Sunday Funday

Whew. So today I stepped my game up and did some intense nose-to-the-grindstone homework. 14 hours later, I'm proud to say that I have made flash cards for and (mostly) memorized 150 terms and chapters from the Old Testament for my Religion 321 final tomorrow, in addition to knocking out 3, 3-page essays for US Foreign Policy that are due tomorrow. Granted, I basically took a poo on 9 sheets of 20#, 92 bright, 30% recycled 8.5x11" paper, but it's done! Enjoy it, Dr. Pirro! Can't wait to see you next semester in European Politics!

Doomtree

Last weekend I, along with 6 other friends, went to a free Doomtree concert at Grinnell College. For those out of the loop, Doomtree is a hip-hop group consisting of producers Lazerbeak and Paper Tiger, along with emcees Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, Dessa, P.O.S., and Sims (in order of appearance in the following video). I'm not crazy into hip-hop, but Twin Cities underground holds a special place in my heart. Lazerbeak and Paper Tiger know how to make some dope beats, and all 5 emcees are extremely versatile and talented. Plus their lyrics are smart and down-to-earth. This was one of the most fun shows I've ever been to. As usual, I was able to talk to the band/help them load out afterwards. Nice folks. Except P.O.S. (my personal favorite emcee) was kind of awkward.

Anyways, someone at the show invited us to a house party across the street afterwards, so naturally we went to party with a ton of people none of us knew. Half the people there thought we were students at Iowa State, and the other half thought we were the band. I'm not sure how we managed to convince them of both, and I wonder if those two halves ever talked afterwards...oh well! Good times anyways!

This is not about aardvarks.

It was around this time last year that I wrote a post called "Being Great." It was all about positivity and doing anything and everything as best as you can. A good example would be the Pittsburgh Penguins right meow--12 game win streak!--at least one of my teams is winning.

I must confess that I have been having a lot of trouble being great lately. I can't even write this post without getting up and walking away from the computer multiple times. Just as a point, it has so far taken me about an hour to write these first five sentences. I can't focus on anything, yet I'm thinking about everything. Earlier today, I spent seven hours working on a take-home final, and have two sentences typed up to show for it. I can't tell if, at this point in the semester, I'm way too distracted or way too disinterested. What I do know is that final is worth 30% of my grade and I can't seem to care enough about it. Nothing ever gets done.

I am swimming in a sea of unrelated thoughts right now, but I don't think I'll add more to this post. The longer I type, the less interested the reader gets, especially when my thoughts become inevitably disjointed.

One last thing: I gotta give an ad hoc greatness award to Lauren Mason for her recent engagement. Yeah gurl!

Reboot

I've been gone for far too long, mostly because my life has been exceptionally uninteresting in the last few weeks. It's been filled with working, mowing, cleaning, building a garage, falling asleep way too early, and watching young children. By that I mean babysitting my half siblings...not being a pedophile.

Notable things: Tulip Time, 20th birthday, wisdom teeth pulled, moustache shaved and hair cut off.

I've been (re)watching the Mighty Boosh Season 1. Best show ever.

I've been listening to Portugal. The Man's newest album (out since March), American Ghetto. Good stuff.

I read The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut yesterday. It says, among other things, "a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."

Uff da!

(Untitled)

Finals week. Being great. Back soon.









I hope everyone out there is thoroughly enjoying life.



-Bryan

Au Printemps

Bizzay, bizzay. That's all I can say about my life in the last month. I find myself doing a whole lot, and nothing at all at the same time. I've really been taking advantage of my position on the Student Union Board to go to just about every event they sponsor for free. That takes up a lot of time. I also spend way too much time sitting in the SUB office doing nothing. Tyler Boeyink, you'll be proud to know that I drew a sweet as picture of Hobbes on the whiteboard in there a month ago, and no one has erased it yet. I gotta get around to putting Calvin by his side.

