Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Lullaby


16:16 PST yesterday, October 29th ushered Tasmia Illeanna Leora Peterson into the world. She came in at 6lbs 8oz., 19.5 inches (Canadians shall do their own math today) and an APGAR of 8/9. Denise and baby are all doing well and are both now home.

All are tired, and so now we rest.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

People are People


It's been an interesting week at work, as it pertains to the people I've interacted with. My feet are still killing me, but I medicate up be4fore work and Denise got me some insoles and so it isn't as bad (IOW I'm not crying and limping at the end of my shift).

I'm really digging the two lesbian McManagers I work with the most. They've got a great take-no-billshit attitude and it's fun to listen to them fire barbs back and forth with the clueless homophobe we also work with.

The morning crew is almost always the same eight or so people, more than half of them are named Maria and they're all each others' sister, cousin or aunt. They tend to get confusing, but only two of them can understand me anyway...maybe I should bring Lash to work for translations.

And of course there are the customers. I've worked a lot of morning/lunch shifts so far and the mornings are heavily occupied by senior citizens coming in for their coffee and gossip. For the most part, adult customers are usually pretty decent, but there is still the occasional asshole. Last week I had an older customer tell me I was going to hell because of the astrological signs tattooed on my arm. My boss said I should have told him I'd see him there (apparently he's an asshole to everyone and I have permission to not have to be nice to him). Today the po-po came to work looking for one of the Marias (too late; she'd left an hour earlier) and the same old guy tried to get me to tell him why they were there and got pissy when I wouldn't tell him. Then there's the guy who demands we start cooking everything up ahead of time, refrigerate it and just warm it up so he won't have to wait; I'm guessing he's never heard of food health dangers.

The job would be great if it weren't for the assholes, the pained feet and the smelling like fry grease all the time.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Everybody Hurts


Least favourite method of discovering small cuts on your hand #1: alcohol-based hand sanitizing gels.

Ouch.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

The Middle


My dogs are barking. Day two of full-time on my feet McEmployment, and the shoes are killing me: my blisters have blisters. Can't wait for that to stop. There're lots of interesting lesbian coworkers--enough to keep the place interesting enough to keep me from driving a railroad spike into my forehead: but just barely. So far the people are all allright and the time passes relatively quickly and there are definitely worse jobs to have (like any job on Dirty Jobs). For the last seven years all of my jobs have been the sort that I sit to perform (and I still have the TA/grading job; it just isn't sufficient), so between my lung and my feet, I'm really not used to being on my feet 8 hours straight, 5 days a week. Right now I get home exhausted, grimace while soaking in the bathtub and long for the day my body adjusts.

Denise and I have been having more really big fights, but yesterday was slightly productive. At least I think she better understands my perspective and wants to help things. Hope reinvigorated and all that. Fingers crossing.

Friday night she started having contractions and we were sure we'd end up needing to be off to deliver the baby within hours, but in the wee hours of Saturday morning the contractions stopped. Now they rear their heads somewhat intermittently. If the baby doesn't escape from the vat (Hi, Travis) by Halloween, that's when she's scheduled for having the baby induced. As much as I'm sympathetic to Denise really wanting the baby to just get out already, I'd really be happy with a Halloween baby.

Kids are well. Lash graduated from counseling last week. Woot!

Friday, October 12, 2007

Being Around


Inane stuff to rant and rave about:

Tell me if I'm the only one who does this, my comic nerd friendlies: every now and again I'll see a movie that is quite assuredly not an adaptation of a comic book, but something about the finished package makes me leave the movie saying "golly, that would have been an awesome (insert superhero here) movie." I think this happens to me most frequently for movies that make me go "golly, that was an awesome Punisher movie." Actually, my favourite Punisher movie is the Boondock Saints (so what if it's two Punishers in that movie). Last week I netflixed the movie Next (the Nic Cage flic where he so believably beds Jessica Biel after one day and saves the world from nuclear terrorism) and actually found myself liking it more than I thought I would. I also found myself realizing that if I were to ever make a movie about Midnighter or Longshot, that take on the character's powers would be the perfect way to set them up (Longshot's luck power could easily be chalked up to an innate prescience). I found I liked this non-comic movie as a comic movie for Cage so much more than that last actual comic movie he made (though the kids and Denise did like that one).

