Like everyone else with a blog, we’ve been tagged with the insidious Eight Random Things meme. Snail, Patrick and Amy are to blame. The rules, as if you don’t already know them, are as follows:

  • Players write a post with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
  • At the end of that post, they “tag” eight bloggers to write similar posts, including the rules.
  • The players then leave a comment to tell the “tag-gees” about the meme.

Since 10,000 Birds is a team effort, you get a whopping 24 random things for the price of eight!

CHARLIE

  1. The Japanese girls I work with on the airline think I look like Elton John (which does not make me happy).
  2. The sun burns 4 million tonnes of fuel a second: I used to as well, but I’ve slowed down a lot lately.
  3. I’d like Matt Damon to play me in the film of my life.
  4. If chocolate was nutritious I’d live off it for the next thirty years.
  5. I’ve got Corncrake on my life-list but I’ve only ever seen one flying away (so I probably shouldn’t.)
  6. I’m nowhere near as clever as I used to think I was, or as tall.
  7. I’ve never really understood the point of the Teletubbies.
  8. One day I will write a book, but I won’t think it’s any good, and I probably won’t tell anyone even though I’ll want everyone to like it.

COREY

  1. I think New York Super Fudge Chunk is the best ice cream ever.
  2. I have had to have stitches in my mouth twice, once before I was a year old and once when I was 17.
  3. I won a gold medal in the Empire State Games for throwing a javelin 172′ 10″ in 1994.
  4. I have over 200 different baseball cards featuring the greatest shortstop ever, the Wizard of Oz, Ozzie Smith.
  5. I have participated in well over 100 different protests about everything from ending the Iraq War to stopping unfair labor practices to stopping police brutality but have managed to avoid arrest so far.
  6. Before I met Daisy I had dated the daughters of a minister, a judge, a lawyer, a principal, and a parole officer.
  7. Back in college I invented the Tropical Russian, which is a White Russian with coconut rum added to it (usually consumed 16 oz at a time from a recycled Snapple bottle).
  8. I have a Master’s Degree in teaching with no plans to use it.

MIKE

  1. When it comes to clubs and organizations, I’m not much of a joiner.
  2. I was an extra in Howard Stern’s movie, Private Parts. Look for me in the airport scenes in the beginning and end of the movie.
  3. I had a tongue piercing for eight years, which is probably way too long to have a steel rod lodged in one’s lingual extremity.
  4. My fan allegiance to the Giants and Mets is a subversion of the New York sports axis and quite possibly the laws of nature.
  5. Some friends and I drove from Western NY to Northern California in 51 hours, a span that included me sitting in a police car and us sleeping next to a gas pump in Wyoming waiting for the station to open. I made it from Austin, TX to Omaha, NE alone in 15 hours; this trip involved a harrowing car chase through some dark road in Kansas.
  6. I’ve visited 40 states, not counting layovers, but I’ve never, as of July 2007, been to Europe.
  7. I despise American cheese and tomato soup.
  8. I was a certified Clinical Hypnotherapist. Though the certification was a bit of a joke, I really did hypnotize people. I haven’t forgotten how to either…

Too much information or not enough? Since it seems as if we’re the last ones to reveal our miscellany, I’m at a loss for who to tag. If you haven’t shared your eight random things yet, please do and include a link in the comments section below.

Written by Mike
Mike is a leading authority in the field of standardized test preparation, but he's also a traveler who fully expects to see every bird in the world. Besides founding 10,000 Birds in 2003, Mike has also created a number of other entertaining but now extirpated nature blog resources, particularly the Nature Blog Network and I and the Bird.