I've also been playing pick-up soccer about three times a week, and going disc golfing about three times a week. By extension, my homework production has dropped at least 50%. The weather is too nice for my own good. I'm quite proud of my developing disc golf skillz. For having only started playing this year, I can consistently shoot pretty close to par for the course. Pick-up soccer is the greatest thing ever. I hadn't played since high school, and I'm really glad I've been able to get out and kick it around. I'm not back to my old form yet, but that's okay.

I experienced my first VEISHEA this past week. On Monday, I went to the lecture by Jeff Katz, a former studio exec for New Line Cinema. That was pretty interesting. Tuesday, I saw my friend Andrew win the VEISHEA Says I'm Funny stand-up competition. Big ups to him for that. Thursday I watched my former neighbors, Sons & Heirs, perform in the Battle of the Bands competition. They put on a great show. Afterwards I went with some of my fellow M-Shop people to Dairy Queen, Wal-Mart, and one of their apartments to hang out for the rest of the night. My sister came from Davenport on Friday. We went to see Sons & Heirs perform on the main stage at 6 pm, and then hung out until we came back to see fun. and Motion City Soundtrack at around 11:30. Both put on a fantastic show. One of the most fun concerts I've been to. We returned to Campustown to hang out until some ungodly hour of the night. Saturday was filled with people watching, Nitro Ice Cream (greatest thing ever), kind of almost meeting/playing bingo with Hellogoodbye, actually meeting Pete Holmes and Kumail Nanjiani, more hanging out, meeting people, watching the Envy Corps and Hellogoodbye put on another amazing show, and hanging out some more. And on the seventh day, I rested. Solid weekend.

Spring Break

I haven't updated this guy in about a month. Sorry! Here's a synopsis of my week. You can't have anything from the 3 weeks I skipped though...they will be lost forever!

*For those of you wanting the condensed version, I'll save you some reading and say that I worked, sat around, and saw an awesome concert. The end. Read on for detail.

I left Ames with the Lopez brothers in tow on Friday evening as we embarked for the sunny beaches of Pella, Iowa! While the sun was shining on Lake Red Rock, I was disappointed to see it was still mostly frozen (even though the ice is a great place to see some bald eagles--I saw 9 of our feathered friends on my trip across the dam).

I arrived home to find the house abnormally quiet. You see, there are normally as many as 8 people living in our humble abode, depending on whether or not my 2 sisters and I are around. I arrived to find that everyone but my dad and sista Jenna were gone for the weekend. The weekend consisted mostly of doing very little and falling asleep on the couch before midnight, with SNL reruns playing. I worked Sunday night at Smokey Row, too.

Monday and Tuesday were uninteresting, other than this is mostly when I got to see my my little half-siblings Kate and Adrian (aged 2 and 9 months, respectively). Kate is a goofy little munchkin with a motor that never stops. Every time I see her I'm blown away by how stinkin smart she is. She moved into the 3-4 year old room at daycare on her 2nd birthday, and she apparently has a better grasp of shapes/numbers/letters than a lot of preschoolers there do. I was also informed that she correctly used the term "faceplant" at daycare when she fell down and bonked her head. Not sure where she picked that one up, but she got a high-five for it! Adrian crawls all over the place, and is starting to venture to pull himself up on things like the sofa and carefully walk along it. I don't talk to him much though, because he's afraid of me. It must be the mustache...

Wednesday night me, Andrew, Taylor, Kory, and Wes piled into my car and drove to Omaha to see Copeland's farewell tour with I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody's Business, Person L, and Deas Veil. We met Ace Enders from I Can Make a Mess/The Early November outside the venue beforehand and talked to him a bit. Sweet dude. The concert was incredible. I've seen Copeland three times in the last 8 months and I am impressed every time. They are SO GOOD live. I'm pretty bummed that I won't get to see them again, but this show was a good one to go out on. Aaron Marsh held the last note in "You Have My Attention" for like 64 counts, no joke! Pice.

