Peculiar results

Big props to The Peculiar Suspects who, Sunday night at Battleprov, not only won their first half ever but ended up winning the whole darn thing. (In BattleProv, two teams battle in the first half. The winning team plays the defending champions in the second half. Also, I'm a member of The Peculiar Suspects.)

While I did get a brown bag foul for saying the word "arse" on stage, believe me when I say that it was by far the softest brown bag of the night. And I maintain that I said it in "The Crucible" in front of a whole auditorium of junior highers, so therefore it's not really dirty.

(We were playing "What Are You Doing?" and we got the initials IA and I inexplicably chose to be "initialing my arse." Yeah, don't ask me what that means. I should probably stop watching British television. Thanks a lot, The IT Crowd.)

I also played a fun character during "Good, Bad, Worst Advice" called Luke "The Fist" Schell. Yep, that's a J-ville shout-out to be sure. Most of the names I use on stage are people I went to high school with. Hope that's okay. Anyway, this guy was the founder and head instructor of "Luke's House of Ninja" and knew nothing about the ninja philosophy but promised his students they'd gain ability to teleport and control animals with their mind. He also punctuated every answer with the exclamation "NINJA!" It was super fun.

Finally, in the game "Last Action Joke," the Bill Cosby impression was whipped out when I had to kill someone with Jello. Tara has told me this is pretty standard and not the mind-blowing creativity that I thought it was, but whatever, my Bill Cosby is better than yours.

Obviously, I'm focusing on my accomplishments because I'm a self-centered jerk, but needless to say, the Peculiar Suspects were all at the top of their games. Scott, Cynthia, and Chris had an awesome game of "Sing It" for which I can claim absolutely no credit and we had a running bit throughout the show about a battle for the captaincy. We switched three times, which we think may be a record. All in all, a great show all-around.

The irony is that BattleProv is switching formats and the champion no longer returns the next week to defend their title. But in my mind, that makes us the champions for all time. And that's pretty freaking great.

Barney, we hardly knew ye

This. is. devastating.

Don Knotts was about the funniest guy ever. I miss him already.

Guess it's just you and me, Gretchen Bleiler

I'm back home in Springfield for a couple days, so here's a few tidbits to not completely depress you/make fun of me for posessing basic human emotions.

• Sasha Cohen, the crush is officially off. Timmy Tapeworm does not crush on second-placers. (He does however, participate in mutually-satisfactory, consequence-free makeouts with them.)
  
  
• My Playground Incubator team is now officially called The Senate. I hope my dad is proud. (Sidenote: I went to a karaoke bar with them last night after rehearsal and my team sure does love their old-skool rap. I just love me some Tom Jones. Although I really should stop trying to karaoke "It's Not Unusual." It's way out of my range. Stupid Tom Jones. Ah, come back. I didn't mean it, baby.)
  
  
• Guess who's MySpace friends with Dwight Schrute from The Office? This guy. Come to think of it, who's friends with everyone from The Office with their own MySpace page? This guy.
  
  
• Tommorow night, I'm taking part in a trivia contest with my parents, Josh and Allyn, Allyn's parents and brother, Scotty, and whoever is hanging out near the entrance when we get there because Rob is dumb and couldn't get off work. I feel a lot of pressure to be useful to the team. Let's hope I don't blow it.

A time for change

This picture has been circulating around a few of the Jerseyville kids' blogs, so I thought I'd join the club and share:


It makes me kind of strangely sad to see the old gym in the process of being demolished. Not that I had a ton of great memories of the gym (the ones I do involve pep band), but I know that the Fine Arts wing is either already gone or will be soon, and that's sad for sure.

It's strange that the loss of a physical space causes these emotions. I'm going through the same thing with the sale of the Jerseyville house. It's not like I spend a lot of time at either place or even visit more than once or twice a year for that matter. And it's not like I'll lose all the memories I have of these places once they're demolished or owned by someone else.

But it's still sad - to think that the old auditorium that was the site of so many plays, musicals, and variety shows has seen its last curtain fall...that no one will order pizza or Carl Budding ham and spend their lunch period rehearsing show choir or jazz band in the same place we used to...and that someone else will be growing up in the room I grew up in...

There should probably be some famous, well-intentioned quote here to put everything in perspective and end this post on a positive note. But there's not. Life changes and things that you love slip away and it's hard. But we keep our respective chins up and hope that the future will be better than our nostalgic view of the past.

A history of violence (and bits)

Huge props today to all the DICEY kids up at Drake for rocking their first paying gig over the weekend.

For those of you late to the game, Drake Improv Comedy Experiment, Yo! (DICEY) is a student organization that I started at my university when I got tired of not doing improv at school. Why it took me until my senior year to do it, I'll never know. But it attracted a great group of people and became a weekly experiment in awesome - just a bunch of goofy college kids playing short-form games and messing around with long-form.

