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Feb. 13th, 2008 08:44 pmA. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
B. Tag seven people to do the same.
C. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag "whoever wants to do it."
I'm going to ignore parts two and three. I don't like anonymous meme writes telling me what to do, and especially how to do it. "Don't tag 'whoever wants to do it'" they say. It annoys me when someone else thinks that because they have the time to throw a few questions together, they can dictate the style of total strangers' journals.
But, since Samii tagged me to answer the questions, and it makes me happy to know that she's interested in learning more about me, I'll bouncily go along with part A.
I find topics that I obsess about, devour for a variable amounts of time, then pass on from to other topics. Current items of particular interest are photography, urban exploration, and drumming. Previous topics of interest have been computers (yes, I'm actually finding myself moving away from that realm of late), juggling, memorizing composers' birthdays (back in high school), and plenty more that I could think of if I tried hard enough.
When I have the space for it, I organize my books to an OCD degree. I like to have books sorted by genre and topic (art, how-to/instructional, biography, fantasy, sci-fi, non-fiction, myths and faerie tales, religion (those two are next to each other) and more. Then I sub-organize alphabetically by author. Within each author, I organize by name of book or series. Within a series, I organize by location in the series' timeline. I like to organize my CDs and movies this way too.
I hoard things and will become very completist about sets of objects. This applies to books (I will attempt to compile an entire series if I have any of its member books even if I may not ever read them), computers (I had the idea for awhile of assembling a computer collection representing a complete history of the x86 processor. I nearly did up through the Pentium 2. I had an 8086, an 8088, a 286, a 386, a 486/33, a 486/66, a Pentium 90, a Pentium 120... you get the idea) and more. I intended at one point to try to assemble the necessary hardware to be able to play every form of standardized media since Victorian music discs. I've kind of let that go, though I do have an 8-track deck, a reel-to-reel tape deck, a video-disc player, and, as a side note, a Radioptican (a picture-postcard projector) from the turn of the past century.
Lately, I've come to empathize a lot with the Buddhist idea that equates possession with suffering. I'm working very hard at unburdening myself of a lot of things that I no longer need. It's tough when I have to fight that completeist, collector's streak. And that's not the only bit of Buddhist philosophy I agree with. I won't call myself a Buddhist though; the thing I'm closest to is a Taoist. A book by Raymond Smullyan called The Tao is Silent is the closest thing I've ever found to someone else perfectly articulating my belief system, or lack thereof.
Wow; I do go on, don't I? How about simpler things.
I like to sleep with animals in my bed. Our dog doesn't like to get in bed when both Andrea and I are there; I guess he thinks that three's a crowd. But sometimes I can get him to jump up when I've gone to bed early or something, and that's nice. Plus, we almost invariably have a cat sleeping with us at night, and that's comforting too.
I think that essentially every car built after 1980 looks pretty much the same, except for the ones that look even worse. My ideal car would be a Beetle or Super Beetle. The old ones, not those blasphemous affronts to German engineering that have an engine in front. I'm also partial to mid-sixties Lincoln Continentals. I'd love to have one with a 454 and suicide doors, though I probably wouldn't drive it much for gas reasons. But hey, I could use the trunk as a storage shed!
I love forms of artistic expression that spring from failure to communicate, or that attempt to describe futility of communication. Things like Dadism or Theatre of the Absurd. Music like Pink Floyd's The Wall, which to me is about breakdown in communication. I think that comes from my life-long difficulties in communicating with other people. I also love underground art, like the graffiti I've seen in abandoned buildings and storm drains or on train cars. I love found art too, like the sorts of things that appear in Found Magazine. There's a randomness to all of those things that I find deeply appealing.
I guess that's seven. I hope I didn't bore you all! Thanks for the inspiration Samii.
I was going to work on cleaning more of the house after writing, and I've done a little bit of laundry and straightening up, but I think I'm going to leave anything in depth 'till the weekend. There's not enough time on most weekdays to really get into projects. Today was dinner with my parents, and tomorrow, Andrea and I are going to go out for a little Valentine's Day dinner. Maybe Friday I'll attack the living room again. My computer room, at least, is slowly tending to itself as I put more and more tech up on Ebay. (Speaking of which, if you're interested, my Ebay page is here.
-----
Oh noes!! I left my Dungeon Siege disc at work inside the CD case for Shawn Colvin's A Few Small Repairs. I can't play Lazarus tonight! At least I have good music here. *grins wryly* Ah well; I guess in that case I'm off to bed.
