Five Questions

My friend Cas, over at Brightmeadow, played a game with a fellow blogger in the US… slightly long story, but basically roro agreed to answer, on her blog, five questions posed by a friend… the game being that people could then volunteer to have roro write 5 questions for them…. which is where Cas came in… and then I volunteered for Cas to ask me some, which I duly answer here:

1. It’s a given that Cas (and Bright Meadow) are the best thing since bread came sliced. But what is the second best thing on the Internet?

This is such a tough question for a geeky girl like me. There are so many great things about ‘teh internets’… there are amazing sites full of cool maps that someone has hunted down and put out there for map-geeks like me, there are repositories of shiny gleaming knowledge and words, there is data, if you know how to hunt it down, that save projects and inspire ideas. There are silly sites that cheer me up on a bad day. There are endless ways to amuse myself and in turn amuse others. I love wikipedia– I know it has its flaws, but as a place to start finding out about something, or just to go and have something interesting to read on my lunchbreak, it rules. Communities building worlds, like Second Life, or knowledge like antiquist fascinate me.

Then there are the games, from the simple, non interactive little flash games moose is always finding us, to MMORPGs like City of Villains (there is nothing like playing the bad guys!) and, a recent obsession, the very cute and very French Dofus.

The best second best thing? (And in some ways my downfall) Contact. Email. Blog comments. IM services. Forums. Wikis. The ability to connect with other humans, however ephemerally, is really important to me at the moment. Hence the blog. Even if I’m just talking to cyberspace, I’m here. Type therefore I am. But this is also my downfall- in these days of instant communication, I now get impatient for email to arrive, whereas email once made me frustrated with post. The constant contact gets addictive… and anything this impersonal make emotion and subtlety difficult at best…

2. Which archaeologist would you most like to be stranded on a desert island with?

Indiana Jones (ahem). Phil Harding. For very practical reasons- all that experimental archaeology he does is bound to have imbued him with some Ray-Mears like survival techniques, thus bettering our chances of building a boat and escaping. The man is an expert flint knapper, and also a great archaeologist. I reckon he’d have some really good stories to tell as well. He is quite famous though, so it is a bit of a cop out.

If I had to pick one I had actually met? Professor David Hinton, ’cause he is a consummate gentleman and I wouldn’t have to worry about him going crazy and eating me. He really knows his stuff as well, and I could listen to him talk for hours and hours, just soaking up the knowledge and passion he has. He also has a wicked sense of humour, and like Phil, I suspect he has some great stories to tell.

Or, the godhead :). We could be scared of the spiders together…

3 – Pirates or Ninjas?

WOW, this is a tough one for a geeky gamer like me 🙂

Pirates- rum, swashbuckling, canons, doubloons, jennies, treasure, curses, camaraderie, great slang and swearing possibilities, devil-may-care attitude, and funky clothes (especially for the girlies!). Banter, fencing and witty repartee!

Ninjas- deadly, cool, honourable, dark magic, secret pacts. Really cool kung fu moves and shiny shiny swords. Being Japanese (cool points just for that one!). Being lithe, quick, supernatural. Getting to be the femme fatale….

At the moment the Ninja’s win. It’s the dark magic, forbidden knowledge and ties of honour that have me. So many possibilities for cool stories….

But I’ve not seen Pirates Three yet, so ask me again after I go get my Johnny Depp fix 😉

4 – (Ever so slightly morbid I know but – ) What do you want the last words you utter on your deathbed to be?

‘I love you’ . If I’m aware that I’m going, I sincerely want to be able to say that one last time to all the people who deserve it, in case I hadn’t told them enough.

5 – Five people from your life who you most want to get around a table together?

(They all already know each other, bar one- I hope this wasn’t cheating!)

H- currently in Greece. I don’t see her as much as should or want to.

Jess- best friend from school. We live a long way apart now but when we see each other it s like we never left off.

My Dad. I love him so much, and I don’t get to spend enough time talking with him now. He is the greatest at social events, and best of all, Jess and H know him well and a) won’t take any c@~p from him, and b) give as good as they get, which makes for great discussions when we (very rarely) are all in the same place at the same time.

Cas- I want her to meet my Dad, and Jess and H as they would get on fantastically, and I know she would join in all the fun and discussion with vim and gusto!

The not-spouse-creature- He gets on well with Jess and H, needs to get to know my Dad better (even though we have been together almost 9 years) and would be a good ‘bridge’ for Cas, since he has met her. I don’t get to sit and have proper time set aside with him just to talk and have fun at the moment, so while it may seem a cop out he is a worthy inclusion…

I reckon between us we would have a pretty interesting discussion…. I challenge anyone not to when around my Dad!

Please have fun following all the links above- I’ve tried to include some interesting and fun sites for you to explore.

If you want to join in, volunteer in the comments. This means I will think up five questions just for you, but you have to answer them honestly, and on your own blog. If you don’t have a blog, you could guest post here!

To see other peoples questions and answers, follow the links at the top to the right page on Cas’s blog- links have been added in the comments! Have fun!

Oh, and if you were worried, the meeting went fine, awaiting comments back on all those words (!) but apparently the length was fine! Just got to start being brave and arranging meetings with important people to get the fieldwork rolling…