Okay, it's confession time, dear readers. Logging 13-hour days at my company's Italian office -- which is like something out of an Orwellian nightmare -- is starting to get to me. For this reason, you'll have to wait another day for the next installment of Livin' Large. However, for poops and chuckles I went ahead and put together a cast list to help you follow the unfolding drama. Ironically, this ended up taking more time than just writing the next installment. It's like 10,000 spoons when all I needed was a knife...to stab out Alanis Morissette's eyes with.

Many thanks to NarSARSsist and AnacondaHL for inspiring/starting this post.

Update! This posts actually pales in comparison to AnacondaHL's brilliant flow chart. And, strangely enough, the woman he picked to represent Shelly looks more like Shelly right now. Dismissed...as coincidence?

Little Matt: The blog author of Basketbawful and By The Horns. In other words: me. I'm the co-main character and "hero" of this comic-drama. The primary purpose of this story was simply to describe what it was like to be a freshman who had a varsity baller for a roommate.

Now it's evolved (or devolved) into my rather awkward coming-of-age story. Celebrity lookalike: Jeffrey Combs.

Big Mat: The co-main character and "villain" of this tale. Mat was a Dutch-born basketball player -- and I use that term very loosely -- who by some strange twist of fate was paired with a geeky freshman for a living experience like no other. Mat drank Heineken, said yes to the sweet cheeba, cut classes and had sex with countless women. He also made my life a living (if thoroughly entertaining) hell.

Mat failed utterly at basketball, but he did graduate in four years with an art degree, which has absolutely no bearing whatsoever in his current career as a professional ass-beater. Celebrity lookalike: Richard Moll.

Aimee: My high school crush, my college romance, my first love. She attended Butler University in Indianapolis, where she was a Pre-Law student majoring in History. She didn't want to be my girlfriend, but she didn't want me dating anybody else either. And I swear that statement was almost 87 percent bitterness-free.

At the time, I was really frustrated by her merciless resistance to my romantic advances. After recounting this story, I kind of see her point. Celebrity lookalike: Charisma Carpenter.

Shelly: Mat's primary romantic interest and the cousin of our R.A., Brett. She was a hot and busty party girl. Exceptionally busty. Busty, busty, busty. Boobs. Wait, what...where was I?

Oh, right. Shelly lived in California. And what's California known for? Hollywood. And what's Hollywood known for? Drama. Shelly proved that the most intense drama usually comes in a sexy and seemingly carefree package. From California. Celebrity lookalike: Emma O'Neil.

Brett: He was my freshman year R.A. Eventually he became one of my best lifelong friends. Sure, he wrote me up for violations Mat committed (with his cousin Shelly no less), it took him 10 years to tell me he's blind in one eye, and he flaked out on meeting me in Florence last weekend. But, well, that's Brett. You can't blame the rain for being wet, you know?

Brett is one of the most brilliant space cadets you'll ever meet. Assuming he shows up. Celebrity lookalike: None. This is him.

Susan: My Alpha Phi Omega Pledge sister. She was a junior when I was a freshman, so she also functioned as my surrogate big sister, secondary crush, and, eventually, my second college romance.

I made a fool of myself the first time we met and I never recovered, proving you really never get a second chance to make a first impression. Celebrity lookalike: Jennifer Grey.

Latrisse: Aimee's freshman year roommate. She developed a crush on me that I didn't see until it was too late. And even then I didn't see it. Latrisse came to symbolize (in my mind anyway) the utter cluelessness of my 18-year-old self.

Seriously, cards and care packages...how did I miss that? Celebrity lookalike: None. This is some girl I found using Google search.

Nathan: My next door neighbor during freshman year. Nathan was fearless, believing he was immortal and could not die. I'm not making this up. And maybe he was right...he took some really stupid chances during our friendship and yet lived to tell about them. Including shooting me in the ass with a potato gun.

Nathan once waged spiritual battle with his computer. Really. Celebrity lookalike: I'm not saying this is him...but it's him.

Jennifer: Also known as "Taco Bell Jennifer" because she dropped out of school and started working at Taco Bell full time in order to support Mat. Presumably, she would have done this for the entirety of Mat's college career had he not totally screwed her over.

Mat kept her around because she was convenient...and she swallowed. Celebrity lookalike: Some girl I found using Google search.

