- In the words of Holden Caulfield I’m not going to start with David Copperfield crap like where I was
born and what my parents do and all that.
- Only to say if circumstances were different I might have been called Sebastian.
- I’ve lived and worked on 3 continents.
- Visited 6, only Antarctica remaining.
- Never lived in the country — either city or suburbs.
- If money were no constraint I’d live in Switzerland.
- When I was young I fantasized I was an alien who was stranded(?) / stationed(?) on Earth and working
for some spy outfit.
- And was a compulsive list maker.
- And a horder. Still am, to an extent.
- My grandparents owned a toy shop. So toys? Not bothered.
- Up to the age of about 10 and around once every 1-2 months I’d take all the tins out of the kitchen
cupboard and rearranged them. In categories.
- My parents used to get all sorts of blank forms (like bank deposit forms or applications for passport)
and I’d fill them out for fun.
- I’m good at filling forms. Really good. Fast too.
- One summer vacation I pretended I was the principal of a school and designed a complete daily timetable for the teachers and classes in the whole school. Using paper, pencil and ruler.
- Another time I designed uniforms — formal, normal and battle — for a futuristic army.
Each rank had its system of stripes and stars.
- The summer vacation when I was 14, I watched, and taught myself to understand, test match cricket.
Before then I thought cricket was a type of insect. (I know it still is, I just didn’t know there were
other meanings.)
- I’m petrified of dogs since being chased by one when I was 13.
- I often wish I was left-handed.
- I wonder what it’s like to be autistic.
- I organize my bank statements, utility bills and assorted paperwork in a 4-drawer filing cabinet at
home. Alphabetically.
- I’m obsessively punctual.
- I spend a lot of time in office lobbies, train stations, in front of shops, in restaurants, waiting.
And waiting.
- I was described as "very Swiss" by a Swiss.
- Some might take it as an insult but it was meant to be, and graciously accepted as, a compliment.
- I wear swatches exclusively.
- I’m the worst dresser in a rather formal and fashion-conscious office.
- I like wearing t-shirts, polo shirts, jeans, cargo pants and sneakers.
- Black or navy socks only, except when doing sports.
- I twisted my knee in a skiing accident, had to be hauled down the slope in a sled, and how own a pair
of purple crutches as souvenir.
- I don’t like going to the doctor’s, most times I just take a painkiller.
- I get nagged a lot.
- I can cook pretty well.
- I
don’t drink coffee. [update: not very much.]
- I drink 2 cans of
Diet Vanilla Coke Coke Zero at lunch.
- I usually bring my own lunch to work.
- I always have chewing gum at work, but I never take it at home.
- I prefer salads without dressing.
- I take my steak rare and plain, with just a little freshly ground black pepper.
- I’ve eaten snake, crocodile, kangaroo, ostrich and pig’s brain.
- I don’t eat skin, including chicken skin (even on wings) and fish skin.
- I can drive pretty much any car comfortably, stick or auto, on either side of the road.
- I work in investment banking but I’m not a banker.
- I still get paid pretty decent, natch.
- I have my own private office. [update: now a nice corner with view.]
- I used to manage a couple of people but no longer (phew).
- I have a long array of letters after my name.
- I’ll stop showing off now.
- I find that if I believe I’m good at something, there’ll always be someone who does it better.
- I don’t answer my phone 99% of the time.
- I never give out my phone numbers, I’ll give my office fax number if I think I can get away with it.
- The greeting on my answer machine used to be: "If you called my mobile and got this, try again
later. If you don’t know what my mobile number is, you have the wrong number."
- I don’t have an answer machine anymore. If I did my incoming message will now be: "You have reached the House of Quiet. Within these 4 walls silence is sacrosanct. Leave your words if you are worthy or in dire need."
- I subscribe to MacFormat,
Premiere, BBC Good Food, Food and Travel and whatever
the local newspaper is where I’m living (in a language I can understand of course). I’ve kept the subscriptions
throughout the 3-continent moves. [update: don’t subscribe anymore: internet.]
- If I take a book with me when I travel it’s usually Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.
- I read lots of Christopher Isherwood when I was around 17 and never realized he was gay.
- I have 2 complete sets of David Eddings’ Belgariad.
- I used to read books a lot.
- I wrote over 100 poems/lyrics over a 4 year period in my late teens/early 20s. Most of them are pretty
embarassing to look at in the cold light of day.
- I own a grand total of one anthology of poetry.
- I’ve never kept a diary.
- I completed nanowrimo
on my first attempt in 2004: 50,000 words in 9 days. I finished in 15 days in 2005, but have since lost most of the file in a flash drive disaster. 2006 was easy, but I haven’t looked at the finished product.
- I had one copy of the 2004 nano printed, for my own fun. Did the formatting and designed the cover, using a photograph in my own collection.
- I can’t draw.
- I’d go as far as saying I have no artistic eye.
- I can read sheet music but I’m hopeless at playing and I can’t remember tunes or lyrics.
- I have zero music street cred.
- I first registered this domain name in 1997 (or 1999, I can’t remember, hee). I own 5 domain names (I think).
- I designed my first website on Claris Homepage v3.
- It was hosted at xoom when it was a free webpage provider.
- I stopped working on the site for 3 years.
- I’ve used Macs since forever.
- And will do so forever.
- I
might buy bought a PC laptop, but that’ll be for backup, checking browsers and IM’ing. [update: don’t have it anymore.]
- I’m self taught on excel, photoshop, pagemaker, html and css.
- Before May 2005, the total number of people I’ve met on the internet was 2, both of whom I’ve met
in person, one I keep in touch with fairly regularly.
- Since May 2005, that number has exploded exponentially. I chat with a small group of people around the world regularly and have met many of them in person.
- I can’t sit still for any length of time.
- I hardly ever remember my dreams.
- I sleep with a small pillow tucked under my knee, to help support my knee and feet.
- I go for regular foot reflexology massages, painful during the treatment, but afterwards for a few
minutes it feels like I’m walking on clouds.
- I’ve often wished I were more spiritual and introspective.
- I know the phases of the moon but I have to look up their meanings.
- I vaguely know about the festivals of Candlemas, Beltane, Samhain but I don’t celebrate them because
I don’t feel a connection with them.
- I don’t cross my 7s.
- Blue pens, never black.
- A picture of my hands once appeared in the New Scientist, holding a separating funnel.
- I’m a member of the mile high club.
- I’m Buffy obsessed.
- To be more precise I identify as a kitten.
- We used to have a cat, she’d follow us when we went out for a walk.
- I’ve never voted.
- I pay my credit card bills and taxes on time and in full.
- I’m indifferent to almost everything and everybody.
- I’m fairly happy in my own skin.
- I can happily stay home and not go out or talk to people for lengthy periods of time.
- I get claustrophobic in crowds.
- I avoid smoke, noise and public places.
- I don’t like people.
- I swore I’d never do this 100 things thing.
- But it looks like I did it anyway.
