Sing a Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy, Happy Song - Dummi Bears

Good News, Bryan!

Today, instead of gloating about your upcoming punishment for not posting, I have decided that I would discuss and analyze some of my favorite quotes.

Oh, but in case you forgot, I have yet to break a rule, while you have broken two thus far.

Without further ado, my three favorite quotes:

“Max, trust me, there will come a day when you or I will become wrapped up in senior life and just forget to post.  There will be punishments.”

Bryan Rainey said this dandy quote.

Bryan, long ago in the month of May, I called that I would not be a rule breaker, but that you would.  I would have to applaud you for your acceptance to failure so long ago though.

“So here I am now. I was so sure that you were going to be the first TPA blogger to be punished.”

Bryan Rainey said this on June 17, 2011, in his post.

Here is my analysis.  This quote was funny then, because so many people thought that I would be first, but here we are, with you receiving both of the punishment for breaking rules thus far.  Irony.

My last quote is as follows:

“Max, I will never forget to blog.”

Bryan Rainey said this ironic quote on August 25, 2011.

Bryan, literally less than a week ago I approached you at your locker before school and expressed my amazement that you posted since you had not even started a post when I went to sleep.  This was your response.

Bryan, I am not shocked that you forgot.  Honestly, Friday posts are just unfair.  Last Friday, I had 20 minutes to write my post after factoring in the time it would take to find something pirate looking to wear to our football game.

Now for something less tense, the poll results.

It would appear as though people enjoy Pegasus (11 votes) over a unicorn (7 votes).  Bryan, I voted for unicorns.  Your assumption that a Pegasus is just a flying unicorn seems to show your hubris.  You assumed that the Vlogbrothers were up on their exotic horse breeds, but they are not.

Unicorns can dip their horn in a polluted river and make it clean.

I have not decided my poll yet, but you can be sure that this poll will actually make sense.

Now about your punishment, Bryan.  I have not figured it out for sure yet, but I have some ideas.  I suppose you will want to know my ideas, right?

• Get 50 meters on QWOP and video it.
• Compose a song, complete with lyrics depicting all the ways I am better than you are, to the tune of some song of my choice; I am thinking Brittany Spears.
• Cut an entire pizza at your normal Chicago’s Pizza using only the supplied fork.
• Find all of my grammar errors in a future blog of mine.
• Write a 300 word blog in German with a translation in English.

So Bryan, I do not want the punishment to be something terrible, because I am merciful, unlike you, but I do know that if I ever should break a rule, that you will not return the favor.

Here is a cat.

Until tomorrow Bryan,

Be afraid, be very afraid.

We are Family - Sister Sledge

Bryan, I do not know where to start with this blog post.

Hello, Bryan.

No, that does not sound right.

Guten Tag.

No, still not good enough.

Howdy partner!

Yes, let’s go with that.

Bryan, I see why you love contractions.  Yesterday, your post was about 635 words, but contractions took you down to 627 words with other media.

Today, I will tell you all the wondrous things I learned at school.

1. Bryan, this first one is an assumption.  When you find a random quarter at the bottom of your locker at the start of the year, it means either that the entire year can only go downhill or that I am in for a great year.  For the sake of myself, I am going to hope that it is the latter of the two.
2. I have forgotten all of the German that I had known.
3. Only at Roncalli can a Furby completely destroy the attention span of seniors.
4. Okay, not at school, but I just learned that this pasta butter is really gross tasting and kind of makes me want to throw up, but because my dad went through the trouble to make it, I feel obligated to eat it.
5. My locker is only directly across from yours if you are in a parallel universe and have no sense of a straight line.
6. I have a new locker buddy from Tennessee.  I finally found out her name, Jennifer.
7. Microsoft has never had a locker buddy, but it apparently thinks that people should have locker friends.  Spell check is not very good.
8. The first Rebel Review comes out September 9^th, last year the first was an entire two weeks later and we had more people on the staff.  The purpose of this is that I am somewhat nervous.
9. My schedule is awful in terms of room assignments, but I love every class, teacher and classmate with which I will share my senior year.
10. The hallways look very funny when there are no signs on any of the lockers.
11. Today did not appear to be a sun-splashed day.
12. Sun-splashed is apparently hyphenated, but I am not so sure I can trust spell check anymore.
13. Driving to school may sound like fun on paper, but it is very stressful.
14. Reverse is not my friend.
15. Windshield wipers are very useful when you cannot figure out how to defog your window.
16. I look Asian in photos now that I have glasses.
17. Watering a carpet is only good if you make sure that there are no cracks in the floor that could lead to water damage in the room directly beneath it.
18. I am very excited for senior year.

