You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/darth_schmoo.
That's where I go to try and be clever.

I'm Mormon by birth, atheist by hardwon experience. Over the years, I've wanted to be an artist, an author, a physicist, a paleontologist, and the guy who discovers the cure for sleep. I snagged a computer science degree a couple of years back, because ones and zeros intrigue and amuse me. Now I work for a local non-profit.

I have this very odd relationship with money. I hate earning it, I hate spending it, I'm annoyed by people who have too much of it. But I have these wistful fantasies about what I'd do if I had boatloads of it. I think I'd start a commune. Not an LSD-laced sex cult (that couldn't possibly stay interesting for more than a decade or two); just a place where people could share meals, work together, and get away from the soul-killing rat race of our overconsuming culture. But stepping back from what could be a 400-page manifesto-length tangent: Money is power. I don't seek power, and fear those who do. But if given power, I'm arrogant enough to think I'd use it for good.

I like people who want to change the world, who want to make it the best place it can be. But the people who are sure they know how to make that happen are the ones who scared the Jesus out of me. Religion and I haven't been on the best of terms this last decade or so, in part because of the wholesale nutjobbery of many of religion's most devoted adherents.

Despite being an atheist--or possibly *because* I'm an atheist--I desire to be a deeply moral person. Or at least one who wishes to bring good to all and harm to none. I'm not sure how to do that, though I'm firmly convinced that no plan involving the death or conversion of those who disagree with me can ever be successful. Every utopia--from the Kingdom of Heaven to the Worker's Paradise--has been a variation on that theme, and down that path lies bloodshed and other miscellaneous rudeness. Plus, it sounds like a lot of work.

I'm quiet. I'm introspective. I whine. I brood. I take myself way too seriously. But there are also these strange, random times when I come face to face with the soul-searing beauty that the world occassionally offers up without warning. Those are times of deep awareness and deep happiness, but also loneliness, because it's something hard to share, even with the people closest to me. Trying to explain it to a textarea box on the Internet is like trying to explain Turing machines to a wet monkey

So I'm looking to meet some people, distract my broodier side, and maybe plot the demise of the corporatocracy and the rise of the proletariat.

I am skeptical, awestruck, and hopeful at times

What am I doing with my life? Good question, with no good answer.

In a way, it's a stupid question. When people ask, "What are you doing with your life," they're really asking, "What are you doing to feed yourself, clothe yourself, and purchase more DVDs?" Whether or not this applies to your actual life depends on whether you're doing what you love, or working as a Wal-Mart greeter.

What am I doing with my life? Looking, I guess. Looking for a place to belong, looking for a cause worth fighting for, looking for a way to make the world better for everyone, looking for people to connect with, looking for those moments of happiness that make it all worthwhile.

Making up easily-misunderstood online handles. "Cheatasaurus" is a riff on Li'l Yellow Dude from Homestarrunner.com. It in no way signifies that I'm a player, or that I'm cheating on someone, or that I cannot be trusted to play an honest game of Monopoly. In fact, I usually play the role of the banker, and have never received any complaints.

I can spell. I can spell lots of different words. At least sixteen of them. I'm trying to master "unicykle," but it's not going well.

I'm an excellent driver. Definitely, definitely an excellent driver.

Beyond that? Nothing. Let's face it: there are six billion people out there, so no matter what I list, there are at an absolute minimum six million people who are better at it than me. It's a rather daunting definition of "really good at," but hell, it's mine.

They often don't. Usually that's how I prefer it.

And yet, neither point is entirely true. Especially the second part: even at my worst, when I can drive down the highway with Simon and Garfunkel's "I am a Rock" blaring, and singing along until my voice gives out, deep down I wish someone was there to appreciate just how little I cared for their opinion, and how little I needed their approval. In short, it's no fun being a jaded loner unless there's someone around to impress with my jaded loneliness.

Which is odd, to say the least.

What else? I'm not much of a talker, but a good listener. I sometimes have what feel like deep and profound ideas, and it sometimes frustrates me when I can't express them to my own satisfaction.

