100 Short Things About Me
01 The first book I remember being read to me as a kid was The Midnight Folk by John Masefield.02 My favourite time of day is the night.
03 I bite my nails.
04 I've been drinking a lot of water lately. My concentration seems to have increased ten fold. I haven't yawned in hours.
05 I'm disappointed if I haven't done at least one new thing each day.
06 I have hazel eyes ...
07 ... and light brown hair ...
08 ... and my birthday is 31st October which makes me a ...
09 ... Scorpio. And everything you're heard is true.
10 I don't wear jewelry. It just looks wrong.
11 My Dad is a watch maker and can always tell the time off the top of his head. I can as well, but I always seem to be five minutes out...
12 My five favourite films are Star Wars, When Harry Met Sally, Clerks, It's a Wonderful Life, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Some of those always change.
13 I'm happy if you're happy.
14 I don't smoke.
15 I almost never have pictures of myself on my weblog. I think people would rather be looking at text.
16 I can't say 'Honey'.
17 My keyring still has a key to every house I've ever lived in on it (except for the ones I've had to give back).
18 My ICQ is still 134358633.
19 I once married Julie Delpy in a dream.
20 My mobile phone ringer is Enola Gay by OMD.
21 I cried at the end of Titanic when I saw it for the first time.
22 The first poem I ever wrote was about a MouseSnail. I still don't know what one of those is. But in my young head it could swing through trees.
23 I haven't seen the girl I had my first kiss with since two minutes after it happened.
24 Four things I'd eat on the last day of your life: Fish and chips; Spaghetti Bolognaise; Christmas Steak; Caesar Salad
25 Religiously, I'm a non-denominational spiritualist. That way I can't piss too many people off.
26 I studied Information Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University which makes me a qualified librarian, although I couldn't find anyone in Liverpool who would let me be a practicing one.
27 Some personal philosophies, beginning with: 'Wherever you go, there you are.'
28 'This life has been a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received actual instructions on where to go and what to do.'
29 'Be yourself. No matter where you go.'
30 'Funny how the girls you fall in love with never fancy you. Funny how the girls you don't do.'
31 'I can't hurt to help.'
32 'But sometimes it can hurt to help.'
33 I didn't hear Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven until the age of 28.
34 The best present I never ended up giving was a mug designed to be used as a black board with free chalk. It looks good, but it makes your tea taste funny.
35 The oldest poster I have on my wall is of a sunflower farm. One day it would be nice to have one of those.
36 My writing is always better when I'm working from someone elses ideas. I'm not really that imaginative.
37 I can recited the whole of the first episode of Friends. Still can't get REM's It's the end of the world... Yet.
38 Budweiser if I'm really drinking.
39 The first film to make me puke was Annie (I was in a theatre in the bottom of an Isle of Man ferry in particularly choppy waters). The second was Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan
40 I spent a year commuting to a call centre job in Manchester. I miss the reading time on the train.
41 My computer desk is an old oak collapsible dining table.
42 someone with a personality. not a sheep, someone who speaks her mind. unpredictable but rational. willing to go out on a limb, be spontaneous, but responsible. someone interested in the world, who like me wants to discover the possibilites and how everything works. someone funny without being purile, spritual without banging on about religion all the time. who doesn't mind making an idiot of themselves if the outcome is pure.
43 I have the same name as the big bad demon in the 'Hell's Bells' episode of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
44 My birthday is on Halloween. Coincidence?
45 If there was one person from my past I would like to meet again it would be Rosie Holt. We were in halls together in Leeds and I always worry about what happened to her. Sometimes you don't hold on tight to the people who you later wanted to be life long friends. That's Rosie Holt. Rosie Holt. Rosie Holt. I'm hoping she'll find this if she ever does an ego search on Google, so I'll repeat her name again, Rosie Holt. Just email and tell me you're OK will you?
46 I'm the only person I know who watches BBC Four. More fool everyone else.
47 I once owned a rabbit called Dunk after the character from the Wheetabix commercials.
48 My first job was at The Henry Moore Institute in Leeds.
49 One of the best jobs I've ever had was volunteering in the Media Centre at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games. For some reason I cared more for it than for jobs I've actually been paid for.
50 This is the sound of my voice.
51 No 42 nearly said "I never can get the hang of Thursdays", until I thought of something else.
52 My favourite superhero was Spiderman.
53 I always wear odd socks. If it's job interview this differences can be very subtle. I once wrote a manifesto for odd socks wearers on a post-it note. I don't have this any longer.
