Liebster Award Saga Continues

Thanks for the nomination j3w3l! I find these things kind of silly, but I guess it would be rude not to participate in the phenomenon that has taken over the MMO blogosphere lately. I’m such a perfectionist though it’s taken forever to put this together. :)

Eleven quick facts about me:

1. I’ve self-published a book on Amazon and sold over three copies.
2. I used to write music and record songs in a home studio.
3. I’ve had tons of dental work done.
4. I secretly wish I could do slight-of-hand magic.
5. My perfectly sane retirement plan is to become a best-selling author.
6. This year I’m hoping to buy a house; I’ve been renting for three years.
7. I hate talking about myself which makes job interviews painful.
8. I used to have really long hair but I cut it short on my 40th birthday.
9. My favorite pickle is the Mt. Olive Kosher Dill pickle.
10. I don’t talk much but sometimes I can be annoyingly verbose.
11. I can juggle up to four balls.

Answers to j3w3l’s questions:

If you were to be an expert in a singular subject (anything not just regular school stuffz) what would that be.

I wish I was better at simple mechanical things like home repairs, but I’m just too lazy. In a less practical area I’d love to be an expert swordfighter-I just recently discovered that German longsword fighting is a real thing. If I were 20 years younger I’d be all over that. I still might try it just for the exercise, but I’ll probably embarrass myself.

Your favourite tv show or cartoon when growing up.

This led me to a giant rabbit hole of looking through old Saturday morning cartoon lineups and prime time schedules from the 1980s to find the exact shows that I watched. But then I started to wonder, “What exactly is the age range where one grows up?” Then my precise scientific research went off the rails into some weird philosophical area.

So here are some shows I remember watching religiously from the late 70s through the mid 80s: Quark (briefly), Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, The Dukes of Hazzard (obviously!), Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner, Superfriends, The A-Team, MacGyver, Remington Steele (I had a huge crush on Laura Holt), and pretty much every sitcom that ever came on NBC Thursday nights (Cosby, Cheers, Night Court, etc.)

If you were to be turned into a monster, from any medium or even your imagination what would that be.

Probably a plain old vampire. Eternal life and all that. I’ve never thought about it much though.

Favourite mode of transportation in games.

I’m not much of a mount collector but the horses in Age of Conan are the best ones I can remember. I also like the animation of dwarves bobbing back and forth on yarnosaurs in Rift. I remember loving the flying griffons in WoW way back when I first started playing.

Your favourite piece of merchandise, gaming or non-gaming.

If this means action figures or posters or figurines or the like, I honestly don’t think I own any. I have a problem spending money on things that have no practical use. My house has virtually no decorations in it. Weird but true.

The music that gets you moving, genre and artist.

I don’t dance but anything with a good drum beat will get me playing air drums, usually in the Rock genre. Here is a tiny random selection of songs on my Android car playlist: Bon Jovi Livin’ on a Prayer, Breaking Benjamin Breath, Chevelle I Get It, Extreme Slide, Huey Lewis Couple Days Off, Linkin Park Given Up, Motley Crue Kickstart My Heart, Rush Tom Sawyer, Seether Gasoline, Stone Temple Pilots Unglued, Van Halen Man on a Mission, ZZ Top Sleeping Bag.

If you were to punch a historical figure who would that be.

Whoever invented the 40-hour work week.

If there was one law you were able to break with impunity which would it be.

Ha! Tax evasion? Then I might feel better about splurging more on merchandise. :)

If you could bring one mechanic from games into the real world what would it be.

At first I thought this meant a literal mechanic, as in a person who fixes things. I was imagining some gnomes from World of Warcraft running around fixing my water heater, which might be kind of cool actually, unless I had to listen to their terrible jokes all day long.

As for game mechanics I think it would be cool if people had health bars on them. :) And I wish you could rate people in real life based on your interactions with them, and have that number floating over their heads when you see them. Sort of like the recommendations in FFXIV but mostly I remember it from the book Daemon by Daniel Suarez. It would probably end up destroying society though.

Draw me personal portrait, and yes paint is acceptable.

This was the hardest one of all! Draw something? Are you kidding?? :) Anyway it’s pretty awful but here it is.

Now for the even-more-hardest part: Thinking up new questions that aren’t too dumb but also don’t sound like essay questions.*

1. What was the last animated series you watched?
2. How many mobile devices do you own (choose your own definition)?
3. Are your right- or left-handed? Do you wish you were the other?
4. At what point in your life did you give up on the political system (an intentionally loaded question)?
5. Is it weird to peel a banana from the bottom?
6. What is your favorite season (ie. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter) and why?
7. What kind of coffee or tea or orange juice do you drink?
8. How many games are on your desktop right now?
9. How many musical instruments do you play? Are you out of practice?
10. What kind of car do you drive? What would you rather drive?
11. Are you more of a Mulder/believer or a Scully/skeptic (of whatever subject you care to fill in)?

It’s also been hard finding blogs that a) haven’t already responded, b) haven’t already been nominated, and c) have a known Twitter handle so you can actually notify them of their nomination, but here are a few. I think some of these have already been tagged but they haven’t posted yet so get writing! Or feel free to totally ignore me if you want, and if anyone else wants to chime in, go for it.

• Grimoires of Supremacy
• Tish Tosh Tesh
• Simcha’s Many Lives
• Far Beyond My Capacity
• Tobold (hey, why not?)

* In case anyone cares, my answers would be: American Dad, 5+, right/no, around age 35, only if it’s too ripe, Spring, Folgers, like a hundred, 4/holy god yes, Honda Accord/Porsche, mostly skeptic.