Name: Patches. Patches, the Good-Natured Lunatic. Oh, you mean my REAL name? Er, sorry, that's confidential online ^_^*.

Birthdate: March, 1982.  You do the math to figure out my age :P

Gender: Female, darn it! Why is everyone so shocked that I'm a girl?

School: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, man! Voted best undergraduate engineering school in the country for the second year in a row! In beautiful Terre Haute, Indiana, where there is nothing around for 100 miles except corn and the occasional Federal execution. The campus used to be all male until recently, but the guys still FAR outnumber the girls (and a lot of them are desperate for a date. Go away, dangit! I'm not interested!).  Planning to major in Computer Engineering.

Not-So-Vital-But-Interesting-Otherwise Stats

Favorite Color: Blue!  I like dark blue.

Favorite Food: Ouch, that's a tough one.  My stomach has this thing against milk products and certain artificial sugars, which drastically limits what I can eat.  But, since I like chocolate so much, I sneak it in once and a while ^_^*

Favorite Song: "Time to Say Goodbye" by Sarah Brightman and Andre Bocelli.  Ahh... pretty...

Favorite Animal:  Cats, definitely.  My nickname came from my cat, if you couldn't tell.

Hobbies: Drawing (I still doodle on my college term papers ^_^*); writing really crazy, yet hopefully witty, stories; listening to music; watching anime; surfing the 'net.  Ya know, the usual.

Pet Peeve: Hoo, man, I could rant for pages about this.  Internet Shorthand.  Can't STAND it.  If I get an e-mail or IM that's written like "how r u 2day", erghh... it's usually immediately deleted or ignored.  Come on, how difficult is it to write out the words "are" and "you"?  I can forgive abbreviations of longer words or phrases like "LOL" or something, but... these are three-letter words!  And how hard is it to hold the Shift key at the beginning of a sentence?  And on that note, how difficult is it to MAKE sentences in the first place?  Where has punctuation gone?  Typos are forgivable, and I don't mind using "gonna" or "wanna" or similar words, but Internet Shorthand is just plain lazy, and ridiculously hard for me to read.  English grammar is simply a language standard that is understandable to any English speaker.  Why not use it?  Sure beats the heck out of trying to figure out what "ur sight is kewl n i wnat 2 use ur stuf ok" means.

My Personal Anime Series Top 5

Slayers
Still by far my favorite anime.  I got into it way back when only the first 13 episodes were released.  At that point, the only other anime I'd seen was Sailor Moon on TV.  Well, my friend showed me a tape of "Slayers", and I was blown away (true, this IS Sailor Moon I was comparing it to, but still...).  And now that all three seasons, plus the movies and OAVs, are nearly released in their entirety, I still love the show!  There's just something about it that seems to fit my personality.  Silly, but serious when it needs to be.  Imaginative settings, likable characters, and lots of slapstick explosions.  Great for people who like good fantasy, but can't stay attentive if it stays serious for too long ^_^*

Trigun
I've finally seen the entire series, and I love it, love it, LOVE IT!  This series is of the sci-fi/Western genre, which seems to work, for some reason.  The series stars the infamous outlaw, Vash the Stampede, a criminal with a $$60 billion reward on his head.  So, what kind of person is he to merit that high a price?  Actually, a cheery nutball, sworn never to take a life, although he can act like a badass if he feels like it.  However, because of his reputation, he is followed by two insurance girls, intent on making sure he doesn't cause any further damage.  The show contains a Slayers-like mix of drama and comedy (although, not quite as ridiculous as Slayers), and some darn cool animation.  And the first couple episodes feature donuts.  The series offers a wide variety of stuff, so would be a good pick for many groups of people.  Just goes to show that if you're a really nice guy, everyone's out to try to make your life hell.

