I'm not sure if this is good or bad

Bow down before me heathens. I am very rare. Like that elusive perfect diamond. Only 4% of us have my personality...

And I'm rated R. The only R rating I'll ever have for sure, based on the fact that I've said whore and shit... Bwwahahahaha

Mingle² - Online Dating

Your Personality is Very Rare (INTP)

Your personality type is goofy, imaginative, relaxed, and brilliant. Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 2% of all women and 6% of all menYou are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.

How'>http://www.blogthings.com/howrareisyourpersonalityquiz/">How Rare Is Your Personality?

50 mostly dumb things

Thanks to Ian for this; the perfect antitdote to bloggers block... or at any rate the perfect way for people not to know you have bloggers block, but since I've just proclaimed my problem, there basically is no point now. Or something. Who me? Inchoherent?


1. What bill do you hate paying the most? All of them, they're bills aren't they?

2. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner? At the cottage, weekend before last. The drinks before dinner, the candles, the music, the wine, the snoring on the couch afterwards...

3. Last time you puked from drinking? In my misbegotten youth, and not much more than a couple of times, I learn my lessons quickly.

4. When is the last time you got drunk and danced on a bar? Why would I do that, and more to the point, why would I tell?

5. Name of your first grade teacher? I have no idea. I do remember she had poofy hair, was pretty, she smelled nice and hugged us all when we went home after class. Now that I think of it, she was probably 23, though she seemed much older to my 6 year old self.

6. What do you really want to be doing right now? I'd like to be wondering whether I actually feel like be answering 50 questions about myself because I'm blogless. Pretty sure the answer would be "what the hell are you thinking..."

7. What did you want to be when you were growing up? A nurse, a nun (that was way way way back), a doctor, a fireman, a chemist... The list goes on.... and on... and none of those goals were achieved. I started copping out at a young age obviously.

8. How many colleges did you attend? One, Laval University in Quebec City.

9. Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now? What a strange question... because pseudo matched my pants.

10. Gas Prices? Yeah. Them.

11. If you could move anywhere and take someone with you? I'd take Mr. Jazz and move to the Arizona desert... I love the desert and I especially love the desert around Tucson and I've always thought I'd love to live there.

12. First thought when the alarm went off this morning? Oh god, not again

13. Last thought before going to sleep last night? That thought would not be for public consumption, ya know?

14. Favorite style of underwear? Why would you want to know? But meh, basic cotton bikinis. I'm not big on sexy underwear. Comfort before style, especially if it's that close to your coochie. Showing my age here, eh?

15. Favorite style of underwear for the opposite sex? I don't much care, so long as they're clean. None is good too.

16. What errand/chore do you despise? Going to the supermarket, with cooking also way up there. That's why I have Mr. Jazz.

17. If you didn't have to work, would you volunteer? I have no clue. Maybe in a library

18. Get up early or sleep in? Sleep in. Late. Later. Latest.

19. What is your favorite cartoon character? Comic strip: The late great Opus in Bloom County (I tried to name one of my cats after Opus, but she already had a name and she never took to it and remained Mittens - Mittens!! - to the end of her days). Animated: Lisa Simpson - and the squirrel in Ice Age, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some... Oh yeah, the cheesy bachelor on Family Guy, I can't for the life of me remember his name right now.

20. Favorite NON sexual thing to do at night with a girl/guy? Eat, catch a movie, have a drink, talk...

22. When did you first start feeling old? When I hit 30, then I got the hell over it, cause it would've meant feeling old for a very long time.

24. Your favorite lunch meat? I don't really eat lunch meats, and I'm not a fan of any of them.

25. What do you get every time you go into Wal-Mart? I dunno, a parking spot?

26. Ocean or lake? Ocean of course, always and forever. But any water will do in a pinch.

27. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual? Not marriage as such. I know people who aren't legally married and have the committment of a marriage. I consider them married. I think the whole wedding thing is pretty much outdated and a waste of money though. Save the $20,000 and go on a kick ass vacation instead. At least you get something more out of it than watching Aunt Myrtle get drunk and pinch the best man's ass. Again.

