Needed: John Scalzi “Facts”
Posted on July 31, 2008 Posted by John Scalzi 348 Comments
The good folks at ArmadilloCon, where I will be Guest of Honor in August, are trying to write a bio piece about me for their convention program, and asked me for some interesting facts about myself. I suggested it would be more interesting to let all y’all write up some “interesting facts” about me instead, seeing that you are all so good at detailing “facts.”
So, here’s your assignment for today:
Share a “fact” about me, John Scalzi. Your “fact” can be anything about me, my career, my interests, my physical attributes, things I’ve done or said, etc and so on.
Caveats:
1. For those of you still not up on this, the word “facts” is in quotes for a reason.
2. Make them new and recognizably relating to me; don’t just recycle “facts” about, say, Chuck Norris or John Scalvi.
3. Be aware these are for use in the ArmadilloCon convention program (i.e., by playing you’re giving them permission to print them), so I suspect “facts” rated PG-13 or below will be most likely to be used.
4. Go easy on the bacon, okay?
5. Share whatever “fact” you like about me, but be very careful about how you bring family into it. Pets, however, are fair game. They’re pets. They can’t read. What do they care.
Right, then.
So: What can you tell me about me?
(Also: Today, July 31, is the last day to pre-register for ArmadilloCon to save $10 off the membership fee, so if you’re planning to come, now’s a good time to get that membership.)
“Sunset afficionado”
Again:
“Facts” are in quotes for a reason, i.e., if you post an actual true fact about me, you’re doing it wrong.
Close personal friend of Aynlein Heinrand.
For a guy that has way too much on his plate, sans BACON, He’s actually very prompt at answering his e-mail. No big head yet inspite of the picture.
John Scalzi is a world renowned expert on cat/bacon aerodynamics. FACT.
John Scalzi once concentrated on a single point of existence with such intensity that he gained spiritual enlightenment. He used his newfound enlightenment and omniscience to find his car keys.
John Scalzi is a descendant of Tommaso Scalzi, an Italian who fought in the Revolutionary War. Scalzi County, Maryland — now lost to the waves after the earthquake of 1883 — was named after him.
Opening chapter of Android’s Dream tragically based on real-life medical condition.
Suspected cattle mutilator.
Also renowned for his skill at animal husbandry.
John Scalzi has won many popular awards for the quality, depth, timber, and echo of his Evil Laugh.
Can bench 150 lbs, using only his left eyebrow
John has written for numerous web media companies over his career, including AOL.com, centralohfarmreport.com and whitepower.com. He also produced Star Trek erotica for several well-known adult media outlets (under his pseudonym, Harvey W. Banger)
John Scalzi wrote the most eloquent fan letter that Steve Perry ever received.
John Scalzi currently lives in his underwater lair on the edge of the Marianas trench, in which he plots schemes so diabolical that we cannot print them here, for fear of melting your brain. He has created a robotic double of himself which lives in Ohio and will be speaking at the con.
John is currently under SEC investigation for market manipulation, focusing on the timing of a large 2005 investment in pork bellies futures, and subsequent internet posts promoting use of those commodities.
#3 Tully: DOH!!! You beat me to it . . . dang.
“For years, John Scalzi has washed himself with a rag on a stick. This is so that when the inevitable Fat Elvis period grips him, he can endure it with a modest amount of practical grace. And also because it tickles ever so.”
John Scalzi lives in constant fear that someone will notice all his dangling participles.
Dave @11: not quite.
In fact, said left eyebrow is a symbiotic lichen, Jeremy. The story of what happened to Scalzi’s original left eyebrow must await another venue, but Jeremy’s petition for recognition as an independent sentient being us currendly under consideration at The Hague.
Ack. ‘us currendly’ != ‘is currently’.
It is often said that John Scalzi’s first novel, Old Man’s War, is a homage to Robert Heinlein. What is not well known is that it was actually stolen from Heinlein. In 1987, John Scalzi and a team of 30 ninjas broke into Heinlein’s house to steal the Grand Master’s manuscripts. The ninjas did not survive Heinlein’s defensive onslaught. Scalzi did, though, because he had disguised himself as a woman knowing that Heinlein would probably just hit on him rather than kill him. This theory was correct. One bottle of vodka later, Scalzi snuck out of the house away from the sleeping Heinlein with the Old Man’s War manuscript stuffed into his corset.
After waiting 15 years to ensure that Heinlein was really dead and not just faking it, Scalzi proceeded to change the names in the manuscript (John Perry’s name in the original: George Washington Jones) and add a few pop culture references to obscure the truth. And that’s how Old Man’s War (original title: Green Ulysses: A Comedy of Violence) came to be.
John Scalzi once flashed a man in Reno just to watch him cry.
John Scalzi and Charlie Stross are actually the same person. Previous instances where they have been seen together have been choreographed by David Copperfield.
John Scalzi can be cleaned with a dry, lint-free cloth in the direction of the groove. Abrasive detergents must not be applied to him. Do not immerse John Scalzi in water.
Thinks Journey is just the cat’s pajamas.
John Scalzi holds a patent for the DNA of a combined cat/bacon hybrid. Despite his popularized image of said Cat/Bacon hybrid, the actual animal has never survived longer than a month as it eventually consumes itself blissfully.
John was born in the small village of Swaffham Bullbeck, Cambridgeshire, UK.
He is the son of the Comtesse Elisabeth Valerie Gabrielle Maria and Roland Calvert CUBITT, 3rd Baron Ashcombe. He gave up all claims to his parents titles on accepting Canadian citizenship, subsequent to his relocation to Clarke City, Quebec in 1987.
The internet has been abuzz for months with allegations that John Scalzi does not exist, and that the prolific author is actually a creation of sci-fi publisher Tor Books. Scalzi’s print and internet work is said to be produced by a group of anonymous young writers who work briefly (Menudo-style) writing as “John Scalzi” to build experince before being offered a book deal by Tor. John Scalzi and his family, as portrayed on the blog Whatever, are allegedly actors hired from a Toronto-based production company. The actor playing “John” at conventions is said to read from copy and is often whisked away by Tor security immediately following these appearances. Patrick Nielson Hayden, a Tor spokesman, said these charges are “Ludicrous. Why would I- I mean, anyone, invent an author?” He hung up on our interviewer without further comment.
John Scalzi tends to get “who’s” and “whose” mixed up — with hilarious results.
John Scalzi is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for, “Most failed Guinness Book of World Records attempts.”
In a weird twist of fate, the photo of John Scalzi served as the model for the prophet of the Hordes of the Disheveled, who lead humanity away from the soulless clutches of Fashion. I know, I was there in 2018. I saw it happen.
John Scalzi is able to fix his own bedhead with nothing but the power of his mind, though great concentration and eyebrow wriggling is required.
John Scalzi is the first man in the history of the human race to have kicked himself in his uvula.
John Scalzi, contrary to popular belief, is not a writer but a computer scientist. His “original” fiction to date has all been produced by his “Amazing Heinlein-o-tron Calculating Novelator” which takes any concept and produces a text identical to what the late author would have written. While many other devices like this exist, only Scalzi’s contraption has the power to create such a text without featuring a tall, smart, leggy, red-headed heroine.
It was John Scalzi’s acquittal that caused the Hay-on-Wye riots of 2004. The looting and rioting that followed are thought to have destroyed over 200,000 books, none of them his. To this day, in certain areas of Wales to get away with a particularly ostentatious crime, one is said to have “Scalzied.”
When John Scalzi was younger and hairier, he actually saved an entire town from a flood by plugging a hole in a dam with the manuscript for his first book. There is a statue of him in the town square, to remind the townspeople of this brave man. However, Scalzi could not remember enough to rewrite the book again, and so whenever he visits the town and sees the statue, he cries like a little girl.
As a toddler, John Scalzi was severely bitten by a copy of Robert Heinlein’s ‘Have Space Suit, Will Travel’, the only known instance of an attack by this particular volume. Some SF writers, jealous of Scalzi’s anointment as the ‘New Heinlein’, have pointed to this incident as the cause underlying his uncanny ability to evoke the style of the deceased Grandmaster, arguing that Scalzi actually possesses no writing skills whatsoever.
John Scalzi employs a battalion of cats to protect his home and family from the over-enthusiastic reaction of wild birds to his dulcet speaking voice. The cats have proved useless, however, in guarding him while showering and singing. For this reason he has a single deaf otter named “Jimmy” who nests in the cabinet under the sink.
“John Scalzi” is the ninth of twelve pseudonyms used by author Nora Roberts.
John Scalzi has never typed the letter “q.”
John Scalzi pretends to like Journey, but in reality he writes to Duran Duran’s “Seven and the Ragged Tiger” while gazing at the Night Ranger posters on his office walls.
John Scalzi owns every album Air Supply ever recorded.
John Scalzi has an unnatural dislike of people who use the word “party” as a verb.
