I’m enough of a skeptic that I was included in an ABC News piece on skepticism and atheism with Michael Shermer, along with some other folks who make their way around Shermer’s site, as well as James Randi’s.
Famous? Hah! No. Bad Astronomer is definitely a candidate for famous though.
I was an extra in some Rocky movies.
It’s possible that you can perhaps read my real name on your computer right now.
[sub]I’m in the credits of every version of PowerPoint. :p[/sub]
Jeopardy, 1975 (back when Art James was host, not that Trebek guy). 2nd place.
BadAstronomer, when and where were you on It’s Academic?
I was on the Washington, DC one in '81-'82 and '82-'83.
I was in two feature films. I am probably an unrecognizible speck in The Replacements (though I wouldn’t know, never bothered to see it, it looked pretty dismal). I will probably be at least visible in The Company club scenes, but they were extremely heavy-handed with the smoke machine (was still sneezing up black gook a day later, yech!) so I may or may not be more recognizible than a silhouette. This one is just recently in the can so it’ll be a few months before I can find out. 
Other than that, I’m the semi-official photographer for a Chicago sketch comedy trouple called the Suspicious Clowns who will supposedly be taking part in an HBO special in Aspen later this year. Or so they tell me. 
Celebrity brushes: other than being within 3 feet of Neve Campbell last month, my uni had a habit of getting prominent people to speak at graduation. While I was there, we had James Earl Jones, Hillary Clinton, Christopher Reeve, and some actor who was in some way indirectly connected to Beverly Hills, 90210 (I guess the events coordinator was having an off year).
/hijack
I too had a dog I got when living in Pocatello that was previously owned by a convicted murderer (but he only killed once, thank God). Ursula is the sweet perk-eared dog toward the bottom of my webpage.
Weird.
I’m not famous, but a Rutgers University publicist called me the “most infamous unknown at Rutgers” once. :rolleyes:
Ugh, that sounds bad. I should have said that the killer was not a serial killer.
Actual fame? me? no.
But…
~My HS biology teacher graduated with Bob Dylan
~I have met Jesse Ventura numerous times–I used to skip classes and hang out at his gym in N Minneapolis. He also came to our church when Tyrel was maybe 4-5. Child had a black eye courtesy of rasslin’ with his dad. We spoke a few times when he was mayor of Brooklyn Park-he jogged on the same path I did. I have spoken to him once since he became guv-I called him an idiot.
~I played a duet with James Galway for about…5 minutes…off stage.
~My ex’s roommate opened for Queensryche.
~I dated a quasi-famous Mn Gopher basketball player for a few months
[joke]Hey, were you in The Blair Witch Project?[/joke]
Sorry Muldoon III, I forgot to attribute the above quote to you.
Not famous myself, but, I have, now that I think about it, a lot of friends, acquaintances, or relatives who are borderline famous, or have met the truly famous.
-My uncle (dad’s sister’s husband) is about as famous as a political scientist can be, which is not very. He was dean of the Kennedy School at Harvard for a while, and met Clinton on multiple occasions, including helping him out with one of his state of the union addresses (resulting in my parents having one of the ultimate neat knickknacks, a Camp David frisbee)
-My maternal grandfather was an eminent logician, rocket scientist, and computer scientist. There’s a vaguely well-known CS theorem named after him (The Church-Rosser Theorem… he’s Rosser). My mom used to spend time as a kid hanging around with the children of people like Edward Teller. The grim side to that story is that he was the head of the Army Math Research Center at the University of Wisconsin that was infamously bombed during the '60s. The best side of that story is that there’s a photo of his wife, my grandmother, playing in a string quartet with Einstein.
-My father is the chief scientist working on The Space Infrared Telescope Facility, which means that he’s showed up on science-related shows from time to time, and will presumably have a burst of exposure around April, when SIRTF is launched. (Perhaps he and the Bad Astronomer could team up to fight crime.)
-My sister is an AP reporter in Los Angeles, and has certainly met the governor and many other such people, at least in the context of a press conference
-My CEO was once named one of People Magazine’s 50 most beautiful people
-My paternal grandmother was a moderately succesful artist. Her most prominent work, I believe, was the lighted sculptures outside the Indianapolis convention center. A sample of her work (named for me!) can be found here
-One of my longtime coworkers wrote the original Pac-Man for the Atari 2600, and was the first video game programmer to become a millionaire. Another of my coworkers wrote ET for the 2600, which was the Edsel/Ishtar/New Coke of the video game world. And my former boss was the producer/director for the original arcade versions of Battlezone and Star Wars
As for myself, well, I was briefly the second highest ranked Hearts player on the internet gaming zone.
I once talked to the guy who lost making tha band at planet hollywood. He was really nice.
Posted by XCchick22:
Really? do you remember the character name ? I know every episode of that show.
I was a model, and appeared on the cover of a national catalog.
No, really.
I was a kid, and appeared in a Boy Scouts of America equipment catalog, not only inside, but on the cover as well (I wasn’t alone, though – there were a lot of us). I was a Cub Scout at the time, and this was back in the 1960s.
And I wrote a book.
These are my claims to fame, but I ain’t famous.
I will be a writer if I can get published next year
I did write and direct a community theatre play…
And my Dad’s Cousin is Gary Roberts of the Maple Leafs.
So that makes me no one right now… but I’ll be a somebody one day… or not
Let’s see… the Nazi Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was something like my third cousin twice removed. Not long ago, I got in contact with one of our Neree cousins in Spain – very exciting.
I know Faith Hill’s cousin. Well, he’s actually her adopted cousin (the nephew of her adoptive parents) and no biological relation, but close enough.
My mother once dated an honest-to-goodness mafioso, a fact I did not find out until just a couple of years ago. This was when I was six or seven. I don’t remember him too clearly, but his name was Gianni and he eventually moved to Italy to avoid the feds.
I’m a great-great-great-great-niece of Sam Houston of Texas fame. Geoffrey Chaucer is another ancestral uncle, though not a blood relation.
.:Nichol:.
How about this: I did vodka shots with someone who did vodka shots with Stalin!
I never actually watched the show, but the actress’ name was Shannon Woodward. She has an imdb page. It says that she played “Missy” in episode “Alter Ego.” Apparently she’s also been in Crossing Jordan, Gounded for Life, and Malcolm in the Middle.
Believe it or not, but I actaually remember that episode and that person… I need to get myself a life.
I thought that this was hilarious at the time - Mark McGwire tried to steal my brother’s girlfriend (now wife) last year.
Needless to say he wasn’t successful.
Somehow this never impresses my friends (all non-American. like myself)…