About

The Secret Lair is an online magazine and podcast dedicated to world domination and the plight of the grown-up geek. From an undisclosed location near Cleveland Ohio, Overlord Chris Miller, Dr. John Cmar, Commandant David Moore, and Secretary of Aesthetic Engineering Natalie Metzger are joined by a stellar cast of contributors to share with you the trials, travails, and trivia of being a modern day working stiff with a strong escapist streak.

There are lots of places covering pop culture on the Internet. We bring a midwestern Everyman look at the world around us. If you find yourself somewhere between the ages of 20 and 60, have to deal with the responsibilities of paying for a roof over your head, credit card bills, car payments, and possibly raising kids, but you still like to read, play games, and talk with other mature adults about your obsession with Star Wars, drop by The Secret Lair. We’ll leave the lights on…and the portcullis up.

About Chris Miller

Overlord Chris

Chris Miller is a software developer by trade and a writer by necessity. Most of his major achievements have been some combination of these two things:

In the past, he has also been a writer/publisher of role-playing games, a BBS sysop, a barista, a maker of golf clubs, a medievalist, an editor, and a Doctor Who fan. He lives in Ohio with his very talented wife, two daughters, one son, one frog, and one cat. He has a personal blog at http://ctmiller.net.

 

About Natalie Metzger (Secretary of Aesthetic Engineering)

NatalieBy day Natalie assumes the mild mannered role of a network systems administrator. By night (and weekends, and sometime holidays), she telecommutes to The Secret Lair, providing the required illustration services. She’s still waiting on the Secret Lair engineers to work out the bugs in the Matter Emitting Aura Transporter, at which time she may relocate her office to the lair.

Natalie can also be found wandering the halls of her blog, The Fuzzy Slug, posting selections of her work and anything else that tickles her fancy.

About David Moore (Commandant of the Air Forces)

David MooreDavid is currently working a large project and has already worked over 60 hours in the same chair. Not a cool Overlord chair, Doctor chair, Sea captain chair, or his preferred Dirigible chair. Just a codemonkey chair.

A more reputable bio, fitting of Lord Vandermore, will be coming along after David has gotten both sleep, and his legs to be straight again.

About Dr. John Cmar (Chief Medical Officer)

Dr. John CmarJohn is a practicing physician in Baltimore, where he specializes in all aspects of infectious diseases, as well as training the next generation of Johns Hopkins doctors. He is also a practicing geek, which manifests itself primarily as a love of electronic, board, and roleplaying games, such as the gloriously involved Arkham Horror. Professional experiences that he is pleased to no longer be practicing in include minionhood in computer sales and service, as well as industrial lamppost forging machinist. In addition to giving progress reports on his nefarious medical endeavors for The Secret Lair, he has donated his vocal talents to numerous podcasts and audio fiction, including Mur Lafferty‘s The Takeover, and Escape Pod. He resides in the “suburban hell” of Columbia, Maryland, with his Moon Ranger wife, five cats, and a constantly depreciating number of fish. As the chief physician and sole proprietor of Saint Nickanuck of the Tundra Online Memorial Hospital, he rants about odd geek and medical sundries in it’s hallowed halls.

About Jay Lynn (Minister of Crackpot Schemes and Unfortunate Synergies)

Jay LynnLike his five year old son, Jay changes his mind nearly weekly regarding what he wants to be when he grows up.  Not surprisingly, “superhero” shows up on both their lists.  Often referred to as “Kingfish” due to his abundance of ill-conceived schemes, Jay has more ideas, designs, and business plans floating around in his head than ants at a picnic. A serial learner and entrepreneur, Jay has studied sculpture, business, theater, psychology, electronics, and theology. He has worked as a teacher, a missionary, a graphic designer, an illustrator, a web developer, an innkeeper, President of a small business, and an ordained minister.  Currently, he works as the IT Project Manager for a small state university, which means he has become a (professional) bureaucrat  (*blink*).   Jay lives in central Virginia with a non geek, but very patient wife, and two kids.  He cut his teeth in podcasting on the late great Geeklabel Radio, and now publishes his own podcast and audio comic book at www.metamediocrity.com. He also infrequently spills his thoughts and ideas to the world at www.jaylynn.com.

 

Members Emeritus

About Kris Johnson

Kris is a thirty-something Professional Computer Geek who lives in sunny1 Willoughby, Ohio. His personal secret lair is known as the International House of Johnson and is also the home of one wife, one child, two cats and the spirit of a small, angry, dead fish. The house is also home to a disconcerting number of spiders2, but Kris doesn’t like to dwell on that. Prior to becoming a professional geek, Kris dabbled in retail sales, agriculture and necromancy. In his spare time, Kris collects hobbies and avoids spelunking, base jumping and Ultimate Fighting. It is also possible to find him at KJToo.com, though his persistent presence there has never been satifactorily explained.

 

  1. If one allows for very, verygenerous definitions of “sunny”. []
  2. Where “disconcerting” is any number greater than zero. []