Liebster Award (Part 2 of 3)

On Saturday this blog was nominated for a Liebster Award by Dan Head. Now the Liebsters are a pay-it forward award that is about generating interest in blogs that others might not have found yet. Which is really awesome and right in my wheelhouse since I've spent the last year on projects like the Great Blog Roll Call and the Best Reads of the Week! 

The cool thing about the Liebsters is that just by being nominated it means that someone's reading and enjoying your blog. By participating in the process, you can pass that love along and help other bloggers find a readership too. 

Bloggers participate by:

1.) Posting ten things about themselves.

2.) Answering ten questions from the blog that nominated them.

3.) Nominating ten new blogs of their own, preferably with 200 members or less, and posing ten new questions to the new nominees.

A lot of bloggers tend to do all of these in one swoop, but I've got a two year old that just climbed on top of the bookcase and leapt off onto the dog. Priorities, man. Anyway, today I'm doing Dan's questions.

Dan Head's Questions

1.  What is your blog about, and why did you start it?

When I first started writing this blog I used to tell everyone that it was because my wife was about to break her neck from rolling her eyes every time that I started talking about Dungeons and Dragons. Over time though, the blog has become more about me than about the game. I talk about things in my own way, make fun of everything, and write short stories that make me happy.

2.  Did you serve in the military?  Why or why not?

No I did not and it was because I got caught up with this little split tail who promised me lots of naughty adventures between the sheets and anywhere else I wanted so long as I stayed around. I had lots of fun, but I should have joined the Air Force and had that fun all across the world.

3.  Are you an athlete?  What’s your favorite sport?

I played football, tennis, and cross-country hiked. I let all that go to the wayside when I started working but I'm trying to get back into shape so that I can have fun like that again. Oh, and my favorite sport is football.

4.  Name three authors that other people 
should spend more time reading.

Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Conor is the quite voice of Southern humor that pulls every facet of life together in her stories. At the same time as she tells you a story with a hysterical punchline she'll tell you about a woman with one leg who has it stolen. Her stories are the background to my childhood and cling to me like home baked cookies. 

William King

William King brought me into modern fiction when I had become convinced that there wasn't an author alive today who could move me half as well as the dead guys of yesterday. His novels have caught me completely off guard and launched my love for Warhammer and modern fiction. I can't say enough good things about the man.

Somerset Maugham

Somerset Maugham is the sort of stodgy voice that echos in your head when life is completely and terribly unfair. He's dour, arrogant, and absolutely wonderful. I'm slowly making my way through every book he's written and loving every minute of it.

5.  If you had to rename your blog, what would you call it?

So This is It, and Other Terrible Things by Charles Akins

6.  When you read comics, 
do you pay more attention to the writing or the art?

When I first started reading comics I was all about the art. Naturally I fell for unintelligable comics like Spawn and fooled myself into beliving that the babbling books were really just ahead of the curve. I've come of that and now spend my time following authors who can tell a great story. 

My current favorite is the Rat Queens. Best new comic I've read in twenty years.

7.  Marvel has had a string of hit movies, 
but DC has fallen behind.  
Besides Superman, Batman, and/or Wonder Woman, 
what DC superhero would you like to see in a movie?

I would love to see a Question movie. He's not the most impressive super hero out there, but he's unique. In a world where all the cats in capes increasingly look like the same guy there's something so refreshing about a hero who talks in riddles and listens to the city like it's a woman he's sure would make sense if he just listened long enough. Oh, and I'd pick Jamie Fox to star because he has the depth and range to play a hero who's considered crazed by much of the world.

8.  The game Dungeons and Dragons uses a set statistical block to describe Player-Character abilities on a scale of 3-18:

 -- Strength

 -- Intelligence

 -- Wisdom

 -- Dexterity

 -- Constitution

 -- Charisma

Using the attributes above, how would you rate yourself on a scale of 3-18, with 3 being incredibly feeble and 18 being amongst the best in the world.  If you were a D&D Character, would you be a Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, or Cleric?

I honestly hate questions that ask you to rate yourself. Your natural instict is to either rate yourself too high or too low. So instead I'll just tell you that I would be a cleric. I have the sort of iron will that has helped me break two addictions without help and that has made me overcome odds time and time again.

