Hi all — sorry for such a late post. I know that many of you are used to finding the answers to last week smack dab at 12:00am EDT.  My apologies for those of you who are going through 19+ hours of withdrawal.

So — let’s hop to it!

1. What’s the correct spelling of your name?
Big S, small h, small i, big N, small y, and a star.

This is how Sara Jessica Parker’s character spelled her name in L.A. Story.

2. Tell me about your parents. What do you feel were some of the challenges in living with them?
It felt like I was alone in a world so cold. Perhaps I was too demanding of them, but my father always seemed too bold, and my mother was never satisfied. We always screamed at each other.

The lyrics are paraphrased from Prince’s #1 hit, When Doves Cry from the Purple Rain soundtrack.

3. And what about your older brother? Did you two get along well?
I always have to cover for him. I prefer the company of my twin sister and my little brother, Buster.

These are Michael Bluth’s siblings on Arrested Development.

4. Where did you put your son’s crib when he came home from the hospital as a newborn?
In the center of the room. Not in the corner.

Nobody puts baby in a corner! So said Patrick Swayze’s character in Dirty Dancing.

5. What kind of vehicle do you drive?
An old vintage Cadillac. With a Grateful Dead decal stuck on it.

This comes from Don Henley’s 1984 hit, The Boys of Summer.

6. Have you had any car trouble lately?
I have. Turns out that there was a banana stuck up my tailpipe.

It’s how Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley character disabled the car following him in Beverly Hills Cop. (And yes, it was referenced in the Clerks cartoon series where Judge Reinhold guest starred — alluding to the movie.)

7. How do you feel about organ donation?
I’m all for it. When I die, I’m donating my eyes to Stevie Wonder.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

8. Do you play a musical instrument?
I’m in a Police cover-band.

I was talking about Kevin on The Office – whose cover band is called Scrantonicity II. (It has nothing to do with his old band, Scrantonicity.)

9. What do you feel is the best attribute of women in general?
Their willingness to do the dishes, clean up my room, do the laundry, the bathroom, etc.

This was a tough one — but these are attributes listed in the Beastie Boys’ song Girls.

10. Do you have any pets?
We have this adorably cute animal with three eyes and a ravenous appetite.

Although The Simpsons has a cute trademark three-eyed fish, I was talking about Nibbler, the cute three-eyed, um… Nibblonian on Futurama.

11. Shiny, are you homophobic? Do you have something against gay people?
Not at all! Actually, some of my best friends are gay! Take, for instance, Mark “Cutback” Davis and Bob “Jungle Vet” Gerard. Those guys are fags!

Thank you all for not Googling these two guys’ names.  If you had, you would have seen that the line came right from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. (And kudos for those of you who got it, too.)

12. I heard about your uncle, the famous defense attorney. Is he any good?
He’s very good. He uses 52% of his brain. Clocked…

Another very tough one — it’s from a pretty amazing and funny movie called Defending Your Life.

13. Hey — can I snatch a Pepsi from your fridge?
It ain’t free, pal. If you want it; you’ll have to pay for it…

It was a now anachronistic line about an anachronism from Back to the Future when Marty asks for a Pepsi Free back in 1955. Try asking for one of those today…

14. What would you do with a million dollars?
Two chicks at the same time.

This was Dietrich Bader’s character’s answer in Office Space.

15. Do you ever blog anonymously? How would I know it’s you?
I guess it’s the purple prose that always gives me away…

OOOOH! It’s EMF’s Unbelievable.

As for the winner of the Strait-Line Rolling Tape: There were 96 correct answers. I went to my local Fed-Ex Kinkos and printed numbers 1 through 96 on some 20 lb. 11″x17″ sky blue cardstock, using a thermal laser printer/plotter at the store. I then carefully laminated each card twice — in order to preserve each number printed in a legible san-serif font.

At that point I folded each piece of cardstock in half, widthwise.  I went to the party store next door and purchased a very, very large novelty hat which could hold 96 big pieces of cardstock. I carefully placed the cardstock tickets in the hat, folded and with numbers obscured.

