20 things

From Kimbofo: The "20 things you didn't know about me" meme. I don't know if this is more or less useful for being a recent arrival to the wonderful world of blogging but here goes:

1. I have 2 middle names
2. I played rugby in high school, briefly; I was the hooker (no sniggering in the back!)
3. The only two sporting activities, other than getting crushed in a scrum, for which I have shown any aptitude are cross-country ski-ing and shooting. I may be part Norwegian. Or Finnish.
4. The first tape I ever owned was "Tonic for the Troops" by the Boomtown Rats.
5. Undercutting that, the first LP I ever owned was by Abba.
6. I got my first CD player in 1986.
7. My wife and I stopped counting our merged CD library after we crossed the 600 mark
8. In a blind-tasting-of-beer-contest in grad school, I successfully distinguished Murphy's from Guinness. No wonder I don't have a PhD.
9. I do however have a MA in political science and I have put it to use (ahem) by working as an IT Services Management consultant (snore)
10. I was a Volvo salesman for three days, the summer after I graduated from university.
11. My first car was a Peugeot 505 turbodiesel. In Los Angeles. That fitted in seamlessly with the local car culture.
12. I finally started wearing earplugs to concerts after my ears nearly bled while listening to Japanese noise-meisters Ultra Bide (opening for the Specials, oddly) at Lupo's in Providence, Rhode Island. Too little, too late as it turned out.
13. My wife claims that the real reason she first fancied me was that I owned "Kings of the Wild Frontier" on vinyl and CD. That's two lapses of taste on her part, then, to my one. But Dirk does wear white socks.
14. I lived in California for 10 years but I don't really like the beach that much.
15. I have at various times tried to learn Dutch, French, Latin, and Japanese.
16. I got glasses at age 7 after my teacher realized that I wasn't learning any Dutch because I couldn't see the board -- this dented the prevailing theory that I was think as two short planks
17. I can still get through the first "verse" of "Bring the noise" by Public Enemy from memory.
18. I own a kilt
19. I had both ears pierced in grad school but stopped wearing earrings ages ago, as they don't go with the slaphead look
20. The only reason I graduated from university on time in 1992 was the LA riots