TPBM Thread #41 - Antici . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The question (so to speak) was: The person below me likes the sound of a ticking clock.

Yes, I do. MrsHouseLibrary inherited her father's grandfathers clock (not to be confused with her great-grandfather's clock). It's just around the corner from where I usually sit in the living room. It adds to the ambiance of the reading on a cold stormy day with classical music playing in the background and a fire in the fireplace scenario.

TPBM groks the thread title.

Link to Previous Thread

....... pation!

is keepin' me wai-ai-tin'.

TPBM has a tune going 'round and 'round in his/her brain and cannot get it to go awaaaaaaaaaaay.

Leaped!

Well, now the entire album of Rocky Horror is running through my brain.

Makes me do the Time Warp every time.

TPBM has seen a movie over 50 times.

Yes. Well, not really a "movie" - it's one of my son's Elmo DVDs. But still.

TPBM is looking forward to something that's supposed to happen tomorrow.

Nope - I am actually looking forward to Wednesday.

TPBM has at least 1,000 MP3's saved on their computer.

No. I've got good virus protection.

#s 2 and 3 -
I was thinking of RHPS. Congrats, SGiV.

TPBM is tired.

VERY. Busy day with Kidlet, some interesting news this morning (still half-convinced my eyes are playing tricks on me), and about three hours out of the house running errands. Tomorrow's pretty busy too. i plan to head to bed soon.

TPBM is just beginning his/her day.

In a manner of speaking, yes. This is the time of day that my brain goes into overdrive, and I'll begin to feel sleepy in another 7 or 8 hours from now, if I'm lucky. I was up before 8 this morning.

TPBM likes sushi.

I do like some sushi.

TPBM likes almost any food, but some of it doesn't like him/her.

Mr. House, I had a tape of RHPS, but I have no idea what happened to it. Anticipation always makes me think of Carly. Or Heinz ketchup. lol But, at least I grokked grok.

I'm kind of a picky eater. Food that don't like me? Chili peppers burn holes in my mouth (except for the mild green ones which are wonderful).

RHPS was on tv the other night. I forget how young everyone looks!

The person below me will give me some sympathy. I had some minor outpatient surgery on my neck today and it hurts. Poor me. :(

Oh yeah. I do sympathy. I hate pain and wonder how other people can stand it. I hope the surgery works and that the pain subsides.

The person below me likes to go to movies on weekday afternoons.

I do, but I don't go that often.

Xorscape - Are you being honest about the Chili peppers?
That's part of the problem that I've got. We need to talk!

TPBM has a subscription to at least one magazine.

No, none at the moment; reached that status when I didnʻt renew my subscription to The Nation. But Iʻm thinking of re-subscribing, as fewer and fewer libraries here have it. Even the second-bioggest public library in the State now lacks it.

I sometimes miss The Economist (much more expensive) which I also didnʻt renew. I am able to see occasional issues left on exchange tables. And I suspect them of giving "editorials disguised as news articles". But, except for the New York Times they have the widest range of news, and are still making an attempt to cover all countries large and small.

TPBM has read at least one issue of The Nation, the Economist, Time or Newsweek more recently than I have.
or Newsweek

No, have never read any of those - I read Private Eye, The Word, New Scientist and (occasionally) the New Yorker when a kind US BookMoocher sends me a batch!

TPBM can fly a kite without getting all tangled up a la Charlie Brown.

I did quite well at the beach with daughter's Lion King kite about 5 years ago. A good stiff breeze is necessary, along with properly wound string.

I just want to say that I remember flying kites with my dad when I was little. He made them himself and used comics for the paper. Old rags made up the tail. We would get the kite 'way up there and then tie it off to the bottom wire of the garage door (which was always up) and sit and watch for hours.

TPBM has a favorite Peanuts character.

When I was a kid, Peanuts and Sunday afternoons always bummed me out; Peanuts still does. Linus would be my favorite.

TPBM has long hair.

Yes, down almost to the bottom of my shoulderblades.

The person below me is bald.

I wish! That'd be one less delay in the morning. I hate 'tidying myself up', and even brushing my hair is an annoyance to me.

TPBM wears designer shoes.

Well, I sure someone designed them.

TPBM is very brand conscious (to either buy OR avoid)

Sometimes. It depends on my budget and how much money's left at the end of the month.

TPBM has errands to run today.

Really? What are they?

TPBM can play the guitar.

No, but that may eventually turn out to be "not yet."

The person below me can play the piano.

Very poorly, ma'am.

TPBM thinks of piano-playing as a little accomplishment.

Well... someone ELSE's piano playing, maybe. I quit my lessons when I was 5 because my teacher scared me and never went back to it!

TPBM knows what WHL's errands were.

I do. Luckily my therapist was able to squeeze me in today.

TPBM has a favorite article of clothing. (Mine is a gray Gieves & Hawkes cable-knit cashmere sweater that I swear I would marry if my parents were dead.)

I do but they all belong to my wife...

NO, not for me to wear :P sickos! ;)

that got a chuckle out of TPBM

How 'bout a *smirk*? Will that do in lieu of an actual out-loud chuckle?

TPBM has a secret...

... and I'm SO not telling!

TPBM loves a good challenge.

Yes, unless it's the challenge of how to get red "fingerpaint" out of my son's shorts. (They made paint with shaving cream and food dye at therapy today.) Red's really hard to wash out; I hope the shorts aren't ruined.

TPBM knows where my calender's gotten to.

Yes. My calendar is hanging on the wall.

TPBM thinks food coloring should wash out of clothing easily and thinks piano playing is a major accomplishment as opposed to a little one.

PeeEss~It's a Baby!
♥ Sean Patrick O'Connor - 8/3/10, 2:48 am, 8 lbs, 14.2 oz, 20 1/2 in long, Beautiful!!

Mother, Daddy, Big Brother, Grandmother and Great-Grandmother(Moi) are doing fine and recovering nicely.

He should be coming to visit when he gets a few miles under his belt. Um, I mean months under his diaper. Or something.

Congrats on the new little one! I hope they can at least send you lots of pictures until you can hold that sweet little boy yourself.

#30 Yes, and yes. I'd just as soon have food colourings banned, even the 'natural' ones made out of crushed beetles or whatever. A friend's mum used to specialise in blue icing on cakes - it wasn't nice but anyway, 'blue' is not something you eat! Well, OK, Roquefort maybe but that is greyish greenish blue really

TPBM permanently lost their appetite for something ucky presented to them as a child.

ETA more congratulations on your great-grandmothership.

Canned creamed corn. We used to get cans and cans of it in food baskets. I think people must have donated it to charity because they couldn't stomach it themselves.

My children are drawn to blue candy. I can't understand why, unless they just like going around with blue lips and teeth.

TPBM is winning the battle with weeds in the garden. (I'm not.)

I don't eat blue food...it is just wrong, because no natural food is blue...and no, blueberries are purple not blue. Blue koolaid, blue candy, blue jello...wrong wrong wrong, and I will not eat it. Not even the blue M&Ms.

ummmm, sorry, little mini-rant... back to the game...I have no garden, but the weeds have taken over the yard...it has been between 100-104 the last few days and the weeds can just take over so I just don't care.

TPBM is enjoying Shark Week on Discovery Channel.

Can't say that I am, or even would if I were actually watching it at all.

TPBM hates it when an hour-long television documentary uses the same two minutes of footage almost continuously throughout the show.

Even more so when the said two minutes are used over and over by all the rest of the documentary makers. I can recall a 'gun's-eye' view of a fighter in WW2 shooting down a Me110 and another shot of British troops getting out of a landing craft on Juno beach on D-Day that have been used too many times.

TPBM can think of another example.

I was in DC on 9/11, working just a few blocks from the White House. A tech guy wheeled a TV into a meeting room so we could watch the news. I saw the same shot of the planes hitting the buildings over and over and over; it would finish and the same short clip would run again immediately. It was a relief when they'd occasionally cut away to a reporter covering the scene and to this day I can't stand to see those images. I'd rather they showed more of the people covered in dust and rubble wandering in the streets, or the clips they never show any more- people jumping from the burning buildings, or the American congress, faces grotesque in panic, pushing their colleagues out of the way to be the first to evacuate the Capitol.

TPBM works/has worked on a film crew.

Nope, but I sneaked into the sets where a movie was being filmed, when I was in my teens.

TPBM just got a new toy and is fascinated with it.

No, but I did just give my dog a new toy and he's more than fascinated. He won't let it out of his sight!

TPBM knows a good pregnancy-safe cure for headaches. (I just found out a couple days ago and I'm not allowed to take my usual Excedrin Migraine).

I don't, but congratulations! (You aren't on the LT staff by any chance?)

The person below me thinks there must be something weird in the LT office water cooler.

really weird since they are spread across 3 continents and several states...

TPBM has also been unable to quit reading the numerology thread in Pro&Con Religion wondering about the sanity of certain people and what they can believe.

I haven't even *started* the numerology thread; I tend to stay away from hot-button topics, as they make my migraines worse.

TPBM is less headache-prone than I.

PS, AnnaClaire, I am not on the LT staff. (I noticed that too - lots of LT staff babies right around the time I joined!)

I don't know how headache-prone you are, but when it comes to spontaneous headaches I'm right up there with the best ones.

Or is that the worst ones?

TPBM thinks speaking publicly of religion is a big no-no. Or should be anyway.

No. I agree that it is dangerous to discuss it with your boss or with someone ranting and bigger than you, but otherwise one's relationship with the universe is pretty much a major subject for discussion. I participate on pro and con mostly about what one can know; I've found that many participants can't tell that that's what I'm talking about.

The person below has not blocked any other participant on LibraryThing.

I havenʻt blocked anyone (in a membership beginning in 06/09.) I was, however, in one game thread where a member was being disruptive -- giving "joke" or just plain insulting posts as if participating in the game.

My policy was to just continue the game as usual, by replying to the disruptive posts AS IF they really were legitimate parts of the game, without flagging, complaint, or appeal for his suspension. He was, however, suspended by the authorities.

TPBM has sometimes seen his ADDED BOOKs go into an unintended part of the overall collection.

This is for SRedRose -- and anyone else plagued with horrible headaches -- and has no bearing on the game.

Place your thumbs in the supraorbital notch over each eye then press and hold them there for as long as you can stand it. It hurts like #@** but it is worth it. If the first time doesn't do it, wait a minute and try it again. This method cures 90% of my headaches. It acts, as does acupuncture, by interrupting the pain impulse. One of my friends reminded me that going through that notch is how a frontal lobotomy is performed, but gee whiz, nobody is pressing that hard, nor are they using an ice pick. lol

Please continue the game. Thanks.

I have only once seen newly added titles go into the wrong collection. But the nice LT employee who looks after knuckleheads like me fixed it.

The person below me was caught off guard in finding this new thread for the TPBM game. (Heck, I was only gone a day or two.)

Not me.

TPBM has a pretty decent memory - the ability to recall things, I mean - not the "morality-leaning" definition of the word. Sheesh!

Pfft. Not anymore. Used to, before I got "pregnant brain" with my first baby. I really do hope that this time around I don't get pregnant brain, because I'm not sure I can handle that combined with mommy brain. If I don't write it down, I do NOT remember it. My calendar (which was hiding in the backseat of my fiance's car) is my BEST FRIEND these days.

TPBM has filled out a job application recently.

A year ago for a job I would have loved (only one I've filled out.) A friend and old boss was the senior director of the company and the hiring manager (he was the one that opened the Wall Street trading day a week before I saw him), the job was created for me, but at the last minute funding for the project was pulled. I coulda PUKED. One of these days, though, I'm going to walk into my super's office and explain why I think she's not a very nice person and how I think she should approach the issue.

