IAMA Wedge of Cheese, molding away in the bottom of a well - AMA

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May 24, 2012 at 2:49 AM
graters gonna grate
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So it looks like all the "official" wells are over (unless you count Lace's) but nobody seems to mind me continuing the well tradition, so here goes.


I will answer any question to the best of my ability, however difficult and/or personal it may be, so don't hold anything back. Just know that, if the question is about something I'm ignorant about, then "the best of my ability" might not be very good.

Things I'm very interested in, and also very good at: music (both composing and piano playing), math, computer programming

Thing I'm relatively interested in, but have at most moderate expertise in: philosophy, psychology, sociology, linguistics, video games, art forms other than music

Demographically, I'm pretty much the most generic Internet user imaginable (19 year old white liberal/libertarian heterosexual male college student living in the US), though in other respects, I'm not so generic.

Some other potentially relevant facts: I'm an INFP (though I think anybody who cares about that already knew). My religion is Unitarian Universalism (same as Lace), though since that's a very broad classification, I will add further specificity by saying that I'm a humanist, agnostic towards belief in God, and that my two Holy Scriptures are XKCD and Harry Potter. My "relationship status" can unfortunately be summed up by the 2nd paragraph of this post.


Yep, that's a good start, now fire away.
 
May 24, 2012 at 4:12 AM
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1. Can you tell us a bit more about your background with music? Some potential starters:
A. When did you start playing piano? What about composing?​
B. What kinds of playing/performing experience do you have?​
a. Do you have any really good stories about wild and/or crazy gigs?​
b. Memories of favorite performances?​
C. Do you have a favorite genre or style of music to play? To compose?​
D. Do you play any other instruments in addition to piano?​
E. Favorite bands/musicians/composers?​
F. Do you still play frequently?​

There will probably be more music related questions coming from me. Just forewarning. :)

2. Do you have any favorite maths in particular?

3. Is there a particular are of linguistics that piques your interest more than others? Or is it primarily a general interest?

4. What is your favorite kind of cheese? How did it become your favorite? Feel free to embellish a tale—entertain me!

5. Do I ask too many questions?
 
May 24, 2012 at 4:30 AM
http://imgur.com/EuvCtsQ
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favourite dead artist?
fqvourite music genre?
how often do you masturbate, and to what kinds of material?
how do you like to dress?
 
May 24, 2012 at 4:38 AM
Been here way too long...
"Life begins and ends with Nu."
Join Date: Apr 19, 2009
Location:
Posts: 3788
Age: 17
When did you start growing your moustache, and does it get all the bitches? I mean, what is the general reaction to it?
Do you come from what you would call a wealthy family?
Did you go to a private school or a public one?
Do you know any sweet dance moves?
Will Noxid's and Ryuuoutan's story ever continue?
What made you want to join the forums, and what made you want to stay?
What's the most disturbing thing you've found on the internet?
What's your favourte avatar from these forums? Any avatar anyone ever had.
 
May 24, 2012 at 5:12 AM
graters gonna grate
"Heavy swords for sale. Suitable for most RPG Protagonists. Apply now!"
Join Date: Jul 2, 2008
Location: &
Posts: 1886
Age: 31
1. Can you tell us a bit more about your background with music? Some potential starters:
A. When did you start playing piano? What about composing?​
I started playing piano when I was 4. I don't really remember much about these very early years, but, according to my family, the reason they started me on lessons so early is that I displayed an ability to listen to songs and figure out how to play them on this little toy keyboard instrument I had. As for composing, I have been improvising as long as I can remember. The first piece I can remember actually writing down is a very simple setting of music to the words on a Hallmark Christmas card, and I think I was 6 when I did that. Note that I don't still have the original written copy of it (I'm just rewriting it from memory), so it's entirely plausible that I've subconsciously made some improvements on it during the intervening years :p.


Mosaic said:
B. What kinds of playing/performing experience do you have?​
a. Do you have any really good stories about wild and/or crazy gigs?​
b. Memories of favorite performances?​
A fair amount. My piano teacher was always very good about finding and/or creating opportunities for her students to perform. I've also played in a number of pit orchestras for musicals. And I was in marching band, symphonic band, and jazz band in high school (playing clarinet in the former two, piano in the latter).

As for memorable stories, in 6th grade, I was in a youth symphony orchestra, switching between piano and percussion (even though I'm not really a percussionist, but they just needed another percussionist sometimes). Both of the performance I did with them had some interesting oddities.

In the first one, there was a piece in which I had a crapton of pages, and couldn't fit them all on the piano. During rehearsals, I solved this by just throwing one of the sheets over my head when I was done with this. I was a bit concerned that this might be considered unprofessional, but the director never called me out on it, so I figured it was okay. On the performance day, the piano had just a bit more room to put pages, so I was just barely able to fit them all on - or so I thought. In the middle of the performance, one page fell off, so, without missing a note in the music, I reached out with my leg, drew the sheet back toward me, pinched it between my feet, lifted it up, and, when one of my hands had a quick break, reached down and grabbed it and put it back on the piano. Needless to say, I felt like a badass.

The second one was somewhat less badass betterass, but still amusing. The other percussionist was doing something wrong, and I was correcting her. Unfortunately, I was so busy trying to correct her, I forgot that I had a cymbal crash coming up. I didn't have time to pick the cymbals up properly, so I just picked one up and smashed it down on top of the other.


