new feature

So I have had an account on formspring.me for awhile now but I haven't bothered to do anything with it. Well that all changes now because if you will look to your right you will see a box where you can ask me questions. You don't have to tell me who you are if you don't want to (obviously I would like it if you did but whatever). you will have to go here to see the answers to your questions, but I think it will be worth it.

Essentially I am just playing around with another pointless social networking site in an effort to help make my life more open and available for those who want to hear about me, which as far as I am concerned should be everyone since I am incredible.

I have finally figured it out

After exhaustive research I have finally discovered why women are so completely insane. It turns out their minds are constantly trying to decipher every word and action that men such as I make. And of course as opposed to taking the logical and responsible thought pattern as to what a man is saying they twist it into some malfunctioning rude statement or a blatant attack on their person. Now before you misconstrue this as me being bitter and angry because a girl hurt me recently. I can assure you that that is far from the truth. No instead this morning while I was at work waiting to clock on thanks to MSN I stumbled upon a Cosmo test on "50 guy phrases translated". Now I'm a guy so I figured it would be good for a laugh and that I would see some sort of honest article to show to women that while occasionally we don't say what we mean, by and large we aren't some slimy jealous jerk who only wants to have sex with you and will say anything to accomplish that feat.

Holy crap was I wrong. First they only give 3 possible answers to the questions, and I'd say 75% of the time they are all snarky, horrible, and absolutely not what I mean when I say something. For example when I say "I like your shoes" that is not me trying to get out of trouble by saying something nice that I don't mean. No it means I like your shoes. THAT WASN'T EVEN A POSSIBLE ANSWER.

Seriously though women I have to know, do you actually think this way? Because I'll be honest I don't think most men are like that. Yes some of us are I will admit that. Some of us are so full of ourselves that we can't actually carry a conversation without it being about us and we will say anything to get out of an argument even "I like your shoes". However that's a minority. There are nice, honest, sincere, kind, loving, good men out there*. Stop trying to analyze what we are saying to find the base of our character, try our actions. Those are much more telling as to what we mean than what any ridiculous quiz will tell you.


*they're called homosexuals.

Thank you for entering my life, now please never leave me

I have an absolute crap load of music on my computer, 7,888 tracks to be exact. If I listened to all of the songs from beginning to end it would last for over 3 weeks without repeating a song. Obviously I have never actually achieved such a feat because I always seem to get distracted and find myself only listening to the newest stuff that I have downloaded and then my favorite artists when I get an urge to listen to say the Beatles or Outkast. However when I am out away from my computer I just put the entire archive on shuffle and let it go until the batteries die. Sometimes it plays a song that I enjoy, others it plays something that I just don't want to listen to at that time, which is where the skip button comes in handy. Occasionally it will play a song that I have never heard in my life. These moments are rare because I always try to educate myself on what I am downloading to see if I like it, but when you just download the entire catalog for a particular artist you are destined to come up with something weird. I've grown used to this and it has given me a few new favorite songs by my favorite artists that I wouldn't regularly have heard.

Earlier this week though something interesting happened. I found a song that I haven't heard of by and artist I have never heard of. I don't know where they came from, how I managed to download these songs or this artist, and I most certainly have no clue what made me go through the effort to download 6 tracks by this guy. All I know is that I like him. A lot. His name is Stephen Malkmus which isn't even a name I can connect to a stray download because of a name. It's like he came out of absolutely nowhere. He isn't even the type of music I regularly enjoy or listen to and yet I can't stop myself. And so here I am on my blog rambling incoherently like I am prone to doing about him. You should all go listen to him and discover a love for him much like I have. At least you'll know where you were introduced to him.

Bowling For Soup

Alright so I rarely do these types of updates but I had such a good time that I figured I should share with you, my wonderful blog readers (all 7 of you). Last weekend I went to my first concert of 2010. I went to see Bowling For Soup, which some of you might be surprised is still out making music and have several other songs besides 1985. As I am not one to come to something like this all on my own I brought along my friends Cassie, Hollis, Jon, and Michelle.

Guess which of these three didn't seem to belong at this concert

Now there were multiple highlights to this show which include:

Slow dancing at a punk Rock show.

MONETA!!

I couldn't tell if he was wearing this ironically or not.

And the most rocking and unfortunately supervised nine year old ever.

Now these "look what fun I had" blog posts aren't complete without videos so here are some that I took at the show.

1985 with wonderful singing along by myself.

A cover of Katy Perry's Hot and Cold that made me immediately think of Sarah Pearce.


My Wena, quite possibly my favorite song on their new album. No Hablo Ingles is a close second.


Their Encore, which proceeded to stay in my head for the next 3 days.

Great fun was had by all, and I can't wait for my next concert.

I was clearly the wrong person to ask to do this

In a follow up on my last post about writer's block I thought I would share with all of you what I wrote. This was all featured in today's ward newsletter.

Alright so I really don't know what I can tell you that you haven't heard already in regards to dating. I mean we've all been in a singles ward long enough to have heard all the boring cliches (yes even you freshmen). Be patient, go on dates, respect each other, be friendly, blah, blah blah, etc. etc. etc. It's a bored and tired record that I know I am sick of having spouted to me week in and week out. However I do have a few thoughts on the matter that I am going to share with you, feel free to ignore this and fold it into a paper airplane if you don't want to listen.

Ladies: No one wants to hear you complain about how no one asks you on dates. No matter how true it may be, chances are you really just mean that boy you like isn't asking you on a date. Perhaps instead of whining about it you should be proactive about it. Men aren't mind readers, we need you to tell us what you want. Maybe not as blatant as "you should ask me out for this weekend." but flirting is essential. And by flirting I don't mean hard to get flirting because hard to get just means high maintenance to most men.

