Getting To Know Your Bloggers - Brian
by BrianL on Feb 11, 2011 9:18 AM PST
Email
Print
Username: BrianL (Real name: Brian Larsen)
Member of Field Gulls Since: January 12, 2008 (original user ID: hell if I know)
How I Discovered Field Gulls: Like Phil, I ran into Field Gulls after becoming a part of the USSM and Lookout Landing communities. I was looking for a Seahawks resource that had the same type of objective, honest analysis that could be found throughout the Mariners sabermetric blogosphere. FG was a godsend to me in that regard. Unlike both Phil and Scruffy, I joined the community well after it had become an established part of SBN and the Seattle sports blog scene. To put that into perspective, I don't actually remember a Field Gulls that predated John. Shrug had stepped down well before I joined.
My Involvement at Field Gulls: My first priority right now is handling the administrative side of things. I tend to be the admin that wades into the comment section to make sure everyone is playing nice (trust me, it's way easier now than it was in the dark days of 2008). Beyond that, the plan is for me to handle breaking news and write about off-beat stuff. I don't profess to have nearly the football eye or writing chops that John had.
Personal Stuff: Born, raised, and still living in the Everett area. I wasn't a real big sports fan until 2000 when I began following the Mariners. 2004 was when I started watching and rooting for the Seahawks. Given that I don't have nearly as much of a personal history with this team than others, I usually tell people that Matt Hasselbeck is far and away my favorite player in team history. His "We want the ball. And we're gonna score" moment absolutely sold me on Matt the personality.
I'm currently a distance-learning CWU Junior studying computer science and an IT support tech for a Seattle-based company. I kill free time with videogames and perhaps an unhealthy amount of Netflix. I'm pretty sure I can give Phil a run for his money as far as nerdy entertainment goes. Last year alone I motored through the entirety of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, Cheers, Frasier, Castle, and How I Met Your Mother (also known as the best sitcom on television right now). Right now I'm going through the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica and Farscape.
I am a bit of a music nerd, having done the band thing through high school and my first few years of college. I play the saxophone and dabble a bit in keyboards for my own amusement. If you were to take a peek into my iTunes playlist, you'd find a rather odd mix containing everything from the Dave Brubeck Quartet to the entire Toto discography.
-Brian
90 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
..."The Rains in Africa"
"I was 11 or 12 and Quinton was like 30. He was the only dude on the Pop Warner team who had a full mustache and a beard. And he used to drive to Pop Warner games. You're not supposed to be doing that. It was crazy." -Marshawn Lynch
HIMYM is a great sitcom but...
Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the best sitcom on television right now and of course nothing beats Arrested Development which is not on t.v. anymore. Since you’ve burned through a ton of Joss Whedon another good one of his is Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog.
Illusions, Michael. A trick is what a whore does for money. - GOB
Actually, Community is the best Sitcom on television right now.
Although IASIP is right up there, and might be the most hilarious and “zaniest” show ever conceived.
I don't see how anyone can like that show
I thought we stopped this musical crap after High School Musical.
Fire Gus "What's a screen?" Bradley.
I stopped watching NBC comedies
after they killed The Office with an overabundance of Pam and Jim and the firing of Conan.
Illusions, Michael. A trick is what a whore does for money. - GOB
The Office is one of the worst shows on TV
Which sucks because they were decent.
Fire Gus "What's a screen?" Bradley.
I hate the Office for how it progressed
I felt like it peaked in seasons 2/3 and has been downhill ever since.
If you don't watch Community and Parks & Rec, then I pity you.
Don’t lump together all the shows a network broadcasts; I think CBS makes SHITTY programming, but “How I Met Your Mother” is a legitimate Top 10 (or even Top 5) comedy. Unless you don’t use TiVo or Hulu (or, um, other electronic means) to watch TV shows, then networks really don’t matter anymore.
Agreed community is the best show.
That Advanced Dungeons and Dragons episode was amongst the funniest things i’ve seen on t.v. in a long time.
"I was 11 or 12 and Quinton was like 30. He was the only dude on the Pop Warner team who had a full mustache and a beard. And he used to drive to Pop Warner games. You're not supposed to be doing that. It was crazy." -Marshawn Lynch
Their stop motion Christmas episode was my favorite.
Loved the D&D one too.
by Hopefulmsfan on Feb 11, 2011 12:55 PM PST up reply actions
bro when dude is painted straight black like and all elvish and is so devistated...
when he gets slain early in the game and departs the table all slow motion was too much.
"I was 11 or 12 and Quinton was like 30. He was the only dude on the Pop Warner team who had a full mustache and a beard. And he used to drive to Pop Warner games. You're not supposed to be doing that. It was crazy." -Marshawn Lynch
Farscape! Hell yes!
