So I’ve been nominated for the Liebster Award four times, by Danielle from Enchanted By Books, Carlyofsuburbia from A Little Bit Of Everything, Susan from Mywithershins and Lotsboutnothin from her blog of the same name. Thank you guys for thinking of me, it is always appreciated, and readers – if you haven’t read these blogs before, head over there now because you’re missing out!
Now firstly, this award is meant for people with under 200 followers, which is a nice idea I think. Except there is one slight problem – my blog is over that many followers now, and has been for a couple of months. But despite this, my blog is only 7 and a bit months old, and I feel far from experienced or an expert in the blogosphere yet, so I shall accept these awards as they were intended (I suspect my blog doesn’t reveal the amount of followers I have to those already following me, anyway, which makes it hard).
Now, there’s rules as always. Answer the 11 questions asked by the award giver (which in this case is 33 questions (again) as 3 of the 4 asked completely new questions), pick 11 people for the award and pose 11 new questions. So this will be a long post – make sure you do at least check the blogs at the bottom if you don’t have the time to read all of my answers to the questions, which I have again broken up into each individual award-giver.
Danielle’s Questions:
1. What is your favorite book read in 2012? (does not have to be released in 2012)
So far, The Fault In Our Stars by John Green.
2. Have you read any of the books in the Song of Ice and Fire series? Why/why not?
No I haven’t, actually. I own the first one, but it’s long and I’m struggling to find time to read as it is at the moment because I am so run-off-my-feet busy, so I will probably save lengthier books like that for my January holidays (when I get several weeks off work).
3. What is your opinion of 50 Shades of Grey?
*Projectile vomits everywhere* That pretty much sums up my opinion. What a load of trash, really. I guess most people reading it know it’s trashy, at least, but somehow that doesn’t excuse it.
4. How long have you blogged?
7 and a half months. Still young to the world of blogging. But I’m pretty sure I’m addicted to it, too.
5. Do you do anything crafty?
Yes, muhahaha *clasps hands maniacally*. Oh, you mean crafty as in arts and crafts? No, not particularly.
6. What country are you from?
England, although I’ve lived in Australia since I was 4 years old.
7. What countries/states have you traveled to?
I haven’t travelled as much as I would have liked. In Australia I’ve been to Queensland, Australian Capital Territory (i.e. Canberra) and Victoria, and I live in New South Wales, close to Sydney. I haven’t travelled overseas since coming here, but I am about to go back to England very soon which is really exciting.
8. Do you like to participate in weekly memes? Which ones?
No I don’t, though I have seen them and some of them look quite good. But I tend to just write a blog when I feel like it, about whatever the heck takes my fancy at the time. I’m trying to make Mondays my music blog post day but it has been a while…
9. What is your guilty pleasure tv show/book/movie?
Well, guilty pleasure implies I’d feel guilty or embarrassed about it. But frankly I don’t have any such things. I don’t really watch or read anything trashy, I most watch comedies, documentaries, quiz shows (like QI), and my taste in movies is becoming quite broad these days. The closest books I have that could be considered guilty pleasure is my Wodehouse collection maybe.
10. What tips/pointers do you have for blogging?
Write about not only what you know, but what you love, what you’re really passionate about – people can tell. And although it’s important to try and keep consistent with posting, don’t force yourself to post when you don’t feel like it – people can tell this too. Lastly, comment! Reply when people comment on your blog, but make sure to visit other blogs and comment there too – I’ve met some wonderful people through the blogging world, but you do have to make some effort yourself, as well.
11. Is there a book you love that you want to be a movie, as long as it was done the right way? Why/Why not? Which one?
Yes, there is (I think I answered this question recently somewhere). Magician, by Raymond E Feist. I just envisioned it like this epic movie as I was reading it.
Carlyofsuburbia’s questions:
1. What’s your favourite book?
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It blew my mind, it made me laugh, it made me cry, and it inspired me to get back into reading and writing after these lifelong hobbies had taken a several year absence (or close enough to an absence) from my life.
2. What’s your least favourite book?
I find myself rather repulsed by the success of 50 Shades of Grey. Twilight is closely behind this.
3. Have you met any authors?
Hmm, I have known some authors, some were lecturers at university, and one author I actually went to school with for a couple of years, and she has a couple of books under her belt already, which makes me think I need to get on with my writing more! Oh, also, one particular fantasy author who has become huge in recent years with his first two books added me on Facebook after I put up a short review of his debut novel – this was just before his book really took off sales wise, but I think it’s still really awesome.
