all about me - personal

I bought this little book called All About Me.

It's a collection of questions all grouped into topics like favorites, morals, friends, wishes, etc. Basically a giant print version of those annoying e-mail surveys.

Thought I'd fill it in, a section at a time, online. (Lucky you.)

It starts with a thing called "Personal". Which I'll fill in honestly, unless it's nobody's business. Then I might lie.

Okay. (clears throat) Here goes.

Personal

Name: Daniel Gregg Mosier. At times (mostly junior high age), also referred to as Dan Nosehair, Punk, and Hey you little @!$##%, I'm gonna beat the #$$** outa you.

Address: Anybody who needs it already knows....
Who'm I kidding? Anyone who wants it can Google me and get it inside 10 seconds. I can't believe my identity hasn't been stolen. 

Has it?

Phone number: See above.

Today's Date: Sigh. I hope these get more interesting. It's December 30th.

Date of birth: Again, all over the internet. July 13th. I'm forty one.

Astrological sign: Cancer the crab. This means I (supposedly) have the following associated traits:

• Tenacious
  
• Retentive (my wife would argue this)
  
• Home-loving
  
• Loyal
  
• Intuitive
  
• Conservative
  
• Emotional (i'm crying on the inside)
  
• Loving
  
• Shrewd
  
• Changeable
  
• Moody
  
• Gloomy at times
  
• Clinging
  
• Sensitive
  
• Protective
  
• Introverted
  
• Romantic (i would even argue this, let alone my wife)
  
• Imaginative
  
• Security-oriented
  
• Warm
  
• Sympathetic
  
• Indecisive
  
• Insecure
  
• Over-protective
  
• Defensive
  
• Excess emotionality
  
• Timidity
  
• Patriotic
  
• Sentimental
  
• Caring
  
• Maternal instincts (whaa...?)
  

I also (supposedly) have these Physical traits:

• Average or below average height, (wow, this stuff really IS true)
  
• having a slender small-boned body, 
  
• short legs and an inclination to gain weight. 
  
• Cancers usually have brown hair, 
  
• a round well-defined face, 
  
• a tan or pale complexion, 
  
• a prominent forehead, 
  
• large, soft eyes of green or blue, 
  
• a shortish nose that curves straight or slightly up, 
  
• and a full mouth with full lips and a wide smile, 
  
• as well as long arms and fingers resting on defined hands. 
  
• In essence, the upper body is proportionally well balanced in proportion to the lower, which may make for a rather smooth-going, attractive appearance. (Geeze, sign me up!)
  

I'm also "compatible" with the same element signs, Pisces and Scorpio, and often considered to be good with Taurus. (I don't even know what this means. But my wife is an Aquarius.)

And I guess I'm in tight with this stuff:

• Colors: Silver and Sea green
  
• Birthstones: Emerald; Pearl and Moonstone (June); Ruby (July)
  
• Gemstones: Moonstone; Emerald
  
• Day: Monday
  
• Metal: Silver
  
• Country: Scotland, Holland, New Zealand
  
• City: New York, Venice, Amsterdam
  
• Animals: All crustaceans, Anything that lives in a shell (This can't be a compliment. Right?)

Profession (yes, on to the next topic now): I'm a "Quality Engineer". Huh. I've also been a social worker, janitor and salad slinger.

Education: Mmm. B.A. is in Social Work. Couple of half-assed tries at learning to be a graphic designer and a computer programmer. Even thought I was gonna be a high school teacher once.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHH........

Height: five seven

Weight: around 200 pounds. (i know)

Hair color: reddish brown

Eye color: blue

Distinguishing marks: I have a hook in place of my left hand.
I'm kidding.

Blood type: Do other people know this about themselves?

Allergies: Sometimes life makes me sneeze.

And that's it.

today...

...I noticed that I haven't posted here in almost exactly one month.

Lest you think me unworthy, I've been working on a new blog - 'cause I've got sooooo much free time....

Dead Man's Brain

today...

...i forgot to do my laundry. 

so I dried my socks with hillary's hair dryer. 

they were still kind of clammy when it was time to go

 but i put 'em on anyway.

standards

A bunch of the gang were going over to Crown Burger today for lunch. I declined (because the place is known for serving the proverbial "heart attack on a plate").

