About The Blog

I started this blog because I wanted to share the cool stuff I was finding on the Internet with other people.  I also wanted to be able to keep track of everything I liked without bookmarking it all.

If anyone considers I have violated their copyright, just let me know and I’ll fix it.  It’s certainly not intentional.

What I won’t post about: politics, controversial issues, stuff that could be considered offensive, not safe for work or minors.

I want this site to have a positive and friendly feel about it.  This applies to comments as well, I’m all for free speech but not at the expense of politeness and basic respect for other people.  Rude, abusive or overly negative comments will get deleted.

If you can’t play nicely on my website, you don’t get to play at all.

Contact Me

madscientistnz  [at]  gmail  dot  com

About The Book Reviews

I didn’t start this website intending to write book reviews, but so many of the sites I read have book reviews on them that it seemed natural to join in the conversation.  Plus, I was giving little verbal book reviews to my friends who read similar books to me, so writing them down felt like a small step.

And then I got lazy, and now the book reviews are very occasional.  I mean to write more but it just doesn’t seem to happen very often!

About Me

I’m a New Zealander who’s been living in Brisbane for a couple of years now. This is the fourth country I’ve lived in (including NZ).  After living in the UK for two years, I decided I needed to live somewhere with a lot of sunshine to even things out. Also, I work in the pharmaceutical industry and Australia had more jobs available than NZ.

So far it’s working out fine, as is the weather!  The longest I’ve lived in any one place is four years (yes, I moved around a lot as a kid as well.)  I’m nearly at five years in Brisbane, unfortunately, I will be made redundant before the end of 2010 as the site where I work is closing down.  I’m planning on travelling through Africa and then staying in NZ for a couple of months, catching up with family and figuring out my next step.

I’ve been to 23 different countries, which is a fair bit of travelling but nowhere near enough.  Since I moved to Australia, most of the travelling I’ve done has been to NZ to visit my family.  It is nice that they are three and half hours away rather than 24!  I did worry that I had lost my travel bug, but it turns out it was just hibernating – last year I had an awesome trip to Turkey, Syria, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.  This year, I am planning a trip though Africa.

I call myself a scientist. Not a research, making new drugs scientist, but a working in the lab, testing stuff before it gets sold (QA/QC) scientist.  I wanted to study science since I was about ten.  Until I was 15, that was tied with being a librarian; but then I realised that librarians are surrounded by books and YOU CAN”T READ THEM because you have to work!  So I have my own small library of books I can read any time I like, (except when I have to work, sleep, talk to people, have a life, whatever.)

That paragraph leads neatly into my favourite thing – reading! Books! Words that tell stories! Sometimes, pictures that tell stories! (I like graphic novels/comics too. But not superhero comics. I own Marvel 1602 but only because Neil Gaiman is such a good writer, even superheros are interesting)

Some of my favorite authors are Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Diana Wynne Jones, Patricia Briggs, Christopher Brookmyre, Tim Powers. I like a lot of authors – it’s really hard to chose who the favourites are!  I’ve made it past the halfway mark  in cataloging my books using Library Thing, but it’s slow going.  You can look around here if you want to know more about what type of books I like.

Since I am a scientist and like stats, I’ve analysed the books I Read in 2009 to reveal that I read 55% Fantasy, 7% Science Fiction, 8% Graphic Novels and 30% other.

I often get the question, how do you read so much – well, I read pretty fast, one of my friends tested me and I came in at 500 words per min.

I’m an evangelical/Pentecostal Christian, the church I attend is a member of the Australian AoG Churches.  I don’t find that being a Christian conflicts with being a scientist, or reading fantasy and science fiction (thank goodness!)

I’ve talked about the four most important things to me, travel, science, books and being a Christian. Everything else I like can get put into a boring list (I mean the list format is boring, not the items on it) – movies, walking, hanging out with friends, food, surfing the net (words – lots of words that get added to daily – such a wonderful way to waste time), my super cute niece, my family, my DS, and life in general.

This is lot of stuff all about me!  Why so much?  Well, partly, I’ve just got carried away, but also, I like to know who the people are that are writing the blogs and websites I like to read.  I thought I’d better do the same for anyone who wants to know about me!  This is all surface information though – things I am quite happy talking about with someone I’ve just met.