draliman on life

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

When was the last time you face palmed?
I’m not sure I ever have. Do real people actually do that? I assumed it was an over-dramatic gesture for the theatre and suchlike. I do the occasional eye roll though.

When is censorship warranted? Ever?
Uh-oh, this sounds like one of those potentially contentious issues mentioned last week that I said I’d never discuss. But I’ll give it a go.

Yes, definitely. Or not. Never censor. Maybe. Yes in some circumstances, or never at all. YesNo.

I hope that’s cleared it up for you.

If there were commandments for the modern day world, what should (could, would) some of them be? Get creative!
And I say to thee, yea verily, thou shalt not… oh, who am I kidding, no-one’s going to read these in this modern hustle-bustle world. Maybe I’ll make a fun app and display one of my new commandments every so often. In between levels or something.

Thou shalt not continue playing this app, and instead shalt thee get out in ye sunshine.

What did you Google last?
How to get the “Black Hand Prototype Weaponised Wingsuit” in Just Cause 4. I’ve destroyed nearly everything in Just Cause 3 now so it will soon be time to start 4 🙂

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World. This week we have another coolio new logo. Check this out!

Are we losing the art of listening in comparison to simply hearing?
Yep. It’s really embarrassing when someone suddenly stops talking and waits for you to answer and you have no idea what they said 😦

How often do you openly discuss with friends or here in WP with your readership topics that make you feel uncomfortable or may be taboo or stigma laden?
Pretty much never.

Do you think that these discussions should be freely discussed and written about more?
Yes. But not by me 🙂

Did you have a nickname as a child and if so, what was [or what is it now]?
Ah, this old chestnut again. Here’s the picture which sparked it all, and click here for the SYW from last April with the explanation.

I’m on the right (1985), taken in Germany.
Photo copyright BBC I would assume.

Why is there still ‘stuff’ we simply just don’t understand despite our progressive world?
Why? We’re not so advanced that we could possibly understand everything about everything. The more we know, the more we realise we don’t know. So we’d have been better off not knowing anything at all, then we’d be of the belief that we knew everything.

Or something.

Would you rather double your height or lose half your weight?
Lose half my weight. Then I could eat pizza, chips, ice cream and chocolate for weeks until i regained a healthy weight. Lovely!

What is your most essential kitchen tool?
My cooker. Without that, there would be no pizza!

Yum

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

What’s the first thing you’d do if you won the lottery or came into a huge fortune?
I’d buy myself a nice island as a retreat, for the pursuit of self-awareness and introspection. It would just be me, my mansion, my private security army and my lethal response security system. We can’t have local yokels turning up in their crappy little boats and walking on my private beach, now, can we?

Which decade do you think had the best sense of style?
None of them. They’ve all been rubbish. In no decade has it been acceptable to walk around in your pyjamas. Except possibly in 70s discos.

Would you rather be half your height or double your weight?
Neither would be much fun. I suppose half my height, as double my weight would lead to imminent death. Although… weight can be lost but you can’t add height. So on the other hand, double my weight would be temporary.

If you wanted to get away from everyone totally, where would you hide?
My aforementioned private island, as any interlopers would be quickly dispatched by the aforementioned private security army or aforementioned lethal response security system.

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

When you’re 90 years old, what do you suppose will matter most to you?
Watching “Homes Under the Hammer” at the retirement village while keeping my bodily functions under control. I hope there’s raspberry jelly for pudding today! I can’t handle anything that requires chewing.

What’s the best way to spend a rainy afternoon?
Napping, reading, watching TV and playing PS4. It doesn’t have to be rainy!

What is one thing you don’t understand about yourself?
I understand myself perfectly. I know myself like the back of my hand… aargh, what the hell’s that on the back of my hand? How long’s that been there?

When was the last time you tried something to look ‘cool’ (hip), but it ended in utter embarrassment? Details?
I don’t have to try to look cool, it’s just something that comes naturally 🙂

There was this one time when I was walking along the top of a wall and decided to jump dynamically off the end. I leaned too far forward during the jump and went head over heels. I did, however, manage to twist in the air so I didn’t land on any of my expensive electronics. I landed on my face instead so that was a lucky escape.

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World. Which logo to use today? Ah, the agony of choice…

If you had to sum up the whole human species in 3 words, what would those words be?
Here are some choices, from worst to best.

All screwed up.

Getting there slowly.

Flawed but precious.

Where is the strangest place you’ve relieved yourself? Obviously in an emergency situation.
This is a bit gross. But I was a student so that makes it not gross. Though I was a PhD student so I was a bit older.

At home… in a beer glass. Apparently the girls in the house had a “female situation” and had been in the bathroom for over an hour. And the boys were drinking and filling their bladders. Of course, I had to drink all the beer in the glass first so it was only delaying the problem…

What is the worst smelling place you’ve ever been?
Hey, it’s a university story again! And it’s a bit gross again. I blame the questions.

This would be the toilets in the Students’ Union during a big event. We’re talking vomit everywhere. And a lot of it was black. Before it was banned, a lot of people (including me) were drinking “snakebite and black” – half lager, half cider and blackcurrent juice (to make it a bit drinkable).

How drunk is drunk enough?
As I don’t drink, anything at all for me. For other people, mellow but not aggressive.

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

What would be your solution to the over-population of the earth? Earth has finite resources and humanity seems to be breeding themselves to extinction. Some countries have tried restricting the number of children a couple or a person can have, with little success. So what other viable options are there for reducing the number of people?
So many possibilities!

