Aris - ProfilesArchive

About Me

The quick two-word (plus a space and a comma) summary: dancer, nerd.

Lindy hop, which is swing dancing but more awesome than what you're imagining, has been my hobby and obsession for almost four years. I heart it very, very much.

I'm also a really big nerd, but that's boring.

Half-Greek, half-Venezuelan, born in Canada. Which means that, almost by accident, I can speak French, Spanish, and Greek. Contrary to what movies would have me believe, this hasn't helped me pick up girls.

Got my BS in CS/Math from the University of Illinois in May 2005. Like I said, totally a freakin' nerd. If I'd been listening to the inscrutable exhortations of my soul (thanks, Calvin and Hobbes!), I would have jumped to linguistics instead. At least there's always grad school. ...maybe.

I've been doing this whole dance thing kind of a lot recently. It's good times, and good people. A big thanks to everyone I've met in my travels so far. If you're ever in Chicago, let me know.

My Interests

Dancing: lindy hop, Charleston, teeny bit of bal. Martial arts: tai chi back in the day, looking to find a new one. Witty reparte. Gaming, in many forms: board (Settlers of Catan), card (bridge, poker), video (anything not sports, especially old school SNES and NES). Juggling. Magic (as in, tricks). Philosophizing. Romanticizing. Maxin' and relaxin' all cool. Learning. Internetting. General nerdery. Bad jokes.

I'd like to meet:

Swing dancers! DUH.

Cool people, interesting people, blah blah, you know the drill.

Music:

All a cappella, especially Rockapella and Davinci's Notebook. Stuff that makes me look indier than I really am: Yo La Tengo, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Magnetic Fields, Badly Drawn Boy. Anything swing, jazz or blues. Anything played on B96 around 1997. TMBG, Lawrence Arms, Alkaline Trio, Great Big Sea, Modest Mouse, Guided By Voices (I guess some of those make me look indie, too), Ella, Miles, Decemberists, Sigur Ros, Belle and Sebastian, Eddie From Ohio, wait, am I still going? There's too much good music, so I'm stopping here.

Movies:

Princess Bride, Hook, Hero, Kill Bill, Office Space, Army of Darkness, both Bill and Ted movies, Shawshank Redemption, Charade, Maverick, Reservoir Dogs, Boondock Saints, Labyrinth, Incredibles

Television:

Heroes, Scrubs, Family Guy, Sports Night, West Wing, DS9, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Frasier (until Niles and Daphne hook up), Invader Zim, Futurama, Cosby Show, Mr. Bean, Mythbusters, Lupin the Third

Books:

Ender's Game, anything by Greg Egan, Song of Fire and Ice series, Calvin and Hobbes, anything Gaiman, anything Pratchett

Heroes:

Captain Planet. He's my hero, and he's going to take pollution down to zero.

My Blog

TAG! Let's get freaky!

I've been tagged by Cara to list six habits or strange things about myself. Let's roll!1) I'm a vicious, horrible, terrible, unrepentant nail biter.2) I was kicked out of, and banned from, one of my h...
Posted by Aris on Tue, 21 Mar 2006 02:12:00 PST

A meme that doesn't suck, believe it or not.

This seems like fun: http://kevan.org/johari?name=knite . Check it out, fill it out for me, fill it out for yourself and I'll reciprocate.
Posted by Aris on Sat, 11 Feb 2006 02:55:00 PST