I can’t believe Mari got her FF done before I did. I am so lame.

• What is your lineage? Where are your ancestors from? – Er… a little bit of everything. I’m your average American Mutt, really.
  
• Of those countries, which would you most like to visit? – Mars. I’m sure that the sunsets on Mars are spectacular.
  
• Which would you least like to visit? Why? – The surface of the Sun. I’ve never been into tropical climates.
  
• Do you do anything during the year to celebrate or recognize your heritage? – Yes. I exercise the big healthy brain that my early-hominid forebears bequeathed to me.
  
• Who were the first ancestors to move to your present country (parents, grandparents, etc)? – I don’t know their names, sorry. And when you get right down to it, each one of us is the product of so many people… does it matter?

I guess this one wasn’t really targeted at me, what do you think?
Friday Five

Of course, it’s never exactly five questions.

• How long have you had a weblog? – On and off for just over a year. During the stretches where I had no dedicated website I used other locations’ “journal” functions to make do.
  
• What was your first post about? – What most such postings usually contain: “Hey, I got it working! Yay!” The first greyduck.net posting can be seen here. My very first Zero posting from March 28 2001, “Getting Started,” reads:
  

  And so far, I’ve only managed to break it a lot. Dear gods, let me get it unbroken, and quick!

  For one thing, the Synopsis portion seems to be well-screwed. The Body is the only thing that shows up. Nevermind that using the “Preview” feature adds the article to the database… every time you click Preview. Time to send polite feedback to the program author? I’ll beat on it for a while first and see what happens.

  I also need to experiment with links, images and what-not.

  I will add that the extremely-modular setup of Monaural Jerk means that I was able to easily remove the “headers” from the journal.php page so I could integrate it neatly into my home page structure. Or “more neatly” anyway… give me time, I’ll get this thing looking good.

  
  Mind you, it turns out that the Synopsis doesn’t show up by design, and the “Preview” issue has long since been resolved.
  

• How many changes (name, location, etc.) of your weblog have there been, if more than one? – Hoo boy. Well, my first dedicated journal-style website was Zero. That was shut down by the Powers That Be. Eventually greyduck.net was born, but then it had to move to a new server.
  
• What CMS (content management system) do you use? Do you like it or do you want to try something else? – Monaural Jerk. It would take something really fantastic to get me to change. MJ does exactly what I want, exactly the way I want it. It relies on having a server you have a reasonable amount of control over, and in order to customize it you have to tinker with it by hand. In my book, of course, those count as benefits of the system.
  
• Do you read people who have both a journal and a weblog? Or do you prefer to read people who have all of their writing in one central place? – “Read people?” What, they have text printed on their bodies? Anyway… I’m aware of the distinction between “journal” and “blog,” I just fail to care about said distinction. If someone writes about and links to interesting things, good. If someone writes crap and links to stupid things, bad. This isn’t brain surgery, folks. Is my site a journal? Is it a blog? Does it matter?

Friday Five

I can see a time, far in the future, when I’m able to do several Friday Fives in a row. It will probably happen two days before the universe collapses in on itself, though.

• Where were you born? – Ketchikan, Alaska. I don’t remember the place because our family left when I as only three months old. My earliest reliable memories are of New York City.
  
• If you still live there, where would you rather move to? If you don’t live there, do you want to move back? Why or why not? – I don’t. I don’t. Er, I don’t. (Three questions? Does that make this the Friday Seven?)
  
• Where in the world do you feel the safest? – At home, of course.
  
• Do you feel you are well-traveled? – That’s an interesting question. Is the implication that I’ve been traveled, or that I have traveled? (Hmm, must get mind out of gutter.) No, I have never left the country, nor have I seen very much of These United States. I’d like to, though, on both counts.
  
• Where is the most interesting place you’ve been? – I’ve been a few places of mild interest to myself, but I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere of wide, general interest. I apologize for being so boring. *grin*

Yes, it’s the long-awaited return of my Friday Five participation. I’m sure you were all waiting with bated breath. Yep.

• Where are you right now? – In my office.
  
• What have you lost recently? – All of my spare cash, all respect for the federal government, and several of my inhibitions.
  
• What was the first CD you ever purchased? Does that embarrass you now? – What is this, an attempt to turn this into the Friday Six? First answer, “Midnight Oil’s ‘10,9.8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1’.” Second answer, “Hell no, it’s a great record as are many of the Oils’ works.”
  
• What is your favorite kind of writing pen? – The kind that have, um, ink. The kind that have ink that isn’t dried up and the ball-point still works. Yeah, that’s it.
  
• What is your favorite ice cream flavor? – Something drenched in Hershey’s chocolate syrup. No, wait, it’s vanilla. Or chocolate. Or sometimes mint-chocolate-chip, though I don’t buy that flavor as often as I used to.

Am I awake or am I dreaming that I am filling out this week’s Friday Five?

• What’s the last vivid dream that you remember having? – I… can’t seem to remember now. I know I had a couple within the last three weeks, but as is typical for my feeble brain I can’t recall anything that was in either of them. Maybe I’ll come back and edit this one.
  
• Do you have any recurring dreams? – Not as such. There are elements that pop up in different dreams, a particular location or bit of dialog perhaps. I think I’ve had one particular portion of a dream more than once over the years but I’m not absolutely certain that it wasn’t just a case of deja-vu-while-dreaming.
  
• What’s the scariest nightmare you’ve ever had? – Every couple of months, apparently, my brain decides that I need a good scary “let’s wander through the spider mansion” dream. Big spiders, cobwebs, the whole nine yards. Sometimes I have the ability to deal with them. Sometimes I’m powerless.
  
• Have you ever written your dreams down or considered it? Why or why not? – Sometimes I’ll dream something that looks and feels like a really, really good story idea. I’ve only written down a couple of those, and now I can’t find the notebook I wrote them down in. Silly me. I’ve had a couple more “good story” dreams this year but don’t keep a notebook by the bed. Again, silly me.
  
• Have you ever had a lucid dream? What did you do in it? – A lot of those “story dreams” are lucid or semi-lucid in nature. It has a lot to do with the dreamworld in my mind, the one I spend time building when I’m awake and sometimes appears in my sleeping dreams. When I’m in that familiar territory, part of me wakes up and takes control of my dream-persona to actively manipulate the situation. It’s a lot of fun, really. Again, if I were smart I’d be jotting down elements of those dreams for later use. I’m probably a better storyteller in my sleep than I am awake. Sad, really.
  

According to the Otaku Purity Test I score a 63. “Your mother is worried about you.” Shows you what they know about my mother, huh?

Dawn, who sent me the link, scored an 81. “Stop watching anime and go outside!”

Oh, and somebody should convince the person(s) behind that website that coding exclusively for Infobahn Exploder should be a crime punishable by death. Or something.