About

Alias: Tanto

Likes: Family and friends — who else would put up with me? Video games. Baseball in general, the Braves in particular. English, Art, and History. Reading and writing. Airport fantasy and ridiculous fighting shonen series. Pizza. Seafood. Baked goods. Chocolate, junk food, and Dr. Pepper. Solitude. RPGs, platformers, strategy games, and Zeldalikes.  Alternative rock, trance, techno, some punk. Video game music. Optimism without naivete. Style, rather than realism. A sense of humor and willingness to laugh at oneself. Life.

Dislikes: People who think they know everything about everything. The Mets, Phillies, Yankees, and Dodgers. Football. Math and Science. Coffee, mayonnaise, anything green. The city. Tournament fighters, rhythm games, and most shooters. Country music, hip-hop, gangsta rap, and death metal. Anything grimdark. Angst. Non-conformity for its own sake. Small talk. Patriotism.  Japanese fetishism. Driving. Shopping. Close-mindedness.

Sex: Male. Sorry to disappoint you.

Age: Old enough to know better, etc.

American, but not married to it.

English major and regretting it profusely. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Books:

• Anything by Terry Pratchett
• Anything by Bill James
• Anything by Brandon Sanderson
• The Belgariad, Malloreon, Elenium, and Tamuli
• The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• Moneyball
• Second Sons and Tide Lords series
• City of Bones by Martha Wells
• The Doctrine of Labyrinths series
• American Gods
• The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
• …I love game guides. It’s really terrible for me that I grew up during the GameFAQs age, because I adore leafing through a well-designed players’ guide, and they’re all but extinct nowadays. Versus Books made the best ones, and I mourn them to this day.
• Five years of studying literature more or less ruined me for “real” literature. I’ll get back to my overview of the English classics someday, I swear — but first I wanna see if Kalamagzu manages to defeat the Dark Lord!

Games

• Super Mario Bros.
• The Legend of Zelda
• Fire Emblem
• Chrono Trigger
• Mega Man
• Pokemon
• Suikoden
• Skies of Arcadia
• Donkey Kong Country
• The Tales series
• I have a special affection, more than is probably healthy, for Super Mario World romhacks.

Television:

• Seinfeld
• Futurama
• The Daily Show and The Colbert Report
• The Simpsons
• Burn Notice
• Scrubs
• Leverage
• Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo
• Avatar: The Last Airbender
• The Venture Brothers
• Samurai Jack
• Live baseball
• And, as noted above, a collection of various and sundry animes that mostly involve dense young men powering up and hitting each other. Yes, I watch Naruto and Bleach, and I am not ashamed. I won’t attempt to defend their merits, but that won’t stop me from liking them.

Film:

• Fight Club
• The Princess Bride
• The Lord of the Rings
• Indiana Jones
• The first Star Wars trilogy
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (but not the sequels)
• The Matrix (but again, not the sequels)
• Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
• Film noir, historical movies, and kung fu/wuxia stuff
• …I’m not a big movie guy. It’s not that I don’t like them, it’s just that I can’t be bothered to go, most of the time. My experience with film is ludicrously small. I should probably rectify this, but eh.