Hi guys (and girls),
My name's Daniel, and I haven't had a drink since la... what's that? Not an AA meeting? Man am I wasted...

Anyways, a bit about me. I live in Peterborough, England. I'm 18 and currently doing my final A-Level exams (well, unless anything goes hideously wrong) and should probably be in bed ATM. I'm taking Maths, Further Maths, Economics and Theatre Studies. I am taking a gap year and, after that, hope to take MORSE (Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics and Economics) at Warwick University.

In my spare time, I read (a lot), dabble in programming, watch American sports (especially baseball), read audiobooks for Librivox, generally potter around on my computer and, very occasionally, sail.

I'm particularly into Napoleonic historical fiction (especially naval fiction), my favourite series being Hornblower, Aubrey/Maturin and Sharpe (pretty much in that order). I am, however, currently reading Filmmaking For Dummies (or somesuch), as I wait for my local library to render the next book in either the Hornblower or the Aubrey/Maturin series. I have also recently finished listening to a Librivox recording of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

My programming language of choice is Python though, in all honesty, I have never done anything of much import with it. I have a couple of half-arsed scripts hanging about, which never quite reached completion (either through sloth or the discovery of a much better tool for the job than I'll ever write). If it can be classed as a programming language, I'm also conversant in LaTeX and, in fact, used it to write my CV (though using LyX as a proxy) and covering letter (using pure, uncut LaTeX).

As previously mentioned, baseball is, in my opinion, a sport par excellence. My teams are the Marlins and the BoSox, in the NL and AL respectively. Some may say that I should only support one team, but have you seen the Marlins this season?! I also follow American football (Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and ice hockey (Anaheim Mighty Ducks), though to a lesser extent. While being a sports fan may seem to disqualify me from geekdom, I think it's important to realise that I have to stay up until 4am to watch a full game.

Computer-wise, I run Gentoo Linux (and only Gentoo, none of this dual-boot rubbish) on an Athon64 3000+ w/1GB RAM and an nVidia GeForce 2 MX400 (old skool!). I enjoy gaming, but nothing like as much as I do being able to use my system properly (hence Gentoo).

My sailing and love of naval historical fiction are intertwined and I can never really work out which one came first. I started out in dinghies (and, indeed, own a Mirror dinghy) but haven't sailed in one in a while (mainly because I'm too big (and too heavy) to fit in comfortably). A couple of years ago, I spent 11 days on a square-rigged tall ship, sailing in the Mediterranean, which was an absolute dream come true. I hope to sail across the Atlantic in a tall ship, if not in my gap year, then at some point in my future.

Well, this actually turned into slightly more than a bit about me, so I'll leave it here.

Cheers,
Dan