I posted this on Facebook on February 4, 2009. I feel like people skimmed it, and I don’t blame them since it was just a Facebook survey where people typically wrote single sentences. I re-read it tonight and liked it a lot. My shoulder hurts from patting myself on the back. Anyway, I’m re-posting it here because I feel like you’re more likely to read through it and most of it is still true. I’ll annotate it in italics. It’ll be like the director’s cut of the ’25 things about me’ survey. Update: I just finished writing the italicized notes. Now it’s extremely long and ironically (I think I used ‘ironically’ correctly for once in my life) you’ll skim it again.
(My answers got way too long and I can’t think of 25 people to tag right now.)
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 25 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.
(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)
1. Me and Jason felt like losers because we kept seeing this survey and nobody was tagging us. So we were thinking about filling it out and tagging each other and hoping nobody would notice. But then I got tagged and so far it’s the highlight of 2009.
I was so relieved that I got tagged before Jason. What a loser.
2. I’ve been trying to read Atlas Shrugged for a few months now but I keep getting stuck at the dead boring parts. Like right now they’re driving across the country looking at old factories. And it’s about as interesting as this survey’s gonna be.
I do the thing where I’ll read and then decide to read until the end of the chapter and look to see how much of the chapter is left. Well, one day I was on a flight to San Diego and I decided to do that. The chapter I was on was a character giving a speech so I figured it wouldn’t be too long. Guess what: it’s seventy pages. Guess what: I closed the book, went to sleep, and haven’t opened it since.
3. I really enjoy surveys. That’s what I miss most about Xanga.
I went through my Xanga posts the other day. A lot are a lot stupider than I remember. They weren’t exactly pure gold but I honestly thought they would hold up better than they have.
4. Arrested Development is the best show ever. And I’m trying to get people to watch Mad Men but “it’s about ad executives in the 1960s” isn’t exactly a winning pitch.
Mad Men truly appears to be the most boring show in the world if you stumble on an episode while channel surfing and have no idea what’s going on. I gave up on trying to convince people to watch and am satisfied with the number of friends I can with about the show now. When I first wrote the survey, that number of friends was one. Now it’s three or four.
5. I’m a bandwagon sports fan and it kills me every day. My dad lived in the bay area for more than a decade and was definitely a 49ers fan, probably an A’s fan, and he loved the Celtics. And he managed to get Dan to love the 49ers, but I got none of that and then we moved to Japan, where pro sports come on at weird hours and some of the cool teachers let their classes watch the Super Bowl live on Monday. It’s not impossible to learn to love a sports team with so few broadcasts, but it’s harder. What am I supposed to do, read the paper in the morning before doing my long subtraction? There’s always UW basketball though.
I’ve decided there’s really nothing I can do about this except to make sure my kids are diehard fans of some team.
6. I listen to basically all Bill Simmons and Dave Dameshek podcasts. And I’m pretty sure I’ve read everything Bill Simmons has written in the past five years.
I went to Bill Simmons’s book signing last fall and was starstruck. Just nodded when he asked if he was reading the post-it correctly and it was “C-E-S”. But it’s still true, I listen to all of their podcasts. I’ve even followed Dameshek after he left ESPN for Accuscore and eventually to the Adam Carolla broadcasting network, where he seems to have found a great home.
7. Gun to my head and I had to answer, my favorite movies are Big Fish and Independence Day. Another gun to my head and I had to pick one, I’d pick Independence Day. (“Mankind. Hah. That word should have new meaning for all of us today.”) But Dark Knight is probably gonna be the choice in a few years.
Definitely The Dark Knight now. And The Departed has entered the fray. I watch both often. Those are the go-to movies that I’ll turn on when doing chores around the house.
8. I’ve listened to Only in Dreams literally over 1000 times in the past year. I don’t really know why other than that I like it. And thinking about it, that’s a pretty good reason.
I still throw this on the end of every CD I make for the car just because it’s something I can always listen to it when I get tired of the CD and haven’t made a new one. No I don’t have an iPod dock and yes I’m aware it’s 2010. Leave me alone.
9. I leechblocked a bunch of sites but I just end up using Safari to look at them instead.
I use Chrome now and used an extension to block Facebook two weeks ago. But then I just ended up using Facebook or my iPad to look at it. So I took the extension off and decided to just stop going to Facebook so much.
10. I usually get bad haircuts but I go back because the ladies are really nice and know me now. I used to get real bad haircuts on the Ave and the people weren’t even particularly nice, so I was sort of just asking for it. One time I literally asked for it (“skin on the sides”, I thought it’d look good for some reason) and Junior was with me getting a haircut in the next chair over and he gave me the “did you just say what I think you said” bug-eyes in the mirror. I was ashamed and wore a beanie and Allison wanted to see it and she said it’s probably not bad and she wouldn’t make fun but five seconds later I showed her and she called me Frankenstein. Jon called me Dolph Lundgren.
Now I’ve been trying to tell barbers that I want to keep the sides long. And it’s not happening. They continue to rip the trimmers out. I asked for scissors-only once and the lady explained that it wouldn’t work. I’ll keep searching.
11. I was in San Jose for six months last year. Chuck Klosterman was in Germany for three months last year and he told Bill Simmons that now it feels like when someone tells you about their trip to some far off place, except that it’s you. That’s how I feel about my six months in San Jose. I feel like someone told me about what it’s like living there with some details here and there and I sort of have to remember that I actually lived there.
