred building media). A restful bedroom. A garden. Native plants (native to where I am). NZ flax, though (I want to experiment). Animal space. Some water flowing outdoors (not around here tho').
8. Tell me something that is your favorite that not many people like.
Electronic music - the only person I know at present who also likes it isepi_lj. Otherwise, my tastes aren't that unusual.
9. Would you rather share a bedroom with one person or a bathroom with four people?
It totally depends on the people concerned.
10. What inspired your username?
I burble on about it at great length here.
11. What makes good ethnic food?
If we're talking about "food which is not of the ethnicity you were born into", which, for me, is anything not featuring potatoes or mutton, then it tasting good makes it good. Duh!!!1!
12. Ever decided in the first five minutes that you could never date someone? Or that you were absolutely sure you wanted to date them and that wasn't going to change?
Yes, both, a few times. And I've found the latter one much more difficult to deal with, because I become a gibbering fool, and they look at me like O_o. The former issue is fine, I just do my "reserved and not-available" thing, which is apparently really really off-putting (it's even more off-putting when I've previously gone into gibber-mode, and then I do the reserved thing on later meetings because I was so embarrassed about my earlier performance).
13. Describe yourself as if you were a character in a gaming system. (For instance, if you the real person were an EverQuest character, what race and class would you be?) Feel free to translate from this world to that, rather than just saying "level 24 human" etc.
The hell I know. Is there such a thing as Chaotic Butch? I suppose Chaotic or Neutral Ranger is something I could go with. And no, I'm not from some non-human race. (no laughing in the cheap seats!)
14. Tell me something that you admire in other people that you would never do yourself.
Lots of things, but quite similar to Serene in that I totally respect those who work in foreign countries to help out with infrastructure or rescue efforts. I don't deal well with culture shock, so I don't think I could do something like that myself (except for very limited amounts of time).
15. Do you wear jewelry?
Not really. My fingers are too proportionally fat for rings, although I like the idea of thumb rings. I occasionally wear pounamu (greenstone/jade) necklaces, but I lost my last one. When I was visiting NZ, ironically enough. I wear a bracelet of little black wooden discs on my left wrist. I have earrings and nipple piercings, which I don't really think of as "jewelery", although it's important to remember them if you're getting an MRI! I have one long dangly pounamu earring, but I don't wear it often (it not being trendy to wear one dangly earring these days, and my face is the wrong shape to wear two by default). I need to get a nicer watch. I'm not adverse to silver jewelry, but there's not much I see and go "that's me". Oh, and I think of my tattoos as a form of body decoration akin to jewelry (not that I have many of those either).
16. Ever written down, or thought of, names you would give your hypothetical children? What else have you thought about naming? Have the names ever overlapped?
Um, no. About children. One of my exes and I named our Morris Minor "Afra" (after the playwright, but with the spelling slightly changed).
17. Tell me about your ideal wardrobe.
Well-cut suits. Long frock-coat type things for formal. Thick cottons, fine wools, sturdy silks, densely-woven linen. I like the idea of velvet, but I can't think of a garment I'd like to wear that would be made in it. Hawaiian shirts and comfy cotton or hemp pants for casual. Funky yet comfortable pants and shirts for slightly more dressy events. A pair of jeans that actually fit me (where the fuck have all the 501s gone? - the men's ones used to fit me well). Blacks, charcoals, deep greens, blues, rubies. *sigh* At least I have the Hawaiian shirts.
18. What makes you insatiably curious?
People I care about. Depending on what's broken, why something isn't working. Why someone I respect has a certain belief that I don't currently have (related to the first thing I mentioned).
19. Would you choose to never travel further than 100 miles from your home for the rest of your life, or to move every 2 years at least 20 miles from where you lived previously?
Well, if we're talking about this home, no, get me outa here! If I could choose where I would ideally live, and then not move again, that would be nice. I've moved over 35 times in my life - I'm sick of it.
20. Do different-colored M&Ms taste different to you? Do all the flavors of Kool-Aid have a distinct taste with your eyes closed?
I've had M&Ms precisely three times in my life, and I can't remember how they taste. I've never had Kool-Aid.
21. What have you always wanted to be able to do, but never learned (or at least not learned yet)?
Archery and sword-fighting (not fencing, per se). I suspect my hands shake way too much to be any good at archery, alas. I'm finally doing the tai chi. I would like to do some other kind of martial art at some point. I did judo up till about 20 years ago - I like thumping things more than throwing them. :-)
22. What moods make you prefer different creative outlets? Like drawing over music, and vice versa?
I like music all the time. I like to draw occasionally, but I couldn't say what puts me in the mood for it.