It's still around today, obviously, and is now an official student organization with a faculty advisor and Senate recognition and now, a paying gig under their belts.

Funny story - The e-mail that The Meez (Andy) first got about the gig was from Wells Fargo and the subject line was "Improve Opportunities," so he filed it away in junk mail. Businesspeople just don't know how to spell improv, I guess.

I got the report yesterday that they rocked a crowd of 200-300 people in a strange L-shaped configuration with only 1 mike. Now that's impressive.

It's funny - I started DICEY, partly to have other people to improvise with, but also out of a desire to leave something positive at Drake after I left, a legacy of sorts. Imagine my surprise now that it actually seems to have worked out that way. Thanks, DICEY kids. I couldn't be more proud.

Butterfly in the sky...

Let's all take a moment from our busy schedules and wish Mr. LeVar Burton a happy 49th birthday.

Of course, all the members of the Ryder family are big fans of Reading Rainbow. My favorite episode was Season 4, Episode 11, entitled "A Three Hat Day." (original airdate - August 1987.)

There are also rumours that LeVar starred in some space show, as well as something about roots. I don't know if it was a show about plants or what. I have yet to ascertain the validity of either of these claims. He talked to me about books. And that's good enough for me.


Reading Rainbow trivia: Who was it that sang that truly amazing theme song? That's right, it's Chaka Khan.

Thanks a lot, Ricky Gervais

I've already mentioned this to a couple people, but I thought I'd share it with everyone just to see if I'm alone in this or if other people have shared my experience.

Last week, I caught a killer cold that knocked me out for the later part of the week. So I was just hanging around, not doing much of anything except watching movies. Luckily, my awesome roommate Tara D provided me with the entire run of The Office to ease my sickly pain.

Now, we're of course talking about the original British version here, which is just about as brilliant as you've heard it is. Thankfully, they have a glossary of "Slough Slang" so us Yanks can understand all the Britishisms they say. (Slough is the city in which the show is set. It's like England's version of Scranton, or vice-versa, to be accurate.)

So immersing myself in a few hours of lovely British humour, as well as all the bonus materials, has had an interesting effect:

All of my internal thoughts are now in a British accent.

It should probably scare me that I have so little sense of self that my internal monologue is that easily swayed, but I must admit I find it quite delightful. Although I worry that it will translate into speech, as it did when I meant to say, "...that guy and his friend" and ended up saying "...that guy and his mate."

Does this happen to anyone else, or just this guy?

Nice day for a...

Remember about a month ago (a month and a half by this point) when I went to Portland for a wedding? Well, apparently at some point I promised to post some pictures and every day that I don't, Allyn comes home from work and yells at my blog. Her voice has been absolutely shot for over two weeks, so for her sake, I thought I'd finally get on the stick and give you some. So set the Wayback Machine for end of December, 2005 and...

Here...

we...

go!





Here's the interior of the church where the ceremony took place. The outside looked like an old Spanish mission and it was very simply but beautifully decorated. It was an intimate gathering - about 50 people, including two Drake friends that just happened to be visiting Portland. (Not even joking. They called Lynette the night before to try and meet up, so she invited them to her wedding.)










Here you can see the lovely new couple as they head back up the aisle. Turns out Lynette wasn't kidding about her Mexican boyfriend in California. His last name (and hers now) is Sanchez. Take that, skeptics! (There were skeptics, right? Finally, skeptics.)












A little Des Moines reunion here: Lynette with (from left) her maid of honor Sara, and former apartmentmates Andrea and Becca.










Jon Sanchez and lady friends. Many of them lived in "Second Base," the female equivalent of "Manlantis." (They're both houses where cool kids live.) The ladies were very friendly and welcoming in my short stay in Portland, as was Jon, actually. It's a little known piece of trivia that I slept in Jon's room the night before he got married, therefore making me the last person to sleep with him before Lynette.














Is it true that you're not supposed to wear red to a wedding, so as not to upstage the bride? If it is, I certainly did not know about it and therefore must profusely apologize to the new Mrs. Sanchez.
























We all played with sparklers as the new couple ran out to the getaway vehicle. I think I look pretty suave with a sparkler. Jon and Lynette quickly bailed to Hawaii, leaving behind a few of us to rock in the new year - Portland style.















Here's some cool kids at a hipster bar after the reception. The cool kid you haven't seen yet on the end there is Travis, a denizen of Manlantis. He's awesome because he let me stay in his house and because of his sweet beard.











And finally, here's the cool kids ringing in 2006 in a Cuban restaurant in downtown Portland. Great times, everybody. Great times.









So that's about it. Hope this brings back some good memories for those who were there. Hope it makes those of you who weren't there feel like you were. And I hope it makes Allyn stop yelling at the computer screen.

PSA

I feel a desire, nay, an obligation to tell the blog-viewing public that the final four episodes of Arrested Development will be airing tonight opposite the Olympic Opening Ceremony.

