Conor - Trust The Process (UPDATE: PROCESS DUMB, UNNECESSARY)

Hey. It's Conor. I'm not here to talk about anything in my life other than this video game I started playing yesterday. It's called Rocket League. This is Rocket League. Don't watch the whole video. I want to keep your attention and I don't think asking you to watch more than 20 seconds of that video is a good way of accomplishing that goal.

That is Rocket League if you play it all the god damned time. I downloaded Rocket League yesterday from my brother's Playstation account, booted it up, and ignored the exhibition game it offered me as well as the tutorial (do not insult me, O Rocket League) and dove straight into a 27 game season. There were several difficulty levels below "All-Star," all of which I scoffed at. And we're off!

Game 1 Wyrms @ Skyhaws L 1 - 9 (0 - 1)

Imagine an NBA or NHL team were somehow forced to have someone on the field at all times who had never, ever played the sport that they were now competing in at the highest level. This person isn't necessarily unathletic, in fact they could be in incredible shape (the analogy here being that I've spent an embarrassing amount of time playing video games -- I know the way they move, generally), but still. The results will be ... telling.

That was the setup to the Wyrms game and first loss of the season,  9 to 1. It was 8 - 0 and man, did that one goal that we scored (I think it was Merlin? Can't be sure) shine a ray of hope onto our stupid car faces. Onwards and upwards, right.

Game 2 Wyrms @ Rovers L 2 - 6 (0 -2)

Within the first 20 second of play I fucking drilled a goal straight into the god damn goal for a goal. We then proceeded to meltdown. It was during this game that I realized the importance of personifying my teammates and my enemies. Merlin and Sundown are hard to read, Merlin incredibly so. Sundown often does some questionable things on defense (I know this because I get a great, relatively unobstructed view of much of our defensive tactics while I struggle with the controls on the other, empty side of the field), but the second I question him he does something cool. He scored our second and last goal.

The Rovers had a pretty clear enforcer on their team. I saw Buzz destroy my teammates 2 or 3 times through this game, because I guess blowing up your opponents in this game is a thing. I have not yet experienced it, but I fear it greatly. I do not want to be destroyed.

I'm looking at Merlin and Sundown and I do not think either of them are enforcers. This means I have a niche to fill.

Game 3 Express @ Wyrms L 9 - 3 (0 - 3)

The score can't be entirely trusted on this one. In a lot of ways the Wyrms are a team who are finding themselves. I scored a goal that was the equivalent of a put-back dunk, a no-skill effort point I was rewarded for following the ball like a dog chasing after a car, or, less adorably, a terrified kid on a bike. Merlin went off, scoring the first two points of the game.

Still a lot of problems. A look at the box score says that Sundown made neither of his two shots on goal (meanwhile I was 1 - 1 -- thought I'd mention that), he had no assist and four saves. Defensive specialist, right? Wrong. I got very, very worked up about one goal we suffered because Sundown threw it in reverse right as a ball came careening at the goal he was defending. It looked a lot like this.



I like this core. As both team manager, coach, and clear worst player on the team (I have no idea how our personal scores are calculated at the end of game but here were are standings this time -- Merlin with 290, Sundown 180, me with 145) I have to remain optimistic, but my optimism is not forced. I feel like we can go somewhere. I just have to remember the acceleration button and Sundown has to play some god damned defense.

Game 4 Pioneers @ Wyrms L 2 - 6 (0 - 4)

This one was painful. Definitely a step back. Miscommunications everywhere. I did at one point say out loud "CLEAR IT DOWNFIELD, I'M SO OPEN, THERE ARE NO OFFSIDES IN THIS GAME, WE'RE ALL ROCKET CARS." I'm still worked up about these games, even though the progress I want to be seeing isn't always there. That's a good sign. Gotta stay engaged.

Side note: This stadium is awesome! Haven't been talking about the stadiums because they've all been the same, I had assumed up to this point that they were all the same layout with different aesthetic differences, but this one, The Wasteland, it seems to be called, had raised edges as if we were playing in a plate. Why oh why don't sports do this? This is the one thing baseball does better than other sports, it's cool that it's way easier to score home runs in certain ballparks. Fuck whatever difficulties that creates for the people who are supposed to compile advanced statistics, that shit's awesome! As a kid, and then as a teenager, and then as a college student and now still as a post-grad I've always wanted there to be loop-de-loops on highways, or trolls I have to fight in order to get across certain extremely necessary bridges. Sports are escapism, right? Why can't they be more fantastical? Fuck yes, tell me this isn't the craziest map they have.

Oh god looking at the results throughout the league going into Game 5 is not not not encouraging. There are 10 teams and we are now the only 0 - 4 club. Let's change this.

Game 5 Wyrms @ Cyclones L 4 -7 (0 - 5)

Holy shit did I want this one so bad.

I'm obviously very glad that point differential isn't a thing in this league, because our first couple of games would have definitely damned us if that were the case, but this game was so close.

I'm looking at the league. 27 games in a season before the playoffs. 6 of 10 teams go to the playoffs. (The other option was 4. So very glad I chose 6) Is this doable? Yes, when it comes to numbers, yes, very clearly it can be done. Am I going to achieve this? No, probably not. Am I going to play the rest of the season out? Yes. Because Merlin, Sundown and I are going to watch the post-season, and we are going to be hungry. And then there will be the season after that. And then the season after that.

Trust the process.

GAME 6 WYRMS @ MAMMOTHS W 4 - 3 (1 - 5)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

WHAT DORKS

THE MAMMOTHS SUCK THE MAMMOTHS SUCK THE MAMMOTHS SUCK

WE HAD THE LEAD WITH 10 SECONDS LEFT AND THEN I BLACKED OUT AND THEY HAD SCORED

AND THEN THEY ESSENTIALLY LET US SCORE FROM THE KICKOFF

BUT IT'S NOT EVEN A KICKOFF, BECAUSE NO TEAM HAS AN ADVANTAGE

IT'S LIKE A JUMP BALL

IMAGINE THAT SOMEHOW THERE WHERE 9 SECONDS LEFT IN A BASKETBALL GAME

AND SOMEHOW

SOMEWAY

YOUR GUY JUMPS INTO THE AIR, CONFIDENTLY CLAIMS THE BALL, IN THE SAME GORGEOUS MOTION SHOOTS AND SCORES

AND THEN THE GAME IS OVER

ROCKET LEAGUE IS THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD

FUCK THE PROCESS

WYRMS 2016 GOING ALL THE WAY

Game 7 Wyrms @ Monarchs L 3 - 6 (1 - 6)
Game 8 Rebels @ Wyrms L 8 - 4 (1 - 7)
Games 9 Wyrms @ Guardians L 2 - 7 (1 - 8)

Not much to say about these. Maybe there was something to the process after all.

Game 10 Wyrms @ Skyhawks W 7 - 6 (2 - 8)
Game 11 Wyrms @ Rovers W 5 - 3 (3 - 8)
Game 12 Express @ Wyrms W 2 - 4 (4 - 8)

What the fuck?

Game 13 Pioneers @ Wyrms L 3 - 2 (4 - 9)

Listen this one is technically a loss, but it's in this game that Wyrms fans really saw what we had in mind for this franchise. Against the Pioneers (The god damn Pioneers! 10 - 3 after this game, they're unstoppable. Can anyone slow Scout down? And does Skyhook get enough credit? [I made Skyhook up, I can't remember any of the other names, I'll be on the lookout next time I play the Pioneers to decided which car will forever be nicknamed Skyhook]) oh shit where was I that parenthetical aside really got away from me

oh right, yes, anyway, this was a really good game, and we won our three previous. The playoffs are no longer a dream. It'll be difficult, but we're only two victories behind the 6th seed (The Express! Those pretenders we handed a 4 - 2 loss to last week!). I've decided that this league is ruthless, and the bottom 2 teams at the end of the regular season get demoted to the next difficult down, known as the Pro-League but more commonly referred to as the No-League, or maybe the So-Bad-League.

