About Me

 

[MY BIO] [MY PROJECTS] [MY HOBBIES] [MY WISHLIST]

Last updated 02/17/07

MY BIO

My name is Christopher Grant Harris. I was born on May 6, 1977 in Renton, Washington, USA. I didn’t cry when I was born. I came out of my mamma and just kinda looked around.

My first word was “Bird.” I said it while pointing at a bird flying overhead. It had a double meaning, though, as I pointed at the bird with my middle finger, giving the bird “the bird.”

I went to Montessori school up until 6th grade, to which I credit most of my success (parents! Go Montessori for your kids! Trust me!). I then went to a tiny middle school (with a class of only 7 kids when I was in ninth grade).

I went to Eastside Catholic High School for three years until graduating 18th in my class in 1995. No, I’m not Catholic, and neither is anyone in my family. The school had great English and Art departments (although it’s science department was DOG CRAP). I then went four years at Western Washington University, where I got a BA in Fine Arts: Graphic Design/Illustration.

In the Spring of 2005 I was hospitalized for severe intestinal problems. Eventually my entire lower intestines (aka large intestines, colon, and bowel) had to be removed via major surgery. I lived with a piece of my small intestine sticking out through my belly (covered by an ostemy bag) for three months. Then after another surgey my small intestines were pushed back inside my belly where they belong and I no longer had to wear the bag, although I am still without my lower intestines, with no real side effects to speak of. Click here for more information about this really fascinating procedure.

I now live a completely normal life in a gorgeous little house in Tacoma, do freelance web design/consulting, write hard Science Fiction, music, perform improv, watch movies, play a video game here and there, and have a generally wonderful time with my Wife, Carrie.

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MY PROJECTS

I have my fingers in a lot of pots. I’m what you might call a “creative” person in that I’m always creating something or other. For a more complete look at my various projects, please visit my projects page.

MY HOBBIES

[MOVIES] [TELEVISION] [LITERATURE] [MUSIC] [VIDEO GAMES]

I am a firm believer that you can tell a lot about a person by the kind of things that they like. With that in mind…

MOVIES

I have an entire section of this website devoted to movies, to I’ll only talk a little about them here. Go to my Movie Reviews section to learn more.

I like to see the movies, by which I mean that I like to go out and watch movies in the theater more than I like to watch them on TV/video/DVD (usually).

Here are some movies that I consider my favorites (in alphabetical order):

  • 5th Element
  • Adaptation
  • The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
  • The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
  • Aliens
  • Army of Darkness
  • Beauty and the Beast
  • Big Trouble in Little China
  • City of Lost Children
  • Dark City
  • Evil Dead 1 & 2 
  • The Fall
  • Grindhouse
  • The Incredibles
  • Iron Giant
  • Lost in Translation
  • Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
  • Manchurian Candidate (original)
  • The Matrix (original)
  • North by Northwest
  • Princess Mononoke
  • Raising Arizona
  • Royal Tenenbaums
  • Serenity
  • The Seven Samurai
  • Star Wars (entire series)
  • Titus
  • Toy Story (1 & 2)

Work in progress, baby!

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TELEVISION

These are the currently-running TV shows that I actually like to watch (in alphabetical order):

  • Battlestar Galactica
  • Chuck
  • Fringe
  • Ghost Hunters
  • Good Eats with Alton Brown
  • Heroes
  • The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien
  • Mythbusters
  • Numb3rs
  • Reaper
  • Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

And these are shows that I like to watch even though they’re no longer on the air (or are only in reruns or syndication):

  • The Adventures of Pete & Pete
  • The Avengers
  • Batman: The Animated Series
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • Firefly
  • Home Movies
  • The Kids in the Hall
  • MacGyver
  • Samurai Jack
  • Teen Titans
  • The Tick (live action)
  • The Transformers
  • Under the Mailbox Theater
  • Veronica Mars

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LITERATURE

I like to read a lot. People say that TV is bad for you, but at least you can do something else while you’re watching TV, like draw or wash dishes or something. But when I read, that’s ALL I do, to the exclusion of eating, sleeping, listening to people when they try to talk to me, etc.

