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pyesetzUsually when I see these "bold the ones that apply" memes, I find some statement in the list that I really don't want to publish my position on, so I just skip the whole thing. But this one is more innocuous than most. It's also very long so I've highlighted the keywords—just let your eye glaze over and look for interesting stuff.
*Edit*: I've coded up an HTML form to help you fill out your own answers for this meme.
*Edit 2*: Make the checkmarks and red underlines appear for users of Internet Explorer 6 (why don't you guys join the 21st century and get firefox?).
* * * * *
Some stories related to above:
× I have jumped off a bridge.
No, but I once convinced some fellow students that I had. We were hanging around a bridge over the Charles River (called "Quinobequin" when it was Massasoit land), waiting to begin a canoe trip. I pretended to fall off the bridge, then ran along its underside, then back up and across the topside highway. When I got back to the group, some of the other kids were still trying to figure out where my body had landed, but it seemed the camp counselor hadn't bought it.
✓ I have spent the night in a train station or other public place.
I fell asleep in a train station in Springfield MA and missed the last bus back to UMass. The station closed for a few hours in the middle of the night and I had nowhere to go. There was a bank up the street with an ATM booth and I had a card (ATM's were still relatively new back then), so I stayed there for a while, until a cop came by and told me to move along. A lily-livered guy tried to rob me; I told him to scram. The robber's boss came by to ask if I was muscling in on his territory; I told him I would be taking a bus out of town in a few hours and he wouldn't see me again.
I fell asleep in Penn Station (NYC), trying to get home after totalling my car in New Jersey. A thief stole my suitcase. He woke me up just enough to realize a minute later what he had done, but by then it was too late. Never got that stuff back. The loss was covered under my parents' homeowner's policy.
✓ I have a custom-built computer.
Well, perhaps "jury-rigged" is more like it. The cable for my laptop's screen (which was starting to fail in April) finally gave up the ghost, so I replaced the lid's wire harness with the similar part from my daughter's old laptop. A lot of my keys were sticking, so I also replaced the keyboard with hers (which itself was a replacement keyboard I bought for her on eBay). I didn't bother swapping the cover plates, so now I have a ThinkPad 600E that claims it is a ThinkPad 600 (on the front; back still says 600E). I also didn't bother covering up all the screws with those stupid black stickers. Anyway, the computer is functional again, although it's a little harder than it used to be to latch the lid closedw
*Edit*: I've coded up an HTML form to help you fill out your own answers for this meme.
*Edit 2*: Make the checkmarks and red underlines appear for users of Internet Explorer 6 (why don't you guys join the 21st century and get firefox?).
| × I miss somebody right now. | ✓ I don't watch much TV these days. | ✓ I own lots of books. |
| ✓ I wear glasses or contact lenses. | × I love to play video games. | ✓ I've tried marijuana. (So I can now say from fursonal experience that it does not cause hair to grow on your palms!) |
| ✓ I've watched porn movies. | × I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship. | ✓ I believe honesty is usually the best policy. |
| ✓ I curse sometimes. | × I have changed a lot mentally over the last year. | ✓ I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me. (It's a pen-knife. You wanna make somethn of it? You and what army?) |
| × I have broken someone's bones. | ✓ I have a secret that I am ashamed to reveal. (And I'm not telling it here today!) | × I hate the rain. |
| ✓ I'm paranoid at times. (It's an occupational hazard of programmers.) | ✓ I would get plastic surgery if it were 100% safe, free of cost, and scar-free. | ✓ I need/want money right now. (Got some in the bank, but nothing coming in.) |
| × I love sushi. (No interest in the stuff.) | ✓ I talk really, really fast. | × I have fresh breath in the morning. |
| ✓ I have long hair. (One of these days I'll visit a barber.) | × I have lost money in Las Vegas. (Never visited the place outside of its airport. Have never felt like using a one-armed bandit. I prefer games with *good* odds!) | ✓ I have at least one sibling. |
| × I was born in a country outside of the U.S. | × I have worn fake hair/fingernails/eyelashes in the past. | × I couldn't survive without Caller I.D. (Hey, I like my caller-ID unit, but "couldn't survive" is just too strong a statement for me.) |
| × I like the way that I look. (Pot belly.) | ✓ I have lied to a good friend in the last 6 months. (I just don't think most of them really want to know why I'm emigrating.) | ✓ I am usually pessimistic. |
