draliman on life

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

Do you sleep with your closet doors open or closed?
My wardrobe doors are always closed overnight. It’s not so much a belief in the “closet monster” – though there is maybe a hint of that 🙂 – but more that if (okay, when) I go to the toilet in the middle of the night I’d rather not smack my face into it.

Do you take the shampoos and conditioner bottles from hotel?
No. I wouldn’t use them anyway. I have my own ones to make me smell clean and fresh and appealing to the ladies 🙂

What is your usual bedtime?
I go to bed around 10 on a school night, on a Friday, Saturday or when I have annual leave the next day I usually add about an hour to that.

Do you like to use post-it notes?
No. No matter where you stick them, they’ll always end up all over the floor. I make notes in a little notepad instead. At least I know that’ll stay put.

When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone on paper?
If I can count “thank you” notes, then a couple of weeks ago when I wrote some to thank people for Christmas presents. If we’re talking an actual letter, then too long ago to remember. Not this millennium, anyway.

Any phobias?
I’m scared of certain things, like big hairy spiders, but no phobias as such. Nothing that makes me freeze in terror or anything like that.

How tall are you?
I’m not exactly sure, but I’ve always quoted my height as 5′ 8″ (172 cm).

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

If you lost a bet and had to dye your hair a colour of the rainbow for a week, what colour would it be?
I now have voice control at home courtesy of Amazon’s Alexa (as I threatened to do on New Year’s Day) and I have wi-fi light bulbs on the way. Because who wants to have to stand up to turn the lights on and off?

Light switches are so last year, don’t you find?

So why not have voice-controlled hair?

“Alexa, turn my hair cerise.”

It’s the future!

If you could choose one word to focus on for 2017, what would it be?
“Discombobulated.” Because it’s such a cool word. I need to use it more. I’m gonna focus the hell out of it all year.

What was one thing you learned last year that you added to your life?
I can’t think of anything. 2016 came and went rather rapidly. Where did it go?

If life was ‘just a bowl of cherries’… which fruit other than a cherry would you be..?
I’m going with physalis (no, I’d never heard of it either) as it is described as having a “mild, refreshing acidity”.

Copyright “Shandris”, Creative Commons licence

Also, its name seems to be an amalgamation of “physics” and “Ali”, so it’s just right for me 🙂

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World series, as we fire off into 2017.

Would you prefer to receive a unicycle, bicycle, tricycle or motorcycle?
The very thought of me on a unicycle makes me laugh.

Ha ha ha.

I can barely stay upright on a bicycle any more let alone only one wheel. Given this, I’m going to go with a suggestion I gave to another SYW participant – a motortrike, or whatever you want to call it. Take look at this bad boy, for example. Can’t you just see me roaring around the place on this?

From motorcycles-for-sale.biz

What is one thing you’d like to accomplish this year?
I don’t really do “life goals” and whatnot. Just getting through the year without screwing anything up would be good.

What was one of the highlights of 2016 for you?
I guess when I was promoted to Systems Architect. I don’t really remember anything else happening of note. I’m probably forgetting something important.

Would you prefer to fly a kite or fly in a hot air balloon?
Wow, the mundane to the amazing. Well, I’ve flown kites of course so I’ll go for a ride in a hot air balloon. That sounds like a lot of fun, floating in the quiet over the countryside. I see lots of SYW participants have gone for this option, so I’d better book my flight early to avoid disappointment!

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World. It seems a bit odd doing “2016 Week 52” in 2017. Maybe I should have done it yesterday.

What’s your favourite ice-cream flavor?
I’m a big fan of many many ice cream flavours! I think one of my favourites is a mascarpone one by Carte D’Or (Walls). I like the red berry sauce. I also like black cherry flavour.

If you were to treat yourself to the “finer things” what would you treat yourself to?
Maybe quality food – decent meats, cheese and so on. Yesterday I baked a load of cupcakes, some for me, some to take to give to my parents and brother later on today. They don’t look great (first time I’ve made icing!) but I’m sure they taste okay. Some of them have black cherry jam in (the ones with the strange dark lines)!

These ones are all for me! The ones I’m taking away are already boxed up.

Have you ever been drunk?
Yes.

Complete this sentence: My favourite supposedly guilty pleasure is…
Tech stuff. Even when I don’t really need it. A couple of weeks ago I put in a home alarm system and now I’m considering an Amazon Echo thing and some WeMo Wi-Fi plugs so I control my house with voice commands 🙂

Happy New Year to everyone!

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

What is your favourite smell? What memory does it remind you of?
Bacon cooking. It reminds me of food!

What type of pet do you have or want to have?
I recently had a pet mouse. I called him Moby.

Well, I say “pet”. He was living under the fridge. I bought a couple of traps. Snap squish!

