Firstly, I'm bad a self-summaries. I consider myself normal, and it's everyone else who's weird and/or interesting.

I enjoy video games, TV drama, sci-fi and comedies, movies, musicals, Shakespeare plays and novels as entertainment.

I like sitting around being with friends, without pressure to be amusing. Those're the times when I can be most amusing, I think.

I'm honest to a fault, and can take a while before I'm willing to open up and relax with new people, but once I do I tend towards the ribald and direct.

I'm risk-adverse and frequently contrary, but once a decision is made, I'll follow it through as best I can.

I'm a video games programmer, and a linguist-in-(perpetual-)training. My career and most of my entertainment revolves around computers, but less so my social life. Or at least, I'd like it to be that way. "Less so my social life" is pretty much a safe way to end any sentence.

I'm fond of the idea of just sitting comfortably on the couch with someone special, but have not tried this in a long time, so cannot be sure it's as fun as it seems.

I am a member of Linux Australia and the Independent Game Developers Association and have been a member of Mensa, the Australian Computer Society, Association for Computing Machinery and the ANU Anime Society.

I haven't dated in nearly a decade, so I'm out of practice, and I wasn't much good at it before either...

I tend to end sentences with ellipses.

I'm overweight, but improving.

I love foods with chilli, also foods without chilli. Particularly dark chocolate. There aren't many foods I don't like, although I am limited by some food allergies.

I think through nearly everything I say right before I say it. Doesn't stop my saying stupid things, but keeps me from saying really really stupid things.

I've wanted to be a video games programmer since I was six, and three years ago, I became one. Happily, it turned out to be everything I hoped it would be, and so I'm set, career-wise.

I've recently realised that I want to be Tim Schafer when I grow up, except that job's already being filled (by Tim Schafer...)

I'm a life-long (so far) Canberran, but I'd like to travel and probably live somewhere else for a time. What little traveling I've done has shown that it's more about who I'm with than where I am.

Spelling, tests (ie educational institution-type things) and pretty much anything to do with computers.

I once was reasonably good at martial arts to which I turned my hand, but I haven't practiced in a long while, and may not still be so.

Probably my gut, although that might be me being self-conscious about it.

I've never asked anyone about it, although I was once told it was inappropriate to ask "How's this friendship going?", so that might be for the best...

Favorite book is The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Oddly enough, I'm mainly reading paranormal (Kelley Armstrong and Kim Harrison) and sci-fi (David Weber) these days, although it's largely dependent on what's shiny at whatever bookstore I'm at.

Favorite movie is The Princess Bride. I like to collect gangster films, both eastern and western, and some musicals. I have a big pile of DVDs I haven't watched yet. And I should mention the Indiana Jones movies.

Favorite TV series would have to be The Games. I've recently enjoyed Doll House, House MD, Dexter, Southland, Defying Gravity, NCIS and probably others that've slipped my mind. I've enjoyed lots of anime in the past, and some J-drama too, though time for all these things has been a little scarce recently. I did manage to make time for the UK version of Life On Mars and that's also my favorite.

Favorite music is... tricky. I love pretty much everything Queen did, and get very eclectic from there. My total play list is only 22 songs at the moment. I recently saw Avenue Q and have gone through the cast recording album twice this week. I actually like to listen to Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar radio recordings on long walks, but only because reading while walking makes you a traffic hazard.

Favorite food is a toss-up between laksa, pizza, gyoza and chinese-style pork buns. The winner of this toss-up turns out to be dark chocolate. (~70%, or less with nuts or flavour)

Favorite video game is probably Grim Fandango, although Monkey Island, Full Throttle and Brutal Legend are all jostling for position. As is Portal, Harvest Moon and Arma 2. And Lego Starwars. Actually, this list could go on.

I suspect I'm missing the point of having _a_ favorite thing, but life's like that for me.

My mind. Although how would I know?

My hands. I'm a fidgeter.

Something to amuse me when waiting. A novel, my Nintendo DS and whatever I'm playing at the time, my mobile phone with a solitaire game.

Other people. I go a bit weird when left alone. Although I do get stuff done when left alone long enough...

My mobile phone. Actually, just the calendar-alarm function. Without that, I never get anywhere on time, and frequently forget to show up at all, if I sleep between agreeing to something and that something happening. (This is normal. Ask a lawyer about it. ^_^)

Somewhere to be. I feel out-of-place a fair bit, but without the safety net of somewhere else to go, that feeling would probably become overwhelming panic.

everything. I overthink things all the time, from conversations I might have, to what I should do with the next ten minutes. That often turns out to be what I did with those ten minutes.

If I have to name a particular topic, it's probably video games, although usually it's whatever I've just been doing. So probably video games.

Recently I've been devoting brain power to the game I'm writing in XNA, although mostly in a focussed, sit-down with notebook and pen fashion.

at home, playing video games or if I'm lucky having friends around talking, watching DVDs and playing video games.

An ideal Friday night is all of the above, plus laksa.

I guess that I'm generally willing to answer any personal question put to me, partly because I'm insecure and like the feeling of someone's interest, and partly because I'm trying to be scrupulously honest, to make up what I can towards mistakes I made in my youth.

you have some level of interest in video games, and/or intellectual pursuits either mentioned above or otherwise interesting and think I might be fun to talk to or spend time with from the above.