I'm a weird fat guy with glasses who draws, makes his own computer games, writes, goes for random walks in the middle of nowhere, goes target shooting and does some ballroom dancing occasionally, sometimes makes his own pizzas, and so on. Yes, that's a weird mix of interests, heh... but like I said, I'm a weird person.

I like talking to people, sometimes even complete strangers, and have gotten a lot better at it over the past couple years (I can't believe I actually considered myself a "quiet" person years ago... turns out I wasn't quiet at all, I just never had anyone to talk to.)

I don't fit into categories very well, so I won't even try to describe myself that way. In terms of politics I generally lean more liberal than conservative, but I don't fit perfectly into the stereotypes of either side. In terms of religion/beliefs, there really isn't a word that describes what I am.

If you want to know more, ask, because I feel weird going on about myself for paragraphs when I'm not even actually talking to someone. Seriously, talking to myself just bugs me (I don't even like to leave voicemails or answering machine messages for that exact reason, though I can push past my uncomfortableness with it if it's an emergency or otherwise really important that my message gets through.)

Back home from school for the summer now. This means that I'm further away from everything (Alleghany County is pretty much the middle of nowhere...) but that I also have access to a car sometimes, so I'm able to get further away if I want/need to.

Currently going to school at Southern Virginia University here in Buena Vista, heading toward an art degree and doing pretty well there so far, despite the fact that SVU is a Mormon school and I am not and will never be a Mormon. I actually have friends there and have even been on a few dates, despite the potential problem of religious differences... a lot better than what I was expecting (have had surprisingly few people that seemed to be out to convert me, aside from the ever-present missionaries of course, and after my first semester they seemed to give up on me so I guess I don't have much to worry about there anymore. XD)

At the moment I'm unemployed, because I'm not so great at doing schoolwork when I'm not in the mood for it and having a job taking up my time would probably cut into my "in the mood for working on this school stuff" time pretty bad and make it even harder to get all my work done on time for school than it already is. It'd be nice to have extra spending money every few weeks, but I've done okay without it so far... think I'll save the workforce for AFTER I'm done with school, unless maybe I can get a part-time job over the summer or an on-campus job next year or something like that.

Once I'm done with school... probably going to try and get a job of course, and then maybe once I have a decent bit of money built up and student loans paid off, I might move away from the middle-of-nowhere part of Virginia where I'm currently living when I'm not away for school. I took criminal justice classes earlier on when I was in community college, so I might be looking into jobs in private investigation or security (I'd need to get recertified, but I've already gone through the VA private security/investigator course once, so I should be able to manage it again!)

Oh, and of course, getting to know people in the area and possibly finding a girlfriend would be nice! I've been on dates with several girls since I've been in Buena Vista, and there've been a few that I've really liked, but since they were girls I've met at SVU they have all been Mormons... and I'm seriously worried that I have absolutely no chance when it comes to a real long-term relationship with a Mormon girl due to some of the more unusual beliefs they have (let's just say that can be VERY nitpicky when it comes to marriage... I'll leave it at that for now, though I suppose you can always ask if you really want to know more about the strange and mysterious mating habits of the wild Mormon. XD)

I tend to underestimate myself a bit, so I'm not sure I'd say I was "really good at" anything... but I do like to draw and do other art-related things, including making all the graphics and such for my own computer games (yes, I make my own computer games!), and a lot of people who've seen my stuff seem to think I'm pretty good at it. I've won or at least placed in a few online game-making competitions (most recently 2nd place in the "Heart of the OHR" contest where we were supposed to make an RPG, and I've also won a "make a movie in this game engine" contest and one of my games earned "Best Graphics" on the yearly rankings that an online magazine for the engine used to put out), so apparently some strangers on the Internet think I'm pretty good at it too!

I also really like talking to people and once I get going I can keep it up for hours on end if neither of us have anything else to do, so I guess you could say I'm good at talking... or at least I'm good at not running out of things to talk about. Unfortunately, this is pretty much just talking in-person; I don't know what it is, but I have a lot more trouble with communication over the Internet than I do face-to-face or even over the phone. I'm trying to get better about that sort of thing, but it's still a lot tougher for me to talk to someone online than it is in person. At least try to use actual words and sentences if you want to talk to me online; I don't like "text-speak"/"chatspeak" type shorthand crap at all, and if someone kept doing that I doubt I'd be able to have much of a conversation with them at all.

I've been repeatedly told that I'm good at talking to people over the last year or so, so I guess I'll go with that. My artwork and the games I make tend to get some attention too.

I have almost never gotten any comments about my appearance from anyone... but on the rare occasion it does happen, it's my eyes that people seem to notice the most.

Books: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, A Walk in the Woods... I could probably list more but unfortunately I haven't done nearly as much reading (other than school textbooks) as I'd like recently. I also read some manga (mainly Bleach), if that counts... it is technically a book, right?

