I'm in serious procrastination mode today, and I'm not really ready to tell you what's really going on, so....


This is a catalogue of all 149 of my Livejournal interests.


"...really? really really?" -- an inside joke between me and Katy.

"if it's sunday, it's meet the press" -- the by-line for my favourite Sunday news show.

( ) -- an album by Sigur Ros.

2001 -- a particularly good year.

ambitious people -- the sort of people i like to keep around me.

amiina -- four amazing Icelandic women who play violins and percussive instruments.

amon tobin -- a breakbeat and drum & bass producer that has done some amazing things. look up "Four Ton Mantis" or "Nightlife" by him to see what i'm on about.

andvari -- part of Norse mythology (he was a dwarf who lived under a waterfall) and a Sigur Ros song. the Wikipedia article on Andvari suggests that Lord of the Rings was also inspired in part by him.

ann arbor -- hippie central of Michigan, that's for sure. i'll be spending a lot more time there.

another word for "thesaurus" -- can you think of one?

answers -- i like knowing the answer to things. i've never been very good with 'faith' or 'belief'.

arguing with photoshop -- this seems to be taking up more and more of my work life lately.

asp.net -- this is what i spend most of my work life with.

astoundingly awful alliterations -- i love alliterations, especially ones that make you groan and roll your eyes.

back alleys -- walk through the back alleys of a city and you'll learn a lot about the place.

banksy -- a brilliant British graffiti artist.

bayerische motoren werke -- the proper name of BMW; apart form Honda, theirs are the only cars that really hold my attention.

björk guðmundsdóttir -- hey, look, another amazing Icelandic woman.

breakbeats -- a style of music. drum rhythms in most electronica music either fall into the house, trance, dance rhythms, or into breakbeats; drum & bass is probably the most consistent example nowadays, but a lot of the big beats groups like Propellerheads, Crystal Method, Chemical Brothers, etc. use breakbeats a lot as well.

brian williams -- Hands-down my favourite news broadcaster.

brooklyn -- the only place in New York (city or state) that i'd seriously consider living.

bruce tognazzini -- a user interaction design specialist. he's the guy that wrote the original Apple Human Interface Guidelines, and is responsible for some of the most important and insightful thinking into user interface design in the last 20 years.

bugatti veyron -- probably the most amazing car ever made.

c# -- the programming language i spend most of my time with.

canada -- home.

captain slow -- apart from the fact that he's one of the few people in the world to take the bugatti veyron to its top speed of over 400km/h, he is weird, nerdy, opinionated and has a writing and presenting style that i really dig.

claude monet -- quite possibly my favourite of the classical painters.

cloud atlas -- the best book i've read in the last year.

coffee -- i'm a bit of a coffee snob, yes.

counting backwards from ten -- this is a subtle Ani Difranco reference.

craig armstrong -- a brilliant composer. he's known for having worked with Massive Attack back in the mid-1990s, but his solo albums have some really amazing pieces on them. either of his first two albums, The Space Between Us, and As If To Nothing, are highly recommended.

cycling -- i do this a lot.

david bowie -- God, essentially.

david foster wallace -- a writer for whom i have unreserved adoration. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again is a great book.

david gilmour -- some people worship at the altar of Jimi Hendrix; for others, it's Jimmy Page, or Kirk Hammett, or Clapton, or Rhoads, or van Halen... but for me, the best guitar player in the world is David Gilmour.

david sedaris -- a writer who tells great stories, mostly autobiographical, and very, very funny.

death in vegas -- another electronica / rock band that i like. Scorpio Rising is my favourite album by them.

decisions -- go on and make one already, why don't you.

devil advocacy -- both a subtle reference to Sinfest, and the general practice of taking on a contrarian or opposite view of something, just for the sake of seeing if an idea or opinion i or someone else has, can hold up against scrutiny.

disposable heroes -- a f'ing fantastic Metallica song.

division bells -- both a reference to the Pink Floyd album, and to the artwork they did around that time.

dj shadow -- the master of trip-hop and turntablism.

doves -- one of my favourite bands from Manchester. The Last Broadcast is my favourite album by them.

earl grey -- hot.

epics -- three meanings: epic films, epic storylines, and epic trance.

