To meme or not to meme

I had a much more ambitious project in mind for this morning: I was going to bark (up close and personal) at the infernally-noisy gas-powered device that Alpha uses to suck my toy leaves off the lawn, chop them up into useless confetti, and collect them into a pile.

But my friend Ms. Cornelius at A Shrewdness of Apes tagged me with the damnable Sevens meme.

Understand right up front that I don't favor memes at all. I think they're part of a conspiracy to make sure there's no end to the internet. (I thought I'd found it the other day: the "Next Blog" button came up with the same site three times in a row, and I thought "Oh, wow. I finally made it to the end!" But then I hit it a fourth time, and sure enough, some fool had added more content. Oh, well. It helps me avoid productive work, I guess.)

So, as a gesture for a friend (and with some reluctance to reveal), the Seven:

Seven Books (Or Series) That I Love
(in no particular order):

The Oxford English Dictionary. I wish I could afford one.

The Funk and Wagnall's Dictionary , partly because of its cultural significance (Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls!).

All of Tolkein. Read and reread. Even own the songbook. Lacks dogs, though.

All of George R. R. Martin. Still eagerly waiting for the fifth tome in the trilogy (I know). The wolfhounds are the best.

Anything by Isabel Allende. What a graceful, poetic prose she crafts.

The Bible. I prefer the King James version. But then I prefer the Oxford English Dictionary, too.

And my very favorite: whatever I'm reading at the moment. In this case, it's Joseph Campbell's Creative Mythology.

Hehe - bet you thought it was going to be Old Yeller and Big Red, dincha.

Seven of my Favorite Movies (Or series)

I'll quote Kurt Vonnegut: "I don't like film." He says it because for him, "Film is too clankingly real." I don't like it because you can't put it down for a second or two to think about what just happened, or what was just said, or to quickly write down a quote to tack on the wall.

The first time I read The Hobbit, I wrote down some of Gandalf's words: "It is not our part to master the world, but to do what is in us for those times in which we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, that those who come after may have clean earth to till." Try writing that down while the movie is flying by.


Having said that, though, film can indeed play a role, if what I want is mindless relaxation and tears of laughter:

Monte Python and the Holy Grail

Blazing Saddles

The Groove Tube

Christmas Vacation (although that one's a little too sentimental for me).

Can you tell it's been a while since I graced the doors of a movie theatre? On the other hand, I saw Wicked on Broadway last July and loved it. Saw Spamalot, too, and bought the "I am not dead yet" t-shirt. Can we count that as six, please? If I think of another I'll get back to you.

Seven Things I Just Can’t Do (Or Don’t Wanna)
Pass up a chance to sprawl in the sun and soak up the day.
Stay quiet when there's a squirrel in my trees.
Control my laughter when I visit Hoss or Karla (or a couple others, but if you use their blogrolls, you, too, can find funny stuff).
Go more than a couple days without talking to family.
Take all the voices seriously.
Find the end of the internet.
Think of seven movies worth watching.

Seven Things to Do Before I Die

Catch that squirrel.
Get Alpha back to blogging so I can tag him with memes like this.
Watch all Alpha and Beta's grandkids grow big enough to actually play with. Grandson #1 is getting close, but the others are still too young.
Pass this test.
Get back into some phase of helping young pups figure out the ways of the world. Retirement has any number of advantages, but there's more to life than finding the end of the internet and chasing squirrels.
Learn to drive Alpha's '74 MG. I do OK with the pickup, but the MG's a stick.
Find a meme where I can take all of the questions seriously.

Seven Things That Attracted Me to Blogging
I don't think it was so much "attraction" as it was "last resort."
Having a place to write is having a place to clarify thinking.
I needed a home base from which to comment on people's blogs.
It gave me a spot to put a site-meter.
It's a wonderful way to avoid doing other, less-pleasant things.
It's a good place to practice typing without looking at the keys.
A blogroll just really looks goofy sitting on a page all by its lonesome.

Seven Things I Say Most Often
It's a beautiful day.
I wanna go outside.
I wanna come in the house.
Come down here and say that.
Dammit, Ankle-Biter, fer chrissakes go outside. No wonder you have to sleep in that cage.
C'mon, Alpha, let's play. Don't just sit there!
The food dish seems to be empty.

Seven Impractical Things I Think Would Be Really Cool Anyway
Honest politicians. Seven of them. It's be a start.

And no, I'm not gonna tag anyone I know, although I'm thinking about maybe Tigger, or Hubert, or Stubby, maybe even Sammi and Boomer , or Maggie or Bonnie. Like I implied, I don't know these rabbit and squirrel chasers personally, but given their interests, it would be fun to see what they have to say about the Sevens.