On July 6th, Ilona of True Grit posted eight items she assumed we didn't know about her. Common to the meme, she listed five new bloggers to continue the faux chain, and apparently, I was one of those selected. Until last night, I had no idea. Amazing what an overlooked link will do.

So, in order to be a good blogging citizen, here we go.

Eight things you probably didn't know about me, likely in near chronological order, just because.

1) I was born two months early and weighed just over four pounds. The ambulance, on its way to Stanford from Salinas, had to stop mid-trip and I was delivered in San Jose. My poor father, meanwhile, made the trip to Stanford, and missed the birth. He has since made up for it. And lucky for me, modern medicine was just good enough to eventually kick me out of the hospital.

2) In order to display how disappointed my 3rd grade teacher was with my studies, he broke with school tradition and gave me letter grades, instead of the standard Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory marks given my peers. The first quarter, I got two C's. They may have been my first, but unfortunately, they were not even close to my last.

3) I graduated from junior high school twice. After attending a 7-8th grade school, we switched school districts, and attended a 7-9th grade junior high. I got to walk on the stage both years.

4) I was pulled over by the county sheriff during Drivers' Training, when I was 16, allegedly for having my rear right tire pass over an empty parking space as I turned right into an intersection. This greatly amused the other students in the car, and befuddled the instructor.

5) I was stood up on my first date after turning 16. My date's best friend had unbeknownst to her, brought a friend, which preempted me. Instead of enjoying the homecoming dance, I waited out the three-hour drama until my ride came. It later turned out to be a recurring motif through high school.

6) My senior year of high school, I was the station manager, and DJ, for the campus cable radio station, and logged hundreds of on-air hours playing Depeche Mode and Inforrmation Society to earn my A.

7) My original college of choice was UCLA, where I had hoped to be roommates with my best friend. Due to a bureaucratic snafu on the UC's part, and my typical lack of following instructions to a T, I didn't get in to UCLA, but did get into UC Berkeley, which made the seeming crisis a lot easier to handle.

8) I once took a 4-plus year self-imposed sabbatical from church, which overlapped with college, before deciding on my own it was time to go back and follow what I knew to be right. Had I remained stubborn, I never would have found my wife, among other things.

With all that said, the typical next step is to tag five more unexpecting victims.

Those targets:

* Ben Homer
* Jason Kaneshiro
* Earl Moore
* Jeff Narduzzi
* Farrah Walker

One of my best friends from high school, Ash Steffy, attended UCLA, pursued post-graduate study at the Art Center in Pasadena, and continues to follow his dreams as an aspiring film director in Hollywood. After much prodding by me, his much-anticipated short film debut has hit YouTube, in the form of "New Tenant", which covers a working stiff's efforts to pursue a 9 to 5 living, only to see one morning go hilariously awry. I hope you like it. Be sure to share with those you know would also enjoy it.

Direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZg0ErXRMTE

It appears Technorati doesn't have an exclusivity on finding links to the blog. Though I rely on "Blog Reactions" from Technorati for the vast majority of conversations around the blog, I was surprised to find a story that had fallen through the cracks, which I instead came across due to Icerocket, the poor stepsister of Technorati and Google Blog Search.

Looking at the number of blogs which point this way, I found a great writeup covering Athletics Nation, the #1 sports blog covering the Oakland Athletics. Hidden inside the article, posted on Bugs & Cranks, was a fairly positive note on the ANtics comics, our little once a week hobby.

"A few features about AN stand out. First, the ANtics comic strips are a unique contribution that few other sites can boast. While other sites have their photoshop wisecrackers, AN has produced volumes of original strips that look fantastic."

-- Bugs & Cranks >> Moneyblog: Athletics Nation

Not bad, in my heavily-biased opinion. The article goes on to give Athletics Nation (AN) credit for access to A's GM Billy Beane, team players, and offering a forum for A's fans to watch the games together. While the team may not be impressing anybody right now, in the midst of a 7-game losing skid, the site, and the comics, will continue. After all, even if our team can't get it together on the field, we are still dedicated to the craft of fandom.

Saturday morning, we finally swung by the Apple Store at Valley Fair in San Jose for the first time "Post iPhone" to take a look at Apple's new device that has the tech world aflutter. While very thin and chock full of features, the iPhone's virtual on-screen keyboard rejected about half my keystrokes in a quick trial run, making me more comfortable in my decision to stick with the Blackberry, at least for now.

I've used a Blackberry for the better part of five years, through three product generations, and while the keyboard has changed quite a bit over time, it still follows an easy to use format, with the standard QWERTY layout, and tactile response. When i started fiddling with the iPhone, to try and test its e-mail capability, half the letters would end up one away from their intended mark, making the words so badly jumbled that not even the included auto-correct dictionary had a clue as to where to start.

If I would try to type, "Hi there from the iPhone", it was more likely to read "Ho yheer gtom rhe iohome." Making it worse, every time I would delete a mistype, my next keystroke would put the same error right back. It got me thinking one of two things was occurring. Either I was slipping into lazy eye double vision which had my hands not coordinating well with my eyes, or my thumbs were too fat. It had me longing for the simplicity of the stylus on my old Handspring Visor, or the keyboard from the Blackberry line of mobile handhelds. If I did walk away with an iPhone (and I didn't), there's no question there would be some significant practice necessary before I could become as proficient as on the Blackberry.

That's not to say the experience with the iPhone was all bad. The camera was drop-dead simple to use. Squeezing and stretching photos on the screen or scrolling through the faux address book was a breeze, especially after having seen Apple's numerous demo videos. Playing videos from YouTube was quick and crystal-clear. I didn't mess around with Safari, but have no doubts that too was solid. And the iPhone is extremely thin, moreso than I had expected when it was first announced.

If I was looking for a Hallelujah moment that pushed me over the edge from interested observer to proud owner on Saturday, it didn't come. If cost and phone service quality were not an issue, I'd love to have one, but both are, and for now, we're still going to be cheering on the iPhone from the sidelines, and looking into ways for our fat fingers to cut back on the carbs.