Setting Up the Ground Rules (in more ways than one!)

Ah, here it is: The all important first non-introductory blog entry.

The first entry merely declared the blog's existence. This entry needs to set the tone for all the entries that follow and keep the interest of the people who signed on last time merely for the excitement of something new.
In that respect, it's like the second episode of a network TV show. The pilot grabbed people's eyes because it had all the network advertising and probably premiered after a big football game or something. The second episode has a much lower budget and no celebrity guest stars, but still needs to keep people hooked while showing them what the series will be like from there on out.
So what is the series going to be like?

I have no idea.

A month or so ago, I had an essay due for one of my classes. So, like usual, I was putting it off and wandering the dank and dingy halls of the internet. After a while I somehow clicked on a link off someone's Facebook page that led to their blog. Then I clicked on their friend's page and saw the blogs for a bunch of other people I knew and I read those as well. After a while I came to the distinct revelation that nearly everyone I knew was incredibly, incredibly depressed. And some of them were terrible poets as well.

I don't want my blog like that. While I am, at heart, nothing but an emo kid with a better taste in music, that doesn't mean that I think it's a good idea to start ranting out in the open whenever one of my friends is totally mean to me.
Have you ever had a friend write in their blog that you were a total jerk? It's terrible. You see them the next day and you totally want to yell at them but you can't because then you'd be admitting that you read their lame ass Livejournal!

So none of that here. If, say, Cute Blonde Girl #18 breaks my heart in a month, there is not a chance that the next day you'll see some blog entry entitled "This is why you don't deserve me!!!" featuring a whiny rant or a crappy poem or an uploaded painting or a link to some interpretive dance video posted on YouTube. I ain't gonna do it (unless, of course, I get really drunk, in which case I'll delete the damn thing the next morning).

That's not to say that this thing's going to be completely impersonal. I'm definitely going to go with the traditional journal approach at some point. I just won't be all touchy feely about it. And if I have something shitty to say about someone who might actually read this blog (so not, like George Bush or someone) I'll say it to their face and not to the faceless people on the web.

But if I am going to post personal stories, just not all the time, what else am I going to fill these pages with? Well, I guess whatever the fuck I want. And to start things off on an appropriately out-of-left-field note, I now present the rules to an amazing drinking game I helped invent last weekend!

SECONDS: the greatest drinking game ever!

invented by

Zach, Takis, and myself while at Erika's house

Seconds (named for the amount of seconds a person has to drink for in a given turn) is a card game. It uses a standard deck of playing cards. The play goes around the table with each player taking turns being either the "dealer" or the "drinker", with the former drawing the card that tells the latter how long to drink for. The drinker gets the chance to "challenge" the dealer which may lead to the opposite player doing the drinking.

Equipment:

• 1 deck of cards
• 2 or more players
• Alcohol (most likely beer)

Official Rules:
The players sit in a circle with the shuffled deck of cards in the middle. Play goes around counter-clockwise with one person being the "dealer", and the person to his right being the "drinker".
The dealer picks a card. The drinker has to then drink for as many seconds (hence the name) as the number on the card. If the card is a face card, you just give it the corresponding number as its place in the deck (ie. Jack is 11 seconds, Queen is 12, King is 13, and Ace is 14).
Before the drinker drinks, however, he has a choice. He can take the number of that card, or he can challenge the dealer. If he challenges, the dealer draws another card.

• If the card is higher than the first card, the dealer has to drink the number on the higher card and the drinker doesn't have to drink anything.
• If, however, the second card is lower than the first, the drinker gets punished for challenging and getting it wrong and has to drink the combination of the two cards.
• On the rare instances that the drinker challenges and the second card is the same as the first, both the drinker and the dealer have to drink the combination of the two.

Once the seconds have been dealt out, the drinker becomes the new dealer and the person to his right becomes the new drinker and so on, around in a circle until you are out of cards or drink.

Optional Rule:
The game is occasionally played with the rule that if, at any time, the dealer draws a suicide king card (one of the two kings that appear to be stabbing themselves in the head), the drinker has to finish whatever drink they have in front of them.

And that's Seconds!

So, play the game (only if you're of the legal drinking age, of course!) because it really is a fun time and you will get incredibly drunk. And I hope you keep coming back to check out my stupid little blog thing!