TV time: Heroes is going at a very displeasing start for me this season. It isn't anywhere near as compelling for me yet and I hope it gets better again soon (i.e. when Kristen Bell arrives in two weeks). I'm really really hating the Wonder Twins (and if they're a diversity stunt, has the casting director actually seen an episode of the show? This is far the most diverse racial demographic on tv already without Zan and Jayna here, and I can so do without them. That rant aside, before I saw their awful and unexplained powers, when I read their powers would require each other, I was hoping HARD that they'd be an homage to Mas y Menos from Teen Titans. Now I just want them to die). Peter is reminding me why I didn't like him in season 1 and Claire is being a full-on idiot (though I did enjoy her power experimentation, but I was hoping Mr. Muggles would eat her toe).

TV on DVD: Simon Pegg used to be on a British sketch comedy show called Big Train. I've recently watched the first two (only two?) seasons and while it had definite funny moments, it had definite dull moments as well, and is one I wouldn't necessarily recommend to friends as a "must see."

Lash graduated from counseling this week, and we're all very proud of him and how well he's come from what was done to him.

Aside from what was written earlier, I'm having a very huge personality crisis regarding one of my friends and the way their handling new news in their life, so I may find myself withdrawing from friends for a little while as well.

I had McOrientation #1 yesterday (nothing new in ten years) and have McOrientation #2 to be McManagement at some point in the near future. I call for my McUniforms and get my McSchedule some time later this afternoon. Yippee.

Glamourous


A meme to pass the time . . . A short one, anyway.

I'm a Winner

1. Do you feel that you are you a lucky person?

I absolutely do. Of course, I feel as if my luck is mostly bad, but it's still luck.

2. Have you ever won a contest, sweepstakes, or raffle?

At the first movie I ever took Lash to in a theatre, I won a contest where the prize was the Rugrats in Paris video game for the Playstation One, which I promptly gave to Lash.

3. In your opinion, what constitutes a good prize?

I think a good prize is any prize the winner is happy to receive and/or the participants are happy to try for.

4. How often do you enter your name into sweepstakes or raffle drawings?

Really, not very often at all (see my answer to question one as to why).

5. What is the best thing you have ever won? (prize, award, recognition, etc.)

I really can't think of anything of the sort right now.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do



Spent this past week and a half reading books 26 and 27 of the 50 Book Challenge: Anita Blake Vampire Hunter books 5 & 6 (Bloody Bones and the Killing Dance) by Laurell K. Hamilton.

By the end of book six, I remembered why I didn't try very hard to keep up with the rest of the series when it came out (though I'm going to give them a shot anyway, as I'm less perturbed by the sixth book than I was when I read it ten or so years ago)--the whole "have the heroine fuck the wrong guy like a stereotypical helpless female in order to passive-aggressively ditch another relationship" plot turn. You spend too much time in this character's head by now to really buy these turn at all, and so it was very frustrating. But I now have the next three books, and a morbid enough curiosity to find out what happens in them, so onward I shall plod.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Der Wienerschnitzel


Welcome to Der Wienerschnitzel, May I take your order please?


Yeah, I want:
Two large Cokes, two large fries
Chili-cheese dog, large Dr. Pepper
Super Deluxe with cheese and tomato

You want Bill sperm with that?

NO!

Monday, October 01, 2007

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

So, this is a meme. I tried to fill it with long, interesting answers, even when the questions were very mundane, because I want to entertain you people. Also, to make it more of a visual feast, there are many more illustrations than usual.