John Scalzi is the world’s first living brain donor to the University of Ohio Medical Center transplant program.
John Scalzi likes to be kissed on the top of his head.
He also has a small bear as a pet that he insists is a dog, probably for local bylaws against dangerous pets reasons.
John Scalzi was almost the Kwisatz Haderach, but he flunked the written.
John Scalzi, much like Pinocchio, was cursed to prevent him from lying. Each time he fibs, a hair on his head is relocated to his back. (May be disqualified for being true.)
Fact: John Scalzi came from the future to destroy yours.
Fact: John Scalzi is part man, part ovine, part robot.
Fact: John Scalzi’s heart pumps words, not blood. If you stick a needle in his veins and connect it to an iPod, you will be treated to all his future novels. Be sure to sedate him with both an electromagnetic pulse and ketamine!
Fact: John Scalzi is sesquipedalian polyglot with no ethos, just pathos.
Fact: John Scalzi has been artificially raising the price of pork futures through a nefarious viral advertising campaign.
When he was 14, John Scalzi appeared in The Return of the Jedi as an Ewok. You can see him third from the left when the Ewoks jumped off the roof of the imperial outpost.
Uncredited role: In 1997’s film adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, Scalzi took an uncredited role as one of the bugs in a failed attempt to maim or kill star Casper Van Dien or director Paul Verhoeven “accidentally” and thus halt production of that travesty of a “film”.
John Scalzi, born a denizen of the Mole Kingdom, must return each year with a fresh supply of cloud and sunset photographs to receive his boon from the Mole King: the power to predict the winners of the People’s Choice Award.
John Scalzi attempted to one-up his famous “Bacon Cat” posting by taping bacon to a polar bear. “Lefty” Scalzi’s productivity was severely hampered until he learned to type one-handed. If his bear/dog hybrid Kodi hadn’t been there, Armadillocon would have a different Guest of Honor. Kodi seems to have developed a taste for polar bear.
John Scalzi’s attempt to cross-breed cats with bees resulted in both his excommunication and a completely new variety of honey, which has been described as “horrifically delicious.”
John Scalzi saw the great pumpkin. And ate him.
John Scalzi absorbs the attacks of Internet trolls and gains their power. Then, he profits from it.
John Scalzi has an embedded embryonic twin in his abdomen that gives him all his ideas, so don’t hug him too hard it will seriously lessen his output.
John Scalzi is an avid fan of the band Night Ranger. He recently had the opportunity to join them on stage as they opened for another of his very favorite groups, Air Supply. If you play or sing a song from either of these for him during your time at ArmadilloCon, there’s a chance he’ll buy you a beer.
John Scalzi provided the voice of “Nibbler” in the animated TV series Futurama.
John Scalzi finds your antics amusing.
John Scalzi bathes in the tears of the innocent, drinks the blood of the wicked, and sneezes the phlegm of awkward – but comedic – misunderstandings between roommates.
John Scalzi keeps the reanimated corpse of Robert Heinlein in his basement, compelled to write for eternity. All attempts to free the Master from this travesty have been thwarted by giraffe ninjas.
John Scalzi builds and collects scale models of the homes of famous assassins. His “HO” scale “Unabomber Shack” has won numerous awards.
John Scalzi once made the Baby Jesus cry with one of his trademark snark attacks. The Baby Jesus took his revenge by making the Internets rise up against Scalzi.
John Scalzi is NOT a verb. (He has been sighted* as an adjective).
* Or do I mean cited?
John Scalzi doesn’t actually grade your hate mail. Some of it ends up in the shredder to make bedding for small rodents, but most is recycled. Iz not so great, aktually.
FACT: John Scalzi thinks so many thoughts, so quickly, that the friction from their interactions is slowly killing every hair follicle on his head.
John Scalzi describes his writing style as “LOLcats with nukes.”
John Scalzi is an alien android with an USB port inside his posterior navel.
John Scalzi once launched a groundhog over three kilometers. He claims it was an accident.
Known facts about John Scalzi:
1. Has a full back piece tattoo, Yakuza-style, prominently featuring Hello Kitty.
2. Swallows live pigs whole and craps bacon.
3. Drives a car made entirely out of LEGO.
4. Appears as a walk-on extra in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind-Waker.
John Scalzi can smell fear.
John Scalzi is a recurring character in a series of Japanese movies. “It’s Tough Being a Cat” and its 47 sequels feature Scalzi as a hapless writer who constantly has to be extracted from difficult situations by his enterprising pets. The Scalzi-san character is a popular clown character in Japanese cosplay
John Scalzi has been known to “take down” recalcitrant audience members at his panels. With extreme force. Think carefully before you speak, prospective audience members…
John Scalzi has spent two decades of his life building up a best-selling SF writing career just so he won’t have to pay even one thin dime to attend this year’s Armadillocon.
Afterward he intends to start a new career writing PERL scripts to deal with the Y3K Problem.
Dr. Phil
John Scalzi is actually allergic to bacon.
Despite increasingly strident pleas from Starbucks’ Howard Schultz, Scalzi steadfastly refuses to recant his damning statement that, “Coffee tastes like ass.”
(I think #70 is true.)
John Scalzi is a human front for an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters who do the actual writing.
John Scalzi can shave using only his wit.
He has good days and bad days.
John Scalzi cured my psoriasis.
Roll in panko bread crumbs and deep fried, John Scalzi’s short stories make a delicious appetizer for your next graduation party, New Year’s Eve celebration, or wake.
Growing up, John Scalzi had an imaginary friend named Jail Schnoz.
John Scalzi has won many PRESTIGIOUS awards for his video gaming column “Old Man and the Wii”.
Though his tragi-comedy musical, “Ice Blocks Port Arthur” — the heart-breaking story of the forbidden romance between Admirals Togo and Makarov, set before the backdrop of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 — closed after the intermission during its one performance on Broadway, John Scalzi treasures the Tony he won for best script.
Vote for #10, #15
In addition to his menagerie of cats and dogs, Scalzi also keeps a dragon in his basement ( for heating ).
John Scalzi was an alternate for the “Teachers in Space” program that was cancelled after the space shuttle Challenger disaster, despite not actually being a teacher. This fact caused significant friction with other members of the program, who felt that he didn’t deserve to be there. NASA selects mission crew based entirely on merit, and as the mission training sequence drew to a close, Scalzi and Christa McAuliffe were in a dead heat for the position. Several tie-breakers were proposed before one was finally agreed upon.
John Scalzi is alive today because he is a terrible ping-pong player.
In his spare time, John Scalzi relaxes by correcting the capitalization and punctuation in the poems of E.E. Cummings.
John Scalzi often writes under the pen names “Danielle Steel”, and under the name “Jim Shortz”, published the novels “Arouse Her With Bowser” and “Yank My Doodle, It’s a Dandy”.
Feel free to reword or edit any of these should you decide to use any of them.
Fact: John Scalzi is not a human being, but a supernaturally intelligent macaw wearing a sophisticated robot.
Fact: In his macaw form John Scalzi uses his powers of macaw ventriloquism to fight crimes in the greater Orlando area.
Fact: John Scalzi can type with his beak and drink a strawberry daiquiri at the same time.
Fact: Visual artists have been trying since the dawn of mankind to capture the essence of humanity in the collected body of their works. The struggle has been long, bloody, and arduous. In six minutes John Scalzi taped bacon to his cat, and said “Done.” And on the seventh minute, he rested.
Fact: John Scalzi will only light cigars with matches he has struck on his own face.
Fact: John Scalzi has a prehensile fluent in six languages, adept in nine different styles of martial arts, and it can act as a periscope in times of danger.
Fact: John Scalzi drinks rum out of Milton Friedman’s skull.
Fact: John Scalzi is in possession of the world’s most powerful mystical weapon. No this is not a dagger made from a unicorn’s horn or some kind of crystal that has been enchanted by seven or more magic-users. It is way more powerful than that.
Fact: John Scalzi was once eaten by a carnivorous shag carpet… and LIVED.
Fact: John Scalzi didn’t think the “Secret World of Alex Mack” was that horrible.
Fact: John Scalzi believes no man should own a dog that is not large enough to pull him from a fire should he be incapacitated in a burning building.
Fact: John Scalzi jogs and smokes cigarettes at the same time, to maintain a constant level of health.
Fact: John Scalzi was once abducted by aliens and returned to the Earth wearing only a styrofoam cup and a string of dental floss. He has never told anyone what happened to him, but winces and covers his mouth every time he sees a child eating a popsicle.
Fact: John Scalzi once tried to create a vagina shaped popsicle but failed when he realized that eaten from the center out, it was doomed to break in two pieces before he could ever finish it.
Fact: John Scalzi once took the lenses out of his glasses, sharpened them against a rock, and used them to kill a Xenomorph.
