draliman on life

Here is my Share Your World, courtesy of Cee at her photography blog.

What is your favourite month of the year?
Mmm, tricky one. Let’s take a look.

• January – too cold, Christmas just over, back to work with a vengeance
• February – pointless
• March – rain, not quite Spring yet, still cold
• April – neither one thing nor the other
• May – not summer yet
• June – potentially warm but probably not, rain likely
• July – holidaymakers start arriving, add 15 minutes to evening commute
• August – holidaymakers everywhere, add 25 minutes to evening commute, can’t go anywhere because everywhere is full of holidaymakers
• September – rain
• October – rain, windy
• November – another pointless month
• December – has Christmas in it (yay), too cold, might snow or freeze so I’m constantly worried about driving

Conclusion – none of them.

Do you drink coffee at all?
Do I ever! Mmm, coffee.

What was one of your first moneymaking jobs (other than babysitting or newspaper delivery)?
I had a summer job for three months before going to university. I was working in the computer room at the county council. It was quite cool and allowed me to save up some pennies before leaving for my studies. Remember the old films with computers where you see flashing lights and big tapes in big machines whirring round? It was exactly like that! One of my jobs was to put the tapes in the machines.

List: If you play video/computer games list 5 games you like? 

• Witcher 3 (that’s what I’m playing at the moment)
• The Mass Effect series
• The Elder Scrolls series (Oblivion, Skyrim)
• The Last of Us (“like” may not be the right word – I’m terrified of this game, it’s too realistic)
• Gears of War

It’s time once again to Share My World, courtesy of Cee over at her photography blog.

In a car would you rather drive or be a passenger?
Generally I’d rather drive. Possibly it’s a control thing. Though I don’t like driving to new places, especially big/busy places. It is nice once in a while to be a passenger so I can take in the scenery, but if it’s a long journey I’d definitely want to drive. I quite enjoy driving which I guess is why I spend so much each month on a fun car to drive.

If you were handed free opera tickets, would you go or sell them? Why?
I guess I’d go just to see what it was like. I went to see “Carmen” as a child at an open air theatre in Cornwall, but I don’t remember much. To be honest opera singing generally sounds like screeching to me and winds me up, but this sort of thing is often better when experienced live.

Describe your own outlook on life in seven words or less. (NOTE:  does not necessarily have to be a sentence.)
Battle through it. You’ll be dead soon.

Hmm. That came out darker than I expected. How about:

Live life and be happy. Party on!

Which would you prefer:  a wild, turbulent life filled with joy, sorrow, passion, and adventure–intoxicating successes and stunning setbacks; or a contented bordering on happy, secure, predictable life surrounded by friends and family without such wide swings of fortune and mood?
Content, predictable, routine. No surprises, please!

Here is my contribution to Cee’s Share Your World.

What did you or did not like about the first apartment you ever rented?
That was a room in student housing on-campus. Which was, well, a room in student housing on-campus. So leaving that one alone, I rented a house with three other students in my second year at university.

What a laugh we had! Our landlord was Iranian, claimed to be the “agent” for the mysterious owner back in Iran, insisted on rent paid in cash and was dodgy as hell. He used to come round, complain about the mess and then get down on his hands and knees with a dustpan and brush to “demonstrate” how to clean. Hilarious.

We lads fought, laughed, cried, argued… ah, I miss those days.

What kind of art is your favourite? Why?
I’m going with music. That’s an art form. Not classical music, I don’t like that. Rock, pop and whatnot.

Some paintings are okay. I particularly like the ones where paint seems to have been just chucked on the canvas. I don’t like portraits particularly, but I do like scenes of wind-swept moors and mountains and raging seas.

How many siblings do you have? What’s your birth order?
I have one brother. The birth order? Ooh, I thought that was a top secret. We were born into the Grand Order of the Peanut.

Oh, I see. My brother is 18 months younger than me.

Complete this sentence: I’m dreaming of a white …. (and no you can’t use Christmas as your answer)
Ummm… white out? Well, technically “Wite-Out”. That stuff is amazing. Covers up all your mistakes. I could do with some of that stuff on my life. Magic!

Here is this week’s Share Your World, hosted by Cee over at her photography blog.

What’s your favourite charitable cause and why? 
Me! No, only joking. I give to different charities across wildlife and health. If I had to choose just one, I would probably keep giving to Macmillan Cancer Support. They provide support, advice and nurses to help you out. But they can’t help everybody and not for very long because they need money, so that’s the one I would choose.

