You can always tell when Jason Ericksen is near because the smell of urine and Diet Coke are overwhelming. He's 31-years-old, spells like the mentally ill, and one day hopes to revisit his lean physique of yesteryear (i.e., his original birth weight 5 pounds 6 oz). Jason pretends to be an artist sometimes, do to a lack of talent as a ballerina. So now he just likes to wear the outfit. Mr. Ericksen has a brilliant son who is six, and who will, at his current rate, will surpass his dad's height and intelligence within the next year....or so the boy says.

Favorite artists: Dave McKean, Bill Sienkiewicz, Ashley Wood

Superpower: Sloth speed

Blood type: A-

She is known for possessing anal-retentive grammar skills, a love for all things even remotely British, and the most temperamental digestive system the world has yet seen. A graduate of Capital University in Literature and Theatre, Laura spent her first wild years out of college touring the U.S. as a freelance opera stage manager. When the temporary insanity passed, she found herself living in Austin, TX with her boyfriend Ryan, where she currently resides. She has developed a taste for Mexican food and has been heard to use the collective noun “y’all,” but still considers herself a Yankee after surviving 25 years of living in Ohio. Her guilty pleasures include buying outrageously priced lattes at her favorite local coffee shops, sleeping in as late as possible, and occasionally watching “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and “American Idol.” An avid nature-lover, Laura uses only 100% recycled humor in her writings for the footnote.

Her Writing Influences: Jim Shahin & Tom Robbins. Also influenced by having to correct business letters all day long.

Her Superpower: The ability to stop time ("and to start it back up again, thank you – no Alfred Hitchcock films here!"). She uses this ability to get all of her work done while time is stopped, which then allows her to do whatever the hell she wants with the “real” hours of the day – be that sleeping, practicing yoga, reading, or just laying around in the sun.

Dustin Grovemiller spent many of his formative years not being at all interested in writing, nor being very good at stringing words together when he was told to do so at school. Then, quite suddenly in 2001, he decided that he couldn't get enough of the writing thing and started emailing essays out to people he thought would enjoy them. Nobody complained, so he continued unabated. He currently lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife Alyssa and several imaginary pets.

His favorite writers: Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Steve Martin, and Chuck Klosterman. Probably some Christopher Moore, too. Oh -- and Joss Whedon. And that other guy.

Our associate editor and occasional writer keeps insisting that she has much better things to do than to spend time fooling around with us. We don't really care that she's a full-time student that's on scholarship for golf, and has to continually practice her singing and playing for her music major -- we know she could easily not watch "Gilmore Girls" each week and then would have plenty of time to pitch in.

As a child growing up in Gahanna, Ohio, he aspired to be a shoe designer at Nike, as he spent most of his high school career in the Art department. His lack of athletic ability led him to riding the pine in most sports, thus becoming a sports spectator. Following high school, he worked in a shoe store, a video store, and a liquor store. To further expand his resume, he found his way to a community college, an associate degree, and a real job at an animation studio. His name appears as a store-front sign in the film 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure, as a cute baby ape in Tarzan II, as well as in the credits. Cousy is also heavily influenced by the world of L. Frank Baum's Oz.

He loves the Blue Jackets and Yankees, hates the Red Wings and Red Sox, and doesn't have anything against the actual color red. On March 26th, 2004, his wedding turned into a media event, as clips of his "Wedding on Ice" were shown all over local television stations, Fox Sports Ohio, the Today Show, and ESPN.

His career goal checklist includes: catching a foul ball, dropping a puck-DONE, visiting every major league ballpark, learning to swim, taking a leak at Fenway Park but missing the urinal, and streaking the quad into the gymnasium.

He and his wife Liza, who spends her days paid and unpaid at the Columbus Zoo, recently returned to his roots and bought a house in Gahanna, and have a pet stuffed monkey and manatee.

Ninjas and burritos fear only one man: D.J. Kirkbride. Born the mall-infested state of Ohio some 42 years ago, D.J. took to making stuff up at an early age when he realized that reality was boring. After questionable schooling still being paid off and some menial jobs, D.J. took his leave of the Buckeye state, eventually landing in southern California despite his fear of the sun and the physically fit. While writing for various publications and constantly changing his facial hair at every whim, D.J. dreams of one day being paid substantially for both.

Writing influences: David Sedaris, the lyrical poetry of Phil Collins, Dave Eggars, Chipotle soda cups, Douglas Adams, Brian K. Vaughan, Judy Blume, Michael Chabon, and oh so many more.

