Five questions, five answers

[ckd]

1. Leave me a casual comment of no particular significance, like a lyric to your current favorite song, or your favorite kind of sandwich, maybe your favorite game. Any remark, meaningless or not.
2. I will respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. Include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in your own post.
5. When others respond with a desultory comment, you will ask them five questions.

yhlee asked:
1. Do you name your computers/other gadgets/cars/etc.?

Computers, most definitely. My various work (though not, I should make clear, "work") computers have each been named loiosh since I first had a job that would let me name my own machine. Other computers and gadgets also get named, sometimes with a theme if there's a group of them, sometimes not. The themes tend to be based on SF, for some reason; so, for example, a set of machines might be named barrayar, beta-colony, and sergyar. I don't name cars, not owning any.

2. What is the first sf/f novel you remember reading?

It's fairly certain to have been one of the Heinlein juveniles. Probably Citizen of the Galaxy, possibly Have Space Suit Will Travel. It was certainly at least 25 years ago.

3. How long have you been going to conventions?

20 years, but so not continuously. My first convention was Boskone 24, the Boskone From Hell. I have in fact been to every Boskone held in Boston since then. (This means I've been to two Boskones that were "the last Boskone in the Sheraton".) I went to several Lunacons after that, then fell off to a sporadic rate of hitting Lunacon/Boskone/Arisia depending on the GoH, but going to less than one con a year on average. When Boskone moved back into Boston, I took that as an impetus to start attending cons more regularly again.

4. Whence the shark?

It was a vendor give-away at a technical conference (it has a logo on the belly, though I suspect the company has long since disappeared; the conference was in 1998). At the time, I was about to start a new job; I'd already accepted the offer, and got a chance to spend some time with my soon-to-be-coworkers on my soon-to-be-ex-employer's dime. (This wasn't sneaky or anything; the office I worked in was being closed down, but they were willing to pay for the conference anyway.)

While talking to one of my new colleagues, I mentioned that I had just purchased a digital camera not long before. By way of demonstrating it, I needed something to take a picture of, so I plopped the shark on a copy of the conference proceedings.

Many years later, I was trying to find a suitable icon for my LiveJournal. I wanted something that wasn't a picture of me, but also wasn't a comic/TV/movie character or the like. While paging through iPhoto, I saw that picture and thought "hmm, that would probably look okay cropped and scaled to 100x100". It did.

Since then I've added a few themed icons, though I really should make time to create more of them, since I have well over 100 icon slots to use up.

5. What new-to-you sf/f writers have you discovered within the past year?

Sadly, I haven't been reading new writers (or even new books by old writers) as much lately as I would like; I'm not sure I've discovered anyone new to me in the past year. Running back a bit farther (and excluding the folks on my flist), James Alan Gardner has been doing some really good stuff. Expendable is a well-done story based on an idea that came from a joke; he's since expanded the universe, with different POV characters in each of the later novels. The later ones are better, but you really need to read Expendable first at a minimum; the Expendable, Ascending, Radiant sequence will cover the "main" story, but the other books are certainly worth reading as well.

Various interesting panelists from Boskone and Readercon are on my check-their-books-out list, but haven't actually made it to the actual to-be-read giant vortex of DOOM stack. (click click) I just added one of them to the library request list; let's see if that works.

I like that this one is self-tagging, since I really dislike the whole concept of "tagging" people to respond.

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Johnny Appleseed's real name was John Chapman. I mention this potentially meaningless datum because I'm still annoyed that I forgot it during a Trivia Night at the bar across the street. This may help impress it upon my engrams.

Ask away.

[ckd]

1. If you had to choose between giving up photography or giving up Shockwave Radio Theater, which would you choose and why?

2. You have the opportunity to go back in time and photograph one historical event (assume you are completely insubstantial; no possibility of intervention, but no danger either). What is it?