4. Do you own an e-reader? If not, will you make the switch to e-reading?
I might do eventually. I might not. Right now I am undecided, but am enjoying real books more for the time being.
5. What’s your favourite colour?
Always changing, but mostly it’s blue or purple.
6. What is your favourite childhood book?
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. I think a lot of this was because James is my middle name, and you think in funny ways when you’re a kid. Anyway, I loved all of Mr Dahl’s books, and still do.
7. Do you have a favourite genre you like to read?
Not really. I think a lot of my books would be thrown under the banner of Literary Fiction, but Historical, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Crime Fiction (Cri-Fi…why hasn’t that caught on yet?), and most other genres would appear on my shelves somewhere. I have a weird fascination with books about neurology, too, particularly by Oliver Sacks but I am looking into many other authors now too.
8. Sunrise or Sunset?
Oooh. I love both, so this is really hard to decide. Do I choose the sun setting on a day, closing another chapter, or do I choose the light cracking through the dark of night first thing in the morning, as a new day begins to take form, with adventures and events yet to be told? Actually what I do love (though I haven’t done it for a long while) is staying up all night, and watching the sunset AND the sunrise!
9. Favourite pastime, other than reading?
Probably listening to music. My music collection numbers over a thousand albums (actually it’s probably closer to 1500 albums now), so it’s safe to say I more than just like music – I absolutely love it. It fascinates me, moves me, soothes me, inspires me, keeps me company. Oh, and writing, of course.
10. What’s your favourite day of the week?
I’m really enjoying Saturdays at the moment. Though I’m also enjoying life, so any day ending in y, really.
11. Finally, two men walk into a bar.. ?
And the bar says “watch out you idiots, that really hurt!” I also like these ones:
A superconductor walks into a bar and asks for a beer. The bartender replies “Sorry, we don’t serve your kind in here”, and the superconductor leaves without putting up any resistance; and
Schrödinger’s cat walks into a bar, and doesn’t.
Lotsboutnothin’s Questions:
1. Who do you live with?
Nobody. Well, officially with my sister, but she’s never here and is slowly moving out, so essentially I live alone, which after initial misgivings, is actually quite nice and peaceful.
2. Where would you like to live, if you could go anywhere you want?
The moon! No not really. I don’t really mind to be honest, but I do suspect that my future in Australia is somewhat limited. But I shall say no more on this for the time being.
3. What are you doing for your living?
High School Teaching, trained to teach English and History but actually teaching a mixture of English and Mathematics. Yeah I know, it’s weird – I’m one of those creative types who has a logical side to my brain too.
4. Do you prefer summer to winter? Why?
Not here in Australia, because our winter is probably the equivalent to summer for most of the world (as in, it’s winter right now, and this past week the temperatures have averaged 21, 22 degrees Celcius (70 Fahrenheit I think?) during the day, and it’s been bright blue skies). Our summer here is lovely too but it can be too hot – most years we have a month or two where it hovers around the 35 to 40 degree Celcius mark, normally with a week or so where it climbs into the 40s (so over 105 Fahrenheit), which is just a bit too hot for me. I know there are lots of places around the world that get this hot too, but there are a lot that don’t – I guess I just want to be somewhere a bit cooler, like, oh I don’t know, Sweden?
5. What languages do you speak?
English English, Australian English, Pirate English. Arrr, me hearties.
6. What did you want to become when you were little?
A SAMURAI PIZZA CAT!!! (If you don’t know what this is, look it up on youtube and watch an episode or two).
7. How many children do you want to have some day in the future?
Hmm don’t know, but I guess between two and four. But whatever happens, happens.
8. What is your lucky number? Why?
All of the numbers! But mostly 7, 25, and 625. (Yes, 625 is 25 squared. What of it? (I told you I was a Maths nerd)).
9. Are you tattooed? If yes, what? If no, do you want some day?
No, I’m not. And interestingly, though I wanted a tattoo for a long time, I don’t think I do anymore. I’m not against people who have them, of course, and I think they look really cool on the right people, but I just can’t think of anything I would want to tattoo onto my skin enough.
10. What music do you listen to?
All sorts of music. Look at the Music and 30 Day Music Challenge folders to the right of the page to view blog posts that reveal some of my music tastes. Right now I’m listening to an album called Weather Systems, by the band Anathema – a prog rock type band on the Kscope label that has also been home to bands such as Porcupine Tree, The Pineapple Thief, No-Man, and many more of this genre in recent times.
