Who Are You? - The Who

"I knew I would have opportunities to make fun of you in this blog, but I didn’t know they would come this easily... So much for deflating our egos."  Hypocrite much?

Anyways, in addition to our German brethrens, we appear to now have a British viewer – though that may just be my cousin, but I doubt it.

Bryan, may I use this post to bring about a very important personal issue to you?  Well, I will take that as a yes.

The deal is, we now have 31 followers, which means we are getting very popular… kind of.  However, when one clicks (that said licks, but luckily I caught that mistake) on our followers, they will only see 30 shiny faces.  This of course means that we have a hidden follower.

And Bryan, we both know how paranoid I am so this is kind of a big deal for me to know that all of our followers have a face.  How odd would it be if this follower was, say, missing a head – not that there is a problem with headless people.

So please, unnamed follower, reveal yourself!  I have my suspicions, but I really just want to know who you are.

Now, not only do we a hidden follower – seriously, who are you? – but we also have some unknown international followers.  To my British and German friends – I plea with you – please tell your “ole chaps” and “freunde” about this blog.

In case the Deutsche man kann nicht Englisch sprechen.  Wer bist du?

Translation – In case the German one cannot speak English.  Who are you?

Now, enough of this mystery post.  Let us go to a new topic.  Me.

In some number of days, my punishment person will be going to Montana for two weeks.  Now, while I begged to stay home, he still advocated his desire to adventure into the unknown – big words!  Because of this, I am still searching for someone to sub in for Benjamin while he is away in the “Big Sky Country.”

“Big Sky Country.”  You know what that means Tape?  It means that Ben will be able to stare at the clouds and try to find funny shapes such as ducks, dragons and dogs in the clouds.

For example, not only do these ominous clouds representing an upcoming storm, but it also strangely resembles the image of a sideways X, though some may disagree and call it a t.  What do you guys see in these clouds?  Oh! Does anyone else see the T-Rex claw?

And now I must make a proposition with you, Klausi.  Should we allow the use of captions on our pictures?  I say this because I still do not know what your second picture is even of, though I have my guesses.  These words would not count against you; however, you could have a maximum of like 15 or so words in the actual caption.  Just an idea!

So, until two days from now, I bid thee and all our readers a von farewell.  And to our German audience – auf wiedersehen – granted, until we see again may not be the best goodbye to someone I have never seen.  And to our readers over the crick… well, I guess goodbye?  I do not really remember how people said goodbye in the UK.

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!

"Wordplay" - Jason Mraz

Okay, Bryan, I accept the TPA initialism, but that picture is stupid.  I decided that my posts will all have a song I love that relates to the topic discussed as the title, but no promises as to how long that will last, because I am lazy.

Therefore, here is my introduction to our followers, as you have instructed.  It is a montage of all my nicknames along with how you can use them in a sentence!  How cool is that?  Just a forewarning, I do not follow grammar rules and use “…” instead of commas sometimes most of the time.

·         Max – 628 is the max number of words I can have in this post so I will make this sentence short.

·         Maximilian – “How many followers should we have as our goal, Max?” “A million!”

·         Maxwell – Max, well, in case you have not heard, he is kind of a big deal.

·         Maximus – Some people call me Max… imus.

·         Maxy – I do not really know how to spell Maxy.

·         Smacky – If I was a pirate, then I would smack ye’ ole booty!

·         Smackers – If a girl smacks my face, then I will smack hers.

·         Smac-a-roni – No, nobody wants mac-a-roni and cheese, mom!

·         Slacks – One time, I wore slacks.

·         Slacks Daddy – Can I wear slacks, daddy?

·         Baby – Here is a quote from when I was little, “I’m not Max; I’m baby.”  Apparently, I got confused when all the grownups wanted to hold the baby.

·         Wax Paper – I wrote this out on wax paper before I typed it up.

·         Maxi Pad – What should I put my mouse on, Maxi?  Pads of mice.  ß Nice save, huh?

Everyone can feel free to call me any of these, though I prefer not the latter of the list.  I will respond to all of these, though I do not know why I respond to the majority of them.

Okay, so a little about me?

·         I do not eat pizza unless it is white.  Call me a racist, but I do not like tomato.

·         I cannot swim.  Well that is.  I can tread water though!

·         Assuming I am decently average, I have 100,000 hairs on my head.  My eyes weigh about one ounce, and they have not grown since birth.  I would die in ten days without sleep.  I produce 1.43 pints of sweat a day.  I speak 4,800 words a day.  I also breathe 438 cubic feet of air a day.

·         I enjoy quoting random facts from other websites.

·         Bullet points make me feel special.

·         My favorite color is orange.  My favorite color duo is orange and blue.  My favorite color trio is white, black and red.

