Ten Things I've Done That You (Possibly) Haven't*

[eurydicebound]

*twinfalcon, this does not apply to you.

1) Been a National Merit Scholar and gotten a free ride to college.
2) Proceeded to blow that free ride in a year and a half.
3) Stood in the jail cell that once held Geronimo.
4) Been told by John Rhys-Davies that you should have more children.
5) Held a yearly New Years Party and LARP for online game players from across the US and abroad (who actually showed up).
6) Drove off a bridge (well, missed the bridge entirely, actually) and lived to tell about it with little more than a scratch.
7) Drove 200 miles to show up at a friend's party as a surprise, just because.
8) Wore a leather biker jacket to a restaurant in downtown Provo and lived to tell about it.
9) Accidentally predicted my husband a year before I met him or had even heard of him, including first name, town of origin, rough size/height, academic strengths, and general appearance (hair/eye color).
10) Attended an Asatru wedding and being ceremonially annointed.

Comments

[tfbretz.livejournal.com]

I think a certain red girl shares #1 and possibly #2 with you.

[adamdray.livejournal.com]

I blew my college scholarships in a year and a half.

I also have thrown a party (annual now) for FiranMUX, complete with LARP. Memorial Day (once on Fourth of July instead), not NYE. =)

[anaka.livejournal.com]

Well, damn. You don't want to know how long it took me to come up with these either. There is nothing unique that I have done under the sun. *weep*

[anaka.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I'm not the least bit surprised, actually. National Merits turn up in the oddest places.

[brannonb.livejournal.com]

Now you have to post the Rhys-Davies story. I'm curious.

[trollbabe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was a National Merit scholar too. The first year it stopped being good for any scholarship money, alas.

[anaka.livejournal.com]

Mine was Elycon, held for Elysium (the second WoD MUSH way back in the day). It was set in OKC, where we lived at the time, and I helped administrate and build the place in at least one of its incarnations, so a friend talked me into hosting a New Years party. I did it for five years, roughly the life of the place, including tours of the grid in RL and stuff like that.

That's cool that we both ended up doing similar things. :)

[anaka.livejournal.com]

It's actually not all that remarkable, it just makes a good sound bite.

At Origins a couple of years ago, I had been talking with another game designer who had his kids there. He'd managed some face time with Rhys Davies during another autograph session somewhere else the year before, and saw the man as he passed by. on his way somewhere. Said guy actually called out to Rhys-Davies and said hello, then proceeded to do the "you won't remember me, but...." and mentioned they'd talked about his kids. He pointed to his daughter playing across the way. R-D said that his son was grown, but that he'd very much enjoyed it when his kids were young. He then turned to me and asked if I had kids, and I owned that I did, two boys. He then smiled and told me that I hoshould have more children , as they were a great gift. And then he had to be going to get to his next interview/autograph session/wherever he had to be and, just like that, he was gone.

[anaka.livejournal.com]

At the luncheon they held for us to take pictures and get the alums to give the school more money, a group of us discussed the unlikely celebrity we now found ourselves in and decided that we were chosen because we knew how to read, as that was the only distinguishing feature any of us could think of required to do well on that test.

Looking back on it, I can't say we were entirely wrong.

[iavasthul.livejournal.com]

1) Nope
2) Similar. Blew scholarships in a year and a half. Not the same, however.
3) Nope
4) Nope. And you MUST post this story in it's entirety
5) Nope.
6) Spun into a ditch in a totalled car with no mark whatever. Never drove off a bridge.
7) Done. This incident makes me wonder why Becky stayed with me afterwards, but I digress...
8) Wore a leather blazer, blue velvet shirt, baggy black jeans, celtic cross earring and long, dyed hair to Provo. And lived. Obviously. (Actually I didn't! I'm posting from beyond the grave! Booooooo!)
9) Nope.
10) Done.

So depending on how you count it, I have 3 on you.

[anaka.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, but my #8 was done as a social experiment. Yours was because that largely WAS your wardrobe at the time. So nyeah, then. Now if you'd have shown up in the kilt, THAT would have been something. :)

Most of these stories you've heard anyway, since you practically lived in my house for a year. *grin*

[eynowd.livejournal.com]

Number 9 sounds like an interesting story. Do tell :)

[metallian.livejournal.com]

Where's Provo and why was wearing a leather biker jacket a bad thing to do there?

[anaka.livejournal.com]

Provo/Orem, Utah is a moderate-sized town about an hour out of Salt Lake. It is the home to Robert Redford's Sundance rance (actually in the mountains outside of town), the Osmond Family, Brigham Young University, and one of the largest concentrations of Mormon faith anywhere. I had gone there with a friend to visit her family. Now, I had heard this town tended toward the culturally monotone, but I wanted to test a theory. I took the jacket along as a part of that test.

Basically, the family wanted to take us out to dinner, so we went to a nice restaurant that was apparently very popular. I was dressed in nice, vaguely preppy clothes.. I think pink figured into the shirt, worn with slacks or nice jeans, I don't remember which. I carried the coat in sort of inside out, so it just looked like a regular jacket. On the way in, everyone was smiling and friendly... I could make eye contact with whoever I wanted, and it was all very welcoming. At the end of the meal, though, I put the jacket on and got up to visit the restrooms. Suddenly I couldn't make eye contact with a single person, even though the rest of my outfit and demeanor remained unchanged. The same thing held true on the way back to the table, and then out of the restaurant. More than one parent surreptitiously herded their children away from me as I passed by. No one spoke to me at all, or returned my polite greetings (my hosts excluded, of course).

It was as though I'd ceased to exist in a way. I saw immediately that it would be highly uncomfortable to live there and not "fit in." While the rest of my stay was quite nice, I was ready to go home again. It's a nice enough place to visit, but enough money does not exist to pay me to live there.

[(Anonymous)]

7) Drove 200 miles to show up at a friend's party as a surprise, just because.

I drove about this distance once to deliver a letter when I was out of stamps. It was a weekend, so the post office was closed, and stamps weren't readily available in supermarkets and variety stores in those days.

The remarkable thing was that the recipient wasn't a girlfriend, so there was no hormonal explanation for the trip.

Spike Y Jones

[metallian.livejournal.com]

That's slightly terrifying. More evidence that there are some places to which we should really not consider moving...