100 Things About Me

I know, I know, this meme died years ago…but here they are. A collection of facts, lies and half-truths that I feel define me in some obtuse way at this particular point in time, maybe.

1. Regardless of how I try, I really can’t define myself, which leads me to believe that you will not be able to do so either.
2. The majority of the interior of my house is painted blue.
3. I don’t like grass. I find the concept of a lawn to be antithetical to my personal idea of what a good yard is. I would much prefer to have my yard covered in pipne needles from the trees on my property than cut them all down and plant grass everywhere.
4. Some people are morning people, some people are night-owls, I am both. I would rather sleep during the middle of the day and be awake from just before sunset to just after sunrise. I suppose this makes me something of a vampire.
5. I like to cook more than I like to go to restaurants., which is saying something, because I really like to go to restaurants.
6. I think that computers are obnoxious and intrusive. They will not reach their full potential until they become a transparent part of existence.
7. I enjoy reading, and writing, poetry. Charles Bukowski is my favorite poet.
8. I am an excellent shot with a .308 rifle out to about 500 yards. I am competitive out to about 800 yards. After that, I can keep it on the paper, but that is about it.
9. I have spent forty five days in jail for violating my probation received when I was seventeen. I only completed 115 hours of my 120 hours of Community Service. I have pretty much avoided legal trouble since then.
10. My life is a pendulum, swinging wildly between Absolute Chaos and Totalitarian Organization, with no seeming middle ground. I expend an enormous amount of energy attempting to stop the pendulum in the middle.
11. I find peoples book collections to be fascinating windows on the owner. I am particularly fascinated by people with large, impressive collections of books they have never read, or only read once, partially, in college.
12. I am amused when people (myself included) take pride in things that would happen without any intervention, such as trees growing, simply because they happen to legally belong to the person in question.
13. I am distrustful of anyone whose interest or involvement in politics is at any deeper level than general anger and disdain for the whole mess.
14. I try to remind myself every day that I should not presume to understand anyone else, as I have a hard enough time understanding myself.
15. I lack focus, or rather, I lack the desire for focus. I enjoy exploring and drifting, finding unexpected things, and sort of integrating them into my world view. I am learning to revel in my lack of focus.
16. I do not ever consider anything to be finished or done. Everything is pretty much up for re-evaluation and re-engineering in my life. This tends to upset people around me who are more results driven than I am.
17. I am my own best friend, and would probably rather spend time with myself than anyone else.
18. I do not shop at Wal-Mart, entirely on aesthetic grounds, and would rather pay more for a better shopping experience elsewhere.
19. I do not have a coherent picture of myself as a whole. I struggled for a couple of years to develop one, but all of them that I came up with turned out to be untrue, based as they were on how I wanted to see myself at the time ,as opposed to how I actually was.
20. I become more aware of my limitations every day.
21. I also become more aware every day that these limitations are largely, if not totally, self-imposed.
22. I dislike being asked to provide the name of my favorite song, film, book, etc – because I find these things change moment to moment.
23. I readily admit to being a geek. Also a dork, and possibly a nerd – although somehow I feel being bad with numbers precludes me from nerdom.
24. I once joined a esoteric society just to learn what it was they did. Once I found out, I never went back. (It really wasn’t that interesting.)
25. The first thing I did after buying a label-maker was to make a label that said Label-maker and put it on the label-maker
26. I like building, and tending, fires of all kinds; hearth fires, bonfires ,campfires, cooking fires. You name it, if it has to do with fires, I like it.
27. In the 4th grade, I was put in a special class for gifted children. Although I’m unaware of any academic benefit to the class, it pretty much killed my friendships with the other children in my grade, while not making friends in the new class. I’m pretty sure it had a lot to do with why I am such an introvert (on most introvert/extrovert scales, I’m usually 85-95% to the left).
28. I usually walk fast, and have unknowingly left people behind until they pointed it out to me.
29. I like the smell of gasoline.
30. I talk to myself a lot and daydream far too much, even in public places.
31. According to Myers-Briggs I am an INTJ but I don’t let 4 letters rule my life.
32. Yes, I really can tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue.
33. I had my first vehicle (A VW Rabbit) for less than six hours when the motor siezed up. Before I could afford to have it fixed, a hurricane swept it away. I only drove it once.
34. I don’t understand how wearing swim trunks or a bikini in public is socially acceptable, but wearing just a bra and panties or boxer shorts is not.
35. I feel the internet is the greatest invention ever. The ability to have all the information in the world literally at your command has revolutionized my life. Personally, it puts even the printing press to shame in terms of sheer impact on society.
36. I hate the internet. I feel that it is the greatest blight on mankind ever conceived. The ability to have the opinions of the entire world at your fingertips means everyone can find some sort of affinity group to adopt the mores of and stop thinking for themselves.
