I'm Back! And I'm Taking a Nude Erection!

Woah, that came out wrong ... I need to learn how to enunciate.  Lets try again.  Hi everyone, I'm back! And I'm taking a new direction!  That's better, and don't worry about it, its a common mistake.

Here's Wandai Wrection's new single "Stow Rhea Mile Hive"

So anyways, after approximately forever since my last post (which was admittedly pretty crappy, what a downer) I probably owe you some kind of recap before explaining my gnu direct shun. It turns out that last post, (again, despite being crappy) held true, I didn't ever like to write about happy things  and the last 2 and a half years have reflected that. I'm probably as happy and comfortable as I've ever been.  I finished getting my Masters (Woo!), I met a girl (Woo!), I taught college Calculus (Woo!), I moved to a new state (hint: its size reflects my new direction), I got a real grown-up job (I like money), I gained 15lbs (Boo!), and I still love abusing commas and parentheses.  Are we back up to speed? Yeah? Good.

Okay, so now lets discuss my knew deer ... ection ... 

Yes it was!

I am still going to post sparingly for my own purposes, but now they aren't going to be about my life anymore because I need to protect my identity, and those of everybody I love, from Dr. Octopus!  Instead Doc Oct will need to track down who I am through my random thoughts about baseball (one of those coming soon!), video games, and anything else that comes to mind. So if you like my writing and my value my opinions (don't worry, I don't really either) please continue to tune in and I'll try to do this semi-sporadically!  

The reason I've decided to resurface is due to an interesting series of thoughts I had the other day.  It is the beginning of a new year and there are all kinds of "best of" awards being announced.  Seeing these awards, particularly for video games, got me thinking "what is MY game of the year in 2015," and that doesn't just mean what game from 2015 I thought was best, I wanted to think about which game I played for the first time in 2015 that was best.  I just finished a 3+ day romp in Fallout 4, dug in the time to 100% Batman: Arkham Knight, and had to walk a tightrope for all of late September/October due to Super Mario Maker and the end of the MLB season and playoffs.  Despite all of those games being quality new entries into series that I love, none of them are my top game of the year.  We have to dig back even deeper to play a re-release of a remaster/retooling of a game that was released all the way back in 2002, (i.e. half as old as I was.)  That game was Metroid Prime!

You get to play as a ball that's occasionally a bounty

I've been a fan of the 2-D Metroid games for a little while now, but I was always a little uneasy about the Prime trilogy despite all the praise I had heard.  You see, I am not an FPS fan and I thought surely that seeing Prime take on the FPS genre, that it would lose it's focus on exploration and concentrate on combat.  A rerelease of the Wii's Metroid Prime Trilogy on the Wii U shop selling for $9.99 its first week was the push I needed to give it a chance.  What I found was exactly what everybody had been telling me that I would find, an extraordinary re-imagining of the Metroid gameplay in 3 dimensions while putting you in the Space Jump Boots of Samus Aran herself!  I don't want to run on too long about my thoughts on this game, I just wanted to officially give it my award for best game I played in 2015 and recommend all others who were wary of this change to give it a chance.

Though you should probably steer clear of the upcoming Federation Force spinoff...

So there you go. I am considering being back.  Stay tuned for a very obscure themed fictional baseball team I am trying to come up with!

That's how it's done!

Probably My Shortest Post Ever

I have just noticed that I've once again gone months since my last post to this page.  I can't truthfully tell you what the reasoning behind this is.  It isn't that I don't have time to write, because I have had plenty of spare time to kill.  It isn't that I haven't had anything to say, because my life has been very eventful in the past two months, June possibly being the best month I'll live.  So what is the reasoning behind me not blogging as often?

I thought to ask myself why do I write on this blog at all?  It serves no purpose as nobody ever reads it.  Yet that's not true.  Although I know nobody else goes out of their way to read and re-read my posts, I do such a thing.  The reason I truly write this blog is so I can remember the little things in life and the events I find to be interesting.  But if there's anything recent things have taught me is that I use this blog to help me remember the things I would forget otherwise.  I have never told any story of any consequence on this blog and I don't think I ever will.  So basically what I write this blog for is to document the forgettable.  The last two months have, for the most part, been unforgettable so I don't feel the need to broadcast them.  Best wishes to anybody who stumbles upon this blog post, let it be known that I've been drinking tonight and you will never find anything of use on this blog.  Good night. 

-Chase "The Forgettable One" Robertson

P.S. Don't be surprised if I don't post for another two months.

Happy Endings and Such Topics

Recently I've been reading the Sandman comic series by Neil Gaiman, which I've given my personal seal of approval to.  Yet, with all the questions the series arises along the lines or morality, responsibility, life, death and religion, there is one line that is seemingly insignificant that stood out to me.  Issue #6 (of 75) tells the story of a group of people in a diner who had the misfortune of running into our current villain when they did. The waitress, Bette, is a writer in her spare time and pleases herself with her ability to give all of her stories happy endings.  While discussing this, the following line appeared "All Bette's stories have happy endings.  That's because she knows where to stop."  This line stuck with me, and in a short time I found myself in a position to put it to use.  So lets once again step in our telephone booth (graciously supplied to us by Rufus a.k.a. George Carlin) and go back to the beginning of my current semester for the purpose of constructing a story!

As has been stated before, and will surely be stated again, I am a graduate student who serves as a TA to get paid.  For this semester I was appointed to be the TA for a senior level course.  It was to be a project-driven course so I was looking forward to getting to know and help each of my students as the semester goes on.  I was also required to attend the classes since I did not know some of the materials taught in the class, and what help would I be otherwise?  Being the man that I am, I took to looking around at the students during the first couple of classes in an attempt to remember faces in the cases I would have to meet with them at a later date.  I do not find it weird to point out that while looking at these faces, I noticed that some of them were aesthetically pleasing, and most of them were very close in age to me.  Students are people and one notices when people are attractive, don't read too far into it.

Anyways, one day on the way to class, I found myself in the elevator with one of these noted students and as I tend to do in elevators, I made conversation with her.  Despite not remembering much about this meeting at all, I do remember that it was pleasant and she made nice conversation.  This sentiment was expanded when a few months later she showed up to my office hours (as many students did the day before a homework was due) but what many other students didn't do was take me up on my offer, "If anybody has any extra questions, I'll be in my office a little bit longer."  She had a few questions that were answered easily enough, but then I felt obligated to ask her about her project, in which we proceeded to chat about all kinds of things.  The next thing I knew an hour or so had passed, and I left my office shortly after her thinking to myself, "what a nice girl."

Welcome to my lair!

So at this point I was delighted by her, but didn't think much more about it.  But without any delay my mind decided that it would be fun to play tricks on me.  That very same night I fell asleep and found myself dreaming about her.  For the record it was not a sex dream by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a dream where the two of us were together and more than friendly.  That made the next day's class a little awkward in my own mind as I kept looking at her and remembering how inappropriate the last night's dream was.  This feeling faded slowly as the semester went on and I had time to wonder whether or not it really was weird.  In general I decided it wasn't weird at all that I found her to be both attractive and endearing, but if I was to ever make a move, it would have to be after the semester was over and I was no longer her instructor of sorts.  There were two things that made this difficult, first she was to be graduating.  Second, her group for the class project was the only one that had gone to get help and I worked with them a few times.

