If karma exists, Shawn Powers — my esteemed coworker and kindred spirit in all things goofy — is currently bound and laying on an anthill, slathered in honey.

What earned him this fate of fates? He tagged me in this pseudo-chain-letter, obligating me to not only come up with six unimportant things about myself to answer the bloody thing, but to call out six more ill-begotten sods to do it too, thus earning myself a similar fate.

My thoughts on this can be summed up quite succinctly:

Bugger that.

I’m supposed to set out the rules, give my six things, and name the six victims. Well, that’s not going to happen. Instead, I’m going to name the rules and proceed to break them. Grab some popcorn, pull up a chair, and enjoy the ride.

The rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
   • Done, only because I want the torch-wielding public to be aware of who is responsible for this sort of thing and where to find him. Tar and feathers can be obtained through Amazon at a 25% discount by using the coupon code whathedeserves.
2. Post the rules.
   • Done, so the world can see clearly that I’m not beholden to such things.
3. Write six things about yourself.
   • Something not altogether unrelated to this appears below.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
   • Not. Going. To happen. Instead, I’m opening it up to anyone who is actually interested — if this sort of thing gets you hot and bothered, consider this an invitation to intervene and count me as your “tagger.”
5. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their sites.
   • We’ll do this in reverse; if anyone is actually nuts enough to accept the offer above, I’ll comment on their site once it’s up.
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.
   • Oh, yes, I’m most certainly doing this — it’s much more fun when they know The Furies have it out for them.

So, now, how am I going to carry out #3? Like this:

Six Things You Wish You Never Knew
That Have Nothing To Do With Justin Ryan

1. The FDA allows an average of 30 or more insect fragments and one or more rodent hairs per 100 grams of peanut butter.
2. In a study of people who do not speak English, researchers read a list of words and asked the people to choose which words they thought sounded pretty. Diarrhea was the most popular.
3. It was considered a great honor to speak with Louis XIV while he relieved himself.
4. A typical mattress is home to 100,000 to 10 million dust mites. Dead mites and their droppings constitute one-tenth of the weight of a two-year-old pillow.
5. Funeral directors in Florida get 500 frequent flier miles for every corpse they ship out of Daytona Beach International Airport.
6. In an average day your hands will have come into indirect contact with 15 penises (touching door handles, etc.)

So, there you have it. I was tempted to toss one in about bees just for Shawn, but I’m not that cruel. If anyone is interested in continuing the chain, see #4 above and leave a comment here when the deed has been done.

Cheers!

1. Nathan Says:
   April 28th, 2008 at 9:21 am

   I was coming here to stop you before the virus spread further, but you’re approach is masterful. (My entry today explains all.)