The Real Brian Show

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113: The Game of Life | Captain Influence | SevenBlueSeven | JonnyPistolShot May 11, 2018

Show notes

The Real Brian Show is a full house this week with Captain Influence, SevenBlueSeven and JonnyPistol at the helm with The Real Brian. We're talking gaming, Black Mirror, chokolat, non-spoilery Avengers stuff, and... did we mention gaming? It's the game of life!

In This Episode

Introductions, of course
What's in our cups
An espresso shot for life
Non-spoilery Avengers talk
Games we're playing (i.e. Alien: Isolation, Overwatch)
Toying with a twitch idea
Road rage and sensitivity

Game of Life

In true Real Brian Show fashion, the conversation this week hovers around various games in life that are both highly connected and don't really have anything to do with each other. There are the fun game-games, like Alien: Isolation, Overwatch, Battletech, Divinity... But then there are the real-games.

We play a different sort of game every day. The foods we eat, the drinks we drink. The people we talk to, the people we don't talk to. Our lives are a complex network of interactions that shuffle us along the platform of life, where we level up or proverbially lose lives and find ourselves back at square one.

This isn't The Truman Show. People don't watch our lives like they can watch a Twitch channel. But sometimes the way we live is put on display for all to see, and when that time inevitably comes... what are people going to see?

We'll all slip up from time to time. Perhaps it comes in a heated moment during traffic, or at just the wrong moment after a long day. Learning to control our reactions to situations under pressure is an important tool in anyone's belt, and that doesn't mean suppressing emotions, but possibly learning how to separate emotion from circumstance. The guys talk about getting into the mind of someone you're butting heads with and it started me down this path of the different places I become irritated by people. The most obvious is while in the car. Why does someone choose to go 10 mph under the limit? Why did that car have to swing wide left in order to turn right (causing ME to nearly drift into oncoming traffic)? But then there are other places... like at the grocery store when someone with with 100 items chooses the "self checkout" line.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Where do these irritated reactions come from? After all, I can't control other people. I can't control whether someone loves me, needs me, remembers my name, knows what I'm dealing with, or even grasps what implications their own actions have on everyone around them. We all only have so much time in the day, so maybe part of the problem is that we don't give ourselves enough padding, enough space, to accomplish the things we need to in a single day. As a result, we're behind in our own schedules. That makes us anxious, short, selfish, and narrow-minded.

Maybe in order to do more, we have to do less.

Links

Plugin with The Real Brian on Spotify here and here
Join The Real Brian Show Facebook community
The Philosophy of Thanos (via NerdSync)

112: That’s No Moon... | Captain Influence and Shear Terror May 04, 2018

Show notes

We're sharing and caring this week with recipes, stories and chocolate from Brian, Tony and Morgan. Also, we have an interesting discussion about SHOULD vs COULD and the mindset that accompanies approaching decision making starting from these two launching pads. By the by, did you ever notice how strikingly similar jawas are to minions? May the 4th be with you all!

In This Episode

May the 4th be with you!
SHOULD vs COULD
NBA Playoffs & NBA2K18
Corporate bogus medicine
Fathead Pizza

Should vs Could

Ever heard someone say the phrase "woulda, coulda, should"? In fact, there are six different "common" combinations of this phrase that people employ, based mostly on a subconscious ordering of the words.

Shoulda, or "should have", implies that a path of correctness was known, but unexplored. Coulda, or "could have", is less concrete... implying something more of a possibility, rather than a certainty. Woulda, or "would have", is even further removed than "coulda", where there is some condition under a banner of possibility.

Whichever word we put first when dismissively uttering this phrase ends up revealing a lot about our perspective! And likewise, using should versus could reveals a lot about how we view the decisions we're confronting. Saying we "should" do something carries along an implicit stressor, one that carries the weight of a particular correct path. Conversely, saying we "could" do something opens up the element of possibility, creating a sense of freedom for the choice at hand.

What do you think? Have you been restricting your decision making to "should"? Do you need to open yourself up to the "could"? Let us know!