 After speaking the situation over with a few friends and spending a moderate amount of time thinking it over, I decided the proper plan of action was to send a friendly email after the semester ended.  Well the semester ended, and I deliberated for a short time before actually sending the email, in which time I tried to distract myself from waiting as much as possible.  To distract myself I went out to the local bars with a friend who happened to be in the area for the weekend.  Finding ourselves at a bar we don't typically frequent and dancing, which we typically don't do, my friend and I navigated the crowds searching for fun.  Instead, I heard my name from behind and turned to find this newly-graduated former student standing in front of me.  I respect my readers enough to think they can tell exactly who it was.

It was clearly Alfred

I stood in shock over seeing her for what could have been up to 5 seconds before coming to my senses and talking with her like a regular human being.  I told her of the email I sent, and congratulated her on graduating and said if she were ever in the area again I would like to have a drink or coffee with her.  To each of these she responded with "that's so sweet" and finally gave me a hug for all my sweetness.  I enjoyed the gesture of the hug and proceeded to talk to her about various odds and ends, the whole time nothing going through my mind other than the urge to tell her she was beautiful, that I loved the fact she laughs at all my jokes and all these other grand acts of professing the fact I was attracted to her.  But I didn't do that, and I said goodbye to her and tried as hard as I could to not follow my friends pushes for me to ask her to dance.  The next thing I knew, she was gone and I couldn't find her again, its more than likely I will never see her again.

So why did I take the time to make my intro about happy endings and then follow with this story of how I had a crush on one of my students, especially since nothing came of it?  The truth is that this was a happy ending as far as I was concerned.  Every story can have a happy ending if you know when to end it.  In this case it didn't feel right to me to have made a move on her, especially in a situation where it would be hard to get a relationship started, not to mention maintained.  So I swallowed my pride, held back whatever I wanted to say and settled to make this a story about the most perfect goodbye I have ever said.  And she will never have to know about what I was really thinking...

Happy endings everywhere!!!

Back on the Horse!

Hold on to your hats ladies and gentlemen because it is finally that time of the month, and by that I mean the good one that involves me updating you all on my life.  To put this plainly, this month passed can only be described succinctly as a shitshow.  I probably throw that term around a lot more loosely than most people, and I'll translate that to clusterfuck.  I've likely experienced an example of every emotion that I've ever known as well as being in all kinds of different mindsets.  It is almost frightening how I had the most variation in my life from day to day in the shortest month of the year.  Glossing over things that I would preferably keep away from the blogosphere, lets talk about some ideas of the month.

What a beautiful image!!

First of all it was the first full month of classes this semester, and I have found that although I have found myself more busy than last semester, I am enjoying this semester a lot more.  I am taking the second semester of a two semester series in numerical methods (using computers as decked-out badass calculators) and am enjoying this semester's class more because the homework thus far has been much more centered on implementing algorithms rather than analyzing them on pen and paper.  I am also taking a second semester of statistics, and am also enjoying this semester's version more in this as well for two reasons.  First is that I am finally starting to get a grasp on the material so the homework isn't as arbitrary to me as it used to be.  Second, the professor has seemed to take what I'm guessing were scathing reviews on her performance last semester to heart, and while she still isn't a good teacher, she has improved.  The other class I'm taking is in Partial Differential Equations, I really like this class because it is an honors undergraduate course rather than a graduate course.  I didn't realize how much I missed undergraduate classes until I took this class and realized I could do the entire problem sets in as long as it takes to do a single problem in my other classes.  I've also been upgraded to being a Teaching Assistant for a senior level mathematical modeling class, it's been much more work for me than when I did Calculus, but the students are good people and I am learning things myself.  Having said that I may be slightly underpaid.

I can analyze this show way too well...

Anyways since nobody cares about my education lets explain where the title of this post is coming from.  I am getting back on the horse as far as trying to recover what remains of my inner irrational-confidence guy.  I am deciding that after what has been over a year of being a lump in the dating game, that I am instead going to start being more proactive in searching for prospective romantic interest, or at the very least someone to entertain me.  Now I know what your thinking, "Chase, you are obviously going to think you are underpaid if you spend so much of your free time at the brothels and strip clubs!"  That's not what I mean by being proactive!  By that I mean I'm going to attempt to be more approachable and talkative in my regular life, and if the situation arises I'm going to ask amicable strangers for their numbers or even dates.  As an overly analytic person, I am led to ask myself "Whats the worst that can happen?"  The answer to that is always going to be instant apocalypse, but that is completely unrelated to the issue at hand, in which the worst case as far as that goes is that they say no and walk away rather than me not asking and them walking away.  It's curious how the word "no" can be such a deterrent despite only being two letters long.

This shirt would save breath

The results of this change of mindset in the short time have been interesting.  The first case was a little more than a month ago, it wasn't anything too aggressive but it was the first time in about a year and a half that I had developed a crush (I hate that fucking word, is there a word that makes me sound like I'm post-puberty?)  Even then I admittedly played the situation like an amateur, so even if there was a chance she was going to have a mutual interest in partaking in activities with each other I probably wasn't helping my own cause.  The second case was a spur of the moment decision to ask the cashier at a coffee place for her number.  This one was a lot more well played, the girl looked a lot like the leading female role in Mike Birbiglia's movie Sleepwalk With Me so I was attracted to her.  Indie chicks dude...  Anyways I went to order my coffee and she was playful and talkative with me so I told her she reminded me of the actress mentioned above, she took the compliment and showed interest in the movie and (seemingly) myself.  It was then that the decisive question came, "Do you want your receipt?" she asked, naturally my response was "Only if it has your number on it."  The third case is ongoing, I was introduced to a friend of a friend on the basis that she and I would get along well.  I will admit it isn't hard to get along with people who are aesthetically pleasing no matter what their personalities are like, but this girl was easy to get along with for me anyways.  Having said that, we possibly got along too well...

Can't get that for the price of a coffee (or two)

As you may have noticed, I have built up these situations without any mention of the results.  Well they all were failed endeavors.  The first one is currently dating the housemate I share a wall with, rumors have it that the second one is potentially a lesbian (would be the first time that's happened) and the third one thought I was gay (sadly not the first time that's happened.)  That sequence of events is like the Gordie Howe hat trick of depression.  But oddly I'm not bothered by it and actually am more encouraged to keep trying by these.  It's like in Dave Chappelle's interview on Inside the Actor's Studio, he talked about his first big show at the Apollo he was booed hard, and that was when he realized he was going to make it.  He was in the midst of what is possibly the worst thing that can happen to a stand-up comedian, and still stood up there thinking that it was still pretty good.  I've had the three worst possible results I can think of of flirting, and its still encouraging because I'm showing progress and getting more comfortable with things.  I wouldn't hold my breath, but maybe my next post written on the topic will be in a completely different light.

Anyways, its getting late and while I'm sure I have more to say, the words are seeming to be escaping me at this moment.  Anyways here's what I feel to be a very underrated scene (mainly due to the way Bruce Campbell responds to the end of the fight) and I'll see y'all next time of the month.

