Post by Nate Gonzalez on Dec 14, 2014 8:53:48 GMT
If I had it my way, I would have named this tribe Minamoto because it has the same number of syllables as Fujiwara and it means the same damn thing. But that ain't none of my business.
Anyway, my first challenge thread is maybe possibly worth reading if you have nothing better to do. Within its 600-odd posts you can learn:
A few of my favorite albums
How I escaped from the Mariano house once
My favorite scent
Some deep thoughts, which may or may not be Jack Handey-esque
The precise moment at which I took a shit the other night
And more! I decided to take a less intense approach to posting. For one, I don't want "best poster" on my resume because people are going to remember that when there's an endurance challenge farther down the line. I prefer to demonstrate my challenge abilities in a team-based setting. I'm not going to go all "look at me be the best person on the team," rather I try to push everyone to be the best that they can be, without actually pushing them. My favorite way of doing this is by coordinating people and by sharing tips and tricks. If there's an Australian Dick Wrestling challenge coming up, I know how to do that, and I'll give people tips like "you can't be 100% hard or you could break your dick." (It's true, you can break your dick! It's not fun!) This challenge involves coordinated posting, and since Proboards does not have a visible tickety-tockin' clock, I found one at time.gov that syncs almost perfectly. I also can contribute in the wee hours since I have a very important phone conversation to prepare for and some scheduling to get done, and since I have been procrastinating on both of those items, I can do them now. More importantly, though, I'm playing these games to have fun, and posting random shit at slightly less often than once every 10 seconds is a lot more fun than posting gibberish every 10 seconds on the dot. (Although I did type Gibberish Rap. soundcloud.com/tony-trimm/hannibal-buress-gibberish-rap )
So anyway, I ended up with just over 50% of the lead poster, Jonny Fairplay. He had told me he'd racked up a thousand after about the first day's worth, which was a smart move on his part because it let me know exactly how hopeless catching up with him was going to be. He may have told a shit ton of other people as well in order to have the same effect, which would make him diabolical. (I love the word diabolical! It makes me think of if someone is dialing a phone on anabolic steroids, but also evil.) JFP had offered me an alliance, and I was totally on board. I wanted people to come to me with moves, and this was exactly it. I don't know if he approached anyone else, though, is the issue. I had also approached one other person with an alliance offer, the wonderful Jason Siska. He said he would be down in the event that we ended up on the same tribe together, but he said it in a way that made me think he didn't really want it. Which is super weird for pre-tribal alliance offers! Usually you take someone up on that shit! One other important interaction: Greg straight up asked me for a vote for the special responsibility award out of the blue. He said he wanted it, and since nobody else said that, I was happy to give it to him.
So the end of the challenge arrives, and Jonny Fairplay wins. He gets to pick tribes. As it turns out, the winner of the popularity contest also gets to pick tribes. The votes are... tied between Greg and Jason?! I was surprised that Jason had not mentioned that he was also looking for votes. He had to have been asking, because you don't get votes without campaigning for them. The conversation directly leading up to the reveal looked like this:
Nate Gonzalez (
Dec 12, 2014 7:41 PM
): What's your thoughts on the vote?
Jason Siska
(Dec 12, 2014 7:55 PM): Greg just told me to vote for him so I'll go with that
Nate Gonzalez (Dec 12, 2014 7:59 PM
): I got that last night as well!
I figured if he wants it then why not give it to him
I hadn't talked to him about anything else which made it kinda weird though
Nate Gonzalez (Dec 12, 2014 8:03 PM): I didn't know you were also campaigning!
He still hasn't replied to me. Awkward!
So the tribes get picked, and the two people I had deals with began selecting tribes. I was expecting since at least one of them had appeared to sincerely want to work with me, that I would be picked quickly. Instead, I'm drafted in the sixth round, 13th overall if you include the two captains. This immediately makes me think that maybe I've been playing things a little too cool on the social front. While this is my third alias-based game, it's the first one where I haven't blown my cover in some way (first time, I didn't really give a shit about the alias and used my regular AIM, second time I posted in the DO NOT POST CONFESSIONALS HERE portion of the confessionals forum, which meant everyone knew me right off). I think awkwardness over exactly how much I wanted to play as myself fed into me being picked later. I just recently picked up the 49 Laws of Survivor audiobook from Rob Has a Podcast, and I just got to Law 12, which is about using selective honesty to disarm people. Part of that is that you don't want to be too secretive. According to Stephen, Spencer from Tocantins was considered sneaky because he was not very open about his personal life, and he was not open about his personal life because he was in the closet. Because he withheld information about himself, the rest of Jalapao wondered what else he could be hiding, and voted him out, even though he was probably the most honest person there not named Coach. I feel like this is a problem I have as well: several times, I've been voted out because people didn't know where my head was at, even though I'd told them precisely where my head was at, and I've also been told a few times that they were surprised at how much personality I displayed in my confessionals when compared to my relatively drab AIM persona. I don't think I have a drab AIM persona, but it doesn't matter what I think, it matters what they think. I hadn't really thought about this before, but I'm very aware of it now that I think about it. I always aim to improve at least one thing about my game whenever I start a new game, and this time, I want to display more personality and more openness in my AIM chats.
