Technical Difficulties

My laptop screen is dead. Also, it seems everyone besides me on TBF is sick. So until I hear otherwise, there will be no updates. TBF mailing list and Brian's MySpace will probably update the soonest, but there will be no Factor this week.

Editor's Note

Hi. I'm working on archiving all the entries on this blog. While I'm doing that, I also may be editing previous entries that I come across that still have misspellings, so old articles may pop up as "new" ones on RSS feeds. Reread some of the classics if you want, or just ignore them.

See you all in about a week!

~Marie

Editor's Note: "Touring in Truckee"

So here's my vacation story.

Thursday I went to a "cabin" in Truckee with 12 other college students/slackers/gamers/ravers. (I use the word "cabin" facetiously because it's a vacation house with satellite TV, DSL, and a dishwasher which do not mesh with my operative definition of the term "cabin".)

I had a lot of fun. There was Wii Sports, 6-player Starcraft games, and tons of liver-killing drinking (Seriously! Jolt cola and vodka at 10 in the morning?! Sounds lethal, and if I didn't see Bob walking and (sorta) talking it would be #1 on my Methods of the "Accidental" Poisoning of My Enemies list.); none of which I participated in. (What can I say- I guess I'm kinda a party pooper.) I did end up joining in on some various games of Munchkin, Flux, and Apples to Apples, as well as a long match of Othello (I won). Did some hiking and swimming too.

So that should tell you what a bunch of geeks we all are. If you aren't convinced then I could tell you about all the Megaman, Mario, Star Ocean 2, and anime references we made over the long weekend. ("I feel like Ashton right now." LOLOMGROFL!!1)
[Brian: (straight face).......wow........]

Because of my (relative) proximity to Vegas, I was able to help out Brian with the Japanese businessman. ("You accidentally fell into a fuck-pile of teenage boys, Sakamoto-san? Daijobou?" *clickclick*) (Thanks, by the way, to Mark, Geo, Kyle, and Paulie. You guys rock!)
[Brian: I forgot that you can speak a little Japanese.]

Thus, the Factor is saved from foreign takeovers and outsourcing for another year. Until Brian forgets about his unfortunate tendency of losing when he gambles next summer.
[Brian: It was only ONE TIME!!! Besides, if you think that's bad, wait til I hit New York...]

~Marie

New Friend of the Factor

Fitting with next week's Factor theme, The Gossip Fix has affiliated with The Brian Factor! So give them a few more clicks on their visitor counter, and check it out. (There is a totally worthwhile pic of Lindsay Lohan on the latest post.)

Welcome to TBF family!

Note from the Editor: Blog improvements

Hey all! Just giving you a heads-up about some changes I've been making to TBF blog.

Google took over Blogger several months ago, and now there is a new feature: tags!

I've added tags to the posts. So far, there is "TBF" (for TBF columns), "Echoes" (for Echoes), "Brian's song" (for Brian's Song entries, "Harlean's Song" ('cuz she's done a few), "Advice" (for those couple advice columns Brian did a while ago), "About Brian" (for the stuff he's written about himself and his life), "ABT" (for those posts that mention A Beautiful Tragedy), "Soundboards", and "Challenge" (in case Bri decides to do another challenge after the feminism topic). And, also, "Editor's Note" for this type of stuff.

The tags should show up at the end of each post. I've added links for most tag searches on the side bar.

There is now an entry with pics of past TBF poll results. The post's link is under the current poll, and will be updated whenever a new poll is posted.

Note from the Editor: The weeks to come

Hmm. So Brian's left, and I'm stuck here to amuse ya'll for a full month.

Sorry, but I can't juggle, and the balloons pop whenever I try to make animals.

But at least I get the office to myself for a while. At last: the seat is staying down!

I'll pass on some of my favorite songs, write an editorial or two, and if all of us can't scrape up a Factor working together, then I'll be stuck with the job of finding something to call "Best Of" (though in my opinion, there have been too few Factors to really justify having the title of "Best Of").

(Screw you Research Methods project! I've got Factor stuff to write this month!)

So I'm deputizin' all'a ya: submissions are more than welcome. I'll post four or nine times a week if I get enough material. Perhaps enough contributions will revitalize Brian's interest in the Factor.

~Marie (who is currently munching on Brian's Top-Secret Emergency-Only Candy Stash and has her feet propped up on the tall pile of Brian's unfinished pornographic screenplays)

And away we go...

Since Brian's tired of writing, I'd like to draw your attention to an older article from way back). I'm hoping there will be some new comments. C'mon people, everyone and their dog has an opinion about religion! (I realize that that was a very subtle joke and may be considered to be in bad taste. I apologize.)

