Me. My name’s Cole. I’m a fledgling journalist, currently in college. I used to write for CSU Monterey Bay’s Otter Realm, but a regime change, in both students and teachers, forced both myself and my girlfriend to reconsider us being at CSUMB. I didn’t do too much for that paper, anyway. It was kinda disorganized (which surprises me, because our mentor was totally awesome; then again, she wanted to be as hands-off as possible to show us what a newspaper was like).

So we moved back home. I wrote for a local paper, The Folsom Telegraph, during the summer.  I covered various local things, with the most important being a murder/suicide that happened a block from the office (which is odd, being in a fairly nice community. Then again, I was in a club in high school with a guy who is on trial for murder, one that made national news. Go figure.). I got to interview the guy whose apartment had bullets fly through their living room, with the stucco coming off the wall (he and his family were gone during the time it occurred). There was still blood staining the patio. It was pretty intense.

I then started attending Sac State. I wrote for the State Hornet for a semester, interviewing celebrities (most notably, Arj Barker from Flight of the Conchords and Black Flag frontman-turned-activist Henry Rollins), interviewed random students, and reviewed various media. Guess which I really liked? Also of note was the murder that occurred on campus. I, along with the editor-in-chief and a reporter who would later become the news editor, crafted the front-page article on that story. That, along with all the content the news team posted on the paper’s website, won the Online Pacemaker award, one of the (if not THE) most prestigious awards a college newspaper can get for its online content. Oh, yeah, we beat out all the Ivy League schools.

That’s my academic/professional history.

As for my personal life…

I have a girlfriend of 3 years that I spend a lot of time with. We both play an obsessive amount of Guild Wars (at least, unlike WoW, it’s FREEEEE!), both being Officers in a guild.

I play a lot on my Xbox 360. I like shooters, RPGs, adventures…I’ve played just about every genre in my lifetime. I like most of them.

I also play a lot of Harvest Moon on the Wii. Don’t judge me. I have cows to milk.

My music tastes range from rock to pop to classical. The only things I really can’t stand are most country and just about all rap. I’ve really gotten in to jazz recently, too, and am trying to very slowly teach myself to play the guitar.

I love movies. Anything from action to comedy, romance to sci-fi, drama to thrillers. I don’t especially like horror movies, but I still watch them. Pandorum was good, for instance. Or at least, watchable.

Once upon a time, I was a huge otaku (that’s a Japanese comic and animation freak for those not in the know). Manga and anime (see last parentheses) were a passion, and I’ve spent more money than I care to count on manga. Favorite series include Great Teacher Onizuka, Trigun, Akira (I have the complete series, although that’s since become easier with Dark Horse re-releasing it), Love Hina, Tenchi Muyo, and Genshiken. Genshiken hit close to home.

I also used to attend anime conventions (“cons”) and would staff the local ones. Since I’ve grown out of the phase and am no longer a hardcore otaku, I’ve since stopped going to cons (not for lack of wanting to go to the occasional one, mind you). I still watch anime (at a rate of about an episode a month) and read manga as money permits (and lately, it doesn’t).

I’m learning to play guitar, but I still suck at it, as mentioned above.

I like dressing up in ties and vests, sometimes with a suit coat. And jeans. I strike poses to show how awesome I am.

I love mythical creatures and the paranormal.

I love quotes, so expect random ones in between reviews.

I think that’s really about all you need to know about me, and probably more.

This turned out way, way longer than I anticipated.

(I also really like using parentheses. It’s just…fun. So sue me, alright?)