Some SWN kids, Tori and I caught Hellboy last night. The first half was pretty awesome since I had a bunch of whiskey in me, which meant the sober second half was a little less funny in a “bryan is drunk” way. Oh well.

We ran into Dan Kaminsky while sitting at the bike racks outside. Eric had noticed him in the theater; such is the Seattle scene. It reminded me of comments by Paul Vixie who is apparently in charge of coordinating vendor patches for Dan’s most recent internet shattering security exploit that will get disclosed in a couple weeks.

First, take the advisory seriously—we’re not just a bunch of n00b alarmists, if we tell you your DNS house is on fire, and we hand you a fire hose, take it.

Which ties in a lot to my comments yesterday about Linus bitching about the security scene. As you can tell, this has been on my mind.

A friend of mine wrote a couple things that I’ve been thinking about too. First:

if you identify with any of the following stereotypes/social groups: Frat Boy, Jock, Yuppie, Serious Gamer, or “Just a normal guy”.

I feel like there was a time in my life where I identified as average. I can’t put my finger on it though, like it could have been a dream, or a joke. As I mentally flip through periods of my life, I wonder what I could identify as. Certainly living in the loft, I played a lot of games, but those days are long since past and I just don’t like sitting about the house unless I’m worn out and watching a movie or having a party of some kind. I suppose I was a gamer then, but I have to wonder. I have this on my okcupid profile:

I’m a strong blend of intelligent, hardworking, useful guy with a lot of sappiness, caring and emotion in there. What parts of that you see are really about who you are and how you act. I don’t think about it a whole lot, any indication that I’m able to adapt situationally is somewhat natural at this point from so many years of trying to get along with different people and building pathways unconsciously as a result.

I certainly enjoyed playing computer games, but how much of it was because I had a lot of friends, mostly around all the time, who also did? Did I really like playing computer games, or did I really like people? That I rarely play computer games anymore is a sign that I wasn’t really that in to them and my friends are different sorts now, or am I somehow different?

Those are sort of loaded, difficult questions, but it’s interesting. So what/who am I now? I’m a believer in the whole is greater than the sum of the parts concept (have I been writing that backwards for years?). I could list traits to fit me into different stereotypes. I don’t eat meat, I’m empathetic, I wear dirty old clothes; does that make me a hippie? If I list my certification abbreviations after my name it’s longer than my name, I have four monitors on my desk at home and I’m perfectly capable of holding a conversation in acronyms; does that make me a geek? I’ve rebuilt engines, transfer cases, welded frame parts; am I a grease monkey? I now ride my fixie to work, sport a messenger bag, and live in Seattle; am I a hipster?

The reality, I believe, is that I’m unique. Perhaps exceptionally unique. Not in a “You are a beautiful flower” fight club sort of way, I just don’t know people like me. I know people I like, and some of those people I share interests with. Those people become my friends, but we’re different people. If anything comes close it’s a sort of attitude. I think Matthew and I share this attitude, but we grew up in different situations (and different times) and thus ended up with some different ideas and likes.

So no, I’m not just a normal guy. I don’t know what I am. I guess I have the rest of my life to figure it out or come to an epic conclusion that it won’t really matter much. That of course will be hindsight, because who you are matters a lot, but I think we gain more from figuring it out than knowing it.