Seven Ten

[jlh]

I was sulky earlier this week but I have gotten over it thanks to the patience of allysonsedai and calloocallay. So I shall do memes.





1. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
2. Tag seven people to do the same.
3. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag whoever wants to do it.
I have to say, those tagging instructions are really bossy. I was tagged by lillijulianne.

1. I cannot stand pineapple. Apparently this is odd because I love fruit and sweets and pineapple is sweet, but it's one of those tastes that even if there's just a hint of it I can taste it and then I don't want it.

2. My first car was a standard (manual transmission) and I'll admit this: If you cannot drive a standard, I will judge you. My mother wanted us to drive one because what if we were kidnapped and we escaped and the only car we could use to leave was a standard?

3. I don't care for pet peeve lists in general but I really don't care for grammar pet peeve lists. Bad grammar usually has more to do with substandard elementary education than anything else and those memes make me very self-conscious about my own difficulties with commas. mistful and I once commiserated that the comma is there to fuck with those of us who write what they hear because we want to put a comma into the sentence every time there is a natural pause in speaking. For example I am not even sure whether there should be a comma before that "because" in that previous sentence. The whole debate about the comma before "and" has me completely freaked out. Also I can never remember what a comma splice is so when people rail against it I wonder if they mean the comma before the "and" or is that an oxford comma or a cambridge comma or something? A Johns Hopkins comma? My dear beta for 8WFS took out almost every comma I used and now I would rather not have them in sentences at all to be honest. I will rearrange a sentence to avoid making a comma decision. Sometimes in chat or in a comment I will rewrite a sentence two or three times because I'm not sure where the comma goes. Hence I have used no commas in this paragraph.

4. Whenever I eat candy that comes in different colors or flavors, like M&Ms or skitttles or gummy bears, I'm compulsive about sorting through it and having a little pile that is perfectly balanced and then eating all the extra FIRST and then eating the rest systematically.

5. I usually cook recipes that feed four and eat off them for four servings and I am also fairly compulsive with that about divvying up the servings as close to perfectly even as I can get.

6. I have seven kinds of vinegar in my pantry right now: red wine, white wine, balsamic, rice wine, cider, white, sherry. I make a lot of salad dressings.

7. I love reading memes like this about other people but find them difficult to do for myself because I have no idea what about me is different or quirky. There was a meme a while back where you named books/cds/dvds that you owned that no one else did and I totally failed at that (except cds by my BFF's band). Yet, people say, "I've never met someone from Maine before" and I always think, "Really? Because I know a lot of people from Maine." When it's you, it never seems that exotic.

I tag ali_wildgoose, allysonsedai, calloocallay, longtimegone, mahoni, slytherincess, and wordplay


- Comment and I'll give you a letter.
- You have to list 10 things you love that begin with that letter.
- Afterwards, post this in your journal.
calloocallay gave me H, a surprisingly difficult letter.

1. History, duh.
   
2. Hericots verts
   
3. How I Met Your Mother, my favorite show on television right now.
   
4. His Girl Friday, the movie I wanted to be in when I was nine.
   
5. Humpty Dumpty Potato Chips, a huge part of my Maine childhood.
   
6. Horace Silver—Songs for my Father is great traveling music.
   
7. "Hanging on the Telephone" for the drums.
   
8. Huckleberry Finn.
   
9. Heist movies like Ocean's 11 or The Italian Job.
   
10. Harold Dieterle's restaurant, Perilla.

Comments

[trincesstiara.livejournal.com]

I also do the candy thing, and when it's smarties i also eat the last eight by colour from lightest to darkest...

[jlh.livejournal.com]

My mother always gave out smarties for halloween candy, so we got the leftover ones as the sweets in the house in November. However, in looking them up on wiki I realize that my smarties (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smarties_(Ce_De_Candy)) are not your smarties (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smarties_%28Nestl%C3%A9%29).

