A Reintroduction
Brendan; Male; 30s; Toronto, Canada.
In December of 2023 my eleven year old blog was unexpectedly terminated for reasons that were never made clear. I never had a very large following, but I had been on the site for a long time and accumulated a lot of history. Many of you are familiar with that history and who I am, but for those who are new or have forgotten, a brief (re)introduction:
In a past life I was a graduate student studying Classical (1), a classically and jazz trained guitarist, and an Anarchist who had read more Marx than most Marxists. I frequented punk venues, never left a bookstore empty handed, dug through the vinyl crates at record fairs, went on long nighttime strolls, played in bands, watched films at the local repertoire cinemas, read multiple books a month, translated Greek poetry in libraries, dressed snappy, hung out with interesting people at cool bars and always shared my cigarettes. That is to say I was once an interesting person, then around six years ago my already precarious health took a precipitous nosedive leaving me largely housebound and limited to shuffling and puttering around my apartment. It's made me rather boring.
This is a personal blog. I write about what's going on in my life, what's on my mind, and whatever catches my interest. That said, my interests incline towards the catholic so expect posts about anything and everything delivered as a mix of scattershot off-the-cuff observations and longer essays (and more of the former than the latter). As a rule, I tend not to reblog unless I have something substantial to add; it's an affectation which limits my appeal, but it's how I've always done things. I treat Tumblr more as an open journal and means for generating conversation than a scrapbook (although it is also that).
My DMs are always open and you're welcome to leave a message in the ask box. New followers are always welcome. I'm an approachable guy. If you're a minor, feel free to stick around, but I'm gonna keep you at arm's length. Just note that it may take me a little while to get back to you.
Some Posts Worth Checking Out:
My history of ME/CFS: Part One; Part Two; Part Three; Part Four; Appendix and Bibliography from my old blog. (Delayed until health improves)
A comprehensive tutorial for building and running a home media server with Ubuntu and Plex.
Favourite Music 2013-2023
Favourite Music 2024
Favourite Music 2025
A brief introduction to using Usenet for piracy.
My guide to the best and most useful Firefox Add-Ons.
My guide to the best and most useful freeware programs for Windows (and a few for Mac OS X too). (Coming soon)
I Offer Guitar Lessons via Webcam
Find Me Elsewhere:
If you want to get in touch with me elsewhere feel free to use any of the following methods.
Steam: angry_wizard.
Discord: angrywizard.
Or follow me on Twitch so I can make a few bucks streaming: @housecoatwizard.
1. Research interests: the history of ideas in the Greek world from the 5th century BCE through to the Second Sophistic but primarily focused on Hellenistic scholar-poets and the Imperial institution of the library; Callimachus; the Greek novels; "national" identity formation via literature; Homer; Thucydides; history writing as genre.