54 My favourite jacket is a denim jacket I bought a few years ago which I'm afraid to wash because I life the colour and I don't want to it fade. Consequently I don't wear it all that often because I don't want it to get dirty.
55 The first holiday I remember is a wet week in Polperro.
56 The one thing I always remember about my Eighteenth Birthday is faux-Russian dancing with a girl I'd had a crush on for years to the dance version of the Tetris music by Dr. Spin. At that same party someone tried to request The Smith's Girlfriend in a Coma.
57 If I could live anywhere in the world it would be New York.
58 Anywhere in the UK, it would be Edinburgh.
59 Anywhere in England it would be Leeds.
60 Anywhere in Liverpool it would be the city centre.
61 I didn't drink alcohol until the age of 20. My first drink was a bottle of Carlsberg at a Jazz Festival in Leeds. I still have the bottle.
62 I'm never what people expect.
63 Sometimes when I write in my weblog I wonder if anyone is reading. Are you?
64 My favourite play by Shakespeare is Measure for Measure. Unlike most of everything else, the ending isn't certain and takes an unexpected turn, a bit like life.
65 I only ever need six hours sleep. If I get any more, I feel sleepy for the rest of the day.66 My typing is better and more coherent after a few beers.
67 I'm in all the crowd scenes at the end of the film There's Only One Jimmy Grimble.
68 The world needs to think more. Thinking is a good thing.
69 I've never taken drugs.
70 At various times I've owned or borrowed an Acorn Electron, Commodore 64, Sinclair Spectrum+, Acorn A3000, Camputer Lynx, N64, Nintendo Gameboy, 286, 386, 486 Pentium etc.
71 My current computer sits on a giant oak dining table in my room. The theory being that when I move out I'll at least have a table to sit at. I quite like the idea of not having chairs when I do get my own place. The floor is an underrated placed to sit.
72 The first weblog I ever read was Rebbeca's Pocket. It took me a while to notice other people were doing the same thing.
73 Doctor Who. There I said it.
74 On my bedside table, there is an electronic alarm clock with a real bell inside which I got for my Eighteenth birthday.
75 I hate computers. It's pity they can be so damn useful.
76 My last holiday was to Paris for three days.
77 I don't take holidays quite as much as I should.
78 When I was kid, I wanted to grow up to be Zoologist. Then I saw a documentary in which an animal was put down and I cried for days and gave up that ambition.
79 I've never been very good at science.
80 I've never been very good at learning languages.
81 My handwriting is atrocious due to years of typing everything.
82 I don't eat fish.
83 My watch is on a chain which dangles around my neck. I'm the only person I know who has one.84 I had a nursery teacher called Mrs Kilgallen. She used to call me the banana boy because I used to eat banana butties for lunch every day.
85 I've never stolen anything from a shop.
86 I was once at The Albert Dock in Liverpool with a friend and momentarily distracted Alan Bennett by doing Beavis and Butt-head impressions.
87 The first time my name appeared in print was as a prize winner in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. I won a book.
88 The only time I visited a magazine office was Zzap! 64 in Ludlow. It was very small and similar to a telesales place I worked at for a week on very low wages.
89 I always include my middle name because I'm the only Stuart Ian Burns around.
90 There are very few famous people I'd want to meet. If I see them in the street I tend to walk past because they really aren't that much more important than you are.
91 But if I could choose, Claire Danes, Woody Allen, Joss Whedon, Alanis Morrissette and Kelly Macdonald.
92 I once called up a radio station in the middle of the night to make the important point that Harry Enfied isn't that funny. I wasn't drunk.
93 I once walked through a Macdonalds drive-in to get a burger with the cars. I wasn't drunk.
94 I don't need to get drunk to do weird things.
95 When I was training for a job once, I had to say three things only one of which was the truth. I said I'd had am album out, I'd had a book published and that I was in a film. They all thought it was the book, which is quite flattering.
96 I'm not as well read as some people think I am. I've just seen a lot of film adaptations. It's amazing how people never know the difference. I don't tell them I've read the books, they just assume.
97 I've left some really embarrassing stuff out of this list.
98 I now have pine a wardrobe in my room.
99 I used to keep my clothes in a filing cabinet.
100 Is up to you ....
To win a feeling listless soundtrack album, I want you the reader to tell me what the last entry on the list should be from what you've read over the past few years. You can bung the answer in the comments box or by email and I'll pick the best one at the second birthday of the weblog at the end of July. If you've already won once, you can re-enter ... I've got something else up my sleeve.