Dreaded Meme Time

Duncan has done the equivalent of the Glasgae Kiss in blogging terms. He tagged me. Tagging is interesting because tagging is a real job description for some Aussie Rules Footballers. They are the ones who hang around you like a bad smell and stop you from doing what you want to do in the game. All negative and the analogy is very true in this case. That said, Duncan is a nice guy and why not.

The truth is that I have not been tagged in a long time and I feel we have to do our duty every now and again. Even James Uber Meme Hater/Killer did a meme recently. Perhaps it was for this reason. Maybe he is a big softy.

1. The rules of the game get posted on the beginning.
2. Each player answers the rules about himself [or indeed herself].
3. At the end of the post, the player tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they’ve been tagged and asking them to read his [or her] blog.

What I was doing ten years ago:

I was in Singapore living on the East Coast, getting ready to be a Dad for the first time and preparing to get married. I was doing similar work to what I do do now, land contamination assessments, just more countries to cover. Thank you Thank you Singapore Airlines, the Hyatt Hotel Chain, Singapore Taxis, expense accounts and the like. I prefer my simple life now, but that was interesting.

Five things on my To-Do list today:

I am not one for lists. I wait for my wife to yell at me and then I know it is important. I actually don't have too much on my list since it is Saturday, it is wet and cold and my wife has gone with my son to visit her friend. Lazy day and evening.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Hell would freeze over before that happened based upon my financial accumen. If I didn't have to work, I wouldn't. I would have no problem finding things to do. I would visit the relatives in the UK, travel and then find something that my family would like to do.

Three of my bad habits:

Procrastination
Sloppy Behaviour
Chronic Lateness

Five places I’ve lived:

Glenrothes, where I was born
Washington DC
Kathmandu
Palawan (Philippines)
Singapore

Actually I have lived in the following places for more than three months, sequentially. Glenrothes Scotland, Country Fife near St Andrews, Aberdeen, London, Cupar Fife, Stirling, Washington DC, Aspen Colorado, Washington DC, Palawan Philippines, Seattle Washington State, Washington DC, New York, Silver Spring Maryland, Kathmandu, Washington DC, Singapore, Sacramento California, Adelaide South Australia.

Five jobs I’ve had:

I've had a bunch of these.

Seed Potato Roguer - Getting rid of all the bad tatties
Pallet Maker in a Saw Mill - One of the worst jobs ever. None of the old guys had all their fingers.
Bus Boy on Aspen Mountain. Free Ski Pass was the major benefit.
Manager of a Sir Speedy Printing Franchise in Seattle.
English Language Teacher for Vietnamese Refugees in the Philippines.

Five books I’ve recently read:

My reading is mostly on line, but I can list

Captain Underpants and the Big Bad Battle of the Bionic Bodger Boy. I had to find out what the attraction was. Both of my kids are currently addicted.
Adelaide Nature of a City. The Ecology of a Dynamic City from 1836 to 2036. Interesting background to Adelaide, my adopted city.
My new mobile phone instruction book. Completely useless, but worthwhile to browse through.
Easy Fast and Fun Food for Kids. I organise the kids lunch and I am trying to broaden the culinary repertoire. Still not too motivated by all those appealling photographs.
Adelaide Street Guide. Very useful for our spread out urban environment.

Five people or communities I’m going to tag:

Well first of all, bollocks to leaving a comment as per rule 3 at the top. It’s bad enough tagging someone as it is. I plan to tag my community of mice that hang out in our shed, Spotty, our dog, the budgie community and Ben and Daisy the rabbits. I doubt that they will notice.

Media Consumption Meme

Jayne tagged me with this interesting meme. I normally steer clear of these, but this is quite easy and painless.

With the kids on holiday, there has been a lot of kids programmes and DVDs on in the background. Most prevalent this week was Sponge Bob, which is interesting in small amounts. The kids made a few videos using Hannah's camera and my phone. I was forced to sit through them as they were proudly presented.

I spend a good deal of time reading blogs and news websites. I like the Australian and the Age and had a look at some of the UK sites. Maintaining my own blog also takes time.

We have the Australian delivered on Saturday and the Sunday Mail on Sunday, but I didn't get around to reading either, which is not unusual with my focus on home fixing projects.