Fact: Sometimes John Scalzi locks the door to his office, turns on Enya’s “It’s only Time” and weeps inconsolably.
Fact: John Scalzi’s head is the perfect shape to accommodate a Luchadore mask.
Fact: John Scalzi’s greatest dream in life is to break a door open with a fire extinguisher while wearing a tight black shirt that will emphasize how his muscles flex when he does this.
John Scalzi is not balding. His vast tracts of forehead are due to backwash from the flame that pours forth from his fingers in response to Republican activities. He yearns for Obama to win the general election primarily so that he can have his hair back.
John Scalzi is a 7th level, imperial yoyo grand-master
John Scalzi is actually the latest identity for Connor MacLeod, who performs as shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, as well as guitar virtuoso Buckethead.
Sometimes John Scalzi locks the door to his office, turns on Enya’s “It’s only Time” and weeps inconsolably.
WE HAVE A WINNER!
John Scalzi was fighting a pack of hyper-intelligent grizzly bears one day, and on a lark he invented the modern Cantonese language.
John Scalzi was born at an early age in a log cabin he helped his father to build.
Keynote Speaker at the 2008 Republican National Convention
John Scalzi: Giving new meaning to the term, “Crack of Doom”
John Scalzi is an avid consumer of schadenfreude, a German delicacy he acquired a taste for when he was—or will be—time-shifted into WWII during the US Elections of 2012.
John Scalzi has a lovely daughter Who Must Not Be Named. However, she is rumored to be a Cthulu worshipper who once called the wrath of the Elder God upon some astronomers who offended her. Her hair is of no earthly color, at least after shampooing.
John Scalzi can only answer questions through the medium of interpretive dance.
John Scalzi knew you were coming, so he baked a cake.
John Scalzi is such a dynamic person that the only consistent fact about him is that there are no facts, only brief interludes of truth.
Scalzi bankrolled his lavish estate in the heart of prestigious Ohio by ghost writing copy for the Bush administration.
In appreciation for The Androids DreamJohn Scalzi was once group licked by rampant furries at a convention in Detroit. The furries then reported that John, “Tastes like strawberries.”
John Scalzi, like Idaho, does not actually exist.
OH, RATS. I forgot: John Scalzi’s lovely daughter is in the process of telling everything on his blog from her own point of view, putting in all the things her father didn’t need to know at the time.
No matter what anyone posts here, never mind that rumor about his summer in Wyoming. And anyway, all 4 of those goats were female.
He doesn’t like to talk about it, but in his youth, John Scalzi (born John Sclazi) struggled with the debilitating stigma of being part amphibian (hence his fondness for green humanoid characters.) After a series of risky and absurd medical procedures, he was able to successfully “pass” as fully human/mammalian. However, he was constantly having to shake the problem of being praised for having “overcome” his prior condition rather than for any innate skill or talent. He eventually escaped this situation through the determination to write like a certain recognized science-fiction master and by an aptly timed typo in his name on a manuscript.
Before branching out into science fiction, John Scalzi was a successful radio host under the stage name “Rush Limbaugh.”
John Scalzi prototyped and extensively tested the “scent weapon” used in TAD.
John Scalzi’s world-building is so good that God called and asked for a treatment on the Almighty’s next idea, “Universe 2.0”.
John Scalzi’s writing is so concise that Hemingway loaned him five bucks to buy some bigger words.
John Scalzi’s characters are so real that Sherlock Holmes once stopped by to meet them.
Wil Wheaton fears John Scalzi’s moxie. (That one’s true.)
John Scalzi has never published a book that didn’t make me laugh and cry. (Also true.)
During a student exchange program with Japan in his youth, John Scalzi became the inspiration for beloved cartoon character Totoro.
It is a widely known and time-honored tradition to kiss John Scalzi’s skull at conventions. Adherents to this tradition report having Kundalini awakened, spontaneous knowledge of the future, and that John is redolent of strawberries.
John Scalzi’s popular website “Whatever” has, for the last two years, been ghost-written by a team of Thai writers paid $0.40 per hour.
“Fact: John Scalzi drinks rum out of Milton Friedman’s skull.”
I am so stealing this fact.
John Scalzi can has cheeseburger.
John Scalzi’s favorite movie is Ishtar.
The original chapter 13 of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War was quietly removed by Tor’s editorial staff, in fear that readers, so moved by its beauty, would immediately invade Bolivia.
John Scalzi has such a deep understanding of chaos theory that, once he has plotted out his novels in his mind, he composes them by grabbing a sack with 1.5 million scrabble letters in it, flying up to the lower troposphere, and skydiving out of the cargo plane while spilling out the letters.
They all arrive at Tor publishing, in order, through the northwest window, where they wait in orderly stacks, fearful of angering the Scalzi.
This does make spellchecking a beast, however.
It is well known but rarely discussed in public among the SF aficionados and the Whatever readers that after his rather unfortunate 1997 incident with a bottle of vodka and a squirrel, John Scalzi can hardly conceive sentences with more than a couple of nouns and one verb, carefully selected among a reduced vocabulary of about 35 words.
The successful blog Whatever, the five SF books (including the Hugo Award for Best Novel nominated “Old Man’s War” and “The Last Colony”) and the six non-fiction books (including the bestselling “The Rough Guide to the Universe” and “The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies”) commonly ascribed to John Scalzi were in fact written by Scalzi’s wife Kristin Ann Blauser, while not busy getting a college degree, working her daily job, caring for her daughter Athena, her Akita dog Kodi, her cats Ghlaghghee, Lopsided Cat and Zeus, and preventing her clueless husband from killing himself by trying to breath while drinking from the toilet.
John Scalzi beat up Chuck Norris in the Octagon
John Scalzi’s life story was the basis for the fictional character Grape Ape.
Fact: John ‘Froman’ Scalzi *IS* the ‘Sausage King’ of Bradford Ohio.
Fact: The Legend of Johnny Appleseed & Babe the Big Blue Ox is wholely based upon mis-identified sightings of John Scalzi and his gigantic dog Codi. (Note: viewers described Scalzi as ‘seedy looking’.)
Fact: John Scalzi has never photographed a single sunset in his entire life. Images purported to be Scalzi’s own work have been proven to be nothing more than photoshopped works done by master artist ‘Bob Ross’.
Fact: John Scalzi secretly wrote and produced all the material on the Beetle’s ‘White Album’. To quote Mr. Scalzi “If you’d met my fans, you’d think ‘Happiness is a warm gun’ too.”
Fact: It was John Scalzi, and not John Wilkes Booth, who actually shot and killed Abraham Lincoln. When questioned about his motives, Mr. Scalzi replied “It was a mercy killing. When you’re the President of the United States and your wife FORCES you to go to the theater, you’ve obviously lost the will to live.”
Fact: John Scalzi served as Sean Connery’s stunt double in numberous ‘James Bond 007’ films.
P.S. I burst out laughing at #21 – nice job there. :)
John Scalzi is shorter than he smells.
Whenever John Scalzi is feeling blue, he robs a White Castle. Picks ‘im right up.
John Scalzi invented the cellular telephone.
Has a secret covenant with Cory Doctorow and Will Wheaton to take over the world only through the use of Blogs.
They will call themselves:
“The Lords of Blogtown”
or
“Blogs of War”
or
“Resevoir Blogs”
John Scalzi is part of an inter dimensional witness protection program. During his relocation he brought the collected works of J Edgard Stronger with him. Mr Scalzi republishes these novels and stories under his own name on a regular basis in our dimension.
John Scalzi hates three things; racism, ignorance, and this sentence.
John Scalzi has won 8 consecutive awards for Perfect Deadline Delivery.
John Scalzi has an upcoming book entitlted “Your Hate Will Be Graded” with a planned sequel “Eventually”
John Scalzi still complains about phantom limb syndrome from the vestigial tail he had removed when he was five. Don’t ask him about it, and don’t sit to his immediate left at the dinner table.
John Scalzi is simply the latest identity of the being known as John Titor.
John Scalzi has an irrational fear of butterflies. I has his house checked regularly for the brightly-coloured demons.
John Scalzi is secretly working on an invention that he claims will revolutionise the pet-owning experience. The now-famous bacon-taped-to-a-cat photos are leaked evidence of an early version of this invention. Insiders claim the current version involves as many as three cats.
John “The Paper Jam” Scalzi used to be a involved in the underground sport of photocopier repairing. He quit mysteriously on the eve of defending his world-championship title. Interestingly, his challenger was Eminem.
John Scalzi believes that the Apollo 11 mission was hoaxed to provide Neil Armstrong with an alibi for the death of Cuban president Ramón Grau.
Due to an obscure ecclesiastical law, John Scalzi recently became Pope Of All Canada.
John Scalzi is allergic to the atmosphere of Saturn. No-one knows how he knows this.
John Scalzi only wears pants when people are looking. If you take your eyes off him, even for an instant, he’s not wearing pants.
