Lucky for her she's so darn adorable

Shakespeare's Sister, who normally has a good sense of humor, thought she'd be funny and stick me with one of those blogger memes.

Lucky for her, she's adorable, otherwise I'd get her for this.  I'd drop her from my blog roll, sign her up for all kinds of spam lists, and send a mash note to Bill Frist and sign her name to it, if she wasn't so dadblamed Hoosiery cute and likeable.

So I'm going through with this.

This one is meant to maneuver the poor sap who's caught it into revealing something of his true self.  But as I told Mrs Shakes, since I'm basically a fictional character all of my answers are suspect as they might very well be fictional as well, which I think defeats the purpose.  Which is another reason I'm agreeing to follow through.  I can lie or not lie and you'll never know.

Question number 1:  What are three of the stupidest things you've done in your life.

A:

1.  Went back to Eva Dorsey's house that night.

2.  Bet my friends that I could so walk the whole way across the bridge on the railing and back.

3.  Back in college I worked as an usher in a movie theater.  One busy night the hallways were full of people waiting to get into the 9 o'clock show, which was sold out.   The manager had us stand at the doors of the auditorium when the first show, also a sell out, ended and direct the crowd to go out by way of the fire exits down by the screen so that the crowd waiting to get in and the crowd wanting to go out didn't get all tangled up and nobody got trampled to death.  This was working fine until one guy, who was about six foot seven and weighed 350 pounds and dressed like a biker decided he didn't want to go out the fire exit, he wanted to go out the regular way because he had to use the bathroom.

I told him no, he couldn't do that.

But that wasn't the stupid thing I did.

The stupid thing I did was, after he picked me up and bounced me off the wall, I got to my feet and stood in his way again.

Stupid as all three things were to do, none of them damaged me greviously or had consequences severe enough to make them the answer to Question number 6.   The biker's girlfriend saved my life, I won my bet, and although Eva broke my heart it turned out not be as badly as either one of us expected it to be and I was over her in a week.  She never forgave me for that.

Question number 2:  At the current moment, who has the most influence on your life?

A:  Shakespeare's Sister.  I mean, look at me.  There are a hundred other things I would like to be doing, could be doing, should be doing, and yet I'm sitting here answering these questions, thanks to her influence.  How much more influence over another human being can one woman have?

What do you mean that's cheating?  Who died and made you ruler of all the blog memes?

Question number 3:  If you were given a time machine that functioned, and you were allowed to only pick up to five people to dine with, who would you pick?

A: You mean if I had a time machine all I could do with it was go cadge a meal someplace?

Oh, all right.  Let's see.  First, for me it has to be people who were born after the invention of the knife and fork, also after indoor plumbing and refrigeration.  I don't care how interesting these historical personages are, I'm not going to enjoy my meal if they're sitting there smelling like wet buffalo, shoving mashed potatoes into their mouths with their fingers, and serving me food that's been sitting out unrefrigerated for God knows how long so I'm going to die of bottulism.

1.  Jean Harlow.  2.  Marilyn Monroe.  3.  Vivien Leigh.   4.  Grace Kelly.  5. Noel Coward.

Noel Coward?

Yeah.  Someone's got to keep the conversation flowing and I figure Coward could handle that without being any real competition for the ladies' attentions.

Question number 4:  If you had three wishes that were not supernatural, what would they be?

A:  Let's assume some nobler blogger who caught this meme has used their three wishes to take care of all the peace, love, end of hunger and disease, and buying the world a Coke and keeping it company business.  Let's also assume I can't use these wishes for myself or anyone I know personally.

1.  The Mets get some strong middle relief and take a pass on Gary Sheffield.

2.  Somebody finds five new plays by Shakespeare, written in his prime---no more of those weak collaborations he worked on when he was at the end of his career and just marking time until his investments paid off and he could go home to Stratford.  Failing that, all the rest of Dickens' manuscript of The Mystery of Edwin Drood which unbeknownst to his friends and family he did in fact finish before he died.

3. Nobody in Hollywood ever, ever, ever gets it into their heads to do movie versions of Cheers, The Dick Van Dyke Show, MASH, or Gilligan's Island.  And if they do make a Gilligan's Island, there will be no pie fight between Mary Ann and Ginger.

Question number 5:  Someone is visiting your hometown/place where you live a the moment. Name two things you regret your city not having, and two things people should avoid.

A:

1.  Regret not having.

i.  A beach.

ii.  A good, clean motel with a discreet and reliable staff that takes cash.  The motel, not the staff, although they keep their mouths shut, they'll find I'm a generous tipper.