I then connected with a very prestigious, DC area escort service which caters to the Capitol Hill community. I hired Jenna, a 5’7″ redhead with an athletic, natural body, to meet me at an upscale hotel room in the DC suburbs. After paying her honorarium, I blindfolded her (which, apparently, was $50 extra) and had her choose one of the 96 numbered pieces of cardstock in the oversized hat.

She chose number 21 and then quickly left.  The entire ordeal, including printing, purchases at the party store, hotel reservation and “entertainment fees,” cost me $776.54.  And it was all to ensure that our winner, the one assigned to #21, would be chosen fairly, randomly and with class.

The winner is Nat! Congratulations — I’ll be in touch to get your address and, of course, bill you the $776.54 as a “choosing fee.”

As for the rest of you — check out this week’s Lazy Sunday at avitable’s site for a chance to win another super prize.  Thanks to all for participating last week.

Thank you all for making this a very successful blog for me. If not for you, the reading community, I wouldn’t have people begging me such things as “Oh! Tell us that story about how you were once cock-blocked by Meredith Baxter Birney!”  This is for all of you — as a way to show my appreciation.

First — a bit of clarification: the story takes place in 1989.  This was the year of her divorce from fellow actor David Birney. Thus — I’m not certain if this story is technically about “eredith Baxter Birney” or “Meredith Baxter” who did the blocking. For the purpose of this story, I’m simply going to refer to her as Meredith.

It was the Fall of 1989. I was a senior in high school — concerned with the trials and tribulations that high school boys had at that time. Most of which had something to do with wanting to hook up with girls.  Come to think of it, that wasn’t really something which was unique to my senior year of high school after all…

But anyway — it was a special weekend. I was attending a regional convention for the Jewish youth group with which I was involved at the time.  It was a weekend convention which began on Friday morning with a bus ride from the DC area down to Virginia Beach — where we spent the weekend in a hotel which would accommodate the almost 270 high school students and adult volunteers.  Attendees came from all over Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC.

There were some ground-rules for the convention: sleeping floors were segregated by gender, and it was made clear that girls and boys were not allowed to be on each other’s floors. (We had enough of the hotel that we had entire sleeping floors devoted to us.) Each room had 3-4 kids in it; it was something we had been used to for a while.  As it turned out, I was in a room with some great guys — who happened to see my shyness and take me on as a personal project.  I couldn’t have been more thrilled.

Sure — there was a curfew. And there were rules.  But after the chaperoning staff were tired and back in their rooms, my roommate made a couple of calls. A few minutes later, we were the party room — as several girls our age came on down — you know, just to talk, of course.  One of them was this lovely girl named Michelle.*

Michelle was really cute. Very wide-eyed and passionate. She had just dyed her hair red, which looked great on her.  And she had just broken up with her boyfriend and was looking for some comfort.  And she felt like talking with me. What amazing luck!  We talked for a bit in the room, and then moved out to the hallway where it was quieter.

And it was wonderful, just sitting there, propped against the wall, talking with one another. I would say something funny and she would laugh. Great sign! Eventually we got to the point where she put her head on my shoulder — another sign that things were going well! It was possibly the best time I had experienced so far past 1 in the morning.

The stakes were heightened a bit when we lulled into silence for a good twenty-five minutes.  “What’s up?” I asked her. She just smiled, looked into my eyes, and said “Nothing.” And she didn’t break the eye contact. Wow! I knew what this meant. Or at least I thought I did? We were just silent, staring at each other. I wasn’t sure if I should just lean in and kiss her. I mean, she just broke up with her boyfriend! Would that be a bad move on my part? What if she didn’t want to kiss me?

So I hesitated — just for a few seconds. And I realized, at that moment, it was now or never. And I psyched myself up. This would be the right time to kiss her. I’d just wait for her to lean into me just a little. That would give me more confidence that I was doing the right thing.

