LankaKitten, my wife, tagged me, so here's 20 things you probably don't know about me:
1. Witnessed a gang shooting at a chinese arcade once. The gangster guy took it point blank in the stomach. Pow! (Cue screaming teenagers stampeding out onto the street.)
2. I had bad constipation problems in 5th grade. I often went two weeks without sitting on a toilet. Then when I finally had to go, it wasn't pleasant and I'd vow never to go again.
3. In a game of chess, I once beat one of the top twenty-five chess players in the world. It was at Venice Beach and I won $20 from him. Just a few months later, I lost four games out of five at the Los Angeles Open (putting me in last place for my category) which really frustrated me. I stopped playing after that.
4. Brilliance followed by mediocrity has been an ongoing theme in my life.
5. Many years ago, I tore the suspension right off the back of my Honda practicing "drifting" in a parking lot (it's a trick where you pull the parking brake to slide around a corner at high speed.) This is why college students shouldn't be allowed to play video games: they get ideas.
6. A few months later, I almost avoided a car accident by "drifting" around a driver that had run a red light. I clipped him with the right corner of my bumper rather than head on so I guess that's a good thing.
7. Slept with four girls total in my life. My wife was the fourth. That's not too weird, right?
8. Some people are afraid of snakes, I'm afraid of bills. I have a terrible credit rating because of late payments.
9. My stepfather (not technically, but he had the same role in my life) disappeared in the mountains while fishing and a massive search-and-rescue operation was undertaken to find him. Over the course of three days, we had looking for him: a half-dozen bloodhounds, dozens of off-duty firemen, two helicopters, four or five squadcars (with matching police I assume), three dozen search-and-rescue guys with ropes and whistles, and a dozen miscellaneous family and friends. None of them found anything but me. I found the clues leading to a pool of water, a pack of his off-brand cigarettes and some of his fishing tackle. I was the hero of the day -- until a diver found his body pinned at the murky bottom of the pool by the waterfall. Again, brilliance followed by mediocrity and disappointment.
10. I once accidentally trained a cat to attack people. I thought it was cute (at first.)
11. For many years, I researched and took lots of designer drugs (and classic psychedelics like marijuana and mushrooms) looking for insight and purpose. Eventually, I realized that drugs were all smoke and mirrors just like everyone had always said. Cynicism and disappointment followed. Unfortunately, just about everyone knew about my drug use and this caused trouble with my family, my job, and Lankakitten (who I had just started dating.) Triple mediocrity that time.
12. As many can verify at Tawnya's Halloween party, my favorite drink is the Cape Cod and my tolerance is about two before I become animated and start slurring. I had two drinks and a single jello shot that night. About 6AM, I threw up.
13. The final straw that spurred us to leave California was our apartment with creaky hardwood floors. We lived above the building manager and she was an angry little troll, "Fuck this, fuck that, fuck you! Are those assholes upstairs walking around their apartment past 9PM?! (SLAM)" For two years I tiptoed around, afraid of making noise and drawing her attention to us.
I knew the day would come when we'd get the hate. And when we moved out, it had been raining for two weeks so we couldn't paint the apartment back to white. She printed out notes and stuffed them in everyone's mailboxes inviting the whole complex to stop by our apartment and say hi to the morons who didn't have taste for shit. To the people that stopped by, I told them, "Consider it a warning, your time will come too."
14. For some reason during my final years there, I developed some sort of social phobia and had occasional panic attacks. It cleared up entirely once we moved.
15. When I got down on one knee and asked LankaKitten to marry me (we were in public at Disneyland), I was embarassed to discover that I had a full erection. Nobody ever tells you that erections are a possibility of asking for someone's hand so consider yourself warned.
16. Coming out of anesthesia from having my wisdom teeth cracked out of my head, I was confused, disoriented, and nauseous. Lankakitten came into the operating room and instantly I felt better. I knew everything was going to be okay just because she was there. We snuck out the emergency exit and after my head cleared I decided that I should ask her to marry me. I did a month later.
17. In high school, I spent all my free time skateboarding. When we'd injure ourselves, like say, spraining an ankle badly or spliting our hip open on the asphault, we'd just tie our shoelaces tight and walk it off. One of my finger joints doesn't bend quite right because I didn't think to ask anyone if it was broken.
18. Once, I murdered a man.
19. That last one was false, just thrown in there for fun.
20. I used to be a construction worker. We did landscaping (koi ponds) and roofing for (mostly) Chinese people. If you're ever in a situation where you're doing work on a traditional Chinese family's home, don't eat before you go because they're going to feed you and actually will be insulted if you say no. Really! I had four full meals forced on me before 3 P.M. once.
I'm tagging LostEpoch and Skittle_Water.