• It’s self-limiting. Once we run out of resources/room, people will die off naturally until the maximum sustainable limit is reached.
• Don’t worry, soon we’ll be living on the moon/Mars/in space stations/under-sea cities (delete as applicable).
• Pop all the worst criminals in a huge compound “Escape From New York” style and let them wipe each other out.
• Some world leader or other’s going to chuck their toys out of the pram when they discover a country isn’t willing to sell a large part of itself to them on demand and so starts nuclear Armageddon.
• Some world leader or other’s going to get confused, push the wrong button and accidentally start nuclear Armageddon.
• Some world leader or other’s going to Tweet the wrong thing to the wrong country and accidentally start nuclear Armageddon.
• Brexit will be the end of us all.

What’s invisible but you wish people could see?
My personal awesomeness aura.

What’s the most ridiculous fact you know?
I can’t think of any ridiculous facts right now.

What are the unwritten rules of where you work? If you don’t work (retired or unemployed) what are the unwritten rules you live your life by?
Be excellent to each other!

How do you feel about putting pineapple on pizza?
Just don’t.

Toilet paper, over or under?
Over, obviously. Fortunately I still have the image of the original patent.

Picture via cnet.com, but since it’s a patent I’m assuming it’s public domain

What’s the best type of cheese?
All the types!

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World, featuring a new logo!

What makes you laugh?
Funny stuff. Everything from stuff most people find funny through to stuff many people wouldn’t find funny. Like I was playing the zombie DLC to Far Cry 5 the other day, laughing in joy as I mowed zombies down in a tractor with a thresher on the front. Hilarious. And messy 🙂

What’s the world coming to?
Eeh, bah gum, what’s the world comin’ to, it’s a pretty picture an’ noo mistake, eh, when ah were a lad we respected our elders, there were nay trouble etc etc yadda yadda mumble mumble…

In one sentence sum up the Internet
Big and huge and full of everything and not entirely trustworthy.

If over time you replace parts on a car, at what point does it stop being the same car you bought? How many parts do you need to replace to make it a new car?
The rear view mirror. That’s the thing. Once you’ve replaced that it’s the beginning of the end. Because you’ll never get a new one to stick to the windscreen. There’s your new car right there.

Gratitude is an attitude. Yea or nay? Explain your viewpoint please!
It’s all like a state of mind init, like, attitude of gratitude, you gotta feel it, you gotta know it, you gotta do it, init, it’s all in da mind, you get me?

Here is my post for Melanie’s Share Your World. Boy, this is a cheerful set of questions this week!

Does life have a reason (meaning)?
It does to me! So that’s good. In the wider sense, who knows? This question is above my pay grade!

Will the world come to an end by human hands (man’s actions)?
Man’s presence on the world, maybe. I imagine that the world itself will recover from whatever we manage to do to it, in time.

The world itself will end when the sun runs out of fuel. Or when the M’Gak’Nar turn up from Tau Cygnus Alpha IV with their planet-killing missile and blow it to bits.

Will stricter laws make a better world? Would less strict law make it better?
Until people learn right from wrong, stricter laws unfortunately. Too many people ignore their conscience in favour of what they want.

If death is inevitable, why bother doing anything?
Because doing nothing would be really boring.

Are thoughts and prayers useful or a sop for people who wish to pay respect but interact through a virtual venue? Yea or nay – please explain your viewpoint (without rancour) if you would.
Prayers are useful if they help the person praying.

I find thoughts useful. Otherwise I’d just be sitting around in a mindless daze until I died of dehydration and malnutrition.

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

Is it wrong to sell store-bought pastries at a bake sale?
Yes! Surely the whole point is that you bake something and then sell it? I know the proceeds usually go to charity, or the village hall or whatever, but if you’re going to buy a cake for £3 and sell it for £4, why not just cut out the middle man and donate the £1?

There’s a different name for places which sell mass-produced shop cakes. They’re called “shops”.

Have you ever interacted with the police?
Yes.

What will you remember most about this past year?
I can’t think of anything that really stands out. There was the awful couple of days of snow and the drive home.

Is it better to have fungus on your toes, your tongue, or your pizza?
The only place fungus belongs out of those choices in on a pizza, though I don’t generally have mushrooms on pizza myself.

What is one slang word that makes your skin crawl?
Not “skin crawl” as such, but I can’t get on with the word “sick”. It used to mean something pretty nasty but it’s now used for something amazingly good as well. So sometimes it’s hard to tell whether someone really loves or hates something.

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

What happens if you stare at the mirror for too long in the dark?
All unseen, the dark side of your soul is given free rein, its dreadful eyes burning into you, eating away at your very being, leeching, corrupting, until your brains dribble from your ears and you go massively, irreparably INSANE.

Or nothing at all.

One of those.

Do you think you’re judgemental? What tends to bring it out in you?
Yes. Everybody is to some extent. Of course, some people pretty much make a career out of it.

Do you work better with actual lists or with mental lists?
I use mental lists until things get out of control and then I start writing stuff down.

When I go shopping I always make an actual list or I’m guaranteed to forget something and since I only go shopping once a week, that’s a major pain.

Would you go streaking across a football field during a game for a million quid, knowing there’s a 50/50 chance you’ll get arrested for indecent exposure?
Hmm, it’s not so much the (pretty much 100% chance of getting arrested), it’s having the guts to actually do it. Though, on the criminal charges front these days it’s likely to be a lot worse than “indecent exposure”. Since there’s a reasonable expectation there will be children present you’ll likely be placed on the sex offenders register.

A million squidly-dids is a lot of money but I don’t think it’s worth the risk.