Oh, and new friend & family photos here.



What is the story behind your couch?
There is no story behind my couch (neither of them), only a wall, some shoes and our cd racks. Our older couch was a Denise acquisition; it was really irritating because she surprised me with it by coming home with it jammed into our van and proved a complete bitch to get out. Our newer one is a white pleather deal that was gifted us by my man Brian.
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What do you use your kitchen table for most?
Our kitchen table is put to many uses, most of them having nothing to do with eating: it's where we play most home games of HeroClix; it's where the kids traditionally sit to do their artwork; it is the bedtime resting place of the laptop I'm using right now and it occasionally provides a resting place for loads of laundry awaiting folding.
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Do you make your bed?
I try not to. I love bed and pretty much all bedroom activities, but I hate bed making and let Denise do it without me as much as possible. For this, if no other reason, I'd like a maid.
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How did you spend Sunday night?
I spent Sunday night winding down from Sunday's D&D game. 80% of the game was really enjoyable, as it has been since the inception of this new campaign (the horror one Drew guested in where I play a psionicist/wizard from a lost human society who worships Vecna and is completely motivate by the acquisition of knowledge, no matter how gross or impolite his search ends up (eating various things: fallen comrades, giant frogs, etc. to see if they taste like chicken, a delicacy he's never actually had)) but I had a very large "drawn out of the game and had it ruined for me" moment occur that made me need to detox from the game for a few hours, so I read comics and Anita Blake book 5.
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Beer? Wine? Liquor? What's your poison?
The three are listed in order of least liked to most liked for me, and yet are also listed in order of most imbibed to least imbibed. Having a good friend who works at a brewery has greatly increased my beer consumption from "only if there's absolutely nothing else" to "only if it has a bearable BU content." I love many a mixed drink (especially the white russian), the fruitier the better usually (Appletini easy on the tini, cosmos, rum & coke, irish car bombs, brain hemorrhages, pimp juice, teas) but I hate energy drink booze mixes.
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What happened to your first love?
You know, I have a really difficult time answering this, because, as heavily romantic as I am (which is in diametric opposition to Denise) I can't seem to come up with a name for my "first love." maybe I'm dead inside. Is my first love the girl who broke my heart in third grade? The baseball teammate whose face I slammed the door on when she came to visit me in second grade? My first girlfriend, Priscilla? The one I played on-again-off-again the most with, Robin? The one I almost married, Shelley? The one who saved me and taught me to be me, Tassy? The one who died, Tina? My first boyfriend? Denise, the one I married? The kids? Aimee, the one unexpected? Is my inability to choose a sign that I don't yet have a first love, a sign I'm unwilling to admit (to whom--you, me, both?) their identity, a sign I'm incapable of loving? Beats me, so moving on.

What's happened to them? In order: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. She joined the Air Force, married and had kids, never to be seen again. She stalked me for years before eventually getting knocked up by someone else and blissfully disappearing from my life. She went back to Iowa, married and had some kids, and we remain friends. She died. I've never had a boyfriend, many crushes and maybe three I would (have/do?) liked to call that, but as there are none, nothing's happened to them. We remain married. They are with me and the most special. She remains married, across the country, and very special. And to answer my question, it's option B, as I want to claim my kids as my first love, but sadly Lash came just in time to be second at best. I leave first, from those listed before kids, for you to guess, assume or whatever and me not to admit.
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How do you get your laundry done?
Well, I run it through the washer, make Lash change it over to the dryer and assign the duty of folding to Aeia with assistance from Lash as part of their chores. I wanted to make this answer more interesting, something with intrigue, kung fu, evil mafia kingpins and Cinese laundries, but that plot's already been done.
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Coffee... want or need?
Can't it be both? I want coffee, good coffee from freshly ground beans with a high caffeine content, sugar free sweetener and loads of creamy goodness. Black coffee is gross, and that stuff that starts out in a can is disgusting. The caffeine addict in me needs coffee, but the lazy in me settles for diet soda, as I hate brewing my own coffee (though I love the scent, which Denise hates, further causing me to avoid brewing my own).
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Are you over ramen noodles?
As a general rule, yes. Sometimes they're a necessary quick fix lunch if there's nothing else to have. Sometimes they're a nice stir-fry base, but mostly they're an over-sodiumed, over caloried, over-carbed grossness I can only endure.
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What is your guilty pleasure movie?
I'll be a real man and admit to one from every genre, especially since some of them rock regardless.
Musical: Moulin Rouge
Horror: Dead Alive
Comedy: Better Off Dead
Action/Crime: Gleaming the Cube
Drama: As Good As it Gets
Porn: That one with the woman in the Santa hat
Children's: Superman 1&2
Chick-Flick: Terms of Endearment
Sci-Fi: They Live
Fantasy: Krull
Gay: But I'm a Cheerleader.

