11 Things I Learned About in 2011

1. If you write a book about yourself, just remember: A LOT of people will now know those things about you that you have shared.

JEM

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2. The Seattle band the Chasers are KILLER! How can you lose when you have a bare-chested, white-leather-coat-wearing guitar player nicknamed the Ice Wizard! (Assuming you'd like Muse, Queen, Maiden, Death Cab, and Zeke all mixed into one.)

3. If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. No explanation needed.

4. When your kids are ages 11 and 14, they no longer believe in Santa Claus—even after I queried, "Well then, WHO ate those cookies and drank the milk?" C'mon, Dad. This is getting embarrassing . . .

5. Seattle is the best place on this earth. I didn't just learn this in 2011, but it still stands.

6. Seattle needs the NBA back. Again, I didn't learn this in 2011, but it still stands.

7. Cormac McCarthy first-edition hardbacks are expensive and hard to find. I toured many bookstores this fall, and could only find a first-edition Blood Meridian. It was $2,000. Uh, never mind.

8. I look terrible in cartoon form. Whoever the illustrator at Seattle Weekly is probably needs some glasses. I'm not THAT old-looking. Geez, I am only 47, er . . . just about 48. Uh, never mind. Carry on.

9. Riding Harleys in Chile with my friends is pretty damn kick-ass. Enough said.

10. This is a question, actually: Didn't we already pay a toll on the 520 bridge? Seems like back in the day, until I was a late-teenager (see #8), we paid a toll at a toll booth on that bridge. What are we paying for now?

11. If you are on the Twitter, beware of this thing I now call the "tweet-to-follower ratio." If you have, say, a 1,000/1 tweet ratio (for example, if you've tweeted 10,000 times and you have 10 followers), you should consider backing off on the Twitter time. Conversely, if someone with a 1,000/1 tweet ratio actually tweets you, you should think twice about replying. You are probably dealing with someone who might Twitter until the wheels come off. Just an observation.

askduff@seattleweekly.com

Duff McKagan is the founding bassist in Guns N' Roses and the leader of Seattle's Loaded.