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Before I get to this week’s random questions, Office Hours are back on. My screen name is flossyjason.
1. I watch The McLaughlin Group religiously. My favorite part is the ‘Predictions’ segment, especially when John picks a random issue on which to wager (”The U.S. will open a full-scale operational air and naval base in Australia!”) Dan Berger used to keep track of all these predictions, but it looks like he has given up. Bummer. So, what show do you watch that none of your friends do?
2. On Wednesday, Chris Higgins introduced us to The Blog Readability Test. Lots of readers commented about the score of their own sites. I’m swinging open the door to invite your most shameless self-promotion. Do you have a web presence? What’s your site/blog/company all about? Add your URL in the field marked ‘Website’ (after Name and Email).
3. What’s the oddest job title you’ve ever heard?
4. I really enjoyed my trip to Birmingham, and I have lots of friends who think I should move there. One selling point: the bars are open until 4am. Now, I didn’t make it remotely close to 4am. But still, that sounds appealing. If you had to boil the place you live down to one fact to convince a friend to move there, what would that fact be?
Comments (39)
Comment
I only have a comment to #3. I work for a manufacturing giant and we have a whole host of amusing job titles. Due to my sophomoric sense of humor, my favorite has to be Erection Supervisor.
posted by Jill on 12-7-2007 at 12:09 pm
#2 - Shameless self promotion
I’m a blogger that writes book reviews of the fantasy, science fiction, and speculative fiction genres.
I’ve got relationships with publishers and authors, and so am often able to review a book even before it comes out, as well as retroactively writing about others.
If you are into scifi or fantasy novels, you might enjoy my site.
posted by John on 12-7-2007 at 12:28 pm
1. My all time favorite show is Mythbusters. I will skip all other shows in lieu of watching Mythbusters. I mean, these guys were exploding hot water heaters. Do you know how high those things go??? It’s awesome!
2. I’m a co-blogger on a restaurant review blog for the town I live in. My goal is to discover whether there actually is edible food in this town…. so far, I’ve found 3 places that I’d venture to again.
4. In addition to not having any sales tax (yay Oregon!), we’ve also got low home prices. You can buy a restored 3 bedroom 2 bath home in a sweet historic neighborhood for about $130K. And rentals? I rent a big 2 bedroom place, and my rent is barely more than my car payment. Love that.
posted by Jenny on 12-7-2007 at 12:28 pm
1. I am obsessed with the “Tim and Eric Awesome Show” on Adult Swim. It doesn’t come on until 12:15 am on Sundays, and its only 15 minutes, but it will be the best 15 minutes of your life (PS- you can watch full episodes on the adult swim website).
They are most likely the funniest people on television right now.
posted by Lauren on 12-7-2007 at 12:45 pm
1. What show I watch that none of my friends do? The news.
2. Only thing at the moment is www.celiaczone.com. Sells apparal, etc. relating to celiac disease (via cafe press, that is, so maybe it’s not really mine).
3. — drawing a blank here —
4. “laid back”
posted by EV on 12-7-2007 at 12:55 pm
(1.) I watch “Little House & the Prairie” reruns in the afternoons when I get home from work. I’m not much into Oprah anymore.
(2.) My blog is about my life with a baby in it. Mostly pics. of cute baby, but anyone who has a baby thinks theirs is the cutest. Check it out if you want too.
(3.) Elephant poop-scooper?
(4.) We’ve got a Sunsphere you can go in now! (just reopened deck)
posted by karissa on 12-7-2007 at 12:55 pm
4. I live in Las Vegas…need I say more?? :D :D :D
posted by Melodye on 12-7-2007 at 12:56 pm
The period got attached to my url, so it’s not working. Dorry to DP.
www.celiaczone.com
posted by EV on 12-7-2007 at 12:57 pm
1. America’s Next Top Model, even I don’t know why I like watching that show
2. No website for me
3. Coke Pusher (I swear, best episode of Dirty Jobs ever)
4. We kill people who kill people. :)
posted by tami on 12-7-2007 at 1:00 pm
1. I have a couple of friends with whom I get together on Wednesday nights (when I’m not away on business) to watch America’s Next Top Model. We usually order pizza or hit a McBadforus drive-thru, so that we can have tasty, tasty junk food while we watch the skinny young girls duke it out on the runway. (And, also to get a guilty thrill out of listening to Tyra Banks use big words. Like the time she described one girl - who could not have weighed more than 105 pounds soaking wet - as “Rubenesque”, because she had B-cups, or something.)
