Reading. Video Games. Traditional Games. Role-Playing Games. Bass Guitar. Writing Music. Playing Music. Internets. Evolutionary Biology. Biological Anthropology. Cultural Evolution. Virtual Worlds. Human Complex Systems. Artifiical Intelligence. Meta-Cognition. Computer Hardware. Computer Software. Higher Education.
Compelling and/or interesting individuals, maybe even you! Here's a nice compiled list of people who I think would, at the very least, provide and interesting and entertaining, if not educational, experience to meet.
Carl Sagan, Noam Chomsky, Mohandas Gandhi, Richard Dawkins, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jared Diamond, Gary Gygax, Len Kleinrock, Linus Torvald, Kevin Rose, Christopher Walken, John Cleese, Conan O'Brien, Moot, Alamo, Leeroy Jenkins, Gordon Freeman, Blake Schwarzenbach, Fat Mike, Iggy Pop, Ian MacKaye, Jello Biafra, Steve Ignorant, Milo Auckerman, Darby Crash, MC Bat Commander, Greg Graffin, Henry Rollins.
As a side note, I'm very lucky to have met three of the individuals on this list who are all current professors at UCLA. Having taken courses from both Greg Graffin and Jared Diamond, I am still hoping to take a class from Len Kleinrock, who I met following a presentation in my Internet Comm course. He created the internet, who else could you possibly hope to meet more than that?
The apparently requisite band list (* bands I've seen live):
4 Skins,
7 Seconds,
999,
A Global Threat*,
Adolescents*,
Against All Authority*,
Against Me!*,
Agent Orange,
Alkaline Trio,
Angelic Upstarts,
Angry Samoans*,
Antidote*,
Anti-Flag,
Aus Rotten,
Assorted Jellybeans,
Bad Brains,
Bad Religion*,
Battalion of Saints,
Ben Weasel,
Big D and the Kids Table,
Black Flag,
Blanks 77,
Blitz,
Bob Dylan,
Bouncing Souls*,
Born Against,
Broken Bones*,
Butthole Surfers,
Buzzcocks,
Capitalist Casualties,
Career Soldiers*,
Career Suicide,
Catch 22,
CH3*,
Christ on a Crutch,
Chaos UK*,
Circle Jerks*,
Citizen Fish*,
Clit 45*,
Cock Sparrer,
Cockney Rejects*,
Common Rider,
Conflict,
Condemned 84,
Crack Rock Steady 7,
Crass,
Cro-Mags,
Choking Victim,
Dayglo Abortions,
Dead Boys,
Dead Kennedys,
Dead Milkmen,
Defiance*,
Defiance Ohio*,
Devo,
Dillinger Four*,
Discharge*,
DI,
DOA,
Dragonforce,
Elvis Costello,
F Minus*,
Fear*,
Filth,
Funeral Dress*,
Flux of Pink Indians,
Fugazi,
FYP,
GBH*,
Generation X,
Good Riddance,
Gorilla Biscuits,
Government Issue,
Hot Water Music,
Husker Du,
Iggy Pop and the Stooges,
Infa Riot,
INDK,
Jawbreaker,
Jets to Brazil,
Joy Division,
JFA*,
I Spy,
Ill Repute,
Intro5pect,
Kid Dynamite,
Lagwagon,
Lawrence Arms*,
Leftover Crack,
Less Than Jake*,
Lifetime,
Lower Class Brats*,
Madness,
Manic Hispanic*,
MDC*,
Mighty Mighty Bosstones,
Minor Threat,
Millencolin*,
Misfits,
Morning Glory,
Motorhead,
Nerf Herder,
No-Cash,
No Commercial Value,
NOFX*,
NoMeansNo*,
None More Black*,
Oi Polloi,
Oingo Boingo,
One Way System*,
Operation Ivy,
Oxymoron,
Paint it Black*,
Propagandhi*,
Primus,
Rage Against the Machine,
Rancid*,
Reagan Youth,
Resilience*,
Rick Astley,
Rise Against*,
Rudimentary Peni,
Screeching Weasel,
Sex Pistols,
Sham 69*,
Skeptix*,
SOA,
Subhumans*,
Suicidal Supermarket Trolleys,
Streetlight Manifesto*,
Stray Cats,
Strike Anywhere*,
Strung Out*,
Teenage Bottlerocket,
Tenacious D*,
The Adicts*,
The Aquabats*,
The Briefs*,
The Casualties*,
The Clash,
The Cure,
The Copyrights,
The Cramps,
The Damned,
The Descendents,
The Dickies,
The Ergs!,
The Epoxies*,
The Evens,
The Fill-ins*,
The Germs,
The Havoc*,
The Hives,