The Wyrms will not be demoted to the Faux-League. It's not going to happen. The Wyrms have wormed their way into the hearts of whatever town or city they represent (ideas? This game seems to take place in the future, but I'm willing to spin this into some high fantasy shit), and soon they'll scorch their way into the playoffs.

Where they will probably be eliminated in the first round by the Pioneers, or the Cyclones, if they're lucky.

Conor - Classic Brian.

ALTERNATE TITLE:
Y'all Motherfuckers ain't never saw this coming

I find it as funny as you do that I'm writing a Classic Brian, other ex-Classic Brian writers who are (hopefully) reading this. I'm not exactly sure why I'm writing this, and that's what I'm going to start the post with. I guess that's the whole thesis of this post. Why am I writing this, and what am I writing about.

So let's establish some facts. I'm writing a Classic Brian. That's an event. Didn't use to be an event. The idea was that I would write one of these a week. This served a couple purposes. It gave me either A) an outlet for a joke or some artistic pursuit within the medium of essay writing, B) an outlet for some emotion I was feeling or C) both A and B. Also key to Classic Brian was the audience. When I wrote a Classic Brian I could safely assume at least 2 or 3 of the other Classic Brian and a handful of other regulars would read it, mostly from Springfield. It was a way for me to remind them, hey! I'm not with you guys anymore, I'm elsewhere, but I'm still doing stuff. I'm an evolving version of the person you spent a lot of time with. This is what I'm upto, or what I'm thinking about, or something. It helped maintain a lot of friendships I still depend on. It's funny to me how theoretically easy it is to maintain communications with people, while simultaneously being so hard. Classic Brian was a creative way for a lot of us to fight that problem. It was a creative outlet, and also a weekly e-mail to several people we didn't want to grow too far away from saying "heywhaddup I exist." It also bound our new worlds together in a way. Some of my Oklahoman friends would occasionally read my Classic Brian posts and talk to me about them. It allowed them to see how I communicated with the people I was closest withm, and it was a nice way for me to introduce them to and contextualize the people I considered important in my life back home. I know it worked that way for some of you other writers, because just a few months I was at a party in Columbia, MO and one of Robert's friends said he recognized me because I wrote for Classic Brian.

I was like, "fuck yeah I wrote for Classic Brian."

That said, I'm not too terribly sad Classic Brian's dead. * It's dead because I/we didn't need it anymore. ** Some friendships it sustained faded anyway, because yeah, some friendships are going to fade a little bit, and the other friendships proved strong enough to not need the weekly wake up call. I was busy, too. Friday's are a shitty day to have to write a blog post. What's that you say I could have devoted some time earlier in the week to writing my post so I wouldn't have to do it Friday I don't know if you've ever met me but that's not something I'm going to do, guys.

The part that I was thinking about tonight though, and the real reason I'm writing this is because I used to use Classic Brian to sort out the things in my life I was conflicted about. I no longer need that, most of the time. I sortof need that tonight, or at the very least, I was for some reason inspired to sort out my thoughts in public via a blog post again, and I haven't felt that way in a while. Which is a good thing, mostly, I think.*** I, like everyone else, have changed in the past few years. Like, I wish we would've had the foresight to take a picture of Nick every month since our sophomore year of high school, but alas, we didn't. One change I definitely know I've gone through: I work through my problems in a more internal, withdrawn fashion these days. If I'm upset, I'm quieter. I'm mulling over the things that are upsetting me, I'm turning them over in my mind. I'm not writing a blog post about my feelings, with the extremely ironic exception of this blog post. More on that later. I don't really have a choice in this change, it's been a natural reaction to my surroundings, but I feel okay about it. I'm frankly a little embarrassed by some of the more emotional things I posted in the past, and I'm glad I don't normally require such a public outlet for things anymore. It's not an entirely healthy change, though. If the problems involve other people this internalization can hurt things. If you don't communicate problems with the people involved with these problems they often get worse. I recognize that.

So what's upsetting me now? A tiny, million, irrelevant things that don't really matter but add up to a still small but upsetting whole. First, let me establish that I am happy. This school year has been my best year here in Norman. I've made new friends and the friendships I already had have almost uniformly improved. For the first time since I came here I feel like I can really confide and communicate with a small handful of people, and that's awesome, and also probably a factor in Classic Brian's slow death. Things are great, blah blah blah

I'mma only articulate one of the tiny problems that's bothering me, because I feel like it does a good job of touching on most of the big things and because fuck this post is long enough as is and typing is annoying and hard when one of your fingers is broken. The problem is: my finger is broken!

hahaha see?! See?!?**** That was an awesome transition there, guys, and you should re-read it again so you can really appreciate it, although I know it's going to be impossible to ever recreate the visceral reaction you had when you experienced it for the first time. Like Fight Club.

Anyway, yeah, my right ring finger is broken. In early January I broke my left big toe and so I couldn't play ultimate for like a month or so, and then the day before I return to practicing with the team regularly I went to a pick up game of ultimate and got my finger broken by my friend Holden. Veeeery frustrating. When I the toe broke I was like hahaha okay. Didn't find the finger too funny. I can't really write, I can't play piano with my right hand, and I continue to be off the ultimate field. Most of these problems are somewhat easily dealt, but man are they frustrating. I'm very aware that things could be much worse, I'm very aware that lots of other people deal with much much worse conditions, and in general I've been dealing with it, but tonight it sortof got to me.*****

It got to me because our ultimate team, the Apes of Wrath, went to a tournament this weekend and they just came back, victorious and full of team spirit. I decided after breaking my finger that I would be done with ultimate for the semester. I had already been out of practice for a month, and this new injury takes me out for another 2 months, give or take, so what's the point? I'll focus on academics, I'll focus on redliners, I'll focus on having a good time.

Thinking about it again tonight, I don't know if I'll stick with that. I miss ultimate. I miss feeling like I'm getting better at something that doesn't come naturally to me. I miss being a part of a team, specifically this team. These are fun, great guys, and being their teammate has been one of the defining experiences of my college career, easy. I don't get any of that this semester, because of pure dumb luck. There's nothing I can do about my broken finger. I've tried running out into the rain and cursing the heavens as the water beats down on my powerless figure, but nothing's working. If I don't go back I'll never play OU ultimate with a lot of people ever again. Nolan, who's always helped me out when I'm doubting myself. Kit, who was my partner in the Beer Olympics last month. Our team name was the Spoony Bards. Falkor, who's Falkor. These are just 3 names, there are more. Also, if I don't go back at the end of the semester I will definitely be a worse ultimate player for it, come next year. Over the past 2 and a half years I've worked so god damn hard to get in better shape and play at least somewhat decent ultimate. It's really frustrating to see that come undone.

But there's just not enough time in the day to justify going back. The other aspects of my life are improving because ultimate's not in the equation. I'm caught up with most of my classes, Redliners is definitely more organized than last semester when I was doing both things, my life has breathing room, and I like it. I don't want to give that up. I don't know which will make me more happy, and that's really bothering to me.

----

So if those 4 hyphens didn't make this clear, that's the end of the angsty confessional part here. It's 3:30 in the morning and I have shit to do tomorrow.