The concert got over a little after midnight. We hung around a little bit so Wes and Andrew could get a picture with Kenny from Person L/The Starting Line, and after a stop for Taco Bell and a brief tour around Council Bluffs following a missed turn, we were on our way back to Pella at around 1:15am. Unfortunately my car is a manual, and I was the only one who knew how to drive it, so it was up to me to get us home in one piece. We arrived back to foggy Pella at about 4am, so I was able to grab 2 quick hours of sleep before waking up for work. I worked my 8 hour shift before going to Oskaloosa to work with my cousin on the new hospice being built there (he works for the contractor that is building it). We put in four hours of cleaning the deck and windows, and putting screens on all the windows. When I got back to Pella after 12 hours of manual labor on 2 hours of sleep, I was ready for bed.

The next few days were filled with more Smokey Row hours. Everyone but my dad and I left again for the weekend, so we spent some quality time shingling the roof of our new garage addition that we are building ourselves. I feel manlier every time I go home, as I can now add roofing, framing, and concrete pouring to my list of know-how's thanks to this addition.


MOVIE UPDATE!

Over break I saw: About a Boy (decent until the end), The Interpreter (nothing special), Alice in Wonderland (a bit disappointing), Absolute Power (Clint Eastwood is a BAMF), and Elmo's World (kiddos love it).

Out this week: Chloe


Hot Tub Time Machine


How to Train Your Dragon


I like the casts of Hot Tub Time Machine and Chloe, but neither look that enticing.

Awkward

I woke up this morning feeling awkward. That's an awkward feeling to wake up to.

Remember when I said I was going to grow my mustache back? That happened. I feel good about it.

Shout out to my sister in tha Q-C! Happy 21st birthday!



l8r g8rz

"for the eyes of the world now look into space"

I was looking at the moon today as I stood at the bus stop, and my mind was blown. It's hard to imagine just how big and how far away it is. It's always looked the same, every time I see it in the sky. But today I looked at it, and thought about how I could see this other world in its entirety...from pole to pole, from horizon to horizon. That thing is almost 300,000 miles away...an unimaginable distance...yet it seems too familiar to possibly be so far away. I tried to imagine Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking clumsily on the surface, and what Earth must have looked like to them from the same distance. And what it would be like knowing that of the billions of people on the planet, they were the only two (along with that other astronaut that was with them that no one remembers) with a view of it all from the outside, away from the wars and the hunger and the traffic jams and the old guys who sit on park benches.



I used to want to be an astronaut. And a pilot. And a truck driver. And a professional football player. And a meteorologist. And an engineer. It seems like at any given point in my life I knew exactly what I wanted to do, except for now, when it's starting to matter.

What I don't want to be is an automaton. I feel like too often I fall into the trap of daily routine: wake up, go to class, eat, do homework, waste time, sleep, repeat. I try to do creative things to break up the monotony. Yesterday I worked on a photoshop for awhile, but it froze and I lost it all. It was going to be so rad. Imagine a giant great white shark emerging from the void of space to engulf the Earth in its gaping jaws...but emerging from the darkness to the side is...Voltron, Defender of the Universe! That's what it was, but it's gone now.

Voltron is an automaton.

This post was another attempt to break up the monotony, but it actually hasn't been that satisfying. Oh well! Guess I'll sleep instead!

Overload

I just finished reading a 21-page essay on, and then reflecting on the nature of sin and grace for my RELIG 380 class.

Not to be vulgar or anything, but...3 days into the semester, and I already feel like I'm being raped with knowledge. For those of you unsure about my simile, rape generally refers to unwelcome things entering your body. It's not so much that the knowledge is unwelcome, but I feel violated by the sudden and relentless manner in which is coming. 19 years on, and I've yet to devise a way of organizing my life. I foresee a problem with this in the coming months. But whatever! I can deal!

I finally declared myself as a Political Science major today. I still don't know what the hell I'm going to do with it, but at least I'm now able to field the persistent question "what are you majoring in?"

I thought about maybe going to the grocery store today (because there is no food in my room), but then I remembered how much my bank account suffered at the hands of the bookstore the last few days, and I've decided I can go hungry for awhile.

Over the last two days I've basically listened to nothing on my iPod but Phoenix's "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix" album. It's my current music addiction.

