draliman on life

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World.

Which meal is your favourite: breakfast, lunch, or dinner?
Tea, which is “dinner”, if you like (I’m not posh enough to call it “dinner” unless it’s a meal out).

I like to choose something good to watch and relax and eat. I don’t eat breakfast at all. Even when I’m in a hotel and it’s “included” I rarely eat any. I just don’t feel hungry.

Who do you admire most in the world?
Me. I’m awesome.

No, wait, that sounds a bit arrogant and self-obsessive.

No one person. Traits and actions from lots of people.

Especially from me 😉

With the obvious restrictions in place, what do you regret not doing in the last year?
Nothing much, really. A couple of birthday family get-togethers were missed, and I haven’t been able to babysit my godson and his siblings, but apart from that, I was never really one for going out.

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World.

What’s the tallest building you’ve been to the top of?
I have no idea. It wouldn’t have been very high, though. Maybe a few storeys. A multi-storey car park or something.

What do you do to keep fit?
What is this “keeping fit” of which you speak?

What’s your jack-o-lantern carved to look like?
I’ve never carved one. I’ve never known anyone who carved one. Or bought a pumpkin. Halloween is getting bigger in the UK but has never been a big thing.

Fortunately it was largely cancelled this year, for obvious reasons. In fact, trick-and-treating was illegal in much if the UK due to various local lockdown restrictions.

Nothing says “super-spreader event” quite like going round loads of houses taking sweets from dozens of strangers!

Do you have hope or have you lost it?
I hope I have hope.

Hey, looks like I do have hope!

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World.

How many people in real life or on social media (including WordPress, which has become a rather social media site) do you consider good enough friends to help you ‘hide the dead body?
I’m perfectly capable of hiding my own dead bodies, thanks. Ask someone else and you’ll forever be waiting for them to break and tell someone else. Best plan – get someone else to help with the digging, then pop them across the back of the head with the shovel and bung them in the same hole.

Are You Ready To Order? What Are You Having (craving) right now?
Nothing right now but it’s early morning. Sometimes sweet, sometimes savoury, it depends on how I’m feeling.

How’s the weather in YOUR neck of the woods?
Pretty unsettled. A heavy rain shower just finished and it’s currently 9 degrees. Through the day it’s generally reaching 12 or 13 degrees.

“There has always been something.” “Before there was something, there was only nothing.” Which do you think is more likely?
Maybe there were these alien kids in another dimension who created a little universe as a school science project. After only winning third prize – after all, new universes are ten a penny – they forgot about it and it expanded. Now we live there!

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World.

Are we “here” or do we just think we are? (A metaphysical question today folks.) Can you prove your point of view?
Are we here? Am I here? Are you here? Do you exist? Are you artefacts of my subconscious, or am I product of yours? Am I leading a life shaped by another’s fevered dreams? Am I experiencing reality in the same way as you?

These and other questions will not be answered or even considered, because that’s how you go raving mad and spend the rest of your life weaving baskets.

OR DO YOU?

From an identity stand-point, which would be the worst for you personally to lose? Your face, your body or your voice? Which do YOU identify with most strongly for your own sense of self?
Well, the only one I could function without is my voice. I’d be a right state without my face or body.

Yeah, I know that’s not what the question was actually asking 🙂

Do you have a ‘song’? If you’re part of a couple, you could use “your couple’s song” OR a song that’s just always resonated with you.
Nope. ’nuff said.

Are ghosts real or has someone been smoking something and just imagines them?
No, ghosts aren’t real. Apart from Casper, obviously. He’s real. And friendly.

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World.

When was the last time you tried something new? How did that go for you?
I was going to say “I don’t know, I don’t like ‘the new'” but then I realised – the Block Editor! I know everyone seems to hate it, but I can actually put a post together faster. All the functions I need are right there in the little menus.

So, quite well!

What’s the most sensible thing you’ve ever heard someone say?
I’m not sensible enough to remember sensible things that sensible people say.

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
7,402.

Have you ever seen a ‘fresh’ corpse (aka dead body)?
I’ve never seen a corpse, fresh or otherwise. I know there’s a religion where the recently deceased can be viewed at the funeral, but there’s no way I’d want to see that, or for my empty shell to be seen once dead.

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World.

Well, hell. I’ve been “upgraded” to the block editor. I’ve been using the classic editor since July 2011 and I’m not one with change 😦

Fortunately it’s trivial to use, very intuitive. But I still don’t like change, dammit. I had to change my green font colour to blue, because the preset green is awful and I can’t be bothered to faff with custom.

And worse – in the block editor, the image showed centralised but in the preview it was left-justified. Poor show, WordPress. I had to click three button before I found the justify controls.

Where do you feel most at home? Please be more specific than “at home, doh” please. It could be a room in your home, a person, a location…
At home, doh.

Oh no, sorry. I can’t put that. In my living room, then. It has the TV and the best Echo and the PS4 and whatnot. It’s also my home office!

Would you rather ride a bike, ride a horse, or drive a car?
A car. I’ve never ridden a horsey. I’d be too scared of falling off, and they’re living creatures with their own personalities, so who know what they might do…

And they say you never forget how to ride a bike. Lies!

What song would you sing on “Karaoke Night” (if you were forced to do so)?
“All By Myself”. I can’t sing in tune, but with that song you can turn it into a comedy, really over-dramaticising the entire thing, falling to your knees, fist in the air etc. Off-key singing would only make it funnier 🙂

University or life experience, which do you feel best prepares you for life?
Surely “life” is “life experience?

University is good preparation. It’s like a “trial” – you get many of life’s challenges, but with the safety net of various university offices behind you to help out with advice when things go awry. And go awry they will!

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World, with extra questions from Roger Shipp.