I wanna finish by talking a little more about Classic Brian, and why I came back. Like I said, it's rare that I feel like expressing my feelings this way these days, and good riddance, RIGHT, but tonight I did. I'm not sure why I did, but I did, and I'm glad Classic Brian is still here so I can do this on the offchance that I want to. I'm glad Classic Brian wasn't deleted from the internet after months of disuse (interesting reading on websites that still exist from decades ago, on that topic. Credit goes to my brother Sean for this find).

I honestly hope I don't have to depend on Classic Brian for a while, but once in a while isn't bad.****** It was fun writing this, and I feel better. Look! It's like I'm a teenager all over again. I hope it was fun to read, too. It's been too long/maybe just long enough.





*how I will finish my eulogy at Brian Malone's funeral 

**can't decide if this sentence should be included in that eulogy

***let it be known that at this point my computer died and I came back to finish the post instead of not coming back to finish the post! Huzzah! You're welcome!

**** SEE????!?!?!??!

*****Two things real quick: 1) on the subject of other people having it worse, the day after I broke the finger I went to the gym and was thinking about how tough and cool I was for still going to the gym the day after I broke a finger, and then I walked past a dude with one leg working out and I was like "okay, I should shut up." 2) I felt like I would be failing my readers if I didn't use the word sortof in this post.

******also true when it comes to Brian Malone, again. Maybe I got carried away with these footnotes.


Can I talk real quick about how it's bullshit that I only get 200 characters for all of my labels combined? That's bullshit, it's like the hardest tweet of all time. There are so many good fucking labels I wanted to use but couldn't. I'm done here that's it no more Classic Brian I'm burning this website to the ground

Nick - It's Definitely Time For Conor To Shave

Listen, I know I'm probably wrong about a lot of things. And I'm okay with that! For example, I couldn't tell you much about the probability of a meteor hitting the earth within the next few hours. I'm sure there are experts who know all about that sort of thing, but I am not one of these experts.

In fact, there aren't a lot of things I consider myself an expert at. I read a lot of political science literature, but I wouldn't call myself a political scientist. There are plenty of people who know more than me. In fact, there are probably a lot of misconceptions I have that I don't even know I'm wrong about. There's just a whole lot of uncertainty.

There is one thing, however, that I am absolutely not uncertain about.

It's time for Conor O'Brien to shave.

But my stubble totally says 'party!'

I do consider myself an expert on Conor O'Brien's facial hair. I've seen it in various states of growth. I've seen it during the harrowing final weeks of no-shave november. I've seen it blossoming onto his face like a heinous insect shedding its larval skin. And if there's one thing I can tell you about Conor O'Brien's facial hair, it is this: avoid.

I'm not sure you're getting the full effect from that picture up there. Click on it and take a closer look. Go ahead, click.

Actually, don't worry, I've got you. Let's zoom in.

Don't you wonder what my whiskers would feel like against your soft lips?

Oh boy. Wow. I hope that isn't too much for you.

If I were to describe Conor O'Brien's facial hair, I would say it's kind of like a carpet made of pubic hair that is also balding. Sometimes you're talking to him and you catch a glimpse of it and you just lose your train of thought.

Conor O'Brien's head-hair is just looking better and better these days. He's playing a lot more Pokemon recently, which I think is cool. And, ladies and gentlemen, I want Conor O'Brien to be the best that he can be. If you're out there, Conor, I know this may seem harsh. But everything I do, I do out of love.

Yeesh.

-Nick.

Conor - Exactly How I Feel About Salads

Salads are decent! Sometimes I'm like 'man, I really want a salad,' and sometimes when I think about what I want to eat soon, salads don't even cross my mind!

I only sortof want to eat this

For those of you who just tuned in, this post is about salads.

According to the first thing that comes up when you google "salad definition" a salad is a dish of raw leafy vegetables, often  tossed with pieces of other raw or cooked vegetables, fruit, cheese or other ingredients and served with a dressing. That's true! If you want more factual information on this stuff, the wikipedia page on salads is exactly as boring as you think it is.

There are tons and tons of different types of lettuce and leafy vegetables that can serve as the foundation of a salad. Don't really worry yourself about picking a specific kind! Pretty much no matter what you choose I bet it's going to end up tasting like a salad. Salads are hard to fuck up. I guess if someone had a gun to my head, and was demanding lots of specific information on the ingredients that would make up my ideal salad, I would end up choosing a crispy kind of lettuce, but hey. I don't really care.

Chicken is good in salads if you find yourself with a salad but you're also like "I'm kind of disappointed by what I'm about to eat." Chicken somehow justifies the salad.

Raisins! Man, raisins are really good in salads in turns out. Some people like cheese in their salads, but seeing as how I don't like cheese to begin with, liking cheese in my salad would be silly, because salads don't improve cheese. Salads don't really improve anything.

Oh shit. Ooooooh shit.

Salads do provide me with a socially acceptable way to consume lots and lots of Italian dressing, though. I would drink this shit straight, if my parents would continue to buy it after they discovered that we were running through this salad dressing so quickly because I was drinking cups of it a day. I don't think they'd do that. Dressing, man, fuck. It is unreasonably delicious. Except for that bullshit ranch dressing. Italian, balsamic vinaigrette, raspberry vinaigrette, these are all solid choices. Drench the whole thing in dressing. Negate any possible opportunity to feel good about yourself because you had a salad for dinner or whatever. Screw that, you had a side of salad, the main course was whatever the hell makes up salad dressing. That's a subject for another day though.

After writing this I actually do want a salad. I'm surprised by this. I want a salad in a theoretical sense. I'm about to go to bed, and when I wake up I bet I'll end up wanting something better than a salad for lunch.

Such as really anything other than a salad.

Salads: B-
Dressing: A

Conor - The Blue Light

I was thinking about it earlier today, and I can't remember how it came up. We were driving through New Orleans, packed into this car and talking about something that wasn't our collective fear of death, the inability to deal with our mortality and whether or not we're in charge of our own fate when all of the sudden the conversation shifted and we were talking about the Blue Light.

The concept is simple, and probably very indebted to the brilliant Machine Of Death book which you can read in its entirety at that link right there.

The idea is this. Shortly before your death a blue ball of light will appear above your head. It could appear seconds before your death, or it could appear a week or two before anything happens.

It's a fun thought exercise.

I don't want to put too many rules into play, I just want to think of the possibilities.

You're walking down the street and you pass a stranger with the blue light. What do you do? What do you say? Do you apologize? I think I'd just apologize. I'd smile at them. I'd hope that they were on their way to do things they really wanted to do.

Would society embrace death? I mean, it would torture us in some ways, but we'd get more of a heads up than we usually get. That would be nice. Would there be "blue light parties?" 'Oh, sorry man, I'm busy Saturday, my friend's having his blue party.' What would you do if you couldn't make it to your friends blue party? How could you possibly make it to them?

One of the tempting ideas was to allow a friend to kill me in an awesome and preferably painless way. But if I did that, why did the blue light come on in the first place? I would be dying because of the blue light. It be both causing and forseeing my death. Can you beat the blue light?

My roommate Michael brought up how many euphemisms and slang terms we would have for the blue light. "She's been lit." "Feeling blue" would have a new emotional punch. We also talked about maybe the light changing colors, towards a red or maybe a white as you neared your death. You could watch the second tick away. One guy got his years ago, maybe, and there's been no noticeable change. Some unlucky people watch their light wither away before their eyes so quickly.

What if one day you woke up and you had an orange light, or a green light, or something?

I imagined all of my roommates and I in our living room, when all of the sudden all of our lights were there (would there be an accompanying sound? Something terribly inappropriate) except for one person. Let's say Caitlin. I feel like we'd all try to kill Caitlin. And according to our new lights, we would fail.