2.  Things to avoid.

i.  The public library.  The librarians don't like me there.

ii.  The Christian ice cream shop.  The ice cream's all right, but the Muzak is infuriatingly uplifting.

Question number 6:  Name one event that has changed your life.

A:  When I taught freshman comp, I used to give this question as a writing assignment the first day of class.  I used it as both a way for students to introduce themselves and to judge their current level of writing skill while not asking them to have to work too hard right off the bat.  But I had some rules.

They couldn't write about finding God, falling in love, the death of someone they loved, or a personal tragedy that they wouldn't tall a stranger about at a party.  I added that last one after the first time I gave the assignment when I had to grade three essays titled "The night I was raped."

Some things are important to write about but they should not be graded.

"So, teach?" the students would ask then, "What can we write about?"

I told them they needed to be flexible in their definition of an event.  There are big events, and there are little events.  People tend to focus on the big events in their lives, but not all of those actually change their lives, while some very small events can have consequences that we live with until the day we die.

"So, teach," the students would ask again, for they were a smart and lively bunch, full of pep and aching with the desire to learn, "What do you consider an event?"

At this point, having craftily contrived to be holding a very heavy text book throughout this part of my lecture, I would heave the book across the room and watch it bounce off the wall.

"That," I would say, after letting the stunned silence that always followed deepen for a moment or two, "was an event."

Then I would walk calmly over to the book, pick it up, and with a sly smile say to the class, "The sequel."

Amazingly, that did not inspire sixty-two essays entitled "How I went into my first day of Freshman Comp and discovered my instructor was a raving lunatic and so I ran screaming to my advisor and dropped the class like a hot brick."

So here's my event.  It's a small one.

My first semester at Boston University, I missed the first day of classes because I was in the housing office arguing over where I was going to live that year.  I thought it should be in an off-campus apartment.  BU thought it should be in an off-campus motel room with four other students it didn't have space for in the dorms.  I won, but because I wasn't in class that day I wasn't assigned to a discussion group for my Intro to Broadcasting and Film class, the famous BF101, taught by the late, great Murray Yaeger.  When I showed up for the second class and presented myself to Murray he took a sheet of paper from his briefcase that had the class lists for all the discussion groups.  "We need to get you assigned," he said.  He lifted his finger over the page, circled it in the air a couple of times, and stabbed it down without looking.  "There you go," he announced.  "This is your group."

So I went to the classroom where my group was meeting.  There were about 15 other students, including this very annoying blonde girl from Philadelphia.

No, no, no.  I'm not violating my own rule about no falling in love stories.  That blonde and I didn't fall in love.  That day.

Question number 7:  Is not a question.  It's a command.  Tag five other people.

Make me!

(Update:  Res dared me to pass it along.  I'd ignore the challenge, except that since his web page his called the Republic of Dogs, his dare might be considered a double-dog dare or even a triple-dog dare, and no real man can refuse one of those.  So:

Res is tagged.  So is the Linkmeister.  Sorry, Link.  He dared me.  MadKane, but she's got to sing all her answers.  Jeannette.  More for her to muse on in her middle-age.  I'd love to tag the Countess, but I think she's already answered this one.  If not, and she's willing, I expect all her answers to be in phrased with the royal We.  Otherwise,  or in addtion, Jaquandor.

Send me the link when you're done, folks.  Everybody else, please feel free to play along in the comments.

Apologetic update:  This is what I get for reading my comments first thing in the morning before having at least three cups of coffee.  I don't know how but I misread the dare.  It came from Ratty not res.  So now Ratty's tagged.  Too bad for him.  I was going to spare him since I hit him with the book meme a while back.   Unfortunately,  I checked with the judges, and res is still tagged, even though it's not his fault.  Sorry, guy.)

Comments

[grishaxxx]

I'm game. I dare ya!

[scott]

Ummm...wasn't MASH originally a movie? And I do believe I'd watch a Cheers adaptation just as long as the bar added to its stable of regulars Billy Bob Thornton's character from Bad Santa. (Is it ironic that I can't remember his name?)

[Linkmeister]

I like the Shakespeare idea, but the lost books I really want to see are the casebooks that Watson kept in that trunk of his. You know, like The Giant Rat of Sumatra, which Watson felt couldn't yet be told, and now never has been. And I don't mean any lousy pastiches like The Seven-Percent-Solution. What the hell did Nick Meyer know?

[Shakespeare's Sister]

Shakespeare's Sister, who normally has a good sense of humor, thought she'd be funny and stick me with one of those blogger memes.