Escaflowne
To tell you the truth, when I first saw Escaflowne all the way through, I didn't think much of it.  The storyline lost me a couple of times, and some of the episodes in the middle were decidedly uninteresting.  Plus, I watched the whole thing over the course of a year, so ended up forgetting things that happened and got even more lost.  Then, a year later, I borrowed the first tape from my friend and re-watched it.  I remember thinking to myself, "I don't remember this series being this good!"  Eventually, I watched through the whole thing again, and was decidedly more impressed with it.  The music, naturally, hooked me right away.  I didn't really like any character in particular (except maybe Dilandau) the first time through, but on the re-watch, I suddenly liked almost everyone!  Van was suddenly likable, Merle was suddenly cute, Hitomi was tolerable, Folken was cool, and, of all people, Allen started to annoy me.  And Dilandau's still as psycho as ever.  Great for people who like good fantasy, but want to see some mecha thrown into the mix.  Awesome music, and great animation for its time.

Evangelion
Someone in the college anime club was appalled that I hadn't seen Evangelion, so lent me the series over spring break.  I was curious to see it, since so many other people seemed to love it, and I'd seen some interesting music videos featuring it.  I finished the series in two days and, aside from the last two episodes, which were on crack, it was actually a pretty decent series.  At first, it looks like your typical "mecha versus giant space monsters" genre.  However, some massively twisted psychological plots start taking place.  And Shinji is cool.  Yes, I'll say that again, louder.  SHINJI IS COOL.  Before you come after me with pitchforks, I'll tell you that I saw the majority of the series, save for four episodes, subtitled.  So, yes, I saw Shinji in the dub.  He was whiny and irritating, just as people typically describe him.  But in Japanese, he was too darn cute to hate.  He sounded more angry than whiny (heck, I'd be angry at my dad if he dragged me to a secret bunker and made me pilot a giant purple thing I'd never seen before and expect me to defeat a monster rampaging around the city just to satisfy his secret agenda ^_^*).  Speaking of purple thing, Shinji may be my favorite human character, but Evangelion Unit 01 is by far my favorite character overall.  It's just too darn cool, and has a mind of its own.

Dragonball Z
Of all things.  I actually actively avoided watching this show when I first got Cartoon Network, and paid more attention to Sailor Moon, ReBoot, and Gundam Wing, deciding it was just animated WWF or something.  However, since it was on between all those shows, catching an episode or two of it was inevitable.  I paid little attention to the ones I did see, since I didn't feel like trying to figure out what was going on, and all the characters were "lumpy".  Then, one day, I turned it on at random, and there was a character who I thought was kinda cool-looking.  Of all people, it was Freeza (final form).  I thought, "Hey, he's kinda cool.  He's white, has a tail, and isn't as lumpy as everyone else."  So, I watched a little more actively, and ended up watching the entirety of the "five minutes" that battle was supposed to take, which spanned about 40 episodes.  I was still in the dark about a lot of stuff, since I picked the series up in the middle, but after the last episode (at that point), I'd decided that Vegeta and Bulma would make a cute couple, but was bummed when they brought this "Yamcha" guy back to life and he turned out to be her boyfriend (little did I know.... ^_^*).  After that, I was one of the few people who was happy that they started rerunning the series from the beginning, so I could pick up all the stuff I missed.  And then they started more new episodes, which was just fine with me.  Somehow, I became a fan of the show without really knowing it.  It just has this... weird appeal that I can't really explain ^_^*

Other Anime I've Seen (in their entirety) and Liked
Cowboy Bebop
Fushigi Yuugi
Big O
Gundam Wing
Tenshi ni Narumon (I'm Gonna be an Angel)
Irresponsible Captain Tylor

My Personal Non-Anime Series Top 5

Gargoyles
Hoo, man, do I miss this show.  I'm talking about the original Gargoyles series, not that "Goliath Chronicles" thing that was on ABC for a while.  It got too moral and topical, which isn't what the show was about.  The show was about ancient beasts that were stone by day, warriors by night.  Man, I'm quoting the opening.  Gargoyles drew a lot of its plot from Shakespeare and old English mythology.  And Gargoyles' portrayal of Macbeth was actually more accurate to the real person than Shakespeare's was.  The series involved a ton of magic and mythological references that are almost unheard of in American cartoons, but are quite common in anime.  It's probably the only American cartoon whose characters I actually got attached to.  Not to mention that the voice cast was nothing short of a Star Trek convention.  As far as I know, this show can only be found on Toon Disney, and on rare occasions, the Disney channel, when they run little Toon Disney specials.