Could you die without a blue light or would it just appear a second before the event?

People are on a plane when everyone's lights suddenly appeared. Every single person on board. Somewhat reasonably, mayhem ensued. The pilot, fighting the urge to react in the exact same manner, manages to calm everyone down and he lands the plan successfully. Everyone walks away completely unharmed, but dies within the next of couple of days.

It's a fun thought exercise, I think.

Conor and Brian and Nick - We're In New Orleans, doing New Orleans things

Oh hey guys. I am sitting criss-cross-applesauce in a bed, that is in the far corner of the room from the door.  I'm going to establish cardinal directions in order to provide a more easily imagined scene, but know that this cardinal directions are bullshit, and that I have no idea which way is north right now. Anyway, this bed is in the northwest corner of the room, and the door to the outside hallway is along the southern wall, slightly east of its center. In the northeast corner there is another bed, one that has obviously not been tampered with in a while. Stuffed animals cover the blankets and lean preciously against. Snoopy is cuddling with a big gorilla who is holding big ol' hearts that say "Wild About You." In between the two beds is a white dresser with some lotions, a lamp, and a flashlight, just in case that lamp sucks I guess. Next to the door is a TV on a stand. An old, Sanyo TV. A big brick compared to the thin compact ones we see nowadays.

All of this is significant because it is New Orleans. Because if I walk outside and look to what I have decided is the southeast, I see two bridges that lead across the river from the West Bank where we currently are (huh... This is called the West Bank. I'm not allowing this to change my declaration of the directions) into the city proper. Last night I was in the city proper for a short while.

And it was really cool.

I flew here with my two native New Orleans roommates, Maggie and Nina, yesterday. I'm staying at Nina's house for the next several days. Tonight, Classic Brian and Monday Nick shall join us*. They're on their way now**. We will all sleep in this small, nice room. I'm going to try to convince Nina to abandon her room and take one of the beds in here. I'll sleep on the floor, for the sake of solidarity, and cuteness of the story. It will be like a 3 or 4 day sleepover*.

I'm about to go on a bike ride in New Orleans*. I'm pretty excited about it.

*in New Orleans
*to New Orleans

Conor - The Bright Side

Things I can do with my newly opened schedule, now that I've been fired -
   Play more Pokemon
   Always be ready to watch the Wire, should the mood ever strike my unreliable roommate, Caitlin
   Learn how to paint
   Devote more time to perfecting my beard
   I've never been terribly great at cartwheeling. Maybe I'll get better at cartwheeling.
   A shit ton of laundry.
   Look angrily at Pickleman's from a distance

Things that I don't need that hopefully having no income will finally inspire me to stop paying for
  Monster energy drinks
  Chocolate chip cookies
  Room, board
  Friends
  Food

Things one boss said
  Hey don't worry about getting your eight to twelve shift covered, you're right, we did give that to you at the last second after you very clearly asked what you needed to get covered for this weekend, so yeah, just cover your midnight to close shift and you'll be fine

Things the other boss said
  Where are you? What? You're fired.

How I feel about being fired
  Bitter
  Pretty Bitter

Things I'm determined not to do, despite being told explicitly to do
   Give them back their t-shirts

Fuck
  The Police

My next 4 weekends, in chronological order
  Ultimate Tournament
  The biggest party of the weekend
  Seeing Radiohead
  Spring Break

While all of this will be so cool and I'm super excited about the next month in my life
  I wish I still had a job

Conor - his fears/my fears(??)/our fears

These people. These people. That guy, the overweight middle-aged man who said he was a painter, that he painted houses, he was absolutely 100% right. These people - these kids, really! - have never worked a day in their lives before. Here I am, 19, days away from 20, working on a Friday night at Pickleman's (with the good soups, the great pizzas, the very little sandwiches that never quite fill you up but are still very delicious), entertaining the drunk masses, making a dent in the debt I have or will undoubtedly drag myself into over the new few years. These children don't have to worry about it. They're just drinking and having fun and falling in love or at least saying they are if they think it will help to say. What are they majoring in? What are they planning on doing when they get of here? What education are they receiving? If I asked them, if I was the Chosen One who finally stood up and posed the question to them "what's your plan? how will your life be significant?" they would be taken aback. They did not expect such Bravery from me, and they certainly do not possess the same Bravery. As they fumble around in their head, they will see in my eyes, in my deft, tired hands, in my Pickleman's shirt stained with hours, hours! of hard work, they will see that I have a plan.
        Ha! No. I have a really nice scholarship. I am working these hours so I can buy the best new video game and eat out all the time and the next night I too will be drinking excessively -but it's my birthday so I am forgiven- and all the things that I am working for I do not need I just want. I'm making money because I refuse to learn how to not spend money. A noble endeavor if there ever was one.
       I am overstaying my welcome here. Everyone is figuring me out. They took a vote the other night, I know it, no one told me and they will not act on their decisions until the time is right, but I know that it happened. They - everyone, that is. Everyone who ever spent enough time around me to form an opinion - sat down around a large, circular table and when they were done discussing my pros and my cons every single one of them put their hands up when came time to damn me. Some hesitantly, some needed convincing that I was beyond saving, or at least not worth the time, but most hands shot up with such enthusiasm.
       I could see it in my roommates eyes when they told me I accidentally flooded the laundry room by forgetting to stick the faulty drain pipe out the back door. I could see it in the happy, dulled looks they gave me as I did not drink with them last night - because I had work! I could see it as they made dinner plans, as I said goodbye to join others, I could and I always am seeing it.
       It's my condescension that has done me in. My self-righteousness. They do not agree with me that I am morally always correct, and they do not see how accurate all of my judgements are, and they do not see the potential my body has, the muscles evolving every day, they don't see what I will become. They are oblivious to the Phoenix rising in front of them.
       They'll brink cake tonight for my birthday party. All the cake I could ever want and much much more. In this cake they'll put their final love. The last of it they want to give me. And I will consume it all.

---------

Oh god it hurts to write like that.

I just got done reading Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius and true to the title it is terrible and wonderful. It's memoir and fiction at the same time. He loves and hates himself. He believes, he knows he's better than everyone and he knows everyone sees how he's placed himself above everyone and he knows he's being ridiculous and he knows, he knows, he knows.

Dave Eggers' thought process is shown vividly on every page. You see his fears, his hopes, his beliefs that he's doing the right thing, his alternative worries that everyone thinks this way or that he's the only one. He doesn't want to be alone, but he also wants to be seen alone, triumphing against all odds.

Reading the book, it unlocks the potential for this thought process. You start thinking like this. His fears because your fears. It's interesting, and it's worrying.

I liked the book a lot!

Conor - The Perfect Day

Priorities are something I've often wallowed about here in the halls of Classic Brian. To summarize my earlier findings, doing things is hard, and I hate doing things. More often than not, being responsible and productive is more difficult than not giving a damn. Which sucks!

Oftentimes, while wondering what terrible god would do things like make peoples metabolisms operate on wildly different scales and make tying ties so tricky, I wonder what I do if I was suddenly free of the logical shackles of this world. What if I wasn't obliged to do society any service, what if I distance meant nothing, what if time was my only limitation and I could effectively do whatever I wanted?

If I had 24 hours to spend however I wanted to, how would I do it? What would My Perfect Day look like?

Here we go. Most of this can happen in any order, unless otherwise noted in my description.

2 hours would be spent playing Ultimate in Norman. Everyone would be there. It would be good ultimate, we would play well, but it would not be taken seriously. The game wouldn't devolve into exclusively upside-down hucks and the like, but it would definitely get pretty stupid by the end.