Links

111: Let’s Have a Cuddle Puddle | Mangodroplet and Captain Influence Apr 27, 2018

Show notes

In typical Real Brian Show fashion, we've got an exciting discussion for you that goes from Tony's odd love for Folgers' coffee to "cuddle puddle" to some of the foundational concepts of healthy eating. Join Brian, Anna and Tony for another riveting Superhero Friday installment!

In This Episode

This is where Cuddle Puddle came from.
Promising that we won't grow up to be our parents.
Good GMO... bad GMO
They stick corn and wheat in everything. Doncha know.
Healthy foods, healthy living
Biking
Stress messes you up

Self-Care

If there are any takeaways from this episode, it's that being healthy isn't just about eating or just about exercising or just about community. It is a combination of lifestyle choices that intimately affect each other. Think about it... the things we eat affect the energy we have, which influences exercise. Exercise affects stress levels and mindset. Stress levels affect sleep patterns. And sleep patterns affect the way we eat! Have you ever, when finding yourself hungry and awake at 1 a.m., said, 'Oh, I'll just make a nice green salad.' No. It's ice cream. Pizza. Or, in my case, cheese tortillas (filled with CRAP).

Self-care is continual and cyclical. The better care you take of yourself, the more you want to take better care of yourself. When self-care is de-prioritized, we develop a lot of habits that are convenient due to circumstance and exacerbate the lack of self-care. I have a terrible habit of putting self-care on hold while I take care of other things (usually work things). I'll put off so much that, eventually, something will happen that stops me right where I am and forces me to take care of what I've been neglecting. It used to be that I'd get really sick. My body would collapse and I'd spend three days puking my guts out and running a fever of 102. Lately, it hasn't been my health that takes a hit but other, peripheral things... like this week I was leaving for work and found standing water in my HVAC closet! 24 hours, and several dozens of gallons of mopped up water, later I have a brand new water heater, a declogged emergency drain and a stunned feeling of, 'What the heck just happened?!'

I've been reading a book that really digs in to the reasons behind why we neglect and put things off and how to turn things around. There is so much I'm guilty of, and so much I ignore... knowing that I'll eventually get to it, but right here and now I have to do what's right in front of me. Thinking about self-care, and especially thinking about health in a holistic way, I know that a great deal of my effort needs to go into how I can prioritize sleep and downtime (true relaxation) and learn to delegate responsibilities in order to achieve that.

There is no trick other than to figure out the lifestyle choices that work for YOU. That work for ME. We can share tips and tricks, but frankly the solutions we apply won't be the exact same as someone else's. And that's OK, right? That's why we have these discussions. The more you know, the more you can prepare for.

Links

Boca Java Coffee
Deets the personalized jerseys for every draft pick
Use Spotify? Check out this playlist and this playlist
Where does your fat go when you exercise? (via CNN)

110: The Suck of All Sucks | Shear Terror and Heroess Hannah Apr 20, 2018

Show notes

Be a nicer. It's the bitchin' thing to do! We're talking about remembering names and what rad verbiage cats are throwin' down these days. If it's cool with you, that is. If it's not, whatevs, we're goin' with the flowin' and jammin' with Shear Terror and Heroess Hannah. So pull up your britches, turn that frown upside down and have a little fun with us.

In This Episode

We're Really Excited About Life
Strategies for remembering names... (maybe Michael Scott should not be your role model)
IN phrases (e.g. boss, homie, bitchin'...)
Face glow techniques (tip: it's not dirt)

Remembering Names

There are only a few people whose names don't seem to stick for me. It always happens when I second guess myself once, and then I continually lack confidence in knowing I know that person's name. On the whole, I'm not terrible with it. I usually remember too much about the person, not just their name.

During the first day of orientation after I transferred colleges, myself and my peers were gathered in a large assembly room where we were getting the low-down on campus. I don't recall much about that assembly, except for when the person leading the assembly had us all stand up and turn to the person next to us. We were to shake hands, tell each other our name, and then stare into one another's eyes while repeating their name.

No. Joke.

It was pretty dang awkward and I honestly have no idea what they hoped would become of that little exchange, but it scarred me. Just kidding. It made me realize that I never wanted to do that again, probably, which is why I tend to remember people's name.

