31 replies to this topic

[Wedge of Cheese]

So it looks like all the "official" wells are over (unless you count Lace's) but nobody seems to mind me continuing the well tradition, so here goes.


I will answer any question to the best of my ability, however difficult and/or personal it may be, so don't hold anything back. Just know that, if the question is about something I'm ignorant about, then "the best of my ability" might not be very good.

Things I'm very interested in, and also very good at: music (both composing and piano playing), math, computer programming

Thing I'm relatively interested in, but have at most moderate expertise in: philosophy, psychology, sociology, linguistics, video games, art forms other than music

Demographically, I'm pretty much the most generic Internet user imaginable (19 year old white liberal/libertarian heterosexual male college student living in the US), though in other respects, I'm not so generic.

Some other potentially relevant facts: I'm an INFP (though I think anybody who cares about that already knew). My religion is Unitarian Universalism (same as Lace), though since that's a very broad classification, I will add further specificity by saying that I'm a humanist, agnostic towards belief in God, and that my two Holy Scriptures are XKCD and Harry Potter. My "relationship status" can unfortunately be summed up by the 2nd paragraph of this post.


Yep, that's a good start, now fire away.

[Mosaic]

1. Can you tell us a bit more about your background with music? Some potential starters:

A. When did you start playing piano? What about composing?

B. What kinds of playing/performing experience do you have?

a. Do you have any really good stories about wild and/or crazy gigs?

b. Memories of favorite performances?

C. Do you have a favorite genre or style of music to play? To compose?

D. Do you play any other instruments in addition to piano?

E. Favorite bands/musicians/composers?

F. Do you still play frequently?

There will probably be more music related questions coming from me. Just forewarning.

2. Do you have any favorite maths in particular?

3. Is there a particular are of linguistics that piques your interest more than others? Or is it primarily a general interest?

4. What is your favorite kind of cheese? How did it become your favorite? Feel free to embellish a tale—entertain me!

5. Do I ask too many questions?

[sexplosive]

favourite dead artist?
fqvourite music genre?
how often do you masturbate, and to what kinds of material?
how do you like to dress?

[Captain Fabulous]

When did you start growing your moustache, and does it get all the bitches? I mean, what is the general reaction to it?
Do you come from what you would call a wealthy family?
Did you go to a private school or a public one?
Do you know any sweet dance moves?
Will Noxid's and Ryuuoutan's story ever continue?
What made you want to join the forums, and what made you want to stay?
What's the most disturbing thing you've found on the internet?
What's your favourte avatar from these forums? Any avatar anyone ever had.

[Wedge of Cheese]

1. Can you tell us a bit more about your background with music? Some potential starters:

A. When did you start playing piano? What about composing?

I started playing piano when I was 4. I don't really remember much about these very early years, but, according to my family, the reason they started me on lessons so early is that I displayed an ability to listen to songs and figure out how to play them on this little toy keyboard instrument I had. As for composing, I have been improvising as long as I can remember. The first piece I can remember actually writing down is a very simple setting of music to the words on a Hallmark Christmas card, and I think I was 6 when I did that. Note that I don't still have the original written copy of it (I'm just rewriting it from memory), so it's entirely plausible that I've subconsciously made some improvements on it during the intervening years .

B. What kinds of playing/performing experience do you have?

a. Do you have any really good stories about wild and/or crazy gigs?

b. Memories of favorite performances?

A fair amount. My piano teacher was always very good about finding and/or creating opportunities for her students to perform. I've also played in a number of pit orchestras for musicals. And I was in marching band, symphonic band, and jazz band in high school (playing clarinet in the former two, piano in the latter).

As for memorable stories, in 6th grade, I was in a youth symphony orchestra, switching between piano and percussion (even though I'm not really a percussionist, but they just needed another percussionist sometimes). Both of the performance I did with them had some interesting oddities.

In the first one, there was a piece in which I had a crapton of pages, and couldn't fit them all on the piano. During rehearsals, I solved this by just throwing one of the sheets over my head when I was done with this. I was a bit concerned that this might be considered unprofessional, but the director never called me out on it, so I figured it was okay. On the performance day, the piano had just a bit more room to put pages, so I was just barely able to fit them all on - or so I thought. In the middle of the performance, one page fell off, so, without missing a note in the music, I reached out with my leg, drew the sheet back toward me, pinched it between my feet, lifted it up, and, when one of my hands had a quick break, reached down and grabbed it and put it back on the piano. Needless to say, I felt like a badass.