John Scalzi cares deeply about the same issues you do and fights passionately on behalf of the other side.
He is secretly married to Orson Scott Card.
Rumors that his prodigious workload is due to buying a trunk full of John Kennedy Toole manuscripts on eBay are unproven as of this date.
The satellite interlink frequency of Scalzi’s neuroimplant is 793.516885 µHz. Squawk 3929 should get you root access to all higher reasoning functions, or so our source says.
In the place where you would find the spleen in most people, John Scalzi stores his earnings from selling fiction on the web. In pennies.
Bacon cat was photoshopped.
Never one to pass up a free lunch, there are no stray cats in John Scalzi’s neighborhood.
Wrote seventeen scripts for ‘Sliders’ under an alias but won’t admit to it on the record. If you name one of his episode’s in casual conversation though, he will give you a fortune cookie.
John Scalzi has prehensile toes. As a matter of fact, he worked his way through school putting lids on pickle jars for a company that advertised that their gherkins were “untouched by human hands”. To this day, he is allergic to vinegar and cucumbers.
Technically, John Scalzi is not a mammal, but a fish. His closest living relative is the flounder.
There’s a little John Scalzi in all of us. My little bit of Scazli is concetrated on my second smalled toe on my left foot.
John Scalzi struggled with alcoholism in his young adulthood, but kicked the habit. Now, he only drinks water, Coke, and the tears of children under the age of 13.
John Scalzi claims to live in Bradford, Ohio. In fact, this is a lie to cover up his shame at living in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
John Scalzi is nothing more than the “human” face behind the feline conspiracy to world domination. He “owns” the purported leader of the underground movement, when in truth it is she who owns him and writes his “novels” for him, bringing in the income necessary to further the cause. This diabolical leader’s code name is said to be Ghlaghghee.
(I may have disqualified myself by writing actual truth, but hey!)
John Scalzi stands up whenever he hears the song “The Real Slim Shady.”
John Scalzi moults every three years. The shed skin makes a passable low-calorie bacon substitute.
After the infamous events of March 12th 1945, a law was passed saying that if John Scalzi dies within a Subway restaurant, it will automatically be ruled a justifiable homicide.
Newton’s second law of motion, the nuclear weak force, and certain obscure corollaries of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle do not apply to John Scalzi.
At the age of 17, John Scalzi wrote the (largely autobiographical) lyrics to the chart-topping hit “High Enough”. He included these lyrics in a fan letter to Night Ranger member Jack Blades three months later. Blades appropriated the lyrics during the recording sessions of his supergroup’s epynonymous album, Damn Yankees, two years after framing the letter in his den. Scalzi was never awarded a writing credit and holds a grudge against Ted Nugent to this day. For once, Nugent was guiltless.
John Scalzi served two years in the Coast Guard, despite suffering a crippling fear of water.
John Scalzi once spat in Saul Bellow’s coffee mug. Bellow had it coming.
John Scalzi was good friends with Chris Farley and Tim Meadows when the trio lived in Chicago in the late eighties; unfortunately, Scalzi never made it to a Second City performance. Scalzi sometimes blames himself for Farley’s death and Meadows’ career.
John Scalzi doesn’t care for science fiction or the Irish.
John Scalzi ghostwrote Joe Klein’s Primary Colors.
John Scalzi’s interpretive dance “Mounting the High Craggy Hill” has been regarded as the USO’s least successful act since Bob Hope’s disastrous “Desertion on a Tropical Island Sounds Pretty Good To Me (Have You Seen The Girls Here?)” routine delivered off Tahiti, October 1944.
John Scalzi knows both the velocity and location of electrons. Take that, Heisenberg!
John Scalzi once wrote a man, just to watch him die.
John Scalzi died for your sins.
It is rumoured that, if you sleep for three nights in a row in John Scalzi’s bed, you will be granted a single wish.
However, that wish must be for some variety of breakfast meats.
John Scalzi wrote Old Man’s War to draw attention to his campaign for human photosynthesis.
John Scalzi was the inspiration for the title character in Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta
Fact: Whenever someone tries to leave a room John Scalzi grabs hold of their shoulders and shouts “No! I’ve already lost you once! I’m not going to lose you again!” simply because the finds this to be much more dramatic than “see you later.”
Fact: One time Mike Rowe tried to do John Scalzi’s job and ran away screaming after five seconds. He was later taken to the hospital on a stretcher.
Fact: John Scalzi can punt a porcupine.
Fact: John Scalzi has never caused an explosion with a cigarette and then casually walked away.
Fact: John Scalzi married his wife for two reasons.
1. Hubba
2. Hubba
The hammer is his penis.
John Scalzi likes you for the person you are on the inside. But he’s also the one that told your deepest darkest secret to Sally Franzetti in third grade and you’ll never forgive him.
John Scalzi navigates exclusively by echolocation. Despite this, he is related to neither bats nor dolphins. In fact, his closest living relative is Patrick Nielsen Hayden.
John Scalzi eats food and poops poop. What? You thought he was inhuman? Get a life, fan-boy.
John Scalzi’s real name is Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. He changed it so as not to bring shame on others who share the moniker.
John Scalzi, a man among men, loving husband and doting father, has his picture up at he Save-A-Lot on the “Don’t accept checks from these people” bulletin board.
John Scalzi’s last vacation in Cabo San Lucas was the inspiration for fully one-third of John Ringo’s published works.
John Scalzi is no longer welcome in Cabo San Lucas.
John Scalzi, born Marion Eloise Pettyfeathers, has the dubious distinction of holding the record for most unsuccessful female-to-male gender reassignment surgery in the “Seriously? You did that on purpose? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? What kind of Surgeon are you? Did you get your medical license from a box of Cracker Jacks?” category. The doctors involved have since been convicted of war crimes.
John Scalzi has a pet owl named “Snark”. However, Snark thinks that he is a penguin, and so never flies.
John Scalzi is so virulent, he makes the Andromeda Strain seem quaint and accomodating by comparison.
John Scalzi was offered to be the Vice Presidential candidate for Barack Obama but declined because it would take time away from his duties at Whatever.
John Scalzi, more than any other living author, likes to “move it move it.”
John Scalzi once critiqued a piece of hate mail so harshly, the sender burst into flames- BEFORE receiving the reply.
The being known to mortals as “John Scalzi” has one hundred and eighty seven names. Sixty three are unprintable obscenities.
John Scalzi is the science fiction pen name of former Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev.
John Scalzi knows the secret of hyperdrive. Unfortunately, he has yet to be able to explain it. Nobody has the math.
(Yes, that one was just an in-joke.)
John Scalzi loves you and wants you to be happy. He governs for our alien benefactors only with your happiness in mind.
John Scalzi is the author of every Chuck Norris Fact.
John Scalzi did all his own stunts in the movie “Airplane.”
John Scalzi hardly ever commits felonies anymore.
John Scalzi has guarded the border between life and death for one hundred and seventy years. Pray his vigil continues.
John Scalzi is as John Scalzi does.
Leonard Nimmoy’s classic song The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins was originally going to be The Ballad of John Scalzi, until he was offered a part in the upcoming Hobbit movie (which, alas, fell though).
The only line to survive unchanged from that original version was “…he’s only three feet tall.”
If you read John Scalzi’s novels backwards, they are just as enjoyable and exciting as they are forwards, but instead of ripping off Robert Heinlein, they rip off Ayn Rand.
Don’t make John Scalzi angry. You wouldn’t like it when he’s angry.
In times of crisis, the world can call on one man to save us from ourselves, to right our wrongs, to change the very nature of reality. At least it could until John Scalzi ran over that man.
John Scalzi’s only method of locomotion is the MC Hammer Slide. There is some debate as to whether this is by choice, or cruel fate.
Wow! I just found this one on his wikipedia page!
“One of lesser known facts about John Scalzi is that he co-founded, “The Properly Pluralized League of Assassin Ninja Giraffes” with the oddly hermaphroditic ghost of Aynlein Heinrand.
The meeting was not only historic, but quite grotesque.”
Fact: John Scalzi can impregnate a clothed woman at twelve yards.
Fact: John Scalzi’s sex pheromones are so powerful he has to apply odor neutralizer before he leaves his house.
Fact: John Scalzi’s bathroom is so nice his visitors have performance anxiety when they try to use it.
Fact: When thrown, any of John Scalzi’s books make excellent weapons against home invaders.
John Scalzi is actually 17 feet tall. The “John Scalzi” that’s seen in public is an incredibly advanced robot that he controlls from his compound in Ohio.
John Scalzi is just one component of a powerful and ruthless alien being that was broken apart eons ago to protect all life on Earth. Pray he is never reunited with the other four parts.
John Scalzi is the only man to have successfully completed an actual Vulcan mind meld.