And she did! Her head turned towards me. I slowly moved my he…

“Oh! Whoops! Didn’t mean to interrupt!”

And with an embarrassed smile, walking quickly past us, was this woman:

At first I wondered for a split-second — was that really her? We knew that the hotel was having a fundraiser for some cause as well, something like breast cancer or diabetes research.  There had been rumors that this beautiful TV mom was guest-hosting.  And, I guess, our floor had at least one room that didn’t belong to our convention.

And a split-second later — I realized that I should be focused on the kiss with Michelle, And that I should hope and pray that this didn’t throw it off-kilter.

But no. Michelle’s beautiful eyes opened even wider. She squealed for a second and said “Oh my GOD! Was that Meredith Baxter Birney?” And then she got up to tell all of her friends who were still hanging out in my room.  I didn’t even get that kiss! I had waited too long — and the moment was gone.

I saw Michelle over that next year a few times, but we never really had any deep conversations after that night. Who knows what would have happened? Perhaps we would have made a beautiful connection. Or, dare I say it, some wonderful Family Ties.  (*groan*)

But it didn’t happen. All because Meredith chose that moment to return to her room, cock-blocking me in the process.

But if I had to be cock-blocked by any celebrity, I’m happy it was her. At 60 years old, she’s still absolutely beautiful. She continues her work for breast cancer research. She still acts occasionally. And she’ll always be Elyse Keaton to me, making me perpectually jealous of Steven Keaton.  (I suppose this is as good a time as any to reveal this fun fact: Meredith Baxter and Michael Gross, the actors portraying the Keaton parents,  were born on exactly the same day.

Thank you, Meredith. For the best cock-block of my life.

EDIT: I just researched this a bit more — and have discovered that their birthday is today, June 21!  They both turned 61 today.  How fitting that this post was posted today! I wish I could say that I planned it for this very reason, but I really had no clue.

* No. Not that Michelle.

I apologize for not keeping up with my posts — it doesn’t mean I appreciate you all any less. I’ll make it up to you during the weekend — promise!

So — here’s my video-blog post. And yes — it’s the one where I show you my balls.

Direct YouTube Link

Look – some of you wanted to see ‘em, some of you didn’t.  For those who want them, here you go!

My blog entries, your suggestions. For more information, see this post.

Today I come to you with 1.5 suggestions offered to me. Winter wrote:

I want a meme. Another mosaic, but this time you put a blog or blogger to each of these words: fun, love, peace, happy, smart, weird, deep, free, dark. It’s like free association blog style. Whose blog or what blogger fits that word in your mind?

Ask and ye shall receive, O appreciated blogger!

Now — on to other stuff: I was going to post a bit of a retrospective of the hair of Shiny throughout the years, but, alas, most of my pictures are at my Dad’s house.  I was going to post a snippet o of a promotional youth group convention video, but my computer doesn’t seem to want to do that tonight. I apologize; I’ll try to post some of it tomorrow.

But I do have Hebrew with Shiny! If you’ve missed any of them, here they are all in their entirety.  And, for the next 24 hours, if you have a phrase you’d like to learn, I’ll do my best to help you out. How’s that for appreciation?

(You’re going to need to go straight to the webpage for these, I’m afraid — as they won’t embed in most RSS feeds.)

** Watch this space! ** More of these to come…

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Here’s the tenative schedule for the rest of Blog Reader Appreciation Week ‘08:

Sunday, June 15: Lazy Sunday

Monday, June 16: Shiny’s Time-Wasters!

Tuesday, June 17: List on the 3s*: Shiny’s Bookcase

Wednesday, June 18: Fun with “Hebrew with Shiny”

Thursday, June 19: List on the 3s*: Shiny’s Favorite Blog Posts / A Tribute to Shiny’s 80s Hair

Friday, June 20: Shiny’s vlog entry! *cringe*

Saturday, June 21: The Infamous “How Shiny Got Cock-Blocked by Meredith Baxter-Birney” Story

“List on the 3s” usually takes place on a date which has a 3 in it. Today is June 17.  No three in there at all. But I’m posting this anyway. Why? Because I appreciate you! For more information, see this post.


