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.

Free to be...you and MeTV

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a new favorite TV channel. And I share it with a bunch of really old people.

There's a channel here in Chicago called MeTV - it stands for Memorable Entertainment Television. It plays classic TV and it. is. fantastic.

Take last night, for example. I had just finished rewatching MST3K: The Movie (it's amazing how a movie that you can pretty much recite from memory can still make you laugh so much) and just kept the TV on while I played some computer games. I happened to catch MeTV's Sunday Nite Black & White - featuring "The Phil Silvers Show" (the original Sgt. Bilko), "The Honeymooners" (Ralph really did threaten spousal abuse quite a bit), and a couple of episodes of the original "Twilight Zone," one featuring a young William Shatner. Boy, can that guy act. And boy, can that Rod Serling narrate.

I think Rod Serling and Morgan Freeman should have a cage-match narrate-off.

Today, I've already caught "Who's the Boss" (boy, that Mona is boy-crazy), "The Brady Bunch" (I never noticed how much my mom looked like Mrs. Brady. That's weird), and now I'm rocking some "Good Times" (poverty is hilarious!). And the piece de resistance - "Family Ties" and "Batman" are coming up.

Man, this station's got everything - "Get Smart," "Mary Tyler Moore," "Bob Newhart," westerns like "Gunsmoke," "Diff'rent Strokes," and so much more.

A bunch of nursing home residents and this kid are in TV heaven.


This post now holds the World Record for most parenthetical clauses per sentence in a Blogger post - 2006.

This was the week that was

So this week, I made the news. There was brief talk of taking the crack promotions team to Detroit for Super Bowl weekend, but it ended up not panning out. Just as well - I doubt a dude in tights would last long on the mean streets of D-town.

I also got cast to be on an Incubator team at The Playground, which I'm wicked excited about.

Also, Pam Beesley (from The Office) and I are now friends on MySpace. All in all, a pretty stellar week.

It's a living.

For those of you who might be curious as to what I've been up to the last couple days, perhaps this might explain some things. (Go to the irresistible video category and watch "Bad Job Man.")

edit: Now you have to do a search for "Bad Job Man" to find the video. Apparently, I no longer warrant "Irresistible Video" status. Forget you, NBC 5. I should be under "Most Popular." I'm an Internet sensation.

And yes, I wrote my own jokes.

Tim Ryder: dressing like an idiot and crackin' up newsrooms since 2006.

Oh boy

Random pic of the day:

Ha ha! What happened to that guy's head? Hilarious!

+2 cleats of fire protection

I saw the revue currently on the Second City etc stage tonight. I enjoyed it it quite a bit, especially this line, which was my favorite:

"Fantasy football is like Dungeons & Dragons for jocks. *nerd voice* Eee...Peyton Manning with with his +5 throwing arm will help me defeat the evil wide receiver sports information sports information sports information." (She literally repeated "sports information" that many times. Repetition=funny.)

Do you have to be a nerd to know how true that is? Because it is.

Recently in rehearsal, I did a scene based on the suggestion of "Dungeons & Dragons" and afterwards my coach looked at my partner and said, "It's pretty clear that you've never played D&D," then looked at me and said, "and it's pretty clear that you HAVE."

Raph and Emeric, this is all your fault. And I will never forgive you.


Thanks for all your kind words about Robot Comics (some of you). Believe me when I say that it was about a billion times more fun for me to make than it was for you to read. Maybe I'll make more in the future, if inspiration strikes. But don't expect production values to get any higher quality - that's half the funny. And you can keep your fancy Photoshop. I'm a Microsoft Paint man through and through.

Robot Comics #1

Rock 'em out the box, Luke

What if I started a webcomic using just still pictures of these guys?


Readers of a certain age and/or cultural awareness might recognize these characters as Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. (Cut to commercial with 80's kid yelling, "You knocked my block off!")

But these guys are actually the tops of two very special Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot pens. Apparently there's a company that makes these novelty pens with classic board games and toys on the tops. There is honestly a "Connect Four" pen you can buy. The board is very tiny.

Thanks go to Allyn's mom and dad, because they gave them to me as a going away present, and they've given me hours of entertainment. Often, after spending hours in my room by myself, I I go a little crazy and make the robots dance and punch each other and have HILARIOUS conversations! I figured I owe it to the world to let it share in the good times.

So look out, Penny Arcade! Here comes...um...Robot Comics! (I'll work on the name.)

A flash of brilliance

All of a sudden, I have a great idea for a movie. It's about two gay cowboys who have inexplicable telekinetic powers. Christopher Lee and Bette Davis star as the evil doers who plan to manipulate the cowboys into doing their evil biddings. I'll call it Escape to Brokeback Mountain.


P.S. I really did see Brokeback Mountain tonight. My review: it was SUPER gay.

Philosophy ends most arguments. Jerks.

Best quote from the play I saw last night at Steppenwolf (the seminal Chicago theatre company, not the band):

"Nostalgia is simply longing for a time you know you can survive."

Wrap your head around that, hentai-lovers. (A group I do not belong to.)


P.S. Did you know Gary Cole is a Steppenwolf ensemble member? I never would have placed the dude who played Bill Lumbergh (Office Space) and Cotton McKnight (Dodgeball) in the same theatre company as John Malkovich and Gary Sinise, but I would have been wrong.

Can't stop the signal, nerd.

Let's just take a second to consider how far I've fallen to the dark side of geekdom. Last night, I finished rewatching the last couple episodes of Firefly that I obtained through BitTorrent. Then, I reread the three-issue comic book series that connected the TV series with the motion picture. (It's important to note that I had to remove the individual books from their protective bags in which I now keep them.) All this was leading up to the first viewing of my recently purchased DVD copy of Serenity. I watched the movie, the deleted scenes, the outtakes, all of the documentaries, and some of the director's commentary before calling it a night.

