bozoFounder

An OG member since 2000 and iwz's younger brother, Brandon Zabel brought the kind of energy to eZabel that comes from someone who always had a plan brewing and always needed one more person to make it happen. Whether it was organizing sixteen-player Halo LAN parties at his fully-wired Stanhope house, coordinating Xbox showdowns with g.f.s.rocks's Paramus crew, or rallying people for Thanksgiving football at the Roxbury high school, Brandon was the guy working the logistics. His posts read like a tournament director's clipboard — confirming headcounts, negotiating TV availability, reminding guests to bring snacks but "lets keep it reasonable (ilikebirds)" — a parenthetical callout of ilikebirds that tells you everything about their friendship.

Brandon played drums in a band with flomojopoanode (Todd Bastidas), ballyhoo, and animal (Trevor Neil), with thefunkyfresh and iwz drifting in and out of the lineup. He took the instrument seriously and would not let anyone diminish it: "drumming for an hour at a show take more then talent; it take endurance, timing, rythm, concentration, and a heck of a lot of ablility." He cherished his gear — a Zildjian Custom A Splash that cost seventy-nine dollars and "makes me..... think about how much it cost." Beyond music, Brandon was a deep-cut geek who wrote the definitive eZabel essay on Xbox modchipping, a sprawling blow-by-blow account of soldering points, BIOS flashing, and Maxtor hard drives that ended with the triumphant declaration of seventy-five free gigabytes — "thats like a MILLION more games." He credited his brother Ian for the technical wizardry and Adam McCord for the soldering: "Basically I was a man with a dream but no skill."

He had a knack for being in the wrong vehicle at the wrong time. By his own count he survived eight car accidents, driving in only one of them — the rest courtesy of Ian and their friend ClarryD, including a holy-spirit-invoking 360-degree spin on Route 80 between two tractor trailers and a midnight mudslide into a median. His GTI still wore the scars of the one fender-bender that was actually his fault. Brandon also showed up in the eZabel Book Club with genuine enthusiasm, loving The Count of Monte Cristo for how the hero "becomes a count so wealthy from nothing" and reminiscing about The Boxcar Children with thatdarngirl and malibu. He home-schooled his way through senior year while pioneering — four classes that somehow took him two years to finish — and laughed about it freely. He married arriba (Jamie Bastidas), Todd's sister, tying the band and the family tree into one Stanhope knot.

eZabel Personality Type: ESTP — "The LAN Party Warlord." Brandon lived for the tangible — the crack of a snare, the glow of a modded Xbox dashboard, the chaos of sixteen players crammed into his basement. He planned big, signed off as "Brandawg," and never let the fact that he couldn't solder, couldn't avoid car accidents, and couldn't finish high school on schedule slow him down for a second.