Half-a-dozen notions lacking in importance and relevance

This is my best attempt to satisfy the outrageous demands of Chris Taylor and Damian "Babbling" Brooks who conspired to tag me with this meme.

Chris mentions his dislike of monkeys, and I'm with him on that: my best friend in grade 6 had a spider monkey at home . . . what a ghastly little monster. My feelings for the other members of the primates never recovered from that meeting. Chris also has this thing about cold pizza . . . I'd have to say that once it drops to room temperature, pizza is no longer human food. Chris must also be a writer, rather than a mathie, as I'm tagged as number 7 in a list of 6!

Damian, on the other hand, can't stand watching people embarass themselves. I'm absolutely with him on that. There are a large number of recent "comedies" I'll never bother to watch, as even the trailers were inducing that sort of sympathy cringe in me. I'm also down with Damian's reluctance to eat meat off the bone . . . it's just wrong in ways I can't describe, but are overwhelming to me.

So, what are my odd quirks? While I could be described as a walking encyclopedia of quirks, not all of them are uncommon enough to qualify for this meme. That'll take some head-scratching.

1. Aside from NFL football, I rarely watch television. I can't stand to have a TV on in the same room while I'm trying to do something. Elizabeth and Victor both have the ability to carry on normal life with a TV set blaring away, but it literally drives me out of the room.

2. I hate driving a car with automatic transmission. I cannot stand having the car make the decision for me on when it's time to change gears — even if modern automatics are technically "better" in the sense of being more fuel-efficient than manual transmission models. My most recent vehicle purchase was very quickly narrowed down to the few in my price range which still offered stick shift. (Yes, of course the Quotemobile is standard transmission.)

3. I'd be perhaps the best subject for market studies of the long-term viability of new products: if I like it, it's in trouble. If I love it, it's dead.

4. I always have dozens of books on the go at the same time. It's rare that I manage to read one book from start to finish without having also started at least one more book in the meantime.

5. I'm a collector by nature ("accumulator" is perhaps a more accurate term: collectors tend to be organized in their collections). I now try to avoid starting to collect something because I'll feel impelled to "complete" the collection, even after the original interest fades away. It's a sickness, I tell you!

6. I'm learning to dislike auto-flushing toilets and urinals: we've just had the washrooms at the office "upgraded" to use them. Far from being more ecologically friendly, they appear to use close to twice the amount of water that the older units do . . . and they operate at the most inconvenient moments.

No point in tagging anyone for this, as I think I'm usually among the last dozen bloggers on the planet to get most of these tag-memes passed along, but feel free to pretend I tagged you if you'd like to adopt the meme without being tagged with it.