When the Chicago ComicCon comes back around, I figure I'll just swing by to make my fall to the dark side complete.

We're at threat level Checkerboard here, people!

The apocolypse is upon us, and the harbinger's name is Sudoku.

Mark my words, America: Sudoku is nothing more than an evil plot to lull the American people into submission. Sure, it started out harmless - nothing more than a simple number game, "a crossword with numbers," they called it. Published in newspapers on a daily basis, it quickly caught on and became a national sensation. Now there are strategy guides published, there is Sudoku for Dummies, there are huge books of Sudoku puzzles that appeal to those people for whom one Sudoku puzzle a day SIMPLY ISN'T ENOUGH!

But this game is not harmless. No, here is how this Trojan Horse will destroy us. Sudoku, while not technically a Japanese invention (it was first published in a U.S. puzzle magazine in 1979), has been popular in that country since 1986, far longer than here. The Japanese have pushed for a resurgence of Sudoku in the U.S. for some time, knowing that our American fixation with completion would cause us to become obsessed with the game. They plan to continue feeding the fire of this new craze until all of America is playing it.

Then they will publish a Sudoku puzzle that is so incredibly difficult, it will cause the entire population of America to become catatonic. This puzzle will be published on a Friday and will be given a difficulty rating of four out of five. It will not seem impossible - nay, completion will seem to be no more than a few good guesses away - but victory will forever evade the grasp. They have the power to calculate such a puzzle. They have very good computers.

Then, at 1:00 Eastern Standard Time on that fateful Friday, while all of America toils away tirelessly but in vain at this puzzle, Japan will launch a sneak attack that will make Pearl Harbor seem like the time that guy stomped on your sand castle.

Don't believe me? Look at the name. Sudoku is the Japanese abbreviation of a longer phrase, "suji wa dokushin ni kagiru," meaning "the digits must remain single." More like, the country must remain single. Meaning, THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE SUPERPOWER IN THE WORLD! US! JAPAN! ALL OTHERS MUST BE ELIMINATED!! This interpretation is obvious.

I have already lost three family members to this diabolical plot.

See through the lies, America. Stick to the Jumble.

Layla-rific

Man, I have so much stuff to recap, I don't even know where to start. I've been on the road since Christmas, it seems like. But never fear, I have returned to Chicago, caught my breath, uploaded my photos, and am ready to go. (Thanks to my sweet new digital camera, I have visual reminders of things that I have to recap. Or at least a lot of random pictures that make me struggle to remember what I was going to say about them.)

Anyway, let's set the WayBack machine for Christmas Day and talk about some hilarious times with this little lady:


This inquistive youngster is Layla, my second cousin. Josh was spending Christmas Day with Allyn's family and just had a hunch that because he wouldn't be there, Layla would be hilarious. And you know what? He was right. That'll teach him to get married and split his time between families. The Ryder family is all hilarious, all the time and if you miss it, that's your loss. (Although I did hear there was Guitar Hero at the Fike Christmas, which probably evens things out.)


Layla really enjoyed having her picture taken at this particular Christmas. Here, she's posing with Lumpy, who you might recognize as the title character from Pooh's Heffalump Movie. What you don't see is the centerpiece, which was beautiful and flowery. This inspired Layla to come up with this Art Linkletter-worthy catchphrase:

"Tim, eat a flower! Eat a flower, Tim! Do it!"

She said this many times throughout the night. For really no reason. She would also occasionally refer to things, including myself, as a "snarflack." We hypothesized that this was closely related to the "snarfblatt" of Little Mermaid fame.

Layla has apparently been learning about dinosaurs in her daycare, but you wouldn't know it from asking her about it. These conversations usually went something like this:

Me: "Layla, what do you know about dinosaurs?"
Layla: "Um...can some dinosaurs fly?"
Me: "Well sure...some could. But I want YOU to tell me what you know about dinosaurs."
Layla: "Um...Tim, are all the dinosaurs dead?"

See? She knows nothing! Although...wait. Maybe she does know a lot. In fact, I bet she knows so much about dinosaurs, she felt that she could quiz me about them. What a smarty-pants.


Here's where the evening really picked up. Kind of. Layla had received this new game called Elefun, which consists of an elephant that has apparently inhaled dozens of butterflies and has become so nasally irritated that he must snort them out into the air, whereupon the players of said game attempt to catch the butterflies with nets. Whatever, it looked fun on the box.

Here's what it looks like when the fan at the base is turned on:


Man. Elefun? More like Elephallic. (By the way, that's Alan Boy in the picture. Not to be confused with Allyn Girl.)

Anyway, the fan was pretty not-powerful and the butterflies got stuck in the trunk a lot. So basically, Elefun was judged to be Ele-not-so-fun. Did you ever get it to work, Carrie? If not, I think you should sue those stupid fun-loving kids on the box for tricking us.

INTERMISSION:

There are quite a few farm cats that hang out around the back porch out at the farm. Grandma feeds them, but they're pretty wild and don't care much for humans. Also, Carrie and I hypothesize that they're started to get pretty inbred. The pool for available mates has got to be pretty limited out there, so we think that we've got a lot of family lovin' going on.


These guys don't look all that weird. The good ones (like the HUGE orange cat that could have eaten your face) ran away before I could snap their picture.


But this one didn't, probably because it's too genetically messed up to have common sense or basic motor control. Look how puny and mangy it is! And its nose - all scabby and junk! Gross! Don't marry your cousin, kids. That's the moral of this story.

