CAUTION: Extreme verbosity may be encountered beyond this point. Viewers who have an aversion to text are advised to leave this page by clicking on the following link: lol alot teh

For Quickmatch users: I am velonaut.

Hello there. I am a quirky, funny, athletic, tea-drinking, bicycle-riding, chocolate-making, geeky guy named Dave. I'd say it's nice to meet you, but let's not be too presumptuous. ;-)

I like to play with photography, and in fact currently possess more cameras than brain lobes.

I ride bikes a lot, primarily for commuting. I've previously been into competitive track (velodrome) cycling, and may or may not revisit that in the future.

I scuba dive, and almost entirely in temperate water, as the warm stuff is just too damn far away.

I dig movement arts - any kind of physical skill which centres around the ability to move your own body, rather than other objects. Previously, this has been expressed through parkour, a little gymnastics and some aerial circus; these days, more rock climbing.

Of course, you shouldn't infer from all this that I'm completely time-strapped. The above activities don't actually take up all that many of my evenings or weekends.

Anything technical (perhaps including both the meanings of "involving technology" and "involving technique"), with cooking skills likely to be the most salient as far as you're concerned, unless you happen to have no sense of taste or smell, but do need your bicycle repaired.

Also:
- Having a really great bum.
- Being totally modest.
- Renewing old, clichéd jokes through witty, self-referential addenda.

In person: My height, perhaps? Unless they're taller than me, which is rare for anyone who by profession is not a basketball player, champion warrior of the Philistines, or owner/operator of an enchanted beanstalk.

On this site: Probably the fact that I'm pole dancing in my profile picture on top of a mountain in my profile picture. Either that or the unendingly verbose sprawl that is this profile. (I hope you like text!)

Books:
Frank Herbert - Dune (Possibly the greatest Sci-Fi novel ever written? Yes? I'm thinking yes.)
Arthur C. Clarke - The Songs of Distant Earth
Terry Pratchett - The Truth, or any of the Guards Discworld series.
Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveler's Wife (Romantic mild Sci-Fi featuring an arse-kicking, time-travelling librarian. I cannot recommend this book enough. I haven't seen the Eric Bana film, but doubt it does the book justice.)
Ben Goldacre - Bad Science (Because UP YOURS homoeopathists, pharmaceutical marketers, and antivaxers.)

Also, I tend to accumulate non-fiction books, the most frequently referenced of which would be cook books.

Also again, webcomics. Most notably, xkcd, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and (the extremely NSFW) Oglaf.

Movies:
Dogma, Snatch, Tropic Thunder, The Wrong Man, numerous Tarantino films, Alien/Aliens, Mononoke-Hime, Moon, Juno. Many others have probably slipped my mind, but that doesn't mean they weren't memorable. Well, ok, perhaps it does if you want to take the dictionary meaning of "memorable", rather than just using the wrong word and then attempting to change its definition.

Shows:
I hardly watch any TV, but perhaps QI, or the instructional and the food porn aspects (as opposed to the clichéd reality TV side) of MasterChef.

Music:
Cog, Pink Floyd, Tool, Dire Straits, Blue Oyster Cult, Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky, to name a few.

My response to most music made these days varies between disinterest and contempt. (An attitude which I understand to be the first of Olay’s 7 signs of aging. The final sign is telling “damn kids” to get off your lawn.) My opinion of Auto-Tune is that it’s like a Nazi uniform - if you’re using it for anything other than comedic purposes, there’s something wrong with you.

Food:
I often tell people I'm vegetarian because it's a lot simpler than the truth - I usually cook vegetarian for myself, do eat some meat, but my diet is far from the common "Oh, I'm completely vegetarian except for chicken" attitude. I don't even like chicken. Blue-rare filet mignon, yes. Ground meat, no. Braised pork ribs, yes. (Hell yes, even.) Meatballs, no. Black pudding, oh-god-maybe-in-a-reputable-restaurant-and-i-am-going-to-feel-really-awkward-before-and-after-enjoying-it. Breaking all of the above rules, probably. Confused? You should be.

Comedians: (Suck it, OKC, I'm adding an extra category, and there's nothing you can do about it! :-P)
Rich Hall, Stewart Lee, Andrew O'Neill, Tim Minchin

1. Bicycles, or some other form of efficient human-powered transport. (Perhaps a set of cross-country skis, given the right climate?)

2. A reasonably well equipped kitchen. This includes a wide selection of teas.

3. Exercise, particularly that of the most functional variety. (Functional meaning that aimed at improving one's practical physical abilities, rather than one's appearance.)

4. Wikipedia. I am unashamedly addicted to it. (e.g. While watching NCIS: "What's a hemostat? I know, I'll ask... WIKIPEDIA!")

5. Mountains or oceans. I could live without one, but not without both.

6. Internet shopping. I become unreasonably excited at the prospect of receiving packages in the mail, and will gleefully tear them apart at the earliest opportunity, even in the face of questions like, "That package seems to be shaped like a 6 inch dildo, should I avert my eyes while you open it?" (In defence of the friend who asked that question, he had quite trustingly dragged it through US and Australian airport security for me.)

Why OkCupid lists my top personality trait as "More aggressive", especially as I can't think of any match questions that I've answered that could have caused that.

I'm not aggressive, it's just that my favourite mode of conversion is yelling demands through a barricaded door at a police negotiator.

Open to possibility. Are you free?

Before I knew what Instagram was, I would look at people's profile photos on this website and regularly think, "What the hell? There is no way this many people could be taking photos of themselves on medium format film."

... you own a view camera and would not be offended if I paid more attention to it than you. ;-)

... you have found a spelling or grammatical error in my profile. (I was recently alerted to the existence of several such errors, and have now committed the appropriate yubitsume and, I believe, purged them all from this page.)

... you think that I seem interesting, you think I might find you interesting, you are open to polyamorous dating (because all the cool kids on OkC are totally doing it), and you would like to join me on a romantic date.

... you think that I seem interesting, you think I might find you interesting, and you would like to join me on a platonic date.

... in lieu of all of the above, having read my profile this far, you now find yourself in a position where it would be difficult for you to suppress a smile, and you'd just like to tell me so. :-)