SantaCon, Tomorrow

Don't forget. Check the site later tonight for where it starts.

You can also sign up to get text messages to get updates during the day about the mobs location.

(Oh, and Liquid Courage tonight. Midnight. Me. Four and half minutes.)

My New Favorite Game: Google Patent Search

I love old patents. There is something just wonderful about hand drawn technical drawings, be it Disney's redesign of the Tomorrowland Rocket ride from 1994...
...or a Centrifugal Exerciser from 1969...

...or jumper shoes from 1939...
Google's Patent Search application is just a wealth of greatness.

Past Tense

It is interesting how are memories are so slippery. Events that happened so long ago that you barely think of them can come back is such tiny nudges. And it is so curious at what you end up remembering.

I ruminate on how distracted we has a society have become. We are constantly in a flood of input. Not that it is anything truly different from say living in turn of the century London. It's just that we now have a massive amount of control over what we have access to at any moment. I have hundreds of channels, an iPod with 2000 plus songs, video games, the internet. I go to the store and there are at least a dozen different types of toilette paper. And somewhere in my brain I have stored bits and pieces about all of those choices. Even the toilette paper.

And back to the internet. My god, the options it gives me. It is no wonder we no longer remember phone numbers and just store them on our phones. It is a wonder I have room to store anything in my brain.

But the internet is a great instant recall device, even when you don't expect it. A tiny poke and a tiny nudge and suddenly a whole chunk of my past comes flooding back. But after years and years of absence, it is now viewed in a whole new light. Re-contextualized, to use a buzzword. And it does seem clearer. Cleaner, even.

It is probably just that I am older. But that is the thing about getting older. Since it happens one day at a time, one second at a time, you rarely notice... like the frog in the frying pan. But when a window into the past is thrown open, you can see the difference, see how you've changed. Like opening a Highlights magazine to discover some one has already circle the differences. And can I mix any more metaphors tonight?

Anywhozits, just a thought. I often feel so young and like I've not made any progress. But then I'm shown who I was... and I realize I was a complete idiot back then.

Love to all. Just felt like saying that. Love to all.

Crichton makes critic a child rapist

Back in March, Michael Crowley, journo for The New Republic, wrote an article critical of Michael Crichton. I have not read it (subscriber only), but I am guessing it didn't deserve this response.

In Crichton's new book, Next, he has a character named Mick Crowley. Let's look at a section:

Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. Crowley was a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. …

It turned out Crowley’s taste in love objects was well known in Washington, but [his lawyer]—as was his custom—tried the case vigorously in the press months before the trial, repeatedly characterizing Alex and the child’s mother as “fantasizing feminist fundamentalists” who had made up the whole thing from “their sick, twisted imaginations.” This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child. (Crowley’s penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler’s rectum.)

Anal rapist of small children AND a small penis. Now that is a classy classy response.

(via Wonkette)

Gravid Water Tonight

Okay, I will keep shilling for this show until you have all seen it.

Tonight (Thusday). 9:30pm. UCB. Gravid Water. There is a great cast tonight: Dan Bakkedahl, Tara Copeland, Michael Delaney, Christina Gausas, Kate Hess, Jonathan Kaplan, Anthony King, Stephen Ruddy, Ptolemy Slocum, Shelly Stover, and Beth White.

Sadly, I will not be making it. But that shouldn't stop you from going. It is fascinating and has often come close to making me pee. In a good way.

Soy: The Gaying of America

Jim Rutz has a from what I can tell is a crazyman rant about how soy milk and soy products are making kids gay. Yep. Making kids gay. In fact that is the title of his article: "Soy is making kids 'gay.'"

I don't want to be knee jerk and I have no idea what he is basing his info on. Maybe estrogens in soy are a danger to growing kids. He is certainly not the first to cover this story. Heck, maybe that is why the Democrats took back the House and the Senate.

But I just love the title: Soy is making kids 'gay.'

(via PapaSix)

Search Term Poetry

I was just checking out my blog's web stats. I like to see what seaches I have popped up on:

• fraggle from for myspace
• boy who cried wolf boyscouts
• hot pocket myspace background
• beckett shut off valve broke
• geek holy grail
• hot scene of making love in bed
• paranoid show
• twang fish
• white house sugar cookie
• battlestar galactica slash
• yams in papau new guinea
• hot pocket improv
• incurable allure of carrots (which is actually the title of an entertaining blog... they also now have a podcast... I haven't listened to it yet, but I am, well, curious)
• scrotal suspension picture

Lovely. Just lovely. Some of these folks surely found on my blog what they were looking for. Others surely not (no pictures of "scrotal suspension pictures" here... sorry). I hope they had better luck elsewhere).

All Hail Hypnotoad

I am an unabashed Futurama fan. It was absolutely the cartoon most geared towards me (Venture Bros. is a close second... very close). I was saddened when it went off the air and even more saddened by Fox's tactic of not canceling it and just keeping it in limbo for so long.

So I've been quite happy since it was announced earlier this year that they were making new episodes for either DVD or Comedy Central or both (too bad Adult Swim could get there hands on it since they deserve the credit of keeping the show alive). David X. Cohen has a quicky interview over on Toy Fair. (How cool is it to have "X" as your middle initial? I know he probably just did that because there were other David Cohens in the Screenwriters Guild or whatever, but it is still darn cool.)

