Good evening, Internet!

In a nutshell, I am an outgoing, ambitious professional software/game/app developer and music producer with a lifelong love of both the arts and technology.

I'm a collection of contradictory qualities that somehow manage to work together well. I grew up playing the piano and involved in local debate, theatre, and improv, and now produce electronic music as a hobby. I entered and won creative writing competitions, but read very little fiction today. I live in Edmonton, but hate the cold. I'm a 100% extroverted socially-adept flamboyant type, but program computers for a living, with the nerdiest people on the planet.
How I managed to turn all that life experience into a sane, laid-back, well-adjusted individual, I will never know! :P (I credit, in part, my amazing parents!)

Very important to me is that I'm a teacher by nature. I've taught the piano (for many years), coached adult sailing, tutored in French, been a karate instructor, and also tutored in all kinds of computer science. I have an innate, insatiable desire to learn all about something, take it to its highest skill level, and turn around and share that knowledge.

Most of my efforts lately are focused squarely on my career, but I have plenty of free time and energy to spend on the special people in my life. I'm looking for someone who appreciates my talents and hobbies, and complements my dynamic, energetic personality. I want someone who can broaden my horizons even further and challenge me intellectually, but doesn't take themselves too seriously (because neither do I!).

After a digital media production diploma and several years in the Edmonton new media industry, I'm finishing up an additional diploma in enterprise development at NAIT while freelancing as an iOS App developer and IT contractor. I'm very passionate about my work, but I won't bore you with long technical explanations of just what the heck it is that I do!

During the week I can be found in the lab at NAIT until late at night, or at home working or hacking up some code while rocking out with embarrassing enusiasm! I like to unwind by working on my music, some good video games, or enjoying some local theatre, art, music, and even local indie game culture.

I like to spend time outdoors in the summer, mainly running, sailing, biking, and even just reading a good book in the park .

In the near future I plan to hire some other talented developers I know and start a proper 'App Studio' on the side. I also intend to write the musical score for a videogame before I'm thirty.

Learning new skills, fixing things, making new things out of old things, martial arts, developing software, playing the piano, telling stories, conversation, and... wasting time on Reddit. (Aren't we all?)
Either I'm naturally good at everything I try, or I've only tried the things at which I have natural talent, and I've tried quite a lot of things.

My sense of humour and wit, my manners, and likely how passionately I'm involved in my current conversation. The sociologist in me wants to conduct a full, double-blind trial, but I just don't have the time!

Books: I'm a big fan of cyberpunk, and have a sizeable collection of sci-fi, fantasy, and other speculative fiction. When I was in grade school, I used to chew through truckloads of that stuff every week! Nowadays I mainly read the Internet, and very little fiction. I will, however pick up anything by my favourite authors, or that comes highly recommended to me by my literary friends.

Shows: I especially enjoy Buffy, Xena, Firefly, Babylon 5, anything with that Joss Whedon flavour to it, and Star Trek. TNG is my favourite, but I love them all (except 'Enterprise'). I've been known to enjoy a little reality TV now and then (read: cake/cooking shows & What Not To Wear). I just discovered both Archer and Community, which will further delay my watching of Battlestar Galactica, much to the chagrin of my friends.

Movies: My classic picks are 2001: A Space Odyssey, Apocalypse Now, Fight Club, TRON (the original), Twelve Angry Men, The Thin Blue Line, Office Space, and Dr. Strangelove. If it's well-directed and has a good score (a must!) I'll like it. Even a film with mediocre script can score high points with me if the cinematography and/or visual design is stunning. Ultraviolet, Equilibrium, and TRON Legacy are good examples.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a guilty pleasure I'll readily admit to. I do enjoy indie movies when they're not depressing, which isn't often enough. Stanley Kubrick is my favourite filmmaker by far, and Hanz Zimmer writes my favourite scores.

Music: I grew up around classical music and classic rock; I listen to very little of either these days. Massive Attack, Modest Mouse, Silversun Pickups, Sukh Knight, Alert, LCD Soundsystem, Doctor P., Chipzel, PrototypeRaptor, and various game scores are my playlist for the moment. I discover most new music on Bandcamp... I love the raw freshness of what I find there.
When I produce music it's usually some flavour of progressive house or chiptunes, with a little 'filth' sprinkled overtop.

Food: I'm not a very picky eater. I've been known to grab a burger when the carnivore within gets the best of me, but when concocting my own chow I keep it strictly vegetarian. (Plants usually taste better anyways.)
Most of the time I'm either craving some tasty fruits n' veggies , or carbs & dairy! Melted cheese paninis? Check! Mac 'n Cheese? Double-check! Great big salad? Triple-check! If I had to pick only one restaurant to eat at for the rest of my life... Padmanadi's. No contest. Their vegan cuisine is simply peerless!

1) Sleep! My current lifestyle necessitates burning the candle at both ends, so I value every minute I can squeeze in. I usually catch up on the weekend.

2) Intellectual Conversation: I can't survive on small-talk and day-to-day chat alone! There are few things I enjoy more than an engrossing, meaningful discussion or debate on some salient topic. I can scratch this itch with good literature, but it's not as fun.

3) People: The nature of my work and hobbies mandates many, many hours of screen time. That's why I fill the rest of it with outings to the AGA, host dinner parties, and just plain hang out. I'll take any excuse I can find to round up some friends and have a great time!

4) Gaming: I like all kinds of games. I used to play shooters but now play mainly strategy, RPGs, and racing and action titles. Most of the time gaming takes the form of a quick game of Super Hexagon between classes. When I have any time to play games, that is...

5) Internet!: If I couldn't read about world news and international politics online, I would have to re-subscribe to 'The Economist'! And 'Current Affairs', and so on ad nauseam. And then I would be broke.

6) Style: I'm no fashion maven, but I always enjoy shopping for great things to wear with a flavour of my very own. I'm a sucker for cool watches and nifty ties!

Ethics, code, food, the future, my apartment's interior design, and whether light is really a wave or a particle. Make up your damn mind, physics!

Either at home playing videogames with friends both on my couch and far away, or out with the same bunch dancing/playing billiards/playing board games.
On Fridays when the Art Gallery of Alberta is having an exhibit-opening party, I'm there every time!
(There are some very, very cool installations that just opened. Everything is there until January! Seriously, GO!)

I feel far more confident meeting people in person than online. Weird, no?

- You like to / have read a lot of books,
- You appreciate proper usage of the oxford comma,
- You know who Dan Savage is,
- You enjoy terrible portmanteau puns,
- You think you can beat me at Tetris!
- You think you can beat me at Mario Party (Spoiler: you probably can. :P)
- You enjoy surfing Reddit,
- You consider yourself a feminist of any stripe,
- You enjoy some funny, nerdy conversation,
- Bonus marks if consider yourself childfree!
And especially if you spent time reading this small novella disguised as a profile page! I love to write, so why not give me an excuse to compose a nice reply? :)