A unique meme from Neil - I don’t do this kind of stuff much anymore, but this has unique questions. A bit long though!

Grub-ology

• What is your salad dressing of choice? I prefer Ranch, but in restaurants they never have Light or Fat-Free Ranch. I will usually get whatever is fat-free, whether it’s Italian or what. My second choice is Raspberry Vinaigrette.
• What is your favorite fast food restaurant? Probably Subway, because it’s the friendliest fast food for a vegetarian on a diet. I used to like Wendy’s, but they recently did away with their only vegetarian salad; I don’t mind Burger King because I can get a BK Veggie there. McDonald’s is right out, though - they still use beef in their fries. In a pinch, though, I can get a cheeseburger happy meal with no meat and with apples in place of fries…but I don’t like to go there if I can help it.
• What is your favorite sit-down restaurant? My all-time favorites are Sunflower (in DC, just a couple of miles from where I live!) and Zen Palate (in NYC). The last time I was in New York I discovered Gobo, and it’s right up there with the first two. In terms of chains, I like Ruby Tuesday because they usually have a pretty good salad bar.
• On average, what size tip do you leave at a restaurant? I tend to leave between 15-20%, and if it’s on a credit card I’ll usually round up to make it an even number. If it’s really bad service I might tip as low as 10%.
• What food could you eat every day for two weeks and not get sick of? Peanut butter! And/or ice cream. Peanut butter ice cream!
• Name three foods you detest above all others. Mushrooms, sushi (including vegetarian), and eggplant. I will occasionally eat eggplant but it has to be cooked just right.
• What is your favorite dish to order in a Chinese restaurant? Kung pao tofu. If they can’t handle that, then bean curd with mixed vegetables.
• What are your pizza toppings of choice? Pineapple and green pepper. Occasionally onions too.
• What do you like to put on your toast? Butter or cream cheese.
• What is your favorite type of gum? I’ve recently started focusing intensely on Orbit Bubblemint. I rarely get any other kind of gum, at least lately.

Tech-ology

• Number of contacts in your mobile phone? 140, though some of them are just e-mail addresses, and most of them I never actually use.
• Number of contacts in your e-mail address book? First, I never used to use my e-mail address book. I always kept everybody’s e-mail addresses in my head, and I never really had a problem with that. But Gmail stores just about everybody you’ve ever exchanged e-mail with, so at one point I went through and deleted a bunch of addresses I don’t actually need. There are still 1720 contacts listed, though. Only 24 are in “Frequently Mailed” - one of those is me, and I know the addresses of another 13 by heart anyway.
• What is your wallpaper on your computer? Right this very moment, it’s this cute little guy. I use James Gart’s Wallpaper Master to rotate the wallpaper every 30 minutes, though, and my current rotation includes 145 wallpapers. I had about 1100 more on a CD somewhere, but I can’t find it!
• What is your screensaver on your computer? I don’t use one on Windows. On Ubuntu Linux, it’s whatever the default screensaver was.
• Are there naked pictures saved on your computer? You mean besides the meerkats? Yes, definitely - I would venture to say there are “lots” of them. Heck, if you go in the internet cache there’s probably even naked pictures of me.
• How many landline phones do you have in your house? Only two that are actually connected, and those are both cordless. We have a regular phone somewhere in case of emergency (cordless won’t work if the power’s out), but I’m not sure where it is.
• How many televisions are in your house? One in our bedroom, one in the living room (where MK&R spend their time), and I think MK&R have one in their room too. There’s also one or two in the garage, but they’re probably broken.
• What kitchen appliance do you use the least? Of the ones I ever actually use - that is, not including the breadmaker, which is in storage - I would probably say the oven. Or maybe the blender. I don’t usually use the oven because the toaster oven is almost always enough for what I’m doing.
• What is the format of the radio station you listen to the most? That would be WAMU, my local NPR affiliate. I don’t listen to the bluegrass shows, so it’s just talk radio.

