Category: Friday Fives

1. What is your favorite thing to drink on a hot day?
Ice tea is a fav. Lot’s of ice and with some artificial sweetener (the pink stuff) yeah, yeah, I have heard it all about the Sweet and Low connection to cancer in rats, but I am not a rat and I don’t drink gallons and gallons of tea in a day so I think I am good. It is odd, though – I only use sweet and lo in iced tea but not for anything else.

2. What superstitions do you have?
I am not too superstitious. Really at all.

3. What is your favorite pen to write with and why?
I am really fond of the Pilot Precise P-500 gel pen, fine point.

4. What books have you read or been reading during the Pandemic?
“The Great Influenza” a history of the 1918 flu and the maturation of American medicine and science. And John Scalzi’s “The Last Emporex.”

5. MTV has decided to resurrect playing music videos and they’ve decided to give you a two-hour space to program your favorite music on air. What do you air? Bruce Springsteen, Life from Passaic, NJ. A classic early videotaped Boss concert that all of the world should see.

The Friday Fives

1. What’s a kind of food most people hate that you actually like?

Frozen pizzas. Specifically Totinos.  It’s comfort food.

2. What food do you just refuse to eat?

Mammals and birds

3. What’s the best cooking advice/tip you ever received?

Don’t cook anything on a stovetop on high. Low and slow will make a meal.

4. If you were a chef and restaurant owner, what kind of place would you operate?

A vegan taco truck.

5. What are some food + drinks combos that people should try out?

Good old fashioned Root Beet floats with ice cream.  It has fallen out of favor but still a great simple sweet snack.

1. If you could pick one fictional item to use in your daily life, what would it be?

The transporter from Star Trek. This is one life-changing device right there. Imagine the uses.  And according to the Trek lexicon, it would remove any viruses and diseases from your body upon being recombubulated.

2. How do you tell if the screaming children outside are having fun, or being chased by an ax killer?

Right outside my window is an elementary school and the darlings will be out at the various times so of the day for recess. There is always a blood-curdling screen being emitted. I almost think they are scheduled – like after little Tina screams it must always be followed by little Justin and on down the line.  I actually find it quite endearing.

3. Which TV show has had the best pilot episode?

Season 1, Episode 1 of “Lost.” In fact, the first four episodes form an amazing story arch.

4. If booby traps were legal how would you protect your home?

Pulling up “Home Alone,” the ultimate DIY bobby trap training video i go with the iced up steps with the removal of any and all handholds or leverage.

5. How would you fix America?

Two things – get the big corporate money out of the elections and let citizens vote proportionately – allowing for perhaps 10% of a vote to this person, 30% to this one, 50% to another, and so on.  It would change the tradition “First past the post” system and drastically alter the way the traditional two-party system works.

1. What’s the best cereal?

I don’t eat much breakfast cereal nowadays and if I do it is some sort of multi-whole-grain muesli kind of thing.

But in my cereal eating days, I really dug “Golden Grahams.”  Just enough crunch to milky sogginess.

2. If you could de-stress the nation by saying only one thing, what would you say?

The titles to my soon to be completed best selling business tomes:

Volume One:  “Chill The Fuck Out!”

And

Volume Two: “Get Your Shit Together!”

3. What’s your ‘HOLY SH!T IT WORKS!’ moment?

I look at this question as a validation of a life hack that I use.

It’s this – eat your Cheetos from the bag with chopsticks – still yummy but no cheesy powdery goo on your fingers.

4. Who would you call if you caught bigfoot?

Who I always call, Julie.

5. Which scar on your body tells the best story?

My five-year-old self running through the glass part of a storm door headfirst and cutting up my face and hands.  Four scars that are still quite visible 50 years or so later.

1. The President mistakenly declares Martian Law, instead of Martial Law. What powers does he think he has under Martian Law?

The unfortunate ability to read lips and to bore quickly into underground bunkers at will.

 2. What could you give a 40-minute presentation on with absolutely no preparation?

Coaching methods for better employee performance.  I can do this talk in my sleep or with the world’s worst hangover and still be very effective.

 3. What species of animal would you be most terrified of if they had the same cognitive ability as humans?

Elephants.  They are incredibly smart and super strong. If they had our instincts and cognitive ability I can only imagine the terror they would wield.

 4. What is your favorite smell and what does it remind you of?

Freshly baked (or baking) bread.  It reminds me of my mother and my youth.

 5. So far the first half of 2020 has been a wild ride. What should happen in the second half in order to compensate for all the bad things that have happened? 

The end of the Trump mistake and a cure for the ‘rona.  I am speaking for all of mankind at this point.