An embarrassing 3 hours of the day would be spent playing Final Fantasy. Know that I shaved a lot of other things down in order to ensure that FF got its fair share.


2 hours would be spent at improv practice. I say improv practice because, while I love the rush of having to make the improv good because there's an audience watching, at improv practice we can do stupid, regrettable things. Things can go badly and it can be way funnier than if they had gone well and we don't have to give a damn. We can ensure our spots in hell, worry free. Also, everyone who's ever been in improv would be there. And I wouldn't be the leader.


1 hour would be spent at either Steak N' Shake or Little Saigon. Come one, come all. EVERYBODY SHOW UP.

1/2 an hour would be spent at Snowbiz Shaved Ice. I guess, for financial purposes, it would be a Tuesday, so we could get two for one. I would get a medium sour lemon, sour green apple concoction. Every time I haven't gotten this I have regretted it.


1/2 an hour would be spent going on a run through Washington Park with Nick Dietrich, and whoever else worked up the energy to come with us that day. Which I guess would be the whole crew. Because this is the Perfect Day. We would run around the park twice. This would probably occur around 11:00 at night. No park police would bother us about being in the park after it's closed, because how do you close a park.


2 hours recording a new song with Band Practice. It would be a good song and everyone would like it. The lyrics would not be bad, and every band member would have an interesting part. It would not be showy, or too melodramatic. It would just work well. Later, we would play a 1 hour show that would be reasonably well attended. It would be a very very small venue so it would appear like there was better attendance than there was. Somehow, I would not sweat.


12 hours down.


2 hours would be spent sitting around 1042 Leslie Lane, and doing whatever. Relaxing. Chillaxing, maybe even. Fuck you, blogspot, don't you dare put a red squiggly line underneath chillaxing as if you don't know exactly what I mean. I would maybe take turns playing Halo 3 with some of the guys, maybe  I would just sit in the living room we've entitled The War Room and talk to people, watching a movie in the second living room we call Codename: Bitch Tits, maybe I'd play ping-pong, maybe we'd play Risk maybe I'd just sit in my room and read. It don't matter. It'd be nice.


3 hours would be spent going to dinner with my family and then playing board games with them afterwards. We would go to someplace nice. Like Ginger Asian Bistro. We would then play Banagrams, or Chasing Mr. X or whatever that new game someone just got for Christmas was. I wouldn't win. Even in my perfect day, I have to accept simple facts about life.

2 hours would be spent seeing an impossible concert. It would basically be like a 2 hour mix CD where every band plays one or two songs and so there are like 10 or 11 of my favorite bands. There is no set up or tear down time. Somehow. It's in a medium sized venue. Probably in Oklahoma, but people from Illinois are there, too, for some reason. It's crazy.


Or it could just be a 2 hour Mountain Goats concert. I'm cool with that too.


2 hours would be spent in a car, driving, talking to whoever else would be in the car, and listening to music. The sun would be setting. I'd probably be drinking a monster.


2 hours would be spent at a party in Springfield. The Party Planning Committee would have pretty set it up. I would be the designated driver, but I would still have a fantastic time. I would get to see all of the people I miss, all of the people who I acknowledge I haven't put enough energy into seeing while I'm back in town. I've been thinking about this lately. It's so easy and so convenient for me to spend time with the same 5 or 6 people in Springfield, and because I am a creature of sloth I've done just that. I feel pretty shitty about that. I will do my best. I haven't done well thus far, but I'll try. I know if I wait any longer to start maintaining these relationships, it will be too late.

2 hours would be spent at a party in Norman. I would not be the designated driver.


I would also take a 45 minute nap.


Also my perfect day would be 25 hours and 45 minutes long.

It would also be my birthday.

And Christmas.

EDIT: If anyone's interested, list the contents of your perfect day. It's probably exactly like mine.

Conor - I'm A Big Dummy

Hey can I text you content of my Classic Brian? I don't have internet where I'm at now.

A Classic Brian in 160 character installments. A Classic Brian for the twitter age.

Okay. This text plus those first two make up the introduction. My statement of purpose. Hello, Classic Brian readers. How have you been?

Also Nick keep in mind I'll probably be sending you this over the course of the night. You're a good friend. Nick Dietrich, everyone. He's a real cool bro.

Let me set the scene for you guys. Here I sit, on a couch in a condo in the Durango Mountain Resort in Durango, Colorado. I've been here since Monday night.

It's a nice place. There are decorative skis on the walls, which seems sortof silly. There is a virtual fireplace. Also silly.

Nick you better be seperating these texts with paragraph breaks. These thoughts are grouped together for a reason, god damnit.

Not that I don't trust you.

I'm currently watching episode 5 season 1 of the Wire with the 5 other people I'm on this trip with.

I slept for 12 hours today and I've spent the day alone in the condo, reading The Girl Who Played With Fire and listening to music.

Had things not turned out how they did, I would've been snowboarding all day with the rest of these guys. That's how things were looking, before The Incident.

Capitalize The Incident, Nick.

Snowboarding is hard. Let me tell you. Snowboarding is very difficult. Mountains are big and steep, and even when you master turning left, there's still right.

We've been snowboarding all week, and things were going swimmingly. I'm not the best at snowboarding but I've seen some dumb fools up here who are eeeven worse.

So Thursday, our second full day of mountain time, we agreed to meet for lunch around 12:30.

I've been sticking around with my friend Caitlin all week, because we are pretty much the worst of our group.

Mike sucks way worse than us though because he switched to skis midway through our first full day. He's not a soldier. Caitlin and I? We're soldiers.

I would dedicate more space to insulting Mike more I don't have much more material. Skiing's weak though.

So anyway around noon Caitlin and I get to the bottom of the mountain, half an hour before our agreed lunch meeting time.

I decide to go up the mountain for another run, and Caitlin, not caring for my personal safety, decides to stay.

Let me phrase this in no uncertain terms: everything that happens after this point is Caitlin's fault.

The rest of this story is pieced together through secondary sources, because I have no idea what happened. I lost 6 or 7 hours of memory.

12 minutes later later Caitlin finds me at the bottom of the mountain. She waves, but I don't acknoledge her. I don't seem to recognize her.

When she approaches me I tell her I can't remember how to take my snowboard off. I tell her that I think I hit my head, that I need to go get it looked at.

Apparently they took me to urgent care. I proceeded to have the same 2 conversations with everyone for two hours not remembering that they had already occurred.

After a little while I didn't improve, and they decided I needed to go to the hospital and get a CAT scan.

For anybody who's interested, the first conversation was about the color of my socks (pink), and the second was about whether or not I was acting like myself.

The long and short of it was I got a concussion. The CAT scan showed up clean, and I was let go once I became more coherent. Which I eventually did.

Shout out to Chris Larberg, who stayed with me the entire time, and who also witnessed some reportedly interesting events.

Shortly before I got more sensible I went "fuuuuuuuck. This painting is trite. I hate this place. Let's escape."

Even a dehabilitating head injury could not quell my revolutionary impulses.

The painting in question was a house in a meadow. It was painted in broad, impressionistic strokes, and it was truly a little unnecessary.

It's scary, losing several hours of your memory. For a while there I lost a lot more. I forgot several things that happened over the course of the year.

Everything's back, excluding the hours leading upto and after the crash, but still. That was honestly really scary.

Nick, embed a youtube video of some really sad music here, to really sell this part. Your call on the song.

I forgot things about winter break. Things about this last semester.

I did not forget anything about the Wire.

Or the spelling of chords, I guess. Chris said that one of the only things I consistently knew was chords.

It all came back over the course of the night, thank god. My sister Betsy tried to trick into thinking I owed her $80. Soooooortof a bitch.