| × I have a lot of mood swings. | ✓ I think prostitution should be legalized. | ✓ I slept with a roommate. (It's sort of required in college. You're assigned a roommate, then expected to sleep while they're in the room. Oh wait—you mean *that*? I'm not telling!) |
| ✓ I have a hidden talent. (And someday I'll find it!) | × I'm always hyper no matter how much sugar I have. (I've slowed down in my old age.) | × I have a lot of friends. |
| ✓ I have pecked someone of the same sex. | × I enjoy talking on the phone. | × I practically live in sweatpants or PJ pants. |
| × I love to shop and/or window shop. | × I'm obsessed with my Xanga or Livejournal. | × I'm completely embarrassed to be seen with my mother. (No, not "completely". Especially now that there's clearly something wrong with her.) |
| × I have a mobile phone. (Hey, meme-writer! There's this new technology now that you should look into: it's called a "cell phone".) | × I have passed out drunk in the past 6 months. | ✓ I've rejected someone before. (Before deciding that they were acceptable.) |
| ✓ I currently like/love someone. | × I have no idea what I want to do for the rest of my life. | ✓ I want to have children in the future. (Because if I don't have children in the future, that would mean that my current crop of kids had died, which would be sad.) |
| ✓ I have changed a diaper before. (Hundreds of them.) | × I've called the cops on a friend before. | × I'm not allergic to anything. (But my rejection of this negative sentence doesn't tell you *how* allergic I am to *how* many things.) |
| ✓ I have a lot to learn. (Libraries are chock-full of stuff I don't know.) | × I am shy around the opposite sex. | × I'm online 24/7, even as an away message. (I don't think an away message counts.) |
| × I have at least 5 away messages saved. (I don't use IM.) | ✓ I have tried alcohol or drugs before. (Before getting into some serious usage, that is.) | × I have made a move on a friend's significant other or crush in the past. |
| × I own the "South Park" movie. | ✓ I have avoided assignments at work/school to be on Xanga or Livejournal. (But then I got fired, so don't do as I do.) | ✓ I enjoy some country music. |
| ✓ I would die for my best friends. (But don't ask me which friends or just how much trouble they would need to be in.) | ✓ I'm obsessive, and often a perfectionist. | ✓ I have used my sexuality to advance my career. (Maybe. It's hard to remember. I don't pay a lot of attention to such things.) |
| × I think Halloween is awesome because you get free candy. (As a parent and a homeowner, for me Halloween represents a net outflow of candy from my coffers.) | × I have dated a close friend's ex. | × I am happy at this moment. |
| × I'm obsessed with guys. | ✓ Democrat. (Dithering idiots.) | × Republican. (Fascist thugs.) |
| ✓ I don't even know what I am. (Little white dog?) | × I am punk rockish. | ✓ I go for older guys/girls, not younger. |
| × I study for tests most of the time. (Ineffective. Attending class is far more useful than reading the book.) | × I tie my shoelaces differently from anyone I've ever met. | × I can work on a car. (Cars today have all those swoopy surfaces, which makes them rather uncomfortable to sit on, especially while trying to balance a computer on one's lap.) |
| × I love my job(s). (I got a job through guru.com, but it doesn't pay enough to cover my mortgage.) | × I am comfortable with who I am right now. (I should be a professor of software engineering by now. Damned international politics!) | × I have more than just my ears pierced. (Not even them.) |
| × I walk barefoot wherever I can. | × I have jumped off a bridge. (See story below.) | × I love sea turtles. (They're okay, I guess.) |
| × I spend ridiculous amounts of money on makeup. (More like "none at all".) | ✓ I plan on achieving a major goal/dream. (And that doctorate shall *not* be the last thing I do!) | ✓ I am proficient on a musical instrument. (And if I have to tell you which one(s), you haven't been keeping up with my journal!) |
| × I hate office jobs. (I've never had any other kind.) | × I went to college out of state. | × I am adopted. |
| × I am a pyro. | × I have thrown up from crying too much. | ✓ I have been intentionally hurt by people that I loved. (You mean there are other ways to show you care?) |
| × I fall for the worst people. (Actually, I've had fairly good luck with business associates and such.) | × I adore bright colours. | × I usually like covers better than originals. |
| × I hate chain theme restaurants like Applebees and TGIFridays. (What's to hate? The lack of small-town originality? That's hardly a problem specific to the restaurant industry.) | × I can pick up things with my toes. (Not really, although I do make attempts with some frequency.) | × I can't whistle. (Once again we have the problem of a rejected negative sentence, which tells you nothing about just how good at this I really am.) |
