LJ Interests meme results

astronomy:
When I was...13? I think...I went to a summer program for kid geeks called CTY (Center for Talented Youth). It was this nifty 3-week camp for kids who like to learn stuff, and about 20 of us got a full-years-worth of college Astronomy in 3 weeks of intense classes. It was awesome. We were taught by this young Harvard professor, and she said that she loved doing CTY because the kids there catch on faster than her college kids. Of course, we got the abbreviated stuff, but boy was it fun and fascinating. Our final exam was watching Star Wars and critiquing the science in it.
computer games:
I go through computer games pretty quickly, like some people go through books. Chris and I just finished a run through Dungeon Seige II, and are currently fiddling with free trials of World of Warcraft. We have City of Heroes accounts, which we haven't played on in a bit. Nothing is currently our favorite. If you'd asked a week ago it would have been Dungeon Seige II.

I have a few games in the wish-list: Xenogears, which I've been listening to the soundtrack to and now want to play; RPG Maker II, which I saw about a year ago and am waiting to drop in price; the sequel to Katamari Damacy, which isn't out yet; and City of Villains, which also isn't out yet.
dungeons and dragons:
I've been playing D&D since I was a little kid, although to begin with I only had myself to play with. In college I ran the Planescape setting for my friends, and I've been playing and running ever since. Now I mostly play D&D; I run Ironclaw instead (see below).
garfield:
Ah, Garfield. I have a fairly large collection of Garfield TPBs, although of course they're the freaky thick, wide, short books that newspaper comics tend to get published in. I think I identify with Garfield because he's got a temper; I identify with Donald Duck for the same reason. Garfield is also fat, like me, and a die-hard lover of pasta. The fact that he's mean to Odie is mitigated by the fact that Odie is self-evidently a complete idiot, and of course it helps that Odie is a cartoon dog and can therefore not actually be hurt, except in the cartoon-scratched way.
ironclaw:
I got into Ironclaw about a year after it came out - 2000-ish. I'm not even entirely sure how I got into the mailing list anymore, but since then I've been an outspoken advocate of the system. I started running Ironclaw games at DragonCon in about 2001, and I haven't run Planescape there since, which used to be my standard. From there, I got more and more involved at Sanguine. I submitted my personal setting - the setting my comic will be in - as a book for Sanguine, and while they rejected it because it wasn't different enough from the current setting, I didn't lose hope. I've written one book, proposed three others, and helped on several other projects for Sanguine, and now I'm the convention coordinator. Now, if only I could get some actual money out of the deal. ;)
multiverse:
Sometimes when I'm in a really geeky mood I think about the possibility of their being multiple universes. From a philosophical point of view, I think it's true - each person lives in their own universe, and how they interact with others depends on how much their personal universe intersects with the universes of other people...I'm not explaining it very well but I have the feeling most of the people who read my LJ know more or less what I mean.
reading:
I grew up in a house with a writer and an English teacher. My parents turned our dining room into a library. There were books, and books in progress, everywhere in my house, and I have lived my entire life surrounded in books. Illiteracy is unthinkable to me; I cannot imagine the life of someone who cannot read. I have a tendency to pick an author and follow that author's works from beginning to end. Dorothy L Sayers, Terry Pratchett, Arthur Conan Doyle, C. S. Lewis...of course, all these people wrote series of books focusing on the same characters in the same world. I am more likely to pick up a new mystery book than any other type, even fantasy/sci-fi. In fact, I read very little fantasy (assuming you don't count Terry Pratchett). I have a tendency, when reading a fantasy book, to constantly stop and grumble internally about how I would do things differently. I critique too much. My suspension of disbelief is, for some reason, so much more fragile in fantasy than with other settings (I dunno either) that I find myself unable to enjoy most fantasy books. I have the feeling that once I've gotten my own story told, I will be able to enjoy fantasy again.
space colonization:
I've thought about it, and thought about it, and I can't think of any happy ending to the saga of humans living on earth that doesn't involve humans expanding to other planets. This planet can't support so many of us, but humans aren't going to sit back and not have kids and not expand. In order to prevent ourselves from making our own planet unlivable, I think we'll have to colonize others. Unfortunately, I doubt such an achievement will occur during my lifetime, but it will be during my lifetime that the next few steps are made.
teenage mutant ninja turtles:
Turtles rock! What can I say, I'm a child of the 80s.
wild dogs:
By wild dogs, I mean of course the African wild dogs that inhabit the Serengeti and elsewhere. They are the most endangered African plains predator; there are a couple hundred of them left, I believe, and their biggest enemy right now is disease. They live in packs and greet each other by licking faces, which may be great for bonding but it also means diseases spread from one dog to the entire pack very very quickly, resuling in TPKs (total pack kills).

My interest in the Serengeti started when I was young and watching Nature shows about it, eating cheetohs and avoiding contact with my peers. I've been interested in the Serengeti ever since, and this is really just an extension of my fascination with that ecosystem.