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Don't Turn Around, You're Being Followed




Easy, easy, yes you're seeing double.  On Sunday, although I didn't learn till Tuesday, bloggin' buddy Cat Lady bestowed the Best Follower Award upon nonamedufus.  On Tuesday, wouldn't you know another bloggin' buddy - Quirkyloon - awarded me the same psuedo pstatuette.  Now either this means they really admire me, my blog and the comments I leave on their posts OR our bloggin' circle of influence is seriously shrinking.  I prefer to believe the former regardless of how true the latter might tend to be.

So thanks, guys, that was really nice of you and I deeply appreciate it.  Imagine, not one but two of the same awards in the same week.

What?  The questions?  What questions?  To paraphrase my favourite movie line, from Treasure of the Sierra Madre, "I don't have to show you any stinkin' questions".  Oh...I do?  I was actually hoping you guys would forget.  Hell I had to answer less questions on my last tax form last year.  Okay, okay, well you asked for it, so here goes...

1. What is your current obsession?
For good or for bad - and not to open on a downer - cancer is my latest obsession.  The medication, chemo, doctor's appointments, trips to the hospital and so on just sucks all my time and energy.  Not fun. But I'm looking forward to feeling better and my crutch is blogging.  I love writing, reading others' posts, reading, responding to, and leaving comments.  It really helps get me through.  So, off the top, thanks for that everyone.

2.  What are you wearing today?
Jeans and a t-shirt, natch.

3.  What's for dinner?
If you're asking about my culinary skills, bacon and eggs, soup, hot dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches. Take your pick.

4. What's the last thing you bought?
Gas.  Uh, no relation to what I cooked.

5. What are you listening to right now?
Duane Allman - Anthology and Duane Allman - Anthology II

6. What do you think of the person who tagged you?
a) Cat Lady: a genuinely nice and funny lady; an excellent writer
b) Quikyloon: a brave and busy lady who's got her life in balance; how she writes a quality daily piece is beyond me.
I'd love to meet both of these fine folks.  We'd have a blast.

7.  If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
On a warm and sunny beach, far from tsunamis, earthquakes and hurricanes.

8. What are your must-have pieces for summer?
Warm sunny weather would be nice.  Cool, rainy days really depress us here where summer isn't nearly long enough to begin with.  We don't have air-conditioning but we've got an in-ground heated pool we spend a lot of time in.  And it's great when the kids and grand-kids come over.  Just call us the Prune family.

9. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
The beer store.  You haven't left me much time to go anywhere else!  Where I live, it takes about an hour just to get to the airport.

10. Which language do you want to learn?
Well, I'm married to a Francophone and as a former public servant who spent years in French immersion at taxpayers' expense yet never became fluent, I'd still like to learn French.

11. What's your favourite quote?
I have two: "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read" and "Time flies like an arrow.  Fruit flies like a banana."  They are both attributed to that great philosopher of the 20th century, Groucho Marx.

12. Who do you want to meet right now?
Groucho Marx, but he's dead, so I'll go with either Neil Young or Martin Scorsese two hugely creative forces in their own genres.

13. What is your favourite colour?
Blue, blue, my love is blue (where did that come from?) and so are my eyes...and after 13 questions so's my ass!

14. Give us 3 styling tips that work for you.
My mantra: Trim nose hairs, trime ear hairs, wear deodorant.

15. What is your dream job?
Dreaming.

16. What is your favourite magazine?
I read Maclean's a weekly Canadian newsmagazine and Uncut and Paste, British and American monthly music magazines.

17.  If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on?
CDs (music).

18. What do you consider a fashion faux pas?
Whenever my wife gives me that look as we're going out and asks me, "Are you going to wear THAT?"

19. Who according to you is the most over-rated style icon?
I'm a guy.  Next question.

20. What kind of haircut do you prefer?
One about every 6 months.

21.  What are you going to do after this?
Get dressed.  I lied about the t-shirt and jeans.

22.  What are your favourite movies?
Just saw Star Treck - loved it.  All time favourites include: The Departed, Usual Suspects, Fargo, Blazing Saddles, The Big Labowski, Shaun of the Dead and, oh, so many more.

23. What inspires you?
My kids.

24. What do your friends call you most commonly?
Well once they got past "shit-for-brains" in my adolescence they reverted to my name, John.  A-ha, now you know.  My wife has a special name for me "niaiseux".  It's French, naturellement.  Loosely translated it means "silly", and that's being kind.  And I am.  Hey, life's too short.

25. Would you prefer coffee or tea?
Smoked too many cigarettes and drank far too much coffee in my younger days.  Gave them both up.  Don't drink tea.

26. What do you do when you are feeling low or terribly depressed?
Doesn't happen.

27. What makes you go wild?
Um, that's a personal question...and she wouldn't let me answer it.

28.  Which other blogs do you love visiting?
This is hard to narrow down.  My blogroll will give you a good idea.  My current Top 10 has to be:
Quirkyloon
CatLadyLarew
MadMadMargo
Beyond Left Field
Too Many Mornings
Stuff and Nonsense
I Probably Don't Like You
Knucklehead
Crochety Old Man Yells At Cars (send him your love and best wishes)
Debbie Does Drivel

29. Favourite Dessert/Sweet?
I have diabetes so I have to be careful.  If I slip it's for either pumpkin pie or rice pudding.

30. (phew, almost there, sorta) How many tabs are turned on in your browser right now?
When I go shopping I don't browse for Tabs, I browse for diet-Canada Dry ginger ales.

