Mile
Zero

We need a better word for "meme." It's not a good word, apologies to Dawkins. When read, it looks like "me, me," which may be appropriate but isn't flattering. When spoken aloud, it sounds like half a word (since it's based on the Greek mimeme, I guess it is).

Besides, the blog version of a "meme" is not really a contagious idea. It's a chain letter that's had the most irritating parts (the superstitious promise of good luck coupled with a veiled threat of catastrophe) removed, replacing those with the digital equivalent of a rapport-building exercise. That's not a meme, it's a well-meaning pyramid scam. Maybe we could call it a 411-9? (Yeah, if we wanted to restrict its audience to obscure wordplay.)

On the other hand, it's kind of clumsy to say "Lance just hit me with a well-meaning pyramid scam:"

1. I went to GMU with my Communication major declared from the start, but I didn't really decide to become a writer until my third or fourth year. Before that, I wanted to work for the Travel Channel. I thought I'd make a good host.
2. It's not that I hate children. It's that I don't like people, and children just embody most of the things I don't like about them.
3. Belle made me take one of those Myers-Briggs personality tests a couple of weeks back, and I came up INTJ. She had trouble understanding the introspective component until she saw me at a work party a few days later, and whenever she glanced over I was standing by myself--usually next to one of the food tables. Awkward and lurking, that's me.
4. I played clarinet in middle school and high school band. I was a decent player, but it was all thanks to my ear--I never really practiced. I think that might be the first instrument that I was formally trained to play, that or piano. I still have the clarinet, which was a decent wooden model instead of the usual resin-molded starter instrument. I like keeping it, even if I don't play so well any more, because I grew up in a house filled with instruments, and I'd like to have that myself. It feels very inviting to me. Both my parents were brass players in college, and my dad worked as an instrument repairman for a time. We had a bassoon hanging over the stairs in our townhouse, which I thought was really cool.
5. I am not a frakkin' cylon.
6. Most people who know me know that I don't drink as a matter of habit. But I only recently loosened up to the point where I'll use alcohol--usually white wine--for cooking, even though the heat evaporates all the alcohol right out. It still kind of gives me the creeps, but the flavors are rich enough that I can suppress those feelings while I eat.
7. I'm the youngest person in my division. I might be the youngest person in my vice presidency. Luckily, I doubt that I am the youngest person at the World Bank.
8. I do think that European Nutella is better than the American, despite evidence to the contrary.

Do I even know eight people who will do something like this? Eight people online, who are both willing to do it and know I'm alive? Let's find out. Here's a tag for Wheat, Brinstar, Josh, Athenae (that's a long shot), Corvus (and/or Rachel), Dan, Orac, and Deacon.