I was recently tagged by Boris to record and share with the world five of my strangest habits. I've never been tagged before to take part in any meme, so it was nice to be thought enough of to be included. After all, self-depreciation shows character...at least that's what I tell myself...

Mock me if you will, but here are my Top 5 weirdest habits (as best as I can recollect or will admit to):

1. I tend to talk to myself while sitting in front of my computer and trying to figure out a programming problem. It’s not some rambling rain-man dialog that makes me sound crazy, but rather I vocally walk myself through steps that might produce the desired results. If what I think should work doesn’t, I blame the computer and not my kung foo skills.

2. I tend to buy groceries in groups of three. I don’t know how or why this started, but if I have to buy more than one of something, I’ll instead buy three. I won’t buy 4 bottles of water, and if somehow a fourth bottle shows in my cart, I'll take the time to take it out, walk back to the furthest corner of the store and put it back. I won’t buy 2 frozen dinners, but will instead grab another Hungry Man to “round out” the trifecta.

3. I always double-tie my shoelaces. I have this irrational fear that my laces will magically come undone at the most inopportune time and trip me up. If I’m in a hurry, I’ll double-tie my right shoe, but not my left. Why? I don’t know…

4. I hate Cilantro, and will refuse any food offered to me that contains even the faintest traces of that vile weed. To me, Cilantro has a horrible metallic taste.

5. When leaving the house, I repeatedly check to make sure that the front door is locked. I could have just checked it 10 seconds ago, but I have to check one or two more times before leaving. I have the same weird tick when it comes to the garage door. I’ll pull my car out, press the remote and watch the door roll closed before I drive away. Quite often, just as I’m rounding the first corner at the end of the block, I’ll stop and pull the car back around just to make sure that the garage door did indeed close and that I wasn’t seeing things.

So there they are. For better or worse, my secrets are out :)

To carry on this meme, I'd like to tap the following people:

Brico from Rusty Nut Telegraph
That amazing Gemini from girlonaglide
The world traveller at myBlog
Any of the brothers over at Mazurland Blog
Mac-zealot extraordinaire For The H*ll Of It

"Warriors....come out and plaaaayyyy..."