Midway through the Games, some games for you. (If you still trust the girl who brought you the horribly addictive and basically stupid Parachute Game.) But these will stretch your brain, I promise. You know, if you don’t mind that kind of thing.
So — how’s about a little aggravating fun?
The 50 Largest Countries in the World
The 100 Most Common English Words
A list of 10 Things I Loved That No Longer Exist (excluding people or pets or anything about personal appearance).
In no particular order:
1) My favorite coffee mug, handmade by Frances
2) Mission Hills Cafe
3) Dansk Tea Room
4) The little white church on the corner of Genter and Draper
5) Drama Dept. Chili Cook-Off
6) 58 W. Cremona Street, Seattle, WA
7) My college theatre before the remodel
8) The koi pond in the back of Cute House
9) The swing set and climbing net my dad made
10) My little yellow Datsun with the dented right bumper
My top score — 800 — on the stupid parachute game that is ruining lives — thanks to me. Spreading the joy; yup, that’s what I’m all about.
It happened once. It has not happened since. Oh, believe you me.
Someone sent me this game in an email. I ignored it for a while because I hate hate HATE any and all emails that start with “Fw:” Nothing good ever comes from “Fw:” Some people almost exclusively send me “Forwarded” crap mail and — they don’t know it — their forwarded emails go into my spam filter. I’ve set it up that way because that’s how much I simply cannot endure it.
This particular person isn’t a constant offender on the “Fw-ing,” nevertheless, I ignored it until a bored anxious moment struck last night and I clicked on it. What followed was about two hours where MB and I alternated playing this stupid stupid addictive game. I mean, words cannot express my level of personal dismay about endlessly playing a game involving DAFFY FREAKIN’ DUCK and actually being BAD at playing a game involving DAFFY FREAKIN’ DUCK.
I will tell you right now: I cannot score above 500 on this game. I CANNOT.
So here. Consider yourselves Fw:-ed.
By the way? Your kids will like it and score higher than I did, I’m sure.
This is an all-time low, I’m pretty sure.
I need a hug.
Uhm, I’m kinda hooked on this game. I play it every day. Luckily, once you finish the puzzle, you’re done for the day. It’s not like you can obsessively play it for hours and hours. So I’m rationalizing. Whatevs.
Just a wee nosy survey I worked up because I like breakfast. The whole ritual of it. The robotic routine of it. Or sometimes just vulnerability of being barely awake and eating with others. In some ways, I think it’s the most no-holds-barred meal of the day.
Anyhoo.
Copy and paste the questions into the comments. That way everyone can follow your answers better.
1) Do you usually eat breakfast?
2) If yes, what do you eat?
3) Choose one: Coffee or tea?
4) If you drink coffee, how do you drink it? Black, cream, sugar?
5) If you drink tea, how do you drink it?
6) Choose one: Oatmeal or Cream of Wheat?
7) Do you like to go out to breakfast?
8) If yes, do you have a place you really like to go?
9) What’s your favorite thing to order when you’re there?
10) How do you like your eggs?
11) What do you put on your pancakes?
12) If you eat oatmeal, what do put on that?
13) Do you like breakfast pastries — danish, bear claws, etc.?
14) What about muffins? Good or bad? Like or dislike?
15) Choose one: bacon or sausage?
16) How do you like your bacon?
17) On sausage: Link or patty?
18) Choose one: Quisp or Quake? **
19) For anyone who likes raisin bran, who makes a better one: Kellogg’s or Post?
20) Does ketchup belong on the breakfast table?
21) What about salsa? Same question.
22) Name a movie breakfast scene you particularly like or remember.
23) When you were a kid — or even now: What about that colored milk you get after you eat Trix or Fruit Loops or something; to drink or not to drink?
24) Did you and your siblings fight over the prizes in boxes of cereal?
25) We all know The Breakfast Club. So confess. Were you ever part of a “breakfast club”?
Stayed tuned for more versions of Tracey’s Breakfast Survey. I think I’ve only begun to scratch the surface. Yes. Of breakfast.
SO AS.
** I’m realizing this may be obscure. Okay. Quisp and Quake were Cap’n Crunch-like cereals. Quisp had flying saucer-shaped crunchies; Quake had rubble-shaped crunchies. Here’s a picture of the boxes:
Now they were identical in taste to Cap’n Crunch — identical — but they created a polarizing frenzy in my neck of the woods. You were either a Quisp kid or a Quake kid. There was no middle ground. You could not equivocate. You HAD to choose a side. And the Quispers hated the Quakers (which sounds wrong; forgive me, O Lord) and the Quakers hated the Quispers. Rabid, sugar-high bunch of cerealists. It was all very primal and dangerous and could very well have led to a hideous Lord of the Flies scenario on my school playground. (Some of the young-uns won’t know this one.) I am the only one who remembers them, though?? ACK.