| ✓ I have ridden/owned a horse. (But just once, so it doesn't really count among equine furries.) | × I still have every journal I've ever written in. (Absolutely not! I type them in and then throw away the originals.) | × I talk in my sleep. |
| × I've often thought that I was born in the wrong century. (No, my thoughts usually run more towards the "Rip van Winkle" approach of retaining my 20th-century birth but spending some time in a later period.) | ✓ I try to forget things by drowning them out with loads of distractions. (And sometimes I even catch myself doing it!) | × I wear a toe ring. |
| × I have a tattoo. | × I can't stand at LEAST one person that I work with. (Statement is too strong. If I really "can't stand" the person, I would have quit, right? Otherwise I'm continuing to withstand them.) | ✓ I am a caffeine junkie. |
| × I am completely tree-huggy spiritual, and I'm not ashamed at all. (I don't like hugging trees. Most bark is too rough on my hands.) | ? If I knew I would get away with it, I would commit at least one murder. (I will *not* hypothetically admit to such a thing in a public post!) | × I will collect anything, and the more nonsensical, the better. (This meme-writer must have some sort of frontal-lobe defect.) |
| ✓ I enjoy a nice glass of wine with dinner. | ✓ I'm an artist. (I draw computer programs.) | × I am ambidextrous. (Leftie.) |
| × I sleep with so many stuffed animals, I can hardly fit on my bed. | × If it weren't for having to see other people naked, I'd live in a nudist colony. (Actually I would think the naked non-supermodels would be an attractive feature of nudist-colony life.) | × I have terrible teeth. (My teeth are not in such great shape, but it's mostly my own fault and so I refuse to blame them. I once had a dentist who predicted that my teeth would all have fallen out by the age I'm at now, so they've done better than one guy predicted.) |
| × I hate my toes. (Why hate them just because they look a little funny?) | ✓ I did this meme even though I wasn't tagged by the person who took it before me. (But her parenthetical comments were *much* funnier than mine!) | ✓ I have more friends on the internet than in real life. ('Meatspace' is just an illusion I put up with occasionally until I can get back to 'real life' on the Internet.) |
| × I have lived in either three different states or countries. (Well, that's rather a big difference, isn't it? But no, I've done neither.) | × I am extremely flexible. | ✓ I love hugs more than kisses. |
| × I want to own my own business. (Way, way too much work!) | ✓ I smoke. (But *what* do I smoke? Hickory beef jerky? Scullcap resin? Passionflower extract???) | ✓ I spend way too much time on the computer than on anything else. (Make up your mind, meme-writer! Is it "way too much time" or "much more time"? But yes, in either case.) |
| × Nobody has ever said I'm normal. (And I *really* don't like being called "normal"!) | ✓ Sad movies, games, and the like can cause a trickle of tears every now and then. (But very rarely.) | × I am proficient in the use of many types of firearms and combat weapons. (I think I once fired a BB rifle at summer camp.) |
| ✓ I like the way women look in stylized men's suits. | × I don't like it when people are unpleased or seem unpleased with me. (So by rejecting this negative sentence, am I saying I *do* like it when people are unpleased with me, or that I don't care, or am I rejecting the use of the nonexistent word "unpleased"?) | ✓ I have been described as a dreamer or likely to have my head up in the clouds. |
| × I have played strip poker with someone else before. (Before WHAT? Before sex? Before today? Before playing strip poker with them again? And how do you play strip poker WITHOUT someone else? But no, I have not played strip poker, before or after, with or without, not on a plane, not on a train, not with green eggs, nor ham.) | × I have had emotional problems for which I have sought professional help. (I'm unhelpable because I don't seek.) | × I believe in ghosts and the paranormal. |
| × I can't stand being alone. | × I have at least one obsession at any given time. (No, I have *at most* one. If you have several, how can they be true obsessions?) | × I weigh myself, pee/poo, and then weigh myself again. (Thought about it, haven't done it.) |
| × I consistently spend way too much money on obsessions-of-the-moment. (I'm a cheapskate.) | ✓ I'm a judgmental asshole. | × I'm a HUGE drama-queen. |
| ✓ I have travelled on more than one continent. | × I sometimes wish my father would just disappear. (The sudden disappearance of my father's mass from the universe would disturb the graves of the relatives buried next to him.) | × I need people to tell me I'm good at something in order to feel that I am. |
