Archive for the 'Mememememe' Category
January 5th, 2009 by Rebecca
In the spirit of trying to blog more often, I volunteered to let Dr. Beth interview me. She’s sent five questions for me to answer:
1. You are a librarian, so I assume you’ve read every book ever written. In your opinion, what is the best book ever?
There are literally dozens of books I could recommend here, having read from just about every section of the library. In the end, however, I’d have to go with The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka. The illustrations are wonderful, and it teaches the value of not only being nice to your neighbours, but also getting both sides of the story before you rush to judge someone. [1]
2. If you were hosting a 24 movie marathon (a la Dave from Touch You Last), what movies would you show?
To get things started, we’d have to start with something energetic and slightly off-kilter – Tank Girl is just the thing for this. Then we’d move on to some Canadiana, like New Waterford Girl and Wilby Wonderful. We need a kid’s movie now, so let’s watch Finding Nemo. By now, it’s getting to be around suppertime, so I’m going to put on Big Night to enjoy with dinner. Afterward, we’ll need a comedy and an action-adventure to carry us into the midnight hour – Live Free or Die Hard fits the bill in both categories. Now we’re going to need something to usher us into the late evening, something serious and cerebral, but not anything too complicated. I saw Urbania in late 2007, and loved the story on so many levels. We’re starting to feel a little tired now, so let’s go with something lush and colourful like The Fall. Now that we’re into late, late night territory, let’s scare the bejezus out of everyone still awake with either Outpost or 28 Days Later [2]. To cleanse the palate, let’s watch Mystery Men, followed by Coffee and Cigarettes (I’ve always thought the Iggy Pop/Tom Waits episode was the best). To end, I’m going to go with the very fitting Last Night.
3. What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Paperback romance novels are always something I feel silly about reading in public, but they’re like chocolate truffles – empty calories, no nutritional value, and yet they taste oh so good and before you know it you’ve eaten the whole box. I don’t read them exclusively, and I read them for a specific purpose: like a dish of sorbet between courses of a meal, romance novels sometimes help with the transition between books of different genres. Or if I have reader’s block, I’ll grab a couple from the paperback rack and race through them so it feels like at least I’ve read something to help me get over it.
4. What was the best present you got for Christmas this year? The worst?
The best present I got was the copy of The Joy of Cooking, which I’ve only been asking for it for the past six years or so for my birthday and/or Christmas. It’s more than just a cookbook – it’s a little like an encyclopedia of cooking and food preparation. The worst? Someone gave me a cold, so I’m not to happy with that.
5. What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done?
I’m not all that crazy a person in my public life, so some of the stuff I’ve done doesn’t seem all that crazy. One instance of crazy I can think of was the time I drove to Grand Island, NY to go roller skating with a group of friends from fencing. I think the flat-out craziest thing I’ve ever done is the time I got my hair cut when I was ten. I’d never cut my hair until that point, and it was really long – like, past my butt long. It was difficult to take care of, and washing it was a two-person job, usually in the laundry tub, so I decided to get the whole thing cut off. I didn’t tell anyone at school I was doing it, and showed up the next morning with hair that was cropped close to my head – it took a while for people to notice because they thought I was a new kid and didn’t recognize me without my hair. [3]
Are you interested in being interviewed? Email me and I’ll try to send you five scintillating questions within 24 hours for you to answer on your blog/Facebook/MySpace page.
[1] Note to Beth: your niece will love this one some day. I’m just sayin’…
[2] Say what you will about the Japanese horror oeuvre, but zombie movies scare the living crap out of me.
[3] I thought I had pictures of it when it was short, but apparently I don’t. Or just can’t find any right now.
June 15th, 2007 by Rebecca
I’ve been tagged by multiple people, all of whom I forgot, to do the 8 things meme. It’s taken me this long to even come up with one or two interesting things, let alone 8, that aren’t boring beyond all reason or contain TMI.
1. I can’t listen to anything by the band Tool without getting seriously squicked out. Back in high school, someone in one of my classes was doing a presentation on violence in lyrics/videos, and made us watch the video for Tool’s “Prison Sex.” Given the subject of the song (sexual abuse), I was so disturbed by video that I got up and walked out of class. To this day, I can’t listen to that song or anything else by them without turning it off.
2. I have no desire to travel outside of Canada. I don’t even have a passport, and I don’t feel the need to get one. Maybe it’s just my anti-social nature, but there’s not really anything out there that I want to see badly enough to make me want to travel.
3. The children’s song “On Top of Spaghetti” (sung to the tune of “On Top of Old Smokey”) made me cry. For the love of all that’s good and holy, I couldn’t tell you why. But it did.
4. Equally odd was the fact that I found the song “Little Rabbit Foo Foo” too violent.
5. I used to be pro-life, then I was pro-choice. Now I’m somewhere in between.
6. I cannot stand to have my feet touched. It makes me tense and nervous, so getting a pedicure or a foot massage is right out of the question.
7. It doesn’t matter if my house is a sty, as long as the dishes are done and the kitchen is relatively tidy, I can live with everything else.
8. Honestly, I can’t think of anything else.
I’m not going to tag anyone else. Do it if you’d like, and let me know.
February 25th, 2007 by Rebecca
One of the benefits of staying home sick is having a lot of time to watch TV without interruption. The downside is that occasionally you come across a video getting waaaaay too much airplay, and it gets stuck in your head. I’m looking at you, Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable” – damn you and your “to the left, to the left” [1].
The other thing it gave me time to do was come up with five reasons why I blog.
1. Keeping in touch.
Everyone in my family participates in regular email correspondence with each other, some of us more than others. I’m somewhere in the middle as fas as consistency goes, and I like to think that my blog is a way of filling in the bits I forget to tell them in my irregular emails.
It’s also a way of keeping in touch with friends and enemies across the country and in other exotic locals.
2. It’s all about me.
I’m not so modest that I’m not going to say I don’t enjoy having a soapbox on which to stand and have my say or show off my talents and hobbies.
3. A sequence of events.
I’ve never been good at keeping a diary or any other sort of time-monitoring device because I tend to get distracted, or I forget, or something like that. Having a blog helps me to remember roughly what I was doing around this time last year.
4. Creative outlet.
When I was in high school, I loved to write, and I did it quite a bit. Then I hit university, and… not so much with the creative writing any more. It’s been like that for a few years, and having somewhere to write where it’s read.
5. I don’t have a fifth reason.
Seriously – two days lying on the couch and I couldn’t come up with a fifth reason.
Another thing I couldn’t come up with? Enough people to tag. Let’s see – J, Julie, Randal, and Mary-lynn. And anyone else who wants to do it.
[1] Which, as I’d sing along with the video, I’d inevitably point to the right. I’d blame the fever, but I’m usually that spazzy without illness.
January 9th, 2007 by Rebecca
Okay, so Anna at TangonaT tagged me to tell you five things about myself, based on blog posts from last year.
1. I joined the Knitting Olympics, and competed as part of Team Canada, in the Hurry Hard Handwarmalong. And I managed to complete my project, too!
2. I turned the big 3-0, and learned an important lesson.
3. I traveled a lot. I went to Thunder Bay, Toronto, Owen Sound, and Ottawa. I also went to Red Lake, Elliot Lake, and Kirkland Lake, but didn’t write about them.
4. I got a job in North Bay, and bought a house.
5. On my fourth try, I suceeded in completing NaNoWriMo.
So that’s it. If you, you, you, you, aaaaaaaaaand… you are so inclined, you too can play along at home.