Do you play guitar, or do some other type of hobby in order to get inspiration for your writing?
— Jesse Leal
I don’t play guitar, though I’ve always wanted to learn. I tried to teach myself on my father’s guitar, but never even mastered tuning it, which made the rest of the process painful to the ears.
I can read music, and play piano and clarinet on a grade-school level. But I wouldn’t say either of them inspire my writing. So, for the truly curious, here’s a quick run-down of John’s Other Interests:
* Gadgets [Treo 650](http://palmone.com)? Check. [TiVo](http://tivo.com)? Check. (Early Adopter points: I got my first digital video recorder in 1998.) [Toyota Prius](http://www.toyota.com/prius/)? Check. (We have two in the family.) [Wireless Weather Forecaster](http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?cookie%5Ftest=1&catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F010%5F001%5F001%5F000&product%5Fid=63%2D1085&hmsub=ad2)? Check.
* Languages
I like to travel, but my interest in languages is borderline obsessive; I spent six weeks learning Japanese in preparation for a 72-hour visit to Tokyo. I’ve spoken Spanish since grade school, and French since high school. I’m fascinated by the evolution of languages, particularly how English lost its Germanic declensions and re-imported so much of its vocabulary from French (which resulted in having both ‘regal’ and ‘royal’).
* Warcraft My name is John, and I have Warcraft problem. Kudos to the good folks at [Blizzard](http://blizzard.com) for their digital crack.
* Reality Television If I only watched The Amazing Race, no one would question my taste. But my TiVo also holds Big Brother, The Real World, and The Real World/Road Rules Challenge.
* Home improvement I’ve renovated two houses in four years, by which I mean telling a contractor what I wanted and blissfully ignoring the actual labor involved.
* Information architecture
Beyond the work I do designing and running this website, I also love to keep up on XML, RSS and other emerging standards.
* D.C. heroes I know there’s a lot of love out there for the Marvel pantheon, but I’ve always been a D.C. guy. Ever since I watched Superfriends as a kid, Superman and his brethren were my gods on Mount Olympus. I was never much of a comics reader, but somehow I learned all of the heroes’ mythology.