Mosaic said:
C. Do you have a favorite genre or style of music to play? To compose?​
I love playing Romantic Era (19th cent.) piano music, especially Liszt. It's very difficult, but when you master it, it's amazing the grand sound you can get out of just one instrument. One compliment I often get on my compositions is that they combine the good qualities of both classical and popular music, which I would agree with. I'm also very much influenced by game and film music (especially RuneScape, Cave Story, and pretty much anything by John Williams).


Mosaic said:
D. Do you play any other instruments in addition to piano?​
I play clarinet and I sing in my church's choir.


Mosaic said:
E. Favorite bands/musicians/composers?​
Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Copland, Leonard Bernstein, John Williams, Phillip Glass, Coldplay, Taylor Swift, Journey. There are probably a bunch more I could list, but that's all I got at the moment.


Mosaic said:
F. Do you still play frequently?​
Oh yes, in fact I'm majoring in piano performance (as well as composition and computer science)


Mosaic said:
There will probably be more music related questions coming from me. Just forewarning. :)
Awesome, keep 'em coming! :mrgreen:


Mosaic said:
2. Do you have any favorite maths in particular?
In general, no, though I may go through phases of particular interest in one area. Recently, I was doing some stuff with Fourier transforms and variants thereof, but that was less out of intellectual interest, and more out of a desire to make an audio codec (similar to mp3 or Vorbis) from scratch.


Mosaic said:
3. Is there a particular are of linguistics that piques your interest more than others? Or is it primarily a general interest?
It's more of a general interest.


Mosaic said:
4. What is your favorite kind of cheese? How did it become your favorite? Feel free to embellish a tale—entertain me!
Well, I'm actually surprisingly ignorant of cheese considering my username. But I do seem to recall being very fond of both Gouda and Camembert, though it's been quite a while since I've had either. Since you wanted something entertaining, I'll just mention that, as a young child, my family had this ongoing joke where, if asked how are you doing, rather than saying "good", saying "gouda".


Mosaic said:
5. Do I ask too many questions?
Not at all, that's what this thread is for :)
 
May 24, 2012 at 6:10 AM
graters gonna grate
"Heavy swords for sale. Suitable for most RPG Protagonists. Apply now!"
Join Date: Jul 2, 2008
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Age: 31
favourite dead artist?
I'm assuming you mean musical artist? Oh man, it's so hard to pick just one. As I mentioned before, Liszt is probably my favorite to play, just because of his unparalleled mastery of writing for the piano, but that doesn't necessarily make him my favorite overall. It really depends on my mood. Right now, I'm in a mood to say Debussy. His music has a sort of "pure beauty" to it. Also, of all the composers I've studied, he's probably the one I feel most philosophically aligned with. He has such a chill attitude toward music, just sorta like "m'eh, rules are overrated, just make whatever the hell kind of music you like".


sexpy said:
fqvourite music genre?
See response to Mosaic


sexpy said:
how often do you masturbate, and to what kinds of material?
At least once a day, usually 2-3 times. I'd say I use my imagination about half the time, dreaming up various stories (in one of them, I replaced my name with "Noxid" and my love interest's name with "Ryuuoutan" and posted the result on the forums) involving some combination of my love interest and women whose pics I've found on the Internet. The other half would be looking at softcore porn (I'm not really into hardcore - I find it aesthetically unappealing for the most part). My main sources are phapit.com, kindgirls.com, and reddit (some of my favorite subs being /r/boobies, /r/realgirls, /r/metart, and /r/onoff, and one I just discovered today which looks somewhat promising: /r/gentlemenboners).


sexpy said:
how do you like to dress?
I care very little for clothes, so my main concern when picking clothes to wear is comfort. I can think of only two articles of clothing I own that I wear for their aesthetic value. One is a light blue Hawaiian shirt I got at Salvation Army for like two bucks. My high school band director often wears Hawaiian shirts, so one of our band camp spirit days was to wear one. Me and a bunch of friends went out to Salvo right before to get some. One of my male friends got what was, in hindsight, probably a women's shirt, and may or may not have turned me gay for a few moments :pignon2:. The other one is a mottled blue and purple and a little bit of green tie-dye shirt that was made in a tie-dye party with my church's choir. For a while the tie-dye shirts were a part of our choir uniform. I also somewhat enjoy wearing t-shirts with humorous things on them, like this one I have that shows a cowboy passed out drunk on his horse, with his dog sitting in front of him, holding the horses reins, and the caption "designated driver"


When did you start growing your moustache, and does it get all the bitches? I mean, what is the general reaction to it?
Well, it wasn't exactly a conscious decision, it was more just like "I'm lazy and don't feel like shaving". It started becoming slightly visible at around age 12 and reached the thickness it currently is at around age 15. I now trim it occasionally, as it irritates me if it gets too long. I'm actually considering throwing it off completely, to see what it looks/feels like, and also because I'm curious as to how long it would take to grow back. If I do this, however, I'll wait until after CaveCon, as I know how much my 'stache means to all of you :rolleyes:.

