Thursday, December 25, 2008

Also, real Merry Christmas.....


Ok, maybe not really real, but real enough for me....

For real with the X-mas decs?

OK...I'll admit. Having Christmas co-exist with a buddy in town from the army is equal parts kick ass and equal parts pain in the ass. Trips the boat, trips to the titty house, place your bets here and there....I ended up losing $80 I didn't have tonight because of friendship. But we had fun.

I did have a magnifimous moment where I thought the woman sitting next to me was actually into me. That moment quickly passed, as they all do, and I realized how small my dating pool was/is.

Anywho, so porn it is!!!!!!1111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111one!!!!11!!!!!

Merry X-mas, you buggahs.


So, I didn't make it to the Improv get-together something point something.

Alright, alright, I was the one that put it into the air initially. But a few things have come to light since then. One major one is that MO unemployment takes much longer to kick in than one might think.

The good news is I spent the $50 that was given to me by my aunt tonight at the casinos. So it's going to the kids, which is nice.

I've also had a recent job extended to me to unpack and load furniture for a well known local furniture store while I wait on my "dream job". I quotate it, not because I doubt it's validity as a dream job, but as it's job's ability to take it seriously. Think on that one, Volataire. Really, I want to be a Union organizer. The field in which I enter is important to me.

That field won't be revealed hear right now, but more details will come soon.

Anywhoozle, talk to you all later. I'm busy calculating my my awesome points on a number of Massively Multi-Player Online Games.

Is he for real or for fake? Find out in the latest issue of US.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

EXIT 16 ALUMNI SHOW!!!!!!


Exit 16's alumni show was tonight. It's an annual event that I look forward to, if not just to see the talent coming out of high school this year, but to also re-connect with friends from long past. 11 years ago, now.

For those not in the know. Exit 16 is a high school improv troupe that I was a founding member of back in the fall of 1997. Back then, our director was Rich Brown, an English/Theatre teacher Liberty High School at the time. He took advantage of an opportunity to partake in the "Kansas City High School Improv League". Having such a large roster, we had two teams: Improff Broadway and Exit 16. Because of the rules, since both of our teams made it to the finals, we had to join together. And so Exit 16 was born. We won the championship, Rich moved away 2 years later, and Trish Berrong took over as head coach of Exit 16.

I wish it could be a scam, that there could be some way to use these kids for my benefit, and I'm sure there is. But Trish is tied to them in a way that I, nor most of you could be: she actually enjoys driving 20 miles out of her way once a week to coach a ragtag group of hormonal, confused, generally non-commital teens to not only perform, but to excel at the art of Improv. She recieves no stipend, no money, no real acclamations, she does it because not only does she believe in the art more than anyone I've ever known, but she sees in those kids the ability to be anything and everything.

Anywhoozle, It's always fun to have an alumni show, to talk hentai with your buddies, and to see the hentai possibilities in your possible future buddies. I can see Exit 16 going on, not just putterning on, doing recycled crap year after year, but truly growing for years to come.

EXIT 16!!!!!!111!!!!!1!!!!!ONE!!!!!

Friday, December 19, 2008

This always gives me the heeby jeebies


Tiny foot, other body parts removed from tumor in newborn's brain.

I've read stories like this before, and it always reminds me of the Stephen King novel "The Dark Half". It was made into a crappy movie over a decade ago, but it's basically about a kid having the same surgery and growing up to be an author, whose bestselling books have an evil character that the author is killing off when....well, you'll have to read it or see the movie, because it's seriously been more than a decade since I've done either myself.

In other news, pixie haircuts are back. File that under "who cares?".

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Jesus Christ, what a great comic.


Jesus Christ: In the Name of the Gun
follows the violent adventures of Jesus and a few special historical guests. Need I say more? Make it to at least page 15, and you will be hooked.

It's strictly online now, but will soon be available for purchase at your local nerdatorium! Check it out, let me know what you think.

More ambiguity on the job front.

So it seems like my exodus from KC has been postponed. I'm not upset in that "Damn you, Kansas City!!! When will you free me from your evil clutches?!" way, it's more of a "Come on, past and future employer. Get your shit together. It's my life we're playing with here."

Basically, two different sub-organizations in a much larger organization were telling me things about what needed to happen for me to get this new job rolling, and I chose the wrong group's lead to follow. So now it appears now that I might not be going until spring some time.

Of course, all of this could change at a moment's notice, so once again, I sit and wait. In the mean time, I can continue getting unemployment pay for free, or make just a little bit more money doing temp stuff. Decisions, decisions...

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

What are you doing? Sleeping?!?!?!?1?