I can't excersize for a week and my head hurts like shit, but all in all, things turned out okay.

So that's the past 32 hours of my life. C-Dawg out.


Nick, feel free to title and tag this whatever you want. You're the man.

Tell me when you post that.

Wait, one more thing. I have stats that my friend Becca took while I was in urgent care. When she realized how many times we were going to be having the same

conversations, she started keeping track. Here are the counts.

How long have I been here in this room - IIIIIIIIIIII (12)

How long have I been here in Durango - IIIIIII (7)

What day is it? - IIIIII (6)

My socks are pink - IIIIIII (7)

Should I have this ice on my head - IIII (4)

Have my parents been notified? - II (2)

How did this happen? - IIIIIII (7)

Was anyone with me? - III (3)

When did this happen? - III (3)

Have we had similar conversations? - IIIII (5)

Can I go to sleep? - I (...1)

Can I sit up - III (3)

Is this a real medical concern? - II (2)

I blame myself for what happened - II (2)

I blame my friends for what happened - IIII (4)



Have you posted that shit?

Conor - Obsession

"On to the next one," says a good friend of mine. He's talking about the television series The Wire. I recently finished the Wire, but I can't let it go. I read interviews with the actors and writers, I talk about it all the time with my likeminded friends. Shit, I'm watching it right now with Nick. I can't stop thinking about it.

I mentioned my plans to rewatch the series upon returning to Oklahoma after break, and my friend says that he won't watch it again. "There's too much other media out there for me to consume. On to the next one." This is beyond me. I must know everything there is to know about the Wire, even if that means I never stop talking about the Wire, even if that means I don't experience other things due to this obsession.

Right now I'm midway through a playthrough of Final Fantasy VII, a video game that my brother introduced to me in 1999. I am an extremely obsessive person, fine.

A short, incomplete list of my obsessions.
   - The Wire
   - Final Fantasy
   - A very specific and small spectrum of indie rock
   - Monster Energy drinks
   - Ultimate Frisbee
   - Cane's Chicken Fingers
   - Most cats
   - Being so busy that I can complain about it

My very specific and small spectrum of indie rock is a telling example, actually. Sure, I don't know all the new bands and what have you, but the artists I do have? I have at least a majority of their studio albums and I have read several interviews with the front man and a few significantly less interesting ones with like maybe the bassist or something. I am unafraid and completely willing to constantly reference certain insights I may have gleamed from these interviews, too. Such are the advantages of an obsessive stud.

I'm resistant to change. I'm attracted to stagnation. I dwell on things, but like, in a cute way. I'm still talking about things long after most people have moved on. I'm thinking about them long after I stop talking about them, because I'm aware that it's no longer acceptable for me to still be stuck on these past events. I wish I could brush certain things off in a more timely manner, but I can't. In social situations there's always another What-If I can ponder, there's always another alternate universe I can create and live in. With my more materialistic obsessions, there's always another interview I can find.

This episode of the Wire is almost over. I enjoyed it a lot, even without the element of suspense and surprise it once had. I will probably watch this episode again soon, with the director's commentary on.

I should do homework more often but this is cooler.


  

Conor - Why Does My Head Hurt So Much Right Now

Ooooooowwwwwww. Ow ow ow ow ow ow.

I fell asleep in Jenni's car on the way back from the airport and my head was like "surprise, we're made of pain now." I ran into Jenni Austiff at the airport in Dallas! How crazy is that. I always look at every passerby in the airport, and there's always some point where I say to myself "this is silly. I do not know any of these people and I never will." That thought isn't usually followed by running into a friend from my hometown, but I guess it sometime is.

Owwwwwww.

It's like this throbbing pain. I'll represent this in how I dictate my ow's from here on out.

ooooOOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOooowwwWWWWWwww

I pulled an all nighter on Wednesday. My mom always said that lack of sleep would come back and hurt me. Here it is, Mom. You've always been right. About everything. Once in high school I brought home my girlfriend at the time for the first time, so first impressions and what have you, right, and my Mom stops me as we're leaving and in all seriousness warns me not to go into seaside caves at low tide. You were specifically right about that, Mom.

owwwww

It could be that I'm watching Nick play Sonic Adventure 2 Battle for the Nintendo Gamecube. Jesus Christ, Nick, you're 19 years old.

ow

My head doesn't hurt anymore. I was considering continuing this lie, but I can't do that. Not to you guys.  After all you've done for me.

Which leaves me in a pretty weird spot when it comes to this Classic Brian post.

Conor - The Secret Passageway Was, In Hindsight, Poorly Named

Ahem.

This right here is a road map of my childhood. It is also Nicholas Dietrich's backyard. 

I come from a competitive, merciless family. Weakness is not tolerated, and being bad at something is synonymous with disliking it and thinking it is stupid and a waste of time. Like FIFA 2012, or driving stick shift. That shit's lame. On the other hand, the thrill of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat is unrivaled. It can come in any form, it can be the result of hard work, or stupid amounts of luck, it doesn't matter. All that matters is winning. 

Tag was how I channelled this borderline problematic need to compete as a child. Nick Dietrich, Nick's little brother Ben, my next door neighbor Peter Eck, and Nicole, a girl a couple houses down from Nick who would randomly play tag with us but we didn't talk to for any other reason. That was the team. GGOT, we called it, short for Good Game Of Tag, each letter pronounced very clearly and confidently, as we were armed with the knowledge that we were doing something so cool that we had an acronym for it. Little did we know things with acronyms weren't always cool, like SIDS, or FIFA.

The rules were simple, because the rules of tag are usually simple. Whoever was it would sit on the swingset (marked by the stack of 4 ducks on skateboards in the upper left corner of the map), close their eyes and count to 50. Our version of counting to 50 was to pretend to count silently to ourselves, shout the occasional number in order to keep the pretense up, and then just get up whenever it wouldn't be disgustingly obvious that you hadn't counted. The swingset, or the stack of ducks up there, was base. Get to base without getting tagged and you're safe. If someone was tagged the game would stop and we would reconvene. If everyone got to base we'd start a new round and the same fool would have to be it again. The ultimate humiliation. 

The backyard was our battlefield, and we all knew it well. We knew where to initially, where to go when the shit hit the fan, and where to never under any circumstances go. As a base-based tag game, the guy (let's act like guy is gender neutral) who was it was also somewhat tethered to the duckstack. Most of the time we'd try to be out of the it dude's line of sight at the beginning of round, but even when he'd (he is also gender neutral) see you, you weren't in immediate danger. Committing to chasing one guy (neutral as fuck) down was risky. It was basically saying "I'm allowing everyone else to get to base because I'm so sure I'm about to destroy you." It was bold. Unless you were three years older than your prey. In which case it was frowned upon and cowardly, albeit effective.

Tag was most interesting when it came down to a one on one battle. Everyone else got to base, and it was just the hunter and the hunted. It was as much about knowledge of the surroundings as it was about speed and agility. 

The brown area there is the wooden back deck, removed from the ground by two or three feet and surrounded by a 2 foot fence. Using this higher ground was interesting due to the fence, because it was much harder for it bro to jump the fence from the side closer to the base than it was for the prey on the deck, giving the prey an advantage. This strategy relied on pure speed and reflexes though, because you would be making eye contact with the hunter the entire time. 

The purple arrow next to the deck leads to a dead end. You were fucked if you went back there. No exceptions. It never worked out, ever. 

The green arrow is down the driveway. Most of the time we played entirely in Nick's backyard and didn't stretch down that way too far. There were some bushes along the sides of the driveway that we would occasionally get ambitious and crawl into. This worked maybe 6% of the time. A man can dream.