The Jam,
The Meteors,
The Methadones,
The Mr. T Experience,
The Offspring*,
The Partisans*,
The Phenomenauts*,
The Pixies,
The Queers,
The Refused,
The Reverend Horton Heat*,
The Riverdales,
The Selecter,
The Skatalites,
The Skulls*,
The Specials,
The Suicide Machines*,
The Teen Idles,
The Tranzmitors,
The Unseen*,
The Vandals*,
The Vibrators*,
The Weakerthans,
The World / Inferno Friendship Society,
This Bike is a Pipe Bomb*,
Threats,
Toy Dolls,
Toxic Narcotic*,
TSOL*,
Tiger Army*,
UK Subs*,
Varukers*,
Vice Squad,
Vitamin X*,
Wasted Youth,
Wrecking Crew*,
X,
X-Ray Spex,
Youth Brigade,
Youth of Today.
The Lawrence Arms - The Devil's Takin' Names
Taxi Driver, A Clockwork Orange, Young Frankenstein, Dr. Strangelove, Serenity, American History X, Clerks, The Believer, OLDBOY, Citizen Kane, Blazing Saddles, Back to the Future, Blade Runner, High Fidelity, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Lawrence of Arabia, Alien, Pulp Fiction, This is Spinal Tap, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, The Temple of Doom, Boondock Saints, Pan's Labyrinth, The Big Lebowski, The Last Crusade, The Fifth Element, Equilibrium, Aliens, Reservoir Dogs, Clue, Donnie Darko, Original Star Wars Trilogy, Short Circuit, Spaceballs, V for Vendetta, Battle Royale, The Princess Bride, Ichi the Killer, Office Space, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Akira, My Neighbor Totoro, Ninja Scroll, End of Evangelion, Vampire Hunter D, Cowboy Bebop, Princess Mononoke, Ghost in the Shell, Samraui X, UK/DK.
Mythbusters, Scrubs, The Office, News Radio, Modern Marvels, Iron Chef, Firefly, Dexter, Arrested Development, The Screen Savers, Star Trek, Frazier, Project Runway, Monty Python's Flying Circus, mXc, Daily Show, XPlay, Colbert Report, Futurama, Battlestar Galactica, Planet Earth, Diggnation.
Non-Fiction
The Origin of Species, Voyage of the Beagle, The Descent of Man, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, The Republic, Guns Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal, Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality, Karl Marx: Selected Writings, The Communist Manifesto, Capital: A Critique of Modern Political Economy, Cosmos, Contact, The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: Personal View of the Search for God, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium, Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration, Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Propaganda and the Public Mind, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, Radical Priorities, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, People's History of the United States, The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design, The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution, Freakonomics, Not by Genes Alone
Fiction
1984, A Brave New World, A Clockwork Orange, Farenheit 451, Stranger in a Strange Land, Animal Farm, Catch 22, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, Ender's Game, Discworld series, Dune series, Wheel of Time series, A Song of Ice and Fire series, His Dark Materials series, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, Sword of Truth series, a few Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels.
A few of my favorite authors are Terry Pratchett, George R.R. Martin, Robert Jordan, Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Noam Chomsky, and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Carl Sagan. Gordon Freeman.