Quantum Leap
Hey, I don't watch only cartoons!  I watch good ol' sci-fi series from ten years ago, too!  I stumbled upon this show by accident while channel surfing.  The entire concept of the show is repeated every time they show its opening credits, so it's easy to figure out what's going on, since it's pretty episodic.  Basically, a scientist named Sam Beckett attempted time-travel, but ended up stuck in another person's body in the past.  Thus, he ends up on a sort of "mission from God", and leaps around time - and identities - to try and fix things that went bad in history.  These are usually minor domestic events, not anything that would dramatically affect history if changed.  And he has his sidekick, Al, who shows up as a hologram that only Sam can interact with.  Al supplies Sam with the history he needs, and suggests what is the most probable thing that needs fixing.  Once it's fixed, Sam leaps to another time and body.  He's taken the role of numerous criminals, performers, women (^_^*), and a monkey ("Spending my first night as a monkey wasn't so bad.  The beds were firm, the food was free, and the company was... more than friendly."), among many others.  It's always cute to see Sam at a loss when he first enters a time period, trying to play the part of a person whom he knows nothing about.  Reruns of it still appear on the Sci-Fi channel.

Whose Line is it, Anyway?
The closest thing to a game show that I watch regularly.  Basically, four comedians play improvisation games for a half hour.  They can be given props and figure out strange uses for them, act out a scene using various film and theater styles (a Shakespearean monster movie is always amusing), or make up a song on the spot.  Among a zillion other games, of course.  This was originally a British series, hosted by Clive Anderson, which can still be seen on Comedy Central.  Recently, an American incarnation, hosted by Drew Carey, has appeared on ABC.  And Ryan Stiles is cool.  He appears regularly in both versions.  This is just a great show to let complete nonsense fly.

Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mwa ha ha ha!  A show about what most of you probably already do during a boring lecture or presentation at school.  Mike (or Joel, depending on which episodes you're watching) and his robot pals were flung into space on the Satellite of Love by an evil scientist.  To torment him, he's sent cheesy movies to watch.  And what better thing to do with cheesy movies than to ridicule them?  They get low-budget independent films, happy little B-movies, or old sci-fi flicks that are rather lacking in the creativity and effects departments.  The movies are made tolerable only by the trio's constant comments throughout the film.  MST3K is home of such wonderful movies as "Prince of Space" and "Atomic Brain" and "Cave Dwellers", among many others.  See a caveman fly a hang glider!  See some Japanese chicken-men kidnap Earth's scientists!  See men dressed in flannel fight dinosaurs!  See space ships on strings!  The sad thing is, these all came from real movies, which people really expected to be taken seriously.  Oy vey.  Still appears occasionally on the Sci-Fi channel.

Iron Chef
Okay, so even though it's not anime, it's still Japanese.  So what?  This is the non-anime section, and Iron Chef isn't anime (although it's parodied quite a bit in anime).  In case you've been living under a log and don't know what Iron Chef is about, basically, Kaga Takeshi, the chairman, selects a great chef from somewhere in the world and invites him to compete against his Iron Chefs in Kitchen Stadium.  After introductions, a theme ingredient is revealed, which must be used in all the dishes the chefs make.  Then, the two chefs are given one hour to make a meal out of the theme ingredient, using whatever else they want.  They usually end up with four to six dishes by the end.  Then, a panel of judges, who are usually actors, taste-test the food and score the two chefs on their work.  And whoever wins... um... gets the crowd to clap for them.  And probably gets more popularity for their restaurant.  It's like a game show or a sports event turned into a cooking show.  Plus, they sometimes play Escaflowne music in the background.  But it's mostly from the soundtrack to "Backdraft", or so I've heard (never seen the movie).  And Morimoto still rules over Bobby Flay.  Nyah.  Appears regularly on Food Network.