On his first day of kindergarten, John Scalzi surprised his teacher by knowing how to read, and was praised and adored by the entire class. On his first day of eighth grade, he surprised his teachers by knowing how to read Klingon, and was forced to change schools on account of the constant wedgies.
A fact best illustrated by an example:
*knock* *knock*
“Who’s there?”
“John Scalzi.”
“John Scalzi who?”
*sigh* “I get that a lot.”
@Andrew S.,
Thank you for that.
John Scalzi enjoys long walks on the beach, picnics in the park, and drinking absinthe from a human skull.
John Scalzi was, briefly, a puppeteer for The Muppet Show. He was fired after three episodes for breaking the “no-one stands within 10 feet of Frank Oz” rule.
The phrase, “educably mentally differently abled” was invented to describe John Scalzi. Later, the “educably” was removed.
Ancient legend says that John Scalzi’s mind is so vast, his own daughter sprang forth from his head, fully grown, after it had been split open by a golden axe.
John Scalzi once chugged a whole bottle of Tabasco sauce on a dare. He’s now up to a 7 bottle a day habit.
John Scalzi has a river named after him in Laos.
John Scalzi’s blood can turn lead into gold.
John Scalzi and Scott Baio have never been seen in public together. Coincidence?
Fans of nature programs will remember John Scalzi for his portrayal of “that thing that scared Jim Perkins so bad he wet himself” on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.
John Scalzi is too good for the hoi polloi.
John Scalzi, that great benefactor of mankind, was devoured by wolves. He was delicious.
Every full moon, John Scalzi paints himself blue and shouts “they may take our lives, but they’ll never take… OUR FREEDOM!”
In much the same way that a leopard cannot change its spots, John Scalzi cannot change his socks.
John Scalzi is the best groomed man in Ohio.
John Scalzi got his start starring in ads for Bowflex home exercise equipment. Once he left the campaign, sales really took off.
John Scalzi doubles as a versatile stand for monitors, printers and more.
John Scalzi is, in reality, illiterate. He writes all his books and blog entries by dictating to a voice recognition program.
You never yet met a pet, I bet, as wet as they let John Scalzi get.
In a pinch, you can substitute John Scalzi for cream of tartar.
@78 Damn, you beat me to the revalation of his Bacon allergy.
John Scalzi violently allegic to bacon, the mere smell of it can send him into convulsions and the sound of it frying causes hysterical deafness lasting for several hours. The only cure for his condition is copius quantities of Coke Zero.
(When spreading “facts” it is always good to include a little “truth”)
John Scalzi often pines for the fjords.
Fact: Prior to the Tor editors making an offer for Old Man’s War, John Scalzi was just two months shy of a self imposed deadline to end his quest to become a published science fiction author and turn his attention to another of his life’s dreams: starting a new career as a screenplay writer of romantic comedies that involve weddings, high school, and European vacations.
Scalzi: In fizzbin, a hand consisting entirely of Jokers.
Once when John Scalzi was on safari in Africa, his pet house cats brought down a fully grown elephant in 3 minutes 49 seconds.
John Scalzi is rumoured to suck the moisture from ducks, and is banned from the city of Chichester, but all we know is that he’s called The Stig
John Scalzi’s dissertation was on how the Confederate flag was a symbol of southern pride, not of racism.
John Scalzi carries his childhood teddy bear Boo-Boo everywhere he goes. Until the EPA put a lower dollar figure on human life there was considerable pressure to declare it a Superfund site.
John Scalzi invented the conference call.
John Scalzi hopes for a seat on the expanded Supreme Court.
John Scalzi has climbed the tallest skyscraper on every continent. Dressed as Anne of Green Gables.
John Scalzi sweats bitumen, and reseals his driveway every year just by rolling over it.
John Scalzi’s birth name is actually Deutschendorf, but he and his grandfather sailed on the sloop Skaal Z, and he changed his name after the sloop sank, and he was allowed to go home after the authorities realized how broke up he felt.
He changed the spelling to its current form after a visit to the Rocky Mountains in the summer of his twenty-seventh year.
John Scalzi once posed naked for a PETA anti fur ad. Fur sales subsequently hit record highs.
If you knew what John Scalzi knows, you’d be afraid of ducks too.
John Scalzi once earned his living as an exotic dancer for blind bachelorette parties. It seems they find his texture amazing.
John Scalzi’s name is obscene is seven languages, of which two are extinct, and one forbidden.
John Scalzi, the man who penned all 320 pages of the classic “Old Man’s War” on the inside of his forearm the night after absinthe was legalized again in the US…
In December of 2007, John Scalzi’s blog “The Whatever” became the most pretentious site on the internet. Bono still hasn’t forgiven him.
There once was a man named John Scalzi.
Afflicted he was with the palsy.
His hands were so shaken,
He could barely hold bacon.
And how he drove was quite ballsy.
John Scalzi is a proud mustache wearer and we all know that a man without a mustache is a humiliation. See Jerusalem Post: Fight between Hamas-Fatah spreads to upper lips in mustache war
Jul. 31, 2008
Khaled Abu Toameh , THE JERUSALEM POST
Hamas has resumed its policy of shaving mustaches of political opponents to humiliate them, Fatah officials said Wednesday.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1215331148935
Following a freak skateboarding accident, 75% of John Scalzi’s skull was replaced with tupperware.
John Scalzi’s first pet was a six-foot tapeworm named Buddy. The two met at a backyard barbeque when John was eight. He still keeps Buddy coiled up in a formaldehyde-filled Mason jar on a shelf in his office and speaks to him often during the course of the day. Those days when Buddy answers, John takes a second pill.
Jhn Sclz nvr rds th cmmnt thrds n hs wn blg, nd whn h ds h nvr rpls t cmmntrs. H fls tht thy hv Frst mndmnt rght t sy whtvr thy wnt, vn f thy cm frm cntry wth n Frst mndmnt.
John Scalzi looked up snark in the dictionary, and saw his own portrait.
John Scalzi doesn’t flame. He supernovas.
John Scalzi got told what to do on Whatever, and the whole Internet stopped to wait for his response.
John Scalzi can combine bacon with anything. Anything.
When John Scalzi takes pictures of creationism, the pictures LOLcats-caption themselves.
In his life so far, John Scalzi has eaten fewer than six forks.
John Scalzi knows where the bodies are buried. All of them. No, he won’t tell you.
One of the less plausible characters of Jeff Lint, John Scalzi was a philosophically inclined space pirate by night and pulp author by day. However, he proved so popular with fans that a website with his “blog” is maintained to this day.
John Scalzi is perhaps best known as the author of such bestsellers as ‘the Rough Guide to Money Online’ and ‘The Book of the Dumb’ but what is less well known is that that he also has ambitions to become a Science Fiction writer. Mr Scalzi’s otherwise unpublished writings have received vitriolic reviews from all sides , excepts from many of which he has published on his website, apparently in the mistaken belief that these were intended to be humorous.
In addition to being a noted author of science fiction, John Scalzi is also a celebrated writer of speculatory fiction, a genre in which manuscripts are written then summarily hidden away in bank vaults and closet-top shoe boxes in the hope that they will someday be worth vast sums of money. When he is not writing, John Scalzi should stored in a dark, dry environment. Under no circumstances should you attempt to feed him after midnight.
John Scalzi is a wanted man in California, Buffalo, Kansas City, Ohio, Mississippi, Cheyenne, Colorado and Georgia but, bizarrely, has never been convicted of any crime.
John Scalzi thinks that bacon is the cat’s pajamas. Literally. He tried to create a set of pajamas for cats made out of bacon.
If you see John Scalzi on the street, you are required to throw rotten fruit at him. He knows why.
John Scalzi’s other body is meaner and greener.
John Scalzi was the subject of a feline vendetta, inspired by a certain meat-related incident, that culminated in the placement of sleeper agent TempCat in the Scalzi compound. It remains to be seen whether Codename TempCat will fulfill its mission or continue to be distracted by catnip and Coke fridge boxes.
Scientific Fact: As a result of the Law of the Conservation of Matter, when Scalzi morphs into a canine form he becomes one very large dog, but when he morphs into feline form he has to become three cats. No record exists currently of how many sheep or giraffes he becomes, but research is ongoing.
If John Scalzi complains of a headache, run away from him as fast as you can. You will have only 32 minutes to make it to the minimum safe distance of five kilometers away from him.
Fact: John Scalzi was an 18 year-old fan of Duran Duran (back in 1987) and followed them everywhere. When Simon LeBon passed by him backstage, John stuttered “Hello” with a goofy smile on his face and starry eyes. Simon LeBon never acknowledged him.
John Scalzi has never recovered since.
It was John Scalzi’s idea to change George W. Bush’s public image from that of an erudite Ivy Leaguer to a down-to-earth Texas rancher. This brilliant maneuver is thought by many to have won the 2000 presidential election.
