Important

The important thing to remember is that when Marty Schottenheimer was coaching the Chargers, they won consistently. Kudos to the Chargers ownership for getting rid of their winning coaching team.

Who's

Who's Line Is It Anyways is still pretty funny. Do they even makes new ones anymore? Lord knows.

Idealism

If you would have told me, as a kid, that I would spend hours and days of my waking life wishing that I were asleep, I would probably have believed it. I was kind of a sleepy kid.

Nevertheless, when I sit at work and listen to "Evil Dead: the Musical" or sip on my eggnog latte, my mind is able to escape its exhaustion, briefly, and focus on the unbearable awesomeness of being.

Old

This is what makes me feel like I've got one foot in the grave: going to a store, and seeing many of the bands that I enjoyed in high school and college coming out with greatest hits cds.

I, like Diana Keaton, am on my last legs.

First

I did something tonight for the first time ever. I have, in the past, shunned doing this very thing do to the fact that I myself am no good with my hands, and therefore, watching others do something creative with their hands was not super interesting, no matter how creative they may be.

That's right; for the first time tonight I watched Project Runway.

And it was good.

Football

That the Chargers managed to beat the second best team in football, the Colts, on Sunday is nothing short of a miracle, especially since San Diego's offense (featuring, Phillip "I Push the Fumbled Football into the End Zone so that the Colts Can Get a Touchdown" Rivers) was horrible.
That their victory happened while I am in a Christmas show makes it a Christmas miracle.

God bless us, every one.

Read to Me

I spent part of my lunch break from work today at a bookstore in Horton Plaza. I was eager to look at the bargain books as a cast member had loaned me a book, and I wanted to see if I could pick up any of the author's other books on the cheap as I am loving this book (who are you Ken Follett, and how do you come up with such vivid characters?).

As I was kneeling and perusing the titles, a group of raucous thirteen and fourteen year olds entered the store. Another patron and I shared in a quiet laugh and an eye roll as the store, which had heretofore been fairly quiet, became filled with shouts of "Hey, look at this!" and "I don't like books." One of the boys approached me with a book and asked me if I worked there; I looked down at my ID badge from a different company to see if it was facing the correct way. I then looked him in the eye and told him that I didn't.

As I finished speaking with that boy, another boy approached me from behind with a hardcover book that I assume was about World War II as it had a large swastika on the back of it. I looked up at him, as I was still kneeling, and he said, "Will you read this book to me?" Normally, I would have smiled and played along for a moment, but for some reason, this boy ran into a cranky AC today.

"No, I won't," I answered, oddly curt. This seemed to confuse him, and he asked me if I could read, to which I replied that I could, but that I wouldn't read that book to him. Still confused, he walked away and rejoined his friends as they were exiting the store. I spent a little more time browsing the books, and I came across the book that he had had in the wrong place in the shelves.

This got me thinking: I had assumed that he had just been screwing around and asking me to read to him for the sake of bothering me, but what if he hadn't been? Sure, it's a pretty ridiculous thing to ask of somebody you don't know, but what if he had been in earnest when he asked me? Why had I dismissed him so systematically?

I'm not sure I understand how to be a grown-up. I'm pretty sure that when I do, I'll have become the person I never intended to be. I hope that that is for better than it is for worse, but with incidents like today being added to the canon of my life, the future doesn't look rosy.

Happiness

Happiness is having some free time on a Sunday to watch grown men clobbering whichever man has the oblong ball.

Sadness is watching the teams you picked for your football pool at work slowly not winning the games that you thought that they should.

Two

I had two shows of the Christmas show that I'm in today. I'll be having two shows a day three or four times a week until the end of the year.

If that doesn't get me into the holiday spirit, I'm not sure what will. Maybe eggnog. Mmm.

Old

The interesting thing to me about the show that I'm in is that when the movie version of it was made, people were so excited and interested in the concept of the celebrity that they liked to watch movies about people who were pretending to be celebrities (although, oftentimes these characters were often played by actually famous people).

Nowadays, people are so interested in the concept of celebrity that people are willing to watch reality tv shows that turn normal people (oftentimes played by normal people) into celebrities.

Which is better?

Money

That last post, which I apparently started at 12:11 am, and finished heaven knows when, is freaking hilarious to me. I think I fell asleep and woke up thinking that I still needed to post. That's money right there.

