One of my coworkers, Andrew Garcia, wrote a rather clever blog as sort of a response to the "25 Things About Me" that's been making the rounds on Facebook. It was so successful that our bosses here thought it would be wonderful if we all did the same thing.

At first I thought the idea was silly. Gee thanks. But then I started reading what my coworkers came up with, and I couldn't stop reading. And then, almost like I was possessed, I found myself writing and writing until I had 20 of my own, just like the original "25 Things" on Facebook, I suppose. So here's mine. Enjoy!

p.s. I would be forever indebted to you if you Digg this.

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Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 20 tech-related things, facts, habits, or ideas about yourself. At the end, you will tag no one, since you should have forsworn chain letters years ago.

1. I owned a Commodore VIC 20 before they were cool. I have no idea where that old thing is now but I remember it well in all its 23-character-wide screen.
2. In middle school I started writing a book to teach people how to program in BASIC. I wrote about three pages and forgot about it.
3. I'm not a gadget freak, believe it or not. For ages I owned a synthesizer but never hooked it up to my computer. (Okay, so I do own *some*gadgets.)
4. Some days I say "I hate computers." I don't know if I mean it or not.
5. I have a 6502 processor inside its original packaging from back around 1988. It's in some box somewhere and was the beginnings of a project that never got off the ground (obviously).
6. I owned a dot-com in the late 90s which collapsed.
7. In 1992, a friend and I came up with an idea for a new kind of bulletin board software that had its own windows that could be dragged around on the desktop and it would include chat windows. A couple years later AOL invented the same thing. I should have kept working on it. I would have been a millionaire today and wouldn't be writing this list; instead I'd be on a beach somewhere.
8. As a child I was the one who always took things apart and then tried to put it back together before I got caught and in trouble. I got grounded a lot, needless to say.
9. I'm glad cars have computers, but at the same time the idea of a car's computer crashing frightens me. Same for airplanes. Did I mention I hate computers?
10. Yes, I'm a computer programmer. No, I'm not going to fix your computer. What's that? You'll give me free pizza. Okay, I'll fix it.
11. I resist new technologies. I just finally joined Twitter last week, and it turns out it's actually pretty cool, especially learning every detail of the lives of Demi and Ashton.
12. I'm obsessed with tuning my computer. That service doesn't look important. Shut it down. Oops, I guess it was important. Reboot.
13. I have OCD. Oh wait, that doesn't have anything to do with technology. Or does it? Didn't I just say something about being obsessed?
14. My all-time favorite computer was the Amiga 500 that I owned years ago. However, I suspect if I saw that same computer today, the magic would be gone and I'd be disappointed. Better to let the sweet memories live on in my brain.
15. I have no idea how many computers I own. Wait, did I try to say I'm not into gadgets?
16. I admit it. I installed Ubuntu on a separate partition on my laptop. And I'll be darn, it works. And I'll be darn, it's actually pretty cool.
17. I used Usenet for the first time in 1990. It took me days before it suddenly hit me what that colon-followed-by-a-minus-sign-followed-by-a-left-parentheses sequence of symbols meant. Once it hit me I felt really dumb that it took so long for me to see it.
18. As much as I love gadgets (did I just say that?), I think those digital picture frames that rotate through a set of pictures are incredibly silly--at least I did until it dawned on me that it would be a perfect gift for some of my relatives who aren't into computers but love to look at pictures.
19. I love inventing my own computer languages, and I love learning new programming languages. I think everybody needs to understand functional programming. It can change your life. It did mine, and if you give me your name and number I can get you set up and your world will never be the same.
20. One day I am going to use my computer to rule the world. Okay--a world that lives inside my brain, anyway; one that is virtually connected to the Internet via my eyeballs. Call me crazy. In fact, after re-reading this list, I think I just might be a little bit crazy.