I'm not sure how it is that by transferring the medium of a chain letter (pass this on to twelve friends, or true love will never find you!) to a website somehow makes it better. I'm also bothered by the appropriation of Dawkins' term to describe this idiotic phenomenon, though that probably aligns well with Dawkins' notion of the term: we don't know what idiot originally thought up this chain letter, but that doesn't really matter, because now that we're putting it on the internet and tagging all our friends, the chain letter will live on FOREVER (or at least, for a ridiculously long time). Then again, the whole point of a meme (as defined by Dawkins) is to bring eternal fame to its creator, as works of Monet and Beethoven have done. So, in a sense, Neil's Interview Experiment is a much better example of a meme than these silly things we call memes.
The improvement here is that nobody is punished with seven years of bad sex for not adhering to the meme (though the same can not be said for those who neglect to make eye contact while clinking glasses together during a toast), you're tagged, and then you're "it." And if you don't want to be "it" then you don't have to play, nothing bad happens, you're just the fuddy duddy who didn't like the game. I like that it has also become common practice to change the rules around, so that each blogger adds his or her own spin on the meme, adding their internet genetics into the mix.
Interestingly, I find that I care far more about the cereal-eating or grocery-shopping habits of some of my favourite bloggers than I ever could about those of Mark Wahlberg or Tom Cruise. So I can only hope that I've got at least two or three loyal fans who will be excited to hear these fourteen strange and/or insignificant things about me (since I was recently tagged by one of my absolutely favourite bloggers, David). I'm making it a bit more
1. Since I keep bringing it up, I'll start with cereal. My favourite cereal of all time is corn flakes. They don't have to be Kellogg's brand, they just have to be corn flakes.
2. I was one of those kids who was largely denied sugary-sweet cereals, but unlike many of my cereal-deprived friends, I never lived on the Lucky Charms diet in college. Growing up, we were absolutely positively not allowed to eat the corn flakes. There were Cheerios and Corn Pops and Rice Krispies and a host of other fun but relatively healthy cereal options, but the corn flakes were off limits. They were mom's cereal, and with four kids in the house, if each of us had just one bowl, it would very quickly become an empty box of corn flakes. We knew that we would suffer the Wrath of Mom if we were to eat a bowl of her precious corn flakes, and to this day it feels sneaky and decadent to eat a bowl of corn flakes.
3. Sticking with this food theme, last summer, I discovered that I love mustard. Prior to this, I was an adamant hater of all condiments (though Andrea's husband, Bill, will pick a semantics argument about what exactly constitutes a condiment), and even now, most condiments (except mustard) still make me physically ill.
4. In high school French class, we always had to make movies for our final exams, and those movies always involved many murders and suicides (because in French movies, everyone always dies in some strange and tragic way). I was the preferred dead body, because the scent of the ketchup we used for fake blood made all color drain from my face, which was far more realistic than any death-makeup.
5. I can name all the presidents in order. Variations on "all the presidents in order" also happens to be the number two search query bringing visitors to this site.
6. The number one search query is my name.
7. I was born on the UCSD campus, which means I can walk to the VERY SPOT where I was born every day on my lunch break. I don't, but I can.
8. In spite of being born and raised within miles of the US/Mexico borer, I have never once been to Mexico, which means that I have, in fact, never been further South than San Diego.
9. My natural hair color is mousy brown. This is a new discovery, because I've been coloring my hair for the past 15 years, and only recently did I decide to let my natural color grow in. Most notable were my experiments with platinum blonde and fire-engine red.
10. I do not like wearing shoes in the house. As a result, there is generally a pile of shoes next to my front door.
11. I love the smell of bleach, but I've stopped using it because it's bad for the environment. There's something so wonderful about the smell of clean sheets and towels after they're washed with bleach. They smell EXTRA clean. Interestingly, I can't stand the smell of swimming pools, even though it's the very same chemical.
12. I collect tiny animal figurines from foreign countries. So if you travel somewhere far away, or if you live in a foreign land, drop me a note and I'll send you my address, so that you can ship me a tiny someone to join my menagerie.
13. As a result of working for Williams-Sonoma for a year, I am a TOTAL SNOB about kitchen gadgets and cooking ingredients.
So. Six or fourteen or a hundred arbitrary things about yourself. I went with 13 because, unlike David, I'm not superstitious about that number (though I'm plenty superstitious about other things, like salt, and ladders). Pictures optional. And I'm not posting rules because everyone gets to make up their own. As for the blogs I'm tagging:
French Panic
Nate
Krista
Jessica
Michelle
Clever Knits
It's probably cheating to tag my own blog, but I don't think I've ever seen one of these meme things done by a jointly authored blog before, and I think it will be interesting for myself and Andrea to come up with a list of knit-related random, insignificant quirkiness.
5 comments:
As I have been almost every hair color under the sun, I find it really interesting when someone takes the time to photodocument it. And what a difference a year makes - you went from "Run Lola Run" Red to Brown w/highlights in a year. Cool.
As for the whole food thing, I'm always fascinated to see what people stock in their pantry and their food habits. Thanks for sharing!
I thought it was Corn Pops that we weren't allowed to eat, not Corn Flakes!? I remember because I don't like Corn Flakes without some sort of tasty Granola or Fruit mixed in them, which we never had any of that because Dad did the grocery shopping and would always buy Nutra Grain Bars. Which I also didn't like unless they were microwaved with butter on them.
Perhaps, to go back to my original subject, Mom told all we weren't allowed to eat specific cereals, so that we would always eat different cereals so there would always be some left.
Anyway, whatever the reason, I would eat Corn Pops anyway. Mainly because because it is only breakfast, but mostly because I ended up getting sick of having Kicks every day for breakfast.
Nice list!
Back in my cereal-eating days, I used to have to mix at least two cereals together. It didn't even really matter that much which two they were, so long as it wasn't one cereal alone. All that's changed now. Today, I eat grits.
Also, I was sure I had an extra animal figurine from Costa Rica around here somewhere. We may have given it to somebody for Christmas, but if I find it, it's yours.
Dill mustard is my favorite. I add it on Tuna, hamburgers, ham sandwiches ... you name it, I place it.
~ gibsondog
You are so cute! I love the snapshots of you throughout the years! :)
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