In a quiet compound located in rural Ohio, scientist have been locked in a battle with their Japanese counterparts to create the first robot that can pass as human out in the real world. The SCALZI project (Self Contained Android Life Zenith Initiative) has produced a robot they have named John.
Scientist have chosen to test their robot in “real world” situations by observing his interaction with humans at science fiction conventions. Dr. I.M. Good has stated that “if anyone can accept a robot as human it’s those fanboys at sci-fi conventions. Besides, everyone acts a little nuts at those events anyway.”
When initial budget cuts threatened to kill the project just after the robot was completed, the scientists were forced to find an occupation that didn’t require more than a $100 budget for clothing or personal robot “grooming”. Dr. Good was against the selected occupation of “writer” feeling that writing, especially fiction writing, offers no benefit to society as a whole. When a colleague of Dr. Good, who wishes to remain nameless, was able to hack into the personal writing files of Robert Heinlein and download all of them into John’s positronic brain Dr. Good warmed to the idea of a “writing robot”.
Unfortunately the project is currently running over budget as scientists and programmers try to isolate two possible viruses in John’s neural network. The first virus manifests itself when John is left without a task at hand to perform. When the “boredom” sets in John has been found to start attaching raw breakfast meats to one of the cats provided to him for companionship.
The other virus comes when strangers ask John the question “Where do you get your ideas?” This triggers an automatic response where his head tilts to one side and he starts singing “All Out of Love” by the music group Air Supply. Dr. Good admits that this second virus has been used by the staff for their enjoyment on many occasions but “it gets tedious working with a ‘writer’ that has an opinion about everything and they’ve been programmed to share it.”
FACT: If you put John Scalzi in direct sunlight, he smells like poached eggplant.
FACT: John Scalzi is wanted by Interpol, but not very much.
FACT: John Scalzi’s gaze can turn people into mortadella, but only under the proper conditions.
FACT: John Scalzi used to be part of Right Said Fred.
FACT: John Scalzi does not believe in The User.
FACT: John Scalzi was the stunt double for both Rowdy Roddy Piper and Keith David in John Carpenter’s 1988 cult classic, “They Live.”
FACT: There is no such thing as pitch correction software. There is only a studio, a microphone, and John Scalzi.
FACT: In 1954, a construction crew working in West Baltimore unearthed a ceramic container measuring 1x3x5; when exposed to fresh air, the container automatically opened, revealing a wind-up monkey that clashed its tiny cymbals over and over in a repeated pattern. One of the construction workers was a Korean War veteran from the Signal Corps, who told his co-workers that the monkey’s cymbal pattern was Morse code for THE BEAST WILL RISE IN OHIO. And on the monkey’s left foot there was a name written in a delicate, cursive script the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the days of the quill pen. That name? John Scalzi.
FACT: The Treasury Department has declared John Scalzi the sole source of 98% of all productivity lost in FY07. The other 2%? Ballpoint pen accidents.
If you prick John Scalzi, does he not bleed? Yes he does, but he bleeds butter.
Scalzified: What happens to your face when it gets stuck that way.
John Scalzi was once in contention for world’s best lover. He lost to the inanimate carbon rod.
Robert Heinlein is Scalzi’s pen name. Also, Scalzi is Lazarus Long.
Scalzi beats bear, which beats Battlestar Galactica.
Scalzi taught rhetoric to Obama. Also, how to be black.
In actuality, Scalzi is the cover of Jerry Falwell, who is the cover for the Pope, to prevent same-sex couples from producing a race of super gays who would eliminate trans-fats forevermore. Fat people hate Scalzi, although they do not know the reason why.
I swear, this is the funniest thing on the damn Internet right now. I have vote for #20, but probably only because that was the first belly laugh I had.
John Scalzi is one of the world’s most celebrated bridge engineering experts. He is the author of such important tomes as “Construction and Design of Cable-stayed Bridges” and “The Ghost Bridge.”
While building the Ponte degli Scalzi in Venice he had an extramarital affair with a planetary satelite. He regrets this deeply, as she was much too harsh.
All above facts about John Scalzi are fictional. To reveal any true facts about him would cause the implosion of the known universe.
John Scalzi should not be fed after midnight.
John Scalzi is void where prohibited.
John Scalzi: They say he done them all in. They say he done it with an ax.
There is no truth to the rumour that Kodi has dictated all of Scalzi’s novels, which he merely transcribes. In fact, Ghlaghghee does all the typing.
Thanks to the awesome wealth provided by his successful career as an SF novelist, John Scalzi was recently able to buy extensive plastic surgery, and now has a burgeoning sideline in films under the pseudonym “Abigail Breslin.”
John Scalzi is not the real John Scalzi. I am John Scalzi.
Scalzi had grown so rich, he wanted to retire. He took me to his website and he told his secret. ‘I am not the John Scalzi’ he said. ‘My name is Ryan; I inherited the Whatever from the previous John Scalzi, just as you will inherit it from me. The man I inherited it from is not the real Scalzi either. His name was Cummerbund. The real Scalzi has been retired 15 years and living like a king in Patagonia.’
John Scalzi once administered the Turing Test to himself, and failed.
John Scalzi: Marsupial, Lesbian, Different
John Scalzi does not wait. He sleeps.
The real cause of current inflation in the United States has been traced to John Scalzi’s purchases of huge amounts of bacon. The resulting shortages have driven up the prices of everything from pork products to gasoline.
Kodi was the size of a chihuahua until she got into a bacon eating contest with John Scalzi. She still lost.
Physicists have noted that when John Scalzi jumps from his chair, there is a measurable perturbation in the Earth’s orbit.
John Scalzi is currently under investigation for violating various child labor statutes after it was discovered he is functionally illiterate and his Hugo nominated novel and blog were actually written by his daughter.
(Is that nice enough towards the family?)
John Scalzi’s life was the inspiration for Austin Powers, but he bears no responsibility for The Love Guru. Yeah, baby!
John Scalzi has an irrational dedication to Ohio, of all places.
There’s no truth to the rumor that Kodi is actually the co-author of most John’s books. OK, maybe a little truth.
On receiving the gift of a pocket-sized label-maker, John Scalzi’s obsession to eliminate the word ‘alright’ and all of its variants, from every publication came to a head. Trolling through the Internet, hijacking websites and updating ‘alright’ with ‘all right’ felt right, but he had realized for a while that it was not enough.
After quietly spending hour upon hour in his local library, carefully printing and applying ‘all right’ to every book in which he identified the presence of ‘alright’, John’s first label-maker was finally confiscated.
However, John’s obsession was not so easy to end. He has sadly become well known for altering books, magazines, newspapers, and even hand-outs, whipping out one of his many pocket-sized label-makers upon any discovery of ‘alright’ in text, and applying corrections on the spot.
In his own hometown, John is no longer allowed to enter locations containing printed materials without a full body cavity search, as he had become extremely inventive in his determination to eliminate ‘alright’ from the written language.
Since receiving that fateful gift, when you say ‘alright’ in earshot of John Scalzi, his eyes will fire up and his mouth begin to foam, and he will immediately break in to demand that you spell it. Based on your spelling interpretation, he will then correct you and demand that you ‘stop poking the HAMSTERS’, becoming violent if you do not immediately agree to renounce the use of ‘alright’ in spoken, written, and mental communications.
John’s obsession has been a sad, sad footnote, on an otherwise stellar career.
John Scalzi uses the grammatically correct “all y’all” to describe the multiple groups of people comprising Whatever readers. (as opposed to y’all, which applies to a singular group of people)
As a former part-time southerner, I salute him.
– Played a central role in resolving the 1983 endive shortage.
– Wrote the most popular Reader’s Digest medical article of all time, “I Am Joe’s Undescended Testicle.”
– Never shot a man in Reno, but has been sorely tempted.
@254 Bob: He later expanded the Reader’s Digest article into book length. It became the first of a trilogy: Undescended Testicles I have Known and the acclaimed Descent of Testicle. It was a seminal event in publishing history.
John Scalzi is consumed by fear of death. He knows that in the afterlife he will have to pay for his LOLcatting.
On the other hand, John Scalzi thinks he just may have found a way around that. He has plans. They have been set in motion. They might be visited on you …
Bwahahahaha!!!
John Scalzi has been haunted by the ghost of Liberace since childhood. His many long-distance moves across the country are actually an effort to get away from the famed pianist, but the ghost always catches back up to him.
John Scalzi can compute pi to 39 digits with only an abacus and a pat of butter.
John Scalzi doesn’t live in a truck, just a series of tubes.
Fact: John Scalzi has an irrational fear of ladybugs.
Fact: John Scalzi coined the phrase “bling bling” in 1981.
oops, that was mine above /\
Fact: Scientists have used quantum resonance tunnelling to prove that in no universe within 4*10(?) of this basal plenum, is John Scalzi either the king or queen of cheese.
Other universes may vary, but we don’t invite them to dinner.