The second one was somewhat less badass betterass, but still amusing. The other percussionist was doing something wrong, and I was correcting her. Unfortunately, I was so busy trying to correct her, I forgot that I had a cymbal crash coming up. I didn't have time to pick the cymbals up properly, so I just picked one up and smashed it down on top of the other.

C. Do you have a favorite genre or style of music to play? To compose?

I love playing Romantic Era (19th cent.) piano music, especially Liszt. It's very difficult, but when you master it, it's amazing the grand sound you can get out of just one instrument. One compliment I often get on my compositions is that they combine the good qualities of both classical and popular music, which I would agree with. I'm also very much influenced by game and film music (especially RuneScape, Cave Story, and pretty much anything by John Williams).

D. Do you play any other instruments in addition to piano?

I play clarinet and I sing in my church's choir.

E. Favorite bands/musicians/composers?

Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Copland, Leonard Bernstein, John Williams, Phillip Glass, Coldplay, Taylor Swift, Journey. There are probably a bunch more I could list, but that's all I got at the moment.

F. Do you still play frequently?

Oh yes, in fact I'm majoring in piano performance (as well as composition and computer science)

There will probably be more music related questions coming from me. Just forewarning.

Awesome, keep 'em coming!

2. Do you have any favorite maths in particular?

In general, no, though I may go through phases of particular interest in one area. Recently, I was doing some stuff with Fourier transforms and variants thereof, but that was less out of intellectual interest, and more out of a desire to make an audio codec (similar to mp3 or Vorbis) from scratch.

3. Is there a particular are of linguistics that piques your interest more than others? Or is it primarily a general interest?

It's more of a general interest.

4. What is your favorite kind of cheese? How did it become your favorite? Feel free to embellish a tale—entertain me!

Well, I'm actually surprisingly ignorant of cheese considering my username. But I do seem to recall being very fond of both Gouda and Camembert, though it's been quite a while since I've had either. Since you wanted something entertaining, I'll just mention that, as a young child, my family had this ongoing joke where, if asked how are you doing, rather than saying "good", saying "gouda".

5. Do I ask too many questions?

Not at all, that's what this thread is for

[Wedge of Cheese]

favourite dead artist?

I'm assuming you mean musical artist? Oh man, it's so hard to pick just one. As I mentioned before, Liszt is probably my favorite to play, just because of his unparalleled mastery of writing for the piano, but that doesn't necessarily make him my favorite overall. It really depends on my mood. Right now, I'm in a mood to say Debussy. His music has a sort of "pure beauty" to it. Also, of all the composers I've studied, he's probably the one I feel most philosophically aligned with. He has such a chill attitude toward music, just sorta like "m'eh, rules are overrated, just make whatever the hell kind of music you like".

fqvourite music genre?

See response to Mosaic

how often do you masturbate, and to what kinds of material?

At least once a day, usually 2-3 times. I'd say I use my imagination about half the time, dreaming up various stories (in one of them, I replaced my name with "Noxid" and my love interest's name with "Ryuuoutan" and posted the result on the forums) involving some combination of my love interest and women whose pics I've found on the Internet. The other half would be looking at softcore porn (I'm not really into hardcore - I find it aesthetically unappealing for the most part). My main sources are phapit.com, kindgirls.com, and reddit (some of my favorite subs being /r/boobies, /r/realgirls, /r/metart, and /r/onoff, and one I just discovered today which looks somewhat promising: /r/gentlemenboners).

how do you like to dress?

I care very little for clothes, so my main concern when picking clothes to wear is comfort. I can think of only two articles of clothing I own that I wear for their aesthetic value. One is a light blue Hawaiian shirt I got at Salvation Army for like two bucks. My high school band director often wears Hawaiian shirts, so one of our band camp spirit days was to wear one. Me and a bunch of friends went out to Salvo right before to get some. One of my male friends got what was, in hindsight, probably a women's shirt, and may or may not have turned me gay for a few moments . The other one is a mottled blue and purple and a little bit of green tie-dye shirt that was made in a tie-dye party with my church's choir. For a while the tie-dye shirts were a part of our choir uniform. I also somewhat enjoy wearing t-shirts with humorous things on them, like this one I have that shows a cowboy passed out drunk on his horse, with his dog sitting in front of him, holding the horses reins, and the caption "designated driver"

When did you start growing your moustache, and does it get all the bitches? I mean, what is the general reaction to it?