B. Tag seven people to do the same.
C. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag "whoever wants to do it."
I'm going to ignore parts two and three. I don't like anonymous meme writes telling me what to do, and especially how to do it. "Don't tag 'whoever wants to do it'" they say. It annoys me when someone else thinks that because they have the time to throw a few questions together, they can dictate the style of total strangers' journals.
But, since Samii tagged me to answer the questions, and it makes me happy to know that she's interested in learning more about me, I'll bouncily go along with part A.
I find topics that I obsess about, devour for a variable amounts of time, then pass on from to other topics. Current items of particular interest are photography, urban exploration, and drumming. Previous topics of interest have been computers (yes, I'm actually finding myself moving away from that realm of late), juggling, memorizing composers' birthdays (back in high school), and plenty more that I could think of if I tried hard enough.
When I have the space for it, I organize my books to an OCD degree. I like to have books sorted by genre and topic (art, how-to/instructional, biography, fantasy, sci-fi, non-fiction, myths and faerie tales, religion (those two are next to each other) and more. Then I sub-organize alphabetically by author. Within each author, I organize by name of book or series. Within a series, I organize by location in the series' timeline. I like to organize my CDs and movies this way too.
I hoard things and will become very completist about sets of objects. This applies to books (I will attempt to compile an entire series if I have any of its member books even if I may not ever read them), computers (I had the idea for awhile of assembling a computer collection representing a complete history of the x86 processor. I nearly did up through the Pentium 2. I had an 8086, an 8088, a 286, a 386, a 486/33, a 486/66, a Pentium 90, a Pentium 120... you get the idea) and more. I intended at one point to try to assemble the necessary hardware to be able to play every form of standardized media since Victorian music discs. I've kind of let that go, though I do have an 8-track deck, a reel-to-reel tape deck, a video-disc player, and, as a side note, a Radioptican (a picture-postcard projector) from the turn of the past century.
Lately, I've come to empathize a lot with the Buddhist idea that equates possession with suffering. I'm working very hard at unburdening myself of a lot of things that I no longer need. It's tough when I have to fight that completeist, collector's streak. And that's not the only bit of Buddhist philosophy I agree with. I won't call myself a Buddhist though; the thing I'm closest to is a Taoist. A book by Raymond Smullyan called The Tao is Silent is the closest thing I've ever found to someone else perfectly articulating my belief system, or lack thereof.
Wow; I do go on, don't I? How about simpler things.
I like to sleep with animals in my bed. Our dog doesn't like to get in bed when both Andrea and I are there; I guess he thinks that three's a crowd. But sometimes I can get him to jump up when I've gone to bed early or something, and that's nice. Plus, we almost invariably have a cat sleeping with us at night, and that's comforting too.
I think that essentially every car built after 1980 looks pretty much the same, except for the ones that look even worse. My ideal car would be a Beetle or Super Beetle. The old ones, not those blasphemous affronts to German engineering that have an engine in front. I'm also partial to mid-sixties Lincoln Continentals. I'd love to have one with a 454 and suicide doors, though I probably wouldn't drive it much for gas reasons. But hey, I could use the trunk as a storage shed!
I love forms of artistic expression that spring from failure to communicate, or that attempt to describe futility of communication. Things like Dadism or Theatre of the Absurd. Music like Pink Floyd's The Wall, which to me is about breakdown in communication. I think that comes from my life-long difficulties in communicating with other people. I also love underground art, like the graffiti I've seen in abandoned buildings and storm drains or on train cars. I love found art too, like the sorts of things that appear in Found Magazine. There's a randomness to all of those things that I find deeply appealing.
I guess that's seven. I hope I didn't bore you all! Thanks for the inspiration Samii.
I was going to work on cleaning more of the house after writing, and I've done a little bit of laundry and straightening up, but I think I'm going to leave anything in depth 'till the weekend. There's not enough time on most weekdays to really get into projects. Today was dinner with my parents, and tomorrow, Andrea and I are going to go out for a little Valentine's Day dinner. Maybe Friday I'll attack the living room again. My computer room, at least, is slowly tending to itself as I put more and more tech up on Ebay. (Speaking of which, if you're interested, my Ebay page is here.
-----
Oh noes!! I left my Dungeon Siege disc at work inside the CD case for Shawn Colvin's A Few Small Repairs. I can't play Lazarus tonight! At least I have good music here. *grins wryly* Ah well; I guess in that case I'm off to bed.
