I am 21 as of just under a month ago(March 4, for those interested), white(please don't hold that against me, accident of birth I assure you :P ), and am currently employed as a menial laborer in a cultured marble(the stone, NOT the little round ball thingy) manufacturing plant. I have plans to return to school to earn MCSE certification, just to get my arse _away_ from my current job and at least reletively close to my chosen vocation. From there I intend to finish my degree in Computer Programming(yes...someone who actually WANTS to be a code monkey!).

Now that the boring background info's outta the way, let's get to the more interesting background information. My very first experience w/ anime was around or over 10 years ago when I saw the Dragon Warrior anime on TV. Back then, I just thought it was just a neat cartoon, didn't really keep up w/ it. After that, I saw and became an avid fan of Ronin Warriors. Then I was subjected to Akira, 3x3 Eyes(part of it), Sailor Moon, Dragonball, Tank Police and Record of Lodoss War, more or less in that order. Gee, all that and anime was still only a passing interest.

In early 1999, on my senior trip to Seven Springs Ski Resort in PA, I happened to be seated next to the VP of my high school's anime club. We spoke several times over the course of the week, and she managed to foist onto me Fushigi Yuugi, Magic Knight Rayearth, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Blue Seed. After that much anime in such a short time(my other exposures spread out over the course of years), I was hooked. I joined my school's anime club for the remainder of my senior year, AND kept coming back after I graduated. I also joined the then Charles County Community College-now-College of Southern Maryland La Plata Campus anime club when I learned of it's existence. I am still a member of that club, tho my job prevents me from still joining the meetings at my old high school, and have since been to Otakon '99, '00, '01, Katsucon 007(found out some of you EPU folks where there...too bad it was befor I discovered EPU), and Nekocon FLASH.

Whew! Still with me people? Cool, hang on a little longer, almost done.
During one of my wanderings on the 'net in 2k, I found something called Neon Genesis Evangelion R(I know, it's not Eyrie, but we're getting there). Found it to be a very powerfull and well-written fanfic. It was also my introduction to the world of fanfiction. I joined the mailing list for said fic, and last summer, a member of the list was doing a kinda compedium or award thingy for Eva fanfics, and another member mentioned (gasp!) NXE.

Intrigued, I followed the link provided and arrived at the main page for Exodus. A little dubious of the fic at first(I had avoided crossover fics up till that point, and any mention of Tomb Raider ususally sent me running for cover), I've since found it to be extremely well written, hilarious and serious in all the right places, and just plain GOOD(also replaced Eva-r as my favorite Eva fic :P). Read it all the way through in a couple weeks, and upon finding out that it was incomplete and would be some time before the movie(I'm not asking how long, I'll be good), I opted to see what else was on the sight. Found Undocumented Features, and, frankly it scared me. The sheer size and complexity of it daunted me and I put off even _beginning_ to read it, and by extension all other EPU fics. Was silly of me, I know.

Anywho, in February, I decided I had put it off long enough, bit the bullet and dove into UF. Aside from the lack of sleep attibuted to staying up till all hours reading, I can most definitely say I can't regret it. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed it(read: I love it, gimme more!). After reading UF, I have read Hoplessly Lost and Gods Willing, discovered the forum yesterday, and here I am ^__^

There, I'm finished, sorry 'bout the length. Prolly just making up ahead of time for all the lurking I'll be doing.

-NifT
oh, as for the nick, it's pronounced nifty. I took it as one of my aliases when I started teaching myself C around 6 years ago. Nothing I did under that nick ever saw the light of day, so don't worry, you didn't miss anything.