I’d like to thank the Academy…
And my Mum.
(The rest of you can bugger off).
No! Wait! Just kidding. I’m practicing my speech for the next time I win an award. I wasn’t quite prepared this time y’see, as I had no idea anyone was actually reading my blog, much less considering giving me one. An award, I mean.
So! I am now the proud recipient of the ‘Versatile Blogger Award’!
I think I deserve it. My blog might be rubbish, but I am very versatile. Not only am I waterproof, you can even wear me inside out and I’m a totally different colour…
This is the first award of any kind I’ve won since my university classmates voted me ‘Person Most Likely To End Up In Prison For Public Nudity’. Oh, I came close to winning a prize for outstanding customer service whilst working in the ski fields in New Zealand, only to be pipped at the post by a monosyllabic moron who only knew three words that weren’t ‘fuck’.
According to the rules of the ‘Versatile Blogger Award’, I must first thank the person who gave me one. (Sorry, did I do that joke already? Ah well, Think of it as a double double-entendre.)
Lara Schiffbauer, step forward and be recognized! Thank-you very much for noticing my blog, and for liking it, and for telling others about it. Gratitude is very important in my life – I am one of the luckiest beings on the planet and am a big believer in thanking everyone and everything for the roles they play in that. It’s too easy to take it all for granted, the friends, the family, the millionaire lifestyle I enjoy (okay, that last is a bit of a lie). I try not to. So thank-you.
Lara blogs about the trials and tribulations of becoming an author over at: Motivation For Creation
Next I must tell you all seven strange things about me… Hm. Not smiling so much now, are we? Well, even though you didn’t ask for it directly, here it comes:
Seven Things I Hate About Me:
1) I can’t tell my left from my right. At all. I used to hold my hand up to make an ‘L’ shape, until I discovered that they both do this, depending on whether the palm or the back of the hand is facing forward. Bit of a bugger, I thought. Go on – try it! Confused? Why yes, yes I am.
2) I can’t cook. At all. I can manage beans-on-toast for one, but if you request cheese on top – something is going to get burned. I can, however, swear like the best chefs in the business.
3) I have no sense of balance. At all. I’m doing classes at the gym 5 or 6 days a week now and inevitably, in every class there comes the stand-on-one leg bit. Whether trying to kick, step or lift weights I always do the exact same impression of a loose windmill being demolished by a bulldozer.
4) Cars scare the crap out of me! True story. Not the driving of them – though I only learned to do that for the first time, aged 33, in November last year (and I haven’t driven since). No, what scares me about cars is how fragile they are. We’re driving alone (okay, the missis is chauffeuring me) and I hear a squeak. “Oh crap!” I think. “Is that squeak getting louder? I think it is… Oh God. Is that a $100-to-repair squeak? Or a $1,000 squeak? And how will I know the difference if the mechanic tries to pull a fast one… and… oh, SHIT! That knocking sound wasn’t there before…” Yes, unusually for a bloke, I am a paranoid wreck around anything with an engine.
5) I’m a perfectionist – about everything. Unfortunately I am also crap at most things, which leads to a rather ridiculous situation where I do something quite badly, over and over again, desperate to improve it yet not actually getting any better. See my book by way of an example.
6) I get obsessed with odd things. For example, I WILL turn a perfect back-flip if it’s the last thing I do. Ask anyone who’s seen me turn a back-flip, and you’ll get one of two opinions; ‘It’ll take him the rest of his life to figure it out anyway’, or ‘if he doesn’t stop trying soon it probably will be the last thing he does.’ My back just doesn’t bend that way it seems – but why the hell would I let that stop me ? :0)
7) I like being naked. Just thought I’d put it out there, for any new readers that have yet to suffer through such an ordeal. I love the feel of being naked. I read in the nude. I’d cook in the nude, if I could cook. I am also impossible to embarrass and a self-confessed exhibitionist, which makes life difficult for everyone around me – especially when I try to convince them to get naked too. Personally I can’t see a downside – except the fairly high probability that I will end up in prison at some stage – and prison is not a great place for someone who likes to be naked…
8) DO’H! There isn’t supposed to be an ‘8’. But then I wouldn’t have time to tell you all that I only wear children’s sunglasses…
So there we go! All done for now – and I would like to nominate the following AWESOME bloggers for this reward, though doubtless they all already have it because, well, they’re AWESOME!
Here we go:
David Gaughran – In the last six months his name has become synonymous with… ah hell, what’s the word for ‘knows absolutely everything about self-publishing-before-it-happens’? There isn’t one? Right, well I think I’ll call it a ‘Gaughran’. Trips off the tongue quite well, that. Anyway, READ HIM.
Dave and Deb of ThePlanetD – fantastic adventurers with great posts, and I’d love to hear 7 random things about them! I can already tell you one though – they’re going to ANTARTICA! The lucky buggers.
The Displaced Nation – because these guys (and gals) RULE! Still blogging every week day, they recently asked me for a post about healthy eating. BWAH HA HA HA HA HAAA!!!! Commissioning an essay on dietary goodness from a guy who lives entirely on junk food… If that’s not versatile I don’t know what is!
Trailing Trekker’s Travels – Kathy Schmidt works harder on her blog than almost anyone I know, pushing out post after post of fascinating adventures. I don’t have the energy to do half the crazy stuff she does, much less write about it. Go have a look now!
Dan’s Adventures – I’ve just started following what Dan is up to – check out his recent post to see that he’s hand one hell of a year! And, poor sod, he spent some of it in Wales… :0) More to come in 2012 apparently. Stay tuned!