>>43 girlfromshangrila:- gfs, I could have been in the original movie Hair Spray as one of the Nicest Kids in Town dancers. A friend of mine was working on the set, said if I showed up she was pretty sure John Waters would cast me as a dancer. I didn't know who he was and asked and she said 'Oh you know, greasy hair and a pencil thin mustache?' No. 'Did Pink Flamingos?' Nope. 'Where Divine eats dog shit?!' Think I'll pass. Really it was the greasy hair that got to me and not that a character ate dog shit, which seemed like a dare kind of thing and I was still enough of a kid to get that. My bad.

I'm very chatty today. Also, SRed- if you can't take pain meds for a migraine, I recommend a good steam in a steam room. Works wonders for a lot of migraines, especially really bad ones, but you need to find a steam room that has more steam than heat. You probably can't do it while pregnant, but think about it afterwords. In my uneducated guesstimation, I think it reduces the inflammation and slight swelling of the neck and back that goes with my migraines. Of course, I've never been pregnant (at least not that I know of) so I treat migraines with as much raw dope as I can take with a glass of water.

TPBM makes a killer waffle.

Edited for clarity.

I hope so. I think I would stand a much better chance with a waffling killer than a decisive one.

Congratulations, SRedRose!

TPBM memorizes poetry.

Only two - Steve Martin's Pointy Bird, because it's silly and short; and
Maud Muller by John Greenleaf Whittier, because I've been there.

TPBM knows of a book or a poem or a movie or has seen a play that has affected h/im/er in a profound way.

ETA: My congratulations to you as well, SRedRose.

Tears roll down my cheeks during the final trio of Der Rosenkavalier - does that count? But then I get very moist-eyed at the "hill-of-beans" bit of Casablanca....and Garbo dropping off the twig in Camille ... I'm just a big softie really.

TPBM will answer WHL's challenge in a more epiphanic way.

ETA WHM to WHL - WHM?? WholeHouseMenagerie? - what was I thinking about?

I used to listen to my grandfather's and uncle's stories of their wartime 'careers' when i was a little girl and never really paid much attention. I was always more interested in what time the cartoons came on TV or if mum would bring me a comic home from the shops. And then at around 15 or 16, I read Wilfred Owen's Anthem for Doomed Youth, and it knocked me off my feet and out of my smug inattention to my granddad's and uncle's stories. Then I read the rest of Wilfred owen and Siegfried Sassoon and Binyon. Too late my grandad was dead, but my uncle was still alive and I went back to him to listen again, and properly the second time around.

TPBM paid more attention to their elders when they were a child.

Definitely - I always found them much more interesting than those weird creatures called children!

TPBM has an unusual skill.

I can fold my fingers almost the whole way to the back of my hand. Gives a whole new meaning to 'bend over backwards'.

TPBM would really like to know what abbottthomas (#53) was thinking about.

He was thinking about acoustic baffles.

TPBM is the King/Queen/President of the non-sequiteur.

did you know in Norway there are spruce that are 5000-7000 years old? At least their root stock, the trees keep getting broken off but the roots just sprout another one.

TPBM likes trees and nature such as 'the larch'. 'the Larch'

More than having Reginald Perrin's naughty bits being pointed to.

TPBM has a silly walk patented.

And here I thought my walk was sexy! Nudge, Nudge, Wink, Wink, Say no more, ...

TBPM likes to play with "pointed sticks"

Yes, and in pairs. Though some members of my knitting circle prefer hooks.

The person below me prefers playing with wheels.

Oh, at least SOMEONE'S got wheels. At least SOMEONE'S very rich indeed. We didn't have wheels and had to carry our cars wherever we went. Carpools were more important then.

TPBM didn't even have a car.

Not until I was 22 or so. But then what a car! A red 1966 Pontiac GTO convertible.

The person below me thinks excitement over automobiles is misplaced.

All automobiles except my 2004 Volvo XC70, which I have "bonded with", to borrow a phrase from a friend of mine.

And perhaps except 1967 Datsun 1600 roadsters. I had two of them.

TPBM prefers unsweet iced tea to sweet iced tea.

Yes and no. Most cars I can't tell one from another. But I bought my last car (1996 Dodge Avenger) because a) it had leather seats, b) it was bright red, and c) it was really, really cute. I'm sophisticated about automotives, as you can see.

TPBM will tell me what would be the best value I could find for a vintage Volvo station wagon.

ETA: Ackk! Leapfrogged by a Volvo comment!

I'd prefer to sweeten my own tea. Sweet tea is often too sweet for me.

You know what you get in the South when you ask for unsweet tea?
A dirty look.

TPBM will advise me on a good vintage Volvo after all.

ETA: Ackk! Double-leapfrogged!

Thatʻs true, that I prefer unsweet iced tea -- sort of by default: What iʻm drinking is usually from a machine in a sandwich shop or fast food place, and I donʻt even think of putting sugar in it, any more than I would put sugar in a root beer or coke. But perhaps itʻs sweetened to begin with.

TPBM has seen at least one professional game in
baseball, football, soccer, basketball or hockey during its current or more recent season -- and wants to say, if there is a predominant attended sport, which one it is.

Not me.

TPBM has more than 6 bookcases in his/her place of residence.

Yes, and boxes full of books all over the place, even though we moved in last October.

TPBM can read backwards.

If I think really hard.

TPBM is good at trivia games.

Pretty good but there's always someone better.

TPBM has been on Jeopardy (or Master Mind, which is the UK version but you don't get a truckload of Turtle Wax if you loose.)

I haven't, but six or seven years ago, my Manager won $32,000 on I Want to be a Millionaire. He donated the money to a school for Autistic children here in Austin. He was a decent human being, but he was one of the worst managers I ever had.

TPBM reads YA Lit.

I have read some rather good ones.

Edit: The Book Thief, Shiver come to mind.

TPBM also likes YA Lit.

I'm about to find out...

I'm starting shiver tomorrow. MrsHouseLibrary had me take her to a book signing by the Author just a week ago. She's a very good speaker, and it seems she writes the same way.

I'll let you know.

TPBM keeps a journal.

>Mr. House: I loved it but didn't like the ending quite so well. My daughter read it while she was here in June and came to the same conclusion. I'd be interested in knowing the opinions of you and of Mrs. House.

I do, in fact, keep a journal. Not hand-written, anymore - snoopy types in the house. I use Penzu.com (basically a free, private, closest-thing-to-paper-on-the-web journal service) for all my personal stuff, and I have a variety of blogs - one on almost every social website I'm on - for friends and family to keep up with what's going on in the world of Sarah.

TPBM is happy today.

I'm generally happy, plus it's Friday and my lovely husband is taking me out for a meal tonight, the guys working on the roof are storming along, really enjoyed watching "Inception" last night (nowhere near as wilfully complex as the reviews made out), I have a large TBR pile, enough to eat and clean water to drink, live in a democracy and I'm healthy and brainy and don't panic when a utility bill arrives - what more can a person ask?!

TPBM also counts their blessings.

That's one of the things that keeps me going between paydays.

WHL, please do let us know what you think of Shiver, it's in my 'perhaps' list.

TPBM reads plays (may include -but not be limited to- Shakespeare) and loves them.

I don't often read plays, but I nearly always enjoy the ones I do read.

TPBM thinks baby giggles are infectious. (R is tickling Kidlet and it's making everybody giggle a bit (: )

Less so than yawning, but they can be infectious all the same.

The person below me has been to a minor league baseball game.

I haven't but I've always wanted to. With the small stands and easy parking, they seem more like what the game was when it first got interesting.

TPBM has built-in book shelves.

I do, though the ones in this house were not done by me, I am planning on adding some more when I have some time, my office is starting to get piles of books again,need more space.

TPBM knows you never have enough space.

For books? Neverrrrrrrrrr!!

TPBM concurs.

Yes. I am currently in the pruning process, and I feel like I'm punishing the poor dears whenever I put one on the discard pile.

TPBM has a firm "one in, one out" policy on book acquisition.

I do, but not by choice.

The person below me, on the other hand, has a "one out, one in" policy on book acquisition.

Well, right now I have a "nobody enters or leaves the building until I say so" policy. Too many unread books scattered around the place for my long-suffering husband's taste. That and the current state of our finances.

TPBM thinks life without a new book every week would be pretty dull indeed.

I certainly can be dull, not getting new books now and then, that's why I review for a blog, I get at least one new book a month for FREE!

TPBM enjoys at least 2 genre of books

I like both fiction (novels, mostly) and non-fiction.

The person below me likes at least two modes of transportation.

For everyday purposes, anyway, nothing beats
a bus. (Cars are out of it, because I never learned to drive.) But Iʻll name train transportation as a second. There are no trains where I live, but on the mainland I used to really enjoy (very rare) travels by train.

And i really like air travel, (last was some years ago), but donʻt like any stage of it up to actually getting on the plane. And Iʻm hearing more and more about how terrible itʻs become.

TPBM has made voyages of 100 miles or more by boat or ship.

Yes. A few years ago, MrsHouseLibrary and I did a cruise from Seattle, Wa. to 3 ports in Alaska. It was a lot nicer than I imagined it would be - especially since there were bookstores in each town, AND I was able to find a FE of a 12-year--old book by my favorite author.

TPBM is looking forward to sleeping late this weekend.

Nope, looking at the calendar I don't get to sleep in on a weekend until Labor day weekend, building a garage don' cha' no'?

TPBM actually does sleep in on their days off.

Suffah!

>>Yes, you can have to many books. When you look at a new pile and go 'ugh' it's time to thin the herd.

TPBM has ridden in a parade.

Don't think so. I stand and watch; during Mardi Gras, I get to shout "throw me something, mister!" Beads, lots of beads.

But no roses.

The person below me has ridden a horse in a parade.

No, but I rode one out into the middle of a lake once.

TPBM wonders why, oh why, he/she keeps buying more books and wonders if he/she will live long enough to finish the unread ones and also thinks deciding which book to read next is very hard to do.

Not me! I won't read (as in - cover-to-cover) even half of the books I've got. I'm simply not that fast a reader. MrsHouseLibrary fares no better, as she will buy a book to read rather than take one off our shelves and read it.

I have read at least ~some~ part of most of the non-fiction books I own, though - mostly as reference material.

TPBM owns (or has read) more fiction than non-fiction books.

Hands down on both. Which is why, when someone behind a counter asks how I am, I say 'Tired. Crabby. Still hoping that life is like the movies.' I was in Luray, VA once (a rural tourist destination) and the cashier said 'Well, the truth shall make you free' and I said 'Yeah, but it will usually make you wish you were dead first.' I thought he might take offense but he laughed instead.

TPBM has lived in a commune.

A couple of times, but not for very long.

TPBM hates sharing space.

I do. I've had some company recently and was glad to see them go home. Some space sharers are better than others, though. The maintenance, doncha know.

The person below me is planning an out-of-town getaway.

MrsHouseLibrary is, to be truthful about it. It's a 10-day cruise to the Lesser Antilles. She likes volcanoes. I will accompany her, but am not too keen about trying any of the local foods - sensitivities, don't you know.

One of her sisters (and her husband) are also going. This could be interesting.

TPBM is colorblind.

No, being female I escaped that - I only inherited my dad's extreme myopia (I'm now -9 in my right eye and -7 in my left, with probable reading glasses on the horizon, just to add to the joy). I used to ask my dad how, being colourblind, he could watch snooker on the TV - I never quite believed him when he said he could remember the positions of each ball ...!

TPBM plays a mean game of snooker/pool.

'Mean' as in 'poor'. It would take me months to clear the table...

TPBM has a skill they polished to a high degree of perfection during a mis-spent youth.

I would have answered sooner, but Procrastination being the Art that it is...

