Swiped From Julz
julzerator had given me an excuse to post something. ;)

I forget which flavor of this it is, but I am responding to 7 things listed in my interests with reasonings behind it. If you want an excuse for me to get to know you better, tag on a comment and I will give you seven.

For now...

gaming convetions;

This one should be a given. It started back in the days of TSR. A friend from work had a college friend that was in charge of Science Fiction Saturday. She hooked me up with a volunteer gig every year. In short, it was pretty awesome. I had a chance to work escort for a number of actors, came home with some great stories, and met some fun people. To this day I have found that I really enjoy working conventions. MechWarrior Worlds this year was more fun than I should be allowed to have legally. ;)

marillion;

A holdover from my college days. Trivia bit -- I had a Sunday night radio show on the college radio station. True story. I even asked my future brother-in-law (who was at that time in the Huber Center in town) to be in my wedding party over the air. Basically, as a non-relative, I would have had a difficult time visiting him so that was my best option. I think he had to borrow a quarter to call me up and answer.

What does that have to do with Marillion? That sums up the time when I was listening to that band, Ministry, Violent Femmes, anything that fit in at an "alternative" radio station. One night we sat down and wrote out all of the lyrics to Uninvited Guest. For some reason I associated to the song. A couple others in my favorites from that time... The Screamin' Blue Messiahs "I Wanna Be A Flintstone" and The Verandas "Get Out of My Car You Drive Like Shit" -- good times.

geocaching;

It is like hiking for geeks! Just ask Wil Wheaton. That is right, Wesley Crusher convinced my wife to get a GPS unit and do something geeky! The idea is that out there... all over the place... there are little weather-proof containers that have a log, a pencil, and little toys in them. On the geocaching website there are the coordinates for them. You enter them into your GPS, go find them, sign the log, record it on the web site, and leave a little trinket there if there is room. You can also take something that someone else left there. It's a whole "thing."

wisconsin badgers;

I work for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Intercollegiate Athletics. Specifically on the web site. While my sports following has been minimal at best -- and usually limited to martial arts of some sort -- I find myself working in athletics. Stop laughing! Seriously though I have really started to enjoy some sports. It is a little surreal for me to have pride in the success of a sports team. But there are worse things in life, right?

poker;

I picked this up a while ago. Partially from watching Celebrity Poker Showdown, but then from watching the "Big Dance" as it were. You can still pick up the coverage of one of the World Series of Poker or such on cable throughout most of the week. It makes me wonder how good I would be at this if I had picked it up before head trauma had affected the way I look at numbers and probability. Overall though, I know I do not have nearly as good of a poker face as "The Chott."

martial arts;

Back in high school I took a second shot at martial arts. This time it was not "kara-te at the local Y" (that is much funnier if said like Ryan Reynolds from Blade: Trinity), but was studying under Sensei Guy Lee Fields in Madison Wisconsin. It was Tae Kwon Do Open -- TKD base of kicks with a little of everything else thrown in. Escrima Stick Fighting for weapons, a couple of Wing Chung forms, some Tai Chi, Boxing... you get the picture. One of the things that bothers me most about my injury is knowing how to do it, but not getting the body to agree with the mind. ;)

zombies;

Heh heh... I am STILL trying to explain this one to my wife. On the way back from watching the last Resident Evil movie I was explaining to her that a zombie movie is not so much about the zombies as it is about how the survivors react to the result of the zombies. Replace the zombies with Nuclear War and you have Doctor Strangelove. Fast zombies vs. slow zombies is a moot point -- even if it drives her nuts when I will explain that the speed of them should really depend on a number of variables including how "fresh" they are, the temperature (cold is a zombie-killer), and why it is they are reanimating. 28 Days Later they should be running fast. Night of the Living Dead... not so much.

Not to mention that in addition to the sociological situations in the movie, I enjoy the ones out of the movie. Still my favorite zombie movie story... The remake of Dawn of the Dead. We are in the theater, and the nurse's husband is running after the car to catch the wife. (Again, he was a fresh one, so is faster than the older ones.) Figuring that he cannot catch the big metal thing with the tasty treat in it, he catches sight of a Happy Meal with a garden hose watering her garden oblivious to Zombie Apocalypse going on around her. He b-lines for her and all you see is arms, legs and zombie as she starts screaming. People in the theater gasp and hide their eyes while I am laughing my ass off! I mean come on! There are zombies all over the place and you are out in your front yard with a house coat and fuzzy slippers? Not to mention the framing of the scene was excellent. All you see is lunging zombie and thrashing limbs. No need to go gore-crazy so early in the film. Ease the "normals" into it. ;)

Figures the biggest section is on zombies. Yup, not livin' that one down for a while...