Irish/Celtic Festivals!
I love the big festival here in Dublin. It and one other in Minneapolis vie each year for the biggest 2 Irish festivals in the World! I got trophies for reddest hair and greenest eyes in the contests there too. :-) I'm almost always at the traditional stage if Gaelic Storm is playing. I learn the crafts at the cultural tent, play some darts, eat some lamb Irish stew, some bangers, and Welsh cookies, I just take it all in! Sometimes it is better than a vacation for me. Ceili dancing with a nice woman can really make you feel alive too.

I'm also the president of my large university's Irish Society. We have a big St. Patrick's Day festival every year with local semi-professional Irish dancers and our own session muscians. We also have beginner dance classes, lectures, sessions at the pub, and all sorts of things.

Computers
I used to play a lot of computer games, but I hardly do anymore. I'm still up for a nice BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) network game night, but haven't done that for awhile either. It's nice to actually interact with your friends rather than just talking to some screen. Just about anything to do with computers fascinates me, but I don't have the time to fiddle with them as much now. I have a long term goal of becoming profitable in the metaverse of Second Life (you should check it out, it's quite an amazing place), but that may be awhile.

Music
I played trombone for 4 years in grade school. After a 2 year hiatus, I joined the high school marching and concert band in percussion. For marching, I did bass drum and then snare. My 3 best friends and I come back every year for homecoming to answer the call of the drums! I never really got good voice instruction, and being that I'm past my 20th birthday, learning to sing is a little difficult, but I have a wonderful biofeedback program that I am making progress with. I would like to train my voice and ear more before jumping further into keyboards, bodhran, and tin whistle (not ambitious at all, eh?).

Travel
I definitely love to travel, and if I had the money I'd sure do more of it! I've been to most of the big draws in the States (Las Vegas, Yellowstone, Niagara Falls, Greenwich Village & For Museum, Grand Canyon, California - from San Jose to the Redwoods, Walt Disney World many times, Carlsbad Caverns, Mammoth Cave, Williamsburg, Badlands, Devil's Tower, ...), but not much elsewhere - just crossed into Tiajuana, Mexico and a small loop through Canada.
BUT, this past year I finally crossed an ocean. I visited Санкт-Петербург, Россия (St. Petersburg, Russia)! It was also my first time vacationing by myself, and what a way to dive in! After that little sidetrack, I have Ireland & Scotland firmly in my sights now.

Games
I also enjoy games of all sorts, but often don't get to play them as much as I'd like. I'd love to play more darts, especially cricket and 301. I was rated in chess for quite awhile, always nice to play a game now and then. I just tried Brandub and Fidchell - 2 games from ancient Ireland, almost 2,500 years old. Party games like catch-phrase, apples to apples, charades, and boggle are all great. Wii Sports is fabulous too.

Other Stuff
I'll add another section if I can think of it, but I've really tried a lot of things and still have more I want to try. Dabbled in yo-yo's & juggling to origami and leather-working. Cake decorating, model-making, bicycling, skating (ice and roller), ... so many things I can't even think of them all. Right now I'm getting into SLR photography for fun and maybe even micro-stock, and hoping to get some profitable & fun movies on MetaCafe.

Movies

• The Matrix Trilogy


• The Back to the Future Trilogy


• The Bourne Trilogy

Also: Star Trek, Titantic, Serenity, Once, Ronin, Frantic, and more.


Theatre

• Riverdance - Seen it 7 times! I am so sad the Boyne troupe is leaving North America. Hurry back!


• The Phantom of the Opera - Seen it twice, even got invited backstage and met the then-Phantom Brad Little.


• Кармен (Carmen) - Saw the opera version of Carmen at the Mikhailvovski Theatre in Санкт-Петербург, Россия (St. Petersburg Russia). My first opera really, but I kind of liked it.

I also just generally like theatre, though I don't always get to go as often as I might like.

TV

• Doctor Who - The new series is awesome! Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant are great actors and the special effects are movie quality. I would love to have my own TARDIS.


• Torchwood - A wonderful spin-off of Doctor Who, but much darker, the good ones don't always win either. Captain Jack is awesome.


• Firefly - Oh, Joss Whedon's masterpiece did not live long, but the 13 episodes and movie are wonderful. Fortunately, FOX hasn't trashed good intellectual television much (just Futurama (oh wait that was BOX's fault), Family Guy, ...)


• Star Trek - I particularly like the Next Generation best. Patrick Stewart is a great actor in particular.


