I am a guy who is fascinated by everything around me. The world is a big, amazing place and I want to collect as many of the experiences that are in it as time permits.

I identify as polyamorous, but that doesn't mean you have to be poly for us to get along. I'm not going to proselytize or try to convert you.

I am competent at cooking, carpentry and conversation.

I like odd music, and I'll listen to just about anything. I like odd bands no-body else has heard of. No one knows the words to the songs I play in my (tiny, Italian, & fuel-efficient) car. The type of music where I least frequently find a song I like is Screamo, and I still find the occasional tune I do dig. I like Finnish folk music, but I don't know any Finnish. Podcasts have completely replaced my radio.

I read voraciously. I'll tear through anything; Fiction and Non-fiction both take up space on my shelves. I think it's perfectly acceptable to go sit in the library and read the day away.

I'm a bit of a hedonist. I like a good meal, a good conversation, a good book or a good drink. Wine should be red, coffee should be espresso, and scotch should be single-malt. I don't like fast-food, except as an occasional guilty pleasure. I have a serious movie habit. I love to take things apart to see how they fit back together. I am a mac guy. I write longhand with a fountain pen. I draw. I can sculpt well enough to appreciate the work of people who can do it better. I love DIY furniture like ikeahacker. If you read Make, you really should message me - we'll get along. I am a scotch snob, a coffee geek, and probably a foodie.

At the same time, I'm a bit of a minimalist. I don't generally buy a whole lot more than I need, and what I buy is intended to work well and last a long time. I try to shop with an awareness of environmental impact, and I am slowly learning to minimise my carbon footprint.

I know far more trivia than can be explained by natural processes.

I'm rapidly becoming hooked on MIDI, and I want to build a piano. (I may have to settle for an organ or a synthesizer, as piano parts are proving hard to stumble across.)

I'm currently pursuing the perfect cup of (homemade) coffee. I've come tantalizingly, jitteringly close, but there are so many variables.

I am usually awake, paying attention, and thinking

I'm working for a direct-mail company as a production coordinator, which is about exciting as it sounds. It's definitely one of those, "It's what I do, no who I am." jobs, and I don't intend to do it forever.

Ideally, I'd like to find work that exploits my complete lack of technophobia and my creative side.

I'm learning SQL, Practicing Calligraphy and teaching myself UNIX. I'm trying to learn how to do stained glass and take better photographs. I'm slowly accumulating enough tools to resume woodworking. I'm getting back to playing the piano. I'm shopping for a second-hand banjo, since that looks like it might be fun to learn.

I recently bought a folding bike and I try to ride as often as I can. I commute to work by bike most of the time (8 months of this year), and eventually hope to reduce my car-use to those times when I need the cargo space or the extra seats.

I also ride a recumbentbicycle for longer trips. Eventually, I hope to try some long-distance cycling: a Century, or a camping trip.

Meticulous, frustrating hobbies. If part of the instructions are "repeat" or "wait 2 hours, sand and apply another coat," I'm all over it. I love to work backwards on a hobby, until I'm making the ingredients to make the finished product. If it requires hours of practice, I'm there. Bonus points if I get to work with sharp, hot or dangerous tools.

Trivial knowledge. I'm pretty good at Jeopardy.

Finding weird little shops that sell just the right thing, often by accident while looking for something else. This is very strange because I don't really care for shopping all that much. (I'm more of a planned-route, 8-minutes-in-the-store kind of guy)

Judging by the amount of candid venting people do in my presence, I am a good listener. I don't gossip, which is probably another reason I hear a lot of monologues.

I'm a bit over 6 feet tall--people usually notice my head sticking up out of the crowd. That's ok, it's a pretty decent-looking head.

Women tend to notice that I have dimples, and that I wear nice shoes.

(OK, so the shoe thing only happened twice.)

(a) The Club Dumas, I Am Legend, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Slaughterhouse Five, Foucault's Pendulum, Choke, American Gods, Mysterious Island,Guns, Germs & Steel,The Demon Haunted World

(b) Fight Club, Brazil, Snatch, The Royal Tanenbaums, Lost in Translation, Raging Bull, Amelie, The Transporter, The Big Lebowski, Bliss (the one about Harry Joy), Solaris (Tarkovsky's version), The Seven Samurai, L�on : The Professional, Full Metal Jacket, Raising Arizona, Grosse Pointe Blank, Heat, Spartan, The Spanish Prisoner, Memento, Following, The Crossing Guard, Bottle Rocket, The Life Aquatic, Seven, The City of Lost Children, The Constant Gardener (wow!),Hold Fast (a documentary about the Anarchist's Yacht Club)

(c) Hedningarna, The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, Tegan & Sara, Rachel Fuller, Heart Full of Dirt, The Trews, The Rifles, The Living End, Kris Delmhorst, Fountains of Wayne, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Green Day, Sara Slean, The Pogues, The Mahones, The Irish Descendents, Apollo13, They Might Be Giants, Limbeck, Wichita Stallions, Wolfmother, Old Man River, Yann Tiersen I can keep going until I keel over and still not finish this list.

People usually put at least one genre they hate on this list (and it's usually Country), so I'll pick one:Broadway Show-tunes.

(d) Italian, Greek, Irish, Cajun, any combination thereof. Also many other things made of food. I've recently discovered that I like a lot of Indian cuisine, so that's a whole new culinary territory for me.

I don't particularly like any list I've come up with for this section.

Nothing beyond the minimum for life is really something I "can't live without," but that's a boring list:
Air, Water, Food, Shelter, Health and Social Contact <-- See?

Any material thing I put down is an exaggeration. "I can't live without coffee or music"? Give me a break.

Maybe something more philosophical:
morality, honesty, introspection, conversation, community, intimacy

Now that makes me sound really pretentious.

I'll have to think about this one.

How to live a satisfying life. Also, the related problem of what constitutes a satisfying life.

Watching a movie (in or out), cooking dinner, trying to catch up on my reading/sleep/mail, visiting friends, roasting up a batch of coffee beans, laundry on a slow week. This month, I'm probably sitting in front of my keyboard, trying to learn to play something modern (pop, rock, blues, jazz, etc).

I'm disgustingly responsible, so I don't do much of the wild-party stuff -- although it's still fun, occasionally.

I own 40 pounds of actual chainmail. I made it myself a few years ago for a halloween costume and it's too cool to throw away.

What's a clever way to say, "If you want to?"

Any reason at all, really. It's messaging on an internet chat site. That's hardly some sort of epic decision.

Heck, if you've viewed my profile more than once, we probably have something to talk about.