For better or for worse, no, it does not get all the bitches. The most common reaction is just an ever-so-slightly-sarcastic "hey, I'm diggin' the 'stache" or something similar. That was mostly in high school though, it doesn't seem to get much reaction at all in college.


fab said:
Do you come from what you would call a wealthy family?
I'd call my family middle-class. I do have quite a bit more money at my disposal than most college students, however, simply because I don't have siblings, so my family doesn't have to split the moneys between multiple children, it all goes to me :cool:.


fab said:
Did you go to a private school or a public one?
public


fab said:
Do you know any sweet dance moves?
Umm... not really. I guess if I had to I could probably make some up on the fly, as I tend to be a very good improviser in just about all aspects of my life, but my social awkwardness would probably get in the way, so it would probably help if I were a wee bit intoxicated.


fab said:
Will Noxid's and Ryuuoutan's story ever continue?
I hadn't intended it to, though, as mentioned above, I have a number of sexy stories rattling around in my brain, but most of them wouldn't really fit into the current Nox/Ryu storyline.


fab said:
What made you want to join the forums, and what made you want to stay?
Cave Story modding was the main thing that got made me join. IIRC, I actually started working on TWoR a few weeks before actually joining the forums. What makes me keep coming back now is my friendships with all y'all.


fab said:
What's the most disturbing thing you've found on the internet?
Hmm, well that depends on if you mean disturbing from my perspective at the time I found it, or disturbing from an objective, unchanging perspective. The two differ because I've become less and less easily disturbed over time. If it's the former, I'd say it was this public service announcement video advocating wearing seat belts. It showed this guy losing control of his car on the highway, getting thrown out of his car into the opposing side of the highway, and getting run over by a semi. It was made much more disturbing by the fact that there was a mic in his car, and you could hear him swearing and freaking out as he was loosing control (in hindsight, it may have just been a voice-over applied after the fact, I mean, how many people drive around with active microphone recording everything they say in their car?). I think I was 13 or 14 when I saw that video, and I was very disturbed by it.


fab said:
What's your favourte avatar from these forums? Any avatar anyone ever had.
Oh man, I'm gonna have to think about this one for a while and get back to you.
 
May 24, 2012 at 7:44 AM
Hyperbolic
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1) What's your goal (or main goals) in life?
2) What'd you like to do as main profession in life (for e.g. computer programmer, businessman methematician...)
3) What is life's meaning (to you) if there is such a thing?
4) The 3 favourite things to spend your freetime on
 
May 24, 2012 at 6:18 PM
Been here way too long...
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Wedge of Cheese said:
in one of them, I replaced my name with "Noxid" and my love interest's name with "Ryuuoutan" and posted the result on the forums
p151984-0-tumblrm26xrvcbyz1rtre08o1250.gif


I know it's a well, but that's a little too much information.
Also, using Reddit for porn ಠ_ಠ

So, uh, how often do you think up short stories without fapping to them?
 
May 24, 2012 at 6:47 PM
graters gonna grate
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Join Date: Jul 2, 2008
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What's your favourte avatar from these forums? Any avatar anyone ever had.
I'm gonna say this guy's avatar.


1) What's your goal (or main goals) in life?
3) What is life's meaning (to you) if there is such a thing?
I'm going to lump these two together, as they're sort of the same thing.
I don't think there is any one thing which is THE one purpose of life, but rather there multiple purposes of life. Really, anything that one enjoys doing could be considered a "purpose of life". Personally, I believe there are at least 3 different fundamentally distinct purposes of life (there are probably more that I've overlooked), and that a purposeful life contains all of them. They are sensual pleasures, meaningful relationships with other people, and the discovery and development of knowledge and ideas.


trickybilly said:
2) What'd you like to do as main profession in life (for e.g. computer programmer, businessman methematician...)
Most likely computer programming


trickybilly said:
4) The 3 favourite things to spend your freetime on
Programming, improvising on the piano, video games
 
May 24, 2012 at 6:50 PM
graters gonna grate
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So, uh, how often do you think up short stories without fapping to them?

Recently, not really at all. I think a year or two ago I sometimes did, but I don't really remember... >_>
 
May 24, 2012 at 9:33 PM
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Thisisquicklyturningintoathreadaboutpornandmyspacebarrisnotworking
 
May 24, 2012 at 10:03 PM
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Because talking about something remotely related to sex isn't likely in the CSTSF.

But yeah what is your favorite music track in a video game currently?
 
May 24, 2012 at 10:51 PM
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yay Hiino's well v2
What was the most embarrassing event in your life?

Personal Hell?

Personal Heaven?

Sexual fantasies and/or fetishes?

What's your biggest fantasm?

On to more casual stuff:
Favourite kind of music?

Do you have a couple of songs you want to share?

fcyvgbhjkl
 
May 25, 2012 at 2:52 AM
graters gonna grate
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Join Date: Jul 2, 2008
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Thisisquicklyturningintoathreadaboutpornandmyspacebarrisnotworking
diph.php



But yeah what is your favorite music track in a video game currently?
I really love the entire Knytt Stories OST, but I'm especially fond of Summit:



What was the most embarrassing event in your life?
I'm really bad at remembering bad things that happen to me, but the most embarrassing thing I can think of off the top of my head is when my high school's football team made it to the state championships, and I, being a member of the marching band, had to go as well. During half-time, when we were on the sidelines in our pre-show arrangement, I realized I was on the wrong side of the field, and had to run across just in time to get to my spot. There's probably something more embarrassing that's happened to me at some point that I'm unable/unwilling to remember...


Hiino said:
Personal Hell?
Being repeatedly pierced with needles all over my body, but especially in my stomach, my eyes, and the bottoms of my toes.


