Bah. Really, what am I supposed to say? Can I find some method of writing that will give you insight into who I am? Is it really necessary? I mean, I could sit here and type a nice essay about who I *think* I am, but that wouldn't be rather fair of me, would it"? Draw your own conclusions, I say.
You're not gone yet? Weren't you listening? Nothing to see here! Move along, move along!
...
Alright, fine, but I'm going to make it quick.
On second thought, I'll make it long, and you can cut out whenever you like.
As of this publishing (07/06/06), I am a 25-year-old ex-student of Virginia Tech. My major was Computer Engineering (though I'd probably still add a Computer Science major, too). My minors are Mathematics and Computer Science (but see above). I'm probably not going back to finish for another year or two, pushing me toward the 10-year plan.
There are lots of things I don't like. There are lots of things I feel strongly about. I imagine I fluctuate between the days when nothing matters and everything matters more than anyone else can possibly imagine. (Actually, that's total hyperbole; I'm about as even-keeled as they come... but it sounded good, didn't it?). I don't smoke, and I find smoking a rather annoying habit. I don't drink, and I generally find I don't like people much once they've had enough to drink that it affects how they act. I like meat, but I don't mind people that don't. I *do* mind people that don't like the fact that I like meat.
I tend to be rather left morally and rather right politically. (Yes, I differentiate between morals and politics; I think they're often unrelated ideas.) Since I can handle government that goes against my morals more than government that goes against my political sensibilities, I tend to vote Republican more than Democrat. Of course, this assumes voting; like a lot of people, I'm feeling rather disenfranchised with the whole American "Democratic" system at the moment. (We have a perfectly good Republic, why can't we call it that?)
I love parenthetical statements. I use them in speech and, as a result, have a problem not using them when I write. I eventually gave up on trying to disavow them in writing. I figure the people who know me add them in anyway. (It does sound more like me that way, after all.)
I used to think I was a music snob, because I just don't appreciate much music made since 1990. Then I met enough people who dismissed rap or country music out-of-hand, which convinced me I wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. I adore most musicals, though I find that I often have to ignore the formulaic nature of American Musical Plot and focus on the music itself. On a related note, I don't care for Shakespeare much. I realize this makes me an uncultured brute. I also don't eat Chinese food with chopsticks, so I'm a stupid gaijin, too. (Actually, I feel I should qualify that: I don't like reading Shakespeare. I only rarely enjoy watching people perform Shakespeare. Shakespeare breaks my admittedly biased reality quotient. This sounds like a rant I need to write.) My current big things musically is Carbon Leaf. They're a band out of Richmond, VA, that won the American Music Award's "Coca-Cola Best New Band" Award in Jan. of '02. One of the member's (Carter) brothers goes to school at Tech, and another (Jordan) had a brother that lived in Blacksburg, so I got exposed to them a while back and got hooked. You should go to their webpage. You should listen to them. Then you should go to their major fan site and look around there, and listen some more.
I play a lot of games. *A LOT* of games. It's rare for me to feel over gamed. I like all sorts, too: board games (including stuff produced by Milton Bradley, though those aren't really the ones I mean), card games (from Bridge to the occasional CCG), role-playing games (though I'm more of a collector than a player), mind games (sometimes they can be fun!)... I keep telling myself to learn some reindeer games, but it's hard to find rules for them. Eventually, I'll put up a list of games I think you should play here, I promise.
My work for the past five years is as a programmer for a wonderful small company called VirPack. I've been here long enough now that I'm the longest tenured programmer. I enjoy most of my coworkers, and I think we're doing something that's Good in a sort of global sense (trying to get mortgage companies to send things electronically rather than reams of paper). I used to work for the Naval Research Laboratory, but for personal business ("well, I guess that means it's personal, and that it's none of your business") and practical reasons (a local to Blacksburg job made a lot more sense to me than working in DC, especially for comparable pay) made me move to a company called Exegetics. Due to an interesting situation that you'd probably have to ask me (or my ex-coworkers) about in person (mostly due to this being a *summary*), I moved from there to my current job. I am happy. I realized that when I was suddenly struck with a cold fear about losing my job. Or maybe that was just the ice cream going down.
My main hobby is the human mind. It enthralls me. It's the most intricate toy nature ever fashioned, over millions and millions of years of evolution. Mankind has yet to fashion anything that compares. We've created drugs a-plenty that modify the way it works: I think that just reinforces it's importance as *the* end-all be-all of "stuff" to have. Who wouldn't want a mind? Thankfully, my mind is pretty good, in my not-so-humble opinion. I keep feeling like it's dying off on me... (I don't feel as ingenious as I used to, and I think my memory isn't as eidetic as it was even a year ago) But it still gets the job done, so I can't complain too much.
Bodies are nice, too. I'm a hedonist at heart. I don't really consider that a bad thing; it's part of my philosophy that most things are okay in moderation. Thus, as long as I manage to avoid fixating on anything, hedonistic or otherwise, I figure I'm doing okay. (Which brings me to another rant I should write about most people's screwy ideas of beauty.)