Wednesday, January 30, 2002

I just became a godfather! Little Alicia (hope I'm spelling that right) came into the world yesterday in the wee hours, and proud papa Jim called me shortly thereafter with the happy news.

I'm looking forward to meeting her myself before too long, and keeping my fingers crossed that her parents don't figure out that they given influence over their daughter to an inveterate punster. Heh heh heh.

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It's audition time again. I'm in the midst of prepping to try-out for one of my favorite shows of all time, Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, this coming week. Once again, I ask you all to keep your fingers crossed for me.

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In other god-I-hope-I-don't-get-rejected news, I'm on a mission to get into a rather exclusive club, and I'm hoping this helps. Several months ago I made a brief mention of my wonderful, gorgeous, talented and utterly fascinating friend Jennifer. While at dinner with her a few days back, I found out she's got a "Quicklist" on her PDA where she keeps the names and numbers of all her bestest friends. Devastatingly, I'm not on it.

Since my ego is barely holding up under the weight of my continued unemployment, I know it would be a great boost if I could somehow finagle my way onto that list.

So here's my plea: Jennifer, holder of the Quicklist of Honor and Fame, I humbly beseech you to consider me for inclusion amongst that hallowed roll call of glory. Though I do not deserve it, I appeal to your abundant benevolence and charity, that you may overlook my many faults and grant me this boon.

That enough sucking up for you, Jen? Because I've got buckets more if necessary.

Posted @ 3:51 PM

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Thursday, January 24, 2002

Welcome to the latest installment of "Things That Creep Me Out." Today's subject is "fitness personality" John Basedow.

I've suffered through this overly-defined musclehead's Fitness Made Simple ads for months now. Until this evening, I merely found the guy a tad unsettling.

Tonight, while being subjected to the sight of his oily mid-section for the umpteenth time, I noticed something that pushed him into the realm of the truly disturbing, a place formerly reserved for singing belly-buttons: if you look closely, you can actually see a large vein pulsing to the right of his abs when he flexes. I just know I'll have nightmares featuring that particular image.

And what the hell is a "fitness personality" anyway?

Posted @ 11:02 PM

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Brave New World and post-Crisis Superman fans, rejoice! A workable artifical womb is on the way.

Posted @ 8:51 PM

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Tuesday, January 22, 2002

You'd think with my current work status I'd be posting here a lot more often than normal. Yet, as even a casual glance below will show, I'm lucky to get something new in here twice a week of late. I guess job-searching just isn't something I find interesting to write about, at least not the way I'm doing it.

Not to worry though, dear readers. The coming weeks promise to bring some blog-worthy events, including auditions for a new show and (hopefully) actual job interviews

If nothing else, February sweeps are just around the corner. Maybe this whole Rachel and Joey thing on Friends will piss me off enough to help me get my write on.

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When I become a dad someday, I hope I'm smart enough to let the little tyke be herself.

Posted @ 11:10 PM

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Wednesday, January 16, 2002

Watching a promo for The Tonight Show a couple of hours ago, I had a revelation: Martha Stewart is rapidly becoming the Dr. Joyce Brothers of the Aughties.

The parallels are striking. Both attained national prominence on the strength of a specialized area of expertise. Each, while not exactly attractive, is inoffensively photogenic. Neither is averse to a little self-promotion.

The Tonight Show ad illustrated Martha's continued progress along the Brothers Fame Curve. In it, she's getting ready to down a shot. And back during the holidays, she was on Letterman reading off a list of "her" Top Ten Thanksgiving tips. It included such items as "bite the head off of a live turkey." Both of these appearances showed Martha isn't afraid to gently mock her own very carefully cultivated image.

These things called to mind some of Dr. Brothers' out-of-character turns, like calling the baseball game in the first Naked Gun film and flirting with Alex Rieger at Latka Gravas' wedding on Taxi.

Here's where it gets scary. While she's nowhere near the ubiquitous figure she was in the late 70's, Dr. Brothers still pops up from time to time. Just a few weeks ago I caught her on a rerun of a recent Friars Club roast and according to the good ol' IMDb, she was in an episode of Felicity this season.

