The Devil in the Details (100 Things About Me) Sam: The devil you say? Max: The devil! The devil! -- Sam and Max Hit the Road My resume: HTML MS Word 2000 PDF My name is Fred. But you probably already knew that. I was born and grew up in New York on Long Island. Most likely, I can't tell you where that one town you think you've heard of on the island is located. I have a pretty lousy sense of direction. I have a pretty good memory, though. It's usually not good for anything too important, but I do seem quite capable of hoarding useless information. It's rare for me to forget a book I've read, a movie I've seen, a song I've heard, or a conversation I've had in its entirety. I'd stop short of using words like "photographic" or "total recall", however (not least of all because one is an Arnold Swartnaegger movie). I'm absolutely terrible with names, for one thing, and I do forget things just like everybody else. Just maybe not as much as some people. Currently, I'm twenty-six (going on twenty-seven) years old. That means I was born in 1977, for you math majors in the audience. I don't think there are any math majors in the audience, but, hey, you never know. As I write this, Warren Zevon's "You're a Whole Different Person When You're Scared" is playing on the CD player. I'm amused and surprised to see that Hunter S. Thompson helped him write it. Still, it's a pretty good song. Too bad about Zevon, though. And yeah, I know this is padding. You try writing 100 things about yourself without some padding and then we'll talk. Right now, I live in central Pennsylvania. Well, not right now, since I'm spending a couple of weeks in New York for the holidays. If I wasn't here, I probably wouldn't have the time to write this list. Not that I have a whole lot to do in Pennsylvania, but I do have to go to work to pay the bills. Right now, I'm a Staff Assistant in the Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering Department at Penn State. It grew out of a part-time job a friend of mine helped me get. It's not even close to what I want to be doing. I worry about writing that sort of thing here for two reasons: One, I refuse to define myself by any job, much less one I don't particularly like, and this is supposed to be a list about me. And two, I don't want to give the impression that I'm miserable or that it's a terrible place to work. All things being equal, though, I'd rather be writing. The trick is getting paid for it. Actually, the trick is actually sitting down and doing it, but getting paid's pretty nice, too. For instance, I'm a Staff Writer for a sketch comedy show on PSN-TV, the student cable station on campus, and I think I can safely say that that would be nicer if I was getting paid. I'm also looking to leave central PA pretty soon. I can't think of any convincing reason to stay past my current lease at the moment. A better job might convince me, but they seem to be keeping those in different cities. Trust me, I've looked. I write about this a lot on my weblog (almost to the exclusion of everything else, some might say), but it basically boils down to a choice between New York and Anywhere Else. Anywhere Else might be Austin, TX, but I'm not so sure about that. There are at least one or two points against it. And no real reason to choose it over another Anywhere Else. But, anyway, long story shot, I'm looking to move. I'm 5'9" according to my driver's license. I have brown hair and blue eyes. (Here's a picture.) I've worn glasses nearly all my life. I have a slight astigmatism in my right eye and can function pretty well without them, but the idea of not wearing glasses seems weirdly wrong somehow. I've never worn contacts. I could probably stand to get a haircut. People really come up with 100 things to say about themselves, huh? Seems more than a little vain to me, but this website has needed some kind of bio for years now, and this seemed like the easiest solution. That which seems like the easiest solution, I've often found, half the time isn't. Sorry to bust Occam's bubble with his own Razor, but that's just how it seems to me. Easy or not, at 40 things, I'm probably committed, huh? So, moving on, I have a beard. I also know why this number is important. Who doesn't? The beard I have, mostly, because I am lazy and don't like to shave. Which makes the necessity of a beard trimmer something of a cruel joke. But at least I don't have to use that every day to keep looking purty. I spent four years in an all-boys Catholic school where you were required to wear a jacket and tie and be clean-shaven every day. A friend of mine shaved his entire head immediately after graduation My growing a beard some four years later while at college seems like a pretty tame rebellion by comparison. I haven't seen or kept in touch with any of my (few) friends from high school since graduating. Really, my only other friends were in Scouting. I haven't kept in touch with any of them either. I was a Boy Scout for seven years. Most, if not everything, I wrote about it here is still true. I was an Eagle Scout with silver palms, which really just means I had time to earn some more merit