[trincesstiara.livejournal.com]

We have your smarties too, but I forget what they're called. Not rockets, anyway. They come in tiny rolls and we but them in party favour bags after kids parties. My smarties are tastier than yours though; especially the orange chocolate ones :)

[aome.livejournal.com]

I impressed Will on our second date because I could drive stick. He sat down in my car, noticed the shift and said, "Did you get that deliberately?" (ie, it wasn't a hand-me-down I just happened to acquire by chance, or whatever) And yes, I'd purposely bought a stick. Bonus points for the new gf. ;)

When I was in grad school I met someone (not in my program) who had lived in Maine before, but I'm not sure I would have remembered that until, just now, I was trying to think who I knew from ME besides my SIL/nieces. I just remember that my friend had a collection of very thick sweaters and socks from the time she'd lived there (I don't think she was a native - neither is my SIL, for that matter).

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I think it's that I think of Maine as just being another rural state but people react to me like it's some kind of interesting place. Also, I mean, there are a lot of Mainers in NYC; it isn't that far away.

I would totally buy a stick, unless I was doing nothing but city driving, but then, I probably wouldn't have a car, like I don't now! I would also never buy an automatic sports car because why?

[lillijulianne.livejournal.com]

i, um, can't drive stick, but i have exactly the same vinegars as you do. i also used to love sorting my m&ms.

people say, "I've never met someone from Maine before" and I always think, "Really? Because I know a lot of people from Maine."

i love this. i don't know why :)

[lillijulianne.livejournal.com]

oh, and may i have a letter? :)

[jlh.livejournal.com]

B.

The first time I said I knew a lot of people I wasn't even thinking about it and a friend was like, well, of course you do, since you spent the first 17 years of your life there, and I was like, oh yeah. But what I mean by that is, I also meet people from Maine now that I'm in NYC.

I must admit, I am surprised you don't drive a stick, though I don't think people even bother these days. My parents pretty much only had manual cars.

[lessthangreat.livejournal.com]

I can't drive stick because my parents suck at teaching me how. They didn't even really teach me how to drive automatic. I had to take a driver's ed course at a local public school over the summer to get my license.

I do that with flavored candies, too, btw. I alaways have to eat the excess all in one go so everything can be even and balanced when I start eating the sorted ones. :)

[jlh.livejournal.com]

My parents sucked at it, too, so I also took driver's ed and then borrowed an automatic from my sister to take the exam, and then my brother taught me to drive a stick so I could drive one of the family cars. (My sibs are much older.) I recommend trying to learn on a German car; their transmissions are more forgiving than American or Japanese ones.

I am so surprised that everyone is down with the sorting of the candies!

[mmichelle.livejournal.com]

I can drive stick! I learned to drive on one, and I think it is a skill everyone should have - take your example with the kidnapping, or what if your boyfriend or someone drives stick and you go to a party together and he gets drunk and you need to drive him home? There are so many reasons that it's just a really really good thing to know how to do. :)

And I took that nerd test and was labeled a non-nerd. The computer and sci-fi questions on there were like Greek to me, honestly. It was kind of hilarious. :)) I managed to only moderately redeem myself with the history/literature category. :))

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I only know some of the math and computer stuff because I have friends who are programmers and such, and so I know like, what is a language. But yeah, it was all about the hist and lit for me!

That's another good reason, not to get stuck at a party. I was at this fundraiser where you could test drive BMWs and BMW would give a dollar for every mile you drove to the Susan G Koman people and all the sports cars were standards, so my friend could only drive the sedans. HA!

[locumtenens.livejournal.com]

Whenever I eat candy that comes in different colors or flavors, like M&Ms or skitttles or gummy bears, I'm compulsive about sorting through it and having a little pile that is perfectly balanced and then eating all the extra FIRST and then eating the rest systematically.

I totally do this! (Exception: with M&Ms I pick out all the green ones & put them in a separate pile, go through the rest of the colors systematically then eat all the green ones at the end.) :D

Hmmm, I'll have to think about my answers to this. Will post later!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Ah, green M&Ms. My favs were the light brown ones but I don't think they make those anymore. I'm so surprised that so many people do this sorting thing with their candy too!

