My characters are all kind of geek archetypes of people I've encountered at gaming and comic book conventions.

I've been invited to speak at about 20 colleges. There's always this moment when I'm having dinner with the college president: 'Ernie, where'd you go to school?'

I was watching a collection of vintage '80s cereal commercials when I paused to wonder why cereal manufacturers no longer included toy prizes inside every box. It was a tragedy, in my opinion. Another sign that civilization was going straight down the tubes.

My favorite video game of all time is called 'Black Tiger'. It's a Capcom Dungeons and Dragons game from 1987. I have the actual arcade version sitting in my office.

I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn't know how to connect with the people there.

I've retroactively made all that wasted time rotting my brain into research. It makes me a hypocrite when I try to tell my own daughter, "I don't know, I think we've played a little too much Mario."

A river of words flowed between us.