Advance Warning: I seem to be a bit long-winded. Make sure you've got a tasty beverage in hand before proceeding.

I am many things, most of which fall under the major category of generic geekery. I code, I read, I write, I learn (far too many) languages. I love music, and have a considerable collection of what some might view as mutually exclusive genres (Nasum and Tori Amos in sequence? Oh, yeah.). I can hold my own in a sword-fight, and can manage to hit a target using a long-bow. I can manage to play some musical instruments. I can (probably) fix your computer, but unless you corner me into it, or it's a new and interesting problem, I probably won't. I can explain the inner workings of the NES, or the Debian package system, but have never opened the hood of my car. Also, you probably won't be able to type on my keyboard.

Oh, and before you ask, my username is not a past participle (nor even a preterite!), it's derived from my (real) name. (See? Geekery. Yes, someone actually asked.)

And despite what you might get from my pictures, I do smile. Quite a bit, actually. It's just that for some reason, I don't like to smile for pictures. Don't ask why. It's just one among my innumerable quirks. Hey, it's not like you aren't just as quirky. (If you aren't, please move along.)

I don't have many pictures of myself. I chalk this up to the fact that I'm usually the one holding my camera.

Cupid seems absolutely convinced that I'm the greediest, most Republican bastard on the planet. (I envision cupid having an internal picture of me dumping oil on baby seals while accepting massive bribes or something. I'm probably also wearing a monocle.) The truth is that I'm not Republican, and I'm not Democrat. I regularly promote ideas that offend both sides of the aisle, and I like it that way. I may be greedy, but not in the sense that I will take what I haven't earned. Figure it in the Randian sense of greed if you must believe cupid about that.

Also, I apparently straddle the lines of the personality test. I've received the following results at different times: The Loverboy, The Playboy, The Poolboy, The Boy Next Door, The Gentleman, and most recently The Slow Dancer. Cupid can't seem to tell whether I'm more interested in sex or love, or whether I'm a master or a dreamer, but it does seem to be pretty certain that I am gentle, and that I am mostly random. This is probably more attested to by the myriad of results I get, although I have considered the possibility that Cupid is just changing the algorithm occasionally.

Short version? Being a geek. Long version? Read on.

I spend much of my time trying (although, really, I don't try very hard) to learn as much as possible. I have particular interests in linguistics, and right now I'm trying Japanese. Before that, my most recent natural language attempt is Ancient (specifically Attic) Greek. The breadth of the vocabulary is wonderful. I can also still manage some Russian, which I spent some time learning a year or two (or three) ago. I can't say it's fully out of my system, I think I just don't have the time to devote to it. Also, languages are like candy to me. >_>

Besides, it left me with an interesting collection of Russian hardcore music. The only language I think I've managed to stay dedicated to for as long as I have, Lojban, is an ever-present amusement/hassle. (mi cmima la .lojbangirz. .e la baupla fuzykamni) Yes, it's a conlang. As I said, I'm a geek.

I joined a historical recreation group some time ago. It's along similar lines to the SCA, said group being the Adrian Empire (or sometimes just Adria). I'm not really active anymore, but I did manage to earn a knighthood before having to move away from the active areas.

I'm a sysadmin for IMVU. I help keep the servers from falling over.

I spend most of my remaining time playing video games or on my computer, occasionally coding. More on those activities can be found at my site (URL below). I haven't bothered to list my programming language knowledge in the languages section out of protest in the lack of Python as an option, but also really because they wouldn't fit.

Reading. A lot. Also, memorizing lyrics, which is something I seem to do automatically. Similarly, I'm really, really good with directions, but only if I had a chance to look at a map (I heart Google Maps). I used to have a job that involved navigating for a driver. It got to the point where I could look at the directions once, and not look at them again for the rest of the trip. (And we were traveling sometimes hours at a time.) The only times we ever got lost, it was because someone else was handling the directions.