SECOND ACT:


Being totally Elefunned out, we moved on to Barbie's kitchen. Barbie had a lot of fun making "milkshakes" in her sweet kitchen. (Layla didn't come right out and say it, but I think Barbie was putting a little nip of something in the mix. She was making a lot of milkshakes. Nothing to eat. Just milkshakes. Tell me that's not shady.)

I tried to play with Layla and Barbie, but Layla said I wasn't doing it right. Being in unfamiliar territory, I assumed this was because I didn't have a character of my own to play. So I reached into Layla's new copy of Candyland (Dora the Explorer version) and pulled out Diego, Dora's little friend. (Who I hear now has his own spinoff: Go Diego Go! Man, when kids latch on to something, the companies churn out as much as they can while they're still riding the wave.)

So Diego (who strangely was voiced by Strong Bad) came over to Barbie's kitchen. But not even that was enough. Layla demanded that Diego bring his friends, so I reached back into the box and pulled out Dora, Backpack, and Boots. Backpack was voiced by Mr. Bill Cosby in a special guest appearance. At this, Layla exclaimed, "Things are getting exciting around here!"

And things did indeed get exciting and stayed that way until Diego and friends were banished from the kitchen for demanding milkshakes. (Seriously, Barbie invited them over but then proceeded to make milkshake after milkshake right in front of them and never gave them one. How rude.) Layla then got mad at me for not playing right and didn't talk to me for a while. But we made up before I left and promised to play again real soon.

Kids, huh? They're great. Anyway, that was Christmas. Next week, much talk of weddings and revelry in the Land of Ports! Huzzah!

It seemed like forever

Well, can't say I didn't see this one coming. Three different vocalists in three albums doesn't bode well for a group, but they made the most of it. Good while it lasted though.

R.I.P Further Seems Forever (1999-2006)

"This winter is lasting forever, at least for tonight."
- Snowbirds and Townies

Internet people are funny

So I was going to continue my story about my trip to Portland but then I got really distracted by the hilarious quotes on bash.org. This is apparently a site where people submit quotes that are said while chatting. Most of them seem to be from IRC, which I have never experienced. But the quotes are super nerdy and hysterical. Here are a few examples.

***WARNING: PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET USE BAD LANGUAGE AND MAKE SUPER NERDY JOKES***

ben174 : If they only realized 90% of the overtime they pay me is only cause i like staying here playing with Kazaa when the bandwidth picks up after hours.

chrislmb : If any of my employees did that they'd be fired instantly.
ben174 : Where u work?
chrislmb : I'm the CTO at LowerMyBills.com
*** Ben174 (BenWright@TeraPro33-41.LowerMyBills.com) Quit (Leaving)

Ouroboros: lets play Pong
ouroboros: Ok.
tag: | .
ouroboros: . |
tag: | .
ouroboros: . |
tag: | .
ouroboros: | .
ouroboros: Whoops

reverend: IRC is just multiplayer notepad.

frank: can you help me install GTA3?
knightmare: first, shut down all programs you aren't using
frank has quit IRC. (Quit)
knightmare: ...

<@Terror> "It's easy to forget what a sin is in the middle of a battlefield."
<@cky> opposite over hypotenuse
<@cky> moron

Seriously, look at the top 100 quotes for the geekiest fun you've had in a long time.

More fun stories from Portland and Des Moines to come...

There and back again...again?

My flight from Chicago to Denver was completely full and seemed to consist entirely of hot girls and screaming babies. It was the best simultaneous temptation-slash-precautionary measure I've ever witnessed. The entire population of that plane seemed to be telling me, "Yeah, go ahead and look at the hot girls. That's fine. But go much further, and...well...you can hear the result. It's been screaming from the row behind you since takeoff."

On my flight from Denver to Portland, I sat next to a girl and her dog. I was already geared up for a unique flight as I was sitting in the front row of the plane - seat 1A, in fact. Never been in the very front before. Not that cool. No seats in front of you to put your stuff under and your ghetto tray tables come out from the armrest. But whatever. There was a hipster chick sitting next to me in a "Clap Your Hands Say Yeah" shirt and I was totally going to engage her in conversation about what she was listening to on her Nano, but then the dog came along and I became much more interested in it.

It had on a harness and vest that said "In Training," so everyone assumed that it was a seeing eye dog. It was, in fact, a therapy dog. In training. Turns out the young lady who was sitting next to me (not the hipster. the dog owner.) was going to med school. But not just any med school. Naturopathic med school. And she was going to use Bailey the dog in her therapy - interacting with people who are rehabbing injuries and sick kids, that kind of thing. Bailey was a year-old yellow Lab, and a pretty big dog to be sitting at your feat on an airplane. In fact, he took up about half of my footspace, but I didn't mind. He was a sweet dog, and super calm the entire time.

To be continued, with wedding reports and pictures and the whole shebang...

Pic-o-rama

I am fascinated by things that perpetuate their own stereotypes. No matter how many cliche stand-up bits are done about how slow the DMV is, if you go there, you realize that absolutely nothing has been done about it. They seem to delight in it. One time an old lady behind the counter looked at me sadly as if to say, "Yep. They're right about us."

I have not been to the DMV recently, but I did try to buy something from a vending machine. Honestly people. It's 2005. Has no one invented a better snack delivery mechanism than the rotating spiral coil?! For every stupid commercial that has some dude put in his last quarter only to have his snack fail to drop, there are probably 100 incidents of this actually happening. Today at the rest stop, I bit the bullet and put in another 75 cents, because two bags of Sour Patch Kids > one.

I realize now that this statement is inherently true. Two is obviously greater than one. I would therefore argue that two bags are, in fact, better than one.

On an unrelated note that will likely have great impact on this blog, one of my presents this year was a digital camera. Here, look how sexy it is.
















