I\'m Canadian, live in Vancouver*, British Columbia.  I got a BA in English Literature even though I knew full well it would be of no use in acquiring gainful employment afterwards, which proved to be the case.  But just having been around the university, period, did come in handy; I ended up working at the library there.

Politically, I was always left of centre but didn\'t pay much attention.  I got interested in politics as two things converged--an increasing feeling that things were going wrong, combined with an attempt to gain verisimilitude in my settings for roleplaying games.  As I dug into economic and political issues the better to run my games, I got increasingly radicalized.  I find it occasionally amusing that I was never particularly radical until after 30.

I sometimes think that a background in roleplaying games (Dungeons and Dragons, for you philistines who have only ever heard of one of them, not that I actually play D&D as such) can be useful in thinking about how to build a different society, just because you\'re used to envisioning different societies and playing characters who are often out to make changes to the status quo in one way or another.  I remain a considerable fan of fantasy and science fiction.  I love The Lord of the RIngs, and occasionally enjoy advancing the claim that Tolkien was far more radical than most critics notice.  Resisting the urge to go off on that tangent . . .

I blog at

www.pogge.ca

a Canadian left wing group blog site (pogge stands for "Peace, Order and Good Government, Eh?")

I am married and have a kid of my own plus three rather older kids from my wife\'s previous marriage; all of these make me much happier than I otherwise would be given the parlous state of the world and the pathetic state of university funding.  My Friday night game group makes me rather happier than I otherwise would be as well.

*For Vancouverites, I live in Port Moody.