Facibus On Blogging

There are memes everywhere in the lead-up to Christmas. Awards, gender-swapping on Twitter, and eight things.

Maria Murphy tagged me for the eight things meme. She said nice things about me:

Andrew Boyd — He is one of my friends who has encouraged me to blog. He has a lot of ideas and cares about others.

Thanks Maria, I will blush for sure now

Like all memes, this one is replicatable and encourages participation. Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules
2. List EIGHT random facts about yourself
3. Tag EIGHT people at the end of your post and list their names
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged

So here are eight random facts about me:

1. Random loud noises tend to freak me out but I find loud music soothing when driving - KMFDM, White Zombie, Hilltop Hoods and Metallica are current favourites.
2. I once represented the ACT in TaeKwonDo at the Australian Nationals (yellow belt division, and I didn’t last long, but I was there!).
3. I eat weird stuff for breakfast and love it - leftover Chinese takeaway is my favourite, but I also love leftover curry, leftover pizza, and Curry Tuna and Corn Soup.
4. I do not have a whole degree - the two half degrees do not add up to a whole one Despite this, I manage to make a decent living as a consultant information architect (IA).
5. I am interested in serial killers - not obsessively, but I did start MonsterWatch.net and I am a big fan of Dexter.
6. In the past I have collected stamps, coins, science fiction paperbacks and cacti; bred fish, reptiles, parrots, poultry (including quail, fowl, waterfowl and pheasants); written science fiction, science fantasy, heroic fantasy and fan fiction; coded in C, C++, Modula 2, VBA, Java, Javascript, perl and PHP; moderated various online forums and pre-Internet, assisted friends with Bulletin Boards.
7. I fear stupidity more than I fear sharks/lightning/savage dogs/spiders/venomous reptiles/heights/the number 13/voodoo/you name it put together - for stupidity kills more people than all these things combined.
8. I once ate some rockmelon just before being very ill with food poisoning - it was not the rockmelon’s fault, I had eaten some dodgy lentils (Ronny Biggs was right - never trust a hippy!). Even though this incident took place more that 25 years ago, the smell of  rockmelon still makes me feel slightly nauseous.

The eight people I would like to tag are:

1. Meg Tsiamis of Dipping Into The Blogpond: Meg is an inspiration and a good blogfriend. She has done a lot for raising the idea of community within Australian blogging in a very short time - she promotes community first and herself a distant second.
2. Snoskred: Snos gives 110% to all she touches.
3. Darren Rowse: I am sure that Darren doesn’t get tagged by this sort of thing often enough He is one of my blogging heroes.
4. Steve Collins: I razz Steve all the time about showing off his iPhone which he takes with good natured humour. Steve is a good guy and incredibly generous with his time.
5. Ruth Ellison: Like many IAs, Ruth works too hard but still manages to get to my speaking engagements when she can - more so than many of my close colleagues, which is saying something.
6. Seth Godin: where would intrapreneuring or marketing be without Seth?
7. Zern Liew: a good example of blogging with a heart and an inspiration to Australian intrapreneurs and authors.
8. Stephen Hall: my mentor and national service offering lead within SMS. The world is a poorer place for Stephen not blogging - he is a very good IA, the consultant’s consultant, and a good friend.

And the people I would have loved to have tagged but Maria got to them first

• Matthew Hodgson: Matt inspired me to blog properly and continues to inspire others.
• Donna Maurer: Donna inspires me every day to be a better IA and a better person.

As memes go, this is a fairly harmless one. Even if you aren’t tagged, I recommend that you get into it