σ

Oh, did you not get the memo? All titles are Greek letters now. Greek letters are cool.

The reason for the sigma in the title of this post is shockingly unrelated to Zero Escape. Rather, it is a reference to standard deviation, a concept of dubious relevance to the subject matter of this post. Really, I just thought it'd be a hoot if I kept putting Greek letters in my titles. And then everyone would be all like "Havoc, why are you doing that, that's so weird!" And I'd be all like "Haha, you know me, I'm totally a free spirit". Remember this. You will be tested on it.

Rather recently, a friend of mine dealt a serious wound to my honor, one that, as a gentleman, I could not allow. She called into question my weirdness. And no, she isn't my content manager, surprising as that might be. She even had the nerve to imply that she and our mutual friend (Who is also a girl. I'm sure your disbelief is all kinds of unsuspended right now, but please bear with me.) are weirder than me. This led me to challenge her, attempting to prove that I was the more unusual. However, I was easily bested, and as any gentleman would, I admitted defeat when I knew victory was unattainable. I may be eccentric, but I'm no parabola (This joke relies on you knowing that a parabola is an ellipse with an eccentricity of 1, the maximum possible. Conic sections). I've still a ways to go before I reach the tier of sympathizing with necrophiliacs.

Despite that juicy bit of slander I just made public, (or is it libel? You'd think I'd have learned by now, but I always have to ask the judge which it is this time.) I still have a chance against the other one. So I shall lay bare all the things that I think make me weird here, and let you, the disinterested reader, be the judge. In an effort to not be an unsalvageable asshole, I'd rather not say any of the "weird" things my opponent lays claim to, but believe me when I say they're pretty tame-sauce. And not just because that helps me win. I totally believe that I could win this, even if the judges were aware of my opponent's habit of tenderly embracing doors and whispering sweet nothings into their hinges whenever she opens them. (FULL DISCLOSURE: That was a joke. That's not a thing. Please don't get angry with me. I'm being so sincere right now.)

Don't worry, baby. It's just me and you.  Nothing will ever come between us.

Well, I guess I'll just list these out, in no particular order. You had better not think these are in a particular order, because you'd be wrong, and that would make me sad. While this list is by no means exhaustive, it is quite extensive, as you might expect. This is actually my longest post to date, so if you've got somewhere to be, or any will to better yourself, you might want to skip this one out.

I play D&D. Kind of. Sometimes. I've briefly mentioned my incompetent DM before, (might as well stand for Dumb Motherf– Well, you get the idea.) and he is the primary source of my hesitation to say that I play D&D. Honestly, D&D by itself isn't terribly weird. OK, yes it kind of is. Of all the nerdy hobbies, it's one of the few that has gained very little mainstream acceptance, despite how pretty rad it is. But like a Porky Pig made of antimatter, that's not all, folks! You see, for me, D&D is kind of like Pokemon. I have more fun thinking about it than actually playing it, and it's mostly because of the people I play with (In the case of Pokemon, it's "People who are better than me"). Most of the enjoyment I derive from D&D comes from making characters. Choosing stats and class and race are part of it, yes, but the real thrill comes from the backstory. I get a thrill out of creating characters with intricately crafted pasts, dreams, and motivations, despite the knowledge that I will likely never use them. And I think that's pretty weird.

Sometimes I just look at the sky. I can't really say when it began. Pretty recently. Can't really say why. Certainly a weeaboo thing, so some time in the last year. As an aside, I'd just like to say that I have no idea how "Weeaboo" is spelled, so I may vary it wildly. The sky is a pretty big thing in Japan, it would seem, so it could be from any number of things. Rin, my not-waifu according to the same friend that prompted this post, is a strong contender, since she is the sky. And, honestly, the fact that I read (played? I really don't know what verb is used with visual novels) that whole thing (You know. The one with the boobs but it's totally not all about boobs I swear you guys.) is a testament to my weirdness, in my opinion.

Mai Waifu 

I might just give actual dollars to anyone who can explain the joke in that picture in the comments. It's a stretch, but I believe in you guys.

