Okay, for the two people reading this who haven’t seen it explained on 100 other websites in the last couple months, Blogger Insider pairs you up with a random blog author every couple weeks. You ask each other 10 to 15 questions and post your answers to their questions on your web site, and vice versa.

Pardue Duran at the Daily Vexation weblog was my first partner, and here’s the questions she sent me, and my answers.

1. I saw that your email footer is a quote from Aristotle about “kids today.” Do you believe that times never really change? Do you think that today is any less or more violent/peaceful than any era past?

[Most of you have seen this quote, so I won’t repeat it here.]

I think that times change to an extent: life expands, meaning that every generation has broader horizons, but the basic problems remain the same: people complain about the new generation, the new generation complains they aren’t understood.

We still have the same types of diseases we always have: the black plague(s) are gone, so what? We have Aids — we still have our killing epidemics.

People converse with email instead of writing epistolary novels back and forth. Again, no difference, except for the speed of the thing.

Life is faster. In my opinion, not that different.

2. Have you ever hunted for your food? What kind, and how?

Coming as I do from a rural background, hunting was something that happened regularly during my youth. Some of it was pest control: coyotes are always ‘in season’ in South Dakota, as are gophers and so forth.

As for food animals, I’ve hunted pheasants (one of my favorite birds, flying or cooked), dove, quail, grouse, and deer. I prefer bird hunting, because contrary to what folks who don’t hunt think, it is challenging to hit a small, fast, flying object with a shotgun (accurate range out to about 30 yards). I honestly miss being back in South Dakota during pheasant season.

If I never hunt deer again, well, that’s alright.

3. I find it really hard to find good funny movies, can you suggest any that you’ve found laughing-out-loud funny?

Oh Brother, Where are Thou had it’s moments, I suppose. I remember laughing hard enough to hurt myself watching Something About Mary, but it’s just painful to me now.

Hudson Hawk is one of my all time funny-faves. The Whole Nine Yards is also great.

I think most movies that set out to be funny try too hard. Some of the best laughs I’ve had have been in movies where ‘comedy’ is only part of the focus, or none at all.

As I’m writing this, I’m wracking my brain to think of all the movies my friends and I quote in casual conversation on a daily basis, but I’m drawing a complete blank.

Tremors is really good b-movie schtick. Grosse Pointe Blank is the sort of high school reunion I’d want.

4. I like how you say that you just love “music”, without categorizing it. What is your earliest, or strongest, musical memory?

Well, my strongest memory is probably something to do with playing my sax when I was in high school and college.

My earliest (clear) memory is in my parent’s house. My sister and I would play my parent’s double-album of Neil Diamonds “Hot August Nights” live recording. That guy could rock. We’d dance to that thing for hours. I still respond at an almost cellular level when I hear one of those songs.

5. Describe some wild and crazy things you’ve done.

One time in college (many of my stories of stupidity start this way), I and my friend were bored. The college town lies about 10 miles off the interstate, and out next to the exit, there was (at the time) a HUGE display lot of cement lawn ornaments, both painted and DIY. The whole place was surrounded by a chainlink fence topped with barbed wire.

Long story short(er), we drove out and commandoed the place. I still have this painted cement frog that looks like it’s drunk, sitting on my desk here at the house. It’s supposed to be a planter, I think. I use it to hold pens.

That was over seven years ago, and the business is gone now, so I suppose that story’s safe.

6. Do you believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial life? Demons? Ghosts?

I believe without hesitation that there is, was, and will continue to develop intelligent life both elsewhere in the universe, and here on earth. I don’t think we’re meant to be the only sentient species on the planet — we’re just the first, and that it lies on us to show those that follow behind us how to achieve some measure of enlightment without destroying ourselves, our world, and those we are supposed to help.

So far, we haven’t actively destroyed any of those things, but we’re doing a hell of a good job doing it passively. I’d give us a D.

As for the rest of the universe, I think the odds might be slightly tilted against space-faring races because they all have to overcome the same barriers we must, to keep from wiping the planet clear. I’m not enough of a pessimist to claim that no one’s ever succeeded.

Ghosts and demons. No, I don’t think I do. I believe in the metaphor they represent, maybe.

7. What is your favorite painting, and why? Sculpture?

I really like the (largely) Dutch character portraits done during the era when the nobility were supplanting nobility in Europe. Very realistic, and since the subjects were merchants, not nobility, and wanted accuracy (usually) over pomp, the faces and people shown are so very interesting. I really prefer realistic character pieces over a lot of other art.

To quote Judd Winnick, the vast majority of abstract art is mule cum.

Is there a famous artist that YOU think should be working at the local Stop-n-Go?

Andy Warhol. Why the hell do people find him interesting?