Extending this line of thinking out to its inevitable conclusion, we are faced with a bitter probability: Martha Stewart may fade into the background a bit, but she will never completely disappear from the public consciousness.

Much like the dilemma my own parents faced before they had me regarding the threat of nuclear annihilation, this may affect whether or not I decide to bring children into the world.

Posted @ 1:08 AM

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Sunday, January 13, 2002

B3  d  t  k-  s  u-  f-  i  o  x--  e+  l  c-

Posted @ 1:20 PM

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Saturday, January 12, 2002

Always must the scales of cosmic justice be balanced. Case in point: just as we mourn the end of that sublime show, The Fantasticks, after its record-setting run in New York, we can also rejoice at the news of the long-overdue closing in London of one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's worst pieces of dreck, Starlight Express.

Posted @ 11:46 AM

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Wednesday, January 09, 2002

Rumor has it FOX has cancelled The Tick. If true, this is sad news. The show hit its stride very quickly after a bumpy pilot episode, and I was enjoying it more with each new installment.

The extremely dim "bright" side is that this'll cut down my overly heavy load of appointment television a bit, from nine hours a week to eight and a half. That's very thin as silver linings go, but it'll have to do.

Posted @ 10:37 PM

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Sunday, January 06, 2002

Okay, so here's the deal: I lost my job about seven weeks ago. I can't even make the old Bobcat Goldthwait joke about not losing my job, but when I go by the office there's this new guy doing it. What was eliminated wasn't just me, but my position.

It was a shock, to say least, but not totally unexpected. I knew we (or more properly now, they) were in a situation where severe changes were likely, and there were a lot of closed-door meetings the week before things went down. Still, I'd never been fired before, so even if I had a slight inkling about the troubles I'd soon have, I had no real preparation for the reality of them.

Regardless of the position in which I now find myself, I have no complaints about the way I've been treated by my old bosses. I got a severance package that will keep me in skittles and beer (and, more importantly, House and home) for an amount of time that should be sufficient for me to find a new position. I also get to go in to my old office and use my old workspace (with accompanying high-speed Internet access, fax machine, scanner, etc) to do my new job search, which in my book is a pretty classy move on their part.

The job search begins in earnest today. I took all of December to figure out exactly what I wanted to do next. The answer that came out of that navel-gazing is the same one I had within minutes of my dismissal: my next job should be something where I can continue to do the things I love (write and edit, especially for the Web), but do it for a cause or group about which I care passionately. So I've got a goal, and even though the circumstances are less than ideal, I'm excited about the future.

Wish me luck, everybody.

Posted @ 2:27 PM

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Thursday, January 03, 2002

Tonight's Late Late Show rerun has me feeling a little better about my odd Craig Kilborn fixation. Dennis Miller, the thinking person's comedian and one of my all-time favorites, was the first guest. Turns out he's been a fan of Kilby for years. In fact, he coined the nickname Kilby.

So, for those of you keeping score at home, the membership of the Craig Kilborn Appreciation Society consists, at least in part, of the following:

• Me


• Dennis Miller
  
• Janeane Garafalo


• Thousands upon thousands of drunken college guys

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In case anybody's wondering, I'm very old school when it comes to Christmas decorations, so they'll be staying up on the site until at least Epiphany. I'm just glad I don't have to keep these decorations watered.

Posted @ 1:42 AM

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Wednesday, January 02, 2002

Irrevocably awakened after only a couple hours' sleep today by a piercing car alarm that was, as nearly all car alarms are, completely unheeded by the vehicle's owner, I engaged in a little good, old-fashioned 'Net surfing to fill the time until dawn. An hour or two into this, I spotted a link to The Onion and, realizing that I'd neglected to stop by the site in a while, immediately headed over there.

As luck would have it, what should happen to be the last article I read in the most recent issue? A piece about a guy who's rudely roused from sleep by some inconsiderate asshole.

I'm too sleep-deprived to decide if this is funny at all, or just a sad punctuation mark for my exhaustion. Maybe I'll be able to make that call after the nap I'll desperately need this afternoon.

Posted @ 6:54 AM

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