Until Wednesday, Bryan,

I have my first German project in mind; it is a photo album.

Momma Mia - Abba

Hello Bryan, lovely poetry yesterday!

Bryan, on this thirteenth day of August, it is with gratitude that I say happy birthday to my mother!

You may have seen my Facebook status yesterday about my printer being dead so I had to draw, with crayons, my mother’s birthday card.

Bryan, I may have gotten an A in art, but I cannot draw with crayons.  I am a pastels guy.

I only have one thing left to do before tonight's deadline -- my last German blog -- and I've already planned it all out, so I'm giving myself a little break right now. Also, I'm pretty sure I just opened a lot of doors for Max to brag about how he's been finished for a few days, now. Oops.

Bryan, I found this funny.  We both know that I do not need you to open the door for me to brag about how I did something better than you.  Yes, Bryan, I am relating the speed of completion with the quality of work.

Time to go all-nostalgic on you Bryan.

In about two and a half months, we will return to school as seniors. I actually have one final proposal in this blog post -- that as seniors, rather than taking the easy route of glorifying ourselves, we focus instead on being welcoming leaders and role models at Roncalli. Maybe I’ll devote a future post to this topic.

Bryan, this is from the first ever post on TPA.  You know, the one where “TPA” became a legal initialism?

Yes, Bryan, the day we have been awaiting for three glorious years is already upon us.  The time has flown far too fast, but I have enjoyed every step of the way.  I found that sentence quite humorous.  If time has flown, then how was I stepping?

This is our moment, Bryan, to lead the school.  Okay, so probably not the school, but the German club for sure.  Then you of course have the band to co-lead, while I have the newspaper to co-edit.

It will feel odd driving into the Roncalli parking lot for the first time as a senior, then walking down the illustrious middle hallway, knowing that my locker is there, but not actually remembering my combination.

Speaking of being a senior, guess who got a Whoopee Cushion yesterday?  This kid.

Bryan, throughout our senior year, we should make it our goal to not look forward to the weeks ahead, but rather embrace the time we have at Roncalli.  We only have one hundred and eighty, or so, days left at that school, and many of those will most certainly be spent outside of class or thinking about college.

I suppose I should get to the poll results Bryan.

Beyond any comprehension of the mind, Bryan, the poll was  split ten to ten in terms of cheese to chocolate respectively.

Bryan, I look forward to knowing your answer, but we all know I am a cheesy person.

Until Monday, Bryan,

Enjoy your time without summer work.

Edit:  Cheese got an eleventh vote before I changed the poll.

A Few Poems of Mine

Today is Friday, which is an important day to a lot of people at Roncalli. It's not only the last weekday before school starts, but it's also the day a lot of summer homework is due. I like to imagine that right now, there are a couple hundred kids sitting in front of their computers across the south side of Indianapolis and frantically turning pages of novels and textbooks, blogging, journaling, outlining, and writing essays.

I only have one thing left to do before tonight's deadline -- my last German blog -- and I've already planned it all out, so I'm giving myself a little break right now. Also, I'm pretty sure I just opened a lot of doors for Max to brag about how he's been finished for a few days, now. Oops.

Max, I'm glad you brought up the topic of poetry. It's a beautiful way we can peer into the soul of mankind. Your poems were wonderful (but not particularly flattering). Last year, for instance, I explored the heart of an old man complaining about the kids on his lawn in a terzanelle I wrote in English class. But I'm not going to share that poem -- it's extremely emotionally draining to read. Instead, I'm going to tell you the story of how I became interested in poetry.

During my freshmen year at Roncalli, after a band concert, Rebecca Flanigan sent me this note:

Trumpets are brass,

Clarinets are wood;

That oboe solo

Sure was good!

And I was very flattered and wanted to write a poem back to her, so I did:

Percussion is loud,

My favorite color is ochre;

Your clarinet playing

Was also good.

Before I compose a few poems for Max, I'm going to share a snippet of a poem I wrote last year in German class. If you were in my fourth period class, you know that this eventually turned into a song:

Wir haben manchmal Feten,

Aber zuerst müssen wir beten,

Und wir trinken . . . nie Bier.

Wir studieren -- nein! -- wir lernen,

Wir griefen nach den Sternen;

Meine Lieblingsklasse ist Stunde Vier!¹

Now, since Max composed some lovely poems for me, I'm going to return the favor. I'll start with an acrostic, and then I'll move to my specialty, the limerick:

MAX BROWNING

Mirthful

Adamant

Xenophobic

Beige

Rectangular

Ovate

Witty

Nerdy

Inventive

Nervy

Good

There once was a mortal named Max,

Refusing to pay income tax.

