emsk

1) Cats or dogs? Birds or snakes? Aardvarks or hedgehogs?
Cats, even, and hedgehogs.

Not that I don't like dogs - I'm known some lovely dogs, particularly Nay's two guide dogs, and they are faithful, loving, intelligent, wonderful critters. But you just don't get the spice of devil in a dog that I like in a cat - I much prefer the idea that the cat hangs round Because It Wants To, as opposed to "because dogs are loyal!". As my better half points out, I love cats for all the behaviours that would infuriate me in a human. Selfish, wayward, loving only when they want to be, cupboard-loving... But, y'know, then Tigra runs to me when I get home and flumps on the floor for belly rubs, and purrs at me, and I am unashamedly owned by a cat.
Birds... eh, birds are OK. So are snakes. We don't have snakes in NZ, so I can't claim any familiarity with them; birds, we have lots of, but other than recognising them as a useful part of the food chain, I really don't care much for them either way.
Aardvarks are awesome, but I have a soft spot for hedgies. Possibly for no better reason than their utter cuteness, with the little pointy faces and squidgy paws. Hedgehogs are cute!

2) What's your favorite unexplained mystery?
I am generally not particularly credulous. I believe in "Things Science Can't Explain, Yet" rather than "The Mysteries of the Paranormal!" I'd like to know things like "where did dragons enter into mythology, and was there a real creature they were based on?" or "The Loch Ness Monster, seriously, people, why?"

I'd also love to know if there is any scientific basis for any psychic manifestations, ever, because while I do not believe in 99.9999999% of stated claims to psychic ability, where did the idea come from in the first place? Does psychic ability boil down to "some people are just really TUNED IN to other people and read them forthwith? what about parent-child bonds of the "no, I know something is wrong with my kid" variety?"

You get the drift. I would like science to find definitive answers to some of these things, and until such time as the science is legitimately available, I will remain cynical.

Mysteries of the criminal nature rarely interest me, unless they are fictional and I will find the answer at the end of the novel. This may be a head-in-the-sand approach, but I take it anyway.

3) If you could spend five minutes perceiving the world exactly like another person, whose point of view would you choose?
Does it have to be a person? Because, honestly, I can think of very few people whose heads I would truly like to be inside. It might make them easier to understand, but I still doubt I'd enjoy the experience.

I would love to perceive the world from the perspective of my cats, though.

4) Do you own any music that you would never, ever let your RL friends see? If so, what?
It's not so much that I wouldn't let them see it as I wouldn't play it. I still have various teeny-popper CD's hanging about that, in deference to happy teenage memories, I refuse to throw away. They include the Spice Girls, 5ive, Backstreet Boys, B*Witched, and, er, Ricky Martin. Periodically these CD's are excavated, usually if I'm on a long drive by myself and thus have no company to object to the singing-along.

There was also a certain undertone of "rock music is evil" at home that didn't dissipate until I was fifteen, sixteen, or so, at which point my taste pretty much changed wholesale.

5) What kinds of TV shows did you watch as a kid?
I didn't. I watched the advertisements. No, seriously - as a toddler, I'd run into the lounge the second I heard the jingles of whatever-the-hell was being advertised, dance around to the tunes, then toddle off when the program came back on. I was also terrified of one particular cartoon character - I don't remember any of this myself, but Mum's told me. No idea who she was, but I'd scream and scream in terror at her on the TV. Mum patiently taught me how to change the channel so the scary would go away; until the day that the show segment ended with one of those "now don't change the channel, kids!" and I bolted into the kitchen, screaming my head off, because the scary lady said I wasn't allowed to change the channel.

Yeah, I have no idea either. I don't think I was the most logical thinker at that point.

Subsequent to toddlerhood, I don't recall watching much - I was a reader, not a television watcher, Mum was a bit anti-television anyway, and the only things I really wanted to watch were deemed inappropriate. I have vague recollections of paying passing attention to after-school TV once in awhile, and Sunday morning music videos when I wasn't being dragged to church. I did, somewhat to my shame, watch Roswell obsessively as a teenager, but that's about the only TV series I ever paid attention to until I left home, acquired the Internet, and began inhaling various series wholesale.