With the cricket test on in Adelaide I spent two days there. I love to listen to it on the radio at the same time. Kerry O'Keefe is a total crack up. I also like to follow it on Cricinfo, which is a fantastic cricket website. I watched a little on television, but they only show the last session here in Adelaide because it was not sold out.

I have been doing some reading on gardening as we work out which plants to put where in our new house. Today we were doing some colour matching for our next painting projects and my mother in law brought along a nice book, which helped to solve some of the issues. That and the Ikea catalogue for some storage ideas.

Other things I have been reading have been technical related to my work, bus timetables as I try to work out commuting options for work and mobile phone instruction manuals as I try to make it do what I want. On Australia Day I assembled our barbeque. How Aussie is that? As usual the instruction manual was pretty lame.

I have been listening to what the kids listen to. They only like singing and hate talk radio, which is what I would chose when driving. They like the contemporary stations, who I would never chose. I haven't figured out how to put music on my phone yet, so a musically barren week. I did enjoy the Goodies singing Funky Gibbon, which was posted on Road to Surfdom. I hadn't heard that for years.

Help yourself anybody who wants to have a go. I am not a meme passer on by nature.

10 Questions Meme

The Actors Studio 10 Questions Meme -

1. What is your favorite word?

Discombobulation

2. What is your least favorite word?

John Howard (cheating I know)

3. What turns you on [creatively, spiritually or emotionally]?

Seeing my kids excited about something.

4. What turns you off?

Hypocrisy

5. What sound or noise do you love?

Heavy Rain.

6. What sound or noise do you hate?

Children screaming when I have a hangover.

7. What is your favorite curse word? *

Bugger, but there is a time and place for each one.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Gardening, Cooking, Nomad,

9. What profession would you not like to do?

Politician

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

I had you fooled for a long time.

Thanks Snoskred

October 19 in History All You Need to Know

Catching up with some tags.

Groanin' Jock tagged me with The Birthday Meme quite a while back. I rarely rush to complete these, but with all the happy news from the homeland this week, I felt in a generous mood.

Here are the rules:

Go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday (month and day).

Write down three events, two births, one holiday and tag five friends.

There are five slots in the Birthday Meme. As you are tagged, you have to remove the name in the first slot and bump everyone up so that your name can be added to the bottom.OK. I'll do that, but I wont tag anyone. I hate tags, but it is not personal. You Tag You Die sort of thing from primary school.

• 202 BC - The Battle of Zama results in the defeat of Carthage and Hannibal. Hannibal was always interesting to me when I was younger. I was intrigued by the romantic paintings of the war elephants crossing the Alps during winter storms. He was one driven war machine and gave the Romans a run for their money.
  
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• 1453 - The French recapture of Bordeaux brings the Hundred Years' War to a close, with the English retaining only Calais on French soil. I always think that it is odd that the hundred year war lasted 116 years. Joan of Arc eat your heart out.
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• 1987 - (Black Monday) Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 22%. I remember the blind panic that ensued from this. I was living in Washington DC at the time. Those were the days before 24/7 medja coverage and the interweb. Most of the coverage was on the radio and television and newspapers. It single handedly brought programme trading into the popular lexicon. When I was in Singapore, the Asian financial collapse was covered much more immediately and everywhere.

Birthdays


Both these guys had fairly outrageous lives, lived at the same time and died about the same age, 43.

1944 - Peter Tosh, Jamaican musician, political activist (d. 1987). He is the tall clean living one with Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer in their early Wailer days.

Born Winston Hubert McIntosh

Died Peter Tosh from gunshot wounds.

1945 - Divine, American actor (d. 1988) . Actor who starred in the first film version of Hairspray. Seems he did a better job than John Travolta based upon the resident film expert in our house.

Born Harris Glenn Milstead

Died Divine from Sleep Apnea due to obesity.

Festivals

The Scottish Festival of Haggis Supper and Deep Fried Mars Bar takes place on this day (and every other day) in Scotland.

And thats it. You can go in pieces.

Fab 4 Meme

Fran Skud landed this one on me and I have struggled with completing it. Being the type to eventually finish what I have started, here it is. Not strictly compliant, but what to do.