TPBM moves his/her lips when reading.

Sort of, I read out loud when I'm having trouble understanding something,or trying to commit it to memory.

TPBM sings like an angel.

Only in the broad concept that (if you believe in angels) you can't actually hear one sing, and despite my best efforts, no one has ever so much as imagined the noise coming from my mouth was anything close to being song-like in nature.

TPBM had to read that sentence at lest three times before it made sense to h/er/im.

No, I only had to read it twice.

TPBM can operate a pogo stick.

No, pogo sticks are beyond my balancing skills, but they did always look like they ought to be a lot of fun to play on.

The person below me is interested in the way in which movies are adapted from books.

Not deeply, but I have thought that books adapted from movies are usually better than movies adapted from books. One of these days I'm going to get around to reading Mimesis (as soon as I get all my stuff out of storage, so say sometime before the sun burns out) and hopefully all will be explained.

TPBM, like me, has spent some time at Puzzle Baron.com and left totally dejected.

Edited to remove swear words on second version of post.

No, but I've spent plenty of time on other brain games -- do fairly well as a general rule but don't get dejected when I don't. Can't win 'em all!

TPBM also likes doing puzzles on-line.

@sophie236 - My myopia is so bad, doc says there's no sense in even trying to determine the readings. Something like 5-600/20 in one eye, don't remember the other. Thank DOYC for glasses!

edit to remove a sentence that didn't fit

I'm still working on them and they are still driving me bananuts.

TPBM is having an interesting weekend.

Not really. It is hot, hot, hot! The weather, I mean.

TPBM likes the "word" bananuts and will add it to his/her vocabulary.

Well, I'd add it to my vocabulary but I can't think when I'd use it (at least, without copying SGiV's usage.)

The person below me is fond of re-watching movies to make sure s/he really "got it".

Only if I didn't love the movie. If I did, I'll probably never watch it more than twice in my lifetime. No idea why. (Not that many of the movies I watch rely on subtlety or are open to several interpretations.)

TPBM will tell us what movie they'd show to space aliens if they had to pick only one (movie, not aliens).

Plan 9 from Outer Space of course.

The person below me thinks that we have probably already been visited by extraterrestrials.

Maybe, Space Odyssey 2000, because, even though embarrassed at showing a terrestial scenario
of what they had just been doing in reality), I would be looking for a movie where the pictures would tell all or most of the story, not one that was dependent on grasping the dialogue.
My wife thinks this is a really great film, and has written any essay on how and why it was a failure with Tongan audiences (shown in the 1980s when 2000 was not, as now, the past.

If the aliens did somehow already know English or Italian upon arrival, I might show The Treasure of the Sierra Madre or Vivere in Pace/ To Live in Peace.

TPBM wonders why I am leaving some classics (?) out of consideration (111, 113) -- like GWTW, Singinʻ in the Rain, or Citizen Kane.

Sorry -- 114 answers 112, not 113; due to the timing, or some fault of my own, I didnʻt see 113.

Ok, then, going back to 113...

I dunno if we've been visited or not. But I DO whole-heartedly believe that the universe is just too vast for us to be the only beings in it. That's awfully self-centered.

TPBM will answer roland's post (because I'm too tired to think of a new TPBM).

Okay.

Inre #114 -
I don't wonder why - there are too many classics to choose from.
Personally, I'd show then Mars Attacks.

TPBM can speak French.

Assurement! mais je suis sans "aigus",
"graves", et "circonflexes", tandis que jʻecris ici.

L P d s M,

er, I mean
T P B M can speak some non-English: European, Asian,
African or Oceanian language -- other than
French, German, or Spanish

I learnt Russian at school, and i can still remember the stock phrases (the totally useless ones!) we had to learn parrot fashion. I could probably still get by if the person speaking to me was talking slowly and using simple Russian, but it's not something I have had much call to use in my life so far.

TPBM was a math(s) whizz at school and can still do pretty complex sums in their head

Yes. I'm still pretty good at figuring out complex sums and "word problems". Although the bar has been raised since 1971, I was taking "pre-calculus" as a senior in high school. That was a big deal. Now Honors Algebra II is almost as complex as what I took. I took calculus in college and got a B and that was that. No more math in college.

TPBM loves rollercoasters.

Yes yes yes! I prefer the old wooden coasters, though (can't abide those freaky modern ones that turn you upside down) - the Grand National at Blackpool Pleasure Beach is my favourite of all time.

(Boobalack - maybe myopia is the price we pay for doing so much reading!)

TPBM loves fairground waltzers.

(Edited to remove speling gremlyn.)

To be fair, I love all the rides, games and otherwise fun stuff in amusement parks. Except for mystery/horror houses -they don't either scare me or amuse me, so what's the point?

TPBM does like mystery/horror houses.

Yes, but usually the outside is the best part. When I was at college, the local asylum put on a yearly Halloween haunted house and staffed it with in-patients and a few volunteers. It was based on horror movies, was pretty graphic, and was it really a great idea to let psych patients live sick fantasies? Come on, who wouldn't go to that? So I did and at one point this guy brandishing a working chainsaw (the chain was removed, but it was still loud and smokey and the guy was wearing a mask) jumped out from behind a corner, grabbed me by the arm and said 'I know you' and called me by name. Pretty unsettling.

TPBM is about to mainline coffee.

No: believe it or not, I'm reasonably awake today.

The person below me is about to mainline chocolate.

I miss the days when I could do that.

TPBM has poor relative who miss out on chocolate because of an allergy.

No, but I have one who misses out on yummy, yummy cheese due to lactose intolerance syndrome. The poor soul.

TPBM is or knows someone who is allergic to nuts. And no, I don't mean the human variety.

I know someone who's allergic to peanuts, if that counts.

TPBM has a dog on their lap (or arm!)

No, a knitted shawl-in-progress. (A what?!)

The person below me has something else furry/woolly in their lap.

If you mean on my lap, why yes, three cute little kittens who can't seem to find a better spot on which to take a nap.

TPBM keeps bromelias or other tropical plants.

Keep - in the sense of "as far away from my household as possible". Don't get me wrong - plants are okay things (relative to "pets", for example), but if they get in the way of having a bookcase (or privacy, because they're on the windowsill), I'll take a machete to them if I get the chance. That's encroachment you know.

TPBM has learned to make small sacrifices in the quest for books.

Going without food for a couple of days in order to buy books is a sacrifice for a trencherman like me, and I have done it.

The person below me listens to the radio.

Online radio, all the time. I listen to R&B and old radio shows on iTunes, BBC radio, Pandora.

>>!28 - AC- I have a book of collected graffiti and wall scribblings from the 70s. One of the entries from a public mens room was: "My mother made me a homosexual," and someone wrote "Really? If I gave her the wool would she make me one too?"

TPBM knows what the abbot is up to.

Vespers, I presume...

TPBM can't turn left.

No, I'm pretty much moderate.

TPBM can't turn right.

This has nothing to do with the game, but I wanted to tell Sophie236 that if that were the reason for my myopia, it would have been well worth it, but I had measles in the 4th grade, and they destroyed my until then perfect vision. Le sigh.

I am capable of pivoting right or left as necessary. They were careful to include that in my physical therapy sessions.

The person below me is considering the idea of ice cream on top of pound cake.

I AM NOW!!!

Fortunately, we don't have either in the house - haven't for at least 6 months.

TPBM finds it easy to avoid things that are not good for him/her.

Why would I want to?

TPBM has a car painted a funky color.

Dirt. It was a dark blue Silverado when I bought it new back in '94. I didn't repaint it; I just haven't washed it in 7 or 8 years.

TPBM keeps his/her vehicle meticulously clean.

Hardly. There's a reason my husband insisted on my vehicle being a colour that doesn't show dirt.

TPBM drives a SUV.

Nope, although when the bad weather hits us I sometimes think one would be useful! Our jalopy is an eight-year-old white Ford Escort diesel van - practical, by and large, but I do miss my big ol' black Saab 93 sometimes ...

(Boobalack - so sorry to hear that - people think German measles is a trivial childhood illness, but it can have nasty effects ...)

TPBM had chickenpox later in life and really suffered with it.

I had it at the ripe old age of four, and the only permanent effect I can report is a cute round scar right in the middle of my left cheek.
Looks like someone dunked the end of a straw in ink and poked me with it.

However, my father's mother had measles when she was pregnant with my uncle.
She had a hard time with it, but my uncle had the worst of it: he was born physically weak and had severe myopia.
Twenty years and two eye surgeries later, he was completely blind. He's a rather cheerful sort of folk, thankfully, but it still sounds like suffering to me.

TPBM knows Sign Language (I do!)

Just the curse words.

TPBM is going out for lunch.

No, had lunch already. I'm going out to the Royal Albert Hall to hear Mahler's 7th Symphony - it'll be the fouth symphony in a week.

TPBM thinks I'm a sucker for punishment.

Well, maybe you are.

TPBM plans to pick fresh berries next season.

No, but I've been picking fresh loquats for months now. Love loquats! Yum yum!

TPBM has tried the aforementioned fruit.

afraid to say, I've never even heard of them. I'll have to google that.

TPBM likes trying strange and 'exotic' fruits from other countries.

I have. When I was a kid, a neighbor down the street had a tree in his front yard and let us pick them whenever there was fruit. Haven't had them since we moved from there when I was 15.

TPBM has tried other exotic kinds of fruit and will tell us which one(s).

We'd have to define 'exotic' first. I live in a tropical country in South America, so some fruits that would be considered exotic in the US and UK are pretty normal, everyday stuff to me and I can pick them from my backyard.

#147: I wish I could send some your way, they're delicious!

TPBM has a similar definition of 'exotic' than the majority of posters in this thread, and will reply to SRedRose's post.

Hey, I was young and needed the money.

TPBM lives on platefuls of fresh air.

Absolutely. Accompanied by chocolate, chocolate cake, ice cream ...

>142 girlfromshangrila: - I know Baby Sign Language.

TPBM is going swimming tomorrow.

No. (I never did like swimming.)

The person below me is going hiking tomorrow.

No. (I never did like hiking.) But I will walk about .6 miles in awful heat. The things we do for our triglycerides.

TPBM neither knows nor cares about triglycerides.

edited to fix syntax

I know about them. Don't care much about 'em, though. It's all I can do to make sure I'm getting enough protein. My midwife got onto me about that the other day, said I needed to add at least another egg to my diet every day if I'm going to stick with the vegetarian diet.

TPBM doesn't fuss much about diet.

I pretty much eat whatever I want, but fortunately tend to like stuff that's good for me--salads, chicken, fish, vegetables. But I do like the occasional bacon, chocolates, and ice cream, and a good rare steak. Although I've gained some weight the last few years, it's within acceptable limits to both me and my doctor.

TPBM is left handed.

Ought to have been, but polio in my infancy caused me to develop greater strength on my right side.

The person below me is voting in a primary today.

None here today, but I always vote. At least six or seven times if I'm lucky.

TPBM is undecided about basmati rice.

Edited because I caint spell.

On the whole, yes, but maybe no - certainly not too often and never in a risotto.

TPBM agrees that the Italians have pretty much the right idea about food.

The Mahler was pretty good, BTW

If that idea was "it should be eaten", then I agree. Otherwise, I have no opinion.

TPBM eats too much popcorn.

At a sitting sometimes, but not very often. In recent years I've eaten popcorn only at a movie theater, but not every visit. I get the extra large which is refillable the same day. I eat about 1½ bags and save the rest for the next day.

The person below me gets a small popcorn and a small drink at the movies.

MrsHouseLibrary and I share a medium popcorn and medium diet coke when we go to the movies (not as often as you'd think).

TPBM prefers the popcorn 'old maids'.