I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never been a huge book reader. I think it’s my borderline ADHD which gets in the way. But I have had some great experiences with a few choice reads.  The books that are on this list are the ones which I do or have read repeatedly, always finding something new buried in the pages. Especially when I used a friut roll-up as a bookmark. Yummy…

Top 8 Books In My Bookcase

8. Cliff Stoll – The Cuckoo’s Egg (1990)

Cliff Stoll was a computer nerd administering servers in the academic world in the late 1980s. He was meticulous enough to find a 75 cent discrepancy between the computer usage time and the registered user accounts on the system. It was the beginning of a journey where he unraveled the mystery of a hacker who was breaking into not only his system, but other academic and government servers as well. Using his own cleverness, he was able to trace the hacker halfway around the world to Germany.  And it’s (apparently) all true!

What I love about this book is that Stoll presents everything at face value. He teaches the techniques he used — as well as the techniques used by his hacker. He explains, in great detail, some of the tools and protocols we take for granted, technologies which were only emerging at the infancy of the Internet.  he also stresses that the Internet sense of community was partially responsible for helping him (and the CIA) nab the hacker. Stoll’s follow up, by the way, Silicon Snake Oil, is a testament to what’s wrong with the Internet (circa 1994) and the dangers of relying solely on computer systems rather than other forms of human interaction.

7.  Nat Hentoff – The Day They Came to Arrest the Book (1983)

Hentoff was well-known as a columnist for The Village Voice among other papers which fought battles over the First Amendment. And this was a departure for him — a fictional novel aimed at teens about censorship.  It was based on a true story — a suburban high school teaches The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the classroom. Some students are offended by the language within the book, and it’s immediately pulled from the curriculum and the library shelves. It brings up a discussion about the role of the school administration, students, parents, and the overall community in balancing the needs and wants of a school community.

I read this in sixth grade — and have read it countless times since then.

6. George Orwell – 1984 (1948)

Would you believe I didn’t have to read this for high school? Perhaps it’s the reason I chose this one over Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Or perhaps it was out of necesity…

In the Spring of 1990 I was spending several months on a work/study program at a kibbutz in the southern part of Israel. There was pretty much nothing around. And nothing to do. Except read.  My friend Josh happened to have 1984 around, so I read it, waiting for him to be finished with Steven King’s The Dead Zone. Unfortunately, Josh read much slower than I did, and I ended up reading 1984 over and over again. And thinking about how it applied to life in the emerging 1990s.  I still think of it when I read or watch any news disseminated by a large conglomeration.   It’s all about who controls the information.   The book is certainly doubleplusgood.

5. Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner – Freakonomics (2005)

This book caught some attention when it was released because Bill Bennett had paraphrased a bit of it in a way which made him sound racist.  The book explores the notion of correlation between events — which at times can be misinterpreted as simple causality. For instance — does the name you give your kid impact his/her education? Are teachers in specific situations more or less likely to doctor their students’ standardized test scores? And — did the legalization of abortion in the early 1970s lead to a drop in crime in the mid 1990s?  It’s a fascinating read — and the type of discussions from the book have continued on the Freakonomics Blog. If anything, you’ll learn about the economics of street-level drug trafficking.

4.  Zev Chafets – The Project (1998)

The premise of the novel is pretty far-fetched, but Chafets (an American-born, veteran columnist on Israeli political affairs) tells the story from many different vantage points.  Dewey Goldberg is the accidental president of the United States — due to a freak accident which claimed the life of the president and vice president.  And he’s the first Jewish person in such a position.  He’s up for re-election in the coming year. Meanwhile, he’s playing a political cat and mouse game with Israeli Prime Minister Elihu Barzel — who just offered his endorsement to President Goldberg’s Evangelical Christian opponent.  A closer look shows the Israeli and American involvement in a secret project which involves a political shift in the Middle East — one which has unique implications with a sitting Jewish American president.  So — yeah. Very far-fetched. But I find his character development interesting. Chafets is a talented writer.