What colour do you feel most comfortable wearing?
Black and dark blue.

If you had your own talk show, who would your first three guests be? (guest can be dead, alive, famous or someone you just know)
Adrian Edmondson. Comedian, comedy actor (The Young Ones, Blackadder). I’ve also seen him on a couple of more factual shows and he seems like a really nice guy.

Sir Terry Pratchett. Author extraordinaire.

Scarlett Johannsson. Because, Scarlett Johannsson.

List:  What are at least five places you’ve enjoyed visiting?
North Wales

Tintagel, Cornwall

Godrevy, Cornwall

Godrevy, Cornwall

Trelissick, Cornwall

Golitha Falls, Cornwall

Here’s a quick Share Your World, which is hosted by Cee. Just three questions this week, as there was also a poll. I voted but it’s a secret!

For your blog do you basically use Mac or Windows applications. What type of device laptop, desktop,tablet, phone or pad?
I always use my laptop. I find phones and such too small and my fingers are too big to type properly. For a post like this, I type it straight in (I use the “classic” post editor, I’ve never seen this new “beep boop” one). For fiction, I write it in MS Word and then paste it in for preview and editing.

If you were to treat yourself to the “finer things” what would you treat yourself to?
I’m not really sure what I would consider the “finer things”. Weird and expensive food when I would rather have a pizza? Maybe I’d get one of the supermarket’s “premium” pizzas, just for a treat :-).

Although I wouldn’t right now, because my oven is broken :-(. I’ve needed a new cooker for a while as the grill is broken, but now that I’ve lost the oven as well I have re-prioritised it from “at some point” to “immediate”. For yesterday’s Saturday Pizza I had to do an emergency cheese omelette with chilli.

Can you change a car tyre?
Yeah, probably :-). I haven’t had to do it for years. I always jack the car up first, then realise I can’t get the wheel nuts off like that and have to jack it back down again. Duh.

To be honest, if I needed to change my tyre I’d probably root around in the boot for the jack, see if I can find the jack points and ultimately call the AA (Automobile Association). I pay them a fortune and haven’t called them out since  2002. For the near £1000 they’ve had off me in that time, the least they can do is change my tyre.

It’s sharing my world time again, and this week Cee has posed some “finish these sentences”, um, sentences. It can be fact or fiction!

Never In My Life Have I…
…accidentally shot myself in the face while playing an ill-advised game of Russian Roulette while smashed on tequila shots. Not even as a student! That’s one for the bucket list. Probably should be the last item.

My neighbour wants me to help her…
…not have to keep asking me to cut back the undergrowth that gets in her way, probably. I’ve managed to pre-empt her this year by being proactive in my shrubbery cutting. Yay me! Why the shrubbery can’t just stay within the confines of my borders, I don’t know. Damn you, shrubbery.

When I was little I wanted…
…to be a football player (that’s football football, not American football), a train driver and a spy. Maybe I could win the cup final on the weekend, drive trains during the week and do my spying at night. That’s do-able, right? At least to a ten year old.

Will you come here to…
…read my little stories and see my photos? I hope you will :-).

Everything has changed this week for Cee’s Share Your World! This week Cee has provided a list of list topics, and we must choose four list topics from this list of list topics and make a list of four things answering the question posed in the list topic we have chosen from the list.

Goodness!

Favourite Songs
This list changes over time. I’ve bought a couple of new albums recently so a couple of songs are from those. There are many classics of course which always remain favourites of mine, so these songs are more the ones I currently listen to on a daily basis.

• End of the Dream – Evanescence
• Froot – Marina and the Diamonds
• House on a Hill – The Pretty Reckless
• Wrong Side of the Sun – Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Favourite types of animals
Cute and fluffy :-).

• Monkeys!
• Kitty cats!
• Lemurs!
• Koalas!

Movies to cheer you up
It’s strange the things that make me laugh out loud… though maybe you won’t be surprised if you’ve read some of my stories. Warning – none of these are technically comedies.

• Planet Terror – laughed till I cried
• The Expendables – especially that one scene where the bloke’s head gets completely blown off
• Any apocalyptic zombie/”infected” film e.g. “World War Z”, “Resident Evil” series
• From Dusk Till Dawn – I’m including the Netflix series here, since one episode has heads being ripped off and everything – it’s hilarious!

Things I want to have in my home
Home upgrades.