I seldom eat popcorn because it gets stuck in my teeth. Rather irksome to have leftover popcorn bits stuck between molars until I can floss.

>157 SomeGuyInVirginia: - Basmati rice is actually the main rice around here (well, I'm in a houseful of Indians, after all...)

TPBM will take the conversation away from food.

Gladly. We're in the midst of a heat wave out here, upper 90s with dreadful humidity. My daughter's in marching band and they can't even go outside to practice this week because it's too dangerous.

TPBM doesn't have air conditioning.

Depends. Does a howling westerly wind (bringing great dumps of rain) count? If so, we have tons of air conditioning ...!

TPBM would rather walk into a room and have everybody start laughing than walk into a room where everybody has just stopped laughing.

Oh yes, I work in showbiz and you just know when you walk into a room everyone has been talking about you or your boss or your workmate!! Usually though, they just ignore you after the initial silence and carry on talking about you as if you weren't there.

TPBM likes a good gossip sometimes

Yes, too much. I'm trying to do better.

The person below me has never had a pedicure.

Guilty as charged. One day I imagine that I won't be able to reach my feet and I'll reconsider.

TPBM will tell us about their favourite painting, or other work of art.

I don't think I have a favorite painting, but I do have favorite painters- George Bellows and Thomas Hart Benton. I like their dynamic styles; the Americans produced some really powerful work in the early part of the last century. My all-time favorite work of art would be Mozart's Marriage of Figaro.

TPBM is a painter.

No, but I have been (as a hobbyist) in the past.

The person below me has taken art classes, simply because they were interested in art.

Yup. Didn't get too far anyway.

TPBM plays a rather unconventional musical instrument (like the dulcimer, or the lute).

My mom plays the dulcimer and has one made my Edsel Martin, which is a big deal if you're into dulcimers. I was always surprised she took it up, because she has a fear of all things hillbilly.

TPBM knows what the scientific name for hillbilly phobia.

I donʻt "know", but I would think
"oreobatophobia" would be likely. Not sure about the -bat- element; it would mean "one who frequents, one who walks in..." (mountains (orea) in this case.)

TPBM knows* an "ethnic" joke that absolutely HAS TO be about the ethnicity that it is about in this version.
(basing this on the idea that most
ethnic jokes are interchangeable, and have variant versions that are about different ethnicities in the same joke. I.E., a mainland "Polish" joke is a "Portuguese" joke in Hawaiʻi; or a mainland "Scottish" or "Jewish" joke (on alleged stinginess) is a "Chinese" joke in Hawaiʻi.)

*telling us the joke will be tolerated but not
encouraged; in fact I hope you spare us the narration.

I like blond jokes but I can't remember any.

I don't know, roland, most of the hillbillies I've known, and I've known a few, love oreo cookies so that can't be the word. Bats nobody likes but other bats. What's Greek for 'pretty mouth'?

TPBM has done stand up comedy.

Yes, I do. It starts out - One day a Jovian squiggles into a galactic bar...

TPBM knows the punch line.

Obviously, you've heard me try to sing!

TPBM can actually sing.

On 173-174:

"Whatʻs Greek for ʻpretty mouthʻ ?" (173)
--Probably "Stoma kalon" (literally "beautiful mouth"; the Greeks didnʻt much remark on "prettiness"; people and things were either beautiful or ignorable.

I donʻt know the origin of oreos, the cookies (or the "biscuits" in Oceanian English). I still maintain that "orea" is "mountains" and provides a suitable prefix for "hillbilly".The better-known Latin equivalent is ʻmont-" or montano-".
"-bat-" comes from the verb "bainein" (to stride, to go) and has no connection with the bats of English language fauna.

I *can* sing. I just choose not to.

TPBM has a song stuck in his/her head...

Aak! Leaped.

Yes I have, but an hour ago it vanished and now for the life of me I can't remember what it was.

I like singing but nobody would ever pay me money to do it.

I swear to god roland I don't know where you get all this from. Oreos aren't biscuits and and everybody knows that. I've heard of people frying up a mess of Twinkies but I have never heard of anyone putting gravy on an Oreo. Who knows, maybe it's a king's delicacy in the islands but I don't think it's going to catch on in the south until somebody loses a bet and gives the final word on it's being fit to eat. Same thing that happened to lobster.

TPBM had a tune going through their head all day.

TPBM has a home entertainment system.

On 177:

L O L! -- unless youʻre serious.

I meant of course that ALL "cookies" are called biscuits in Oceania. "Where I got all this?" (177):
A 6-year residence in Tonga. Or did I get it wrong and itʻs really that we less-enlightened English speakers call biscuits "cookies" ?

As for the more montanic "orea" -- I always knew that majoring* in Classics would help some time.

*majoringr: or, to use the word we used "concentrating".

# 177 -

How dare you refer to the lovely MrsHouseLibrary that way!

TPBM has in interesting collection of rocks.

I do have a tall glass vase on my desk filled with shells, pebbles and sea glass collected from the shoreline here - they never look as shiny once you get them home, though ...

TPBM will tell us about the view from their window (at time of typing).

Leaped! It is dark out since it is 1:23 in the morning. So all I could see is a tree, sort of, if the curtains were open. The window in the next room looks out on the street, so cactus, mesquite, asphalt, illuminated by the street light.

179>As a matter of fact I do. Or did. Some of it is packed away in boxes waiting for me to finish my loooooong move (so far I'm about two years in). I was born in mining country and found some there, some I bought. I have a cool parrot made of different minerals. There is a big local gem show here every year. I allways thought it would be great to collect a rock on each of my travels, bring it home, and build something with the accumulation. (But one rock at a time?)

The person below me also has a rock collection.

yep it include Aerosmith and 3 dog night and Elvis...

TPBM has a coin collection.

I do. I used to collect them avidly as a child. My grandmother worked with missionaries and she gave me a lot of foreign coins that I keep in a little bag with coins that I picked up on my own foreign travels as a teenager. I also have a State Quarter collection because my baby sister got bored with it before she finished it and decided I'd appreciate it more. I have since added almost all of the rest of the states she was missing; the only one I don't have is Ohio.

TPBM has a collection of an unusual sort.

Leaped!

I hoard collect cute pens, movie scripts, outdated agendas, dried leaves and flowers, and cat hair, the latter all over the house.

# 177: "I've heard of people frying up a mess of Twinkies but I have never heard of anyone putting gravy on an Oreo."
You obviously haven't heard of This is why you're fat, or have you?

TPBM finds some 'creations' on the site above quite yummy.

Only the Chocolate Covered Twinkies. Everything else is totally and absolutely disgusting. I'm thinking about the sushi and spam concoction and the fried Rice Krispies treats.

TPBM realizes that regular Ranch Dressing has 75 or more calories per tablespoon.

I don't count calories, I count carbs, much more accurate number to track for health.

TPBM has been, or knows someone on the 'diet' cycle. i.e. diet to lose weight, then return to poor eating habits, gain weight, 'diet' again.

Er, myself? Except that I don't seem to gain back any weight at all, I just don't lose it to begin with.

I gave up on diets a long time ago, just switched to healthier food + increased physical activity instead. That really does the trick, and takes away the guilt over indulging on 'forbidden' food every once in a while.

TPBM has never been on a diet.

I just never pay attention to them. Moderation in all things is my motto (which is not to suggest that I've not over-indulged in Oreos or Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia...)

The person below me likes rice pudding.

Yup, it's OK. We used to get it with a dollop of jam, at school, which was the best part.

TPBM used to get hot lunches at school (not canteen style serve-yourself, but served per table, if you understand me)

Served per table? At school?! Where on earth did you get your education?

The person below me is on Eastern Daylight Time, but, weirdly, has not had lunch yet.

No I haven't. I'm not leaving the office in the next six hours, so I guess I won't have lunch at all. Speaking of healthy eating habits. *rolleyes*

TPBM is preparing dinner now.

No, I'm having leftovers so dinner will be ready 1 minute and 30 seconds after I enter the kitchen. And that's going to be late because it's been a bazillion degrees here for the past month (except for two days, one of which was beautiful) and the range isn't air conditioned, so I'm going to practice my zombie droppin' head shots.

re: above- I've heard that people where making sandwiches out of doughnuts but I hoped that I wouldn't live long enough to ever see it. Like the zombie apocalypse or law allowing a third term presidency.

TPBM has a pool table.

There's one in our basement, a relic of my husband's wild youth. I don't play pool myself. Apparently it requires a mathematical mind, which I lack.

The person below me will describe one of his or her talents. Keep it clean.

Keeping it clean, I wash dishes at church when there are dishes there to be washed. I haven't been for Sunday services in a while, and I wonder who has been doing the dishwashing.

The person below me likes that they can practice mindfulness when they do household chores.

I'm not Buddhist, nor do I like anything about household chores, but yes, I do that.

TPBM loves household chores.

As much as I love lancing a boil.

TPBM sometimes attends outdoor music venues or outdoor theatrical (yeah, I know it sounds oxymoronic) productions.

London has (at least) two open air theatres - a proper one in Regents Park and a sort-of one - the replica of Shakespeares Globe on the South Bank. Sort-of because most of the seats are under cover but the standing audience (groundlings) in front of the stage have no cover. Visit both occasionally, prefer Regents Park as a venue although the Globe productions are usually better. You need to be quick to book Globe seats if you want a reasonable view. Thats probably more than you wanted to know, but while I'm here I'll just add that I've known a nurse or two who REALLY enjoy lancing boils - nothing like a good bit of pus! (other people's boils, of course).

TPBM will steer us into more pleasant waters.

No I wont. I had a boil once, until then I always thought they were really bad pimples and were kind of funny (*). It was on my back and I had it for several days before it hit me that it wasn't a sore muscle. I went to the doc who said it was as big as his palm and I could either have it lanced in his office or at the hospital under anesthetic. I have a high tolerance for pain and almost none for hospitals so I said 'cut me'. I was on my stomach when he made the incision and then began kneading the infection. Suddenly I heard this 'SPLURT!' sound and the doc hissed. I asked if that got it and he said 'Yes. Most dramatically.' You find out real quick who your friends are when you have to ask them to come over every day, take the old wad of antibiotic-soaked cotton out of the hole in your back and insert a new one. Oh yes, noy everyone will do that.
(*) Same with Tourettes, until I met a guy who had the scatological kind. Remarkably handsome, athletic, highly intelligent, friendly and had a ton of friends. I also have a high tolerance for weird behavior so we got along swell. I admired the guy, even if he did call me, well, very naughty words every time he saw me.

TPBM likes grapes.

Will somebody please send me some brain bleach? I need it after that last utterance of abbottthomas.

TPBM ate a nice sandwich a little while ago.

Nope. Had black-eyes peas and rice for dinner.

TPBM knows a child who might as well be related to a kangaroo.

No, I've never encountered a child/marsupial cross, but we do have two very bouncy cats.

TPBM likes swimming in the sea/lakes rather than chlorinated pools.

There are advantages and pleasures to each. I can see an ocean from some of the windows of my house, and there's a pool right outside my back gate. I'm in the pool about five times a week.

The person below me loves to swim but doesn't.

Yes I do love to swim, but nowadays the local swimming pool is jammed with kids and teens messing around at weekends (the only time I can get there), which is no pleasure at all, and when I go to the beach once a year, I wouldn't swim in the sea without a suitcase full of antibiotics with me!

TPBM hates circuses, especially the clowns.

The older I get the more I dislike clowns. They are creepy. We had a clown painting inherited from my husband's mother. I forget the artist, but it bothered me the whole time we had it in my daughter's bedroom. We finally gave it away to a neighbor.

And circuses don't do anything for me either and really never have. I'm not sure hate is the right word, but active dislike is probably the right phrase.

