Tauntaun sleeping bag

How has it taken almost 30 years for this to come about??

(via ThinkGeek via Unique Daily via Boing Boing)

Her Morning Elegance

Isn' that, well, lovely?

(I am it a particularly bright and chipper mood this morning. I am also loving that the woman next to me at the coffeeshop told someone on the phone that she needed to get back to work and then proceed to write her "25 Random Things" Facebook post.)

(via Neatorama)

Hair

So I've been growing my hair out for awhile now. I've actually been pretty happy with it has my hair has mellowed since last time I grew it out (1989-90). It's hard to admit, but I like it when people comment on it, especially since it sort of does whatever it wants.

Waking up and looking in the mirror is always an adventure.  Since this is a side of me no one gets to see these days, I've been documenting it this week.  Here are a few of my morning, right after waking up.

Least attractive photo set ever.

Pain Threshold

I've always imagined that I have a fairly high pain threshold. My usually reaction to getting hurt is to just deal with it. When I sliced most of my left thumb pad off with an box-cutter, I was very calm as blood poured down my arm. I get hit and knocked around fairly often and it doesn't seem to phase my that much. I like to think that I could drag my self out off a mountain ala "Touching the Void."

I'm lying to myself.

Last night/this morning I suddenly found my self screaming. I threw my body out of the bed, landing hard on the floor. My brain was blank at what to do. I squirmed around on the floor, banging my head on the side of the bed.

I had a muscle cramp in my calf.

I'm gonna go get lunch now.

This American Nightmare

Go listen to This American Life episode "Fear of Sleep."
Specifically the last act (around minute 45).
Here.

Del Close Marathon

The 10th Annual Del Close Marathon is this upcoming weekend. What is that you ask? (Well, very few are asking that since 93.3% of my readers are NYC improvisors.) It's a long-form improv festival. 134.25 hours of improv (if I did my math right) over three days on 5 stages. Over 150 teams from across the country. Improv around the clock. Now it would be impossible to see all of it short of using a time machine. Still, if you have nothing to do this weekend, a $25 dollar pass gets you into access to 93% of the shows (some shows cost an extra $10 per and reservations... all of those shows are worth it). That's more made up comedy than the brain can handle in one weekend.

There will be great improv and bad improv. There will be insane stuff like a stage of ten Bill Cosbys. Stuff will blow you minds, stuff that will make you ears bleed, and stuff you will just sleep through.

I'm excited because I've never done the DCM full out. My first year of improv I didn't quite understand what it was and didn't go at all. Last year, I didn't plan well and didn't go for the long haul. But this year I am prepared. Catching up on sleep, hydrating well (there's a lot of drinking). I'm prepared to watch improv until it stops being funny and then becomes funny again for totally different reasons.

This is also the first year that I am performing in it.

Thank You, Robot is at the UCB Stage (307 West 26th St. New York, NY) at 8 AM (yes, the morning) on Saturday. Veal is at the Urban Stage (259 West 30th St., New York, NY) at 11:15 AM (late morning), also on Saturday. Sadly, you cannot buy tickets for individual shows. But if you want to spend a very weird Saturday morning, come see TYR at 8 AM and see a bunch of shows through the afternoon (catching Veal in there). If you make it through to 2 PM, you have just seen 6 hours of shows for $25, which is less that 7¢ a minute. And you will get to see me make up songs while totally brain melted. Tempting, ain't it?

(TYR also has a show at The Broadway Comedy Club – 318 W 53rd St – on Monday, August 11th. Wardrobe Army is hosting and the world-class Fat Penguin is playing too. $6 plus 2 drink min (yeah, I hate the two drink min too... sorry)).

And we'll fill it with crocodiles

I have been semi-actively trying to shift my sleep schedule for the last few days. This is in prep for the Del Close Marathon. Mock me if you will, but since I (for the most part) set my own schedule, I see no reason why I shouldn't train myself to fall asleep at 10am and wake up at 4pm.

My plan was to do this slowly over... just keep staying up a little later each night and sleeping a little longer. Seemed like a great plan.

The rest of my block didn't get the memo.

The building to the south of me is apparently driving metal spikes into our shared wall. This s something that must start at 7am and continue until 9am. I read somewhere that those are the magic hours for sledgehammering metal into brick. Actually, I don't know what they are doing but it is impressive the noise they can create.

At 9:15am, ConEd continues with building a moat down my street. It seems they are building it just for me and a few neighbors. Very generous of them. It is very difficult to cut a foot wide trench in asphalt. At first I assumed they were getting access to pipes or cable or some such, but every time I walk by and look into the trench, all I see is dirt. Moat is the only thing that made sense.

I am a bit more confused today. They dug a bit more on the moat in the early hours but by 10am they were filling it up with hot tar and asphalt. Which make a poor moat unless you can keep the hot tar molted. That may be what they have done because I am still feeling high from the fumes wafting into my window.

So Operation: Shift Sleep has been a failure but I am just that much closer to my dream of living in a Medieval Times.