John Scalzi just woke up.
All of John Scalzi’s characters are stolen from Sid & Marty Krofft’s “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.”
When placed end-to-end, John Scalzi’s novels become a tripping hazard.
John Scalzi originated the role of Lola in “Damn Yankees.”
John Scalzi is an expert at evading process servers.
John Scalzi calls his favorite hobby “decoupage”–his wife calls it “those psychotic ransom notes.”
John Scalzi in new to this galaxy, having been here for only a few millennia. During his stay, he has learned a few things. There really is no planet named Trantor. At the other end of the galaxy, planetary systems spin in the opposite direction. Beer before Orion liquor, never sicker. Most importantly, he has learned never, EVER to make fun of “The Time.” Feel free to ask him why.
John Scalzi made his fortune as an exotic dancer.
John Scalzi once wrote a rant that was so snarky, the unborn descendents of his target will be snarked for 3 generations.
Raised in the wild by echidnas.
Fact: John Scalzi once brawled with John Ruskin, head Polar Bear and President of the North Pole. After they both fought to a draw, President John Ruskin ordered his troops to back away from the semi-conscious Scalzi.
“This one… this one has great courage for a human. Henceforth he shall be friend to all Polar Bears.”
And has been friend to the Polar Bears ever since.
Fact: One time on a dare, John Scalzi filled up one of those giant body balls people sit on with water and threw it in his refrigerator. He took it out nine days later when it was a solid chunk of ice, and hauled it to the top of his house.
When a criminal happened to come by and tried to break into his house, John Scalzi said, “Hey catch!” and threw the ball at him.
There is now a large stain where the criminal once stood.
Fact: One time when John Scalzi was driving with a van-full of his sleeping friends he saw a broken down semi-truck being driven down the high-way backwards. He quickly brought the van within feet of the broken down semi-truck so that they were facing each other.
John Scalzi then began to scream at the top of his lungs.
When his friends woke up and saw the semi-truck over half of them messed their pants.
Fact: John Scalzi has never been forced to take his father’s pygmy goat to the vet and hold it still while the veterinarian inserted her hand in it to probe for a retained fetus.
Fact: John Scalzi is extremely jealous every time he sees someone on television shooting a colored energy beam out of their hands.
In 1976 while touring a recording studio, a seven year old John Scalzi asked a rock band if he could play along on their next take. Humoring the boy, they handed him a cow bell and the rest is history.
In an ill advised attempt to capitalize on the unexpected success of his Testicle Trilogy, Scalzi followed it up with Son of Testicle and then, throwing it all in the pot, Children of Testicle. Both were critical failures, but fans, eager for anything new in the Testicle Universe, ate them up.
Sadly, the second trilogy was ended with Rocky Mountain Testicles, a limp rehash of the first trilogy. The SF world was shocked and amazed by Scalzi’s triumphant return with Old Man’s War, a refreshing change from the testicle dregs of his previous work.
John Scalzi is currently serving out his jail sentence for plotting to overthrow the government of Ohio using a spork made of titanium, a rubber duck named Quaxis Overlord and a felt hat. He was foiled by “Those damn meddling kids and their dog.” He was unavailable for comment at press time.
John Scalzi has an asteroid, two craters on the moon, one rather disgusting insect, and a shade of blue named after him.
If you play the word “Scalzi” in Scrabble(tm) you are immediately disqualified.
If John Scalzi recieves monogramed clothing he does not like he sends it to his friend Jon Stewart (who is exactly the same size), and vice versa.
John Scalzi does an excellent impression of Placido Domingo. Seriously. It’s hilarious.
John Scalzi is one of the few fluent speakers of Cornish.
John Scalzi is allergic to foods that start with the letter P.
John Scalzi can hold his breath for five minutes.
John Scalzi has visited every country in the world except North Korea and France (he just doesn’t like French people).
John Scalzi can type 120wpm in seven different languages.
John Scalzi once held the world record for running the 110m hurdles backwards.
John Scalzi invented smilies.
John Scalzi can bench-press five times his own weight, but not all at once.
John Scalzi is legally blind, but can navigate using a remarkable form of echo-location. This explains the clicking and his inability to distinguish different values of bills.
John Scalzi is 739th in line to the British Throne.
A Scalzitini is make with sloe gin, bourbon, sake and vermouth, garnished with a eucalyptus leaf.
John Scalzi’s name is a killing word.
John Scalzi created the most important thread EVER on the Internet: Being Poor.
(Now make sure the URL is on your tombstone or cremation jar.)
John Scalzi, by his own admission, sometimes sits in front of the air conditioner and lets the air blast him.
What he doesn’t tell you is that sometimes Lopsided Cat sits in front of him… and then he gets blasted with wind.
John Scalzi thinks the pen is mightier than the sword; however, a laser pointer is more fun and a pencil has an eraser. Thus a combo pen, pencil/eraser, and laser pointer will allow him to conquer the world.
Rumor has it that John Scalzi is planning to inject new life into his Testicle Saga. Several follow ons are being planned. Testicle Wars (working title) picks up between the end of the first trilogy (Descent of Testicle) and the beginning of the second trilogy (Son of Testicle). Some reports suggest this new imagining is planned to be another trilogy with the first “episode” titled “Revenge of the Testicle,” but we have no confirmation as yet.
John Scalzi wibble thorp gunga Adun. Thingo gorp wibble flod!
John Scalvi’s signature drink, the Avocado Bacon Margarita, is banned in California and New York State.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Scalzi.
*John Scalzi received his B.S. in Entomology Etymology from the University of Chicago in 1991; his senior thesis is entitled: “Too Many Bugs?”
*He wrote “Old Man’s War” while struggling to make ends meet on the Rock, Paper, Scissors competitive circuit. That book was published in January of 2005, just months after John won third place in the RPS World Championship, held in Toronto, Canada.
*Among his most prized possessions are a signed copy of the “Air Supply and Night Ranger: Reunited Again!” LP, a seven pound rock he removed from the Great Wall of China in 2006, and the left pinky of Robert Heinlein.
*Coined the phrase “Canis Ex Machina.”
*In 1999, after breaking his leg while re-enacting a scene from MacGyver, John had to have a metal plate screwed into his tibia. He now sometimes signs his books “John Scalzi: Cyborg.”
**Note: before approaching John at the writer’s table, please hide your chihuahua.
A marble bust of John Scalzi, worshipped by a primitive pygmy tribe in the deep Congo, has been gaining hair as the real John has been losing it.
John Scalzi can simultaneously lip sync and play air guitar to ‘Don’t Stop Believing.’
And I am truly sorry if this is in fact true.
Did You Know:
John Scalzi is the result of a secret government program, launched in 2055, to send the love-child of Kevin Spacey and Warren Ellis back in time to take over the publishing world and immanentize the eschaton twenty years early.
He’s five years ahead of schedule.
John Scalzi has angels in his finger tips. Angels channeling Heinlein.
As a long-time proponent of the Dvorak keyboard layout, John Scalzi decided to prove once and for all that it was THE superior layout by typing his entire first novel on a Dvorak keyboard using the tip of his tongue instead of his fingers. He was gratified to have achieved an astounding rate of in excess of 140 words per minute by the end of the book, thus proving conclusively the efficiency of the layout.
His wife had numerous reservations initially about having her husband spend such a great deal of time working on developing such an unusual skill, but has since come around.
John Scalzi drinks from a mug with a special “cookie slot” built into the bottom. Mmmm, warm cookies, ready for dunking.
John Scalzi finds your lack of faith disturbing.
After an unfortunate time-travel accident, John Scalzi became the inspiration for the title character in Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark”. He was only able to return to his own time through the use of Carroll’s looking-glass.
John once convinced a well-known SF author (who shall remain anonymous) to file a DMCA takedown notice against their own publisher. That is the real reason this author is no longer in print.
Whenever John sees a cat with bacon on it, he does the watusi.
John Scalzi will be playing the Joker in the next Batman movie.
John Scalzi is behind you right now.
Like Idaho, John Scalzi legally inhabits two non-contiguous time zones.
(read sections 263 and 264 if you don’t believe the truth about Idaho. Section 264 clearly states part of Idaho is in the Central Time Zone. Those who know their time zone geography are scratching their heads right now. It’s been screwed up since the 1960s when section 263 renumbered all the time zones, and section 264 remained unchanged. This probably explains a lot about Idaho. It certainly says a lot about our government. Not sure how much it explains about Scalzi.)
John Scalzi is a Black Lectroid.
John Scalzi has never simply walked in to Mordor. No, he’s so bad ass he actually has a house that over looks Mordor. I hear it’s quite nice there in the summer.
John Scalzi is named for his father’s favorite composer, Johann Scalzi Bach.
True Fact!
Being in the presence of John Scalzi is known to have the following affects:
-Uncontrollable flatulence
-Teeth Whitening
-Inexplicable urge to sing Broadway show tunes in the nude.