In the city/town/burg/hamlet where you live:
1) What is/are the major grocery store(s) and which one do you like? Why, please?
2) Do you have Target stores?
3) How many Starbucks have you personally visited (guesstimates okay) and will you blow them up for me?
4) Do you have Ikea stores?
5) What is the price of gas right now?
6) What is a popular chain restaurant, what kind of food do they serve, and do you go there?
7) If you don’t have professional sports teams, what city’s teams are geographically closest to you and do you root for them?
8) Do you see lots of 20-somethings wearing pajama bottoms as pants, you know, in public?
9) Do you have a neighborhood that is known as the gay neighborhood? What is it called?
10) What is the latest thing that everyone is talking about?
If you answer, will you please copy and paste the questions into the comments section, then answer them? That way, everyone can read the questions and the answers together. Muchas gracias.
From Sheila.
Name up to three characters . . . And I broke the rules, I see.
1. You wish were real so you could meet them:
Jean Valjean from Les Miserables — I fell in love with him when I was 14. Seriously. The first time I thought I was in love with a man in a book. And still, I LOVE him. I cannot even really talk about him coherently.
Mr. Rochester, from Jane Eyre — I love him, too, but … it’s complicated.
Sydney Carton, from Tale of Two Cities
Aslan from The Chronic – (WHAT?!) – cles of Narnia. I have wanted that for so very long. It’s almost a cliche, I suppose, but I don’t care.
Oh, that stupid mom from Deep End of the Ocean, a book I hated with a white-hot hate. What is her name?? I want her to be real so I can call her lots of names and kick her square in the arse. (Your missing kid is living DOWN THE STREET for, like, 10 years, and you don’t even know or notice and then he shows up on your doorstep all, hey, wanna buy some candy bars? — or whatever the heck that happenstance was??? I am not over it. I will never be over it.)
Sugar from The Crimson Petal and the White. The book-loving, novel-writing prostitute with brains and a terrible skin condition. Sounds enchanting, no? In my mind, I am always trying to cast this role for the movie. If there ever is one. So that if there IS one, I can feel righteously indignant and annoyed at how miscast the role of Sugar was. I like to plan my indignation in advance.
2. You would like to be:
Lucy from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. No, wait. Lucy from Prince Caspian. ‘Member how she is the only one who sees Aslan leading them through the hills and such? How no one believes her when she tells them it’s him? And ‘member how she’s rewarded for her faith, for seeing with eyes of faith, when Aslan appears at night on that circle of moonlit grass and she runs to him and embraces him and cannot get enough of what it feels like just to be with him?
Sighhh …
I want to know that, that feeling. Why the heck do you think I’m a Christian??? It’d better be just like that! And look at me, all growed up, threatening God.
Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice.
Jo from Little Women. Duh.
Claudia in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
3. Who scare you:
Okay. Honestly? When I was a kid, The Cat from The Cat in the Hat scared me. He still kinda creeps me out.
Those Ravers from The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. A fantasy series I read yearrrs ago. Those guys gave me nightmares. Why I’ve never read fantasy since.
Arty from Geek Love — Shiver. I couldn’t breathe right when he was around.
Javert from Les Miserables. He chilled me. Mostly because you want to think you’re Jean Valjean. But you’re not; you’re really Javert.
I got the idea for the questionnaire below when the girl in the restroom stall next to me was jabbering loudly on her cell phone — in the moment. The tinkly little moment. Over the sound of the tinkly little moment. This seemed kinda … weird to me. I felt weird. I lost my concentration. I fretted and continue to fret: I mean, is that what people do now? Am I behind on yet another 21st century development? I don’t have cable. I don’t play video games. I only recently got a cell phone. And I don’t even know how to access my voice mail, so I certainly lack the requisite preparedness to use the stupid cell phone whilst indisposed. But now that I have a cell phone, is this expected of me? De rigeur? I’m confused. And frankly, scared.
So I have to know. I must know many things about your personal p*otty stuff that you don’t want to share. Too bad. Grow up. This is serious p*otty.
Sooo … Ready? Here we go.
