Lots of people call me Ted. It's not my real name but I answer to it anyway.

Legally I am Jacob or Jake for short. I realize that the obvious discrepancy between 'Jake' and 'Ted' demands that there be some kind of explanation, and there is one, but it's kind of weird and besides it's not really important.

I feel like my place in the broadest spectrum of humanity as a whole is one of decided mediocrity, but I also feel like humanity as a whole is kind of tough to compete with, so taking all that into consideration it would seem that I'm doing pretty well.

I graduated from college, which is good, I guess, although so far it has done nothing to open up any kind of lucrative employment opportunities for me. I feel like that might have a lot to do with the fact that I majored in art. People kept telling me though, 'do what you love, do what you love' so I did. I'm starting to feel like these people may have been trying to fuck up my shit.

I enjoy driving around in my car, whether I have a specific destination or not. I feel like it probably has something to do with vestiges of that pioneering spirit, or whatever our ancestors were supposed to have, even though all the roads are on the map now, and there's a Burger King every 5 or 10 miles, and the whole endeavor doesn't really amount to much more than a waste of precious time and resources. I guess that's basically the definition of a hobby though.

My other interests would probably include grocery shopping, or just supermarkets in general really. I have an odd passion for any kind of mundane errands, I guess. I also have weird hang-ups about traffic signs, and am very highly critical of ones which do not live up to my high standards.

I like TV probably a lot more than anybody should, and I'm way up on a lot of meaningless trivia, although I feel like I tend to delve way too deeply into just a few different things and as a result my knowledge can have a lot of large, embarrassing gaps in it.

I am content, relaxed, and secretly terrified

Trying to find something to do with my life. I work, but it's a pretty lame job and I kind of hate it a lot of the time. I want to do something that is at least the tiniest bit gratifying to me. Making copies is not gratifying. I know, you'd think it would be, right? But it's not.

Okay let me amend that statement a little bit, because obviously I could do something gratifying to me without it being my job, so let's say that I want to do something gratifying to me, and then get paid for doing it on a regular basis. That would be REALLY gratifying.

I feel like my talents go in and out like the tide, but at any given point they may or may not include: conversation, bowling, singing, going backwards in my car, going forwards in my car, finding directions, saying funny things, cooking, and certainly a bunch of other things that I can't be bothered to think of right now.

Bad taste in clothing?

Possibly eyebrows.

I don't read a lot because intellectually I mostly am a lazy-ass. I feel like the only books I ever liked enough to read more than once were The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and To Kill a Mockingbird.

I don't watch a lot of movies, for reasons that can only be described as irrational. But my favorite two are Pulp Fiction and The Big Lebowski.

I don't have a favorite song, or a favorite band or a favorite musical artist. I listen to a lot of different music and what I want to listen to depends mostly on what kind of mood I am in. I have been told I have good taste in music, but if you listen to a wide enough variety of music you can pretty much get anybody to tell you that.

I don't have a favorite food, because I feel like choosing a favorite something means you could be satisfied with it and it alone for the rest of your life, and that seems like it is rarely true. Actually I feel like my definition of "favorite" is probably largely the reason why I don't have a favorite anything. But some things I like to eat are Frosted Flakes, asparagus spears, a cheeseburger, but a good one, not one of those slapped together, corporate sweatshop cheeseburgers, and of course ice cubes.

A car, Wikipedia, popular culture, a place to take a shower, disposable income, and at least semi-regular human contact.

The future, the past, myself, other people, and the world.

Painting the town red, and by "painting the town red" I mean "asleep in front of my computer".

My Social Security number has a nine in it.

...if you want to? Don't message me if you don't want to. That gets everything started on entirely the wrong foot.

Let me just say: my life right this second may be going nowhere, but that doesn't mean I can't be interesting to talk to.

It also doesn't mean I will be, either, but if you feel like giving it a shot, drop a line to Teddygrammm on AIM or Yahoo and we'll see what kind of day it is.