Eight is Enough Meme

It's been a while since I did one of these. This one is more interesting than some of the others that float around. Toast's list was enlightening (and mildly disturbing :)). Here are the rules -

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.

2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.

4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged and that they should read your blog.

5. 8 is a magic number. Not three.

1. I don't wear deodorant. I don't need it. Certainly, there are times when I get sweaty and a little odiferous, but I just wash. Generally I smell the same when I get home from work as I did when I left in the morning. I believe there are a lot more people who could get by just fine without deodorant or antiperspirant, but they've been brainwashed by the hygiene establishment.

2. I have a hard time relaxing if there's work to do. You might not know it if you saw all the shit there is to do around my house because, well, there's a lot of stuff to do, and I had to come up with a coping strategy. So, in order to really relax in the afternoon or evening, I have to do something productive that day. Right now I'm sitting amongst several piles of debris from our office, which we're in the process of cleaning out. I'm ok with it because I have a plan to deal with it, and I got other stuff done this weekend. So I rarely have weekends or even single days where I do absolutely nothing. Even on football Sundays, I'll mow the grass or something.

3. I am extremely hairy. About the only place I don't have much hair is the top of my head. I'm not sure why it happens that the spot that people care the most about having hair on is the spot most likely to lose it. I mean, have you ever heard of someone losing their back hair? I'm fine with my baldness though. I cultivate a distinguished bald pate, like Captain Picard.

4. It's nearly impossible not to like me. Now I know you're thinking 'I already don't like you, you arrogant ass', but honestly, I get along well with everyone. A large part of that is that I'm non-confrontational, to a fault, actually, so I don't often give people overt reasons to dislike me. The rest, of course, is due to my sparkling personality.

5. The first novel I remember reading was Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. I was probably 10 or so. I didn't like that one much. My Dad really likes a lot of Henlein's early stuff, and gave me Glory Road next. It was better, but I never got into Heinlein much. I'm more of an Asimov guy.

6. I love to travel. Everywhere and anywhere. In my ideal hedonistic dream life, I would have a nice little place to live where I would spend almost no time. Even now, I get antsy if we don't have at least a weekend trip planned in the near future. We generally go on 3 large vacations per year - cruises, Europe, weeks in the mountains, interspersed with several long weekends to Orlando. We're saving up for Christmas and a December cruise to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary and it's so far away it's killing me (and my wife).

7. I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan because my dad was. We didn't have a home team (Atlanta and Miami are both 5 or 6 hours away), and my dad liked the Cowboys of the 70's. Like most boys, I wanted to be like my dad, so I picked them up. Of course, my dad is a lukewarm football fan now, and has shifted his allegiance, such as it is, to the Jaguars. Stinking traitor.

8. I was blessed with what some may call a tin ear. All my music is ripped in WMA format at 48 kbps. Any audiophiles reading this would now be apoplectic probably, but I've played these 48 kbps files side-by-side with their uncompressed parents, on fairly decent sound systems and heard no difference. Maybe under ideal conditions, in some special sound room, I could appreciate the differences, but honestly, I never listen to music under ideal conditions. I listen in the car, at the gym, doing yardwork, at work at my desk. I figure I get just as much enjoyment out of my music as an audiophile, with far less hassle and grief.

Ok, since everyone I know in the blogging community has already been tagged by Toast, I'll just tag my wife, Michelline, 8 times.