On the Topic of My Character

I'm not going to lie to you, I am a really interesting person.  I find myself to be an extremely interesting person with all kinds of different aspects and layers.  I'm sure everybody out there thinks the exact same thing about themselves as they are all "individuals" or whatever they claim to be but seriously I find myself to be much more interesting to analyze than most of people I've met.  It's largely due to the fact that I am always intrigued by people that I'm not completely sure if I like or not cause then I don't know whether or not to concentrate on their good or their bad traits (so I can compliment or criticize them) so I instead pay attention to both sides, so enough about you and more about me.

First of all, I am mostly incapable of hate.  There are people I don't enjoy being in the company of, as well as some that I have the tendency to disagree with on a large range of topics.  Yet, there are no people in the world that I have personally spoken with that I can say the word hate even begins to be applicable, and that even includes this random dude I met once who angered me and then popped back up in my life in what I momentarily thought to be an inopportune time, as friends of friends you don't connect with seem to be oddly likely to do.  Sometimes I wish I had a rival or someone I could hate that I keep running into, it seems like it would be a nice thing to have going on in the background.  Instead I give people the benefit of the doubt and like to think they are doing things I don't like for perfectly rational reasons.

GET IT!?!?!?!?!?

With the previous paragraph taken into account, it shouldn't be a surprise that I tend to get along with people on a personal level.  I was always an awkward kid who had problems maintaining friends during my early years in school as I have pointed out, having what I consider to be only one real friend in the first decade of my life.  This friend transferred schools after a year and I maintained contact with him for a little bit after that but we slowly fell apart, and haven't knowingly seen each other since.  I made my first current friend when I was 12, and proceeded to grow into a moderately sized group of friends.  During most of High School I had what I consider to be 4 good friends.  I currently believe that I hold at least 4 separate groups of friends that I still see and communicate with often (home friends, undergrad school friends, grad school friends, department friends, etc.)  If you had told me I would have this number of friends at my age a decade ago, I surely would have foamed at the mouth and spent days feverishly looking for a time machine to get here quicker, but first I'd have to visit this future.
It is also amazing that with the amount of friends I have been able to amass over the years that I have never been in a real adult relationship.  This probably would dampen the good mood of decade-ago me after being told how many friends I have.  It is an interesting thing to wonder, because I have so many people who care for me, but there is no proof that they really care about me.  It is a strange kind of loneliness that even though I am rarely lonely in the physical sense, I can't shake the feeling for my life at large.  I think some of my friends will argue that this has something to do with how picky I am with girls.  I understand that I often go for girls that are difficult to date, either being much more attractive than I, being of a personality that is not conducive to dating people like myself, or even finding myself being hung up on girls who are in long term relationships that everyone knows aren't going to end anytime soon.  My answer to that is that it isn't always about quantity, it is sometimes about quality, and I don't believe in doing things for the sake of it in general.  I intentionally put myself in positions to fail when it comes to my personal life, because some situations aren't worth risking to fail on, but the ones that are pay off that much more when you don't fail.  If I learned anything from growing up in my family it is that sometimes one stroke of luck is all you need.

I also think that my system of beliefs is interesting.  I study Applied Mathematics, and that is a type of science.  As you would expect to see from scientists, a lot of the people I spend time with in class and doing work, the prevailing attitude is to be counter-cultural and at odds with the concept of a God.  I diverge with my peers in these respects.  I have a great fondness for popular culture (paragraph 2 implicitly explains why,) it is one of the reasons that I am able to get along with a vast range of people.  I have a lot of interests in all facets of pop culture, and while I obviously give personal preference to some of them (sports), I am well-versed in almost anything you can talk about.  I am also a scientist, so I am also an intellectual to the point where even if you think you are above discussing things that can be seen on a screen and want to talk about concepts or ideas I am also able to hold a great conversation there as well.  As for the religious side, growing older is causing me to see the merits in the systems in place rather than trying to debase them as I would have tried to do in my younger days, and a lot of people I know are still trying to do.  I am still not sure what I believe in, but I certainly believe there is something, not for any rational reasoning but because it is comforting to me.  I think the world is more interesting when there is a greater power choosing to intervene when they feel it suitable, or things like "luck" follow you around and affect the way your life unfolds.  I could also say that these things should arise if you subscribe to the idea of multiple universes that diverge at every decision point or point that could change the world around you.

Am I the only one who likes he plays for a team that has a horseshoe as their logo?

Mix all of these amicable traits with the fact that I am in that perfect range where I am an attractive human being without being particularly threatening to anybody and that is a very great person.  All I need to do is improve my work ethic a little bit and start molding my body into a statuesque form and I may be a model human being.  And there might be my motivation toward the little self-improvement I have left to do.  Thanks everybody who sat around reading this piece of rhetoric masturbation, best wishes for all of you, especially now that you know you are inferior.

Quick Update

Hello everyone, as is my norm, I will start this article by apologizing for such a long break between posts.  I think that is one thing I'm going to stop doing as the one person who reads this blog understands that this is how I write, I am also going to try to refrain from promising that I'm going to write more often at the end, because I surely know that that is a lie.

So what's new with my life?  I spent most of the last two months on break and being completely restless while giving in to FIFA addiction.  This last week I have announced that I am going to take a lengthy hiatus from playing FIFA as the last time I played I reached nearly unfathomable levels of rage and disappointment.  To make sure that FIFA stays in the opposite corner of my room as my Xbox, I vowed to attempt to spend this semester trying to beat all 5 Splinter Cell games in preparation for Blacklist this summer.  But there isn't a whole lot of interest in my video game habits so lets talk about other things.

Badass.

For the first time in 2 years I am returning to a familiar place at the beginning of a semester (since I'm still in school I still use semesters as my standard time frame.)  After a half year of graduate school I'm only partially sure of what direction I want to go with my adult life.  I am pretty sure that after reading The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver this last month that I have an interest in predictive modeling and hope to be able to find myself doing that for the rest of my life.  This field really interests me because I've always wished I would be able to predict the future.  This reflects in my method of speaking, as more observant people that I know have noticed that I never speak in definite, I will always qualify what I say in one way or another, mostly by using "probably" in the place of "yes."  I do this intentionally, I have no idea what is going to happen to me in the time span between the present and when I am supposed to do whatever I am being asked to do.

I spend a lot of time at night thinking about things and building these intricate futures in my head where things happen in ways that are favorable to me, as any reader of this blog could easily figure out, these futures have vaguely reflected what actually happens a total of zero times in my life.  Maybe if I devote my life to the craft and try really hard I will start to get a few of these predictions correct, even if it means I tone down (or even abolish) the prerequisite that I am favored in the future.  This divergence between reality and expectation has caused me much of my strife over the course of the last few years, although it has been slightly less problematic recently.  Basically I want to accept that I can't control the world, but at the very least I should be able to anticipate what it's going to do.

Take a left! I know a good place there!

On a completely different note, I went to see a Lewis Black concert a few weeks ago.  I am by no means a fan of his work but did enjoy the show, but it got me thinking about stand-up comedy as a craft.  I try to be funny on this blog a large portion of the time, but it's seemingly become a 50/50 split between funny posts and me complaining about things (guess which this one is!)  For the most part I fancy myself to be a clever and insightful person, which is are usually good qualities in comedians, yet I don't find myself to be excessively funny in my everyday life.  It was at that show that I realized that you don't need to be, but for the most part people will laugh a lot harder at your jokes because you are on a stage telling them to a crowd of strangers.  I've secretly had a couple of jokes written in my head that I have tried to tell people and work on over the years and am hoping that I can make up enough to feel confident trying it out myself.

