I just realized (by looking at the dates) that some facts were posted exactly one year ago. And now, the continuation ...
To be concluded ...
Posted by TorontoTrekker, December 29 2010 04:57 PM
I suppose I should provide a list...
1. I've met dozens, if not hundreds, of celebrities through my work on conventions, and Lou Ferrigno is the only one I've ever embarrassed myself in front of. After he signed his autograph for me, I was talking merrily away at him about how impressed I was that, all these years later, he was still in such amazing physical condition. He smiled, and thanked me, I walked away, and then I realized... the man is stone deaf. (I was told that he's also an excellent lip-reader, so he did understand me... whew.)
2. Until about four years ago, when I went back to school and subsequently got a job as a Web developer, I may very well have been the youngest COBOL programmer outside of India.
3. I don't consider dinner complete without dessert... preferably ice cream, despite the fact that I'm lactose-intolerant.
4. I'm a Life Master in the North American Contract Bridge League. (That's not nearly as impressive as it sounds. Besides, I haven't played competitively in seven or eight years.)
5. Having been asked by a friend to accompany her to an audition for a musical, I subsequently sang as well (having done a fair bit of musical theatre in university, I thought, what the hell). They thanked me, I thanked them, I walked out... and upon reading a sign on the wall, discovered that I had just auditioned for the Broadway production of "Rent". (No, I didn't get the part.)
6. I was married in 1993, in a United Church ceremony, before the law recognized same-sex marriage. It didn't last; he left me about four and a half years later for another guy with whom he'd been cheating on me, and they were subsequently married via the banns. It made national news up here, and led directly to the legalization of same-sex marriage. As you can guess, I wasn't terribly thrilled. As my friends say whenever I bring up the subject, "BUT HE'S NOT BITTER!"
7. I'm a character in the Tanya Huff novel The Better Part of Valor. And Tanya did a pretty good job of portraying me (she should have - we've known each other for about 25 years), though the character gets more nookie than I do.
8. I'm known among my circle of friends as a Pet Shop Boys fanboy, though I've only gotten to see them live twice. If I'm at a karaoke place, and they have any PSB song other than "West End Girls" (I'm kind of tired of it), I'll be on stage eventually. (Though I'd appreciate it if anyone had one of their songs that was less than 20 years old... "Opportunities" is starting to lose its charm, too.) I'm also a fan of Erasure, Depeche Mode, and Rufus Wainwright.
9. With a friend, I submitted a spec script to Star Trek: Voyager. Their guidelines said to expect a response within two to eight weeks - 18 months later, we got a rejection. Though a couple of scenes mysteriously similar to scenes from our script did find their way into season 7 episodes.
10. I've been bowling in leagues since I was 8 years old - I started with 5-pin (which I think is only played in Canada - in addition to only having 5 pins, you get three balls, and the balls are smaller) but I started bowling 10-pin about 15 years ago. My current league average is 165, and my highest game ever was one in which I started with seven consecutive strikes, and ended up with a score of 244 (I had a 235 the same night).
Posted by Kestra, December 29 2010 08:17 PM
6. I feel my prettiest in Indian clothes.
7. I have slight allergic reactions to most fruits, and now many vegetables as well. I'm now scared of eating a lot of fresh food.
8. I didn't have a middle name until about 2.5 years ago.
9. I've never met anyone that came close to matching my reading speed.
10. My sister is my other half.
Posted by Mr. Laser Beam, December 29 2010 08:46 PM
Even more:
1. I have a large head. It's hard to find baseball caps to fit - I need a size 8 3/4.
2. I am a Lutheran. I go to a contemporary-style Lutheran church. here
3. I am mostly Republican, but I hate the damn Tea Party.
4. I have never been in a fight.
5. I have been bald since 2005.
6. My favorite baseball players who are not on my favorite teams are Dave Dravecky (Padres/Giants), Kevin Millar (Marlins/Red Sox/Orioles/Blue Jays), and Mark Fidrych (Tigers). Dave Dravecky, in particular, is a major inspiration in my life.
7. I have only been out of the USA once - for my brother's wedding, at a resort in Mexico, in 2007.
8. I am a hypochondriac.
9. The only football team I like is the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
10. I am an absurdly light sleeper; I usually need earplugs.
Posted by Smellincoffee, December 29 2010 09:48 PM
1. I became interested in Star Trek after being hospitalized for three weeks with nothing to occupy me by the television. (I dislocated my elbow and acquired a slight fracture after a tramopoline accident.)
