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These are a few of my favorite things:
The variety and ingenuity seen in this Japanese art form never ceases to amaze and thrill me. The Japanese take their animation very seriously, not relegating it to merely childrens' entertainment. They take far more chances with storytelling than we do in America, so you can always count of finding something new and different.
My favorite animé has to be Tenchi Muyo (and the continuum it shares with El Hazard and Dual), recently expanded by Tenchi Muyo: GXP. The Tenchi fan fiction I've published, Who's the New Girl?, can be found at the Tenchi Muyo Fan Fiction Archive.
I also love the works of Hayao Miyazaki, Masamune Shirow and CLAMP, .hack//SIGN, Fushigi Yugi, Love Hina, Saber Marionette J, and Excel Saga. Some of my "classic" favorites are Gall Force, Bubblegum Crisis and Iczer-1. I've been glad to see Animé gain such momentum in America, now flooding 3 or 4 major television networks and owning it's own section in most video stores. Pseudo-animé is even coming to us from numerous countries, such as Code: Lyoko from France.
Many of my favorite stories appear in manga format (b&w comics and graphic novels). I faithfully collected Chobits and Angelic Layer, Love Hina, Ghost in the Shell and Battle Angle to name a few. I'm currently following Please Save My Earth, Negima and Ragnarok (actually from Korea).
I've been an avid gamer since middle school. (Let's not talk about how long ago that was. ;p) I often find myself in the referee's chair as my imagination is always working on plots and puzzles, and there's always a story I'm eager to tell.
Like many gamers I've played and hosted my share of Dungeons & Dragons. I'm particularly impressed by the new D20 system, whose open gaming license has made it the new industry standard. I'm a fan of Traveller and its many incarnations. Big Eyes, Small Mouth is a great generic-usage point-buy system with which you can build anything. I'm currently employing AEG's Legend of the Five Rings to weave tales of courageous samurai.
I'm extremely fond of boardgames with roleplaying elements such as quests, levelling up, and equipment. I'm a long time fan of Games Workshop's Talisman, Hero Quest and Warhammer Quest. Avalon Hill's Wizards is another fabulous quest game. It's been out of print for over a decade, but I managed to hunt down a copy on eBay. I also managed to find Search for the Emperor's Treasure, a mini quest game originally appearing in Dragon magazine. The latest of this type of game is Runebound, combining quick and easy game play with ever-changing adventures.
When it comes to pure boardgames, I most enjoy Carcassonne, Samurai Swords, Settlers of Catan and Formula Dé.I'm always looking to connect with other gamers, esp. in the Pittsburgh area.
There's not a lot to be said here, other than there are terribly few outstanding games. Blizzard's Diablo and Warcraft series justly earned their lofty reputations. For FPS I like Half-Life and Halo (DOOM in the olden days). My fascination with classic Elite evolved through Wing Commander: Privateer (I and II) and now to Freelancer. Electronic RPGs are my greatest focus, my most beloved being Xenogears and Final Fantasy IX. The beautiful, new Sudeki (XBox) is a current project. I've delved into MMORPGs, drawn by the combination an RPG with an internet community. Under my belt are EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, Eve: Second Genesis, Earth & Beyond and Asheron's Call 2. I was an alpha tester for UbiSoft's Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and NetCharger's FreeWorld, and beta tested Priston Tale, Knight Online and Fairyland. My current endeavor is the fabulous World of WarCraft.
Sci-fi is probably my favorite genre, particularly in movies and television. While I'm as much a Star Trek and Star Wars fan as the next guy, the truly exceptional sci-fi of the past decade has been J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5, Jim Henson Co.'s FarScape and Joss Whedon's Firefly.
Hopefully in the near future this page will also become a resource for the Kutowolf. The Kutowolf is a space-faring society born of Earth I've been developing as a creative outlet for over a decade. They've evolved with me as I've grown and become more worldly. I hope to share their ideas, beliefs, art and history.
I love to read. One of the bedrooms in my house I converted into a library. Closest to my heart is J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings which I first read in 1984. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series has also become a favorite.
The other parts of my library I'm most fond of are: Asimov's Foundation, Orson Scott Card's Ender's saga, James Clavel's SHOGUN, C.S. Friedman's Coldfire series, Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule, Frank Herbert's Dune Chronicles (well, the first three anyway...), Kipling's Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, the collected H.P. Lovecraft, the Man-Kzin Wars created by Larry Niven, S.M. Stirling's Draka series, the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, and Eiji Yoshikawa's Musashi. Kij Johnson's The Fox Woman and Fudoki are recent discoveries, enchanting fantasy tales of Heian era Japan, the first works of this new author.
I grew up around cars as my father built and raced sportscars. The hobby sort of rubbed off on me, and I still dream of owning a chopped '50 Merc some day. My father and I are currently working on restoring and tricking out my 1965 Ford Falcon Futura hardtop. We purchased it in 1990 in Hendersonville NC. Originally the car had a stock 200 cu in. straight-6 and an automatic transmission. Today it boasts a modified 250 cu in. 6-cylinder engine with Austrailian Ford Racing cylinder head, custom intake with 3 45DCOE weber carburetors, 10:1 compression, 280° cam, Borg-Warner T-10 4-speed transmission, Mallory dual point distributor, Clifford split headers with stainless steel exhaust, Ford Mustang 8" 3.25:1 differential, 1980 Granada front disc brakes and a custom interior with 1968 Ford Mustang bucket seats. My father's masterpiece hotrod is his 1932 Ford 3-Window Coupe he built from the ground up, sporting a modified Ford 289 V-8.
I'm also a NASCAR fan, firmly behind Ford, Mark Martin and Rusty Wallace... though I'm really keeping my eye on Casey Kane, a rookie with great promise.
I simply like to cook, and I do mean from scratch. Soups are fun and easy. So is stir-fry with homemade sauces. I've developed a delicious creole gumbo with a dark rue with which I've fed many a friend and co-worker. You can never make enough lasagne, and I have a baked rigatonni that's almost as good (served with celery bread). I also make great chili, if I do say so myself. ;)
One of my favorite things to do in the kitchen is bake. What's better than homemade cookies and cakes? I'll tell you: bread! Breadmaking can be a little tricky but it's lots of fun. Visit Best-Bread-Recipes.com if you ever have an urge for fresh baked bread. You're sure to find a recipe to suit you. I'm currently refining a recipe for lembas (elven waybread).
On a related note, a friend has also introduced me to home brewing. My first batch of mead was a roaring success, and I'm looking forward to experimenting with my second.
William J. Norcutt