• Stargate: SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis - I especially like the Richard Dean Anderson episodes. This show is so captivating to me since it's sci-fi set in the present, it really is believable - it could be happening now.


• Mythbusters - While the heads at Discovery sometimes make them out to be more pyromaniacs than scientists (from what I've read) they are really into the underlying science. It's a brillant synthesis of excitement and science.


• Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations - While I don't compulsively drink, smoke, or do occasional recreational drugs, I do like most of his attitude. I took to heart his and other TV travel guide hosts' view of living in the real country and not just all the tourist stuff when I visited Russia in 2007.


• The Catherine Tate Show - Love all the characters she's made (as well as her new assistantship with The Doctor). Refuges for gingers. :) "But I'm above it!"

Genres

• Traditional Celtic/Irish Music


• Traditional/Rock Irish Music


• American/European 1980's Pop Music


• Oldies particularly of the 1950's and 60's - only "Dancing Queen" generally gets a reprieve from the 70's for me, and "My Sharona" was close enough to be 80's


• Most 90's Pop Music


• Present Day Pop? Europop and Eurodance and: Russian mixes! Mostly whatever they're playing (Russian, European, and 80's dance) on Radio VBC out of Владивосток, Россия (Vladivostok, Russia) (why just that station? because all other Russian stations are so overloaded you can't connect)

Bands
Gaelic Storm, Seven Nations, Danu, Solas, Sean Flemming Band, The Swell Season
Fleetwood Mac, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna
(more to come)

Songs
Yea, kind of changes with my mood what my favorites are. Some that I've been thinking of a lot over the past several months:
* The Swell Season (Glen Hansard & the Frames & Marketa Irglova) - "When Your Mind's Made Up"
* Mika's "Relax (Take it Easy)"
* In the summer, the Riverdance theme track is my heartbeat, especially "Reel Around the Sun" and "Riverdance" itself.
* "Self Control" by Laura Branigan - I heard the dance version of this song (on Radio VBC no less) and couldn't believe this wonderful piece of the 80's has been lost in my local stations for so long. The music video has wonderful imagery, with a kind of "Phantom of the Opera" character that mesmerizes Laura - very sensual and sexy. I definitely like to "live among the creatures of the night." RIP Laura.
* Moby's theme song for the Bourne films: "Extreme Ways"
* "Понедельник без тебя" (Monday without You) by Лето (Summer - a Russian girls band)

More to come... check back :)

Favorite Books (a sample)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - the entire 5 book trilogy

Jurassic Park - I've read just about every Crichton book

"Recently" Read

The Bourne Identity - very different from the movie (I prefer the movie), but still pretty good.

Pocket History of Ireland

Celtic Way of Life

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Red hair / redheads, people who understand how I feel and who I am, lovers of Celtic culture/festivals/music, intellectuals, academic is kind of nice (computer programmers/engineers especially, scientists, other engineers) but perhaps not a necessity, being in shape (but not having to be modelesque), dreamers that are still somewhat practical

Large highly visible tatoos, smoking (I'll hang out with a smoker as long as I don't have to inhale a bunch - could never live with one though), excessive drinking or DUI (I realize being a teetotaler is rare and I don't mind people who drink some), extreme negativity & naysaying

I'm passionate about redheads and about anything computer related, though it almost seems to be more and more eclipsed by anything Irish/Celtic related (had a blast dancing at a Ceili dance in the summer!)

If you're new here:
Roodharigendag/Red Head Day is awesome! 2,000 redheads in a park in Breda, Netherlands. BartArt, LolitaRW, and the group put on quite an event. I was thrilled to get to go.
http://www.roodharigen.nl/
http://www.redheadday.com/

I've won awards for reddest hair and greenest eyes!

The other profile areas give you an idea of what I like, but I will try to add to here soon. I guess I'm telling about me more by example that way.

BTW, I'm not like some hard-core teetotaler, I do have friends who drink occasionally or even socially. I just don't drink myself. Somewhat random note, but just saying. :-)

One of my bigger dreams is to have my own TARDIS. But I'm settling for things like being the President of my university's Irish Society and starting my own MetaCafe channel:
Celtic Mad Scientist's Channel
- Intriguing Experiments and Creative Wonders

Every time I get complimented on my red hair...especially by another redhead! :-)

Ooo, I don't remember it myself, but I recently remembered my mom retelling how this girl came over to me when I was pre-school or younger, patted my head, and with all seriousness said, "Hot!"