Nick - Stats!

Robert
HP - 55
Attack - 65
Defense - 80
Special Attack - 55
Special Defense - 40
Speed - 89
Type: Ghost

Nick
HP - 80
Attack - 60
Defense - 50
Special Attack - 80
Special Defense - 95
Speed - 70
Type:  Bug

Mada
HP - 45
Attack - 70
Defense - 50
Special Attack - 90
Special Defense - 60
Speed - 92
Type: Electric

Eliot
HP - 50
Attack - 60
Defense - 70
Special Attack - 60
Special Defense - 70
Speed - 99
Type: Ground

Brendan
HP - 65
Attack - 50
Defense - 90
Special Attack - 50
Special Defense - 90
Speed - 40
Type: Rock

Conor
HP - 100
Attack - 70
Defense - 90
Special Attack - 30
Special Defense - 30
Speed: 71
Type: Fighting

Classic Brian
HP - 55
Attack - 95
Defense - 60
Special Attack - 65
Special Defense - 45
Speed - 50
Type: Dragon

Nick - Saffron City Fighting Dojo

This is one of the first songs I ever wrote for guitar. I don't play that set of songs very much anymore, but for some reason this one sticks with me.

It's not even particularly good; the lyrics aren't witty, the guitar part isn't intricate. Maybe it's the title (my favorite song title to date) or maybe it's the zen feeling I get when I'm playing the guitar part. Em7 to D, over and over again. At any rate, this is the first time I've ever recorded it, so enjoy this shoddy recording.

Nick - The Contents Of My Toolbox

I found this by Google searching "pink toolbox."

The last day of improv practice before summer, we wrote down everything we had learned all year on a chalkboard. Every technique, all the little pieces of knowledge, every improv tool we had learned, all collected in one place. We called it our Improv Toolbox. And this concept can be applied on a much wider scale.

It turns out that we can learn a lot from people. Everybody has an experience we can learn from. Everybody has that distinctive style of humor. Everybody has something that I can add to my Toolbox.

For example, let's look at Sunday Robert. Sunday Robert makes a really funny angry face sometimes. His angry impression is hilarious. Now, if I see a situation in which it would be really funny to be pretend-angry, I just pretend that I'm Sunday Robert. I pull Angry-Robert out of my Toolbox and channel his energy.

I found this by Google searching "People Trapped In A Box."

Chances are, if you've done something funny around me, I've taken it and placed it in my Toolbox for later use. In this way, I can take your interestingness and add it to my own, making me seem more interesting.

Friday Conor's Awkward Manner, Wednesday Eliot's Way Of Phrasing Things, and Sunday Robert's Texting Hearts To People are now all in my Toolbox, along with many others. I wait until I understand your particular MO, that one thing you do, or that mannerism you sometimes have, and then I capture it for myself.

It's kind of like Pokemon, but with people.

-Nick.

Nick - Protector of the Weak!

You know Gyarados, right? If you don't, bear with me, I'll stop talking about Pokemon in a sec.

Anyway, Gyarados makes Pokemon games easy. He has monstrous attack power, solid defenses on all counts, and only really fears the electric type. To top it all off, you can get him relatively early in the game because he evolves at level 20. After that, he's a machine. He crushes anything in your path.

And that is why he is boring.

Because every time I'm too good at something, I get bored of it. My favorite pokemon is always the one that is cool, but not that good. This way, I accomplish two things:
1. I am challenged.
And 2. I feel like I'm doing things in my own style. (ie, like I'm better than other people.)

This principle of preferring weakness rather than strength comes back to haunt me in every video game I play, but it carries over to other stuff too.

In Golden Sun 2, I didn't care that I had super strong characters I could use; I wanted to use Ivan, because I like him. He died quickly all the time, but for some reason my attachment to him only grew stronger as it became clear things weren't going to work out. Fire Emblem was a similar story, but infinitely more painful because of how frustrating that game is.

This isn't just a trait that flairs up in video games, though that seems to be where it's most prominent. If I'm at the gym in Champaign and there's a guy who doesn't know what he's doing, I feel an immediate attachment to him. By being uncomfortable and out of his element, he has shown his weakness. And this leads me to believe we are destined to be friends.

I can only conclude that nature done screwed up and gave me a maternal instinct. Curse you, nature, and all of your doings!

Basically the point is that I choose to surround myself with weakness. I guess that explains my friends!


Zing!

-Nick.

Nick - Pokemon!

To most of you it was probably a phase. You brought the cards to school, or you played Red or Blue version as a kid. But Pokemon was something I never grew out of. We got to hear about Brendan's love for Harry Potter, and now it's my turn.

I don't remember how old I was.. My parents got me Pokemon Red; my second ever game for my GameBoy Pocket. And I dived right in. I couldn't read. I had no idea what was going on, story-wise. But I knew that I had a Pokemon of my very own. I think I can trace the moment that I started loving Pokemon back to when I got to choose my first one. Basically I stumbled around in the grass outside of Pallet Town, oblivious to what anybody was trying to say to me. I battled on with my Squirtle, a duo determined to conquer this small patch of grass.

I somehow got further into the game and built a team; I remember very little about all of this. I know I had a Pidgey, a Vileplume, and two Gravelers; it wasn't a very good team. But it was mine, and nothing brought my childish mind more pleasure than having a team of my very own. I loved the feeling of catching a new Pokemon to put on my team.

And then I got older, and I learned how to read, and I learned which moves were awesome and which type was strong against another type, and started to implement some strategy. I still love putting together combinations of Pokemon, seeing which ones work well with one another. There are a limitless number of ways you can build your team, and that facts still bears weight in my mind.

I feel that as I grow older, my relationship with Pokemon changes to reflect that, but the core feeling hasn't changed. There is still no more powerful feeling that starting out with just myself, my first Pokemon, and a world filled with limitless potential. I associate it with the feeling of adventure. Like the beginning of summer, the beginning of a game of Pokemon invigorates me. I want to smell the summer air, start an adventure, and dive into that first patch of grass, just me and my Pokemon.

-Nick.