badges between my Eagle ceremony and my eighteenth birthday. My birthday, if you're curious, is March 26th. On occasion, it's fallen on Easter. I seem to dimly recall being sick on one of those occasions. But, like I said, even my memory's not perfect. I was raised a Roman Catholic, but I haven't been to mass in at least six or seven years. I'm not entirely sure what I believe anymore. The idea of one true god (and, by extension, lots and lots of false ones) seems itself false and conceited to me -- dangerous, even. On the other hand, the idea of no god in the universe also doesn't seem quite right to me. I guess that makes me something of an agnostic. I don't think organized relgion is necessarily a bad thing -- usually, community is good -- but when it's organized against another relgion or people, when it becomes our god versus your god...well, that I can do without. As I write this, the Flaming Lips are playing on the CD player, although I'd have to get up and cross the room to tell you what the song is called. I'm not going to do that. You don't really want to know. I want to finish this list, write something else more important, get a good job, fall in love with a pretty girl, find a great city where I can live surrounded by friends but not impossibly far from family, and know that I'm important to somebody's life besides my own. But yeah, I could probably also use a haircut. Let's see, moving on: the Monty Python Society. This might take a couple of points, so: I was president for two years. I've edited the newsletter since my second semester in early 1996. I enjoy it maybe more than I should at this point. I started the website sometime after that and recently became websmater again. It's one of the main things that's kept me in this town even when common sense and everyone I know tell me I should leave. Almost all my friends are people I met through the Monty Python Society. The rest are people I know through capping. I've only met a very few of them in real life. I don't make friends very easily. I'm too shy for my own good, and I'm not very good at starting conversations, especially when I don't have a strong opinion on a topic. Small talk may very well be beyond my capabilities. But it's not because I'm unfriendly. I like to think I'm good listener. I observe. I remember. It's getting me to talk that can sometimes be the problem. In some situations (the Monty Python Society, at former jobs), the opposite has actually been true. It have been known to talk too much. It's mostly in social situations or with friends whose opinions matter to me that I get all awkward and Silent Sam-like. Getting me drunk doesn't much help. I may talk more eagerly, but almost never about anything. Words rush out too quickly when I'm drunk. Like most everyone else, I get too stupid to really notice. Not that I've ever really been drunk. I've never, for instance, had to wonder I did the night before. A slight headache's probably the closest I've come to a hangover, three or four beers probably the closest I've come to a bender. I could tell you about my night of three chocolate beers, an Ibsen play, and a magic show, but it sounds a lot more interesting that it really was. The story isn't much when you look at it without embellishment. The job of a good writer, though, is embellishment, right? I don't know why I didn't write this list sooner. It's not as if it's taken my hours (well, I did take three to eat dinner and watch a movie with my parents). And it's not as if I've revealed any great and terrible secrets. You probably can't learn anything you didn't already know about me from this list. My favorite TV shows are Farscape, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel Alias and Joan of Arcadia. I like others, but I'm trying to wean myself from television a little and focus more on writing this year. Favorite movies include Lawrence of Arabia, Monty Python's Life of Brian (all the Python films actually), Galaxy Quest, The Sting, Wonder Boys, and A Life Less Ordinary. My CD collection is probably more run-of-the-mill than I'd like to admit. That's part of why I've started mix exchanges with interesting friends and acquaintances (mainly weblog readers). I like new music but am not really hip enough to seek it out on my own. Favorites include the Beatles, Poe, Ani Difranco, Tori Amos, Bree Sharp, They Might Be Giants, and Bob Dylan. Favorite authors: Ray Bradbury, Paul Auster, Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Italo Calvino, and Kelly Link I live alone, but now and then I think about getting a cat. That might not be such a good idea since I don't even do well with plants. We're in the home stretch now. I have no idea what song or band is playing on the player. I think it's a radio commercial for Mountain Dew actually. I usually do at least one crossword puzzle a day five or six times a week. I was an English major with a creative writing emphasis. An emphasis which I thought was undeclared but for which I was awarded a certificate at my graduation. I once wrote a happy little song (mp3) called "A Pocketful of Penis". I never learned to play the piano.