(I will mark this up at some point; I still need to familiarise myself with this place's markup)

I am a Canadian. Among all things, this simple statement is what describes me the most succinctly. More specifically, I adore the institutions that Canada was built upon, the land, the people both old and new, even the weather; and though I may not adore the current governing party, I am gratified to see responsible government in action right before my eyes---and hope to see it in action again soon.

I prefer science-fiction over other forms of fiction, but I have been known to read much horror and suspense, and even a little fantasy on occasion. I tend to enjoy modern British fiction quite a lot (Simon Clark, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett are all authors I have enjoyed quite a lot in the past), but classic and modern science-fiction of any geographic extraction I devour with great interest. I also enjoy volumes relating to history and governance; Pierre Burton's "The Invasion of Canada" is a prime example of history told well. 

Lately I have been reading Star Trek novels; the Deep Space Nine Relaunch is perhaps the greatest collection of derived literature I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Not only are the characters uniformly well portrayed by all the authors involved, but the quality of prose is quite consistently high, and the plots are both engaging and in tune with what one came to expect from Deep Space Nine. Yet further proof that DS9 is the all-around best Star Trek incarnation ever produced. Yes, TOS is great, and TNG took Star Trek in a fantastic new direction, but DS9 is just plain -better-.

For several years I have also had an interest in the World Wide Web and how it works. I read the relevant specifications often---sometimes just to pass the time---and have kept a close eye on the development at the WHAT working group and W3C. I also have moderately advanced experience with PHP and am a fanatical user and promoter of Opera, the single greatest Web user-agent ever constructed---and one of the best pieces of complex oftware engineered. If you've not tried it, you're missing out.

Due to my intimate and passionate love affair with the Web, however, the software driving this site has thus far frustrated me greatly. I plan to chronicle my impressions, complaints and thoughts on how it might be improved at some point; watch for it, if that sort of thing interests you.

I am good friends with [Kiddalee], whom I love and admire dearly. She, in her seemingly limitless persistence, suggested I give this place a try. I therefore have, even though I am not generally receptive to community sites. This is not because I am not a communal person; I am simply more accustomed to thinking of community in a broader sense: to me the entirety of the Web is a community, so there is no need to arbitrarily segregate sections of the global community and chain people and their efforts to a particular piece of software or way of thinking. This, of course, relies on the members of the greater community to be very comfortable with the Web and have adequate resources available, however; this is not always possible, so I will, with patience, give this place a try.

Finally, though I have not written fiction of my own in quite some time, I do collaborate with Dustin Wilson on Dark Phantasy, a Web-based graphic novel of sorts. I've no talent whatsoever in the realm of the visual arts, but he seems to think I can write, so we do tend to produce some interesting material, I think.