So now I'm on a tribe and panicking about being picked only before Abi and Stephenie and not sure who to turn to. I've always been at least given the illusion of a safe place in my original tribe when starting a game, so I'm not entirely sure what to do. I don't want to give JFP, putative tribe leader, any indication that I'm doubting my place in the group, so I can't just straight up ask why he waited so long. So what I decided to do was engage in the tribal chat (I think I'm getting better at that) and then come up to him acting just a little servile, being like "what's been happening strategically?" with the implied reason for asking being "cause I have no idea." He gives me a squirrely non-answer first (his strategy is coming up with ways of screwing with the Fujiwaras), so I have to ask him what I really meant: would he be interested in bringing other people into our alliance? He then asks me who I have in mind. I first bring up Coach, and then also mention Rob and maybe Greg. Jon says it would be better to start small with Coach and Rob. He then offers to talk to both of them for me, at which point I can't help but feel like I'm being talked down to. I can talk too! I counter-propose that I talk to Coach and he talk to Rob. Within two minutes, Rob is down as fuck. That's fast, which also worries me! I take a little bit longer to broach the issue with Coach more organically. Coach says that Rob asked him who he had gotten a good vibe from, and all he had said was that he thought I was chill. I believe him much more than I do JFP, which is in part because Coach doesn't give weird responses that set my hackles up, but also because Coach talks in lowercase with lots of bro-isms that don't sound forced to me. Meanwhile, JFP setting up a 4 person chat that is pretty much tailored to the exact people I had mentioned makes me think that he's trying to cater to my whims and make me feel comfortable when I really shouldn't be. The fact that he named our alliance the Regulators after a song featuring the immaculate pipes of NATE Dogg does not help this impression.
[flash]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1plPyJdXKIY[/flash]
So right now I'm in an alliance that I think will protect me for the time being but which will likely not have my best interests at heart down the road. The paranoid part of my thought process, which I do not have experience dealing with this early in a game, is screaming IT'S A TRAP, GET OUT NOW but it'd be stupid to make a move before even our token inactive is gone. The only way out I can think of is to try to cultivate good relationships with some outside parties - and not just "oh hey how are you" relationships but "what's going on in your neck of the woods" relationships. This is not something I'm particularly graceful with, but it'll have to happen.
Anyway, my first challenge thread is maybe possibly worth reading if you have nothing better to do. Within its 600-odd posts you can learn:
A few of my favorite albums
How I escaped from the Mariano house once
My favorite scent
Some deep thoughts, which may or may not be Jack Handey-esque
The precise moment at which I took a shit the other night
And more! I decided to take a less intense approach to posting. For one, I don't want "best poster" on my resume because people are going to remember that when there's an endurance challenge farther down the line. I prefer to demonstrate my challenge abilities in a team-based setting. I'm not going to go all "look at me be the best person on the team," rather I try to push everyone to be the best that they can be, without actually pushing them. My favorite way of doing this is by coordinating people and by sharing tips and tricks. If there's an Australian Dick Wrestling challenge coming up, I know how to do that, and I'll give people tips like "you can't be 100% hard or you could break your dick." (It's true, you can break your dick! It's not fun!) This challenge involves coordinated posting, and since Proboards does not have a visible tickety-tockin' clock, I found one at time.gov that syncs almost perfectly. I also can contribute in the wee hours since I have a very important phone conversation to prepare for and some scheduling to get done, and since I have been procrastinating on both of those items, I can do them now. More importantly, though, I'm playing these games to have fun, and posting random shit at slightly less often than once every 10 seconds is a lot more fun than posting gibberish every 10 seconds on the dot. (Although I did type Gibberish Rap. soundcloud.com/tony-trimm/hannibal-buress-gibberish-rap )
So anyway, I ended up with just over 50% of the lead poster, Jonny Fairplay. He had told me he'd racked up a thousand after about the first day's worth, which was a smart move on his part because it let me know exactly how hopeless catching up with him was going to be. He may have told a shit ton of other people as well in order to have the same effect, which would make him diabolical. (I love the word diabolical! It makes me think of if someone is dialing a phone on anabolic steroids, but also evil.) JFP had offered me an alliance, and I was totally on board. I wanted people to come to me with moves, and this was exactly it. I don't know if he approached anyone else, though, is the issue. I had also approached one other person with an alliance offer, the wonderful Jason Siska. He said he would be down in the event that we ended up on the same tribe together, but he said it in a way that made me think he didn't really want it. Which is super weird for pre-tribal alliance offers! Usually you take someone up on that shit! One other important interaction: Greg straight up asked me for a vote for the special responsibility award out of the blue. He said he wanted it, and since nobody else said that, I was happy to give it to him.