I had a couple of friends who were into this show back in the day, and they repeatedly tried to get me to watch it. All I kept thinking was, “Puppets and sci-fi? Really?” Then it was added to the Instant Watch, and I got hooked on that show pretty quickly.
Brian, when you finish the series, don’t forget to watch the Peacekeeper Wars movie. It definitely wraps things up pretty nicely.
The user formerly known as Phildopip
by Phil Hatzenbuehler on Feb 11, 2011 10:18 AM PST reply actions
I'll keep that in mind.
I’m pretty sure that in the last year of having Netflix Instant Watch, I’ve watched more television than the previous 21 years of my life combined.
Dark Days of 2008 of course involved my horrible Lofagate prank
I was sent to exile until April 2009, and I spent my time getting prison raped by Jerramy Stevens.
Everett Area? Well are we talking by the mall or downtown?
Fire Gus "What's a screen?" Bradley.
Heh, I'm "North Lynnwood" so it looks like we have lived near each other without knowing it
Beyond the Alderwood Mall I’m thinking the most memorable place in this area is “Kompact Kar Korner”. Really, that’s the title. KKK.
Fire Gus "What's a screen?" Bradley.
by SSreporters on Feb 11, 2011 11:26 AM PST up reply actions
Ha, I've driven past there.
Did a double-take the first time I saw it.
Holy shit, my house is like blocks from there...
MHS class of ’07
Wow, I didn't realize how close you guys live to me.
Mill Creek for me.
by Hopefulmsfan on Feb 11, 2011 12:57 PM PST up reply actions
Mill Creek is a nice small community
I’m at the Central Market from time to time.
The first year I lived here (Feb. 2005) I missed the start of Redskins/Seahawks 2006 playoff game but caught it at the UW Bookstore at town center.
Fire Gus "What's a screen?" Bradley.
I used to work at the Mills Music next to Central Market.
Nice little place, though I’m stunned to see how much they’ve grown in recent years.
What has really surprised me
And it’s not being racist or anything, but the Asian community has skyrocketed in the Mill Creek/Lynnwood area.
One thing I’m not fond of in Mill Creek is that tiny-ass library. But I’m sure that will be replaced with something better soon.
Fire Gus "What's a screen?" Bradley.
I was actually on rotation between the Mill Creek, Bothell, and Lynnwood stores.
Most of the time I was at the big store in Bothell.
Thumbs up to Dave Brubeck for sure
Best thing to come out of my high school jazz band days was finding out he had other charts besides Take Five. Not that it’s not awesome, because it is, but – Pick up Sticks, then Stompin’ for Mili… and I was hooked.
Take Five is what made me pick up the alto sax.
I modeled my sound after Paul Desmond. Granted, that’s a terrible thing to do if you’re trying to carve out a niche for yourself as a lead player.
Paul Desmond's precision was unparalleled though
You could certainly do a lot worse insofar as inspirations go. Okay, ending the Dave Brubeck Quartet threadjack. Cool cool stuff though.
So so so good!
Closing my eyes, I swear to god I was listening to Fran Kranz. And then opening them again, it was shocking to see how spot-on the mannerisms were.
The user formerly known as Phildopip
by Phil Hatzenbuehler on Feb 11, 2011 1:44 PM PST up reply actions
I have no idea how Enver hasn't gotten a prominent role elsewhere yet.
I think he was the best actor on Dollhouse, and that show had a ton of talent.
by BrianL on Feb 11, 2011 1:45 PM PST up reply actions 2 recs
I don't really have a comment,
but I really enjoy these get to know you items. Before I hated you all but now I can see that you are actually real people.
Mind if I do one?
I found Field Gulls from the Football Outsiders awards Brandon Mebane ballot stuffing thing.
Transplant from the about.football.com forum, which until here was the only place I could find with decently good, rational, usually respectful and sometimes objective football discourse. Which I found in the spring of 2003 when I could not find enough mock drafts to satisfy my soul. See, back then, there were the features that Don Banks or Pete Prisco or some hack would put out every 2 weeks or so, and you had no idea how much of the content was NOT pulled straight out of his ass. About.com was a hotbed for mock draft fanatics, some folks loved the draft more than the regular season, weird. so that was cool but dried up as Web 2.0 evolved and entities like SB nation took sports blogging and discourse to a whole new level.
by jacobstevens on Feb 11, 2011 11:50 AM PST up reply actions
Oh man, I'd forgotten about the Mebane blalot stuffing.
You know it’s kinda cool to see how far SBN and sports blogging in general has come. Seeing Rob Neyer jump from ESPN to us a few weeks back was surreal.
Yeah, surprising to me, as well.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much sense it made.
