About

I Can Kill You With My Brain - The Personal Blog of J.R. Swantz

The title of the blog comes from one of my favorite shows, Firefly. In the episode “Trash”, River Tam delivers that line of dialog to Jayne, the hired muscle of the crew. She wanted to spook him into behaving around her and her brother with a threat that was much more scary than one that only promised your regular, garden-variety violence. I’m not here to threaten you or spook you into behaving, but to make you laugh and think. You will hopefully find yourself dying of laughter or thinking yourself to death due to the words that fall out of my brain. That’s the intended effect. Let it happen. I promise you won’t be hurt.

I’m a 30-something guy, born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. I’ve spent the last 15 years of my life living all over south-eastern WI, but I’ve never strayed too far from “home”. I currently reside in the tiny town of Hartford, WI. It is a small town; small like a very small thing. I’m a professional geek, developing and supporting web sites and custom applications for my employer. I wanted to do this type of work since I was in the 5th grade, so I consider myself lucky to have the job that I do.

My free time is spent playing video games, reading (comics and “real” books), watching television and movies, playing guitar, discovering new music, and using the seemingly endless internet to enhance all of these hobbies. Watching my first episode of Joss Whedon’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” back in the summer of 1998 changed my entertainment and pop culture world in ways that I could have never predicted. It was the cliche “I see the light!” moment. So much of what I enjoy today can be traced back to Buffy. That show has opened my eyes and my mind in ways I didn’t think were possible. It has influenced the way I talk and the way I write. Whedon’s influence on me will be seen all over this blog.

I also think monkeys are comedy gold.