The pink square is the garage. The garage was pivotal. The black arrow points into the garage. The garage door was normally closed, but when it was open, we would sometimes hide amongst the clutter of the Dietrich's garage. Which was stupid. Because you'd be hiding in a garage with one way out. The garage's main function was providing a blindspot for the hunter. It defined the legendary Secret Passageway, the worst named thing ever.

Every single worthwhile game of tag involved the Secret Passageway. Nick's backyard was fenced in by a 6 or 7 foot wooden fence, but between the garage and the fence there was the Secret Passage way, a path around the garage that was the ultimate strategic nightmare. Basically, by hiding on the opposite side of the garage as the base, the prey could force the it fellow to commit to guarding one side of the other. IT would nervously pace in between the two entrances, helpfully designated by the heart symbols up there, and all it would take to lose the round was edging a little too close to either entrance. Being in the middle wouldn't really work either. It was perfect. Perfect in every way. Perfectly balanced, perfectly suspenseful, and perfectly stupidly named. The sensation of quietly sneaking down the upper branch of the Secret Passageway, hoping that IT had overcommited to the lower section, fearing that he was confidently hugging the corner you were about to emerge from, ready to sprint back to the relative safety of the blindspot if he poked his stupid IT face around to see if you were coming, was perfect. Just perfect. I miss it.

This might have been boring to read, but it was a lot of fun to write. Let's play tag, guys. Let's play tag this summer, Springfieldians. Hell, let's play tag this winter. Normanites, let's find someplace to play tag, and then, uh, play tag. 

Also Nick Dietrich didn't really run when he was a kid, he almost exclusively skipped. It was really funny and stupid and we should make fun of him for it.

Robert - Influence

Conor came to visit this weekend. Sort of. At some point he noted the pressure that surrounds our friendship at every second, in that the sum of its parts essentially amounts to a competition more than it does a friendship. It was an astute comment. I noticed my already-stellar sense of humor unconsciously sharpening to a point this weekend.

Soon, a terrifying existential crisis began to form. Without my friends from home, without Conor, do I simply deteriorate slowly into nothingness? Do I depend on him for personality sustenance? What am I without him? My unstoppable comedy was quickly replaced by mortifying fear and chewed fingernails. I kept all lights dimmed for fear of seeing my own reflection in the mirror, or worse, Conor's. I began to dwell on what makes Conor me.

My entire pattern of speech, apparently, and all the jokes I make. Much of my being, really, has been his result. I say this not under my own conclusion but on the conviction of every single person that has ever interacted with both of us. Repeatedly, friends of Conor's who are acclimated with his style of speaking will see a picture of my face and conclude that I talk exactly like him. I don't understand how this is. After double-digit occurrences, though, it's hard to continue ignoring it. There is a pattern here, and an unarguable conclusion which must be drawn: I am Conor.

Conor - It's All About The Points

Being straightforward is something I've been trying out lately, to middling success. My being straightforward is usually not the problem, it's usually the juxtaposition of me being straightforward and other people not adhering to that idea.

What if all of life had to be as clear and quantitative as I would like it to be? What if life had to look each participant in the eyes and say "yes, good job" or "that was a mistake man" after every single decision or event?

What I'm fantasizing about (or suggesting, really, if anybody in charge is reading this) is a point system. Instant feedback for everything. You get constant high fives or put downs from the universe based on your performance, in the form of either green or red numbers popping up over your head after each happening. I realize I'm an extremely competitive person, but there's no way that I'm the only one who wants this.


This scoring system would be purely contextual and completely hilarious. Life will finally be able to blatantly tell us that yeah, it's been a huge fan of irony this entire time.


Let's say you hookup with the secretary at the office that always looks super cute. Nice! 100 points! But then immediately afterwards you meet the woman who is unquestionably the love of your life and you drop everything with the secretary. Yikes! -15 for every time you pass her while walking into the office and you can't make eye contact with her because you're really embarrassed, and you might be doing this on a daily basis. And she can see these numbers appear, too. Months later, while you're eating dinner alone all of the sudden -500 appears above your head and you have no idea what's going on until you hear that the secretary's pregnant! Oh god!


My friend Holden is over there blatantly scratching his balls through the sweatpants that I'm letting him borrow. Those are my sweatpants. What a party foul, Holden! -50 points. 


I'm midway through The Bourne Ultimatum right now, the third movie in the Bourne Trilogy. I can't decide how much completing movie marathons should be worth. I'd say Caitlin gets 30 points for watching all three without interruption or distraction, while I get 25 points for watching all of them but writing a blog post during the final movie. Holden and Nate get around 20 because they missed a large chunk of the second movie, and Nina ended up losing around 10 points tonight for promising to watch these and then sleeping through all of them. Obviously all of these values would be tripled if we were talking about tackling all three extended editions of The Lord Of The Rings. 


Don't even get me started on what Jason Bourne's score would be, jesus christ. Every reflexive punch in the face has to nab him 500, at least. That car chase in Moscow towards the end of the Bourne Supremacy? I would give him 10,000 for that, easy. To put that in perspective I'd say you get like 3,000 points for becoming President.


I'm thinking that the system for Final Fantasy marathons would be you gain points while you're playing the game (as if you had cast Regen) and slowly lose points while watching (as if you were poisoned.) You lose 50 points for attending if you are Nicholas Dietrich.

Points will accumulate. You can track your stats! How interesting, I score a disproportionate amount of points on Thursdays but often end up with a net loss on Tuesdays. Huh! August was apparently a good month for me. I have 1,459 points as of right now. Is that good? I don't know, compare with your friends! Imagine how bitter things will get when life very clearly tells some people that they are better than others. I'm probably like, one point ahead of Mada.

There's no end to the possibilities. I think I'm going to just live my life as if this system was in place. I will fight and struggle for points.

And I will win.

Conor - Just Give Me A Second

What do you want? What else do you want?

I want to improve. I want to get better at one of the handful of things I really care about. I want to work at something and sense some kind of positive change as a direct result of my effort.

I want a piano in my room. It will probably go  where my bed currently is. My piano teacher told me I shouldn't put it against an outside wall. He probably knows what he's talking about, so, yeah, I'll go with that.

I want to get a chance to catch my breath. Things have been moving pretty quickly this year for me, and I wish I could spend a day in bed and let myself wrap my head around everything. This promised day might be tomorrow.

I want to finish watching the Wire. My friend Madison( whose name is misleading and it would be totally understandable if you thought he didn't have a penis based on his name alone, but alas) knocked out 3 episodes of Season 3 tonight. We'll see if we can keep it going at this rate. I hope so.

I want to get the finished recordings of Distraction, the new Band Practice EP. They should be in any day now. As soon as I have them I'll be that much happier.

I want to be healthy, self-motivated and an individual.

I want to write a song that I'm really, really proud of. A song that surprises me when it comes out. A song that I barely recognize as my own, a song I can be detached from. I want other people to like it, too.

I want to be an astronaut. Who plays baseball. Professionally.

I want to know another language very fluently. That would be super cool.

I want to get back that ability I previously had where I can get up early in the morning and do homework. I want to know where that ability has been for the past couple of weeks, and if it misses me as much as I miss it.

I want to see you. It's been a while!

I want people to take my apologies more sincerely. I may apologize too often, but I mean it. I'm being sincere.

I want to settle down and start a family with Lemonade. Lemonade, if you're reading this, I mean it, and you're delicious. I'm ready to stop wandering, I'm done with those other drinks. I'm ready for you and I.

I want to know how to dance and cook.

I want to be an expert on something. Anything, really.

I want to know all the words to every verse of Monster.

