19 January 2008

Factoid Fifteen

Okay, I'm calling the trademark attorney next week - I think "vacation underwear" may be intellectual property to which I need to make a claim.

Slouching Mom thought #10 wasn't about me, that it was not about me. But I disagree, because one summer I actually asked my brother, who was working as a kitchen flunky at a local yacht club, to get me a job as a waitress there and he refused because he thought that I would have been a terrible waitress, about which he's right.

And anyway, it does tell you something about me - in the same way that the statement "I don't have brown eyes" tells you something about me. I remember once having an argument with someone about television and the Nielsen ratings - a hypothetical argument, that is. He thought that if you received a Nielsen questionnaire, but that you never watched television, you shouldn't return the questionnaire because it would skew the ratings - taking the position that the questionnaire was about what you were watching, not whether you were watching. I thought (still do) the opposite: returning the blank form indicating that you'd watched nothing was equally about what you were watching, that is, nothing.

Anyway, here's a fifteenth factoid, for Slouchy, ever so tangentially related to that #10:
  1. At the end of the summer of 1975, in sailing class at a different local yacht club, I received an award for "Best Intermediary". They meant "Best Intermediate", as in the level I was sailing at, but someone got it wrong. I have an engraved silverplate bowl to show for it.

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:51 PM

    I'm with you on the Nielsen thing. If nothing on tv has enticed your viewing, it counts.

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  2. I guess, if I really think about it (something hard for me lately), I'd say that number ten only became a fact about you when you qualified it by describing why/how the statement spoke to something about your personality.

    But I was a philosophy major in college, so disregard these ramblings if they're too, erhm, meta. Or anal. Take your pick.

    Thanks for the extra fact. I like to squeeze as much out of my friends as possible, LOL!

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  3. I've never been a waitress either. Probably would've been a terrible one as well because I am clumsy. But I did work at a fast food joint. My first job in the US, as a matter of fact.

    Sailing. I never learned properly. I took one course in college, so that I could have access to the boathose and could get a dinghy for my dad when he visited-- he used to build and race cats.

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  4. Actually, I liked #10. I've been a waitress (unfortunately). Most people I know have been waitresses at some point. It's interesting that you've never done this.

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  5. You are clearly the best intermediary.

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  6. It's hard to be a good intermediary, I'd like an award for that.

    I too have never been a waitress (hostess yes, but that's totally easier).

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  7. Now I'm thinking I should do a whole list of non-facts about me. But, the internets being what they are, undoubtedly someone else has already done this. Most likely, you, Magpie.

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  8. I love it! That bowl would be one of my most prized possessions. I would serve cocktail nuts in it, I think.

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