Yes, I actually stood it on my guitar case in front of a mirror and used the timer function to make it take a self-portrait. And it's so modest, it didn't even put itself in focus. It instead made the artistic choice to put the focus on the TV, lamp, and Harry Potter figurine. It even reversed the Jimmy Eat World poster. How artsy.

Anyway, now that I don't have to worry about film, I'm free to sit in my car before my haircut appointment and take silly self-portraits. For example:




















Check out my sweet new Seth Cohen sweater. Thanks Josh and Allyn.

And my fantastic Picassa software (thanks again, Google!) lets me crop and edit and do all kinds of things to turn my shots into emo MySpace photos. For example...















Oh...so emo.

Wait, no. I meant...




















Yeah. So anyway, look for more stupid pictures of my apartment, roommate, cat, and pretty much anything I think of.

I'm off to Portland tomorrow for a wedding (maybe that would be a good thing to take pictures of. Hm.) so I'll check you in the New Year! Hope everyone has a safe and totally killer New Year's.

Preview of upcoming attractions:
















This is Layla, my...second cousin? Whatever, she's first in the hearts of her countrymen. And she was hilarious at Christmas this year. I have more pictures of shenanigans and plenty of darned things she, being a kid, said. Prime example: the sole point of taking this picture was so she could do what she's doing to Lumpy's trunk. That's the focus point. Why? Because she's four, and it's hysterical.

Shalom, Tobit!

My ComedySportz student show was this Sunday - thanks to all who made the trip to see it. You guys rule. It was a pretty fun show to play in and I think that made it fun to watch, so I hope you enjoyed it. Don't worry, anyone who is mad that they missed it - there will be more and perhaps then we will do a better job of making up awkward white-boy rap.

Speaking of which, I think rapping about the Chronicles of Narnia is pretty funny too, everybody. I do.

To the guy who started talking to Andy, Keri and I as we crossed Clark St: were you quoting scripture? It kind of sounded like it, but then you started saying some really weird stuff about leaves that were the color of watermelons, and I don't think they had watermelons in biblical times. They're a modern day invention, creepy man. Maybe you were quoting from Tobit. There are bits in that "lost book" about killing dragons.

Big thanks to the squadron of Santas on bicycles who passed Marshall Fields on Saturday. You guys were great. SUPER big thanks to the guy at the back of a pack who was dressed as a dreidel. You have balls, my friend. Balls and a great dreidel costume.

The Apartment of Awesome

Life is never boring in this apartment. Of this I am certain. Living with improvisers is a unique experience. When I tell people I live with comedians, they immediately think that it must be the most hilarious place ever. Josh especially has in his head this idea of one person coming into the kitchen to make breakfast, then a second enters and immediately feels like they have to make breakfast in a funnier way, and it escalates until people are just doing pratfalls all over the place.

This is generally not the case.

However, we do have some fun times. And since the makeup of the place is changing slightly (we just had our subletter move out, which leaves Tara, Jon, Niles the Cat and me), I thought this might be a good time to summarize recent adventures.

• On Sunday, Niles ate about 3/4 of a turkey burger I had thawing in the sink. It was in a Ziploc bag (open, admittedly), but apparently, this will not stop an aggressive cat from obtaining his treasure. He appeared to be a tad lethargic and in mild discomfort afterwards, but nothing more came of it. I thought Tara might be upset, but she rationalized it by saying, and I quote, "Well, tigers eat raw meat."
  
  
• A new cell phone purchase by Tara led to a group discussion and Show & Tell of ringtones. Many were utterly ridiculous, including T-Mobile's "Ta-Da," which is simply a tone repeated twice. It is the least Ta-Da-ish sound ever. But taking the trophy had to be Jon's "Fab Farm," which, and I am not making this up, features a rooster clucking in a funky beat.
  
  
• I was a little worried about living with a cat because I've had allergic reactions to them in the past, but I think I've acclimated. Niles hardly ever makes me sneezy anymore, but if he ever gets his claws in me, my skin gets kind of red and burny. I prefer to think of Niles as having poison-tipped claws. It's much cooler that way.
  
  
• If he ever discovers you did stand-up, Jon will pester you to do your act. If you refuse, he will start performing the most generic and stereotypical stand-up bits you've ever heard. And he will continue doing so for 10 minutes.
  
  
• This made Tara think about getting back into stand-up, but only for one bit - honest comedy. In doing this honest comedy, she would constantly correct herself and explain various comedy techniques as she used them. "So I was driving down I-80 to get to Des Moines today...actually, I flew into town. I only say that to make myself seem like I know the area, thereby making you think I'm approachable and more like one of you, rather than some outsider. Anyway, I was driving..." Just like that, but for THE ENTIRE SET. Come on, you know that would be a funny bit.
  
  
• The other night, Tara, Jon and I stayed up way too late singing TV theme songs in the living room. Why? No reason, except to discover that Tara does a killer impression of Louie the Lightning Bug (who sounds a lot like the guy who sang "Conjunction Junction." She can do that too. It's hilarious.)

In short, thanks for being awesome, apartment. And don't forget to be cool with cords, my friends. You got to be cool with cords!

P.S. Anyone been watching Comedy Central recently? They're doing a series of station promos about an elf who's interning with Santa. Playing the part of the elf is none other than Mr. Kyle Cease. I opened for him at Drake. Remember that?

A History of Awesome

I am not a violent person by nature.

I am, however, a violent person by imagination.

This makes very little sense. Allow me to explain. I have never been in a real fight in my life. Josh and I always wrestled quite a bit, but it never really came to blows. And I am, by nature, a very meek, peaceful, conflict-avoiding person. But in my head, I am quite often pretty vicious.

