Hello there, My name's Arran.

I love motorcycles, they're the best form of transport ever. I also like baking, cooking, building things, and watching how it's made.

After several failed attempts I have realised I am not a linguist, nor am I incredibly talented at converting music into something resembling rhythmic motion. But I do have some redeeming qualities.

I can on occasion be funny:

What do you call a cow with no legs?
> Ground beef.

I'm life competent (read: I get shit done), very affectionate (you will be snuggled and snuggled hard), and give pretty awesome back rubs (no parenthesised expansion needed for this one).

I'm also very loyal, compassionate, good with kids (they like to hit me and draw pictures of me being eaten by crocodiles), and make a mean stir-fry.

I appreciate being out in the nature, with the hiking, the good sunsets, and the camping. Sitting in a tent all warm and dry whilst the rain patters down on the canvas rhythmically, is definitely a happy scenario.

Contracts and clients in different countries means I have to move around a lot. In the past couple of years I visited/lived in/worked in/travelled round Costa Rica, California, Malaysia and Tanzania, France, and now (temporarily at least) Canada.

It's cool, because you get to experience lots of different cultures, but it's also kinda difficult to meet new people (hence being on here). This is also why longterm relationships are kinda ruled out, unless you feel like uprooting and coming with.

Career wise i've gone from a huge multinational to owning my own little consultancy company. It's cute and friendly, and completely non-evil. It even has a crappy logo, and despite lack of website has enough customers to pay the bills.

Education wise i'm doing an Open University degree in CS and Networking.

The Open University degree is so I can move back to America and get my pilots license and/or so I can do VSO (Volunteer Service Organisation, think multinational Peace Corps).

The plan always changes, but the goal is the same. Eventually I want to end up with a log cabin on a large tract of land in some remote mountain/valley area, with two dogs (preferably border collies), a chainsaw, and someone to snuggle when it gets cold.

That's been my dream since forever, and even though the world and people change, the log cabin stays :)

escaping from storage facilities, fixing things, creative solutions, DDR, motorcycling, bicycling, baking, macaroni pictures, drawing up plans, instrumenting change, leading the revolution!.. and making comma delimited lists (which is apparently a big bonus here).

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance - the best introduction ever to metaphysics and motorcycling; for a long time it shaped so many elements of my personality and the way I lived life, I think everyone probably has a one or two formative movies or books and this one is definitely mine.

Classics - 1984 (who doesn't love a bit of distopian sci-fi), The Hobbit, Brave new world. Recently more Mark Twain and other classic American literature.

Artistic value - The God of Small Things and Life of Pi.

Political prose - Animal Farm, One No Many Yesses.

For inspiring wanderlust - Anything by Bill Bryson.

Escapism - His Dark Materials Trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, Harry potter (don't judge).

Sheer awesomeness - American gods

Movies - Amelie, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, A Clockwork Orange, 28 Days Later, Requiem for a dream, Big Fish, The Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless mind, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Dogma, The Shawshank redemption, Lord of the Rings, most Studio Ghibli/Miyazaki movies, Trainspotting, The Worlds Fastest Indian. Absolute favourite movie is Donnie Darko.

TV Shows - Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, Adventure Time, Archer, Scrap Heap Challenge, Anything with Stephen Fry, Game of Thrones, Fraggle rock, The IT crowd.

Webby Goodness - SMBC Theatre, Five second films, Perry Bible Fellowship, Sinfest, SMBC

Music - LastFM cop out - http://www.last.fm/user/arr2036/library. + Tears for Fears - Mad World ++ Laura Marling (Amazing artist)

Renamed to things that encourage sanity. I could do without any of the things below, but would not terribly happy or fulfilled without them.

* Snuggles (strongly emphasised*)
* Some form of rapid transport**.
* Books (preferably in epub format)
* Things to fix
* Real Ale
* Good cheese

It's really variable, usually related to whatever i'm reading or writing.

Enjoying Real Ale + Live music, rebuilding motorcycle engines, contributing to open source projects, and now studying OU course material *sigh*.

I think my favourite Friday night would be one involving indiana jones (crystal skull excluded), some form of chocolatey icecream, a slanket, and a snuggle buddy.

Despite being a computer programmer I do make attempts at being social and acting like a normal person. But I still sometimes fail. I've learned to accept this, and deal with mocking graciously.

* That was an attempt at formatting humour.
** Which is currently a black 2006 PT Cruiser, I got it to match the Fedora.

Honestly, just if you think we'd get on. I'm on here for friends as much as anything else (being all displaced and such).

But if you really need a reason, you can pick from the following:

* You know the secret to making crunchy lemon meringue pie. (That is the top part is crunchy all the way through with no mallowness). Mmm pie. It's not 3.142 egg whites apparently (damn).

* You got that terrible terrible joke.

* You share the log cabin dream.

* You have a really adorable border collie I can pet/adopt/steal.