This one isn't really weird, it's more just unfathomably stupid and sad. Seriously, don't read this on the day of your wedding. If you start crying, it could give off the wrong messages. Because I commute to school by public transportation, I often do a lot of blog-writing there, because what else am I going to do? Schoolwork? (I think it's interesting to note that my word processor tries to autocomplete “school” to “schoolgirls”. Not that that's weird or anything...) Obviously, any reasonable person would do this writing in a word processor, as I implied, because that's what they do. They process words, and mine need all the processing they can get before they can be deemed presentable. But I've never much cared for present-ability, so I made the questionable decision to type my manifesto directly into the blogger window. I mean, having to copy and paste from a word processor to the internet would be lame. Well, public transportation doesn't have Wi-fi on it for some reason, so there was no way for me to save my progress. So if my laptop were to hypothetically pull a surprise reboot on me, it's pretty likely that all my work would be erased. I know of this likelihood, because that's exactly what happened. So I just want you to remember that for every joke that made the cut, there was a treasure trove of comedy gold cruelly taken by my harpy of a laptop. Thanks to it, you'll never know about the wicked rap battle I participated in, or how I managed to use the hilariously incongruous phrase "go-getter" while rapping.

While Anti-Porky has likely been annihilated by now, that's still not all, folks! There's one more unusual aspect of D&D that I feel I could stand to mention. I've actually referred to it earlier on this blog, as a testament to my "nerdiness", but because weirdness is integral (get it? like math) to nerdiness, I figure it would be appropriate here as well. You see, once upon a time, I was watching an anime, and I found myself empathizing with one of the characters. Except it wasn't me. It was my D&D character, whom I wasn't even role-playing at the time. But I'm just kidding with you. That wasn't true at all. It actually happened twice. And I suppose that, because the subject of shared feeling was a burning hatred towards humanity, I myself also empathized. The second instance involved friendship, so I needn't tell you that my ego was quite silent on the matter.

Xyphlan the Dragonborn Cleric sheds a tear on your behalf.

This next one is kind of risky, as it leaves open the possibility for people to obtain personal information about me. However, if you're Dan Browning my blog in an effort to know more about me, I'm sure that the shame you must feel is harsher than any punishment that could possibly be levied by a court of law. Sometimes, when I'm bored, I type various first names into an anagram generator, along with my last name. The ones that result in good anagrams are saved, so I can use them to name my children if I ever have them. As you've probably guessed by now, I have a real thing for readying myself for situations that I know won't happen. "Be Prepared" and all that. I have several good ones, but I fear that if I give multiple away, they could be used to reverse engineer my last name, which could result in crimes being leveled against my person. But if I ever do have a son, I'll likely name him in such a way that his first and last name will be an anagram of "Craven Dick Fire", which is the best anagram for a name since, well Havoc Mantis.

In high school, I played in concert band. The Bb clarinet was my instrument of choice. Every year, over the summer, we went on a "band tour", where we basically just went on a field trip for a couple of days. Every once in a while, about every four years, we went on a really big trip, one to a faraway location that actually involved playing as a band, since that's what we were. For my big band tour, I went to Hawaii, to play in honor of the 70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. While that's all well and good, what's relevant to this post is that some time the year before, my band director had a fundraiser where we were selling Hawaiian Leis. She also gave one to each of the band members at a football game (we were a marching band as well). She told us to hold on to them over the weekend, so I tied it to my clarinet case. Monday came, and she forgot about it. The week passed. Nothing. Days, weeks, months went by, and she said nothing. When we went on band tour, (funny story: I slept in an airport) nothing. I kept that lei tied to my clarinet for probably two whole years. And I probably would have visited her on her deathbed, asking what it was that she wanted me to do with that lei, were it not for the time that I accidentally left it on the aforementioned public transportation, and I found it removed when the case was recovered. I'd just like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to all the commuters who boldly and compassionately ignored the posters telling them to report suspicious packages. You're all real life-savers. That line about sarcastically congratulating commuters is basically the only thing keeping this dreadfully dull paragraph from being cut.

Aw, to hell with it. I guess Katawa Shoujo is the new thing for me to bring up at even the slightest prompting. But every instance helps my case, I feel, because, well... it's pretty weird. Anyway, I started running awhile back. Like following a schedule, and habitually running, just for the sake of running. And it was because of KS. This, in and of itself, is kind of weird, I feel, but what's even weirder is what didn't motivate me to do the same. One of the required merit badges for the Eagle Scout rank is the Personal Fitness merit badge, which requires, among other things, that the recipient be personally fit. This includes working out and stuff, I guess. But I didn't, really. I still weaseled my way into becoming an Eagle Scout, because it seriously isn't that hard, but really think about that. I was motivated to work out by doing it for some imaginary "her", but the highest honor in all of Boy Scouting was not a sufficient incentive. Aren't those priorities a little... weird?