Hiino said:
Personal Heaven?
This one's quite a bit tougher. It would be an extremely chill place with no rules. There would be natural beauty everywhere - forests, rivers, oceans, waterfalls, deserts, mountains, etc. Also probably some equally beautiful but less familiar sorts of landscapes that don't occur naturally on Earth (I don't know what these would be - part of the fun would be finding out). I would have magical powers over my body and my surroundings, so that, in addition to enjoying these natural landscapes, I could craft my own sort of "mini-worlds" for my own enjoyment. I could create music richer and more beautiful than any Earthly instruments could produce, by altering and controlling the plants, animals, wind, water, my own voice. I would not be a total God however; there would be limits on my power so that things would stay interesting, and I wouldn't get bored with things being too easy. I would be able to "program" elements of my environment to respond to certain events in certain ways, and would have to think carefully about the best way to go about doing that. I would spend a lot of time in solitude, but I would have occasional encounters with other people, so I wouldn't get lonely. These encounters could be as short as an hour, or as long as a century. Some of these people would be people I knew and cared about on Earth, but there would also be people I've never met. They would have magical powers similar, but not identical, to my own, and it would be fun to learn from each other and see what other people can do. Social awkwardness, norms, and boundaries would not exist. Two people could each alter their bodies to the form the other desires most and have hot sex without having to worry about jealousy/possessiveness/STDs.

Which leads quite nicely into...


Hiino said:
Sexual fantasies and/or fetishes?
I have had two really strange fetishes (they're both starting to fade now, but are still there), although, if Freud is to be trusted, neither of these are actually that strange at all.

One is what I'll call, for lack of a better term, an eating fetish, but it's not simply me fantasizing about eating things. The things I'm eating have to be living creatures, usually people. I have actually fapped to this game, I shit you not. Usually, these fantasies don't involve sex, but there was a time when I would often combine the two by fantasizing about a scenario in which I'm a really sexy woman, and, whenever guys have sex with me, I suck them up into my vagina and digest them.

The other is an incest fetish. Note this does not mean I've fantasized about my actual mother or sisters (especially not the latter, as I have no sisters), but rather that I invent stories in which some random chick is my mother or sister, and I have sex with her. In this case, I think it's not so much the incest itself that appeals to me, but more just the thought of doing something so incredibly taboo, and giving society a big middle finger.


Hiino said:
What's your biggest fantasm?
I'm not sure what this means. Of the 3 definitions on Urban Dictionary, 2 don't really make sense in this context, and the other one makes this question seem like pretty much the same thing as the previous one. Care to clarify?


Hiino said:
On to more casual stuff:
Favourite kind of music?
Hasn't this already been asked twice? >_>
See previous posts in the thread.


Hiino said:
Do you have a couple of songs you want to share?
Sure!

Here's a song I wrote for a concert featuring student composers at Western Michigan University. This is the actual recording from the concert.
http://soundcloud.com/golden-songbird/serenade-for-flutes-and

Another one is from a Japanese Taiko ensemble that I saw a concert of last year, and was completely blown away by. This was one of my favorite pieces from that concert, displaying their calmer/mellower side:
 
May 25, 2012 at 5:54 AM
Senior Member
"I, Ikachan. The Life and Documentary of the OrigiNAL SQuiD."
Join Date: Apr 23, 2012
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So I'm going to cheat a little and respond to some of your responses while asking questions. I don't think that's quite standard well practice, but oh well. Yep, I just did that.

Demographically, I'm pretty much the most generic Internet user imaginable (19 year old white liberal/libertarian heterosexual male college student living in the US), though in other respects, I'm not so generic.

1. You mention that you're liberal/libertarian. I find myself somewhere around the libertarian ideological camp or frame of mind, too, but I tend to come from it from what I would generally describe as a more conservative approach. Can you describe a bit of your political philosophy that leads you toward libertarian thought?

2. Spinning off of #1, what do you think of Ron Paul?

The first piece I can remember actually writing down is a very simple setting of music to the words on a Hallmark Christmas card, and I think I was 6 when I did that.

Sweet! The first thing I wrote was a second part to "Taps" (the bugle call). I didn't know anything about modes at the time, but it turns out that what I composed was in phrygian. That was back in middle school or something. Phrygian has always been one of my favorite modes since even before I knew any modal theory.

Wedge of Cheese said:
I've also played in a number of pit orchestras for musicals.

3. a) Which ones? b) Did you have any favorite shows? One of my personal favorite pits to play was "Ragtime: The Musical". c) Any fun pit memories? I can remember some fun pit antics from my own experiences...

Wedge of Cheese said:
I love playing ... Liszt.
Respect.

Wedge of Cheese said:
Oh yes, in fact I'm majoring in piano performance (as well as composition and computer science)

Fantastic! I majored in trumpet performance in my undergrad and I took composition lessons until they had to kick me out of the comp studio because they needed all of the available lessons slots for actual comp majors; my school wouldn't allow for music majors to double major within the school of music. :(

So then it somehow feels necessary to ask compulsory music-major questions.

4. How much do you practice?

5. Do you have a cot or a mattress in your favorite practice room?

6. Do you receive your mail at your practice room?

7. Do you have a favorite ensemble or instrument for which you like to compose?

8. Finale or Sibelius?

Wedge of Cheese said:
Cave Story modding was the main thing that got made me join. IIRC, I actually started working on TWoR a few weeks before actually joining the forums. What makes me keep coming back now is my friendships with all y'all.

I dig that mod, by the way.

9. Has anything ever come of the original 3D game off of which you based the mod?


Here's a song I wrote for a concert featuring student composers at Western Michigan University. This is the actual recording from the concert.
http://soundcloud.co...-for-flutes-and
Good stuff, man! I also dig the "Dragzeloid" track, too— (10) that's expanded from the TWoR soundtrack, right? Oh, and "Arctic Winds" was epic, too. Kudos!

Wedge of Cheese said:
Another one is from a Japanese Taiko ensemble that I saw a concert of last year, and was completely blown away by.

