Meme Madness!!

Okay, so I've pushed these off long enough. I was tagged by a number of people for a number of memes, and I said that I'd get around to them... so here we go!

Thanks to Shoshana for 5 Simple Pleasures; Romach & Nephtuli for Ten Random Things; IfYouWillIt for MEME4; and to someone, who I'm drawing a blank on, for 7 confessions.

And now, without further ado...

5 Simple Pleasures:

1) Venti Caramel with Whip Latte from Starbucks on a cold day. (Iced, but with very little ice, on a hot day.) Ahhh...

2) Hearing anybody laugh - really laugh, happily and gleefully. Especially my wife.

3) Seeing people smiling, being happy, receiving something they've waited a long time for, or succeeding at something they've worked hard at. Especially when it's all rolled into one. And especially if I helped it happen in any way.

4) A really good back massage. I could use one now, too...

5) Shabbos at our apartment, with plenty of friends coming and going, all of them having a good time, with good singing, great food, and most importantly, the best company.

Ten Random Things:

1) I start finals in a week, and I haven't even done one assignment yet for one of my classes. And I'm not worried.

2) I really want to win our playoff football game next week - just because.

3) I wonder how my life would be different if I'd never gone to Beis Yisroel - or the other way, if I'd never left. Would I have really gone off the derech? Or would guilt - and great family and friends - kept me frum?

4) I wonder the same things about WITS, OJ, and Lander, but to a lesser extent.

5) It bothers me that these random things are all about me, and that the first four started with I.

6) It bothers me to say I in general - just like it bothers me to be in pictures, even though I take tons of them.

7) A law professor/lawyer said I should go to Harvard Law and become a lawyer; a college math teacher to become an actuary; accounting people to go into accounting; teachers into teaching; some friends said psychology; a few people thought I should become a journalist; and kiruv people said I should go into kiruv. I wonder if I'll end up doing parts of six of those seven.

8) It makes me sad that my Beis Hamikdash keychain, which my cousins gave me when I was 10, had 2 corners crack off.

9) I took 1,200 pictures (approx.) in my 2 years in Israel. And most of them were pretty good.

10) Without OnlySimchas, I would never have met Serach. But that's a whole 'nother story. :) But if you want entertainment, read some of this. Another 15-20 were deleted when people made jokes that OS didn't appreciate, like "This is the OnlySimchas administration. This post has exceeded its maximum capacity, and will be deleted. Please refrain from further commenting." Pretending to be Lebron James, George W. Bush, Snoop Dogg, and Richard Simmons probably didn't help much... or talking about fat babies and fat wallets.

7 Confessions:

I confess...

1) ...that (3) above is something I really wonder about. I was really turned off by so much of what went on around me... but that's another post - that may never get written down here.

2) ...blogging is an addiction. But an altogether good one.

3) ...I often walk into a room and think I'm smarter than just about everybody, though I've always hid it very well. Thankfully, I'm finally learning that this is not always the case.

4) ...I hate people who think they're smarter than everyone else in a room - especially when they're not even close.

5) ...I used to be shy. Really shy.

6) ...I'd rather be coaching football (the Browns, duh), with my brother as one of my coordinators. It's the perfect combination of planning, analyzing, math, strategizing, psychology, and quick thinking meshed into one - not to mention competitive in a positive fashion, rather than the sometimes cutthroat and backstabbing mentality of the workplace.

7) ...my dream is to create a company in which I can take all the incredibly smart and skilled people I know and place them into positions where they can excel. Let their genius and ability shine through!

Meme 4:

Four jobs I've had in my life:

Manager of a Kosher concession stand at Jacobs Field; Accounting Tutor; Assistant Cook/Head Kitchen; Treasurer of Student Government (does that count?).

Four movies I could watch over and over:

None, really. But let's see... Italian Job [slick]; Ocean's 11 [slicker - it's movies like this that help you appreciate just why the A-list actors are A-list]; Forrest Gump [because Tom Hanks is that good]; Monsters, Inc. [if you can hear that girl laugh without smiling, you have no heart]. (Heh - I thought this before I realized IYWI picked it.) Bonus: Ray, because Jamie Foxx was just so good.

Four places I've lived:

Cleveland Heights, OH; Milwaukee, WI; Moshav Beit Meir, ISRAEL; Neve Yaakov Mizrach, ISRAEL.

Four TV shows I love to watch:

Love? Eh. Don't even own a TV! 24. Family Guy. Umm... The last 12 people on American Idol. Ummm... Spin City when it had Michael J. Fox, or The Practice until Bobby got out of jail.

Four places I've been on vacation:

Does Yom Tov count? Los Angeles, CA; umm... I'm desperate here, because I can't remember the ones from early childhood. So I'm taking Israel (10 & 1st year at Lander), Florida (6), and New York/Baltimore (from Israel). Wow, that was pathetic. We need to go on vacation.

Four websites I visit daily:

CBSSportsline; FoxNews; SerandEz; most of my blogroll.

Four of my favorite foods:

Pizza; Custard cake; Coconut bars [chocolate]; Coke [for me, it's a food].

Four places you'd rather be:

Out of New York; Jerusalem, Israel; Baltimore, MD; Out of NY/NJ area.

Four books I'll read over and over again:

Not a big re-reader... but Orchos Tzadikim; Green Eggs & Ham (Seuss); Are You My Mother? (Seuss) [and all it said was...SNORT]; Gaavatanic (Chait). :)

Hope you've enjoyed - I know I have!

I'm not tagging anybody, as these are really delayed and a bunch altogether. But if you'd like to do any of them, feel free!