28. How many people do you stalk on Facebook? What's facebook?

29. Favorite guilty pleasure? I'm Ian's clone on this one: spending too much on books and magazines. Mea culpa.

30. Favorite movie you wouldn't want anyone to find out about? Hmm.. I don't have any particular movie that's cringe worthy, though I did see Apocalypse Now about 10 times. I do love old movies though, and no, I'm not speaking movies from the 70s, I'm old enough that old movies are from the 30s to the 50s. I love the 40s screwball comedies.

31. What's your drink? Alcoholic: Mr. Jazz's evil margarita. Non-alcoholic: Tea

32. Cowboys or Indians? What am I supposed to do with them? That might change my choice.

33. Cops or Robbers? Cops. Preferably cops with pecs and a six pack. I'm not much for the ones with beer bellies. Come to think about it robbers with six packs are good to. This is not what this question was about, eh?

34. Who from high school would you like to run into? No one. Not ever. And if I did I wouldn't recognize them anyway. Or want to. High school was hell, high schoolers were hellish. 'Nuff said.

35. What radio station is your car radio tuned to right now? 98.5FM You figure it out.

36. Norm or Cliff? Meh... Norm? Wait, was he the mailman or the fat guy? How about the yokel barman from the boonies whatever his name was. Geez this questionaire is getting long.

37. The Cosby Show or the Simpsons? Simpsons of course.

38. Worst relationship mistake that you wish you could take back? Not getting out of it sooner. It was a stupid relationship to be in. Not good at all for me.

39. Do you like the person who sits directly across from you at work? Love her and unfortunately she's going to retire soon, and I'll have to kill myself. My days here are numbered.

40. If you could get away with it, whom would you kill? I'd have to give that some thought. I mean, am I allowed to kill only one or however many I want to? Today, probably yesterday's idiot who decided that he'd been stopped long enough seeing as the guy in front of him had stopped and almost rammed into the passenger side of our car (that would be me!) and then actually accelerated towards us when we honked our horn at him. Wanker deserves to die a slow and painful death.

41. What famous person(s) would you like to have dinner with? I'm not much of a famous people person. But I would like to have dinner with any number of bloggers whose blogs I stalk.

42. What famous person would you like to sleep with? Sleep sleep or sex sleep?

43. Have you ever had to use a fire extinguisher for its intended purpose? You mean bashing people over the head? No.

44. Last book you read for real? As Ian said: As opposed to "for false"? Right now I'm reading: Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides), Olympos (Dan Simmons - I'd be done but I forgot it at JazzSis's place when I went to see he last time), and The Girls (I don't remember by whom and I can' t find it in Amazon) which I'm getting tired of. It's about lesbians in show business starting in the early 20th century and was interesting until it started becoming a Garbo slept with X who slept with Y who slept with.... now it's just gossip and mightily annoying.

45. Do you have a teddy bear? Both a teddy bear and a baby doll I've had for over 40 years. But I no longer sleep with them.

46. Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth? What? As in while standing on my head, while sitting on the toilet or as in a place place? I dunno, while trekking in Nepal? But that's not strange, you still gotta brush...

47. Somewhere in California you've never been and would like to go? Hmm. I've been several places, once driving we went through a place with huge white sand dunes, I'd like to go there again (I think it's in CA), I'd like to drive the PCH again. Oh, I know... Where the Redwoods are, near San Francisco. I've seen Yosemite's redwoods, so I'd like to see those to.

48. Do you go to church? Not if I can help it. Weddings and funerals.

49. At this point in your life would you rather start a new career or a new relationship? Well since I don't have a career, why not that? 'Cause I want to keep Mr. Jazz. He cooks. And plays barman. And tolerates me with all good cheer.

50. Just how OLD are you? 45, so old enough that I should know better than to answer these things despite bloggers block.

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Two great posts to share today:

From The Collective over at Evil Spock's. This one had me laughing out loud.

And from Snay, the pics in that article are amazing.

Reasons

Reason 594 why I don't have kids...

