The Obligatory Boring Bit About Me
My Career, My Hobbies and My Music
My name is Chris Malme, although I'm also known to many of my friends as Minstrel. See here to find out why.
I am an amateur musician, and full time computer geek.
My Career
My day job is as an EDI consultant for Orion Consulting Limited. A copy of my CV is here.
The idea behind EDI is basically simple - the whole point is to allow companies to exchange documents (Purchase Orders, Delivery Notes, Invoices etc) with their business partners electronically, rather than printing them all out on paper, putting them in the post, and then having to have them typed into another computer system at the other end.
Of course, nothing can ever be that simple in the modern world - there are, in fact, many different international message standards, and as many different computer systems for the messages to get integrated into. And, of course, no two companies work the same way, even if they are using the same systems.
It's an interesting job, where people skills are as important as technical skills.
My Hobbies
My hobbies include reading, the cinema, music, cooking, and playing with computers.
A casual look at my website might cause you to assume that I read nothing by science fiction. This is because of my involvement in science fiction fandom and filk fandom, which tends to mean I talk more about sf. However, I also enjoy crime and historical novels, and sf generally represents less than half of my reading matter.
I love the cinema, and, amongst others, like the works of the Coen Brothers, Tim Burton, Ridley Scott, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. Predictably, I also have a soft spot for SF films.
I used to do a lot of cooking, but for the last couple of years haven't done so much - I even started start enjoying readymeals, However, I have now got my kitchen how I want it, and am trying to get back in the habit of "proper cooking" - even if it is only for one. I am particularly fond of italian cooking, and at one point used to make my own pasta. My latest crazes are juicing and breadmaking.
Computing. My first experience with computers was in 1978, when I did a term's computing as part of my maths degree. In the early eighties I bought myself a Sinclair ZX81 computer (a similar machine was sold in the US by Timex), and started experimenting with it. About the same time, I started working for a printing company, who had an Olivetti Programma computer, which they had bought, complete with program, to do cost estimating. The machine was old, even in those days, with the programs and data held on magnetic cards. Within a couple of years, we had purchased a couple of PCs, and although my actual job was purchasing and materials management, I became the office computer guru. Very soon, the old Twinhead clones needed replacing, and one found its way home, to become the first incarnation of the "Minstrel's Hall of Filk" BBS.
Note that it wasn't until another 10 years had passed that I officially moved into IT as a profession, and a good few years later that I became a consultant. For a long time I considered computing to be a hobby, and if it became my job as well, I thought it would be less fun.
My Music
I learnt piano as a teenager, attending the London College of Music.
Actually, I wanted to learn guitar, but my elder brother was learning piano, and his teacher convinced my mother that I should learn to master the piano first - oddly enough, she didn't teach guitar! However, she wasn't altogether wrong. Learning the piano gave me a good solid knowledge of music, and when I finally picked up the guitar at college, I'm sure this helped me.
At University, my music helped me make many friends - I helped run the University folk club for a while, and helped a friend with her folk music show on the University radio station. The University community action group also organised frequent "entertainment parties" for the elderly in the local area.
After University, I continued to play guitar and sing with friends, but gradually did less and less. Then, in 1988, came Follycon, an SF convention, where I first encountered filk, and I started writing and playing again.
Up until recently, I would have said my main instruments were 12-string guitar and voice, but I now have a decent electric piano, and am brushing up on my keyboard skills again. I have also taken up the drums, which has always been an ambition of mine.
Even so, at the moment, most of the stuff I perform solo is strictly acoustic, but I also play in a band, Patchwork, where we combine acoustic and electric instruments to give a rockier sound.
Much of the material I perform is self-written. Much of it is influenced by Fantasy and Science Fiction sources, although after joining a songwriting forum last year, I have started writing more conventional stuff again, as well as filk. Follow the link to My Music to find some of my lyrics.