11. Are you familiar with the work of Kiyoshi Yoshida? He has some (slightly dated) albums out that are over-generally called "Asian Drums" and "Asian Drums II" that feature the Taiko in modern commercial/electronic arrangements. They groove pretty well. Oh, here's one of my favorites from that first CD:
 
May 25, 2012 at 2:06 PM
daughter of chivalry
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Heck yes. Asian music and Knytt stories OST. And the soundcloud song was great too. i'm not as music savvy as you, but I love your tastes.

SPEAKING OF WHICH. What is your favorite music gen-shot-. I kid.

Describe the band kids from your school. Were they ridiculously horny, dated only within their inner circle, and did nefarious activities on trips? Not sure if a lot of band kids are like this, but the ones from my school sure as hell were.

What were social experiences throughout schooling years? Were you respected, bullied, a little of both? Or was everything fine and dandy?

I fel embarassed asking sexual questions, but since you're so open: Rank which type of sex appeals to you most. Vaginal, oral, and anal. Add details and reasons too if you will.

Have the forums made an impact on your life? Describe it if so?!

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

I'm not sure if I am mistaken, but are you still infatuated with that one girl?

Which video games have you played? Which do you consider favorites?

Do you consider yourself a good person? Do you have any flaws or weaknesses that might hold you back at times?

Aaand I will ask more later. Sorry I was late D:
 
May 25, 2012 at 6:43 PM
graters gonna grate
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Join Date: Jul 2, 2008
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So I'm going to cheat a little and respond to some of your responses while asking questions. I don't think that's quite standard well practice, but oh well. Yep, I just did that.
badumtshh.jpg


Mosaic said:
1. You mention that you're liberal/libertarian. I find myself somewhere around the libertarian ideological camp or frame of mind, too, but I tend to come from it from what I would generally describe as a more conservative approach. Can you describe a bit of your political philosophy that leads you toward libertarian thought?
In general, I tend to favor minimal government involvement. The main reasons for this are that everyone (even allegedly open-minded people like me) has this irrational tendency to want to impose their own values on others, even when it makes no sense to, and that, as a mathematician, I have this obsession with simplicity/elegance/doing more with less. So that's the libertarian side of things. However, I feel that corporations are even more susceptible to corruption than governments, as they are motivated not only by power, but by money, so that's where my somewhat fiscally liberal leanings come in. I think it's good for government to regulate the economy, as long as it's done intelligently, non-hastily, and in a way that doesn't fuck things up. Also, I my personal experience seems to contradict the belief held by many fiscal conservatives that money is needed to attract talent. I consider myself a talented person, and I meet a lot of talented people at college, and I've found that, by and large, we're motivated primarily by a love of what we do - money is a secondary concern.


Mosaic said:
2. Spinning off of #1, what do you think of Ron Paul?
Unfortunately, I know very little about him, so I'm not really in a position to judge...


Mosaic said:
Sweet! The first thing I wrote was a second part to "Taps" (the bugle call). I didn't know anything about modes at the time, but it turns out that what I composed was in phrygian. That was back in middle school or something. Phrygian has always been one of my favorite modes since even before I knew any modal theory.
Nice! I'm more of a Dorian kind of guy myself, but yeah, Phrygian is cool too.


Mosaic said:
3. a) Which ones? b) Did you have any favorite shows? One of my personal favorite pits to play was "Ragtime: The Musical". c) Any fun pit memories? I can remember some fun pit antics from my own experiences...
Shows I've been somehow involved in, in the order I was involved in them: Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma, Beauty and the Beast, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Kiss Me Kate, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Phantom of the Opera. That last one is my favorite show (followed closely by West Side Story) and I just about jizzed in my pants when I was offered an opportunity to play for it.

As for antics, I can think of a couple. In the Seven Brides for Seven Brothers pit, during rehearsals, our bari sax player would play short, low, obnoxious notes at the most awkward times (i.e. when we weren't even playing and there was an awkward silence on stage). I think he even did it once during the final performance. Also, there was this once scene in Kiss Me Kate (which, in case you're unfamiliar with it, is a meta-show - the characters themselves are actors putting on a Shakespeare play - namely The Taming of the Shrew) where one of the actresses gets pissed off and won't go on stage, so the stagehands are stalling by making these chorus girls go out and dance to a short piece of scene change music repeatedly. We added our own flavor to this section by having both the girls' dancing and the orchestra's playing get progressively sloppier and sloppier with each repetition. Before the second to last repetition, one trombone player yells out "You've gotta be kidding me!" and before the last repetition "I don't get paid enough for this!" which is funny because we weren't getting paid at all. In fact Phantom of the Opera was the only one of those shows that was not volunteer.


Mosaic said:
:cool:


Mosaic said:
Fantastic! I majored in trumpet performance in my undergrad and I took composition lessons until they had to kick me out of the comp studio because they needed all of the available lessons slots for actual comp majors; my school wouldn't allow for music majors to double major within the school of music. :(

So then it somehow feels necessary to ask compulsory music-major questions.