2010

Holy bejesus! It's the new year, and I haven't posted anything in nearly a month! My b you guys. My b. My plan was to put all those power rankings together at the end of the year and present it in a big comprehensive form. It was going to be awesome to anyone who loves statistics. But I seem to have missed the last two weeks, so...I guess that idea isn't happening after all! It's cool, because I'm the boss here, and I say to hell with it! I'll just proclaim the Minnesota Vikings Super Bowl champs and get on with it (wishful thinking)...

The Spring semester has begun. Soon it will be warm, and soon I will break out of my winter cocoon and reveal myself as a majestic butterfly with the most beautiful wings in the land:

Yessir.

Time to be great by doing my homework and eating Gardettos.

Being Great

It's finals week, and I should be studying, but I just gotta dish dis shit before I forget dis shit.

First, I just wanna say that I freakin love finals week. Everybody is freaking out all week about all the stuff they gotta do, and wonder why I don't freak out too. Child, please! Here's why I don't freak out:

What's the point?

Christmas break is so close! The weather has been beautiful this week! Some say cold, but I see sunshine and refreshment. Also, I've only got five classes this week, which averages to one per day, of course. That rules. I don't have to go to any boring lectures this week. I get to sleep in later than usual. No 8 am labs. I think the main thing is that tests don't bother me at all. I've always been a good test taker, and that helps. I've never been one to cram, I firmly believe that 8 hours of sleep will do you more good on tomorrow's test than a few more groggy hours studying. I also believe that you are better off (and this is true for all aspects of life) approaching things like tests confidently, rather than worrying about what you might not know. It really helps to slow your mind down when you get in there to take the test, and you just think a lot more clearly.

Chad Ochocinco is quickly becoming one of my favorite role models. I am 100% serious about this. If you guys Twitter at all, you should really follow him @OGOchoCinco. He also hosts a daily show called The OchoCinco Show, which you can find on ustream.com. He has generally been viewed in a negative light, but I'll tell you one thing: this guy has got his shit figured out. He is insanely dedicated to becoming the best he can be, but I love the upbeat confidence he approaches everything with. I've been trying to live by his words: be great. It doesn't matter what you do, just do it the greatest you can.

Today, for example, I was walking across campus, when I remembered "be great." How can you be great at walking across campus? Look forward, not at your shoes. Straighten your back. Don't scurry. Smile at people you pass. I did this today, and it's amazing how much of a difference it makes. I smiled at everyone that looked at me, and every single one of them smiled back. During finals week, no less!

I went to lunch, and thought "be great." How can you possibly be great at eating lunch? I'll tell you how: I ate the most balanced meal I've had all year. I had a plate full of peas for Christ's sake!

Now I'm sitting in my room studying. Every now and then, I feel a little unmotivated. Whenever this happens, all I need to do is look slightly to my left at my friend Kevin Garnett here being great, and that gets me going again.



In fact, looking at it now, I'm thinking I need to get back to the books if I'm to be properly prepared for my tests tomorrow and still get my 8 hours tonight.

I want to leave you with this 3 part series on YouTube about Chad Ochocinco. Watch it. He knows how to be great.

DECEMBER??

First of all, BOOM!




A Goofy Movie was one of my favorite movies growing up, and this is one of the primary reasons. Legit soundtrack.

Second of all, KABAM!



Yeah, it's a bro playing a Funeral for a Friend song into his mirror. So what? They're Welsh and this song fucking rules. More specifically, the half-time outro at around 3:00 rules. Makes me want to listen to Creed.

I made a phat beat with one of my plastic cups today. Get ready for me to burst onto the hip-hop scene very soon. Just as soon as I get me some of these (Santa take note):




Yup, I want spikey hair for the holidays.

Uh, oh! I said "the holidays" instead of "Christmas!" Get over it. But first, get over yourself.

Kewl Beans, BYE!

PS: KA-CREED!



LOLZ?

I Am Blown Away

by my computer speakers. It's like...there's sound coming out of them, but I just don't get them. How are the producing crystal-clear sound right now? I feel like I could stare at a wall and see the same thing, only walls don't make music. These speakers do. But I don't know how. I can't see any movement. They are as stationary as my wall, but they are making sound.

