I'm 30 years old, and currently residing on New York's lovely Long Island.  I like to think of LI as close enough to New York City for me to haunt it all the time while not being considered a tourist, but far enough away that I have such things as a lawn and marginal personal safety.  I don't drink, smoke, or use other recreationalk chemistry.

I'm active in the hacker community, and attend the New York City 2600 meetings regularly.

I was apparently an "above average" student in school, which meant that I actually had a brain and could use it.  I was supposed to graduate high school in 1995.  However I detested high school, the work was all boring crap I could have done in my sleep, I couldn't stand the teachers, I really couldn't stand the students, and I definitely did not want to be in the goddamned yearbook.   So I signed myself out of school in my senior year, grabbed me a GED, and went out into the real world six months before the other kids.  So much for the system.

I have never regretted that decision.

Among other things, at one time or another I've been a stage-lighting designer, a grounds worker at a juvenile mental hospital, a 7-11 lackey, a mural artist, a burger flipper (for a large part of one day,) an overnight toystore crewman, an onion fryer at a steakhouse, a mailroom guy, a telemarketer (sorry!), an amusement center technician, a mall arcade manager, and a temp...

Nowadays I'm something of a jack-of-all-trades, mostly doing techie and artsy side jobs to supplement the 9-to-5.

I'm also an artist, writer, and whatever else comes along.

I'm on staff for the upcoming hacker conference, The Last HOPE.

I also happen to be a credited producer of

I'm available on a limited basis for web design, graphic design, and writing gigs as well as other creative work.  Please feel free to get in touch!

Eyes: dark brown
Hair: dark brown and grey, usually buzzed off, occasional facial hair
Born: November 12, 1977
Citizenship: USA
Political Party: None at all
Ethnicity: Mostly Italian-American
Handed: Left
Sign: Scorpio Sun, Sag' Moon, Libra rising

My interest in computers started with the gift of a TRS-80 Color Computer 2 when I was really young.  My mom was too cheap to buy me game cartridges to plug into the thing, so she dropped a fiver and got me a book of BASIC programs to type into it instead.  She actually did me a huge favor, as it was then that I realized that you could actually see how these things worked and - holy crap! - change it to do stuff YOU want it to do.  (To this day I bet she wishes she'd sprung for the game carts instead.  I'd have become a much less complicated person, then.)  So, I inevitably wrote that obligatory first BASIC program that every little kid writes:

10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10

After that it was pretty much smooth sailing.  I actually saved up my allowance for a while so I could get the extra-fat BASIC manual from Radio Shack.  Within a few years I had written myself a rudimentary word processor in BASIC, and promptly lost the cassette tape I had saved it on.  Years later I found out my sister Jo had stolen it and taped New Kids on the Block over it.

But don't let's open up an old festering wound, shall we?

It's also got a 5 1/4" floppy drive and three case screws from the 286 PC I owned in the early 90s, because I'm a sentimental old nerd.

I also use some scattered other boxen in various states of disassembly.

For anyone who cares about such things, I also have a PS2, an old PS1 with the top cover removed, an XBox, and various other gadgets...

I'm a Neopagan Witch.  Feel free to skip over this part if you're not interested.

I was raised Catholic.  The earliest I can remember starting down an alternative road was when I was around six, and my late grandfather (who was himself Catholic) taught me all about reincarnation.   Much later, aged 12 or 13, I stumbled into the "New Age" section of the public library.  Flipping through those books for a while really made the fact that there were other ways of living out there real for me.

I read all I could find about different belief systems, and eventually evolved my own beliefs, separate from and incompatible with most of what Catholicism taught me.   For years I thought I was really the only one who saw things the way I did, and shrugged off the idea of organized religion.  Much later, I looked further into Witchcraft, neo-Paganism, Wicca, and similar spiriual paths, and discovered a large part of what I had been doing, even things I thought I had come up with on my own.

There are Witches who follow set traditions as closely as devout Catholics follow the Bible, and those who follow a more individualized eclectic path within the Craft.   I'm definitely the latter..   Where I fit is in the category of "eclectic solitary Witch."   Basically, that means I follow my own path within the Craft, not tying myself to any particular tradition, but using what works for me from each.