So there we go. Fun and foolishness! Your homework is to tell me at least one strange thing about yourself in the comments section – no point me being the only one baring my soul now, is there?
Bring it on!
Love
Tony
16 thoughts on “I’m a Versatile Little Blogger!”
Thanks dude…. I’ll wear my badge with pride (seriously, I’m going to print it out and wear it)
Hang on! Didn’t you see the note by the door? This is a sarcasm-free zone here…
Cheers Dan! Hope I didn’t… y’know, embaress you at all :0)
Tony
Wow – you put my picture up! That’s more recognition than I’ve ever gotten, anywhere! You are certainly welcome for the award – I hope some of the people who follow me come over here, because I really think they’d love your posts! And if Dan does print it out and wear it, I think there needs to be a photo involved 😉
We should all print it out and wear it. We could be like some kind of club… we just need a secret handshake! Thanks Lara!
haha awesome as always Tony! Congrats on the award you versatile blogger you!
And lol about the left from right thing … still remember that from our flatting days at good old wak road! lol Loving the sunglasses too (spidey definitely the best) and as for the back flip … when I get well, it’s on my mission list too … I’ll race you! (though if I’m sick too much longer you’ll have had waaaaaay to much of a headstart for it to be fair haha)
Yeah, I could DO a backflip if I realy wanted to… *Crack! Crunch!* ‘ARRRGhhhh!!!’
Yeah, we’ll get there… perhaps by wheelchair age. I’ve seen a youtube video of a guy pulling off this particular stunt, tho I think he may be the only one in the world!
Hey, at least on my wheelchair I can have indicators!!!
Congrats on your Award – I wish anyone had ever deigned to call me versatile! As my homework I will reveal one strange thing about me: I have an unnatural obsession with shiny and colourful things that borders on the obsessive. I’m fairly certain I was a magpie in a former life. One more thing I will say is that I– OOOHH SHINY! LOOK AT THE PRETTY BRIGHT COLOURS! Oh, and, I’m easily distracted.
Dude, anyone who can take pie and mash and baked beans, and turn it into a sandwich, is a master of versatility! That you can do it without pausing for breath, whilst talking none-stop about three different subkects simultaneously, is a wonder to behold. And one you inherited from Mum. I’d just hate to be sat inbetween you at lunch time on a big news day… :0)
Tony,
Congrats on the award! Your eight fun facts have me seriously contemplating whether England is the source of streaking. Of course, I don’t know if you are British…Just saw your twitter profile that you currently live in England…and I suppose blaming your ancestors for something like streaking is a bit rude on my part. Anyhow, my semester in Lincolnshire had me convinced that my fellow Americans were the source of the ‘Naked Mile’ ritual, which happens day after day in the great birthplace of Newton and Thatcher… Not one British man or woman near that campus would admit to having done the naked mile. ‘Crazy Americans,’ they said. Now? You claim to enjoy being in the nude…and possibly, a UK ‘native’ is responsible for this, and I really hope so. The Naked Mile in January in England is not so pleasant, and thick sheets of ice may have been responsible for some of my dear friends injuring their naked behinds, so I was told, since obviously I can’t admit to engaging in something like the Naked Mile. I also know nothing about removing thorns from another woman’s rear who might have fallen on the ice and into a sticker bush, which of course had nothing to do with the multiple pints of Guiness in her system. I am a mother now, and fairly certain my five-year-old can use her mad google skills to find this blog. Yep, British people must be solely responsible for naked Americans walking and jogging in the nude night after night in the cold, pitch darkness of Grantham. Sounds good to me. Pretty sure you can’t get arrested for it there either. So I am told. By the way, please be careful doing that back flip. I would hate for one of the most entertaining bloggers I have stumbled upon in a long time to hurt himself. Take care. 🙂
Ha ha! So I take it you *weren’t* a part of the Crazy American Naked Mile then… :0)
I’ll admit to a fair bit of publicy nudity, but I don’t think I’ve managed a mile – there can’t be many places in England where you can walk for a mile without going straight past a police station…
Beer definately helps though. Anaesthetic against the cold, and the thorns too I guess? Ouch!
Hm, how to avoid my eventual offspring discovering what I’ve been up to and trying to emulate it? ‘Do as I say, NOT as I did’ will be the mantra in our house.
Aha! I know! Anonymous blogging! I just won’t let me real name get associated with the stupid things I’ve done…
Ah. Well, might be a bit late on that one.
Damn it!
Oh, if only it weren’t too late for the anonymous blogging!!! Good idea, even if there’s no chance for it now. There is a ‘mile’ by the way without police from the gated entrance of Harlaxton College to the actual manor. This is in Grantham. Love your blogs!
Hm… might have to try that mile… it’d be a good place to sit with a video camera to get some classic Youtube clips too :0)
Tony, just wondered if you have perfected the backflip naked?? No need for photos!
Love the award winning blog, kind rgeards, Si
Hi Si! Somehow I always felt too vulnerable to try it naked… well, that and I need to be supported by a 70 year old Chinese man throughout the exercise, so that also put me off :0)
The rest of the gymnastics class being there wouldn’t bother me in the least though :0)
haha.. don’t worry bro i can’t cook either. although i do make a pretty mean bowl of campbell’s soup. good luck practicing those suicide.. err.. SOMER-saults.
(you know now that you mention it i can’t seem to tell my left from my right either.. cosmic)
It’s hard sometimes, being a guy, eh! People have all these expectations of us… new man, gourmet cook, able to tie shoelaces… I must be such a disappointment! Thanks God I got married, otherwise I’d never find anyone to take me!