3. What book have you read lately that you think other people should go read right now?

4. What TV series do you really wish would come out on DVD?

5. What's your favorite cover song, and why?

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

[ckd]

1. How did you get into television work?

2. What was the most interesting job you've worked on?

3. What was the best meal you've ever had?

4. If you had a magical extra hour every day, what would you do with it?

5. Where have you always wanted to go, but haven't yet?

[ckd]

1. What's your all-time favorite computer game?

2. If you could tell the you of exactly half your current age one thing, what would it be?

3. What area of knowledge would you most like to explore further?

4. What skill do you most wish you either had or had more of?

5. What music (song or artist) has the greatest effect on you when you hear it?

(A question I would have asked, had it not already been answered, is "how did you meet Joe?")

[mdyesowitch.livejournal.com]

The world is quiet here.

[ckd]

I suppose asking how you met Hoppie would be kind of silly....

1. You and Hoppie get an all-expenses-paid week of vacation; where do you go?

2. If you could have dinner and a conversation with anyone in the world, who would it be?

3. What book have you always been meaning to read, but never have?

4. Your dream job: what and where would it be?

5. What's your favorite '80s song, and what's your favorite '80s music video?

[yarram.livejournal.com]

3.1415926535...

I even promise not to use "42" as an answer to any of your questions. ;-)

[ckd]

1. What coping/compensating mechanisms have you found most useful for dealing with your hearing impairment?

2. If there was an all-star Amazing Race where previous teams had to add a third person, and you got to pick which team to join, who would it be and why? Which team would you run away from the fastest if they invited you?

3. How would you describe New Zealand to someone who's never been there?

4. What piece of technology would you miss the most if it went away?

5. The perfect comfort food: what's yours?

Not the Meme, Just a Comment

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

We did Radiant in bookgroup last year -- my suggestion to read something in the series, and we have to use a book the library has and it only had Radiant. Everybody got the idea, and one guy went out and bought all the rest. Radiant is kind of a re-starting, so I think you can read it alone, although it's much better to start from the beginning and read it all. Radiant also gives clues to the universe that you don't get in the others, so I think he might be a book away from ending the series, although nothing's been out recently.

Re: Not the Meme, Just a Comment

[ckd]

I didn't think to track him down and ask him about his current WIP(s) at Readercon. His web site says he's "working on something I'm calling Gods and Supermen. It's hard science fiction, rather than fantasy; it's third-person rather than first-person (wow!); and (unlike much of my stuff), it's not an outright comedy."

I'm annoyed that Fictionwise has all of his books from Vigilant on, which means that they're missing Expendable! Arrgh! Expendable is not expendable!

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm a sucker for interview memes!

Hmm. Here's a favorite for my kids and me:

There once was a puffin just the shape of a muffin,
And he lived on an island in the deep blue sea.
He ate little fishes
That were most delicious,
And he had them for supper, and he had them for tea.

Now this poor little puffin, he couldn't play nothin',
For he hadn't anybody to play with at all!
So he sat on his island,
And he cried for awhile, and
He felt very little and he felt very small.

Now these cute little fishes, they says "If you wishes,
You may have us for playmates instead of for tea!"
Now they all play together
In all kinds of weather,
And Drag the magic puffin
Eats pancakes --
Like you ... aaaand ... me!

[ckd]

1. What were you most surprised by after becoming a parent?

2. Where is (or was, if it's gone) your favorite bookstore?

3. What's the best restaurant meal you've ever had?

4. What's your musical guilty pleasure?

5. What question that I've already asked someone else would you like to answer? Also, what is your answer? (If I hadn't included the latter, would you have given me exactly what I asked for?)

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Answered :)

[stevendj.livejournal.com]

His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you will seek all the day ere you find them, and when you have them they are not worth the search.

[ckd]

1. What was your first SF convention?

2. Where in the world would you most like to live, assuming sufficient funds?

3. In comics, what story or story arc is your all-time favorite?

4. What's your favorite movie? What's your "comfort" movie, if they're not the same?

5. Who, from all of history, would you want to meet and have a few hours to just chat with?