Oh, liebchen!

The Liebster Award in five easy steps:
1. Link to the blogger who nominated you - Thanks, Miemo! 
2. Provide answers to the eleven questions you were asked
3. List eleven facts about yourself
4. Nominate five blogs with less than 3,000 followers
5. Ask eleven new questions for your nominees to answer

Eleven vina Facts

1. I never capitalize my own name. If I do, it's all uppercase. VINA or vina. I like it when my name is all the same caps height. It's a graphic design thing.

2. I can't stand Ranch dressing. It's the stench of buttermilk. Gross.

3. There are twelve Twitter accounts (me, the restaurants, the bars, Chef Armstrong, Todd Thrasher, Chef's cookbook, Curd Nerd, and re:collective) enabled on my phone. I AM mission control.

4. Playing Freecell relaxes me.

5. Tangled wires really, really, really aggravate me.

6. I wear a lot of red, but my favorite color is blue. I could probably never be in a gang for this reason.

7. I hate what's become of Legos. Detailed diagrams, set designs...poppycock. Give me a big bin of Legos and I'm good for hours. You want a mansion? I got you, son.

8. Karaoke makes me uncomfortable.

9. I don't understand America's fascination with key lime pie. I mean, it's alright. Not my favorite.

10. I quote movies whenever I can. Shoot, there's a movie quote in #9.

11. My eyes immediately glaze over when people start talking IP addresses and coding. Horrible flashbacks of the first two years of college when I thought I was going to be in the IT world. Cisco networking and all that. My palms will start to sweat if you mention bus modules and binary codes. The horror...the horror. (Oh look, I just Apocalypse Now'd you.)

Bring it on. 

1. What is your favorite thing about blogging? This might sound self-centered—this is coming from someone with a self-portrait blog called vain vina so let's just take that with a grain of salt— but I don't particularly blog for other people. My blogs serve as an archive to my life, diaries for someone who has too much to say and not enough patience to write it all down. I like the idea of being able to remember that I didn't have time for breakfast in January of 2010 because I lingered in bed for too long (via vina) or listen to snoring pugs from my dogsitting days (vain vina). If other people are interested in my crazy life, that's awesome. I should bake you all a cake. 

2. What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? Snooze my alarms, jot down my dreams, and check my social media like it's the morning paper. 

3. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life what would it be? I don't understand the question. 

4. What is your favorite day of the year and why? October 11, my birthday. Guaranteed cake, what's not to love?

5. Who knows you the best out of everyone in your life? Probably my sister. She gets me. 

6. What would you say is your biggest accomplishment and why? I once spent ten hours assembling an Ikea sideboard for my parents. I truly don't understand why I didn't get a medal for that. Not even a certificate of achievement? Come on, Mom and Dad. Even the kids with good attendance got a certificate of achievement. Y'all some ingrates. I apologize for those harsh words. 

7. Do you like where you currently live? Or do you hope to move somewhere else? Despite the unpredictable traffic and the cookie cutter suburbia, yeah I do. I grew up in Virginia, I love it here. That being said, I'm not opposed to moving. Charleston is one of my dream cities. Auckland would be dope, but mainly because I could have dual citizenship there. 

8. What is the craziest thing you have ever done? Iron Shannon and I once drove to Chelsea, NYC, for a Floating Lab Collective opening. Stuck in the car for close to eleven hours and in New York for three. Bullshit. We were stuck in freeway construction for over five hours on the way home with only Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank album. That's a great album and all, but not for five hours straight. No, Modest Mouse, I do not want to Fire it Up.  

9. How have you grown since January 2013? Leaps and bounds, darlings. I've learned plenty about other people and who I am as a person. That sounds ten shades of trite but it's true. I can also whip up a flyer in less than an hour but keep that under your hat, hear? 

10. You suddenly find yourself in a superhero film. What is your superhero power and superhero name? vigilante vina, OBviously. I could go around and fix bad design. Those characters are kerned too tightly! Your leading is too loose! NEVER FEAR, VINA IS HERE. Can I wear all black like a ninja slash artist? Yeahhhhhh, that's going to happen. All black catsuit with a lovely serif font with a double V logo in white. Hotness. Wait, I have to squeeze myself into a catsuit? Might need to rethink that one. 

11. What is your favorite blog to read? (You can only pick one… this one is really hard!) Shit, Sophie's Choice up in here. At the top of my head, Pink Robot Boogaloo. I don't know if that counts since she is my very good friend, but she is an excellent writer and I like the things she posts. She's vegetarian and will even post meat photos that she thinks I'll like. In fact, she made me homemade bacon/maple butter the other week. It's legit when a vegetarian tells you that she wants to make bacon butter for you. 

And 5 bloggers that I hope will answer my 11 questions…

Fàbio Lopes of Engineering Dreams
Stephanie T. of Pink Robot Boogaloo
Thomas Rossmeissl of Incogneko
Justin Raphael Roykovich of JRRoykovich
Rachel Semenov of Rachel Draws

1. How do you navigate a restaurant menu?
2. What do you like to eat on rainy days?
3. Scariest movie you've seen?
4. What would be in your post-apocalyptic pantry?
5. What is your your preferred method of murder?
6. You're going on a six hour road trip. What's going in your playlist?
7. What's your current favorite word?
8. What do you think about when you're alone in your car?
9. What kitchen utensil would you be?
10. A panda walks into a bar. What does he order?
11. If I came to your house for dinner, what would you make?