TPBM is getting ready to buy school clothes for their kidlets.

I lack kidlets to send to school in the first place, so no.

The person below me thinks "back to school" has been getting earlier and earlier in the year.

I'm sure we used to go back after the beginning of September, with the conkers, but now it seems to be just after mid-August. Over here, we are global, so different schools start at different times of the year.

(Speaking of school, re >189 humouress:, the dinner ladies would cook up baking trays full of whatever for that day's lunch, and put a tray on each table, to serve out. Not, you know, with silver service and wine glasses.)

TPBM feels a little wistful at how fast children grow up. (by the way, mine are more monkey than kangaroo, especially the toddler)

I'm not sure wistful is the world. More like frightened. I can't believe my little brother is that big already! Why, but only yesterday I was putting him in his first diaper, and now he's already losing teeth, IM'ing penpals across the ocean, and playing the piano! Scary...

TPBM has knitted an item of baby clothing at least once in his/her life.

Yes, but only because I was leading the knit-along, and its participants chose one such garment (image search).

The person below me has knitted an item of baby clothing for one of their own babies.

I crocheted a blanket for Kidlet when I was waiting for him to arrive.

TPBM is about to get up to prepare food.

No. I nested by going out and buying books to read to my babies. (leopard incapable of changing spots)

Well, darn! Leapfrogged!

So, okay, I'm not preparing food; I'm about to go out and buy my lunch.

The person below me is laughing.

Not out loud. The cockatiel will know where I'm hiding.

TPBM wants to hear Jill read one of the stories she just bought.

Actually, I'm more interested in the cockatiel story.

TPBM is doing something exciting this weekend, and will enliven my boredom by telling us what.

Exciting for me, at least - I'm getting together with a bunch of local writers.

You're going to have to wait for my revised saga of eternal torment - I am not a Pet Person, Part 3 - Curse of the Cockatiel.

TPBM can think of a more apt term than "bunch" for a group of writers.

a Ream of writers ?
a clutch of writers?
a scribble of writers?

TPBM memorized a large number of the animal 'groups' like a gaggle of geese, and will give a couple of the more unusual ones.

I haven't other than a murder of crows and that's only because it was the title of a mystery. I've got a book James Lipton wrote on the names of groups of animals but I'll never read it; in fact, I wouldn't have bought it if I had realized who the author was. James Lipton strikes me as a scary clown who took of his face paint and was something much, much worse. I'd like to see his apartment and count the number of things he's made out of people's skin.

>> 213 A craze of writers? A tab of writers? An advance of writers? How many writers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Who knows, they won't talk about it until it's done.

TPBM met Johnny Carson.

Only in wit. I'm a better drum player, too.

I have James Lipton's book - An Exaltation of Larks, and for writers he has: a worship of writers.
That particular venery came from Samuel Johnson, who had written a piece about how the very rich paid writers to write nice things about them.

TPBM finds that, despite the passage of time, things haven't changed all that much in regards to the above.

I do think the heavens change, but rather slowly. It is hard to see them because of all the light pollution.

(WHL, if you meant, do I think the rich pay people to write nice things, I think that rich people get toadied all the time without having to pay for it.)

The person below me is faced with weed removal this weekend.

If the Police try to bust me, they'll be awful disappointed. Neither MrsHouseLibrary nor I have ever done illegal drugs.

TPBM got into the Green Dragon Chat Room this evening.

No, because it's Saturday morning now...

The person below me is faced with doing a task they're rather avoid in some fashion.

Yes. I HATE folding laundry. And I also hate doing dishes. But they have to be done. *sigh*

TPBM hires someone to do the housework.

Yes, every two weeks Pat and Pam come to clean our house. They've been cleaning our house since my daughter was about 3 months old. Daughter is now 17. We've moved once, too.

TPBM prefers dark chocolate to milk chocolate.

Absolutely. More oomph to the bite.

TPBM prefers vanilla ice cream to any other kind (even chocolate!)

Most of the time. Chocolate sometimes, strawberry others, and on occasion, Rocky Rad. But vanilla has always been my favorite.

TPBM excels at something.

I excel at goofing off.

TPBM excels at something productive and/or worthwhile.

Only when held at gunpoint (in a metaphorical sense).

The person below me is unable to think of something the person below THEM should be doing...

For the moment, yes, but I expect if I prevaricate a bit something will turn up .... strategy, pattergee, mattergee.... Ah yes! I have it!

TPBM can sing at least one Gilbert and Sullivan aria more or less right.

Did I suddenly get MPD halfway through your sentence? I start out as "The person", and then it's the "person below THEM".

I guess it's true that you're never alone when you're schizophrenic...


Serves me right for taking my time in the reply process...

No one has ever accused me of being able to sing anything.

TPBM will do, or state, an unspecified ~something~.

Something

TPBM thinks that was really eerie, the way Mr. House knew that I would state something.
Cue the "Twilight Zone" theme.

Wow, almost a whole 24 hours since someone posted anything. Maybe we DID fall into the "Twilight Zone!"

TPBM is awake and will post something because it's creepily quiet around here.

Okay, but only because it's creeping you out.

TPBM will also post something to calm down SRR.

"Rock-a-bye baby
In the treetop.
Don't you fall out.
It's a helluva drop."

TPBM ate too much supper.

I did no such thing. In fact, I probably ate too little, but what else does one do when one's stomach refuses to accept any form of nourishment but ginger ale and saltines? Seems this time around, my "morning" sickness is catching me right around dinnertime. Very annoying.

TPBM is likewise convinced that the buffoon who conjured up the term "morning sickness" CLEARLY never suffered from it.

I'm not exactly the best person to ask, short of someone male or incredibly young.

The person below me can't make heads or tails of what I just said typed, and thinks I should just go to bed already.

It made perfect sense to me, Anna, but if you feel like hitting the sack now, you really don't need my permission.

TPBM isn't sleepy at all yet.

Yes, I am. But my fiance is still awake and he won't turn off the light. So I'm up.

TPBM is itchy.

Bleeping Leaped No. Punch him in the throat.

No, but let's just say that within 45 minutes to an hour I should be on the nod. I spent six bleep hours on the bleep bleep highway on a trip that should have taken bleep two or three, bleep max. Bleep bleeeeep that!

TPBM has been in a studio audience.

I have, back in the mid-fifties probably. I went to visit my aunt and uncle in New York City and arranged to see two daytime quiz shows. They didn't allow us kids to cheer.

The person below me has been on a nationally televised quiz show or contest show or such like.

Yup. First time was a children's contest thingy when I was 7, second time was a high-school vs. high-school kind of contest when I was 16, but even though my school was participating I was only part of the audience.

TPBM actually enjoyed high-school years.

I checked before answering and still was beaten to the punch. I didn't mind high school but I neither say I enjoyed or hated it, it just was.
Nope the closest I've ever been to something like that was the telephone answerer during a PBS fund drive

TPBM either has or knows someone who has won something on a Game show.

Not on a televised game show (they didn't have such things back then); but my dad says the only time he ever won anything (can't actually remember what for, now), was a bottle of whiskey when he was a bachelor. His apartment was broken into, and guess what the only thing they took was?

TPBM wishes there were more hours in the day to do all those little things it would be nice to do; but especially more sleeping hours in the night.

I'd just like to be able to sleep at night when I have the chance.

TPBM is stressed.

Heck yeah. My car broke -yet again. I just paid big bucks for a very necessary repair, and it turns out I'll have to fork out about the double of what I just paid for another major repair. I'm beginning to think I'd be better off if I just sold the darned thing and got me a bike.

TPBM rides a bicycle every day (or at least very often).

No. I don't ride a bike very often at all!

The person below me rides a subway (nearly) every day.

I think the nearest subway is about an 8 hour drive away, so no.

TPBM is thankful for public transportation.

I was when it was available to me. That was over 20 years ago, when I lived in NJ.
I also commuted by bicycle every day (11 miles each way) for about a year and a half.

TPBM needs to water the lawn, but isn't because it costs too much.

I do, a condor left a calling card and I need to scrub it off with hot water and Pine Sol.

>.241- Sorry you're stressed out, PB.

TPBM thinks that the Swiffer is the coolest thing since fire.

Sorry, there's a tie for that honor, between yarn and knitting needles. Barbara G. Walker's Treasuries* give them a good run for their money, too.

The person below me thinks knitting is the best thing since sliced bread.

-----
* I have Volume 1, Volume 2 and Volume 3. The fourth is on my wish list (and my birthday is early next month, if you're interested).

Can't knit. I always drop stitches or pick up stitches, and have never managed so much as a scarf.

TPBM has seen a good film this week.

Ack! Leaped!

Fiance and I watched The Expendables the other night. And Terry Crews has WAY too much fun with that gun.

TPBM can tell me how to "cross out" my responses here.

Presuming you know how to do italics, boldface, and underscore, rather than a single letter, use the word strike instead.

TPBM is pretty knowledgeable with this htmlly stuff.

... Actually, I don't know how to do any of that.

TPBM does, though, and will share said knowledge.

OOPS! My bad...

I really stink at html, but, I know enough to make me very dangerous (to myself). You wouldn't believe how many times I've lost the majority of things in my Profile Page.

You need to start and end these html flourishes with a greater-than and a less-than sign.
In order to denote the end of a specific effect, use a slash immediately after the greater-than.

There's a way to depict what it looks like without actually executing it, but I don't know it, so the long-hand description is:
GT,"strike",LT,"this is what a strike looks like",GT,SLASH,"strike",LT will get you this is what a strike looks like.

Omit the quotes and commas in the above.

TPBM knows how to skip a rock on body of water.

Ack! Leaped! Well, the link is still useful, so I'll leave it here.

Sure! It's quite easy once you get the hold of it. Here's the link to a very useful post on the subject, over at The Green Dragon forum: How to do fancy things in your posts

TPBM doesn't understand textspeak.
TPBM will reply to # 252.
What a mess I made, sorry! I'll repeat myself, then:
TPBM doesn't understand textspeak.

What did you say?

TPBM has the week's meals already planned out.

Well I know that on Wednesday the wife and I are going out to eat at country kitchen, other than that breakfast and lunch are usually the same.

TPBM needs verity in all their meals.

Well, I googled 'verity' just to be sure. I sometimes drink water or artificially sweetened water in lieu of eating, so I guess not.

The person below me knows at least roughly the nutritional value of their meals.

Sure, all I have to do is read the side of the SlimFast can, and then estimate the stuff I eat that I'm not supposed to eat, et voila!

TPBM wouldn't dream of going on a mostly-liquid diet.

I've tried a mostly-liquid diet. Lost a fair amount of weight until I started, y'know, eating FOOD again and gained it all back (with interest). I did much better not bothering to "diet" and just sticking to one plate per meal with 25% protein, 25% grain, 50% veggie/fruit for most meals.

TPBM loves somebody.

What's a restraining order in matters of the heart?

TPBM wears odd socks.

... as in mismatched, or those with funny/weird/ugly patterns?

TPBM wears pantyhoses.

nope, no matter how much that bank teller swears to the contrary!

TPBM likes thongs.

On someone else, most likely; not for me. I prefer going 'commando', but rarely indulge.

A friend of MrsHouseLibrary has convinced her to wear a thong with certain clothes. My lovely wife lasted less than two hours. Despite the flimsiness of the material, to her, it felt like a thick rope was wedged between her "cheeks". Sadly, she never modeled them for me.

TPBM listens to NPR.

Aak! Leaped Sometimes, I had some good friends who worked their and they were always a blast to hang out with. Lost touch over the years. A lot of the programming strikes me as the left's Drudge Report.

Nice to look at but it's still butt floss.

TPBM has an antique weapon.