Superpower: The ability to eat twice his considerable body weight whether hungry or not. Oh, and he can fly. Yeah. D.J. can fly like a damn bird.

For every wrong there must also be a right. Every time evil strikes out at this world, good needs to come along and fix things up. It's simply the way of things. Adam P. Knave realized this at an early age and decided to ensure that good had enough to do. It's not always easy being the bad guy, but if he didn't do it, you might have to. Don't think it's all henchmen and swank hidden lair raves though, oh no. It is, mind you, it's just better not to think about all the fun you're missing out on being not getting to be the evil mastermind.

His influences: Hunter S. Thompson, Mark Twain, P.T. Barnum.

His superpower: Being a better bastard than you.

Fingers O'Reilly spent many of his formative college years working in a bowling alley bar, which is also where he earned his nickname, having become a popular fellow on women's league night. Eventually, he would settle down, drop the bowling alley gig in favor of a more reputable bar (and less hand cramps), where he worked on perfecting his inner bastard. At some point, he met his wife Katie, whose work as a landscape architech drove him to more noble devices -- working for a suburban parks and recreation department. He apparently writes for the foonote only because Dustin must have some kind of dirt on him, which is entirely possible since the two went to high school together.

Beth Shady is always ready for flight.

Likes: Sashimi, geckos, biplanes

Dislikes: Cilantro, pigeons, vomit

A master horsewoman, alpine skier and international Le Mans Grand Prix driver, Leigh has taken her talents off to the islands and is currently exerting a bad influence on surfers, Marines and anyone else she feels could benefit from a run-in with Fleighvil the Mightly Slayer of Convention.

In the realm of literature, Leigh likes to think that she has benefitted from reading Umberto Eco, the Marquis de Sade and Arthur Rimbaud and only wishes that she could attain the same infamy enjoyed by the latter, the same knowledge as the former and the expertise of the middle. When she will have attained said goals, she will send all of her worshipful devotees invitations to join her on Fumi'iki.

Matt is a freelance word cobbler (something he pursed after the lucrative scarf cobbling market collapsed). His days are now spent gently repairing frayed bits of wayward language (with an emphasis on the re-alignment and re-attachment of dangling participles). His hobbies include: knitting, sail boating, redundancy, as well as knitting, sail boating, and redundancy. He also enjoys the redundant knitting of little boats.

Favorite author: Kobo Abe

Favorite book: Kangaroo Notebook

Favorite favorite category: favorite favorite category

Born at an undisclosed location in the heart of the American Midwest, Trevor discovered his love of literature at any early age, when he came upon a worn and tattered copy of To Kill A Mockingbird in his seventh grade English class. His first inclination, of course, was to turn the novel into a pornographic flipbook, which he did in record time. Eventually, some might say accidentally, he found his way to the words and nothing has been the same since. Many books followed; some by accident, some by choice, others by assignment, all equally responsible for the ruin of his life. He is a college dropout, a philanderer, a junkie-fool, a sexual fiend, a failed journalist, and a whore for love, all rolled into one neat, confused little package. For the last eight years he has wandered this country like a kite-high-freak, hoping to make sense out of the elusive purity and intense work ethic of that goddamned book; trying to decipher why, like so many others that followed, it captured his imagination in the first place. Naturally, the answers have eluded him. And yet, he knew they always would.

Laszlo Xalieri, despite the Hungarian/Italian name, is an unabashed southerner who has lived all but two years of his life in Georgia. That's the one in the USA, not the one in Eastern Europe. In the spirit of worldly brotherhood though he drinks as much arak as bourbon.

Irrelevant fact: Both the words whiskey and vodka derive from the local languages' words for water. In Arabic, arak means "sweat." Close enough.

He writes about science, technology, religion, politics, culture, and human nature as if he had some kind of direct knowledge of any of that crap. Contrariwise, he comes by his fiction honestly. Currently he makes money doing computer stuff.

Xalieri is a published novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, pundit, and is the author of the five-year-running "Tales from the Third Lobe" column at TwoHeadedCat. He has plenty more stuff in the works.

Influences: Raoul Duke, Samuel Clemens, Ambrose Bierce, Chuck Palahniuk, Richard Feynman, Tom Robbins, Drax Plunkett, Jorge Luis Borges, and a lot of other dead, drunk (dead-drunk) Southern writers

Superpower: Xalieri is The Enabler. No, there's no cape with the costume.