History / Personal Info q: Who are you? One of: David Jeffrey Ljung David Jeffrey Ljung Madison David Ljung Madison David Jeffrey Madison q: Who are you not? I am not Dave Cain. Who is Dave Cain (previously of DaveCain.com)? He found my site and was surprised because he also: 1) Worked at HP and was fired for deviant web pages 2) Worked at a startup 3) Has written MarginalHacks type code, including an album maker, a web crawler, web server, email forger, search engine submitter (Java, not perl) 4) Rides a motorcycle 5) Is vegetarian 6) Does Burning Man Weird q: Where'd your name come from? My brother was born first, so 'Mike' was already taken. You figure that maybe my parents could have come up with a more original name, like 'SuperFlash' - but I guess they were pretty busy with feeding us and all. My last name - 'Ljung' - is Swedish. Those Swedes don't know how to spell. It's pronounced "young." As in "I'm youthful and I like to put L's next to J's." Evidently it's a fairly common name in Sweden, which concerns me about their literacy problems. Ljung means 'Heather.' I'm sure there's at least one person out there named Heather Ljung, I wonder if they know how silly their name is. q: What does your name mean? From Parent Soup: David, a 2-syllable boy's name of Hebrew origin, means: Beloved one. David's ethnic backgrounds include * Scottish * Swedish * Hebrew * English/Welsh * German . It's religious association is biblical (see * 1Sa 16:13-14). Jeffrey, a 2-syllable boy's name of Anglo-Saxon/Teutonic origin, means: Gift of peace. Madison, a 3-syllable girl's name of Teutonic/Anglo-Saxon origin, means: Gods; mighty. Ljung is Swedish for Heather (common American girls name) I guess I'm only 50% boy. According to the Census: NAME %FREQ CUMM FREQ RANK ---- ----- --------- ---- DAVID 2.363 17.176 6 DAVE 0.053 77.316 271 JEFFREY 0.591 38.588 30 MADISON 0.011 44.471 1094 LJUNG not found! Dear god, I don't exist! Ranking of David over the last few decades: 1930 18th 1940 7th 1950 6th 1960 1st 1970 2nd 1980 4th 1990 5th q: What's with the David Madison thing? I actually changed my name because I couldn't deal with "Ljung" anymore. First of all, a disclaimer. Ljung is an interesting last name. I joke and jest about it quite a bit, but I don't mean to offend people with the name Ljung (such as my family, or 1/4th of the population of Sweden). If you're looking for a last name, I highly recommend it. It's just not for me. You try spelling 'Ljung' every single day to nimwits who can't digest the concept of 'j' after 'l'. To be fair, I can think of two words that have 'lj' in them, though it's not like they're both silent. For some reason, when I spell it, nice and slow, people will write down 'Lgung' half of the time. Like 'lg' is easier to stomach or something. Of all the people in my life who have had to pronounce my name from reading it, I have heard it correct *once* And here's my role call with every new teacher I've ever had: "Johnson" "here" "Jones" "here" "Kaplan" "here" "Lewis" "here" "...umm... Dave?.." "here" So for many years I've wanted to change my last name. I had two requirements: 1) It couldn't be common (such as Smith, Jones) 2) It shouldn't have any spelling ambiguities (such as Meyer/Meier..) After some thought, I realized that the name of the city I was born in, and the city that I went to school in, and a city that I love dearly, perfectly met the two conditions above. Fortunately I realized that "David Madison Wisconsin" was too long to spell, so I just chose "David Madison" The irony, of course, is that I had just purchased the domain DavidLjung.com a few months before, specifically for the permanence of it all. Oops. It takes months to legally change your name unless you are getting married. You have to file a petition, post a public notice in a local newspaper for four weeks, and present yourself before a judge. Yeesh. I should have found someone named Madison to marry, it would've been easier. Also, David Madison gives me an anagram for my name: "Add mad vision" not to mention the anagram "DNS Domain Diva" which perhaps explains my domain proclivities. Now, unfortunately I've learned something else about the difficulties of changing one's name. Just because you legally change your name doesn't mean that you'll actually feel like that's your name. So now I don't feel like David Madison, and I don't feel like David Ljung either. How's that for a loss of identity? I've recently learned, however, that the name 'Ljung' is somewhat made up (at least for my family). It's a Swedish name, but my great great grandfather John decided to choose his last name as Ljung when he immigrated in 1881. His father was Jon Persson, so arguably we should have either been Jonsson/Johnson or even Persson. So 'Ljung' is an arbitrary last name for me as well, it's just older in it's arbitrariness. q: Where'd you come from? Well - apart from the obvious joke about my parents, I lived in the following cities: Madison, WI Good place West Chicago, IL Bad place North Haven, CT Good place Geneva, IL Bad place Madison, WI Good place Fort Collins, CO