I got this idea from Renaissance Guy. Herewith a list of random items. Comment to let me know what you can identify with.
I purposely kept all my political opinions off this list, or almost all, because that’s something I’m fairly sure we already know about each other if you read here regularly.
1. Learned to read at the age of three and have seldom stopped since.
2. My favourite kind of novels are the sort that include large amounts of expository information in the narrative – Victor Hugo, J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert Graves, Octavia E. Butler, K. J. Parker, C. J. Cherryh.
3. Milk chocolate should be at least 40% cocoa. Dark chocolate should be at least 70% cocoa. White chocolate is not actually chocolate at all.
4. I hardly ever get around to watching a movie when it first comes out. I’m much more likely to watch it 2 years later when it’s on TV or someone loans me a DVD.
5. Though going to the cinema or the theatre with people who want to sit down and talk about it afterwards is a treat.
6. I’m fascinated by ancient writing: by the invention of writing and the development of the concept.
7. I’m fascinated by writing – by the ability to convert thoughts in the head to symbols on the page and vice versa.
8. I eat peanut butter on bread with tomato ketchup.
9. I like Marmite.
10. I’m a lifelong vegetarian, and while I try to be polite about it at all times, i really don’t understand how people can enjoy eating meat.
11. I loathe having a meal with someone who feels they’re entitled to make negative comments about what I – or anyone else at the table – chose to eat.
12. I love making bread.
13. Once Willie Nelson has sung any song, it’s a wonder to me that anyone wants to listen to anyone else sing it.
14. Good dialogue is the single thing most likely to attract me to a new TV series.
15. I’ve only been to one live music event in my adult life (not counting church services with choirs) and I came away thinking that it worth having had the experience of hearing Willie Nelson sing live, but I couldn’t understand people who actually wanted to go to events like that on a regular basis, what with the amount of time spent hanging about, the people in the audience singing along so you can’t hear the person we all paid to hear very well, etc.
16. Wine is better than grapes. Beer is usually a waste of good grain.
17. Very dark rich real ales and beers are totally worth it, though.
18. Amy should have died after she fell through the ice. Beth should have lived to grow up and keep house for Jo, who should have continued to write thrilling stories and never married anyone.
19. People who think Fanny Price should have married Henry Crawford and Edmund Bertram should have married Mary Crawford have really not been paying attention.
20. Russet apples are the best apples there are.
21. But any apple is good except for those big mushy ones, red or yellow.
22. The perfect fruit is a mango.
23. I read XKCD three times a week and always click on random to view some past XKCD when I do.
24. I try to use cloth bags or my backpack instead of plastic bags whenever I go shopping.
25. The arrival of the post used to be an exciting moment. Since e-mail was invented, the paper mail has become less and less interesting, but I remember when the sound of the letters falling through the door was a thrill.
26. I think Shakespeare’s comedies tend to be at least as scary as his tragedies.
27. I prefer cats to dogs, both aesthetically and as pet/companions.
28. But think a well-trained well-behaved dog is a pleasure to see, particularly a working dog.
29. But feel a cat leaping up onto my lap, curling up and purring till it falls asleep, is better than any pack-loyal dog.
30. While ordinarily I manage to separate my feelings about a writer’s political views from my ability to enjoy their writing, Orson Scott Card managed to make himself one big exception over the past four years, speaking as someone who was an enthusiastic fan for over twenty years before 2004. It’s not just that I disagree with him: it’s also that Card seems to be unable to tolerate widespread disagreement with his politics without becoming a jerk.
31. Favourite poets; Marilyn Hacker, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rudyard Kipling. I find this combination as weird as you probably do, but those are genuinely the three I’m most likely to sit down with and read their poems purely for the pleasure of it.
32. Allergic to dust/dust mites. Hate housework.
33. Keep favourite t-shirts till they have noticeable holes in them.
34. Prefer growing herbs to flowers.
35. Love the moment on any flight when the air flowing under the wing of the plane pushes the plane upwards away from the ground.
36. Ever since I first understood how the depth of the atmosphere, the angle of light through the atmosphere, and the human eye’s ability to perceive light, is why we perceive sunsets, I’ve appreciated sunsets all the more. Knowing how it works increases my aesthetic appreciation, not only for sunsets but for almost anything.
37. I like scented candles, but not candles whimsically shaped into amusing statues of wax to be destroyed by burning.
38. When reading Little Women I always identified with Jo. When reading Mansfield Park, I always identified with Fanny Price. When reading Ballet Shoes, I always identified with Petrova.
39. I hate all fizzy soft drinks, cola or sodapop or ginger.
40. I prefer still wine to fizzy wine, too.
41. I am an atheist.
42. I have read the Bible from Genesis to Revelations, and re-read most of the more interesting books multiple times in more than one translation.
43. I keep trying to do the same with the Qu’ran, and keep finding it less interesting, though I’m working on achieving a basic familiarity.
44. I don’t like celery.
45. I dislike mint: I still wish it wasn’t the default flavour for toothpastes.
46. Wikipedia annoys me greatly, even when I make use of it.
47. I love dunking a chewy cookie into a hot cup of tea.
48. About the only thing I think I would consider killing myself over is if the alternative were a protracted and painful death.
49. Goldfish are not pets, they are decor.
50. Blueberries are overrated.
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