So the end of the challenge arrives, and Jonny Fairplay wins. He gets to pick tribes. As it turns out, the winner of the popularity contest also gets to pick tribes. The votes are... tied between Greg and Jason?! I was surprised that Jason had not mentioned that he was also looking for votes. He had to have been asking, because you don't get votes without campaigning for them. The conversation directly leading up to the reveal looked like this:
Nate Gonzalez (
Dec 12, 2014 7:41 PM
): What's your thoughts on the vote?
Jason Siska
(Dec 12, 2014 7:55 PM): Greg just told me to vote for him so I'll go with that
Nate Gonzalez (Dec 12, 2014 7:59 PM
): I got that last night as well!
I figured if he wants it then why not give it to him
I hadn't talked to him about anything else which made it kinda weird though
Nate Gonzalez (Dec 12, 2014 8:03 PM): I didn't know you were also campaigning!
He still hasn't replied to me. Awkward!
So the tribes get picked, and the two people I had deals with began selecting tribes. I was expecting since at least one of them had appeared to sincerely want to work with me, that I would be picked quickly. Instead, I'm drafted in the sixth round, 13th overall if you include the two captains. This immediately makes me think that maybe I've been playing things a little too cool on the social front. While this is my third alias-based game, it's the first one where I haven't blown my cover in some way (first time, I didn't really give a shit about the alias and used my regular AIM, second time I posted in the DO NOT POST CONFESSIONALS HERE portion of the confessionals forum, which meant everyone knew me right off). I think awkwardness over exactly how much I wanted to play as myself fed into me being picked later. I just recently picked up the 49 Laws of Survivor audiobook from Rob Has a Podcast, and I just got to Law 12, which is about using selective honesty to disarm people. Part of that is that you don't want to be too secretive. According to Stephen, Spencer from Tocantins was considered sneaky because he was not very open about his personal life, and he was not open about his personal life because he was in the closet. Because he withheld information about himself, the rest of Jalapao wondered what else he could be hiding, and voted him out, even though he was probably the most honest person there not named Coach. I feel like this is a problem I have as well: several times, I've been voted out because people didn't know where my head was at, even though I'd told them precisely where my head was at, and I've also been told a few times that they were surprised at how much personality I displayed in my confessionals when compared to my relatively drab AIM persona. I don't think I have a drab AIM persona, but it doesn't matter what I think, it matters what they think. I hadn't really thought about this before, but I'm very aware of it now that I think about it. I always aim to improve at least one thing about my game whenever I start a new game, and this time, I want to display more personality and more openness in my AIM chats.
So now I'm on a tribe and panicking about being picked only before Abi and Stephenie and not sure who to turn to. I've always been at least given the illusion of a safe place in my original tribe when starting a game, so I'm not entirely sure what to do. I don't want to give JFP, putative tribe leader, any indication that I'm doubting my place in the group, so I can't just straight up ask why he waited so long. So what I decided to do was engage in the tribal chat (I think I'm getting better at that) and then come up to him acting just a little servile, being like "what's been happening strategically?" with the implied reason for asking being "cause I have no idea." He gives me a squirrely non-answer first (his strategy is coming up with ways of screwing with the Fujiwaras), so I have to ask him what I really meant: would he be interested in bringing other people into our alliance? He then asks me who I have in mind. I first bring up Coach, and then also mention Rob and maybe Greg. Jon says it would be better to start small with Coach and Rob. He then offers to talk to both of them for me, at which point I can't help but feel like I'm being talked down to. I can talk too! I counter-propose that I talk to Coach and he talk to Rob. Within two minutes, Rob is down as fuck. That's fast, which also worries me! I take a little bit longer to broach the issue with Coach more organically. Coach says that Rob asked him who he had gotten a good vibe from, and all he had said was that he thought I was chill. I believe him much more than I do JFP, which is in part because Coach doesn't give weird responses that set my hackles up, but also because Coach talks in lowercase with lots of bro-isms that don't sound forced to me. Meanwhile, JFP setting up a 4 person chat that is pretty much tailored to the exact people I had mentioned makes me think that he's trying to cater to my whims and make me feel comfortable when I really shouldn't be. The fact that he named our alliance the Regulators after a song featuring the immaculate pipes of NATE Dogg does not help this impression.
[flash]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1plPyJdXKIY[/flash]
So right now I'm in an alliance that I think will protect me for the time being but which will likely not have my best interests at heart down the road. The paranoid part of my thought process, which I do not have experience dealing with this early in a game, is screaming IT'S A TRAP, GET OUT NOW but it'd be stupid to make a move before even our token inactive is gone. The only way out I can think of is to try to cultivate good relationships with some outside parties - and not just "oh hey how are you" relationships but "what's going on in your neck of the woods" relationships. This is not something I'm particularly graceful with, but it'll have to happen.
