Y’know, it occurs to me – and I realise this is going to come off as a giant humblebrag, but I promise I mean it as a sincere apology – that I’ve been nominated for a few of these blogger awards recently, and failed to do my part to respond to almost all of them. To anyone who’s put the thought and effort into sending a nomination my way, I’m very sorry! That said, I’m probably still not going to go back and do past ones, but I’ve just had one that I feel compelled to respond to because I’m taking part in a collaboration soon with the person who tagged me, so… consider this a step in the right direction?

Anyway, Matthew over at Normal Happenings has included me in his recent Super Specific Liebster Award, which is a swanky-sounding thing! In October/ November (not exactly sure of publishing date) I’ll be part of his Games that Define Us collab, for which I’ve just finished drafting my contribution and which I’ll be very excited to see when it’s out!

The way this works is, as with many similar things of this nature, that Matt’s asked a number of questions and nominated a number of people who must answer each of those questions and pose more questions of their own to an additional number of newly nominated people!

Let’s just dive right in, shall we?

1. Ask your best friend/significant other to make an annoying animal sound. How did they react, and what animal did they imitate?
   
   I asked a friend at work, since that’s where I am. (Don’t tell anyone!) He made a weird sort of orang-utan like screech cum robotic meltdown.
2. *POOF* I am your barista. Order your favorite coffee shop beverage exactly as you would in real life.

   Hey, man. How’s it going, good? Sweet. Okay, look, I’ve never really been in a coffee shop so, er… you got juice? Smoothies? Milkshake? Oh, yeah? Cool, let’s do that. Sweet, man, appreciate it.

3. Do numbers have personalities in your mind? If so, tell me about the personality of the number 6. What’s it’s story? What kind of disposition does it have?
   
   Yes, actually, some of them do. Various things have personalities in my mind: types of sandwich, tables with a number of legs that is not equal to four, the wind as it moves through branches that are just weak enough to risk snapping – and some numbers also fall into this category, though not all. Four is very aggressive to me (I think it’s the sharp edges: 4, see?), while five is sort of jolly and easy-going. Six enjoys fishing, but beyond that I know very little of its story.
4. What is your favorite movie title? Not your favorite movie, just the title, irrespective of the quality of the film.

   Probably Three-Headed Shark Attack, a sequel to the equally dreadful Two-Headed Shark Attack.

5. Story time! Your best friend suddenly finds themselves in the body of your least favorite animal. Craft a story of five sentences or less with this unfortunate predicament as a central plot mechanic. Bonus points if it’s the same animal they chose to imitate.

   I genuinely don’t know who I would count as my best friend these days, and I’m finding it hard to come up with a least favourite animal, so… much as I hate to do this, I’m afraid I have to pass on this!

6. Tell me. Do Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo?

   I mean, you’ve got to think that Buffalo buffalo (large quadrupedal animals from the Buffalo region) have at some point been buffaloed (bullied) by other Buffalo buffalo, so most likely the answer is yes, though I hope it’s not habitual.

7. Tell us about the most boring game show you could ever imagine.

   Who Was Nigel First?, a show in which a lucky audience member would get the chance to work out which of a lineup of men all named Nigel is the oldest, and was therefore called ‘Nigel’ first. In a shocking twist, one episode would feature a man who actually changed his name to Nigel for the show, but of course this made him Nigel last and was therefore entirely without consequence.

8. Useless Superpower Bedbug: The Return!
   Which of the following useless superpowers would you choose and why?
   – The ability to randomly add cat meows to every song on the radio
   – The ability to randomly add the Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story to even the most intense of any movie scene
   – The ability to randomly add Owen Wilson saying “WOW” to any line of dialog in a video game

   It would have to be Owen Wilson. If I can also add it to all battle grunts and sounds of shots being fired (to achieve something like this, but ‘WOW’ instead of ‘pew’), I’ll be extremely happy.

9. What is the hexadecimal color code for your favorite color?

   I’m a fan of b735c7, with c1d4ee also being pretty strong.

10. On a scale of one to 15,742.58, how do you feel about these super specific questions?
    
    B plus out of Shigeru Miyamoto!

Well, that was fun! Tradition dictates that I ought to nominate about ten people, but, er… Matthew’s already nominated everyone who’s going to be part of this collab, which covers quite a lot of people who are very deserving! Tell you what, if you’re reading this then you’re a really cool person and you can consider this me nominating you. The ten super-specific questions I’d very much like an answer to are as follows:

1. Take your favourite game and replace a mechanic with one from a game you really don’t like, then describe the result.
2. What flavour of crisp (chip for American readers) would you be?
3. Given 48 hours and unlimited amounts of high-quality timber and tools, what would you build?
4. Tell me about the last thing that made you laugh so hard your stomach hurt.
5. If you could grant anyone a wish, who would it be? (It can’t be yourself!)
6. What’s the closest thing within arm’s reach of you right now?
7. Put two or three of your favourite words together to make a new megaword and give it a definition.
8. Imagine a well, then go to the bottom. What do you see down there, and what’s at the top if you float back out?
9. What’s the best pun you’ve heard recently?
10. If colourless green ideas sleep furiously, what sort of dreams might they be having?

Thanks again to Matthew at Normal Happenings for the nomination, and to everyone else on his nominee list for being a fundamentally cool person.