Biggest website: Google or Facebook? Facebook now. Why? With Google you search for what you’re looking for, then go get it. You use it for a purpose and move on. With Facebook people hang out. They’re there for a significant portion of their online life.
Content providers that pushed content first, incorporated forums as a feature later and allowed them to evolve themselves: they missed the opportunity.
Their forums are literally a joke. It’s mission critical for them to produce content people will consume. That costs money, to not become worthless content. But the invention of the hyperlink means that cost can easily reap absolutely no rewards.
With their joke forums and poor models for engagement, what’s to keep me hanging around? I don’t. I come here.
I can consume their content just as easy. Often it’s aggregated for me. I can contribute content myself. And I can troll and flame in the comment threads here as well as there or anywhere else. But the key is the content here, that we all argue about, is relevant to us. It’s about our teams, and some of it is ours or our peers’. That’s community. It’s social. The Facebook of sports.
by jacobstevens on Feb 11, 2011 1:00 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs
So are you a student of tv history, or did you just enjoy it, or did you want to know what all the fuss was about?
I think the first comment came across way too harsh. I used to watch that show when I was a kid. But I’m guessing you’re about 5-10 years younger than me, so it just struck me as odd.
Got into it randomly but I enjoyed the heck out of it.
Compelling characters, some of the best writers television has ever seen.
I think Frasier has tainted my memory of it.
I should probably take that walk down memory lane some time.
Frasier is, in my personal opinion, better than Cheers sometimes.
But they’re both fantastic.
BrianL, well before you were born the modern sitcom was invented.
It wasn’t Cheers, Frazier or Friends. The original was “I Love Lucy”.
THE Brian Larsen?? All this time???
Do you occasionally sit down and play the feature on Harlem Nocturne still? Haha, man, those were the days before you’d get REALLY into it.
Go Pack?
Uh Yes.
That would be me. Haven’t played Harlem Nocturne since middle school, though.
8th grade.
Holy crap, I haven’t thought about Greg in ages. I actually used his tenor sax my senior year in high school when I got moved from second alto to lead tenor.
Well how about that.
Haven’t seen you since I ran into you at the EdCC office while I was getting my transfer papers.
I remember that!
This is so weird, you’re far more chatty in person than you are here, that’s why I never made the connection. Greg and I are estranged, he had a problem with acting like a douche and such so yeah. I’m at UW now, not really playing sax anymore.
Go Pack?
Yeah, my job here for the last few years has really been to play the part of comment moderator.
Most of my time has been spent reading through comments and keeping an eye out for bad behavior, so I haven’t gotten too heavily involved in discussions in recent months/years. I’m hoping to do a bit less of that because moderating really can be a drag.
I’m playing a bit on the side, but I’m not with any college groups anymore. Did a two-and-a-half year run with the EdCC band that was really enjoyable, though.
Yeah that time Cascade went to that event that EdCC hosted
you looked like you were having a blast. Lemme say thanks for doing the hard, mundane stuff around here. Without some regulation FG would deteriorate at least a little.
Go Pack?
When did you leave EdCC?
Because I’ve been there since 2008.
Only other user I know who is at EdCC (never met him in person though) is BrettJMiller, who was sports editor for the Triton Review.
Fire Gus "What's a screen?" Bradley.
Spring 2010 was my last quarter there.
I wasn’t on campus very often, though. I’d be there on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays for an hour jazz ensemble rehearsal, but everything else I did online or on the weekends.
Necessary evil, let's me hold down an almost full-time job and build up my resume while I'm at school.
Last thing I need is to graduate into this job market without any experience.
I'm loathe to consider Futurama a "Sit-com."
First of all, Archer is the funniest thing on TV right now, bar none. No doubt in my mind. But is it fair to compare Community (or 30 Rock or HIMYM) to an animated show that has such loose restrictions on language and content? Futurama has practically no constraints to reality, which admittedly makes it so much fun to watch.
Although The Simpsons and Family Guy try to exist under more traditional “sitcom-y” parameters, I think there should be a clear line between Animated Comedy and Sit-coms. Thus, Futurama is not a Sit-com.
Yay CS Major
Computer Engineering myself, but still lots of stuff on the software side
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
In Association With
Shutdown Corner - NFL - Yahoo! Sports
- Former high-school star Brian Banks does serious time on trumped-up charge, now hopes for an NFL shot
- Former ‘idiot kicker’ Mike Vanderjagt in trouble after accosting junior-high heckler
- Adrian Peterson blows teammates away in footraces; appears to be on the mend
- UPDATE: Charlie Sheen didn’t buy Lawrence Taylor’s Super Bowl ring
- Alex Smith gets blown up by Jon Beason over Cam Newton comments