Align Center






















If you don't already have it, go to stumbleupon.com right now and get Stumble Upon. It's basically a little button that gets added to the toolbar of the internet browsing device du jour, and it picks out random sites of interest based on your own interests. You can even stumble specific TYPES of sites. You can stumble Youtube or just videos in general. You can stumble all sorts of news sites, fake news sites, specific news publication sites....It's starting to become ridonkulous. I will warn you, however, that it is crack-like in it's addictiveness.

Already have it? Update your interests!!!!

I've been using it for a few years now and just recently updated my interests. When it first came out, you had maybe a few dozen options, but now it's INSANE. The way they have broken down the categories of interest deserve your attention. The other great thing is now it has neared the point of being useful, beyond just finding funny and obscure articles by your favorite writer, you can set it up to be a work tool. There are that many options.

Anywho, If you didn't already have it, get it. If you already do, update it.

The possibilities for time wasting are limitless.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Better late than never.

Yeah yeah, I've been gone a while. I'm gonna start updating this more regularly. Now that that's out of the way, let's begin.

I'm not sure what it is about shows at The Corbin. The content is always family friendly(ish), but before shows, the Fakers guys only seem capable of talking about the most random, completely inappropriate subjects. A few months ago, it was an idea for a musical that still might be written called "Dick Sauce".

At the most recent show, it was just general discussion of pee-poo, AKA Jenkem, AKA Butt Hash. If you don't know about it, here's how it works: Person wants to get high. Person poos and pees in a container. Balloon is sealed over lid of container. Pee-Poo ferments for a few days. Person inhales gasses from the pee-poo that the balloon has caught. Person is high.

Seriously, wha?

Now we're considering making pee-poo, super customizing it, and selling it on craigslist. Want pee-poo from someone that ate nothing but white chocolate dipped pretzels for a week? Vegetarian pee-poo? You name it, we'll custom make it for you. We'll have to dabble in the market a bit first, though, to see what such a custom product is worth.

That's it for now!

Monday, May 19, 2008

Not having a computer sucks.

Day #18 of very limited computer use.

It's 10:25 PM, I've been online for 5 minutes. I probably have little more than 5 left before the office closes and I have to get off again.

The place I'm staying at has wi-fi, so I'm seriously considering blowing $400 on one of the laptops they made for the "one laptop for every child" thing. They're made by Asus. They're no big deal. I would probably link to them, but no time.

Ohh, Angelina Jolie's having twins.

Sorry, I'm feeling isolated, not having my normal daily dose of crappy celeb gossip via What Would Tyler Durden Do?. Can't link, google it.

I think I'm going to do a show up here with Jill on Sunday. It should be a really good time. I'm starting to have withdrawls for both my internet and internet addictions. I would tell you to google the show, but I'm pretty sure it can't be found on the internet anywhere yet.

Ok, time to close the office. Peace.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

KC Improvisers Blog Ring Coordinated Blog II

So, the topic for this month: what makes a good improv troupe?

In a word, me.

Not really. In a serious word, trust.

I love seeing a group not afraid to pick each other up, get in each other's grill, and maybe every once in a while getting close enough to make you just a tad uncomfortable. But it's so much more than that.

When two people enter a scene, if one person says something completely out of left field, I believe that trust is what will hold the other person from breaking, from trying to steer the scene back into any direction they had already set up in their head, and/or from limping into the established reality of the scene set by their partner, rather than jumping into the deep end.

Had enough? Well, here's another thing good troupes are wont to do: communicate effectively inside and outside of troupe business hours.

Gonna miss a rehearsal? Call ahead, mutha trucka. Be cool enough to have a decent excuse. And if you don't have one? Bring some french toast or snickers bars to the next rehearsal along with a big ass apology. Why? People love good tasting stuff, and are more willing to forgive you your faults if you come with a gift that goes in their belly.

Don't dig the format your group's doing? Suck it up and do it well or be willing to express your feelings (backed up with good reasons) to the director and the director alone. Even if you do have a somewhat valid point, no one wants to hear that shit in rehearsal. No one needs to. Bringing that up in front of the rest of your castmates just plants an uneeded seed of doubt. You may think it doesn't, but you're wrong, sucka.

The last thing that makes a decent troupe is passion. You've gotta be doing it for the right reasons. If you're doing it solely as a stepping stone to something new, get outta my face. Most of the people I admire today may have used improv as a stepping stone to get where they are now, but few have forgotten their roots. The folks I wanna party with that are on SNL or are doing movies are the folks that still go out to the improv clubs because it is something they still want to do. If you find yourself thinking that you've learned enough and that the only way you'll get better now is through performing, shut your trap and take a workshop. For realz.

