I Made This

This site is largely my fault[1], so I thought I'd have a section waffling on about me. If you don't want to read about me I suggest you rapidly click on a link to another part of the site! A page which could or could not say more about me, while saying less about me is my old original home page here - I apologise in advance for it! My name is Matt, and I was born in 1974. I live somewhere in the county of Berkshire in southern England, part of the United Kingdom. If you're curious about what I look like, you can find a photo here.

As you may have guessed, I like cats - there's information about my two cats, Simba and Misty, under the tales section of the site. I do also like dogs (preferring big dog breeds such as the Siberian Husky and Alaskan Malamute), although there isn't room in my flat for me to keep a dog, and I'm not sure how Simba and Misty would take to one!

There's a fair range of music I enjoy, though I'd recommend Orbital and PJ Harvey in particular. Click on the musical notes to the left to read a bit more about what I like. My tastes in books is narrower, although that's mainly out of not having much of an idea about picking books I'd enjoy outside the authors/genres I'm more familiar with. I've particularly enjoyed books by Neal Stephenson (especially Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon), Terry Pratchett (my favourite was his collaboration with Neil Gaimen on Good Omens, although I've enjoyed the Discworld series lots), Douglas Adams and also books by Iain M. Banks (including his non-SciFi works).

My work is computer-based, and includes looking after a machine room containing 6 racks full of equipment (as well as running most of those servers), a LAN for about 20 users, an internet connection, with my primary work being doing development work on applications both for customers and internal systems.

My home is a 2 bedroom maisonette. Apparently maisonette translates into "flat with street level front door". I don't see myself living here indefinitly, but if I was going to buy somewhere I'd want it to be somewhere I really liked, and the property prices in this area are a bit silly at the moment. Although the rooms are a decent size, it's amazing how easy it is to use up (especially with cats helping out - they seem to keep buying and bringing back all sorts of junk).

If you have a vague interest in what I drive, I have a Lotus Elise S1 111S. You can find more information about my car, plus some photos, here. I'm always looking for excuses to go for a drive on sunny days!

Now you've made it this far, as a treat you can go suffer a website I knocked up a couple of years back when I was a bit bored at work one week. It's a homage to Beanie Cow who still sits atop my monitor.

Should you wish to drop me a line, you can email me here, although be sure to remove the anti-spam measures from the address ;).

¹ Some of the content on this site is from the original cat basket site done by Kat Knight (many thanks to her for maintaining the site for a few years), the graphics were generated using GIMP with many of the pictures being taken from the PopticsOneExtras, PopticsThreeExtras and MW Ding A Ling fonts. The title font is 'Girls Are Weird'. Other bits of content have been donated by various people, and I thank them all!