2. I have a much-neglected blog…
3. I am always amused by the titles the Food Network comes up with to describe the people they feature on their shows such as, “Unwrapped” or “Secrets of Snack Foods” - “Twinkie Expert”, “Tootsie Roll Historian”… Then, there’s that trend of adding, “-ologist” to any word, to create a title denoting expertise. (”Mixologist”… “Flavorologist”… “Candyologist”…)
4. TWO Tibetan restaurants!
posted by Mel on 12-7-2007 at 1:09 pm
1. America’s Next Top Model–I have no idea why either. It just draws you in and suddenly you’re hooked!
4. Littleton, CO–Great Weather! Over 300 days of sunshine! It may snow one day, but the next day will be 70 degrees. You can have all 4 seasons in just 1 week. You can’t beat it.
posted by jennie on 12-7-2007 at 1:10 pm
#1: Torchwood and Little Britain
posted by richel on 12-7-2007 at 1:10 pm
1. I know this probably isn’t that off the wall, but I LOVE “Nip/Tuck.” Pretty much the rest of my family and friends think that it is smut. Well, it is, but it’s entertaining smut!
2. I have a cooking blog and I welcome the shameless self promotion! As with all things Web, it’s a work in progress, but I think the identity that I’m carving out is “A 20-something who loves to cook, but is on a budget and only has one other person to cook for, cooks and lives to tell about it!”
Check me out at commonculinarian.com
Oh, and I scored “Junior High” on the readability test.
3. I could totally make something up here, because I don’t recall hearing a really odd job title. So, I will: Presidential Candidate Food Photographer (inspired by www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/us/politics/23food.html)
4. Hmm. Over a bazillion unique restaurants, but only less than half of them are national chains.
posted by Hal on 12-7-2007 at 1:18 pm
#1 I love America’s Most Smartest Model. It is hilarious to watch those people whine about how they are the best model and the judges (Ben Stein is one) are picking on them and how they really are smart and they’ll show everyone! Its great. they’re down to the last few that are actually fairly intelligent. The early episodes are priceless though.
Everything else I’ve ever liked got taken away (i.e.-Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.)
posted by Marta on 12-7-2007 at 1:20 pm
1. I watch Doctor who on BBC America, no one else I know does, it sucks because it is a VERY cool show.
2. I am lame, no blogs.
3. oddest job i have had would have to be cutting tires into 1/2 strips to turn them into floor mats.
4. To convince people to move to my city, all i have to say is I live in Vegas, the bars never close.
posted by Rick on 12-7-2007 at 1:47 pm
#2
I was really chuffed when I did this test on my site a few weeks back -
Genius level
Yay for me!
ps - love MF
posted by Mangawitch on 12-7-2007 at 1:51 pm
1. Not a show, but shows. I am addicted to those Lifetime (or ABC Family or Hallmark) Holiday movies. My husband’s ready to throw me out if I watch “Ebbie” again this year.
2. Blog? I can’t even keep a diary any more!
3. Strangest job title? Well not strange, but I could never explain it completely: Inside Channel Consultant. The whole company was a consultancy type of place — they loved to use big jargon (especially my direct boss who loved to hear himself talk and thought he was the coolest of the cool. Just last week I finally figured out that he was trying to be the Vern Yip of Technology. He was just too into his metrosexual self).
4. Come to my town in NJ: Houses are costly, price of living is sky high, but you don’t have to pump your own gas.
posted by Beth on 12-7-2007 at 1:55 pm
1. I don’t know if this counts, but I own all 5 seasons of Remmington Steele on DVD. I’m 22. (However, I can’t say that none of my friends watch it anymore, because I’ve converted several of them. No one can resist the pull of Pierce Brosnan. none.)
2. I’m way too lazy to keep a website now. But I used to do Amatuer Voice Acting (Someone has to do those cruddy fandubs) and at that time I had a website with samples of my voice/singing.
3. –
4. “Don’t Bother”
posted by Ashley on 12-7-2007 at 2:05 pm
1. I too watch Dr Who. Amazing to find that others do too.
2. No blog right now, but hope to fire one up for small office attorneys soon. I promise to make it as abstruse and confusing as possible.