So let's power up the virtual time machine and go back to May 18, 2006! Make some funny noises or flick the lights on and off; it'll help create the illusion of time traveling and earn you some really weird looks from the other drones around the office.

On to RELIGION!

Editor's Note: Notice about TBF RSS feed

TBF blog RSS feed will no longer show the entire entry. This is to prevent the content from being stolen by Bitacle who will make money from it. You can read my rant explaining the situation here or get an official explanation here.

Editor's Note

Looking forward to TBF: Season 2 premier? Me too! Only a couple days left....

I figured that since I have the official title of "Editor" of TBF (as well as the self-proclaimed title of "Archiver") I may as well let you all in on some of my thoughts and expectations regarding The Factor, mainly, the issue of responses.

Having more responses submitted to Echoes would be very much appreciated. I thought that the Echoes last season were disappointing. There were some interesting ones depicting other people's views that I enjoyed reading, and it would be cool to have more of those. Hence, the subtitle of this blog-version of TBF. Plus, if there aren't enough Echoes, Brian may just end up writing rants every single week. And then, all you friends of Brian who dislike reading will either have to read twice as much of Brian's opinions or start deleting installments of The Factor and lie to Bri when he asks you if you read it. Which would not be a nice thing to do. So, you see, it'll just be easier to send in your thoughts to Echoes. You and I will benefit from it. It would be good karma.

I should mention that the other alternative to Brian writing a Factor every week is to have me write a response. And I will use big words, complicated theories, Marxist critiques, scores of semi-colons, and other pretentious atrocities. And trust me, my comments in last season's Echoes will be short in comparison. I don't want to commit myself to writing biweekly essays (just look at how infrequently serious topics are brought up on my blog), but I will. And you will hate me.

So show Brian some appreciation! Let him know that people read what he writes! Distribute this link to all those annoyingly opinionated people who try to get you to argue politics at work! Submit some feedback once in a while, something more than "I hear dat." I know for a fact that Brian's main goal with The Factor is to encourage people to think and speak. So do some thinking and speaking!

Editor's Note: Features

Features for you to take advantage of:

- Comments! Anonymous comments are accepted, though we'd appreciate at least some sort of name. I am sure, though, that for the old readers of TBF that Brian will still accept Echoes vis his email. (And I don't know about Brian, but I will simply laugh at any flames. Who writes flames? Illiterate people who need blinders to maintain the illusion of their little fantasy world and helmets to protect their underused, doughy brains. Reasonable arguments, however, are encouraged. We welcome contention. We thrive on it. We'd love to have religious fundies and paranoid conspiracy theorists (two groups of people which are *not* mutually exclusive) put in their opinions.)

- RSS feed! ^^^Clicky^^^ So you won't miss a single Factor.

- Hit counter! C'mon and hit us as much as you like. We know it's our fault. We can take the abuse. And TBF will still love you. So what are you waiting for?

Editor's Note: Comments

Anonymous comments are now accepted, and automatic email notifications should go straight to Brian. (He's the one you should write to anyway, and heck if I'm gonna deal with any spam.) (Mwahaha. You're welcome, Brian!)

Editor's Note: Comments

Hey ya'll, Marie here. I'm one of Brian's friends. I took it upon myself to create this Blogger version of "The Brian Factor" for two main reasons: 1) I hate MySpace blogs, which has been one of the two mediums Brian's been using to distribute TBF (the other being by direct email). MySpace often requires an account to access members' blogs and their RSS feeds suck. 2) I was bored, so I made this a summer project.

I've pretty much archived all installments of season one (Dec '05 to July '06) of The Brian Factor here. I may have missed one or two of the "Echoes of The Factor".

The dates and times are either from Brian's MySpace posts or from TBF emails.

Some of the first entries I posted have been edited by me. (Just some corrected typos, shortened mega-lipses "..........", and capitalizations of the words "I", "I'm", and "I've". Nothing major, B, so don't tweak out. :) Most of the entries, however, haven't been edited. (Blame the ADHD. Using the find & replace tool gets monotonous and after ten minutes I get the urge to go start fires or something.) (That was a joke. I've never committed arson. Well, no acts of arson that they've successfully prosecuted me for, anyway.)

As of tonight Brian hasn't seen any of this. In fact, I only clued him in to the project a few days ago. I dunno whether I'll be making next season's posts on this blog or whether Brian will.

All mentions of "A Beautiful Tragedy" (ABT) refer to Brian's musical projects. So far there is no web access to band info or song samples.