I don't like The Cure.

It's that simple.  I don't like them.  I don't care what anybody says.  

I wasn't a young, girl-troubled, make-up obsessed, obese child growing up. Maybe that is why I can't relate to their music.  "Friday, I'm in Love" was the very first song I ever heard of theirs, and that was all I needed to know I didn't ever want to hear anymore.

Gag Reflex.

3 things that made me gag today:

• Finishing my third cup of coffee.
• Stuffing peaches down the garbage disposal.
• Thinking about eating Jell-o.

3 things that didn't make me gag today:

• The smell of the bathroom after Collin used it.
• Stuffing a rotten hard-boiled egg down the garbage disposal.
• Thinking about the rotten hard-boiled egg as I prepared scrambled eggs for dinner.

What the hell is wrong with me?

No Joke.

Though I can not say that i was ever really a fan of Heath Ledger, I can say that it is saddening to hear of his death.  I knew that, even before the movie's releases, his role as the Joker in the upcoming Dark Knight was going to have a HUGE impact on me.  For the past couple of months I have checked for updates, searched for new clips, and even read about how Heath lived alone in a hotel room for a month preparing for the role.  He started a diary, in which he wrote the Joker's thoughts and feelings to guide himself during his performance. This Joker, his Joker, is described as "a "psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy".  Brokeback Mountain may have gotten him an Oscar nomination, but this movie will have immortalized him.

It's going to be hard watching this movie once it's out, knowing what happened to the actor shortly after finishing up the filming.  They don't have all the evidence about his death yet other than prescription sleeping pills by his side. There were reports that his sleeping patterns have been all screwed up and warped recently.  

Two Abigails???

If someone that you didn't know invited you to a birthday party, would you go?

Collin was asked to choose nine of his school chums to invited to his 5th birthday party at Mission Bowl. We would have loved to invite all of his friends but that would have been expensive and ludicrous at the same time. Nine was a good number. Ten in all, including Collin, five per lane. Good. Now all we had to do was send out the invitations.

Collin made all of his friends last year in his first year of preschool. This year, his class had been split into two separate classes. Out of the nine kids Collin wanted to invite, some were in his current class and the rest in the other class. I had to ask the school's secretary for an address list for both classes. I got it, i went home, we filled out the invitations and sent them out the next day. Because of fear that some parents would not get the invites in time, i told most parents when i saw them to expect an invite soon. An email, a phone call, and a few in-person r.s.v.p.s later, we were slowly approaching our set attendance.

Then one morning, i hear from another parent, that the mother of young Abigail, whom i gave fair warning to, has not received an invitation yet? I get home and double-check the address list and realize my mistake. Two Abigails. I had no idea. I call the parent's of Collin's friend Abigail to explain the mix-up and reassure them their invitation. What next? Do i call the parents of the other Abigail and tell them that their little girl is not invited? Do i assume that they have no clue who Collin is, since he isn't even in her class, and see the mistake knowing that there are two Abigails? I go with the ladder. Ten minutes later the phone rings.

"Abigail is so excited about the party. Thank you for inviting her."

Great. So this kid is coming too. That makes eleven. Now the biggest dilemma is how to organize the bowling. With ten kids, five per lane, we were fine. An extra kid causes spill-over into a third lane, causing chaos. More party hats! More cake! More everything!!!!

In the end, everything turned out fine. A couple of kids that r.s.v.p'd as coming, didn't. We stayed at two lanes and everybody had a great time. And the Abigail, that we didn't think the Collin knew, that came anyway, turned out to be a sweet little shy girl. Very shy and small. A lot smaller than the other kids because of a birthday late in the year. Her dad said that they were thinking of holding her back from kindergarten a year because of her size and shyness. But she sure broke out of that shy-shell that day. She danced. She bowled. She made knew friends. I felt bad for questioning the parents for bringing her to a party where they didn't know the invitee. That party might have been just what she needed.

Happy Birthday, Knucklehead!

Improv Thunderdome Recap

Well, Saturday night came and went and I am still having a hard time believing that it all actually happened.  

For a show where i would have been happy with 40 reservations, we sold out 6 hours before show time.  We had at least 40 reservations 4 days prior.  Not something that I expected.  The crowd was pumped and the improvisers delivered.  All three teams presented formats that were completely different from one another, and each individual performer shined at one point or another throughout. 

