can’t find server!can’t find server!can’t find …

Oh, how I hate dialup. This is what I’ve been seeing all.night.long. And it’s very very annoying. But of course I can’t just shut off the computer and, oh, go read a book. Can’t catch up on noting either. So, I’ll just do this complete and total mishmash survey instead. A Frankenstein’s Monsterish survey, made up of bits and pieces of surveys I’ve had saved for ages but haven’t done. Or at least I’ve forgotten it if I did do them. So it will be like brand new questions! And the formatting will certainly be all screwed up as I’ve copied and pasted from all over the place. But, whatever. {edited to note that, YES, the formatting is INSANE and I can NOT get it to give me a font that’s actually readable. AAGHHH!!!} 

Did you have long hair as a young kid? I suppose this means when I WAS a kid. I did have long hair until I was in first grade, and then got it cut pretty short. As I recall, I had short hair until I was 12 or 13, when I let it grow out again. Got it cut off quite short when I was 16ish. Went back and forth between long and short for the next.. bunch of years. I’ve had it quite short for the past 6 or so.

What message is on your voicemail machine? Just the usual "You have reached blah blah blah, B and M can’t come to the phone, blah blah blah. We’ve never had an amusing message – well, not in many many years, at least. I’ve often wanted to record one with Captain Beefheart in the background shrieking "TELEPHONE!! TELEPHONE!!! Paper and wire killed my brother and my sister too/ and if you don’t watch out they’ll get you too/ TELEPHONE!! TELEPHONE!!! TELEPHONE!!! TELEPHONE!!" Really, it would be hilarious! Although now that I think about it, it would be an even better ringtone. I’m sure that’s one you’d never find, though.

Last thing you bought at Walgreens?   I went to Walgreens today. I bought a newspaper, a box of envelopes, and a bottle of water. Oh, and a little thing of Advil.

What’s your favorite survey question ever? That would have to be "Can you tap dance?" I did an entire survey once – fairly recently, I think – just because it started with that question.

Favorite arcade game? I used to love Astroblasters. And Joust. I liked Pacman too. Wow, that’s been awhile. Baker B was hooked for ages on a pinball game called…. I can not BELIEVE I can’t remember the name of that game. He could play it for hours, and would win ten zillion free games every time he played. It was something about being chased by the police – – I can still hear it saying "Pull over, buddy, pull over! Pull over, buddy, pull over!" High Speed?? I think that was it.

Best movie you’ve seen in the past month? We just tonight watched a movie I really liked, but boy was it bizarre. And disturbing. And bizarre. Tideland. It was… strange. Terry Gilliam did it, and I’m not usually all that crazy about his non-Monty Python movies, like Brazil and Baron Von Munchausen and Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. I’ll like them a lot at first and then get sick of them. Except for Fisher King. Which I always forget he did. This one is actually very hard to even explain without giving parts of it away. It’s about a little girl with drug addict parents who ends up in this deserted house out on a prairie apparently in the middle of nowhere. Pretty much by herself, except for her creepy little doll head friends she talks to – who talk back to her. And the strange strange neighbors. It was very funny, but very scary and disturbing at the same time. Apparently people love it or hate it. It’s one of THOSE movies.   

Last tv show you watched? The last TV show we set out to watch was Lost on Wednesday. Tonight we watched a little Whose Line (American) right after Tideland. Mostly because we needed something light and silly.

In your cd player right now? I’m not getting up to look in the stereo. In my car is a random mishmash CD of Interpol, Tori Amos, Radiohead, Coldplay, and a bunch of odds and ends.

What is the last book you read? The one I’m currently in the middle of – well, sadly almost done with – is Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell. I LOVE it. I’ve been on a David Mitchell spree since I read an article about him last fall. This is his newest novel, and when I was in Asheville a few weeks ago I went by Malaprops, the great bookstore downtown. I didn’t really have a reason to go since they’re always pricey and I couldn’t really rationalize buying anything, but something pulled me in – and the first thing I saw was Black Swan Green on a display right in front of me, in paperback. I had no idea it was already in paperback. Of course I bought it. Before that I read Number 9 Dream, and before that Cloud Atlas. I really like him.

What’s your favorite invention? Scoopable cat litter and Spellcheck. Well, I guess really electricity and the internet would be my VERY favorites, but it’s hard to beat scoopable cat litter and Spellcheck.

What song are you listening to right now? I’m listening to my iPod, which is probably going to stop any second since the battery looks completely dead, and it’s playing Out of This World, by Bush. Where in the world has Bush gone?? They haven’t released an album since 2001. I remember because they delayed releasing Golden State for several months after 911. Actually, I think it was because of this song, which starts out "When we die, we go home to the arms of those who remember us/ we are home now/ out of our heads out of our minds/ Out of this time." Several of the songs seem kind of focused on death, too. I wasn’t that crazy about Golden State for ages, but now I really like it. I’d like something new even better, though. 

What color shirt are you wearing? Black. That seems to be the ONLY color I wear anymore. In fact, when I went shopping at Kohls the other day and bought three shirts – they are ALL BLACK. One has tiny little white and blue and I think red dots all over it. One has white trim. But they’re mostly black.

Do you remember your dreams? Not as often as I’d like to. And I’ll just remember bits and pieces. I dreamed the other night that I was getting a perm, and was also starting work at a restaurant. I was all worried about leaving in time for my hair appointment. Last night I dreamed a guy we knew in college was going to paint the inside of our house for us. The house was huge – unlike in reality – and I hadn’t done a thing to prepare when he showed up. I was going around trying to take things off the walls as he painted.  </span>

Cheap beer or fine wine? Expensive beer and midrange wine. Well, wine that can veer into the realms of cheap. I’ve been trying to broaden my wine horizons lately, and try to buy stuff on sale. So I’m getting some pretty good wine at cheap prices.

Do you go to bed at a responsible time? If by "responsible" you mean "reasonable"…no. I don’t. I go to bed WAY too late. As a matter of fact, it’s twenty after two in the morning. And here I am, typing away. I will DIE when I have to go back to work.

Do you have more than one car payment? We only have one, and that one will be finished in July. However, given the way the Colt has been behaving lately, I’m afraid we’re just going to have to go buy another one. So much for life without car payments. 

Do you pay more for groceries or gas each month? Groceries. No contest. I doubt we spend $25 a week on gas, even at these insane prices. We have very economical cars. If I don’t go out of town I can drive nearly two weeks on a tank.  

Do you watch the Weather Channel? Not really, because for some reason we don’t get the local weather on it with the Dish. So it’s not all that useful. Actually, it wasn’t all that useful when we had cable and did get the local weather, because the local weather came from West Jefferson. A teeny little town 45 minutes north of us, with a completely different weather pattern. That never made any sense at all.   

When you snuck out of your house for the first time, who was it with? Well, I only snuck out once, and of course it was with my old best friend/sometimes boyfriend Steve. Naturally, since any trouble I got into usually involved Steve. I still can’t believe I did that, though. He’d just gotten his driver’s license, and he snuck out, took his parents’ car, and drove to my house in the middle of the night. I snuck out of my bedroom, and met him way off down the road. And we went driving around for hours. If my parents had caught us, I’d STILL be locked in my room. I really can’t believe we got away with it. Or that I had the nerve to do it, not being at all daring, even at that idiotic age. I still remember sitting on my dresser by the window, inching over to the window, inching it up, inching out, and all the while just KNOWING someone was going to hear me. I really don’t know how we didn’t get caught. And in retrospect, it’s pretty funny that all we did was drive around. OooOOOooOoo, what daredevils!