I fear it might be me..
I prefer gentlemen's attire to jeans and t-shirts (one day I'll have enough spare cash to go wild on saville row - tweed suits for weekends, pinstripes for the week, white mess jacket and evening outfit to alternate with the full-monty white-tie and tails I have for formal events).

My studio is called the Drones (after the club in Wodehouse's books) and, aside from doing some writing and art work, is becoming home to a large medieval model town to house the hundreds of wargames miniatures I no longer use, but which are rather nice to look at. The framework for this project alone is 6 feet high, by 5 feet across and 3 feet deep.

My dream car is not a Veyron (nice though they are and, indirectly, I had a bit to do with how they aere designed) - it's either a Jaguar C-type replica, or an SS100 replica from Sussex Sportscars. Then again, the wife and I are big Jaguar fans from childhood memories of them, so maybe it's not just me.

As a child, I worked out the only place in my bedroom where, if all the doors and curtains were open, a Tyrannosaurus Rex would not be able to see me (and thus eat me). I communicated this fact to my best friend some time afterwards. When we were 15. Neither he nor I seemed to find it odd that I'd thougth about this.

As a child, I was obsessed with dinosaurs. I knew (and could pronounce) the latin names for probably 100+ different types, what ages they lived in, where they tended to be found...the lot. To the point of correcting a father who was stumbling to explain the Diplodocus skelton to his child at the Natural History Museum. I was maybe 6 at the time - a member of staff suggested I work there when I was older, but my parents were too busy dying of embarrassment. I still don't really see what I did wrong - I was just correcting the man's flawed information in the spirit of sharing academic knowledge.

The last three times I ate salmon, I was violently ill - it seems I am allergic. The first two times were unwitting of this fact - the third time, however was because I wanted to prove the hypothesis that I was indeed made unwell by eating salmon, in case I gave it up for no reason. This is made worse by the fact that, other than fish and chips once in a while, a rare prawn mayo sandwich and a fondness for the odd kipper, I really don't like seafood at all.

I'm a fan of Steampunk. I'm writing a novel of the genre, but what intrigues me more is the idea of turning my home into some sort of victorian-era alladin's cave of contraptions. I might have to limit this to modifying computers and the like and various bits of decoration, as my wife is rather proud of our lovely home as it is. The Drones is, however, my domain, so I might be able to tinker away up there undiscovered.

I have a blog dedicated to vintage and retro macintosh computers. On a recent trip to Bletchley Park, not only did I spend a happy few minutes deciphering the binary punch tapes in my head, but was over-joyed to discover that the National Museum of Computing has an Apple Newton in their display that isn't as old as the one I use daily for work... Oh, and that I have about 80% of the machines they have in their "Personal Computing" area - including the rather fetching Silicon Graphics Indigo. My wife and parents had to watch me frolic round the room like a kid in a sweet shop whilst I explained by I love the Indigo so much. I did, however, buy them tea and cake afterwards by means of apology.

I am convinced that stirring anti-clockwise (or widdershins as I think of it) makes the coffee dissolve better than stirring clockwise. This is based on observational evidence - yes I actually wondered if it made a difference.

I made it a quest in life to own all the computers I lusted over when I was younger - I've had, variously, Acorn Archimedes, Acorn A3010, various old Macs (in fact I still use a souped-up iMac G3 and G3 "pismo" PowerBook daily), several SGI macines (including the Windows-based SGI 320 with the lovely 17" widescreen LCD) and, of course, the Newton. If I could get hold of an SGI Crimson, or Onyx/Onyx 2 Reality Engine desk-side, I think I'd die of joy. All this to surf the web using Netscape, tinker in old Unix apps and use Maya verrry slowly. However, programming in C on them is a joy, so I might go back to writing software.

God help me.
(Chad, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 12:34, 7 replies)

That's more nerdy than eccentric...
... but, speaking as someone who's been known to pop to Tesco in a three-piece pinstripe, I salute you...

Mind you, I've also been known to teach in a t-shirt extolling the virtues of vandalism and violent assaults on the police.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 12:52, closed)

SS100
Beautiful car. Same with the C-type, though I'm more an SS100 kinda guy.

A steampunk themed house / studio would be a good idea as long as it's done well... I knew a guy at uni who tried and failed dismally. Even he didn't think it looked very good. So plan ahead!

Love the computer collection idea, I've been working on collecting all the classic home PCs & "milestone" hardware for them...
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 13:33, closed)

XKCD understands your dinosaur fears.
imgs.xkcd.com/comics/velociraptors.jpg
(Musuko, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 14:29, closed)

I was years ahead of my time...
Jurassic Park came out in 92/93...I was worrying about this stuff in about 1984/5.

I know feel both crazy and old. *sigh*
(Chad, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 16:15, closed)

Instead of stirring widdershins,
try turning the spoon around.
( argyleblanket The man on the roof works for me, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 17:07, closed)

I've got an Octane
Tezro would be cool though. Bright purple and a weird shape!
( idonthaveafunnynickname Drink-Aware? Sure. I'm aware I want another drink., Wed 5 Nov 2008, 19:18, closed)

nice...
I like the Tezro... The Octane and Octane 2 (with the V8 and V12 graphics) are rather nice, but I've got an Indigo Elan, an O2 and a 320 so far..Origin 2000 Onyx 2 or Crimson Reality Engine would be the ideal next machine...
(Chad, Wed 5 Nov 2008, 21:39, closed)