I love to cook. Italian, Japanese, French, good ole' American food...toasted, fried, baked, boiled, souffled, doesn't matter, if it involves heat and food-things, I'm interested. Mainly because after I cook, I then get to eat, and if there's one thing I love more than cooking, it's eating.

Speaking of eating, I love to eat. I tend to live mostly off Japanese food, because it's really healthy, and because it tastes really good. I do, however, usually make it a point to cook something disgustingly unhealthy on either Friday or Saturday night, because I loves me some steak and potatoes. Mmmm...

The nice thing is that, because I'm something of a fitness nut, I then go out the next day and bike around all day, or go hiking, or lift weights, or go climbing, or so something that results in the aforementioned steak/potato mixture being turned into sweat and muscles. I'm not a gym rat, but I do a pretty good job of keeping myself in shape. However, I honestly don't care about looking like a fitness model. Because they have to live off of rabbit food, and booze is totally out of the picture.

Beer is one of the greatest inventions known to man. Wine is up there, too, and I've probably got about thirty bottles of the latter that need drinking over the next year or so. Few things are better than relaxing on the weekend with friends and drinking copious quantities of Pedigree, Boddingtons, or Murphy's Irish Stout. I'd add Arrogant Bastard Ale into that list, but the stuff has the rough flavor and viscosity of used motor oil, and so I can nominally only stomach one glass before my body realizes what I'm pouring down my gullet.

Wow, I probably sound like a lush at this point... I really only drink about once a week; I'm just passionate about what I end up consuming. *grin*

Let's see, anything else...

Despite my clean-cut and respectable exterior, I'm an incredible pervert. I'm amazed that women talk to me at all. I'm even more amazed that some of my closest friends are women, and that they put up with me. We live in a mysterious world.

I'm banned in Tennessee, Florida, and Arkansas, and you would require a license to operate me in Texas.

I love trying new things.

I read far too much for my own good.

I generally try to stay upbeat, not because I think the world is a happy place, but because I haven't found any benefits in moping around and sulking.

I believe that it's important to stand up for your friends and loved ones, even if doing so earns you the occasional beating.

I really don't like people whose sole goal in life is to obtain money. Yes, money is important, and you certainly need it in order to keep doing...er, what's it called, oh yes, living. I think it's a great thing to save and invest, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to buy stuff. There's definitely nothing wrong with having a big salary. But to center your entire life around small green pieces of paper, and to base your self-worth on what you're able to buy...that's disgusting.

Left the corporate world a few years ago to come back and finish up a degree in *something*. I've got a couple of degrees in Mathematics and in Japanese, and in more than a few years will hopefully have a PhD in Computer Science, because... well, I'm a geek. Perhaps because of that, I seem to write an awful lot of computer software, for which people sometimes pay me. I also seem to spend a lot of time in southeast Asia, and courtesy of that now have quasi-extended family in Daejeon, South Korea... and I really, really miss my Korean mom's kimchi. :)

Making hash browns.

The toilet paper that has invariably affixed itself to my shoe as I exited the bathroom.

Far, far too many things fit into my 'favorites' category to list them here.

Monkeys! What else?

Same thing I do every night...try to take over the world!

You like monkeys.