1. Witnessed a gang shooting at a chinese arcade once. The gangster guy took it point blank in the stomach. Pow! (Cue screaming teenagers stampeding out onto the street.)
2. I had bad constipation problems in 5th grade. I often went two weeks without sitting on a toilet. Then when I finally had to go, it wasn't pleasant and I'd vow never to go again.
3. In a game of chess, I once beat one of the top twenty-five chess players in the world. It was at Venice Beach and I won $20 from him. Just a few months later, I lost four games out of five at the Los Angeles Open (putting me in last place for my category) which really frustrated me. I stopped playing after that.
4. Brilliance followed by mediocrity has been an ongoing theme in my life.
5. Many years ago, I tore the suspension right off the back of my Honda practicing "drifting" in a parking lot (it's a trick where you pull the parking brake to slide around a corner at high speed.) This is why college students shouldn't be allowed to play video games: they get ideas.
6. A few months later, I almost avoided a car accident by "drifting" around a driver that had run a red light. I clipped him with the right corner of my bumper rather than head on so I guess that's a good thing.
7. Slept with four girls total in my life. My wife was the fourth. That's not too weird, right?
8. Some people are afraid of snakes, I'm afraid of bills. I have a terrible credit rating because of late payments.
9. My stepfather (not technically, but he had the same role in my life) disappeared in the mountains while fishing and a massive search-and-rescue operation was undertaken to find him. Over the course of three days, we had looking for him: a half-dozen bloodhounds, dozens of off-duty firemen, two helicopters, four or five squadcars (with matching police I assume), three dozen search-and-rescue guys with ropes and whistles, and a dozen miscellaneous family and friends. None of them found anything but me. I found the clues leading to a pool of water, a pack of his off-brand cigarettes and some of his fishing tackle. I was the hero of the day -- until a diver found his body pinned at the murky bottom of the pool by the waterfall. Again, brilliance followed by mediocrity and disappointment.
10. I once accidentally trained a cat to attack people. I thought it was cute (at first.)
11. For many years, I researched and took lots of designer drugs (and classic psychedelics like marijuana and mushrooms) looking for insight and purpose. Eventually, I realized that drugs were all smoke and mirrors just like everyone had always said. Cynicism and disappointment followed. Unfortunately, just about everyone knew about my drug use and this caused trouble with my family, my job, and Lankakitten (who I had just started dating.) Triple mediocrity that time.
12. As many can verify at Tawnya's Halloween party, my favorite drink is the Cape Cod and my tolerance is about two before I become animated and start slurring. I had two drinks and a single jello shot that night. About 6AM, I threw up.
13. The final straw that spurred us to leave California was our apartment with creaky hardwood floors. We lived above the building manager and she was an angry little troll, "Fuck this, fuck that, fuck you! Are those assholes upstairs walking around their apartment past 9PM?! (SLAM)" For two years I tiptoed around, afraid of making noise and drawing her attention to us.
I knew the day would come when we'd get the hate. And when we moved out, it had been raining for two weeks so we couldn't paint the apartment back to white. She printed out notes and stuffed them in everyone's mailboxes inviting the whole complex to stop by our apartment and say hi to the morons who didn't have taste for shit. To the people that stopped by, I told them, "Consider it a warning, your time will come too."
14. For some reason during my final years there, I developed some sort of social phobia and had occasional panic attacks. It cleared up entirely once we moved.
15. When I got down on one knee and asked LankaKitten to marry me (we were in public at Disneyland), I was embarassed to discover that I had a full erection. Nobody ever tells you that erections are a possibility of asking for someone's hand so consider yourself warned.
16. Coming out of anesthesia from having my wisdom teeth cracked out of my head, I was confused, disoriented, and nauseous. Lankakitten came into the operating room and instantly I felt better. I knew everything was going to be okay just because she was there. We snuck out the emergency exit and after my head cleared I decided that I should ask her to marry me. I did a month later.
17. In high school, I spent all my free time skateboarding. When we'd injure ourselves, like say, spraining an ankle badly or spliting our hip open on the asphault, we'd just tie our shoelaces tight and walk it off. One of my finger joints doesn't bend quite right because I didn't think to ask anyone if it was broken.
18. Once, I murdered a man.
19. That last one was false, just thrown in there for fun.
20. I used to be a construction worker. We did landscaping (koi ponds) and roofing for (mostly) Chinese people. If you're ever in a situation where you're doing work on a traditional Chinese family's home, don't eat before you go because they're going to feed you and actually will be insulted if you say no. Really! I had four full meals forced on me before 3 P.M. once.
I'm tagging LostEpoch and Skittle_Water.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
strongmad:
Nope, got a date, and she's not in fighting bowling shape, so we're staying in.
kobi:
Nice! Ill remember to tie myself down if I ever ask someone to marry me.