Tracey’s Serious P*otty Survey:
1) So DO you talk on your cell phone whist indisposed in a public restroom? Not before, not after. In flagrante delicto.
2) In an empty public restroom, do you take the first available stall/urinal or make sure there’s space between you and any potential restroom interloper?
3) T/F: Automatic flushing toilets are scary.
4) Tell me the truth: I worry that the sensor thingie on those automatic flushing toilets is really a camera taking secret pictures of me.
5) Women: Sit or Hover? Well, men you can answer this too. Don’t be shy or anything.
6) T/F: Tissue paper seat covers don’t protect you from anything.
7) Women: Wait to start your process until someone flushes, giving you “cover”?
8) Talk to strangers in the restroom?
9) Talk to strangers in the restroom whilst indisposed?
10) There is no toilet paper. So I use__________________.
11) Is it just me, or do those tissue paper seat covers NEVER flush properly?
12) There is no soap. So I_____________________________.
13) Women, T/F: I have used the men’s room when the wait for the ladies’ room was too long.
14) Women: Are you familiar with p*ee cakes? If yes, please describe one without help from a man.
15) Men: Are you supposed to aim at the p*ee cake or ignore it? Please enlighten.
16) T/F: If the counter is wet, I always wipe it up.
17) T/F: I won’t use a toilet if the toilet is clean, but the toilet seat cover tissue is floating shredded in the bowl.
18) I will hold it in altogether if the person coming out of the stall looks even slightly mangy or feral. (Good to see I have not editorialized with this questionnaire)
19) I prefer:
A) The old-style faucets that I turn on/off.
B) The new-fangled motion detector dealios.
20) Moms, I will take into the ladies’ room with me:
A) My daughter
B) My son
C) Both
21) Dads, I will take into the men’s room with me:
A) My daughter
B) My son
C) Both
22) Women: Adjust your makeup in the mirror?
23) Men: Adjust your makeup in the mirror?
24) T/F: I touch the door knob with my bare hand when leaving the restroom.
25) If F, what do you use to open the door?
Thank you for taking Tracey’s Serious P*otty Survey!
.
From La Sheila.
A- Available or Single? Nope. I’m off the market. You’re all safe.
B- Best Friend. Yes, please. My last one went insane. Did we cover that?
C- Cake or Pie. Cake! Cupcakes! Not cheesecake! Gross!
D- Drink of Choice. Oh, I thought that said “Drink OR Choice” — which did seem really weird. Now I get it. Okay. So — I’m really into this hot chocolate caramel drink I invented.
E- Essential Item. Laptop.
F- Favorite Color. These days, I like brown.
G- Gummi Bears or Worms. Neither, thanks. Sour Patch Kids or those chewy sour apple thingies or some kind of sour anything. Sour treats for a sour laaady.
H- Hometown. Real or in my heart? Real: San Diego. Heart: Seattle.
I- Indulgence. Recently, it was the big day off I had last Sunday — after six solid weeks — where I sat and stared and listened to the sound of my feet rubbing together. It was awesome.
J- January or February. January.
K- Kids. Yes, “K” IS for kids.
L- Life is incomplete without …. MB MB MB MB. And MB.
M- Marriage Date. Groundhog Day.
N- Number of Siblings? 2.
O- Oranges or Apples? Uhm, apples. Peeling oranges is so exhausting, don’t you think?
P- Phobias/Fears. I’m kind of claustrophobic.
Q- Favorite Quote. Well, I do like “If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.” Epictetus. I’m content to be thought that all the time. THANK you, Epictetus! Look at me, always improving!
R- Reasons to smile. My niece, Piper. Picturing her playing little kid basketball without knowing how to dribble. That comment about witches’ houses. Kate P’s comment about the comment. Nightfly’s comment about my “access to an oversized dog anus.” Which will be giving me nightmares.
S- Season. Can it be fall all the time — ALL THE TIME?
T- Tag Three. No.
U- Unknown Fact About Me. If I tell, it won’t be unknown. Duh.
V – Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animals. Oppressor of Animals.
W- Worst Habit. Just your garden variety self-loathing, prolly.
X – X-rays or Ultrasounds. Oh, please. I don’t wanna play this one.
Y- Your Favorite Foods. Asian. I’m having some now. Chicken with Sizzling Rice from Mandarin Dynasty. Yummmmmy.
Z- Zodiac. Leo. I remember once this woman who had just met me asked what my sign was. “Leo,” I said. “Aren’t Leos arrogant?” she asked. “Why, yess,” I glowered at her and walked away.
