105 Things About CD

All right, for those of you who want to know more about who's behind this blog, I've put together a list of 105 things about me that should give you more information than you ever needed to know. I used to have this list on a separate page connected to my BlogSpot site, but thanks to permalinks, I can now put it here. Read on:

1. I was born just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 27, 1985.
2. I spent the first 18 years of my life in Plum Borough, Pennsylvania.
3. I’m currently attending Syracuse University (although I typed this list at my home in Plum).
4. I’m majoring in TV-Radio-Film.
5. I want to be a screenwriter/director.
6. The C in CD stands for Chris.
7. I’m not telling you what the D stands for, but there are a couple links on the blog to sites that give my full name.
8. I’m a Protestant Christian, but I don’t associate myself with any particular denomination.
9. I recently went through a year-long “semi-agnostic phase,” where I questioned pretty much everything I knew and/or believed.
10. I snapped out of that in August of 2003 and have been 100% Christian ever since.
11. I don’t currently go to church, but if I find one that hasn’t been taken over by postmodernism, I may reconsider.
12. I believe in the Big Bang, and I think the universe really is 14 billion years old.
13. I don’t believe in naturalistic evolution, but I think the fossil record is accurate.
14. Militant young-earth creationists really bother me.
15. I love fireworks, and if I have the chance to see them in any form, I will take it.
16. I’m a registered Republican.
17. I own a .22 caliber semi-automatic rifle, a spring-powered BB gun, and a CO2-powered pellet gun. I haven’t used any of them in several years.
18. I was on my high school’s rifle team for 2 years, but I never made varsity and eventually quit.
19. I’ve been playing drums since I was 12.
20. I was the percussion section leader of the Plum High Mustang Marching Band during my senior year of high school, but I had little to no authority because nobody in the section listened to me. I recently finished a season playing bass drum in the Syracuse University Marching Band.
21. I’ve been playing drumset for almost 2 years, and I absolutely love it.
22. I also took 7 years of piano lessons, but I quit when I was 16.
23. One of my current goals in life is to play drums for a rock band.
24. I’ve written 10 songs, and I’m usually working on 2 or 3 new ones.
25. I’ve posted 3 of them on the blog. (the rest are posted on my SongBlog)
26. My favorite bands are: Creed, 3 Doors Down, Nickelback, Trust Company, Staind, Hoobastank, Theory of a Deadman, Puddle of Mudd, Default, 12 Stones, and Matchbox Twenty
27. My favorite songs are “Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down and “Downfall” by Trust Company.
28. Bands I have seen live: Creed, 12 Stones, Jerry Cantrell, Theory of a Deadman, 3 Doors Down, Sugar Ray, and Matchbox Twenty.
29. I’ve only been to 3 rock concerts, but I managed to see all the above bands.
30. I don’t like Jerry Cantrell or Sugar Ray.
31. Rap sucks. Don’t argue with me. It sucks.
32. I don’t use profanity. Ever.
33. However, I do tend to use a lot of pseudo-swearing. When I’m talking casually, I usually use the words “crap” and “frickin’” in at least every other sentence.
34. I’m a little frickin’ better about crap like that when I write.
35. I have ADD.
36. I also have asthma.
37. I take medication for both.
38. I’m afraid of heights, spiders, and to a lesser extent, dogs.
39. I love cats, and I don’t care who knows it.
40. I’ve never broken any bones, and I’d like to keep it that way.
41. When I was 12, I had a benign cyst surgically removed from my right ear.
42. This was after months of people asking “what happened to your ear?” about 100 times an hour.
43. I’ve been to Washington, D.C. twice.
44. The second time, I lost one of those little individual boxes of Lucky Charms somewhere in Ford’s Theatre.
45. I’ve also been to Canada twice.
46. I liked Toronto, but didn’t like Montreal (French Canadians are more French than Canadian).
47. I collect sugar packets from restaurants and hotels when I travel. I have a container of at least 30 from various places I've visited.
48. States I’ve been in: Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan, Florida, and probably a couple others.
49. I’ve only flown twice in my life.
50. The first time was from Pennsylvania to Florida (Disney World, actually), and the second time was from Florida back to Pennsylvania.
