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Three, one of them is friends with people I am friends with back in Victoria so I run into her every so often and one, who I dated for three years I ran into a few weeks ago and it was sort of horrible haha.
How many different political parties have you ever voted for?
Only the two major ones here. I'm an independent and a moderate, though. Party loyalty means nothing to me.
The eternal political question: would you vote for a candidate who had no chance of winning, out of principle, if it took a vote away from an acceptable compromise candidate in a close race with a completely unacceptable one?
Yes, definitely and I would campaign for that candidate as well to spread awareness. This sort of thing is why proportional representation can be much better, though it has flaws as well and first past the post seems a little outdated.
I don't think a candidate I would find acceptable would have a shot at presidency however, so it's sort of a moot question. Between Obama and Romney I'll take Ron Paul in a heartbeat and between Cameron and Miliband i'm voting UKIP.
How many politicians have you had the opportunity to vote for in your life and who you believed would truly bring about positive change?
Zero, because of course nothing will ever change.
How many times have you set yourself a major life goal and then completely abandoned it?
Well my life goals are
Read a few thousand books (in progress)
Become a professional level chef (in progress, begun)
Become a professional level drawer and painter/artist (just began last week)
Learn French and one additional language fluently enough to read the literature (not even begun, though my French is sort of higher than a beginner's)
Have Children (not really begun)
Learn an instrument (have not started)
Win a Smash Brothers Melee tournament (practicing, begun)
So I mean, yes, I sort of abandon them, but I always keep them in mind.
Same question.
Oh and I want to get really fit and learn a martial art/boxing, but I haven't really started that either.
Read Genji and Snow Country in their original language - started, looks like progress is going okay
Become a regularly-published poet - well, I have one poem published, but recently I re-read my poems and now I have serious doubts again
Become damn good at improvising on the piano - have been practicing for years, but I just need regular access to a piano :/
Read Proust in the French
Get married, have kids - I keep giving up on and re-starting this one
How many life goals do you think you will realistically accomplish?
All of them, no doubt.
No doubt.
I've voted in every American presidential election since Reagan's first term victory. All brought change.
How many animals have you personally killed?
Maybe a dozen or so fish, lots of crabs I used to catch with a trap, lots of clams and mussels and oysters and other shellfish to eat. Also I stomped on a rat once which had been partially run over and was gasping for breath on the road, but that was a mercy killing. Nothing else to my knowledge.
Same question.
I killed and butchered countless fish who were dumb enough to take my bait; and decapitated countless chickens for dinner when I lived in Africa. I swallowed countless live shellfish growing up in New England (it was them or me). I trapped my share of mice, poisoned one rat, and beat another to death with a club. Later in life I found a mole in my lawn and was about to kill it with a shovel (moles tear up your lawn), but instead I trapped it in a net, drove it to a field far from me, and set it free. When it realized it was trapped in the net, it started screaming.
How many children do you want to have?
I laughed out loud. And then I laughed at the screaming mole...Quote:
(it was them or me)
Between two and four, though I've recently become worried that this life goal might be impossible to complete.
How many times have you nearly died or been in a situation where dying was a likely outcome (fighting a battle, a car crash, etc)?
Several times, actually (at least where death was a possible outcome). I was hit by a motorcycle in London and thrown head first onto the curb (landing on my eye and tearing the lid open). I didn't lose the eye, but still have limited feeling on the left side of my forehead. It was a strange experience: I was completely amnesiac (no pain, just high as a kite); I had no idea where I was, but I knew I was outside and thought maybe I'd gotten really drunk at a cookout, and that was why I was so confused. Eventually I touched my head and realized I'd been hurt when my whole palm came back red with blood. The cops later told me that I had been wandering in traffic.
I also collapsed in a remote African market one time (the guy with me told me that my eyes rolled back completely and my limbs were flailing). It was probably just too much sun. We emptied the market, though, since the locals were convinced I was being attacked by a kind of vampire ghost that ate souls. All I remember, though, is really loud Bruce Springsteen music playing in my head, and a feeling of being grabbed by the lapels and shaken around.
The worst one, though, was after I had returned to Africa following surgery to remove my spleen (which probably rendered my immune system too compromised to return safely, but there I was). I was staying with a girlfriend in a small town about 800 miles into the rainforest. A plane came to the local airstrip once a month to bring mail (no email in those days). My girlfriend had left for Libreville that morning and was not expected back until the following week. During the night, the rainy season started, which washed mud into the little shack. But worse, I became nauseated, then very nauseated, then my abdomen started to hurt like hell, then the pain moved to the left side. Acute appendicitis. Immuno-compromised. 800 miles of rainforest between me and a surgeon. No way out. I don't know if you've ever had appendicitis, but it really hurts. I tried to get out of the house, but I couldn't even stand up. I tried to crawl out, but only managed to lie flat in the mud. Not that it mattered much. No one could have helped me even if I had made it out. There was nothing to crawl to. I stayed that way for hours, the pain getting worse and worse, when quite unexpectedly, the door opened and my friend walked in to say that the rains had delayed the plane and that she was still in town. To make a long story short, she saved my life by carrying me, screaming all the way, to the airstrip (she was this big strapping Irish-German girl), where she convinced the pilot to fly me to the city, then convinced an expatriate Jewish doctor (no kidding) to take my appendix out for free. Now that was a friend. I've had several other close calls, but that was the worst.
How many times have you walked out on a movie because it was just so bad?
Woah, crazy stories! I have never had a brush with death myself.
Just one, this piece of trash http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_S...re_(2010_film)
Though I was tempted to walk out of The Hobbit as well.
How many times do you cook in a day?
Eeeeeuuuuwwww! Hope you didn't miss the big defecation scene. (What a waste of coffee grounds and hummus).
In America, my wife and usually I cook rice in a rice cooker (lasts days) and have some kind of vegetable with it (which we cook each night). Anyone who wants more to go with it makes it. I make breakfast, unless it's just something fast. In Taiwan, though, we buy breakfast and lunchbox every day (usually just by walking down to the street), and go out for dinner two or three times a week. It's a food culture, with lots of cheap eats if you know where they are.
How many days/hours/minutes do you typically wait after finishing one book before you start the next one?
minutes. I usually have one lined up. (this is the desired order).
How many minutes/hours do you typically read in one sitting?