| × I am a Libertarian. (Not with a big 'L', no.) | ✓ I can speak more than one language. | ✓ I can fall asleep even if the whole room is as noisy as it can be. |
| ✓ I would rather read than watch TV. | ✓ I like reading fact more than fiction. | ✓ I have pulled an all-nighter on an assignment I was given a month to do. (Yes, I *do* have a Y chromosome.) |
| ✓ I have no piercings. | ✓ I have spent the night in a train station or other public place. (See story below.) | × I have been so upset over my physical gender that I cried. (It is what it is. I'm used to it.) |
| × I once spent Christmas completely alone because there was a miscommunication on which parent was supposed to have me that night. (Nope, never for that reason.) | × There have been times when I have wondered "Why was I born?" and may/may not have cried over it. (What does it mean to reject a sentence that contains a disjunctive negation? That I definitely *did* or *did not* cry over it?) | × I like most animals better than most people. (Most animals are insects. The average person is an East Asian.) |
| × I own a collection of retro games consoles. | × The thought of physical exercise makes me shiver. | × I have hit someone with a dead fish. (No, I hit a fencepost with a live fish.) |
| × I am compulsively honest. | × I was born with a congenital birth defect that has never been repaired. (It was repaired at age 20 months.) | × I have danced topless in front of dozens of complete strangers. (I don't dance.) |
| × I have gone from wishing I was a girl to revelling in being a boy to feeling like a girl again in the span of five minutes, and not cared a whit for my actual sex. | × I am unashamedly bisexual, and have different motivations for my desires for different genders. (So my rejection of this sentence tells you that I am *ashamedly* bisexual and/or have identical motivations for male/female/trans partners?) | × I sometimes won't sleep a whole night or eat a whole day because I forget to. (No, I don't forget. Thoughts about eating and sleeping do occur, but I just don't want to take the time for them.) |
| × I find it impossible to get to sleep without some kind of music on. | × I dislike milk. | × I obsessively wash my hands. (Perhaps the meme-writer could try some Paxil?) |
| × I always carry something significant around with me. (The variety of meanings from rejecting this sentence is left as an execise for the reader.) | × Sometimes I'd rather wear a wig in day-to-day life than use my own hair. | × I've pushed myself to become more self-aware and thereby more aware of others. (I haven't pushed, but it's hard to avoid as the years continue to pile on.) |
| × Even though I live on my own I still cry sometimes because I miss my mother. (She used to call me to ask whether I missed her. No I didn't, but she didn't want to hear that.) | ✓ I hand wrote all the HTML tags in this document. (None of the tags were typed in using my feet. Actually, a goodly number of the tags were added automatically by LJ, but we won't count those.) | ✓ I've liked something which a majority of people claimed was either bad or weird. |
| ✓ I have been clinically dead for a brief period of time. (Well, it probably seemed like a long time to my doctors!) | ✓ Instead of feeling sympathy/empathy with people and their problems, I simply become annoyed. (Sometimes, but that varies.) | × I participate/have participated in auto drag races and won. (I have never won because I have never participated.) |
| × I do not 'get' most comedy acts. | ✓ I don't think strippers are money-greedy or slutty for dancing. (I have never met a stripper and have no basis for judgment.) | × I don't like to chew gum. |
| ✓ I am obsessed with history/historical things and can't wait for someone to build a time machine so I can be the first to use it. (But I want to travel to the *future*!) | ✓ I can never remember for the life of me where I parked the car. (Sometimes. Eventually I find it, though.) | × I had the TEEN ANGST thing going for at least 2-3 years. |
| ✓ I wish people would be more empathic and honest with each other. | × I play Dungeons and Dragons weekly. | × I love to sing. (Whistling is easier.) |
| × I want to live in my mother's basement when I grow up. (I *did* live in her basement in grad school, but it wasn't what I wanted.) | ✓ I have a custom-built computer. (See story below.) | ✓ I want to create a certain someone's babies, even though there's a 0% possiblity of ever achieving it. (And the likelihood is 0% that "possiblity" is correctly spelled.) |
| × I would be in a relationship with one of my pets if they were human. (Logic error. Being someone's pet *is* a relationship!) | ✓ I've gone skinny-dipping. (In a dirty river. Got intestinal grumbles.) | × I've performed in three plays. (Um, first grade... fourth grade... that's only two.) |