The Nosefrida

Randomness... AKA My Head is All Over the Place

This morning’s existential question: Why does 14 degrees (57F) feel so much warmer at 7:00 a.m. than at 5:00 pm. This morning when I left for work it seemed positively balmy. A few days ago it was 14 right after work and it seemed chilly… Go figure.

Why are teenagers obnoxious? Yes, yes, I know, I was no better, but really, what is it that makes them so… well loathsome at times. ‘Course I know lots of insufferable adults too, so I guess it’s moot. I'm turning into a nasty intolerant old witch. But I'm ok with that.

In other news… Steve Hogarth, the lead singer of Marillion will be doing a solo show (he and his piano) in North America on July 2nd. One show in North America. Only one. And it'll be in Montreal! We are the chosen. One guess as to what I’m doing July 2… *happy dance*

"The Secret" has been translated and has hit Quebec. Seems to me the secret is not visualizing that your life is perfect and having it happen; the real secret having the balls to con gullible people (yep ChooChoo, those 95%) into spending $30.00 for this book*. The mind boggles.

Yummy bloggy goodness:

From Les Cadeaux: Apparently the New York Times has declared that the clavicle is the IT body part of the summer. Sticking out collarbones make you trendy. WTF is with that? The mind boggles all over again.

You must read Miss Doxie's latest blog. Sounds like something that would happen to me. Actually you must read all of Miss Doxie's posts. She will have you in stitches. Promise.

Paula made me a drawing! Just for me… *swoon*

And over at Blue Poppy's house, is Henry not, with his sharpei-ey face and perky/floppy ears, the most adorable dog evah! I am in love with Henry. Henry is the other guy in my life. *swoon redux*



* And here I am linking you to their site. There's even a gift shop ferchrissake! A fool and his money are soon parted. Indeed.

Terms of Endearment

Gather ‘round boys and girls. Today I’m going to give you a French lesson. The topic – Terms of Endearment.

In French, as in any language, terms of endearment are part and parcel of the idiom. The thing is, in French they tend to be a touch strange, if not downright bizarre, at least when you actually think about them.

English terms of endearment tend to lean towards confections and anything sweet: Sweetheart, sugar, sweetiepie, honey, cupcake, muffin… we all know them, these saccharine overdose endearments. The English are obviously obsessed with food. Sweet food.

French endearments are somewhat more... um, varied. Off the top of my head:

You have your vegetable endearments. For instance when you call someone “mon chou” which translates as cabbage (Je t’aime mon chou…. I love you my cabbage)

Of course if you prefer, you can use are the animal endearments – “ma chouette” (my owl), “mon pitou” (my…dog – though in its defence it can also mean a stuffed toy).

Then, moving on you have your basic insectile endearments like “ma puce” – my flea. This one is often used for those little entities they call children. Come to think of it, they are a bit flea like, climbing all over you and annoying big people.

However, when endearments veer to the scatological things become truly very strange. By far the most over the top is that very widely used scatological endearment extraordinaire: “ma crotte” . Or in the Shakespearian tongue: My…. turd.

Class over mes crottes! Recess... Go out and play and practice your French!

Political Entertainment

Quebec politics are endlessly amusing. No, seriously, they are especially if you have a highly developed sense of irony and cynicism. But I guess that's true about politics everywhere.

Scroll back a year or so and the Parti Québecois was having a leadership race. Pauline Marois* a Quebec separatist politician with tons of experience was running against André Boisclair pretty much a newbie, who eventually won by a landslide (60% to her 30% – or something along those lines).

Boisclair was the flavour of the month. He had looks, he had style, and at 40, was hip and urban. Boisclair was hot, nothing could stop him.

Marois retired, stating she was no longer interested in politics (or words to that effect).

Before this leadership race, Gilles Duceppe was asked to run. He didn’t, stating he had no interest in leaving the Bloc Québecois in Ottawa where he still had lots of work to accomplish – keep in mind the work he’s there to accomplish is advancing the cause of Quebec separation in Ottawa. Me, I think he likes that steady paycheck; he's been there years and years.

