by apotheosis » Fri Sep 21, 2007 8:08 pm UTC
I'll have you know I am indeed a bad bad person, but it really has little to do with the fact that I made two posts before coming here to do the intro. No, that owes more to my relentless impatience (offset by my sparklingly relentless optimism) and my affection for the double X 52% of the population. So, viz:
Hi all. Long time-ish reader, third time poster. Finding the forums here was a minor joy, rated much the same as that first discovery of MST3K--that sense of "hey, I think I know these people!" I am older than everyone I meet thinks, which is okay for two reasons: One, I think people are defined more by their last sea-change or epiphany, and my last one happened when I was 26 so that's how old I continue to feel; and two, since I was seven I have believed that I was going to live forever, a circumstance which renders age nearly irrelevant.
With regard to the second point, I recommend without reservation that everyone here should read Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near. I saw him speak on PBS and bought his book as a bit of a lark, only to have it absolutely justify the aforementioned belief I have held since my youth. As an added bonus for the XKCD faithful, it is full of medium to higher order math. I have come to think of it as a sort of bible, something I have lacked since DS9 ended and I could no longer visit Space Church.
My greatest disappointments are that I am a significantly better editor than writer, that I tend to not so much read books as collect them, and that Stuart Adamson killed himself before I got to see Big Country play live.
Still, there are so many good things. Here's the short list:
XKCD
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
The Year of Silence by Madison Smartt Bell
The entirety of Futurama, particularly "The Luck of the Fryrish" and "Jurassic Bark."
Diesel Sweeties
Cowboy Bebop and Last Exile
Invader ZIM
Pocky
and of course Bare Naked Ladies
Oh, forgot to mention that I graduated from Speed Scientific with a Bachelor of Engineering Science in Computer Science, then went back to school for four more years in pursuit of a second degree in English which I abandoned after a brief fling with a long-legged poetry and literature aficionado. So have at you, your infinite series and directed integrals scare me not. Plus, I know how to talk to women. Nyah.
Also: Hello there, ladies.
See? It's easy.
Touché, you smartass.