It’s TSF’s annual Get To Know You thread!

Hi there! The new season is almost upon us; the Community Shield was (awesome/terrible)* and now it’s four days until the season actually counts.

What we have always done ‘round these parts this particular week, apart from the usual reportage and random whateverness, is had ourselves a Community Building Open Thread, in which we invite you to introduce yourself in the comments if you mostly lurk, or reintroduce yourself if you are a regular commenter. It’s like an Amish barn raising, except without the Amish, a barn, or pie.

If you’re not a regular commenter, why not? Time constraints? Disinterest in engagement? Feel like you have nothing to add? You’re wrong - you do! And we want to hear from you.

So, let’s start with this! Here’s a few questions to get us all started. We know you’re Arsenal fans, or you probably wouldn’t be here (except you, e_e_l!), so let’s talk about the non-Arsenal you for a bit, shall we?

- Where do you live? Does that differ from where you’re from?
- How long have you been a TSF reader?
- How did you arrive at your SBN user name?
- Money is no object, and you can live anywhere you want for a week, a month, a year, and forever. Where are those places?
- What’s the last book you read?

I’ll start!

I live in Portland, which is not Seattle, where I’m from. I’ve also lived in Connecticut, but I’m a NW guy at heart and love it here.

I’ve been a TSF reader more or less since Ted started the blog back in...1978? I think it was around then, my memory for dates is a bit fuzzy.

My name is Paul DeBruler, and a boss of mine about 20 years ago couldn’t pronouce DeBruler, so he started calling me by the capitalized letters in my name, and as much as I don’t love nicknames, I kinda like that one.

A week: Tokyo. I’ve never been, it seems really intense, but I’d like to experience it.
A month: Rio. Seems like an amazing place, but not for long.
A year: New York. I think it’d make me crazy after a year, but it’s a great city.
Forever: The Big Island. I’d tell you specifically where, but then you’d all go there and discover how amazing it is, and it wouldn’t be isolated and amazing any more.

I rarely read fiction - not out of snobbery, I just don’t have a ton of time to read, so I tend to stick to nonfiction because I have a lot of things I want to read about. But I dove back into fiction recently and just finished reading this book, which was pretty great.

Your turn!

*I wrote this last Thursday