Schwarzenegger (Creative Commons)

In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recounts his impulse decision to run for governor, one he made on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

“I just thought, this will freak everyone out,” he told Vanity Fair’s Michael Lewis. “I’ll announce that I am running. I told Leno I was running. And two months later I was governor.”

According to ABC News, Schwarzenegger:

"...said he had not decided to run until the car ride over to the Leno studio, where he was slated to promote his new movie 'Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.' His announcement that night in August 2003 was news to everyone, including his wife, Maria Shriver."

Despite a scandal-ridden year for the former governor, he has commissioned as many as seven 8-foot, 580-pound bronze statues of himself through a Oregon-based company, according to the New York Daily News.

According to the New York Daily News, Schwarzenegger:

"...gave the mega-sculptures his stamp of approval earlier this month when he visited Enterprise.  

'This is fantastic. This is fantastic,' Parks says Schwarzenegger told him after gazing upon his pumped-up metallic likeness."

Also announced on Thursday, Schwarzenegger is writing a book, tentatively titled "Total Recall." 

According to the New York Times:

"Arnold Schwarzenegger has led a life that is made for storytelling: Austrian immigrant comes to the United States as an elite bodybuilder, gains fame and wealth as an international movie star, marries a Kennedy and, even more improbably, is elected governor of California.

Now Mr. Schwarzenegger, 64, is promising to write about his experiences in a memoir, expected to land in bookstores in October 2012.

Simon & Schuster announced on Thursday that it had acquired world rights to Mr. Schwarzenegger’s book."