Cut to recent past: The last Quebec election. End of March, the Liberals are re-elected with a minority government. The opposition becomes the upstart Action Démotratique, the party most to the right in Quebec. Shock and consternation. Teeth gnashing and hair pulling. The Horror! The party to the right is now the official opposition… Much analysis and beating up on the regions (anything outside the island of Montreal basically) - where the AD got in strongest ensues.**

And the PQ? They’ve been routed. Their worst showing since 1973. So much for the golden boy. It was a good ride while it lasted. He resigned as leader early this month, pretty much hounded out by the very people who elected him as their new god. Ooops.

Cut to present: Boisclair in an interview a few days before resigning said that the way would be open for Duceppe if he left.

Duceppe, hurt that anyone might think him an opportunist, answered again that he had no interest whatsoever in the Parti Québecois leadership. C'mon people, this man has integrity and goes by his word, he that rare bird, a politician who doesn't lie... or something.

Pauline Marois, she of the "I’m through with this discourse" has decided to run for leadership again – and this time seems to be the right one, so far she's alone in the race. I suppose no one wants to touch the party now that they're unpopular - who wants to lead a loser? Contrary to the hardliners, she's saying let's shelve separation for the moment, obviously the population isn't interested, check out the election results people. The woman is right. The hardliners will be very unhappy.

Duceppe (I love this) announced that he was running too! He changed his mind though, as soon as he realized he’d have only 20-30% support.

Pauline Marois stated that it takes courage to retire from the race as he did.

Courage? I tend to lean to the theory of a great liking for that steady paycheck from the Canadian Government.

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Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame. - Laurence J. Peter

Indeed!
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* From wikipedia, which seems to have its facts pretty much straight...
** Everybody everywhere seems to be leaning to the right these days. And so the pendulum swings...

Life’s Petty Annoyances, Part III (I think)

• Those people on the bus. You know, the ones who read the paper and pretend to try to be discreet about it, but every time they turn a page it’s in your face? I hate them
• Hangnails. ‘Nuff said.
• The fact that this is only my third day back at work and it’s as if I had never left. Vacation? What vacation?
• Jocelyn, this one’s for you. Weather people. They are telling us it might snow in Montreal tonight. SNOW! May 16. I hate them too. Especially since they’re always right about bad weather but mostly wrong about the good stuff.
• The fact that I know I’m evil. I don’t give a damn about most of humanity, but it freaks me out that the hummingbirds which just arrived at the cottage last week, might have to deal with snow! Poor things’ll freeze to death! (A friend says that’s because hummers have never given me any reason to doubt them, but I’m still pretty sure it makes me evil)
• The fact that reading science fiction makes me feel stupid. Ive only just begun discovering the genre over the past couple of years (reading Dan Simmons Ilium right now – I love Dan Simmons, the Hyperion series was great – but yet again I’m wandering off on a tangent…). So yeah, I’m love the Sci-Fi, ‘cept when they get into all this quantum mechanics and quantum physics and quantum whatever the hell else and I can read a paragraph 10 times and still not have a clue. I suspect I’m missing that Sci-Fi-Nerd gene that would allow me to comprehend this stuff. Nevertheless I forge on; it’s Fantasy with robots.
• Being overwhelmed at work. I loathe not seeing the end of the tunnel, that whenever I make some headway into a pile, another one grows. I suspect that paper piles fornicate and birth other paper piles during the night.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This one's for Ian, whose blog today informed me of the heartbreaking* news of Jerry Falwell's demise. And damn, he wasn't even raptured!!! This from Slate

* Y'all read me so well, that was indeed sarcasm pure and simple

Smooches All Around

I don’t know about elsewhere, but here in Quebec, we’re big on cheek kissing as a greeting (and then there’s the whole "Mwwwahhhh daaaaaaaaaaahling" air kissing thing, but that’s a whole other story).

We greet people with a kiss on each cheek, always starting on the right side. Pretty straightforward, non?

In your usual social situation, it pretty much goes like this: Kiss, kiss. How are you? How about a glass of wine?

