Frank the Chicagoan has tagged me for the “Six Quirks” meme.
The rules:
- Link to the person that tagged you.
- Post the rules on your blog.
- Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
- Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
- Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
This is trickier than you’d think, at least if I don’t want to repeat myself. After all, I’ve exposed my quirkiness plenty of times already. There was “five weird things about me” and “five things you don’t know about me.” And let’s not forget that whole “12 Monkeys” business.
However, as Martine will attest, my quirks are endless. So here goes:
Ever since I watched the HBO series Rome (one of the best series ever put on television, by the way), I’ve been saying “innit” a lot. And I do mean a lot. I picked it up from the Titus Pullo character, a working class soldier who is played by Ray Stevenson, himself a North-east Londoner. Ever since Rome, talk around chez nous is along the lines of “dinner’s ready, innit” or “goddamn Cylon’s a bastard, innit.” The weirdest thing is that it’s now completely natural for me to talk like that, innit. It’s not like I just put it on for a laugh; its like punctuation, innit, demanding to be plugged into almost every sentence. Sometimes I have to consciously stop myself from saying it. Yeah, innit.
Although I’m in no hurry to see the end of the world, I’m a big fan of post-apocalyptic movies like The Omega Man, Night of the Comet, 28 Days Later, and the first two Mad Max movies. I’m particularly fond of the ones where there’s hardly anybody left in the world. In fact, the only episode of the original Twilight Zone series that I remember is the one where Burgess Meredith plays a myopic and introverted bibliophile who spends his days as a bank clerk. One night he gets locked in the bank’s safe, and when the timer opens the door the next day, he discovers he’s the last person left after some huge annihilation (presumably nuclear). Joyful at the prospect of having all the time in the world to read, and of never again being harassed by his boss, he goes immediately to the public library. Unfortunately he drops and breaks his eyeglasses on the library steps – glasses he needs in order to read.
Martine, with whom I share many things, is in the habit of blurting out “NOOK-ular!” (Ã la George Dubya Bush) whenever someone on the radio or television says “nuclear.” We both get a good laugh out of it, to the point where I’ve started to do it. So now it’s my quirk too.
I love radios. We have at least ten radios in the house (not including the iRadio for my iPod), five of which do little else than be radios. (The others have CD players on them, or are attached to clocks or stereo receivers.) My newest radio is a Tivoli Model One.
I have a miraculous ability to heal myself. No, really. All I have to do is suffer several weeks of mysterious aches and pains, worry about tumours and incurable diseases, obsess over the Web MD Symptom Checker, and read up on various plagues and epidemics. Then make an appointment to see my doctor. It’s virtually guaranteed that all symptoms will vanish a few hours before the appointment.
I don’t like to tag people for memes. Yes, that’s a quirk, innit, particularly since I don’t mind being tagged myself. I guess you could say I’m not exactly consistent. Generally, I end up tagging folks who are highly unlikely to pick up the meme, such as the Queen, or Chelsea Clinton. This quirk will not abate with the meme at hand.
OK, as I said in number six, I don’t play fair in that I don’t tag people. But how about this instead; I hereby invite any reader who does not have their own blog to share their six quirks (or fewer, if you like) in the comments to this post. Go ahead. You know you want to…
I scored 48 out of 60 when I did the test, although there were two answers that I knew I got wrong the second I submitted them. But close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades (and drive-in movies, soft shit fights, and Florida elections) so I must accept my below average (at least for a blogger) standing.