4. How much do you practice?
During the school year, about 1.5-2 hours a day. During breaks, hardly at all.


Mosaic said:
5. Do you have a cot or a mattress in your favorite practice room?
Nope, in fact I don't even have a favorite practice room


Mosaic said:
6. Do you receive your mail at your practice room?
Lol nope


Mosaic said:
7. Do you have a favorite ensemble or instrument for which you like to compose?
It varies. Through most of high school and before, I composed mostly for piano. Lately, I've been into composing for orchestra more, as well as electronics/synthesis (though with that, it seems I'm more interested in the theory of how to create electronic sounds than actually composing with them). I also really like woodwind quintets, though I've never actually composed an original work for one. I have, however, arranged a song from Kiss Me Kate (namely Were Thine That Special Face) for woodwind quintet, though I suspect the ending is impossibly difficult, especially the clarinet part, which I even had difficulty playing on the piano :eek:. I also like making non-traditional chamber ensembles specific to one piece. For example, a piece I wrote recently called Tributaries (which depicts tiny streams joining together into ever larger streams, eventually becoming a huge river gushing out into the ocean) is written for 2 clarinets, cello, and marimba, to give it a water-like timbre.


Mosaic said:
8. Finale or Sibelius?
I've tried both, and on the whole I prefer Sibelius. Almost everything is easier and more intuitive (with the exception of slurs and glissandi, which Finale makes easier, as you can just click and drag from the start note to the end note). Magnetic layout and integrated parts are fantastic features. However, Sibelius does seem to be more CPU/RAM hungry than Finale, which is unfortunate (also has a much longer startup time).


Mosaic said:
I dig that mod, by the way.

9. Has anything ever come of the original 3D game off of which you based the mod?
Well, it's not going to be 3D, at least not in the near future. I'm going to make a 2D (bird's-eye, not platformer) version, first. I have many pages of design written out for the game, but it will be a while before I start coding. It's a pretty ambitious project, so I want to try to make 1 or 2 complete, less ambitious games first.


Mosaic said:
Good stuff, man! I also dig the "Dragzeloid" track, too— (10) that's expanded from the TWoR soundtrack, right? Oh, and "Arctic Winds" was epic, too. Kudos!
Thanks! Sort of yes, although it would be more accurate to say that the TWoR soundtrack borrows from Dragzeloid, rather than the other way around. Dragzeloid is actually one movement of a longer multi-movement work. I wrote a big spiel about it here. My ideas for this piece have changed significantly since making that post, however, and a more up to date explanation can be found here. It is worth noting that the "Life Capsule", "Got Item", "Game Over" and "Defeated Boss" fanfares in the mod are quotes from Dragzeloid, Solagicove, Revorshkenahl, and Orb of Destiny, respectively. Also, the new movement (Lokvor) actually does take from the ingame music (you can hear it in the song Lokvor Liberated, which plays at the end of the mod, after defeating the final boss, and which was written before I added the 5th movement to the Symphony of Lokvor).


Mosaic said:
11. Are you familiar with the work of Kiyoshi Yoshida? He has some (slightly dated) albums out that are over-generally called "Asian Drums" and "Asian Drums II" that feature the Taiko in modern commercial/electronic arrangements. They groove pretty well. Oh, here's one of my favorites from that first CD:
Ooh, nice. No, I hadn't heard of him before.


Heck yes. Asian music and Knytt stories OST. And the soundcloud song was great too. i'm not as music savvy as you, but I love your tastes.

SPEAKING OF WHICH. What is your favorite music gen-shot-. I kid.
:J


dasu said:
Describe the band kids from your school. Were they ridiculously horny, dated only within their inner circle, and did nefarious activities on trips? Not sure if a lot of band kids are like this, but the ones from my school sure as hell were.
With a few exceptions, they seemed a bit less horny that the mainstream population of my high school. They did have a tendency to date within their inner circle. I wasn't aware of any activities that I would deem nefarious. We had band parties after every football game, and before each party, the director would make a big point of saying "These are CLEAN parties" and we all respected him enough to take him seriously.


dasu said:
What were social experiences throughout schooling years? Were you respected, bullied, a little of both? Or was everything fine and dandy?
In elementary school, I was a bit of a social outcast. I had extreme anger problems (which is odd, because, now, I'm one of the chillest people I know. I think the change happened around 5th/6th grade, but I'm not really sure, and I have NO IDEA what caused it) and was just really really bad at interacting with people. In fact, my family and I suspect I may have had a mild case of Asperger Syndrome (I displayed some of the other symptoms of it as well, such as oversensitivity to bright light, arm flapping, saying random nonsensical things). It is allegedly possible to grow out of mild AS if you have high intelligence and are well-taught by your family, so that may have happened with me. My anger problems, as well as my complete lack of understanding of humor/sarcasm, caused me to be extremely easy trollbait. Note this does not mean I was boring, or didn't know how to laugh - far from it - it's just that my idea of "humor" consisted primarily of "POOP BUTT PENIS FART BOOBS SNOT TOILET PENIS PENIS PEINS OLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL IMSO FUNNNyYY!!!!".

In middle school, I was still very socially oblivious, but I was mostly over my anger problems, and my peers were also becoming more mature/less mean, so any bullying/trolling I had to deal with in elementary school was, for the most part, over.

My city had 3 middle schools and 2 high schools, and my middle school was the one that split about evenly between the two high schools, meaning that most people in high school had never met me before. To my surprise, most of these new people seemed to really like me, having never encountered the younger extremely socially awkward me and been put off by him. However, during pretty much my entire junior year, and about half of my sophomore and senior years, puberty hit hard and I became much more introverted and socially awkward once again.

In college, I find most of the new people I meet seem to like me. Also, unlike in high school (where I was very self-conscious about my nerdiness and tried to deny it to fit in better), I now wear the nerd label proudly, and don't get teased for it (except in a friendly, good-natured way) as, in college, you are surrounded by people who are just as passionate about their fields of study as you are, and won't hesitate to pursue them, even if it means straying into the forbidden nerd/geek territory.

