what do you know a bunch of shit about and why?

I know much about religion because i grew up in a religious family and was encouraged to study other religions (in the hope i'd think my families choice was the right one, however that didn't work) Now I continue my interest in it because as stated in another thread, I find the idea of people dedicating their lives to an unseen force/power/higher being super interesting.

And of course I have bizarre recollection of certain music/lyrics/etc or how else would I have ended up at ILX?

omega psi chi phi upsilon tau sigma rho pi omicron xi nu mu lambda
kappa iota theta eta zeta epsilon delta gamma beta alpha

For some reason, I feel a headache coming on...

Its cos of my job.

Oh, I'm good at Beatles and Dylan as well.

With regard to 80s chart music, I also know lots of Smash-Hits-tastic type facts.

(Sorry for my lack of humility in asking this question btw)

Or music...until I came here and all my dreams were SHATTERED!

Um. So. I know a bunch of stupid stuff. I have degrees in history (US cold-war era) and Communications, but they weren't the most rigorous programs out there. I know enough about my job, so I can tell you why radio is that way. But mostly it's just a lot of stuff.

*kno's nuthin*

Otherwise, just a collection of useless nonsense generally

Aside from the above, I'm also someone who knows little bits and pieces about this thing and that. "Just a collection of useless nonsense"? Possibly.

i don't know a lot about anything but i know little bits from recent minor obsessions about newfoundland folk music, russian folklore and pre-romanov czars, and tall ships (esp. developments in).

When I was a kid, my strong suit was geography. I knew state capitals, rivers of the world, etc., and always thought geography had the easiest questions in Trivial Pursuit.

I know a lot about space history, because I'm a space nut and know lots of other space geeks who buy me space history geeky books.

I know a lot about S/m, because I wanted to understand something that would horrify and titillate others.

I know a lot about poly-relationships, 'cause I suck at being monogamous.

I know a lot about nocturnal hedghog behavior, because mine keeps me awake at night.

I know how to live in a one-room cabin, measuring 20' X 24' feet, with no running water or electricity, because I did lots of weird stuff in my younger days.

I know how to bait a hook and clean a fish, because I decided I needed to learn some survival skills.

I know how to tell egrets from herons from ibis', 'cause I had to keep looking them up in bird reference books while I was trying to lable several hundred photos of birds.

I know how to make kahlua cake, 'cause without it I'd be one of those mad mass-merdering types, which rampaging during PMS incidents.

I know lots of scurrilous celebrit gossip thanks to reading lots of celebrity biographies and autobiographies and books about Hollywood.

I know a lot about Broadway stars who have appeared on Law and Order because I luv L&O and showtunes.

European History, as I've always been fascinated by the bloodthirsty.

Techno and general left-field music, as I've picked my mates' brains about what they like (and raided their collections).

Latex clothes, as I got hooked on them after buying my (so far) first piece.

Independent film, as I've never liked the mass market watered-down crap.

Museums, as I've always been attracted to various periods and forms of art.

I also have a BA in theatre (acting/writing/directing) though I can't say exactly how that's affected my life because I haven't really pursued it other than writing and peddling a few screenplays to no avail a while back.

o fuck.

never my thing (thanks god), but i've been close enough.

how about academics are fuckwits

several years in a complex testing/bacti lab

Ms Laura, I feel it's vital that you share this information with the rest of the world!

The last round in our pub quiz last week was to name all the cities that had held the Olympics since 1948. I am proud/sad to have got all of them right. So, I guess that too then.

I pretty much obsess over the whole 'repressed memory' debate & late '80s/early '90s zeitgeist that bore it. Like I have read every book on this I can find in the library, journal articles, websites, trial databases, etc. Bcz I find it interesting and weird and terrifying, the malleability of human memory.

Same reason I read "struggle books" by people who were in prison camps, people who were tortured, who were put into mental institutions, etc...

I know a bunch of shit about how to wash your hands properly bcz my mom had some job w/the county explaining hygiene to kids in schools, and I found it ineresting. (I read all her materials because they were sitting around.)

I know a lot about any physiological and mental quirks I have because I like to know how things work.

I know a lot about Jim Henson and Buster Keaton and Walt Disney and William Gaines and Nick Cave bcz I was obsessed with them at various points in my life.

Abbott, if you haven't read Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), you might find it interesting - cognitive dissonance, false memories, etc.

I seem to have sub/unconciously picked up a lot about cooking how-to, to the point where even complex things shown on cooking shows I think to myself "well yes thats how I'd do it" or "come on, thats so simple!". I dont know how this happened - lots of watching cooking shows and reading cookbooks, I guess?

Also, I seem to be fairly well versed in DSL technology, but only cause it's my job. I dont know as much as an engineer would, but I make it my business to read up all the boring gumf on specs and developments so I dont get too lost at my job.

The history of magic and the performing styles of the greats.

Because I am fuckin w/magic in 08 fyi

Also know a shit ton more than yr avg Joe about Chaucer cause I took a year of classes and wrote some hundred pages on Canterbury Tales

• poetry
• wilderness trekking (aka backpacking)
• omnitruncated pentatopes*

I forgot to include the 'why'. I know a shitload about poetry because I have read it and written it for nigh on to 32 years. I know a shitload about wilderness trekking because I've been doing it even longer (37 years) and I try to do it for at least two weeks each year. More, if I'm lucky.

