Note: There are two entries for this user, one for the real person and one for the universe-specific counterpart. Both are pretty stupid but you should read it anyway. The second will follow at some othertime, it's late.

Charles Victor DiGiovanna was born human, destiny made him a nerd. 24 years of age, Charles' education resides primarily in philosophy, which he applies overzealously to the realm of Star Wars (in addition to his other nerdly obsessions). He currently resides in Indianapolis, Indiana and is seeking a move in the first or second quarter of 2006.

Biography in Brief

Charles was born in Indianapolis Indiana at St. Vincent Hospital. His childhood was rocky and not really worth repeating here, although some of the most important friendships of his life, with Jeff Myers, Nathan Fleck and Matt Fortress, were formed during this time. All three attended Cathedral High School where he discovered a somewhat talent for theatre and a not-at-all talent for singing. Charles performed in some way in 19 shows throughout his tenure at Cathedral under the guidance of Mr. Terry Fox. In addition many of his friends emerge from this period, although the author chooses not to list them here, as inevitably someone might be forgotten.

Collegiate life was different and difficult. Although he applied to The University of Notre Dame his grades and casual attitude toward assignments denied him the opportunity. In an attempt to salvage his hope to attend, he applied and was accepted to Holy Cross College. His one attempt at theatre at Holy Cross was the poorly-performed Six Characters in Search of an Author. Disappointed with the environment and battling some demons of his own, Charles left the theatre and did not return.

Holy Cross was never intended as more than a stepping-stone for him, and when the time came, an application was once more sent to the University. A rejection soon followed. This left Charles in a mad scramble to find a new institution and quickly. It was serendipitous that Charles found and received acceptance to Aquinas College. There he met and formed vitally important friendships with figures that would, as much as Nathan and Jeff, shape and influence his life. Among these were Ted Diedrich, Heather Messing, and Jen Sikora, in addition to the Ego and Id to his Superego. Adam Cosgrove (Ego) and Matt Clark (Id).

Academically, Charles did not flourish during this period. There are reasons and they do not need to be analyzed here. Suffice to say, Charles took care of business just under the wire as was his wont and moved on, physically. In reality, Grand Rapids, and his friendships there, were always close to his mind, as were the friendships of home. It was with this partly in mind that Charles applied to Purdue University's graduate program for Philosophy. Jeff and Matt Fortress, along with the friends Charles had made through him such as Josh "Doctor" Love, Josh "The B@$!@rd god" Kappel, Tony "Tony" Jordan, and his girlfriend Danaca, all attended Purdue. Although his first year was acceptable, his third semester in West Lafayette left him with a bitter taste in his mouth, and so he moved home, in an attempt to transfer on to another institution (hopefully in or near Grand Rapids), after acheiving the financial independence to break from his parents permanently.

Personality et Beleifs

Charles is unusual. Tie him into one behavior and he will almost certainly try to become another. One thing that's easy to say about him is that he is adaptable. This is both a help and a hinderance to him. His exocentrism causes him to morph to other people's expectations in personal settings, leading to concerns of manipulation and general feelings of discomfort on the part of his friends. On the other hand he is known to break out of people's expectations when the personal desire is strong enough. An example of this is any opportunity to play to a crowd. Charles may have left the theatre but the impact of his training continues. The attention of large groups of strangers is a particular joy of his, and on rare occasions, a source of embarrassment to his friends. An example would be the reverse trivia contests Charles ran before the release of Episodes I and II. In these contests, Charles stood up in front of the packed theatre at the midnight showings, and offered candy bars to anyone who could stump him with a trivia question. To his consternation, these were many, but not so many that it was not obvious to everyone present he'd spent a little too much time on the subject. Nonetheless, the point is that Charles sets great store by the friendships he has made, and snatches whatever time among his friends he can. This is unusual for an introvert.

Introversion leads naturally into another aspect of his psyche, Charles is driven by fantasy. He would do well to spend more time with his mind in reality. Anything is likely to capture his imagination, from the sweeping good and evil struggles of Star Wars to tales of political intrigue in Republican Rome to the Best Dungeons and Dragons campaign EVER in which he played the elf Malnu Caerart, to his own forays into writing some highly amateurish fiction and science fiction. Charles is characterized as an intuitive, imaginitive thinker with good spatial reasoning but poor problem solving skills.

His main mental talent remains his ability and enjoyment of abstract thought, the fuel of philosophy, and logic, its distillery. Unfortunately, as noted by many, this ability for abstraction has also lead him to a profoundly cynical (in the modern sense of the word) worldview, especially in relation to the state of modern politics and economics. Despite this, he maintains a beleif that human society, morality and intelligence is advancing and, with minor skips, will continue to grow better, if we don't nuke each other to vapor.

Religiously, Charles defines himself as a recovering Catholic, and the analogy fits. Despite his disdain for pomposity of its leaders, the hidebound and fearful decisions of its leaders, and the despicable treatment of peoples all over the world (yes, in the modern day), Charles still misses the best parts of Catholicism he knew as a teenager at St. John's Church in downtown Indianapolis, under the direction of one extraordinary priest, Fr. Thomas Murphy. There is no doubt that his direction, passion and pageantry were what Charles appreciated about the church. Lacking the spirituality of this man, the church seems to no longer offer anything for Charles, and he will not countenance its behavior throughout the world. This has caused a general collapse in Charles' beleif system until he defines himself primarily as a bizarre and ill defined mixture of Humanism and Deism with few real connections to Christianity or any other major beleif system, all of which serve in the ultimate sense to streamline and make consistant a process and a worldview that should be intensely personal. In this sense, dogma is Charles' most despised attitude in the Catholic Church and others, and its resurgence under Pope Benedict (Sidious) XVI. Dogma is so strongly resisted because it it the all-too common assumption that anyone has the right to tell someone else what is right, what is wrong, and take the duty and responsibility of this analysis away from them.

Hobbies and Fixations

As already noted, Charles is a kindly nerd. His passion for Star Wars is probably the strongest and certainly consumes more of his time than any other. Charles builds model lightsabers from broomsticks and plumbing fixtures of surprising beauty and balance for weapons so amatuerly made. In addition his extremely amateur training in fencing, kenjutsu and some other styles has made him just dangerous enough that he could seriously hurt himself in the best tradition of Star Wars Kid. In addition, Charles has a fascination, albeit not the patience, for model-building and is contemplation a replica of Napoleonic Wars sailing vessels, British Ships of the Line like HMS Victory. It is likely he hasn't even begun to comprehend the time this would consume and he will likely drop it soon.

As mentioned previously, Charles does like to write. The nascent form of the as-yet-unfinished "Forge of Heroes" story, about a particularly harrowing game of Starcraft, can be found on his blog. He also maintains a Star Wars blog, the Jedi-Bindu Philosopher. It is full of the sort of self-important and over-thought comments he leaves here. Artistically, Charles is lacking in skill outside of computers. Within them, he is accomplished at photoshop and knows a very little about three-dimensional graphics, enough to make him sound smart at parties if the topic of CGI comes up.

Charles cooks a small repetoire of dishes but takes enjoyment from serving to friends, even the humble sammich, which he has raised to an occurance with the regularity and ritual of a minor cult. Remember, September 5th is Sandwich Day!

--12.202.51.239 09:22, 10 Jan 2006 (UTC)