3.  Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy (1979-1992)

First there was a BBC Radio series that quickly gained a cult following. And after that? The books.  I remember loaning out my copy of HHGTTG in order to borrow my friend Ethan’s Restaurant at the End of the Universe. I remember watching the low-budget television show.  I even went to see the recent sub-par movie based on the series (not so good) and listened to the last three series of the radio drama (extremely good).

But the central focus were the books — all five of them (which made the word “trilogy” quite inaccurate, but it stuck nonetheless). Adams had a way of wrapping his science fiction around humor like no other. Simply the best.

2. A. J. Jacobs – The Year of Living Biblically (2007)

A.J. Jacobs is a writer for Esquire. His previous book chronicled his experience reading the entire Encyclopedia Britainica from A to Z.  Hard act to follow, isn’t it?

Well, Jacobs decided to read another body of work: The Bible.  And he set out to follow every single rule he could find in it as literally as possible. Coming from a non-religious Jewish background (he proclaims that he is “officially Jewish, but … only in the same way that the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant”) he takes a look at different religious groups and how they interpret the Bible literally and figuratively. He attempts to live this life while maintaining his family life with his wife and young son.  A lot of this book is funny and clever, but it treats religious beliefs with respect.

Oh – and he has a kick-ass beard and a long robe! Here’s a promotional video for the book:

Direct YouTube Link

1. Douglas Coupland – Microserfs (1995)

I always keep coming back to this book.

I had heard of Douglas Coupland’s other works — such as Generation X and Shampoo Planet. But Microserfs is the one that got be hooked on Coupland. His main character is Daniel, a coder working for Microsoft in the mid-1990s in Seattle.  His work is his life. He lives in a house with other Microsoft coders. He has it pretty good, but after a co-worker creates a new startup multimedia company in Silicon Valley, he must decide whether or not he wants to give up his security for the chance to be “1.0″ material.  Tie in the dynamics of working with your friends, dealing with a family experiencing the new economy of the 90s, and the new phenomenon of the Internet — and you’ve got a book which reads like, well, a blog. Even though the technology has changed, this book still holds up extremely well.

In 2006 Coupland released a follow-up (not a sequel) about game coders in Vancouver called jPod — as a Microserfs 2.0 type of experience. I hated it.  It has, however, spawned a not-so-bad television show which aired in Canada this past year.

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Here’s the tenative schedule for the rest of Blog Reader Appreciation Week ‘08:

Sunday, June 15: Lazy Sunday

Monday, June 16: Shiny’s Time-Wasters!

Tuesday, June 17: List on the 3s*: Shiny’s Bookcase

Wednesday, June 18: Fun with “Hebrew with Shiny” / A Tribute to Shiny’s 80s Hair

Thursday, June 19: List on the 3s*: Shiny’s Favorite Blog Posts

Friday, June 20: Shiny’s vlog entry! *cringe*

Saturday, June 21: The Infamous “How Shiny Got Cock-Blocked by Meredith Baxter-Birney” Story

I appreciate you for appreciating me. This week’s blogs are all your suggestions for material. For more information, see this post.

Reader78th suggested I post a list smattering of blogs and websites I visit on a regular basis. There are an awful lot that belong on this list.

First — a few caveats: I have met (online and in person) many, many folks whom I would consider good friends whose blogs I read daily. You can find their blogs by simply reading some the clever responses to my blog entries. They’re truly wonderful people — some of whom have opinions which diverge quite a bit from mine. That notwithstanding, I treasure the friendships I have with these great writers.

I’m not including any of them on my list, though. There are too many to name. And chances are that if you’re reading this you’ve already run into them in this western spiral arm of the blogosphere already. The websites and blogs here are to show you what happens when I break out of this neighborhood a bit.