Also, at pretty much every point in my life so far (even in elementary school), I was, to varying extends, respected for my music and math skills.


dasu said:
I fel embarassed asking sexual questions, but since you're so open: Rank which type of sex appeals to you most. Vaginal, oral, and anal. Add details and reasons too if you will.
Best is vaginal, followed fairly closely by oral, with anal waaaaaay down at the bottom (badumtshh.jpg). Anal just seems kinda gross to me. I'd be willing to try it if I had a partner that really wanted to, but it's definitely not on my bucket list. Another way I'm different from most guys is that the idea of giving oral sex actually appeals to me more than the idea of receiving it (though doing both simultaneously would rival even vaginal sex).


dasu said:
Have the forums made an impact on your life? Describe it if so?!
I'd say so. For one thing, I've come to realize that meeting face to face is not a requirement for developing meaningful friendships with people (though it certainly can help - woohoo cavecon!). Also, and this may seem a bit odd, the forums have helped to refine my views of politics. You may recall that I used to get really mad at the mods/admins (especially DT/Garde) when I disagreed with their moderating decisions, and freak out that governance of the forums was heading down a slippery slope towards a totalitarian regime, when in fact it was silly for me to think this - the mods/admins just had slightly different values than I. I still believe that there are a number of moderating decisions in the forums's history that were mistakes, but I no longer think of those responsible for said decisions as evil for it. Having come to this realization, I start seeing the same pattern all over the place in real world politics. Any time somebody says something somebody else remotely disagrees with, the latter person immediately accuses the former of "waging WAR on our values" or "making '1984' a reality" or some such silliness.


dasu said:
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
I've had a crush that was in no way even remotely sexual, but was, in every other respect, a total fanboy crush. Aximilli Esgarrouth Isthill from Animorphs (probably misspelled that, but whatev). I loved how he was so bold and courageous and determined in his quest to fight off Yeerks. Oddly enough, Rachel didn't really appeal to me in this way, even though she was perhaps even more bold/courageous/determined than he was, but with her, it seemed like she was more into just fighting for its own sake, while Ax was much more devoted to the cause for which he was fighting. I would often fantasize about him and me being supreme overlords of everything and creating a just and prosperous empire and shit. This actually ties in to my eating fetish I mentioned in response to Hiino. Ax and I would eat criminals as a form of punishment (in hindsight, our empire was not so just and prosperous at all :muscledoc:). I later had a similar thing for Littlefoot from The Land Before Time, but without all the "supreme overlords of everything" crap. Being more mature now, I don't see myself forming such obsessions with fictional characters, but a couple characters I probably would have had fanboy crushes on had I encountered them earlier in life are Luna Lovegood and Curly Brace.


dasu said:
I'm not sure if I am mistaken, but are you still infatuated with that one girl?
Yes, and I know y'all are probably gonna yell at me and say I'm a naive idiot and that I should just forget her and find someone else, so I feel a need to defend my position a bit. For one thing, I'm kind of a loner, and just the idea of having a significant other in general doesn't appeal to me that much, but the though of being in a relationship with her does - a lot. In other words, I'd rather have no SO than someone other than Faith. Before I met her, I thought romantic relationships and the people in them were stupid. I don't think I'd get any joy out of having a different SO - I wouldn't be able to look her in the eye and say "I love you" without feeling incredible guilt, and I'd probably just spend all my time moping about how I'd much rather be with Faith (oddly enough, I don't really do much of that now, my life is fulfilling enough with the friendships I have and the activities that I stay busy with). That being said, I have no intention of dying a virgin, so, if I can't be with Faith, I'll probably just have occasional one night stands, or maybe try to do friends-with-benefits with someone.

Unfortunately, I find it very difficult to find the motivation to try to actually find her. I've done very little. I've occasionally searched "Faith" on Facebook, in the hopes that we might have a few mutual friends from the various UU cons, but the only person that kinda sorta looked like her said she wasn't who I was looking for when I messaged her. A couple days ago I posted a thing on AskReddit asking for tips on how to people-search effectively, but the few comments were about half "lol stalker keep away from me" and the other half people trying to be helpful, but not saying anything I hadn't already thought of. The good news is that, by my estimate, there are fewer than 10 Unitarian Universalists with the first name "Faith" born in Michigan from the year 1990 to 1995, so, if I could somehow do a search and get pictures of these fewer than 10 people, it should pretty darn easy for me to identify the one I'm looking for. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do such a search.


dasu said:
Which video games have you played? Which do you consider favorites?
I've played very few non-free games, not because I'm particularly thrifty, but because, before I had my own bank account, I was too shy and humble to ask for presents for birthday/christmas (and, had I asked, video games probably would have been what I'd have asked for), and, now that I have my own bank account, I'm too busy with college to have any time for gaming. Nevertheless, I'll try to list my history as a gamer as best I can.

In elementary school, I mostly played those games that came with computers at the time, namely: Asteroids, Battlezone, Centipede, Missile Command, Tempest, Pac Man, Dig Dug, Glaxian, and Pole Position. Of those, I was especially fond of Centipede, Glaxian, and Pole Position.

Even though I was shy about asking for things, my family knew I liked gaming and occasionally I received games as gifts. I'm pretty sure I had like all of those educational ones like Jump Start and Clue Finders. I think my favorite of those was Mystery Mountain, in which you follow a robot called Botly, whose is trying to save the world from the time-traveling shenanigans of his creator's obnoxious teenage daughter, Polly. IIRC, this was Jump Start 3rd grade, but I don't totally remember. I also got Myst and Riven, both of which I was super in love with. However, I unfortunately have no willpower, and caved in to the urge to read walkthroughs on both these games, so I didn't complete either one of them legitimately.