2. I practice Greek philosophy, and am particularly interested in Stoicism and the work of Epicures.
3. My favorite author is Isaac Asimov, and I have several shelves full of his books. I'm most proud of my Black Widowers collection.
4. Though raised in the deep south, I do not have an accent: it vanished at some point between late high school and early general college. I never realized this until I started talking to my online friends on the phone and they told me I had no discernable accent. I asked my friends and family in real life to verify this, and they said I sound like 'a Yankee'. I think perhaps my preference for speaking standard, grammatically correct English, contributed to the decline of my 'southern drawl', but whenever I watch an episode of Firefly that reserve vanishes completly.
5. I enjoy playing with accents. It is not unusual for me to answer the phone with an accent to throw off the person on the other end. I have been known to carry on for entire conversations in 'Received Pronunication'. Currently I'm interested in being able to effect a "working-class Irish" sound.
6. I've become quite interested in anarchism this year.
7. There are few kinds of music I won't listen to, but I'm most fond of big band, folk, and fifties-sixties pop and rock.
8. I have a degree in history, but enjoy science, sociology, philosophy, poetry, and most other human endeavors.
9. I enjoy playing PC games, particularly: The Sims (1 & 2), SimCity 3000, Mafia: City of Lost Heaven, GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas, and Civilization 3.
10. I have been told on several occasions that I would make a good monk, and sometimes feel as though I'd like to be a minister and help people even though I am not religious.(I consider myself a Humanist.)
11. I changed my location to "Vulcan" on several forums after watching Star Trek XI and leaving the theatre stunned that they'd blown up Vulcan and not brought it back.
Posted by RAMA, December 29 2010 09:48 PM
Hmmm what 10 more random things can I think of....
1. I'm a science and tech junkie, and have been since I was a kid.
2. I'm a New York Yankee fan, but didn't got to a game till 2008 in the old Yankee Stadium. I've been to the new stadium numerous times.
3. I've been an atheist since I was about 13 years old though I was agnostic before that. My mother is devoutly Catholic and I was raised to go to church, though I refused to have my confirmation.
4. I've been to the Arnold Sports Festival twice. Its the largest sporting event in the world, and thousands more athletes compete in it than the summer Olympics.
5. I've been married since spring 2004.
6. My wife's unoffical joke name for me is "manwhore" because of how many women I used to date before I met her..in fact right up till the day I met her.
7. My artwork has won awards and toured States. I've also done some freelance ad design work though I haven't done any work in 4 years now.
8. I'm a certified personal trainer.
9. I was the strongest kid in my high school. I've since found out that if I had applied myself, I probably could have broken the state squat record for a teen, since I was only about 75 pounds off the 2005 record. I weighed as much as 260 lbs.
10. Almost every single day a woman or male tells me I smell good. Today it happened twice!
Posted by macloudt, December 30 2010 03:24 AM
I'm really enjoying reading all your posts! Let me think of some more trivial garbage about myself...
1. My first university degree was a double major in sociology and cultural anthropology. I call it my Cute But Useless degree because, at a Bachelor level, you can't do much with a degree in these subjects. However I really enjoyed my studies and have no regrets earning this degree.
2. I was studying towards a Bachelor in Child and Youth Studies but have recently switched to Law. I loved working in the Early Years field but the pay is crap and, with the coalition government, there's a possibility that my job was going to disappear altogether. And, to be honest, it was reaching the point where I wanted to smack a lot of parents upside the head, which isn't exactly professional.
3. I grew up in a very strict Roman Catholic household. As a teenager I wasn't allowed to go out at night with friends, never mind on a date (not that I was ever asked, but anyway...). It's a good thing I'm a natural homebody or I could have seriously gone off the rails. I'm much more lax with my own kids.
4. Due to an upper jawbone deformality, for which I had surgery when I was 12, I had a bad lisp for most of my childhood. It disappeared on its own when I was about 17. I had no self-confidence as a younger teenager and the lisp did not help whatsoever.
5. I've been a comfort eater all my life and though I'm healthy and quite fit I could do with losing about 60 lbs.
6. As much as I love knitting, cross-stitching and the like, I'd give up all my needlecraft skills to be able to draw or paint.
7. My sock yarn stash is embarrassingly large, especially as it takes me ages to finish knitting a pair. I'm a complete sucker for homespun, hand-dyed yarn.
