Hi, my name is James, but most of my friends call me Swamper (I guess you can hear that story if you really want). I'm 22, currently not in school, looking for a job, and I like to think I'm pretty easy to get along with.

I'm pretty shy until you get to know me, and even then I usually don't talk a whole lot.

I currently live at my mom's house, but hopefully that will change whenever I get a decent job.

Speaking of jobs, I'm in the process of applying to be a substitute teacher for Knox County Schools. Guess we'll see how that goes.

I have two cats, Hobbes and Alia. I used to be allergic to cats, but I think I've gotten over it now.

I've been to France and Poland. I'd almost consider moving to Poland, except that I like the US too much.

I generally don't care if I offend people. I'm very opinionated on certain subjects and when I actually get to talking, it will probably show.

I'm having a hard time thinking of more stuff to put here. More later, or you could just message me and ask.

Looking for a job right now...basically anything that'll hire me. I was going to school for a degree in music, but I ran out of money. Hopefully I can go back in the future. Other than that, most of my free time is spent at home or with my friends...music, movies, video games, random trips to the mountains sometimes (Clingman's Dome at night is awesome), that kind of thing.

Singing mostly. I sang bass in my high school and college choirs. Like, low bass. Like, take however low you're thinking right now and go lower, and that's closer to me. No, not George Zimmer low.

I'm also pretty good at video games. Mostly computer games in my early years, then moved to consoles in late middle school...I currently own a PC, PS2, Wii, DS, and PSP, and play games on all of them fairly often. As for what games I like, I'm a fan of RPGs, first-person shooters, platformers (especially old-school side-scrollers), '90s PC games, survival horror (mainly Silent Hill, though I've recently been getting more interested in Resident Evil and Fatal Frame), Guitar Hero, Metal Gear, occasionally snowboarding games (if you're going to play a sports game, why not make it a sport that you probably will never play in real life?), and sometimes racing games like Burnout that focus more on blowing stuff up than getting to the finish line. Basically, just about anything with gore, violence, or explosions.

I do some writing occasionally. I've been working on and off on a short horror story called "The Two Tablets", inspired by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. It's been months since I've touched it, though. I've been busy wasting time in other ways. I need to sit down and finish it this year. Hey, I just figured out my New Year's resolution! Thanks, OkCupid! (Update as of October 2: Still nowhere near finishing said story. This, children, is why you don't make resolutions.)

Oh, and I'm not bad with languages either. I took Latin in high school and am pretty good at learning to pronounce other languages, even if I can't speak them. Except for Gaelic. I can't make heads or tails of that one.

I would say my long hair, except that as of September 8 I have short hair again. It feels really weird. Incidentally, none of my pictures on here is a reflection of how I look now and I don't have any more recent ones at the moment. So you'll just have to imagine how I look now: try looking at one of my pictures, then imagine it with the hair at "normal guy" length.

So in the absence of long hair, what do people notice about me? Probably that there's a 75% chance that I'm wearing a band shirt advertising a band most people have never heard of.

Editors

• shadeofmidnight

Let's see...this is the part that will probably be the longest, so here goes.

Books:
Anything by Stephen King, especially Desperation, The Regulators, Misery, and the Dark Tower series.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.
Dune by Frank Herbert.
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke. The three sequel books are good as well, but I thought they were too different from the original.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and its sequels by Douglas Adams.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.
The Art of War by Sun Tzu. (seriously, it's a great book even if you're not into military or warfare at all)

Movies:
Fight Club, Sweeney Todd, A Clockwork Orange, Dune (I swear not all of the movies I like are adaptations of literary works!), Men in Black, The Great Escape, Gran Torino, Iron Man, The Mist, 1408, Silent Hill, lots of horror movies (I like psychological horror movies best, but zombie/gore stuff is great fun too), most Disney animated movies that came out in the 90s (except for the crappy knock-off sequels...the only Disney sequels I like are the Aladdin sequels and The Rescuers Down Under), most action movies, and a ton of others.

Music:
Music is one of my greatest loves. I mainly like heavy metal (including extreme stuff like death, black, and doom metal), rock, post-rock, classical, jazz, ambient, noise, neofolk, video game music, and some experimental music. You know, the stuff that scares most "normal" people. Here are some of the artists I like:

Aarni
Agalloch
Akira Yamaoka
Alcest
Alice in Chains
Amon Amarth
Apotheosis
Ásmegin
Atheist
Black Sabbath
Blind Guardian
Bloodbath
Boris
Burning Witch
Cake
Candlemass
Cold
Cream
Cynic
Dark Sanctuary
Deicide
Demons & Wizards
Devil Doll
Draconian
Dream Theater
Earth
Eluveitie
Esoteric
Fantômas
Finntroll
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Iron Maiden
Isis
Jesu
John Zorn
Katatonia
Kayo Dot
King Crimson
maudlin of the Well
Merzbow
Meshuggah
Metallica
Moonsorrow
Muse
Nightwish
Nile
Nine Inch Nails
October Tide
Opeth
Origin
Orplid
Otyg
Philip Glass
Pink Floyd
Rammstein
Reverend Bizarre
Sigh
Sigur Rós
Slayer
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
Sopor Aeternus & the Ensemble of Shadows
Sunn O)))
Swallow the Sun
Tantric
Tartar Lamb
The Black Mages
Therion
Toby Driver
Tomaso Albinoni
To-Mera
Tool
Ulver
Unexpect
Univers Zero
Vital Remains
Within Temptation
Wolves in the Throne Room
Woods of Ypres

TV shows:
My absolute favorite shows are NCIS, Doctor Who, Stargate SG-1, and Stargate Atlantis. I also like The Mentalist, Jeopardy, Saturday Night Live, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Dexter, and 24. I occasionally watch other shows as well, but on the whole I'm not much of a TV person.

Food:
Pizza (preferred toppings are cheese, pepperoni, olives, and mushrooms), cheese ravioli, Long John Silver's, chicken, steak, fries, just about anything with lots of salt on it, ice cream, and other healthy stuff. Oh, and some alcohol every now and again. As far as dessert goes, my favorites are pumpkin pie (!!!) and ice cream.

I've noticed that most of the good food comes from animals. I could never be a vegetarian or vegan. If I die of a heart attack by age 30, at least I will have lived the way I wanted to.

Not that I have a problem with veggies/vegans as long as they don't try to dissuade me from eating tasty animals. :)

Editors

• shadeofmidnight

In no particular order:

1. Friends
2. Music
3. Music
4. Music
5. Music
6. Friends

And, just to make sure you know, I can't live without music. I don't know if I made my point clear or not!

Editors

• shadeofmidnight

Fire. Lots and lots of fire. And explosions. And why people don't listen to better music.

Probably at home playing a video game or at a friend's place doing who knows what. If I'm somewhere else, I've probably been kidnapped.

I've only had one girlfriend. I think that's better than having a ton of bad relationships, though. Also I'm still a virgin. I don't necessarily think that sex before marriage is bad, but I'm just not interested in it right now. The way I see it, when it happens, it happens, and that's that.

Message me if you are musically inclined in some way (singing/instrument/composing), are open-minded about music, want to talk about music (are you seeing a pattern here?), are less than sane, are not a morning person, have nothing better to do, etc. Or if you want a new friend. Or if you just want to.

Or if you just lost the game.