Orablog Tag or 8 Things

By Jake • January 7th, 2008 • View Comments

memewarning.pngThe Oracle blogosphere has been around for a while, and recently, with Twitter and Facebook usage on the rise, we are becoming a more tight-knit community.

As a follow up to my Oracle Tweeters post, I’m proposing a good, old-fashioned game of blog tag. I’m not sure if this has already been done in the Oracle blogosphere, but if so, I missed it. And if I missed it, did it really happen?

Anyway, the construct is simple, I will throw out eight things you might not know about me, then tag eight other bloggers. They will blog eight not-so-obvious things about themselves, then each tag eight more as yet un-tagged bloggers, and so on until we get bored.

The goal is to learn more about the people you interact with using New Web. If you don’t want to play along, no worries. For an example, check out the Ontario Emperor’s response to being tagged. No point in tagging him again.

I’ll start tagging Oracle bloggers, but don’t take that as a requirement. The goal is to get a response and spread the meme. So, here are eight things you probably don’t know about me:

  1. I am half-Japanese, as you might guess from comparing my surname with my outward appearance. My grandparents on my father’s side were interned during World War II, and my aunt was born in a camp. I have the apology letters sent to my grandparents by George Bush Senior to prove it. That’s right, it took 40 some years for the government to apologize.
  2. I love to fight. I train in a variety of combat sports, including Brazilian Jiu-Jistu, Western boxing and clinch, collectively known as mixed martial arts. I’m not the only AppLabber who studies a martial art, and I’ve been surprised at how many Oracle people train in combat sports and martial arts.
  3. At age 11, I had my two front teeth smashed out of my head on an icy playground. We were playing “Kill the Man”, essentially tackle football without the football, and I did a faceplant while being tackled. Ah, youth.
  4. My lovely wife and I share the same birthday, different years. More accurately, we have the same birthday, and I haven’t celebrated my own for eight years.
  5. I have a condition called brachydactyly type D, a.k.a. clubbed thumbs or murder’s thumbs, scroll almost to the bottom for the bit on murderer’s thumbs.
  6. I move a lot. I’ve lived Indiana, Chicago, the Bay Area, the Central Valley, LA, Pittsburgh and now Portland. I expect to make this my long term home, but you never can tell. Even though I have the operational aspects of moving, I like observing people in different areas of the country.
  7. As a summer job during college, I laid asphalt as a grunt on my hometown borough’s road crew. We did lots of other manual labor outside, but laying a couple tons of asphalt in 90 degree heat with 60% humidity was the one that I remember most vividly.
  8. Without pop culture, I would have none. I am an avid movie, music, television, comic book, Interwebs meme consumer, and I love trading quotes or references with like-minded people. It’s sad really.

So, those are my eight. I now tag Matt Topper, Dan Norris, David Haimes, Justin Kestelyn, Floyd Teter, Marian Crkon, Meg Bear and Eddie Awad. Expect a tweet or email from me. If you write a team blog, like this one, feel free to call out your colleagues. Anthony, Paul and Rich are all fair game too.


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  • As the person who probably inspired Jake to introduce the "Orablog Tag" variant into the populace, I guess I should put my two cents in - and duck.

    I've actually written a post about it (truth to tell, I wrote three posts and a bunch of Twitter tweets, including one about Sigue Sigue Sputnik, and I won't rehash that content here. Follow my link for possible solutions to the issue.

    Actually, I will touch on one item - is OraNA an aggregation of posts, or an aggregation of people? In the current business environment, I believe that it is most important that we understand the PEOPLE with whom we associate. Non-technical items such as blogger dinners help pave the way for technical interactions in the future, and can, dare I say it, help cement business and technical relationships.

    I for one would err on the side of too much content - items, after all, CAN be filtered or skipped - rather than too little content.

