Tattoos, piercings, music, books, history, art, anthropology, but I have a serious hard-on for anything to do with language and linguistics: foreign languages in general, sociolinguistics, etymology, semantics, syntax, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, discourse analysis, pragmatics, historical linguistics; the list goes on! Semantics and pragmatics are the main areas of interest for me though.
Barbara Partee, Irene Heim, Angelika Kratzer, David Crystal, Steven Pinker, Thierry Mugler and anyone else who's interesting...
I'm a grunge kid at heart, having begun my clubbing career not that long after Nirvana lit up the world with Smells Like Teen Spirit. However, generally, I listen to rock, metal, industrial, grunge... Specific bands I am enjoying listening to at the moment are:
Tool (as always),
Weapons,
Skindred,
Pearl Jam,
Alice in Chains,
Ministry,
1000 Homo DJs,
Revolting Cocks,
NIN,
Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Faith No More,
Killswitch Engage,
Pantera,
Fishbone,
The Levellers,
Prong,
In Extremo,
Die Arzte,
Corrosion of Conformity
(hed)PE
Six Feet Under
Bolt Thrower
Dying Fetus
Necrophagist
Malevolent Creation
Carcass
Cannibal Corpse
I like lots of films, but a recurring theme of some of my favourite movies is dance. Any movie that features dance as its central theme tends to be a winner with me...
You Got Served
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Dance Thigh
Take The Lead
Flashdance
Footloose
you get the picture...
Another really good one is The Swim of Something Mouth, but that has nothing to do with dancing. Well, apart from the opening sequence in the cocktail bar, but it's not a central theme...
I love books, I have lots, and read lots. I seem to have a penchant for crime novels, thrillers etc. but I love true stories the most. Not necessarily autobiographies though - some are just really boring. I mean, who wants to hear about how Mrs Footballer's Wife grew up, excelled at dance and gymnastics at school, and met said footballer down the social one night after the local football match? But she's since discovered that she has a talent for journalism, business and modelling underwear, and is a successful columnist for the free magazine you get with OK every week?
[/rant]
David Crystal, William Labov, Ferdinand de Saussure, Noam Chomsky, my sister, my friends.