11. What are you wearing right now?
Nothing. I actually lied about my teaching job, and am in fact a streaker. Now if you’d excuse me, I have some professional streaking in which to partake…Okay so in reality I’m wearing the regular weekend outfit – jeans and a tshirt. You can call me Mr Fashion, if you like.
The 11 Blogs I am nominating:
I am picking 11 of the newest blogs I have stumbled across (in some cases because they have kindly stumbled across my blog), and in most cases they are under the 200 followers, but I can’t always tell – they all seem relatively new (as in, this year) though, so it’s up to them if they want to accept it or not if they do have more followers, of course! At any rate, you, my awesome readers, should visit them:
Confessions of a Disquisitive Writer
A Little Blog of Books and Other Stuff
My 11 Questions:
1. What’s your favourite word in the English language?
2. What are you listening to as you write the answer to this question (if not music, what sounds)?
3. What was the last thing you ate that you really, really enjoyed?
4. You’re at a job interview, and the interviewer asks you to make them laugh. What do you do or say?
5. The world is about to blow up, but you’re being saved, and are allowed to take five things to another planet (aside from the clothes you are currently wearing), where you and only 999 other people will now exist (ignore the bleakness of this question). What do you take?
6. What’s your favourite drink to consume first thing in the morning?
7. What was the last book to make you cry?
8. What’s the most ridiculous or silliest way you’ve been injured?
9. What’s your favourite city in the world? Why?
10. What’s the most embarrassing album in your music collection? (Be honest)
11. To borrow an old line from a Crowded House song, would you rather a mansion in the slums or a caravan in the hills (i.e. a nice house in a not nice area, or a tiny living space but with views)?
Here endeth the interrogating and interrogation by and of me. Hope you enjoyed (and managed to get through it all).
Have a great weekend people!
Wanton Creation 
Congratulations on all the blog love! You’ve earned it and deserve it! You blog is fantastic 🙂 I’ll be sure to check out your recommendations. I’ve been looking for some new blogs to add to my list.
Thank you so much! 🙂 A lot of those blogs are ones I have only found within the last month or two, and all except one I have never mentioned before on my blog (some have only existed a little while), so I thought it would be nice to bring some different and newer blogs into the fold, so to speak! 🙂
That’s fantastic! I would love to find more blogs about writing but I have no idea how to other than through mentions when someone I follow wins an award.
Hmmm, if you want to find more blogs about writing, I think you can do it through the WP reader? If you go to the big W in the top left, click on Reader in the drop down menu, when it loads up there’s the list of topics down the left hand side you can explore, but at the bottom of the list is a box with “Enter a topic” written into it, so you can just enter “Writing” into that and it will bring up blogs about writing. I often look at that, and also blogs under the Books tab which is already there (or should be). Though I do hear some people can’t find this page so I’m wondering if WP isn’t the same for everyone, which is weird if that’s the case…
***A superconductor walks into a bar and asks for a beer. The bartender replies “Sorry, we don’t serve your kind in here”, and the superconductor leaves without putting up any resistance; and
Schrödinger’s cat walks into a bar, and doesn’t.***
HAHAHAHAHAHA! XD
I’m glad someone appreciated my frightfully nerdy jokes! 😛
Quit answering questions, Matt. You’re late for your streaking appointment.
I’m going to visit those new blogs now. 🙂
Hahaha, I think I’m all caught up now awards wise and blog tag wise and everything. So no more answering questions for me for a little while. Although it has been fun, I must admit.
I know. It is fun, isn’t it? I think interview questions should be more like these. 🙂
Hahaha, I have been in interviews before where they have had some questions like these. No idea why. 😛
Wow! You’ve become quite the popular guy! 🙂
Loved your answers and your questions! I didn’t realize it got as hot as 40 degrees ‘Down Under’. Actually, your winter weather is about what our summer weather is this month. You know, I think I like the term Cri-Fi. Maybe we can convince more people to use it! 🙂
You mentioned living in New South Wales. I had a friend who lived in Wahroonga (I love the sound of that name!) for awhile until she married and moved back to Canada. Is that anywhere near you?
