Last week, I once again issued the Memeday Challenge, and once again, the responses failed to disappoint.

TitanKT asks,

What is your favorite holiday treat that you only get during the holidays?

Because we import produce from the Southern Hemisphere, it seems like nothing ever goes out of season any more. But there are some treats that don’t go well with warmer weather. Nobody’s going to make egg nog in July, not even if an ice cream recipe goes off the rails. I do enjoy a nice egg nog with a splash of rum or brandy on the holidays, but I prefer a nice spiced hot apple cider, even though that’s not so much a holiday treat as is a Fall-Winter treat.

What is your best Christmas memory?

The Christmases I spent with my grandparents were quite special, what with the feeling of history, the presence also of aunts and uncles, and the enthusiasm for the holiday which their town expressed. But I’d actually have to say that my most fond memory of Christmas was of the year that my brother got the album, Thriller, for Christmas and proceeded to play it non-stop for the next few days. I got a crappy toy robot that blew smoke rings and said, "I am the amazing talking robot! Please give my best wishes to everyone!" Then its arm fell off, and my parents insisted on exchanging it for a Jeep whose sole gimmick was flashing lights and a foward-backward action vaguely similar to parallel parking. I guess you just had to be there.

Do you have plans for New Year’s Eve?

Yes, at one point that evening, I will pause upon hearing fireworks and gunshots and realize that the calendar year has incremented.

Matthew Thompson asks,

When matter converts to energy (such as matter/antimatter annihilation or thermonuclear reactions), what happens to the related gravitational field?

Well, consider that gravity is a curvature in the space-time continuum caused by mass. Some would have us imagine a bowling ball on a trampoline surrounded by rolling marbles. Now, consider what would happen when the bowling ball is removed. The trampoline not only returns to its low-energy state, but in doing so, it oscillates between a positive curvature and a negative curvature. Not to mention that the poor marbles go flying off into deep space.

Where do socks that disappear in the drier go?

They turn into lint. It’s a conspiracy on the part of the detergent industry.

What did you have for lunch on friday?

I ordered a tuna sandwich from the liquor store across the street. The tuna salad itself was okay, but the sandwich makers did the old "giant lump in the middle" trick. I asked they hold the onions, since this shop’s onions do nothing for the sandwich except to make the eater wonder whether he’s just located someone’s missing shoelaces. I should also have asked for the tomato to be held. Some people like big fat slices of tomato, but in my opinion they add nothing when balanced atop a giant lump of tuna salad like a ridiculous sombrero. The light and fluffy bread contoured itself perfectly to the lump and its hat, like a light and fluffy bath towel. And like a bath towel, it drew away the excess moisture and became soggy and damp. I should have just gone with the establishment’s specialty– the liquor.

I hope the answers proved to be an equal failure at disappointment. Should anyone wish to play again this week, feel free to submit three more questions (or tag me with an interesting and exotic meme.) Otherwise, I shall once again have no recourse but post a sour and misanthropic tirade about my lunch.