Patrick's Saturday Six Fourth of July Edition

1. A stray dog wonders into your yard, obviously weak, hungry and thirsty.  He is a very friendly dog, but if you feed it or give it water, you know that the dog won't leave your yard and you'll end up keeping him.  If you don't help the animal, he might die.  What do you do?

I would fatten it up, then sell it to a Chinese family as a main course.  WHAT"!!! I'm kidding!!!!  I would decide whether to keep it right away. If I couldn't keep it, I would still feed it and give it water and a place to stay, but call to find a no kill shelter.  Or put an ad in the paper  Or call my friends to find it a home. But I would find it a home. Take it to the vet for shots. Get it cleaned up and groomed.  Is this a test?    

2. You must lose one of the following:  a foot, a hand, an eye or an ear.  Which would you get rid of and why?

First of all, what makes you think I'm going to sit still for any of this. Okay. An ear. Because I can wear my hair long and hide the missing part. And my hearing may not be affected.  With a foot, a hand, or an eye, your senses or ability to function are seriously impaired. Also they have prosthetic ears.

3. Scalzi of "By the Way" recently posted about the top unanswered questions in science today.  Click here and scroll down to the list of the top 25 biggest mysteries:  Which one would you MOST like to have answered?

Get back to you on that. I'm back.  "What can replace cheap oil?"  And how fast can they do it.

4. Joe, our AOL Journals Editor, says blogs are boring:  either everyone talks about pretty much the same topics, or regular people lead dull lives, he suggests.  So what keeps you reading other people's blogs?

Joe should talk.  He puts me to sleep.  I read other journals because we have some great damn writers around here.  And they can make our regular people dull lives seem hilarious or poignant, poetic, and much more interesting than anything boring old Joe writes about.

5. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #57 from Lisa: You are writing a bestseller book.  What kind of book is it (romance, mystery, science fiction, action adventure, historical, gothic, classic, fiction, non fiction, biography, other) ?   What is your main character's first name and the setting in which it will take place?  And give us a one sentence tidbit about the plot ...  

Mine would be non fiction lifestyle humor. Probably a self help parody with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek. Mrs. Linklater would be my main character. I know her pretty well.  The first line of the book would be:  "Oh crap."

6. READER'S CHOICE QUESTION #58 from Mary:  Jim Elliot once said, "When it comes time to die...make sure all you got to do is die."  What do you have to do or would like to do before you die? Make a list of at least 6 things.  And since you made the list.. will  you actually try to accomplish those things?

I can die.  There isn't too much I haven't done that I wanted to do. There was a time when I also wanted to fly a jet, race a Formula One car, own an oceangoing sailboat, climb Everest, become a doctor, marry someone famous, and be a pro athlete. I have no desire to do any of those things anymore. If there is one thing I wish I could have done it would have been to keep my mother from dying young.  The rest is just fluff.