Five things you may or may not know about me.

I've always kind of had that superstition about pennies. The first time I encountered it was in elementary school, right before a "Battle of the Books", in which teams from different schools answered questions about novels. This particular one was to be televised on the local public access channel. On the way tot he studio, I saw a penny on the ground, and my teacher at the time told me "See a penny, pick it up, and for the rest of the day you'll have good luck." So, I did, and we cleaned up in the competition. I've made it a habit to pick up pennies since then.

I always wave at cemeteries.

I've found that some of the most formative periods in my life are very brief: a month in Manila, a few days skiing, the weekends I spent at the zoo, that sort of thing. Those brief times have affected me more than the years at any given job, or all the time I was in school.

Many of the things I do as an adult are expressions of rebellion from my parents. My mother hated stuff that made noise: I have windchimes. I wasn't allowed to have anything vaguely like a weapon: I now have a full rack of swords, more daggers than I can count, and a crossbow (Zombie apocalypse optional). We only ever had plastic cups: I use fragile glassware. It's an odd sort of rebellion, but there it is.

I think the most important book I've ever read, for me, was Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In it, Clarke casually mentioned how Bowman sat down to study, because he was an eternal student. While I don't achieve that all the time, to me it became an ideal to strive for.

I never watched a horror movie until I was in college, and I've only seen a handful ever.