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.
I’ve been tagged by Jay Small of all people (come on, Jay (or John), I thought you were one of the cool kids on the block?) Well, I guess I have to play along … never could resist peer pressure.
Here are five things you may not know about me.
- In high school, I was briefly a member of Demolay. I joined because Demolay members where the first friends I made at my new school in ninth grade (mid-year transfer).
- My nickname in the USAF was “Showtime” because the base I was stationed at didn’t have HBO on the cable system.
- Just before college, I lived 18 months of my life in a 1957 Fleetwood travel trailer (think the Lucy and Desi movie, The Long, Long Trailer).
- I bought my first guitar for a dollar at a swap meet in Spring Valley, Calif. I was probably 10 or 11. I never learned to play it, and my friend Mike Traxler got mad at me one day and smashed it to pieces. It was a red, electric guitar — one of those off brands from the 1960s that are highly collectible now (maybe).
- My first AOL screen name (which I still own, but never use) was pd4wrds (paid for words). (I just checked that e-mail account for the first time in probably four or five years … lots of spam, and I’m still getting the BONG Bull e-mail newsletter there, which I probably haven’t read in 10 years.)
So many people to tag, so little time … Nick Belardes, John Jones, Matt Welch, Lucas Grindley and Will Sullivan.
UPDATE: I was also just tagged by Peter Krasilvosky.
Ha ha Showtime! I love that nickname.
Looks like I got you first. Eat my dust, Krasilovsky! ;-)
[…] Why did I do this? Well, Jay tagged Howard tagged Will tagged me (and Will tagged Danny tagged me). You can dig back further into that thread if you want, but if you really want to go down that rabbit hole, I’ve got a blonde joke for you. […]
[…] 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): […]