Meme: Ten things I've done

[original_aj]

In approximate chronological order, even!
1: Been hailed as a hero (picture & everything) on the front page of my local paper.
2: Entered programs into a computer using punch cards and using punch tape.
3: Proposed the loyal toast after a dinner in the Officer's Mess in Edinburgh Castle.
4: Had Tom Robinson/ write "Tom Robinson was here *" on the outside of my jeans.
5: Duelled and composed a poem commenting on the duel simultaneously (a la Cyrano de Bergerac)
6: nickys (is that too smug?)
7: Won a tournament round with the first blow I threw.
8: Appeared briefly in Richard the Lionheart's armpit ( in this Ivanhoe adaptation )
9: Become a post-graduate student without ever having graduated.
10: Met an ex coffee smuggler.

Comments

[spudtater.livejournal.com]

What's #1 all about, then?

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

Long story. Short version is: When I was in Scouts the patrol I was in charge of got lost on the moors & benighted. We walked back down when it got light & met the mountain rescue & search parties getting ready to comb the hills for us. Not surprisingly the parents were a bit worried & someone told the local paper. Because I hadn't got anyone killed I was apparently the hero of the hour, although it was my navigational error which got us lost in the first place. There were mitigating circumstances though. I got no end of stick at school about it.

[calum]

2: Entered programs into a computer using punch cards and using punch tape.
Done that.. And using the front panel toggle switches on a PDP-11, too :)

3: Proposed the loyal toast after a dinner in the Officer's Mess in Edinburgh Castle.
No, but I have done it after a dinner in the Officer's Mess on a Royal Navy destroyer.

7: Won a tournament round with the first blow I threw.
Yes, but it was martial arts, rather than re-enactment.

10: Met an ex coffee smuggler.
Yes.. and he's now an ex-professional-gambler too.. :)

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

2: Ah, I wasn't sure whether there was anyone old enough to have done that.

3: Doesn't count - the castle doesn't float!

7: Cool - it's pretty rare that one. In my case it was pure luck - for some reason my opponant just didn't react to what I thought was just an attempt to find out how fast he was.
10: I thought I was safe on that one! Where was yours smuggling? Mine was from Portugal to Spain after the Spanish civil war.

[calum]

3. I think thats a pedantic doesnt count, but.. ;)

7. In my case, it was an error by opponent too. he stepped forward onto my initial punch in a touch-contact bout, and managed to wind himself so badly he couldnt continue.

10. Mine was in the Med, somewhere.. I think from Africa to Spain, or something similar. Gibraltar was involved, I know that. Spain was the destination though.

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

3 Yes, well..... :)

7 Thinking about it there was also the time that someone ran right onto the end of my sword 'cos he was looking at the flag behind me. I didn't even swing a blow at him!

[rdi.livejournal.com]

Re #4: had I been slightly more astute and less fatigued, I could have had Tom Robinson on the inside of my jeans.

Re #6: I briefly wondered if I could say the same for my partner then realised that no, I couldn't. Such is the life of the polyamous bisexual :-)

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

4: I suspect that I could say the exact reverse, actually! He's a nice bloke though. I really wanted to put "Seen Tom Robinson mime along to War Baby because the Chambers Street license meant he couldn't actually play live, including doing the Saxophone solo on a empty wine bottle." But zotz was with me that night....
6: I hadn't actually considered that aspect - it was more a joke after the reactions to the "If I woke up with you" meme the other day!

[calum]

4: I suspect that I could say the exact reverse, actually! He's a nice bloke though. I really wanted to put "Seen Tom Robinson mime along to War Baby because the Chambers Street license meant he couldn't actually play live, including doing the Saxophone solo on a empty wine bottle." But zotz was with me that night....

I was there that night too :)

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

Cool. That'd be a year or two before I actually met you though, I think.

[rdi.livejournal.com]

ISTR seeing you in those jeans subsequently, now I stop to think about it.

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

That'd be a long time ago. It must be 15 years or so since I last wore them.

[rdi.livejournal.com]

It's 12 and a bit since I left Edinburgh, so that's about the right time frame.

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

Certainly sounds plausible.

[tzuraster.livejournal.com]

4: My first thought was: "so what did he write on the _inside_?"

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

:)