38 posts tagged “qotd”

What did you do as a child that you feel guilty about even to this day? 

I once stole twenty dollars from a friend who'd been mean to me that day, and then told my parents I found it on the street and used it to buy Ninja Turtles toys. I was probably nine or so.

Trevor Dienes, if you're out there, I'm sorry I was an asshole when I was nine. I owe you twenty bucks.

Are you a registered organ donor?  Why or why not? 
Submitted by jacolily.

I am. I hope they get every single useful bit that they can get off of me after I go. Believe me, I will not need it anymore, and it's more use saving lives than fertilizing grass.

And speaking of fertilizing grass -- I don't even want to do that, I think burial is absurd. I want to be cremated, and I want my ashes scattered across a warm ocean. Somewhere in the Bahamas might be nice.

What song do you wish would never show up on a karaoke list?

"Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Livin' On A Prayer." Don't get me wrong, they're great and fun and whatever, but I have never once in my life been to a karaoke session where they were not sung. PLAYED OUT. Pick some new standards, folks!

You're the DJ: what are the next five songs coming up after the break?

Assuming I've started the pop-music radio station of my dreams, and that I'm adhering to some kind of modern playlist:

• M.I.A. - "Jimmy"
  
• Rihanna - "Push Up On Me"
• Calvin Harris - "The Girls"
  
• Justin Timberlake - "LoveStoned"
  
• LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends (Radio Edit)"
  

I've been in a very pop mood lately. Not that my already-out-of-date selections illustrate that. Perhaps I should say I've been in a very "the pop of three months ago" mood lately.

What time is your alarm clock set for?  Do you use the snooze button?

Currently, it's 8:06 AM. I did this so that hitting snooze once (a 9-minute snooze interval) brings you to 8:15 AM, which is a nice, even time that I intended to psychologically stimulate me into getting out of bed. So far it hasn't worked, though, and I keep snoozing until about 8:33 AM, when I generally drag myself up. Most of the time. Sometimes I sleep later than that. And yes, I'm supposed to be at work at 9:30, though arriving anywhere in the 9:30 - 10:00 zone is generally acceptable.

I am a constant, inveterate snoozer, and nothing has ever worked to stop it. This is actually the smallest amount of snoozing I've consistently done for a while -- I used to have the alarm set to 7:45 AM and I would consistently snooze over and over for an hour. And before you suggest it, putting the alarm clock across the room doesn't help -- I'll always stretch as far as I can to hit it (my room isn't very big), stand up and hit snooze and fall right back into bed, or half-wakingly move the alarm right back next to my bed so I can keep delaying the inevitable. Uncool.

When was the last time you did something dangerous? 
Submitted by Ross. 

Today, actually. And it was potentially very dangerous. More soon, I promise.

There's actually been a little too much danger in my life lately, in all honesty.

Have you ever had plastic or elective surgery? Did you tell anyone? Why or why not? 
Submitted by Beth Punches. 

Yep -- at my parents' insistence, I had a bump on the right side of my nose removed when I was a teenager. It wasn't cancerous, but it was apparently felt that at some point long in the future, it could become so. I don't miss it, and I guess it was ultimately an improvement... though my nostrils are two different shapes now, which kind of drives me crazy.

I also had moles removed from my back for the same reason, which resulted in two gigantic keloids (scars). Whenever anybody asks about them (generally in an intimate context), I tell them they're a prison thing and I don't like to talk about it. Always good for a laugh.

If you could have three wishes from a genie, what would they be? 
Submitted by tatteredhalo.

Assuming this isn't going to be one of those stupid things where you have to phrase every wish perfectly in order to avoid being horribly, ironically killed by them (mainly because I don't have the time to phrase my three wishes that way right now, although as an exercise that would be fun):

(1) Seventy-five million dollars.
(2) Superman's powers (and physique, naturally).
(3) A 75% reduction in the amount of assholeishness / cruelty / selfishness in the world. (I figure you have to leave 25% to set an example and to keep life from being too boring.)

That covers most of the basics nicely, I'd say. I'd be tempted to wish for voluntary immortality, but as far as I can tell the Superman thing more or less covers that. Is Superman going to die of old age? Probably not, right? Is there a canonical answer to this?

Have you ever met any celebrities? Any interesting stories?
Submitted by Tasha.

When I won a high-school playwriting competition at a local theatre, one of the prizes for the winners was a Q&A session with Edward Albee. At the awards ceremony later in the day, we were standing next to each other on the stage, and he leaned over and said "You know, you're tall just like Arthur Miller." I have thereby pledged that when my first novel is published (it'd work better for a play, but I'm not much of a playwright in reality), the front cover blurb will read:

"...Just like Arthur Miller." -Edward Albee

How do you beat writer's block? 
Submitted by marvel is my pen name.

Disconnect the internet. Well, I haven't tried this before, but I'm going to try it at home for the month of February, as part of an overall remodeling of how I spend my free time, which, at the moment, is "unwisely." I'll have the internet at work, so I might still be posting here -- in fact, I was considering an ambitious post-a-day project that I might have more details on later -- but I figure freeing myself from the internet's icy time-wasting grip when I'm at home is absolutely worth experimenting with.

Of course, it probably also means I'll be celibate for the month of February unless I summon up the cojones to actually go to a bar and trick someone into thinking I'm worth going home with. But that'll be an interesting experiment too, since it'll be the longest I've been celibate in a loooong time...