"I can't forecast the rain
I can only live the outcome."

I'm an editor, freelance journalist, and former national magazine columnist with the world's worst sense of direction. Seriously, if my phone didn't have GPS, I probably wouldn't be able to find my way out my own front door. I'm also an unabashed tech geek which, considering I work for a technology magazine, works out pretty well.

But enough of the job stuff. If you want to learn about my odd interests in Japanese culture, abrasive electronic music, and British comedy, you can check out my myspace page. Just keep in mind that it's in desperate need of an update.

www.myspace.com/mattsafford

Essentially, I like to live, learn, love, try, toil, and teach what know. Failure isn't an option, it's an inevitability so long as you're taking chances. The trick is to pick yourself up, divine wisdom from the pattern the pavement leaves on your face, and get on the next runaway bullet train headed toward interesting uncertainty. Anything is better than stagnation.

Beauty is nice, but it's also common. I'm much more interested in meeting a woman I could spend more than ten minutes talking to without my intestines spontaneously leaping up, wrapping around my throat, and collapsing my windpipe in a desperate attempt to make the noise stop.

OK, perhaps that's a bit hyperbolic, but please be smart and interesting. At this point in my life, I have a low tolerance for banality.

I also like cartoons, the Muppets and intelligent comics.

Getting in shape, becoming a better journalist, interviewing musicians. Being less of a bum.

Pushing annoying tourists off hurricane deck of the Staten Island Ferry. No one interferes with my reading time...

Finding both beauty and humor in the absurd.

My hair, sadly.

Books: Everything by Kafka, Mieville, and Murakami. Heart of Darkness, Hitchiker's Guide, The Lucifer Principle.

Movies: Brazil, City of Lost Children, Tideland, The Big Sleep, Hitchcock!

Music: The loud, crunchy electronic kind, and all sorts of other stuff; Nick Cave, The Atomica Project, Morphine, Delerium, Tool, In the Nursery. This list could go on forever. Just check my MySpace.

Food: The kind that tastes good, but isn't good for you...Also things that are dry. I hate fresh tomatoes with a passion.

Something to read, an interesting place to go, a friend to travel with, music to listen to along the way, rules to break, and the ability to write about the experience.

How different the red states are from the blue states, and why we're even one single country.

a (mostly) earth-bound, carbon-based life form...

I used to have a mullet. Hey, it was the late 80's in rural upstate NY, and I was trying to fit in. Thankfully, I outgrew that phase.

If you're smart and different, but not different like everyone else.