Many will say this is the final dishonor given to a show that never deserved such shabby treatment.

I just say that it will be a lot more entertaining than the freaking Parade of Nations.

They'll have to rename it "Crazy Jon"

I don't mean to overshadow the fainting goats so quickly, but if someone discovers a way to make Garfield a legitimately funny comic, I feel that is a discovery on par with the Rosetta Stone and as such, must be immediately shared.

Fainting goats

Pretty much the most ridiculous animal ever.

(Thanks to Keri for the video.)

More than a hobby

On Scrubs tonight, there was a running bit about guys in the hospital forming an air band.

The final air band number was Boston's "More Than a Feeling."

And when Ted the lawyer played the solo (pretty accurately) on the air guitar, I could play right along with him. I had played it many times before, after all.

Thanks, Guitar Hero!


P.S. Mandy Moore guest-starred. She's super cute. And pretty gung-ho about doing some physical comedy. (She slammed her face into a table pretty hard at one point.) I was impressed, Miss Moore. Well done.

P.P.S. Mandy, you should probably call me.

The annals of ridiculous

Today, I donned the bird suit for the last time.

And thus, another completely ridiculous incident is catologued in The History of Tim.

Good night, sweet bird suit. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

R.I.P. Tim in Bird Suit
2006-2006

Punxsutawney Put-over

Happy Groundhog's Day, everybody. Hope you're all enjoying your delicious groundhog dinners with your families. And a happy one-year engagement anniversary to my stupid brother and awesome sister-in-law. (People celebrate one-year anniversaries of engagements, right? Whatever.)

In the past few days, I've spent many hours reading the entire archives of this guy's blog: Waiter Rant. It's the stories of a waiter in a small upscale bistro in NYC. He's a very good writer and tells some great stories. He also has a compelling and slightly mysterious backstory (apparently he was in training for the priesthood at one point), so it's definitely worth checking out.

A couple random things from the neighborhood:

• There's a restaurant across the street from my apartment that has two neon signs in the window. One says, "We serve breakfast all day." Great. Who doesn't like breakfast. The other says, "Chicken Teriaki noodles" and has a picture of noodles in a pot. Okay, slightly weird. But now combine it with the actual name of the restaurant that is proudly displayed on the green awning above the window - "Hamburger King." I for one, refuse to eat at any restaurant with dissociative identity disorder.
  
  
• I was walking home from a show the other night and looked in the window of one of the many bars near my apartment. On their giant, pull-down screen onto which I assume major sporting events are normally projected, there was instead...Charlie Rose. And he was huge. That bar was pretty rocking that night, because drunk people love Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

That's all for now. Now if you'll excuse me, the Soviet Union has invaded the United States, and it's up to me to crank out soldiers and move them around to stop them. (Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2. Yep, more retroactive gaming.)

Gayer by the second

Oh, you Brady kids. Instead of making prospective buyers think your house is haunted, why not just tell your parents you don't want to move? Answer: because then there would be no shenanigans, no opportunity for Alice to mug for the camera (she's really scared, folks!), and no episode. Adorable.

So yesterday, I had my hair cut.

This is not really that exciting, as it happens fairly often. (If once every couple months can be considered "often.") However, this time was different, because I actually went to something that can pretty much be considered a salon.

I walk by this place just about every day - it's on Clark just a block and a half away from my apartment. It's called halo [for men] and yes, they really do use brackets. They always have a sandwich board on the sidewalk that advertises "The Man" and I always am intrigued. My hair was getting shagadelic, so I decided to indulge my curiousity and give it a shot.

Basically, it's the gayest you can be treated and still feel (mostly) straight.

All the treatments are total spa-rific - we're talking haircut and styling followed by a shampoo and scalp massage plus a paraffin wax and hand massage. Oh, and a mini facial (which, as near as I could tell, consisted of putting a warm, slightly damp washcloth on my face. Whatever, it felt great). This is all pretty gay, or at least pretty metro.

But they go to great lengths to make sure the guys who come in still feel like dudes. Both the stylists I saw were pretty young things, they offer you a complimentary beer or other beverage when you walk in, and you can watch sports or a "guy movie" on the multiple TV screens while all this is going on. The only thing that would be better would be if you could actually play Halo. (I'm actually surprised no one's thought of this.)

All in all, it was a pretty great time. I doubt I'll make it a regular thing - I'm not used to paying that much for a haircut and a couple things happened when I got back to the apartment that made me think twice about my masculinity (which is in a constant state of being threatened anyway, as I don't really like sports or banging drunk girls).

After hearing about my experience Tara said, "Oh, that reminds me - I need to get a pedicure."

Also, I received the new International Male catalog in the mail. (Curse you forever, Keri.)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to kill something with my bare hands to reconnect with my masculine ancestors. Where's that cat...


Ah, I could never kill Niles. We're best friends. I still like girls though.