As an added bonus, no political commentary included

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?  Just because I've helped him doesn't mean I'm keeping him.  If I'm around and he shows up again and I can help him, I will, but I also believe that he will end up where he belongs.  I'm not a dog person, and trust me, this dog does not want to end up with me.  I don't hate dogs, not at all, I am just absolutely no good with them.  I realized that at a very young age, and dogs as a species are better off for it.

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?  An ear.  It would give me the added bonus of losing about 80% of my body weight.  I might blow away in the wind if I lost one of my ears.  Well, I'd probably just tip over, since I'd be unbalanced.  I have ears that are frequently mistaken for catchers mitts.  In fact, major league baseball has requested that I not attend any games with the intention of sitting in the first fifty rows directly behind home plate.  I have been outside at times, minding my own business, when all of the sudden, BAM!  a baseball smacks into one of my ears.  I never have an idea where it has come from.  I have seen meterologists on television include the weather conditions around my head as part of their regional forecast.  My ears have the country's sole six digit zip code.  If I could manage to wiggle the gigundus flaps on the sides of my head I could eliminate global warming.  And don't think I haven't heard that one about 57 million times...

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? While I've always wanted to know if there are other beings out there in the universe, I'd have to go with "what are the biological basis of consciousness" because knowing this might give me the insight on what I can expect after I have shifted off this mortal coil.  Well, not all of me.  My ears are far too large to accompany me to the great beyond.  I'm sorry, have I mentioned that my ears are the size of Tahiti?

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? Interesting, as I was posting my sixth consecutive political entry before this I found myself saying "I bet the people who read you are going to get real tired of this crap quickly."  I read other people's writings because they somehow found a way to capture my interest.  Some have gotten much better, and some have gotten much worse, but I still read pretty much the same ones that I did at the beginning.  I only usually give up on someone if they stop posting.

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 ...  It would be non-fiction, about something I know very well, tracing back a few years, and it has a plot of pretty much nothing.  That's all you're going to get out of me.  Maybe one day I'll get around to actually doing it.

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 doth hereby proclaim that all will be accomplished before I die:

1. I become a father  2. I witness the Chicago Cubs win the World Series  3. I go to Australia and New Zealand  4. I break 80 on the golf course  5. I live at some point in the Western United States  6. I spoil my grandchildren