About
This blog: The concept for nerdlusus is simple: posts on topics ranging from comic books, mashed-up music, post-modern fiction, cinema, media and whatever geeky stuff comes along. (For those who used to read the now defunct TPS Report: Sorry, no more posts related to politics for the most part.) Updates are not done on a regular schedule, however, the del.icio.us sidebar is updated with greater regularity with all sorts of goodies for you to waste your time reading. Also, I update my Tumblr blog with a whole bunch of goodies, including the latest YouTube videos I find amusing. If you’re more into microblogging, I’m on Twitter.
Follow me: The RSS feed for nerdlusus is here, the RSS feed for my del.icio.us is here, the RSS feed for my Twitter tweets is here, and my Tumblr RSS feed is here.
A brief biography: I’m currently working as a communications and public affairs specialist for the Illinois Senate Republican Caucus. With that note, I must point out the views and opinions expressed here and on any other site or service mentioned above are mine and are not necessarily those of my employers. Apologies for the disclaimer, but for some people it needs to be said.
Before I left journalism, I was the Web Editor at 22nd Century Media, which is a group of five community weekly newspapers in the south suburbs of Chicago. I did a variety of things, from updating the Web sites to helping develop new interactive features for our readers. Also, I get to dabble my fingers in video editing and shooting.
I received my graduate degree from the University of Illinois, Springfield in the Public Affairs Reporting program. During this time, I worked as a statehouse reporting intern in the Springfield bureau for the Rockford Register Star and also as a copy editor for the UIS Journal weekly student newspaper.
I did my undergraduate work at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in news-editorial journalism at the College of Communications — although I was a materials engineering student for three semesters, including two summer internships at Packer Engineering.
I received my first dosage of in journalism at The Daily Illini, the independent student newspaper at UIUC. During the course of four semesters I did a variety of jobs that included being an opinions columnist, asst. opinions editor, technology columnist, editor-in-chief, reporter and page designer. I also had a one-time stringer gig for Newsweek.
Outside of journalism, I also spent a summer as an external affairs intern doing public relations for the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign computer science department.
Around the blogosphere: I semi-regularly contribute posts on television to LameRerun.com, which is operated by my poker-playing friend Jeff Lipsey. I’ve also posted a few things at Innovation in College Media, Illinoize and Urbanagora. One of these days I’ll actually post with greater frequency at each of these sites.
Prior blogging projects: CampusByline.com was a blog that highlighted college journalism, which I started with my Springfield roommate and former Daily Illini colleague Jeremy Pelzer. Sadly, this blog is now defunct as neither of us had the time to maintain it. Also, I did a brief blog on my trip to E3 in 2005 with my friend, Jamey Fenske, who shot all the photos while I did write-ups. This blog is also now defunct, thanks to BlogSpot’s lousy hosting. In addition, I used to be a co-contributor to The Next Frontier with another fellow Daily Illini alumnus Vincent Lee, who now uses the blog to document his journey to Singapore.
To contact me: Via e-mail — kiyoshimartinez@gmail.com. Also, you can use that address to talk to me on GoogleTalk, which I’m on almost 24/7. If you prefer AOL Instant Messenger, KiyoshiMartinez. Additionally, you can find me on both Facebook and LinkedIn.