content generator from sola

[the_siobhan]

Comment on this post. I will choose seven interests from your profile and you will explain what they mean and why you are interested in them. Post this along with your answers in your own journal so that others can play along.

400 blows
One of my ex's once asked me if I had a theme song, and I named this one without even thinking abut it. To me it's always been a song about survival in spite of being on the losing side and about standing apart from other people because of one's experiences.

dutch chicken benchmark
bcholmes has this story she tells about working in Amsterdam and trying to come to grips with how straight forward they are about sex and talking about sex. At one point, she asked a co-worker what kind of topics might be considered to riské for mixed company. The co-worker couldn't think of anything. Gay sex? No, gay sex was fine. Kinky sex? No that was ok too.

"How about sex with an animal?"

The co-worker thought about it. Finally he conceeded that it would depend on the animal.

"So what kind of animal would be considered in bad taste?"

"Say... anything smaller than a chicken."

And so the Dutch Chicken Benchmark was born.

grippy
I'm a big Stephen Colbert fan. At the opening credits of The Colbert Report a bunch of words go by that say things like "INSPIRED" "PATRIOTIC" etc. There's one that hangs out a little longer so you can get a good look at it, and for a long time that word was "grippy".

It has since been replaced by "megamerican", "lincolnish", "superstantial" and a bunch of others. But grippy is still my favourite.

pattern matching
I am fascinated by the fact that people in general have such problems learning from their mistakes, and even more difficulty learning from the mistakes of others. Our brains are supposed to be designed to look for patterns in the way our environment works, but that talent seems to grind to a halt when it comes to human behaviour.

Being able to predict the future by looking at the successes and failures of the past is a process that really interests me.

reluctant messiahs
Originally the title of a book, but I just really took to the concept that certain people have an powerful impact on others through no volition of their own.

urban planning
Mostly because Toronto is so crap at it. There are cities that really work well and ones that really don't, and I'm really interested in how the differences come to exist.

wasp factory
A really cool book by Iain Banks, and a really cool record label in Cheltenham, UK.

Comments

[ladyclayton.livejournal.com]

collecting retro dishes
I don't cook, but I have place settings for an army! I love retro china patterns. A couple of years ago, I won some Franciscan Starburst salt and pepper shakers on eBay. Soon after that, I acquired a Franciscan Starburst creamer. Then I got a LOAD of Royal China Blue Heaven, and the collecting officially began! Since then, I have several patterns I've been working on accruing: Franciscan Starburst, Royal China Blue Heaven, Royal China Aria, Taylor Smith and Taylor Cathay, and Creative 1014.

container ships
When I lived in Long Beach, there were always a load of container ships (the big freighters) going in and out of the port. I like to watch them, because it makes me feel more connected with the world. This is probably the nerdiest thing ever.

OTMA
OTMA are the four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. They used to sign memos using the initials of their names: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia. I love the Romanovs, and these girls are fascinating, because their lives were so backward in many ways, and they were killed because they had the wrong parents. Two of my cats are named after Maria and Anastasia.

St. Therese of Lisieux
I'm going to be really lazy and cut and paste what I wrote in eciklb's journal. St. Therese (pictured in the icon) is a saint in the Catholic Church, and I was drawn to her in 2002 when some things happened that made me think she was trying to get my attention (long story). Before that, I hadn't paid a whole lot of attention to her, because everything I saw of her seemed so sentimental and syrupy. I've read her works and read a lot of Theresian studies, and really, she is amazing and very deep. I definitely feel like she keeps tabs on me, and every so often, I feel compelled to read a different book on her or to reread her own work, and every time I read it, I come out with something new. It's an interesting dialogue. :)

unusual places
i'm drawn to places that most other people are not. Friends talk about wanting to go to Hawaii or some other beach resort; I want to go to Dubai and the Torres del Paine Parque Nacional in Chile. I'd kill (almost) to go to Cuba. I'd love to go to this little village in Nepal that is a waystation to the Everest base camp.

Voice of the Beehive
I LOVE THIS BAND!!! They're from my area too. Axel likes them too. :)

works in progress
I like the process of writing and making costumes, although I write far more than I sew. I have three novels that I've worked on on-and-off for several years. I like NaNoWriMo, because it gets me started on a new work-in-progress each year (except the damn website isn't working tonight, and I'm mad, because I want to log my count!).

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I don't cook, but I have place settings for an army!

Heh. I don't cook either (to the point that it's just about the only thing I get phobic and panicky about ), yet I have to be physically restrained from buying cute kitchenware every time I go near a place that sells such things.