My favorite part is "seleep." Misspelling sleep: now that is tired.

Anyways, yesterday I had something like a twelve hour rehearsal, though I guess we did get a couple hours for dinner. Getting through the show was a little more slow-going than I think any of us expected it to be, which is disconcerting as we have audiences today. It's all right though; they are just preview performances, which, as any theatre person will tell you, are just a hair's breadth away from being a dress rehearsal. Just don't tell the fine folks who paid to see it.

Or, if you do, don't tell them I told you. Or if you do, don't tell me that you told them I told you.

Love

I wish i had some more seleep.

Perks

One of the perks of having a relatively small part in a musical is that you have a lot of free time during tech week while they "work on the dancing" and "run scene changes" and "snicker at AC for thinking he's an actor." To demonstrate just how much time I had today during rehearsal, let me tell you what I did: I read a 220 page book.

Mmm. Now that's some quality free time. Er, quality "free" time.

Tap

I am in awe of people who can dance well. In particular, I have always been amazed by people that can tap really well. I don't know what it is, but there's just something about lots of people stomping out a rhytmic percussive unison sound that just amazes me.

There is a big tap number in the show that I'm in right now, and it is amazing. Even the rough version that I saw in rehearsal last night blew me away. Wow. Just wow. This show is going to be fun. And cute. And fun.

Hero

I love Guitar Hero II. It is fun and difficult and an incredibly worthless way to spend an evening. Currently, I'm trying to beat the game on expert.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, there are four levels of difficulty, easy, medium, hard, and expert. For me, at least, most of trying to beat the game on expert is equal to trying to just squeak by.

I did, however, spend probably two hours on one song yesterday, and I still wasn't able to beat it. Most of this song's difficulty is that there are 9 different guitar solo sections. These are proving to be too much for me. Nevertheless, I will plod on, as it is my custom in everything.

Rehearsal

The funny thing about having a decent sized part in a musical while not being in very many of the songs is that when you are a part of a group rehearsal, people start to ask you, "Are you still in this show?"

It's pretty funny.

Disassociation

In order to disconnect from any personal problems, I spend a great deal of time thinking about the arts (popular or otherwise), as if weighing my mind down with more lofty things would save me from myself stepping on toes (literally and figuratively). In doing so, I find myself saying things like, "It makes me sad that 'How I Met Your Mother' is sliding downhill," which, really, is a pretty lame thing to feel sadness over. With all the things in my life that I could feel badly about, I opt to feel badly about a comedy that, even in it's third season, is past it's prime. Good for me; I'm sure that they'll name hospitals after me for my gift of empathy.

Nevertheless, this is my critique, and it starts with my key point: Barney is the best character in the series. The other four main characters are flat both in comparison with Barney and standing alone. I can't quite tell if this is the fault of the actors or the writers, though I suspect that it's the actors. The actor playing Ted seems to think he's cooler than he is, the actor playing Robin seems to have relied too much on her looks and not enough on learning how to deliver lines, the actor playing Marshall is sometimes funny though generally tries too hard, and I'm not convinced that the actress playing Lily can play a different type of part. Nevertheless, the flatness worked when Robin and Ted were in a dating relationship, because, even if they were flat individually, they were cute together. Lily and Marshall were still flat, and not as cute as Robin and Ted, but they were planning their wedding, so at least they did things to advance plots.

Now, with Robin and Ted having broken up, they are back to being flat characters, which, in a roundabout way, brings me back to the character of Barney. Barney is a great character because he is as unapologetically amoral. Because of this, when Barney shows his sensitive side, it's very funny, because we, as the audience, know who Barney is supposed to be, and when he's sensitive, it's compelling because it's over the top. When he is his normal amoral self, he's funny because he does things that many of us secretly wish we could live with ourselves for having done.

However, with Ted and Robin broken up, the writers are trying to turn Ted into a Barney character, spending all of his time eagerly pursuing one night stands, threesomes, and generally all the sex he can handle. While this is amusing when Barney does it, to have two characters with the same M.O. is too much; it is overkill. Further, this just leaves Robin being awkward, which is not really enjoyable to watch the "pretty girl" of the show doing. Marshall and Lily are now married, so they're not even really pushing towards something anymore.

