Lexidiem: Word of the Day

About Me

So who the hell is Lexidiem, aka JargonTalk?

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I'm an American born on the 28th day of October in the year of the steel penny. You can look that up if you like.

I stand 5 feet 9 inches tall (or 1.75 metres outside of the US).

My thick brown hair is strewn with slowly-increasing outbreaks of flecks of grey. I refuse to dye it.

My moustache has been on my face all of my adult life. No dye there, either. And there's now a beard, started in the fall of 2007. My eyes are hazel/green, and said to be 'nicely lashed' (whatever the hell that means).

My tongue is frequently in cheek. I can be profane at times, and am a charter member of the WTF Club.

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I'm a single dad, and enjoy the times spent with my son, who lives with me. And he's always a constant source of amazement to me. I used to think that I was pretty smart, but realize that in a few years he's going to be far ahead of me.

I like to read... a lot. My son and I are the same that way. We also share about 90% of the same tastes in music, but he's more conservative than I am there. Go figure.

I spend far too much time on the computer, often waking up in the middle of the night and going online. I can easily have 15+ windows open at a single time, then bitch about it when things go wrong. Guess I'll never learn.

I enjoy picking and suggesting Featured Photos of a wide variety. As I recall, this was the first one that I suggested to be featured in September 2006, a marvelously funny photo taken in Texas by my friend Jim (sstrokerj), and it was his first Featured Photo as well. This was followed shortly after by a photo by Kathy1981 of the riots in Budapest, Hungary, then another from her of a humorous Hungarian street sign. In October 2006 I was fortunate enough to spot and suggest this laughing mannequin by Marjie (artsysf), then another from hers of photographers in a bubble.

That was a few hundred Featured Photos back, and every one of them was special.

You can sometimes find me here, where I sometimes poke sticks at things. And sometimes you can find me on Outdoorzy.com, because I'm pretty outdoorsy at heart. Leave comments in either place if you like.

I prefer movies to regular television series.

Bill Gates and I share the same birthday... but not the same wealth.

I'm a veteran. Once a Marine, always a Marine. Semper Fi.

But I don't have a Marine haircut... far from it.

I'm supposed to be a Scorpio, but if someone tells me, "Oh, you Scorpios do such and such" I'll usually try to do the opposite, because I hate classifications like that.

The profile picture of my eye is really my eye. It was slightly altered with PhotoShop to add a reflection, but just a slight one.

Was picked to be a Buzznet Original on 12/21/2006, an honor by Mark for which I'm truly grateful.

I believe in the highly-utopian ideals outlined by author Catherine Ryan Hyde in her novel "Pay It Forward" (2000). You may be fimiliar with the film "Pay It Forward" starring Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment. If not, just click on the link, or visit the Pay It Forward Foundation for some eye-opening information, but be prepared to see how what began as a work of fiction has already become much more.

"I guess it's hard for people who are so used to things the way they are - even if they're bad - to change. 'Cause they kind of give up. And when they do, everybody kind of loses."
~ Trevor McKinney (played by Haley Joel Osment)

And for those who have asked...

Lexidiem. n. sing. lek-si'-dee-im. 1. Word of the day. [Modern American English, from Greek lexis (word) and Latin diem (day), reflecting the hodgepodge of roots that make up Modern American English words].

Oh, and thanks for all the fish...

My Interests

Web, Internet, books, news, creative curmudgeonry, sailing, mountain biking, photography, humor, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, love, lust, passion, sex, no drugs, rock and roll, jazz, new age, classical music, gifted kids, psychology, film, Buzznet Originals, Pay It Forward, chess, Scrabble, Monopoly, etc.

Music

Regina Spektor, Andrea Bocelli, Sting, Bruce Springstein, Chris Botti, Michael Macdonald, Sarah Brightman, Josh Groban, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, Carly Simon, Dire Straits, Amy Winehouse, Kate Bush, Enya, James Taylor, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Michael Buble, Herbie Hancock, Highwaymen, Willie Nelson, Kraftwerk, Gogol Bordello, 7 Seconds of Love, AMPOP, Andreas Vollenweider, Aerosmith, Pat Benatar, Tom Waits, Eagles, Matchbox Twenty, Al Jarreau, Sade, Grover Washington, Mike Oldfield, Vivaldi, U2, Queen, Jimmy Buffett, Alan Parsons, Freddy Mercury, Bond, Santana, J.S. Bach, Steely Dan, Sergio Mendes, George Gershwin, Shirley Bassey, Astrud Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Peter Gabriel, Tina Turner, Nina Simone, Händel, Mose Allison, Glen Miller, Frank Sinatra, Diane Krall, MJQ, Ella Fitzgerald, Glen Miller, Johnny Cash, Robert Palmer, Neil Diamond, ABBA, classical, jazz, fusion, bossa-nova, electronic, new age, rock, ...

Movies

Pay It Forward, Remains of the Day, Love Actually, Finding Forrester, The Big Lebowski, Hearts in Atlantis, A Man and a Woman, The Graduate, Schindler's List, Dr. Strangelove, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Howards End, Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Some Like It Hot, Star Wars, The Godfather, Bladerunner, Cars, Brazil, The African Queen, Italian Job, Psycho, West Side Story, A Clockwork Orange, The Hunger, Taxi Driver, Fitzcarraldo, Reservoir Dogs, Butch Cassidy, Dirty Dancing, The League of Extrordinary Gentlemen, The Lion in Winter, Men In Black, Coolhand Luke, The Stand, Jeremiah Johnson, A Boy and His Dog, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Silence of the Lambs, Dances with Wolves, American Graffiti, The Postman, Platoon, Patton, Zorba the Greek, Videodrome

Television

Pushing Daisies, CSI, Raines, Boston Legal, Dr. Who, Men in Trees, Talk Sex with Sue Johanson, History Channel, Turner Classic Movies, Discovery Channel, Silk Stalkings, Taxi, Columbo, Sex and the City, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Extreme Home Makeover, Conan O'Brien, Lovejoy, MSNBC, CNN, PBS

Books

Carl Hiaasen, Malcolm Gladwell, Catherine Ryan Hyde, Frank McCourt, Sun-tzu, Richard Lederer, Anais Nin, Kazuo Ishiguro, Elmore Leonard, Douglas Adams, Lisa Scottoline, William Goldman, Jean Shepherd, Mark Twain, E.M. Forster, John Updike, Christopher Locke, Stephen King, Dr. Seuss, Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville, Andre Dubus, Larry MacMurty, Erica Jong, Kinky Friedman, Bobby Henderson, Barbara Wallraff, John Gresham, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jonathan Swift, D. H. Lawrence, James Patterson, Elie Wiesel, Miguel de Cervantes, Daniel Defoe, Henry Miller, Charles Dickens, Susie Bright, Robert Scoble, Chris Anderson, Aesop, Lynne Truss, Frank McCourt, Sandra Brown, Lewis Carroll, Nicholas Sparks, Dante Alighieri, Janet Evanovich, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, L. Frank Baum, Emily Brontë, anonymous, Microsoft Manual of Style, Associated Press Stylebook, Chicago Manual of Style, Elements of Style, Strunk & White, Eats Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss, On Writing, by Stephen King.