I found the following meme over at Puffbird’s LiveJournal. It’s actually one of those questionnaires that used to circulate via email before they started going to ground in the blogosphere, so some of the questions are a little inappropriate for this medium. Also, I may have done this one before — many of the questions look vaguely familiar — or maybe it’s just that some of the questions have appeared in others I’ve done. Whatever. I was feeling meme-y — dang Beaker — and wanted to participate. Enjoy…

1. What time did you get up this day? Well, the alarm went off at 6:40, but I didn’t actually get up until 7:15 or so. This is standard. See Item # 21.
2. What is your favorite diamonds or pearls? Pearls. Diamonds are a big scam. They’re only carbon, one of the most common substances on the planet, but De Beers has waged one of the most successful marketing campaigns in history to convince everyone that they’re impossibly rare and precious. Bleah. I don’t even think they’re all that pretty. I like colored stones.
3. What is your favorite TV show? At the moment, probably Boston Legal, although Lost has really improved now that the creators know they have a definite end in sight.
4. What do you usually have for breakfast? Cereal of some kind or another. Eggs or pancakes on the weekend, when I have time to cook.
5. What is your middle name? Jason. With me, the question ought to be what’s your first name?
6. What food do you dislike? Beets.
7. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Journey’s Revelation, but I imagine that’s only until Venus in Overdrive comes out.
8. What kind of car do you drive? An ’03 Ford Mustang ragtop.
9. Favorite sandwich? A hot philly cheesesteak from Moochie’s, or some kind of Italian cold-cut with various salamis and bad-for-you meats.
10. What characteristics do you despise? Sanctimony, self-righteousness, and a sense of entitlement or general “I’m better than you”-ness.
11. What color is your bathroom? The walls are mostly white with green flecks, the floor is dark green tile, the vanity is dark wood with a light green top. So, white and green, I suppose would’ve been the concise answer.
12. Favorite brand of clothing? I’m not that fussy on shirts, but I likes my Levi’s jeans. 501s, the original button-flys. Been wearing ’em since I was fifteen and see no need to change.
13. Where would you retire? I’ve never really thought about it, actually. Someplace with trees and a minimum of traffic would be nice. A porch or deck to sit on. Maybe some open fields nearby, like when I was a kid. Running water would be a plus, too.
14. Most memorable birthday? Hm. Probably my 18th, when I got my first leather jacket. I’d wanted one for years, but Mom and Dad couldn’t afford it, and there was always that maternal concern about me outgrowing it. Then, for my 18th birthday, the folks apparently decided the time was right. They kept the box containing the jacket in the other room, so I thought I’d opened all my presents — a couple of records or books or something I’ve long since forgotten — then they “remembered” this one last item. I think it was the last time they managed to truly surprise me with one of their gifts. Mom was right, I eventually outgrew that jacket, but I still have it down in the Archive. I wore it damn near every day for years…
15. Favorite sport to watch? Women’s volleyball. Actually, I’m not much of a sports guy, but women’s volleyball has its, um, attractions.
16. Furthest place you are sending this? Wherever the InterWebs reach…
17. Who do you expect will send this back to you? No longer applies, since it’s not an email thing any more.
18. Person you expect to send it back first? See previous answer.
19. Favorite saying? Um… I don’t know that I have one, at least not in the sense of the Ben Franklin aphorisms that people usually mean when they mention “sayings.” I have lots of favorite catch phrases and one-liners, but they’re kind of a different thing. I guess I’ll pass on this item…
20. When is your birthday? September.
21. Are you a morning person or a night person? Night. I often blame all the years I spent working in movie theaters for messing up my body clock, but the truth is I’ve always liked staying up, even when I was a little kid. Probably drove my parents nuts…
22. What is your shoe size? 12-wide.
23. Pets? Shadow, the neurotic family border collie who divides his time between my house and my parents’ place, and Krazy Kat, my part-time feline buddy who mostly lives outside, but occasionally comes in the house to yak hairballs onto my couch and see what he can convince me to feed him.
24. What did you want to be when you were little? A starship captain. Still do, actually.
25. What is your favorite candy? Idaho Spud candy bars (a trait I share with Puffbird, apparently). Also licorice and most varieties of chocolate. Not so much into candies you have to suck. Oh, I do like cinnamon bears, though.
