Though I have devoted much of my life to physics, I am like most people in that I like many forms of entertainment. Unlike most, however, I tend to go overboard when something strikes my fancy.
I like many forms of rock and roll, especially Prince.(whom I liked enough to review at one point), Radiohead, R.E.M., The Beatles, P.M. Dawn and Portishead. I like to absorb myself in a song, and if there's nothing there it makes me quite unhappy, so I tend to like overly elaborate music and put up with the pretentious for the sake of having something upon which to focus.
I am an avid reader, and my favorite author is Arthur C. Clarke. I like many types of science fiction, including classics by writers like Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, hard works by the likes of David Brin and Charles Pellegrino, and more challenging books by authors such as Stanislaw Lem and Philip K. Dick. Currently Lem's His Master's Voice and Joe Haldeman's The Forever War rank among my very favorites. I try to maintain a generally absurd outlook on life, and not surprisingly enjoy Kurt Vonnegut's work, as well as "Czech" writers like Tom Stoppard and Karel Capek.
I also adore Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine, in particular some stories by Jeffrey Kooistra as well as Dean McLaughlin's "Ode to Joy", . My taste in reading being the way it is, it should come as no surprise that I am a big NASA buff.
As you can probably tell from the backdrop here, I am a fan of H.R.Giger. I find his biomechanical take on art endlessly intriguing. I was first exposed to him by Ridley Scott's fantastic Alien. I generally like sharper art though, and I seem to oscillate between art deco and southwestern tastes. Assuming that my stylistic whims can properly be called taste. That said, I probably prefer Monet above all other artists despite his failure to fit into any of the aforementioned categories.
I like movies. My favorite genre is Film Noir, though I love a well-crafted adventure or science fiction film. My favorite films include Aliens, Raiders of the Lost Ark, L.A. Confidential, Die Hard, Barton Fink, Magnolia, Blade Runner, Eyes Wide Shut and The Professional (Leon). As an undergrad, three movies carried my friends and I through school. Without Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, The Blues Brothers, or The Rocky Horror Picture Show, I'd be lost. In my darkest hour (also known by the less interesting term "my sophomore year") I actually resorted to passing the time playing Questions (Play it yourself!).
I love good computer games, my favorite being the now-defunct Wing Commander Series. I used to play Warcraft II, Counterstrike, Rainbow Six, but have moved on to their sequels -- Warcraft III and Ghost Recon. My old Warcraft II levels are still on-line if anyone cares to try them (I still play sometimes). I continue to suffer under the delusion that Dungeon Keeper was a fantastic game. I think the best games ever made are now quite obsolete, particularly X-Com, Star Control 2, Privateer and Twilight 2000. If I'm playing anything, it's a turn based, play-by-e-mail game called Stars!. I also program for a text-based internet MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) -- a type of game which I can't really say I like to play, but enjoy developing with almost a model train lover's yen for verisimilitude (and the more than occasional dash of absurdity). You can find out about my MUD at the Dead of Night web site.
I am quite the news junky, and constantly follow CNN. I also read The New York Times and the irreparably bent news source, The Onion. I get most of my really disturbing news each day from The Obscure Store and Reading Room.
Though I would have never believed it as a child, I am now a big fan of college football, especially the University of Michigan Wolverines. Where else can you find a program old enough to have taught Notre Dame to play and pioneer the forward pass, yet still able to win national titles and produce NFL-ready quarterbacks? (more stats than you ever thought possible are available here) As a grad student I've still made sure to attend as many home games as possible at both Georgia Tech and Duke.
If I haven't already sated your desire for info on my interests, I invite you to check out my overwhelmingly obnoxious, obsolete, and generally mind-blowing Interests Page from Hell which contains many more links, presented in a truly tasteless manner.
Finally, I must fully endorse the holiday of Halloween. Over the past several years, I have been Jake to one of my good friend's Elwood, a member of the UofM Unibomber Squad, a volunteer of the Michigan Militia, Professor Bobo, Hugh Heffner and a party-goer from Eyes Wide Shut.
So we see that what looks like a dead, uninteresting thing -- a glass of water with a cover, that has been sitting there for perhaps twenty years -- really contains a dynamic and interesting phenomenon which is going on all the time. To our eyes, our crude eyes, nothing is changing, but if we could see it a billion times magnified, we would see that from its own point of view it is always changing...
Richard Feynman
They say we're 98% water. We're that close to drowning... [picks up his glass of water from the stool] I like to live on the edge...
Steven Wright