Honestly Speaking…

I got tagged a few days ago by fellow Filipino, BlogusVox. It’s called the “Honest Scrap” award, said to be “bestowed by bloggers to fellow bloggers whose blog contents or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant”. (Thank you for picking out my blog, BlogusVox!) 

First off, the tag requires me to write 10 honest things about myself.

Honest. Now that really stumped me. It’s not like I’ve been making things up to write about in this blog :)

So I loosely interpreted “honest” as “(random) personal stuff about me that I don’t usually write about”. Here’s my list, in no particular order, and written for no particular reason, other than the fact that these were the first things that came to mind:-

1. I am, for some strange reason, generally paranoid by nature. Paranoid, wary, suspicious and other variants thereof. Name it, I’m it.

2. Flattered as I was by BlogusVox’s reasons for picking out my blog, I got very curious about the origins of this meme, mainly because of its name, partly because of the photo used for the meme.

So I did some serious Googling (well, for about half an hour or so — the Googling didn’t take much time; I got waylaid when I started reading the blogs that had the tag hehe)… and managed to find out that “Honest Scrap” was a brand name for tobacco, specifically tobacco chew.

Here’s a photo of a tobacco shop that operated in 1910 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania with a signboard for “Honest Scrap”:-

The sign is on the bottom right of the photo, hung above what looks like the main door of the shop. It may be minute and in black-and-white, but if you look close enough, you can make out the arm holding the hammer.You can also find the same sign being auctioned off on eBay under vintage signs.

But finding out these things only got me even more perplexed because I couldn’t think of how the packaging design for a tobacco chew ended up as the icon for an award that turned into a tag (or a tag that turned into an award?). Perhaps, with a bit more time to Google, I can find the answer one day…

3. As you can see, I rely a lot on Google for almost everything, whether it’s to find recipes, look for information on rv towing, check telephone country codes, etc. And I often surprise people with the kind of stuff that I manage to unearth using Google.You’d be surprised, too, at what Google can do if you know how to harness this powerful tool that goes way beyond web searches. You can use it to perform equations (try typing random stuff like “6238*3/2+1-9″), convert from ounces to grams (type: ’2 oz to gram’), to find out the local time in Kuala Lumpur (type: ‘local time in Kuala Lumpur’), even to find out the answer to life, the universe and everything. Oh, and if the answer to the last item perplexes you, try reading ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” ;)

4. I tend to be short-tempered, especially when I’m stressed and/or in a hurry.

5. Despite my temper, I prefer to write about positive things in my blog, rather than rant and rave about things that irk me, because I believe that by focusing on the positive, I can make positive things happen. Besides, don’t you think more people would rather read about happy stuff rather than complaints?

6. I feel an almost-irresistible urge to correct grammatical errors whenever I find them or hear them.

7. I have a stubborn streak, which is made even worse whenever I know that I am right. But I’ve matured enough through the years to know when to shut up…even if, deep in my heart, I know that I am right.

8. I tend to interrupt people who take too long to get to the point. It’s one of my worst habits and I’ve been working hard to change it. (As they say, the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have a problem.)

9. The Myers-Briggs Personality Test been classified me as an INTJ (Introversion, iNtuition, Thinking, Judgment) type way back when I was a fresh-faced, bright-eyed, naive 20-year old. The description still fits me to a T until today.

10. I think mostly in English.

I’m supposed to pass on this tag by picking out 7 other blogs whom I think are worthy of the award.  Unfortunately, all those blogs that I had in mind already have this award. So I leave this meme open for anyone to grab.

Hope your week’s off to a great start, everyone!

P.S. I’ll be travelling (again) this week and might not have the time to post anything new this week. But I’ll do my very best to write something during the flight. Promise! Scout’s honour :)