25 things

Now that the “25 things about me” backlash is in full swing, it’s time for me to jump on the bandwagon. I’ve been tagged on Facebook and other places a few times, so I might as well. I won’t be tagging anyone else, though, and I really don’t get Facebook, so I’ll be posting my 25 things here, behind a cut.

1. My earliest stuffed animal that I can recall was named Lion Projector. I think I named him after the 8mm movie projector my family had.
2. Around that time, I also had a rocking horse named Ice Cream Cone. I have no idea where that name came from.
3. Even after taking a nearly 30% pay cut between my last job and my current one, I’m making more than my father, a junior high school teacher nearing retirement, does. This doesn’t make any sense to me at all.
4. We haven’t had TV service in two years, or a car in almost two and a half years. I don’t particularly miss them. Running water and electricity are still good, though. And you’ll have to pry my internet connection from my cold, dead hands.
5. I taught myself C by printing out the source code to ircII and writing notes in the margin until I understood it.
6. I’m pretty sure this CERT advisory is about something I did.
7. Before being hired by the UW’s central computing department, my last interaction with them had been to have my computing privileges permanently revoked (as opposed to temporarily suspended, which was the usual punishment).
8. The last three things are only tangentially related.
9. For a brief period in high school, I was involved with the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade.
10. I have never been arrested or issued a traffic ticket for a moving violation. I did get pulled over once because a taillight was stuck on, and I have gotten a parking ticket, although it was from a private parking lot. In my defense, their rates sign was very misleading.
11. I have attended a party at the house where Kurt Cobain killed himself. It’s a very nice house.
12. Instruments I have played in the past with a reasonable degree of proficiency include: violin, viola, bass (double and electric), accordion, piano, guitar, recorder, clarinet, didjeridu, autoharp, harmonica (diatonic and chromatic), mandolin
13. Despite half of my family being Mexican, and my father being a Spanish teacher, I do not speak Spanish. I took French and Latin in school. I’m told my Spanish pronunciation is pretty good for the phrases I do know, though.
14. The movie Poltergeist scared the crap out of me. I’m still uneasy about clowns and TV static.
15. The first time I read The Stand, I was home sick with a bad cold/flu. Bad idea.
16. I have had an IRC client signed on to EFnet almost continuously since late 1992. This is at least partially responsible for my current career and lack of college degree.
17. I’ve never been to Burning Man, have no desire to go now, and secretly wish that I’d been a part of it in its early days.
18. My family used to have two pet turtles. They escaped.
19. Driving makes me cranky.
20. I am, at this very moment, stuck in bed. Literally. I threw my back out this morning, managed to make it to the bedroom, and now can’t leave.
21. I am Facebook Friends with one of my childhood idols.
22. I am pretty firmly atheist, but probably could have been convinced otherwise by Mister Rogers.
23. I believe that many of America’s problems could be solved by either doing away with the legal fiction of corporate personhood or extending it further to allow for, say, a corporate death penalty.
24. Until a few years ago, I was unable to swallow pills with water, having to use yogurt or a wad of bread or something instead. Today, I discovered that I don’t even need a glass of water. Yes, this is related to #20.
25. I have an OCD-like inability to leave a glass of water partially full once I’ve started drinking it. This can be problematic at places like Cedar’s, where the wait staff hovers and refills your glass at every opportunity.

Bonus thing I just realized: the three people who tagged me for this meme on Facebook are all people I went to high school with, even if one of them (Cam, my wife) doesn’t remember me from then.