Warning: This article will make zero sense until the end, enjoy it Baubo style!

The world is small. The world is magnificent in its illusions. The world is spherical in shape but it is cyclical in its patterns. Everything is connected, everything. Back in the days of my pre-teens I found a wonderful cute little blonde, with a big nose. Her name is Angela. I guess she was my first love before I knew how to act like it and show it. We were so mean to each other but oddly enough we were friends up until she got me suspended for sexual harassment. (Just for the record, this was to get back at me for insulting one of her uglier friends. I was shallow as a kid, sue me. I'm man enough to admit I was a jerk.)

What made Angela special was she was actually pretty, had a brain and liked current dance music. Typical blonde, and on the off chance her or one her friends figures out who this is: I wish her all the best, and thank the universe and her for this article. But she also was the friend I guess I needed when I was in seventh grade. The entire dynamic of seventh grade is interesting. You aren't cool because you aren't eighth graders and you are tolerable to the sixth and eighth graders. And in seventh grade I had a small group a group of three with a counter balance group of three. Think of the Chipmunks: Alvin, Simon and Theodore and we were their doppelganger parts: Brian, Jason and myself. Our female counter parts consisted of: Stephanie, Christina and of course, Angela. I think I model all the women I am interested in after Stephanie because I am still afraid to admit I liked Angela. I don't really know. Stephanie had beautiful dark brown hair, was skinny but not tooth-pick-Angela style and green eyes that I melted in. I heard she went to Drexel, good for her.

But groups weren't that big in seventh grade and if you had two to three friends you actually ate lunch with, bullies left you alone. I liked a quiet lunch. Guess I got picked on too much. I hate to be bothered when I am eating at home. Talking to me is fine, but no pets, no touching and yes, I am going to eat that. And if you are annoying me while I am eating I'll go primal on you and chuck a potato between the eyes with precision, promise.

Back in my pre-teens I was a budding rebel, my shallow part shined and I thought music with curse word lyrics were awesome. If a song had cursing in it, it was cool. If a song was tough or was heavy metal it was cool as well. Needless to say I liked a Meat Loaf song because it cursed in it, loved Green Day's Longview and was a Metallica fan. I still have all those CDs in my monster collection. But on the opposite side of the coin my counter-part, Angela, was an Ace of Base fan and adored the house/pop/techno-movement. I, of course, teased her as every moron at twelve would have, simply because I was a guy and could get away with it. Picking on girls to act tough, good one Will.

I grew up with baseball and football thanks to my brothers and father. They made me into the sports loving freak I am now. But that background I have was sports, athletics and the great outdoors. I suck at all of these by the way, with two exceptions. The first exception is by some miracle of chance I learned to throw two of the most annoying pitches in baseball. The knuckle-ball. A pitcher's dream of a pitch but a batter's and catcher's nightmare. And of course the pitch that turns a triple A pitcher into a major leaguer: the slider. And to add fuel to the fire: I pitch side-arm. (I am a pitching coach's nightmare.)

When I couldn't practice my sports I practiced playing American Gladiators with, my nephew Brad. We used to literally climb on a ledge around his house about an inch and a half against a stucco wall. We used everything in reach to reach the other side from windows to wires to air conditioners. It is amazing we didn't knock the power out and get ourselves killed. But we did various gladiator type games to mimic the show and actually be outside. It worked for the most part. All the while Brad's father was playing Sega Genesis. (way back eh?) NHL Hockey. The first one, no year, it was NHL Hockey. If you shot the puck really hard you could break the safety glass. That was cool! But, I'd rather play soccer then hockey any day. Hockey was "gay" until I fell in love with it about four three later.

Now you get to see how cyclical the world really is, and this article will make sense, promise.

As I said, I was the smart one of the group of three. And I got bored with just academia. I needed fun information. I turned to three things to master: sports, animals and music. (Starting to see it come together, are ya?) Well since I did sports and what I learned about animals is basically pointless I.ll explain how I expanded musically.

Music is the only art we have left. Not commercial music, oh no, that is festering with corporations, like Viacom, so much so that the songs are literally empty. So I started searching for every single song on the planet that no one knew. And to be honest, I've amassed the largest upper-level-musical-talent collection on the eastern seaboard perhaps. If you did a song that was played once on the radio by some mishap, I found you. And if you did some underground pop/rock/whatever cult hit, I found it. But my music taste didn't really change it was missing a piece. It was missing a concept to accept and enjoy other styles from 80's to rap to classical. I needed the concept of talent.