I want to spend a day with someone, and get to know as much about them as I can.

I want go to bed.

Conor - My One Shot At Immortality

In relatively short time, I won't be here. Within a handful of decades, I'll return to the earth, from whence I came.

Mother Earth shall reclaim her child.

I recognize that there is no escaping this fate. Sooner or later all of us will heed death's call. So what do I do with my time on earth? Being a narcissist, it seems like the only sensible option would be to make sure that I am remembered. I am going to die and years from my death they will have remembered that I died and then decades and centuries will pass and still every now and then someone will bring up Conor James O'Brien, son of Dennis.

Why? Well that's the big hang up, here.

I would go with one of my usual talents, like being really funny and charming, or super great at music, or my slowly improving frisbee skills, or how much body my hair has, but it's become obvious to me that there's always some cooler than me. Thanks, Ben. So no matter how much I practice piano, smile winningly at the mirror or shampoo and condition, there's always going to be some smarmy asshole who tops me.

So what do I do? An event? Let's assume I want to be remembered for something positive, so let's count out martyrdom and the like. I could start a charity? Lame. Adopt an orphan and change a kids life for the better forever? Boooooo. I could grow the biggest beard ever? Just never shave ever again? Oh thanks, genetics/Dad.

It came to me in my Music History class. The oldest piece of music that music historians know they have  recreated with 100% accuracy was on a grave. Some smart old dead guy was like "before you bury me, throw that ditty I used to love so much on that pillar there. That would be sick."

Of course. My epitaph. Epitaphs are forever.

What should I put on my epitaph oh that's right screw originality let's just take that one guys idea and do it again. So I'm putting a piece of music on my gravestone. Hundreds, maybe thousands of years from now people will uncover and use it to represent an entire era of human life. They're going to say "this is what all people listened to back then. This was art."




Fuck yeah.

Conor - Would You Look At This House

http://hotfreaks.bandcamp.com/track/outset-island

Something to listen to while you read the rest of this.

1042 Leslie Lane. Norman, Oklahoma. 73069.

It's not much to look at, but it has a lot of personality.

Nina says "hello." Nina is one of my roommates.  One of the 6 other people living in these halls with me. Nina, Maggie, Caitlin, Trent, Nick and Michael. And me. The social dynamic is something that will probably take a lot of time to figure out, but that's something I'll harp on later.*

It's been over a week since I moved in here, and I'm still pretty in love it. I want to share this with you. I've taken some pictures, in the hopes that a visual element will make this at least slightly more interesting.

Someone brought/bought a ping-pong table! Alright. I'm totally cool with this. I am not very good at ping-pong, but a year ago I wasn't good at ping-pong, either, and look how far I've come in such a short span of time. There's a lot more space to the right of this picture. This is our first of two living rooms. You heard me.

Someone bought/brought a kitchen! That chair looks too comfy to be in a kitchen. It does not belong.

 As promised, a second freaking living room. I kid you not. This place is practically the Ritz. 

 The hallway to my room. The four other doors are Caitlin and Trent's rooms, the bathroom and the laundry room. Unimportant rooms in the grand scheme of things.

I've spared no expense to cover this room in posters. I have only two goals for this room. A bed and a piano. The piano will theoretically go where that pile of stuff currently is. I'm working on it.

 Please don't be mad at me for occasionally wearing these sunglasses. I found them on a couch on campus. They allow me to be someone, something I could never hope to be. Allow me this. Look at that stupid grin. It's still me, guys. It's still me.

Also look that's my new bed! That's where I sleep nowadays and fuck, is it comfy!

I'mma go to bed now.

*Harp on? Like, what would it be like if you "harped on" me. What is it to harp on something?

Conor - The Sport Of Kings

I was in a mini-golf tournament earlier today. It was rad. I tweeted my thoughts in real time, and I've added in details in italics. This is for you, Robert. You would have been devastated, had you been there.


- Two and a half hours until the mini-golf tournament begins. The stakes are high, and the scores are low.
     There has to be a golf based movie out there somewhere with this as the tag line. I mean, c'mon.


- Picking out what I'm going to wear to the tournament. Mini-golf is 90% style.
     Business casual is pretty much always a safe bet. Tie encouraged, but not completely necessary.


- Mini-golf is a game of mental toughness. considering most of the other kids here are 12, I'd say I have this in the bag.
     This one was a complete lie. Mada and I were the only ones there who were like, casual mini-golfers. I didn't think that'd be a problem, because who ISN'T a casual mini-golfer, right? Wrong. It turns out there are people out there who have spent their whole life honing their skills. It turns out there were 7 or 8 people out there who have been waiting for a mini-golf tournament for their entire life, and they all showed up. All of them golfed in high school, most of them went to high school with me, and some of them worked at the mini-golf course. So.


- This kid says he has gotten a hole in one on every single course here. His knees look worrying susceptible to being broken by a golf club.
    Let's see how he golfs when he's bleeding. You can tell a lot about a man from the way he golfs whilst bleeding.


- A lot of bullshit posturing from these guys. A lot of talk. They don't notice me in the corner, memorizing names, faces, styles and flaws.
     Unfortunately, they all had really similar styles, which mostly involved really casually getting hole-in-ones.


- Playing seriously the best minigolf of my life, and these guys are making a fool of me.
     Everything I did was invalidated by the ridiculousness around me.


- The best player was just found dead though!!! What happened here?!?! updated: due to tragic circumstances, I've moved up to 3rd place.
     I wish I had stuck with this joke and just made the whole thing a murder mystery. I like the idea of a murder mystery where one character is fucking obviously the murderer. 


-Yeah no seriously though I just got par. This is a serious accomplishment worthy of praise.
     On course 3. The easy course. 


- Falling apart. Everything minigolf related is slipping through my minigolf related fingers.
     On course 2. The intermediate course.


- Though I am crestfallen and frustrated, Wabash Golf and Games keeps reminding me of how fabulous birthday parties are.
     There's a sign up at Wabash Golf n' Games that says in big rainbow letters "Birthday Parties are FABULOUS!" I really, really want to steal that sign.


- Round 2 went terribly. I was beaten by my female companion, or as I like to call her, "a dirty whore."
     Mada. Mada's a dirty whore. 


- "George is 21 under," they say. Yeah. George is still probably going to die alone, though. Probably.
     Wooooah sorry everyone did I say that out louuuudddd




     Also 21 under?! What the fuck!


- I don't give a damn that Jake got a hole in one there, Jake didn't take the loop-de-loop, so Jake's achievements don't matter.
    "Yeah, a lot of us don't take the loop-de-loop," Jake said. "It's way harder to get the hole-in-one."
     Twenty years later Jake, while visiting family in Springfield, decided to go back and check out the old mini-golf place he used to work at over the summers. He was a little rusty, but by the third or forth hole it had come back to him. He kept remembering the secrets to each particular course and he would laugh and tell his wife of all the times his friends had at the place. When he got to the loop-de-loop, he decided to take it. He never took it as a kid, but something possessed him, convinced him he should take the brightly painted loop. He hit the ball and watched it go up the initial curve and shoot out the other side. He hadn't remembered the little thrills like this. He thought of all the times he had wasted thinking about statistics, and coldly getting the best results possible, even if that meant sacrificing the little things. A single tear rolled down his face. He turned away from his wife and wiped the tear away, hoping he could make the arm movement seem natural. 


- I was joking about these kids all being twelve, by the way. I want everyone to keep that in mind when we look at these scores.
     The bro who won got 85. On 54 holes. ...    .......


- Minigolf a sport I'm done with. 127 over 54 holes.
     That's a 2.35 stroke per hole average.