I have standards.

Then I walked over to the food court's Hot Dog on a Stick (since 1946!) and ordered:

1. a hot-dog-on-a-stick, deep-fried in cornbread batter
2. american cheese-on-a-stick, deep-fried in cornbread batter
3. a plate of french fries, deep-fried in themselves
   
4. a limeade slushy, not fried at all
   

Cause, you know...
...I have standards.

My Five Factor Personality Profile

I saw this one at nhaldz' place and had to do it.... It's even pretty accurate.

Of course, it puts me in a mostly flattering light, so I would say that wouldn't I...?

Extroversion: You have low extroversion. You are quiet and reserved in most social situations. A low key, laid back lifestyle is important to you. You tend to bond slowly, over time, with one or two people.

(It's so sweet how they make 'social loser' sound like a good thing....)

Conscientiousness: You have medium conscientiousness. You're generally good at balancing work and play

(and also really good with playing at work).

When you need to buckle down, you can usually get tasks done. But you've been known to goof off when you know you can get away with it

(and when I can't....).

Agreeableness: You have high agreeableness. You are easy to get along with, and you value harmony highly. Helpful and generous, you are willing to compromise with almost anyone. You give people the benefit of the doubt and don't mind giving someone a second chance.

(I'm a real hero.)

Neuroticism: You have low neuroticism

(if only).

You are very emotionally stable and mentally together. Only the greatest setbacks upset you, and you bounce back quickly. Overall, you are typically calm and relaxed - making others feel secure.

Openness to experience: Your openness to new experiences is high. In life, you tend to be an early adopter of all new things and ideas. You'll try almost anything interesting, and you're constantly pushing your own limits

(constantly pushing my sorry butt off the couch).

A great admirer of art and beauty, you can find the positive side of almost anything.

(Yep.)

Ahem.... You TOO can take The Five Factor Personality Test!

Craig Ferguson, 'If you don't vote, you're a moron'

Oh Craig, how do we love thee...?

The actual voting rant starts about six minutes in....



On the Sept. 10th edition of The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson, a new American citizen preparing to vote in his first US election asks, "Are we so lost we have to be sold our own democratic right!?"

Beckett Hulk

Videos like these get made when Cassie (sister-in-law) leaves Tony (brother) alone with the kids....



We're all Hulk fans in my family....

(Wheat) Pennies from Heaven

I found a wheat penny in the bottom of my washing machine last night and put it in my pocket.
Today, knowing that some wheat pennies can be worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars, I looked my 1956 penny up online to see if my life has been changed.
Turns out my penny is now worth OVER THREE TIMES IT'S ORIGINAL VALUE... about 3 1/2 cents.

I'll try not to spend it all in one place.

Sweater Day

I love you, Mr. Rogers....

Date: Mar 20, '08
Location: The Whole World!

(Pittsburgh) – In honor of what would have been Mister Rogers’ 80th birthday on March 20, Mr. McFeely — aka David Newell, the public relations director for Family Communications, Inc. (the nonprofit company founded in 1971 by Fred Rogers) — has a special request.

"We’re asking everyone everywhere — from Pittsburgh to Paris — to wear their favorite sweater on that day," he asks in his best speedy delivery voice. "It doesn’t have to have a zipper down the front like the one Mister Rogers wore on the program, it just has to be special to you."

But wait, there’s more.

It just so happens that Sweater Day is part of Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary celebration and the first-ever "Won’t You Be My Neighbor?" Days (March 15 — 20).

"We wanted to recognize Fred in a way that would reflect his deep appreciation of what it means to be a caring neighbor," explains FCI’s Margy Whitmer.

As a result, "’Won’t You Be My Neighbor?" Days — WYBMND for short, although not by much — was born as a means of promoting neighborliness throughout Fred Rogers’ own backyard — Southwestern Pennsylvania region.

