A (relatively) condensed bio

First things first. SaurianOverlord was a handle I adopted for chat rooms years ago. If you talked to someone online by that name between 1999-2005ish, it was probably me. The origin of the name is a story for another time. (I found out much later that it was apparently the name of a character on the short-lived Disney cartoon based on The Mighty Ducks; that has absolutely nothing to do with it.) These days, I usually just go by Saurian, or some variation thereof (Saurian3 on some forums, for example). Now that that's out of the way...

I was born in 1981 into a hellhole in southern Wisconsin. I grew up with a sort of nagging Mormon background, which was put on hold when I was about 9 and my parents divorced. We started going to church again when I was a freshman in high school, and I faked interest very well until I turned 18 and decided I was sick of pretending (Mom was upset then, but not too surprised, I think; you just can't fake out your parents that well when you live with them). High school sucked except for the few friends I had, some of whom helped a great deal to aid and abet my existing musical tastes and influence new ones. It sounds sort of cliché, but music played a major part in my survival of those four years.

I briefly moved to Peoria, IL for a little over a year with my best friend from high school, with whom I attended countless concerts. It was during that time that I did a little experimenting with creating some music of my own (partly due to encouragement of my girlfriend at that time, who wrote and recorded music of her own), with only a very few decent results. Upon parting with my girlfriend, I [“bored as fuck, depressed, and lonely,” in an Internet chat room] almost immediately met the one I'd become engaged to. Life in Peoria started to suck worse than Hellhole, WI, so I moved back and lived in my dad's basement for a couple of years. I got a cat eventually; I grew up with cats, and I think it affected me adversely to not have one around for an extended time. I spent a lot of time working crappy jobs and feeling sorry for myself before I got a reasonable full-time job and my betrothed bravely moved to Wisconsin to live with me. At some point, I lost touch with my best friend. I'm not sure exactly what happened there, but I often wish it hadn't.

A while after I was laid off from that job (which I hated anyway) and decided to finally go to college and pursue my computer programming-related dreams, we (to my fiance's great delight) moved to just slightly out of Hell - a bit west, to Madison. I completed my AS in Computer Science and have just started into my Bachelor's, concurrently acquiring a job with a large corporation that will require me to, very soon, move further west to Dubuque - seemingly almost back into Hell (Hell is an oddly-shaped place, I think). Dubuque is by no means better than Madison (although it's not much worse, either), but I'm hopeful that with this company, I can move into the programming career I've always wanted, and move someplace nice where it's 80 degrees all year and it's always sunset and cocktail waitresses bring me free drinks with little umbrellas in them...or, maybe just somewhere that's not the Midwest.

My musical taste is very eclectic. While I was growing up, some things rubbed off from my parents. My dad grew up on Deep Purple, Foghat, AC/DC, Van Halen, and other great rock bands. From my mom: The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Phil Collins, and a few assorted disco and 80s pop selections. She also likes such things as Michael Bolton and Barry Manilow, which did NOT rub off on me, for which I'm eternally grateful. No offense, Mom. My younger sister and I liked a fair amount of the same music growing up as well; by the time I got to high school, I think a good portion of it was my taste rubbing off on her. (By the way, she eventually attended and graduated from Berklee College of Music as a sound engineer.) At that time, I was into a lot of alternative and a small amount of rap, and later techno, some metal, and industrial. By the end of high school I began developing a greater appreciation for various types of metal which continues to this day. Shortly after moving back to WI from Peoria, I got a bit into progressive rock/metal and power metal, elements of which also still hold strong in my present tastes.

I have one favorite artist, and that is Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails. This will be evident as I post reviews, and the reasons will be revealed. I consider a great many more bands/artists to be among my favorites, but it would not be fair to list any of them above others at any given time. I will say that over the last 5-10 years, some of my favorites have included: Dream Theater, Smashing Pumpkins, Orbital, Nightwish, Opeth, Van Halen, TOOL, Coheed & Cambria, The Crystal Method, Cold, Marilyn Manson, Depeche Mode...oh, forget it; I could go on and on. The list is long and diverse, and I'll leave it at that.

Fortunately, my fiance and I share a few favorite musical artists, such as Nine Inch Nails and Orbital. I don't think I would have tolerated a girl who was into country, R&B, or “neo-emo” (as I call it; more on that some other time). There wasn't much danger in that happening anyway - we both have standards. Her tastes, however, aren't quite as eclectic as mine, which may be part of the reason my obsession with music stagnated at some point. That's not to say I mean it was anyone's fault but mine, and even if it was, I wouldn't hold it against her. She's a wonderful, beautiful woman who has helped me immeasurably in the last few years, and I love her more than anything. Sappy, I know, but true.

I love my cat, too. She's insane, but she's a sweetheart when she deems it appropriate.

A final note: if the length of this post or the extent of my rambling bothers you for any reason, you probably won't enjoy my blog very much.