Monday, March 12, 2007

More things you might not know

My middle fingers are crooked on both hands -- it's true. It's some kind of thing I was born with. It's weird.

I loathe celery... I hate it! It smells nauseating, and it will turn me off of any food just by being around. The same can be said about any fish-flesh, for that metter. Those are the only things I won't eat.

I'm terrible at math. Awful at it! I have no mathematical ability whatsoever. I can't figger out a tip to save my life. I let TurboTax do my year-end returns because of how afraid I am of numbers. However, I have an overdeveloped memory which has more than made up for that shortcoming.

I once killed a man with a squid.

I am afraid of five dollar bills. I will only use ones, tens, twenties, fifties, etc. No fivers. Ever.

Turns out, I don't have middle fingers after all.

I was the inspiration for the feature film "Syriana." The character of Bob Barnes was based on my work in (what was then called) Transjordan as a "spook" in the 1960s.

I found a way to bring that aforementioned dead man back to life. Using only a copy of "Passages" and a can of Hunt's pureéd tomato sauce. And 80,000 kilowatts of electricity... if you're counting.

I successfully ran the 1964 presidential campaign of Lyndon Baines Johnson. I was the subsequently made the Secretary of Tapioca for the month of September, 1965.

I have been mistaken for furniture. By other furniture.

I am featured on the five dollar bill, ironically enough, in Guinea-Bissau. I am also pictured on a defunct series of stamps there from 1995.

I consumed Guinea-Bissau in a series of 13 non-consecutive meals over the course of my time as a seminarian.

I am an atheist, and I only ever attended religious education because it enabled me to leave school via so-called "early dismissal."

I always have a favor -- always -- that I can cash in with Pierce Brosnan.

I have been mistaken as a mailman. By other mailmen. Then, they mailed me to Brunei where I was opened by an oil-rich family and put out on display for a month in their summer house.

I am not -- not -- Arthur C. Clarke. I cannot state that any clearer.

I know where I am going to, and I like the things that life is showing me.