Throughout WYBMND, more than 30 organizations ranging from libraries (Carnegie Libraries of Pittsburgh and others throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania), to museums (The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, the Senator John Heinz History Center and The Carnegies) to other venues (The New Hazlett Theater, The Pittsburgh Opera, the Pittsburgh Zoo and the PPG Aquarium, the National Aviary and Gilda’s Club Western Pennsylvania) have signed up to participate. Highlights of the celebration also include performances by musicians including members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

10 Things I Do that are a Little Bit Crazy

Anyone who's been around me for any length of time knows I'm prone to a bit of OCD*- like behavior (or maybe OCPD**). This "OCD-Lite" runs in my family, and all of us siblings have just a smattering of "symptoms".
None of us has anything so major as to cause undue stress; you're more likely to find us laughing at our little neuroses or poking fun when we see it in one another.
* Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
* Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
Here's a a list of some of my more common, uh, eccentricities:

---

• Movie Middle Madness
  When I see a movie in the theater, I always try to sit exactly in the center of whatever row I'm in. I check this by looking up at the movie screen; if it's not split equally in half to either side - I move 'til it is. (This drives Paula crazy.)
• Buttons - All or Nothing
  When I button my coat or jacket, I like all the buttons done up - or none of them. If the top one isn't buttoned, I'll unbutton the bottom one too. (It's symmetrical that way.)
• Five is the One
  When I listen to music or watch TV - anything involving a volume control - I set the volume in increments of 5 (20, 25, etc.). If 23 is the right volume for the show I'm watching, I'll set it to either 20 (a bit too soft) or 25 (a bit too loud). This also drives Paula crazy (as I yell over a really loud TV: "IS THAT TOO LOUD FOR YOU, HONEY?!").
• Cruise CONTROL
  When I use my car's cruise control on the freeway, I set it to exactly the speed I want to go (usually an increment of 5). The speed limit is 65mph? Then 64... or 66... won't do. (But if it drifts between 64 and 66 and averages 65; that's okay.)
• Ease on Down the Road
  And speaking of freeways, I usually choose the middle lane to drive in - it's symmetrical. A 5 lane freeway = Dan in lane number 3, with 2 lanes on either side of him. If the freeway has an even number of lanes (no middle), I drive on either the far left or far right.
• Car MagicOne of my favorite little daydreams is that I have the ability to make my old, beat-up car brand new again - wave my wand and watch as it "grows" newer. It's the idea of making something that's imperfect into something that's perfect I like. (Maybe the fact that every car I've owned has been old and/or beat up has something to do with this.)
• Stack Attack
  I have a stacking thing. Can't help but straighten little piles of magazines or mail or... you get the idea. If I can't have it clean, I'll at least have it organized and stacked into little four-cornered piles....
• Photo Fives
  Whenever I'm using my photo editing software, I set things by 5s. Maybe the picture looks best at 17% saturation, it's going to get set at either 15% or 20%.... What can I say?
• Rinse and Repeat
  I have a need to rinse my hands after eating, to get the (sometimes imaginary) grease off. Notice I don't say "wash", as in soap and water. While I generally wash with soap as needed, the rinse and repeat is a non-needed thing. It just makes me feel better.
• The Ties that Bind
  I own seven neckties. They are arranged, in order, on a hanger in my closet. I wear the one on the end closest to me. When I'm done, it goes around to the back of the line, and the other ties get slid forward. So a new one is ready for next time. I pretty much wear these ties in their "hanger order", regardless of whether the "scheduled" tie matches that day's outfit.... Paula just loves me anyway.

---

Joking about mental illness disclaimer: While I poke fun at my own oddities, I know that OCD (and other mental illnesses) can really impact a person's life, and I take the subject seriously. In fact, I've dealt with my own Major Depressive Disorder for much of my life, and it's only in the last few years that I've begun to really discover joy in living.

doc savage magazine

5 = tip-top
4 = an enjoyable romp
3 = fair to middling
2 = not so much
1 = lame-o

There was death afoot in the darkness.

It crept furtively along a steel girder. Hundreds of feet below yawned glass-and-brick-walled cracks--New York streets. Down there, late workers scurried home-ward. Most of them carried umbrellas, and did not glance upward.

Even had they looked, they probably would have noticed nothing. The night was black as a cave bat. Rain threshed down monotonously. The clammy sky was like an oppressive shroud wrapped around the tops of the tall buildings.

One skyscraper was under construction. It had been completed to the eightieth floor. Some offices were in use.

