I have had this "One Hundred Things About Me" entry stored on my computer for ages now, but never posted it because I wasn't entirely convinced I was interesting enough for the hundred things to be worth publishing. This morning I got an e-mail asking me why I hadn't done it yet, and decided to go ahead and put it up in an extended entry. You have been warned...

1. I was born in San Diego, California at "Doctor's Hospital" (which I've always thought sounded like a cheesy soap opera) on March 24, 1966.
2. I have one brother, who came along four years later.
3. My birthstone is aquamarine, which I don't like because it's the most boring of all birthstones.
4. My birthday makes me an Aries in the contemporary zodiac, and a Fire Horse in the Chinese zodiac, but I don't believe in astrology.
5. The reason I learned to draw is because my father didn't want me to have coloring books... if I wanted something to color, I had to draw it myself. Though I probably didn't appreciate it at the time, I now think this is a totally brilliant idea (don't feel too sorry for me, I always had coloring books at grandma and grandpa's house).
6. Speaking of grandma, my grandmother makes the best apple pie on earth.
7. At one time or another during childhood I wanted to be a fireman, airline pilot, doctor, and a chef. I ended up being a graphic designer, so I guess none of my career dreams came true. Now I want to be an astronaut when I grow up.
8. I love art, and my favorite classic artists are Monet, Van Gough, and Michelangelo. My favorite contemporary artist is Diego Rivera.
9. I love comic books and cartoons, and my favorite comic artists are George Perez, Arthur Adams, Katsuhiro Otomo, and George Schultz.
10. In high school I drew a cartoon called "SuperDuck" that featured a duck named Quack Kent and his girlfriend Lois Lame-Duck. It seemed funny at the time.
11. My favorite color is blue. Not just any blue, but a nice cornflower purple-blue like you'd find on bachelor button flowers, a Maui sunset, or this blog.
12. My least favorite color is brown, and I won't wear anything of which that's the predominant color, including shoes.
13. A friend talked me into going tandem-skydiving once (where you are hooked to a professional for the trip down). I enjoyed it so much I went back and took a parachuting class. Sine my parents were freaked out so badly about the tandem dive, I never told them about the class.
14. I had hoped skydiving would cure me of my fear of heights, but it didn't.
15. A friend talked me into taking a scuba diving class while vacationing in Maui, so I am a certified PADI diver.
16. I had hoped scuba diving would cure me of my fear of deep water, but it didn't.
17. My only other real fear after heights and deep water is creepy insects. Earwigs, centipedes, cockroaches, spiders, and other equally frightening critters will turn me into a little girly-man in seconds.
18. I am not afraid of snakes, however, and actually prefer their company to several people I've met.
19. My favorite domestic animal is a German Shepard dog. My favorite wild animal is a Bengal Tiger. My favorite bird is a Crow. My favorite fish is a Neon. My favorite snake is a Death Adder (simply because it has a cool name).
20. I am addicted to television. My favorite television show of all time was Jeremy Piven's Cupid before it was stupidly cancelled.
21. I love to watch movies. My favorite film is Field of Dreams (with Cinema Paradiso and The Day the Earth Stood Still tying for a close second).
22. I loathe musicals and musical theater. People singing all their dialogue is so unrealistic to me that I can never get absorbed by the story. I nearly walked out of Madona's Evita after only ten minutes (and would have if I weren't on a date at the time).
23. As it turns out, I should have not only walked out on Evita, but also my date, as she didn't want a relationship... just somebody to buy her things.
24. That's because dating is not something I'm good at, and finding the perfect woman is something I'm even worse at (we'll get to that a bit later).
25. My favorite actor is Elizabeth Hurley... not so much for her acting abilities, but because she is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen (alas, not in person).
26. I am a huge fan of Betty White and not at all ashamed to admit it. I will watch anything she is a part of, including The Golden Girls.
27. My favorite author is Richard Bach, and I've read Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions more times than I can count.
28. My favorite book, however, is not by Richard Bach... it's Nobel House by James Clavell.
29. My favorite activity is to travel, and I want to see as much of this earth as I can before I leave it.
30. Sometimes I travel so often that I forget where I am when I wake up. Most times I find it to be funny when this happens, but once it happened while visiting in Japan and I was terrified for a solid five minutes trying to figure out where I was at and what had happened to me. I eventually figured it out when I turned on the television.