26. Your favorite flower? Roses. And I always liked the zinnias my mom planted along the driveway about a million years ago.
27. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? July 29.
28. What church/synagogue do you attend? I’m not much of a church/synagogue kind of guy.
29. What are you listening to right now? The hiss of an air-conditioning unit that’s charmingly placed right above my cubicle.
30. What was the last thing you ate? Half a cinnamon roll.
31. Do you wish on stars? No, not since I was a kid. None of them ever came true.
32. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Burnt umber. I don’t know why, it’s just the first one that came to mind.
33. What is your pet peeve? Jacked-up, chipped-out, diesel-powered pick-up trucks with exhaust pipes as big around as the standard office trash can. The problem, you see, is that your filth-spewing gunge-holes are at about the same height as the top of my Mustang’s door sill. Which means that if I’m unlucky enough to be trapped alongside one of you jerks at a traffic light with my window (or worse, my top) down, I get a cabin full of black, sooty exhaust when the light changes and you pour the coals to it. I’m sure the putzes who drives these things think it’s really funny to lay down a James Bond-style smoke screen when they punch their accelerator, but for those of us who have to cough that shit out of our lungs, trust me, it’s not. To make matters worse, Utah is full of the damned things. We may be heavily suburbanized along the Wasatch, but a whole lot of people still fancy themselves cowboys…
34. Last person you spoke to on the phone? The Girlfriend.
35. Do you like the person/people you are sending this to? Well, it didn’t get sent to me, exactly, but I like the person whose LiveJournal I stole it from.
36. What is your favorite drink? I’ve been on a margarita kick lately — the real kind, made in a shaker with actual lime juice and poured over ice cubes instead of florescent-green corn-syrup-laden glop from a big plastic jug that’s whipped into a Slurpee in a blender. (Yes, I am a drink snob, thank you for noticing.) Also, I recently located some real Coca-Cola, made with actual sugar and imported from Mexico. Dang tasty.
37. Favorite restaurant? I have several, depending on my mood. Ruth’s Diner has lovely scenery and great biscuits. Lamb’s Grill is like stepping through a time portal to the 1940s, which I, of course, love. Tres Hombres is a good Mexican place. And the Midvale Mining Company has recently been The Girlfriend’s and my neighborhood dive. If I must name one of the national chains, I like the spaghetti with mizithra cheese at The Old Spaghetti Factory.
38. Hair Color? Mostly brown, with a distressing amount of gray beginning to pop up, and an even more distressing amount of pink showing through.
39. Favorite day of the year? The last day of mellow warmth before winter comes.
40. What was your favorite toy as a child? My Mego Star Trek U.S.S. Enterprise Playset was pretty bitchin’. And all the Six Million Dollar Man toys rocked. Oh, and then there were those little action figures for that one space movie from the ’70s, you know the one all the kids liked…
41. Summer or winter? Autumn, actually. I’m not fond of extremes.
42. Hugs or kisses? Kisses, definitely.
43. Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate!
44. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back? Sure. It’s always nice when they answer a message.
45. When was the last time you cried? I mist up pretty easily these days — my bleeding heart seems to get softer every year — but the last time I out-and-out cried was when Anne’s poodle died.
46. What is under your bed? A couple of Rubbermaid boxes containing shirts, and a whole lot of dust bunnies.
47. Who is the friend you’ve had the longest? My buddy Keith, an occasional poster hereabouts. I’ve known him since the sixth grade.
48. What did you do last night? The usual: commuted home, ate dinner, talked to The Girlfriend, watched about 20 minutes of a movie I’m trying to work my way through (Tin Cup), and went to bed.
49. Favorite smell? Vanilla. I have a fond memory associated with the smell of vanilla.
50. What are you afraid of? The usual: failure, inadequacy, evil sewer-dwelling clowns, extra-terrestrial xenomorphs that gestate inside a human host…
51. How many keys on your key ring? Two. Guess what they are?
52. How many years at your current job? Three this summer. Time flies when you’re having fun.
53. Favorite day of the week? Sunday, because, as the song says, “that’s my fun day.”
54. How many towns have you lived in? Only one, believe it or not. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in quite a few others, though.
55. Do you make friends easily? Sure, I guess so.
56. How many folks will you send this to? I’ll have to check the logs and see how many readers I have…