estuaries -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary ... it's basically self-explanatory

forgotten realms -- my second-favourite fantasy world

friends -- because, without them, i'd be both really, really bored, and really, really stupid.

geology -- just a long-time fascination of mine.

george carlin -- talk to me long enough and invariably, i will quote him.

getting lost in salford -- i did this once. i have this weird habit of walking in a random direction and seeing what happens.

ghost in the shell -- i'm not a really big fan of manga, most of the time, but i've always enjoyed the the Ghost in the Shell stories.

ghost notes -- as a drummer, i do a lot of these.

ghost riders -- a reference to Neil Peart's stories of lengthy motorcycle trips across North America.

ghost towns -- fascinate me for the same reason that geology does.

gm7 -- for the time being, this is my favourite chord.

going east -- i do this quite a lot.

gy!be -- that's godspeed you! black emperor, the finest band to emerge from Montreal. now if only they'd get back together and do something new.....

hamilton -- i live here.

having 149 interests -- Livejournal has this arbitrary limitation of 150 interests. why is that again?

hess village -- a place where i've spent quite a lot of time over the years.

hoodies -- probably my favourite sort of clothing.

iceland -- the most intriguing country in the world, i think.

illuminated manuscripts -- i used to study these a lot in the 1990s. i don't know, there's just something about this particular combination of art and writing that fascinates me.

iluvatar -- God, basically.

infected mushroom -- in any sub-genre of trance, they are my favourite group.

inherent contradictions -- the English language, for example, is full of them. as a logically-thinking person, they're infuriating to deal with, but at the same time, understanding and accepting inherent contradictions is a good thing.

intuition -- it's saved my ass a lot.

jakob nielsen -- his work in user interaction design has gotten me into a lot of arguments with people over the years, since i'm a firm believer in his philosophy and approach, but it's often at odds with people who have a sort of "let's throw shit at a wall and see what sticks" approach to building user interfaces and web sites.

jamiroquai -- fairly representative of the kind of modern funk music that i love so much.

jeremy clarkson -- very loud, very opinionated, not afraid of controversy, and very, very funny. what's not to like?

john bonham -- rock drumming today sounds like it does because of him.

john candy -- maybe not the best actor in the world, but still one of my very favourites. Spaceballs is one of his best performances. it's not often in movie history that a character gets a name like Barf.

john cleese -- another very funny actor. his influence cannot be overstated -- so many of us can recite so many of his funniest lines.

john coltrane -- i used to listen to a lot of John Coltrane when i was younger. apart from buddy rich, he's probably still my favourite jazz man.

john lennon -- God, basically.

john myung -- my favourite bassist. i'll spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how the hell to do half the stuff he'd mastered by the time he was 30.

john paul jones -- my third-favourite bassist.

jon stewart -- this shouldn't need any explanation...

kasabian -- another of my favourite bands.

keith olbermann -- after Brian Williams, he's my second-favourite newscaster. it's about time the left had a strong, unapologetic, in-your-face voice to take on the bullshit that comes from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill Orally.

kurt vonnegut -- another favourite author. his writing style in Jailbreak, Galapagos, and other books is amazing. i think a lot of people hear his name and think, "oh god, pretentious twattery", but it really isn't. you don't have to be an emo hipster who wishes it were still the 1960s to enjoy his work.

laces -- i'm going to leave this one unexplained.

last.fm -- probably my favourite web site right now.

laughing at your expense -- a fun hobby of mine.

left bank -- a part of Paris. there is a lost of artistic and literary history here. another one of those long-term fascinations. it's also on the list of places i've refused to go to until i'd found someone to go with.

left luggage -- one thing i do a lot when arriving at a city is finding a left luggage place to store my bags while i go exploring.

left to the fates -- ... because we all are.

left-handed -- ... because i am.

left-leaning -- ... because i am.

left-overs -- ... because i spent way too much money travelling, and need to eat left-overs in order to save money.

lewis black -- he is very, very funny.

liberalism -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism Again, Wikipedia can help with a proper definition, but I'm definitely a social liberal.

life in glass houses -- this is a Radiohead reference.

like rabbits -- any of: the animal; a particular way of fucking; and Katy's car.