31. You may laugh at the above story, but I can honestly say it is the most scared I have ever been.
32. Really. I thought I had been kidnapped, and was in a blind panic. There's nothing funny about that.
33. In all my travels, my favorite city on the planet is Edinburgh, Scotland.
34. I'll have been to 100 Hard Rock Cafe properties around the globe in August 2004, and document my trips on a web site called DaveCafe.
35. I studied Japanese for two years on my own, and got to the point where I could carry on a passable conversation in the language when visiting there. On a recent trip to Japan, I was shocked to discover that I had forgotten most everything I had learned from lack of use over the past five years (I know a lot of Japanese words, but can't seem to make coherent sentences anymore). I guess that means that I don't speak any foreign languages.
36. I learned Japanese in pursuing my love of Japanese anime and Japanimation, which happened after I saw the masterpiece Akira.
37. Akira was created by Katsuhiro Otomo, and I think it has better animation than anything that's come out of Disney.
38. Hayao Miyazaki is even better, and I feel his films Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away are the two best animated features ever made.
39. My second favorite activity is riding my motorcycle. Even my worst day can be made good again after a motorcycle ride.
40. In order to fulfill my motorcycle riding addiction, I purchased a BMW F650-GS, which I love more than anything else I own.
41. My first motorcycle was a Honda 150, which I purchased used 14 years before getting my BMW in 2003. My girlfriend at the time made me sell it because I had an accident when I ran into some excess gravel that some idiot tossed on the road after graveling his driveway.
42. Turns out I should have sold the girlfriend instead.
43. I was raised Catholic, but lost interest in the church when I found I couldn't question any of its teachings.
44. After a visit to Thailand with my brother, I started studying Buddhism and, while I don't consider myself a Buddhist, try to live my life according to their teachings (which you are encouraged to question so you can find your own path).
45. I loathe real-life violence in all forms, but like to joke about being violent and watching violent movies for entertainment. I guess that makes me schizophrenic.
46. I do not believe in hell as a place you go after you die if you're a bad person, but I do think we are off to a winning start of making our own hell right here on earth if we continue our violent ways.
47. All that being said, I think child molesters and people who file frivolous lawsuits should be shot (along with their lawyers).
48. I am legally blind without my contact lenses or glasses... it's so bad that I can only see well 6-inches in front of my face without them.
49. While dating a vegetarian, I stopped eating meat. We broke up a month after, but the diet stuck and I've been a vegetarian since 1988.
50. I've never liked fish or fowl, so giving them up was easy. It's the pepperoni and bacon I miss.
51. My favorite food is cheese pizza, my favorite drink is water, my favorite vegetable is corn, my favorite fruit is apple, and my favorite candy is a U-NO bar. I don't have a favorite salad dressing.
52. I dislike broccoli and cauliflower, and can't eat mushrooms.
53. I rarely get sick after becoming a vegetarian, and have never broken any bones (knock wood).
54. I've thought I was in love three times. I have actually been in love just once.
55. My first love ended very, very badly when it turned out she was a psychotic bitch. Since I would rather be alone the rest of my life that go through that kind of pain again, I am much more cautious now (which is probably why love hasn't found me again).
56. I would rather be too warm than too cold.
57. I have never been arrested, but have been detained by the police on two separate occasions (both because I was at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong kind of people).
58. My favorite band is Depeche Mode, and has been since I first heard of them in 1982.
59. The best concert I've ever been to was Depeche Mode's "Music for the Masses" tour in Seattle on May 2nd, 1988. This tour culminated in their most famous performance at the Pasadena Rose Bowl, which was responsible for the DM movie documentary and live CD set titled 101, my favorite album of all time.
60. While I am tolerant of all kinds of music, I loathe country music and will not listen to it.
61. I love the sound of the ocean, and would live in a beach house if I could afford a nice one.
62. I don't wear a watch.
63. I honestly feel that life was better before the internet became popular. Of course, now that I have it, going back to life without it would be impossible.
64. My favorite computer of all time was the Atari 800. That's back when computers were actually fun.
65. Now I use a Mac and am having fun with computers in an entirely different way. I would rather use a slow, 10-year old Mac than a brand new, state-of-the-art, super fast Windows machine because Windows sucks ass.
