Asymmetrical Information

1) For several years growing up, my family didn't have electricity or running water.

2) I can do math in base 16 roughly as easily as base 10.

3) I can juggle, but rarely do.

4) As an exchange student in Germany, I had to take part in an excercise initiative, which included a 2 kilometer run. I was dead last to complete it.

5) Children's bubble bath makes me break out in hives.

Jane, you forgot to mention:

6) The dot-com collapse was a direct result of Jane Galt quitting her lucrative consulting job for blogging.

7) As an infant, Jane Galt intiminated Ayn Rand into giving up the IP rights to what would later be her blogging name.

8) There is no Atlantic Ocean, just a list of spellings Jane Galt prefers to use.

9) The "work offline" feature was originally added to Internet Explorer when developers realized that most people are afraid to be on the same internet as Jane Galt.

10) Jane Galt isn't actually tall; she just sells everyone else short.

1) I love peanut butter, jelly and banana sandwiches.

2) I once held a TS/SCI security clearance.

3) I have a fear of heights.

4) I once had my DNA tested. It turns out I have the markers that are found among the Cohanim. Don't know how that happened as my family isn't known to be Jewish for at least 3 centuries.

5) I am autistic.

I have a very small extra eyebrow. It is, if you look at it

and

I was the devil-worshipper with the bright pink Tretorns peeking out beneath her robe

As a Jane stalker, you're killing me.

1) What led you to Marxism and/or radicalism in the first place?

2) What led you to abandon it for the mainstream world of libertarianism?

3) How do you feel?

I have the same name as the son of a Nobel prize-winning economist.

I have the same name as a photographer of motorsports.

I have the same name as a jazz musician.

I met Axl Rose on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills when I was 15.

I've jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, at 11,000 feet, and lived to tell the tale.

Did you also know you are included in Wikipedia's "List of Famous Tall Women"? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_tall_women

D------, is that a Spock reference? You geek.

Gabriel,

1) I'm in the Star Wars camp.

2) It was a serious question. (See Megan's previous posts.)

The extra eyebrow . . . sorta explains your healthy skepticism.

I once saw a baby bird fall out of its nest, and instead of putting it back I stomped it to death. It made this little squeaking sound as it died.

Of course I was only five years old at the time.

1)I'm a 46 year old virgin.
2)I'm unemployed.
3)I live with my mother.
4)I don't have health insurance and lay awake nights worrying about my irregular heart-beat.
5)I pick my nose and eat my buggers.

I managed to drop classes at four different colleges or universities before my 18th birthday.

1. I sometimes enjoy speaking Canadian when nobody else is around.

2. I was once married to Jane Galt, but she annulled it a few hours later after sobering up.

3. I was once arrested for impersonating a sock.

4. I have definitive proof that global warming is a hoax, but withold it because the acrid debate is so much more entertaining.

5. I once clubbed a baby seal.

6. I've been known to spin dreadful lies on ocassion, just to see how people react.

"What don't people know about you?"

Almost everything. And I'm keeping it that way. I think this particular blogger tag illustrates why I don't keep my own blog.

1. I am a pathological liar. Not in that I am always lying, but that I make up lies to intersperse with the truth. Because of this I am a top rate storyteller and can tell you a very detailed story about something right off the cuff.

2. I volunteer, a lot, and I never tell anyone. I believe altruism can only exist when you don't take credit for it.

3. I want to believe in god, but I can't.

4. I am shy and insecure which I cover by being outgoing and arrogant.

5. I have gout.

1)There's one other person in the US with the same first and last name. He's a recording industry sound engineer in Tennessee. Funny because I've long thought about getting into music and production.

2)In elementry, I got into, I think, my first and only real fight over christmas break. I won. When I got home I cried because I felt guilty.

3)I'd lose my clearance.

4)I remember bits of going to Universal Studios and climbing on some rock on a beach in California when I was probably only 3. I remember seeing the battle star gallactica robots, the town that gets flooded, a cowboy stunt show, and jaws. I think I can recall this because some of it was reinforced with slides.

4)I remember fighting with my brother when I was little and my grandmother telling me "One day you'll be bigger than him," as a consolation. She lied.

5)I was kicked out of Catachism.

Shouldn't folks use their real names? This is all interesting, but the whole point of the meme is defeated if you're posting anonymously.

5) I received a handwritten rejection note for a short story from the New Yorker, urging me to send in more of my work.

Heh! Keeping that stuff off the streets is hard work, but the New Yorker is up to the task! Send it all in!!!!

