Books (I border on bibliomania in my bibliophilia). Latin. Greek. Languages in general (including both dead and alive). Linguistics. History (especially Western and Near Eastern). Mythology. Sci-fi. Fantasy. Horror (especially H.P. Lovecraft). RPGs (especially Dungeons & Dragons and Mage - the Ascension or the Awakening). Scandinavia (homeland of my ancestors) and Vikings. Swords (I collect them! And yes, I know how to use them.). Politics (I definitely lean to the left!) Spirituality and mysticism. Poetry. Literature. Stuff like that. Y'know. Stuff. I often think that I should be paid simply to know obscure stuff. As it is, I'm merely an amateur know-it-all. I'm also partial to black clothing (black is my favorite absence of color). My favorite bar in the world (and I've been in quite a few in many different places) is the Mews Tavern in Wakefield, RI. I fancy myself a decent epistolarian, and I love to get letters, especially in Latin.
Music
Black Sabbath. Blind Guardian. Bruce Dickinson. The Darkness. Demons & Wizards. Flogging Molly. Dragonforce. DREAM THEATER! Iced Earth. IRON MAIDEN! Jackyl. MANOWAR! Megadeth. Metallica (only stuff from the Black Album and before). The Oddz (hey - it involves Voltaire!) OVERKILL! Ozzy. Queensryche. VOLTAIRE! Just about any 80s rock strums a chord of nostalgia in my soul, too.
Movies
Boondock Saints. Braveheart. The Breakfast Club. Dead Poets Society. The Emperor's Club. Equilibrium. Excalibur. Free Enterprise. Ghostbusters. Highlander. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Patriot. Pirates of the Carribean. The Princess Bride. Pump Up the Volume. Serenity. Star Wars (mostly the originals). V for Vendetta. What Dreams May Come.
Television
Anything I like gets cancelled. My last favorite shows were Farscape and Firefly. Both of which got their wrap-up movies (Peacekeeper Wars was made-for-TV, but Serenity was a theater flick). I don't watch much TV. If I have to name more TV I've enjoyed, I guess you'd find most of the list is darker sci-fi/fantasy stuff, with some other random things mixed in: 24, The 4400 (even if it is a ripoff of the graphic novel "Rising Stars"), Babylon Five, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cowboy Beebob, Dr. Who (including the new ones), Forever Knight, Heroes, House, Kolchak the Night Stalker, LOST, The Outer Limits, Record of Lodoss War, ROME, Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Supernatural, The Twilight Zone. For the record, I DESPISE!!! anything resembling "reality TV."
Books
Books? Books = Life. OK, OK, I'll talk about some books: The Iliad. The Odyssey. The Aeneid. Ovid's Metamorphoses. Anything by Victor Davis Hanson. Anything by Neil Postman. Anything by Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore. Anything by H.P. Lovecraft. Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" books. Robert E. Howard's works, especially the original Conan stories. Ayn Rand. The poetry of George Gordon (Lord Byron), Catullus, Coleridge, Donne, Milton, Omar Khayyam (only in translation, sadly), Poe, Shelly, Wordsworth, Yeats . . . The plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe. Ummmm . . . I also own more dictionaries in more languages than anyone I know except one former professor of mine (who taught linguistics). I also have a massive backlog of books that I'm meaning to get around to reading one of these days . . . and that in no way prevents me from acquiring more books whenever possible. I like graphic novels, and aside from the aforementioned Gaiman and Moore, favorites include Midnight Nation, Rising Stars, Astro City, Kingdom Come, and the early issues of Spawn.
Heroes
"Homer" (not bloody Simpson!). Socrates. The Buddha. Epictetus. Gaius Valerius Catullus. Marcus Tullius Cicero. Leonidas. Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus. Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis. Publius Vergilius Maro. Quintus Horatius Flaccus. Marcus Aurelius. Roger Williams. A bunch of other dead folks. Among the living (which is the name of an awesome Anthrax album!), guys like Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. Victor Davis Hanson (for his classical studies, not necessarily his politics). Oriana Fallaci (for her courage and erudition, though I fear she's more of a bigot than she believes). Danyell. My mother. My brother (don't tell him I said so, or I'll have to kill you!). Anyone who teaches. John Siever (a high school principal and one of the finest human beings I've ever known)
University Of Rhode Island
Kingston,Rhode Island
Graduated: 1998
Student status: Alumni
Degree: Bachelor's Degree
Major: History & Classical Studies
Minor: Latin
1993 to 1998
South Kingstown High
Wakefield,Rhode Island
Graduated: 1993
Student status: Alumni
Degree: High School Diploma
Borders Books, Music, and Cafe Kingston, MA US Cashier, Bookseller Store # 445
November 2004 - July 2006
Borders Books, Music, and Cafe Cranston, RI US Bookseller, Inventory Supervisor Store #39
July 2006 - March 2009
Plymouth North High School (Plymouth Public Schools) Plymouth, MA US Teacher of Latin and Classical Humanities Plymouth North High School, World Languages
August 2000 - June 2006
University of Massachusetts at Amherst Amherst, MA US Teaching Assistant in Latin and Classics Classics Department
September 1998 - May 2000
Valerianus in your extended network Posted at 11:11 PM Mar 14 view more
About me: These are the random ramblings of a classicist who does feel the occasional need to write something in English or some other barbaric tongue.