Above the eightieth floor, an ornamental observation tower jutted up a full hundred and fifty feet more. The metal work of this was in place, but no masonry had been laid. Girders lifted a gigantic steel skeleton. The naked beams were a sinister forest.

It was in this forest that Death prowled.

Death was a man.

Those were the opening words of the very first issue of "Doc Savage Magazine".

Sure, the writing is less than scholarly; but doesn't it just GRAB you? Well, it did me. It was published in March of 1933, and introduced a set of characters that continued for 181 issues over the next sixteen years -- till July of 1949.

Here's the basic premise:

"Doc Savage, whose real name is Clark Savage, Jr., is a physician, surgeon, scientist, adventurer, inventor, explorer, researcher, and musician — a renaissance man. A team of scientists assembled by his father trained his mind and body to near-superhuman abilities almost from birth, giving him great strength and endurance, a photographic memory, mastery of the martial arts, and vast knowledge of the sciences. Doc is also a master of disguise and an excellent imitator of voices, though he admits to having trouble with women's voices. "He rights wrongs and punishes evildoers." Dent described the hero as a mix of Sherlock Holmes' deductive abilities, Tarzan's outstanding physical abilities, Craig Kennedy's scientific education, and Abraham Lincoln's goodness. Dent described Doc Savage as manifesting "Christliness."
- From an essay by Micah Wright.

I think I read my first Doc Savage story around age twelve, maybe a little earlier. The stories were being republished by Bantam Books at the time (between 1964 and 1990) and I'm sure it was the cover art that caught my eye. How could an undersized nerdy kid like myself resist such a heroic looking book cover? (Answer: I couldn't.)

Anyway. All together, Doc Savage has been brought to life through the original pulp magazines, the Bantam reprints, via comic book, radio, and even a (really bad) movie.

On my end, I've managed to collect maybe 30 or so of the Bantam books and even a couple of the original pulp magazines. A few years back, the whole series was available for free in e-book format, so I've read nearly all of the stories due to that.

And - get this - it even turns out that Doc Savage was (loosely) based on a real person:


While visiting John L Nanovic, the editor of the Doc Savage magazine, writer-researcher Will Murray learned that Doc Savage may have been, in part, based on a real-life person named Richard Henry Savage (1846–1903). Like his fictional namesake, Savage was a true renaissance man—soldier, engineer, diplomat, lawyer, novelist, civic leader, and war hero.

Richard Henry Savage was born on June 12, 1846, in Utica, New York, the son of Richard Savage and Jane Moorhead Savage (née Ewart). His ancestors were English, Scottish and Irish, and his grandfather, a civil engineer, arrived in America around 1805.

Savage graduated from West Point in 1868 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He joined the Egyptian army as a major in 1871. He subsequently served as U.S. vice consul in Marseilles and Rome. On January 2, 1873, he married Anna Josephine Scheible of Berlin, Germany.

Later, Savage served on the Texas-Mexico frontier and as a chief engineer on a railroad in California, retiring in 1884. Following his retirement in 1884, Savage traveled extensively, visiting Turkey, Japan, China, Russia, Asia Minor, Korea, and Honduras.

Returning to the United States in 1891, and a confidant of President Ulysses S. Grant, Savage was given several diplomatic appointments around the world. Savage could talk of all the wild spots in the world that he had visited and had many personal mementos of his strange life.

Savage wrote his first novel, My Official Wife (1891), which proved to be his most famous. Savage wrote over 40 books, including Our Mysterious Passenger and Other Stories (1899), which was published by Street and Smith a year after a 17-year-old Henry W. Ralston, the future co-creator of Doc Savage, joined the firm.

Savage became senior Captain of the 27th U.S. Volunteer Infantry and was appointed Brigadier General and Chief Engineer of Spanish War Veterans in 1900.

After living such an adventurous life, Savage was run over by a horse-drawn wagon while crossing Sixth Avenue in New York City, on October 3, 1903, dying eight days later at the age of 57.
- Wikipedia

Weird, huh?

So. Yeah.

I really like Doc Savage.

I could list out all the cultural and literary merits of the series, and have a discussion on how the Doc Savage character affected the blue collar population during the Great Depression - and while those things are cool, they're not really the main reason I like Doc Savage so much.

Really, I just want to be him....