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How do you justify using your credit cards?
If I had the money to be frivolous, I'd play this game. It's enough of a struggle to scrape up enough to make sure Lash gets his HeroClix tournaments and I get to keep my internet. Top of that, we only have one credit card, for emergencies only, and currently maxed out since the last vehicular emergency. Credit cards are an evil that I wish we could do without.
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How do you feel about Harry Potter?
I think Harry Potter is the biggest, whiniest, emo ponce in all of popular culture--and that's even after seeing Spiderman 3.
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What do you look for in 'the one'?
Love, trust, loyalty, passion, friendship. They've got to like me for me, enjoy the things I enjoy but be accepting of the things I enjoy which they don't. They have to be accepting of my friends, my lifestyle, my tastes and needs. They have to be able to communicate their own instead of bottling them up and expecting me to read their silly minds. A lot of oral. A nice but not nasty kinky side. Mostly HWP (only because I recently discovered that none of my local friends even know what that means and I think it's funny). They've got to be smart enough to keep up with me and mine in conversation, which doesn't mean they need to be brain surgeons or nuclear physicists--they just have to be believable as one if they played one in a Bond movie. Really, I could go on about this question all fricking day. Must love Scrubs, Coupling and Spaced. And the first 5 seasons of the X-Files. No country music in her cd rack or ipod.

