So the first question on your mind is probably, "What is the Little Barbarian?" Well, it's not so much a what, or even a who (my apologize to Dr. Seuss and his infamous Horton). The Little Barbarian is more of a state of being. In particular, the state of being that defines me, Matt McCormick.

It all began on a cold, blustery day in Beaver Dam, WI in 1973. It was the last day of March and, as appropriate for such a grand event as my birthday, it was going out like a lion. I was the first child of Keith and Cheri McCormick and the event was such a raging success that they decided to go ahead and have three more - all boys. Two years later and shortly after my brother Ben arrived on the scene, my parents decided to purchase a house in Columbus, WI. Well, that's not quite true. They actually purchased a house seven miles outside of this Mayberryish town - surrounded by cornfields, forests, and rivers. They still live there today.

My childhood was relatively uneventful. I've already mentioned the birth of my brother Ben when I was two years old. I don't remember a whole lot about that day but, considering they had more children after him, it must have been a relative success. Aparantly, though, it wasn't as successful as my arrival because they only had two more after him - not three. Then when I was eight, my parents brought my brother Andy into the world. Yet another success for the family because they went ahead and had one more. My brother James entered the world when I was fourteen years old. Something must have gone terribly awry because after his arrival, they abruptly stopped bringing new offspring into the world. Yep, they decided to wait for grandchildren.

I know what you're saying now, "All this family tree business is terribley interesting, Matt, but you still haven't answered our main question: where did the Little Barbarian come from?" Well, keep your pants on, I'm getting there.

It turns out that when I was little, we was po' (we couldn't even afford the 'or' - we was po'). We were so poor in fact that we ate dirt, and for a special treat my parents would give us a piece of bacon tied to a string. "Why the string?" you ask. Well, just in case any of us ever swallowed it. The point to all of this is that when you grow up po' and surrounded by cornfields, forests, and rivers, you learn to keep yourself entertained by fishing, hunting, climbing trees, and playing war in the woods. In short, you become the Little Barbarian.

The term was originally coined by my college roomate Corey Honl. It was quickly adopted by a bunch of other guys on my freshman year dorm floor and has followed me through life ever since. When it came time to pick a name for my web site, MattMcCormick.com, MatthewMcCormick.com, and Stud.com were already taken. So the next logical conclusion was LittleBarbarian.com, and believe me, I was as shocked as I'm sure the rest of you are to find out that it was still available.

Unfortunately for all of you that have suffered through this much of my poor humor and sloppy prose to get to the exciting part of my life, well, there isn't any. Yep, my life since childhood hasn't gotten a whole lot more interesting. Basically, I went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and got a Mechanical Engineering degree. Then I went to the wonderful city of Minneapolis (it really is a great city and I highly recommend living there if you get the chance) for three years and did really boring engineering stuff. Then in 1999 I journeyed back to the University of Wisconsin and got a Master's Degree in Computer Science (you can all feel free to call me Master Matt if you'd like). And now I work for the Man (the "Man" in this case is Bill Gates).

Well, that about does it. You're now up to date on my life. There's a lot of stuff missing from this little autobiographpy, but unfortunately for all of you masochists out there that have made it this far, I'm not going to tell it because it's not very exciting. It mostly involves drugs, sex, and rock & roll - and who really wants to hear about that?