Since I last blogged:

The Good =

1. Battlestar Galactica season 3
2. Christmas shopping is completed as of today!
3. I attended 3 Thanksgivings and ate at all 3 (Chin had the best turkey, sorry Dan)
4. Sitting in with Revolver shows
5. sushi at Tanoshi = best sushi ever

The Bad =

1. Tab had a rough November
2. My job is letting me go Jan. 1st
3. I have to miss a lucrative WNT gig
4. I need new headshots
5. I haven't had a chance to start watching The Wire

The Future =

1. Dragonforce this Monday!
2. Saturday my dad is swinging by on his way to Palestine
3. Dinner at Alinea soon......
4. Hopefully see Our Bad Magnet again at the Mary Archie Theatre, it's fantastic
5. More blogging!

Hello Moto

This past Tuesday my foodie friends and I went to a restaurant called Moto for a late night dinner. The 4 hour dinner consisted of about 18 courses of molecular gastronomy delight. The picture above is a dish called "Roadkill of Fowl". It's a small pile of braised duck leg, the blood is beets, there is a small gummy brain, the white trail of maggots is marshmellow and the flies in the lower left corner are black sea salt. Yeah...this place blew my mind.


Other highlights:


- a cuban pork sandwich rolled up to look EXACTLY like a cigar

- a white chocolate truffle with liquified popcorn inside. When you bite into it the popcorn flavor rushes into your mouth and also releases pop rocks which make it taste and feel like there is popcorn popping in your mouth.

- a dish called "Oil Spill" which was a large hunk of tuna and several pieces of edible trash, then the server pours in squid ink (oil) and pollutes the dish.

and my favorite

- a bacon flavored biscuit. Sounds fairly simple compared to the rest of the menu but is was by far the best tasting thing of the night. I refused to swallow it because it was so incredible, I actually caught Rob doing the same.

The meal also started with an edible menu, which was suprisingly tasty. This prompted several jokes of "can I see another menu please?" and "Do you have a takeout menu?"

Really?

Two recent encounters with co-workers:

1.

woman: "Adal (she actually pronounces it A-dell, but she is forgiven as she is Eastern European) do you know where I can get some aspirin?"

me: "um well I have some here at my desk actually"

woman: "I want the old fashioned kind"

me: "the old fashioned kind? I have tylenol"

woman: "No. No tylenol, no advil, I need the old fashioned kind"

me: "I don't know what that is"

woman: "you know, little white, round tablet?"

me: ".......I have tylenol and motrin"

woman: "no no no, just want you're old fashioned regular aspirin. Little whit...."

me: "white, round tablet, yeah , no I can't help you unless you want what I have here at my desk"

woman: (smiles, lingers for 20 seconds and walks away)


2.

Me: (after noticing an older guy I work with looked like he took a weed wacker to the face. Picture 7 deep puncture wounds mostly on the forehead and cheeks) "wow, what happened? are you ok?"

guy: "I was chasing a groundhog"

me: "that's it?"

guy: "well...I was trimming the broccoli in my garden when I noticed a groundhog in the yard. I put up my little fence and went to chase him away but he ran pass me and into the garden. So I ran after him, tripped over my fence and landed face first into the just trimmed broccoli.....it went into my face"

me: "the fence?!"

guy: "...the broccoli"

me: "seriously?"

guy: "yeah.....I had just cut off some stems so it was fairly pointy"

Catching Up To Do

Fun times that have been had since I last posted:




Jorin invited me to accompany him to North Carolina in early July. He was headed home to celebrate his 14th year doing improv and had set up 4 shows for us to partake in at his old stomping ground, ComedyWorkx. We did 2 short form shows that I thought we knocked out of the park, sat in with their resident Harold team, and did a 2 man show under the name 'Babyweather' (which comes from a Pudding Thank You show where it started to rain babies and Jorin stuck out his hand and declared "hmmm...looks like babyweather") which was by far my favorite show of the weekend. I also finally got to dig into some NC vinegar BBQ, complete with hush puppies and sweet tea. Pretty fantastic.

I've begun producing a weekly improv show at the American Theater Company which is going great. The group I'm on, Pudding Thank You was made the 'house team', so we perform every show and then we have a different group play with us each show (recently 3033). My favorite part of all this is making teams by handpicking 8 or 9 improvisers whom I respect and really enjoy watching perform. It's my chance to show my appreciation for those who have been supportive of me, been great friends and people who have just plain been nice to me and made me feel welcome in the improv community. I've really made a point of refusing to ask anyone to play who, regardless of talent, is a real d-bag (except Rob White). Our crowds have been on average about 30 people with a few shows going into 60 +, so that's pretty sweet seeing as we just started this all about a month ago.

This past Saturday I was lucky enough to be invited to take part in a podcast focusing on improv with Jason Chin, Cesar Jamie and Jorin. Jason put the whole thing together and is looking to make it a regular thing with various guests. It was great to just sit and chat with those guys for an hour about all things improv. For the first 15 minutes or so I felt silly because I would lean my face forward into the recorder every time I spoke, as if it couldn't pick up my voice from 2 feet away. It reminded me of my sister who would jump up with her controler whenever we played Mario Bros. on NES as kids. I would shake my head and tell her "It's not like the controller can sense that you're jumping", well now the Wii is out and she gets the last laugh.

Other exciting stuff!:

- Lollapalooza is this weekend
- I leave for NYC the following weekend to do 4 shows in the Del Close Marathon
- Tab and I are planning a trip to Austin
- the past several Insult to Injury, Mort and Pudding Thank You shows have been ridiculous amounts of joy
- I saw Dark Knight opening night at IMAX in the best seat in the theater, 2nd to last row, dead center
- Finished all of Y: The Last Man
- Hunter Family Crest is on the new schedule at iO

Life is good

Can I Play with Madness

In the past 5 days I have been to 3 concerts.

Wednesday = Iron Maiden - Hands down the best show I've seen in terms of pure spectacle. Oh you say you've seen Bruce Springsteen live and he was really good? Did he have a 50 foot mummy that hatched from a King Tut head only to shoot fireworks out of his eyes? go to hell
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Friday = Mindless Self-Indulgence - hmmm...I guess these guys would be goth metal punk? I took Tab to this because they are one of her favorites. Crazy fun show with the band members doing back bends while playing guitar and jumping off the drum set. I was exhausted just watching them. The crowd was a mix of crazies, I could have people watched all day.

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Sunday = The Swell Season - This was the 2 adorable foreigners from the movie 'Once', Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. Jorin came along to this show and kept trying to show me the Chilled Monkey Brains mini-game in the new LEGO Indiana Jones for DS, but the opening act was interrupting us. It was at the Chicago Theater and we had kick ass 3rd row seats in the orchestra pit. There was even a little velvet rope around our section with a private attendee to keep away all worthless scum that would inevitably try and sneak up to the front. The best moment of the night came when Glen was telling a story and his eyes locked on Jorin's Iron Maiden t-shirt (which he purchased at the Wednesday concert) and he made a face that was either delight or disgust, we couldn't quite tell.



Oh! and tonight I'm going to see the cartoon metal band Dethklok.

let it never be said that I don't have diverse taste in music