I'm not exactly sure when it started, but it normally pops up when I'm walking through crowded spaces like airports or the dining hall back at Drake. I'll just be walking along, minding my own business, then all of a sudden, in my mind I'll clothesline someone or tip their tray up so their food gets all over their shirt.

Some of you may be reeling from this. Let me reassure you by saying that it is never done maliciously. It is always done hilariously.

There's something kind of funny about imagined violence, in the sense that it's almost cartoonish and the person never gets hurt. That's the kind of violence that happens in my mind, say when I imagine that I just did a 360 with my rolling luggage and hurled it, a la an Olympic hammer throw, into the face of that guy in the green shirt.

It strikes me that no matter how I try to explain this, I come off looking like a sociopath. So allow me to say that I got Josh to start doing it too. So now we mostly do it to each other and enjoy announcing that fact. We'll just be walking along in some city and you'll hear, "Hey Tim, I just pushed you over the side of the bridge." Sometimes Josh will get so excited about it, he'll just start laughing and bouncing around in his seat and say, "You'll never guess what I just did to you!"

(It should be noted at this point that when presented with a potential victim holding a lunch tray, Josh will always hit straight down, whereas I will hit up on the tray. He says his way doesn't give them a chance to recover. I wonder what this difference says about us, developmentally. Someone should write a paper.*)

Anyway, today I was walking out of Jewel with a milk jug in my hand. It was a full gallon, so it had some heft to it. I used it to hit a dude in the face, then launched it over the fence and it landed right on a girl's head.**

It was all cartoony, people. And all hilarious.



*I find that I end most of my psuedo-intellectual thoughts like this. It's kind of my "Well, we all have stories" for intellectual things. And by "someone," I never mean me. My paper-writing days are over, thank you.

**She crumpled to the ground, but only saw stars and cartoon birds. No permanent damage. Cartoon violence, guys. I'm not evil, I promise.

P.S. Somewhere in this great world, Jacob Eyers senses a disturbance in the Force. He then immediately experiences an overwhelming desire to move to the West Coast and follow this tour from beginning to end. Man, who remembers the Crouching Fish, Hidden Finger tour? I do.

Bus-ted in Croatia

Okay, so I know I haven't posted for over a week, but I seriously have a legitimate excuse this time. Last week, about this time, I started getting some weird system slowdown and lockups. Then on Thursday, after running some diagnostics, my laptop absolutely refused to boot up at all and instead gave me a really pretty blue screen that said "Unmountable boot sector." The next day I took it to Best Buy (because it was still under the service plan, sucka) and my suspicions were confirmed: the hard drive had committed hari-kari.

Got it replaced at no charge and was presented with a completely fresh system. I've spent the last few days trying to get it back up to snuff. Fortunately, this happened to Josh in the spring, which freaked me out enough to make me buy an external hard drive, so I didn't lose anything TOO vital. (All episodes of Firefly are safe, thank God.) But it's a hassle getting everything back the way I like it, especially with a network that's still super-sketchy.

So I didn't post because my computer was broke! There! Does that satisfy you?! Freaking jackals.

I'll tell a fun story to make up for it. It even involves a movie moment. How's that?

Tonight I took a trip downtown to the Chicago Cultural Center, because I need some freaking culture in my life, that's for sure. I saw on the front page of the Chicago Reader that there was going to be an academic panel discussion on "The Simpsons: Cultural Criticism and America's Favorite TV Family." Sounded kind of fun and I couldn't think of any better way to honor the day of The Meez's birth, so I tromped down there.

What the Chicago Cultural Center failed to take into account is that a listing on the front page of the Reader might increase your audience to something quite a bit larger than a normal academic lecture might bring in. By the time I got there (admittedly a little late), the room was overflowing. People were sitting on the floor, for goodness sakes. I realized there was no way I was going to experience any significant part of this lecture.

Altogether now...

"D'oh!"

But fear not, loyal readers. This story has a happy ending. Allow me to briefly describe the architecture of the Chicago Cultural Center. It's um...really really pretty and cool. Arches and domes everywhere, big stone staircases, just general awesomeness.

So I'm on the first floor, bummed about screwing up the cool lecture, when all of a sudden I hear something heavenly floating down from above. This is the movie moment, when I slightly cock my head and think "Where's that music coming from? It's...it's beautiful!"

I walk up three flights of stairs and come upon the atrium pictured in the second image I linked to up there. There, doing their sound-check for a concert later that evening, is...get this...an all-male acapella group from Croatia. Their name is Klapa Sinj, and they are amazing. About twelve of them there, I think. The basses rattled your skull and the counter-tenors lifted your soul into the dome of the atrium, which, by the way, had amazing acoustics. Basically, Mrs. Bear would have peed her pants if she had been there. So I grabbed some quick dinner and came back in time for a fantastic concert.

Chicago Cultural Center...if you're a place where a guy can completely fail to go to the free event he intended and still find a free event that is possibly even cooler, than you're all right with me.


P.S. I know, that movie moment would have been much better if I had met my soulmate at the concert or maybe just gotten really good at chess all of a sudden, but I take what I can get.

P.P.S. I only reference chess because I recently watched Searching for Bobby Fischer. That's a great movie that, for no good reason, has a ridiculous all-star cast. Joe Mantegna and Joan Allen are the parents, Ben Kingsley and Laurence Fishburne are the chess mentors, William H. Macy is a chess dad that shows up a couple times, Laura Linney is a teacher who has ONE SCENE, and Tony Shalhoub is a random guy at the chess club who says maybe three lines. Explain that.

Give thanks for lessons

Man, who posts over Thanksgiving break (or the two following days)? Not this guy!