Only joking! Here is Moby. Sorry about the picture quality.

I drove Moby out to the local owl sanctuary and let him go.

Only joking!

It was the local cats’ home.

Only joking!

I let him go in the countryside.

Yesterday Moby II joined him. Here is Moby II.

I’d just got back from the work Christmas party at 23:30 (40 miles away) and I was not impressed that I had to drive out into the country again. But you mustn’t leave mousies in the trap too long or they get stressed. Hopefully the Mobys will find each other.

Are you usually late, early, or right on time?
I’m always early. I don’t like to be late.

For recharging, would you rather meditate, swim, walk, listen to music, write, read, yoga, qigong, other?
I plug myself in. I’m a robot! WE ARE LIVING AMONG YOU.

Just kidding.

Or am I? AM I?

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

What do you value most in a friendship?
Ooh, really huge expensive birthday presents. Wait, reading that back to myself, it sounds a bit mercenary. Someone who listens and doesn’t judge. There you go, that’s better.

Do you prefer eating the frosting of the cake or the cupcake first?  Do you prefer a specific flavour?
I eat both at the same time. They’re designed to complement each other, and they do! Any flavour is good for me.

Have you ever been in a submarine?  If you haven’t, would you want to?
I seem to remember going in one a long time ago. It was one of those decommissioned ones from years ago for people to walk around, so it didn’t have any atomic torpedoes or anything on it. It was also on the water rather than under it. I quite like enclosed spaces, but I’m not so sure I would like being under all that water as well.

If 100 people your age were chosen at random, how many do you think you’d find leading a more satisfying life than yours?
Oh, golly gosh, cor blimey and whatnot, what a question! Sounds like something you’d be asked in a psych evaluation. I’m going to play it safe and say 50.

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World. Week 48 already, blimey!

Do you prefer eating foods with nuts or no nuts?
No nuts for me. Though funnily enough I really like chocolate with a praline filling. I just Googled “praline” and as I suspected, it has nuts in!

If someone made a movie of your life would it be a drama, a comedy, a romantic-comedy, action film, or science fiction?
It would be a flop, I expect. Frightfully boring and whatnot.

Who talks real sense to you?
Me! I do. It probably isn’t good sense but it always makes sense to me at the time. Otherwise I wouldn’t be saying it to myself.

Do you have a favourite board game?
Board game? Bored game more like! Haha. Hahahaha. Ahem.

Just kidding. Though I prefer video games. Monopoly is okay. I like games where I don’t like to think. Like Trivial Pursuit – you either know it or you don’t. I do enough thinking at work, thanks. I expect we’ll be playing some games around Christmas time!

Here is my post for Cee’s Share Your World. This one is a “grateful for” special in honour of the USA’s Thanksgiving Day. Cee’s recommends a few words representing the first thing which comes to mind.

Your home life?
Anteater.

No, this “first thing which comes to mind” isn’t going to work. I’ll try again.

Relaxed, mainly stress-free. I love that after all these years I finally own a little house.

Your family?
My immediate family live nearby and we’ll all be seeing each other at Christmas!

Your blogging community?
They’re such a lovely bunch, reading all my stuff and producing quality works for me to read 🙂

Your city or immediate area in which you live?
It’s a nice quiet little village and I’m far enough from the main road that I don’t get any traffic noise. I’m grateful for the peace and quiet.

The regional area in which you live?
I’ve published many many pictures of the lovely area I live in. Let me find another one. Or two.

The country where you live?
It’s free, democratic and there’s enough to go round. Not that everyone gets enough sadly.

You?
Me! I’m reasonably healthy and content 🙂

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

Are you a traveller or a homebody?
I’m a homebody. It’s okay to take little trips but it’s nice to get home again.

What kind of TV commercial would you like to make? Describe it.
I wouldn’t really like to make one at all. I don’t like watching them either. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I watched an advert on TV – I always record anything I watch on broadcast TV so even if it’s a commercial channel (i.e. it has adverts) I can skip them.

Describe yourself in a word that starts with the first letter of your name.
That’s “A” for “Ali” so let’s give this a go.

Asshole. Oh dear, let’s try again. Asswipe. Oh no, this isn’t going well. Wait! I have one, it’s coming. Aaaaaaaaaaaasshat.

Darn. Let’s try “D” for “draliman” instead.

Douche. Douchebag. Argh, must… concentrate… on… word… d…d…d…d…douchecanoe.

Dammit.

Ooh, I have one! Dirigible. There you go. It’s not going to get any better than that I’m afraid.

List some fun things for a rainy day.
Reading, watching Amazon and Netflix, playing on my PS4 (currently “Elder Scrolls Online”), taking a nice nap. This is all stuff that works on any day!