Tri-facto

Didn't I just do one of these? Well you can thank him for this bit of fluffy posting.

• 3 screen names I've had - This is pretty much it, unless you count MSN names. We have weeklong MSN themes at work, so lately I have been Trypanophobia (Phobia week), Dame Marjorie Elinor Abercrombie (British sounding names week) and Bibliosaurus (Dinosaur week)
• 3 things I like about myself - My ability to remember arbitrary facts about books and movies, my laughter and my hands.
• 3 things I don't like about myself - All the weight I gained since I started working, my tendency to leave things to the last minute and the fact that I am sometimes too introverted.
• 3 parts of my heritage - My whole family has brown hair and brown eyes, DF Malherbe (old Afrikaans poet) is my great uncle or something and the farm my grandfather grew up on was called 'Daggafontein' (lit. marijuana fountain)
• 3 things that scare me - Any sound that I hear at night in bed and can't immediately identify (courtesy of our friendly neigbourhood burglar's visit a while back), taxi's (mthe South African kind, not the yellow ones) and for some reason, scorpions (but I'm fine with other creepy crawlies, and even wanted to become an entomologist at one stage)
• 3 of my everyday essentials - Watch, bottle of water, and purse.
  
• 3 things I'm wearing right now - Black boots, Denim jacket, and my pretty, new birthday-present-necklace.
  
• 3 of my favourite songs - Thanks to my little niece, the only songs in my head at the moment is 'Ek is 'n eensame krokodil', 'Almal dra 'n jas' and 'Kamalielies'. (Hakka hakka, hiekie hiekie ... eeek! Stop it!)
• 3 things I want in a relationship - Laughter, hugs and lots of dancing.
• 2 truths and a lie - I have eaten a stink bug, I have eaten offal, I have eaten baked beans on toast.
• 3 things I can't do without - Books, chocolate, sleep.
• 3 places I want to go on vacation - Pretty much anywhere I haven't been before, but the top 3 at the moment is Paris, Barcelona and London.
• 3 things I just can't do - Read this.
• 3 kids names - NOT relevant anywhere in the near future.
  things I want to do before you die - Again, read this.
• 3 celeb crushes - So many to choose from. Christian Bale (I liked him way before he became famous), Dominic Monaghan (first in LOTR, now in Lost) and Heath Ledger (the smile, mmm)

Don't really like the whole tagging thing, so if you would like to do this, consider yourself tagged. If not, go and eat some chocolate and you will soon feel much better.

Things I haven't done. Yet.

Since Casyn asked so nicely in her post, I suppose I could share a few of the things that I have never done before.

It was harder than I expected, and a disturbing amount of my initial ideas involved food of some sort. And places I've never been, but considering that I have only ever been on a quick trip to England, that's not really surprising.
So here goes.

• I have never done bungee jumping, and I probably never will. I would be willing to try out skydiving any day, but there is just something about going head first that totally freaks me out.
• I have never tasted oysters. Anybody offering?
• I have never failed my learner's licence, even though I wrote it 4 times. ( Long story involving a lot of procrastination on my part)
• I have never stopped reading a book to go and look up a word that I didn't understand completely. I usually just get too caught up in the story to bother, but I sometimes do it later, if I remember.
• I have never spent more than R300 on shoes. Not when there is a perfectly good bookshop just around the corner. It's in my genes I tell you!
• I have never seen Casablanca, Gone with the Wind or Citizen Kane.
• I have never been able to keep my hands clean while writing, painting or drawing. It sometimes feels like the ink/paint/crayon/charcoal/marker is magnetically attracted to my hands, and by extention, my face.
• I have never seen real snow. I missed it by a few days when I was in England. Very sad.
• I have never tasted any whiskey (scotch, bourbon, whatever) that I liked. I most probably never will.
• I have never ridden on a camel. It looks like it could be fun.
• I have never been able to study for something more than 2 or 3 days in advance. I just can't. It doesn't stick.
• I have never climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, but it is on my list of things to do before I die.

Yes, there are more than ten things. I have never been very good at following silly instructions either.

Meme

n: A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is passed from one generation to another by nongenetic means (as by imitation);"memes are the cultural counterpart of genes"

Memes are contagious ideas, all competing for a share of our mind in a kind of Darwinian selection. Individual slogans, catch-phrases, melodies, icons, inventions, and fashions are all typical memes. As they evolve, they become better and better at distracting and diverting us from whatever we'd really like to be doing with our lives. They are a kind of Virus of the Mind, spreading as easily as any cold.

But still, it is what our culture, religion and modern life is based on. My favorite example of a crucial meme would be "fire" or more importantly, "how to make a fire." This is a behavioral meme, one which didn't necessarily need a word attached to it to spring up and spread, merely a demonstration for another to follow, but still something that could not be done on pure instinct. Once the meme was out there, it would have spread like wildfire, for obvious reasons...

But when you start to think of memes like that, behavioral memes, then you can begin to see how language itself, the idea of language, was a meme. Writing was a meme. And within those areas, more specific memes emerged.

And as a designer, it is basically my job to either create, or to pass on memes.

So here goes. (This is a passed on meme mind you.)

Instructions: Copy the list from the last person in the chain and link back to them, delete the names of the authors you don't have on your home library shelves and replace them with names of authors you do have. Bold the replacements.

Terry Pratchett
Douglas Adams
Robin Hobb
Jostein Gaarder
Charles de Lint
JRR Tolkien
C.S. Lewis
J.K. Rowling
Yann Martel

This is fairly trivial meme. Why exactly would I want to know which authors I have in common with someone I have never met? But still I have found this same meme on various other blogs. And now it is here. Mainly because 'everybody else is doing it'?

Swing Time

So after getting Amanda's very relevant 8th round word, the unfortunate little suspended person returns to my gallows.

FLATULENT
_____
¦ ___¦
¦ ___O
¦ ___¦ \
¦
¦\_____

Guessed letters: N T R S E M C L

Casyn and MuzeKez both got it right, so you'll have to decide who gets the honour of hosting round 10.

Rope's End

Ok, so now I'm the new executioner after Casyn.

UNCTUOUS - Affecting an oily charm.


_____
¦ ___¦
¦ ___O
¦ __/¦ \
¦
¦\_____

W, N, R ,P, S,T,U,Y,L

Congrats to Casyn for saving this little man in the nick of time (again)
Back to you then :)