This is when I stared listening to AC/DC as opposed to Ace of Base. This was as witty as I got back at twelve. Sorry. Then I heard my brother tell me a piece of logic. "You cannot have a favorite type of music until you know them all." This piece of logic was when I finally started to turn it up and really dive into music. With this concept in place I started listening to everything. (To share with my reading public: currently, I am into Japanese Pop and Japanese Rock, so if you have any song suggestions in that field feel free to share.)

So I started hanging out with Brad more and more and less with my friends simply because my role in that group was changing from follower to leader from nerd to music geek. When I was an egg-head I knew nothing about music and I mean it, I was sheltered for twelve years, so yea, pity me. We started making compilations of our favorite CDs onto tape and adding words to make radio tapes. This then turned into the evolution of my love of music. Brad then would take me into rap when I was nineteen. Although, I highly doubt he can introduce me to anything now, mainly because I listen to songs in different languages now. I seriously have branched out, from no music at twelve to one of the most musically cultured people at twenty-one going on twenty-two.

Since I was hanging out with Brad more often, I saw more of his father playing Sega Genesis. And I asked two questions about hockey then became hooked. I owe him a thank you for this as well, so thank you Mike.

In 1996 the Philadelphia Flyers lost in the Eastern Conference finals to the Florida Panthers four games to two. I cried. I believed Mike when he said we had the cup. I was emotional then, as I am now. But, my craving for hockey was strong so I watched the cup finals with the Colorado Avalanche and the Florida Panthers.

This series shaped the kind of hockey fan I am and actually the reason why I learned to play hockey. This is where it gets even more complex. Peter Forsberg. This guy is one sexy man. He is an absolute beast on the ice with speed, agility and shear toughness. And he has the looks I envy so much. He probably gets more women in a day then I could get to look at me in a year. But I started to watch him because he was on the other side of the famous Eric Lindros trade, Lindros played for the Flyers at the time. (Now he plays for the New York Rangers.)

I wanted revenge against the Panthers. I wanted a sweep. And I made a deal with the ultimate divine being that if I got a sweep I would cheer on the Avalanche. And would you believe it, I stuck to my word. I am maroon and Avalanche blue all the way, now. So I had to learn about the players and their numbers and where they are from and all that die-hard fan junk. The more I watched Peter the more I realized just how much of a gamer he was. Peter is to this day the best hockey player I ever seen and I.ve seen everyone play from Gretzky to Mario to even the great disappointment of Eric Lindros.

While in fall and winter months hockey was in full swing and I was a dedicated fan often playing hockey with Brad. I played Goalie. I liked the attention, what can I say. I actually learned how to be somewhat decent by watching Patrick Roy. It took almost three years at playing goalie, but that is the second thing that I can actually do well in sports. I throw 2 funky pitches and can play a sport I once hated. Who knew? But people change and so do tastes and aspects.

I feel in love with French and Swedish culture. But the connection to Angela was still eluding me. Then just now two hours ago I saw an infomercial for techno-house-pop music, the famous eight-CD-collection by Razor and Tie. Decent collection actually and instead of buying it, I simply used their site for song reference and used a peer to peer for my listening pleasure. And of course Ace of Base was on it, so I thought of her and laughed. Then it cut back to the VeeJay on the infomercial and you know what she said? I was completely floored. Ace of Base is from Sweden. Amazing what I find out ten years too late. Of course ten years ago, I wouldn't have cared if Ace of Base was from Sri Lanka or Ganymede.

This article has a few morals and I will simply outline them for you. Guys can change, on their own and not by you dating us and assimilating us. We change on our own accord in the most indirect ways the great mother and father can muster up. They are very cyclical beings.

Humans evolve as a soul from shallow creatures by finding the beauty of art, competition of sports and the desire for knowledge. If I have a few words left in my dying breaths I will probably say something like this before my speech on how to get free of this world: If you hate something, you already love it but don't know how to appreciate it and you are afraid to add a new part to your soul as a being.

I have never been attracted to those skinny blonde-girls with big noses that like techno, just not my style. However, my taste has coming full circle so much that I wrote this entire article while listening to Ace of Base.s Beautiful Life on repeat. Maybe one day my taste will change, but as for now, I still love those pretty brunettes like Stephanie. But then again, in ten years I could end up being the jerk I was at twelve. I leave it in the hands of Father Time and the great Mother Earth.

--William M. Shields