I used to. I had an antique fencing foil, but I decided to give it to someone who would appreciate it more than I did.

TPBM uses a typewriter.

No. I became unable to use a typewriter once I started using Wang system keyboards back in the '80's. (Now there's a brand name that is really most sincerely dead...)

The person below me is having to shut down because of thunder and lightening in the neighborhood.

No, although some rather wet weather is heading this way. The island of Bornholm got something like 75 mm of rain (about 3 inches) in a few hours yesterday.

TPBM lives on high ground

Relative to Bornholm, probably. I'm at 942 feet above sea level, according to the USGS maps.
That's high enough considering I'm also over 250 miles from the Gulf Coast.

On the other hand, dump three inches of rain here, and we'd most likely be flooded because the ground is too dry to absorb the water that quickly. We've got four inches of topsoil, and then at least several hundred feet of limestone beneath it.

TPBM has much more 'productive' soil in his/her yard.

Yes. We have 8 acres of what was once pasture (and most of it still is). It's what we call Chatham County clay, rich, red, clay-like dirt, which is fertile. When we till it and amend it with horse manure (we have horses) it is gorgeous stuff and very good for our plants.

TPBM has an unusual weed growing in their yard.

Depends whether you consider rhododendrons (sp?) to be weeds - they grow like crazy around here!

TPBM has green fingers.

Leaped!

Not really, I'm pretty bad at gardening.
The only way I could be considered to have green fingers would be if I dyed my clothes á la Cassandra Mortmain.

Pumpkins. It's a weed to me. I mean, it sprouts up out of nowhere, strangles my other plants, and only sometimes it decides to give produce in return. This season it decided not to.

TPBM has had an unforgettable experience with poison ivy.

It used to send me to the ER for a shot but now I'm not allergic to it.

They all laughed when TPBM sat down at the piano.

If they did, they were really good at keeping it quiet. ;)

The person below me plays piano pretty well, actually.

Rank amateur here. I ~can~ play, but no one who knows me would ask me to.

TPBM owns a piano-like instrument, but almost never uses it.

I have a lovely electronic keyboard, which produces a good harsichord tone, but we lost the power cord in the last move and haven't gotten around to getting another one.

TPBM can't carry a tune, but loves listening to music nonetheless.

I do love listening to music, or most of it anyway. But I'm probably not the person to ask about my ability to carry a tune. (Neither is my mother, who is, of course, partial.)
Only if an upright piano is merely "piano-like." We have one of those (and have had it as long as I can remember), but it's currently home to stacks of paper. (And in my entire life, I think it's been tuned, like, once.)

The person below me knows a good piano tuner in the New York City area.

I used to. I've also tuned a couple of pianos.
The problem with a piano that has been out-of-tune for several years is that it's almost impossible to get back into tune. The tuner might have to come back weekly for a year or so before you'd be happy with how it sounds.

TPBM watches too much TV.

I'm the one person I know who doesn't watch enough teevee. The over the cable stuff can be explained by my not having the teevee part of the cable, although I use a cable for the internet. The over the air stuff was taken away by the government a little while back. And I just don't get around to watching most of my DVD's. I would like to be watching baseball, music (especially opera), and some newsworthy stuff.

The person below me couldn't get through the evening without a television set.

Kill your television! Never watch it.

TPBM can do handstand pushups.

Sure I can! And I can touch my ear with my elbow. Sure! That's the ticket!
Sincerely,
Danny Flanagan
Member, no, Officer, no, President of the Pathological Liars Club

TPBM is familiar with the above-mentioned character.

Sorry, WHL, you got me on that one. I have *no* idea who it is or in what book the character might actually appear.

The person below me finds Phryne Fisher to be an interesting sleuth.

I've never heard of him or her, nor have I heard of Danny Flanagan. I'm just out of the loop, I guess.

The person below me has a dentist appointment scheduled.

Ouch. How did you know?

Anyway it's a lie that his name is Danny. It's Tommy. Or so he says :-)

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/85/85bliar.phtml

TPBM says "Yeah. That's the ticket!" way too often.

Almost - I do tend to say: "Dat's der bunny!" quite a lot (Pratchett fans will recognise that!).

TPBM has never spent a night in hospital.

Yes, I have. Too many times. Two surgeries, one childbirth, and several nights with various sick family members.

TPBM really should see an eye doctor soon.

I absolutely must. The last time I had my eyes tested I was a teenager and the optician told my mum I would probably need glasses the next time I visited, so I never went back again. Now here we are some 40 years later, and it seems to me I can still see perfectly well, don't have to squint or anything to read even small print. But lately I have noticed it's getting harder to read in semi-darkness which never used to be a problem. So I guess the time has nearly come.

TPBM wears contact lenses or would prefer to, rather than their specs.

nope, I tried contacts in high school, I didn't like poking my eyes and at least the contacts I had would scrinch up when I squinted and feel like a big hair in my eye.

TPBM has no problem wearing contacts.

Not at all - I adore my daily disposable lenses and genuinely can't tell I've got them in (although I tend to keep them for non-work occasions in order to save money). I hate wearing specs -contacts don't get covered in rain/fingerprints/etc, and you get full peripheral vision! And I'm proud to say that after 30 years or so of wearing contacts on and off, I've yet to drop one down the sink (probably shouldn't tempt fate like that ...). And glasses with my immensely horrible prescription have to be made up with those screamingly expensive thin'n'light lenses, or I get the Coke-bottle-bottom effect ...

TPBM is grateful for their 20:20 vision and appreciates how much money it's saved them over the years.

I'm grateful for my stubborn-ness. I don't have 20:20 vision but I'm NOT getting lenses and that's final! That has saved me a whole lotta money, so yeah.

TPBM does have 20:20 vision.

Not for the last 15 years.
You'll get lenses (glasses/contacts) when you can't read anymore, believe me!
I used to have excellent night vision, and could see stars in the night sky that most other people couldn't. When my (natural) lenses began to harden, my night vision became less acute, and I couldn't clearly see things that were close up.

Don't be afraid to admit that you're getting old.

TPBM has embraced the aging process.

I think rather that it has embraced me.

TPBM knows what I mean.

I guess I'm too young to know.

TPBM is craving for something.

I'm a tad hungry, but I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm ~craving~ lunch.

# 290 - embraced, as in a death grip.

TPBM gets, by volume, way more advertisements in the daily mail than bills and correspondence combined.

yes, though almost all my correspondence outside of Christmas cards is via email, and more and more of my bills come that way too.

TPBM enjoys the benefits of online banking.

Yes, I do.

TPBM is annoyed with someone

I'm a bit annoyed at the weather, but that doesn't count, does it?

Life is too short to be annoyed with someone.

TPBM has a different opinion.

Even very little people can get in the way if they are persistent enough, and that makes for annoyance. Persisting at being annoyed when all is done, though, strikes me as too much for the short life.

The person below me would like to lob a grenade at those that annoy them and be done with them.

Well, yeah, but then I'd be out of a job, wouldn't I?

TPBM would rather something a little quieter than a grenade ... such as ...

ignoring them. I don't think murder is necessary for an annoyance, lol.

TPBM is shy.

I used to be. Now, I just don't give a flying f*** what negative things people think about me.
That "people" is just one (physical) being - my ex, and people who only know of me through her. Their loss.

Actually, I ~do~care what people think about me, but I have to also consider why they might think it.

TPBM likes to scuba dive.

I did actually try it once. It was fine. I didn't have a prescription mask so couldn't see the cool stuff very well. I never tried it again - one of those "one of these days" things...

The person below me snores.

Darn, I've been leaped!

I don't know if I snore. Nobody's ever told me that I do, if that counts.

I'd like to dive in Cuba. I hear they have amazing underwater caves and such.

TPBM has made it to the 'Third World' and back.

Third World, no. Unless you count parts of DC in the mid 90s. I lived in Portugal for a while. The first time I saw women washing clothes in a river I was riding the train into Porto and thought that it had to be staged by the tourism industry- come visit quaint Portugal.

>> 295 bnielsen "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc." Not just pretty words.

TPBM has taken a glass blowing class.

No, but I've watched demos. Very impressive.

The person below me is eating spaghetti.

Nah! That was Monday night. We're having salmon tonight, as early tomorrow morning is when the garbage is hauled away.

TPBM has twice-a-week garbage collection.

Yep. Mondays and Thursdays.

TPBM has ridden an elephant.

Yes, but I was very young. Oh, wait, I did a second time maybe thirty years later.

TPBM did something twenty-five years later.

I got mail.

The person below me hasn't lived 25 years yet.

No, youʻre wrong; itʻs just my youthful temperament and even youthful look that is throwing you off.

In fact I tripled up on you by being 75+

TPBM can remember at least 7 U.S. Presidents
(or equivalents from her/his own country, if
not from U.S.)

I can certainly remember more than seven Prime Ministers! I first voted in 1983, and I recall that great feeling of power ("right, now I'm voting that Thatcher woman OUT!") I was more than somewhat annoyed when she won in a landslide ...

TPBM enjoys curling up with a good P. G. Wodehouse book.

(Edited to correct dodgy arithmetic - I mistakenly added two years to my age ...)

Oh, yes! Meet Mr Mulliner is my current bedtime reading, not for the first time.

I realise that I am on my 13th Prime Minister......

TBPM is triskaidekaphobic.

Not exactly, although I'm always very conscious of the number 13...

I'm actually arachnaphobic, but not ophidiophobic. (hey, this is fun!)

TPBM has another fear that seems excessive, even to them.

No, I'm arachnaphooooobic too. I catch sight of movement in the corner of my eye and my legs have taken me across the room and stood me on a chair before my rational brain can say 'Oh, for goodness' sake! It's only a spider.'

TPBM has a perfectly rational phobia.

Well (apart from arachnaphobia which I find perfectly rational, especially if I was living in the tropics!), I hate thunder storms, particularly at night. My house is surrounded by very tall trees, and in the past 5 years, several trees in the neighbourhood (not too close to me thank heavens) have been struck by lightning. I really dread storms at night.

TPBM keeps a very close eye on the weather forecast

Only so as to improve my guess as to whether or not I need an umbrella. Extreme weather is rare in S E England, fortunately.

There is, of course, a word - in fact a choice of words - for your angst, Carrotlady: Astraphobia, Astrapophobia, Brontophobia, Keraunophobia, or Tonitrophobia, and maybe more. I like brontophobia, but I suppose that only covers the thunder.

TPBM has attended a seance

It's a professional requirement.

TPBM wants to be a ghost hunter.

Tried that once. Bullets went right through them. Not fair!

TPBM has seen a ghost.

Nope, although I wouldn't be overly surprised if the classic apparition-type ghost existed and think that some type of ghost certainly exists. I lived in a place I would call haunted (or charmed, more like). I had a very strong impression that a family had lived there once and had been very happy.

TPBM has actually seen a ghost.

No, but I did meet someone who got lost in the jungle, was reported dead and even was buried, just to be found alive -albeit dehidrated, famished and badly hurt- a week later. Scary.

TBM has indeed seen a ghost.

Well... I didn't see it with my eyes. But I saw a "ghost orb" in a photo. When I was a freshman at a Catholic college I was a reporter for the school paper and we were running a story about the prayer grotto across the street from campus and how it was supposedly haunted. My roommate was the photographer for the paper, and we went out there in full daylight to get some pictures for the article. On the way out, we heard footsteps behind us - odd, because we were the only two there. When we brought the pictures back and uploaded them to the computer, we saw a floating white dot next to the cross, just under the horizontal beam on the left side. In the next picture - same angle of the cross - the dot was above the horizontal beam and on the right side. That same little dot seemed to be in every single picture, and in the last shot of one of the "caves" in the grotto, there looked to be the very hazy face of a sad-looking young woman near the crucifix statue. I didn't go back to that grotto again for the rest of the year.