·         My AP style of writing tells me to down style all of my titles and have no comma before the “and” in a list of three or more objects.

·         I have two eyes, hands, thumbs, feet, legs, noses and ears.

·         I just told a lie.

·         In response to the current poll, socks are actually the last thing I put on.  Except I suppose shoes would be truly last?

Okay, and while Jacob is on Summer Fields Studies and you are at home playing music, Benjamin will be with Jacob.  Because of this unfortunate mishap of them having this urge to be with trees, I too need to find a back up punishment person.

In addition, I thought everyone should know that Bryan and I decided that polls would be set every Saturday by whoever is posting that day.  They will naturally last for one week and the other poster will share the results.

And So It Begins

Hi, Max.  Last night, I sent you this histrionic message via Facebook: “I just thought you should know that this is the last wall post you will ever receive from high-school Bryan. Two Planes in the Asymptote commences tomorrow!” The rules within our first blog post are officially in effect, so please take a moment to review them.

To kick things off, I have two proposals. First, I propose that colloquially, we replace “Two Planes in the Asymptote” with the initialism “TPA.” Although it already stands for things like “trees per acre” and “terephthalic acid,” I think it could catch on.

My second proposal is that within this first week of posting, we introduce each other to our audience. I think that would be an interesting experiment for a couple of reasons. We’ll learn what we know and don’t know about each other, and we can fill in the gorges – I mean, gaps. Also, this would help diminish our egos a tiny bit, which we both probably need. What do you think?

One last order of business. While I will be spending the summer inside playing music, reading, and embracing technology, Jacob -- my punishment veto buddy -- will be outside among the itchy plants and hungry bears of Montana. (Good luck, Jacob!) When Jacob is doing Summer Field Studies for a couple of weeks, my sister, Erin, will be stepping in for him. I’m not really sure when that will be, so somebody should probably tell me. June . . . thhhh . . . I’m just not going to guess.

This morning, as I endured several rounds of “Pomp and Circumstance” with the senior-less Roncalli band, the class of 2011 and their teachers took their freaking time processing to their seats for graduation in the football stadium underneath a gracious layer of clouds. All in all, the ceremony was a positive experience. After a beautiful rendition of “Pie Jesu,” a pair of eloquent speeches, and the distribution of diplomas, the class of 2011 changed their tassels. Congratulations to Roncalli’s latest graduates!

Max, as the class of 2011 celebrated their transition to adulthood, I miiiight have shifted my train of thought to the class of 2012 -- yes, I definitely did. The band at graduation was no longer senior-less but was freshmen-less. 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.

I look forward to your post tomorrow.

Oh, one more thing! I will be taking the liberty of proclaiming the results of our very first poll on TPA. Our followers’ favorite vowels are widespread, but “Y” seems to be the clear winner with 43 percent of the vote. Nobody voted for “I,” which I suppose is good indication that our followers aren’t self centered.  So that's good.

Welcome to "Two Planes in the Asymptote"

From May 28, 2011, through their own graduation in 2012, Max Browning and Bryan Rainey will post entries on “Two Planes in the Asymptote” every other day, alternating days. Modeled after Hank and John Green’s Brotherhood 2.0 project of 2007, this blog will be the only means of Internet communication between Max and Bryan during their senior year. To ensure orderly entertainment, “Two Planes in the Asymptote” has the following set of rules:

1. On May 28, 2011, Bryan will post his first blog entry. The next day, Max will post his first entry, and they will continue to alternate days until their senior graduation. If either blogger is without Internet access on a day assigned to him, he may compose the post in advance and ask a relative or close friend to publish it under his name.
2. Blog posts may consist of a maximum of 200π words, rounded down to 628 words. Pictures will count as 50 words, and any other multimedia such as music or video will count as 150 words. Pictures, music, and video must be embedded in the posts -- in other words, no linking. Only the bodies of posts are subject to the word limit.
3. With the exception of this blog and school-related projects, Max and Bryan may not communicate with one another on the Internet. Internet communication includes -- but is not limited to -- all aspects of instant messaging, e-mail, and Facebook. Liking, commenting, messaging, poking, chatting and tagging are examples of communication on Facebook.
4. Max and Bryan may issue each other challenges. If the other blogger accepts the challenge, they will compete for the winning title. Challenges based on subjectivity will require audience polling, which will be open for twenty-four hours.
5. If either Max or Bryan fails to follow the above rules or loses a challenge, the other blogger is required to punish the offender or loser. Punishments can be anything from an obligatory blog prompt to videotaped physical discomfort. To prevent bloodshed, two appointed persons will have the veto power: Ben Susemichel for Max and Jacob Pollard for Bryan.