I had a lovely time back in the field of Spring for a few days. Now that I'm back in Chicago and had some time to reflect on things, I've realized that, as with most of my vacations and breaks, I learned some valuable lessons. So, without further adieu, I present:

Things I learned over Thanksgiving Break:

• I really have no right to call it "Thanksgiving Break." Oh really Tim? A break from what? Improv classes and a spotty wireless network? Yeah, rough life you got there. You need a break.
  
  
• Sears is super flaky when it comes to hiring tall people to do promotions. The day after I said I couldn't work on Thanksgiving morning, I got an e-mail that said Sears canceled again, but those people who signed up to work would get $75 just for saying they would. DARN YOU, SEARS!!
  
  
• Scott may completely fail to give blood once, but will pull himself together enough to get it right the second time. (This time, despite his head start, I definitely won. And don't buy his crap about inside vs. outside veins. I kicked his butt while he was flirting with the old nurse.)
  
  
• Playing Loaded Questions with your gramma is hilarious.
  
  
• Playing Imaginiff with Allyn's gramma is equally hilarious. I'm tempted to reveal some of her more surprising answers here, but they would probably just blow your mind.
  
  
• You know, I'm just going to make a blanket statement and say that playing any board game with relatives, especially when there are multiple generations represented, is going to be pretty hilarious.
  
  
• You may think you know my cousin Barry, but you have no idea. First I learn that the guy writes poetry, and last week, I learned he likes to "get jiggy with his bad self" when he hears rap music. Who knew? Not me.
  
  
• Allyn being competitive is funny. Allyn trying (unsucessfully) to dial down her competitiveness is funnier.
  
  
• Trying to find the pieces of the 30-year-old electric knife in the Ryder household is an epic task akin to assembling the Tri-force. The thing probably only sees use once a year and in the interim, gets disassembled to its various components, which are then stored in completely different and non-adjacent drawers. Josh and I are convinced that the only thing that keeps this thing from rusting away to nothing is the turkey grease gleaned from its previous use.
  
  
• Guitar Hero with Josh and Rob is the most fun I've had playing video games in a long time. Thanks a lot, Guitar Hero. I've never wanted a PS2 more because of you. I'm well aware that I'd probably have to buy a new TV just to connect you (the greatest TV of all TVs, currently in my possession, is from the 70's and has not one, but two dials for the channel selection), but I don't care. Come on, high-paying job! Where are you when I need you?
  
  
• "It's punk rock. How hard can it be?" are famous last words when attempting "I Wanna Be Sedated" on Expert level. I saw probably 12 bars of the song and didn't hit a single correct note before being booed off the stage.
  
  
• There are some super-dedicated fans of The Office out there. Thanks to sites like Northern Attack, I learned that not only does Dwight have his own blog, but Pam, Ryan, Toby, Kevin, and Angela are all on MySpace. I'm now seriously considering joining MySpace just so I can be friends of fictional characters on my favorite TV show, because...come on. That's awesome.
  
  
• The Ryder family Christmas tree expedition, despite being moved to a new location, still follows pretty much the same formula. That's comforting, in a way.

It's also just comforting to be home for a few days. Thanks to friends and family for all the good times. Coming up next...adventures in...temping?

TV Guido

Loyal readers may remember my excitement over possibly landing the near-mythical "Sears gig." (Remember that? Three posts ago? Thanks for sticking around, loyal reader.) Well, disappointingly, they scheduled the promo for Thanksgiving morning to coincide with the parade and I will certainly not stick around Chi-town on Thanksgiving just to pass out Sears coupon books and be pimped for my height. No sir.

But since I went out for that open call, I've been added to the distribution list of the company that staffs all of these crazy things. And on Thursday, I actually participated. I chose a great day, as Thursday was one of the coldest days of the season so far, so what better day to stand on street corners and pass out stuff?

It was a TV Guide promotion, so we were passing out 3-D glasses for Monday's special 3-D episode of Medium, as well as coupons for TV Guide subscriptions. Not surprisingly, people were much more interested in the glasses.

I was paired up with a very cool girl named Lyndsay (yes, that's how she spells her name. I checked.) who, coincidentally (not really) is also an improviser, so we had a pretty decent time trying to stay warm. She at least made things fun and helped the day go by faster. It's funny the things that come out of your mouth when you say the same things over and over for hours. And also when your mouth gets frozen shut.

Things we were supposed to say:

• The New TV Guide is big - get 4 free issues with your trial subscription!
• Your 3-D glasses for a special episode of NBC's Medium - a special gift from the new BIG TV Guide!

Things we actually said:

Lyndsay: Hey! Watch TV!

Tim: Get your 3-D glasses here! Only with them will Emmy-winner Patricia Arquette actually show some depth! Ha ha! Get it?!

L: Psychic investigations in the third dimension! See what she sees! (to Tim) That's ghosts, right? (to universe at large) See ghosts in 3-D!

T: Get four frissues of the new BIG TV Guide!
L: Frissues?
T: Yeah, that's a new combo term I just invented. Means "free issues." Get four frissues here!

Creepy guy with food on his face: Hey, are you an actor?
Lyndsay: Uh...yes.
Guy: Gotcha!

(This worried us for a little while because we were warned that the client would be sneakily auditing us and trying to catch us saying things that weren't in our script. But then we just decided it was a creepy guy with food on his face.)

Business guy: Oh, I love that show. It's so great to have a show with a female lead that's not some dumb model.
L: Yeah, she's a great psychic lady.

L: Get your three free-D glasses here!
T: You know, that's not technically wrong.

At least two old people berated us for the changes in the new TV Guide, because people who pass out stuff on the street corner obviously have a direct conduit to the decision-makers. But, just in case there are any TV Guide higher-ups reading this, you need to put things in Central Time Zone, because people here haven't learned how to subtract an hour. Also, something about cooking shows and movies from 6 AM to noon. There, now get on it! The public has spoken!