[locumtenens.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the light brown ones came along to replace the toxic red ones, but then when they found a gout-free red dye the light browns were kicked out again.

I miss them.

[soupkills.livejournal.com]

(http://www.nerdtests.com/nt2ref.html)

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I am unsurprised by this result as you know many nerdy things but you are not socially awkward really at all.

[soupkills.livejournal.com]

I was a little surprised at how low the sci-fi/comic rating was (well, compared to the other categories), since I have read a lot of sci-fi. It was more targeted to movie/tv sci-fi and less literary. alas.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

And not really indie comic, though I suppose that's an intersection between hipster and nerd, or something. Though as you can see I couldn't answer any of those questions anyway, so I mightn't have noticed.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I can't drive stick at all (I can barely drive standard!) yet I still judge people for it. I just give them extra cool points if they can do it because it's one of those things like being able to survive in the woods or something.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Automatic, you mean. Though perhaps that is becoming the standard!

I cannot, however, survive in the woods. I don't even like camping.

[sixersfan.livejournal.com]

I wasn't like this at first, but I saw an M&Ms commercial about Little League Baseball when I was a kid and, from that point on, I always imagined playing a baseball game as I ate them (brown ones are singles, yellow are doubles, orange are triples, and green are homeruns...when they introduced red, I made them outs).

Can I get a letter?

[jlh.livejournal.com]

F

Okay, greens are homeruns—are you sure that wasn't a metaphor for something else?

But the other half of my brain is like, was this a game with two teams? Were you keeping track of the baserunners in your head? Before there were reds, did innings just never end?

I bet you can keep a box score, can't you?

[sixersfan.livejournal.com]

Okay, greens are homeruns—are you sure that wasn't a metaphor for something else?
??? I don't get it.

But the other half of my brain is like, was this a game with two teams? Were you keeping track of the baserunners in your head? Before there were reds, did innings just never end?
Yes. That's the kinds of guy I am. Before the red ones, I used the tan ones to be outs. Remember the tan ones? A lot of people don't.

I bet you can keep a box score, can't you?
Who can't keep score?

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Green M&Ms (http://www.snopes.com/risque/aphrodisiacs/mandms.asp). Home runs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_metaphors_for_sex).

The tan ones were my favorites, actually. I always was annoyed that there weren't tan peanut ones. What do you do with the blue ones, now that we have them?

I can't keep a box score; I mean, I don't know how. No one in my family watches sports so I wasn't taught when I was a kid, and I've always meant to teach myself since then but keep getting distracted learning other things.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

7 Things:

1. I loathe pineapple. Except on pepperoni pizza. That is literally the only way I can eat pineapple. Pineapple and Canadian bacon pizza? EW. Pineapple any other way? BLEH. Pineapple and pepperoni pizza? Okay.

2. I learned to drive stick in college because I was going to buy a friend's old VW bug. Just as I got good at it, my dad decided that instead of letting me buy a piece of junk I could afford, he would buy me a new car that I couldn't afford. Which was not a stick. I can remember how to do it, but I don't think I would be able to do it in practice right away. I.e., if I was kidnapped and my only escape was in a car with stick, I'd only make it to safety if the kidnappers gave me a good fifteen, twenty minutes to figure it out.

3. those memes make me very self-conscious about my own difficulties

Dude, yes. There are certain things I just don't keep in my brain, which include the spelling of certain words and a few grammatical things. Comma placement is one of the things that will befuddle me. For example, I know that there is a rule about when you use a comma in lists before the "and [last item in list]", but every time I relearn that rule, I pretty much immediately re-forget it.

7. Ditto. Well. Except for the part about Maine.

But I'm still inordinately pleased that you tagged me! >:D<

R.e. H:

2. This made me laugh. I like those too!

9. Ooh, I keep meaning to see The Italian Job. I've also been told that Snatch (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208092/) is good; have you seen that one?

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Snatch is very good, and not only have I seen it a few times, but once it was narrated by Alex, who was visiting, which was really entertaining.

Italian Job is on TV all the damn time, but I will probably purchase it at some point.