Several members of my family tagged me over at Facebook, and since I import my notes from LJ, I’m posting this here.
Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.
1. I own and operate a small publishing company that specializes in role-playing games, but will be expanding this year into other forms of “geek entertainment.”
2. (Related to #1) Most of my time is spent managing, planning, marketing, editing, and doing graphic design and layout. I don’t spend nearly as much time writing as I’d like to be. I need to change this.
3. I have a large (about 4 to 5 inches in diameter) crater-like scar on my left thigh, the result of having a cancerous mole and the surrounding tissue removed two years ago.
4. I’m a rabid fan of Football — the real kind. I’m a supporter of Manchester United, because those were the games that were shown on the YES network when I lived in NYC, which made them feel like my “home team.”
5. I’m a fully-brainwashed adherent of the Cult of Mac. Apple or nothing, baby.
6. I have a tendency to “devour” subjects or skills that I’m interested in — I grab anything I can related to it, absorb it all, and then move on to the next thing.
7. I credit my late grandmother for setting me on the Path of Geek, having introduced me to Star Trek (via the various “Log” books by Alan Dean Foster and re-runs on TV) and Tolkien (via “The Hobbit” and a copy of “The Tolkien Bestiary” — which I still own).
8. Laura and I are sticking around here in Lawrence for a couple more years (for several reasons, too long to go into), but after that, who knows — I’m itching to move.
9. I often feel pulled in a thousand different directions, creatively. Not enough time in the day to work on all of the projects that I have in mind.
10. I turn 40 this year, and I’m feeling every second of it.
11. I used to go to work on an Aircraft Carrier. (The USS Intrepid, docked in NYC.)
12. I’ve fought in full-armor, non-choreographed, live-steel (not SCA rattan) matches.
13. I’m horribly claustrophobic. Getting a PET scan during my cancer treatment was torture.
14. I’m a father of three kids, all of whom are now teenagers. Yikes!
15. I’ve known my best friend for 25 years. We still try to hang out weekly.
16. I’ve recently been on a kick of watching old UK television shows. Just finished Children of the Stones, a creepy SF/Horror serial, designed to traumatize British children in the 1970s.
17. Contrary to conventional wisdom, I’ve actually grown *more* liberal as I’ve grown older.
18. Despite the number of things I’ve written that have been released, I’ve yet to have a novel published, and so sometimes I don’t feel like I’m a “real” writer.
19. I have an extensive music collection, but some things I’m still searching for — for example, I need to find a copy of Andy Summers’ 1984 single of the theme to “2010”, yet it has eluded me.
20. Of all the places I’ve lived, my favorite is NYC.
21. There is a dog lying on the futon here in my office, giving me the “stop typing and take me out” look.
22. I compose and record music, but I haven’t done it in a while. Need to make some time to do that.
23. I’m currently reading “The Living Dead”, an anthology of zombie stories edited by John Joseph Adams. Zombies are pretty much the only type of horror that I find genuinely frightening.
24. Sometimes the games industry feels like a bit of a “career cul-de-sac”, but then I look at friends and family who took traditional paths to success, and see them worrying about gutted pensions, lay-offs and downsizing, and I’m thankful that I’m doing this.
25. The best sandwich I’ve ever had is a roast beef and swiss, with double swiss, shredded lettuce, tomatoes, banana peppers, oil & vinegar, made by the Copper Kettle Deli in Basking Ridge, NJ. That is the platonic ideal that I’ve been continually trying to reach ever since.
There ya go — I’ll tag the folks who tagged me on Facebook. For those of you on LJ, if you feel like doing it, do it. I generally don’t tag.