And here I thought I was the only one pathetic enough to get a "please send us more" letter and never write again, though mine was for poetry not a short story. I'd try again if you would. Or are we paralyzed by fear of success? Hmm.

from Wikipedia:

The Left Book Club, founded in 1936, was a key left-wing institution of the late 1930s and 1940s in the United Kingdom. The club, run by [writer, editor, and publisher] Victor Gollancz, supplied a book chosen every month by Gollancz and his panel – himself, Harold Laski and John Strachey – to its members, who by the outbreak of the second world war numbered 57,000, many of whom participated in one or other of the 1,500 or so Left Discussion Groups scattered around the country.

The books and pamphlets ... sold for 2s 6d to members and more to the general public. The volumes included history, science, reporting and fiction and covered a range of subjects, but all with a left-leaning slant. [snip]

Left Book Club editions were in fact red (not yellow) hardbacks or orange soft (not paper) backs. The Gollancz distinctive yellow hardbacks were their general fiction covers. Some Left Book Club special editions appeared in yellow paperback form.

[The Club was discontinued in 1948.]

(1) I have ethnic envy (I would love to be Jewish).

(2) The failure of my first meaningful relationship still haunts me.

(3) I tend to perceive Democratic politicians as calculating opportunists.

(4) I am uncomfortable about the level of hostility I feel towards nationalistic hawks and social conservatives in America.

(5) I secretly root for the New York Yankees.

(1) I am slightly color-blind (but not enough for anyone to know--I never wear strange color combinations or mix up socks)

(2) I met my wife when we were teenagers. She's the first and only woman I've ever slept with. I don't regret this.

(3) I love to compete but don't mind losing. When I get the chance I love to play games against people much better than I am just to see. (I find it odd when other people do seem to mind losing).

(4) I have not been to see a doctor since the late 1970s. I have not had an illness of any kind, not even a cold, for two or three years.

(5) I'm in my mid 40s but still plan to take up surfing 'some day'.

(6) If I'd been of age during the Vietnam War, I might have left the country--not so much because of opposition to the war, but to the draft (I don't believe that any country has the right to enslave young men any more than it has the right to enslave racial minorities).

1.) I can cure hiccups. No one believes me until I do it in front of them.

2.) There is a girl in school that I never asked out. I have a deep feeling that had I asked her out, my life would have been completely different. The odd thing is that I know for certain that had I asked, the answer would have been 'no.'

3.)I hate e-mails that ask a bunch of personal questions about you and have you forward them to other people because that is how I found out that my wife was having an affair.

4.)My brother in law also reads this blog. At least, 'some guy' from above sure sounds just like him.

5.) Five? I need five things? C'mon. I can cure effing hiccups! Do I really need to have four more things?

-- It did contract a few letters, which made it slightly faster to write,--

My age is showing, anyone else think of Dan Akroyd and SNL?

aradacal mraxest?! i coulda sworrn in 1992 1993 u we're a luodmouth libartarioun. but mabe taht was just to get on my nereves.

What is your name? Where do you live?

1) I once ate a few cloves of garlic when I was in sunday school, just to annoy everyone and get kicked out.

2) I started fights in school with people who were known bullies, and won them all. Breaking the nose of one bully named Jeff was my most satisfying moment of jr. high.

3) I don't like to fight anymore, but would shoot someone with my .45 without hesitation for being cruel to animals or children.

5) I took my SAT stoned and scored far above my peers in high school.

1. My husband and I decided, before we were even contemplating having kids, to give any/all male children his last name and any/all female children mine. It's surprisingly easy to name your child any old thing you want, it turns out. Because our kids are boy-girl-boy, we expect teachers to be confused for the next fifteen years.

2. I was a huge fan of Battle of the Planets all the way through my early twenties.

3. At thirteen, my best friend and I tried to become Bene Gesserit through self-study. I've still got the Litany Against Fear firmly in my head.

4. I once painted my face with gold, red, and silver flames for a Marillion concert. My now-ex-husband correctly surmised I was an incredible geek, but it felt, and still feels, very cool to me.

5. When my oldest was two and a half, I nearly killed him accidentally while trying to fix our old wooden garage door with him in the garage but out of my reach; I was on a ladder trying to yank the door back onto the automatic opener carriage thingy, and (because it was giant and heavy) it got away from me and rebounded down its tracks... and there was my little boy, apparently directly under it. Thank all the gods that be, he was actually off-center to it and it just crushed his foot (not even a broken bone, thankyouthankyou for making toddler bones mostly cartilage still), but if he'd been six inches closer to me he'd be dead. I still wake up with the shivers.

1. My middle name means "middle" in Chinese.

2. I look around when people shout "Hey You!"

3. I just took out the trash.

and

4. I've never owned a teddy bear.

My husband and I decided, before we were even contemplating having kids, to give any/all male children his last name and any/all female children mine. It's surprisingly easy to name your child any old thing you want, it turns out. Because our kids are boy-girl-boy, we expect teachers to be confused for the next fifteen years.

