Late Introductions

I'm one of those people - you know the ones - who will introduce people to each other after about five minutes of talking between them, not noticing the awkward looks and sharp jabs to the ribs.

(Also, the blog feed on my website thinks that the date is Tuesday the 30th of November, in the year -1. It has trouble dealing with less than two posts.)

So, late as usual, I thought I'd better introduce myself.
Hi! I'm Matthew Hurd, and here's a list of things you probably don't need to know about me:

• I have a degree in animation, but since finishing university I've had a varied career involving Flash design, web design, secret military work (really), freelance illustration, freelance animation, and working in a zoo. I'm also a semi-competent programmer, hence the website.
• I am about to start work as a graphic designer on yet another military contract (less secret this time) at a naval base in Cornwall - which is a little frightening as I start in just over a week and still have no idea where I'm going to live once I get there. Needless to say, I'm house / flat / room-hunting like a beast right now.
• I love film, books, comics, imported HBO television shows; anything involved in the creation of worlds and universes really - which I suppose ties back into the animation. I'm probably a little too knowledgable about Star Wars, and I found myself addicted to Bionicle at one point. Philip Reeve may currently be my favourite world-builder.
• I'm working on approximately fourteen-thousand worlds and universes of my own; be that in the form of short films, short stories, comics, long films, long stories, computer games, or at least one extensive television saga. Some of these may even get made!
• I love science - particularly evolutionary biology, and particularly not physical chemistry (sorry chemists). Learning something new about anything at all is always interesting and exciting!
• I'm an atheist and a humanist, I believe in the importance of rationalism, reason and critical thought, I'm liable to rant at length about homeopathy in the middle of pharmacies, and I'm a Sagittarius.

With that out of the way, hopefully now I can use this blog to actually talk about some of those things above. And hopefully my date counter knows what year it is.
Like I said: semi-competent.

Now I'll do what I always do after introductions have been made, and head for the kitchen.

Nerd Technologies in 2012

Hello, potential reader!

Welcome to the Nerd Technologies official blog - a blog with barely anything to do with Nerds and even less to do with Technology.
No, this is actually the news blog for www.NerdTechnologies.co.uk, a fledgling animation and design company. I say company - it's actually just me, a freelancer, but "company" sounds better and goes some way towards explaining the stupid name.

With that bait-and-switch out of the way, this is (hopefully) a big year for me. A lot's happening already and I hope I can build on it:

• I have a fabulous new-look website.
• I've started this blog.
• I just joined Twitter (for business purposes, of course).
• I'm about to start a big new contract.
• I'm finally moving out of my parents' house!
• And hopefully, at some point over the next few months, I'll be able to tell you that Nerd Technologies has become an actual limited company.

The blog (which also has a feed on the website) will be a place where I can keep the world up to date on the progress of these, and other, projects.
I can't promise that there won't also be posts about other things - this is a blog after all - but hopefully most of them will be animation or design related. Who knows, there may even be some about Nerds or Technologies!

So that's my mission statement. Hopefully there will be fairly regular updates, and this won't degenerate into an emo-diary like my last attempt at a blog...

Onwards to 2012!