Juggling
I was introduced to juggling
my sophomore year of college and continued to do
it once I discovered that I didn't actually suck at it.
Three-ball
patterns are my specialty (currently, I am working on mastering
Mills Mess), although I have been known to juggle four balls. The other
trick I do is a form of contact juggling with a clear plastic sphere, somewhat
akin to the trick used by the Goblin King in the movie Labyrinth.
Music
I'll listen to (almost) anything. The current CDs
at the top of my pile include Live
: Selling the Drama, R.E.M.: Monster, Sarah
McLachlan: Fumbling Towards Ecstacy, and
John Mellencamp: Human Wheels. As a former New Yorker, I am morally
obliged to listen to Billy Joel, and
I enjoy novelty tunes by folks such as Tom Lehrer, Monty Python, and "Weird Al"
Yankovic.
Photography
I've been doing this for about four years now. I worked as a photographer for
my college paper (the Tartan) at Carnegie Mellon, and I currently work for the
Technique at Georgia Tech. I have a Nikon 6006 with a couple of Quantaray zoom
lenses (30-80/4-5.2, 70-200/4-5.2). If you don't mind 200K or so of inlined
images, a small online gallery of my work can be found
here.
Pinball
I probably waste more money on
pinball than anything else with the possible
exceptions of tuition, food, and comic books. I've made Payback Time on T2,
Demolition Time on Demolition Man, Final Frontier on Star Trek: TNG,
and most recently, Final Battle on The Shadow and Grand Finale on
Theatre of Magic. I am still trying to Tour the
Mansion on Addams Family and get Lost in the Zone on Twilight Zone. Of course,
it might help if I knew where working versions of these machines were
locally...
Science-fiction
I enjoy both the science-fiction and fantasy genres in just about all forms.
Primarily, this means books -- my current favorite authors include Ray
Bradbury, Stephen Donaldson, and
Sheri S. Tepper -- but also extends to movies
and television. As much as folks may ridicule me for it, I really liked the
old Battlestar Galactica
television series. I enjoyed most of the Star Trek movies, as well
as the Star Wars trilogy.
I also enjoy Star Trek:
TNG, although I'm less fond of
Deep Space Nine or Voyager.
I've become quite fond of
Babylon 5 and
Sliders.
Silliness
I am a whole-hearted proponent of general wackiness. Some of my favorite forms
include
Animaniacs,
Calvin and Hobbes, The Tick,
The Simpsons,
Monty Python,
"Weird Al"
Yankovic, Tom Lehrer, and Dr. Demento. If
any doubt how truly silly I am,
though, let it be known that I was the president of the KGB at
Carnegie Mellon from
'93 to '94.
Sports
I consider myself to be an average racquetball player, an intermediate
volleyball player, and a just plain lousy tennis
player. I am, however, always looking for games of the above (especially
volleyball).
Writing
Writing is both a form of relaxation and catharsis. Most of my attempts at
fiction to date have been abortive, so as of late I've tended to favor poetry.
Mainly, I just like writing parodies of songs I know. Various
samples of my work can be found here.
Life just wouldn't be fun without a huge list of memorable quotes.
Or entertaining links.