Nancy: I met her during an APO service activity. She approached me because I was alone, and I was alone because Susan ditched the activity due to a massive hangover.

Nancy trapped me into a Shanghai Date. I had no idea we were "going out," so I ended up embarrassing myself and hurting her feelings. Celebrity lookalike: Some girl I found using Google search.

BadDave: My once and future roommate. My best friend. The man who has seen me pee on a Subway sandwich shop in front of 10,000 people. He...he completes me.

He doesn't really come into this story until the very end, but I had to include him because I love this picture. Celebrity lookalike: None needed. Although he sometimes bears a striking resemblence to Tony Parker...

Future NBA All-Star: The greatest college basketball player in the country during my freshman year. He had a semi-distinguished NBA career, but he could never live up to his college exploits.

Future NBA All-Star tried to convince Mat to play during his freshman year, believing the two of them would make the team a true national championship contender. Celebrity lookalike: Hmmm...

Heineken sign: The mother fucking Heineken sign. This thing burned like the summer sun and kept me up night after night after cursed night. Mat insisted on leaving it on 24-7. When he was in the room, this sign was shining bright. It was not negotiable. Looking back, I'm surprised I didn't sabotage the thing.

To this day, I smash every one I see.

Minor Characters:

Chad: My dorm manager. He played up to the student athletes and expected everybody else to do the same. Chad couldn't have cared less that I was miserable being Mat's roommate and refused to move me to another room. Moreover, he suggested I be more sensitive to Mat's needs.

Greg and Gauvin: Two of my best high school buds. Greg went to IUK in Kokomo while Gauvin became a "student of life." I hung out with them whenever I went home for a weekend. They visited me once while I was living with Mat. They stuck around long enough to see the campus, but they ditched me when Mat was going to take us to a frat party.

Jason: A sort-of friend from high school. Actually, Jason and I were pretty close during middle school when we both acted as student helpers to a boy who had muscular dystrophy. He played a mean game of ping pong. He lived in the same dorm as Zach (see below).

Jen: Susan's roommate. She developed a fixation on Mat that would last for years, and she tried to use me to get close to him.

Jodie: Susan's incredibly ugly friend. She would eventually sleep with Steve (see below).

Joe: My basketball buddy. I developed my jump hook by playing against him.

Professor Webster: My freshman year English professor. He took time out from doing laundry to impart some wisdom ("Life is a series of self-limiting choices") and tell me he was sleeping with his boss's wife. He loved my paper on gender construction in Ghostbusters.

Ron: Nathan's friendly, spaced-out, and overweight roomie. He once walked into my room wrapped in a too-small towel. Some things can't be unseen. Let's leave it at that.

Steve: A slimy bastard who spent years trying to get into Susan's pants. He cockblocked me at every opportunity. I still hate him this rat bastard. Still, he ended up sleeping with Susan's hag-like friend, Jodie, so I kind of had the last laugh.

Tiffany and Carolyn: My APO pledge mothers. Their function as pledge parents was to guide me and Susan through pledgeship. Tiffany picked me because I had written on my pledge form that soccer was a hobby of mine. If I hadn't told that out-of-nowhere lie, I never would have met Susan.

Zach: A sort-of friend from high school. I hung out with him when I first got to school because I didn't know anybody else. Zach became dead to me when Jason (see above) told me Zach said I was "kind of pathetic for always trying to hang around with him." Eventually, he dropped out of college and returned to Kokomo to work at the local Chrysler plant.

And finally a random (but astute) observation from AnacondaHL:

Not to raise any expectations of this story even higher, but there's an ongoing theme to each one of these installments: food. Taco Bell leads with 5 mentions, hamburger is mentioned in 4 parts, and pizza is in 3. Here's the list so far:

1. Taco Bell
2. Taco Bell/hamburger
3. Dining Hall/hamburger
4. McDonald's/hamburger
5. Heineken
6. TACO BELL JENNIFER
7. Pizza
8. Pizza (Chuck E. Cheese)
9. Gelato/Pizza
10. Cookies (chocolate chip)/Taco Bell/hamburger
11. Taco Bell

To be continued...

Livin' Large: the official Flow Chart 1.0

Labels: casting call, college stories, Livin' Large