Bad place San Francisco, CA Good place See a pattern? I've learned this much. I can never move again. Or if I do, I have to first make a "sacrificial move" - like to Iowa or something. q: How old are you? Like numerous famous people, I have a countdown clock till my next birthday at fansites.com. q: Where/when were you born? The fantastic city of Madison, Wisconsin, at about 7pm on December 3rd, 1971. It's interesting to note that the day I was born (12/03) is also the most common code you'll see on those signs they put on the back of tankers to let you know that the contents are flammable (1203 = gasoline) q: So when's your birthday? It may seem clear that my birthday would be December 3rd, but not quite. After I had been dancing for many years, I decided that at 10 years of dancing (on 2006/11/08) I would start celebrating my dance birthday instead of my physical birthday. For those of you used to seeing me get older in December, you'll have to adjust back about a month. :) I mentioned this to my mom in a phone call, and through it learned about my mom's gullibility as well as the little known Legal Birthday Ramifications Institute (or LBRI for short, of course). q: Where are you now? In the amazing city of San Francisco. Send me email for my address/phone. q: Where am I now? Right here. Pay attention. q: Where are your homes? Here is a map of what has been or are currently my homes, in a quasi-chronological order (though my current apartment is the top) q: What are you? I'm a carbon/water based bi-pedal lifeform. So are you, probably. More specifically, I'm mix of things. I'm mostly northern european, meaning I'm a Viking. Here's the breakdown: Dad's dad Swedish (viking) Dad's mom Norwegian (viking) Mom's dad Polish (viking) Mom's mom Polish (viking), Danish (viking) and other less-vikingy things. That's where the hair comes from. And the irrepressible urge to conquer Europe. q: What's this 'dave++' I see you using? It's a net nickname. In many programming languages you can increment a variable with '++.' It can come before or after the variable name, which decides whether the evaluation of the expression is before or after the increment. Hence, 'dave++' means the value of dave, then increment one. q: What's this 'Dave ][+' I see you using? In 1976 Apple computer introduced the Apple I in a wooden case, running the blazing fast 6502 at 1MHz, and with 8k RAM. In 1979 they introduced the Apple II+, now with a plastic case and a whopping 48k RAM. I suppose one way to read that is that I'm six times bigger than a normal Dave, and I come in an attractive beige case, ready for sale! Or just that I'm a Dave upgrade. q: How many broken/fractured bones have you had? At least 10 that I know of: right wrist Fell off slide like big dork, fell 13 feet and whammo right leg Compression fracture, skiing in Colorado with family (pre-1989). I knew this was broken though my family didn't believe me. nose Wrapped a car around a tree, Xmas 1992-3? Didn't know it was even injured until the x-ray tech told me. finger Hit tree skiing at Vail, whammo! Now it's bent funny. Didn't know it was broken till it didn't straighten out, though it sure hurt at the time. jaw/tooth Inline Skating - around 1997? Just a chip (didn't need it wired shut). Didn't know it was broken till the chip from my jaw worked it's way out through my chin. The tooth was broken too, which I also didn't know it was broken until I needed a root canal because my tooth was evidently broken too. left ankle Unknown date - never realized it was broken until I reinjured it at Catalina Island after the dance camp July 1999. When I had it X-Rayed the doctor asked me when it was broken the first time and I was unsure. He wanted a history of all my prior injuries and I couldn't remember them. He asked me if I was a football player or something. That was pretty funny. I think the original break occured skiing, either at Arapahoe Basin (cliff jumping) or 1/29/1995 at Winter Park (impressing a female). left wrist On 7/21/2000 I had a motorcycle accident described at DaveHistory right thumb Same accident, once again I didn't know it was broken - they X-Rayed it a few days later because it was still sore. tooth Same accident - I had a chipped tooth and didn't notice it until a friend pointed it out to me. toe? I think I broke my big toe on 12/1/2002, but I haven't xrayed it and it isn't causing me enough problems to check. ? Might have more. It seems I don't know when I break my bones, and I like to hit trees. Danger is my middle name. q: What is your Monster Manual entry? DAVEOLA (Fuzzlemonkey) FREQUENCY: Rare NO. APPEARING: 1 ARMOR CLASS: -2 MOVE: 10'/rd HIT DICE/POINTS: 50d6+100 % IN LAIR: 60 TREASURE TYPE: Swing shoes, old games NO. OF ATTACKS: 3 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 10d6 SPECIAL ATTACKS: Scathing wit SPECIAL DEFENSES: Flight MAGIC RESISTANCE: 98% INTELLIGENCE: Very ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Neutral SIZE: XL in shirts, 32/32 in pants PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Attack/Defense Modes: Nil LEVEL/X.P. VALUE: X/70,000