My knowlege of omnitruncated pentatopes is severely limited, other than to know they are three-dimensional constructions of mathematically regular shape, which (I suspect) immediately places me in the 99th percentile of the entire population.

i know uh lot about crying

That's sad, C.Lorax.

I know a lot about horses, but I still had to call on an expert while writing an article about the National Morgan Horse Show, which takes place right here in Western Mass.

I don't know enough about western show ring riding.

More of a fox than a hedgehog am I.

dilettante

I have played Magic: the Gathering maybe once in the past 10 years, but for some reason, about once a year I get overcome by the urge to obsessively pore over card lists, memorizing all the latest sets and looking for awesome new combos (which I will, of course, never use). not sure if this counts as "knowing a lot about", but it definitely makes my brain feel pretty cluttered with useless knowledge for a few weeks afterward.

I know a lot about different methods of birth control, pugs, serial killer Robert Pickton and teen pregnancy.

xp Similarly, I recently loaded up by brother-in-laws Vice City save game and magically, and with no help, before his very eyes picked up all 100 hidden packages in a stupidly short time.

• Teddy Roosevelt because I bought a biography on a whim in the Jack London Square Barnes and Noble and ended up reading ALL the biographies
• Eric Gill (Gill Sans, etc.) because I bought a biography on a whim in Hay-on-Wye and, etc.
• MacPorts because I am a package maintainer
• Galaxies because it is my job
• How to get into film festivals and which ones to apply to because it is my other job
• Railroad Tycoon

xp: oh jeeze, I don't even want to think about how much Pokemon knowledge I still have stored away somewhere.

Diablo 2 & LoD because I spent far too much time playong both online. I even remember the rates at which items were exchanged, 5 years after having last played it.

I used to have a head full of Frank Zappa and pre-Jim Shooter Marvel Comics info, but I have sort of let that slide.

I know a lot about certain saints, hair coloring, the peloponnesian war, the frescoes in st francis of assisi basilica and the daytime drama "the bold and the beautiful".

I'm with ENBB in the birth control/teen pregnancy thing - I also know way too much about VD's and health insurance, or the lack of.

(Too much because it makes me angry, and then sad.)

I'm kind of amazed at all the specialism around here.

Unfortunately, I tend to know a (dangerous) little about hundreds of vague, trivial subjects and there's almost nothing I'm an expert on.

I go on these mad sprees where I will get obsessed with a certain subject and read everything I can find on the topic, but I think it disappears out of my head just as fast.

that sounds spookily familiar, i have 'phases' of interest in certain topics which I'll rag to death and then all of a sudden just stop being interested in, or move onto to something else, and all the knowledge will slowly seep out until nothing remains.

im eagerly awaiting ed's post

xp Similarly, I recently loaded up by brother-in-laws Vice City save game and magically, and with no help, before his very eyes picked up all 100 hidden packages in a stupidly short time.

http://www.ldgelectronics.com/assets/wow2.gif

U.S. trends in baby names

seriously xp

viruses (of the animal variety and a little bit about the plant variety), the history of atomic bomb development, nail polish, Mr. Que.

SUGGEST BAN????

oh god i almost suggest banned myself

searching medline and online databases.

because it's most of my job :(

LOST. I wrote a paper on that show just because I could. Otherwise, I'm more like Kate with the obsessive sprees of gaining knowledge and then forgetting it all.

seventies wuxia films

apple.

i seriously thought you meant apple martin for about 30 seconds

you guys haven't lived until you've played the "sex and the city" board game.

I know a lot about how various things are made and how stuff works, because I studied mech and elec engineering and knowing that stuff is a big part of my work. I know a lot about food and cooking, because it interests me (you can EAT IT) and so I study it and experiment with it all the time.

Moomins/Tove Jansson-related stuff
Old comic strips
I used to know tons of baseball trivia but I haven't accessed that shit in years. Same with WWII. I became way more of a dilettante in adolescence.

I became way more of a dilettante in adolescence

Che diletti!

I know a lot about baseball before 1992. I used to be obsessed with it, pouring over history books, reading autobiographies of people like Duke Snyder (and totally not understanding what he was really getting at when he was talking about how he came to really rely on morphine injections for his injured knee later in his career). I thought people who claimed to be baseball fans but didn't recognize the names of Kid Nichols or Three Fingers Brown were liars.

In 1992 I got seriously into videogames and stopped reading so much about baseball. I suppose part of that was the law of diminishing returns, too. In 1996 I turned 13 and didn't make the starting lineup of the high school baseball team, decided I hated sports and decided to be a mopey jerk for the rest of the decade. Although I occasionally watch a sporting event on tv, and won't turn down free baseball tickets, I don't follow it at all. And all of my friends assume I know nothing about sports, which works out to my advantage when playing Trivial Pursuit, because I always wail on the sports questions.

Duke SNIDER

HTML, because all my classmates had webpages before my po' ass even got a computer, and I tend to go overboard on things and obsess over them long after my peers

hey Bernard Snowy, you should get into WoW TCG, I find that game awesome.

I thought of another. I know way too much about the whole Riot Grrrl thing lol.