Harry Potter and more awkward bathrooms scenes with Myrtle

Tara snuck her way into the router today and played with some settings. Now, not only are we connecting to a network known as "3406, y'all," but we are also actually connecting to a network. It's quite the revolutionary concept. Ah, Comcast...how quickly I've come to despise you.

I was quite jealous to hear of the Springfield foursome's great times at the midnight showing of Harry Potter. I did not go to a midnight showing because I was wiped out from standing outside on the streets of Chicago in the blistering cold handing out 3D glasses for the better part of 7 hours. More on that tomorrow.

I decided to catch a matinee this afternoon, because I really don't do anything during the day and thought it would be less crazy. I drove to the theater because it had been a while since I'd taken the Stallion out (the clock was still wrong, for heaven's sakes). Travel time kind of screwed up my chance at the 3:30 (since when does a 3:30 Friday showing sell out? Geez.), but luckily the theater was showing the movie basically every hour. But the 4:30 showing meant one thing.

School's out.

Normally, a kid-filled audience would be very upsetting, but, lacking nearby dedicated geek friends, I was more than happy to share the experience with dedicated kid friends. The PG-13 rating ensured that there would be very few little kids, and so therefore I enjoyed a pretty silent and cry-free audience*. Besides, it's good to see things through the eyes of a child every now and again. Every New Day and all that.

The movie was, as many of you know by now, awesome. The kids are growing up and growing with their roles pretty nicely. Overall, very enjoyable. In the interest of sharing and conversing and whatnot, I had some questions and comments.

-Did Cho have an Irish accent in the book? If she didn't, she should have. I could have listened to her talk the whole movie. Pity she didn't have more lines. "Careful of the steps, Harry. It's a bit oicy at the top." Sigh...

- Did the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang go to school during the year or did they just get the year off? They obviously didn't mix into the Hogwarts classes, but a year seems like a long time to be going to class on a ship/in a carraige. Did they have some empty classes in Hogwarts or what? This may be a middling issue, but I feel education is the key to the future.

- Finally, I decided that watching Harry Potter movies without reading the books is equivalent to watching Serenity without having ever watched Firefly. Taken on their own, they are enjoyable cinematic experiences, but have nowhere near the emotional resonance. It's just so much more meaningful to know the backstory and the depth of everything - like why it was so hard for Neville to see the Cruciatus curse. (Which they changed, didn't they? It was Bellatrix Lestrange that performed it on his parents, not Barty Crouch, Jr.**)

Anyway, it was great, even the super awkward scenes with overzealous female ghosts. Naughty bits, indeed.



*Except for that little bit that I cried. But that was silent and if there had been a nice girl with me, she would have thought it was sweet.

**Is this post geeky enough yet?***

***No. No, it's not.

Vaguely upsetting

Sorry for the lack of posting lately, but Comcast went completely bonkers over the weekend and my Internet has been fluctuating between middling and non-existent ever since. (I blame Scott's arrival to Chicago.) Believe me, I'd love to post about all of our wacky adventures. I'd also love to BitTorrent my stories, but the only thing working at the moment is wishful thinking.

Also, the Sears gig has been postponed until further notice. Sears is still shooting for sometime this month, but don't hold your breath.

Finally, it's cold and rainy in Chicago. Possible snow today.

I'm not going to say it's depressing, but let's just say I'm really looking forward to Goblet of Fire, for escapism if nothing else.

I hope I get it. Oh God, I hope I get it.

So...I'm pretty tall. Many of you are well aware of this. I've been that way for some time, and while it is occasionally an inconvenience or an irritant, I've made my peace with it.

Yet as I move into this strange world of improv and auditions and whatnot, I'm aware that my above-average height will probably knock me out of the running for a few things. I'm fully prepared to hear "You're absolutely hilarious and fantastic, but you're just too tall," quite a bit (probably without the first bit most often).

So imagine my surprise when my first potential gig demands it.

One of my roommates makes a little money doing promotions for companies. A lot of actors and improvisers in the city make money by passing out samples of FUZE or painting their faces blue and talking on cell phones in the El (I'm not making that up). This is the "guerrilla" or "encounter" marketing you hear about from time to time.

So my roommate told me about an upcoming promotion for Sears that required really tall people. Apparently, Sears was looking for about four people who are 6'5" or taller to pass stuff out downtown. The hook is that we're really big, but we're passing out really little coupon books, but at the same time, encouraging people to wish BIG and get ready for a BIG holiday. Get it? Yeah, I don't either.

So I went in for an "open call" last night that pretty much consisted of a brief interview and then getting measured and having my picture taken. The gig is next week, so I'll let you know what happens.

But now I can say things like, "Oh, I hope I get that Sears gig." Which I think is hilarious.

He's not heavy, he's my brother

Holy crap, it's my brother's birthday! He turns 25 today, so in honor of his quarter-life crisis (and possibly to exacerbate it), here's a bunch of pictures that make him look like a dork!

(Loyal readers may remember that I did this for Raph on his birthday, thus making it a time-honored tradition. Because I've done it twice now.)




Here's Josh in fierce competition with a girl that is much younger than he. If you can't tell, they're trying to hold a quarter between two spoons while squatting with their arms straight out. This is just the kind of thing that happens at church camp. Another thing you might not be able to tell is that he's losing. In fact, that's a big Josh characteristic: frequently loses tests of strength to junior high girls.














I know I've posted this picture before, but I think it's just about the coolest picture even taken. Not just of Josh, but of anyone. Ever. For the story behind the shot, go here.