But anyways this quick update turned out to be a lot longer than I expected, I guess I just had too many things to talk about saved up to be able to keep this concise and on topic.  Hopefully next time I decide to write (some random time in the future) I will be in better spirits and produce a funny piece, but I feel I needed to vent a little and while I haven't quite done that to completion, there are some things I don't want to talk to the internet about.  I'll leave you with my Magic 8 Ball's response to me asking if things are going to be good for me this semester.  "It is decidedly so," hooray.

This is Clearly Not Homework

I will be the first to admit that this post is likely me procrastinating from doing my last assignments for the semester or even getting an early start on studying for finals.  My excuse is that I haven't blogged for about a month and I owe it to myself to take a minute to look back on the month that was, the semester passed and even my entire life at large.  The only question now is to figure out what exactly it is that I'm going to blabber on about for an arbitrary word count and time of your busy schedule.  Lets start out with something that I have been meaning to write about for a long time now (and won't if I don't take this time to say it.)

It has been nearly a year since I graduated college, and after a few months of struggling to enjoy myself (see all posts from early 2012) I spent a month back in my apartment at the school I had formerly attended before partaking in the commencement ceremony with my friends and peers.  I am simply amazed that I have barely mentioned this month on this blog, perhaps only mentioning it in passing and how I really wanted to write about it in depth one day.  The reason I am amazed about this is that it is for all intents and purposes the best month of my life to date, and perhaps the greatest month I will ever live.  I had been planning to visit my friends and crash at the apartment I was still paying for for the months since my graduation and had only done so in February for the Job Fair, (a week I wrote about on Valentine's day of all days) so I thought that since I had no prior engagements or any other reason to be at home for another month that I would waste my month away having fun for one of the last times I could ever be truly carefree.  I'll tell you this, I can barely imagine a world that could be more perfect.  Every morning I woke up whenever my circadian rhythm would tell me to, and did exactly as I wanted to do (read: anything within reason) every day without fail.  It was great and I feel that in that month I was able to not only catch up with people whom I had really wanted to catch up with, but I also strengthened multiple friendships to the point where I am quite sure they will last forever.  But to prevent myself from getting too sentimental, lets tell some stories!

Gather round kiddies!

Lets start with night number one, a night that I will always have proof of happening, or maybe it was night two... Either way it was one of the first nights of my return.  Since I had nothing better to be doing, I was drinking on a Tuesday night along with two of my good friends who also had apparently nothing better to be doing.  So we were playing a card game known as "Kings," if you are familiar with this game you will realize that it will not end extremely well when you play with only three people, as well as the fact that one specific card requires a female to be present, which we did not happen to have on hand at the moment.  We remedied the first situation by sucking it up and being men, we remedied the second situation by ruling that when that card came up the person on your right was given free reign to ask any question and get a truthful answer, this second rule is responsible for the aforementioned strengthening of friendships.  The first rule led to something that will be relevant later.  Anyways the game itself was uninteresting except for one rule which resulted in one of my friends knocking on our housemate's door while he was having a private conversation with a ladyfriend, he was also ruled to have to ask that friend whether or not sodomy was legal in the particular state we were in, this is something I still find to be hilarious despite it being a little bit of a "dick move."  Anyways, after this game we played another game in which we were tasked with putting ping pong balls into cups that were much further than an arm's length away (not a practical thing to do) in which case I was in a state that hindered my coordination to a point that I was unable to perform this task with any success.  As is typical of this situation, I had to run around in the backyard for a short time.  Whilst running around outside like a moron (which I am), I forgot that there was a knee-high stone wall in the path of my running.  Looking back, I probably should have gone to get stitches, but it managed to heal without getting infected although I do have a scar in place of my regular skin to remind me of that night.  

If only I had this...

The rest of that month was full of similar nights that did not include myself hurting myself, but many other fun times that I may slowly refer to as this blog goes on, there was also a lot of friendly softball and video games, a month I surely will never forget.  Back to this month that was, I have spoken before about how much I love Thanksgiving since becoming a college student, and this year reinforced this love even more than I could have hoped.  Not only did I once again have excuses for drawing hand turkeys, but I also got into the festive mood more than ever before.  Because my Halloween plans sadly failed to come into being, I had part of a self-fashioned Pilgrim costume remaining in my closet and proceeded to wear my makeshift hat for the duration of both Thanksgiving festivities I had partaken in!  Also, for those more observant readers of mine I did in fact say both meaning that I had an extra Thanksgiving dinner this year!  The weekend before Thanksgiving I had a celebration with my friends from school, which I think went much better than expected. Then I had a great time being back home and seeing all of my friends there that I don't see as often as I would typically like to, as well as my Thanksgiving day in which I had a great time with my family then had a few friends over to watch a certain classic Thanksgiving film!  I then spent the following weekend back with the friends from school in the nearby major city to celebrate a special birthday for one of us!  All in all it was a fantastic time, the kind of time I needed to have at a time like this when work gets tough.  

It's hard not to!

I think this was a good catch up and procrastination!  Stay tuned as I will hopefully be writing much more in the coming weeks as classes are starting to die down.  Also, for those dedicated readers who are still awaiting the answer to my question posed at the end of the post I did a short time ago, I guess my best descriptor at the moment would be the link.  As always, best wishes anyone and I will be waiting for your return.

Things About My Life That Entertain Me

Hello all, once again I have gone quite a long time without gracing you with some insight into my mind, and for that I am actually a little sad.  I have gotten some writing done due to the MLB playoffs and Penultimate Round Pick, but what is the point of writing if you can't bitch and moan about things you don't like in your life?  Also, not much has happened in the last two months for me to have felt the need to report it to this blog, instead I will write about trends in my life that I find to be somewhat interesting.  They are not all good things, I would be surprised if any of them actually were good things but you need to learn how to take annoyances in stride.  I have learned this, so here are some trends in my life that I find to be entertaining.

One of which is the fact I can get people to confide in me quite easily.  The result of this is that I have a lot of useless information about people that I would rather not know.  The worst part of this is that this information is largely sexual, I have no reason to know a general estimate of how "endowed" you think you are nor would I ever want to know anything about all the chicks or dudes you have plowed through in your time.  I certainly will act like I enjoy what you are saying and will smile politely and nod my head, but for the most part I haven't asked you about any of this information, I don't have a reason to know it and I usually would rather not know it.  Juxtapose this stance with the fact that I often open myself up to people I barely know and love to say things to people for the sole purpose of seeing how they react, I could possibly be the least well-rounded person I've ever met.

Where does Asshole go?