Umm...that's all I've got for right now. I was going to leave it at just my third sentence, at just trust, but I'm kind of glad I elaborated a little bit. Sorry for the tardy.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

My boring update.

So, I'm going to MN a few weeks later than I had planned. I leave May 2nd now. Here's the deal: I could have a much better paying job tomorrow if I wanted, I'm pretty sure of that. At this point in my life, and at this point in the course of our country, it seems as though we're on a collision course.

Making healthcare an affordable and attainable thing for everyone seems like a pretty good cause to devote a year of one's life to. On top of making sure every child has access to a world class education, keeping good jobs here in the USA, blah blah blah.....

I talk to middle class folk every day, and I love it. I work for a non-partisan public lobbying group. That means we don't deal in party specific B.S., we work on issues.

Issues are what people too often forget in the election process. I love it when I walk up to a person with a Ron Paul or John McCain sign in their yard. I'm not trying to convince them to change candidates, all I'm doing is bringing important issues that affect their lives to the forefront. Putting it in their minds. Hopefully in a few months, when they go to vote, they'll keep these facts in their minds.

Bah, I could go on, but I'm a little tired.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Don't call it a comeback.


Here's something improv related that I'm still trying to understand: Why do people care what other cities think of our scene? Also, how would they know much of anything about it?

I mean honestly, Kansas City hasn't exactly been sending out TONS of representatives to other festivals. And the out of town improvisers we bring in for the festival perform their shows and get to watch the other acts from out of town. What do y'all expect? The only real way to get big time national notoriety, which I could personally care less about, would be to have an open call festival, and mix national acts in with local acts. Having lots more local troupes going to other festivals would help too.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

The best and worst of KC improv.


Wow, a pretty broad topic for this, the first official KC blogging improvisers coordinated improv blog post. Maybe it needs a catchy new name.

So, here's the best of what's going on:

Groups are really starting to get into the whole cross-pollinating mind set. I think it's for a couple reasons: First, people are actually talking to people in other groups and finding that they have a lot in common. Not only that, but they're seeing things they definitely respect and enjoy about other improvisers, and want to get in on whatever it is that they enjoy about them. We're not quite where I would like our scene to be yet, but I think we're definitely on a good track.

OH, OH, I almost forgot. Part of what this cross breeding is also doing is pushing the limits of formats in the city. People are getting together to do these "special" shows with "special" people, and want it to actually be a "special" format, something that they ordinarily wouldn't be able to do with their home base troupe.

Now, for what can be improved...

I still think KC is struggling to build it's improv audience. Most of our shows are frequented by and large by people we know. Friends, family, and fellow improvisers. We all occasionally see normies that we don't know, but they are still vastly outnumbered by the Three F's. This is an issue that will get better over time, I believe, and the best we can do is just keep working at it. Experiment with different marketing schemes, work on getting in and keeping in with various news outlets, possibly explore sponsorships...There is a lot that can be done to build up our audiences.

So, there it is. I promise I didn't put too much thought into it, but these are what I see us doing well and what can be better done.

Monday, March 24, 2008

It's all in the timing.


So, I've been sick for the last 5 days. Today is the second day in a row I've called into work. 4 day weekend, completely wasted.

Here is the real kicker: My health benefits for my current job kick in on April 1st, exactly one week from tomorrow. So if I end up having to go to the doctor tomorrow, it's all going to be out of pocket. I should seriously consider moving to Vegas to be a cooler. Or try to get on at one of the boats here in KC.

Does anyone else still get teared up at the end of Forrest Gump, even if you're just flipping through the channels and happen to land on the last 5 minutes? Maybe it was the fever, but I was doing the part laugh, part cry thing Saturday when I came upon it.

The first half of The Karate Kid is underrated and rarely remembered.

Does PEZ go bad? I found an old Batman PEZ dispenser a few weeks ago, and it still has some orange PEZ in it. I dared Keith to try a piece, and after he did, I did. This was at least 3 weeks ago, so I'm fairly certain it's not the cause of my current illness. But Batman is sitting by my monitor now, and I know he's got at least 3 pieces of PEZ left. If I don't eat them, who will?

Saturday, March 15, 2008

My shit ain't corny.

So, I don't want to just have a blog documenting my day to day life. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Not at all. Actually, I'm pretty sure that's what blogs started as. I just wanted this to be something else.

However, contrary to previous years, these last few months have actually been thrilling and exciting for me. I have a new job, I'm becoming more gangsta and more fit every day, and I'm learning things.

And I'm having fun!!!