3. I have a friend who was an artificial inseminator of turkeys. He was a popular guy with the livestock.
4. We have less of everything, but folks here seem to like it this way.
posted by Tom on 12-7-2007 at 2:51 pm
1. Iron Chef America
2. Food blog dedicated to 100% gluten-free cooking (with a bit about the Red Sox thrown in because I can’t help it). Glutenfreesox.blogspot.com
3. didn’t have a title, but worked at a strawberry farm
4. See Rock City!
posted by Karen on 12-7-2007 at 3:03 pm
1. i LOVE weeds on showtime (although i get a little skeeved when mk olsen gets all sexual) and ive always been a huge fan of futurama even though all my friends suck and pretty much hate it. and meerkat manor.
2. nada
3. pretty much anything on dirty jobs is insane to me.
4. hmm..you live in the middle of nowhere or everywhere within 20 minutes of each other. (phila. & its suburbs)
posted by samantha on 12-7-2007 at 3:06 pm
1. Psych on USA (okay, one of my friends watches it, but that hardly counts).
2. My blog reading level comes up as “Junior High School” or “Elementary School” depending on which URL I put in. I call shenanigans.
3. Chicken sexer (the person who examines baby chicks to figure out which are male and which are female).
4. Kansas City barbecue!
posted by Average Jane on 12-7-2007 at 3:13 pm
1. I don’t have cable and rarely watch TV. My one regular show is The Office, and I can hardly claim to be unique in that viewing choice.
2. My Facebook profile apparently requires genius-level intelligence, though I’m not sure why. Perhaps because it has one German word on it. :)
4. “It’s not for everyone.”
So, it could very well convince them that they don’t want to live here. Not everyone appreciates 30 mph wind on a regular basis, weather extremes, and lots of corn. But some people do enjoy friendly people, low living costs, a slower pace of life, and a sort of aquired-taste style of natural beauty. There isn’t a lot of middle-ground opinion about Nebraska–you either love it or hate it, which means that most of the people who live here actually are here because they want to be. I’ll be attending graduate school on the East Coast for the next several years, and I already can’t wait to move back. :)
posted by cb on 12-7-2007 at 3:41 pm
#1 - Re-runs of Star Trek TNG & Voyager
#2 - none yet
#3 - Food anthropologist
#4 - no sales tax, “Live Free or Die”, proximity to some great hospitals and excellent medical care; proximity to mountains and ocean and lakes.
posted by Cyndi on 12-7-2007 at 3:51 pm
1. Mystery Diagnosis on Discovery Health. I love all those graphic shows but my boyfriend hates them.
2. I don’t have any blogs.
3. Someone else already mentioned it but I too am a fan of the ridiculous titles the Food Network give people on “Unwrapped” like pancake expert and Snickers historian.
4. Well I live in Hawaii so I guess I wouldn’t have a very hard time convincing someone to move here. I would have to convince them that it’s definitely worth it despite the ridiculously high cost of living. Well, I guess I can’t really say that since I was born here and never had to make that decision myself.
posted by Leah on 12-7-2007 at 4:16 pm
4. Macon, GA has the highest per-capita viewership of Oprah. At 4 pm every day, 45% of my city is tunin in to the big O.
posted by katiedert on 12-7-2007 at 4:24 pm
1) Yay #6! I ALSO watch “Little House on the Prairie” reruns when I work from home; once when I worked at a Big 4 Accounting firm and I mentioned that a friend of mine said “I’d set myself on fire before I’d watch reruns of Little House on the Prairie”. It’s on the Hallmark channel 312 on DirecTV. Yay! #24 I DVR Star Trek Voyager (Channel 325 SPIKE on DirecTV). I went to a bar last week at 5:00 and they were showing Voyager. That may be my new favorite bar. Guess I’m not so unique after all.
2) Don’t blog. Eeesh. I don’t even have a webpage. I’m a fairly private person.
3) ?
4) My town is pretty friendly and it’s pretty affordable compared to the rest of the Eastern Seaboard. Nothing really unique, though.
posted by Kary on 12-7-2007 at 4:44 pm
#1 - Slings and Arrows
Shakespeare is fun again!
#4 - Halifax, Nova Scotia
bagpipes and kilts on a regular basis
posted by Carole on 12-7-2007 at 6:39 pm
1. I LOVE Mythbusters. I have a total geek crush on Tori.
4. You can get good grits in more than one restaurant.
posted by Melissa B on 12-7-2007 at 7:25 pm
1. Pushing Daisies. The narrator (this suddenly looks like the weirdest word in the world to me. is that how you spell it?) recaps at the beginning of each episode, but everyone I try to show it to doesn’t understand the concept or why it’s so magical.
