Oh Boy, More Cheddar Please!
In the continuing quest to elevate the weekly Q&A forums to attain a little more depth instead of wondering when the last time you bathed was, the goes for some real meat. By the way, the Friday Five has a horribly difficult time of honoring opt-out requests, I've asked them every week for the last month to stop telling me that their crappy little list is up. And yet, there it is, like spam in my in-box.

Oh well, they suck, the Cheddar X does not! And on to the questions for this week.

1. What's your worst alcohol related experience?
Making the mistake of thinking that gin makes a good chaser for lobster. I used to work at a hotel, we used to shamelessly pilfer food and beverages. So, one night we grabbed a couple of live lobsters and a bottle of gin. By the way, walking around with two live lobster in your backpack is a very, very strange sensation.
Anyway, we went to the party, took over the kitchen and feasted on these gorgeous lobsters. And the proceeded to get utterly stinking hammered on gin and somethings. Hours later I was curled up fetal style on a patch of grass next to the bridge between Hanover, NH and Norwich, VT, puking my holy guts out for what seemed like weeks.
It took a good fifteen years before I could even think about drinking gin again.

2. What's the absolute dumbest thing you've done?
I'm not sure if its possible to narrow it down to just one. How about thinking it was cool to make the most drunk among us drive home from parties, on the wrong side of the road at very, very high speeds. I still don't quite understand how we didn't die fifty times over.

3. What is your biggest crossroad in life? That is, what choice, action, non-action most brought you to where you are instead of where you might have been?
In recent history I'd have to say it was deciding to move to California. I'd just come back from a year in South Africa and was searching for my place in the world. Santa Cruz has been an excellent place for me to grow into who I am today and it also provided me with a place to get an education. Which led to another big crossroads, the anthropology class I wanted was full so I took the concurrent philosophy class and became a philosophy major the next day.
In my teen years it would have to be my three month expedition into the Wind River mountains in Wyoming with the National Outdoor Leadership School. We trekked all over Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada and other places, learning how to camp properly, rock climb, travel through a desert environment without damaging it, how to winter camp and how to spelunk (that's caving). It also taught me that I can do damn near anything I need or want to. That my inner reserves of strength are far deeper than I gave them credit for. That knowledge is absolutely and utterly priceless.

4. Who are your favorite bloggers and why?
Ahhh, an easy question. Let's see, I read Layne for a bunch of reasons, she's a great writer, a good friend and she introduced me to blogging in the beginning (I also go there for the red hot monkey love sex posts!). Ryan because he's just too damned hot and sexy to not try to emulate at all times and how better to emulate him than to read his innermost thoughts, he's also funny as hell, opinionated as hell and a damn good guy, one of those people who, if he calls you friend, would actually do anything for you if you needed help and that's both rare and highly laudable. Carlene because she's got a great sense of humor, always has something interesting to post about and can make me laugh in spite of myself and that's very, very cool. The Fabulous Mint 400 is next because they post about things I'm interested in, always have a different angle on things although I must say that they've been slacking a bit lately but don't worry, I still hit them up all the time. Amy because she's got a conscience, because she cares about what's happening in the world and is working to make it a better place (and she forgives me when I bite her head off). Courtney because she's cool, she's local and I've never been to her site and regretted it. Others like Gudy, Jivha, Daintily Dirty and Snooze Button Dreams are also regular reads for good reasons, they make me think, they make me grateful for what I've got and where I am and each of them has something special and interesting to add to my day.

Oh yeah, I love reading Metafilter because there really is no other place to find alot of the post topics. I learn more by going there than by hitting any news site.

5. What's your best example of ironic justice?
The guy who got run over by his own Sport Utility Vehicle is a good one. But damn, Ryan's got an excellent one with his response. Bastard.
Oh wait, I've got it. This was a few years ago but it still kills me. Some idiot in Arizona was drunk and taking out his impotent rage on some saguaro cacti with his shotgun. Well, saguaro cacti are really tall and he was really stupid. He blasted the base of one and it fell over, on top of him and crushed him. I hope he suffered for a long time before he died.

6. Which is more futile, the war on drugs or the war on terrorism?
I'd have to say the war on drugs because its just not winnable. Drugs are a part of American culture and others as well. People will figure out some way to alter their state of mind regardless of whether John Law says its okay or not. Its also a huge waste of money to persecute people who are smoking dope in their homes and causing no harm to anyone. Quick side note, those commercials trying to convince people that buying pot is the same as supporting terrorism were so utterly bogus that I can't even begin to refute them. Oh wait, yeah I can. Show me the money trail from buying a sack of dope in Northern California, pot that was grown in Northern California by Americans, how does that money get into the terrorist's hands? Unless they mean that he'd invest that in the stock market and the terrorists are selling off their stocks right before a massive attack on American business? But I don't think that's the route they intend to imply. Its stupid to think that smoking dope is the same thing as buying bullets and bombs for terrorist acts. Funny, they've not been showing those commercials in a long time, wonder why.

7. How many copies of the Sobig worm have you had to delete this week? (round off to the nearest hundred thousand if you like)
At least 500 so far from both my work and personal emails. And it doesn't seem to be slowing down in the least.

Want some ? Then go and get some!