Men: Stop being so shallow. I really can't say that enough. There are so many women in our ward that deserve to be asked out on dates that simply aren't because of some stupid juvenile thoughts on beauty. Looks will fade. She will put on a few extra pounds. It's her personality and soul that will stay through the ages and eternity.

Ladies: Remember your worth. If a man isn't treating you up to your worth he isn't worth your time or energy. You're amazing, always remember that. Don't stress about that one boy who isn't showing the affection you want, and deserve. He's an idiot who is missing out on you. You just need to go out there and live your life and be happy. Don't waste your pretty on jerks.

Men: You have a cell phone - use it. Email, Facebook, and texting has made us lazy. If you want to show a woman you are serious about spending time with her call her. It will mean a lot more than writing on her wall ever could. If you don't have her phone number, the next time you see her just ask. I'm sure she will be willing to give it to you.

Ladies: If a guy asks you on a date for the first time, say yes. No he may not be that dreamboat you've been eying in Sunday School, but it took a lot for this other fella to ask you out and you never really know just how much fun you could be having until you actually go out.

Men: If a woman declines your invitation for a date, and you aren't sure if she is blowing you off or not apply what I call the "Brad Pitt Rule". If Brad Pitt had asked her on a date would she have turned him down? No. She would have moved heaven and earth to make that happen. Now while you are not Mr. Pitt, if a woman is into you she would drop anything to go out with you. ANYTHING. Obviously there are exceptions and plans that cannot be moved, but if she is into you she will suggest another time for the date. If she doesn't do that, well you've been shut out and there is nothing you can do about it. But don’t worry, she probably isn’t as cool as you thought she was since she doesn’t appreciate your charms. Start pursuing another lady who will.*

Alright there you have it a few simple tips and unsolicited advice on how to date. I do have one more bit of advice for you ladies and gentlemen though if you haven't quite tired of this shtick yet: Just go out on dates. I figure the sooner all of us are married the sooner we can stop being the guilted and start laying on the guilt trips instead.


*The Brad Pitt rule was blatantly stolen from one of my favorite blogs "The Art of Manliness". The whole post can be read here

Writer's Block

Why is it that when I am given a specific topic to write about I can't think of anything to write, even if it's something that I have a lot to say about it, but when I have no real direction or thought into my writing it comes with ease?

Essentially I have been given my first real responsibility in my calling on the fellowshipping committee. They want me to write a little blurb on dating and relationships. I have thoughts in my head that I want to get out but I don't know how to say them without losing the point. I have a voice but I just can't find it.

But don't you fine readers worry, I have plenty of time to get this done. The deadline is tomorrow. Sleep is WAY over rated anyway.

So that happened

I have shared my love affair with Twitter on my blog before but one thing I forgot to mention is celebrities who tweet. Now I know some people believe that they are just using it as a medium of blatant self-promotion with no real desire to interact with their fans, and in a lot of cases they are absolutely right. However there are a select few that do use twitter as a way to talk to their fans and garner an insight into what people think of them. I'm still amazed Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt haven't killed themselves after some of the things people say about them on there. I'm a very mean person but even I think some of it is over the top which definitely says something. Today however I am going to talk about one celebrity in particular on twitter, Rainn Wilson.


Rainn Wilson, or as 99% of all of his fans know him "the cashier at the beginning of Juno"(I think he also has a show on NBC you guys should check it out I hear it's funny), has a little bit of a following on Twitter. In fact as I am writing this he currently has 1,833,915 followers on the networking site. Just to put this into some prospective I have had an account for about 2 years now and I currently have 133 followers. That's a ratio of 13,788 to 1. On average I would say I get anywhere between 1 and 20 @ mentions a day. If we apply that same ratio to Mr. Wilson's @ mentions that means he gets anywhere from 13,788 to 275,760 @ mentions a day. That's a lot to keep up with which makes what happened today that much more impressive.


Now I am one of the 1,833,915 and so earlier today Rainn decided to tweet this little gem about his experience this weekend at Sundance -


Pretty funny right? Well while I understand that most of the celebrities that I follow won't have time to read my replies, I still occasionally will respond back to them as if they are just another friend that I have on twitter. And as such I decided to share my cleverness with @rainnwilson with this little throw away joke -


Now like I said I understand the odds. I know he isn't going to see this. I mostly do it for my friends that follow both myself and Rainn because they can also read it and be mesmerized by my wit. Which is why this next part kinda blew my mind -



Now those of you not familiar with twitter this looks like it's just another post, but let me break it down for you. The RT means that he is "retweeting" my previous tweet, as referenced by the (via @theallenbrand) tag after the RT. The "Love this idea!" part of the post was an original message from Rainn. The point of a RT is that if you see a tweet that you enjoy and you want to share that comment with the people that follow you but might not follow the original poster you can retweet it. So essentially out of the vast majority of comments that he gets Rainn Wilson decided that my comment was clever enough to share with his 1,833,914 other followers. Pretty awesome right?

Surprisingly enough the awesome doesn't end there. Apparently on the website for Rainn Wilson's show "the Office" they have various twitter feeds of their shows stars. Which resembles something vaguely like this -


That's right, not only was my tweet shared with almost 2 million people, it was also shared with everyone on the Office's website at that moment. Now I realize NBC is about as popular right now as a stripper with multiple c-section scars but I still like to imagine this reaching another huge audience, and every last one of them thought to themselves "I like that idea too Rainn. This Allen Brand fellow, he's not only breathtakingly handsome but also some sort of comedic genius!" I don't know why they thought I was breathtakingly handsome since they can't see my face but that's their prerogative and who am I to argue with that?