I watch probably three movies a year in theaters. I'm not pretentious enough to watch artsy foreign films, but I am pretentious enough to feel guilty about not being pretentious enough to watch artsy foreign films. Which means I'm both pretentious and hypocritical. Which is worse.

This question has gotten a wee bit embarassing. May we move on?

I haven't been reading a lot of fiction these days. Most of my reading is done on the Internet. You know, news, humor, opinionated screeds. The Internet Age has given me the attention span of a hyperactive ocelot, so I prefer my entertainment in quick, easily-digested chunks. Most of what I do read is non-fiction of the "O'Reilly's Enterprise NetJava Patterns Refactored" variety. Techy geek fare.

I do have occassional bouts of fictional enjoyment. Terry Pratchett is always good, alternating between bizarre humor and wry, contrarian ideas that make you put the book down for five minutes, sit there, and think about them. I also like Douglas Adams (though his most recent work has fallen off a bit due to health problems). The Kushiel's Dart trilogy was fun, and I've mostly liked Scott Westerfield's young adult novels.

I tend to prefer science fiction and fantasy, and hope someday to join the ranks of not-exactly-famous science fiction authors.

0) (we programmers always number from zero) The Big Bang. Couldn't have done any of this without you.

1) Bun Bun, my bunny. How I love his twitchy little nose, his vacant stare, his ability to annoy my brother like nothing else in the world.

2) I'll cheat and use this slot for anything which, if I was deprived of for a month, would literally kill me. Air, water, food, broadband. That stuff.

3) Family. Family is important, and I certainly got better than I deserved. We like and respect each other, we hang out, we get on each others nerves, and we don't know what we'd do without each other.

4) Ruby. It could be the name of a beautiful woman, or a gem with a deep red, bloody hue. But I'm actually referring to the formerly-obscure programming language. I'm slowly becoming convinced that Ruby is the only programming language with a soul. It loves me, and it wants me to be happy.

5) My personal relationship with my Lord and Savior, Wilford Brimley.

[Note: I've gotten criticism for not using binary numbers to represent the numbers. Sorry, but hexidecimal is just way handier.]

Where my next meal will come from, and how likely it is that I'll be eaten by a coyote today.

No, wait. That's not me. That was one of my primordal ancestors. Honestly, I feel lucky that I'm sitting comfortably atop the heirarchy of needs, where I can worry about dreck like "the betterment of mankind" or at least "what to write in my profile so that I come across as deep, interesting, and (above all) highly arousing."

Whoops. Didn't mean to say that out loud.

Let's see. Tonight is Friday. I'm spending it updating my OKCupid profile in the hopes of attracting relationship spam. I hope your mother taught you better than to extrapolate a trend from a single data point, but it's still not a good sign.

All right. I guess it's time to fess up.

When I say I'm 5'10", I really mean 5'9-and-a-half".

I pirate MP3's. Lots of them. You'll never take me alive, coppers!

When I was eight, I set my own hair on fire.

I have watched every episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" at least twice.

I consider this an ill-formed question. Just about everybody has pointed out the contradiction embodied in it, and nobody writes anything really shocking. Just once, I'd like to see something terrifyingly personal in this space, like, "That string of unsolved murders between 1983 and 2001 down in Vegas? That was me." Or, "I can only get aroused if you dress up as a nun and swat me with a ruler."

It would make me happy if they changed the question to, "the most personal thing..."

All the following must apply:

* You have nothing better to do.
* You aren't involved in any multilevel marketing "opportunities".
* You've read my profile, and yet are convinced that you could put up with me.

If you're looking for more than a few days of wild penpal action, read on:

There are two metrics that I use to prioritize my exploration of the relationship space (a.k.a. "decide who to go after"). The first is physical proximity. For both time and environmental reasons, I'm not interested in dating outside the Salt Lake Valley.

The second is, as a computer science geek, I tend to believe in algorithms. OKCupid's match algorithm seems to work pretty well. So a high match percentage (with hundreds of answered questions to back it up) is a real turn-on. 70%: okay. 80%: awesome. 90%: Teacher! She's copying my answers!