Blogging award memes seem to travel in packs. Recently I was tagged for the Liebster (read my post for that here) and now I’ve been tagged for the Creative Blogger Award.

Is it excessive to do two such similar memes in quick succession? I don’t know, but I’m going to go ahead and do this one, and for two reasons. Firstly I have two blogs, and I’m not sure a lot of people read the other one. So that means most people didn’t actually see my Liebster post, including even people I mentioned in the post. The second reason is that I was nominated for this one by the most excellent Braxwolf, and who am I to ignore a nomination from such an admirable quarter?

This meme apparently has certain rules, and one them is to share the rules, namely…

• Nominate 15-20 blogs and notify them via their social media/blogs.
• Thank and post the link of the person who nominated you.
• Share 5 facts about yourself to your readers.
• Pass on the rules.

However for all I know Braxwolf just made up those rules! It’s not as if I have carefully traced them back to their source and established their legitimacy. Of course Brax wouldn’t dream of doing anything like that, but it’s quite easy to imagine a bit of Internet Chinese Whispers developing with such things. And now that I think of it, it’s quite tempting to insert a rule for the heck of it. Something along the lines of “Share your favorite example of goat-based mime” I’m thinking. There are few things that make me laugh more than the concept of goat-based mime.

Anyway, back to the point.

Thanks Brax!

It’s nice to nominated for this award, and doubly nice to be nominated by Brax. Not only is he a great blogger and podcaster, he is also a fine human being. I’m in awe of how he manages to produce so much material of such high quality alongside of being a father of four, a major DIYer, and someone who takes their fitness very seriously. And those are just the things he does that I know about!

Like Brax, while I think I produce a blog of good quality I’m not sure that I should count as a “Creative Blogger”. I suppose writing is in itself a form of creativity, but then all bloggers should be considered creative by definition, and the term “Creative Blogger” would be a tad redundant.

Enough of quibbling about the definition, let’s press on with the meme.

Five Possibly Interesting Facts About Me

1)

I’ve had a brief go in a 747 flight simulator. (That’s the real kind that pilots train in, not a piece of PC software.)

2)

I was pickpocketed in Barcelona, but when the pickpocket realized she’d only gotten my passport she threw it down on the floor, tauntingly. (I’d suspected she was up to something and was shouting to make a scene and attract attention.)

I was reminded of this by Brax’s mention of an incident in Spain. Anyone might think the place was crime ridden!

3)

While I was at college I did some volunteering for a mental health charity. Among other people I met someone who’d set fire to his home because he’d believed his mother was trying to poison him.

Bonus fact: I was one of the designated fire wardens at one of my early jobs, so I’ve had some training in the matter of fires and how to handle them.

4)

I was once interviewed by a Japanese newspaper.

5)

I own a slide rule. Admittedly it’s not likely to prove of much use except in the event that I find myself in a post-apocalyptic scenario with no electricity and still need to do some trigonometry. However I think it’s cool and rather lovely and wouldn’t like to part with it.

Nominations

Although the rules say to nominate 15-20 bloggers that seems over the top. I’ll go with Brax’s lead and nominate five:

• Tsuhelm. I nominated him for the Liebsters too, and you can check out his answers to my questions in the comments to my post. If there’s any such thing as a creative blogger it has to be Tsu, the Salvador Dali of LOTRO blogging. I wouldn’t be surprised if some actual goat-based mime turned up in his posts one of these days.

• My Inner Geek. Another who was also Liebstered. Jo is very creative in a number of forms (writing, visual art, photography, game design and more). Lots of interesting thoughts on varied topics, and has invented post types like Celebrate the Small Things, a very neat idea in my opinion.

• FlamingBard. Ranni blogs on her life as well as games, and it makes for fascinating reading, what with the grandbaby and all. Also lots of tempting giveaways. I resist them only because I know I’m not likely to get around to playing, so better to let someone win that will be able make the most of them. Not that it’s easy to resist mind you!

• Ravalation. I Liebstered Rav but I don’t think she ever found out about it. A super-nice person who blogs on assorted MMOs esp SWTOR and GW2. I’ve not been talking to her as much of late because I’m playing those games even less than I’m playing LOTRO currently, so I don’t have much to say on the topics that come up.

• I Have Touched the Sky. I Liebstered Rowan also, and I think he may not have seen it. Or possibly he was already Liebstered before that, being very prominent in the blogging community, and had already been there, done it and got the T-shirt. It does seem rather presumptuous that I’m tagging someone that everyone probably already knows! Anyway, an excellent, interesting and varied blog.

PS. You can see more blogs that I rate highly via the list in my post for the Liebster meme, and in the sidebar widgets of this blog.