23. Do you ever have deliciously vindictive revenge fantasies? Ever tell anyone about them?
Once. Otherwise, I don't do revenge.
24. Would you take a million dollars on the stipulation that you could never drive or ride in a car again?
Hell yes. Although I do like my Beast.
25. Assuming your nutritional requirements were taken care of in some way, what meal could you eat every day, three times a day, for a year?
Nothing. I'm not kidding. Nothing. Rice if I absolutely had to. There are plenty of foods I love, but not even I could do sushi for breakfast.
26. Just how clean is your bathroom right this very minute as you read it? (No fair cleaning it up or telling me how clean it was last week!)
Moderately clean. The bath will need a scrub on the weekend as will the basin (more the waterstains on the taps than anything). The loo gets a bleaching regardless. I could also give the shower curtain some anti-mould treatment (it's not bad, but the soap scum is starting to build up).
epi_lj and serenejournal 1. Tell me about the last really, really bad book you've read. Or just what makes a book bad in general, if you can't think of any specific one.
The Architecture of Desire by Alain de Botton. I'm not a geek about it, but I do like nice architecture and I do like considerations on arranging space and buildings. I knew Alain de Botton was a pompous wanker, but I read the blurb on the book, read a few pages, flicked through the book and was sucked into buying it. Not a cheap buy either. God, it's terrible. He is a pompous wanker. I think the few pages I read that looked ok were the only pages that were ok. Some of the pictures of buildings were nice, but some of them (which I thought were negative examples, but which turned out to be praised by the idiot) were vile. That and the high-faluting, pseudo-philosophical, quasi-academic prose drove me up the wall. Avoid.
2. If you had a choice, would you rather have a name that was easy to spell that you shared with lots of other people, or a name that was unique to you that you had to spell all the time?
I don't much care, except I really would not like a name that was obviously humorous in English, such as Incontinentia Buttocks. :-)
3. What makes you cry?
Odd things. And I don't cry frequently. Sex. Gorgeous music. Some book and movie scenes (god, I can't get over sobbing through the last scene of Gladiator. How embarrassing!) Having my motives wrongly called into question. Feeling trapped or lacking in options. Being rejected (after something was "on").
4. Ever lived anywhere drastically different from where you live now? What's most important about where you live (actual house/apartment, what's available in the area, weather, etc)?
Hell yes. What's important about where I am at present is that I'm in the same city as my partners, and that, within that city, I'm not living in the wilds of married-with-children suburbanville. I haven't lived in a gay ghetto for years, but if this town had one, I would.
5. How do you explain mythology in a less intolerant way than "this is what people used to believe." ?
Like Serene, I fail to see what's intolerant about that statement. The only difference between religion and mythology, as far as I can tell, is that the one you believe in and the other, you don't.
6. In various profiles, you select your religion, then you have an option for how much your religion is part of your life. How do you answer those questions? And, if it applies, of the two choices "laughing about it," or "very serious," which one should a devout Discordian choose?
I say I'm pantheist or agnostic. Funnily enough, I think I'm quite serious about those beliefs. I wouldn't have the faintest idea what Discordianism is about (the little I read about it just seemed like some kind of geeky in-joke that I don't grok, oh well).
7. Do you have a dream house/living space? What kinds of rooms would you have?
Hell yes, I have a dream living space. I don't know the shape of it yet, but I'd like it if the land was shared and the building constructed in such a way as to minimise its footprint and in accordance with sustainable principles. Rammed earth? Straw bale? Bring it on. An open living and eating space. A functional kitchen. Separate space for guests (perhaps a separate building, if on communal-type land). A bath and a good shower. A separate toilet - I hate toilets in bathrooms, with a passion (and yes, mine is in the bathroom at present). An exercise and play room (something like tatami matting on the floor, or a similarly giving surface). Thick soundproof walls (which will be intrinsic to my preferred building media). A restful bedroom. A garden. Native plants (native to where I am). NZ flax, though (I want to experiment). Animal space. Some water flowing outdoors (not around here tho').
8. Tell me something that is your favorite that not many people like.
Electronic music - the only person I know at present who also likes it is
epi_lj. Otherwise, my tastes aren't that unusual.9. Would you rather share a bedroom with one person or a bathroom with four people?
It totally depends on the people concerned.
10. What inspired your username?
I burble on about it at great length here.
11. What makes good ethnic food?
If we're talking about "food which is not of the ethnicity you were born into", which, for me, is anything not featuring potatoes or mutton, then it tasting good makes it good. Duh!!!1!
12. Ever decided in the first five minutes that you could never date someone? Or that you were absolutely sure you wanted to date them and that wasn't going to change?
