About Me Born on 2nd of May 1984, I grew up in the rural area of St.Mary's County (Maryland, USA). My mother was a wiccan, my father wasn't really known whatsoever. At a young age, my mother started to tutor me in Mathematics, Writing, and Reading. By the time that I started school, I had a very basic understand of Algebra and was reading at what was proclaimed [at the time] at college-level. Most of my focus on academics came from the fact that I had health problems when I was very little (2-9 years old) and had to spend the better part of that timte lip-reading due to hearing problems.  I skipped two grades (second and seventh). Most of my patience and understanding has come from the guidance of my mother, who passed away when I was 12 years old (no pity party, please - just explaining my background). Even before this occurred, however, I was pretty fixated in the computing scene. My mother had bought me a Commodore64 when I was six years old (on my birthday, in fact). That same day, I hooked up that old 9600 Baud Modem to the phone line and started on my way of looking at BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) that were withing the local (same state) region. Inevitably, my mother grew tired of the rising phone bills due to how BBS'es were back then (you'd have to connect to their computer to leave messages and replies - meaning dialing their home number or their internet number). A few years later, I got an IBM computer with Windows 3.1 Workgroup running on it. By this time, I had a pretty keen direction - almost everyone who I spoke to 'online' said I needed to learn Assembly if I was going to be good at doing anything with computers later on. Sadly, I spent the better part of those three years (aged 6 to 9) just goofing arond - then at 9, I started listening to everyone and picked up a new hobby: programmming. Inevitably, I got more and more interested in other languages. So when I heard about C and C++, I started looking into them a bit more throughly. Around the same time, 'web languages' started getting more popular because web sites were becoming more of a 'commodity' instead of those rare things you'd see from time to time for a business. Personal sites popped up like nothing, making HTML almost mandatory to know if you wanted to fit in the 'in crowd'. I believe it was 1996, when I made my first website. It was rather generic, HTML and a little bit of Javascript, even though it was a rather new language at the time. It had just a few things uploaded, mainly examples of ASM code and some tutorials since I was helping in #asm channels on Efnet and Dalnet by that time. Soon after, I found out about Ultima Online - one of the first games I really got 'addicted' to. During 1992-1995, I mainly played MUDs and MOOs (text-based RPGs). Graduated at 16, I started going to college that same year (that fall). I went to Massachuttes Insitute of Technology to major in Nuclear Engineering. Due to some ...circumstances (being young and dumb), I withdrew from MIT in the ending months of my second year there. I then moved to Knoxville, Tennessee and studied Computer Science as UT (University of Tennessee). Since I had credits from MIT in Comp.Sci (minor), I got my BSc in Computer Science in 2004. At the same time, I started working for a company in Oak Ridge, TN known as "ClientLogic" (it's a Call Centre/Technical Support Group that does outsourced technical support, customer service, and the likes for ISPs and various other companies [TiVo, Sony, and formerly BellSouth FastAccess DSL]). I spent two and a half years working there as well, as a Technical Support Agent for BellSouth FastAccess. After some situations occurred and I got laid off, I started hanging out at home and playing more games. Ragnarok Online was my 'game of choice' at this time, since it was simple and pretty straight-forward. When I started playing (2002), there wasn't any Player Versus Player or Guild Versus Guild (War of Emperium). Although, even without all that, it was a pretty robust game since it was easy to understand and had its own sets of calculations to follow for damage and defense. To go back on my gaming history a bit: I started playing the NES when I was 2 years old in an old Circuit City shop in Waldorf, MD (my Mom's boyfriend worked there). First game I played and beaten was Zelda. Of course, I had a SNES, Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, Turbo Graphix 16, Sega CD, 32X, Atari Jaguar, Lynx, Game Boy (and its various offsprings), Virtual Boy, .....you name a console and I had owned for some time or another. I loved console gaming because most of them were nice to occupy friends when they came over or when you went to their house. I've started creative writing when I was about 9 years old, after I had read a story called "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. I wrote tons of short stories and novellas around that time; but as time grew, I realised that it was hard for me to make a suitable 'ending' to anything I wrote. Even when I write these articles for MMOsite Gamer Blog, I find it more and more difficult to 'end' it. It just feels too awkward for me to 'finish' something that seems like it's not enough. I'm only one person and cannot have multiple opinions - so I just wished that sometimes, just sometimes, there was someone else about finishing off the articles and adding a counter point of view.. I'm not sure if that makes sense or not though. =) I still enjoy reading, gaming, and writing. I still lurk about for Orson Scott Card novels. I'm a big fan of John Irving as well; especially the novel called "The World According to Garp". I got married on 11th of January 2005 to a wonderful british woman named Amanda. We met on a private ragnarok online server at the time, through a neutral (sort of) friend. She has a son named Loki (no, not named after the RO server, just so you know) who's about to turn five years old at the end of the month. Even though he's my stepson in technicalities, I see him as my own son since I've been with him for such a long while. I'm residing in London, England at the time of writing this and hopefully will be here for quite some time. Me on the London Eye, a few weeks ago! =) I love british foods: pie and mash, chips, toads in a hole, etc.. pretty delicious stuff out there. It's nice in London since there's so much diversity overall. You cannot go too far without seeing about 5 different types of restaraunts to dine at. There's a nice diner here called "Ed's Easy Diner" that probably has the best burgers on this side of the globe... I've had various projects and such, but these days I'm a freelancer (mainly client-side programming or journalist). I'm aware that this 'article' isn't too professional-looking, but it's an "About Me". There isn't a whole bunch more to say about me. I'm not some enigma or mysterious type of person. I'm big into open-source and laugh at people who try to claim creative rights for stuff that's been around for longer than they have really. I don't like arguements or 'drama'. Online drama just takes the piss, pardon the french, as most of the times they won't ever meet one another. And typically, it's over about being 'different' or 'unique'. Ah well, that's just how things are online these days. Things have changed so much since I first started hanging out around 'here'. I love drawing, messing around in Painter X and Apophysis. I use Photoshop CS2 for some banners and things that I tend to use on the articles. I dab at making my own vector art and abstract images for backgrounds. So while today is my birthday, it's also my 'online personas's' birthdays as well. Considering my first day 'online' as the same day as my birthday. So Happy Birthday to all of my previous names and nicknames on the internet! Over and out =)