About Me
Personal Information
My name is Adam Koch and I am 25 years (September 6, 1984) old. I currently live in Spartanburg, SC with my parents (yes I know, lol) and my 2 dogs, Fritz and Maggie. In my free time I enjoy playing games like World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike: Source. In addition I enjoy programming, generally websites with PHP and associated languages. While programming or playing games I do enjoy listening to music. What type generally depends on my mood, but just about anything heavy and melodic will suit me. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Eyes Set to Kill, 12 Stones, Atreyu, Breaking Benjamin, and the like.
Programming Experience
I have been programming since I was about 13 when I wrote addons for AOL using Microsoft Visual Basic version 3.0. Around that time I started a website with the webspace that AOL provided, and that’s when I started learning about HTML. Once I got a job and some money I purchased my first dedicated website (http://www.adam-k.net) and further expanded my programming languages into the realms of PHP, XHTML, XML, CSS, and MySQL. Generally my programming focuses on websites and web applications, but I do occasionally dabble in Visual C# and Visual C++. Most of my work now a days is dedicated to this site and the PHP class I developed for displaying Wowhead tooltips. More info on that here.
Gaming Experience
Gaming has always been something I truly enjoyed growing up. It began back in the early 90’s with the Nintendo Entertainment System. My dad purchased this and the first game I played on it was Super Mario Bros. As years passed I played the SNES, Genesis, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, PS2, and Xbox. Back in early 2002 I built my first computer by hand and purchased the game Battlefield 1942 by EA Games/Dice. It was the first game I ever played online and I was instantly hooked. From then on I basically abandoned console gaming in favor of PC-based games. After BF42 (mid-2004) I moved on to Unreal Tournament 2004, another first-person shooter. It was in that game that I met quite a few people that I still talk to on a daily basis, and I honestly consider them my close friends. Today, the games I play most often are World of Warcraft (MMORPG) and Counter-Strike: Source (FPS).
Why the name “crackpot”?
That’s a question that I occasionally get from time to time. Well here’s the story behind my chosen gamer tag. Back when I first started playing games online I needed a name that I felt would best describe me. At first I used the name “Linux” after the Unix-based operating system written by Linus Torvalds (my idol). It seemed to generic for me, and didn’t really describe me at all. Well one night while playing BF42, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit was on my television. As it happens, I happened to hear one of the actors (I believe it was the chick) use the word “crackpot”. Well it was not a word I was familiar with so I decided to look it up. Here is what I found:
crackpot (plural crackpots)
- (informal) An eccentric, crazy or foolish person. A kook.
- Time will tell whether he is a crackpot or a genius for promoting that sort of idea.
- (informal) Someone addicted to crack cocaine (i.e. a drug addict). See also crackhead.
Synonyms
Adjective
crackpot
- (informal) Eccentric or impractical
- a crackpot idea
Well I have yet to find a word in the English dictionary (the first definition, not the drug user part) that describes me better. So there you go, from then on I have been known as crackpot.
