Tagged! 5 Things You didn't know about me.

For those of you who don't know, there is a game of tag going on among search bloggers right now, and I've finally been tagged, courtesy of David Wallace (SearchRank).

The rules are, you have to tell 5 things about yourself that no one else knows, then tag 5 others.

5 things You Probably Didn't Know About Ian McAnerin

1. I'm a prolific reader - one summer for a reading contest at my local library in Coaldale, I won first prize. I actually read every single book in the Science Fiction and Fantasy (I'm a big Robert A Heinlein fan) and Western sections (Louis L'Amour a fav here).

Every. Single. Book.

I read very fast, and averaged about 3 books a day for an entire summer. I think it was over two hundred books. My sister Cindy came in a distant second with fifty or so, and third place was someone with about 15 books. We got our love of reading from mom.

2. I'm also a gamer. I played Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (the paper and dice version) during junior high and high school, and even today I relax by playing Command and Conquer: Generals and my latest favorite, Oblivion (possibly the best computer fantasy game ever).

3. I've been asked to STOP singing Karoke in no less than 5 countries so far (Canada, US, China, Japan and Korea). I'm very enthusiastic (when drunk) but couldn't carry a tune with a forklift and a very big bag.

As an example, in Jinan, China, we were singing to a Karoke machine that rated each singer automatically at the end. Being the honored guest, I went first. At the end of the song, the machine put out: 7. there was a pause, and my host (god bless 'em) shouted "Out of 10!" and everyone clapped and cheered. Then Joy sang (beautifully). I was thinking, "this has to be at least a 9 and should be a 10".

Her score was 98. Umm... so that means my score was really out of... oh, never mind.

4. I have dyslexia. In spite of the fact that I have a reputation for writing long posts (a new word was invented on the High Rankings forum: "mcanerinesque" for long posts) I actually hate writing. Especially reports. I'm very slow and spell almost everything wrong. Mostly because I mix up the order of letters.

It's frustrating and I almost failed law school because of it, until I was allowed extra time (I have an official piece of paper proving I have far above average intelligence but far below average writing - I should probably frame it...).

Oh, I also talk exactly how I write. Anyone who has met me will tell you this. That's probably why there is a difference between reports and blogs posts for me, since I don't talk like a report.

5. I have several famous (mostly very distant) relatives.

They include Sir Isaac Brock, Dr. Norman Bethune, and Wayne Gretzky. Canada being a small country in terms of population, and the fact that my family has been here since long before it even was a country, this isn't as special as it sounds - I'm related to a lot of Canadians, famous and infamous.

Also my name, McAnerin, is actually a misspelling. The McAnns of Ireland (Ireland in Irish = Erin), got turned into McAn of Erin, and finally McAnerin.

So there you go. :)

Let's see, now I have to tag someone else, who blogs, who isn't on that darn list already. This is actually hard, since most of the people I know online are on that list already.

I tag the following (in no particular order):

Marc Macalua
Inway Ni
Stephan Spencer
Dr. E. Garcia
Cindy Turrietta or Brooke Schumacher

Ian