Interests

Comedy

I like standup - the pastime and the craft of it. How a comic decides which word to use, how to land a line, how to tie two different jokes together into something tighter. The process of refining a set over and over until the performance is lethal. Arguing with friends about whether a bit works. Comics talking shop is its own genre - Blocks, Working It Out, Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.

Game Engines

I built a game engine and roguelike sandbox called Brileta - lighting, world generation, AI.

And trees (how they're made).

Speaking

I’ve done Toastmasters in a few different cities and won some ribbons along the way. They're in a drawer somewhere. But my favorite rooms are the small ones where people actually know each other and prizes aren’t even a factor. Someone stands up, no script, and surprises everyone with their honesty, wit, or a well-timed punchline.

Food & Cooking

There’s something about making good food for people I care about. I have a bookshelf of cookbooks and a running list of what’s worth repeating, refining, or retiring. I like knowing about ingredients, what makes food nourishing, how different cuisines satisfy the same cravings.

Books

A few favorites I keep inflicting on people:

East of Eden John Steinbeck A multigenerational epic with one of the most unsettling characters in fiction. Based on a True Story Norm Macdonald A (semi-?)fabricated memoir. Open Andre Agassi He hated tennis. No one believed him because he was the best in the world. The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov The devil ravages 1930s Moscow. Somehow also about art and redemption. The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas A multi-tentacled, family-destroying revenge epic. Children of Time Adrian Tchaikovsky Hard sci-fi that made me root for spiders. Listen Patty Wipfler Connection over correction, for parents and everyone else. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain George Saunders A craft book on stories by someone who actually writes great stories.

Storytelling

I like anything where people are telling a story together in real time. Tabletop RPGs and improv, for the same reason. Someone does something unexpected, you riff on it, and the whole thing goes somewhere nobody planned.

Languages

Languages are an ongoing fascination - etymology, grammar, the way they shape our thoughts. (Muscles may come from the gym, but muscle comes from the Latin for "little mouse." I will not stop telling people this.) I grew up bilingual, and the one I’m having the most fun with right now is Esperanto - the world’s most widely spoken constructed language. Elegant, logical, and spoken by just enough people to make it interesting. Learning a new grammar is a surprisingly good way to notice how much your native language has been bossing you around.

Music

Synthwave is my home base - The Midnight, Timecop1983, Carpenter Brut, PYLOT, Starcadian. Propulsive, atmospheric. Ghost has been in heavy rotation lately. Classical and film scores when I'm deep in work, 90s and early-2000s hip hop when I'm not. Consistency has never been my problem.