And so onto the details.  I've seen twenty-eight winters (a fact which frightens me).  I'm a graduate of Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario (thank god for small favours).  I'm also by turns a writer, an actor, a philosopher, a scholar, a gentleman and a rogue.  I try to be a good friend as well as a good enemy, and think that I'm more the former than the latter.  I'm also a chronic procrastinator... more on that later.

I'm a rabid gamer - my collection of games dates back around 20 years and around 100+ systems (that's right, systems, not books.  The books number somewhere around 350-400.  I stopped counting a while ago.)  I'll play just about anything that catches my interest, and the more 'eclectic' it is, the better.  Some games that have acquired the dubious distinction of attracting my  interest over the last several years include much of the White Wolf line (no longer, I'm afraid... the dark-angsty stuff is a bit much for me...), Shadowrun, Feng Shui, Traveller, Fading Suns, Shatterzone, Warhammer (40k, FB, FRP, Necromunda, Man O' War and others), Warzone, Call of Cthulu, Legend of the Five Rings (RPG and CCG), Seven Seas (I have to say it... John Wick is brilliant.) ... the list goes on.

I'm a packrat.  Or, to be more precise, I'm a collector of old memories.  I can never bring myself to throw things out.  So, I'm stuck with an abundance of stuff that, while it really should be thrown out, remains cluttered around me.  Books, clothes, papers strewn across wherever I'm working... I thrive on these.

My time is divided amongst the usual activities: work, school and whatever social interactions I can work myself up to.  You see, I have a problem... I'm addicted to coffee.  I need it.  I thrive on the social interaction that goes along with it.  Some people smoke.  I play chess and tell stories.

My vices have always been cerebral in nature.  I game.  Card games of any variety, role-playing games, strategy games, computer games.  I need the... stimulation.  I also read. I'm an Literature graduate, and have a voracious appetite for the written word in any of it's forms, so long as the end result is good.  So I caffeinate my bloodstream, read, play a few games, and socialize when I'm up to it.  Then I go home and write, read, slap a film in the VCR or attempt some other form of creative endevour.

I'm an insomniac.  Or, to be more precise, I suffer from sporadic bouts of insomnia.  I only wish I could better harness these waking periods, but I usually end up trying to rest in other ways, alternating between physical and mental.  T'ai Ch'i helps, I've found, in case anyone else shares this problem.  It's been suggested that my caffeine intake doesn't help this problem... the fallacy of that suggestion is found in the fact that I've had bouts of insomnia since before I began to drink coffee.  I find that caffeine actually helps me sleep.

When not at home (which is the standard state of affairs) you'll find me 'cafe-hopping'.  In Sudbury that means I'm probably at The Darkroom Internet Cafe (rarely, these days), This Ain't the Only Cafe (rarer still), Books and Beans, L'il Habana's, Parker House or Poetz Pantry, which, by the way, serves the best Chocolate Eruption cake in the world (Chunks of dark and light chocolate cheesecake embedded in chocolate mousse, if you were wondering).  If I'm out in the evening it's either Habana's or This Ain't, simply 'cause I can abuse my Visa there.  I love cafe's.  They make life interesting.  And unpredictable, as well...

On to matters of attire.  I tend to dress casually - shirts, jeans, sneakers.  I spent a year working as a jeweler, wearing the suit and tie.  Perhaps I've had enough of that for now - I still occasionally wear a suit because I look damnably good in one.  But for the most part I'm found in my comfortable state.  I also tend to wear black... not because it's the particularly 'in' thing to wear, but because I'm accident-prone, and find dark colours tend to be... more forgiving to spills, as well as being easier to wear.  I think they look good on me.  I've learned the value of cottons and denim.  They suit me more than any synthetic.  And make me feel better.

For the finishing touch to any ensemble, I turn to my long-coat... I've had a string of coats of the sort, the old great-coats, the long, woolen ones that are not quite trench coats; no, they have far more style by far than that article of clothing.  My current favourite is a knee-length wool great-coat from Britain...

I'm a videophile.  I love to watch films, both good and bad.  Thankfully, I've found more things I love than things that I hate; perhaps that's why I keep studying them.  One of the courses I've taken at Laurentian was a fourth-year English course on Cyborgs in Cinema, detailing the phenomena of man/machine melding from the earliest German cinema to modern sci-fi.  I think, perhaps, that the most entertaining part of the course came when the engineering students who'd decided to take it as a bird course realized that there's a lot more to English students than they first thought.  I've always had a taste for less main-stream cinema:  The Killer and Kissed compete for space in my video collection with The Lion in Winter and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead...