I listen almost exclusively to soundtracks. I've been doing this for long enough that I hardly even register it as weird, even though it likely is. But my musical tastes are just a segue to the real heart of the matter. But before that, I just need you to listen to this song really quick. Now, did that remind you of anything, besides the eternal darkness that promises to deaden all love and life, only requiring enough time to make good on its dread purpose? A particular song, perhaps? If you answered Carly Rae Jepson's "Call Me Maybe", then stop reading this, future-me. Go do whatever it is that you're procrastinating. If, however, you are a more reasonable individual, you may notice something curious: Those songs aren't even kind of similar. At least, that's what you probably think. But, if you pay really close attention, you'll find that the part where Carly says “I threw a wish in the well, don't ask me, I'll never tell.” is similar to the part in Magia where they sing in some fantasy language (Hebrew, maybe?). I'll have you know, I've taken a semester and a half of music theory. I know how to spell “appoggiatura”, so I know what I'm talking about. (NOTE: The only hard and fast rule about spelling “appahggutura” is that it has two p's, two g's, and some other letters. This is music fact.)


I hate fanning. Loathe it, really. You could even say I abhor it. Hell, you could say as many verbs as the thesaurus allows you, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader. You know that thing that people sometimes do when it's hot out, and they have a piece of paper, and they use it to push air at their face? Whenever I see someone do that, I feel angry. Perhaps even disgusted. Why do I so despise the innocuous action of keeping oneself cool? I have identified two possible contributing factors to this phenomenon. As anyone who's ever played an instrument will probably tell you, performing can get hotter than your celebrity crush of choice (I refuse to acknowledge the attractiveness of people). While you're playing up a sweat in a ridiculously heavy uniform, you catch a glimpse of motion out of the corner of your eye. No, it's not the conductor; he's firmly outside of your field of vision. In the audience, you see some impudent asshole, fanning himself with the program, while you can never do the same. He has the audacity to imply that his temperature is more uncomfortable. But as you glare at him through sweat-blurred eyes, noting his not-playing-an-instrument and relative lack of clothing (ahem), he just taunts you with his ability to keep himself cool. The second contributing factor to my irrational dislike of manual air conditioning is from Boy Scouts. You see, at summer camp, there's this thing where all these old white guys dress up as Native Americans. I know it sounds weird when I put it like that, because that's exactly what happens, and it is indeed very much weird. Anyway, all these elder folk have fancy regalia, which often includes fans, which they put to practical use. But as a meager underling, I've no fan, so I can take no respite from the huge-ass bonfire that was built in a summer camp. So, as before I am put in a situation where I am forced to impotently watch as other people fan themselves, while I can't. And that really burns my poffins.

You think you're better than me? What a smug asshole

Finally, we come to the most compelling reason of all: this blog. It's a well researched fact that all bloggers are insane, a special case of weird. Actually, the studies involved needed only a few observations to prove this result by induction, (Which is actually a form of deduction, because screw you for thinking you know anything) so they presumably spent their leftover grant money on some dope-ass gyroscopes. I am no exception to this theorem of insanity (as I just conveniently verified). In fact, I believe that I may stand out even among bloggers for my weirdness. I mean, I named two consecutive posts after Greek letters. I frequently admit to having seen depicted naked bodies of handicapped persons. On purpose. Through a medium that I will inevitably link my parents to, as soon as I forget to exclude them from my Facebook posts. I once stated that libertarians are opposed to wisdom teeth removal. I've implicated myself in more crimes than I even know the names for. But here's the real kicker, the coup de grace: Someone said they were weirder than me, and I CARED. I cared enough about this accusation to write more than 2500 words defending my position. That's more than one word for every year since Jesus was kicking around. That's certainly more than I've ever written for any kind of school paper. Maybe more than all my school papers combined. And here I am, still going. Because being crazy isn't like being drunk. If you know you're drunk, that means you're not drunk (That's how it works... right?) But even if you know you're crazy, you're still crazy.


But hey, you're the one who read all those words. Who's crazy now? (Gary Busey, if my pop culture references are still up to snuff.)

Post Scriptum: I didn't really intend to have so many recurring themes (Band, Boy Scouts, Disability Girls). It just kind of happened that way.

Post Post Scriptum: Abbreviations are for chumps.