Time once again for Melanie’s Share Your World!

What would be the worst “buy one get one free” sale of all time? I saw a bumper sticker once that said "FREE TIBET!" and underneath, in small letters, "with purchase of Tibet of equal or greater value." I dunno, maybe a skunk?

Have you ever gotten a really bad haircut? Do share! Mom told me that she tried to cut my hair once and I ended up wearing a hat for a month.

The worst one I can remember: After Mary and I got married, we lived in the building she grew up in (it was a family building). Usually I got my hair cut in downtown Chicago because I worked there, then when I got a job away from downtown (working third shift) I kept going to the same barber (the train I took to and from work went through downtown). This one time, though, I needed a haircut, and decided to try the barber my father-in-law went to in the neighborhood. He was one of these old-fashioned barbers that talked the whole time you were in the chair. Being half asleep because I was working nights, I didn’t pay much attention when he turned the chair to show me his handiwork, so I didn’t know how bad it looked until I got home and Mary said, "My God, what did he do to your hair?" The guy didn’t leave enough hair that I could go to my guy and have him fix it. I let my hair grow for a couple of months before I went back to my barber, and he was like "what butcher did this to you?" I made Bill Gates look good…

Isn’t Disney Land and Disney World (and all the variants) just a people trap operated by a mouse? I suppose you could say that, though the mouse has been downplayed in recent years. It’s hard to say what the Disney corporation has become in the last few years, but something tells me Walt wouldn’t be pleased.

What if Batman got bitten by a vampire? What would happen? The vampire would die (again), because Batman’s tougher than vampires.

What do you want your final words to be if you could choose? "Let’s order a pizza!"

Time once again for Share Your World! Melanie has everything you need to participate. So, without further ado…

Do you think psychic abilities exist? Sure, though I don’t know anyone who has them.

How would you describe peanut butter to someone who didn’t know what it was? Give them a spoonful of it and let them experience it for themselves.

Why does an octopus squirt ink? Because he can’t write.

Who are two of today’s greatest entertainers in your opinion? (can be actors, musicians, singers etc) Right this instant? Chris Standring and The Avalon Jazz Band.

Please feel free to share a moment of gratitude in your life! I’m grateful that my Internet service has been restored…

It’s Share Your World time again!

Go see Melanie for the rules, prompts/questions, pingbacks, and artwork.

What is knowledge? The set that includes things you know that no one else does, things someone else knows that you don’t, things that you and others know about, and things that no one knows anything about.

How do you define consciousness (self awareness)? I decided to ask The Free Dictionary, and this was one of the things it said: "A sense of one’s personal or collective identity, including the attitudes, beliefs, and sensitivities held by or considered characteristic of an individual or group." Which I thought was a BS answer, specifically the "considered characteristic of an individual or group." Considered by whom, exactly? And what’s this "collective" identity? I’m me, regardless of what anyone ascribes to me as "characteristic." That’s the entire problem with this world today, people making assumptions about other people based on things that don’t have a rat’s ass to do with who that person is as an individual. To put it another way: I have pale skin and a penis, but any similarity between me and anyone else with pale skin and a penis is entirely coincidental. And I’d better get off this soapbox before I fall off.

Is it possible to prove that other people besides yourself have consciousness? In light of what I just said? No. Maybe they do and I don’t. Did you ever think of that?

Would you be able to tell if time had been altered in some way? Einstein said that time was invented to keep everything from happening all at once. Then there’s this:

Time gets altered all the time, with a "leap second" inserted into the day whenever it’s determined we need an extra second to keep our clocks in sync with what the astronomers say the time should be. And, of course, we have Daylight Saving Time and standard time, both of which are alterations in time. And most of this happens on more or less a schedule, without anyone noticing. Particularly me…

Do you like potato chips? I don’t hate them and eat them if they’re in the house, but I prefer pretzels. My favorite chips are barbecue flavored, followed by potato flavored (i.e. original flavor).

And, with that, I’m outta here…

It’s another Monday, and time for another installment of Share! Your! World!

As always,Melanie has the prompts, the rules, the artwork, and the pingbacks, so go see her at the link in this sentence. Here we go…

If not now, then when? No sooner than later, unless it can be delayed indefinitely. My motto is "Never put off until tomorrow what you can put off indefinitely."

Can you describe your life in a six-word sentence? "Just one damn thing after another."

Do you remember that thing people used to say, about how you swallow eight spiders a year while you sleep? It’s not true, but do you think you’ve ever swallowed any? What bug do you think you’ve eaten the most of by accident? My father once told me that in every person’s lifetime, they’ll eat a peck of dirt (and before you go look it up, a peck is two dry gallons, or 8.81 liters). Included in that peck is probably more than a little bug poop. But that wasn’t what you asked about.

I worked at a commercial bakery, where we made cracker meal to be used as breader for fish and chicken. We used a lot of flour from multiple sources, and would send a sample of flour to a laboratory who would test it for "particulate matter," which in this case means "parts of bugs that were milled along with the flour." There’s really nothing the mills can do about it, since wheat is grown outside, where the bugs are, and as it’s being harvested bugs will get harvested along with it. The mills do their best to eliminate the bugs, but a few still get through. We’d get a report back from the lab that told us how many legs, antennae, heads, thoraxes etc. were found. So, if you’ve eaten wheat, you’ve eaten bug parts, too. Here, from an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon consoles Penny, who among other things has eaten a fly…

What’s the best approach to resolving conflict? The best solution to conflict is distance. If you’re one of the combatants, walk away. If you know one of the combatants, put them in your car and take them home, or send them home in their own car. If you know none of the combatants, walk away,

Gratitude Section I had a crowned tooth that had decay in it, so I went to the dentist today to have it taken care of. He pulled the crown off, dealt with the decay, then made a new crown while I waited and installed it. I was there for three hours, but I don’t have to go back.

Hey kids, what time is it?

No, it’s Share Your World time! Melanie has the questions and everything at her blog. So, let’s get going…

How well do you know your next-door neighbors? Do you like them? I don’t think we know either couple very well, but we know them to say "hi." On one side, we have a couple that runs the car wash near us. They leave early in the morning and come home late at night. Their son plays bass guitar and we hear him practicing, but it doesn’t bother me, since I used to play bass guitar, too. The couple on the other side is very nice: he works in a wine store, she’s a teacher, their daughter is at UGA and is a swimmer. He’s always good about helping Mary when she needs to wrestle the lawn mower into the van so Mary can take it to be serviced. One day I fell and couldn’t get up, and the daughter came and helped Mary get me back on my feet. Like I said, she’s a swimmer and has the muscles to prove it.

Do you have a full length mirror? No.

Do you shave every day or do you like the ‘stubble’ look, or a beard? I have a beard. I grew it about six years ago when I got tired of shaving. When I started shaving, I used a safety razor with a blade, and an injector razor that I really liked, but couldn’t get the blades, so I started using the plastic ones. After years of using those, they weren’t sharp enough, so I tried to go back to a safety razor, and cut myself pretty badly, because I had forgotten how to use one and I was trying to do it left-handed because, you know, stroke. Finally I said "the hell with it) and grew a beard.

How many items of clothing are in your bedroom (or closet) and not hung up? I don’t have any clothes that I actually have to hang up any more. We fold them and put them in a dresser drawer.

Do you have a happy place? Of course: Home Sweet Home.