Jeopardy Categories 2005

No post today, because I’m still working on my about page. But here’s a quick excerpt, my updated ideal Jeopardy categories.

• Public transportation (not just for jerks and lesbians)
• Web standards and CSS (not just for jerks and lesbians)
• Comic books (not just for… you get the point)
• Cheesy movies (blues brothers, barbarella, etc)
• Science fiction (from asimov to heinlein to niven)
• Video Games (freeman vs. master chief)
• The Pen Is Mightier (you’re sitting on a gold mine!)

It turns out that writing a good about page is tricky. I don’t want it to be too brief, but I also don’t want to yammer on endlessly. In the end, it will probably be something like the one from Binary Bonsai or Kottke. I’m also finding myself drawn to High Fidelity and Microserfs for inspiration.

My shop is called Championship Vinyl. I sell punk, blues, soul, and R&B, a bit of ska, some indie stuff, some sixties pop—everything for the serious record collector, as the ironically old-fashioned writing in the window says. We’re in a quiet street in Holloway, carefully placed to attract the bare minimum of window-shoppers; there’s no reason to come here at all, unless you live here, and the people that live here don’t seem terribly interested in my Stiff Little Fingers white label (twenty-five quid to you—I paid seventeen for it in 1986) or my mono copy of Blonde on Blonde.
– High Fidelity

That quote is the kind of thing that would be great to write for the site itself.

I am a tester—a bug checker in Building Seven. I worked my way up the ladder from Product Support Services (PSS) where I spent six months in phone purgatory in 1991 helping little old ladies format their Christmas mailing lists in Microsoft Works.

Like most Microsoft employees, I consider myself too well adjusted to be working here, even though I am 26 and my universe consists of home, Microsoft, and Costco.

I am originally from Bellingham, up just near the border, but my parents live in Palo Alto now. I live in a group house with five other Microsoft employees: Todd, Susan, Bug Barbecue, Michael, and Abe.

We call ourselves “The Channel Three News Team.”
– Microserfs

That quote is the way I would love to be able to write about myself. Which is why this is taking me forever. I want to get it right, and I’m just not sure I’m up to the task. Maybe it’s time to put down the stuff other people wrote and try to write something of my own instead.

Followup: I’ve finished writing the about page - Check it out!