Movies: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Austin Powers, Spaceballs, Shrek, lots of Disney movies... all kinds of stuff really, though I tend to like sci-fi/fantasy/action-adventure type movies and funny ones (like actual funny, not "ha ha, somebody died violently!" crappy attempt at being funny) in general, and I am not a fan of horror movies at all (least of all the excessively gory ones.) I haven't seen that many recent movies (as in 2004-to-present), but there's been very few movies I've really hated, so unless it's a gory horror movie or something incredibly boring (like Titanic... seriously, that movie put me to sleep, even watching it en español with subtitles couldn't keep me awake through the whole thing!) I'd probably have no problems with watching it at least once.

TV shows: Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, Dragonball (including Dragonball Z... but not GT), lots of other random anime (if it's been on Cartoon Network in the past decade I have probably seen at least a little bit of it), Doctor Who, Star Trek (pretty much every series), Ninja Turtles, the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, Adventure Time, lots of other random cartoons (though mostly older ones--a lot of the newer stuff just seems dumb, poorly-drawn, or both, with only a few exceptions), Top Gear, most Law & Order/CSI-type shows, Colbert Report, Daily Show, Conan, and a whole bunch of other random stuff that would take me forever to list.

Music: I grew up listening to my dad's music, stuff like Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, AC/DC, etc... and I still like pretty much all of the bands/singers I grew up listening to, so there's that. Pretty much any kind of rock music is good for me, and I also like some rap/hip-hop... but I like music in general and tend to listen to at least a little bit of everything. I don't like too much country music, though (some is okay, but I can't stand CONSTANT country music, especially if it's like... the newer stuff they play on the radio. Taylor Swift, yuck!) Also: just about anything by Weird Al Yankovic.

Food: Italian food in general is great, though since I don't like beef I have to be careful to avoid some things. Sandwiches (Subway, Quiznos, non-fast-food places... you can get a good sandwich pretty much anywhere), pasta, pizza, etc... I like a little bit of everything from other types of food too, though; I've had some really good Mexican food, fish/shrimp/other seafood (recently I've learned that I like fried calamari!), chicken in some forms (I prefer it without bones still attached, and without an excess of goopy sauce), waffles and pastries and cereal and other stuff like that, salads, and even some Chinese food I liked even though Chinese in general wouldn't be my first choice. Basically, I like food in general but I can be picky sometimes.

Computers, drawing, food, air, water, friends I can talk to.

All kinds of stuff, really. Sometimes it's how to set something up to work a certain way in a game I'm working on, or what I want to do next in a story I'm writing, or something along those lines. Other times it's some obscure religious group, or a historical event, or a species of Brazilian jungle cockroach, or some other random thing (which I will inevitably end up researching on Wikipedia and other random sites if possible.) I tend to think about stuff a lot, sometimes to the point where I have a hard time sleeping at night if I get going on something beforehand.

Probably doing homework or sitting alone in my room working on one of my games or stories, or just drawing something. If there's something going on at school or somewhere else nearby I might stop by and check it out, or I might also randomly go for a walk in the middle of the night (I'm definitely not afraid of the dark... not too paranoid about being mugged or attacked or something either. XD)

On rare occasions, when I actually have someone to go with me, I might end up eating out at one of the local restaurants or going to some other thing nearby with them. Or I might just go eat by myself if the food on campus is crappy that day and I'm feeling too lazy to cook some of my own. XD

I'm still a virgin, have never had a girlfriend, and until 2011 I had never even been on a date before (at least as far as I was aware.)

You're probably asking "as far as you were aware? how can someone not be aware they've been on a date?" Well, I never really had any concept of what a "date" even WAS when I was growing up... I pretty much missed out on all of that stuff in high school. So apparently a few times when I went to restaurants, movies, etc. with this one girl I knew back around 2004-2005 could have probably qualified as dates (some of my friends now say they definitely would)... I just didn't realize it at the time.

Also: I'm pretty weird when it comes to religion/beliefs. I guess that's a pretty private thing for most people. I don't belong to any organized religion. I grew up vaguely Christian-ish, and after drifting away from that with age I looked into MANY religions... I don't believe that any of them gets everything right, though some here and there do have a few ideas I like. I still do believe in certain things... they just happen to not fit perfectly (or even "close enough") into any religion I'm aware of. So basically, I just have my own beliefs but no religious group affiliation... not sure what you'd call that, but that's what I am.

You can use complete sentences (no chatspeak/Internet slang) and think you might like to talk to me, especially if you're near the Lexington/Buena Vista or Covington areas and might be able to talk to me in-person at some point in the future (once I know you're not a creep, anyway... don't want to go meeting complete strangers from the Internet or anything.)

Also, if you saw me visiting your profile and assumed (falsely) that I must not be interested because I didn't send you a message. I'm not good at initiating stuff and am not all that comfortable with online communication (I prefer actually TALKING to people), so I probably won't ever send someone a message first on here unless I find someone who just seems so unbelievably amazing at first glance that I'd be stupid not to say something to her. Or if I just happen to think of some random thing to say. Or if I ever get better at this whole "online communication" thing to the point where I'm comfortable starting a conversation with a stranger on here like I can in person... whichever happens first, I guess.

Also, I'm not going to just ignore your messages if I don't find you to be super amazing, so don't be afraid to send me one because other people on here have just completely ignored you. I will at the very least send SOME kind of response back if you message me first!