66. In addition to being an Apple Macintosh loyalist, I am a Sony whore. My stereo equipment, televisions, PDA, and the rest are all made by Sony.
67. Except my MP3 player, which is an Apple iPod of course. Sure it was pricey, but iPod rules the earth.
68. And also my cameras, which are both by Canon. I have a tiny Powershot model for when I am traveling on my motorcycle and a huge (relatively) Digital Rebel for "real" photography.
69. I believe that there is life on other planets.
70. This probably comes from being a Star Trek geek. And I am talking about the original (i.e., "real") Star Trek here... not any of the incredibly crappy spin-offs which I can't stand (especially Star Trek: Voyager which was dreadful).
71. I have been to dozens of Star Trek conventions, have met all of the original cast members in person, and have their autographed pictures to prove it.
72. The only other geeky guilty pleasure I had was for another sci-fi show called Farscape which was cancelled by the dumbasses at the Sci-Fi channel.
73. I also have autographed photos of the entire cast of Farscape (except for Rigel because he's a puppet) from when I attended the very first Farscape convention in Burbank. In order to attend the convention, I had to cut short a trip to Japan, which is why my autograph from the beautiful Farscape character Aeryn Sun says: "To David. Thanks for choosing us over Japan - Love, Claudia Black."
74. Farscape was created by the Henson Company, which was founded by Jim Henson who created my childhood hero Kermit the Frog.
75. I love the smell of freshly baked bread at the bakery and apple pie at my grandmother's house.
76. I often wish I had woodworking skills, and envy carpenters for what they can do.
77. Another skill I lack is ironing. I put more wrinkles into clothes than I can ever take out, which is why I am often wrinkled when you see me.
78. I think ironing skills are a prerequisite for any woman I might marry. This is not sexist on my part, just an honest effort to find somebody who completes me.
79. However, if you are Elizabeth Hurley and looking for a nice guy to marry, the ironing skills are optional.
80. I don't believe in luck as a force, good or bad.
81. Which makes the fact that I consider myself to be "lucky" a bit of a contradiction.
82. I think the phrase "money can't buy you happiness" is complete and total crap. If there's one thing I trust in life, it's that enough money can buy you anything, including happiness.
83. That's not to say that I feel you need money to be happy, you don't. The happiest, most joyful people I've ever met had practically no money (or anything else for that matter) at all.
84. Those people were in Thailand. That's the one trip that changed my life more than any other, and the one place I am dying to return to, but haven't yet, because I'm afraid that I remember it differently than it really was. I don't want my memories to be shattered if I'm wrong about how wonderful it was.
85. The place I most want to visit but haven't yet is Greece, followed closely by China.
86. I've been held up at knife-point twice.
87. The first time was in Pioneer Square in Seattle, but the guy was so drunk I just pushed him over.
88. The second time was in San Francisco with a much more professional theif. I gave him my wallet this time. Oddly enough, I never once felt my life was in danger.
89. That was in 1993. I have never carried a wallet since, preferring to fold my money and stuff it between my credit cards and diver's license, then wrap everything up in a rubber band.
90. I love meeting new people and hearing their thoughts and beliefs.
91. I loathe people who are not open to accepting people who have thoughts and beliefs different from theirs.
92. Note that I did not say I hate them. I try very hard not to hate anything or anybody.
93. That being said, I hate Rush Limbaugh, Judge Judy, Martha Stewart, David Caruso, and Dr. Laura.
94. Okay, I don't really hate them... I don't even know them... but they irritate me in a way that makes me think I could hate them if I really tried.
95. I am not embarrassed to be an American but, in all the world, the people who embarrass me most are Americans.
96. That being said, the people of whom I am most proud of have also been Americans.
97. Blogography was originally written for an audience of four people. There's a lot more than that now, and I continue to be amazed that anybody could possibly care about something I have to say, because most of what I write here is just rediculous, even to me.
98. This blog is not my first. I had two others that were dismal failures because I could never think of what to write. Most of the time, I still don't know what to write, but something always manages to come up.
99. I admire hard work and kindness above all other traits in people.
100. I have only one regret in life (that I won't be sharing here). Everything else I've just let go, because life is too short.