A meme! Awesome. I never get these. Here we go, five things that I think most people don’t know about me (but that I don’t mind telling them):
- I can juggle. I learned how during summer camp and eventually got pretty decent at it — for about a week I could do passing with clubs, if given a sufficiently patient partner. I’ve also juggled torches in a proof-of-concept sort of way (we weren’t allowed to actually light them). But I’m self-aware enough to realize that juggling is not only a useless and highly dorky skill, but also one that it’s impolite and annoying to force on an unsuspecting world. So I try to keep it under wraps. For a while I would use juggling as a rough sobriety test, but eventually I got too good at doing it while under the influence. Now I only ever really break it out when I need a flashy way to accidentally damage fruit. But I do credit it with rescuing me from being a completely uncoordinated disaster at all sports; now I’m a mere embarrassment. Thanks, juggling!
- I didn’t grow up with cable TV. This isn’t much of a secret, but people tend to forget it in conversation. All of your gak-colored Nickelodeon memories are lost on me. Hey Dude, You Can’t Do That On Television, Ren & Stimpy — these mean almost nothing in my mind. When they come up I’ll smile and nod, then try to steer the conversation toward Family Double Dare, Transformers and other over-the-air shows that are enjoying an irritating ironic renaissance.
- I’m not very good at math. People assume that I’m a math whiz because I’m interested in science, I program computers and I know what a THAC0 is. I suppose I’m decent at certain simple kinds of math, if only because I get occasional practice at them — I’ll sometimes have to bust out some algebra to complete an algorithm I’m writing, and whenever I get in the mood to write something graphically flashy I’ll enjoy doing the geometry that comes with it. But I’ve never been very good at calculus, and although I’ve encountered some slightly more advanced math during college, I’ve always forgotten it as quickly as possible. My eyes inevitably glaze over when I get to the formulae in the various pop science books that I otherwise enjoy reading. Personally, I blame all of this on my high school calculus teacher, who didn’t manage to convey what the “dx” in all those equations was supposed to mean until about a week before the AP test. Looking back, I’m pretty sure she was busy having a lesbian awakening over the course of that year, so I guess I can understand her failure to impart these important concepts. Still, it was an underwhelming period of instruction, particularly when compared to my geometry class. That dude had a lazy eye — it was impossible to tell whether he was looking at you, which, as a teaching method, I can’t recommend highly enough. It really kept me on my toes.
- I used to be kinda chubby. Not ridiculously so, but at my peak I was about 35 or 40 pounds heavier than I am now. I was a bulky enough kid that I was half-heartedly recruited by my high school’s football coach to be on our atrociously bad and understaffed team (I had enough sense to say no, thankfully). My sophomore year of college I decided I’d had enough soda and Taco Bell to show my junkfood-eschewing parents who was boss, and got my act together.
- I’m not an atheist. I was raised in a protestant family and went to church and Sunday School every week. I hated it. I wouldn’t say I believe in God — I figure I’ll have some time to work it out when I’m on my deathbed — but I do know that I find people like PZ Me/yers and Richard Dawkins to be insulting, insufferable, and highly deserving of having their lunch money extracted from them by force. I don’t know precisely what I believe, but I definitely don’t believe in condescending arrogance. Not in other people, anyway.
Alright, there it is. This meme seems to have spread strangely quickly — it’s made it to Dave Winer’s blog, and Cyrus has already been tagged, too. Could it be that bloggers like talking about themselves? Hmm.
I’m tempted to try to slow the spread of the contagion by just naming one or two people… Aw, to hell with it. I’ll tag Jeff, Caralyn, Genevieve and Emily, who should all feel free to ignore this if they’re not in the mood for it.
I know all of those things. I insist that you do this meme again.
UPDATE: 6. I don’t like Charles very much.
I love thac0s. Tho tasthy!
Sorry, I also know that.
I think you should also redo #4, fat-ass.