4 Jobs I've Held:

* Short Order Cook When I moved to America in 1984 I was on a tourist visa and we moved to Aspen, Colorado where it would be easier to work (and play). My winter job was a short order cook in the Red Onion Restaurant, working with a chain smoking, drugged up, often drunk, psychotic Vietnam vet and some others. Interesting introduction to an aspect of American culture and sometimes dangerous things flew about the kitchen in times of stress. If you were lucky, you wouldn't get cigarette ash in your omelette.

* Saw Mill Worker One of my short term jobs between my two University stints in Scotland. This was memorable for the nail gun fights in the pallet shop, the older saw operators, none of whom had all their fingers left and the owner who never stopped shouting at people. I lasted four days.

* English Language Teacher When my first wife got a job working for the UN in Palawan, Philippines, processing Vietnamese refugees, I went along and taught English. Most of my time was spent in small groups chatting and drinking Cafe Su Dat and drinking San Miguel. I was very popular because the refugees assumed that I had some influence over their case, which was absolutely not the case.

* Energy Efficiency Consultant When my first wife got a job working for USAID in Kathmandu Nepal I went along too. Not too many jobs available on the local economy, so I ended up as a consultant. One of the projects was to do an energy and environmental evaluation of the USAID Office, which was a former Rana Palace and former home to one of the competing Nepali Royal Families. Interesting project and my recommendations were funded and implemented.

4 Films I Could Watch Over and Over:

* Sponge Bob The Movie. I love watching this with the kids.

* Paris Texas. I identify with this film through aspects of my life. Alienation R US. The sound track alone is worth watching for.

* One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. I love the dynamic with Nurse Ratched, the craziness of the fishing trip and the image of freedom at the end.

* Monty Python's Holy Grail. This is one of my sons favourite movies.

4 Television Shows I Watch:

* News Programmes Although wherever I have lived I have preferred the radio news. The best TV News at the moment is the Chasers War on Everything.

* Kids Programmes such as Angela Anaconda and George and Martha. I never really watch them in detail, but enjoy the interaction and enjoyment of the kids.

* Live Sport especially cricket and sometimes football.

* Murder Mysteries including Taggart and Cracker. I really like the grimy reality of Scottish television drama and particularly Robbie Coltrane. Takes me back to my former life in doom and gloom of Scotland.

4 Places I've Lived:

* Singapore. Food Capital of the World.

* Washington DC. Where I got my second degree

* Stirling, Scotland Where I got my first degree

* Puerto Princesa Palawan The Philippines. Where I worked in a refugee camp

4 Favorite Foods:

* Japanese When I was travelling around Asia, the one thing you could get reliably was Japanese food.

* Indian Growing up in Scotland you acquire a taste for northern Indian food. Living in Singapore, I was introduced to southern Indian food.

* Thai. I developed a taste for this living in America, although I have visited many times. Often the style of food presented outside the country is very different and surprisingly alien when you visit for real.

* Scottish Food including the full Burns Supper Menu. Haggis is outstanding a few times a year. Back that up with some deep fried specials. Yum.

4 Websites I Visit Every Day:

* Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe (vain eh?)

* Google News Australia

* My Company Intranet Site

* The Melbourne Age Great Australian News Website.

4 Places I Would Love To Be Right Now:

* Tibet. Ever since I lived in Nepal, I have wanted to go.

* The Cook Islands. Tranquility, sun and white beaches.

* Tobermorey, Mull. One of my greatest weekend was the Mull Music Festival in the mid 1980s. Music and drinking for three days. Amazing.

* Reykjavik I blame James for the curiosity factor)

4 Favorite Colors:

* Dark Blue. I associate this with Scottish sports teams

* Emerald Green. I associate this with Scotland and Ireland and all that rain. Very rare here in Australia.

* Black

* Purple

4 Names That I Love but Would/Could Not Use For My Children:

* Osama

* Nebuchadnezer

* Nellie

* Ebeneezer (This was my grandfathers name and my grandma tried hard to have me called Ebeneezer. Thank you Thank you Mum for holding out).

I have sworn off imposing memes on people, so if you like to go for it.