Further, everyone seems to be cheering Ted's sexual escapades on, which makes the show lose the cuteness factor that, in my opinion, was critical to its success. Season 1 had Ted pining for Robin, and season 2 featured Ted with Robin. Both of these scenarios were great to watch because you could see how in love with Robin Ted was, and that was endearing. Now it's just Ted with random girls, which is neither cute nor endearing, clever nor amusing. But I guess he's got to fill his empty life with something, right?

While there are still funny points to the show, overall, I'm just sad about it, because I think it has such potential. And that probably tells you more about me than I could ever write.

Sometimes We All Need to Feel Like the Hero

As I sit at my computer feverishly entering and revising data before month's end so as to not get into trouble with my superiors for, whether feverishly or not, not having entered and revised said data, I look up and notice that the clock has struck twelve. A smile creeps across my face as I realize that, on this midnight following Halloween, I will neither be bothered by ghosts or ghouls nor turned into a pumpkin so that a child with a dull knife can go to town on me.

Nope, I smile because I've done all that I can do. I've said my piece. I've given' her all she's got, Captain. Had I a hat and jacket, I would slowly rise myself from my keyboard, put them on, and walk deliberately to my car, while the music crescendoes and the screen fades to black.

Welcome to November.

Insight

That may be the most insightful music video since the last time music videos were relevant.

The Drunk and the Overworked Love Me, or, I'm Huge in Anaheim

First, in reference to the title, if you think that by saying "huge" I'm talking about my weight, and you think that it be more correct to say that I am "huge" everywhere and not just in Anaheim, then I am not your friend anymore, and I will club a baby seal and blame it on you.

Now that we have that unpleasantness behind us, let us consider the following scenario: on Saturday, I, my fiance, a couple of friends, and a bunch of people that I don't know all decided to go to Medieval Times in Anaheim. Seriously, there were literally dozens of people there. Also, I'm the one who counted men at the million man march and came up with 500,000. My seat ended up being on the aisle, which I was excited about because, as some of you snarkily pointed out from my title, I am huge everywhere, but I am particularly huge above the place that I need to sit down with. Therefore, being on the aisle is always a good thing as it provides the excess AC to roam wild and free, and, in this particular instance, it provided me with several opportunities for people to know and love me.

1) Our waitress, who looked a little small for all of the heavy metal plates that she has to carry around, seemed to thoroughly enjoy the fact that I said thank you every time she provided a service for me. This enjoyment on her part lead her to bend the rules so that, instead of only filling my glass twice without paying extra, she filled it two and half times. As you can imagine, I said thank you. Our only confusion stemmed from the fact that at one point I asked her how they decided which knight won from night to night, and she, though appearing to have heard me, answered my question by saying that on weekends in the summer they have three shows, but as demand dies out from fall through spring, they go down to one show a night. For my part, I nodded vigorously as if she had answered my question exactly, which seems to be my M.O. for situations like that. Lesson for the world to learn: politeness will pay off in the form of half of a free beverage refill, and it's better not to question when it's loud and she's busy, no matter how smily she is.

2) As a large, young man passed by aisle seat, he felt the need to introduce himself to me with a "Hi! I'm Chris!" and a hand shake. I shook his hand and said hello, and he said, "Is your name Chris too?" Not sure why he made that leap in logic, I replied that it wasn't and gave him my name, to which he replied, "Well, you should say that!" He then explained that he was fairly wasted, and then he then wandered off, likely to the restroom, with a buddy that was trailing behind him. Lesson for the world to learn: regardless of how drunk you are, if there are knights battling to their fictional deaths behind you, I probably don't care what your name is, nor do I care to introduce myself.

3) For part of the evening, I sat with my right leg crossed over my left one, with my right foot resting on my left knee. This proved to be confusing to two young women who were likely pretty inebriated, and this was evidenced by the fact that they used my foot as if it were a railing for the stairs that they were walking down. The first one didn't notice at all, and I suspect that the second one wouldn't have noticed if not for the fact that I opted to change seating positions. She laughed and apologized. Lesson for the world to learn: when shoes start looking like railings, you should maybe consider not having another super grande margarita.

So, as you can see, specific types of people love me, as well they should. Now I just need to work on the non-drunk and the non-overworked. Then, I can please all the people all the time, and I can prove that self-righteous Abraham Lincoln wrong. Maybe then he won't feel like he should look so smugly at me on the five dollar bill. He's always like, "I freed the slaves; what did you do today, AC?" and I'll be like, "I pleased all the the people, all the time; how you like me now?"