37 posts tagged “qotd”
What are five things you're good at?
Submitted by HapaLove.
I wrote a post that sort of answers this qotd last April:
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (on the 383)
When I got back to the City on Friday night I headed to North Beach for dinner and a drink. Sitting in Tosca over a glass of bourbon, I looked up above the bar to see the discolored patch of wood where years ago there was a little sign that said "Whatever you are, be a good one.". Here are some of the things I've been:
Book sorter in a library (twice, actually - once when I was around 7, making 25 cents a week alphabetizing newly returned books and returning the due by cards into the little recipe card box. My first two purchases with my first job: an engineer's cap, and a 45 of Blondie's "The Tide is High". The other time was at 18 in college as work study, and how someone actually thought that alphabetizing and re-stacking books could take up 16 hours a week is beyond me. It typically took a half hour tops, and even after going through the stacks and re-organizing all the books that had been put in the wrong place, it still wasn't anywhere close to 16 hours. Suffice it to say, that job didn't last long.)
Newspaper delivery boy (11 - 13, on foot, on one of the less desirable routes in town, where on one occasion, rather than paying the $4 due for the past two unpaid weeks, the owners of the house set two of their dogs on me.)
Editorial cartoonist (first time at around 12, a cartoon of Reagan and Gorbachev as little kids in a classroom, the teacher's head as a globe, the two of them throwing paper-airplane-missiles at each other, the teacher saying "Now boys...". Very primitive, but it did wind up on the editorial page of the local paper. Second time was when I was in my mid-20s, doing a weekly cartoon for an early political website.)
Various and sundry restaurant jobs (13 - 21, 23 - 24, 32, 34 - 35. I started working as a dishwasher at the not-quite-legal age of 13 after I'd had enough of trying to outrun dogs and the neighborhood thugs on my paper route. Providing you didn't lose an arm in the dishwasher or break more than the acceptable amount of plates, the guy who ran the kitchen would slowly start having you do nominal prep work - clean and cook off 50 pounds of potatoes, peel and cut said 50 pounds of cooked potatoes, peel carrots, cut carrots, that kind of thing. If you still had all your fingers and not too many burns, you graduated up. By 14 I was on breakfasts, grill first (a slightly retarded monkey can handle a grill at breakfast), then eggs (but it takes a special kind of wizardry to pull off eggs during a busy breakfast). By 16 I was backup line cook on dinners, and by 18 I was running dinner operations until I left for grad school at 21 (and somewhere in there I was working in a pizzeria as well). When I came back from grad school I did a year and change as a line cook before moving to San Francisco. To brush up on my technique I did a 3 month pro-bono stint in a French place in Tiburon when I was 32, and I tended and managed a bar in North Beach while I tried to develop my own software last year.)
Magazine contributor (35, writing a few pieces for a new magazine that isn't on the newsstands anymore)
Various and sundry internet jobs (24 - present, including but not limited to: design assistant, sysadmin, production monkey, production specialist, associate producer, producer, director of this-that-and-the-other-thing, jack-of-all-trades, high-paid consultant, founder, volunteer, job seeker)
I'm guessing the sign in Tosca was less about what you do and more about who you are.
Who or what do you really love?
If you could make a magic wish for a futuristic gadget or high-tech innovation, what would your item do?
Submitted by Red Pen.
Well, considering they've already created a bottle opener shaped like a Dalek that says "Exterminate!" every time you open a beer, I suppose I'll have to go with a time machine. Duh.
What are your top 5 CDs/albums of 2006?
Submitted by eliz. s.
Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Herb Alpert & Tijuana Brass - Whipped Cream & Other Delights Re-whipped
Sergio Mendes - Timeless
Outkast - Idlewild
Beck - The Information
What was the highlight of your summer?
Submitted by ladym.vox.com.
The whole summer was pretty great, but it all started off with going to the Gnarls Barkley concert at the Fillmore...
If you could watch any movie on the big screen right at this moment, what would it be?
What song or lyrics are stuck in your head at the moment? What album is it from?
Submitted by Lox Ly.
Ya, I kind of already answered that last week: Morris Brown, by Outkast, off of Idlewild. Alternately, it'd be The Train, again by Outkast, again off of Idlewild. Damn good thing they're such awesome songs, or I'd be really going crazy trying to get them out of my head...
Are there any snacks, food or candy that are no longer made that you desperately miss?
Not a snack per se, but I'd love Snapple to bring back Orange Iced Tea. It was one of their original flavors, and then went missing around 1993ish. Total crying shame. Really tasty, and even gets props in a 3rd Bass tune:
"Those 501 Blue can't hide the red apple, when I'm in a bodega, buying some Snapple Orange Iced Tea, kids are playing Ice-T behind me."
What's your morning beverage of choice? Coffee, tea, juice? Homemade or store-bought?
Cranberry juice or Vitamin Water while the coffee's making, then coffee (4 parts Italian Roast, 4 parts French Roast, 2 parts Espresso), black.
Do you have any tattoos? If not, if you were going to get inked, what would you get?
I do. Two of 'em. Got the first one in 1990, in State College, PA, my own design, and they used pigment, and it's still as dark and (mostly) as tight as it was when I got it. The other one I got in 1994, in Providence, RI, not my own design, but love it, and should probably get it touched up before I decide to get another new one. Which I've been deliberating for the past two years. Do I go Native American again? Do I go Japanese? Do I go tribal? Do I go old-school? I don't know. Thus, no new ink. The last design I did would be a back piece, shoulder to shoulder...
