My 100

My friend Jim recently compiled a list of 100 things about himself most people don't know. He encouraged readers of his blog to do the same. While I generally consider myself an open wound choking on my foot more often than not, here go I.

1. I used to be a huge Barry Bonds fan.
2. I am loyal to a fault.
3. I'd rather lick the floor than eat cottage cheese.
4. I believe still waters run deep, but I have a terrible time keeping my mouth shut.
5. Teaching on a Bible subject in front of Bible professors is a major fear of mine (chapel!).
6. I hate grading papers.
7. I want to live in a cabin in the mountains.
8. I wish to be a cowboy.
9. I'm an apologetic early adopter. Sorry.
10. I don't believe that people are born good (but I want to).
11. I know more obscure baseball numbers than scriptures.
12. I have a hard time responding to praise.
13. I have an equally hard time responding to scorn.
14. I too often care what other people say (or don't say) about me.
15. I have been pooped on three times (two birds, one kitten).
16. I have battled athlete's foot off and on since 9th grade.
17. I like to play with things in the examining rooms in doctors' and dentists' offices.
18. As a teenager, I used to shoot people on the sidewalks with a water gun while cruising with friends.
19. I would do that again.
20. I can recite the books of the Old Testament in 9 seconds.
21. L.A. Confidential is one of my favorite movies.
22. My iPod has 3,654 songs on it.
23. 272 of those songs are Dave Matthews and Band.
24. 121 are Counting Crows songs.
25. 118 Beatles songs.
26. 78 are James Taylor.
27. Smoking pot was my biggest temptation as a teen.
28. I've never inhaled anything.
29. My No.1 vacation spot is the Baseball Hall of Fame.
30. I love cool jazz.
31. This is my wife's favorite number.
32. I love attending L.A. Kings games almost as much as Dodger games.
33. I used to have a terrible temper.
34. Black is my favorite color (or absence of color).
35. Many people have told me I look like either a gang banger or a drug dealer in my freshman yearbook mugshot.
36. I used to slick my hair back (ala Steve Lavin)
37. I feel guilty rooting for the UCLA Bruins because I didn't go to school there.
38. I thought I could strike it rich as a journalist before I got to university.
39. Sometimes I use British idioms.
40. My mother wrote my initials on all of my baseball cards when i was in first grade.
41. I keep a notebook full of words I have to look up.
42. I used to read the dictionary when I would talk to former girlfriends on the phone late at night.
43. I asked my mother to revoke my phone privileges so I wouldn't have to talk to my girlfriend on the phone for a month (not Ashlee).
44. I shot a hummingbird with a BB gun after I found out Tupac Shakur died.
45. I was a rap fan when I was 15 and 16.
46. My first post-rap favorite band was Hootie and the Blowfish.
47. As a teen, I twisted one of the washer fluid spouts on my truck to squirt at cars/people while I was driving.
48. I've never punched anyone in the face with all my might.
49. I think less of people who enjoy NASCAR.
50. I've read the entirety of the Harry Potter series.
51. This embarrasses me.
52. And it wasn't very good.
53. I am unhealthily obsessed with Cormac McCarthy.
54. I am a major book snob.
55. If you tell me one of these movies is your favorite ever — Anchorman, The Holiday, any romcom with Julia Roberts — I will never take you seriously again, and I will walk barefoot around your house.
56. I am also a movie snob.
57. My wife won't let me use the phrase "Katy, bar the door."
58. I have an autographed Time magazine of Barack Obama.
59. I have not voted in the last two presidential elections.
60. I voted for Alan Keyes in the 2000 primaries.
61. I don't air my political persuasions with my class (although I encourage them to do so, just not in their news stories).
62. I will vote, and fight, for freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
63. I am obsessed with SCOTUS.
64. This fascinates me.
65. I prefer facts to opinion.
66. I love being married.
67. Arrested Development is the funniest television show I have seen or will ever see.
68. Laughing at most of the jokes on Arrested Development makes me feel guilty.
69. I can reduce everything to a baseball analogy.
70. I made at least two teachers cry during my high school years.
71. I would not have been friends with me during high school.
72. I won a junior bowling league in 1997.
73. One addiction I can never overcome — no matter how much I may want to — is golf.
74. I believe in the power of brand names (to my discredit).
75. I'd rather have an earthquake than a tornado warning.
76. I can stand living in the South largely because of its literary tradition.
77. But I was made to live in the West.
78. I want to live in Flagstaff, Ariz.
79. I invented the word, "coolness."
80. I bite my nails; not out of nervousness but because I find them delicious.
81. The above is a prime example of my kind of humor.
82. Frasier is 10 times better than Cheers.
83. My dream job was to be a journalism professor.
84. My pipe-dream job is to be an MLB general manager.
85. Father-son literary themes get me every time.
86. I seek out things that will make me cry.
87. Old people sometimes creep me out.
88. This is my favorite number in succession.
89. I believe the power of witness is as or more important than the thing itself (except for the sacrificial death of Christ).
90. This is why I sought out reporting.
91. In my latter teens I became obsessed with secular philosophy.
92. I'm talking to my wife right now.
93. I tell her she is one of the great sleepers of our time.
94. One of my new favorite verses is Jonah 2:8.
95. If baseball were a religion, I would be its pope and Holy Roman Emperor.
96. I hate Chex Mix.
97. The nerd in me recognizes the nerd in you and in that recognition is our oneness.
98. Grammar is probably my forte, but I am a poor self editor.
99. I want a motorcycle.
100. This is the most I've ever written about myself without using the word ennui.
101. I never quite know when to stop.