lingoism -- it's like jingoism, but referring to language and grammar instead of foreign policy and nationalism. i could probably write a lengthy journal entry on my opinions of how we judge and discriminate against people on the basis of how they speak and write, but i can't be bothered.

lonely tower crane drivers -- this is an Elbow reference.

loops -- goes nicely with laces and music, doesn't it?

mac pro -- i'm typing this on one.

maine coons -- a particular breed of cat, one of which is sprawled out on the floor a few feet away from me.

malformed cookie cutters -- inherently more fun than perfectly-shaped stars or whatever, don't you think?

massive attack -- one of my favourite bands. Mezzanine is their best-known album, and probably one of the greatest albums of all time.

mitsubishi evolution -- a completely brilliant car. it's about fourth on the list of cars i'd consider owning.

mule variations -- my second-favourite Tom Waits album.

new york city -- i've been there fifteen times.

ontario -- i live here.

opinionated people -- i can't stand people who don't have opinions. it usually means they can't make decisions on their own, and that they're either satisfied with the status quo, or can't be f'ing bothered to try doing anything interesting. people with opinions always make for good conversations.

oscar wilde -- david sedaris follows a trail blazed by oscar wilde. (sorry; no pun intended) that much is obvious. his writings are just as important to the history of literature as his own life is to the history of gay rights and acceptance of homosexuality in society in general.

passengers -- any of: the other people i share a space with when travelling on public transport; the alternative name for U2 during the mid-1990s, when they put out one spectacular album called Original Soundtracks; and, in a bigger way, the thing we all are on this planet.

peter gabriel -- God, basically.

procrastination as performance art -- this journal entry is a demonstration of what i mean.

qi -- Quite Intersting, a British television show with Stephen Fry.

rachel maddow -- sheer brilliance.

rick wakeman -- Yes's most well-known keyboards player. i met him a couple of years ago.

riddles -- who doesn't love a good riddle?

road trips -- who doesn't love a good road trip?

roadsters -- Honda S2000, BMW Z3 & Z4, Aston Martin DB9 Volante, Audi TT, the Crossfire, etc.... they're all great. they're the perfect cars for road trips.

robotech -- Back in the 1980s when it used to be called "japanimation", I watched every episode of Robotech when they first came on television. the cartoon is a little dated now, but it remains one my favourite epic storylines of all time.

roland -- could be Roland of Gilead, or Roland keyboards and drumkits.

rolling the bones -- a reference to Rush.

saturdays = youth -- an album by M83 that i've been enjoying lately.

saying "rubbish" repeatedly -- an inside joke that doesn't need to be explained.

sigur ros -- in case it wasn't obvious from the other references to them.....

sneaker pimps -- another band i love.

spine of the world -- a Forgotten Realms reference.

spines of books -- ahhh, the eternal debate: do you crack the spines of books so that you can read it more easily, at the expense of it looking a bit rubbish on a bookshelf, or do you bend the pages so as to preserve the spine, which is more tiring, and results in slightly bent pages?

spines of mountains -- geology again.

spines of people -- come on, use your imagination.

syncopation -- breakbeats, ghost notes, and almost every musician i've listed above thrive on syncopation.

the big metal dog -- Greyhound.

the dude abides -- The Big Lebowski is one of my favourite movies.

the letter z -- an ex-partner, and my favourite class of BMW car, and something i spend roughly a third of my life doing.

the mars volta -- a great band.

the number six -- not going to explain this one.

the q train -- in new york city.

the seldom seen kid -- another Elbow reference.

the smiths -- another great band.

thunderstorms -- just a reminder that we are just passengers on this planet.

tom waits -- the legendary storyteller.

tony levin -- my second-favourite bass player.

toronto -- i've lived there a lot over the years. probably still my favourite city in the world.

train stations -- because of the places they can take you, if you wait around long enough.

twisted logic -- when you have to stretch and contort your reasoning, in a way that is both completely sensible and ridiculous at the same time, in order to justify doing something, then you've got twisted logic. this is also a reference to a Coldplay song.

understating the obvious -- this journal entry is long.

user interaction design -- how we interact with things like computers is an area i do a lot of research and study in.

visual studio 2008 -- this is the software i use for all my work.

whiteboards -- people tell me i'm pretty good with dry-erase markers and whiteboards.

wikipedia -- probably the world's most useful web site.