Unless you’re seeing someone who doesn’t drink, in which case it becomes Kiss, kiss. How are you? How about a glass of water/juice/Perrier? at which point you have to find some way to hold up your end of a coherent conversation. Not necessarily something you want to do at the end of a busy week. But I digress.

In Europe it’s a whole different story.

First off, they start kissing on the left side. Which is wrong. Totally absolutely and incontrovertibly WRONG since it results in much embarrassment when faces collide, hopefully with no damage to teeth and noses. I now find myself muttering “left left left” every time I meet someone in Europe, resulting in raised eyebrows and supercilious looks (Europeans have the supercilious look down to an art form - I really must learn). On the other hand, sometimes I’m lucky and the person simply backs slowly away, in which case the whole kissy thing become moot.

Once the whole issue of which side to start on is out of the way, the real fun starts: How many kisses.

As I mentioned, in Quebec it’s two, which seems straightforward and logical, seeing that people have two cheeks (wherever they may be). In Paris however, sometimes it’s two, sometimes it’s four, I’ve even seen up to six. So, if you're lucky you end up with a double kisser, if not, you stop and they go on, or you figure, I might as well keep it up and they stop. How can you possibly justify more than two kisses other than just to annoy others? Finally, you get it sorted out: X does two, Y does four, Z does two… and you meet someone new and it’ll all up in the air once again…

And then you go to Belgium. In Brussels they kiss three times!!!

There should be a rule!


PS: Apparently this is how you do it in France Maybe the fact that most Parisians aren't from Paris explains the varying number of kisses from one person to another.

I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Well, here I am, back in the wonderful world of work for pay rather than play for pay. Honestly I much prefer the latter. Unfortunately the latter doesn’t come without the former unless you’re Paris Hilton or someone like. Somehow, being Paris Hilton doesn’t quite do it for me.

So. Back to the real world, back to the blogging world. I almost did get a post in from Paris, but I was defeated by that %$#&**$# AZERTY keyboard. It took hours to actually write a coherent sentence (ok, that wasn’t only because of the keyboard, the previous evening probably had something to do with that), much less and entire post. Finally I figured it simply wasn’t worth the effort to revert to that tried and true “hunt and peck” method favoured by millions. I do not hunt. I do not peck. And I am too old to start.

And now, I have a major case of blogging block (insert heavy sigh here), so I’ll fall back on that old standby, the list:

• The show was great. In itself worth the trip. Hogarth was in great form. As usual.


• The weather was awesome, high 20s (which would be 70s for you non-metric folk), sunshine, such a change from Montreal, thank god. Actual leaves in the trees if you can believe it!! Awesome weather even in Belgium, country of rain and grey skies. Go figure.


• I actually did a touristy thing in Paris and climbed to the top of the Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre. All 500 or so steps. The view is spectacular, the stairs wind up and up and up and get smaller all the time… not for the very out of shape. Walking around Montmartre as such was sort of bleh. “Artists” hassling you ever three steps to do your portrait and masses, throngs of packed humanity in the form of tourists – and the season hadn’t even started. Not so much for me.


• Despite rumours and clichés, all the Parisians (including waiters) I met were very nice. Same as every time I’ve been to Paris. Maybe I’m the lucky one.


• It’s great to see friends you haven’t seen in a long while. Which is why I never do touristy things in France and Belgium, I’m too busy catching up.


• Beautiful though Paris might be, I really wouldn’t want to live there. Brussels, though maybe not as architecturally wonderful, seems much more liveable to me. But what do I know…


• We brought back the great weather with us, though when we arrived in Montreal on the 4th, it was depressing to see all those grey, leafless trees…


• We spent our second week of vacation at the cottage. It was actually hot out, spring sprang and we basically spent the week doing lots of nothing and drinking good wine. Pure bliss.
  

Now it’s back to reality, and to blogs with more bite. I never find anything to bitch about when I’m on vacation. It’s quite disturbing really, I seem to morph into this strange hybrid of me. If I were still in hybrid mode, I'd say wow, it's great to be back.

But I'm not so I won't - no offense.