9.  The secret of your success is…?

Perseverance. Seriously trite sounding but the truth is that if you're ever going to become anything in life - whether you're talking about a bullshit blog or about being the President of a multi-billion dollar corporation - you have to stick with it.

10.  If you’re still in school, then what do you want to be when you grow up?  If you’re grown and working, what are you doing now?  How does that compare to what you thought you’d be doing back when you were a kid?

The only difference between where I wanted to be and where I am is that I haven't been out of the country yet. That will change soon enough. 

Liebster Award (Part 1 of 3)

On Saturday this blog was nominated for a Liebster Award by Dan Head. Now the Liebsters are a pay-it forward award that is about generating interest in blogs that others might not have found yet. Which is really awesome and right in my wheelhouse since I've spent the last year on projects like the Great Blog Roll Call and the Best Reads of the Week!

The cool thing about the Liebsters is that just by being nominated it means that someone's reading and enjoying your blog. By participating in the process, you can pass that love along and help other bloggers find a readership too. 

Bloggers participate by:

1.) Posting ten things about themselves.

2.) Answering ten questions from the blog that nominated them.

3.) Nominating ten new blogs of their own, preferably with 200 members or less, and posing ten new questions to the new nominees.

A lot of bloggers tend to do all of these in one swoop, but I've got a two year old hopped up on birthday cake who has a new train that sings songs I'm pretty sure the Devil wrote while he was on holiday. So I'm breaking it up into three posts.

10 Facts About Me

1.) I have given up three high paying jobs to help take care of my family. The first one I gave up so that my fiance, now my wife, wouldn't have to change schools from an in-state institution to an out-of-state one. The second job I gave up when I was in line for a major promotion so that she could take a job in Chattanooga, TN to be a teacher. The third one I gave up when I was in line for my second promotion at that job so that I could take care of my son when he was in poor health.

2.) In spite of the fact that I have grown up in the Southeastern United States, and have been shot at three times, I have never fired a gun and only held them on rare occasions.

3.) When I was thirteen years old we had a tornado dance around the outside of our house taking over a hundred trees out of our yard. It took me nearly fourteen years to stop being frightened every time a high wind storm would come by.

4.) I have joint damage on both my hands on my ring and middle fingers from the last factory I worked in. Before I learned how to get my equipment to do the work for me I, like most of the people working in the plant, would lift 48 kg (105.8 lbs) boxes by these straps on their tops. Only unlike most people I didn't want to do just enough to get by but to be the best in the factory. I would become the best putting most everyone else to shame - and they were shamed - but at the expense of my fingers. They're better than they were, but I still have days where I can barely straighten them out.

5.) Through High School and after I have won 15 first prizes in art. I foolishly stopped painting and drawing when I was in college because I listened to this crazy girl who kept telling me that I wasn't creative, or all that good. I don't know why I never looked at her and asked her, "If that's the case, then why did I always place higher than you?"

6.) I have fired forty employees over they years I've been a manager. You'll hear some people tell you that firing people is "fun" but they're full of shit. Firing people is a paperwork nightmare piled on top of heartache as the people you let go have families, car payments, and lives. It's never fun, but it is incredibly satisfying when they're stealing from you. 

7.) I have failed out of college. Though if you ask me about it I tend to refer to it as "parting ways." Consider it a Southern euphemism and not an obfuscation as I don't deny my failures, I just like the sound of "parting ways" better.

8.) I grew up seeing my Aunt every day of my life but as she grew older she developed Alzheimers. I watched her go from being a vibrant, and powerful woman, into an old woman who lost the ability to tell reality from her dreams. In the last year of her life I couldn't make it to her nursing home - I couldn't bear to see her as she had become. She died and I didn't get to say goodbye. That's my only regret in this life.

9.) I have an irrational hatred of elves. I don't know why but I'm working to overcome it.

10.) I threw a bully through a fence and into a blackberry patch when he was picking on a friend of mine. I left him there and went home afterwards. He never bothered my friend again and wouldn't stay in the same room with me from that day forward.