Second — technically I really only peruse one specific webpage for my viewing needs now that I’ve discovered the magical world of RSS and Google Reader. All of my reading needs in one place I can access from any computer. How cool is that?

So — aside from you guys, this is where my eyes are hanging out:

Mindsay: http://www.mindsay.com – Ever wonder where Shiny spent the past four years before leaving for the Takeout? It was here: a blogging community with a strong base of participants and some great style. I’ve been with Mindsay through a lot of changes to the direction and philosophy of the site, and I still consider it home (even though I’m not blogging there anymore). if you look for my blog (http://shiny.mindsay.com) you’ll even find the tribute to my twenty year milestone in blogging I celebrated in 2005. (Yes. You read that right.)

Boing Boing: http://www.boingboing.net – This site self-proclaims that it’s a “Directory of Wonderful Things.” It’s an ecelectic “best of” blog list — featuring excerpts of articles on items as varied as airport security theater, strange video games, the Bill of Rights. Creative Commons, and pictures of strange looking goats. I can say that it’s been a gateway for me to find other fascinating places out there on the web.

Schneier on Security: http://www.schneier.com/blog/- Bruce Schneier, the author of Beyond Fear, has studied the construct of security for years. He’s also an occasional columnist for Wired Magazine, and a strong proponent for a better assessment of realizing the trade-offs between security and personal freedoms. Some credit him with coining the term security theater, implying that, at times, the presence of heightened security is for appearance’s sake only. He discusses real-life scenarios in which security trade-offs are evaluated — as well as issues with security in computing and, of course, in the airport. the dude’s really got a good head on his shoulders. He’s worth checking out.

The Consumerist: http://www.consumerist.com – Been jilted by customer service? Want to know the inside scoop from the used car industry? Need the phone numbers of high-level executives for the major airlines? The Consumerist provides a forum for people to report their experiences with all things customer oriented. Some articles have specific suggestions based on personal experience (and, at times, horror stories!). If you’ve ever felt like you’ve been stuck in hell dealing with customer support that isn’t getting you anywhere, this is a site for you.

DCRTV: http://www.dcrtv.com – This one is for the local DC folks: Dave Hughes reports on radio and television happenings all across the region. He gets the inside scoop about changes in the local (and sometimes national) media. Oh — and the local radio and television personalities can’t stand the guy.

My Shrapnel: http://www.myshrapnel.blogspot.com – this is the story of Gila Weiss, a woman with whom I was acquainted through our synagogue. (She even had a bunch of us over to her place for dinner one evening.) A few years back, Gila decided to take a plunge and move from the DC area to Israel. We wished her well on her journey when we heard that she was leaving.

We heard about her again a year later — when we were notified that she was injured in a suicide bombing outside of the crowded Machane Yehuda marketplace in Jerusalem. I recall emails flying around trying to find out the latest information.

Gila has had a long path to recovery — which she describes in great detail through different surgeries and medical experiences which could take place only in Israel — and she’s now living in Tel Aviv and writing about her experiences as a survivor. Some of her writings from immediately after her recovery from the bombing are posted here, as well as her own current commentary about being an American-born new immigrant to Israel facing something like this. Her writing is very powerful, very emotional and (at times) quite funny. She’s one of the stronger people I’ve run into (reunited with?) through the blogosphere.

Mashuptown: http://www.mashuptown.com – I’m a sucker for mashups. And this is where they go to be spread across the world.  I’ve found some brilliant works of art here.

Coverville: http://www.coverville.com – a close second to mashups are cover songs.  Brian Ibbot celebrates the art of the cover song through a podcast he puts out several times a week with a whole bunch of covers — usually as part of a show’s theme. Certainly worth a listen…

I know that as soon as I post this I’ll think of many more. But I guess eight is a good starting point, isn’t it?

Here’s the tenative schedule for the rest of Blog Reader Appreciation Week ’08:

Sunday, June 15: Lazy Sunday

Monday, June 16: Shiny’s Time-Wasters!

