About me and my website

Me

Generally known as: Kunze, Princess, Pussy

Hobbies: Reading, music, movies, writing, making this website

Reading

I am currently reading One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garc�a Marquez.

I used to read historical fiction and science fiction/fanasy. I have read many books by Louis L'amour, including every book in the Sackett series, but that was at least seven years ago. I read James Clavell's Shogun near the end of my western era and since have always felt like laughing when someone would warn me that a five hundred page book was "long." Over the course of three years, I read the other five books in Jame's Clavell's Asian Saga and consider it to be one of the finest series that I have read. During my sci-fi/fantasy years, I read many different authors, including much of Piers Anthony (Dead Morn is perhaps the best I have read that dealt with time travel). Two excellent series that I read in the sci-fi/fantays genre are The Gunslinger by Stephen King and A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. However, both series are yet to be completed, with three or four books left in each (at the time that I had read them).

Now, I generally read non-fiction, though I sometimes still read fiction. One such fiction writer is Denis Johnson. His novels are more character-driven (a term that I picked up from Don Miguel de Unamuno's Niebla) than plot-driven. I prefer character-driven stories over plot-driven stories, both in books and movies.

I also read other thought-provoking fiction, such as the classic dystopia novels: We by Yevegeny Zamyatin, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and 1984 by George Orwell. J.T. Leroy's books, The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things and Sarah, are amazing (the first was published when he was sixteen and is based on his life) and definately not for the timid. Lastly for fiction, Don Miguel de Unamuno has written excellent short stories.

Two of the most influential books that I have read are The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature by Matt Ridley and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsing. Anything written by Herman Hesse is rather amazing.

Other excellent non-fiction books include You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation by Deborah Tannen and Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Book Got Wrong by James W. Loewen.

I greatly enjoy reading Ralph Waldo Emerson and am slowly making it through his complete volume of essays (slowly because I read it when I am between books). I also hope to try reading Henry David Thoreau, a disciple of Emerson, again. Though I did not like Walden when I read an excerpt from it in ninth grade, I think that I may enjoy it more now. I have also read several essays by Bertrand Russsell and plan to read Friedrich Nietzsche and John Paul Sartre.

I have never been one for reading magazines, with the lone exception of PC Accelerator (PCXL), by far the best magazine I have ever read and the only one to which I would subscribe. Most unfortunately, PCXL lasted from August 1998 to June 2000, before being shut down by its parent company. PCXL was intelligent, extremely funny, and honest. It never held back on reviews (especially reviews on games that they did not like) even if the same games had purchased advertisments in the magazine.

Lastly, I read news on a somewhat regular basis, generally the Guerilla News Network (GNN) and the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). I also read "America's Finest News Source," The Onion, and Dan Savage's column, Savage Love, every week.

Quotes from nearly all of the aforementioned authors can be found in the Quotes section of my webpage.

Music

Music is the only thing in this world, with the exception of sneezing and looking at the sunset, that takes you to a place that's above the mundane. Everything else is just bullshit.
~ Stephan Jenkins

Generally, when a person is asked to which type of music they listen, said person will respond, "I listen to everything." I used to respond in this manner, but I now realize how extremely inaccurate this response is. Last summer I listened to Riffat Sultana sing Pakistani/Indian folk music at the Oregon Country Fair. I was extremely impressed by the artist and the music, which I had never heard before. However, I would have once responded that I listen to everything--evidently "everything" did not include Pakistani/Indian folk music. In fact, it would seem that those who say "everything" instead mean "mainstream, U.S. American genres." Within that definition, I can find artists/songs that I enjoy in every genre. I am however, expanding my music experiences to less mainstream and non-U.S. American.

I grew up listening to modern country music; or more accurately, those around me listened to modern country music (yes, I know, it should be considered by Social Services a form of child abuse, but alas...). In junior high school, I went on an oldies kick--two years of nothing but oldies. Not until high school did I begin to listen to mainstream radio, consisting of mostly pop and alternative music--I basically liked anything that was on the radio. I slowly began developing a taste in music over the years, trying several different genres. At one point in my life, I owned all three Creed CDs, though now I do not have so much as a single song by Creed. I once even liked listening to Linkin' Park (and Nickelback and Staind and Puddle of Mudd). Though now they sound like corporate bands to me, I will admit that I can understand that there is an attraction to their sugar-sweet style of pop music.

I have in the last year returned to country, but the real stuff this time, not the modern "country." Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Marty Robbins are excellent artists. While I generally do not like dance music (or pop or rap or hip-hop), I have found that I enjoy The Chemical Brothers (house music, The Test is a good song). I have also expanded into some old school artists (The Beatles and Bob Dylan among others) and have come to appreciate more recent artists like Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson.

I have several artists for which I own many if not all of their albums and to which I listen on a regular basis, in roughly the order that I started listening to them:

Eagle-Eye Cherry
Third Eye Blind
New Radicals/Gregg Alexander/Danielle Brisebois
Nine Days
Vertical Horizon
Everclear
Alanis Morissette
Our Lady Peace
Black Lab
Pink Floyd
Led Zeppelin
Marilyn Manson
Live
Nine Inch Nails
Moby

Movies

A bad play where the heroes are right
And nobody thinks or expects too much
And Hollywood's calling for the movie rights
Singing hey baby lets keep in touch
~ "Run-Around" by Blues Traveler

Movies that I own:

21 Grams
Apocalyspe Now (Redux)
Adaptation
American Beauty
Amores Perros
Blade (I and II)
Blade Runner
Bowling for Columbine
Bringing out the Dead
The Chinese Connection
A Clockwork Orange
The Deer Hunter
Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Dust
Fists of Fury
Full Metal Jacket
Intacto
Jackie Brown
Jesus' Son
Memento
Mulholland Dr.
Pi
Platoon
Pulp Fiction
Requiem for a Dream
Resevoir Dogs
The Shining
Taxi Driver
Terminator (I and II)
Thesis
Traffic
Trainspotting
Usual Suspects
Wet Hot Wild American Summer
Wrongfully Accused

The best site that I have found to look up movie info is the Internet Movie Database. It is well organized and contains a forum to discuss the movies, a good source for different perspectives.

Writing

A little story that I wrote during freshman winter break: something like real

I am currently working on a story that I started sophomore winter break (as one can see, I am working on it slowly), the title in progress is "living Dead." Hopefully, that works out well.

My website

Wombat

Wombat Slayer

I used to read fantasy books where the term Dragon Slayer is used somewhat commonly to name a person or weapon, and in A Song of Ice and Fire, a character is called KingSlayer. Also, I had/have an infatuation with wombats. When I needed to a name for a character in Diablo II, the name Wombat Slayer came to me, I liked it so much I used it and still use it to this day. So, I do not slay wombats, I like wombats, but I think the name is cool.

This site was created for Opera, the best web browser I have come across. If you use Firefox, that is a good step. If you use Internet Explorer, you should be slapped with a goat.

I wrote this entire website in HTML using Microsoft Notepad (probably the best program Microsoft has made).

I use Abyss Web Server to host my webpage.

Feel free to e-mail me