TPBM also has a ghost story to share.

No, thanks be to all the gods, Mother Earth, whomever. Ghosts are my irrational fear. (I'm always asking my father, who is deceased, to protect me from ghosts. Go figure.)

But, I do believe that I have guardian angels. I have come close to death, injury, disaster, only to hear a warning in my head in time to avoid it. I like to think it is my ancestors.

My friend had ghosts in her house all the time that she and her kids talked to. Yikes!

The person below me has his or her own ghost or angel story.

edited for spelling.

One night when I was a kid, my mom took my brother and me on a quick trip to the store. When we got back she noticed a burning candle. To this day she swears a ghost lit it. MY version and the one I like better is that a psycho killer or secret agent cased the joint while we were out and either didn't want to attract attention by turning on the lights or preferred an ambient glow, his heinous deeds to preform. Given the year and location, either intruder was equally as likely, the ghost story least likely, and my brother lighting the candle before we left and not telling anyone most likely.

TPBM knows when the phone is about to ring.

Only if it's my mother.

TPBM knows what's in the mail before it arrives.

If you mean e-mail, then sometimes I do. Whenever my coworkers e-mail me something important, they call me first and ask me to keep an eye out for this *urgent*, life-or-death thing they just sent my way...

TPBM is keeping an eye out for life on other planets.

Nope. They're unlikely to find any on the planets in our own solar system. I figure it's only a matter of time till someone finds life on a planet in some distant solar system, but I doubt we'll be making any contact with them.

TPBM makes cheese.

I haven't for a very long time. I think it is only for people who live on a farm although it needn't be a dairy farm. You need plenty of milk, plenty of room, and rennet.

The person below me likes to try out of the ordinary food experiences, creatively or experientially.

I've been know to ~cut~ cheese, but only rarely.

Beaten to the SUBMIT button!

I NEVER eat something that I am unsure of its possible effect on my digestive system. It's not worth the risk.

A friend once put forth the proposition that in every relationship, there is a farter, and the other person is generally disgusted by it.

TPBM is the latter of the two.

You got it, ace! (Ladies of a certain age only experience such emissions in the privacy of the boudoir and never admit to it after the fact...)

The person below me can think of a more edifying topic of conversation to bring to this thread.

Hmmmmmm....Nope. I'm at a loss.

TPBM can fulfill jill's request, though.

Let's talk about the weirdest place one of us has found poo.

Or not. TPBM makes up songs in their head.

I'm grateful when I read the obits in the newspaper every day to find that I'm not in it.

TPBM knows what I mean.

(How was that?)

Yes, I do, and now I'm singing a song about how rude it is to leapfrog someone.

TPBM sings in the shower.

Rarely, but I sing to the cats all the time.

TPBM has dogs.

You must be new here...

TPBM has a band saw.

Nope. I'm not allowed to play with sharp things. I'm clumsy.

TPBM is so not clumsy, they could have been named Grace.

Nope. It is not allowed here to give a boy a female name :-)

#302 "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc." (The Adams Family's motto) reminded me of
"Nemo me impune lacessit".

TPBM knows the context of "Nemo me impune lacessit".

Something to do with a cartoon set under the sea isn't it?

TPBM has never ever liked cartoons, even in their childhood.

I didnʻt "like" cartoons in childhood: I LOVED them. Rarely watch one all the way through now
(how long does a cartoon last, anyway?)

TPBM has read at least one episode from the comic strips Liʻl Abner (Capp), Mutt and Jeff (Fisher)*
Pogo (Kelley), Blondie** (Young) or Doonesbury** (Trudeau).

*Said to have been a drinking buddy of my maternal grandfather.

** Possibly the only ones of these that is still currently published.

I read Blondie and Doonesbury every Sunday; I "borrow" the comics from my mother after everyone else has read them when I pick up the jobs section of the Sunday paper. But my favorites tend to be Baby Blues and Zits.

TPBM has a different favorite comic strip.

I only read comics online - my current fave is Girl Genius - www.girlgeniusonline.com - although it's presented as a daily strip, it's really much more of a graphic novel.

TPBM has a different favorite webcomic.

girl genius is right up there with Questionable Content and Not invented here OH and xkcd as well.

GirlGenius is actually a graphic novel and is sold as such, they just put the pages on the web.

TPBM hasn't read any web comics.

Not in a while. I don't enjoy entire stories made up of mostly pictures; comic strips are one thing, but I prefer my books with more words than pictures. Fiance is a comic-book reader, though - he has two stacks two feet high each (that's a lot - each "book" is barely 30 pages long), plus some complications that are hard-cover and probably 200-250 pages long.

TPBM has a diverse collection of reading material.

I come from a long line of collectors and my specialization is any paper good (I hardly ever buy anything anymore, but still ask for an EC comic at Christmas.) I will get all "impune lacessit" whenever I'm in a shop and the owner has cut books or magazines up to sell the prints. Hate that.

>>335 bnielsen: bneilsen- I had to look it up, I had it translated as 'No one presumes on me and drinks milk.' Not quite the same thing.

TPBM looks up the names of owners written in old books.

Sometimes I do, but it's not like I'm obsessive about it.

TPBM hasn't had enough coffee yet.

I haven't had any yet today, and there's a good chance I won't. I am, however, about to have a bottle of very good green tea.

The person below me doesn't justify their compulsions.

You mean the one that compels me to point out to you that you switched from a singular to a plural pronoun to refer to a single person? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.

TPBM wishes someone would coin, and others would adopt, a gender non-specific pronoun rather than see the English language butchered for the sake of political correctness.

Oh yeah, we are SO on the same page on that one.

TPBM writes as they speak, without prettying it up.

Sometimes. Depends on what I'm writing.

TPBM thinks it's just too hot outside today.

Not at all. I KNOW it's too hot outside.

The official temperature is 104, heat index makes it 112.

TPBM has got something special planned for the weekend (besides listening to Keith Olbermann read the latter half of a James Thurber story).

I'm going on a riverboat cruise with my boyfriend - it should be fun, and there's a band onshore for dancing before and after the cruise.

TPBM has plans to buy something big this weekend.

Not buy - rent. We're meeting with a landlord tomorrow morning to see a duplex and decide if we want to live there.

TPBM has dinner planned out already.

Yep, same leftovers I had yesterday (rice and beans) and a steak. When I make rice, I make 3 or 4 days worth; when there's enough room in the pot I dump in a can of red beans. It's the simple like for me.

TPBM is going to apply for BP money before it evaporates into political party election funds.

"Honestly, I would totally agree if it were not for the hairy-nosed wombats."

The person below me is hopeful that the Gulf oil plume will evaporate.

Aren't we all?

SomeGuy, I love red beans and rice. When I fix that, I always make enough to freeze 2 two-meal portions, and we make two meals from what is left. Yummy. I put smoked sausage in mine.

TPBM feels exactly like this:
Senito aliquos togatos contra me conspirare. =^..^=

Sex verba quae praecedunt signum aequalitatis
intellego; quod sequitur -- minus.

P S M vult -- I mean,
--TPBM wants-- to put in a good word for the "togati" (Establishment Types (?) ) of 353.

I'd like to, but seeing as my knowledge of Latin is very patchy, i.e. two years at school because (a) I had a huge crush on the teacher (she was a sweetie) and (b) the only alternative was German (a language I can't abide the sound of), I can't!

TPBM is feeling hungry.

I am. I got up an hour and a half ago and have only had a cup of coffee. Got the Band Boosters stuff caught up, recorded a book I received on BookMooch, and it's time to wander into the kitchen!

TPBM heads straight for the kitchen after they get up because they're always so hungry when they get up.

I head straight to the kitchen because the cat will give me no peace if I don't. That, and coffee.

I usually realize I'm hungry 2-3 hours after I get up, which usually means that "Eat something!" hits my brain just as I'm getting ready to leave the house.

TPBM has regular eating habits.

Well, a regular appetite, anyway. I'm usually hungry when I wake up, and then I eat every 4ish hours, depending on how the day goes. Sometimes I forget I'm supposed to be hungry and don't eat for 6 or 7 hours, and sometimes I'm STARVING every 2 hours.

TPBM eats a mostly-healthy diet.

I make a stab at it. Success rate is perhaps not as high as it ought to be.

The person below me loves peanut butter.

I do, it's one of the food glue group and you can put it on almost anything (still haven't have it with ham.) Last time I was in the local grocery store, I found out they were playing a dirty trick with price- they'd raised the price on peanut butter $1.50, but had one of those shelf alerts that read 'New Lower Price!' and knocked of .50 cents. Raising the price a dollar and making it look like they were lowering it; and that boys and girls is how a bill becomes a law (US joke.)

TPBM plans on reading at least one book this weekend, maybe more.

I think it is unlikely that I will finish a book this weekend, but I think it is very likely that I will read parts of several books.

TPBM has experience with quinoa.

Not a lot. I don't really know what to do with it.

TPBM is going camping.

I wish I was going camping!

TPBM has had a cup of coffee today.

Three, in fact, and I still feel sleepy.

TPBM hates cockatiels, or cocktails if you prefer

I have no experience in that area, so I don't know if I'd like them. I~do~ know, however, that they don't like me.

TPBM keeps him/herself well hydrated.

Usually. Sometimes the heat slips up on me.

The person below me has eaten tepary beans.

Yep. In Mexico.

TPBM wonders if a male midwife is still called a midwife.

I suspect that during Transition, he's called many things.

TPBM will tell us the name of his/her favorite book (okay, any of the Top Ten).

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I don't have many favorites- songs, movies, etc.- but that is my favorite book.

>>367 RandomActofMuse:- I think the correct term is 'middy' and it's got to be the greatest con job for a guy since the Boob Whisperer.

TPBM takes all the junk mail that has a return envelope he gets, fills the envelopes with junk and mails them back.

ETA Forgot. My favorite movie is the 1974 version of Black Christmas directed by Bob Clark.

You betcha!

I cut off all the identifying codes, and write "Stop sending me this s**t", too.

TPBM stuffs the envelope with extra paper so that it'll cost even more for the companies to receive it.

Naw, I mostly only send back empty envelopes and mostly when I can't just tear the whole thing in half without opening the outer envelope. If I have to open it and dig out the business reply envelope I don't like to waste it, so it goes in the mail. Also sometimes I take huge offense at an ad (contribute now to the legal defense fund for the baby seal clubbers) and put junk in the return envelope. I solicit some ads, though, so it wouldn't be fair to burden them. One other thing: once upon a time a bank was soliciting me about twice a week to apply for their credit card. Finally I started sending in every application. After about eight or ten, they got the picture.

The person below me has received a live animal in the mail.

Considering everything, it's not something you'd associate with me, is it?

TPBM hasn't bought postage stamps in at least a couple of years now.

We actually get through quite a lot of postage stamps - we send off at least three completed cryptic crosswords a week (and have won several times, too!) and tend to use first-class stamps for them, as the first correct one opened wins ...

TPBM is enduring grey, damp, chilly weather.

No, worse. I'm enduring grey hot humid weather. Trade 'dja?

The person below me will be glad when autumn shows up.

Yes. Summer in central NC is hot and humid and especially so this summer. I already changed my profile picture last week to reflect my desire for autumn, my favorite season.

TPBM bought a book at a thrift shop/Goodwill last week.

Go ahead, rub it in. I tried to. It was the first time I'd been in that city in months, and I was really looking forward to going to the Goodwill bookstore. I was so excited! And then I just couldn't find the store. It was a terrible disappointment.

The person below me has recently donated some books to a charity.

I donate everything I can to Operation Paperback, a group of volunteers who send books to troops. You can send book lots or respond to specific requests.

