Well, I got tired of waiting around for the cool kids to tap me. So yes boys and girls, I'm committing probably one of the biggest faux-pas that the blogging world has ever seen - by tapping myself. (The shame.)

1. Dropout. I'm a high school drop out. Yup, I couldn't stand High School (though I did get plenty of sleep during class). High school was just unbearably booring, lame, and got in the way of learning... so I ditched it. I then had to work my butt off to get accepted to a prestigious university where I actually managed to swing the Dean's Honor Roll one semester, and also was fortunate enough to swing partial scholarships for my Junior and Senior years due to my great grades. At one time I actually had the grades to make Yale, or the University of Chicago... but then I bailed to work with that series of tubes and dump-trucks known as "the internets".
2. Khoomei. I've got major issues with Mongolian Mouth music [sample 1, sample 2 - though those these are technically both examples of Tuvan, not Khoomei]. Well, the truth is that Mongolian and Mongolians just fascinate me beyond belief. And I think Khoomei is a perfect embodiment of that fascination. As crazy as it sounds, I frequently program to it - it's a great sound but doesn't demand enough of my attention to distract from what I'm doing. I, um, hate to say it... but I frequently find myself almost, um, 'rocking out' to it while working. (Maybe volunteering this info in a post was a bad idea... and maybe now I know why no one has nominated me...)
3. Tolkien. I've *cough* read the Lord of the Rings more than 25 times (mostly as a youth). I lost count of how many times I've read the Hobbit. As a matter of fact, my first actual forays into publication actually came from my wild passion for all things Middle Earth. (The stories were just great, and Tolkien's mastery of languages and philology just blow me away.) And yes, I was insufferable/snobby when the movies came out.
4. Languages. I love languages. I speak fluent French, used to be conversant in Arabic, grok lots of German and could be mildly conversant if necessity required, and have studied Russian, Hungarian, Turkish, and Swahili at great lengths. I've also spent probably thousands of hours pouring over the dictionary focused on etymology - and I just love Greek and Latin. One of my absolute all time favorite books in the world is Kenneth Katzner's Languages of the World. In high school (before I dropped out) I think I had it permanently checked out of the library. When I dropped out I bought my own copy.
5. Sports. I hated sports as a kid in school. Probably because nobody picked me to be on their team. Hmmm, kind of like this stupid meme.

Sharing the Love
Since I never got tapped, I'm not sure if it's kosher for me to tap others... but I might as well. I'm already knee-deep, and I'd love to know some things about some other people on the blogosphere:

My Best Bud Carson.
   Actually, screw him. He got tapped 2x already and _KNEW_ that I've had this post waiting for like a month now. Miserable cuss, no way I give him one of my 'self-appointed' taps. No link love for him.
Brian Hitney
    Brian and I are former veterans in the war on chaos that was Coldwater Creek.
Jon Sharp
    Once upon a time Jon and I made things sing at Altiris.
Adam Sills 
    He's always got great insights either as blog comments, or via newsgroups.
Ali Parvaresh
    I don't know anything about Ali other than that he's from Tehran and linked to me the other day - so back at you Ali.