This is truer than ever. I feel like I remember middle school about as well as I remember living in San Jose. It seems extremely distant. I remember a ton of people that were very kind to me. And the bourgeois gym I overpaid to have a membership at.
12. I like to keep toothbrushes with me. It’s not like I enjoy the physical act of brushing my teeth. I just hate the feeling I get if I can’t brush my teeth.
I kept a toothbrush and toothpaste in my backpack. Some people thought it was weird. Fortunately, brushing teeth after lunch at the office is acceptable, I just have to deal with “are you homeless or something” comments if it’s any other time.
13. Every couple months I’ll go on YouTube and search for “literati top 20” and ten minutes of my life will disappear.
This is more like every six months now. Mostly because I write stupid scenes (think: “That was the first night we met. That was the first time I laid eyes on her. That was the last time I wasn’t in love.”) and email them to friends. The Gilmores never fail to provide inspiration.
14. My BFFs left one by one to San Diego and sometimes when they all go out together I get that feeling of regret as if they invited me and I said no. Doesn’t make sense.
Because life happens, they rarely all have the chance to go out together now! Joke’s on them, WHOOOOOOOO.
15. I rap in the shower and in the car and I’m not gonna lie, I’m kinda nice once in a while.
I was curious about how it would turn out if I wrote a verse, so I wrote one a couple weeks ago, recorded a voice note and sent it to friends. It’s awesome because my phone got stolen last week so some stranger could be listening to me kill it right now. Also on that phone: a picture of Green Lake taken thirty minutes before it was stolen that I sent to friends with the caption “trying getting my fitness on”, lyrics I typed out to memorize J. Cole’s “Higher”, other sweet pics. And best of all, rewritten lyrics to Drake’s rap verse in “Shut it Down” that I wrote immediately before bed. (“She’s turning heads. She doesn’t even notice. You turn the lights off… she keeps glowing.”) If it helps, I was immediately and extremely embarrassed when I read them the next morning. Doesn’t help? Got it. On to thing number sixteen.
16. Movies I’m waiting for: Watchmen, Harry Potter, Transformers, Terminator. Basically the same movies everyone’s waiting for.
In order: Good, great, bad, and so disappointing that people are tired of me saying how disappointing it was. Now: Airbender, Inception, Expendables, Predators, and Harry Potter.
17. I save emails, IM logs, and texts. And it used to freak me out that Dan deleted all his texts regularly, but then I realized that I’m actually the one that in the minority. I found this CD a couple years ago with an ICQ chat log from 6th grade. And I downloaded a program that plays them back (because the chats were real-time so you could see other people typing). It was sort of awesome to watch me call myself ceseroo and say kewl and hehe every other sentence.
I’m not as OCD about saving these sorts of things. I realized that I rarely go back to read this things, and it’s typically to just be annoying and prove to someone that I said or they said such and such.
18. I have a full size bed but basically only use half so sometimes I wish it was a twin so that I’d have more space in my room.
Now I wish I had a full size bed.
19. Cheesy jokes and puns are my favorite thing in the world. The Reese Witherspoon joke kills me. And it’s even good if you mess it up. Speaking of jokes, here are my favorite comedians (can’t get more cliche than this): Richard Pryor, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, and Norm MacDonald.
Still fun to me. My friends were thinking of “brag” puns (because it’s a good time, can I live?) basically until we ran out. Here are a few of my contributions: Andre Bragassi; WMD in Braghdad; Sultan of Bragrabah; GUTS #1 competitor and winner of a piece of the Braggro Crag.
20. I just remembered Valentine’s Day is in a couple weeks. I’m gonna go pretend to grab some shorts in my closet then slam the door on my head a few dozen times. BRB
This year I found a yard stick to tip the cast iron dutch oven over the counter onto my head while laying on my back in the kitchen.
21. Back. Sometimes I’ll go on streaks that last a few weeks where I’ll record what I did during the day in Google Calendar. July is full of gems like “(Saturday) watched 9 episodes of Mad Men” and “(Saturday) didn’t get into Club Envy ULR” and “(Tuesday) Napped”. I call it the loser reminder calendar system (LRCS).
March entries: “(Sunday) Battlefield Bad Company 2 opening morning with Jason”; “(Sunday) MW2 then BF2”. This was the same Sunday, by the way. My guess is the second entry was to record what I did at night. And to record the life of a loser in case someone needs insight for a future movie script.
22. Favorite food: steak. Or crab. If I had to choose between a nice ribeye steak or a dungeness crab with clarified butter and a bowl of rice, well, that’s like making me choose between I don’t know OK I’m getting frustrated because I can’t decided which one I’d take.
Ok I closed my eyes for a minute and imagined I was at the front of a line in a restaurant serving both for free. Anyway, I decided I’d go with the steak.
All still true.
23. Here I am online: flickr.com/ces ; twitter.com/cesperson ; boringperson.com ; cesnotseth.com
24. I gotta say, after all these years, I don’t really like Starcraft anymore.
When I re-read this, I actually stopped and thought, “Wait, there was a time when I didn’t like Starcraft? Did I play it too much or something? Was I mad at my friends? Was this an inside joke? At what point did I start liking it again? Why can’t I remember thinking this at all?”
25. I love it.