8. Do any of your family members read your blog? Their opinions on it?

My sister does. I gather she thinks I’m funny. She knows me very well, and says she can hear my voice when she reads me. Since we live far from each other, I suppose that helps a little.

9. Top five favorite films? (sorry if you’ve already made mention on your site)

Oh sweet harmony. Lesse. My Desert Island Picks (defined as ‘what I would want to watch over and over’):

Dark City
Lord of the Rings (sue me, it kicks ass)
Groundhog Day (there’s one for your all-time funny movies)
The Star Wars Classic Trilogy, with only the Special Edition changes that didn’t suck. (Yes, I consider that one movie.)
Grosse Pointe Blank

10. Are you a dreamer (the sleep kind of dreaming)? If so, what is one of your earliest dreams? Have you ever had recurring dreams?

I had a recurring nightmare in my youth. I am on the tail of a bi-plane as it’s flying. There sometimes is, sometimes isn’t a pilot. We are quite high up — high enough (in my mind) to parachute. Trailing behind the plane like one of those advertisement banners are about a half-dozen dark-brown boulders ranging from 20 to 5 feet in diameter, connected to the plane and themselves by a single, very thick, rope. I am crawling out along this rope and I have to undo the knots in front and back of each boulder, starting from the rearmost, with a very thin needle about five inches long.

Ugh. It still disturbs me. No idea why. My hands are sweating. Next question.

11. Tell me about some of your current writing projects (other than your blog). What kind of “day job” do you have? Do you ever have hopes of living entirely off your writing, or would you rather keep it separate from your means of employment?

I just started and finished writing a book in November, and finished up the second draft just before Christmas. I hope to have it declined by all the major publishing houses by the end of 2002 (it’s all about Falling Down, y’know.)

Making a living as a writer of almost any kind would be a sort of dream job for me. My current job, which I enjoy, is software and hardware trainer for a software design company. This is essentially teaching, which I enjoy tremendously. If I ever get around to it or I needed the money, I’d teach part time.

I suppose my ideal situation would be writing for a living, supplementing my income with teaching a few classes at a local University.

12. I see that you like to read books aloud --to yourself or to others? Do you skip long descriptive passages? What other books have you liked to read aloud, other than those you’re reading currently?

I read aloud to my wife and nephew (usually simultaneously). I think I do it rather well, and love doing all the voices and so forth. I read the first Harry Potter book to Justin, which prompted my wife (listening from the next room) to grab books two, three and four and read them. (This is particularly cool when you know that my wife really doesn’t like to read as a pasttime.)

I don’t skip anything, although I’ve been known to tweak particularly bad or weird phrasing. I use synonyms of words sometimes, to make the whole thing more understandable (some writers have elephantitis of the vocabulary).

Steven Brust’s stuff is a hoot to read aloud.

13. Any writers that you absolutely would refuse to read, because you find their style or subject so nauseating?

Yeah. The Thomas Covenant series, by Stephen R. Donaldson. I despise these books. I despise the publisher for letting them see print. I avoid Donaldson’s writings entirely, based off these books. What garbage.

14. Please describe a revelatory experience.

I don’t usually have epiphanies — my revelations sort of crawl out of the muck and slowly clean themselves off over the course of months, until they get to the point where they are recognizable as such.

One time, I realized as I was driving home that a character in a story I was working on had to be an imposter, and what that meant to the rest of the story, and that was such a HUGE deal… just so enormous, that I literally forgot to think about anything else — my brain went on autopilot and I drove back ‘home’ to my old aparment. I was out of the car, up three flights of stairs and staring at my key ring before I realized I didn’t have the key to that door anymore.

15. You say that you prefer living in the city now (is that city Denver?); do you have any advice or anecdotes for someone who might be leaving the city for country-living, and thinks that they will miss city-living?

I don’t live in Denver per se, but I do live in one of the suburbs.

I can never guess if someone would miss city-living. I would. Here’s my advice for someone heading for a ‘simpler’ place.

- Get everything done before 8pm. After 8pm, you are screwed. Everything useful is closed or two hours away.
- When ordering goods that your local vendors don’t carry (the list gets pretty long), realize that you are now a geographical oddity: 2 weeks from everywhere.
- You have no privacy. You will be discussed. People will form opinions about you before ever having spoken with or even seen you.
- Pay for the satellite tv hookup. Just do it.

Bonus question: Answer either one you prefer--
a) Do you think that it would be a good idea to initiate mandatory service, be it military or civic, for every American citizen once they reach a certain age?

Honestly, yes I do. I think 18 months between high school and higher education would help a lot of kids. Sure would have helped me.

Also, higher percentage of physically fit freshmen to oogle. Mmmmm.

b) Favorite Bukowski poem?

I don’t really like his poems as much as his short fiction, so there’s your answer to both. :)

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There, I’m done. My questions and her answers should be up over at her site in a couple days.