My name (Emilee) is spelled a little differently than the traditional name. I'm cool with that, it's been funny to see who has a problem remembering how to spell it. I've been tracking my receipts from restaurants where they take my name for an order... and far from getting the double e correct, I see emliy, emmily, emilie... It's funny. But because my name is spelled the way it is, I know how meaningful it is when people get my name right... and so I like doing that for others. I think names are important, so I will double check emails or messages before I send them, I will apologize and ask someone to repeat their name if I didn't hear it properly, and then repeat it back to them.

Just like remembering anything, really, it's a matter of finding a system that works for you and

109: Don't Fall Asleep... | Mangodroplet and Captain Influence Apr 13, 2018

Show notes

Don't... fall... asleep... Though we can't imagine that will be a problem with this installment of the podcast! We're talking Ready Player One with Tony (Captain Influence) and Anna (Mangodroplet). If you haven't seen it yet, we give a clear spoiler warning for when that particular discussion begins. Here's a great excuse to go out and see it! Don't worry, we have a lot of other things to cover!!

In This Episode

UGH. Wind.
Don't fall asleep - Bad Lip Reading
Anna's Residency Update!!
Sequels that are better than the originals
Trump fired Dr. Evil
Team Coco with ways on how to annoy your roommate!
Agreeing on one thing... Odesza
Ready Player One!!!

Since I have not yet seen Ready Player One, my mission here will be to direct you at all the content we talked about on the podcast! Also, if you haven't yet discovered Brian's playlists on Spotify... click here and click here.

Links

"You Will Be" scene from Empire Strikes Back
Media Stinger

108: Eat Your Feelings | Shear Terror and Heroess Hannah Apr 06, 2018

Show notes

Eat your feelings! Then eat someone else's feelings. Or don't, that might not be polite come to think of it. It's better to share! So get a nice bowl of spicy Thai noodles, or whatever form your feelings take, and curl up with this installment of the Real Brian Show! We're so happy to welcome back Shear Terror and, new guest, Hannah (heretofore Heroess).

In This Episode

Welcome back Morgan! And first time welcome to Hannah.
What does your "perfect day" look like?
Sciatic remedy, you say?
British crime dramas on Netflix

Eat Your Feelings

I've probably mentioned this in blog posts recently, but I've been on a major Thai food kick for a couple months now. Once I started keeping regular Thai ingredients on hand it started getting easier to whip something up spur of the moment, or to just buy the more substantial aspects of a recipe when needed (fresh pork, chilies, you know).

If you like Thai food but don't really know where to start... here's a great recipe. It's simple: spicy Thai noodles.

What do you need?

Linguine pasta Honey Chili Paste Soy Sauce Sesame oil Scallions, carrots, peanuts, cilantro, hot sauce

So simple, right? I add pork to this recipe. But here's what you do:

1. Boil pasta while doing the steps below
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil and 1/2 C sesame oil with 1 tablespoon of red pepper flakes
3. When oil is hot, strain pepper flakes and reserve the oil in a bowl. Add the oil back into the skillet, then add 1 1/2 teaspoons of chili paste.
4. Whisk together with 6 tablespoons of soy sauce and 6 tablespoons of honey
5. Toss pasta in the skillet with the sauce

BOOM! Top with chopped scallions, carrots, cilantro... serve hot or cold.

I think I'm going to go eat my feelings now.

Links

107: Really Dog?!? | Captain Influence Mar 30, 2018

Show notes

Let's be real: sometimes people say stupid things. I mean, we don't, but some people do. In this Superhero Friday episode, Tony joins Brian to talk about some of those situations in which we're confronted with a need to start a conversation in an uncertain environment. Since we live in an uber sensitive environment in which everything we say has the potential to offend someone, how do we go about having small talk with people we just met?

In This Episode

March Maaaaaadness
Pet cancer is real and getting realerer
Taking care of your pet(s)
Awkward introductionss...
...topics to talk about with people you just met

Really dog?!?