51. This was before 9/11.
52. Speaking of which, on the morning of September 11, 2001, as the bus was pulling into the parking lot of my school, I distinctly remember saying to myself, “I have a feeling something really good is going to happen today.”
53. I have since learned not to trust my predictions.
54. I've been to Ground Zero. While we were there, one of my brother's friends wrote "F**k the Middleast (sic)" on the memorial wall.
55. My grandfather was in World War II, but he didn’t see any combat.
56. His job was to send fake radio transmissions to confuse the Japanese.
57. He always claims that he fought “mosquitoes and women.”
58. I am absolutely horrible at math.
59. I am a master of Simpsons trivia and can answer just about any question from before the last couple seasons when the show started to go downhill.
60. I own every episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and have watched them dozens of times each.
61. I’ve had a learner’s permit for almost 3 years, but I don’t have a driver’s license because I’m too lazy to practice driving.
62. My favorite movie is Gettysburg.
63. I’ve only visited Gettysburg once. I’ve also been to Antietam.
64. I love astronomy.
65. I own a telescope, but I can’t use it because I lost the eyepiece.
66. I’ve seen less than 50 meteors in my life, but I did manage to see one small “fireball” when I was 17.
67. I watched the 2002 Leonid meteor storm, but I only saw about 25 meteors because it was cloudy that morning.
68. Spelling and grammar mistakes make me incredibly angry. Especially my own.
69. I’ve been on television a few times.
70. Most of those were on the local station that only Plum Borough receives.
71. I was on an actual Pittsburgh news broadcast once.
72. It was a 2 second shot of me playing snare drum for the national anthem during the Veterans’ Day parade.
73. The cameraman got right up in my face to get the shot, so I knew I was probably going to be on TV.
74. I have it on tape somewhere.
75. My parents still haven’t seen it.
76. My parents don’t know that I have a blog.
77. Neither does my younger brother, my roommate, or anyone I know.
78. I’ve had the same haircut for the past 6 or 7 years.
79. I’ve also worn the same kind of shoes for about that long.
80. Almost everything I wear is made by Reebok.
81. I used to want to be an actor, but I changed my mind in high school.
82. In 8th grade, I was in a musical called “Hollywood Hillbillies.”
83. I played a “reformed” hillbilly named Charles Seabury. My role was almost entirely sung.
84. I hate singing, and haven’t done any since my voice changed 4 years ago.
85. Somebody once told me that I sound like Frank Sinatra (talking, not singing). I’m not sure if they were right.
86. Speaking of my voice, I have a slight Pittsburgh accent, but I don’t use Pittsburgh dialect (yins guys, nebby, n’at, etc.).
87. I am terrified of phones, and will do anything I can to avoid using them.
88. This includes making up lame excuses, procrastinating for hours, and sending e-mail to people who specifically tell me to call them.
89. Speaking of procrastination, I do it a lot.
90. I graduated from high school with a 3.9 GPA.
91. The last time I was tested, my I.Q. was 151.
92. My father is a music teacher, my mother is an English teacher, and my brother wants to be a history teacher.
93. I used to play hockey and baseball, and I was never very good at either one. Hockey is still my favorite sport, though.
94. I have a bit of what you might call a “weight problem.”
95. I’m 5’7” and I weigh 210 pounds.
96. I’m going to try and lose it next summer.
97. I’ve never had a girlfriend (as if you hadn’t figured that out by now).
98. If you give me a video camera, I will find a way to make any subject interesting.
99. I have about 15 VHS tapes, 14 VHS-C tapes, and 12 digital video cassettes that I can use as evidence of this.
100. My favorite colors are orange and dark green.
101. My favorite foods are cheeseburgers and pizza.
102. Coke is infinitely better than Pepsi. Oh, and it’s called pop, not soda.
103. I consume massive quantities of Dentyne Ice chewing gum.
104. Mega Warheads (the sour ones) are the greatest accomplishment in the history of candy.
105. Before deciding to study TRF, I wanted to be a hockey player, a baseball player, a computer programmer, an actor, a novelist, and a cartoonist (not necessarily in that order).