| × I enjoy burritos. | × I'm Irish and loving it. (I'm not loving it because I'm not Irish.) | ✓ I have a thing for redheads. (But it's not a "wanna fuck 'em" thing.) |
| × I am a twin! | ✓ Most of the times, I'd rather do something intellectual instead of doing something generically 'fun'. | × Once I set out to finish something, I always stay at it until it is completed before I move on to something else. (Sometimes quitting is your best option.) |
| ✓ I wish there were a way to erase past mistakes. (The DELETE key is my favorite part of the computer. Why can't meatspace have one?) | × I sleep more than 12 hours a day. | ✓ I wish I could be prouder of what I've accomplished, but it's never enough. |
| × I need more time to myself. (I have plenty, thanks.) | × I wish I was more open-minded. (Open enough already.) | × I hope that I go really prematurely grey. (I have an appropriate number of gray hairs for my age.) |
| × I download songs from the internet. (Well, yes, but so rarely that 'no' is a closer approximation.) | × I've just reenacted chapter 58 of Death Note with my best friend. | ✓ I say random things to freak people out. |
| × I'm still a little mad about the ending of Death Note. (I have no idea what Ms. Meme-writer is talking about here.) | × I love playing Truth or Dare. | × I love listening to slow music, but I hate singing to it. |
| × Music helps me remember that I am not alone. (No, that's not what it does for me.) | × Playing my favorite sport makes me temporarily forget my problems. (Anyone for Scrabble?) | ✓ I think this survey is particularly long. (Also generally long, extremely long, and perhaps even absurdly long. tl;dr) |
| × I prefer my LJ friends to my real-life ones. (They're both good.) | × I can only hate someone that I love. (You're just kidding youself. 'Love' and 'hate' are polar opposites. Their neutral is 'disinterest'.) | × I've ordered an extra two shots of espresso to an Americano at Starbucks. (I don't drink coffee and have never bought anything at Starbucks.) |
Some stories related to above:
× I have jumped off a bridge.
No, but I once convinced some fellow students that I had. We were hanging around a bridge over the Charles River (called "Quinobequin" when it was Massasoit land), waiting to begin a canoe trip. I pretended to fall off the bridge, then ran along its underside, then back up and across the topside highway. When I got back to the group, some of the other kids were still trying to figure out where my body had landed, but it seemed the camp counselor hadn't bought it.
✓ I have spent the night in a train station or other public place.
I fell asleep in a train station in Springfield MA and missed the last bus back to UMass. The station closed for a few hours in the middle of the night and I had nowhere to go. There was a bank up the street with an ATM booth and I had a card (ATM's were still relatively new back then), so I stayed there for a while, until a cop came by and told me to move along. A lily-livered guy tried to rob me; I told him to scram. The robber's boss came by to ask if I was muscling in on his territory; I told him I would be taking a bus out of town in a few hours and he wouldn't see me again.
I fell asleep in Penn Station (NYC), trying to get home after totalling my car in New Jersey. A thief stole my suitcase. He woke me up just enough to realize a minute later what he had done, but by then it was too late. Never got that stuff back. The loss was covered under my parents' homeowner's policy.
✓ I have a custom-built computer.
Well, perhaps "jury-rigged" is more like it. The cable for my laptop's screen (which was starting to fail in April) finally gave up the ghost, so I replaced the lid's wire harness with the similar part from my daughter's old laptop. A lot of my keys were sticking, so I also replaced the keyboard with hers (which itself was a replacement keyboard I bought for her on eBay). I didn't bother swapping the cover plates, so now I have a ThinkPad 600E that claims it is a ThinkPad 600 (on the front; back still says 600E). I also didn't bother covering up all the screws with those stupid black stickers. Anyway, the computer is functional again, although it's a little harder than it used to be to latch the lid closedw
no subject
Date: 2006-07-05 11:30 pm (UTC)I *could* make up an HTML form that would generate the above meme, but then nobody could ever check off the "I hand-wrote all this HTML" item!
Based on the skills I acquired for the guru.com project, I could write a "meta-generator" in PHP that would allow a person to type in a list of statements and generate an HTML form that would then generate the journal entry as above (with a link back to the form so friends could participate). Do you think anyone would use it?
no subject
Date: 2006-07-05 11:56 pm (UTC)