We can't control how other people choose to engage in small talk, but we can manage our own approach. Tony and Brian get heavy into different options for starting up conversations with people we've just met or don't know well, that can help us avoid awkwardness of offense or bringing up sensitive topics, so instead I want to dive into the other side of this.

Since we can only control ourselves, we can make adjustments to handling introductory conversations. We can select questions, take a different approach, try to make people feel at ease. But we cannot control how other people choose to approach small talk. I wrote at the top of the blog that culture, as a whole, has become increasingly sensitive to comments people make, to such a degree that it sometimes seems better not to talk to anyone than to talk to someone and fear saying the wrong thing. The conversations that may seem innocuous to us are sensitive to others, and vice versa. The things we think will be fun will be uninteresting or annoying to someone else. It happens all the time.

There isn't a way to avoid it entirely (unless you become a hermit and only talk to frogs... but even then you'd better be careful, they make look happy but that's only because they eat whatever bugs them). So the best we can do is learn to control our own responses. I can have terrible reactions to things, and the reaction is almost never due to just what was said but of mounting stressors that precede whatever information I just got causing me to react badly. I was reading a little from Jerome Kagan recently, specifically about the three general categories of child temperaments, and I was surprised (and not surprised) to realize that we all tend to revert back to our child-like temperament under stress. Without honing our reactions, we are all a bunch of babies.

Be excellent to one another! My challenge to you, and to me, this next week is to not make anyone feel bad for asking a question that they couldn't possibly know is a sensitive topic to us. Rise above and treat them with respect and kindness. Let's change the way we react, and change the way we converse!

Links

It's Getting Real in the Whole Foods Parking Lot
The Truth About Pet Cancer
An Emilee-tested, Emilee-approved Brussel Sprout recipe (tip: the smaller the brussel sprout, the less bitter)
When Loyola-Chicago Broke a Racial Barrier 55 Years Ago

106: The Quasi-Nerd | Captain Influence Mar 17, 2018

Show notes

That's quasi-nerd, not queasy-nerd... though we understand why you might make that mistake! Welcome back Captain Influence, aka Tony, to this mad March installment of The Real Brian Show! Our classic lineup of conversations includes music, movies, gaming, and, of course, a strong shot of espresso.

In This Episode

It's St. Patty's Day!! Tomorrow...
The Corrs. It's been too long, man.
What type of nerd are you? Quasi-nerd... apathetic nerd... full-on nerd...
Espresso Shot!
Chvrches (My Enemy). Sia (Magic).
And, duh... Alien: Isolation

Quasi-Nerd

The prefix quasi just means something that is almost, but not quite the thing that's being defined. Someone who is a quasi-nerd probably meets a lot of the parameters, but not all of them... or not in the classic sense of it. We've really pimped out the word "nerd" in our culture, tossing it around both as a compliment and as a dig, to the point where it has almost lost its meaning. We've glamorized the term. We use phrases like cute nerd.

Literally, of course, a nerd refers to someone who is socially inept, unstylish and unattractive. I experimented a little bit... wondering what the most popular references to nerd were out there on the internet, and I got some surprising results. In my circles of influence, I probably most commonly hear people use the word "nerd" in contexts outside its literal definition, though I know it's literal definition is still its most common usage. So naturally, I was curious.

The top hits for an image search for "nerd" in Google are facetiously-dressed people pretending to be an unstylish and unattractive social pariah, Steve Urkel and N.E.R.D. (amongst a smattering of images that could be featured next to the word in the dictionary). On Pinterest, however, I found that the search for "nerd" yielded results that were much more my sphere... cutesy, not-unattractive people wearing large glasses and holding books pretending like they hate people AND also a bunch of quotes about the superior intelligence of nerds that gives them a pass on being rude to the rest of humanity. To me, this discrepancy speaks more to the users on each of these platforms rather than the true meaning of the word... But that's just me.

So what kind of nerd are you? Can we really be a quasi-nerd? It's interesting, because a large part of the conversation in this episode centers around our surprise, and non-surprise, that opinions among friends about movies and music vary to a great degree. Tony really dislikes the JJ Abrams-produced Star Wars films, but Brian likes them. And both opinions, while being totally valid, are in direct competition with each other. It seems like, historically, nerds have risen up in areas where this direct competition lies but without the social skills that enable them to be... civil... about their differences!