Oh yeah, it gets really hot down here. And this is where I live, which is not even halfway up the country. Up north there are places where it never drops below 30 degrees, even in Winter. In the middle of Australia, where it’s mostly desert, are places that reach 50, 55 degrees in the peak of summer. Even around here, there was a New Year’s Day a few years ago where we kind of became surrounded by bushfires (which was a bit scary) and the temps rose to 47 that day. I still lived with my parents then, I remember my lil sis had pet rabbits, but they died that day from heat exhaustion. Australia is definitely a warm country. I love our winter weather, it’s just stunning! 🙂
Ohhh yes, Wahroonga is very close to me. Wahroonga is kind of on the northern edge of Sydney, I am probably another 30 to 40 minutes drive north of Wahroonga, up in Gosford (which is kind of the central town or city or whatever of the Central Coast region, the first major region north of Sydney). Wahroonga is right near a place called Hornsby actually – there’s a big shopping centre there I sometimes go to. Well there you go, small world! There are a lot of places with cool sounding names like that in Australia actually – about half of the places still have Aboriginal names, which sound so different.
It sure is a small world and with today’s technology, even smaller! Now, if I could only save enough to actually visit all the interesting places, like Australia, that I’d like to see. 🙂
Hahaha, exactly! There are things happening my life that would never have been possible without the way in which technology has made the world smaller!
That is the annoying thing, isn’t it, not having the money to go everywhere? I wish I could just travel continuously, but sadly money does not grow on trees. But I think I will be travelling overseas a lot more over the next couple of years! I should also see places around Australia, considering I’ve lived here most of my life 😛
Thanks for the nom! I had a great time answering the questions 🙂 Now-do I nominate some blogs and ask my own questions? Still confused as to how this works!
Not a problem! 🙂 Yes, basically now you pick 11 blogs to nominate (try and check to see if they have been nominated already, but sometimes this isn’t so easy), and then just make up 11 questions of your own to ask (or you can re-use mine, many bloggers re-use questions). 🙂
Thank you so much for the nomination! 🙂
Also, if I could hug you, I would. Is that creepy and weird? Well, I don’t care, because I have been searching for the show QI for YEARS without success, and today you helped me find it…I was at a friend’s house a long time ago when someone showed it to us – it was the best thing in the universe, but I forgot what it was called and could never find it again! I know what I’m doing today.
No, that wouldn’t be creepy and weird – I love hugs! Hahaha. I am so glad to have been able to help you re-find QI! It’s a wonderful show, one of my favourites. Any show with Stephen Fry in it is usually pretty good. There’s QI books too, actually (I wrote about them somewhere on my blog once, maybe in my 30 Day Book Challenge somewhere earlier this year). They have a book of “General Ignorance” which is facts that people think they know that are actually wrong, and also a book of quotations or “Advanced Banter” as they call it, which is fun too. QI the TV show has only appeared in Australia in the last 2 or 3 years, despite being 10 years old I am pretty sure. 😛
Oh man, the book of General Ignorance sounds fantastic, I’m definitely going to have to get my hands on a copy. The show isn’t aired at all here in the US (I don’t think?) but I’ve discovered the episodes on YouTube, hooray!!
Ah awesome! Well there’s a bazillion episodes out there, and they’re still filming it all the time, so there’s plenty out there if you can find it 🙂
Pingback: The Liebster Award « Confessions of a Disquisitive Writer
Hi, I have responded to your questions in my new post over here:
http://shitijbagga.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/the-liebster-award/
Ah awesome, I shall head over there now! 🙂
Love the Schrodinger gag. 🙂
In confess to a pretty nerdy one the other day – my partner spilt his early morning caffeine hit, and asked in an exasperated way “Why does that always happen?”
“Heisenberg’s Uncertain-tea principle.” I replied.
I can hear the groan from here. 😉
Hahahahahahahahahaha! Very funny! 😉
Pingback: The Liebster Award « The Hand-Written Life
Thanks for the nomination! I finally had time to come down to this. Aww your interviewer question is difficult! I’ll get down to it now!
Hahaha, yeah, I think that question has stumped a lot of people 😛
Thanks my dear, got it done! http://rusticrecluse.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/the-liebster-award/
Awesome, I shall go check it out 🙂
Wow! I only just realized you nominated me for this award. Thanks so much, such an honor!! Also I am VERY late in realizing this! Whoops. Better luck next time, I suppose!!
Hahaha, that’s okay! I am terrible with awards myself, I know I have at least one, but probably two, to write. Which I have been meaning to write for weeks, or maybe months. I try and keep up to date with them but it’s easier said than done.
But I am glad you liked it, even if you didn’t realise for a while! 😛