Take 5

Ms. Q... Trixie... She of the ever-changing name and site posted a meme recently in which she answered 5 questions that someone asked her. In addition to this, she graciously sent along 5 questions for me to answer. Being the industrious lazy person that I am, I immediately complained that they were too hard and would require me to think. Nevertheless, I have come up with answers to them and will post them for your reading enjoyment time wasting.

1. If you could trade your mad trivia skills for another skill that you currently do not possess, would you? If so what might that skill be?

First of all, please notice that she is starting off by recognizing my skills. Other readers/commenters, please take note.

I wonder, does this skill have to be real? Can I make things appear out of thin air (like money)? I guess that would be a superpower not a skill, so I'll stick to real things.

Would I give up my trivial ability for another ability? I have to say probably not, because it is part of what defines me as me. If I had to and was able to choose my replacement skill, it would probably be writing. I have always wanted to be able to write creatively and take people to different places and times with my words. Instead, I'm stuck with bad jokes and pop culture references. But hey, it got you here reading this.

2. If you could only eat one kind of food for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Oh, wow. Do you know how painful this question is for me? Off the top of my head I can think of 10 different things that I would want (actually, I had to eliminate and combine some of them to get it to only 10). In fact, let's list them, rank them and give some reasons why. In descending order, which I reserve the right to revise at any point depending on my mood:

• Chocolate: Really, it's chocolate, so I shouldn't have to explain this. The down side is that eating only chocolate would be kind of difficult after a while, so it can't go higher on the list.
• Potatoes: Ok, they aren't really that exceptional on their own, but they are quite versatile. You can start off with baked potatoes and after that, there are all sorts of options: Boil 'em, mash 'em, put 'em in a stew.
• Cookies: I decided to only include one dessert baked good, and it was a tough choice.
• Mexican food: I know this is not "one food," but this is my blog, so I say it's acceptable and there's nothing you can do about it.
• Steak: Mmm...beef
• Ice Cream: The only problem here is that if it gets really cold, I may not be in the mood for ice cream. (Ok, to most of you that may seem reasonable, but to anyone who is around me much, that's the funniest thing I've ever written, because I'm always in the mood for ice cream.)
• Barbecued Pork: Whether it's ribs or pulled pork, I love it and could easily eat it all the time. Besides, with all the different types, it would take a while to get bored.
• Bread: While man cannot live by bread alone, I'm not so sure this man could live without bread.
• Broccoli: Ok, this is a complete lie. I just wanted to put some sort of vegetable up here toward the top of the list.
• Cheese: How can you not love cheese? Cheeses cover a wide range of flavors, both sweet and savory. Combine that with the myriad of styles, textures and other options and cheese is not only delicious but never boring.

3. Here's an oldie but goodie! The Five People (Dead/Alive/Real/Fictitious) you would invite to dinner. Please elaborate on your answers.

All right, I'm going to skip over the obvious cop out answers here and not use anyone I could possibly actually have dinner with (wife, family, friends, etc.), because it will make this more interesting and probably a lot more like the intent of the question. Like my answer(s) for food, I reserve the right to change my mind completely at any point.

At first, I had a problem getting a full 5 on the list, but once I got going, I had a hard time limiting it to 5 people, so I'm going to stick with mostly pop culture-ish people so that the list doesn't get out of control too quickly.

• Damon Lindelof or Carlton Cuse, because I could try to bribe them and if that didn't work, I'd resort to threatening (i.e. withholding dessert) to get them to tell me all about what's going on on Lost.

• Alton Brown, because he's a nerd like me, he loves food, and his shows are full of more pop culture references than my blog posts (and that's a lot).

• Akira Kurosawa, because like him, I make mad films. Okay, I don't make films, but if I did, they'd have a samurai.

• The Brain (of "Pinky and the..." fame), because how cool would it be to meet a genetically altered mouse who is trying to take over the world?

• Sergio Leone, because we can have an interesting discussion on the Revisionist Western as the modern equivalent of the morality play. Also, we can talk with Kurosawa about what he thought of Leone remaking Yojimbo as A Fistfull of Dollars and share a laugh at the expense of the Bruce Willis remake, Last Man Standing.

• Just missing the cut: Matt Groening, Clint Eastwood, Rick Bayless (wait, are these guests or can I have one of them make the food, because if that's the case, Rick is so in), George Lucas, Malcolm Gladwell (I can't imagine a boring conversation with him, maybe I should bump him up to the top 5), Chow Yun Fat (circa 1989), Bill Cosby...ok, I've got to stop.

4. If watching TV paid as well as being a microbiologist, would you switch careers?

It's tempting to say, "Yes, absolutely," but no matter what you do for a living, it is still work. I'm going to say no for two reasons: (1) If I watched TV as a career, it would stop being something to do for enjoyment. Everything I see would be critiqued and written about even if it were only in my head. (2) While I can argue the other side of this and even agree with that argument, I would not feel that I am contributing anything. In my current job, I can feel (deluding myself or not) that I am doing something that is in some way useful.

5. Do you drive the same way to work every day or do you take alternate routes? (I take different ones almost every day. I like to mix it up!)

I live less than 2 miles from work, so I don't have much opportunity to change things. I tend to have two routes that I take. One takes me by Melissa's work, so that I can drop her off, and the other, which I use on days she has off, goes directly to my work. In all honesty, even if the trip to work was longer and there were multiple ways to go, I'd still take the same route all the time. I'm just boring like that.