Also, ritual abuse of language. Even though I'm a bit of a linguistic elitist, I will still abuse language just to mess with you. :-)

This part always bothered me, because, assuming that "people" doesn't include myself, how the hell should I know? But if I had to take a wild guess, I'd say my hair. It's pretty unusual for guys to have hair to their shoulders around here, and mine is below my shoulder blades, and thick.

Also, maybe the large quantities of the word "fuck" (in all its forms) which pour forth from my mouth like water from a broken dam. Okay, maybe not quite that much, and I'm getting better at controlling it, but it's just such a versatile word. I've heard some folks say that cursing is the refuge of those with a small vocabulary. They obviously have not made my acquaintance.

Books! Anything Heinlein, anything at all! (I even like Number of the Beast!) Atlas Shrugged is marvelously badass, if a bit long-winded. (It's easier to take the longwindedness the second time around, when you understand why you need to know the things she's showing you.) Orson Scott Card's Ender series is a childhood favorite. I got into Harry Potter (you can all STFU now, thanks, they're surprisingly good) some years ago, and I recently spent three weeks reading all six of the extant books back to back. (Some 900,000 words, in case you don't know.) I spent most of the year before last reading the Sword of Truth series.

Movies! V For Vendetta is fucking awesome. Besides that, I liked American Beauty, but find it a bit too depressing to watch often. I also really liked Fight Club. But then there's Pirates of the Caribbean, or Office Space or any of the myriad of Kevin Smith flicks for a lighter movie. Oh, and The Big Lebowski. Comedies are good.

Music! Music is my world. My absolute favorites are Fiona Apple, Tool, and Nine Inch Nails. In general, if it's vaguely dark, well-written music, I'll like it. But the well-written doesn't always have to come into it. Sometimes music can just be fun to listen to. If I were to try to distill my musical tastes, you'd see metal in there (but not hair metal), any of various bands from the 80s West Coast punk scene (X, Suicidal Tendencies, Bad Religion, Fear, etc). I also range into things like IDM/EBM (VNV Nation, Wumpscut, Icon of Coil, etc), and my earlier attempts to learn Russian have left me with some interesting music from bands like (crappily transliterated, because cupid apparently doesn't like Cyrillic) DDT, Korol' i Shut and Tarakani!. I'm also a big fan of The Dresden Dolls. I'm unsure what genre they fall into. (Or out of.) If you're curious, you can see what I've been listening lately to over at last.fm. It only updates when I plug in my iPod, and the long-term statistics are, sadly, weighted more towards what I listen to when sleeping. Ah, well. (Yeah, I sleep to music. It helps me fall and stay asleep.)

Foods! Hm. I like well-cooked steak (By well-cooked, I mean expertly, not well-done. The two are opposites.) and love seafood; beyond that I'm a picky son of a bitch (Don't ask me to explain why I like steak but not hamburgers. I don't quite understand it myself.) However, as long as the food in question is in my likables, I'll eat it and be happy.

Music, friends, books, privacy, sleep, and... (here comes the cop-out) any of the pre-requisites to the existence or my usage of the previous five.

Languages, gaming, making armor and battle tactics.

Also xkcd. >_>

Just hanging out, either at home or the Hacker Dojo.

I'm listed as straight, but if they were to list by Kinsey scores, I'd be something like a 1.5. I'm pretty much straight, but I have been known to "get along with" some guys. There aren't very many men that I find particularly attractive, but I have nothing against the occasional cocksuckery.

If you're still reading, and haven't either laughed yourself hoarse at my geekery (note that I said "at" and not "with") or run away screaming and/or vomiting pea soup, you probably should. Nothing more really needs to be said, except maybe that using something resembling proper English is definitely more likely to make me reply. (Honestly, is it that much more work to type the "yo" in addition to the "u"?)

If you don't mind suffering from my Geek Answer Syndrome.

If you want to know what Geek Answer Syndrome is.