He felt like a lout,

When Obama found out,

And Max paid his tax with the axe.

That was more gruesome than I originally intended.

Until Sunday, Max,

Never let me go in your pants.

¹Sometimes, we have parties, but first we have to pray, and we never drink beer. We study (college) -- no! -- we study (high school), we reach for the stars; my favorite class is period four!

Time Travel

Immer habe ich Käse in meiner Hose.¹

Max, I agree that planking and owling are both good activity ideas. I think we should try to get as many people to plank or owl in one place at one time. Usually, people make Facebook event pages for things like that, but with our rules situation, that might be hard. Let's think about that.

Additionally, I'm not opposed to things like a new banner or an obscure puzzle. I thought it was funny that you said "an obscure puzzle for you to beat"; I think you would deserve one, too.

I don't dislike your ideas. However, I am opposed to your new German blog post:

"Ich habe nicht 'Harry Potter und die Heiligtuemer des Todes - Teil 2' sehen [sic], aber ich hoere, dass es gut ist. Ich finde Harry Potter einen verruekt [sic] Film."²

Transition, transition. . . . In the third Harry Potter book, Harry and Hermione used a Time-Turner. They only went back in time three hours, and their goal was to change the past for the better. Sometimes I think about what era I'd like to go back to if I could travel in time -- not to change anything, just to experience it.

Usually, I think about eras like the Roman Republic and the American Revolution, but then I remember the issues of hygiene and technology. Usually, I settle on the 1960s. It was a decade of social progress, tragic losses, and political change. The Cold War was in full swing, which reminds me that jazz was also in full swing (ha).

But let's listen to what John Green says:

"Why would anyone want to live in a period other than this one? Like, I acknowledge that Rome was fantastic and everything, but a nerd with four days on his hands can recreate Rome in its entirety in Minecraft."

I think I'd like to stay in the 1960s for a few days and then take off. A looming World War III would not have been very fun every day, and I can always appreciate the decade at a safe distance by listening to Tom Lehrer:

In what era would YOU like to spend a few days? Leave your answers in comments, or if you're Max, leave your answer in your next post.

¹I always have cheese in my pants.
²"I have not seen 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,' but I hear that it's good. I find Harry Potter a crazy film."

Masochism, Germans, and Serial Commas

Maxi Pad, it occurs to me that song-themed posting is one of those things that’s an excellent idea for you but a horrible idea for me. Just let me know if you want a post based on songs like “Ulcerative Colitis” or “The Masochism Tango.”

You know what's an excellent idea for me but a horrible idea for you? Leftover pizza with tomato sauce. I'll be right back. I'm back.

Allow me to summarize what has happened during the first two days of TPA:

Me: “My second proposal is that within this first week of posting, we introduce each other to our audience.”
You: “Therefore, here is my introduction to our followers, as you have instructed.”

I knew I would have opportunities to make fun of you in this blog, but I didn’t know they would come this easily!

Well, now that my “introduce each other” idea is out the window, I guess I’ll just follow your lead and type up a bulleted list about myself. So much for deflating our egos.

• My name is Bryan, and although I don’t have as many nicknames as Max, I also answer to Brainey, Oboe, Klaus, Klausi, Bry-wee, and Tape.
• Within my bedroom, one can find three chairs, six Lego Harry Potter sets, fifty-two books, and four million pages of sheet music.
• Oh, and get this -- my bedroom walls are orange and blue, Max’s “favorite color duo.”
• I probably both sweat and speak less than the average human being.
• My awesome style of writing embraces the serial comma and is therefore better than your AP style of writing.
• I like a lot of things, including air conditioning, Thomas Jefferson, and The West Wing (which Max claims he hates).
• I put on my socks before I put on my pants, which puts me in the minority (for the time being).
• There's a half-eaten bag of puppy chow in my kitchen. Thank you, Haley!
• I have one less bullet point than Max because I just can’t best him.

I don’t know if you’ve recently explored our blog’s statistics, Max, but if you have, you probably noticed that we have gotten three page views from Germany. Max, I think this is a big step for us as world celebrities -- we’re officially getting international attention. I hope you agree that we should be doing everything we can to continue to expand our fan base in Germany and that in order to do so we need to capture the hearts of our German readers. For this reason, I have written a brief poem:

Ich trinke viel Wasser, und ich bin zu Hause,
Fröhlich mache ich eine Pinkelpause.¹

Well, the day is young (though, admittedly, not as young as it was when you posted yesterday), and I have much to do today, so until you post tomorrow, you can reflect upon my German couplet.

And to our German audience -- bis später!<sup>2

1</sup>I drink a lot of water, and I’m home,
Gleefully, I take a potty break.
²See you later!