Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams is responsible for such science-fiction greats as The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy (now at five volumes), and the Dirk Gently series. He is also partially responsible for the computer games Bureaucracy and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy [sic]. Okay, so the books were not all that great, but I think they were thoroughly entertaining, except the last couple of volumes of his I have seen, where I think he went downhill somewhat.

Electronics

I rather enjoy experimenting with electronic devices, though I do not get nearly enough time (nor can I afford it) because of the amount of time and resources I put into computers. I suppose it would be interesting to build a few of the projects I have had ideas for, and maybe someday I will (or more likely, somebody else will and he will make a killing)...

Elvish script

In The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien described several writing systems. Among these is a script-like system which uses the shape of the character to describe the sound with which it is associated. You'll have to look at the many more useful explanations of this, because I am not terribly good at it. I do rather like how it looks...

Good music

This is rather subjective, and it actually seems to vary with my mood. I enjoy just about everything from a good Bach heavy organ piece to some Pink Floyd, stopping along the way for some jazz, a little new age music, or if I am in the right mood, perhaps even some Zeppelin. If it does not offend my ears or my sensibilities too much, I will probably listen to it. I am told my preference for listening in absolute darkness (and absolute silence except for the music itself) is a bit unusual...

The Lord of the Rings

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings seem to make up a series of four volumes (the latter being three volumes usually found as a trilogy : The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King). Usually the term The Lord of the Rings refers to all four volumes, though not always (it always includes at least the last three volumes). These volumes cover the late years of the third age of a world called Middle Earth (I will not spoil the plot by explaining it here). Tolkien was very thorough in his creation, and invented many details, including writing systems, calendars, and languages.

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov is the author of countless books and stories (okay, somebody probably has counted them, but I have not). He seems to be most famous for his Robot stories (such as those contained in the volume I, Robot), and for his Foundation books. I fear that if I tried to explain anything of his, I would rapidly run out of space.

J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien is one of my favourite authors. He wrote (and published) The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and many other books, stories, &c. He also wrote (but did not publish) many stories about what happened in Middle Earth before The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, some of which his son, Christopher Tolkien, has published (much in the History of Middle Earth series).

Lego Brand Building Blocks

I know Interlego AG would hate me if I dared to call them Legos, but that is exactly how I referred to them for so many years. Strange and wonderful things could be built with some proper bits, a decent plan, and a little time and patience. It has been years since I pulled mine out and did anything with them, and I sadly admit most of my once vast collection has been lost. I feel a bit silly going into a toy store and marching out with a new set, though -- partially because of the bright friendly lettering that says 8 to 12 years, but mostly for paying $150 for a few brightly coloured moulded bits of plastic.

Mechanical tinkering

Something else I used to have more time to enjoy was mechanical design and tinkering. I used to have endless hours of enjoyment designing (and in some cases building with my Lego expert builder sets) complicated mechanisms to accomplish whatever it occurred to me to do. One of my more interesting projects was a five-speed (manual) transmission for a Lego vehicle. This may give some idea how long it has been since I really did anything serious mechanically...

Programming

I like to program. That simple. My preferred language is assembly, on whatever processor and platform is available at the time. Mostly, I write tools that I want or need, but on occasion I have written games and other doodads. If I really want it now, or the project is particularly complicated, some Pascal or other language may be mixed with liberal amounts of assembly.

Reading science (&c) fiction

Some of my favourite authors make this rather difficult to classify. I enjoy J.R.R. Tolkien and Isaac Asimov, among others. I think the attraction to these authors is because their worlds are so complete they are quite believable. I also like Douglas Adams, but for different reasons. His books are (on the whole) quite amusing, and internally completely inconsistent (just the thing for a little relaxation and amusement).

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