March 03, 2006

Memes and Stuff

Okay, what the hell, it's Friday, hilzoy of Obsidian Wings "tagged" me with this little meme thing, so I may as well give it a go. Apologies for not posting much of late; work's been busy, and for the past two months I haven't had a computer at home (mine busted), so it's been hard to find time to write stuff, even though there's lots of stuff I'd like to write about. Well, maybe no one cares. Either way, thrilling personal revelations below the fold:

Four jobs I've had: Researcher at a flood observatory (sort of like the tornado chasers in Twister only less exciting); ESL teacher; Barnes & Noble clerk dude; fact-checker for everyone's favorite best-selling travel book.

Four movies I can watch over and over again: Well, I grew up in a foreign country, and we didn't have a whole lot of English movies, so what ones we did have definitely got a lot of repeat viewings. Some of the "classics," as I remember, were Big Bird Goes to China, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Stand By Me. But I doubt I could watch any of those over and over today. Except Big Bird. That was great. No, since we're just listing any four and not our top four, I'd probably go with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Splendour in the Grass, Annie Hall, and, strangely, The Opposite of Sex with Christina Ricci, which I'm pretty sure I find far funnier than I really should.

Four places I've lived: Tokyo, Japan; Dublin, Ireland; Harlem, NY; Boston, MA. Also deep in the New Hampshire wilderness, but I didn't really "live" there so much as "survive." Incidentally, San Francisco's far and away my favorite place to have ever lived.

Four TV shows I love: I don't have cable at home, so I don't really know the lay of the land here. But my roommate and I recently got through season one of "Lost" on DVD and that was vaguely addicting. Can't say I'm aching to see season two, though. "Rollergirls" seems fascinating, but I've never watched it, just heard about it. "Iron Chef" has some pretty useful tips now and again.

Four highly regarded and recommended TV shows I haven’t seen: Whatever else is out there. Although I was at a taqueria the other night and I think they were showing "Law and Order," but it could have been "Boston Confidential" or whatever it's called. This really isn't a good question for me.

Four of my favorite dishes: My ex-roommate and her girlfriend made some fantastic Middle Eastern eggplant wrap-type thing sometime ago that I've been trying to recreate for ages. Also, the frozen BBQ chicken pizza from Trader Joe's has been a staple, especially when I don't have time to cook. I'm trying to go vegetarian but that pizza pulls me back from the brink every time. The tea leaf salad at Burma Superstar here in SF surely deserves a gold medal. I'm a pretty middling cook (even though I do it fairly frequently) so I probably shouldn't list anything I've personally made.

(Okay, I'm deleting some questions here. Four places I've vacationed? Who cares? And two questions about TV? Why not some classic desert island questions? What about books? Or music? Four words you mispronounce regularly? [Personally, that last would be a long list, but classic stumpers include "abominable," "labyrinth," "indefatigable," and "chasm."] One could go on. I won't.)

Four sites I visit daily: Um, when I absolutely don't have time to surf the web, apart from MotherJones.com and our publishing site, it usually boils down to Google News and the New York Times. And for various reasons I've been visiting the BLS site a lot lately, but "daily" is a pretty high bar.

Right. I won't send this on because it's not all that interesting. But fun while it lasted!

Continue reading "Memes and Stuff"...
-- Brad Plumer 9:18 PM || ||