Have you ever driven the wrong way on a one-way street? How did this come about?
Streets go both ways, surely 🙂 No, I don’t remember ever going the wrong way.

As a kid, did you ever decide to run away? Did you have a plan? Take a pet? Sandwiches?
I may have, when I was very little. Or maybe it was my little brother. I (or he) only got a hundred yards away or so, though.

You suddenly found you have a hidden talent for playing a musical instrument. What musical instrument do you hope that accompanies your talent? Any particular song?
I reckon a violin. I could play jaunty jigs and annoy the neighbours.

Do you accessorize with jewellery? There was an opal necklace (cursed) and Slytherin’s locket (also cursed) in the Potter story. Have you had any heirloom jewellery passed down through the generations? Is it more ‘keepsake’ or do you wear it on occasion? (Hopefully, yours was not cursed?)
I’m not a jewellery person. I’m not married so no wedding ring, and I’m not a pimp or Mr T.

I pity da fool who wears this much bling

What ingredients go into YOUR favourite salad?
Ooh, I’ve heard of “salads”. I sometimes have a “salad” but the main ingredients are cheese and meat. So not so salad-y, really.

If you care to, share something that really irritates you.
That’s the subject for a whole new “War and Peace-sized” post.

What are your favourite ‘lounging around the house’ items of clothing? Now that a lot of people ‘lounge around the house’ waiting for the all clear in respect to Covid being shown the door, have those lounging items changed?
The same as my “going out” clothes but older versions, no longer deemed as suitable for outside wear. The jumper is a bit older, the jeans a bit tattier, but still fine for answering the door.

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World, once again augmented by “Harry Potter-themed” questions from Roger Shipp.

You have just been gifted a magic wand that specialises in completing household chores. You can request the completion of only two household chores. Which chores would you assign your wand to complete?
Well, this wand is a bit disappointing, to be honest. Only two chores? Vacuuming and cleaning the oven. My oven’s instructions said it was self-cleaning, so I never cleaned it. And it’s filthy. So that needs doing.

At the local Wizards-R-Us store there was a sale on handshake shockers, instant darkness pellets, and levitation pills. Which of these ‘party thrillers’ are you more likely to purchase?
The instant darkness pellets. They’d be useful in all sorts of situations, like random street muggings and the like.

In the alley behind Wizards-R-Us, there was a tradesman selling a Love Potion. The sales pitch was too much for you and you yielded and purchased one vial. What do you do with it?

COMBINED WITH

You are the Great Clearinghouse Winner of a new ‘good luck’ potion – Felix Felicis. It has to be used within the next thirty days or its potency becomes diminished. Do you use it? Do you give it to a friend in need?
Yes, I’m combining these two. Think of the “significant other” I could hook with these two babies in my “chat up” arsenal.

If everyone spoke their mind, would this world be a better or worse place? Why?
It would be simpler but a disaster. Think of how many people would get beaten up by strangers, fired from their jobs, divorced by their partner…

Can achieving nothing make a person happy?
Yeah, if they’re really lazy and unambitious. Like me.

How do you know if you love someone enough to marry them?
You never will. Take a chance.

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World, co-hosted by Roger Shipp with his Harry Potter-inspired questions.

What happened to cause you to discover ‘bullies” were real?
It was when I went to “big” school. It was just low-grade bullying. I only ever got punched once and that was right in front of a teacher. Heh heh.

Eavesdropping – When given the chance, how often do you eavesdrop?
I don’t really eavesdrop. I just sometimes hear other people’s conversations 🙂

Escalators, at one time, were the ‘next big thing’. When was the last time you rode an escalator?
Whenever I was last in Marks & Spencer. They have an escalator up to the first floor (if you’re American that’s probably the “second floor”), which is where menswear is. That was at some point before lockdown.

Have you ever ‘let’ someone win in a sports competition or a board game? How did it turn out?
Nope. I don’t think that does anyone any favours. No, you lost, get over it! Stop crying and man up, you snivelling little three year old!

Do our fears start with our DNA?
For sure. I’m terrified of DNA.

If you could have your hair any colour for 24 hours, what colour would you choose?
I’d leave it the way it is. Brown with edges of grey. Very distinguished, I reckon 🙂

When do you think a person gets old?
When they’re around 10 years older than me.

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World, this week co-hosted by Roger Shipp who has provided Harry Potter-themed questions.

One of my favourite gifts that Harry Potter received came from the Weasley Twins; and was “Mrs. Mooney’s Marauder’s Map”. This magical document showed every classroom, hallway and secret corner in all of Hogwarts. It also showed you the location- by name- of every person in Hogwarts. If you had such a magical map of your town, what would you use it for? If you would not use it, is there another person to whom you would gift it?
I would have liked one of my school way back when. I don’t know what I’d do with one of my town. It would be quite useful for burglars! Maybe I’d gift it to the police, that would be a very useful intelligence tool.

When was the last time you made a snowball? Were in a snowball fight?
Way back when I was a kid. We don’t get much snow down here, and it doesn’t stay “usable” for long.

Many cultures set great value in each child of the family having godparents. Did you have godparents? Are you a godparent yourself?
I did have godparents though I can’t remember them. I am a godparent to a toddler.

You have found a secret tunnel under your house. Where does it go?
It goes to the Dralicave, of course. My secret base from which I secretly control the world bwahahaha.

Is intelligence or wisdom more useful?
Wisdom comes first. Intelligence without wisdom can be dangerous.

How important is play in living a healthy and fulfilling life?
It depends on the “play”. Although PlayStation has the word “play” in it, I don’t think it’s making me any healthier…

Is happiness just chemicals flowing through your brain or something more?
The actual feeling is chemicals, just like everything else. You have to get yourself into that state to get the “happy” chemicals flowing, though.