1. What’s the most tech-illiterate thing you’ve seen a person do?
My mom, bless her heart, doesn’t use or understand email. Which, in the year 2020, is kind of difficult to share things with her. She still sends letters by mail and will send packages and envelopes full of little things from my past. It’s cute but a mom with no email is difficult to send things like recipes and gardening stuff she would be interested. And oddly it is just email. She reads her kindle and plays a few video games on her phone and is quite good about texting – clear down to photo sharing and using gifs and emojis. But email intimidates her for some reason.

2. What places would you never travel to because they’re too dangerous?
Probably Bolivia or one of those revolutionary South American nations. I had this book years ago, “Traveling to the World’s Most Dangerous Places” a travel book on how to negotiate risky, revolutionary, and third world countries. Much easier to travel those places from the safety of your couch.

3. What’s the best pet name you’ve ever heard?
I always to name a puppy of a large breed dog, like a rottweiler, “Gonk.”

4. What’s the craziest conspiracy theory you have heard?
I read this book about Nixon and Watergate and the author’s premise was that the break-in was not about the Democrats as much as what they may have had in opposition research, namely information about Nixon’s involvement in Cuba and Chile and the Kennedy assassination. I didn’t buy the story but it was a good story indeed.

5. What’s your favorite time of the day to have coffee?
7:00 am or so, on the couch with the New York Times crossword puzzle.

1. What is sexy but not vulgar?
Burt Reynolds
2. What has quarantine ruined for you?
Alone time
3. What is the stupidest thing you have ever done while drunk?
Well, there have been many – but the easiest answer is online shopping. I have ended with cases and cases of wine while browsing online a few cocktails in.
4. What YouTube rabbit holes do you tend to find yourself going down?
James May (from Top Gear) has two or three seasons of “The Reassembler” where he is given a set of parts for a common device and reassembles them while talking a bit of history of the device and other standard May snark.
5. You can add one “fuck” to any famous quote, where do you put it?
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you fuck something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

On Jeopardy, we would call these questions “Pot Pourrie”

1. If you could ask Donald Trump one single question and get an absolutely straightforward honest answer, what would it be?
Hey, have you ever actually read a book, a real book, not Hustler magazine, from cover to cover?

2. What’s a common saying that annoys you?
Perception is reality. It is a common corporate leadership adage that just so annoys me.

3. What sequel was better than the original?
The Godfather Part II. There will be no room for discussion on this point.

4. Who was the last person you hugged? How long ago was that?
Nurse Lori about four weeks ago.

5. Who is the least problematic and universally beloved celebrity, in your opinion?

Tom Hanks

1. What’s the most cluttered spot in your home?
The dining room table. It is a magnet of a mess and the general catch-all of all things at home Nall.

2. What’s your method for decluttering?
Start with the big stuff, move the to things that can be thrown away, and then piece by piece put things away.

3. What are your favorite cleaning products?
I found this cool thing that makes a non-bleaching chlorine solution from water, salt, and vinegar that is electrolyzed. It is non-toxic and cleans anything and sanitize everything and is color-safe and safe on fabrics.

4. What helps get you motivated to clean up?
When the mess gets in the way of comfort.

5. What’s the most organized spot in your home?
Bathroom cupboard and bathroom counter. Makes the morning and evening routines go so smoothly.

1. What is that thing in your house that was pretty common and is now absolutely extinct?

The VCR tape rewinder – because there was a time when you rented the tapes and Blockbuster and the grocery store would charge you for not rewinding.

2. What about something from your grandparent’s house that was common and absolutely extinct now?

Both of my grandmas had those old hand-cranked washing machine/tub.

3. What is a favorite television commercial from your youth for a product that no longer exists?

It was those Polaroid camera commercials with James Garner and Mariette Hartley – they were so popular, people thought the actors were an actual real-life couple.

4. What advertised product that passed away with time do you still recall fondly – the product, not the ad like the question above.

The Christmas- time toy commercials – or better yet, the Sears, J C Penny, and Montgomery Ward toy catalogs – pages and pages of sheer advertising.

5. What do you say to people who don’t take COVID19 precautions seriously?

My three employees who ignored the public health advice to stay home will argue with those who say it isn’t necessary – all are battling multiple bouts of pneumonia on their 3rd hospital stay, all under the age of 40, none men – and all ignored the guidelines. We have been WFH for 6 weeks now. Ask my nurse friend Sparky who has recovered but still weak with a painful cough and back to work in the oncology clinic. Or my friend with MS who hasn’t left his house for two months. Those individuals might provide a different argument.