I am Colin. In Latin I go by Gaius Valerianus Germanicus, which is a long story that I'm not going to tell here. New Hampshireling by birth ("Live Free Or Die!"), but I am a Rhode Islander by upbringing and nature, although I endured a long sojourn in exile in Massachusetts.
I am an intellectual. I'm also a Romantic. This is not a contradiction - following my heart does not mean ignoring my head. I like to think I'm reasonably intelligent, and I know I'm reasonably well-educated. I don't actually know everything, however, contrary to popular rumor. By nature I'm an introvert, but I've made remarkable progress on that in the last decade . . . while not particularly open and outgoing, at least I can be reasonably sociable. I grin and blush too easily to be reserved, anyway.
I don't really belong in this century. Ptolomaic Alexandria, Rome in the final days of her Republic, Viking-age Iceland, Renaissance Florence, or Revolutionary New England, perhaps, but not the 21st century United States. Many people remarked upon this fact before I understood it to be true. Anyway. As a random aside, I've been told that I am altogether too fond of elipses . . . but I don't think so . . .
I am very much in love with and married to the most wonderful woman in the world, Danyell. She is amazing in every way; I'm often at an actual loss for words to describe how amazing she is - and a logophile of my stature ought never to be at a loss for words, so that's pretty serious.
My livejournal is at http://valerianus.livejournal.com/ which is mostly in Latin and which I'm trying to update more regularly these days . . . if you're interested, check it out. My current AIM screen name is Senex1975, for anyone who may be interested.
To quote John Constantine in Neil Gaiman's "The Books of Magic:" You know who I am. Or you ought to. You know my reputation. Now . . . does anyone here *really* want to start something?"
Keep up on what I'm reading:
Who I'd like to meet: I enjoy the company of intelligent and reasonably well-educated people, but to quote Harvey, "My mother used to say to me . . . 'In this world you can be oh-so-smart, or oh-so-pleasant. For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant'." I like languages, and I like meeting people who study them (I'm a Classicist, but any languages are cool), or those who study language in general. Creative minds (authors, musicians, artists) tend to catch my attention. Most of my closest friends are not exactly "mainstream" people - anime/sci-fi/fantasy fans, gamers, geeks, metalheads, mystics, nerds, pagans, and so on . . . in other words, a diverse and open-minded bunch.
Hey you!!! thats so sweet-- i miss u both too!! it gets lonely way the hell out here on this coast! I was just at the midnight twilight DVD release--at a boarders around here,... i wont lie, if we had all be around for this madness it would have been a BLAST! i've watched the silly movie about 3 dozen times now... maybe today we'll watch it with spanish dub on --(havent tried that yet ^. < ) Happy last-day-of-the-weekend! =-^. ^-= L.
The place I moved into has sattelite TV instead of cable, and one day I was channel surfing and came across the channel "Chiller." Dude, you have no idea how great it is! From 6-7 Tales from the Crypt plus great shows like Twin Peaks and Brimstone. I know we never talked about any of these shows while we were quoting Aliens, but I know you would appreciate it, especially Tales from the Crypt.
lol.... that was f*cking fab! haha, thanks for the wishes! cept i swear to gawd i have to change the settings on my profile to reflect my actualy birthday--(12th) lol--i just cheated myself out of 2 whole days! (2 because i'm on this coast--well u know). ANYway, thank you! i miss u 2! ^.<
hey you-- it's been a while, thought i'd check the hell in! hows things? i hear it's getting bitter in the NE! well, we have to settle for overcast and chilly here (which I'll take--anything to break up the perpetual sun!) how was your halloween? =-^.^-= L.
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