31. Favourite Season?
Duh, I live in Canada.  I'll take the 3 weeks of summer over our 6 months of winter.

32.  If I come to your house now, what would you cook for me?
Me, nothing.  My wife's the cook and you'd be blown away!

33.  What is the right way to avoid people who purposefully hurt you?
Get out of contact sports!


34. What are you afraid of most?
Rain.  It knocks out the HD satellite TV signal.

35. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
Trim nose hairs, trim ear hairs, wear deodorant.

36. What brings a smile on your face instantly?
My wife.  Hey, I'm a romantic. (For some reason I'm hearing "niaiseux" in my head right now.)

37. A word that you say a lot?
Love.  Right, now I'm getting all mushy.

38. What would you do if you were made President for one day?
Take a day-long tour of the US of A in Air Force One.

39.  What is the one thing that keeps you going?
Breathing.  After that my wife.

40. What word drives you crazy when you hear it?
It's a phrase actually, fairly common to cancer victims: "Have you had any nausea, vomiting or diarrhea?"

41. What's your least favourite character trait?
Vanity.  Seems essential to many sports figures and politicians these days.

42. What do you get if you multiply six by nine?
A headache.

43. What do you get when you fall in love?
Sometimes, after several years, one of them often tries to multiply six by nine.

And now, as part of this lengthy, time-consuming meme, I'm supposed to add a question.  So...

44. Who put the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong?

Okay that one's for whomever I pass this meme along to.  Well I've got about 5-7 followers who comment daily, or several times a week, here without fail.  One of them in particular visits all three of my blogs.  I won't mention her by name for fear you'll think she doesn't have a life.  We've already taken care of Quirks and CL.  So...regardless of whether they carry on with the meme or not I'd like to canonize the following 3 bloggers with the Best Followers Award:

MadMad Margo at Screaming Me-Me
Don (Red Raider) at Beyond Left Field
and
Mike at Too Many Mornings

Enjoy, guys, and thanks for following - or as we say in cyber space - stalking me!  And Quirks and CL, thanks again for the award.  You know what they say about thinking alike...fools seldom differ!  Well that's what THEY say, whoever they are.  I didn't say it.

Boy, I'm glad I got in at 44 questions and somebody didn't wait until it was up to 98 or something.

Oh, and Cat Lady?  That's not me hangin', just a reasonable facsimile and metaphor for my childhood.  Damn, all my secrets are coming out now.



Comments

Anonymous said…
I love it. You did a most excellent job. And you know what? It was tickling the outer edges of my zombified brain cells that the Catlady had awarded you already, but I didn't care! I wanted to do it too.

I'm selfish that way.

And that makes me happy. Ha!
Moooooog35 said…
I didn't crack the top 10?

You're dead to me.

Signed,

#11
Me-Me King said…
Talk about doubling your pleasure! Congratulations and thank you for passing this meme on to Me-Me.
nonamedufus said…
Quirks: You are both extremely kind to bestow this award upon me. I'm thrilled. Thank you my friend.
nonamedufus said…
Moooooog: Would you believe 10 and 1/2?
nonamedufus said…
Me-Me: Hey, Margo! Congratulations. You're one of my all-time favourite stalkers. This is perfect for you. After all, how do you spell meme? Me-Me!
Whitey said…
The oldest brother doesn't get hung from a clothesline. It's the young ... wait a second, I recognize those shorts.
Ah... excellent work, Dufus. I think your wife would get suspicious if I started calling you "niaiseux". Love the Groucho Marx dog quote!

But, seriously, Dufus... I think Quirky and I need to mosey on up north of the border and pin you up on a clothesline... just to add some authenticity to your blog!

Thanks for playing along! You're awesome!
Donnie said…
Good lord. Did you have to hire staff to help write this post? Nice job and thanks for the mention in #28. Also, one day when you can, howz about give us a brief update about what's going on with your chemo, etc. Thanks.
nonamedufus said…
Whitey: Well at least you're not lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground. On the clothesline, maybe...
nonamedufus said…
CL: Hey, One niaiseux around here's enough, thanks. And thanks again for the award. That was mighty kind.
nonamedufus said…
Don: Hey, not only are you in my Top 10 (and 1/2) but you were one of the 3 recipients I passed the award along to. Way to go guy. I'll see if I can't do a bit of an update next week.
Chris said…
Great answers, Dufus, and thanks for two things:

1. Including me in your top ten favorite blogs.

2. Not tagging me with this me-me.

I appreciate it!
nonamedufus said…
Chris: Don't mention it. Oh, you already did.
Skye said…
Congrats on the award NoName, and to those you've passed it onto as well!

Great job with the meme, I love how you answered the questions, some made me laugh, and others I learned a lot about you.
nonamedufus said…
Skye: I made it all up. Yep, that's it.
Mama-Face said…
I we have to do is be a regular commenter to receive this award. dang. I never have been regular at anything.

Nice job; you kept it interesting. 15 is my dream job as well.
nonamedufus said…
mama-face: You know I hear bran will work wonders with that.
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said…
Not sure where to post this but I wanted to ask if anyone has heard of National Clicks?

Can someone help me find it?

Overheard some co-workers talking about it all week but didn't have time to ask so I thought I would post it here to see if someone could help me out.

Seems to be getting alot of buzz right now.

Thanks
Skye said…
Congrats on the award NoName, and to those you've passed it onto as well!

Great job with the meme, I love how you answered the questions, some made me laugh, and others I learned a lot about you.
SP said…
You don't give anyone else a chance to win!

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