1. What's your worst alcohol related experience?
Senior year of high school. Last day before second semester started. A bunch of friends and I procured alcohol for a final day of partying. Not beer, which was our usual, but actual alcohol. We each had our own bottle. Mine was vodka, my preferred "grown up" alcohol. We spent the day at Chestnut Ridge Park toboganning and drinking. Towards the afternoon I was already well beyond inebriated and took a suggestion from one of my friends to try snorting the vodka up my nose. A good portion of the bottle was used in this manner. Much of the rest of the day and almost all of the evening is a blank. I remember trying to dive into a pile of snow. Unfortunately this was a pile left by the plows and was the consistency of granite. I believe that this was when I broke my nose and chipped a tooth. My only other clear memory was sitting in front of another friend's fireplace with a coal bucket in my lap while several people tried to keep me awake and tried to sober me up so they could bring me back home.

I was violently ill the next two days. I missed the first day of the new semester as there was no threat that my parents could issue that would get me out of my bed. The second day I was able to stand and walk slowly as long as I didn't move my head in any manner and they successfully compelled me to go to school. That was the longest and most horrible day of my scholastic career.

I haven't been able to smell vodka since then without becoming sick to my stomach.

2. What's the absolute dumbest thing you've done?
Well if #1 doesn't fit the bill for this question I don't know what would. Oh, wait. Yes I do.

A few years ago Lovely Wife and I went over to a friend's house for a little socializing. He had just completed a drop ceiling in his basement and was showing us around. I had been involved in the bulk of the basement remodelling a few years back so I was feeling a peculiar tweak because this latest improvement hadn't involved me. I was looking for some way to contribute (read: show I was still a real man who could do construction) and picked up on a bit of laminate that was peeling. I grabbed a staple gun to tack it back into place but couldn't squeeze the handle. Now I was going to be embarassed - I couldn't squeeze the damn handle of the staple gun with one hand. I grabbed the base of the staple gun in my left hand for leverage and was able to squeeze the incredibly hard draw and put a staple directly through my left middle finger.

I had not been able to squeeze the staple gun because it was one of the new style that has the action loaded at the opposite end from the traditional ones. I had been holding it backwards with my left hand firmly gripping the business end of the device.

I compounded my idiocy by playing macho man again and taking the staple out myself, with a pair of pliers. Unfortunately the staple has speared a ligament and I seriously messed up mister FU finger when I pulled it out. My stupidity netted me the most painful finger injury of my life (and I've had loads of them to compare to) and an embarrasing story that has haunted me ever since.

3. What is your biggest crossroad in life? That is, what choice, action, non-action most brought you to where you are instead of where you might have been?
Installing ICQ was the biggest single event that changed my life. It blew and I quickly tired of it and the general scumbags that used it but I never got around to uninstalling it. I never bothered to take it out of startup either so I was online and available for chat when a totally random chat request from Lovely Stranger picked me. That first chat led to emails then to phone calls then to a visit. Lovely Stranger then became Lovely Wife and we now have three kids. If I hadn't played with ICQ back in '96 my life would be totally and completely different right now.

4. Who are your favorite bloggers and why?
The short list is hard to come up with but I'll settle on Venomous Kate, Ryan Rhodes and Jim Lileks. Ryan and Jim are excellent writers (makes sense because they are writers professionally) who tell engaging stories, often with a wry or sardonic viewpoint. I love wry and sardonic. Kate's blog has everything I need. She does commentary, fun, irony, sarcasm and life with incredible wit and precision. Plus at least half of my traffic comes from her site.

What all three have in common is a total and complete lack of tollerance for bullshit and that's a cornerstone of my own life.

5. What's your best example of ironic justice?
Something I'd like to have happen or something that actually did happen? If it's the first then I'd have to say Rick Santorum's autopsy revealing the cause of death as a rabid impacted gerbil.

6. Which is more futile, the war on drugs or the war on terrorism?
The war on drugs, for its inanity and base stupidity. We're talking about a "conflict" where we have complete control over the rules and how the game is played and we can't win it. Here's a clue for any legislative types that might be reading: Change the Rules! Then go buy The Phoenix Solution by Vince Bugliosi and do what he tells you to. The "war" on drugs would be over in 3 years.

7. How many copies of the Sobig worm have you had to delete this week? (round off to the nearest hundred thousand if you like)
Only 5. Of course I haven't yet checked my public address.

Nope, none there.

Oops. Just got another one.

And one more.