About Alfie

Well, Alfie is a nickname I was given when I started working at British Telecom (whom I now no longer work for). Long and boring story, but basically it is the short form of my middle name, Alfred. My real name ? Mark. As so many people I meet regularly are used to calling me Alfie I use it all the time now, as well as using it for all of my on-line alter-ego needs...

D.O.B.: 14th September 1970, so that makes me 34 at the moment.
Gender: Male.
Location: I live in Royston, North Hertfordshire, England.
Aliases: I usually use Alfie, but also use Ghost Writer, and Lukas.

I have been described as an 'insomniac, workaholic, bookworm, boffin, computer nerd, role-player' so that probably explains why most of my friends are either work colleagues, net-buddies, or people I have known for a long time from the Games Club...with the exception of Ridley of course who I have known for ever.

Loves...

Fiona: I have given Fiona the nickname, Pixie, as she has a mischievous little smile and a cheeky nature. I love her to bits, and that love has only grown from living with each other.

Fiona sadly passed away quite suddenly in January 2005.

Pewter/Whiskers: Fiona and I adopted a kitten from her niece, only he turned out to be a bit bigger than we were expecting.

Hobbies and Likes...

Reading: I love reading, and always have a book on the go. If I can't find a new book that I like then I usually  re-read one of the 800 or so books that I have in my collection. Most of my collection is Science Fiction, or Fantasy with the odd Math text book or programmers guide thrown in for real nerd-like measure. All-time favourites have to be, in no particular order; William Gibson's Cyberpunk series, Raymond E. Feist's Kingdom series, Iain M. Bank's Culture series (as well as the non-SF stuff he's done - The Wasp Factory was an excellent intro into his non-SF), Peter F. Hamilton's Mindstar and Night's Dawn series, Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars series, Vernor Vinge's sc-fi, and of course J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion, etc, which really opened my eyes to fantasy fiction as a 9 year old.

Programming/Coding: I am a bit of a 'brute-force' programmer, not necessarily writing the most elegant code, but if it works... :) I mostly use Visual Basic, ever since VB 3, and got hold of VB.NET although I really have not got used to .NET as I did with traditional VB.

Music: I listen to quite a lot of different types of music but keep coming back to techno-industrial, dark industrial, and gothic-industrial for my main stay of aural pleasure. That said I have quite diverse likes, so the list has to be, in no particular order; Pet Shop Boys, Beastie Boys, Limp Bizkit, Blur, Crowded House, Meat Beat Manifesto, Erasure, Future Sound Of London, Prodigy, Garbage, Nine Inch Nails, Robbie Williams, Splender, VAST, and many others.

My friend, Ridley, has got me into creating my own stuff using ACID Music which is wonderful :) I have 14 tracks that I have created, mostly techno-industrial, some with a goth-y overtone, and some ambient, along with one track I love which is 'cheesey funk'. Find out more in the ACID Music section.

Cycling: I really need to get my bike fixed as I used to love just wandering off in the morning on my bike and letting the road lead me where it would for the day. Something about being able to turn your mind off and just let your muscles keep pushing along...sigh.

Writing: Nothing that I'm willing to share just yet, but it's my friend, Ridley, who got me to thinking that I actually do have a unique creative style, and although my characterisation and focus on detail is a bit pants, my descriptive powers are beyond good. At some point I will eventually find that a story can no longer be tweaked so I will post them on my site for all to read, enjoy, and critique.

Ridley invented a role-play universe for his original game, Rain City, which I have been focusing on to some extent as I like the idea. At some point I may release some of my work on expanding Rain City, it's history, current day environs, etc as RPG (Role-Playing Game) material.

Role-Play Games: I have been a role-player since the day my mum returned home from a visit to London's West End with a copy of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) thinking it was a board game that would keep her 2 children quiet for an afternoon when I was just 9. My sister and I got into the whole thing fairly easily, both having active imaginations, but I have stuck with it whereas my sister hasn't played in years. I particularly enjoy Vampire, Cyberpunk, Call Of Cthulu, Twilight 2000, and play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) on and off.

There are a few of us from the Games Club that call ourselves 'Gamers' rather than 'Players' because we'll pretty much play anything anyone puts in front of us, whereas 'Players' can sometimes take it far too seriously and it is only a game, right ? :)

Computer Games: I'm a PC multi-player freak, it's true. I can't get enough of the current crop of on-line multi-player games, but my all-time recommendations have to be, in no particular order; Half Life Death Match, Team Fortress Classic, and my most recent fave, Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption. I've started messing about with Vampire again but I was taken over by Operation Flashpoint for a good few months and still tinker with it as new maps and add-ons get released.

Ten-Pin Bowling: I love bowling. I'm not exceptional, but can usually get into the mid-100's.

Pool: I used to play pool a lot, but of late have not played much. My playing is very erratic and my skill isusually linked to my general 'happiness with life' quotient.

Computing: The second love of my life, my PCs. See Alfie's Computers for more info...