Seven Things About Me Meme mememememe...

Just when I thought I'd have to quit blogging... *

It's been one of those weeks where I want to post something but then I read everyone else's blogs and I feel totally inadequate so I just don't post. But Brian has tagged me for a meme, so now I have an excuse to post something less-than-sciency; something I know a lot about....me! Here's my lineage...

Father: Laelaps
Grandfather: Greg Laden
Great Grandmother: The Ridger
Great Great Grandmother: Grrl Scientist
Great Great Great Grandmother: Tabor
Great Great Great Great Grandmother: Maya's Granny
Great Great Great Great Great Grandmother: Busha Full of Grace

1. Up until recently, I had a 1979 Honda CM400T motorcycle. I learned to ride about 4 years ago after I got sick of riding on the back of my ex's bike. It got towed about six months ago and I couldn't afford to get it back.

2. I was a model for a few years. I didn't do anything big...just some fashion shows and some promotional jobs. Once Abercrombie and Fitch invited me to a go-see, but then they realized that I'm an old fart (for their purposes) and they smiled politely and thanked me for coming while not-so-secretly judging the crap out of me. Here's one of my portfolio pics:

3. When I was five, I told everyone that my name was Hank. It all started when a women asked, "Oh, what a cute little boy, what's his name?" I asked my dad what to say and he said, "Anything you want." And so I became Hank.

4. I haven't had any alcohol or drugs in almost six years. I do this on purpose. Mostly because once I start doing them I can't stop.

5. I love Mystery Science Theater 3000 movies. My favorites are Pod People, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank and Time Travelers. And of course, I love the shorts as well. I have a Crow T. Robot tee shirt that says "Bite Me." I can't ever make it through an entire movie (I fall asleep), but I just love them...

6. Last January I got really upset at the amount of thought I put into my appearance. I made a resolution to stop wearing makeup, stop shaving, and to stop smoking. So far, I've successfully upheld those resolutions, though I get really self-conscious about the not-shaving thing and it took me a few months to quit smoking. I don't think about how I look nearly as much as I used to.

7. I was a Civil War reenactor in middle school. My friend, Matt, got me into it and we formed the 14th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. We enlisted about ten other kids between the ages of seven and twelve. At our peak, we had authentic uniforms, real muskets/rifles and participated in reenactments . We marched in parades, put on mock encampments and did the 21-gun salute on Memorial Day in my hometown. I think we were the youngest regiment around...and we were good, considering!

Photo from ozarkmerchants.com

And that's plenty, I think...perhaps too much. Anyway, for taggees, here are the rules...

Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I tag:

Zach

Dr. Brazen Hussy

Matt C., museum instigator

Ben D.
Manabu

Rudbeckia Hirta
StyleyGeek

I'm not going to put a comment on your blog...just do the meme if you want to (or are struggling for content, as I am).

*UPDATE* I am not going to quit blogging! I only mean to convey my frustration! I pretty much can't breathe without blogging. That's also not true...but I love it and don't want to stop.

Meme of Four

Julia at The Ethical Palaeontologist has tagged me for a meme! YAY!

4 jobs I have had:
Landscaper/Greenhouse worker (did this for four years)
Legal Assistant for a deadbeat dad lawyer
Assistant Editor at a video production studio
Editorial Asistant for a scholarly/medical journal

4 movies I love to watch over and over:
Jurassic Park
Life of Brian
MST3K, The Movie
The Princess Bride

4 places I have lived:
Ashford, CT, USA
Mansfield, CT, USA
**Edited to maintain some semblance of anonimity**

TV shows I enjoy watching:
Dr. Who
House
Nip/Tuck
Black Books

4 places I have been:
Naples, Italy
London, England
Rome, Italy
New York, NY, USA

4 websites I visit daily:
Various paleo/academic blogs (I just start at the top of my blogroll and go down)

Statcounter
Facebook
Science Daily

4 favourite foods:
Cabot Cheddar Cheese
Peanut Butter (organic salted...no chunks)
Annie's Goddess Dressing (good on food...but just as good without)
Mr. Mike's buffalo chicken pizza

