Sunday, July 4, 2010

Getting to know YOU (me) Sunday

Happy Fourth of July to those of you in the U.S.! Happy belated Canada Day for the Canadians! And to the rest... Happy Sunday, or happy July--whichever makes you happier (or both if you like :)

Today I thought I'd try out taking part in Keely's Getting to Know YOU Sunday. Nothing better to do at the moment, so let's see how it goes...

Getting to know YOU


1. What do you look forward to the most on the 4th of July?
Fireworks! Ooooh, aaaah, so pretty.

2. Are you a hugger?
I hug my boyfriend and my brothers all the time, but other people... I don't normally touch.

3. What is your favorite BBQ'd food?
Hmm, most things barbecued are pretty yummy. But there was this barbecue restaurant my parents would take me to when I was little, and I would always order the barbecued brisket. So there's that.

4. Do you like to watch parades?
Depends on the parade, I guess. The Fourth of July parade in my home town was always too loud when the fire engines went by. But sometimes people in the floats would throw us candy! I like to get candy.

5. Who has stinkier farts, boys or girls?
Uh, I think it depends on the person, and probably what they've been eating and stuff. Moving on...

6. Vampires or Werewolves?
Depends which mythology you're going with. Many mythologies make being a vampire seem pretty sweet, as long as you can get around the urge to feed on human blood. But in the cases where vampires are simply undead, soulless, evil killers, regardless of the nature of the humans they were before turning, while werewolves are in control of themselves (Forgotten Realms fits this, to the best of my knowledge), then I'd obviously go with werewolf.

7. Do you read your horoscope?
No. Though the Onion horoscopes are pretty great.

8. What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
I generally consider it to be mocha. But I had this coconut ice cream with fudge chunks last time I went to Bubbies, and it was heavenly.

Well, that wasn't so hard, was it? I have a bit of excitement in the coming week, as my advisor is out of town for two weeks, my parents are flying out this Thursday to visit me and my grandparents in Honolulu, and my birthday is in just over a week. Hopefully there are fun summer times ahead.

7 comments:

Sebastian Anthony said...

Ya, werewolf all the way! They don't melt in sunlight, for a start. And they can eat normal food.

Werewolves are almost entirely awesome really, unless you happen to be in the middle of something during a full moon... but you can easily work around that! Not so easy to work around human blood and daylight.

Depending on the mythos (or game world), werewolves are usually just as strong as vampires too. Think werewolves a little easier to kill (are they undead?), but other than that...

Eleni said...

Now there's a generation of young girls who think that vampires sparkle in the sunlight. Tsk tsk tsk.

In something like Harry Potter, though, where a werewolf is just a normal boring person for most of the month and then on the full moon goes through a painful transformation, loses his mind, and goes on a violent rampage...that doesn't sound so awesome.

There are so many different mythologies, it's hard to keep track of it all. There was a funny poll on IMDb a couple weeks ago asking users who would win in a fight: the vamps of True Blood, or those of Twilight. My brother and I had a lengthy discussion about which vampires (including more than just those two sources) have it best.

Mary said...

I'll have to try mocha sometime =) Macadamia vanilla is sometimes nice too hehehe

Sebastian Anthony said...

Ya... frakkn' Twilight! (I presume that's the sparkling thing anyway... I've not actually read the books...)

Most things in Harry Potter are 'reversed'. I think it's how she makes things seem other-worldly and scary. Friendly dragons, mean mandrakes...

Rowling basically took every other mythos and just made a few changes. In some cases she just changed a letter or two so that she could call it something new... :P

I don't suppose you've ever played a table-top RPG, eh? The White Wolf universe (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage) is fantastic for this kind of thing. I think it's considered to be a fairly 'definitive' mythos that nicely wraps up the last few thousand years.

Kara said...

I totally agree with what you said on how it depends on the context and mythology that surround vamps and weres. In the Buffyverse, I like vamps, especially Spike. In True Blood, I like the vamps better right now, but Alcide might just grow on me. In Twilight, the weres all the way. Vamps aren't friendly vegetarians who sparkle in the sun!

That's just some of the current pop culture takes on those creatures, of course. :)

Hope you have fun with your family coming in to visit.

Eleni said...

Blogger is having serious issues for this post, with disappearing and reappearing comments. Anyway...

Mary - One usually finds mocha ice cream with either chocolate chips or almonds, but that doesn't matter so much as the ice cream itself. Mmm, and I love macadamia nuts. They should make mocha macadamia nut ice cream!

Seb - Yes, it's Twilight. Apparently the author had a dream about sparkling vampires and that's what started it all. I wish I could turn one of my dreams into a billion dollar franchise.

I'm not sure what your point is about J.K. Rowling... Her dragons seemed fairly standard; specialized wizards could manage them, but they weren't friendly by any means. Or were you saying that dragons are usually friendly and she made them dangerous? Not sure. And I don't know much about mandrakes in "regular" mythology, but from a quick Wikipedia check, it seems that traditionally they're plants that scream when you dig them out of the ground, which is basically what they are in Harry Potter. So I don't see how those were "reversed" to make them seem other-worldly (beyond the fact that dragons and screaming mandrakes are, I'm pretty certain, not of this world).

I agree that her wizarding world was a combination of many (if not every) other fantasy and fairytale worlds, with modifications made to taste. But I don't think it is derivative beyond what one might expect so as to be noteworthy. I'm not sure what examples you're thinking of from Rowling, but the "changing a letter or two" thing is pretty common (from oliphaunts to ogiers), and I doubt it's meant to fool anyone into thinking it's something different and new.

I've never played table-top RPGs, though I'm not unfamiliar with the variety of monsters from D&D. But I don't know the White Wolf universe. Sounds interesting.

Kara - Spike is awesome, though most of the vampires in the Buffyverse are not so lucky. You're right about Twilight. Not killing and feeding on humans is a definite plus for the werewolves.

And thanks!

Mary said...

Hi Eleni! I saw your comment about Shokudo. It's good for young people, but not so much for the older crowd because it's loud and the service can be slow for a nice family dinner. You might want to try a different restaurant if you plan to bring grandparents =) Are you looking at a Japanese restaurant that is casual or a bit more upscale? Maguro is a nice restaurant and much more quiet. It's a smaller restaurant, but the food is excellent. The atmosphere is casual too. There's quite a few good one's actually.