And I think that's a large part of the reason we embrace the idea of being a quasi-nerd. We love the differences our community has, it's literally what keeps us going. Without the differences, we'd be super boring. But we don't want to be so foolish in our pursuits that we ignore the valid opinions of others. We don't want to be so boring in our single-minded pursuits that we forget to go out and have new experiences. So we continue to branch out! And we're so glad you want to join us in that!

Links

105: Never Give Up! Never Surrender! | Captain Influence Mar 09, 2018

Show notes

For the second week in a row we're glad to welcome back Tony, aka Captain Influence! In our typical Superhero Friday fashion, we've got the fun and we've got the serious, but this week we want to circle back to reminding each other of how important it is for the two to overlap from time to time. We're a people of extremes, aren't we? We tend toward extremes and finding a balance can be our primary focus in life. But it's exhausting, isn't it? Sometimes we just have to take the fun when there is fun, take the serious when it calls for serious, and not force either when they seem a little too far out of reach.

In This Episode

Welcome back, Tony!
Dirrrty chai
Weekend of gaming and junky food
Show for the Almost Famous!
We all want to be someone
Alien Isolation
Moosik

Never Surrender

Realizations about the somebody we are trying to be can come in spurts over a long period of time. We learn a little bit more about ourselves, then express that part of ourself to the world. When we express ourselves, we unconsciously gauge reactions to our personality and those reactions can either make us retreat inward and stay the way we've always been or make us change ourselves. Neither reaction is wrong, they're both very natural, but one of the things we love to celebrate here at the Real Brian Show is the fact that you can continue be who you are in spite of the reactions from others if who you are is who you want to be.

Brian talks about being a somebody to other somebodies and how discouraging that can be when we're not immediately accepted. Changing ourselves to be accepted by someone else is still a rejection. We reject ourselves. Continual improvement, betterment, increase in emotional intelligence... these are all good things and I do not want to draw a fine line at never changing ever! Change is good, but changing to meet the expectations of others or because of someone else's dissatisfaction is not the good kind of change!

In our society which is quickly being eaten up by social media we seem to have reverted to a middle school mentality of pleasing others by striving to meet ineffable qualities and standards. The qualities and standards are subjective and fluctuate based on someone's mood or someone's circumstances. We like to celebrate individuality and having fun and nerding out while simultaneously exploring the realness of life because it only seems to be then that we start to capture the full picture of life.

Links

Wild Nothing: Paradis (Tony's Neo-80s fad)
Community: Pierce You're a B
Great Harvest Bread

104: You Had Me At Colonoscopy | Captain Influence Mar 02, 2018

Show notes

Welcome back to The Real Brian Show! We're pleased to welcome back Tony, aka Captain Influence, to kick off the month of March. We're going to be hearing about a colonoscopy in this episode, but before you cringe and veer away let me assure you that it is definitely G rated. If you've ever been concerned about getting a colonoscopy or it's on your list of things to do and you've been putting it off... hopefully this will put your mind at ease. To balance out the fun, we'll talk some movies, tv shows, and the stuff we're nerding out about right now.

In This Episode

WELCOME!
Setting fear aside and take the probe plunge
You get a colonoscopy. And YOU get a colonoscopy.
Black Panther
The Tick has returned
YouTube TV

Colonoscopy

Googling "colonoscopy" yields these top 4 questions:

Does a colonoscopy hurt
What can I expect from a colonoscopy?
How long does it take to get a colonoscopy?
What happens during a colonoscopy procedure?

Well, guess what? We're going to touch on all of these questions AND have fun doing it! Take THAT Google. Colonoscopy is one of those medical procedures that yields a lot of clarity, but is dreadfully unpleasant to think about. Examining the colon is necessary, but the methodology by which it is accomplished makes everyone cringe.

Have no fear, our conversation is not graphic. In the same vein of learning how to live healthy, we're advocates for taking care of the body even when it seems uncomfortable or unpleasant.

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