I'm still working on Denise.
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What newspaper do you read?
I don't really read them because they generally either suck or depress me. Our local daily paper, for the ten years I've lived here has been rife with atrocious copy editing errors and it simply hurts me to read it it's so bad with them. One of our weeklies is entirely too political and the other is entirely too irrelevant (especially as it's got a heavy "local music" agenda but never seems to cover anything Fingers of Passion or Cowboy, when the latter was still together.
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What is the mantra you use to get through the rough days?
Maybe if I had a mantra I'd feel like enough of a robot that I could simply "get through the days." As it is, I openly suffer and brood through the rough ones while hoping the help me grow into something bigger and brighter and happy.
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How do you "pick up" at bars?
Well, I tend to stack empty pint glasses, shots and beer bottles/pitchers off to the side so that the bartender can more easily clear them in order for me to more easily replace them.
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How many one-night stands have you had?
Twelve. One more and I'll feel really lucky.
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Do you remember your dreams?
I usually remember small portions of them--typically enough to relate the theme and general plot of the dream to others but rarely enough to go into great detailed specifics. When I was five I dreamed of being a stuntman. In junior high I dreamed of making out with Miri Randazzo. Then my dreams morphed into wanting to do something with acting, but that was crushed by the reality of how impossible it is to make it in acting. And now my one-lunged self still dreams of being the front man in a band.
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Do you want kids?
Having kids was something I so very did not want. Now that I have them, not having kids is something I so very do not want.
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When do you want to get married?
If the sometimes inevitable feeling of being unmarried in the future were to ever happen, I really don't see myself ever wanting to be married again. I didn't want to be married the first time and only did it for her and the expectations of others.
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What is your magic number?
Three. And it isn't just mine.
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Where is that special someone right now?
Well if I were to say Denise, she's out back re-sanding my table so that she can repaint my table yet another awful colour I am guaranteed to hate with great passion as I only got the table because I liked it for its natural appearance and Denise decided to destroy that without even asking me if I was ok with it. Of course, other people like it her way and my answer to that is that they should get their own tables and let Denise ruin them for them. The kids, the oldest two, are at school.
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Do you have a will?
I have a very elaborate will, but it has yet to be put to pen and paper. As I've sold most everything I would have bequeathed the kids in this past year, I guess it isn't nearly as necessary anymore.
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What was the best day of your life?
September 13th 1997. Or June 26th 1987. Or June 22nd 1995. Or October 31st 1996. No, it was July 16th 2005.
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Is it harder to be rejected or to reject someone else?
I really really hate being rejected. I don't like the pain and I do not get over it easily or even see it lessen with time. I have absolutely no problem rejecting someone if I don't really know them, or if I know them too well and they annoy me too much, or if they're stalking me.
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Who's your favorite person?
I don't think I'm going to answer that. I wouldn't want to disappoint you or make you feel rejected. Oh wait, the solution to that would then be this: You are.
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What are you listening to?
Will you still love me tomorrow? (Amy Winehouse's cover) And I have to say, I am not a fan of Amy Winehouse, for the most part, but this cover is fucking fantastic.
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What's the last thing you drank?
I had 1 1/4 cup of 1% milk with my piece of toast and scrambled egg with salsa and cheddar.
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Have you been on a date in the past week?
I have not been out on any dates in the past week, no. Is staying in considered a date?
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Where are you going on your next vacation?
I'm too busy wondering if I'll ever have a next vacation. As it's least cost-prohibitive, I imagine the next vacations will be beach or Comic-Con related. Apologies to all of you who would like otherwise, but if I had unlimited funds and my way, the first vacation I would take would be to Toronto. And it would be entirely possible I would never come back.
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Have you ever thrown up from working out?
I had my very first work-out related vomiting only very recently. Thankfully, the only thing in my stomach was about a liter of water. Thanks, Chris. We need to do that some more.
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Are most of the friends in your life new or old?
Most of my friends are young; Terry and John are old. Almost all of my friends have been my friends for years, though there are some pleasant new ones.
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Have you ever gotten so wasted you didn't know what was going on?
I have never gotten that wasted, but I have gotten so wasted that I didn't remember everything that had gone on the night before on exactly two occasions.
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Do you like pulpy orange juice?
I love it. I want to marry it.
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Are you touchy-feely?
If you were here right now and we were having this interview in person it is extremely likely that I would have groped, caressed or linger-touched you at least four times by now. Unless we're related.
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Do you prefer the tanning bed or the sun?
If I'm going to risk skin damage and melanoma I would much rather do it outside under the magnificent rays of the sun, smelling the freshness in the air, the salt in the breeze (or chlorine) and the company of friends and lovers.
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What are your biggest pet peeves?
People who only want me around because they want something from me instead of my fellowship. Flakes (as in people who make commitments and break them, not as in stupid people, and not the Flakes). Stupid people. Civil/personal rights conservatives (I'm fine with fiscal and crime conservatives, just don't try and make rules about my personal life, who I choose to fuck or marry or worship or associate with). Zealots. Games freezing up or otherwise glitching. The cost differences between most things at wholesale vs. srp. Bad hygiene. Bad driving. Bad cooking. People making decisions that effect me without first consulting me (surprise parties and similar excluded)(see previous table discussion). The institution of marriage. War. Pestilence. Famine. People who put empties back in the fridge. Most comics by Judd Winick and Geoff Johns and Devin Grayson and Chuck Austen. People who think 30Days of Night was a fantastic example of the horror genre in the comics medium; only its most basic premise was new or fantastic. New editions of perfectly good films I already own being released short months or years later. Censorship.