After nearly a decade of practice, I formally dedicated myself as a Witch in September of 2003.  In January of 2005, I dedicated to a coven called Solitaries of the Silver Broom.  SSB is an eclectic coven of practicing solitaries, with which I'd been friendly for years.  It is a teaching coven, it is on the books as a church, and a website powered by yours truly is coming soon.

I'm also clergy.

I've kept a web-based journal (called a "blog" by people who like annoying buzzwords) since October of 2002.

I also log my more interesting dreams in my livejournal.   I'm fascinated by dreams, and am a practitioner of lucid dreaming.

Family-wise, I have two parents, one of which shows an interest now and then.  I've also got two younger sisters, four cats, lots of toys, and the above computers.

This is my sister Jo.   She was my arch enemy growing up, but ever since we stopped living together we've gotten along much better.  We've now gone years without her pulling a knife on me, or me clocking her over the head with a heavy 1980s-era desk phone.  She is now learning the joys of working all the damn time and having no life, a pursuit in which she seeks my advice now and then.

She's married to my brother-in-law, which makes sense.

She was once in a TV commercial for a drunk guy doll.  Seriously, she was.

My best friend in the world, my partner-in-crime, my sister from another set of parents, the Minneapolis to my St. Paul,  known as Grey.  Our friendship has always completely and totally unique, and I wouldn't trade it for all the tea in Mexico.

Her and I share duties on NYC2600.net, the up-and-coming Grey-Fire Productions, and other projects.

Check out her blog.  Also, check out her husband.

Some, but not all, of the fictional things of which I'm a hopeless fanboy, in no particular order:

• Doctor Who (classic and current TV series, and its spin-off media)
• Star Trek (Favorite to least: Love TOS, TNG, VOY, TNV, DS9, TAS, can't stand Enterprise)
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 - I have the entire series, and a homemade Tom Servo puppet.
• The works of Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Isaac Asimov, Dashiell Hammett, Gregory McDonald, and Rod Serling
• Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Goonies, and other 1980s cinema awesomeness
• The works of the Marx Brothers, of course.

I've gone through a few addresses over the years, so here are most of my secondary and dead addresses, for anyone who is wondering if something old is attributable to me...

Email:
Main -  check my contact page for my current address.
Secondary - r_t_f@hotmail.com, r_the_f@yahoo.com - I rarely check these, but do send from them occasionally.  I was on Hotmail back before Microsoft bought it.   Fear me.
Dead - rob@grey-fire.net, rtf@pod-six.net, rtf@kracked.com, r_t_f@phonelosers.net, rtf@rtf.phonelosers.org - These were my primary addresses when they worked.

Current websites of mine:
http://robvincent.net (er, where you are now)
http://whatthehellareyouwait.info - My web zine, featuring mostly humor columns.  I'm particularly proud of this.
http://spacemutiny.com - A non-existant record label, where the mysterious yet untalented DJ Luciernaga hangs out..

Co-productions with Grey Frequency:
http://grey-fire.net - Audio chaos
http://nyc2600.net - The official site for the New York City 2600 meetings.

Old sites: http://rtf.phonelosers.org, http://rtf.kracked.com, http://phonelosers.net/rtf/, http://internettrash.com/users/rtf, http://pod-six.net
(links point to mirrors of old sites on archive.org)

Redirect - http://bounce.to/rtf

My Bacon number is two.  I appeared for a fleeting moment in "New York City Hackers," a Norwegian documentary of the NYC hacker scene, in which 2600's Emmanuel Goldstein was prominently featured.   Later, Emmanuel released and appeared in his own documentary "Freedom Downtime," in which Kevin Bacon appeared for a split second leaving the offices of Miramax during a protest.  That leaves me with two degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.

A bunch of people I know were actually in "Freedom Downtime," and therefore have Bacon numbers of one.  Should I be jealous?

I spoke at the Fifth HOPE convention, a gathering of hackers from all over the world, which took place in July of 2004.  My friends and I presented a panel on the ten year history of the Phone Losers of America, our pals.  We played some video and audio of some good-natured pranks pulled on strangers, some with the help of technology manipulation, and explained how to do a few things.  Mostly, we just goofed around on stage in front of a couple hundred fans, and gave away free stuff.

See more photos from the con (and this panel) here, or visit the con's official site here.
You can also download or stream the panel's audio in MP3 format.

We're doing it all over again at The Last HOPE.   Come down!

I'n prepared to die, thanks to mydeath.net.