December 11, 2005
Weird Habits Meme

Tanager (password protected journal, but the link goes back nonetheless) has tagged me with the “What are my weird habits” game. Here are the rules, augmented to be used outside of Journalspace for people who aren't in there:

"The first player of this game starts with the topic "five weird habits of yourself," and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don't forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says "You are tagged" (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours."

Typical meme rules. Here are my five weird habits, keeping in mind that the term habit means that it is something you do repeatedly, this is a hard list to compile. A habit is very different from a quirk.

1. We don't flush the toilet if it is pee. We are conservatives in a lot of ways and you'd think we'd love to thrash the environment wholeheartedly, but around here we conserve water in each way possible. Hence we abide by the philosophy of "if it is yellow, let it mellow."

2. I go out of my way to avoid making left turns.

3. I have saved all of the baby teeth my children have lost.

4. In the wintertime, I do not shave my legs at all. Nope. I go sasquatch, and I have better skin for it.

5. Every morning it goes like this: check WXRV, go to WBCN, go to WAAF, go to WERS, go to AM for traffic. Back to WXRV, WBCN, WAAF, WERS and back to AM. Wash, rinse, repeat for the entire ride to work. Unless something good is on one of the stations and I stay for a few minutes, my hand is hitting the pre-programmed buttons the whole way down the highway.

Now. To whom do I send this joyful meme?

DaSkinnyBlackMan
Jo of Counting Sheep
Michael of Chaos Factor
My daughter (I will not link to her journal)
Mathmarie

While on the meme topic, here are the mutterings.

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Stalker:: Internet safety
2. Outrageous:: behavior
3. Carrying:: packages
4. Spirited:: horse
5. Oh!:: klahoma where the wind....
6. Grid:: Football superbowl picks
7. Country:: Kevin
8. Karen:: Oh
9. Candles:: advent
10. Relationship:: marriage

Numbers 8 is the lead singer of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and I don't know any other Karens.

So Friday was an eventful day.

First, we got 20 billion (actually 18) inches of snow. At one point my tenant and I were out there with the snow thrower and it was snowing an inch every 15 minutes. No lie. With thunder snow. I was standing in the driveway and saw flashes all around me. I thought I was having a seizure until I heard the thunder. Then I was scared to be standing out in the drive with a metal shovel. Luckily, it passed and the novelty wore off long before the snow itself stopped falling.

see above? I sat there for 20 minutes.

After the snow fun, I had to go inside and get ready for our holiday party at work. I left 2 hours before the start of the party and got there 1/2 hour late. Yes. It took 2.5 hours to go 25 miles. Seems that 128 was a wreck. It took me 20 minutes to make it to Danvers and then over 2 hours to get FROM Danvers to Salem. It was a really fun party, and no one got disgustingly drunk and embarassing (the way so many office holiday parties wind down).

I took a lot of pictures of course and they are up at Flickr.com of course. The party was a lot of fun, and Amy was there, and we took tons of pictures (some of each other at the same time) and I got a nice bottle of wine at the Pirate Swap. All told, the 2.5 hour trip down there was the only crappy part of the night. I had an excellent time and love the people I work with.

Saturday I took the kids to Chunky's to go see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. After seeing Wallace & Gromit at a big chain theatre I decided that I don't ever want to go to the movies again out in the theatre, but Chunky's is awesome and I can have beer and onion rings and relax with some space between me and the very noisy people who tend to go to the movies and behave as if they're at home.

Chunky's rules.

We had put off going for a long time, the kids wanted to see it and I was loathe to go because of my complete disdain for the movie theatre scene. I was relieved to see it listed at Chunky's. Another reason why we went was because I could not bear staying inside and there is too much snow out to go geocaching. I didn't feel like taking Geoff up to the sledding hill. Movie sounded good.

Doug went to work in the morning to make up some time, and then when he came home he needed some peace and quiet to do some continuing ed classes online. So we cleared out and gave him the space he needed. He finished up all his hours this morning, so he's all set and refuses to learn anything else until faced with another deadline.

My thoughts on the latest Potter are as follows.

1. Half the damn plot isn't in the movie and it is still 3 hours long. There was SO much missing, so a bunch of things that are IN the film don't really make sense unless you read the book and you know what happened.

2. I hate the modern clothing thing that they did in the last movie and this movie. They look stupid. They need to be in Hogwarts uniforms. Sorry. I know they modernized it for kids in the USA, 90% of which have no clue why schools wear uniforms, but it looks crappy and disappointing.

3. Snape is still the greatest. The scene in the study hall where he whacks students in the head for talking and forces their faces into the books all without speaking is one of Alan Rickman's best moments. Stage and Hans Gruber aside, he is and always will be Snape to me.

4. The dragons were cool. I would have liked to have seen the other 3 champions battle their dragons but it looks like all the screen time had to be given to Harry's quest for the golden egg, and that's okay by me.

5. Lord Voldemort's rebirth was scary and gross and just right. He needs a nose though. Too much talking from the bad guy. When are bad guys going to learn not to boast and talk to the victim for ever so they can get away in the end. I expect better of the darkest of the dark lords. Smite away!

6. I cried when that thing happened to that other student (for those of you who have not seen or read the book, there are a few of you, I won't say it). I cried when I read the book too. I can see how some parents think that this is all way too dark and scary for their kids, because heck -- I was scared and it made me sad. But Harry's life isn't puppies and lollipops. And life in general isn't puppies and lollipops. So the stark reality of what happens in the plot and how abrupt and serious it is, well. That's life, right?

7. I love Neville Longbottom. I really love him. I love him because he is just like Harry, only no one notices him, no one knows he is there. His parents were destroyed, his grandmother tourtures him (like Harry's ghastly family does to him). But he carries no fame, no legend. He has to show in the end of all this that he is a hero as well. And that kind of low-key rise to the ocassion heroism is the kind of character I love the most. I love him in the books, and I love how slowly he is emerging through the movies.

8. The ending sucked. I thought the last film was too schmaltzy and wrapped too nicely in a big shiny bow. This one? Bleaugh. Barf. Meh.

Top all this off with the fact that last night there was nothing on TV so we watched, yet again, The Two Towers on TNT. I made Jessica stay up with me. Geoffrey moaned and complained at all the kissing (heh. 8 year old boys rule) and I fell in love all over again with Sam. Tell me more about Samwise the Brave.

And I guess that's it. We have football watching and house cleaning on the agenda today. I have so much to do that I don't want to do and I'm just ... meh. Tired. But we have to get our tree and our decorating in gear, so we need to hop to it at some point. Today may as well be the day.

On that note, off I go.