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Author Topic: Five fascinating things you don't know about me  (Read 85379 times)

ferris

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Re: Five fascinating things you don't know about me
« Reply #480 on: September 14, 2011, 05:53:29 PM »
1. I was given the last rites as a 9 month old infant when I contracted whooping cough. A few days prior to becoming infected by it, my aunt had taken me outside at my grandmother's house and let me crawl on the ground. I was a rather fast crawler for an infant, and I crawled into the woods that abutted her property. When my aunt caught up with me, I was in a patch of poison ivy. Over the next few days, as the whooping cough took its toll on my body, I was covered over 80% of my body with poison ivy rash. The whooping cough had raised my temperature to 104 degrees and the itching of the rash wouldn't let me sleep. My mother told me that the doctors said it was a miracle that I survived it. To this day, I can rub poison ivy all over me and nothing happens.

This is sooo awesome. Dude, it's like the origin story for a superhero! Villains beware! :D

wow no kidding that was you!  I take back all those bad things I said...

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Bondo

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Re: Five fascinating things you don't know about me
« Reply #481 on: September 16, 2011, 01:54:23 AM »
And I have a fabulous falsetto.

That's just an adorable fact about you. For some reason it makes you like you even more.

Bondo and Antares, I wish I could hear you sing.

Well, I recorded a couple (barebones) a capella covers (Oh Donna by Richie Valens and Proud of Your Boy performed by Clay Aiken from the rerelease of Aladdin are the two of sufficient quality) using Garage Band so through the wonders of the internet  such a thing is actually possible. Someone seeking such a thing could perhaps PM their e-mail address so an mp3 file could be sent. If they really begged, I might even consider letting loose the original song I wrote (again, a capella because I don't have instrumental talents) on the world, terrible though it might be by professional music standards.

Sandy

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Re: Five fascinating things you don't know about me
« Reply #482 on: September 16, 2011, 10:20:09 AM »
Super! I'll do that.

dheaton

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Re: Five fascinating things you don't know about me
« Reply #483 on: September 16, 2011, 12:14:14 PM »
I know this thread is mostly back from February, but I never did this so I'll give it a shot:

1. At the age of 12, I was riding my bike and was hit by a pickup truck.  It was on a residential street where large trees led to some major blind spots. The kicker is that it was a Domino's Pizza Truck.  I guess they didn't deliver in 30 minutes!  I ended up with lots of scrapes and a broken leg.  Being good people who aren't greedy, my parents did not sue Domino's pizza and just had his insurance pay for the medical bills. They also got the bike fixed, but they should have trashed it.  Two years later, I was riding it up a hill and the chain broke.  I flew off the bike and broke my elbow.  Amazingly, I do still ride bikes today.

2. On 9/11/01, I was flying back from Japan (I used to work for a travel company) and we were scheduled to arrive in LA at 8:30 am.  They diverted us to Vancouver and I was stuck there for six days. It was really surreal as they didn't tell us anything and we sat on the runway for five hours.  Somehow people on the plane heard crazy stuff like 50,000 people died and eight planes were hijacked, as those were some early reports.  I did luck out in working for a travel company; they put me in the Fairmount Hotel in downtown Vancouver. So it wasn't the worst thing, though it was pretty crazy.  I also was able to see Belle and Sebastian in concert that week, and went to a lot of movies. Flights kept getting cancelled, so to get back, I took a long bus ride to Seattle and flew on a nearly empty plane to St. Louis.

3. I worked as a college radio DJ at the University of Missouri-Columbia. At that point, I had great knowledge of the coolest indie bands. That's not really the case now.  It was one of those amazing environments that I'm still trying to figure out how to recreate many years later.

4. I once interviewed John Singleton for a DVD website in possibly the most awkward conversation of all time. He answered my detailed questions with "I thought it was cool" and "Yeah" to almost everything. It was also my first interview with anyone "famous", so I was crazy nervous. I ran out of questions and just started babbling near the end.  Amazingly, this interview was picked up and dropped in a book called John Singleton: Interviews.  It actually doesn't read nearly as bad as I remembered it.

5. I'm one of the world's biggest fans of Australia's Midnight Oil, who I still claim is the greatest band in existence.  Seeing them live at clubs in the US in 2001 and 2002 was a treat since they broke up soon after that time. I caught them six times and wished I'd gone to a lot more shows. Their singer (Peter Garrett) has gone onto politics in Australia, but they released a bunch of great albums during their 25+ year history.
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jdc

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Re: Five fascinating things you don't know about me
« Reply #484 on: September 16, 2011, 02:14:22 PM »
somehow I always thought my life has been interesting until I read this thread.  If is always fascinating...

