Shmuel's Soapbox: Now available in bite-sized Weblog McNuggets!
Friday, February 08, 2002

2:27 AM:

Rather than provide any important information about The State of My Life -- it's not bad, actually -- it's time for the annontated answers to my "How well do you know me?" quiz, which has now been closed. The quiz consisted of a few really easy questions, a few nearly impossible questions, and a few in the middle. With 24 participants, the high score was 80%, achieved by only one person; three people managed 70%; the low score was 30%, shared by four people; the average (mean) score was 50.4%; the median score was 50%; the mode was a tie between 60% and 40%, with six people apiece. And I recognized seventeen -- possibly eighteen -- of the participants, with the rest being a mystery; I suspect at least a couple are non-readers who came via a link from Elaine, but I may be wrong.

(One of the names I didn't recognize scored 70%, though, which makes me very curious...)

Anyway, here are the questions, the answers, and the explanations:

What kind of colors do I most like?

  1. Pastel colors
  2. Metallic colors
  3. Primary colors
  4. Earth tones
Primary colors it is. Up until the last few people, this had been unanimously answered correctly. I suspect the bright yellow background on this journal may have helped.

Where was I born?

  1. New Jersey
  2. Brooklyn
  3. Far Rockaway
  4. Manhattan
  5. The Bronx
Far Rockaway was by far the most common answer. It was also the wrong answer, but an understandable one, as I did live there for the overwhelming majority of my life, starting a few months after I was born. I don't know if I ever mentioned my actual birthplace in this journal -- I kinda doubt it -- but it was, in fact, Brooklyn.

Which location do I most want to visit?

  1. London, England
  2. Jerusalem, Israel
  3. San Francisco, California
  4. Salt Lake City, Utah
  5. Melbourne, Australia
Most of you got this right. London it is. Australia came in second, with four votes, and it's also second on my list of places I wanna spend time in. In both cases, the primary motivations are the same: the slang and the accents. (British accents make me swoon. Or would, if I were the swooning sort.)

My favorite book of all time is:

  1. King Lear, by William Shakespeare
  2. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
  3. Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
  4. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
  5. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
I like all the books on this list to varying degrees, but, honestly, if you don't know this, you probably don't know me very well at all. Little Women it is.

I don't have enough...

  1. time
  2. perseverance
  3. bookcases
  4. all of the above
  5. none of the above
This was a giveaway, I'd thought, and, indeed, it tied the color question above for most correct responses. I think the last few people somehow assumed this had to be a trick question. But, no, "all of the above" is quite definitely the right answer.

My main motivation for watching "Enterprise" when I do watch it is:

  1. I think the show is really well-written.
  2. I like the characterization, especially the linguist and the doctor.
  3. I'm perversely fascinated by the way Star Trek has gone down the tubes.
  4. That Vulcan chick is hot.
  5. I love that cheesy theme song.
This is the one I expected everybody but Erin to get wrong. And I knew Erin would get it right only because it had come up in an AIM discussion, and she'd tried to convince me to write an entry about it. (And I'd planned to, and never did, and decided to throw it into the quiz instead.) And, indeed, she was the only one with the right answer at first, although two others joined her in the end. I'm going to assume they were lucky guesses.

Two-thirds of you went with the "perverse fascination" theory. This would be entirely in character, so it was a very good guess. Unfortunately, such was not the case.

One of you went with the "well-written" option, which is very, very far off the mark. Sorry.

Four opted for the characterization, and while it is indeed true that I like both the doctor and the linguist, that's not the primary motivation.

The theme song would be in character, too, but I don't actually like it. Which leaves us with tonight's shameful confession: my main motivation for watching Enterprise, when I do watch it, is that "that Vulcan chick is hot."

Well, I'm sorry, but she is! I mean, you've got that impossibly clear complexion (and I do mean impossibly -- kudos to the makeup department), the bodysuit that could be the prototype for Seven of Nine's, and... okay, yes, I suppose I prefer brunettes... (I know, it's a wig. I've actually found pictures of the actress online with her natural long blonde hair, and didn't find her nearly as attractive. Hmm.) And, anyway, T'Pol has that whole Vulcan thing going on. High intelligence and a devotion to rational thinking is a very definite turn-on.

Nobody's perfect.

My favorite Powerpuff Girl is:

  1. Buttercup
  2. Bubbles
  3. Blossom
  4. Bertha
  5. Mary Poppins
Blossom and Buttercup tied in the responses, with Bubbles a distant third, and Mary Poppins a very distant fourth. Everybody knew better than to choose the obviously fake Bertha.

Buttercup was the right answer. This despite the fact that green is my least favorite color. Although it occurs to me as I type this right after the T'Pol confession that Buttercup is a brunette, but, seriously, colors don't really have anything to do with this. That she's a tomboy and I'm the male reciprocal -- which is to say, a sissy -- is more to the point.

My CD collection does NOT include an album by:

  1. Tiffany
  2. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir
  3. Britney Spears
  4. Vonda Shepard
  5. Ella Fitzgerald
Most of you got this right, somewhat to my surprise; I'd expected this to be one of the tougher ones. But it is, indeed, Britney Spears. I own Tiffany's Greatest Hits CD (plus two of her albums, one on cassette, one on vinyl); it is especially prized for including "Mr. Mambo," which is simply the cheesiest song I have ever heard. And given my musical tastes, that is saying a lot. I got the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's version of "When the Saints Go Marching In" through Napster, but the only copy out there was missing the last five seconds or so; I had to buy the Songs from America's Heartland CD to get the whole thing. (It's a great rendition, my second-favorite from my collection. It manages to be spiritual, beautiful, and silly all at the same time.) Vonda Shepard is represented by Songs from Ally McBeal, which I got for the show's theme song, "Searching My Soul," which I love. And I fell in love with "The Brown-Skin Gal (in the Calico Gown)" when Erin sent it to me on a mix tape, so I simply had to get Ella at Duke's Place, accounting for Ella Fitzgerald.