Well, it wasn't exactly a conscious decision, it was more just like "I'm lazy and don't feel like shaving". It started becoming slightly visible at around age 12 and reached the thickness it currently is at around age 15. I now trim it occasionally, as it irritates me if it gets too long. I'm actually considering throwing it off completely, to see what it looks/feels like, and also because I'm curious as to how long it would take to grow back. If I do this, however, I'll wait until after CaveCon, as I know how much my 'stache means to all of you .

For better or for worse, no, it does not get all the bitches. The most common reaction is just an ever-so-slightly-sarcastic "hey, I'm diggin' the 'stache" or something similar. That was mostly in high school though, it doesn't seem to get much reaction at all in college.

Do you come from what you would call a wealthy family?

I'd call my family middle-class. I do have quite a bit more money at my disposal than most college students, however, simply because I don't have siblings, so my family doesn't have to split the moneys between multiple children, it all goes to me .

Did you go to a private school or a public one?

public

Do you know any sweet dance moves?

Umm... not really. I guess if I had to I could probably make some up on the fly, as I tend to be a very good improviser in just about all aspects of my life, but my social awkwardness would probably get in the way, so it would probably help if I were a wee bit intoxicated.

Will Noxid's and Ryuuoutan's story ever continue?

I hadn't intended it to, though, as mentioned above, I have a number of sexy stories rattling around in my brain, but most of them wouldn't really fit into the current Nox/Ryu storyline.

What made you want to join the forums, and what made you want to stay?

Cave Story modding was the main thing that got made me join. IIRC, I actually started working on TWoR a few weeks before actually joining the forums. What makes me keep coming back now is my friendships with all y'all.

What's the most disturbing thing you've found on the internet?

Hmm, well that depends on if you mean disturbing from my perspective at the time I found it, or disturbing from an objective, unchanging perspective. The two differ because I've become less and less easily disturbed over time. If it's the former, I'd say it was this public service announcement video advocating wearing seat belts. It showed this guy losing control of his car on the highway, getting thrown out of his car into the opposing side of the highway, and getting run over by a semi. It was made much more disturbing by the fact that there was a mic in his car, and you could hear him swearing and freaking out as he was loosing control (in hindsight, it may have just been a voice-over applied after the fact, I mean, how many people drive around with active microphone recording everything they say in their car?). I think I was 13 or 14 when I saw that video, and I was very disturbed by it.

What's your favourte avatar from these forums? Any avatar anyone ever had.

Oh man, I'm gonna have to think about this one for a while and get back to you.

[trickybilly]

1) What's your goal (or main goals) in life?
2) What'd you like to do as main profession in life (for e.g. computer programmer, businessman methematician...)
3) What is life's meaning (to you) if there is such a thing?
4) The 3 favourite things to spend your freetime on

Edited by trickybilly, 24 May 2012 - 06:46 AM.

[Captain Fabulous]

in one of them, I replaced my name with "Noxid" and my love interest's name with "Ryuuoutan" and posted the result on the forums

I know it's a well, but that's a little too much information.
Also, using Reddit for porn ಠ_ಠ

So, uh, how often do you think up short stories without fapping to them?

[Wedge of Cheese]

What's your favourte avatar from these forums? Any avatar anyone ever had.

I'm gonna say this guy's avatar.

1) What's your goal (or main goals) in life?
3) What is life's meaning (to you) if there is such a thing?

I'm going to lump these two together, as they're sort of the same thing.
I don't think there is any one thing which is THE one purpose of life, but rather there multiple purposes of life. Really, anything that one enjoys doing could be considered a "purpose of life". Personally, I believe there are at least 3 different fundamentally distinct purposes of life (there are probably more that I've overlooked), and that a purposeful life contains all of them. They are sensual pleasures, meaningful relationships with other people, and the discovery and development of knowledge and ideas.

2) What'd you like to do as main profession in life (for e.g. computer programmer, businessman methematician...)

Most likely computer programming

4) The 3 favourite things to spend your freetime on

Programming, improvising on the piano, video games

[Wedge of Cheese]

So, uh, how often do you think up short stories without fapping to them?

Recently, not really at all. I think a year or two ago I sometimes did, but I don't really remember... >_>