    (That having been said, I have not requested, and will not request, that my blog be aggregated by OraNA, since such a small portiono of even the technical content would be of interest to its readers. Methings Howard would go well over the deep end if he were forced to read my views on Ron Paul supporters...)
  • That's so unfair. Sigue Sigue Sputnik were fun. :)

    Cheers

    Tim...
  • Richard
    Howard Rogers is being Mr. Sourpuss, only because his new Blog is as dead as Julius Caesar, with fewer hits than Sigue Sigue Sputnik.
  • Meg
    Rock on Jake!
  • In the meantime, feel free to hit “j” in Reader until the nightmare is over

    What's that supposed to mean, Jake? What reader do you suppose I'm using? You do know there's a website called www.orana.info, right? I mean, you are aware of things that go on in the Oracle community like blog aggregator websites, yes?

    So when I visit this OraNA website, what button was it I am supposed to hit to stop what you rightly call a nightmare from clogging the page up?

    Perhaps if you stopped to think in that thinktank of yours, you might have anticipated what your little bit of silliness would do to sites like OraNA. And if you stopped assuming that whatever piece of software you happen to have on your desktop is on everyone else's desktop, you might not come out with complete guff like the comment I've just quoted.

    I think the logo you used for this is revealing. "Infectious memes"... well, absolutely. Just like a virus, in fact. And just like a script kiddie, you haven't the slightest concern about the consequences of your actions on others. Let them deal with it by pressing some button or other... Problem sorted! Except it's not and it's a problem that shouldn't have been created in the first place.

    Not a good advert for OracleApps, I would have said.
  • Today (December 22, 2008) I was tagged in a meme, and although I played along, I decided not to tag anyone else - although anyone, including Howard, is certainly welcome to tag themselves and continue the meme. Lesson learned, I guess.
  • Like a bad penny . . .

    If I had the time or desire, it might be interesting to track the trajectory of this meme from its originator (Jeff Pulver, methinks) all the way to now.
  • I've been "tagged" by Juan Camilo Ruiz. My turn now...
  • Jake
    @Michael: I would have included you and the EIs, but I thought you all had gone around a few times already.
  • Great to learn more about you, Jake!
  • Jake
    @Howard: Thanks for sharing your opinion. From now on, we'll make sure the content stays on point for your benefit.

    In the meantime, feel free to hit "j" in Reader until the nightmare is over.
  • This is an utterly **moronic** thing to do.

    Don't believe me? Take a look at OraNA today: practically nothing but people sharing 8 things I never wanted to know about them.

    You have created a tidal wave of spam. Congratulations: quite the silliest thing I've seen done by a member of the Oracle "community" in a long, long time.
  • Jake
    @Tim: IOU one gold star applied to forehead, thanks for playing.
  • I got tagged by Chris Muir. I've been a good boy and tagged 8 others. Do I get a gold star?

    CHeers

    Tim...
  • Jake
    That's one thing (among many) I love about OR, surf is 1.5 hours away, (year-round) snow is 3 hours away. Lots of waterfalls and greenery on the way.
  • Tim
    yeah ... I miss the windsurfing but I was slimmer then and had hair - people would just laugh now. I just get to hang out on green runs with my boys falling over their snowboards - we're moving up to 'blues' soon - then we'll be shredding diamonds before you know it:o)
  • Jake
    @David: Good stuff, enjoyed reading them.
  • I managed to scrape together 8 things about me that are new to some people at least.
  • Jake
    @Tim: Don't pretend like you don't love talking about yourself. How do you go from a beach bum to a mountain man in a locale with very little water? Did you get bored with H20?
  • Tim
    Arrrrggghhhhh ... what have you started!
    Saying that, getting to babble on about myself was a way to while away an otherwise boring evening :0)
  • Jake
    @Charles @Steve: Glad you guys have been tagged, it's great to expand the humanity of our community. Looking forward to more profiles of new contacts, beyond a Facebook profile/blog/Twitter ID and Tweetstream.
  • Floyd tagged me, Game on!
  • I have to agree with you, Jake. For instance, up until this morning, I had no idea who you were. =) When you go through the "wash, rinse, repeat" cycle of finding people with a similar interest and than meeting them for real life at a conference or User Group, it really helps to drive home that point that there are others struggling with the exact same thing (or rather close).
  • Jake
    Thanks for playing along; my biggest plus for Interwebs is how much smaller it makes the world. Sounds corny, but meeting new folks virtually is huge for me.
  • Always happy to join in a virtual game of "Duck Duck Goose". I've posted my 8 things and tagged 8 more geese.
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