My answers

I'm on hold with the credit card company right now, so I thought I'd play fair and answer my own survey and also give you some motivation as to why I asked the questions I did. Thanks to everyone who answered (your answers made me smile), and a big welcome to Matt, a friend of Harry!

1. I usually don't return 'missed calls' if there isn't a message, unless it's one of two or three people, one of which includes my mother. I figure if it's important, the person will leave a message. If not, they will call again. The reason I asked was because I get 'missed calls' both on my cell and my work phone and I never know quite what the right thing to do is.

2. I totally believe thank you notes are absolutely necessary and should be mailed the next day at the latest. Obviously, there are occasions where it's impossible to get all the thank you notes out that quickly, but I do think gift receiving requires a note of thanks. I ask this because my best friend and I were debating this and she doesn't believe thank you notes are necessary, especially if you thank the person in, um, person. I just didn't know if I was in the minority,

3. I love writing and getting long emails. I love reading them and I love knowing that someone took time to write me such a long email. I especially love emails that paint a picture for me. I ask this because my best friend told me that my emails are too long and that when I write long emails, I'm putting pressure on the person who's receiving them to read and respond.

4. When it comes to email, I generally respond within the week, unless it's short in which case I respond pretty much immediately when I get it. I'm pretty good about responding to long emails within a day or two as well. It really depends on whether I logon or not that evening and what email account the email went to. I don't check all accounts every night so emails do tend to ferment if they went to one of the step-children accounts.

5. I like pictures, provided they are thumbnails, on blogs, but I don't require them. Maybe it's because I'm mostly on the Internet for the reading aspect -- stories, news, blogs -- and so I find that pictures and music distract me from my overall goal, which is either frothy entertainment or intelligence gathering. Plus, I find music slow and annoying because 9 times out of 10, I'm not going to like the song in question. Again I ask because aforementioned Best Friend (wow, she's coming up a lot) said she prefers blogs with pictures and music to one like mine which is 98 percent text.

6. I actually had a post written about the social networking site, MySpace.com, and one of these days, I'll get around to publishing. That site scares me more than anything else online and it pretty much takes a lot to scare me online. Maybe it's because it's been in the news so much, or maybe it's the fact you have all of these people in one space who can easily be found. I dunno. Plus, the web purist in me doesn't necessarily care for templates etc. I like designing my own sites thankyouoverymuch. And just for the record, none of the Seemas on MySpace listed as residing in Sweat Sock City are me.

7. This actually happened to me at dinner on Thursday. I was blatantly cut and at first, I thought it was a mistake, the woman was just talking to her friend, but no. I didn't say anything, but I wish I had.

8. Baseball! Because the season is over, I was curious to see who was following, who cared about who was playing, etc. I think most of you know who I was rooting for and now that we're no longer in the mix, I'll go with the Cardinals over the Mets.

9. I think it should be dutch on the first date. Because honestly, as my brother says, a first date is only to find out if you want a second date. And if you don't think there's going to be a second date, it seems kind of poor to make the guy pay up. Plus, I like the fact that I can pay my own way and it releases me out of any further obligation.

10. Why do people treat parking garages like the Indy Speedway? I mean, seriously. It's like a gauntlet of people, tight corners, two way traffic, and parked cars, and yet, there they are, roaring past at 20 miles an hour. Crazy stuff.

This was fun.