You know, my enthusiasm for the idea that tagging you would be endlessly amusing hasn't dampened a bit. So, from this perspective, my good sense of humor retains its sterling reputation. ;-)

[John Howard]

Did the character in Bad Santa even have a name?

[blue girl]

Lance, first of all I think you broke your rule #5 -- and *skimmed* your first comment.

Secondly, what have you done to those poor librarians?

And lastly, I do not believe there is a Christian ice cream shop. I think you completely made that up.

[misty]

M*A*S*H the movie came out in 1970, the tv show in '72 (Gary Burghoff [Radar] was the only person, I believe, that was in both as the same character). Oh dear, my geekness is showing again...

[res publica]

I DARED you?!? Whaaa?

[Lance]

I'm sorry, res, my mind must have been playing tricks on me this morning. It was Ratty who dared me. So he's tagged too.

Doesn't mean you've escaped. You're already tagged even if it wasn't your fault.

[grishaxxx]

Pass completed - thanks, QB Lance (wow, what a moniker!) - see you all at my place:
http://ratboyxx.blogspot.com/

[Lance]

Blue Girl, there really is one. I swear. Word of God. Which is not the name of the shop.

The librarian story is too sordid to tell.

[patrick]

it didn't have space for in the dorms.

Ahem, said the grammar nazi.

"for whom it did not have space" would be closer, and that's STILL flirting with the passive voice.

Remember, we have to dress better, eat better AND write better than the cretinous heave at The Corner, or the terrorists have won. I'm just saying.

[Lance]

Patrick,

I think it's the difference between the formal and the colloquial.

His mother served him the brocolli he got sick at the sight of.

His mother served him the brocolli the sight of which made him sick.

As for dressing better and eating better, I'm beaten on both counts, so I guess I have to hand in the towel.

Or should it be "on both of which counts I am beaten"?

[patrick]

I guess I have to hand in the towel.

If that's all you're wearing, then I guess the blog-beefcake/cheesecake sweepstakes just got taken to the next level, didn't it?

[res publica]

Okay I did it. It sucks, because I hate those meme things, but in the immortal words of my favorite anti-drug PSA, "I learned it from you, okay!! I learned it from watching YOU!!"

[blue girl]

Sordid, huh? Ok, funny boy - what word is missing here?

"Look at her. This is a lonely woman looking for companionship.. ... Spinster. ...

Maybe a virgin. ... Maybe she got hurt a long time ago. She was a schoolgirl. There was
a boy It didn't work out. Now she needs a little tenderness. She needs a little understanding.

She needs a little ......? - what?

[Lance Mannion]

"She needs a little Kramer!"

Same episode:

"A librarian named Bookman? That's like a guy who sells ice cream named Cohn."

[blue girl]

One of my all time favorite episodes :))

I remember when the librarian was a much older woman: Kindly, discreet, unattractive. We didn't know anything about her private life.

We didn't want to know anything about her private life. She didn't have a private life. While you're thinking about that, think about this:

The library closes at five o'clock, no exceptions. This is your final warning.

Got that, kewpie-doll?

[blue girl]

Go here to read the whole episode:

http://www.wayabroad.com/english/tv/Seinfeld/seinfeldscripts/TheLibrary.htm

I miss them!

[Mad Kane]

Lance, how clever of you to earn major Brownie points from me by making me one of your "This Week's Guest Stars," before hitting me with an Evil Meme. Otherwise I would have had to kill you.

It may be a while before I post my response cause I'm hard at work on a spanking new song parody. Plus my husband's on vacation for the next two weeks and he tends to be ... uh ... distracting.

[Gordon]

Sis is right. Funnier'n shit. You English majors are a hoot!

[res publica]

I am disappointed that Lance wasn't provoked by my assigning him the nickname of "Bootsie". I hereby formally request that everyone refer to him as "Bootsie" (complete with quotation marks) henceforth!

[Lance]

res,

Why should I be mad. I thought everybody knew my real name is Bootsie.

[res publica]

Curses! Foiled again!

[Shakespeare's Sister]

He's lying. His real name is Rod Bigstaff.

You can never get a straight answer from this guy.

[res publica]

Hey...I used to date a Rod Bigstaff. Rod...is that you?? I...I never knew you could read and write, honey!

[grishaxxx]

So Hot! Rods and Lances and all that - it's so hard to seat an historical table and not have it turn into a boy orgy. I am dismayed, as a host. Madame de Stael, perhaps? I've got to round this out....

You know, the question should also have touched on menu.

[jeannette]

Thanks for tagging me, Lance. Interesting meme. Enjoyed reading your answers.

I'll post mine as soon as I'm able. Having computer problems at the moment (I'm at my parents’ house today and am using theirs).