Six Degrees of Steve (And By Degrees, I Mean Quirks)

Alright, I clearly didn't understand the rules of the "tag" for which my wife has been giving me grief and to which she has been waiting for me to respond. A little while ago, she posted her response to being tagged in a blog post that asks the writer to tell about six quirks they have. Now, apparently, it's my turn. Oh, and then I tag six others in comments on their blogs, and so on and so forth.

Let's see now...

1. The Voices in My Head

I have a repertoire, if you will, of voices that I like to exhibit to the world at random times. My default voice, of course, is named "Really Loud." But if you're lucky, you might hear me speaking in one of the following ways (among others):

- basic British accent (mild, not too exaggerated, like how you'd imagine Sherlock Holmes to speak)
- British accent, country-style (I don't really know what to call this one, but it sounds a bit like Pippin from "The Lord of the Rings")
- fat, bushy-mustached Brit accent (imagine a fat Colonel Mustard/Dr. Watson/World War I pilot- scarf and all...that's kind of what this one is)
- raspy Scottish accent (this one stemmed from my time working with Nils Bergeson and Luke Kerr (a Scottish missionary) in Russia
-Sean Connery (terrible accent, to be sure)
- Irish leprechaun (just like it sounds, a bit more comical than Lucky the Lucky Charms leprechaun)
- stereotypical Russian accent
- over-the-top German accent (a mix of Danny Kaye from "The Court Jester, Mike Meyers from "Sprockets," and Dr. Strangelove...plus the German doctor from "Animaniacs"...I'm coming up with the best descriptions I can...)
- various celebrity impressions/imitating celebrities who are imitating celebrities (Will Ferrell's Harry Caray, Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow, Marlon Brando's Godfather, etc.)
- various characters from The Simpsons

There are probably others, you just have to catch me at the right time. And now that you have a list, if you ask me to do any of them, I'll probably hesitate. But you can try.


2. The Sound of Music

I love movie music almost as much as I love movies (sometimes more so). Many of my favorite CDs have music that comes from the minds of Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Howard Shore, and James Newton Howard, to name a few. Sometimes music makes the movie (Star Wars), sometimes it outshines the movie (Pearl Harbor), but but in most cases music at least enhances the movie greatly. Sometimes it does so in character-centered themes (something at which John Williams excels), other times it does so by painting a background against which the action happens and which flows around the events of the film like a mist. My view? Hans Zimmer is the best movie music composer, though Howard Shore gets the prize for best movie soundtrack ever (Lord of the Rings).


3. Lock'Em Up Tight

If you read my earlier post, then this you already know: I check locks on doors religiously. I can't blame this on my wife's OCD- I did it before I met her. I don't know where it really started...maybe in Russia, where I would double check the locks once or twice before going to bed. Wherever it came from, it's a regular routine now. I double check the locks on our doors at least twice before going to bed, check the door when I leave for work, and always lock my car doors. Obsessed much? Hey, consider that many burglaries of homes and cars happen when the doors are unlocked. Then call me nuts.

Okay, I'm nuts. But I'm safe.


4. Shake a Leg!

My wife wishes I would do far less of this. Not in the "hurry up" sense, but in the "sitting there and shaking my leg up and down like I'm about to meet the Pope nervousness" sense. I'm doing it even as I type. It's not a nervous habit, per se, because I'm not nervous most of the time. But it is a habit, and it drives my wife nuts.


5. A Real Nail-Biter

Yup, that's me. I bite my nails. Not groundbreaking, I know, but it's a fact of my life. I even once tried to not bite my nails until they were long enough to cut. "Once" is the operative word here. I can't help it. If I'm bored, sitting there, have nothing to do, chances are I'm going to bite my nails if I can. I don't nibble until they're gone, but I have been known to nibble a little too much (hurts like the dickens, as you nail-biters know).


6. The Write Stuff

I like to write. I don't do it very often, but every now and then I'll get the storyteller bug and want to express my imagination on paper (or screen, since most of my writing comes on computers). I wouldn't call myself uber creative by any stretch- most of my story ideas center around universes/worlds that have already been thought up by greater minds. But I like to imagine characters within those worlds and develop them and shape them. If I have free time for my mind, like if I'm out walking/jogging, sometimes I'll try to figure out the next direction/development I want to take for the character I'm currently working on. If I can't come up with something, sometimes the story suffers and become stagnant for a long time. But the stories aren't dead, and if you have any interest at all, pop on by one of the linked blogs above. Maybe it'll be entertaining for you.


So there you are. Maybe they aren't the most interesting quirks, but quirks they are. And that's who I am.

Tags? Jeff, Nils, Emily, Joe, Beckie, Sarah. I'm too lazy to go and leave a comment for each one. That's another quirk.