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Antares

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Re: Five fascinating things you don't know about me
« Reply #485 on: September 16, 2011, 03:01:03 PM »
3. I worked as a college radio DJ at the University of Missouri-Columbia. At that point, I had great knowledge of the coolest indie bands. That's not really the case now.  It was one of those amazing environments that I'm still trying to figure out how to recreate many years later.

I also DJ'd in college, it was the best two years of my life. I only did two shows a week, but they were the two best time slots...12-3 Friday afternoons and 6-10 on Saturday night. I was a huge proponent of playing requests and my shows became very popular with the students on campus. I got a lot of invites to parties that were happening during my show on Saturdays. If I could relive those two years over and over again like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, it would be heaven.

When I first joined we were a 10 watt station, which meant you only had about a one mile listening radius. Six months in, the FCC changed the rules for college stations and you could boost signal strength to 300 watts which gave you a 20 mile diameter from the station. Our engineer boosted it to 1200 watts and are listening radius reached out almost 30 miles. We played a mix of classic rock, reggae, punk and progressive and during the summer of 1981, we actually made the Arbitron ratings for 3 months in a row. This really pissed off a local commercial station, because we cut into their audience.
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dheaton

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Re: Five fascinating things you don't know about me
« Reply #486 on: September 16, 2011, 04:11:33 PM »
3. I worked as a college radio DJ at the University of Missouri-Columbia. At that point, I had great knowledge of the coolest indie bands. That's not really the case now.  It was one of those amazing environments that I'm still trying to figure out how to recreate many years later.

I also DJ'd in college, it was the best two years of my life. I only did two shows a week, but they were the two best time slots...12-3 Friday afternoons and 6-10 on Saturday night. I was a huge proponent of playing requests and my shows became very popular with the students on campus. I got a lot of invites to parties that were happening during my show on Saturdays. If I could relive those two years over and over again like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, it would be heaven.

When I first joined we were a 10 watt station, which meant you only had about a one mile listening radius. Six months in, the FCC changed the rules for college stations and you could boost signal strength to 300 watts which gave you a 20 mile diameter from the station. Our engineer boosted it to 1200 watts and are listening radius reached out almost 30 miles. We played a mix of classic rock, reggae, punk and progressive and during the summer of 1981, we actually made the Arbitron ratings for 3 months in a row. This really pissed off a local commercial station, because we cut into their audience.

That sounds awesome. I was there from 1995 to 1998, and our reach extended across the Columbia area, but not much further. I had all types of slots, starting in the great spot from 2-6 am in the morning on a weeknight.  The best was having the 1-4 slot on Monday afternoons after a full morning of classes.  I did that for a few years and it was a great way to start the week. I was really into ska and punk at that time and did a show just on that for a while too.  I think the best was the general college radio format and getting to play all types of music.  The community was great, and I still stay in touch with a lot of people from there. 
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Lobby

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Re: Five fascinating things you don't know about me
« Reply #487 on: September 16, 2011, 04:46:36 PM »
Someone seeking such a thing could perhaps PM their e-mail address so an mp3 file could be sent.

I've now listened to a song sung by Bondo. Before listening to it I felt a bit awkward. What if I didn't like it? Some people overestimate their singing abilities heavily. But I needn't have worried. You see: here's a fascinating fact you maybe didn't know about Bondo: he is a terrific singer. I've already told him that from now on I expect him to provide a link to his own interpretation of the lead motive whenever he makes a write-up about a musical movie.

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Sandy

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Re: Five fascinating things you don't know about me
« Reply #488 on: September 16, 2011, 07:02:56 PM »
Someone seeking such a thing could perhaps PM their e-mail address so an mp3 file could be sent.

I've now listened to a song sung by Bondo. Before listening to it I felt a bit awkward. What if I didn't like it? Some people overestimate their singing abilities heavily. But I needn't have worried. You see: here's a fascinating fact you maybe didn't know about Bondo: he is a terrific singer. I've already told him that from now on I expect him to provide a link to his own interpretation of the lead motive whenever he makes a write-up about a musical movie.

I concur!

AAAutin

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Re: Five fascinating things you don't know about me
« Reply #489 on: September 16, 2011, 07:08:13 PM »
Damn, Bondo gets all the chicks.