37. I have an American Dream, but it’s all black masks and gasoline.
38. I do watch sports, just not your favorite sports. In order, my favorite sports to watch are Ice Hockey, Football (Soccer), World Rally Championship, Tennis, and occasionally college Basketball.
39. I really don’t care very much about your opinion on current events.
40. Every time I walk past a Starbucks, I feel a huge swelling of compassion for all of the poor deluded dupes who think that it has good coffee.
41. I take an immense amount of pride in my grocery shopping, which may be justified, as friends of mine go shopping with me as if it were a spectator sport.
42. I am left-handed.
43. I have a filter in my head that shuts down my hearing whenever someone begins talking about “them”.
44. Skateboarding was my activity of choice in junior high school.
45. I am well aware that my views and opinions about the world may be misguided or self-reinforcing.
46. In fact, I am pretty sure that they are, since it seems that most everyones are.
47. That bothers me, and I yearn for a more objective viewpoint.
48. My professional goals can be summed up as “lifelong semi-retirement”.
49. I like t oorganize things, not towards any end, just for the sake of organizing them.
50. Unsuprisingly, I like putting together puzzles.
51. I am not a big fan of white walls in a house.
52. I do not believe anyone should be eat a type of meat that they have not participated directly in the killing and butchering of.
53. I think that if the above were to be enforced, most people would be vegetarian, but I would not.
54. I lifted the design of this website from a community of Eastern Orthodox monks.
55. I have drawn up detailed plans and lists of materiel needed for an armed takeover of the country of Fiji.
56. I prefer people to computers.
57. I prefer philosophy to politics.
58. I prefer writing to reading.
59. I prefer aesthetics to efficiency.
60. I am something of an Anarchist, though explaining it would take a very long time.
61. I like works of art, but dislike art museums.
62. I believe that most people do too much talking and not enough thinking.
63. I also believe that most people do not think at all but espouse the prejudices of others and call it thinking.
64. I have a high opinion of the potential of humanity, but a low opinion for the actuality of current human society.
65. I believe that laws create criminals.
66. I do not believe that any current system of government is likely to survive to the end of this century
67. My chief hobby is being a contrarian and playing the devil’s advocate.
68. I am happily married.
69. I think that our current cultural emphasis on universal college attendance both cheapens the college experience and denigrates labor that does not require a college degree.
70. I do not believe that human beings are capable, in large numbers, of creating a classless society.
71. I believe that anyone who says that America is a classless society and therefore refutes my previous statement is likely a member of the “middle class” and would self-identify as such.
72. I believe that Calvin Coolidge’s famous speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors was the eulogy for American culture.
73. I understand that while I claim to abhor politics, much of what I talk about, and have included in this list, are deeply political subjects.
74. I understand also that my politics are inherently revolutionary and opposed not to the current State, but to the existance of the State at all.
75. I do not like carpet.
76. There are very few people that I can truly call my close friends, but I would happily kill you to protect any of them, and I know that they would do the same for me.
77. I enjoy exploring abandoned buildings, sewer systems, and various other hidden apparatus of modern life.
78. I tend not to listen to other peoples advice, particularly when it is admonitory.
79. I may be the only person in the United States that mourns the decline of the public pay phone.
80. I believe that artificial division and a sort of reverse cultural apophenia will destroy any semblence of cohesiveness in American society.
81. I have come close enough to my own death to no longer be scared of it.
82. I believe that people who do something solely for money will never be as good at it as people who would do that same thing without thought of pay.
83. I believe in better living through chemistry.
84. I am humbled every time I see a Live Oak or the Ocean.
85. I have post-apocalyptic fantasies.
86. I am impulsive and irrational, except when I am compulsive and rational.
87. I have had a rather large number of jobs. I have cooked in many fast food and short-order restaurants, cooked in a few good restaurants, demolished buildings, been a body piercer, web designer, meat packer, delivery driver, field chemist, valet, car-wash attendant, bartender, and much much more!
88. I am obsessed with coffee. I roast my own coffee at home and source green coffee beans from around the world.
89. My musical tastes are too eclectic to even be described. I own recordings from every major and almost every minor genres and sub-genre of music ever performed, from medieval madrigals to experimental electronic music, and everything in between.
90. I live within my means.
91. I talk to myself a lot and daydream far too much, even in public places.
92. I rarely remember my dreams.
93. I own very few books (less than a dozen) despite once havin had a personal library of almost 10,000 volumes.
94. I am proud to be part of the problem.
95. I have better things to do than watch the news or read the newspaper, or online news. If it really is that important to my life, someone I know will tell me about it.
96. I am a big fan of Flash games and think that “casual games” might just save the game industry from itself.
97. The sweetest, most loving dog I know of is a Doberman Pinscher. Her name is Ursa.
98. I once traded a car for a carton of cigarettes and a tank of gas.
99. There are very few things I think are worth fighting for, but almost all of them are currently being threatened.
100. I don’t think that this list is even remotely close to being an accurate representation of me, but it is the best I can do.