Hi. My name is David Alan Ward. You can read a bit about me here, if you're of a mind. For the purposes of this site, however, I shall be called teknomage, or "tek" for short. This is a name I came up with to use as a handle online, at SciFi.com's bboard in, I suppose, late 1995, when I first got online. (I based it on the name "Teknophage," a character in comic books I quite enjoyed at the time.) Since then I've used the name teknomage in plenty of other ways around the net, on various other boards, websites, IM, etc. Though there was a period where the "character" of teknomage I had created to go along with my handle, died and became a ghost, and changed his name (and thus my handle) to "ektomage" or "ekt" for short. But eventually tek came back to life and took back his old name. So that's mostly what I'm using now, online. There was a time when I had tons of handles, and I still might use a few others now and then, but not so much these days. Anyway, it's not the most original name. I'm sure you'll find plenty of people online who use the handle "technomage" or variations on it, some of them even with my spelling. So if you see a teknomage out there somewhere, don't assume it's me. It may be, or it may not. In any event, I like the name, because it fairly well suggests an interest in both technology and magic, i.e., sci-fi and fantasy.

Which brings me to another point: I am a writer. I may never get anything published, I may rarely even force myself to work on my writing (I've a terrible case of writer's inertia), but I still love writing, and I'll always consider myself a writer. It'd be nice to get published, and nicer still to make a living off it. Oh, to be rich and semi-famous, how lovely that would be... But for now, I'm just zis guy, you know? In fact even if I ever am famous... hell, I could be president of the world, and I'd still think of myself as a nobody. But you can read about my psychology elsewhere on this site.... Well, if I ever do get famous for writing, or whatever, I'm sure there'll be another site I can direct you to at that time, if you're just interested in that aspect of my life. I'll be happy to have a few fans....

But meanwhile, here is my personal website. I love the internet above pretty much all else in life. I'm most at home online, far moreso than anywhere in the real world. Far more comfortable. So, here... I have a homepage. It's absolutely necessary. And yet, absolutely pointless. This site is about me and whatever interests me. (I define myself chiefly by what entertainments I enjoy.) The site is basically a celebration of all the the things that, for me, make life seem worth living. It exists to share those interests with anyone who might stop by for a look, and possibly inspire them to check some of those things out themselves, if they haven't already. Because nothing makes me happier than getting others to love the things I love. Of course, the site also exists to remind myself of how much there is in this world to love, which is easy for me to forget because of all the things I hate about life. So, there you have it: the point(s) of the site's existence. If that's all you wanted to know, you can stop reading this page. There's some more stuff below, which you're free to read, but... it just describes the content of the site, not the reasons for the site's existence. That, you now know. (It's probably exactly the same as the reasons for pretty much every other personal website's existence, but because of my obsessive compulsion, I take it to greater extremes than most people do with their own sites. And of course, unlike me, most people have lives beyond the internet.) Well, one other reason my site exists: to show you how utterly boring I am....

I'll always design the site myself (rather than hiring an expert to do it), so it'll mostly be pretty simple. I've a firm grasp of more than the fundamentals of HTML, though not nearly everything. I don't really have any CSS committed to memory, and I'll probably never learn JavaScript, because it just seems too complicated for me, or at least it would take more time, effort and greater powers of concentration and memory than I have, I'm afraid. But whenever I want to do something special, I can search around for the right codes. So not everything on my site will be completely boring. I hope. But... there'll probably never be any Flash.... Well, with such caveats or whatever out of the way, I'll say a bit more about the contents of the site....

Absolutely Pointless refers to the entire website, of course, but also more specifically to the main section(s) of the site. This includes everything that doesn't fall into any of the other sections, which I'll explain below. The main section is for stuff about me, my interests, my psychological self analysis (aka "my thoughts on...") and so forth. There are galleries of images and backgrounds I've collected (and a few I've created or scanned). Lists of my collections, like CDs or whatever. Stuff I've written nonprofessionally, much of it from when I was younger (some written as a kid, but not a little kid- for that stuff's lost to the ages, alas- and some as a young adult). Stuff other people have written that I like. Weird theories and ideas I've come up with over the years. And various reference materials, such as the greatest collection of links on the internet! Also there are extensive review sections, for TV and movies, for anime (which is of course more TV and movies), for books, for comic books, for web stuff, plus a nostalgia section.

Now, the other sections of my site are also about things of interest to me, so you might be wondering why I'm bothering to separate them. I don't know why, actually. but I'll try to explain what these sections are about, anyway:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is mostly just me typing up selected passages from Douglas Adams' books, which are my favorite books ever. I might also someday put in stuff from the radio play or the TV series or the movie or even stuff I make up myself. But anyway, I guess... it's pretty much a specific kind of subject, like all the sections...

Otakuphrenia is dedicated to my interest in anime & related subjects. And since anime is one of my very most favorite things in the world, I guess it makes sense that it has a whole dedicated section. Plus the fact that it has a lot of its own subpages.

Rounders Reference is about Star Trek fanfic I used to work on with other folks on scifi.com's b-board. It has all sorts of useful stuff, and not all of it is specifically about the Rounders, but may actually be useful as just regular Star Trek reference. I guess. There's no particular need for it to be separate from the main site, but I thought it was fairly extensive and sort of specifically about a certain subject, so... whatever.

SNAP - The Society for the Nonviolent Advancement of Pokémon. This isn't a large section, and since it's rather based on anime, you might expect it to be part of Otakuphrenia. But the reason it has its own section is basically because it's supposed to be an organization, not specifically tied to this site, plus it treats its subject matter as if it were real, even if the entire notion is entirely tongue-in-cheek. In fact I do relatively little with it, so it would probably be ridiculous to ever give it its own domain, but at least I feel I am paying some kind of tribute to the faux organization concept by separating it as I have. Also, the organization is run by a character I made up called Oror Orow. (He's basically a Negaverse version of Mojo Jojo, a good counterpart to the evil villain from PowerPuff Girls. And he stands on his head, for no particular reason.)

As for The Grey Pages, well, that section belongs to another of my personalities, Captain Grey. Again, I don't do as much with it as I'd like, though someday I'd like to really take time to make some major additions to that section. No telling if or when that'll ever happen. And while I have plenty of other personalties/characters who don't get their own sections... Grey is really different, and his is the one section I feel I'd be most likely to ever actually give its own domain. It's almost as tongue-in-cheek as SNAP, but in a way quite serious. Except not. I dunno how to explain it. But he does like to remain low-profile, sort of hidden, so I think in a way he probably prefers just having a section of my site rather than having his own distinct website.

Well, that's all I can think to say for now. This page has been largely rewritten a couple of times since I first started it, so some things I said before are gone now. But I doubt it was of any importance, because... well, nothing I ever say is of any importance... But whatever. I hope I'm not forgetting to say anything I meant to, or would have meant to if it would have occurred to me. Maybe I'll say more here later. But... that's all for now, so... you can go now.