I normally don’t play web games, but this was started by Jeff Pulver and then Amanda Congdon tagged me so, oh, well, what the hell, now I need to come up with five things most people wouldn’t know about me — which isn’t easy when your life is an open blog. This seems even more egotistical than blogging itself. But here goes:
1. I went to four elementary schools in three states and four high schools in three states — no, he wasn’t in the Army — and impatiently got out of high school and college each in three years, which might help explain why I’m so… well, you fill in that blank.
2. I got into journalism not quite by accident. I was going to go to law school but decided I couldn’t take another three years of school before getting started on life, nor would I be good at saying, “Yes, your honor.” So I looked around for a career and realized that my extracurricular activity, the newspaper, was actually a career for some.
3. Used to drink bourbon, gin, and beer — not altogether, but in that order over the years. Now drink only red wine.
4. I was once named one of San Francisco’s most eligible bachelors. That, and being straight in San Francisco, still didn’t do wonders for my social life.
5. Frank Sinatra, Bill Cosby, and Alan Thicke have all said they don’t like me.
OK, now I have to pass on this chain letter to five people about whom I’d like to know more. Sorry, folks: Rex Hammock, Steve Rubel, Seth Godin, Hugh MacLeod, Fred Wilson.
Eight schools through HS?
Was this a “Running on Empty” situation?
Why didn’t you turn your parents in?
You gotta tell the Sinatra story.
[...] I don’t normally go for these tagging, viral blog posting games. But I’ve watched over the past several days as highly respected people, such as Jeff Jarvis, Greg Sterling and Amanda Congdon got swept up in the madness, and maybe with a little envy that I hadn’t been tagged. [...]
Yay! You wrote up your 5.
Bill Cosby doesn’t like you?!?
“This seems even more egotistical than blogging itself.”
Actually, no it’s not. It’s just as egotistical as blogging.
But on the bright side, you get to know things about people that you wouldn’t ordinarily know. And as I’ve been following this meme, each time I finish reading one, I see the author of the blog in a different light.
If you asked a child this question, they would’t hesitate to answer. That’s because they haven’t been trained to second guess themselves to death and worry about how they are percieved.
Nice to see you playing along. Play keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously.
[...] There. So now who shall I burden with this task? The major disadvantage of waiting ten days to respond to being tagged by a meme is that just about every blogger I read has already played. A quick search of my RSS shows that much of my regular reading list has already succumbed. Amanda Congdon, Jeff Jarvis, Howard Owens, Mindy McAdams, Andy Dickinson, Peter Krasilovsky, Matt Waite, Danny Sullivan, Ryan Sholin, Lucas Grindley, Ethan Zuckerman, Euan Semple, Tim O’Reilly, Anthony Mayfield, Rebecca MacKinnon, K. Paul Mallash, Danny Sanchez have all told us their five things already. Will Sullivan set the bar pretty high with a great two-part response, and Susan Mernitt has a nice roundup of her favourite responses. [...]
[...] If you blog, it’s a fair bet that you know about memes – those viral efforts that spread through social networks like chain letters. Today, I got “tagged” in a blog meme, by none other than Will Sullivan. I won’t pretend to be put off by it, since I’m sort of geeked to have gotten tagged (especially since others who’ve participated include Jeff Jarvis, Howard Owens and Amanda Congdon, among others). So without further adieu, 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Me (But Were Afraid To Ask): [...]