draliman on life

Week 40 already! I wonder how many sleeps there are until Christmas…?

Here’s my answers to Cee’s questions for this week on Share Your World. Thanks for posing the questions, Cee!

You’re given $500,000 dollars tax free (any currency), what do you spend it on?
“Money money money, It’s a rich man’s world” as Abba famously sang in 1976. $500,000 was probably a huge amount of money in 1976 too.

Copyright some music company probably

Tax free? Awesome! First, I need to convert it to pounds so I know how much I’m actually getting – £311,000. It doesn’t sound so much now, but still enough to have fun with! That’s enough to buy a house at the current average house price, with some left over for a car and holiday of a lifetime!

I’d pay off my mortgage, credit cards and so on. That would leave me with some money in the bank and lots of monthly disposable income. I’d maybe have a nice holiday in New Zealand to visit the Hobbits.

What’s the finest education?
Oxbridge? The University of Life? The School of Hard Knocks?

Whatever works for you and lets you get what you want out of life, I suppose.

What kind of art is your favourite? Why?
I don’t really have a favourite. I like different kinds of paintings, different kinds of music, sculptures, literature (if you can call the stuff I read “literature”). I know what I like when I see/hear/read it. That’s my favourite. What I like.

Is there something that you memorized long ago and still remember?
Nope.

You want more? Okay then. “Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom friend of the maturing sun.” That’s all I got.

I’m hopeless at remembering stuff from long ago. I have friends who seem to remember all sorts of quotes and so on. Not me. I can’t even remember stuff from very recently.

Umm, banana? Pencil sharpener, there’s always a pencil sharpener. Stuffed Aardvark? I’m sure there was a stuffed aardvark…

On the other hand, I can quote most of “Black Adder” and “Red Dwarf” off the top of my head. Very useful.

See you again next week!

Wow, Week 39. It’s almost Christmas 🙂 At least it is at the office. They’ve already started one day a month where you’re supposed to wear a Christmas jumper and they put on Christmas music and have mince pies.

Bah humbug.

It’s still British Summer Time (Daylight Saving Time). It’s not even Halloween yet for weeks. Heck, it’s not even my birthday until next Friday (shameless plug) and I’m hardly a Christmas baby.

Rant over, time to start Sharing My World, hosted by Cee. Thanks, Cee!

Did you ever get lost?
Did I ever get lost? That’s like asking if monkeys like bananas. Actually, do monkeys really like bananas? Surely bananas can’t be the natural food for all monkeys around the world.

I have zero sense of direction. When I’m sitting at work I don’t even know which way home is. I once got lost on a forest walk in Germany and only found my way out by working out direction from the setting sun. A couple of years ago I spent over an hour travelling just a few miles because I got lost twice – read all about it here.

Photo from whyquantumphysicists.com.

Who was your best friend in elementary school?
One sec while I Google “elementary school”… meep… meep… meep… and I’m back! It looks like it’s what we would call “primary school”, which incorporates “infants” and the first couple of years of “junior” school.

My best friend was a chap who started when I was around 6. He came down from up-country somewhere and we became friends. In fact, we were so close that when a group of us were playing in the woods and he fell off a rope swing and lay on the ground moaning and jerking, I was the one who stopped laughing first and went to get help! (He’d broken his arm, if anyone’s interested).

We lost touch after school and I’ve not seen him since. Funny how that happens 😦 .

Since the new television season has started in the US, list three favourite TV shows.
I don’t know anything about the new television season in the US as the nearest US transmitter is 3000 miles away, so I’ll try to identify three fairly current American programmes that I enjoy.

First up is “Grimm”. I’ve watched the first two series on Amazon Prime streaming and really like it! Basically, a cop finds out that he’s a descendent of the “Grimm” family, and can see nasty creatures from the fairy tales. There’s action, fantasy stuff and the characters are likeable. One thing which really sets it apart for me is that in a nasty situation, he actually calls for backup. I’m fed up of shouting “call for backup!” at the TV in other series – it’s a weak plot which depends on the star “forgetting” to call for help.

Next is “Bones”, of course. Humour, great characters, a few shocks, science and action. What’s not to enjoy?

Finally. “Lost Girl”. Which I believe is Canadian, and is why I specified “American” earlier. As in “the American continent”. This has fantasy, action, great stories and… cute babes! It’s features “Bo”, who discovers that she’s a powerful Succubus and gets drawn into a dangerous fairy tale world she never even knew existed. My favourite character is “Kenzi”, Bo’s human friend, who’s a bit out of her depth sometimes but is clever, brave and sassy (and cute). Apparently, series 5 (2014/2015) will be the last – it’s great news that this is planned as they should be able to finish it properly. I hate shows which go on and on and then when ratings fall they get unexpectedly cancelled, with no proper ending.

Picture from tv-facts.net

If you were a mouse in your house in the evening, what would you see your family doing?
That’s easy. Nothing. I live alone!

Phew, I went on a bit this week, sorry about that and see you next week!

It’s time once again to join Cee in her Share Your World challenge. Thanks for posing the questions every week, Cee!

If you could be a tree or plant, what would you be?
I wouldn’t really like to be stuck in one place, so I think I’d like to be an Ent. I haven’t ever seen one personally, but they featured in a three-part documentary I saw once about a “ring of power”. Ents are cool, they can move around and they’re friendly to Hobbits. And if they get attacked by evil sorcerers they can give as good as they get!

Me as an Ent attacking an evil sorcerer

If you could have a servant come to your house every day for one hour, what would you have them do?
They’d do everything I tell them to do without complaining. If they didn’t, they’d be out the door and they’d never work in this town again, buddy!

If you could have an endless supply of any food, what would you get?
Hmm, that pretty much depends on the consequences. If it’s consequence-free I’ll go for an endless supply of curries. They’re expensive, bad for my ageing stomach and massively calorific, but if there’s no consequences, bring them on!

If this is not consequence-free, I guess an endless supply of celery sticks 😦 They’re particularly slimming for me as I absolutely hate the things. Though I suppose if I dipped them in an extremely hot, very expensive and calorific curry I could force a couple down.

What was one of your first moneymaking jobs (other than babysitting or newspaper delivery)?
Very boring – I had a summer job (before I left for university) working in the county council’s computer department. Since this was the “olden days”, they were huge things and actually had tapes spinning round, like you see in old films. Part of my job involved waiting for the computer to tell me it needed a tape, then I had to go off and find it and load it up.

Not a job which makes this post any more interesting, but it did earn me a nice bit of money to start university with.

See you all again next week!