Next - because it is always a topic of great interest to me - lets talk about chicks man, especially ones who are physically more well-rounded than I am metaphorically.  I have noticed a great trend among the girls that I have met over my life.  As I said earlier, people trust in me quite quickly, and I truly have no idea why, they are probably all idiots.  Some of these people are female, I actually think in recent times I get along better with females once I actually get to the point of talking to them.  The only problem with this is that I get along with many of them too well, which I know isn't a typically bad thing since some of them can be good people.  The bad thing is that with every one of them I know they want to see good things happen for me, and more than a few of them get excited any time I bring up the idea of me finding a girl that I am interested in.  The thing is, if I get along with a girl well enough at that point there is usually a better than odds chance that I wouldn't mind them being a girl I am interested in, and there is also a better than odds chance that they would prefer that not be the case.  Fuck that situation, complete rubbish, been in it too many times that it's starting to get old.  Now I guess I should spare myself the extreme finger fatigue that would come with airing all my grievances about my love life and move onto a new topic.  

Something to avoid.

I guess its not a completely new topic, but lets talk about elevators!  Out of the last few conversations with female strangers that I have found to be enlightening, more than half of them have been inside of an elevator, and I am sad to say I am not the courageous man I need to be to ask a girl on a date because of a 10 story climb or descent.  Maybe next time I will need to show some testicular fortitude and get those digits, but in all likelihood, I will make great conversation then let those cold metal doors close in my face locking out any potential.  I also wonder what it is about elevators that cause me to be so much more personable than nearly every other social situation I have found myself in.  My theory is that it is the only situation in which I have a ready-made comment to start a conversation, what is this line you ask?  Could it possibly be better than my "icebreaker for the hall of fame" mentioned in this previous article?  Probably not, but here it is.  I wait on the elevator and mind my own business until the elevator does something funny (in my building there is always something funny happening in the elevators), it is usually a strange sound but sometimes can be erratic doors, if there is a girl I find particularly compelling who might enjoy my wit I think out loud, "I've seen way too many bad movies to feel safe in an elevator."  Any girl who would chuckle at that comment is usually the kind of girl for me so then I know to try to say something more.  Otherwise, I made a fool out of myself to a stiff.

Well there it is, some of the things I find entertaining in my everyday life.  I'm sure this list is not exhaustive (especially since if only 3 things in my life entertained me I would be a sorry sad person) so maybe one day you all will see a sequel to this.  Until then, enjoy the little bit that I have given you and make sure to put more posts from me on all your Christmas lists, maybe Santa will come a little early!

The People I Have Been

This is a piece I have meant to write for quite some time so I think I'll write it now for no better reason than because I want to write and this is the only piece I can think to write.  I understand at this point that by writing this that it may point out some potential social issues I may have, but for now I'm going to assume this is a normal way to act.  Throughout the years of my life I have found myself in many different situations that have caused me to have to tweak my personality to fit some supposed role I have determined for myself.  Every now and then I look back and think to myself about how I behaved in some roles, and wonder what the hell I was thinking.  So without further interruption, here are the roles I of today believe I tried to play in past years.

Role #1 Child (Birth-7th Grade)
This one is self-explanatory, until I turned 13 I didn't really have the mental abilities to understand cause and effects of culture so I existed as is.  During these times I didn't find myself with many long lasting friends, which probably suggests something about who I am naturally.

I really had no choice!

Role #2 Mr, Irrational Confidence Guy! (7th Grade- 10th Grade)
I became this person too early, it would probably be beneficial if I hadn't become Mr. Irrational Confidence Guy until this day and age.  By that I mean I was extremely ballsy in talking to girls, and had absolutely no reason to have been (hence the irrational confidence part), but now that I believe there is an outside chance that I have something to give a woman there is no confidence to be found.  During this time I told a popular girl she was a tall glass of water and I was thirsty (note I was far from popular, likely because of comments like that), bet that I could date a girl only to brag about it semi-publicly like a complete asshat and have that be the reason she didn't date me and even at one point I was very close to dating a popular girl from the grade below me despite my lack of popularity.  What made me feel I was a person who was able to do those things successfully is beyond me, but I simultaneously envy and hate that little prick.  This role mostly coincided with kid who wanted to be popular because I felt a little inferiority complex from having a popular older brother in the grade above me.  I have long since gotten over that inferiority complex and consider it a great lesson toward becoming the man I am today.

I thought I could be cool like Fonzie...

Role #3 Intentional Outsider/Nerd (11th Grade-High School Graduation)
Entering my Junior year of high school I found myself embracing my natural nerdiness/ unpopularity and decided that I should live with it.  I think this is partially because I started taking AP classes so I was separated from the less intelligent cool kids, and thrown into a setting with a lot more people who were more like me.  I found that in these situations I preferred the company of the less popular kids because I didn't seem to have to act as much.  This led me to a renaissance of playing video games (usually spent my weekends playing, including typical 11-3 shifts on Xbox Live with friends) and discovering new music (birthing my love for 90s music.)  During these years I found my number of friends grow exponentially as I found that there was another group of kids in my own grade (including Toninho!) who were a lot similar to my usual group that I hung out with at that time.  Along with that, there were still some residual effects from Mr. Irrational Confidence Guy as I was still much more aggressive in the dating world than I am now, even though that included barking up the tree of the bet girl previously mentioned for a whole year, honk if you are surprised that was a fruitless endeavor!

...But I was always much more Urkell

Role #4 The Kinda Crazy/ Weird Kid (Freshman Year of College)
I was actually called out on acting this role out once, a friend of mine said he hated me when he first met me because I made it out like I did all these crazy things and was a wild person, but never actually did anything.  It was completely true, but I was in a completely new environment and am kind of an introvert, so I needed to adopt this kind of personality to meet people.  And you know what, it was successful!  I met most of my friends in college one fateful day Freshman year when some kids in my hall that my roommate knew found a box and pranked our room by having someone hide in the box and jump out of it to scare me when I answered the door.  I don't remember how (possibly because nobody else wanted to do this prank to people they didn't know) I ended up being the guy in the box as we repeated this prank on other doors across the hall.  I ended up hanging out with these kids a lot over the next few weeks and this became some of the best friendships I've had in my life.  Say what you want, but this was a turning point in my life as this was a month into school and I was already considering getting a transfer due to the environment.  I never followed through with it and am very happy about that in retrospect.  This is the time when Mr. Irrational Confidence Guy completely died out as I was finally able to appreciate how stupid and contrived a lot of my attempts to woo women were, leaving your name and room number with "(insert name here) is cute" on the whiteboard on someone's door is only going to get erased, not responded to.

Chase in the Box!

Role #5 The Playful Older Guy? (Sophomore Year)
I really don't know what to call this guy, a lot of weird stuff happened over the course of that year, and I found it to be an emotional roller coaster.  Before the school year started I spent a lot of my time flirting with girls at the grocery store I worked at to slight success at best (I've written about this in multiple posts before so I'm not elaborating).  This year I spent a large amount of my social energy on trying to meet Freshman girls at school, I was older and that had an effect on girls at that age.  I can't remember how I spent my first semester of that year, but it was the first semester I had ever spent as an undergraduate TA for a class, and I had a student start making moves on me as the semester came to a close.  I thought that was going to be a great thing for me, but somehow before coming back to school for Spring she ran into her ex-boyfriend, and needed time to "think" apparently texting "what's up?" fortnightly, is pressuring so she decided to make me aware of this by never speaking to me again.  I don't get subtle messages born of idiocy very well so I asked her about it and she told me so.  It was dumb, and she transferred out of the school at the end of the semester due to said idiocy (yes, I'm bitter.)  Later a girl I knew and her boyfriend broke up and she talked to me to get over it.  I started to become fond of this girl because of this (guys are made to be attracted to emotional vulnerability I suppose) and followed through with this feeling.  I even got blessing from the ex-boyfriend whom she completely hated at this point (a former student of mine and a damn fine kid at that.)  She was apparently never that interested and nothing panned out save for a date.