WTF YOU GUYS!

I made a pretty kickass doodle today. The best part is, I only took up half the page with it, so at some point in the future, I'm going to be able to come back and add to it, like seconds! I haven't just sat and doodled outside of a classroom since like...4 years ago.

Damn, I just can't get over these speakers. And electronics. Who was like...hey, I've got some silicon (which is like...sand) and some copper. Let's make the copper into a wire, and make the silicon into a computer chip that can do whatever the fuck we want it to? Have you ever thought about how the world is literally nothing but a bunch of rocks and metals and organic compounds and liquids and gases formed into these crazy things? Like...cars! Everything about your car--or your computer or your iPod or your SPEAKERS was once just a pile of raw materials in the ground. I can't imagine coming across some sand, and thinking..."I bet I could make a laptop out of this." We created things that can think, that can move, that can do all kinds of crazy stuff like make sound come out of speakers with a bunch of sand and metal and organic compounds. We created these little virtual storage units--bytes and stuff--that can hold all kinds of information. Information held by sand.

I wish I had a toaster, so I could have an Eggo waffle every once in a while. Thems delicious.

K bye.

This is Quick, but Not Quite Painless

(complete with high definition photos!)

Concert in Iowa City tonight. The journey started in Ames, then to Pella, where I briefly got to hang with my sister Kate. She's so cool. Then I drove to Iowa City. It was easily one of the top 5 most terrifying drives ever. Right up there with driving to Minneapolis through an ice storm, falling asleep at the wheel on the way back from Davenport, and a couple instances of driving through tornado zones. This was bad, because it was really windy, really rainy, really dark, really foggy, and I was by myself. It looked kind of like this:



I got to Iowa City a bit late, due to the weather, and missed the opening band. I walked in, and Nate Ruess followed me through the door. That was kind of cool, I guess. fun. took forever to sound check. They had four microphones, and could only seem to get any combination of 2 of them to work. They finally figured it out, but they continued to have some mega feedback issues, and they played their entire first song, "Benson Hedges" with the house music playing in the background. Way to go sound guys. It's like everyone knew it was playing EXCEPT for the guy in charge of shutting it off. Awkward.



Nate was nonetheless in good spirits. Apparently he was born in Iowa City, and all of his aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents are from the nearby town of West Liberty, where he also used to live. His grandmother was in attendance, and he dedicated "The Gambler" to her. It was sweet. Iowa needs to stop emigrating all of it's musical talent. Brian Fennell's (of Barcelona) grandmother is from Des Moines...

Anberlin actually rocked my face off. I think I'm going to try to see them again this winter when they come back around with Thursday. They pretty much sound exactly like Thursday, only no screams. They had a lot of bass noise, with his vocals piercing over the top.



After they were playing, I saw Eddie from Taking Back Sunday out on a smoke break. He was visibly annoyed by this elderly couple talking to him. I heard the man ask him who gets to drive the bus, and Eddie's like "...the bus driver..." Awkward.

Taking Back Sunday was better than expected, even though both their singers had broken feet. The new Fred/John Nolan guy was wearing a boot, and Adam was on crutches, with torn tendons in his foot. Weird. It actually made him look really cool, because sometimes he used one crutch and looked pirate-ish, and sometimes he limped slowly around stage with one hand in his pocket while every one else went nuts on stage. He looked like he was the shit with all that cool around him. And he's a magician with the microphone twirly maneuvers. The drummer rocks so hard. Damn.

(see him with his crutch?)

Other notes: lots of drunk people, lots of cute girls. One cute girl actually told me I was cute. I could smell the alcohol on her breath, but I high-fived to that anyways. Then she wandered off.

Cool beans.

K bye.

Sunday Update

Sweet weekend. Two good friends had an awesome wedding followed by an awesome reception. The reception included best sandstorm to ever hit the Earth. It still hasn't quite soaked in that they are married now. Weird. Taylor and Clayton: I'm proud of you guys.

The best part is seeing all the cool people who I don't see often enough. You guys rock. And I met some pretty awesome people too.

