Yes, it's Thursday again, which means it's once again time to put on your writing/thinking caps in order to participate in The World's Favorite Internets Thing, the Axis of Weevil Thursday Three!
AND, as you can surmise from the title, today is YET ANOTHER Thursday where I didn't have anything prepared ahead of time due to the constraints of gainful employment, and so now I'm in the position of having to come up with a set of questions on the fly, and that always means a scattershot sort of affair, full of non-themed, unrelated questions.
SOUNDS LIKE FUN? YOU BETCHA!!
As is the usual case, everyone is invited to participate in answering the following set of questions by either leaving a comment below, or leaving a link to your blog, or writing them out in longhand and mailing them to our headquarters building here in Godly Hollow, Alabama.
NOW, here we go:
1) We know none of you are full of vainglory, but everyone has a little something they like to have around to show off as a status symbol. What thing (or things) do you have that you use to signify your high level of couth and culture?
2) What time do you go to bed at night?
3) What year did you first experience the Internet?
NOW, all of you go answer those, and I'll do the same--in a while. ONCE MORE, gainful employment is interfering with things, so you'll have to wait a bit to see my answers. YOU, on the other hand, please fire away!
10:00 a.m.--OKAY!! Now then--that's taken care of (for the moment) so here are my answers:
1) I'm not into clothes (other than I think it's important to wear a tie every day) and my taste in cars runs toward the more moronically off-beat anti-status type. We live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood, so I suppose that should count, but one thing I like having beyond all others is a nice watch. I used to also like really nice pens, but since everyone else got on the Mont Blanc kick a few years back, that sorta went by the wayside for me. But I like having a watch that's relatively obscure, not tremendously and stupidly expensive, but one that's still stylish. I wear a Limes Nightflight automatic with a black dial, stainless case, and black band. High spiff factor, and luckily, when I bought it they were still quite inexpensive, and they've gotten out of my price range now.
2) I would love to go to bed every night at 10:30 after the late news, but there is usually one or more children awake doing homework. Or avoiding doing it. Grr.
3) I think it was around 1991 or '92 or so, but I didn't really think it was that interesting until around '95 when I got to my current place of employment where we had high speed access. I remember the coolest thing I found was when I was looking for a better search engine, and had heard about the concept of massively parallel searching, and stumbled on something called "Google." Not much to look at, but boy, it really did do a good job of finding stuff.
I wonder whatever happened to them?
Anyway, that was all so very long ago, wasn't it?
Posted by Terry Oglesby at October 12, 2006 08:28 AMI'm in too.
Posted by: skinnydan at October 12, 2006 09:55 AMOK, here are my answers. Nothing to exciting, but you never know.
Posted by: Dre at October 12, 2006 10:06 AMANDRE!! Oh, uh--I mean...uhhhm--hello, person I do not know! I'm glad you've decided to play along, even though we are complete strangers and have never met before. Because I'm certain you aren't the same Andre, and I KNOW I'm not the same Terry. Completely made up name, you know. I mean, who has a name like Oglesby!? Just a bunch of crazy wackiness, that's all it is.
(Actually Andre works with Main Street Birmingham, and I see him all the time. He will vouch that I am much handsomer in person than in photographs.)
Anyway, glad to have you stop by--just do me a favor and don't start any brawls with Brooklyn-boy Skinnydan. I've heard about that whole Bronx-Brooklyn rivalry, and we just can't have people swinging tire irons and chains at each other around here. Nor dancing and singing and snapping their fingers. I hate that.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at October 12, 2006 10:26 AM"When you're a Heeb you're a Heeb all the way..."
Besides, I lived in the Bronx for 2.5 years, so I don't mind. (Despite the fact that people I knew in the neighborhood claimed it was "Lower Westchester," it was still the Bronx.)
Posted by: skinnydan at October 12, 2006 10:51 AMOkay--just so there's none of that juvenile delinquency around here.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at October 12, 2006 10:55 AM1. Quality music instruments. I could buy a decent Gibson ES series knockoff but I must have the real thing. Now if I could only play like the real thing.
2. Before 10:00.
3. Around 1993. I was fully hooked by 1995.
Posted by: Larry Anderson at October 12, 2006 11:22 AMComing out of the woodwork... Hi, Terry. Long time no see!!! You are famous now that Dre linked you.
1. My 1997 Honda Civic that hasn't been washed in four months really says a lot about my desire to prove that I am extremely wealthy and high-class.
2. 11 pm
3. 1994 - I had an email account on the UNIX system at school, and the interface was telnet.
Well, MBeth, I can understand the lack of seeing--awfully hard to be seen when ONE of us is sporting around the Gulf Coast taking pictures of her toes and riding bikes, ya know! ;)
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at October 12, 2006 11:53 AM1. My faded, paid-for red 1994 Toyota Tercel.
2. As early as 7:30 p.m. or as late as 11 p.m.
3. So long ago I've forgotten.
Posted by: Sheila at October 12, 2006 12:51 PMSEVEN-THIRTY!? Oh, how I long for a bedtime like that...
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at October 12, 2006 01:10 PMI have a compact edition of the Oxford English Dictionary int wo volumes. Bought it for $27 when I was at SMU.
It not only shows my class, but I can read it without a magnifying glass.
I retreat to bed with a book at about 10 most nights. When I go to sleep depends on the book and how tired I am.
Internet, Internet. I'd say about '95. When we went to Israel with a Christian group, Lyman and I produced a reference book for the travelers. We gathered a lot of the information from the Internet then. So the acquaintance might have been a little earlier.
Posted by: Janis Gore at October 12, 2006 02:42 PM'95 seems like a very good year for the Internets.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at October 12, 2006 02:55 PMJust out of training, and a little late...
1. Not much into status - more into function. The '89 Integra I used to have may have fit the "status" definition, but it was bought used (on someone else's recommendation). It was fun transportation, reliable and fairly stylish when I first got it.
2. 9 p.m. when I can manage it.
3. Around 1994, I think. Didn't take off until I started working at MU in '97 - high-speed access makes all the difference in the world!
Posted by: Diane at October 12, 2006 04:34 PMI'm up, almost at a normal time too.
Posted by: Tony von Krag at October 12, 2006 06:09 PM