Then in 7th grade, I discovered RuneScape, and that was pretty much all I played for the next 2.5 years.

After that, I played a bunch of free online flash games, none of which particularly stick out in my memory, until a friend of mine introduced me to the wonderful world of free indie games, such as Within a Deep Forest, Knytt Stories, and, of course, Cave Story.

Though I'd say my favorite gaming experience ever was a single weekend of Elder Scrolls IV (Oblivion). Everything about it just pretty much makes me jizz in my pants.

I'd say my favorite free game is An Untitled Story, followed very closely by Cave Story (which would be tied with pretty much everything by Nifflas), and followed after that by Lyle in Cube Sector.

Some games I really really really want to play, on the off chance that I ever acquire a sample of this mysterious sacred substance known as "free time" are: Skyrim (along with maybe some of the earlier Elder Scrolls, for comparison purposes), Portal and Portal 2, and the sequel(s?) to Myst and Riven. In addition to loving the free/exploratory feel of the Myst series, I love the story, made so much cooler by The Myst Reader (consisting of The Book of Atrus, The Book of Ti'ana, and The Book of D'ni, though I'm not entirely sure if these books are considered canon).


dasu said:
Do you consider yourself a good person? Do you have any flaws or weaknesses that might hold you back at times?
On the whole, yes, I consider myself a good person. Up until about 2 years ago, I'd have considered my greatest flaw to be laziness. Now, however, I'd consider it to be social awkwardness. Both of these flaws have decreased over the past few years, but the former much more rapidly than the latter.


And I just now remembered that I was supposed to answer Hiino's question about my favorite fantasm (which I now know to be a very specific sexual fantasy). I'll do it later, as I've already spent hours on end on this response :greydroll:
 
May 25, 2012 at 8:47 PM
graters gonna grate
"Heavy swords for sale. Suitable for most RPG Protagonists. Apply now!"
Join Date: Jul 2, 2008
Location: &
Posts: 1886
Age: 31
Do you like apples?
They're all right, but not real high up on my list of fruits.


mixer said:
Your favourite sport?
To play: tennis
To watch: well, I hardly ever watch sports, but, while I was in band, I always enjoyed watching the basketball games more than the football games, as they're more fast paced and the situation can change much more quickly. So, uh... I'm just gonna say basketball.


mixer said:
Who's your worst enemy on the forums?
Eh, I don't really have forum enemies. As stated earlier, I used to sometimes butt heads with the mods/admins, but I'm pretty much over that. And none of the various trolls and/or idiots (Ryuuoutan, AAKid, King~, Merlinoboy, Obeece) really bothered me that much. So I'm gonna say I don't have one.


mixer said:
Do you like math?
I like math like Pooh likes honey hunny :mrgreen:. Well okay, maybe not quite that much...


hiino said:
What's your biggest fantasm?
Well, this is kinda tough to judge, as I get bored with one fantasm pretty quickly, and because I tend to make small changes to my fantasms over time, but I'll describe this one, which would be a prime candidate for the top of my list in terms of sexiness. I'll try to include in my description some of the small variations I sometimes use, as well the one not-so-small variation.

Unless otherwise noted, all links in the following description are NSFW.

The story starts with me being born, and being immediately aware of my own sexuality. Judging by her facial expression, and sudden stillness, the nurse delivering me is also aware of it. I slowly crawl over to her and touch her midriff, at which point she lifts her shirt and drops her pants and fucks me (which, given my small baby size, basically amounts to picking me up and rubbing me on her vagina - I don't really do anything). Of course, the male nurses/doctors in the room are very freaked out by this, but the female nurses/doctors, sensing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fuck a hypersexual baby sex god, force all the men out of the room, not letting them in, until they eventually run off to get reinforcements. By the time I'm done with the first nurse, all the other women are lying naked on the floor waiting for me, and I bang all of them, just before reinforcements arrive, breaking up the party. So far, I haven't taken any notice of my mom (she is usually this woman, but occasionally this woman), who is of course very traumatized by all this, but is still in too much pain to do anything about it. As I'm riding home with her, I want to continue my crazy sex spree with her, but am somewhat put off and intimidated by how cold/unresponsive she is to me, compared to the women in hospital. When we get home, she puts me in a crib and goes off to brood on the day's wacky events for the rest of the day.

And I'm going to leave it there for now, there's a lot more that comes after that, so I'm probably going to have to do this in small increments.
 
May 26, 2012 at 3:39 AM
daughter of chivalry
"Bleep, Bloop, Bleep, Bloop"
Join Date: Jun 12, 2009
Location: Edge of the universe
Posts: 1564
Goodness, I didn't expect any of this about you!


Do you have any disorders? I'm mostly talking psychological (depression, anxiety, etc)

What are your favorite things to eat?

Have you had any serious injuries in your life?

I'll throw this lovely question at you too: If your mother and your love interest switched bodies, which one would you have sex with? Your mother in your love interest's body, or your love interest in your mother's body?

Where would you place yourself on a sexuality spectrum?

At what age did you actively start using the internet?

Do you have any childhood cartoons you watched?

Is there a country you'd rather live in than the US? Give reasons why (government, climate, etc)

Favorite notoriously "bad" member?

Favorite incident of forum drama?

Could we have a music sharing session sometime!?
 
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