I’m not generally a man of strong opinions. Which is one of the reasons that maintaining a blog is difficult – it’s hard to summon up the will to write about something when you’re fairly ambivalent about it.

And I am admittedly a bit of a contrarian and will occasionally have “opinions” just to get a reaction out of people (that’s not really the phrase I’m looking for but since I’m trying to write this quickly on my lunch break, I’m just going to go with it for now). There’s a reasonable chance that if X is popular, and I feel like it’s popular only because it’s popular, I’ll find a reason to say that X is stupid. My wife says I’m a bit of a hipster for doing that. At any rate, I don’t even necessarily believe some of those things I might say – I’m just tired of people treating opinion as fact just because they think “everybody” feels the same way.

Another example of my contrarian-ness: my right-leaning friends tend to make me want to be more liberal and my left-leaning friends tend to make me want to be more conservative.

But, regardless, here are a few opinions that I’ve held long enough to be things I’m pretty sure I legitimately believe.*

• Daddy/daughter dances are weird. Maybe even a little creepy.
• No one runs for public office altruistically. They are always looking to benefit in some way, shape or form.
• People that talk during concerts are sociopaths. Seriously, you paid money to hear music. Why would you talk over it?
• Fruit should never be used as the basis for dessert. Desserts should be chocolate, vanilla, mint, sugary, etc… And, no, apple pie (or fruit pie of your choice) is not an exception. The only possible exception is the banana in bananas foster.
• Our general concept of work – 8-5 at a job for a paycheck – is outdated and overrated.
• Referees are ruining college basketball and have been for some time.
• I recognize that this could actually be a bad idea but I think that elected office should be handled like jury duty: you are selected randomly, you go serve for a short period of time and then you go back to your real job.
• AC/DC is the most overrated and overplayed band in history.
• It’s highly improbable that there isn’t life somewhere else in the universe.
• I’m not so much pro choice as much as I’m pro keeping my nose out of other people’s business. Because I am also pro other people keeping their noses out of my business.

I suspect that this list is in no way exhaustive.

* All opinions subject to change.