The inevitable 25 things post

22Feb09

I resisted this for a very long time, I assure you. But I’ve read enough interesting “25 things” posts that I figured I’d give back.

Here are 25 things about me that I hope are equally interesting.

1. I love games. My main love these days are board games, but I’ve played video games and RPGs as well.I tend to prefer games that reward building and construction, as opposed to directly harming other players.  It’s not a hippie belief. I just don’t find those games as interesting or fun.
2. I’ve always wanted to design games, but as a kid, I thought I’d be designing video games. That’s a tough business to break into, and I’m pretty happy designing board games as a hobby.
3. I’m a huge ferret fan. I don’t know why. It’s an “if-you-have-to-ask” thing. Just look at ‘em running around. I love their graceless abandon, their klutzy athleticism.I’ve owned various ferrets for about 13 years now.
4. I used to work in film. I was a sound editor. It was great and terrible. It was always cool and interesting, and I learned a lot in my time. But the hours were bad, the work wasn’t steady, and worst of all, the atmosphere was abusive.I’m glad did it, and I’m glad I left.
5. I am horribly, pathetically squeamish. I faint at the sight of blood. As a result, I don’t watch much movies or TV. Most of them involve dead, mangled bodies in some way.
6. Interestingly enough, I have no problems reading traditional or graphic novels, or watching anime. It’s really just live-action.Despite the above fact, the movies I like tend to be weird and occasionally brutal. I really like Coen Brothers movies, and anything unusual has a good shot of getting my eye.

   That means I have to psych myself up for watching a movie I know I like.  I’m not often in the mood to see a movie for the first time. Maybe a few times a year. But once I see a movie, I’m okay with the nasty bidts. I can sit through Reservior Dogs, for example, but the first time I saw it, it was through my hands.

7. I like listening to music. I have about 250 GB of music on my hard drive.I don’t have a word for what I listen to, because it usually falls between genres. If it’s punk/metal/soft and sad/avant-garde, I’ll give it a try.

   I don’t listen to the radio. I like some sort of control over what I listen to. So I usually only hear about new acts about five years after they’ve broken up.

8. I was beaten up a lot as a kid. I fought back when I was really little, but in second grade, I got in trouble for biting a kid’s ear when he teased me.The school taught me to “ignore them and they’ll go away.” I did that, and was bullied every day until halfway through high school. It took me that long to figure a few things out:

   a) Bullies will stop if you hurt them.

   b) I am worth defending.

   c) Don’t trust everything an authority figure says. For example, “Ignore them and they’ll go away” is a crock of shit.

   If and when I have kids, they will know how to defend themselves.

9. I’m a terrible eater. I’m extremely picky. Vegetables taste like raw uranium to me, or at least what I think uranium would taste like. They’re very unpleasant, and I usually wind up gagging if I eat one.I also dislike fish, spices, fruit, and mushrooms.

   I wish I could eat more food, but I can’t spend three hours every night staring down my dinner, willing myself to keep it down.

10. I used to play music. I wasn’t great, but I’m sure I would have gotten better if I’d kept doing it. I stopped because I ran out of time, space, and money to keep playing.Maybe one day I’ll come back to it.
11. I love being an adult. I love not being an outcast. I love meeting someone new, and getting the benefit of the doubt. I love having the room to be myself. I love being able to eat and go to bed whenever I want.
12. I followed sports very closely and played a lot as a kid, but fell out of it midway through high school. The reason: I’m a terrible athlete, and when I had the choice between being a third-string JV lacrosse goalie or having my own four-hour weekly radio show… well, what would you pick?So I didn’t follow sports again until about a couple of years after college.

    Nowadays, I love sports. I like following football and baseball, but I especially love watching new and different sports from around the world. I wish I could see more cricket, curling, Aussie Rules Football, and even kabaddi.

    I find it very strange that people who would otherwise be open-minded about books, movies, and music insist that any sports other than the ones they grew up with are “weird.” World music had a big growth spurt about 15 years ago. Why not world sports?

13. I’m not into every sport. I’m lukewarm about hockey, basketball, soccer, and rugby.
14. I wish I’d learned more about computer programming as a child. All I learned was BASIC, and I’ve had to un-learn a lot of it in order to grok modern programming techniques. I really enjoy coding, and I wish I could do it more.
15. I’m not a religious person, in any way. I’ve never seen any evidence that God made man in his image. In fact, every contact I’ve ever had with organized religion has demonstrated that it’s the other way around.
16. I hate politics, too. In fact, I detest them.
17. I’m a big fan of tact. I’m sick of people who are celebrated because “they just say what’s on their mind.” You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, as they say.
18. I stuck a pencil in my left eye when I was a kid. The pencil was newly sharpened, too. Fortunately, I missed the important parts of my eyeball, but if I look to my right, you can still see a pencil mark in my left eye. Strangely enough, I see better out of my left eye than my right.
19. I am a perfectionist. This really does get me into trouble. All the time.
20. I hate sentimentality. I hate maudlin expressions. I think movies that force romance into their plots (i.e. most sci-fi movies) are lazy. I was literally screaming at the screen at the end of The Matrix. Ask my ex-wife, she was there.
21. I’m uncomfortable talking on the telephone. I need to be able to pick up on body language and visual cues. Without them, I’m lost. Please keep this in mind the next time you call me.
22. I’m a big fan of Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation is always the best.
23. I love English science fiction. In American science fiction, aliens invade, but humans fight back and kick their asses. In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, aliens blow the planet up within the first few minutes/pages. That feels more like it.
24. I have never been able to master a foreign language. I speak only a tiny sliver of Hebrew, despite having Israeli parents, and I’ve forgotten all the Italian I learned in school.
25. I am getting my first gray hairs. I don’t mind them.

Bonus 26th point for my Facebook friends: I hate chain letters. I will not tag anyone in the Facebook note version of this post.

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