Shelves are for showing off. Real photographers want to protect their stuff - lol. Kidding. Sort of. Two main things - I don't want my gear in plain site. Photo gear gets stolen. Second, dust. Enclosed places don't get as much dust.

I bought a Lowepro backpack ages ago that fits my normal lot of gear (3-4 lenses, body, cards, batteries, chargers, sb900, even a small fold-up reflector). I know you use the *emera, it's probably a good walk around bag, but this one pretty much houses my equipment. For my umbrella and stand, I actually use a nylon bag with handles that came with my tripod and it holds all of that really nicely.

I've got a nice idea if you're overflowing even more, with second bodies and such... why not look around for a nice foot locker or chest that you could store it in? A foot locker's nice since you can actually lock it up and maybe you could slide it in the bottom of your closet or something? A chest you could dual purpose as a coffee table or put at the foot of your bed.

I was waaay into music in middle/high school. Like, I've tried to write down in the past when I discovered what band, what period of my life it was, that sorta thing. Every band/song sorta has a memory attached to it... and there's so many! Middle/early high school you could have just labeled me as basic alternative kid. Favorite band was Red Hot Chili Peppers (heavy stuff for a 12 year old, but then again I was listening to my brother's Metallica and GnR when I was like 8). Other favorite bands around then... The Breeders, Bjork, Jellyfish, Lemonheads, Dinosaur Jr. Beastie Boys, Faith No More, Dead Milkmen, Urge Overkill, Belly, Crash Test Dummies, Parliament/Funkadelic, Helmet, Heart, Pizzicato Five, Queen, Rage Against the Machine, They Might Be Giants, Ween, that dog. Tons more, but those are on the top of my head that I really really loved. In my later high school years, I expanded my horizons and listened to more hip hop and rap, more punk stuff (Red Aunts - i love 'em!), oh, and got really into like 311 and Weezer for a while. Weezer kinda died off after stopped playing in bands... I think that was around the time Pinkerton came out. Anyway, then in college I became a twat and started listening to a lot of Japanese and Chinese music, now I listen to music everywhere. I'd say my iPod is about 50% English music, 50% other - MC Solaar, Rip Slyme, Deichkind, Crazy Ken Band.

I think a lot of people hit their "college music" phase in their college years - like where they start discovering a lot of local and indie bands, or just really getting deep into catalogs and stuff. I just hung out with a lot older crowd when I was in middle school which got me way more into different music when I was younger. We'd go to lots of shows, I played guitar in bands... it was just a big part of my life back then. Lots of days, I'd come home from school and just sit in my bedroom and play along with music for hours at a time. So in college when it seemed like people were getting into stuff, it seemed like stuff I was into years prior. And I wasn't getting into the newer stuff like Modest Mouse and these trendy emo bands. I think that's why I just took another direction, I wasn't associating with that stuff anymore.

What a hard question... most of my favorite movies, the main characters have something really horrible happen to them. I'll say Dazed and Confused, lol.

I know, I think almost all of my friends from high school and college are the opposite. I think back to when I was in college and I would drive to my class and I would be so full of energy, singing songs in my car, romanticizing the campus with the cold air and fog in the winter and the sun just starting to come up... it was great. Things were so still at that time of the morning... then by noon, the school was like a circus, it lost it's magic. The morning is when the world is just peaceful, huh?

Wake up early. That's how I've always worked. Maybe when I was a teenager I stayed up late, but in college - I was the only person who came to 7:30AM classes bright-eyed, cheery, and with ironed clothes (instead of pyjamas). In work, I'd much rather have free time in the afternoon than in the morning - I think it's just wanting to get the crap over with to get to the fun stuff.

I'm having more difficulty answering this than I should... I want to say FFVI... The romanticness of swordplay, living mythology, with just the right mix of technology. Maybe having a clear black and white, good vs evil, would be nice, too.

Maybe in the Kare Kano universe... Experience what it would have been like going through school in Japan in the 90's, to live in that culture. Is that too simple?

The brahmin boy said to Indra, "No other Indra has built a palace so great." Indra replied, "What do you mean, 'other Indra'?" The brahmin boy pointed to a line of ants marching through the palace, "Former Indras all."

Would changing something have changed what has and what will happen?