Andrew profile picture

Andrew

aswanlund

About Me

I'm just passed the thirty mark, and I'm living an extended distance from my family and friends for the first time in my life. Until moving to Chicago at the end of Summer 2005, I'd lived my entire life in and around the Twin Cities in Minnesota. I'm currently working in education research and spend many of my weekday nights working on my Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at UIC. When I'm not working... I'm either camped on my couch playing Guitar Hero, or out on the town having fun.

My Interests

My interests are described in more detail below, but in general I'm a fan of anything that involves spending time interacting with family and friends... beit golfing, going to shows, going out for dinner, grilling at home, going camping, playing cards or poker, spending the night at the bar, ice fishing, or just sitting around an watching the tube together.

I'd like to meet:

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Music:

Right now I'm trying to update my music interests from 10 years of neglect... my current favorites are Robbie Fulks, the New Pornographers, Atmosphere, Brother Ali, the Hold Steady, Clem Snide, Neko Case, Ike Reilly, the Old 97's, and about anything I get a chance to see live.

Movies:

I just don't seem to get to enough new movies, but I can watch a favorite movie countless times withough getting tired of it... the most re-watchable are Super Troopers, The Big Lebowski, Dodgeball, Starsky and Hutch, Old School, Tommy Boy, Me Myself and Irene (are you sensing a trend?), anything Indiana Jones, Beautiful Girls, and Love Actually. Other movies I remember really liking were Moulin Rouge, Batman Begins, Pirates of the Caribbean, Shanghai Noon, Forrest Gump and Heat.

Television:

I find much of what's on network TV unwatchable so I stick to cable shows and syndicated re-runs of my favorites. I'll watch the Simpson's and Seinfeld whenever they're on. I'll look to Comedy Central for the Daily Show and the Colbert Report as well as the occaisional episode of South Park. I'm a big fan of Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel. I like instructional cooking shows on the Food Network, particularly Boy Meets Grill with Bobby Flay, Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello, Good Eats with Alton Brown, and Emerill Live. Finally, I have to admit that my favorite show is Arrested Development and that I'm definitely sad that it's been taken away from me after only 53 episodes.

Books:

I'm reading a lot more now that I live in Chicago and spend 50 minutes a day riding the El. The best books I've read recently are No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy), Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Mark Haddon), Freakonomics (Levitt and Dubner), Dress Your Family in Courdoroy and Denim (David Sedaris) and Sex Drugs and Coco Puffs (Klostermann). Like everyone else in America I read The DaVinci Code, but I have to say I'm a bigger fan of Angels and Demons.