My dictionary collection includes all EXCEPT:

  1. Webster's Second
  2. Webster's Third
  3. American Heritage, 1st edition
  4. Random House, 2nd edition
  5. Oxford, 2nd edition
Almost two-thirds of you got this wrong, but that's quite understandable. I almost put down "Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition" for the last choice, which, being the way it's usually referred to, might have made this a bit easier, but I ultimately decided to truncate it for the sake of parallelism. I dream of owning the OED, but I don't yet. The full-size version is twenty volumes, although there's a one-volume edition in which each page consists of nine pages shrunk down into teeny-tiny print. It comes with a really powerful magnifying glass, and I want it very badly. It costs a few hundred dollars, though.

I do now have access to the online version through the University of Michigan, though, so that's something.

Otherwise... the Random House is the first really good dictionary I got; it was a birthday present from my brother. The American Heritage 1st Edition was my grandfather's, the only thing I wanted from his estate; it has rather a lot of sentimental value. I believe I crowed about my acquisition of Webster's Second in this journal; conversely, I don't think I ever mentioned having gotten Webster's Third, which was my most recent dictionary purchase. (Both were bought through eBay.)

Not listed were my two college dictionaries: American Heritage, 3rd edition, and Merriam-Webster, 10th edition.

My favorite musical instrument (kazoos excluded) is:

  1. Drums
  2. Sax
  3. Guitar
  4. Violin
  5. Keyboard
I don't know if I ever mentioned this here. Probably not, which would explain why votes were scattered all over the map. About a third of you went for "sax," which is the closest any of those comes to the kazoo. (In fact, there was a time, long ago, when I practiced with the help of a Kenny G tape...) But that's not it. Violins and guitars are nice enough, but neither is my favorite, and few of you guessed either was.

"Drums" and "Keyboard" tied for second, and are, in fact, the only two instruments I've actually played for any significant amount of time. I've spent vastly more time -- and have more proficiency -- playing keyboards, but the fact is that drums are my favorite. (Well, drums and percussion in general, but close enough.)

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Monday, February 04, 2002

10:28 AM:

Okay, I'm way behind on updating this journal. Too much to say, prospect of doing so too daunting, not enough time, you know the drill.

But the Super Bowl was yesterday, and it's time for the third annual ad review.

This was not, truth be told, an especially good year for Super Bowl advertising. By and large, the ads offered were okay, but nothing really special. And the hope of something really special is what keeps me tuned in every year. But here goes.

The Good:

The two best ads were probably from Hotjobs and M&Ms. The former, in which a woman lands a job as a court stenographer, had a good twist ending, and the stuff in the commercial was actually related to the service being offered. (Not a given -- consider E*Trade as one of many possible counterexamples.) The latter was the latest in the series of talking M&Ms, in which Red stars as the chocolate left on the pillow at the hotel. Both have "YES!" scribbled next to them on my notes.

Budweiser probably comes in right after that, with the latest in the series of "Wassup?" spinoffs, this time with a Texan repeatedly replying to "How y'doin'?" (Their Valentine's Day card shopping spot was cute, too.)

The Cute:

E*Trade's latest chimp ad, with a ridculous musical number. The good bit being the aftermath, in which the chimp is called out (or is it "hauled out"?) onto the carpet.

The Visa Check Card commercial, in which a chain of references is assembled in lieu of ID. Which would probably have been even better if I'd realized at the time that the person doing so was Kevin Bacon.

Charles Schwab's spot with Hank Aaron. They're continung their streak of using celebrities well.

Universal Orlando's spot, sending up lots of travel commercial clichés.

H&R Block and the Stultifying Tax Talk. Pretty nicely done, actually.

Oh, please.

Dockers as the "little black dress" for men, and the Blockbuster guinea pig doing Flashdance. Both kinda endearing, despite compelling me to roll my eyes.

The Okay:

Yahoo! and the whale; Monster.Com's NY tribute; Quizmo and the guillotine; Jared kibitzes about Subway; the Taco Bell S-Class; Lipton Brisk and the revolt of the puppets.

The Catchphrase:

"mlife" isn't actually going to catch on. Sorry, AT&T Wireless. (And, umm, umbilical cord cutting? Eww.)

The Substance Abuse Wars:

For a couple of years now, I've been meaning to write a long rant about the Anti-Drug campaign, which is perverse and bad in many, many ways. I've also been meaning to praise the Truth campaign as being the only campaign against substance abuse of any sort (in this case, smoking) to get it right.

I'm not going to write the full rant now, either. What's relevant for the moment is that the trend continues. Two good Truth spots, in the Super Bowl for the first time... and two spots in which the Anti-Drug people reach new lows.

Somewhere in the middle, Phillip Morris continued its series of CYA PSAs.

The Pop Star:

Y'know, this is the second straight Super Bowl in which one of the surprises was the renewed realization that Britney Spears is actually a good singer. Maybe someday she'll get the chance to demonstrate it on one of her own albums, rather than in a Pepsi commercial.

Finally, I should say a quick word about...

The Halftime Show:

Let me see if I have this straight. Somebody actually thought it would be appropriate to have a list of names of 9/11 victims scrolling in the background while an Irish rock group sang a song entitled "Where the Streets Have No Name." Honestly, what were they drinking at the time?

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