I am 28 years young (old). I have no major deformities or congenital diseases, barring a tendency towards woolgathering. People tell me that I'm funny (plz insert own variation of "Yeah, funny looking!" here). I love cooking, music (does anyone really not like music, though? really???) and science. I am a skeptic, although I try not to be smug about it, and an atheist, although I try not to be a jerk about it. I am very much on the left side of the political scale, probably closer to socialism than anything else. I am occasionally a jerk about politics, but in my defense I am usually right. I smoke the occasional cigar, but no cigarettes. I am not ashamed to admit that I had to use spell check to spell "cigarettes" correctly. I enjoy drinking, especially beer, but not enough to make a career about it. I don't really use drugs, but only because they don't really agree with me.

Cleveland State. Maybe volcanoes, maybe history, I DON'T KNOW!!!!! Also job hunting.

Not much, man. Learning? Humor? I can cook, too.

The bad sign I was born under ("Stop").

Books that have made an impression on me and that I read over and over again: Wartime by Paul Fussell; Krakatoa by Simon Winchester; any Discworld book, by Terry Pratchett; The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien (16 times and counting!); Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer; The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon; Fargo Rock City, by Chuck Klostermann; anything by Hunter Thompson (more for the political writing than the drug shit) and Richard Scarry. Books I am reading or that are on the shortlist: Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh; The Second World War, by Martin Gilbert; The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx; Orientalism, by Edward Said; and there are certainly more that are slipping my mind right now.

Music (* denotes bands I will sing along to, badly)- My very favorite band is Boris, I love that drone and that bass and that noise arrghhhh...apart from them, I like Bad Brains*, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Archer Prewitt, Rex, The Black Keys, KRS-ONE*, The Buzzcocks*, Cannibal Ox, Kanye West*, Ted Leo, Guided By Voices*, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Charlatans, Tricky, Television, Helium, Rocket From The Crypt, Massive Attack, T-Pain, Pavement, Jay-Z, Catherine Wheel, Cranes, ABC, Can, The Modern Lovers, Talk Talk, Galaxie 500*, Built to Spill*, Mary Timony, Silver Jews, T-Rex, Stereolab, Kommunity FK, The Misfits, Wu-Tang Clan*, Shuggie Otis, The Jam, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, Black Uhuru, Kanye West, Spank Rock, Justice, Raekwon, Ghostface Killa, Apples In Stereo, Christian Death, Minor Threat*, Three Six Mafia, Red House Painters*, Black Flag, Nick Cave, New Order*, TSOL, Future Sound of London, Love and Rockets, DEVO, Big L, Big Pun, The Fall, Embrace, Rites of Spring, Kool Moe Dee, Lil Wayne, Fat Joe*, Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, Jesus and Mary Chain, Slowdive*, Lush*, M.I.A., Hank Williams Sr.*, The Cure, The Stills, Man? or Astroman, Jeff Buckley, Fugazi, The Jesus Lizard, Skinny Puppy, Flipper, Slick Rick*, The Blasters...gosh, there are so many more. Also, for real...if you answer some shit like "all kinds of music" for this question...man, I don't know. I mean, if you can't get down to at least specific genres (i.e., not "rock" or "jazz"), you are probably not that big a music fan in the first place. Categorically, the worst answer to the music question is "everything but rap and/or country!!!", it is a cop-out and fuckin' lame.

I am bad at watching movies but I almost always enjoy them once I sit down and commit, some movies that I have enjoyed are: Rififi, Reno 911: The Movie, What's Up Tiger Lily?, Lost In Translation, No Country For Old Men, Godzilla (and basically all subsequent Toho monster movies, even the really bad King Kong ones; speaking of which), King Kong (both the original and the newer remake although the original is the best and one of the formative movie experiences of my youth, along with King Kong Vs. Godzilla and...), Yellow Submarine, The Maltese Falcon, Rear Window (and Vertigo, The Birds etc.), The Incredibles (fun, but in retrospect I can see the validity of an Objectivist interpretation, to wit: some people are just naturally superior to others; this bothers me since Objectivism is a morally and ethically offensive philosophy although I'm not sure that the filmmakers intended said message...), there's a ton of others, I dunno.

Food: it would be easier to list the foods I don't like/refuse to try so here goes: lima beans, insects/grubs/whatever, canned mushrooms on pizza and whatever that Spanish cheese that has the larvae living in it is called.

Intelligent conversation, distractions, music, booze, an optimistic outlook w/r/t the future, Tums/Prilosec (I get mad heartburn, yo).

I space out much more than I used to sooo.......space? I guess.

incoherent.

I am a Huge Pussy.

...you yearn to laugh again. Do you remember springtime in the Alps, before the war? No, of course you don't. You were too busy running around in your dirndl picking Edelweiss, too busy hiding in the kitchen cupboard, desperate to learn Cook's secret schnitzel recipe. Oh, the festivals, dancing with that young Bavarian colonel, playing ring-toss with his pickelhaube behind the beer tent! You were so young and gay and now look at you: weary and wan, roaming the shadowy backstreets of Oslo, the rain falling freely on your uncovered head as you silently lament the choices you've made. Oh! if only you could take back Aix-la-Chappelle, that young Maquis with his slouched cap and his Mannlicher slung by his side, his face lit only by the draw of his Gauloise......