Bi-ology

• What do you consider to be your best physical attribute? I really like my hair.
• Are you right-handed or left-handed? Right-handed.
• Do you like your smile? Sometimes I’ll catch my smile in the mirror and think “wow, that’s a really great smile!” But most of the time I don’t think so. It’s just a smile.
• Have you ever had anything removed from your body? Yes, six moles. All of them turned out to be fine, but they had to be removed to find that out. I actually miss one of them because it had looked cool - but the scar looks pretty cool too.
• Would you like to? Yeah, some pounds, but that’s about it.
• Do you prefer to read when you go to the bathroom? Yup, I usually bring something unless I know I won’t be in there long. Since I got wifi many months ago, that thing is usually my laptop, ha!
• Which of your five sense do you think is keenest? My eyesight. I know my hearing is not so great, but I can see pretty well. I’m not a great smeller.
• When was the last time you had a cavity?I think maybe this past spring, or it might have been spring last year. I had a cavity and had it filled, and then about a month later it started hurting like hell. My dentist was shocked that it had fallen out so quickly; of course he replaced it for free.
• What is the heaviest item you lift regularly? I would guess it’s a tie between my laptop and my work bag, which is mostly full of crap I don’t even need on a daily basis but carry around every day anyway.
• Have you ever been knocked unconscious? No.

Misc-ology

• If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die? Yes, so I could make the most of my remaining time with the people I love, and prepare all the necessary documents.
• If you could change your first name, what would you change it to? Not Etoile, because nobody can pronounce that. When I was a little kid I wanted my name to be Kim; in middle school French class it was Marie-Lisette, and in high school French class it was Isabelle. In Russian class (also high school) it was Marina. I’d definitely pick something that started with an M.
• How do you express your artistic side? Probably not very well. I’m more of a writer than an artist, or at least I think so.
• What color do you think you look best in? I wear a lot of dark colors because of my job, so I’m not very attuned to colors in fashion.
• How long do you think you could last in a medium security prison? This is a bit of a weird one. How long I could last before what? Crying? About 10 seconds. Going crazy? Maybe a week. Getting in trouble? A day, but only because of all the crying, which would probably get me in a fight, which would get me in trouble.
• Have you ever swallowed a non-food item by mistake? I don’t think I’ve done that by mistake or even on purpose!
• If we weren’t bound by society’s conventions, do you have a relative you would make a pass at? I have very few relatives, period. There’s nobody I’d want to make a pass at.
• How often do you go to church? About once a year at most, and never to attend a service.
• Have you ever saved someone’s life? Not to my knowledge, although I like to think that my profession helps me change the lives of others.
• Has someone ever saved yours? When you’re upside-down in a kayak and can’t right yourself, the Hand of God rescue is a life-saver. I’ve only ever had it done to me in rolling classes, though, so I was perfectly capable of doing a wet exit at the time.

Dare-ology - For this last section, if you would do it for less or more money, indicate how much.

• Would you walk naked for half a mile down a public street for $100,000? Absolutely - I’d probably do it for $1,000 as long as the weather wasn’t freezing!
• Would you kiss a member of the same opposite sex for $100? Just a kiss? Who wouldn’t? Well, besides Fred Phelps.
• Would you have sex with a member of the same opposite sex for $10,000? It’s very likely, because that’s a lot of money, but only if it were safe sex. You couldn’t get me to have deliberately unsafe sex for any sum.
• Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000? Given that they are essential to my job, and that I hope to make more money than that over my lifetime, I’d have to say no. For $200 million, I might, but only if I had a good financial planner to help me plan for a life where I’d never have to work again. (Typing would be hard though…)
• Would you never blog again for $50,000? Yikes! Umm…I don’t think so. I have too many friends through blogging and I derive too much enjoyment from it. Fortunately nobody’s making me this offer!
• Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000? Given that I’ve already done it for $100, I have to say yes. (By the way, On Our Backs was sold and is ceasing print operations!)
• Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1,000? Yes, but hopefully it would be a small bottle!
• Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000? If it were an assisted suicide à la Kevorkian, and there would be no negative legal consequences, I probably would. Unjustified killing - which is anything other than assisted suicide - is out of the question.
• Would you shave your head and get your entire body waxed for $5,000? You know, I honestly don’t know. As I said, my hair is my favorite feature. But it would grow back eventually…
• Would you give up watching television for a year for $25,000? I watch a fair bit of TV, but I could do a lot for the right price. How about $50,000? No? Okay, $25,000 it is. But somebody better tell me what happens on Stargate!