...And I sure as hell ain't one of them.

I'm Sam, and I've worked at the Record Archive for just over two years. I'm an 18 year old student on my way out of high school and then into college to study audio engineering.

In the store, my area of special knowledge would be "crappy music", which is to say; the stuff that isn't top 40, but also not the stuff my co-workers enjoy, either. Hell, they burn me for it a lot, actually haha. That's not to say we don't all share tastes, as we do. But I'm definitely not on their page.

If you needed me to (and most people don't), I could tell you anything you'd ever want to know about Trent Reznor or Nine Inch Nails; and I could give you the story behind every major Depeche Mode release. Again, most people don't need this kind of info or help, much less WANT it, so that throws me in the crappy music dept, haha. Hell, I'm proud of that title. Crappy Music Guy. Somebody's gotta do it.

Outside of the store, I'm actually not a stereotype. I don't spend my time sitting in coffee shops listening to bad indie-acoustic groups covering "I Will Possess Your Heart", and I definitely don't show my face at punk shows or anything like that. In fact, unless I'm intimately familiar with my surrounding and the demographic of people I'm in, I'm probably not going to show up there; or if I do, I'm going to be trapped in a bubble in an awkward corner for a looooooooong time. Weird how that guy only comes out there, haha.

In reality, beyond my time spent at work, I'm an otaku and a nerd. I'm not a hardcore anime fan, but I am still an avid one; Just not on level with the fangirls of my generation (and thank god for that...). At one time, I did spend weekends playing D&D with my girlfriend and some other friends, but then I got all mopey and made him kill himself. The new character has yet to be developed, so we stopped our games until the Dungeon Master can level the new guy I'm making up to up where the rest of the group is.

I am also one of the core members of the Anibash Crew. A friend of mine organized a small anime convention roughly two or three years ago, including myself and a few others as his staff. We held our first convention in August of '09 to an overwhelming success. We plan on having another the same weekend as the first, and in between are keeping the fans excited with small fundraisers between. During the events, my core job has been to supply and operate the sound for the various activities.

While I am mostly a nerd, I am also a (and using this term can be somewhat of a joke when applied to me) musician of sorts. I'm currently in a band based out of York named 3 White Guys and a Filipino. I've taken the reigns as lead vocals, bassist, manager, and one of the lyricists; joining on all parts music when one of the guitarists left and came back. His return then made me "The Fourth White Guy", which I really don't need to explain to anyone reading this-- but am going to anyways; is a parody of sorts of the Beatles and all the people that claimed to be the fifth one. Yeah, it's dumb, I know. 'Tis how we like it.

Whatever's to come in the future of this blog, I have no idea. I guess we'll wait and see.

Au Voir,

-Sam