[Formendacil]

Greetings everyone.

I am a new member of the Barrow-downs (well, duh! you say...) who has been a Tolkien fanatic for something like 7 years, although I'm not quite sure how long. Well before Peter Jackson had even been heard of, anyway.

I've known ABOUT the Barrow-downs for quite some time, but it was only in a fit of compulsive boredom (blissful stuff, when you can get it), that I decided to join a LR fan site. That's right, I wrote LR, not LOTR. I never heard of LOTR until the movies came out, and as a backwards nobody who doesn't really appreciate what Peter Jackson did to the world of middle-earth, great as the movies were, I make a point of not using LOTR, besides which I think its an ugly-looking acronym.

Anyways, more about me that neither bores nor offends, and yet informs you about me...

I have read the Lord of the Rings more times than I can count. I prefer the Silmarillion to the LR in most moods, and I have read it at least as many times. The History of Middle-Earth continues to fascinate me, and I am an avowed fan of the Appendices. I read the Fellowship out loud to a friend (and enjoyed it more than he/they did), during one remarkable camping trip. The most fascinating writings of our beloved and dead J.R.R. Tolkien are quite possibly the Letter.

Those are my credentials, here are my downsides...

In a fit of Junior High nonsense, I had the audacity to write about a novel's worth of drivel set in middle-earth in the Fourth Age, which was not only rather poorly written, but also inaccurate in more ways than I can count to boot. If nothing else, it gave me a bit of practise at writing.

In not-quite-related-to-middle-earth news, I am 17 (just about 18) years old, a LEGO fan/builder (see my website for my Silmarillion LEGO figs. I am (like Tolkien) a practising Catholic, heavily involved in my local Youth Group.

Normally, I don't even consider browsing Tolkien-related message boards, but as I said, I was fortunate to find myself endowed with an unusual length of spare time this afternoon (blame it on the snowstorm, if you like), and my typical website stops weren't enough to keep me occupied.

Having said that, I hope that this experience proves to be rewarding, or at least not detrimental. I wouldn't expect me to be a hugely active user here (got LEGO forums for that, if I need them), but I'll be sure to weigh in on book-related topics with regularity, to avoid the movie-topics for fear of lynching, and to visit elsewhere if the mood ever strikes....

Anyways, that's me....

Sorta. Not quite. In a way...