I’m a big Craigslist fan.

Uh…

Huh, now that I wrote that, I can’t think of a single thing I’ve bought or sold or rented or done or whatever off Craigslist. But fuck it, I’m still a fan, I think it’s great, if for nothing other than the sheer entertainment value I get from it.

One thing I like to do there is post bogus ads for fun. I wrote about one of them here, when I posted an ad looking for a kitten so I could try a new recipe. And then there’s the desperately pathetic hook-up posts that include pictures of the horny hopeful hook-up’er — those are always fun to write about, too.

Anyway, all this is preamble to set up my latest Craigslist post that I’m rather proud of. It’s my response to a post someone put in the Pets section, asking “does anyone know how early should a shih tzu have pups?” My response?

About 6:30 a.m. Any earlier and you don’t get enough sleep, any later and the pups are slackers.

Damn, but I crack my shit up.

Stan tagged me with another one of these lame-o blog memes. I normally gleefully break the chain on these things, but this time around I’ll play along with childish naïveté and do…

The Childhood Meme: What 5 Things Do You Miss About Your Childhood?

This meme requires you to do the following things:

Remove the blog at #1 from the following list and bump every one up one place. Add your blog’s name in the #5 spot. Link to each of the other blogs for the desired cross pollination effect.

1. Lindsay
2. News to Hughes
3. Fluxion
4. Our Obligatory Blog
5. There’s Pie in the Lunchroom

Next, inflict this meme on five new people.

1. Beth
2. Don
3. Peggy
4. Gavin
5. Jim

Finally, list the five things you miss most from childhood.

1. Spanish moss. I lived in rural Florida from age 9 – 12 and I remember the spanish moss being everywhere. Thinking of it takes me back to muggy mornings on Terra Ceia Island, riding bikes all over the island and through what we always called the Indian Burial Ground.
2. A cheap plastic whistle. I lived on a 45 acre spread of woods and rolling hills in Wisconsin from ages 5 – 8. My brothers and sister and I would spend all day playing on the Big Rock, exploring the woods, hiking the hills, and generally just being country kids out in the country. We’d leave the house in the morning and be on our own until lunchtime, when my mom would break out that cheap-ass Zamfir-style whistle, stick her head out the back door, and start blowing on it like a madwoman. I miss the sound of that redneck panflute.
3. Snow. I lived in Wisconsin and Colorado when I was growing up, and I loved the snow. I loved the way the air froze your nostrils, the sound the snow made when it crunched under your feet, the muffled quiet of the morning after a big snowfall. Now that I live in Los Angeles the only snow I see is slushy, muddy, icy, non-powdery manmade crap you find on the slopes at a ski resort. It’s not the same. At all.
4. Waking up in the morning and hearing grown-ups talking in the kitchen. There was something that felt so familiar and safe about hearing those muffled voices down the hall as you first woke up.
5. Innocence. In every way.

Lifted from The Sneeze:

Open up your iTunes and take a look at the “Top 25 Most Played” playlist. What’s the #1 song and how many times have you relentlessly put it in your ears?

The song I’ve listened to — again and again and again and again — is:

Just for fun (and cheap content), here’s my answers to a music meme going around.

Put your iTunes library (or other mp3 player) in alphabetical order and list the first song for each letter (removing anything that’s not music). I’m including numbers and symbols too.

‘Round Midnight – Thelonius Monk
#34 – Dave Matthews Band
(Do I Figure) In Your Life – Paul Carrack
…This Town… – Elvis Costello
1-2-8 – The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
2000 Miles – The Pretenders
3×5 – John Mayer
4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) – Bruce Springsteen
5 & 1/2 Minute Hallway – Poe
83 – John Mayer
99 Problems – Jay-Z
A – Barenaked Ladies
Baboom Mama Said – The Vaughan Brothers
Cadillac Ranch – Bruce Springsteen
Dad, I’m In Jail – Was (Not Was)
Earth To Dorris – Was (Not Was)
Face Dances Part Two – Pete Townshend
G.O.P. – Beth Hart
Half-Life – Duncan Sheik
I’d Have To Be Crazy – Willie Nelson
J Church – Laughingstock
Kate – Ben Folds Five
L-O-V-E (Love) – Al Green
Mad Mad World – Tom Cochrane
Naima – John Coltrane
Occasionally – Melissa Etheridge
Pads, Paws and Claws – Elvis Costello
Quarter to Three – The Warren Brothers
R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. – John Mellencamp
Sabotage – Beastie Boys
T.N.T. (Terror ‘n Tinseltown) – Motley Crue
Ultra Violet (Light My Way) – U2
Valentine’s Day – Bruce Springsteen
W.M.A. – Pearl Jam
Y’all Want A Single – Korn
Zombie Zoo – Tom Petty