8. If I see an old hand-stitched tablecloth or runner at a jumble sale or charity shop I feel compelled to buy it. I can't stand the thought of all that effort someone put into a piece of work being thrown out.
9. I'm left-handed, and am always on the lookout for other left-handers.
10. My maiden name, which is incorporated in my username, has 6 letters and one syllable, and, thanks to a silent letter, is never pronounced or spelled correctly. The main reason I took my husband's name upon marriage is that it's common and easy to spell. However my maiden name comes in handy in terms of usernames as it's never already taken.
Posted by captcalhoun, December 30 2010 04:59 AM
1. i'm a freak. i was amidextrous as a kid, but when i was asked whether i was left or right handed by a school teacher and i replied 'both' she told me i couldn't be, so i chose to be left handed.
2. despite this i only write left handed. i eat, play cricket, softball, hockey, tennis and other racquet sports right handed. i also use my right hand to hold mugs and glasses.
3. besides Trek BBS, i visit 4 other forums on a daily basis.
4. one of those is a Canadian based GI Joe fansite.
5. another is for a ten year old mod for Quake 2.
6. i own 14 classic Doctor Who serials on DVD. none are from the First, Fifth or Sixth Doctor eras.
7. most are from the Third's.
8. i only have three complete TV shows on DVD. none are Star Trek.
9. one of them is the complete Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.
10. i struggled to come up with some of these.
Posted by Satyrquaze, December 30 2010 06:52 AM
1. I have one older sister.
2. I am left handed.
3. I shave my head twice a week (if I remember).
4. I enjoy sketching.
5. I love Star Trek, but hate Voyager.
6. I love Doctor Who.
7. I play some form of RPG at least once a week.
8. I’m dating a girl who is smarter than I am.
9. I grew up in Minneapolis and currently live about a block from my elementary school.
10. I'm currently in my 30s and I still read comics.
Posted by KingDaniel, December 30 2010 05:14 PM
(deep breath...)
1. I hate talking about myself, even under the relative anonymity of the internet.
2. (generic bragging about something or other)
3. I've never had any fashion sense whatsoever.
4. I've never met my father, and couldn't care less.
5. I don't drink. It's not due to some high-minded ideal, but because I puke the instant I taste anything alcoholic - like sticking fingers down my throat. I'm sure you can imagine how much that sucks.
6. I'm terrible at math.
7. They tried to teach me German and French at school. They failed.
8. Despite the above, there are some things I am actually good at.
9. Did I mention that I hate talking about myself?
10. Enjoy this post while you can, there's a good chance I'll have second thoughts and delete it in the next few hours.
Posted by mr.peany, December 31 2010 02:52 PM
1. I am a Ambulance Paramedic.
2. I was born with only one kidney.
3. I have a degree in Visual Communication & Design.
4. Madonna's "Vogue" is my favourite song of all time.
5. I have over 200 DVD/Blu-ray box sets.
6. I have broken both arms during a rock climbing fall.
7. I rock climb.
8. I scuba dive.
9. I have never consumed coffee. In any form.
10. I have an unhealthy crush on "Uncharted"'s Nathan Drake.
Posted by Decker, January 1 2011 02:26 AM
1. I am fluent in English, Japanese and German. I do translation work in all three.
2. First Star Trek I saw was TMP in 1995 (I was nine then). It's still my favorite.
3. My favorite novel is "Les Misérables"
4. My collection of Blue Note records includes more than 320 albums. It's CDs though.
5. One of my former classmates is in the Japanese national soccer team.
6. I used to study (and teach to some extent) Quenya.
7. I only write with pencils.
8. My favorite games are "Riven", "Final Fantasy VIII", "Max Payne" and "Super Mario Bros. 3"
9. I read "National Geographic Magazine" (religiously), "Foreign Affairs" and "Esquire".
10. I think facebook is way overrated and the root of all evil. Friends aren't something you "add".
Posted by goldbug January 2 2011 04:51 PM
1. Worked with nuclear weapons and delivery systems in my 20s (USAF)
2. Working with Electronic/Mechanical Gyroscopes for aviation
3. Am an original fan of TOS (1st run NBC)
4. Married with 3 sons and 1 step-daughter
5. Will NEVER live in Texas again
6. Have traveled at 725MPH (fastest I've ever been)
7. Dad worked for NASA as a subcontractor
8. Watched EVERY manned Saturn V launch from the beach..
9. Met many of the American Astronauts as a child
10. My wife is a lovely lady from Brazil
To be concluded ...