I also watched the Prisoner!

Role #6 The Random Information Guy (Junior Year)
I had a weird housing designation for this year, I was living in a single a mile or so from the rest of my friends, and often found that leaving my room was burdensome.  Needless to say I spent a larger chunk of that year than usual by myself, and even created this blog during this time.  I'm sure my personality in my writing is different if you contrast then with now (2 years strong), and back then I was definitely more spontaneous and weird than I am now.  When I was around people I was typically getting dinner with my friends and one of their girlfriends and sometimes some of her friends.  For some reason since she was the only new person I was getting used to I found the part of my personality that she enjoyed was the part that came out the most (because I apparently can't deal with being disliked) and that part happened to be the part of me that comes off as a weird sexual deviant.  You mention one too many things you read on Urban Dictionary, and some people will actually think you do this stuff.  As time went on I'm fairly sure she got to know the more mundane me, but the weird kid kind of took precedence for over the course of that year.  Overall, the year was pretty uneventful save for the death of my car, which I still need to blog about at some point.

Foolproof way to make friends!

Role #7 The Laid Back Senior (Fall Semester Senior Year)
This semester was a great time of my life, I wasn't taking overly difficult courses, I was graduating at the end of the semester, I was over 21 for the first time in my life and I was living off campus with some awesome guys.  I didn't go out nearly as much this semester as I had in other years because I had no reason to, I could have all the fun I wanted to have in my house with my friends.  In this semester I played a lot of video games and drank a lot of beer.  There really isn't much else to say about this person, he had his fun and did what he wanted to do, except for the fact I didn't really try to date anybody at this time due to the short window of time.

Role #8 The Manchild (January 2012-Now)
This was a trying time for me, I was unemployed, graduated and had no idea what I was doing going forward.  I also had no car, and had no friends nearby that weren't consistently busy.  I spent nearly all my time bouncing between my Xbox and computer.  It was probably one of the worst times of my life for the first month or two, but eventually I got used to it and managed to pass the time (Mass Effect, Arkham City and Fifa helped) and after a short time, a few failed job searches, I got my Grad School acceptances in and decided I was going to continue to be a manchild for a few more months and then go back to school.  During these months I reinvigorated my love for Spongebob, watched a lot of cult and B-movies and then went back to my house at my old school for a month before the graduation ceremony.  This phase is directly responsible for my recent shift in movie and music tastes, gaining a taste for "so bad it's good" films and indie rock.

If you Insist!

Role #9 To Be Determined Dude (Now)
I'm in a new setting and, as I always have, I am going to have to assume a new role.  Usually these roles come organically and I don't need to consciously decide what person I'm going to be next, so lets give it time and see what I will think of current me next year.  This probably sheds a decent amount of light to people what it is like to be me, I still don't know if this is normal, but it's my normal and I'm just trying to be myself.

New Setting, New Life

Hey all, since the last time I wrote I have been completely busy making a new life for myself!  By that I mean I have finally began the graduate school that I have been alluding to for a few months now!  It has certainly been a different kind of world for me these last few weeks and I was thinking that instead of writing another piece about Dan Uggla's arms (which are still huge), I should actually tell you all about how I feel about this new life.  First of all, being a graduate student is fantastic.  You get to kind of live like an undergraduate except with more work and responsibilities, which is fine because in my case I have been given an office to share, so rather than kill time between classes and during the day, I have a place to return to and do some of my work.  I have also been notably more of an adult, going to bed before midnight and waking up in time to go to my office early and get my mind sorted out before classes start.  One thing that has really surprised me is that I have been consistently spending most of my weekdays in the math department for regular working hours, yet by doing this I have been able to have free weekends and am even going to be traveling over this coming weekend to hopefully see one of my favorite pitchers become the MLB's first 20 game winner!  I'm sure these free weekends will become a luxury in due time as classes start to pick up and homework becomes abundant, but I have been enjoying the ones I have had thus far.  

Nobody talked about this trade enough...

To deserve my office, I have been given the responsibility of being a Teaching Assistant (or TA for you folk who love their acronyms) for a class in the department.  For obvious reasons I am not going to mention the school name, class name, student names, my name nor anything vaguely identifiable about this course.  All I will let you know is that so far I have loved having this responsibility and have enjoyed every interaction with my students.  I guess I can also use this time to brag about how good I look in a blazer, believe me when I say that I am a rather handsome fellow to have teaching you math.  I have found the other people in the department to be welcoming, which I always appreciate seeing that meeting people has always seemed like an odd thing to me.  It is amazing to me to wonder what causes people to meet, since everyone seems to have no interest in other people when you see them walking down the street, and even when meeting someone, what causes you to want to see them again?  Social commentary/awkwardness aside, I've found a solid foundation of people to talk to when I need help or just to entertain myself for a little while without having to stray too far from my office!  But enough about work, how about we discuss a little bit of playtime, because all work and no play makes Chase a dull boy!

Don't forget frozen!  Dull and frozen.

As I mentioned, I have been able to spend a large amount of my weekends worry free, and even some of my weeknights!  For being more or less a stranger to everybody moving into my house a few weeks ago, I have found my living arrangements quite comfortable and don't believe I have a single thing to complain about in that department.  During the weekdays I tend to spend my off time at my house, and have rarely found myself bored.  My small sample size of weekends here has proved to be better than my undergraduate time, where I have yet to end a weekend without something to ponder or a story to tell.  I've had a few former students that I have known come up on the weekend and show me the ropes as well as introduce me to some people whose company I have found to be entertaining.  But even when I am not trying to have fun, I have been able to find enjoyment out here, such as walking from place to place.  As I have noted before my undergraduate school was predominantly male, which may even be an understatement, and this school is a lot closer to 50/50, if not more female!  So when I am walking from place to place as my schedule dictates, I am often presented with something nice to look at as I walk, which I appreciate very much.  I am not even exaggerating that I feel like Psy (watch this video and enjoy it, it is perfection) every time I walk somewhere.

ASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Unfortunately this great gift is not without it's costs, because on those same walks where I have so much to look at there is one thing I can't help but notice, that being how miserable everybody looks.  Listen here kiddies, I don't care if its 9:00am on a Monday morning, if you are walking around on a college campus in this day and age and you are not even pretending to enjoy yourself, you are a truly sad person.  Maybe it's only because I have been on the other side and seen what it is like to be out of college and then return at a young enough age to be able to take full advantage of returning, but it seems to me these spoiled kids have no idea what a great time of their life they are just moping away!  Ladies and gentlemen, this is what college is, you are a young person in the prime of your life thrown into an environment filled with other people your age, where almost any action you take part in can be rationalized by saying "I'm in college, now is the time to try it," you are physically able to perform nearly any action you will ever be able to do in your life, and if there is anything (no matter how strange) you would ever like to try, you are probably no more than a mile from someone else who shares this desire and would probably partake in it with you.  Reread that last sentence and find any reason to be sad.  I know some of you are thinking "Hey Chase! You are clearly forgetting to mention how hard classes are!"  To those people all I can say is, I'm a grad student, my classes are much more demanding than anything undergrads are doing, and to tell you the truth, it is much much easier and enjoyable than anything you will be doing in the real world.  If you need any more reason to believe that college is the best place on Earth, remember this, Jamarcus Russell was successful in college!

