About Me
I’m Andrew, I’m 33, I’m from New Zealand. This blog is where I write about films, books, philosophy, whatever. If you were looking for my spectacularly-well curated stream of rants about everything that’s wrong with the New Zealand government, you were probably looking for my facebook feed. But this is not that.
This blog was created in 2012, but I’ve been writing shit on the internet since 2002, when blogging was like having nerd leprosy. Do you remember a world in which you actually had to write stuff (whaaaat!?) that was interesting? When nobody had the bandwidth to spare for .jpeg images let alone an embedded youtube video? When you needed to know at least a little <html> code to make your page pretty, and had to use an FTP client instead of clicking ‘send’ or ‘post’? When there was no ‘feed’ to scroll through, and to get updated on what was new from your friends, that you had never met or ever seen a photograph of, you actually had to go to their website by typing in an address that you had committed to memory?
Those were the days. It was from this type of basic internet socialising, with all its limitations that now appear charming, that I made the best friends, most annoying acquaintances, worst enemies, and just generally felt like people were actually bothering to read what I was writing.
MORE ABOUT ME:
(with some links)
I wear many hats.
How did I get so smart? Well, here is my reading list.
I only listen to the Mountain Goats.
My favourite podcasts include Ice Cream Social (scoop name: Andy the Kiwi Fruit Salad), Penn’s Sunday School, Greg Proops Smartest Man in the World, Dear Hank and John, James Bonding, I Was There Too, Tara Brach, I Only Listen To The Mountain Goats, R U Talkin’ R.E.M RE: ME?, How Did This Get Made?, Unspooled, and I also happen to be the creator and host of the Kree Yoohoo podcast: a fancast about the TV show Stargate SG-1.
I play a lot of musical instruments. At one point, I counted eleven different bands or projects I was in, which seemed like frankly a lot less than I wanted. (How did I ever have so much free time? Oh, right, by not studying for my uni classes). That has now shrunk to two.
I am the founder of the ukulele-based band The Blueberry Funkmuffins.
My blog, and much of my internal world, exists because of the insane perfection of this man’s writing, and I believe little else. Cheers for that, Brian Takle – Wylfing, whoever you are. You really red-pilled me.
I am (eternally) putting together a research project about the political philosophies of British novelist and engineer Nevil Shute.
I have PADI Divemaster tickets but have never dived anywhere with visibility. As far as I’m concerned, all of the ocean is grey and muddy, and extends less than a metre in front of my face.
εγω ειμαι σπουδάζω ελληνικά
I have sailing and navigation tickets, and one day I will live on my own yacht.
I have left my hometown and gone backpacking, and moved to another country, and learned to let go of everything and everyone from my past and start over.
I have overcome intrusive suicidal thinking and behaviour and had to learn the Radical Acceptance method of living.
I have worked 18-hour days and had to learn the ‘suck it up, Buttercup!’ method of living without sleep for days, and weeks, and more recently months at a time. One foot in front of the other.
I have survived horrific spinal injuries and learned to walk again. Then an insanely complicated knee fracture. I learned to walk again, again. One foot in front of the other.
Some video games I love playing are Kerbal Space Program, Battle for Middle Earth 2 (Witch King expansion of course), Port Royale 2, Rise of Nations (the first one), Silent Hunter 3, Crimson Skies (the first one), Battlefield 1942 (the first one), Pokemon Red, Advance Wars, and Counter-Strike Source.
Ok, so I’m not exactly keeping up with the new stuff.
I am a graduate of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. Other study programs at the University of Otago included politics, international relations, philosophy, music theory, ethno-musicology, history, English lit, psychology, economics, iconography, and sociology. The whole wonderful melting pot of the humanities! Do not ask about my student loan.
I was a film critic for a magazine for a few years, and the editor for one. It taught me to be instantly discerning of great/shitty movies and great/shitty writing in a way that writing an academic dissertation simply can not.
Speaking of great writing, I just happened to have finished this book, and I am destroyed.
I was a pizza delivery boy. Oh, the tales I could tell.
I write things on the internet instead of doing my dishes and my laundry.
I’d better go.
Andrew's New Blog 