I've known of other couples who've done this, and I always want to ask: why? What are you trying to prove? You're going to confuse a lot more people than just teachers: your kids will have to explain this to people for their entire lives. "Well, y'see, my Mom was some kind of goofy quasi-feminist, and..."

I've known of other couples who've done this, and I always want to ask: why? What are you trying to prove? You're going to confuse a lot more people than just teachers: your kids will have to explain this to people for their entire lives. "Well, y'see, my Mom was some kind of goofy quasi-feminist, and..."

I also thought part of the point is that while everyone knows who the mother is, nobody can really be sure about the father (until DNA testing became practical). Giving the children the father's name is an assertion of paternity. Both the sons and the daughters are obviously their mother's children, but only the sons are good enough to be recognized by their dad?

That being said, I'd rather go Jamie's way than start hyphenating. That's just wrong.

1) My dream "job" is to not have a job and lie about the house all day watching TV and playing computer games.

2) I'm going to college, despite having no ambition, because I've given in to the constant pressure from family and friends.

3) I have an irrational belief that having a kid will allow me to quit my job and live on easy street as a housewife.

4) I have baby fever like crazy, but I'm scared that I'm too lazy to be a good mom.

5) I suffer from chronic depression with occasional suicidal tendancies, and I sometimes don't want to have kids if it means I can't rationalize killing myself anymore.

I'd recommend you run these thoughts by a therapist Christina. They might be able to figure out what your depression is stemming from or offer some helpful medication.

As far as a lack of ambition goes, usually ambition comes after a threshold of interest in something. Push yourself to learn about a topic that you might be vaguely interested in and you might find yourself enjoying. If you're reading this blog economics might be a good place to start.

1) I performed the (American) National Anthem for Lech Walesa just before he was elected President of Poland.

2) I still own my first Teddy Bear (he's 36 yrs old now...)

3) My six-year old son regularly beats me at Monopoly, and my four-year old regularly beats me at Uno.

4) I wrote my own wedding song.

5) A few years back, one of my parents' neighbor's kids got married, and one of the bridesmaids was a tall woman named Megan with three eyebrows...(ED NOTE: that'd be Seth & Kim...)

Chris: I appreciate the suggestions, but allow me to explain a bit more.

I am currently taking Lexapro for my depression and it is indeed a miracle drug. The problem now is that if I want to get pregnant (which I do) I have to go off this miracle drug (which I'm in the process of doing). Even though I'm tapering down, I'm definitely missing the meds, considering I cried for no reason intermittantly during the Super Bowl last night. This experience makes me quite skeptical of my ability to stay sane thoughout a pregnancy and post-partum nursing.

My problem with ambition is not caused by a lack of interest in anything, but instead by my interest in everything! I've been struggling my entire life to figure out how to translate my generalist tendancies into a fulfilling career. I really love economics, and have taken classes toward that major, but any time I take another class to fill a gen ed requirement: like biology, history, religion, or government, I become enthralled with the subject matter and start thinking maybe that's what I want to do. It's quite frustrating. You maybe can understand why being a housewife holds so much appeal in comparison.

There is simply no way I am going list even one thing.:~)

In my own defense: it was my husband's idea, not mine, to split up our children's last names. I didn't change my last name when we were married because I'd been married before and had hyphenated, hated it but hated more the idea of giving up the name I "knew myself" by - that's my culpability here, such as it is. He didn't want me to be the only one who didn't "match" - who could opt out of the family, so to speak, by dint of having a different last name. So he proposed the option we went with, rolling the dice that we'd have at least one girl. (We could as easily have actually rolled dice or something.)

In my own defense: it was my husband's idea, not mine, to split up our children's last names.

Sorry, but I gotta call BS here. No man I've ever met would say, "It's OK, sweetie, both you and our future daughter can have a different last name than me! We'll just have to keep reminding people again and again and again and again and again!"

Mother, father, kids = same last name. Easier for both of you, easier for the kids, easier for the rest of us.

1) I have a bag of your stuff in my truck.
2) The book on failure you are looking for is The Evolution of Useful Things, by Henry Petroski.
3) My girlfriend doesn't take dictation well.

Heh heh heh, I find this meme funny because it's the sort of thing that would appear on one of the non-econ blogs I read.

1.) I like to keep certain personal details about myself from even my closest friends for no reason, which (as you can imagine) has strained a friendship or two.

2.) I know two people who have had skin cancer in the same spot behind their ear where I recenly noticed a strange lump, and I don't know what to do about it.

3.) I am interested in a great deal of things, but am almost totally unmotivated to pursue any of them.

4.) The only time I ever got drunk was over politics.

5.) I daydream almost constantly.

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