Yes, both, a few times. And I've found the latter one much more difficult to deal with, because I become a gibbering fool, and they look at me like O_o. The former issue is fine, I just do my "reserved and not-available" thing, which is apparently really really off-putting (it's even more off-putting when I've previously gone into gibber-mode, and then I do the reserved thing on later meetings because I was so embarrassed about my earlier performance).
13. Describe yourself as if you were a character in a gaming system. (For instance, if you the real person were an EverQuest character, what race and class would you be?) Feel free to translate from this world to that, rather than just saying "level 24 human" etc.
The hell I know. Is there such a thing as Chaotic Butch? I suppose Chaotic or Neutral Ranger is something I could go with. And no, I'm not from some non-human race. (no laughing in the cheap seats!)
14. Tell me something that you admire in other people that you would never do yourself.
Lots of things, but quite similar to Serene in that I totally respect those who work in foreign countries to help out with infrastructure or rescue efforts. I don't deal well with culture shock, so I don't think I could do something like that myself (except for very limited amounts of time).
15. Do you wear jewelry?
Not really. My fingers are too proportionally fat for rings, although I like the idea of thumb rings. I occasionally wear pounamu (greenstone/jade) necklaces, but I lost my last one. When I was visiting NZ, ironically enough. I wear a bracelet of little black wooden discs on my left wrist. I have earrings and nipple piercings, which I don't really think of as "jewelery", although it's important to remember them if you're getting an MRI! I have one long dangly pounamu earring, but I don't wear it often (it not being trendy to wear one dangly earring these days, and my face is the wrong shape to wear two by default). I need to get a nicer watch. I'm not adverse to silver jewelry, but there's not much I see and go "that's me". Oh, and I think of my tattoos as a form of body decoration akin to jewelry (not that I have many of those either).
16. Ever written down, or thought of, names you would give your hypothetical children? What else have you thought about naming? Have the names ever overlapped?
Um, no. About children. One of my exes and I named our Morris Minor "Afra" (after the playwright, but with the spelling slightly changed).
17. Tell me about your ideal wardrobe.
Well-cut suits. Long frock-coat type things for formal. Thick cottons, fine wools, sturdy silks, densely-woven linen. I like the idea of velvet, but I can't think of a garment I'd like to wear that would be made in it. Hawaiian shirts and comfy cotton or hemp pants for casual. Funky yet comfortable pants and shirts for slightly more dressy events. A pair of jeans that actually fit me (where the fuck have all the 501s gone? - the men's ones used to fit me well). Blacks, charcoals, deep greens, blues, rubies. *sigh* At least I have the Hawaiian shirts.
18. What makes you insatiably curious?
People I care about. Depending on what's broken, why something isn't working. Why someone I respect has a certain belief that I don't currently have (related to the first thing I mentioned).
19. Would you choose to never travel further than 100 miles from your home for the rest of your life, or to move every 2 years at least 20 miles from where you lived previously?
Well, if we're talking about this home, no, get me outa here! If I could choose where I would ideally live, and then not move again, that would be nice. I've moved over 35 times in my life - I'm sick of it.
20. Do different-colored M&Ms taste different to you? Do all the flavors of Kool-Aid have a distinct taste with your eyes closed?
I've had M&Ms precisely three times in my life, and I can't remember how they taste. I've never had Kool-Aid.
21. What have you always wanted to be able to do, but never learned (or at least not learned yet)?
Archery and sword-fighting (not fencing, per se). I suspect my hands shake way too much to be any good at archery, alas. I'm finally doing the tai chi. I would like to do some other kind of martial art at some point. I did judo up till about 20 years ago - I like thumping things more than throwing them. :-)
22. What moods make you prefer different creative outlets? Like drawing over music, and vice versa?
I like music all the time. I like to draw occasionally, but I couldn't say what puts me in the mood for it.
23. Do you ever have deliciously vindictive revenge fantasies? Ever tell anyone about them?
Once. Otherwise, I don't do revenge.
24. Would you take a million dollars on the stipulation that you could never drive or ride in a car again?
Hell yes. Although I do like my Beast.
25. Assuming your nutritional requirements were taken care of in some way, what meal could you eat every day, three times a day, for a year?
Nothing. I'm not kidding. Nothing. Rice if I absolutely had to. There are plenty of foods I love, but not even I could do sushi for breakfast.
26. Just how clean is your bathroom right this very minute as you read it? (No fair cleaning it up or telling me how clean it was last week!)
Moderately clean. The bath will need a scrub on the weekend as will the basin (more the waterstains on the taps than anything). The loo gets a bleaching regardless. I could also give the shower curtain some anti-mould treatment (it's not bad, but the soap scum is starting to build up).
