Introductory post.

I suppose I should start with an introduction. I'm Andrew Joseph Ritter, "Andrew" or "Andy" to some, "Joey" to others. The use of my middle name stemmed from a period in my late teens when I had grown frankly sick of my first name and insisted that people use my middle name. At this point, most of the people who know me online know me as Joey, while my family and most of the people in the Real World that I meet now call me Andy or Andrew (I don't care which.)

I've had a rather interesting, screwed up life that can be summed up as "delayed". I'm 25 years old and have yet to graduate college. I did not get my driver's license until my 24th birthday (the exact date, in fact) and a long and convoluted setup that enables me to go to college proscribes me from getting a job until I graduate. And, I suppose I should note (though it feels more like a footnote than anything else) I am fully deaf in my right ear and use a hearing aid in my left.

At this point in time, I am a journalism student, a majour I have finally decided on and am serious about. I've considered a couple of other career choices in the past, and while it is considered perfectly normal for college students to change their minds over time I've gotten nothing but grief.

But that's neither here or there- I'm going to try to keep my personal life out of this blog, as it's a bit convoluted and nobody cares except me anyway. However, I will occasionally bring up my background as rationale for an opinion or other statement that I may make; your knowledge of this background should thus help you understand why I've said something.

I've created this blog because as a journalism student I came to realize that with increased usage of the internet- to the point where the infrastructure itself may not be able to handle it- journalism itself will increasingly be centered around the internet. Newspapers may never die, and neither will magazines, but I have no doubt that in the future they will serve mainly as outlets for internet-based news organizations. Thusly, with my goal of being a columnist some day, I feel it's only smart to begin now, with this blog.

Some of you know me from Livejournal as dethtoll. Let me make it perfectly clear- this blog is not a mirror for my Livejournal. My Livejournal was started some 7 years ago (has it really been that long? How time flies!) partly as a lark, and partly because the school counselor encouraged me to keep a journal. However, it has since devolved into the dumping grounds of my mind, full of an unfocused rage at my personal life, lashing out at the people I am angry with, unsupported opinions on all manner of things, plus the random meme, liberal doses of offensive humour, and random images designed to destroy the layouts of people viewing their friends list. I use LJ as a social networking site of sorts, since I abhor the cesspool of humanity that is Myspace and other such places such as Facebook. It's where I post on Mandatory Metal, the very existence of which is the tail end of a rather long story which has no place here.

What does have a place here is my commentary on, well, lots of things. Music, films, video games, books, comics, art, politics, culture; the things that make me angry, sad, happy, or disillusioned. This is not a politics blog; nor is it a gaming blog, nor is it a webcomics blog (or for that matter a webcomics-hate blog), or any other kind of specific blog. This is just a quiet space for me to post my thoughts. There will be reviews, there will be thoughts on gaming as a culture, there will be politely worded posts that are barely containing my rage over something that makes me angry. You may see the occasional bit of profanity here- I do not believe in self-censorship, and profanity sometimes gets across a point, emotion, or thought across far more efficiently than a lot of carefully worded prose. (I believe I just created a topic for myself to discuss in a later post.)

A word on the naming of this blog: I picked "Steel Like Vines" due to the image it provokes of structures like rising construction and the ubiquitous communication tower, stretching into the sky, climbing whatever it can- even itself- to be taller than the last. Much of my aesthetics stem from themes portrayed in many post-rock and post-metal albums (post-metal being a topic I'll discuss eventually) and this sort of thing is no exception.

To conclude, this is my attempt at formality- I hope you enjoy.