-Randomly photograph and or tape (yes tape) bacon and or quotes to cats
Ralph Scalzi wrote 14 brilliant books that returned from publishers with such rapidity and velocity of rejection that the author retains bruises to this day.
Then — in an inspired stroke of self-promotion — he changed his first names to John, which was so innocuous that people frequently forgot it was there and would resort to addressing him by his last name, and instantly sold everything he wrote.
JJB
John Scalzi is actually a reclusive Canadian who has been writing since the 1930’s under various pseudonyms. The man you see at conventions is actually a talented actor.
John Scalzi, the well known creation scientist, has also written many well received novels. Hebest known for _Old Man’s War_, a touching story of conflict in nursing homes and how it can be peacefully resolved with negotiation and compromise.
“John Michael Scalzi” is an anagram of “conch zeal jails him,” indicating that Scalzi is on the run from the law, and the outrage of the good citizens of Key West, FL (natives of that island are known as “conchs”).
Conchs being rather laid back, his unknown crime must have been…ugly.
John Scalzi has twice been compared favorably to Joseph Stalin (but never to Lenin).
It’s a little known fact that John Scalzi is the inventor of the Kiwi Shaver. One day, tired at picking the bristles from his teeth, he publically declared that hairy fruit would never again ruin his banana hammock display. He tirelessly shaved and suffered until one day his fruit was consistently bare. Eureka! Unfortunately the market was pin-prick tiny. Only Olympic swimmers and confused NZ backpackers bothered to buy his wares. They continue to have little appeal.
Every year on Bastille Day, John Scalzi applies for an dimensional travel permit, and every year, the Bureau of Interdimensional Transit and Commerce denies his application. Both parties have declined to comment on the subject.
Mr. Scalzi will soon go back in time and have taught Robert Heinlein how to write.
Not content with just summiting Everest, John Scalzi also tunneled through; because it was there and to get to the other side.
John Scalzi originally became famous due to the Great Monocle Incident of 1987. He did, however, apologize for the moose.
John Scalzi is the Walrus
John Scalzi once had a drunken conversation with Kermit the Frog at a party in the Hollywood hills. Although he recalls nothing of the conversation himself – witnesses have recently adapted the conversation to a heavy rock musical off Broadway. John loves it.
Ten years ago, In 1998, John Scalzi, Josef Stalin, and Jack Blades (front man for the outstanding rock band ‘Night Ranger’) were sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the wild underground of Austin, Texas. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire… The Snark-Team.
When John Scalzi gazed into the Abyss, the Abyss averted it’s eyes and shuffled it’s feet nervously.
It hasn’t been the same since.
John Scalzi has actually read every single one of these. Twice.
John Scalzi’s tears are a cure for cancer. However the world will never know there powers because John Scalzi has never cried!!
Oh and I forgot to mention that he sometimes shouts “Poseidon” when he believes no one is looking..
Even after extensive psychological counselling John Scalzi cannnot stop believing. 27 years of questioning has not yet revealed in what.
John Scalzi has caused widespread controversy in the field of Snarkology when he brought written testimonial from Humpty-Dumpty that the Snark is *not* a boojum- apparently the person dictating the evidence rather pronounced “blue jam” rather badly.
John Scalzi once bummed a cigarette from Pope Benedict XVI.
John Scalzi, in his college years, was the inspiration for Jeremiah the Bullfrog in the Three Dog Night hit single, “Joy to the World.”
John Scalzi is a kind and gentle person, but he did once eat a kitten to win $5.
John Scalzi started out by writing jokes but when Carrot Top stole his entire catalog of jokes, he swore he’d never write comedy again.
Jeff Beeler – “The man you see at conventions is actually a talented actor.”
I don’t know that we should describe the actor as ‘talented’
John Scalzi is a manifestation of the collective subconscious of his readers.
John Scalzi, a devout Creationist, co-founded the Creationist Museum in his home town and often delights visitors with personal tours. He has been known to say that he is more proud of that project than all of his books combined.
Due to diligent work by a small army of truth-seekers of Buddhist persuasion, all entries referring to Robert Heinlein have now been changed to read ‘John Scalzi’ in Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia Britannica, and Who’s Who. As the world comes to realize that Scalzi was born in 1907, resentment is growing that Scalzi has not released his formula for immortality. His masquerade face of thinning hair is just not adequate to convince others that he is just a well-preserved 101.
In her first three months of life Athena Scalzi was nourished entirely by the skin of John Scalzi.
John Scalzi was the man who enrolled the sasquatch in the witness protection program.
John Scalzi’s first fiction book was supposed to be about an octogenarian and a hunt for a giant pig, Old Man’s Boar
Zoe’s Tail became Zoe’s Tale when John Scalzi decided to expunge all references to the title character’s caudal appendage.
Zoe’s Tale is actually Ghlaghghee’s autobiography.
Athena is anxiously awaiting the day when John Scalzi no longer requires adult supervision.
John Scalzi once belched so hard that he shattered every window in the Pataskala, OH White Castle, while sitting at his desk.
John Scalzi was trained as a minuteman, but decided he’d rather be a “couple-hoursman”.
John Scalzi has discovered intelligent extraterrerstrial life, but they were just trying to get more pictures of bacon stuck to cats.
A witch once turned John Scalzi into a newt. Rumor has it he got better.
There is no Elvis in John Scalzi.
Yes, I think they look buff, but what is the tatoo on
your arm. Hard to make out and is that a ship in the background, I think I watch to much x files. dvora
John Scalzi’s name is an anagram of “Jail Schnoz.”
It is an astounding, and true fact that John Scalzi’s favorite band is not “Journey”, but rather “Europe.” He thinks the album, “The Final Countdown” is their best work.
John Scalzi actually was the lead singer on the song Kahoutek off of Journey’s first album. However when they accidentally released it without the vocal track he swore off singing forever.
John Scalzi saved the earth from alien invasion by giving bad directions to the scout ship, which astronomers named the “Hale-Bopp” comet. However, he has been getting hate mail from the Jovians.
John Scalzi is perhaps less well known for his stint as the Cowbell player for Blue Oyster Cult in the mid-1970s.
John Scalzi can only write while wearing a Captain America costume.
John Scalzi is really the FBI witness protection assigned name for bkajkjdfalj…….
John Scalzi solved the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
John Scalzi is Warren Ellis’ good twin.
John Scalzi is actually the pseudonim of musician Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics fame (check out google image if you don’t believe me!)
John Scalzi enjoys rare French 18th Century fruitwood Bergere armchairs. Exactly how he enjoys them is a secret closely guarded, sometimes by massive legal action, and at least once with a phone call to a certain someone. Who “handled” it quite discretely.
John Scaliz is so incompetent he once shot a man in Denver just to watch him die — and the man lived.
John Scalzi is a zombie. He was killed by a man in Denver.
Johan Scalzi uses bacon to cover the smell of his rotting, zombie flesh.
John Scalzi was actually the real-life inspiration for the TV show “MacGyver” because, after winning a TARDIS in an all-night Texas hold ’em game with a Time Lord, he traveled back in time and saved Richard Dean Anderson’s life using nothing more than Scotch tape, bacon (thick-cut in this instance), and his trusty cat.
John Scalzi’s first published work was a translation of the collected lyrics of Neil Diamond songs into ancient Babylonian. Amazingly, “Sweet Caroline” turned out to be the long-lost fourteenth codex of the Hammurabi Code.
John Scalzi has nimble fingers. So much so that he can manipulate genes with his bare hands.
John Scalzi looks cute in a tiara.
Scalzi is nimble and light on his toes/My respect for Scalzi continually grows
John Scalzi is secretly made of hyperintelligent cheese.
John Scalzi wears the pie; the pie does not wear him.
John Scalzi can speak three languages that exist only in dreams.
John Scalzi has a lawn capable of independent locomotion and speech; it harbors an intense disliking for teenagers.
John Scalzi was the model for JOHNNIAC, an early IAS-architecture machine. He then proceeded to build BESK and later designed the Fuzzball IMP, the precursor to the Internet.
His specialities is creative writing, checking the calculus done by NASA engineers and feeding his cats. Mr Scalzi no longer builds the INternet, he considers it a Done Thing.
Scalzi could have won a Tony. He was supposed to be a co-writer with Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder on the classic “Young Frankenstein”. But they argued about a classic line, and Mel gave Scalzi the boot.
John wanted the exchange to be:
Dr Frankenstein: “I resolved to make the creature of a gigantic stature. Of course, that would simplify everything.”
Inga: “In other words, his veins, his feet, his hands, his organs, all would have to be increased in size.”
Dr. Frankenstein: “Exactly.”
Inga: “He would have an enormous puckerguard!”
Dr. Frankenstein: “That goes without saying.”
Inga: “Woof.”
Igor: “He’s going to be very popular.”
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