2. i am not e-famous, though in 6th grade my online hogwarts had upwards of 100 students.
3. i refereed soccer in middle school. i played soccer up until then, but i was terrible at it and knew none of the rules. i would often forget which team was going in which direction and forgot to turn my stop watch back on after penalty kicks and i just made up my own rules because i had no idea what the real ones were.
4. it’s las vegas.
posted by Kelly on 12-7-2007 at 8:34 pm
hmm. four of us live in las vegas, yet all we can say to make it sound exciting is “it’s vegas”.
perhaps it is not all that exciting after all.
posted by Kelly on 12-7-2007 at 8:42 pm
I don’t watch any show regularly, but when I’m around and remember, I like to watch “The Last of the Summer Wine,” a BBC comedy on PBS.
posted by Kristen on 12-7-2007 at 9:52 pm
1. i watch dr. who (when i can catch it on pbs), house (well, a lot of people watch that), criminal minds (home of my tv boyfriend, as my boyfriend calls him, the ultra skinny nerd boy that looks constipated) and the ever popular csi vegas.
really the only csi worth watching in my opinion.
2. the blog i spend the most time at is blog.myspace.com/technomattisreal. i guess it doesn’t really suprise me that it popped up as elementary school reading level, as i like ot make it easy to understand. and i’m usually baked out of my mind when i write it. lol
i pretend to be a rob
3. i think it’s funny how people like to dress up janitor in special titles like sanitation worker or housekeeper, when really you’re still the one scrubbing the toilets at the end of the day.
4. i spend more time trying to convince people to move AWAY from rochester.
on the rare occasion i try to coax them here, i will say, it’s cold, but there’s lots of booze. high falls brwery and wine trails, as well as bars you can become friendly at and drink until 6 in the morning. lol
posted by Sue on 12-8-2007 at 10:26 am
1. I used to watch a lot of A & E crime shows, Cold Case Files, City Confidential etc. My friends thought that was a little morbid.
2. I have a silly little Live Journal blog type thing, but I’m not it would count as a presence. LOL
4. Just ONE fact? How about two? Clean air and Leinenkugel’s Brewery. Yay Chippewa Falls, WI!!
posted by mrs.djs on 12-8-2007 at 12:30 pm
I’m the first and still the only Executive Job Hunter’s Consultant & Strategist.
My clients have included everyone from architects, lawyers, CFOs (including the former CFO of one of the largest co’s in the world - literally), a former Dallas Cowboy star player in two Super Bowls, as well as engineers, Ph.Ds, research scientists, sales reps, and many, many others…since 1987.
posted by Tom Kellum on 12-8-2007 at 8:52 pm
number one) i really do not watch any tv other than sports; cannot get enough of dirty jobs.
number two) wine. shipped. almost anywhere. the website is pretty crude (i work on the electronic marketing side) and the selection we have is huge. family owned business for over 50 years. also ship beer and booze.
number three) Amatur Voice Acting
number four) martin lawrence has been here! they filmed the “big momma’s house” movies here; in addition to others.
posted by uncle bj on 12-8-2007 at 10:16 pm
3. “Peppier” (pronounced pep-ee-yay): my husband’s name for the guy who walks around in nice restaurants with a big peppermill asking if you’d like pepper on your salad, etc.
posted by B on 12-10-2007 at 11:08 am
#2. www.IndyActive20-30.org, a service organization which helps in-need kids in various communities around the country.
#3. I was a ticket scalper for a couple years. It was actually a lot of fun and gets great reactions now that I’m grown up(ish).
#4. Prozac is the state drug this time of year. Midwest winters are not the time to ask this question! ;P
posted by Trena on 12-10-2007 at 12:14 pm
1. We have a local TV show in Kansas City called Harrah’s Lucky Break that my wife and I watch. It’s essentially a kaoroke (sp?) contest. Most of the singers are pretty bad and if you are really awful you get a nice blast from air horn.
2. no blog
3. I was watching one of those Discovery channel shows about ghosts and one of the commentators had the title of “Paranormal Expert”. Really? How do you qualify for that one?
posted by Ralph on 12-10-2007 at 4:58 pm