>>373 Sophie236: S236- I can't even imagine what a gray, damp chilly August would be like. Sounds awesome. August in DC is like something out of Dante, the bad parts.

TPBM has hit a reading wall.

Actually, I've got 3 books going right now and seem to be reading more often than usual.
It's my writing that seems to have hit a wall.
I wrote a story (starting back in November, ended around mid-April) in a pocket-sized journal, and I'm trying to get it on to my computer. The hardest part is trying to read what I wrote. I've typed out 35 pages of text (22 journal pages), and I'm not even one-third way through the story. Meanwhile, all my other writing is on hold.

TPBM participates in NANOWRIMO.

No, but I belong to TriggerStreet.com, even though by now my membership has probably expired.

TPBM writes for fun and profit.

.

Sure, although the profit is of the intangible sort, for example satisfaction or informing friends.

The person below me writes for posterity.

Nope. But on occasion I write for debate.

Like the one my great-uncle started, and as hard as I tried to stop myself from responding, I just couldn't. He made some pretty ignorant blanket statements about a particular religious group, and I happen to know a lot of people in that group. I don't believe in their faith, but he insinuated that such people were evil horrible people out ti kill everyone who didn't believe in their faith. I couldn't help - I had to respond and tell him (as nicely as I possibly could) that he was just out-and-out wrong.

TPBM enjoys debating and participates in it as often as possible.

Personally, I don't. I do seem to get along best with people whose political views are very different than my own. (You know, when I was in college ((all three)) I never knew what my friends' politics were. We never once talked about it, and I knew a great many people. Good times, good times.)

TPBM is an authority.

Yes-on the yumminess of peanut butter and ham sandwiches.

TPBM is going to eat a peanut butter and ham sandwich within a week and report back on its yumminess.

Okay, but it wont be until lunch time tomorrow.

TPBM is aquiver with anticipation.

Yes, I am! Finally, somebody is going to eat a peanut butter and ham sandwich.

TPBM will be surprised at how good a peanut butter and ham sandwich is.

That's the plan, I suppose...

For the record, it's going to be Jif Extra Crunchy peanut butter and some leftover Black Forest ham (from a meal earlier this week), on some 9 carb per slice wheat bread.

TPBM rinses, lathers and repeats.

I rinse and lather, but a long time ago David Letterman told us we could save a lot of shampoo by not repeating.

The person below uses a pea sized amount of toothpaste to brush their teeth.

Oh hell no. I rinse with peroxide, floss, rinse with peroxide, brush for three minutes, rinse with peroxide, and rinse with mouthwash while I'm shaving. I hate bad breath and I drink a lot of coffee.

TPBM cuts their own hair.

Only my bangs.

TPBM had an unexpected visitor this evening and was very glad to see him or her.

SomeGuy, I don't know if this is true or not, but I read somewhere that you could take chlorophyll pills to eliminate bad breath and other lovely odors. I keep meaning to get some and try it. The only pharmacy my husband asked doesn't carry them, but I bet one could order them on-line.

No, I've been at my mother's. She had surgery Friday (moving her pacemaker and trying to eliminate the infection) so I've been helping her dress in the morning and get ready for bed at night. We played cards most of the day except for nap time.

The person below me bought something recently that has/had to be assembled.

Yes, two rather fine reading lights - one behind each couch in the living room. (Although my beloved husband was the one doing the assembly ...!)

TPBM loves garlic and doesn't care about the results, breath-wise.

I LOVE garlic, I would put it in everything if I could. I do brush my teeth and eat mints if I am going out anywhere after eating said garlic, but I don't worry too much if I am at home, as whoever is with me will have eaten it too.

TPBM loves pickled vegetables ie pickled onions, beetroot, cabbage etc

Blech. Pickled anything (except for cucumbers) is just icky. (Yes, I typed icky. I've been around preschoolers today.)

TPBM has had lunch today.

Not yet - see #s 383/386, inclusive.

TPBM loves it when someone uses unusual words.

indubitably

TPBM talks like a thesaurus.

I love it when my kids do it. My one year old has a thing for fruits, gollay (strawberries) and meio (melon) especially. My older one, at 3 years old, described himself as a peerfume (nephew), and my sister still calls him that.

On the other hand, when my husband does it, it bears no resemblance to the English - or any other - language. He started when the kids came along, and it's been going downhill from there.

TPBM is reading something different (from their usual genre) this week.

That would be me.

On the suggestion of MrsHouseLibrary, I'm reading a YA book called shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, and although I find it easy to put down at any point (not a gripping tale), I'm finding that I really enjoy the way she writes. Your (my, really) senses get an overload of perfectly described odors and tastes and touch. This is great descriptive writing.

TPBM is also reading something outside her/his reading comfort zone.

Off to try that sandwich now...

I am reading a boring presentation of an interesting subject -- the Weimar inflation.

The person below me thinks the Weimar inflation is fascinating and relevant to the economics of today.

Amen. I don't know why the German government didn't take steps to stop the inflation. As for the economics of today, well…

TPBM is anxiously awaiting the essay from Mr. House on the yumminess of peanut butter and ham sandwiches.

Edited to kerect speeling.

Is it going to be like that chewing gum in Willy Wonka where it tastes like a three course dinner and then you turn into a blueberry? WHL, if you turn into a blueberry can I have all your stuff?

>>Eh, garlic and onion breath are a part of life. The peroxide really lightens my teeth stained from the half gallon of coffee I down each day.

>>397 WholeHouseLibrary: In other news, I've grown sick of the mysteries and beach books I've been reading this year. Right now I'm reading The Library of Alexandria and on deck is either a run on the development of language or urban development. I've also got Dreamweaver and want to learn how to use it.

That is all.

ETA Is anyone else having trouble with touchstones? It's not working on this post; the book I'm reading is edited by MacLeod.

TPBM recently found money.

In my dreams!

As for the Peanut butter and ham thing...
First, I have to say that I was meticulous about the preparation - no obvious bits of gristle or fat in the ham, and not too heavy on the peanut butter. Still, it was a fairly dry meat, and a viscous spread between two slices of bread. Some form of liquid is required to complete the meal, so before taking my first bite, I cleansed my palate with cool thrice-filtered water.

On my first bite, I tasted the bread mostly - the crust being most flavorful part of the bread. I had to remind myself that the crunching was not something in the ham (flavor was also coming through, but not as much as the bread). It was the extra crunchy of the peanut butter in the dominant flavor position. But, no melding of the flavors, per se.

Full disclosure: Being a Type 2 Diabetic for the past almost 2 years, the meds that I am on and off and back on have a unique (to me only, apparently) quality of nullifying my senses of smell and taste. As I am currently not on the full dosage of one of them, and these senses are currently functional, although admittedly, not at 100%. However, ham does taste like ham, but the peanut butter taste is somewhat muted. It's still good though - before, it tasted the way scouring cleanser smelled (that is to say, I've never eaten scouring cleanser...).

Back to the sandwich... The next bite said it all. There was the peanut butter dominating the other two flavor, yet each participated in the sensory process. Rather than describe each morsel and each chew, I'll cut to the chase. It took me about 3 minutes to finish lunch. This stuff requires a decent amount of chewing, and liquid to make sure it doesn't get stuck in the esophagus in mid-swallow. It was - meh. Left to me, I would prefer to eat the ingredients separately. I was underwhelmed with the medley of flavors, and this is definitely not a meal that I would want on a regular basis, although if I were visiting Boobalack, and she offered it for lunch, I'd be polite. Perhaps I should have tried white bread...?

Sorry, Boo, it's just not happening for me.

TPBM recently LOST money.

In the past few weeks. In my coin purse I had, among regular money, a one ounce gold coin, a one ounce silver coin, several Eisenhower dollars, several half dollars, and several medallions from an organization I belong to. One day I found that they were not there. I probably took them out somewhere one day to get at pennies and quarters and forgot to put them back in. I was pretty despondent when I made that discovery.

The person below me recently lost a friend.

I lost my PDA last week. I'm not a naturally organized person (okay, okay, I'm downright messy), and considering how much I depended on it for, well, pretty much everything, I feel as if a beloved friend just passed away. Talk about despondent.

TPBM has never owned a PDA.

I got my dad's old PDA when I was about 14, and it was fun to play with, but rather bulky. I didn't use it for keeping track of anything (preferring spiral-bound appointment books because physically writing something down on paper makes it stick in my head). I just used it to doodle on the drawing pad and occasionally type messages to friends in class (shame on me).

TPBM was a sheltered child.

Yeah, I lived in a house and there was a roof over my head.
I was also in the middle of 8 kids, and whereas one would think that there would be some buffering as a result, I got it from above and below, so it felt more like buffeting.

TPBM also comes from a large family.

@Mr. House~
It's okay -- different tastes, doncha' know. Thanks for trying it, anyway.
If you came to my house for lunch, I would not offer that to you. lol
Bread might have made it different. I just used white sandwich-sliced bread. Use wheat, now, so will have to try it on that.

TPBM will now continue the game by replying to #405.

Largish, I'm the oldest of 6 siblings, though my sister in law is the 3rd of 14 and my step-dad is the oldest of a different set of 14 so I have nothing to complain about.

TPBM is an only child.

Nope, one brother and we're as different as night and day.

TPBM is adopted.

Well, given the information on my birth certificate, my mother's stories of the birth process, and certain familial physical traits, it seems highly unlikely. But I suppose I shouldn't jump to conclusions.

The person below me has an aversion to mirrors.

Yeah, every time I look into one, some old grey-haired dame stares back at me. Who the hell is that and what happened to me?

TPBM is too young to know better.

Sure. I'm not quite a quinquagenarian yet.

TPBM knows the word sesquilinear.

Yes, I'm only 57. I fully anticipate living another 40 or so years based on genetics and an improving lifestyle (diet and small yet regular bits of exercise).

Now I do, having just looked it up. Brrrr. Complex mathematical forms.

TPBM has a musical instrument in their house.

There is a fancy-schmancy electronic keyboard owned by my husband, but I have very small hands and can't span an octave, so I don't go near it - I used to play the saxophone to a reasonable degree of competence, but I wanted to be Charlie Parker - unfortunately I couldn't get the hang of improvising ...

TPBM has attractive handwriting.

I do not, it's so bad sometimes I have trouble reading it.

TPBM would like to see the train system brought back to the States.

I presume you mean passenger trains.
Actually, it hasn't left the station (so to speak).
Having served on a Transportation Committee in New Jersey, I'm convinced that it's the most reasonable way to commute in an urban situation. Cities are too invested in dealing with cars, though.

TPBM would prefer to use mass transportation.

If I lived in a city, maybe. Living 8 miles from the closest town and 30 miles from the town I work in, mass transportation doesn't appeal to me at all. I'd have to drive a distance to get to the mass transportation, somehow get from the mass transportation to my actual place of work, then reverse the process.

TPBM recently bought a vehicle that gets much better mileage than their last vehicle.

I have no idea what sort of mileage I've ever gotten from any vehicle, at all.
When you pay the equivalent of $ 0.50 for a full tank of gas, you just don't worry about such things. God bless oil exports.

TPBM would love to pay that little for gas.

absolutely I pay at least $40 a week for gas and my wife even more, together we spend over $300 a month. $.50 a tank would save us at least that $300.

TPBM spends a lot less then $300 on gas a month.

I've had the same car for six years, a Toyota that still gets over 30 miles/gallon. If I had the money, I'd drive an urban assault vehicle- some clown rear ended me a few years ago, not even hard enough for the air bag to even deploy, and it almost totaled the car.

TPBM has been in a serious accident.

More than you'd think.

You can read about them in the next thread, which you can get to by clicking here .