4 places I would rather be:
Somewhere out west, USA, where there are fossils fossils fossils
Somewhere in Canada where there are fossils fossils fossils
London, UK
Florence, Italy

4 blogs I tag:
Make No Bones
Fish Feet
Fumbling Towards Geekdom
Learning Curves

PZ's Mutating Genre Meme

I have been tagged for my second meme by Brian over at Laelaps! I love it! This one was a little more complicated than the first. Here're the rules:

There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is...". Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

* You can leave them exactly as is.
* You can delete any one question.
* You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change "The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is..." to "The best time travel novel in Westerns is...", or "The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is...", or "The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is...".
* You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is...".
* You must have at least one question in your set, or you've gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you're not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

My ancestry:
My great-great-great-great-grandparent is Pharyngula.
My great-great-great-grandparent is Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.
My great-great-grandparent is Flying Trilobite
My great-grandparent is A Blog Around the Clock
My grandparent is The Anterior Commissure
My parent is Laelaps

And without further ado:

The best scary movie in sociopolitical dystopias is: 28 Days Later (I still haven't seen Children of Men...)

The best sexy song in ambient music is: "Let Go" by Frou Frou

The best scary story in horror novellas is: "The Langoliers" by Stephen King

The best B-movie in 1980's horror films is: The Evil Dead

The best television series in mockumentary comedy is: Arrested Development


The following can considered themselves tagged:
Apparent Dip
Matt at Ask Dr. Vector
Zach at When Pigs Fly Returns
Julia at The Ethical Palaontologist
Darren at Tetrapod Zoology
Neil at Microecos

Interesting Animals Meme

Julia over at The Ethical Palaeontologist has tagged me for my very first meme! Woooohooooo!

An interesting animal I had

I've got two...the first being my cat, Emily. Emily is the sweetest, ugliest, most annoying cat I've ever lived with. She may also be the dumbest animal on the planet, according to J. I actually agree, but since she's my baby, I have to pretend that I think she's smart. I love her so so so so much. She's the underdog...the smelly-breath fish face...the genital-crusher. Emily's favorite hobbies are standing on sensitive body parts (especially naked ones), eating cheesy foods, ripping out her housemate Zeus's hair and cultivating bad breath. She's my smemilypoo and she's so perfect, in all her imperfect glory:

The other interesting animal I had was Harold...he was a giant African millipede and he was pretty damn interesting:

photo from http://www.riversidereptiles.com/wst_page3.html

An interesting animal I ate

When I was in the 4th grade I went through a phase similar to one that toddlers go through; I ate anything I fancied. During that phase, I ate red ants (I also ate money). They were very sweet, though they had to be chewed immediately or they bit. I've eaten chicken hearts, which look like little people-hearts, complete with valves. I've also had alligator, venison and buffalo... I tend to stick with grains and veggies these days.

An interesting animal in a museum

Confusciusornis...she's the photo up at the top of my blog, but here's a more complete photo:

Saw this bugger at the Miami Science Museum...she was on display to the public for the very first time. There wasn't a lot of information available, but I think she was the oldest beaked bird found at that point, unless her cousin was older (one is dui and the other sanctus). The exhibit was really great...a lot of complete skeletons from China's Liaoning Province. I even saw a video featuring Peter Dodson, who I wrote to frequently as a kid. It was all very exciting.

An interesting thing I did with or to an animal

I had this really violent friend when I was eight or nine...one day he picked up a frog and squeezed it's innards out, so that they were hanging from its mouth. The frog was still hopping all over the place. It was absolutely horrifying and I have never gotten that image out of my head. And for the record, I didn't do it...I just witnessed it.

An interesting animal in its natural habitat

Proteus anguinus...the blind cave salamander, which has completely lost it's sense of sight and skin pigmentation. The salamander has adapted to living in complete darkness... beautiful example of evolution! Plus, it looks like it's got trees growing from its head. And that's cool.

And now to tag some people....hmmm....

Rebecca at Dinochick
Michael at Paleoblog

"Thermochronic" at Apparent Dip

"Rapunzel of the Ivory Tower" at Make No Bones and

Margaret at Tirade Parade

Cool! Thanks Julia!