Getting Pulver-ised, I am it, 5 things about me

I wondered when I would get tagged with this one. Just like a bus though, you wait for ages and then ~~two~~ three come along at once. So thanks to Robin and the Net-Savvy Executive for helping me avoid the jobs i should be doing. Updated – Mike too.
The game is a fine example of declarative living: what you do is tag five people to foster the virus, and then say five things about yourself that people probably don’t know. So what don’t you know about me?

I was born at home in New Orleans, and I wasn’t the only thing delivered that day. My folks had a ton of sand come in that morning, so it was lucky we didn’t need to go to hospital, because the car was blocked in. So I was born of sand, and of course at some point in the (hopefully distant) future I will return to dust.
I once had a job writing scripts for -ahem-“premium rate telephone services”. A friend did the voice recordings
I also worked on the Macmillan Dictionary of Art and Architecture, now called the Grove Dictionary, which is how I know encyclopedias and reference works that pooh-pooh Wikipedia are likely to be off beam. It was my job to check biographies and bibliographies in Eastern European Art and Architecture. Some of the entries were obviously just completely made up, and although I did my level best to get the facts straight, I was just a hired gun, not a real expert. That summer did wonders for my cyrillic, but made me eternally skeptical about “reference works”.
My sister got all the melanin and rhythm in the family. She browns and boogies. I redden and twitch.
I killed a mouse last week. The wooden traps don’t work, nor the “ethical traps”, which would allow me to set the poor bugger free somewhere far from home, so we have to use glue traps. I administered the coup de grace, which means putting the trap in a plastic bag, then slamming a shovel down on it with lethal force, before I even had my first cup of coffee. This is the second time I have done this. The first time, I have to admit, it was strangely liberating. I guess because the mouse had been driving my wife crazy, as she wanted to keep the house clean for our baby boy. The second time it just felt like bad karma. What we really need is cat- I would rather outsource my killing, and or use some old good old fashioned cat scent deterrent. And yes- I don’t eat meat.

Robin also tagged Toby Stephens, who has some hilarious answers, which make me think mine are lamo… but there you go

So who do I tag? I might as well go straight to the top: Mr Schwartz? My favourite reasonable conservative – Jon Swift. Open source maven and IBM change agent Dave Shields. Usability and interface expert Leisa Reichelt . And close to home- what about you Anne?

12 comments

Thomas Otter says:

December 21, 2006 at 10:13 am

I was going to tag you and saw you had already been done.
reading number 2 I can see why you like doing podcasts.

jgovernor says:

December 21, 2006 at 10:19 am

yes with my writing and cote’s silky smooth delivery… we could make a fortune…

dave shields says:

December 21, 2006 at 12:01 pm

See http://daveshields.wordpress.com/2006/12/21/say-it-aint-so-sam/ and some of the immediately following posts for an extended discussion of this, the latest rage, and even some suggestions for some follow tag variants

Catherine says:

December 21, 2006 at 3:16 pm

New Orleans??

Robin Wilton says:

December 21, 2006 at 4:42 pm

Thanks again, James. I got my ethical mousetrap to work twice – but I think there are some tricks to it. I wore gloves so as not to make it smell of human; I used peanut butter soldiers for bait (the whole cheese thing is just apparently just a marketing ploy, though whether by the Cheese Board or the Mouse Marketing Bureau I’m not sure), and I used mouse-ology… I tried to figure out the most attractive mouse-run in the target area, then positioned the trap there and laid a sheet of cardboard over it to create an alluringly shaded route.

Float like a butterfly, think like a mouse… that’s me. ;^)