I used this guy and successful in the same sentence, without using "not"!

So long faithful readers, and don't worry undergraduate school, I will always have a soft spot for you and your students, but I'm gonna go have the time of my life now.  More on the way!

Who Am I!?

Sorry to everybody who reads this title and thinks that I am going to write about the Jackie Chan classic by the same name.  To make it up to those people I will give you this video (Editor's note, the video is gone!)

Oh my that is quite the awesome fight scene!  Almost as good as the fight in They Live!  But I digress, the point of this post is not Jackie Chan or fight scenes, or anything even remotely close to that.  The point of this post stems from my curiosity the other day when I looked at the stat pages for this blog.  I saw that I have views from all over the world and a decent amount of views on the whole, which is cool even though I think a vast majority of the views are people looking at pictures then leaving the page.  I don't think that I have many readers outside of Toninho (link to his blog, Sycophantic Laughter, is always present on this page) and by that I mean I misplaced an m and meant I don't think I have any readers outside Toninho.  But that day I looked at the search results that have brought people to my blog, and I see this list.

It is more than obvious from the top 7 results of those 8 that those views are people searching unrelated things and stumbling upon pictures I have featured on my blog before.  But the last one gets me a little excited, if I can say myself.  To you, Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. Curiosity-Pants, if you are searching that on Google, you have read my blog enough to know that I try to hide who I really am to not have any personal backlash, although if you know me personally, it would be a little obvious.  So my question to you is, why did you think Google would give you this information?  I also want to know why you would think that knowing my real name would make any difference from knowing my pseudonym?  Lastly I just feel a little sad that you would ask Google who I am, when there is a comment box at the bottom of each of my posts  that I would love to see filled with your questions!  So if whoever you are that searched that, and you see this, make use of the comment box and I'll try to write about anything you want to know.  I do ask that you allow me to keep this curtain of anonymity, if it wouldn't be too much to ask.

Fill that thing up!

I'll try to give you some help by consolidating some of the information I have thrown about on this blog before.  I recently graduated college and am going to graduate school for an applied math masters.  My real name is not Chase Robertson, and people have been redirected here by searching "Chase Robertson Houston" and I would like to apologize to Chase Robertson from Houston if my blog using his name as my fake name is a problem, I would see what I could do to change the name of the blog and use a nickname instead.  I am mostly a kid at heart and still have a fondness for Spongebob Squarepants, Doug and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  I enjoy cult movies, I like video games (that aren't online first person shooters) and apparently Jackie Chan.  I am a huge baseball fan (particularly the Red Sox and Braves, and since the middle of last year I've added the Nationals to that list.)  I guess that is a lot of the personal information I have given over the time, feel free to dig through the archives to find what I forgot I wrote.  Anybody who reads this, I urge you to make use of the comment box, especially since I haven't had a whole lot of ideas to write about lately, and I would love to have enough questions to do some sort of mailbag.  Since my reader(s) has (have) been so kind to me, I will grant you a single picture of myself.

Who doesn't want to know more about this guy!

Top Ten Spongebob Episodes

So as I pointed out a while ago, I am a big fan of Spongebob Squarepants.  I personally find it to be one of the most consistently funny shows ever made, and unlike other comedic cartoons (I'm looking at you Family Guy and South Park) the show doesn't often have to use "adult" situations (sex, politics, obscure references, violence) to create humor which I find to be a hallmark of good writing.  If you haven't seen it the premise is simple, a sponge named Spongebob lives in a Pineapple under the sea and goes about his everyday life with other characters that are ostensibly based on the 7 deadly sins in some manner.  But it is most likely you have seen it, but not to the extent I have, so let me present to you my top 10 favorite episodes, which I ranked in an unbiased way by giving each story a rating from 1-10 by going alphabetically down the list, then combining it's score with it's sister story (as it is a children's cartoon episodes are usually cut into two 11 minute stories) and basing my ratings off that.  I also want to point out that I was only familiar enough with the first 5 seasons of the show (as much as Netflix has) so those episodes are the only ones included so for seasons 6 and on, you are on your own, which is a pity because I think A Life in a Day/ Sun Bleached could have been a dark horse for the top 10.  So without further interruption, here are the episodes I think you need to watch.

10: Nasty Patty/ Idiot Box (Season 3) 17.4 Rating
Nasty Patty is likely a better episode watched as an adult than as a child, as it's premise is a spoof of the typical "body movie" where cohorts in a crime are trying to dispose of a body.  It is a pretty dark episode as the premise suggests, Spongebob and Mr. Krabs believe they have killed a health inspector by giving him a Krabby Patty that they sabotaged thinking that the health inspector was a fake trying to get free food.  It's highlights include the invention of the term "schmeckledorfed" and an increasingly insane Mr. Krabs telling the police that ice is a myth.  On the other hand, Idiot Box is a much more lighthearted episode based around the childish imagination of Spongebob and Patrick as opposed to Squidward's lack of imagination.  Spongebob and Patrick order a big-screen television solely for the purpose of playing in the box, and the whole time Squidward starts to feel like they are mocking him in the box.  This one is consistently funny and if I had to choose a highlight it would be the rainbow that appears between Spongebob's hands as he says imagination on multiple circumstances.

See! It even became a scarcely used meme!

#8T Dying for Pie/ Imitation Krabs (Season 2) 17.6 Rating

I really must be a dark person, the first two entries in this top 10 list are two of the very few episodes to acknowledge the concept of death.  Dying for Pie starts with Employee Brotherhood Day and Spongebob is all about it while Squidward has no idea that it existed, as Mr. Krabs requires Squidward get a gift, he buys a pie from a group of pirates conveniently in the parking lot, except they don't have actual pies, just bombs that look like pies.  As Mr. Krabs and Squidward believe Spongebob to have eaten the pie, a remorseful Squidward tries to give Spongebob a great last day.  My favorite part of the episode is Spongebob's gift to Squidward, a sweater made from his eyelashes.  Imitation Krabs is one of (if not the) best Plankton episodes where he makes a robot to replace Mr. Krabs in the Krusty Krab to trick Spongebob into giving him the secret formula.  Here's a classic highlight from the episode.

#8T Sleepy Time/ Suds (Season 1) 17.6 Rating
There is always a bit of nostalgia to the first season of any long running television show.  Sleepy Time is a great episode, and one of the few to make use of a majority of the main characters in the show, as Spongebob finds himself able to invade the dreams of his friends for a night and causes problems for each of them.  I love the concept of the episode and think each character's dreams are perfectly fitting for their personalities, it also stuns me that they were able to do this episode successfully in the first season.  My favorite part is Patrick's dream, it's so empty!  Suds addresses the concept of sickness as leaving the fridge open overnight causes Spongebob's house to freeze over and he catches the suds (a sponge's version of the cold), he tries to get medical help from Patrick because a mixture of reading old magazines and a cold stethoscope scares Spongebob away from wanting to see a real doctor.  When Spongebob actually sees a real doctor at the end, it creates a great scene that I believe was one of the first times Spongebob is shown as a real kitchen sponge in the real world.