And so on and so forth.
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Do you consider yourself bi-polar?
No, I consider myself multi-faceted.
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What's something your friends make fun of you for?
I don't know, they mostly don't make fun of me to my face, which I find a bit more angering. Brian makes fun of my dislike of first generation video games and John makes fun of my sexuality. Both are acceptable with me.
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What's your worst personality flaw?
Broodiness
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Would you ever parachute off of a plane?
I really really really hate planes. If I were in one and needed to parachute in order to survive, I would do so in a heartbeat. Otherwise, I don't see myself flying recreationally in order to sky dive and what-not. Which isn't to say I'm against the concept of extreme sports. With proper equipment and training I would bunjee jump, base jump, etc. I just hate planes.
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Have you ever ridden an elephant?
Yep. But she didn't smell very nice when we made out so I broke up with her relatively early in the relationship and she's likely why I prefer partners to be closer to HWP.
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Are you Irish in any way?
When I go out drinking, I would expect to be Irish after starting the night off with Irish Car Bombs, but really I usually end up turning Canadian.
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Have you ever been to a nude beach?
I have been to a nude beach many times. It was fun and nice. People weren't there to openly ogle others and be lecherous. It was a lot more private feeling and intimate. Though there was this one time when someone parked their yacht a small bit offshore for a few hours and I couldn't help but imagine they were there out of being pervy.
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Have you ever drank Jack Daniels?
I have, but generally not by choice. I don't like whiskey.
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What are you saving your money up for right now?
Bills and weeks 4 and 5 of the Starro tournament for Lash. After that, once bills and necessities are dealt with, if I can find enough to save for long enough, I'll save for tuition, a new car, a high definition television and a PS3 in that order. And whatever Denise convinces me to agree to. Perhaps a new table.
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What was the last gift card you received?
I know I'm about to receive one from my grandmother in order to get me new decent interview clothes as I only have one set since losing 4 1/2 inches of waist last summer. I'm pretty sure the last one I've received was a Visa gift card from Aimee that I still have a dollar something on.
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Does the number of people a person's slept with affect your opinion?
No, but the quality of people they've slept with most definitely does. And I have a very high opinion of everyone who's slept with me, even if I currently hate them. Because they have good taste.
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Have you ever gone to a party where you were the only sober person?
I have--Kenn's going away party I was stuck being designated driver. I hated it.
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What do you do when you spot a bug in your house?
I introduce it to the concept of two-dimensional reality.
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Where's your cellphone?
I think it's in a drawer somewhere, as I've had it disconnected for 4 or so years now. I should get a new one, preferebly a prepaid since I never used it enough.
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Who are you talking to?
You.
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Who are you crushing on?
You. And Natalie Portman.
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Ever had sex in a graveyard?
One of our first apartments as a married couple was built on the site of a displaced graveyard, so yes. And yes, the apartment was haunted.
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Ever had sex in a church?
I have had sex in church, both while in session and while not in session. Premarital sex Morons are uber-freaky.
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Ever tried the 'Bloody Mary' trick in the bathroom?
No, I think they taste awful.
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Ever played strip poker?
I have. I love any game that encourages progressive nudity between consenting adults. That said, after a recent issue of Boys, the really perverse in me now wants to try a game of reverse strip poker as well.
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Ever played video games?
I don't play video games.
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Ever played pool?
I do. I tend to play very well until it's time to sink the eight ball. Then I fuck everything up and lose.
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Do you love weapons?
Conceptually.
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Ever killed someone?
Conceptually.
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Ever been arrested?
Nope but there were a couple times where smart-ass friends made it to where I was surprised we didn't get arrested.
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Do you watch 'Jackass'?
No. I mean, if it was still on the air and if I still had cable then I would be watching it, sure. Now those of us with cable watch the Whitest Kids U'Know.