My favorite fiction genre is old-timey Science Fiction, back when people didn’t quite know what radiation would do to the human body, before anybody landed on the moon, when computers took up entire rooms. I love looking at how different time periods viewed the future. My favorite authors are Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, both masters of the “hard” science fiction where the stories are based on real, speculative science, and were at least plausible when they were written. It’s great to go back and read the stories that they wrote, which now seem completely cliche, and realize that oh, wait, they INVENTED these cliches!

I also like Larry Niven, who is kind of in the generation after Heinlein and Asimov. I really like the descriptive power of Brian Aldiss, whose worlds are the most rich and vivid of anyone I’ve ever read, and full of some startling originality (too bad his plots are mostly dog crap and he can’t write endings to save his life). I tried reading some Philip K. Dick, but he’s way to distopian and depressing for me, and I figured out his writing formula after only reading a handful of his books.

Anyway. Here are my favorite SF books:

  • Stranger in a Strange Land (Heinlein)
  • The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (Heinlein)
  • The Cat Who Walks Through Walls: A Comedy of Manners (Heinlein)
  • Have Space Suit, Will Travel (Heinlein)
  • Friday (Heinlein)
  • Job: A Comedy of Justice (Heinlein)
  • The Caves of Steel (Asimov)
  • I, Robot—and the rest of the Robot Series (Asimov)
  • The Lucky Starr Series (Asimov)
  • The Malacia Tapestry (Aldiss)

Outside of the SF genre, my favorite fiction author is Haruki Murakami, most famous for A Wild Sheep Chase.

I also like reading popularized science books, written for people who want to know about theoretical physics without having to deal with math. My favorite authors for those are Asimov (again) and Michio Kaku.

Other than that I like to read books about various pop-culture subjects, particularly animation history.

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MUSIC

I never used to listen to a lot of music. I didn’t really even know there was such a thing as popular music until 7th grade or so. I’ve almost always hated the radio. But now that I work from home, I’ve found that it’s nice to throw on a CD in the background while I’m coding or writing or something.

My favorite musical act of all times is:

  • They MIGHT BE Giants

Here some of are my other favorite musicians, by which I mean musicians I will actually listen to on purpose (in alphabetical order):

  • Ben Folds
  • Black Eyed Peas
  • Blue Man Group
  • Buckethead
  • Cake
  • Cibo Matto
  • The Crazy Boy Floyds
  • Erykah Badu
  • Esquivel
  • Gorillaz
  • John Linnell
  • Jonathan Coulton
  • Josie & the Pussycats
  • Kou Ohtani
  • Letters to Cleo
  • Mono Puff
  • NMVGPTS
  • OutKast
  • Pizzicato Five
  • Pleaseeasaur
  • Puffy AmiYumi
  • Sheryl Crow
  • Strong Bad
  • Tangentbot
  • Tenacious D
  • Veruca Salt
  • The Wastelanders
  • William Shatner

Here’s what I’m listening to nowadays (courtesy of MOG):

So, yeah. That’s the kind of stuff I listen to. More or less.

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VIDEO GAMES

I’ve been known to play a video game now and then.

The first video game system I had when I was a kid was the Colecovision. We had a tonne of games for that thing. Then growing up I was a Nintendo loyalist. I had all of the Nintendo systems except for the GameBoy. Any GameBoy, in fact (original, Pocket, Color, Advance, Advance SP). Now I have the Wii and the DS.

My favorite series of games of all time is the Mega Man series, especially the original six. I also like the Mega Man X series. I do not, however, like the Mega Man Battle Network series at all. I also particularly enjoy the Zelda games and the Mario Games.

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MY WISHLIST

If you think I’m just about the most awesome person whose crappy autobiography you’ve ever read, you should not feel at all bad about getting me a present. To that end, here is my amazon.com wishlist. Get me something good, a’ight?

 

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