And I am now über-süpergëeky excïted that they are planning a 22 minute all Hypnotoad episode for the DVD. Thank you, Mr. Cohen. You have been reading my dreams again.


(via AICN)

The Interwebtubes

I love the internet. (I also refuse to capitalize it, like Blogger spell check insist that I do. (And yes, contrary to the evidence, I do occasionally use the spellchecker... when I remember.)) Like where else could I find these glorious Simpsonized versions of the Battlestar Galactica characters? Apparently quirkybird first drew this fantastic Six and Baltar and then went off to draw the rest of the cast. (I love her many faces of Boomer, but I think her Starbuck is too chunky. Kara Thrace is buff and tight, not some lesbian mechanic.)

But the internet does offer a dangerous sense of security. It feels like a wonderful void into which you can throw all of your thoughts. And it seems like if you aren't direct, how can anyone ever distinguish that it is you or that anyone you right about will ever find it if they don't have something specific to search for. i mean, there is so much out there. So much to sort through.

But the fact is that even with so much out there, it is very very easy to find exactly what you are looking for with just being creative with your search terms.

Subconsciously I think that is why I really don't hide my identity. I don't use my real name, but it would take about five minutes to figure out who I was, even if you had no idea what name to look for and had absolutely zero "hacking" skills. Just click click, there I am. I don't know, maybe that is what makes me careful. Because god knows there are times I wish it was totally anonymous. There are thoughts I had, things I would love to share with anyone who cared. But I can't. If, say I hooked but with some random person and it was fun and airy and was the first time I hooked up with no consequences and both of use seemed absolutely fin and dandy about just letting the one night be the one night, I couldn't. Because I know the consequence of said post would lead to thoughts and questions of others and remove all airiness from the event.

(This is totally a hypothetical. It is the best best case/worst case scenario that I came up with.)

I would be easy to think I was private and save. There times I have had to think twice about posting something, knowing it could be misinterpreted, like saying I had a crush on Ellie Kemper. But I just have to hope that it is taken the way it is meant (an improv crush is not a romantic crush, and, besides, everyone has a crush on Ellie Kemper).* It is appealing thought. But no matter how private and untraceable you think it is, it isn't.

And I like being found. It is nice to be remembered and searched for.

Anywhozits, I understood this, but didn't full know it until recently. As they say on Hill Streets Blues, "Be careful out there."

*Note: This is a blatant attempt to drive web traffic. "Ellie Kemper" is the third most searched term on my site, after "MIT Zelda" and "German spray-on condom."

New & Old & Things I Should Do

I added a new feature, which I am sure you are all super excited about. (Sorry. I had my SARCASM LOCK key on.) But over to the right I have a UP NEXT FOR ME thingy. Just a quick guide to tracking me down. Might cut down on me making numerous posts about the same topic.

For example, right now I am going to remind you that I'll be trying out a sketch at Liquid Courage at UCBNY theater at 11:59pm this Friday (December 15th). Or that on Saturday (December 16th) is SantaCon and that you should get your butt to Halloween Adventure or other retail costume location a pick up a Santa suit.

I have also cut some the links out of my links lists. No matter how much I may respect those folk, I if they don't post regularly, they don't get a slot. (Side note: the little thrill of finding yourself blog roller by folks you don't even know is quite nice. For example Behind Closed Doors. I don't think I know any early 20's fashion industry folks in western New York... but there they are.)
Man, I keep meaning to write mini-reviews of Happy Feet and Casino Royale. And I was graciously taken to see Spring Awakening: A New Musical by a good friend and I should write something about that. Or I could write about how improv practice has been going. Or the fact that I had a another nice contact from a long lost good friend through MySpace. One of my favorite people so that is good. I also keep meaning to write a massive "Why Second Life Is the Future... for Good or Ill" post. And then there is my long delayed Gears of War review. Or a "When does a practice group become a real group and who gets to decide who gets to stay." Or "Podcasting: Harder Than It Seems."

But time is short and I am a busy busy boy. Laundry! On to laundry!

What the Cheneys Did This Weekend

From Craigslist:

if you "lost" the leather c***ring with the brass snaps in the bathroom of Bldg 56 of the Naval Observatory, contact me to reclaim. i'm dying to know who you are.

(via Wonkette)

Why The Wii Will Win... in a street fight

Yeah, that's a heck of a shiner.

There are two lessons to be learned from this story:

1) Booze and the Wii is dangerous and may get you brought up of spousal abuse charges.

2) Look at her smile! Clearly she still loves the Wii and the Wiimote even after getting whacked in the face with one by her boy.

Liz, you rock!

(via Joystiq)

SimTrolls

This is going to make no sense to anyone except a very very few. And those who will understand it, already know about it. But I am enjoying it so I share.

I have taken members of my Halo 2 clan and stuck them into The Sims 2. Here is their story. Yes, there is a level of geekiness to this that boggles the mind. Again, I don't expect any of you to get any of this.

It has made me think that I would love to come up with an improv form that uses The Sims (or another video game). I have some ideas but nothing solid. Anyone knows if this has been tried?