Tuesday, June 17: List on the 3s*: Shiny’s Bookcase

Wednesday, June 18: Fun with “Hebrew with Shiny” / A Tribute to Shiny’s 80s Hair

Thursday, June 19: List on the 3s*: Shiny’s Favorite Blog Posts

Friday, June 20: Shiny’s vlog entry! *cringe*

Saturday, June 21: The Infamous “How Shiny Got Cock-Blocked by Meredith Baxter-Birney” Story

Let the week begin! Your suggestions are my blog entries for the next seven days. See this post for more information…

I’m an avid reader of Avitable‘s – a very clever and funny guy who always seems to make me laug with his blog entries and his comments on my blog. One of his weekly features, Lazy Sunday, evolved over the past month into a contest where readers look for pop culture references in meme-like questions in order to win fun prizes and gain notoriety. I had expressed interest in subbing in for him whenever he wanted a week off, and he gave me a chance today. (This is probably also his way of showing me that he reigns supreme over this type of game.)

The rules: It’s very simple. I go through my Myspace friends and pick one of their survey bulletins and Shiny actually doesn’t have any friends, so he’s furnished 15 questions by himself. Every answer contains a reference to a movie, a television show, or a song. Just guess as many as you can – some will be laughably easy and some will be very difficult. Every correct answer is like a raffle ticket – you get one chance to win per correct answer. If you get 1 right, your name goes in the proverbial hat. If you get 10 right, your name goes in ten times. Et cetera. You’re on the honor system – try not to Google or look at other people’s answers!

The contest ends Tuesday at midnight EST. I’ll give the correct answers and identify the winner on the following Sunday.

Oh — and we’re playing for this:

Strait-Line Rolling Tape 300 is a great tool which brings the tape measure to the next level. It can measure distance (to 1/16″) between points on a wall or other surface. It can even alert you to mark off evenly spaced segments! This is an unopened package with instructions included. (3 AAA batteries not included, though. I’m cheap like that.)

And away we go…

1. What’s the correct spelling of your name?
Big S, small h, small i, big N, small y, and a star.

2. Tell me about your parents. What do you feel were some of the challenges in living with them?
It felt like I was alone in a world so cold. Perhaps I was too demanding of them, but my father always seemed too bold, and my mother was never satisfied. We always screamed at each other.

3. And what about your older brother? Did you two get along well?
I always have to cover for him. I prefer the company of my twin sister and my little brother, Buster.

4. Where did you put your son’s crib when he came home from the hospital as a newborn?
In the center of the room. Not in the corner.

5. What kind of vehicle do you drive?
An old vintage Cadillac. With a Grateful Dead decal stuck on it.

6. Have you had any car trouble lately?
I have. Turns out that there was a banana stuck up my tailpipe.

7. How do you feel about organ donation?
I’m all for it. When I die, I’m donating my eyes to Stevie Wonder.

8. Do you play a musical instrument?
I’m in a Police cover-band.

9. What do you feel is the best attribute of women in general?
Their willingness to do the dishes, clean up my room, do the laundry, the bathroom, etc.

10. Do you have any pets?
We have this adorably cute animal with three eyes and a ravenous appetite.

11. Shiny, are you homophobic? Do you have something against gay people?
Not at all! Actually, some of my best friends are gay! Take, for instance, Mark “Cutback” Davis and Bob “Jungle Vet” Gerard. Those guys are fags!

12. I heard about your uncle, the famous defense attorney. Is he any good?
He’s very good. He uses 52% of his brain. Clocked…

13. Hey — can I snatch a Pepsi from your fridge?
It ain’t free, pal. If you want it; you’ll have to pay for it…

14. What would you do with a million dollars?
Two chicks at the same time.

15. Do you ever blog anonymously? How would I know it’s you?
I guess it’s the purple prose that always gives me away…

Just a reminder that I’ll be the guest on Turnbaby Talks this evening at 8:00pm EDT! We’ll be returning to the world of 80s and 90s music trivia. Get your thinking caps on!