Movies coming out this week:

Amelia (looks boring)
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (looks retarded)
Motherhood (doesn't interest me)
Astro Boy (kid's movie)
Saw VI (no comment)

I'm supposed to have this ethnography about intimate economies in Bangkok or some shit read by tomorrow, but I can't read more than 3 or 4 sentences before I find something better to do. Dumb.

One thing I've learned: grades don't matter. Experience does. Communication skills do. Sorry, GPA, I've decided to just hang out ALL THE TIME.

Crazy NFL week. I've got one thing to say about that: RIDE ON PATRIOT!

Lazr Tag

I played laser tag tonight. This is what I looked like:



This is what my enemies looked like:

I Don't Care if This Post Even Has a Title.

I went to a funeral on Saturday. The lady that died was Esther Stenzel. She was my dad's old neighbor, and kind of part of our adopted family. She was 96. I didn't really know her, but she was close to the family. She didn't really have much of a family of her own. Everyone had either died or moved thousands of miles away. Our family was really the only crowd at the funeral. As I looked at her during the visitation (reluctantly--embalmed bodies weird me out), I couldn't help but think of my grandfather whom I went to visit in the hospital the day before; and about my dog, who is scheduled to pass away within the next month; and about my parakeet, who can barely move because she has a tumor the about the same size as her on her breast; all she does is sit and cry. I thought about all the people I knew who died, and even the people I didn't know. It's crazy when you stop and think about how short life is; how it's subject to change without a moment's notice.

It's getting colder now. I hate it. My room is an icebox. My feet are always frozen, and I wake up in the night shivering. I think that the temperature has a direct correlation with my mood.

I've been all out of sorts ever since school started again. I can't seem to get it figured out. I'm having a terrible time making decisions. I change my mind abruptly and frequently. I can't focus on anything. I can't get motivated to do anything. I am absentminded. I don't feel like I am heading in any particular direction right now. I've just been kind of waiting out the days, letting myself drift aimlessly until it works itself out.

I should be more pro-active in life. My fortune cookie yesterday told me to leave nothing to chance. I should be making positive steps towards what I want.

I have no idea what that is.

Take Apart Your Head

I went to Chicago yesterday to see Brand New and Manchester Orchestra at the Aragon Ballroom.

It was probably the sweetest venue I've been to. It looked like a big Spanish Courtyard, surrounded by balconies and turrets and porticoes. The ceiling had a cool painting on it. It looked like the night sky, partially obscured by clouds and tree branches. There were at least 1000 people packed into this courtyard, and it was therefore insanely hot. It was raining outside, so it was really humid in there too.

The band that opened was pretty good. They were a local band with a female lead vocalist/guitarist, which is nice. They made a lot of cool sounds, but didn't really have any catchy hooks or anything. The other problem was, I never figured out what they were called. I just looked it up, and apparently they were "Sybis."

Manchester Orchestra was good, just like the last time I saw them. They just sound really good and put on a great show.

Brand New blew my mind. I was a little disappointed that they didn't play an encore, and didn't play much of their old stuff. They only played "No Seatbelt Song" off their first album, and "Sic Transit Gloria...Glory Fades," "Jaws Theme Swimming," "Okay I Believe You, but My Tommy Gun Don't," and "Play Crack the Sky" off of Deja Entendu. From The Devil and God are Raging Inside of Me, they opened the show with "You Won't Know," followed with "Degausser." They also played "Sowing Season (Yeah)," "Jesus Christ," and "Archers." I'm still not too familiar with their new album, but I counted 5 songs off of it. "Vices" was sick. They also played "You Stole," "Bought a Bride," "Sink," and "At the Bottom."

I really wanted to hear more off of Your Favorite Weapon, and I can't believe they didn't play "The Quiet Things that No One Ever Knows." I also really wanted to hear "Not the Sun." Oh well. Still a great show.

needz moar moniez.

I'm in negotiations with Jeff Kummer (Early November drummer) to purchase a ride cymbal from him. How cool is that? Too bad I'm broke right now...