The local (and only) improv reviewer in the entire city said that it felt like being in New York or Chicago, where most shows consist of a variety of different troupes doing shorter sets. Which is a great comment because that is kinda what we were going for.  

As one of the guys that put this whole thing together, it's hard to really see this as a success because we still have 3 month to go. Technically, there was a lot to work on.  If there is anything I hate about a performance, it's looking sloppy.  And i think there were some sloppy moments.  None having to do with the performances.  All of them were on Ed and I's side of the table.  Here is a couple of things that i think need tweaking:

• Breaks Between Sets.   It was very hard to figure out what to do here.  For a complete show that is roughly an hour and 45 minutes, you need an intermission.  With three different groups going, it didn't seem right to let two groups go, then have a break, then let the third group go.  It's possible that doing this would give the last team an unfair advantage some how.  So we planned on having a little break in between each set, but not calling it an intermission.  It was chaotic at best, but i still think this can work.  It's all in how you tell the audience what is going on.
• The Voting System.  Again, this was something that was very hard in figuring out how to go about it.  Since the voting is the climax of the whole show, it has to be quick and fair.  We went with a 1 to 5 count.  It ended up being a "who got the loudest applause" vote, but that was not how it was intended. The intent was for the audience to determine if each group was a 1, a 2, a 3, a 4, or a 5, by clapping and cheering.  They would start clapping quiet at 1 and grow louder with each number.  Not how it should have gone, and again, it's all in how you explain it to the audience.  They should be their loudest at 1 and sustain that volume until they reach the number in which they believe the team deserves.  This will work, it might just take some time explaining it.

There were a few other little things, like sound cues and whatnot, that will just get better and tighter the more we do this.  

In the end, the show was better than i ever could have imagined.  All the teams and everyone involved should be proud of themselves.  It is going to be hard to top this next month, but we're going to try.

Oh yeah, Loaded Dice won.  

A Man Needs Time To Recover.

This is in response to Trish's comment on my last post.

I also need a little more time to let everything sink in. Did last night really happen?

Writing Checks My Butt Can't Cash!

Today I was on our bank's website site looking over our account balances. This is something I frequently do a few days before the next pay period. I had noticed that our savings account balance was not where it was the last time I checked, and this was odd because we haven't touched our savings account in a couple of months. So when I called the bank, I noticed something even more odd that seemed illogical.

I will quickly take us back a couple of weeks. I had to order new checks recently. I could not do it online because our address hadn't been updated according to the website. So I called a human and the ordering process was complete. Two weeks later we get our checks and write, write, write, because that's how we roll, Yo.

Back to today. As I am on hold with customer service I notice that the numbers at the bottom of our checks match our savings account number.

What?!?!?!

They sent us checks for our savings account. Now I am not going to get into how much we have in out savings account, but I can tell you this, the checks that we have written in the past few days would not cover it.

Not to worry though, the bank admitted their mistake and took it upon themselves to correct all the errors, order us new checks for free, and waive any fees that would come with this event.

This is the story of my 10 minute panic attack today.

Whose Bob Is It Anyway?

Collin has a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD that he received from Grandpa Jack a while before Christmas.  As we were watching it this morning, we noticed that there was a free Bob the Builder episode after the Thomas ones.  As we were watching that, i realized that Bob's voice was different from the ones on PBS.  I recognized the nasally voice right away.  It is Greg Proops.



One of my favorite players from the British version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?

I just thought that was kinda weird. He's not someone I could have ever seen doing a children's show.

My New Year's Resolution?

Play more foosball.

Ten years ago my friend Tim Lemke and I purchased a foosball table for our new apartment.  Since we were all taught to play by someone who learned from juvenile hall's best, the table was a bright spot in a rather dingy, sometimes disgusting apartment.  Whether it was a settler of bets & wagers, a decider of who was going to do the dishes, or just an area to get drunk and have fun, that table was like an extra roommate we all loved.  

I moved out five years ago, and Tim just recently got a new place. So now, the Dynamo Striker is at home in my basement, awaiting to be re-assembled and fed.

Foosball anyone?