About

Yo, I’m Brian. You found my website!

brian, yo

I’m a Director of Data Science at Target, a resident of Minneapolis in the summer / New Orleans in the winter, and husband to Alicia. Close friends call me an attention whore and a jerk, but they say that affectionately.

Is a reasonable “About You” page supposed to feature what you currently care about? Let’s try it:

  • Pinball – especially Godzilla! I play regularly at Arbeiter Brewing and Emporium. I’m about 1.5 years into that “seven years to master” deal, meaning I can hit shots I intend to hit about 40% of the time. 
  • On Cinema at the Cinema – It’s ostensibly a ten minute web-show that reviews movies, but it’s so much more. 
  • BeReal – it’s an app that prompts you once a day to post a photo (both selfie and front-facing camera) at a pseudorandom time. 

I guess that’s it for now, but it feels good – I’ve been trying to simplify my priorities and have more focus.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this in your life, but it’s super weird how passions change. Things that were previously super important sort of fade into the background. Previously, I’ve loved:

  • The Minneapolis Miracle – a walk-off-touchdown play by the Minnesota Vikings to continue their 2017 season playoff berth. That season, the Superbowl was in Minneapolis, so the Vikings winning that game was one step closer to history. Even if they subsequently lost, faith was briefly vindicated that day.
  • Hacker News – definitely the website I check most.
  • Drag – I’m a big supporter of the Minneapolis drag community and I’ve seen nearly every season of Ru Paul’s Drag Race.
  • Igor by Tyler, the Creator – I’ve been a fan of Tyler since 2013 and I can listen to “Igor” (his latest album) straight through. He was also the best show I saw in 2019.
  • Todoist – my goto productivity app. My karma is 32k and rising.
  • Caravan Palace – They are a french “electro-swing” band, but that’s almost not fair to describe them as such, since they practically invented the genre.
  • Reddit
  • Journaling at a bar
  • “Well I Should Have… (Learned How To Play Piano)” by H. Jon Benjamin
  • Jenga
  • Pizza
  • The Internet
  • Scotch
  • Rick & Morty
  • Black Eye Contacts
  • Nicolas Cage
  • Cilantro
  • Cookie Clicker
  • Yo, the app
  • Bitcoin
  • Board Games, especially Risk, Monopoly, Dominion, Last Will, Race for the Galaxy
  • Mathematics, specifically set theory and graph theory
  • Rock Band, the video game
  • Puzzles such as Project Euler
  • Philosophy
  • downtempo music
  • Everquest
  • Computers in general, I had a vintage Mac collection at one point
  • Blacklights and lava lights
  • New York City
  • Khan’s Mongolian BBQ in Richfield, MN
  • No Limit Texas Hold’em
  • You Don’t Know Jack
  • Bowling
  • Shaft

…this isn’t to say I don’t care about these things, but they’re more fond memories of previous joy, not currently exciting.

Hit me up on Twitter, I’m @BrianCopeland. Thanks for stopping by!

ps – interested in stalking me? Why not go farther back than (edit 2023: google sites is down, will load backup soon) this blog?