And the winner is....

....me! Woohooo!

Recently, I've been the recipient of two very nice awards from two thoughtful bloggers and, now that the A to Z Challenge is over, I'd like to recognize them.

The first is the Liebster Award.

 The lovely and talented Nicki Elson over at Not-So-Deep Thoughts was kind enough to give me this one, so a big "Thank You!" to her.

So now, in keeping with the spirit of the award, I'm going to let you all in on 11 "fun" facts about yours truly, answer Nicki's questions, come up with some of my own, and then pick some well deserving bloggers to pass it along.

First...11 facts about me (pardon me if you've heard some of these before)

1. Apparently I used to talk... a lot....when I was younger. My dad had an aunt who talked a lot and he used to always tell me that he was going to lock us in a room together and see who could out talk the other.
2. My ambition, when I was ten years old, was to become a syndicated cartoonist.
3. My very first "crush" was Melody from the Josie and the Pussycats cartoon.
4. I grind my teeth so badly, at night, that I have to wear a mouth guard.
5. I used to suffer from severe migraine headaches until I reached puberty.
6. I have a fitness goal to have six pack abs in a year.
7. I went through a phase where I preferred to date only tall women. I dated a girl  5'11" and the one after that was 5'10". My wife is 5'5"
8. My first "online experience" was not via a computer, but via WebTv.
9. I love Native American culture.
10. If I had to do it all over again, I would have tried to become a professional wrestler.
11. I weighed 9lbs 13ozs at birth....I was a chunker!

Now, onto Nicki's questions:

1. Les Mis or Sweeney Todd? I've never seen either, but I know enough about each to say Sweeny Todd because.....well...crazy barbers and stuff :)

2. If you were a comic book superhero, what wold your name be? It would have have to be something that wouldn't give away my powers or abilities (not that I've ever given this any thought or anything ahem)...I'd keep it sort of generic....something like The Marauder or The Ranger....something like that.

3. What are the toppings on your dream hamburger? Mayonnaise, mustard, onions, pickles, tomatoes. Sometimes Frisch's Big Boy tartar sauce in place of mayo/mustard. It's good....I promise!

4. What city (that you've never visited) do you most want to visit? London, England

5. Favorite city (that you have visited). Key Largo, Florida

6. Which Disney character is most like you? Darkwing Duck!

7. Why? (in follow up to question 6) Many times I've had people tell me how cool and calm I've looked/acted in certain situations when I really had no idea what I was doing. DW tends to do this...a lot! :)

8. You can only choose one: would you rather write a book that's a best seller or a book that's highly acclaimed? A best seller....that way I'd have the time and means to write other books and, maybe, one of those could be highly acclaimed.

9. What's your biggest pet peeve when it comes to grammatical mistakes in a published book? The dreaded "Your" and "You're" debacle.

10. If you could live permanently in any decade, which would it be? Probably the 1940s.

11. Who's your favorite fictional romantic couple? Nick and Nora Charles from "The Thin Man" films.

My questions are:

1. Who would you get to play you in the movie about your life?

2. Aliens land and demand that you 'take them to your leader'. Who do you take them to?

3. Cowboys or Indians?

4. Big Mac or Whopper?

5. The government approaches you with the chance to gain superpowers, but you have to fake your own death and never contact your family/friends again. Do you do it?

6. Alaska or Hawaii?

7. Favorite childhood cartoon?

8. Favorite book from your childhood?

9. Do you think it's ever 'too late' to find love?

10. How's your steak cooked? Rare, medium rare, medium, medium well, well done?

11. What feature do you find the most appealing in a potential mate?

Now, for the last part I'm going to cheat jusssst a little bit. Instead of naming 11 bloggers to pass this onto, I'm going to put it out there as a general call. If you've never received the Liebster Award before (and Liebster Clause will know if you have, or not), please feel free to take it and answer the questions accordingly. If you do, please make sure to let me know as I'd love to see your answers :)

The other award was given to me by the mega-awesome Christine Rains (who gave us snippets of her great book during April) and it's the "Zombie Rabbit Award". Usually, I'm not a big zombie fan but, in this case, I'll make an exception :)

This is a pretty straight forward one where you list your ten favorite blogs from the past A to Z Challenge. Now, this was a hard one because I enjoyed a metric ton (I kid you not) of blogs this past April, so narrowing it down was quite a chore. If I had to chose ten (and I do, I guess), without duplicating anyone from Christine's list, my list would be....

1. The Bird's Nest: Jaybird never ceases to make me laugh and blogs like hers are the reason I started getting into blogging in the first place. I like reading about people's lives...both the good and the bad. And, in Jaybird's case...the jacked up! :) Her A to Z was a very entertaining hodgepodge and I mean that in a good way!

2. Alex J. Cavanaugh: The Ninja Captain had a pretty ambitious theme going. He featured a blogger that corresponded with a movie that started with the day's letter. And, on top of that, he put a song to the person and movie. All this while still doing his "Ninja News" stuff and throwing in book shout outs. If nothing else, you have to hand it to him for the sheer scope of his theme and he managed to pull it off flawlessly.

3. Manzanita over at Wanna Buy a Duck devoted April to ballroom dancing. While that sort of thing, usually, isn't my cup of tea, she really made it interesting and gave me a better appreciation for dance and the work it takes to make it look easy.

4. Tara Tyler Talks: Tara devoted the month to a bunch of great tips for all sorts of things...from writing to cleaning. A lot of very good ideas were shared and her blog was one of my 'must visits' during April.

5. Tyrean from Tyrean's Writing Spot spent April telling us the ins and outs and nuances of the great sport of Fencing. She knew her stuff having trained in it for years and fencing is something I've always wanted to try. Through her theme, I got a taste of what I've been missing. 

6. The Capillary had a lot of very cool posts about movies and her reviews of them. Very entertaining stuff and it was fun to check out each day. Definitely one of the blogs that I thought should have gotten more love.

7. The Write Game: Lee had a great theme where she taught us a different word each day. Now, I have a pretty good vocabulary, if I do say so myself, but I found myself learning a few new words in April, thanks to Lee.

8. Gary over at klahanie never failed to put a smile on my face with his "Z to A Challenge". His tongue in cheek theme had some great entries and were, always, entertaining.

9. Sheena over at Queendsheena gave us some insight into her upcoming book release Sacrifice Her. A very interesting and, it seems, harsh tale of angry gods and how the people of Faux City deal with appeasing them. It looks like it's going to be a good one, for sure!

10. Lisa Buie-Collard spent April talking about some of the ins and outs of writing. The lady really knows her stuff and it was, definitely, a topic that interested me during The Challenge. This was another blog I thought deserved more love...she had some good stuff.

Thanks again to Nicki and Christine for the awards, I really appreciate the thought!