• Massive home cinema system
• Sound-proof room in which to place said massive cinema system
• TARDIS-style relative dimensional system installed in home in order to accommodate sound-proof room
• Girlfriend with whom to watch films in newly-installed room – note, I also own less gory films e.g. “Pretty Woman”, “Miss Congenialty” and the like

Thanks for reading my world sharing for this week :-).

It’s Sunday, which is the day I write my contribution to Cee’s Share Your World.

What is the most important thing that you ever learned? (I bet it’s not something you learned in school)
Crumbs. I don’t know. Maybe I haven’t learned anything? I suppose, that life happens. It can be shaped somewhat by your decisions for better or worse, but by and large it trundles along and it’s best to just go with the flow.

Some people shape the destinies of many others, but I prefer the path of least resistance.  I’m happier that way.

What feeds your enthusiasm for life?
Netflix. Ha ha ha. No, seriously. Netflix. And nice walks around pretty locations.

What’s your most memorable (good or bad) airplane commercial or private flight?
I haven’t been on an aeroplane for years, but I used to travel a bit for work. I suppose it was my flight to a job interview in Cork (Ireland).

The weather was pretty bad. We circled for hours, then diverted to Shannon and landed. We stayed there long enough for a pint of Guinness, got back on the plane and finally arrived in Cork. The best bit was that I was so late there was no time to give my presentation (they’d been tracking me through the day and finally cancelled it) and we ended up having the interview in a very expensive hotel over dinner. And I got the job! Then I spent the weekend there, because it was cheaper to get a longer stay including hotel than the air fare there and back the same day.

If you were a great explorer, what would you explore?
I’d like to go to Central/South America and explore all the old Inca and Aztec temples and whatnot. They look quite impressive, though I would also get kidnapped and held for ransom, I expect, as that happens to everybody in films who go exploring such places.

Here’s my contribution to Cee’s Share Your World for this week.

Would you prefer a one floor house or multiple levels?
My house has a ground floor and an upstairs which is fine by me. I’m a little worried that one day I won’t be able to handle the stairs. Maybe at that point I’ll be able to get a little bungalow instead. Alternatively, my stairs are wide enough for a stair lift…

If you have a TV, would you prefer the TV in the living room or another room?
It’s in the living room. My old TV is currently in the bedroom but it’s not plugged in, it’s “in storage”, basically. My living room has all the equipment – the set-top box, surround sound system and so on. I’m not a “stay in bed and watch TV” sort of person.

Entertainment Corner

When you leave a room, do you turn the lights off behind you or keep the lights on throughout your house most of the time? Explain your answer.
I turn all the lights off. Sometimes when I enter a dark room briefly I don’t bother turning them on if I can see what I’m doing. People who switch lights on randomly and then leave them on wind me up (unless they have young/infirm people in the house and which case it can be safer to leave them on).

Not only is electricity expensive, but I can’t help thinking of all the world’s resources we’re using up. Almost all my light bulbs are “energy-saving”, mind (around 5 Watts), though that’s pretty common everywhere since you can’t buy the old-style 100-150-200W bulbs any more.

What’s your favourite room in your home?
My living room. As per its name, it’s where I do all my living. Reading, watching TV, blogging, eating…

Here’s my post for Cee’s Share Your World for this week.

What type of pets do you have or want?  Or do you not want pets?
I don’t have any pets at the moment. If I were to get a pet it would be a cat. Cats are pretty independent and since I’m out at work all day, it would have to be a pet which could look after itself.

Plus, everyone on the interwebz loves cats so I could set up a camera in the hopes I could get a funny video or a meme or two out of it :-).

What was or is your favourite cartoon?
When I was little I enjoyed “StarFleet”, though that might have been puppets rather than a cartoon. Also “Battle of the Planets”. G-Force Fiery Phoenix go! Yay.

When I was a bit older, “Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds”.

Now that I’m all growed up, pretty much the only cartoon I watch (and coincidentally am currently binge-watching on Netflix) is “Archer”. Because it’s awesome.

Copyright FX Networks

I can highly recommend it. However, if you’re easily offended or indeed offended by anything at all, don’t watch it. You have been warned.

When you’re alone at home, do you wear shoes, socks, slippers, or go barefoot?
I wear socks at home. I have a pair of slippers but they’re pretty knackered so I don’t wear them much. If I’m going up into the loft I put on trainers so that I don’t slip on the ladder and end up lying in a crumpled heap until someone notices I didn’t turn up for work :-(.

Are you a traveller or a homebody?
The occasional trip is nice but for preference I like to stay at home.