This is seriously part of it..

#7 The Secret Box/ Band Geeks (Season 2) 17.7 Rating
This episode is one of my first memories of moving into my apartment last August, there was only one of my housemates with me for the week and we both loved Spongebob and I remember we watched this episode because he said it was one of his favorites.  The Secret Box revolves around Patrick having a secret box that he won't show Spongebob, and the rest of the episode is Spongebob trying to see what is in the box.  Not meaning to spoil it, the end of the episode is the best when Spongebob sees there is only a string inside the box and walks away thinking Patrick is an idiot, but then Patrick shows if you pull the string it opens a secret compartment that has an embarrassing photo of Spongebob from the Christmas party, but we never see the photo.  Band Geeks is simply one of the best storylines the show has ever run, this is a foregone conclusion that makes this episode worth watching alone.  Squidward's high school rival Squilliam returns to Bikini Bottom and is much more successful so Squidward lies about having a top-notch band and Squilliam allows the band to play in his place at the Bubble Bowl.  The rest of the episode is Squidward trying to make his untalented friends a band and hilarity.  Watch it, here's how it ends.

Secret TV Channel!

#6 Arrgh!/ Rock Bottom (Season 1) 18.1 Rating
We just took a big jump in ratings to get to this which I find pretty surprising given how good the last episode was.  Arrgh! is a great episode for both Patrick and Mr. Krabs, where on a slow day at the Krusty Krab, Spongebob and Patrick play a treasure hunting board game and invite Mr. Krabs to play, who then gets way too into the game and invites the other two to help him search for a real treasure.  There are many good parts from this one, Patrick mistaking east with "weast", Spongebob's "You're good" as Patrick scrapes up the boat, and PLASTIC!  Rock Bottom is a wacky episode.  Spongebob ends up getting stranded in a strange town, and I really cannot do this episode any justice with words.  Just let it be known that it caused the following poster (which I wish I could own) to be made and watch it yourself.

LOVE IT!

#5 Texas/ Walking Small (Season 1) 18.2 Rating

Believe it or not, this was the episode released immediately after the last one, the writers hit a really good streak down the middle of season 1 as I will point out later.  Texas is the first episode on the list that centers around Sandy as she becomes homesick and plans to leave Bikini Bottom to return to Texas.  Despite the fact that this episode mocks and entire state, it is a classic and features some great jokes.  Walking Small is another Plankton episode as he tries to get Spongebob to help him clear land for a new Chum Bucket by teaching him to be assertive.  The difference between being assertive and being "insertive" is one of my favorite parts of the episode, but probably one of the best Spongebob moments is when due to Spongebob's blissful ignorance of how to be mean he helps a stranger find buried treasure and offers to tie his shoe even though he is wearing sandals.  

Is that stupid or Texas?

#4 Grandma's Kisses/ Squidville (Season 2) 18.4 Rating

By now my more observant readers should be noticing that most of my favorite episodes come from the earlier part of the show, and that is completely correct.  From season 2 Grandma's Kisses introduces Spongebob's Grandma, and after visiting her and forgetting to wipe off a kiss mark on his forehead, Spongebob feels the need to grow up and stop acting like a baby.  While Patrick tries to help, he sees the benefits of behaving like a child and takes Spongebob's preferential treatment from his Grandma.  I plan to show you how to be an adult after this paragraph.  Squidville is the famous episode where Squidward gets tired of being neighbors with Patrick and Spongebob and moves to Tentacle Acres, a gated community for Squids.  This episode becomes increasingly funny as it goes on, but I will never forget how great it is when Squidward finds "Canned Bread" at the grocery store and the can has a caption that claims it is "Best Thing Since Sliced!"

#3 SB-129/ Karate Choppers (Season 1) 18.5 Rating
We have made our way over to another one of my former housemate's favorite episodes, he was always quite animate about how he believed SB-129 to be his favorite episode.  The episode revolves around Squidward again as he tries to evade Spongebob and Patrick and finds himself on a quest through the past, future and nowhere, before finding himself back in the same spot he began.  I can never fail to laugh at the part where Squidward discovers that everything is chrome in the future.  I have mentioned Karate Choppers in a previous post where I pointed out that I believed it to be a euphemism for sex, but upon watching it again it is equally likely to be about sex as drugs, so watch it and make your own opinion about what Spongebob and Sandy are doing in secret.

Future!

#2 Chocolate With Nuts/ Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V (Season 3) 18.6 Rating

This episode could very well be the best ever, it really is nearly flawless.  Chocolate With Nuts is the story of Spongebob and Patrick trying to get rich quick by selling chocolates door to door and features some of my favorite Patrick moments along the way.  If you don't know the highlight of this episode you have never seen the episode.  The fifth Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy episode is my personal favorite use of the duo, where Barnacle Boy gets fed up with being treated like a child and decides to join with the Dirty Bubble and Man-Ray to create Every Villain is Lemons (E.V.I.L).  The episode goes on the spoof comic book groups such as the Justice League and Avengers, and brings along a little more adult humor than normal.  It is truly a great one.

#1 Prehibernation Week/ Life of Crime (Season 2) 18.9 Rating

I have an admission to make, I rigged the voting so that this one will win.  It was the only episode I knew would make the top 10 and I knew it was my favorite episode.  Specifically Prehibernation Week, in which Spongebob and Sandy partake in dangerous sporting activities before Sandy has to hibernate, but Spongebob can't deal with the games and hides.  This episode contains at least 3 of my favorite jokes the show has ever made, and prominently features Pantera as background music, it is a gem.  My housemates and I even made up a drinking game to this which didn't last long as it was too taxing.  Life of Crime is a solid episode as well, where Spongebob and Patrick steal a balloon, and when it pops, go on the lam.  It spoofs movies and TV shows about convicts as well as instills the morals in children that stealing is wrong. It also has this.   

Rig a voting?  Uhhh, I can explain.

Frivolities

- #4 and #1 were consecutive episodes in season 2.

- #3, #8 (Sleepy Time/ Suds), #11 (Valentines Day/ The Paper), #6 and #5 were all consecutive episodes in the first season.

- All ten of these episodes were made before the movie.

- Whale of a Birthday/ Karate Island was the best episode from season 4 and ranked #23

- The Krusty Sponge/ Sing a Song of Patrick was the best episode from season 5 and ranked #35

- The pilot episode (Help Wanted/ Reef Blower/ Tea at the Treedome) ranked at #17.

- Christmas Who? was the top ranked 22 minute story and was #28

- The top 5 stories were Prehibernation Week (10), Rock Bottom and Shanghaied (9.6), and Chocolate with Nuts and Survival of the Idiots (9.5).

- Despite Survival of the Idiots being in the top 5, it's pairing with Dumped has it outside the top half of episodes.

- The only other episode I thought would make the top 10 before rating stories was Wet Painters/ Krusty Krab Training Video, which ranked 14th.

I have been planning to write this post for a while now and it took me nearly 2 and a half hours to write, so I hope someone finds interest in this, cause I need to go to bed.  As always, stay tuned.