Despite how much I share about my life and hobbies on this site, I constantly wrestle with the question of is what I’m sharing too personal? I think this is in large part due to the age I grew up in where the internet was new and older folks used to tell me that anything you publish online will remain forever, so you need to be careful. However, I love personal sites on the internet. I think there’s something beautiful in connecting with others around the world, finding commonalities and shared interests. Therefore, even though I struggled with this week’s Blaugust prompt to introduce yourself, I wanted folks to get to know me at least a little bit better, so here are 10 facts I don’t think I’ve shared on my site before: I’m terrible at remembering how old I am. I’ve accidentally blurted out that I’m 25 when I’m actually in my thirties already. Perhaps it’s because I don’t really celebrate my birthday or wedding anniversary beyond a nice dinner out. The years just blend into each other, and numbers feels irrelevant. I forget most media I’ve consumed, but I can randomly recall exactly where I was when I listened to certain audiobook passages even if I didn’t enjoy the book. I don’t know why this is. I often can’t recall if I’ve seen a movie or TV show before unless it was particularly confounding or strange for me like Avengers: Endgame when I couldn’t recall if I’d seen any of the characters in other films before and didn’t know who anyone was or what the premise of the movie was about (why I bought a ticket to see this in theaters is beyond me). My memory for Star Wars is equally hopeless because I can not for the life of me keep those movies in order. Side note: my terrible memory is part of why I chose to go by Lost online. Maybe it’s obvious, but if I could have any super power, it would be perfect selective memory. I just finished reading a book called A Drop of Corruption, where the main character has brain augments to make his memory perfect when needed. Not only does he use it to be particularly adept at social situations and solving murder mysteries, he also recalls his martial training perfectly as well. I think it would be awesome to never miss a reference in conversation or recall all the awe-inspiring topics I studied in school many years ago. I mostly get by with being incredibly social and relying on the group memory of my friends to address any challenges in my life, but having perfect selective memory would be so useful. The mundane super power I actually got stuck with is being able to correctly estimate volumes so well that I always pick the perfectly sized storage container for leftovers on the first try. It’s like the world’s most low stakes party trick, but it’s saved me countless extra dishes over my lifetime. Unfortunately, I hate leftovers. Knowing food is old gives me the ick. My food icks are particularly strong perhaps because I’ve had some stomach trauma in the past with accidentally eating dairy in foods while being so lactose-intolerant I had to go to the clinic after being unable to keep food down for 48 hours. Regardless, we try not to waste food in this house and do a really good job of it because my wife will eat the leftovers without issue, and we also have a large freezer for storing them. My partner and I don’t want to do any long-haul travel for the foreseeable future. I am content with sticking around the North and Central America because I’m burnt out on long-haul flights from living abroad and we don’t have the best PTO situations at work right now. My next trip is likely to New Orleans, a place I fell in love with when I spent a month there during my college years. I was also lucky enough to visit for Mardi Gras and catch a Muses Shoe on the same trip as my partner at the time caught a Zulu coconut. We had incredible luck, but it’s been more than ten years since I’ve gone back, so I’m eager to return. I’m addicted to making number go up for the stupidest things. In 2020, I wanted to hit 1 million neopoints on my 22 year-old Neopets account. Not only did I hit that number, but I’m now at more than 80 million thanks to food club bets and my high betting limit due to my account age. I also religiously have Bongo Cat running on desktop, which counts clicks and key strokes to unlock cosmetics for my little bongo guy. It really motivates me to write more on my desktop. I also used to collect Garmin badges religiously by hitting running and walking goals each month, but I haven’t been chasing those in a while due to a plantar fasciitis flare up. I’ve never read fan fiction on AO3. Somehow this missed me in my early internet explorations as a kid. I think it’s because I just don’t really participate in fandom for anything except for maybe Tamagotchi (but it’s not like I’m deeply invested in the lore there), and I never felt the need to seek out something beyond canon personally. I love that fan fiction exists for folks, but it’s just not something I seek out. I’m truly trash at video games. I couldn’t tell you the button configurations on any controller aside from W, A, S, D on a keyboard, and I also don’t enjoy memorizing boss fight patterns, so games like Elden Ring are entirely lost on me (I basically bought it just to roam around on a horse). I also don’t have the patience for games that require a lot of homework like memorizing optimized schedules and other information for games like stardew valley, so it’s really rare I find a game I actually enjoy. The few games I’ve sunk a ton of hours into are Cult of the Lamb (somehow, the combat feels very generous and intuitive to me), Balatro (though I’m not very good and have only gone infinite on a couple of decks), and Slay the Spire (also kind of suck at this game, but enjoy it). I wish I played more Among Us with friends because I love that game, but I recently purchased Big Walk as there is more hype around it in my discord servers. I’m not much of a puzzle person, so I hope it’s not too frustrating. I’m not really a competitive person anymore. I used to be, but then I kept getting out skilled and outsmarted by better players in all sorts of games like Dominion and Blood on the Clocktower, so I conceded thinking I could be really good at board and other games. Now, I enjoy playing them more when I’m not getting sweaty over the stakes. Given this is my fifth blog post in August, I’ve officially achieved the Bronze Award for Blaugust! I think I’ll try writing a few more to maybe hit 15 posts for the Silver Award as there’s still much I want to write about, namely: At least three more responses to the weekly Blaugust prompts (Week 3: Creator Appreciation, Week 4: Staying Motivated, and Week 5: Lessons Learned) Continuing to document thoughts on the daily Hobonichi 2027 lineup news Publishing a roundup of my favorite bloggers from Blaugust ‘26 CW: Food mention! Joining the Small Web Potluck 2026 with a blog post about my dish that I’m bringing. I still haven’t decided what to make yet, but I’m leaning towards Xi’an-style biang biang noodles with bok choy even though that is more of an orange-red dish than a yellow one). If anyone is interested in joining, be sure to add your name to the sign-up sheet or post your dish by August 16th to get the Early Bird badge below!