On the other hand, there's very little television that attracts my attention.  I'll watch a well-thought out and witty film, but most sit-coms and dramas leave me cold.  There are, of course, exceptions... The Simpsons, Sam and Max, Reboot, The Tick, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a few others have managed to get me close to the television at times.  And I always find myself addicted to the likes of Blackadder, Red Dwarf and the source of all British humour, Monty Python's Flying Circus. Of course, most nights I'm out until all hours; if I'm not, I'm either reading or writing - I just don't have time to watch television.

I am a philosopher at heart; for a brief while I was considering taking a second degree in Philosophy, but have kept my interest to a more personal level - only a few courses, including those on existentialism, surrealism, and a variety of Greeks. I also delve into superstition, ghost stories, folklore (both urban and rural), and the elements of religions, both accepted and alternative.  It's the elements that attract me, mind you... the ritual, and not necessarily the morality, per se.  I'm not religious myself, at least not in any contemporary sense.  What I am is a seeker - an old friend once told me that my faith in the question was more important than whatever answers I might find.

I possess any number of traits that might be considered 'eccentric'.  Perhaps that's all part of the charm.  I can be one of the most charming bastards one moment, and be an utter fool the next.  I'm a romantic.  I'm insanely curious.  By that I mean that I possess a well of curiosity unbounded... I just need to know everything that I can.  This translates into both educational and social realms of my being.  I can usually read a person upon meeting them - not 'judging a book by it's cover', but just an instinctive knowledge of how we'll interact.  I'm right far more often than I'm wrong.  Of course, when I'm wrong, the results are disasterous.

I also tend to ramble on, much like I'm doing now.  Of course, sometimes I'm taciturn in the extreme - once again, you never can tell what I'll be like.  I've been called brilliant by more than a few people.  Why, I'll never know... but who am I to complain?  I've also been told that I have a commanding presence.  Sometimes that disquiets people.  Again, I don't understand the reaction.  Ah well... so it goes, neh?

A caveat: As a result of my ... curiousity, I am a veritable fountain of knowledge, both useful and useless.  I tend to start speaking on a topic, and by the time I've finished I may have ranged across the breadth of my knowledge, drawing from this eclectic background a number of asides and interesting tidbits that may or may not support what I'm saying.  Never let it be said that the conversation will be uninteresting... by it's very nature this trivia is of interest, else I wouldn't remember it.

As much as I wish it were not so sometimes, I am a social creature.  I don't take my friendships lightly.  If someone's important to me, there's most likely very little I won't do for them.  Those that are the closest are all part of an extended family. Similarly, I don't take betrayals lightly, be they from former friends or long-time enemies... there are some cases where I tend to hold a grudge, in spite of my fervent desire to change this about myself.  I don't like this aspect of my personality... maintaining a vendetta is a drain on my mental and social resources.  Nor do I like having vendetta held against me, especially for ridiculous reasons.

Yet another semi-interesting bit of trivia about me... I'm a WEIRDNESS MAGNET.   That's right, kiddies... odd things happen around me.  I've come to the conclusion that there's no such thing as a random occurrence.  The unusual, by it's very nature, extends to its maximum around me.  It's not that I mind; it keeps one interested in the commonplace.

As well as all the above, I'm also cursed in matters of time and space.  Chalk it up to the kharmic debt accrued by being a procrastinator... whenever I actually try to do something on time, or even early, time and fate conspire against me and things end up becoming ... well... interesting.  Let's see... in the last two years I've had no less than five catastrophic computer problems (the largest of which wiped almost 500 pages of writing, with over 75% of the hard drive being corrupted to the point of physical damage.)  Each ended up contributing to late papers and whatnot... if it's not that, it's printer problems, or vehicular problems (flat tires, engine explosions and the like.)  Needless to say, I've become rather adept at crisis control - and such things have become expected by both friends and professors.

I'm a vagabond at heart... a gypsy.  I love to travel, near or far.  Hopefully this summer it'll be Europe, but with rent, loan payments and other expenses, I'm not exactly sure.  Ah well... soon enough, my pretties.  Soon enough.  Of course, my problem with Time and Fate makes travel... interesting.  I once lost a position in the Toronto cast of the Rocky Horror Picture Show (a damn good excuse to travel to Toronto every god-forsaken weekend) because within the span of two weeks I was assailed by vehicular and legislative troubles the likes of which I hadn't known before (Licensing trouble one week, and a blown tire on the 400 the next... the blown tire came when I was 20 minutes out of Toronto).  Nothing makes life more interesting than crisis... it turns the everyday into an adventure.   Of course it brings to mind the old Chinese curse:  "May you live in interesting times..."

I've always noted the notorious fickleness inherent in human nature.  I suppose that it's ebb and flow is something I should be well acquainted with, but I've always been inclined to a certain generousity towards those select few I've chosen to be my associates, odd considering the paranoia that I've been quietly cultivating for a while.  I suppose that, in my willingness to forgive, I've allowed that sense of unease to wane, much to my own chagrin, and my own detriment.