Fellow podcaster pal Shelly hit me with an old blogging chestnut, and boy, does the back of my head hurt (RIMSHOT).
But seriously: I’ve been tagged to do an “Eight Things You May Not Know About Me” blog entry. I could have sworn I did one here years ago, but ’twasn’t the case. So here it is:
1.My very first posting to the Internet (or, to be accurate: Usenet) was on April 28, 1989. You can see it here. Aside from proving that I’m old, it also shows that things you put on the ‘net never go away.
2. I was a winning contestant on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. I won the Listener Limerick Challenge on the March 29, 2003 show.
3. I rarely swear. I believe it’s a sign of intelligence to be able to express yourself firmly, powerfully, and creatively without resorting to one of the “deadly seven.” And at the risk of sounding like an old man, I am appalled by the way people drop the f-word so casually.
4. I live by the two best pieces of advice I’ve ever received. The first came from my father: “Trust your gut,” and the second from my friend Bob: “Don’t let people rent space in your head.” The third best piece of advice was spoken by Sir Anthony Hopkins in The Mask of Zorro: “Lesson number one: never attack in anger.” That pretty much covers it.
5. My two favorite TV shows of all time are The Dick Van Dyke Show and SCTV. Aside from the brilliant writing, they provide all sorts of wonderful archetypes: Rob Petrie as the suburban husband and father who works in the city, Alan Brady as the overbearing boss, and Johnny LaRue as the successful entepreneur, TV host, and ladies’ man.
6. I always treat the people who provide a service to me with an extra level of respect. It gets you much further than treating them like servants. Build the relationship, even if it’s just for the duration of dinner.
7. If there’s one key lesson I’ve learned from my life experiences, it’s that life is very precious, it’s all over too soon, and so very little is worth fretting over. And we need to cherish every single good thing in our lives and to stop bitching about everything that’s wrong, while acting to change the things we can. I sometimes forget that, but it doesn’t take much to bring me back: usually, it’s the three sets of eyes looking at me.
8. My early musical tastes were greatly influenced by my older siblings, then later by my stint as a DJ on my college’s radio station. My listening habits grew more eclectic from there. It wouldn’t be unusual for my iPod to play “Dedicated to the One I Love” by the Mamas and the Papas, followed by “Respectable Street” by XTC, then “Solitude” by Duke Ellington, “Hotel Song” by Regina Spektor, and “Unbroken Chain” by The Grateful Dead. Oh, and I can sing you a song in Portuguese about mermaids, and it isn’t even dirty.
That’s it for me. I am going to tag Lisa and Becka for the next round. 🙂