(big subject change)

Tonight was the first CounterClockwiseComedy show in a long time, and here's the deal: it kicked ass. Seriously. Even with an extra, non-rehearsed game thrown in, it rocked. We had to spend an extra 15 minutes after everyone had left, cleaning up the socks that had been rocked off. Kind of a pain, but worth it.

I might someday start drawing my fantasies, but right now, I'm imagining a unicorn slaying a dragon.

Thanks for coming by, friend.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Late night, right?

Here's a crazy thing that happened at work recently: I had to fire some guy because he was stealing our company vans, the ones that we rent, and taking them out for his own personal use after work hours. I found out about this from one of my co-workers that lives in the same apartment complex as him. I had to fire him because, I don't have the authority to (yet), but my boss was out of town.

He has probably called me more than a dozen times since it happened, trying to find out how he got caught. He eventually decided it was me, based on the voicemail he left me last friday. I might try to record it and provide some audio later, but the message was "Snitches get stitches, Tommy."

He left it on my voicemail. Which he called from his cell phone. Kind of creepy, right? Wait, it gets better.

The next day, he calls my boss and begs for his job back. My boss had heard the message within minutes of it being left, because I was in the office when it happened. My boss mentioned that, not only had he stolen the van, but he had now also called and threatened me, and that now there was not a snowball's chance in hell that he could reclaim his job. After that conversation, the dumbass called me, apologized about the threat, and asked me to lie for him to get his job back. So I did, and he got the job back, and all was great!!

Actually, that last part didn't happen, but it would have been neat.

What really happened was, I told my boss to tell him that I did in fact lie for him, but that the job was still unattainable because of the theft, which he did. I thought it was going to be all good after that.

It wasn't.

Apparently, once we talked and he apologized, he deduced that the person that told on him in the first place was the woman that lived in the same apartment complex as him. So later that night, the night he asked me to lie for him, he went to the apartment of the woman that he thought had snitched on him and that now, logically, deserved stitches. She locked the door, called the police, and he eventually left. What he didn't know or expect was that, the following day, the woman's brother and child's father both showed up and beat the crap out of him. Like, seriously bruised and bloodied this dumbass guy.

SO, throughout all of this hood drama, there's me, right in the middle. Silly Tommy, the nerd. At this point, I don't know if it's all better, or if it might escalate further. Hopefully it does at least a little bit, because this shit doesn't write itself, and I would love to have another entry about it.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Web log post #2

Ok, so I have a few ideas about what people want. I'll start with a few of those, and otherwise just fly by the seat of my pants.

I bought groceries today, for the first time in a long time. Your first thought is probably "good for him, he's a mooch." Well, friend, you'd be wrong. The reason it's been so long is that I realized my eating habits have been horrible and dangerous for far too long.

I'll explain.

I've been working from 1:30 until 10:00 for the last 4 months or so. I'll get more into what my job actually is (saving the world) in a later post. So, working these hours, I have fallen into a habit of skipping breakfast, eating fast food for lunch at 3:00, then grabbing fast food for dinner at 10:30, just for convenience's sake. It's horrible. I'm not gaining weight, but I walk for at least 5 hours straight every night, so I'm also not losing the weight I probably could/should be. I'm staying the same, and am probably malnourished. So tonight, after work, I bought some salad fixin's, apples, OJ, chicken strips, thin sliced chicken deli meat and bread.

Hopefully, when it's gone, I'll have the motivation to go back and do it again. With as much exercise as I regularly get now, I might soon be the incredible shrinking man. Look out, Berrong.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Hey there, blog world. Can I just...sorry. OK, thanks.

Wow, this is my first blog post. Here. I'm pretty sure I have another blog, somewhere else, but it was more of a social thing and not really worth going into a whole lot of detail about.

Unless you're coming from that place, in which case Afrodiary rules!!!!

OK, so, first thing's first, I don't know what this will look like. The font looks huge on my screen, if it does on the first post, I'll change it as I go. This is a learning experience.

Let me know what you want me to blog about, and I will. I promise. Unless I start getting a butt load of readers with buttloads of requests, in which case, I will promise, if I have the promise of the love of a beautiful woman. Or promises of money or booze.

If I can figure out a way to put it somewhere else, I may also have a drunken post spot, strictly for drunken posts. If I can't figure that out, I will probably just label them as drunk posts from here.

Here's what I don't get about a lot of the blogs I read: you go to the beginning of them, expecting to get some sort of base rules setting the whole thing up, which are never there.

Not here. Here, there are few rules. We'll start with none, and as we go on, I will add some. I'm sure I'll add at least one, which is why I said "few" rules.

For now, flame away.