I don't know who that girl is, but this is an important picture because it represents the Josh Ryder picture-posing philosophy: "Even if everyone else around is smiling nicely, I'm making a silly face." I often hypothesize that this has something to do with how much he sucked as a baby. (Seriously, he was born way premature and things were looking bad for a bit. But he turned out okay and now we just gloss it over by joking that he really sucked as a baby.)









This is an important picture because it illustrates an important attribute of both Josh and Scott. Scott likes to be really creepy in pictures and Josh sweats. A lot. Even if it's not warm. Seriously, it's gross.













This is...oh wait, this is just me stealing a bike. My bad.













I think Josh was going for a Ty Pennington/Randall from Clerks look here, but mostly he just looks like a tool. (This is how we show affection, I swear.)













There's that girl again...weird. Here's Josh in a really sweet car giving English people the bird. Take that, English people!!








So yeah...there it is. Hope you liked your present, brother. This is it. It's all you're getting. So happy birthday! Everybody, go to Josh's blog and tell him happy birthday. He deals with 6th graders all day. He could use the encouragement.

P.S. I highly recommend watching tonight's episode of MADE on MTV at 9:00. It features an extremely ridiculous girl who doesn't know what she wants to be, so she comes to ComedySportz. Seriously. Ridiculous.

"Wow, what kind of drinks do you serve in this place?"

I just had a great weekend with the visiting Josh & Allyn.

During that time, Niles the Cat got sick and not only pooped on the living room floor but also had some weird hairball vomit stuff go on in the kitchen.

Earlier today, my improv class was incredibly tedious and frustrating.

I just got back from seeing MxPx and Relient K, another show I was much too old for.


However, these are all topics for another day.

I simply cannot go another minute without sharing this amazing discovery. It seems the FOX Broadcasting Company, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to do battle with ABC's surprise summer hit "Dancing With the Stars," with their own amazing creation...

...wait for it...

"Skating with Celebrities," airing in Winter of 2006.

Not only will "celebrities" be paired with former Olympic figure skaters to compete in what I'm sure will be fairly atrocious pairs skating competitions, one of the pairs is none other than two-time Olympic medalist Nancy Kerrigan and...

...wait for it again...

Dave Coulier.

Immediately following the premiere, I predict the universe will explode for your enjoyment.

Another improviser in Chicago? Good, we were lacking for them.

It strikes me that I've yet to speak of my improv classes here in Chicago, which is odd as improv is a pretty big reason why I'm here in the first place. I've taking two classes right now:

Second City - Level A: This is the quintessential "So You Want to Improvise" class. There's lots of silly mirroring exercises and much discussion of the principles of improv without actually doing much of it. Not in scenic format, anyway. I just had my third of eight classes a few days ago (this one is on Sunday afternoons) and toward the end of class we did our first real improvised scenes. This is awesome for someone who's never improvised before and is scared to death of it (as some members of my class are, and they're adorable), but a little basic for someone like me who's been improvising for a while. So I scheduled an audition for the Conservatory Program to see if I can get into that. Many of my improviser friends recommended I do this, since it saves time and money, so I thought I'd give it a shot. The teacher is great, though and the class is fun. Just a little slow for my tastes.

ComedySportz - 202: I took 101 last summer during my internship, so I get to rock out in 202 now, which is all scenic improvisation. This class is much more to my liking - no more babying you onto stage, just get out there and let's start making stuff up. My teacher is awesome and my classmates are pretty fun, so we have a good time, doing lots of different character and emotion exercises and learning great ComedySportz games. The best part is that we get a real show at the end of our class, and somehow it worked out that we get the whole show to ourselves (normally, you have to split it with another class). At least that's what they said one week. We'll see. Looks like it's scheduled for Dec. 18 at 4:00 pm, for those of you interested.

Anyway, I have a homework assignment this week. I have to come up with 10 foolproof scene initiations. These are lines of dialogue that set up a scene and give your scene partners some idea who you are, who they are, where you are, and what's going on. Not all of those conditions need to be satisfied in one line - that would be unwieldy and unnatural, but it's get at least a couple of those in there. Something like:

"Okay everybody, listen up! If you all listen to me, you're going to walk out of here a million dollars richer!"

OR

"Your mother and I are very confused, sweetheart. You say it was your teddy bear that killed all those people?"

See! Instant hilarity! Because little girls pinning violent crimes on their stuffed animals = funny! HA HA HA!! ZZZZZzzzzzzz. (I'm stealing bits from Tara now. Take that, Tara.)

Now I'm not asking you to help me do my work. That would be cheating and all of mine would be better than yours anyway. (Need I remind you of the bit with the teddy bear? Eh? EH?!) But I thought it would be fun to open it up to the people at large. So come on, comic geniuses. Hit me with some funny. I know you don't have anything better to do.

Halloweenie

Holy crap, Rob. Prussian Blue is like an alternate-reality version of Smoosh. An alternate-reality in which they are brought up by really creepy pro-white people.

So...Halloween, right?

Discuss!

Halloween on Clark Street is lots of fun, because there are lots of bars and silly drunk people in costume. The best line of the weekend was reported to me by Tara, who said she heard some guy yell, "Hey Miller Light Can! Miller Light Can, you dropped your wallet!"

I was helping ComedySportz give away fliers and mini-frisbees on Sunday to little kids in costume. Over on Southport, the merchant corridor gives away candy and tells kids to come by. It was great, because little kids in costume are hilarious.

I decided that day that if I ever have kids, I'm going to dress them up in costume as often as possible. I don't care if it's not Halloween or even anywhere close, some days I'll just say, "Guess what, little guy? Today's a costume day! Go pick one out from your closet!"

Then my kid will be the weird costume kid at school. I'll probably wreck his life, but it's not wrong if it's hilarious.

Cool observed costumes, anyone? Discuss!