Have you plumbed the depths of my narcissism?

1. I don’t eat fish. I watched a documentary once about what we’re doing to the oceans, and that put me off fish forever. The way we “harvest” fish is like burning down an entire forest just to capture a few birds.
2. I think skepticism is easier than faith for me. I don’t think this is true for everyone.
3. I would rather live in Europe than Canada. Specifically I’d rather live in Germany. I could use all the skills I have in the manufacturing sector there, and get paid better, and have more time off. I’d also settle for New Zealand or Chile.
4. I’ve played golf only once in my life. I’m pretty sure I’d enjoy golf, but I don’t have the time or money to invest in it.
5. I strongly prefer pencils over pens. The upside of pencils is that they almost always write, in almost all situations. I also suspect that our pens being made in China explains why pens seemed so much better when I was young. I also suspect that this is a cognitive bias, because I have absolutely no proof, and memory is a flimsy support for a theory.
6. I don’t trust memory. I’d rather forget than remember.
7. Urban Terror is my favourite video game ever. I like it more than I liked Call of Duty 4, and that says a lot. It helps that I’m pretty good at it.
8. I dislike “realism”, especially when realism focuses on violence. Films that claim to be realistic and then gloss over the boring parts just don’t cut it. Call your film “gritty” or something so I can avoid it. Violence does not equal realism especially in today’s world.
9. Cops make me angry. Especially when they outright lie to get more funding. Several chiefs of police in Toronto have used gun violence in Toronto to push for bigger budgets and tougher laws. This seems like callous exploitation, at least to me. In a decade that’s seen nothing but declines in crime rates here in Canada, to claim otherwise is to be willfully ignorant or willfully deceptive. Either way you’re a huge douche-nozzle.
10. I’ve had my car broken into four times, and my house broken into twice. Four of these six incidents have happened while living at my current residence. I’ve labeled it “The Worst Apartment Ever” for good reason.
11. I own a dog. It’s a Boston Terrier. It’s name is “Turtle” and she’s female.
12. My dream dog is a Greyhound or at the very least a Whippet. Turtle being a Boston is a compromise between my wife and I. She likes ugly dogs, low to the ground (I know, that’s pretty much me too); I like pretty dogs that go fast (I know, that’s pretty much my wife).
13. The reason I don’t post much here anymore? Twitter. All the things I used to say here I say on Twitter. I don’t often like the character limitations, though.
14. I have a hard time dishing out praise. This is a failing of mine, I know. It feels more genuine to be a critic than a fan. I don’t want to like everything. I don’t understand people who like everything.
15. I love Indian food. Or at least the Indian food of our Westernized restaurants. Pakistani food is okay too but not as nice.
16. I’m as nostalgic as the next person, and I’m not even 30. It’s odd to think that 1/3 of my life is over.
17. I can’t write novels. I’m not disciplined enough to write something that long. Even this post is pushing it. Sometimes I can’t even read novels, especially older novels with flowing, flowery wording. It seems to me that if you could have made your novel into a short story, you should have.
18. All the people who understand me are either a) Married to me, of b) People from the internet. My real-life friends are from different cultures and have different interests. None of them are nerds or geeks or interested in a wide range of things. Sometimes I feel profoundly alone in my own head. I don’t really have a lot of people to talk to in real life, at least people that won’t nod and smile, nod and smile. I would very much like someone to talk to about that stuff. Unfortunately, geography seems to have screwed me over. Peter is in Burlington, Art is in who knows where, Chris is in the land of the corn fields, Spencer is the other land of the corn fields, Goef is distributed over the internet by a fairly robust system of servers, and Keith is ensconced in his liberal paradise over the mountains. And it seems that every other real-life technophile I meet appears to be less than human. So here I am.
19. I drink coffee. For a while I went off coffee. That was okay. Now I’m back on it again.
20. I’m going to learn to play tennis, and you can’t stop me. I bought some cheap racquets and some balls the other day. There’s a tennis court close to our house.
21. I think the most annoying type of atheist or agnostic is the freshly minted kind. I also dislike hearing someone “embracing ambiguity”. Well bully for you; is it really so hard to not pick a position? Seems easy to me.
22. I wear size twelve shoes. Extrapolate from there if you must.
23. I’m sorry, but I can’t help disliking some people. Extended contact sometime breeds friction. I am not a very good person, yet.
24. There is a part of me that’s very open and willing to share as much information as you might wish. There’s another part of me that’s extremely private. Don’t open that door; you won’t like it.
25. Sometimes when I hear about a natural disaster I think, “Good. There are too many people anyways.” Then I think, “Am I that cynical already?” Then I think, “No-one can bear the weight of all the horrors todays media can report.” I wonder whether my children’s children will have any feeling left, at all.