Huh. Nothing for “X”. Let’s just pretend I put down anything from the 80’s punk band X.

Beth has redesigned her blog for her 2nd blogiversary. Go say happy blogday and tell her how pretty it looks.

I’ve added some new links to my, uh, links. PostScript really touched me.

Here’s a sample:

Oh look, another eerily prescient quiz. Snagged from the Moronosphere boyz, Karl and Ray.

You are the Spiteful Loner, the personality type that is most likely to go on a shooting rampage. You are a rational person and tend to hold emotions in very low-esteem; not only that, but you are also rather introverted, meaning you probably bury any emotions you feel deep inside yourself. Combine these traits with your hatred of others and your brutality, and it seems that you would be quite likely to shoot innocent people in a rampage. Not only that, but you are also a very humble person–not a braggart at all–meaning you could possibly have low-self esteem. This is only yet one more incentive to go on a shooting rampage, because you wouldn’t care if you died as a result. Granted, you probably haven’t gone on a shooting rampage and probably never will, but all the motivations are there. In conclusion, your personality is defective because you are too introverted, brutal, insecure, and rather unemotional. No wonder no one hangs around you, you morbid, cold-hearted freak!

To put it less negatively:

Compatibility:

Your exact opposite is the Televangelist.

Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Capitalist Pig, the Smartass, and the Sociopath.

If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits.

The other personality types:

The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

This test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 86% on Rationality You scored higher than 0% on Extroversion You scored higher than 92% on Brutality You scored higher than 39% on Arrogance

Stupid quiz. Three times it made me Boba Fett. I hate Boba Fett. I tried switching up my answers to get a better character. Who’d I end up as when I lied? Friggin’ Queen Amidala.

This quiz sucks.

I’ve decided Access is going to be the way to go with my scuba shop inventory project. Unfortunately, I don’t know Access all that well. So today I toddled off to my local small-store-crushing megabookstore and grabbed a Teach Yourself Microsoft Access book so I can, um, teach myself Microsoft Access. And then, because I’m a big ol’ geek, I also grabbed PHP in Easy Steps.

Noble (but not Barnes &) purchases, both of them, full of good intent and a desire for higher learning and self-betterment and all that crap. Hoo-raw, good for me. But the question is: will I actually read them?

Little-known Chuck Fact that drives Beth to distraction: I don’t read directions. I not only don’t read them, I refuse to read them. It’s a point of pride for me that I can figure out how stuff works on my own and I don’t need no damned directions to help me do it.

So when we bring home a new widget or need to assemble a whatsit on Christmas Eve for Zoe to open Christmas morning or have something or other that requires some kind of putting together, the first thing out of the box and into the trash when we open it is the directions. And then I spend the next several hours forcing parts to fit together in ways they probably weren’t meant to and muttering “fuckingpieceofshit” and occasionally throwing wrenches across the living room and generally being a pain in the ass until I’ve completed the task. Sort of.

But if she’s being fair, Beth has to admit that I do usually end up successfully assembling these things on my own. And if I’m being fair, I guess I have to admit that I often end up with a small pile of “extra” parts that I couldn’t figure out how to use. And if I’m practicing rigorous honesty, I guess I also have to admit that sometimes I just can’t figure the stuff out at all and that, yes, sometimes I do have to cheat and read the directions. But I only read the part I’m having trouble with. I also never inhaled.

Aaaaanyway, I now have an Access book to help me figure out how to do my scuba shop project, and a PHP book for fun later so I can figure out to do … something. And I might even read them. Maybe.

Reading is fundamental, it’s true. And I put the ‘fundament’ in fundamental.