Bio: ROSS S. SIMON, born Sam Ridings in La Crosse, Wisconsin in 1979, spent much of his childhood enduring the frosty, snowy winters of small-town Minnesota. Having moved to the much more clement climate of California at age nine, he received his AA degree in Basic Liberal Arts from Cabrillo College in the county of Santa Cruz, California, in which city he now lives. His hobbies are pinball gaming, collecting pop-culture memorabilia, and reading very interesting novels. He can be reached via e-mail at ksridings@netzero.com.