I really like people - they fascinate me, and I genuinely find something to enjoy about almost everybody.

My favorites are the unusual ones, who surprise me and hold new experiences, and the smart ones, who interest me and challenge me, and the funny ones, who crack me up.

My closest friends are those who can both rock out and dork out, because I am just as comfortable on the dance floor at a packed club as I am at the dining room table discussing whether this game is unbalanced because the Guild Hall is overpowered, or whether we should burn the kneepads of allure and flush the ashes down the toilet. In fact, it's more than "comfortable" -- I need to feed both of those facets of my life or I get cranky.

Available modes of operation:

Responsible, successful professional / software developer / manager / homeowner / all-around adult.

Nightlife-seeking drunk-dancing weird-wearing gadabout.

Lazy couch potato.

Zero-audience rock star. (I don't count the upstairs neighbors, those poor girls.)

Ultrageek.

(Flavor of the month: Fancy Footwork by Chromeo, Fantasies by Metric, and Music for Men by Gossip.)

Wow I love almost nothing better than discovering some music I really enjoy.

I jump in and play that album into the ground, look up how to play the songs on guitar, and if I'm really lucky then the band will come to town right at the peak of my excitement and play at a small club like the Paradise.

So I'm kind of picky, because I know how much I CAN like music, and most doesn't do it for me. But there's a lot of variety to what I do like.

Since around the turn of the century, I seem to have developed a real taste for music about doomed love. I fell hard for these albums here:

[1999] Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs
[2003] Electric Six - Fire
[2005] Decemberists - Picaresque
[2005] Death Cab For Cutie - Plans
[2005] Eels - Blinking Lights and Other Revelations

But you can't be morose all the time. So I also enjoy music about/for partying and dancing and drinking and lust:

[1999] Faint - Blank Wave Arcade
[2001] Daft Punk - Discovery
[2003] Junior Senior - D-D-Don't Stop the Beat
[2003] Electric Six - Fire
[2004] Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters
[2004] Kasabian - Kasabian
[2005] CSS - Cansei de Ser Sexy
[2005] Bravery - The Bravery
[2005] Louis XIV - The Best Little Secrets Are Kept

Always good for an album to be a little freaky/weird/unique:

[1982] Psychedelic Furs - Forever Now
[1983] Talking Heads - Speaking in Tongues
[1989] Pixies - Doolittle
[1993] Primus - Pork Soda
[1996] Cake - Fashion Nugget
[2001] Gorillaz - Gorillaz
[2003] Network - Money Money 2020
[2003] Electric Six - Fire
[2004] Iron and Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days
[2005] Danger Doom - The Mouse and the Mask

And there's enough really good punk, post-punk and metal that I get drawn into some albums there, too:

[1979] The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette
[1983] Metallica - Kill Em All
[1987] Guns n Roses - Appetite for Destruction
[1990] Alice in Chains - Facelift
[1992] NIN - Broken
[2002] 3 Inches of Blood - Battlecry Under a Wintersun
[2003] Electric Six - Fire
[2007] Kills - Midnight Boom
[2008] Black Keys - Attack & Release

Concert, dance party, bar with friends, date. Or maybe some weird one-off event that catches my eye... Like a few weeks ago I tried seeing if "Fashion Show" was worth adding to the list. It was a little too normal to be worth it.

One thing I'm not is at home watching a DVD. That's what Tuesday nights are for.

In my mid-20s I got this notion that it was silly to be uncomfortable in any social situation.

So I set out on a mission to figure out what gave me butterflies in my stomach, and then go do it.

I had always been kind of scared of the dark bar with the highly costumed people down the street from the Middle East.... So I went to Manray. I don't know what I was expecting, but actually it was a ton of fun and became a regular thing.

That place did put me to the test a few times, though! RIP.

Next up was a phase of sort of outrageous dressing in normal bars, that started small with hats and ties and expanded from there. Had to sort of cut it out after I started being mistaken for gay, though... the fake mustache was all right, but that ragged sleeveless vest crossed some sort of line.

The other difficult thing was going out alone. First it was concerts I couldn't drag my friends to, but eventually it turned into bars. There's a certain challenge to it -- you're going to have to talk to strangers and take some risks, or else you end up standing there like a lonely loser the whole night.

And blind dates from the internet was the other frontier. A lot of them were just duds, but overall the experiences were a fun adventure.

I like intelligent and unusual conversation of any sort, so you can really message me for any reason at all, provided you're not dull. If you wink or favorite, it's unlikely I'll reply unless your profile really blows me away.

If you're looking for a date, I like sexy funny independent adventurous oddballs.

Also I should warn that a I have code complete deadline coming up at work and I am working crazy hours probably for the rest of 09. So my energy for keeping up with my inbox is somewhat limited, as is my time for dates. A pedestrian concern in the grand scheme, but there you have it.