MetaFilter

What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

So, who am I? A perpetually unemployed slacker in Brunswick, GA who nevertheless has written a print book and a number of ebooks, and writes on computer game-related things. I know Python and have done a few small personal projects in it. I run MST Club, a weekly Mystery Science Theater-watching thing on here. I also maintain the gaming blog Set Side B (link is below).

I've been on Metafilter since 2005 (after reading for at least a couple of years patiently waiting for signups to re-open). I've made a variety of posts over the years. I believe I still have made the longest post in Metafilter history, the gigantic and ill-advised one on Ivan Stang's book High Weirdness By Mail, which is almost ten years old now. I also made a couple on classic web comedy magazine The Brunching Shuttlecocks, and some others. Please look at them some time.

I think social media is pretty awful, especially Facebook, and long for a return to the values and aesthetic of "Web 1.0." I think the internet could still be saved but only by rejecting those aspects of it that tend towards commercialization. I miss the days when Metafilter had more traffic, but don't miss the good-ol-boys aspect of those days. The site, and myself personally, have grown a lot since then, and we're all a lot more cognizant of how our words can affect others.

I've made mistakes in the past, and no doubt will continue to make them, but I'm trying at least. This is not actually meant as something to influence your votes. In fact I think there's several people on the list who are probably more qualified than I am. But I think it's important to say. It is easy on the internet to attribute malign motives to someone, since our ears are full of a constant clamor of disingenuous voices, but it's still important to note that mot people aren't disingenuous, and that it's still useful to give people the benefit of the doubt--to a reasonable degree, that is.

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BTW, just want to add: we miss you oneswellfoop!

@Play, my column on roguelike games, is back--again! Its home now is at setsideb.com. I am also the one that mostly runs and maintains that site! I have put a ton of work into it, so please enjoy it as long as you can.

Also thanks to everyone who bought the @Play book over the years. It is now in print, at last, in an edition by CRC Press!

I also sell ebooks about games on itch.io! Please look them over, won't you?

Every week we have a showing of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. It's Metafilter MST3K Club! These are usually some time Thursday evening, at: https://cytu.be/r/Metafilter_MST3KClub

My role on Metafilter seems to have settled into obsessively posting notable Mystery Science Theater 3000 stuff, even-more-obsessively posting about video game things, remarking on pop cultural ephemera (comics, comedy movies, web sites), and sometimes political matters if I think I won't make too much of a fool of myself in the process.

I sometimes take to putting little bits of "alternative reality" into my comments, like having a time-traveling neighbor, or about the various behaviors of the North American Woodland Fairy and related species. If you see me say something in a comment that seems nonsensical, it could be me just goofing. Or maybe I'm serious? ??? HOW CAN YOU KNOW ??? No, really, I'm goofing.

My Peanuts comic strip blog is kind of sleeping right now while I try to get some things settled in my life. It's still up, though, here.
It's inspired by evilcolonel's Peanuts post.

Here is my current list of obsessions:
Mystery Science Theater 3000, Steven Universe, Bee & Puppycat, Tales of the Beanworld, Call of Cthulhu RPG, Lovecraft in general, old-school RPGs, Atari Games (esp. Rampart), roguelikes, Dwarf Fortress, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Animal Crossing and Amphibia.

I am very conscious of narratives, in terms of how people come to understand things and make these pictures in their heads of how they work related to other things. They can be useful tools, but they can also be very damaging. Please try to remember that the world is a lot more complicated than any of us can see, and at least make an effort not to be reductive in your perceptions, okay? By the same token, it's okay to say I don't know. In fact, if you never say or think that, there's probably something wrong?