Fearless Frannie's Fantastic Friday Five

1. What's the highest you've ever been (read that which ever way you wish)? - I went skiing in Utah in the spring of 1990. That's probably as high altitude-wise that I've ever been with my feet touching terra firma.
2. Of what achievement are you most proud? - Nothing springs to mind. Really. Maybe getting a 30 on my ACT (98th percentile, qualifying me for Mensa). Or perhaps coming up with the best cat name ever, Elsie Moo-Cow Fong-Torres.
3. What is the most expensive thing you own that is NOT a car or a house? - Assuming you mean a single item, I think it'd be my couch (eta: Actually, it might be my computer. I don't remember what it cost, but probaby more than the couch). If collections count, it'd be my dvds (with board games rapidly catching up).
4. What did you do for your eighteenth birthday? - I haven't the slightest. It was three days after I graduated high school, I know that.
5. What is your favourite fact? - The closest biological relative to the seahorse is the potato. Oh, you want a TRUE one? Okay, on the same wavelength: The closest biological relative to the hippopotamus is the pig. Yet the name means "river horse". The name "aardvark" means "earth pig", but they're not particularly closely related to the pig.

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I'm in the process of listening to the audiobook version of Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. As I am not a history guy (though I was a bit of a buff on the death of Mr. Lincoln in high school), I am learning a lot. As is expected with a work from Ms. Vowell, it is very funny, yet very informative. I recommend it highly.

I'm glad I'm not Robert Todd Lincoln, who was present or nearby for the assassinations of his father, Mr. Garfield, and Mr. McKinley. What a weird legacy. Edwin Booth, brother of fellow actor John Wilkes Booth, also lived a weird life. Ms. Vowell relates a story about how he saved a man who had fallen on railroad track just before a train came by. The man he helped rescue? Robert Todd Lincoln.

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As part of my ongoing game obsession, I've been looking into the game of Crokinole lately. It's a manual dexterity game often described as tabletop shuffleboard, for lack of a better description. I doubt I'll get a board too soon as they are expensive. Plus, the game is Canadian and who wants to look like a Canadian Wannabe?

The unfortunate side-effect of this recent Crokinole interest is that the crappy Beach Boys tune "Kokomo" is stuck in my head, but good.

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20 facts:

1. I've had three real girlfriends in my life. Valerie lasted about three years, Donielle lasted about three years, and Clare lasted about seven months.
2. The last time I saw Clare was when I gave her an iPod for her birthday.
3. I often toy with the idea of shaving my head, not as a fashion statement but just in a do-something-dramatically-different way.
4. I think I would look atrocious with a shaved head.
5. I wore the number 66 in high school because my hero, Mark Gastineau, wore 99. It being unavailable (for some reason we had no jerseys in the 90s), I chose the upside-down of it.
6. I used to drink a lot of Coke. A LOT of Coke. Now I drink mostly Coke Zero, Diet Coke with Lime, or Diet Pepsi. I still order Coke at fast food places, though.
7. I tell myself on a daily basis how I want to change my lifestyle. I never do.
8. My baby hippo obsession started with this picture.
9. My favorite artist is Amedeo Modigliani, but my favorite painting is a Picasso. (FTR, this (warning: artistic nudity) is my favorite Modigliani.)
10. My favorite pizza is pepperoni, mushroom, and extra cheese. I like a medium crust, which is very hard to find in Chicago.
11. I totaled a car two months (to the day) after I got my license.
12. I really don't like socks or shoes. I'll often take quick outdoor trips to my car or whatever barefoot, even in winter.
13. I wouldn't know any good local music if it wasn't for Tonya taking me to my first Sonic Voodoo show. Everything local I know branched out from there. The Ghettobillies opened for them, which is how I discovered them. Brother Brother and Tributosaurus are made up of members of Sonic Voodoo, so those are obvious. The Bish and Pete Shukoff/Nice Peter and Blissfield were all discovered when they were on the bill with The Ghettobillies. Even Kelly Hogan I knew from Neko Case, who I knew from when Sonic Voodoo's original bass player Tom Ray went on tour with her. A case could be made for The J. Davis Trio not being related, but again it was a band that Tonya introduced me to.
14. While 1999 was a great year for movies, and American Beauty and Being John Malkovich are a couple of my favorite movies, I think that Topsy-Turvy has become my favorite movie for that year.
15. I have a crush on Meg White. Also, I love The White Stripes. A lot. They're probably my favorite mainstream band.
16. If I could go anywhere in the world, and the location of friends didn't factor in, I'd go to London. Luckily, I DO have friends there!
17. My biggest fear, you ask? Growing old alone, which is what I'm doing now, but I'm still pretty young.
18. If I could have lunch with five celebrities, it'd be Ricky Jay, Zooey Deschanel, Reiner Knizia (I'm using the term celebrity loosely, since maybe five people on my flist know who that is), Hugh Laurie, and Steve Yzerman. Only one girl so I didn't have to flirt with several. Also, I'll think of better people in five minutes. Also also, I'd get them all to sign bears for laughingirl's Breast Cancer fundraising auction.
19. The pet I took my name from, Joey the Beagle, I remember only from a photograph of us together. It was the cutest picture ever, but it seems to have been lost.
20. I'm HORRIBLE at keeping in touch with people from my past.

I hate the way that Firefox puts spaces between list items. It means that I have to go through and manually remove the carriage returns from each line.

FUCK! The Ghettobillies are finally back in the states, and they're playing next Thursday, when I'll be on the road. Fuck fuck fuck. Looks like Oct. 20th is the next Chicago gig, though don't think I won't consider driving to Michigan City IN for the Oct. 7th show.