More Terrible Music!!

Bryan and I were goofing around online last night. Our friend Fuzzy Gerdes blogged about a game in which random Wiki and Flickr entries determine the name of your band, and the title of your album, and that album's cover image.

We decided to play, too, and take it one step further...read more about it and listen to the song over on the Nerds blog. WOO!

Another ChUC Podcast: Nerd Passion Becomes Rage

From Tuesday night. This is also up on Vocalo, and I spent enough time editing out all the f*bombs that it should be eligible for radio play.

"Post-comedy show chatter is a always a mishmash, but at Chicago Underground Comedy, there are always a lot of passionate nerdy discussions. In this segment: "Lost" theories -- the little-explored "WWII doom scientists" backstory, the "accelerated psychic abilities" theory, who cares who kisses Kate? Jared Logan, Ricky Carmona, and Elizabeth McQuern love Star Trek, but Dan Telfer thinks the hot Borg chick is called "7, 8, 9," and can't get into things his parents were nerds about -- but was still scared by Dr. Who "garbage bags with lizard masks." Jared thinks Star Trek beats Star Wars by a mile. All agree that the final three Star Wars movies ruined the first three. Jared describes George Lucas as a "P.T. Barnum, Henry Ford, anti-semitic piece of crap." And no, the recording isn't skipping, there were lots of f*bombs that needed to be edited out. These are comedians, people."
(6 minutes, 43 seconds - click here to listen.)

An E-mail "Get To Know Your Friends" Game I Just Finished Playing

Sloan sent this to me. I surprised myself by filling it out. Feel free to answer some (or all ) of the questions yourself, in the comments section, should you feel so inspired. Kind of a fun way to unwind after a crazy day.

1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Yes, my grandmother Elizabeth. A curious note: everyone in my family has blue eyes except me. Mine are green, and I got them from Grandma E, although she had one green eye and one brown eye. A favorite joke: "I got my eyes from my grandma. She had green...eye."

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? When I last watched Paul Potts' opera audition on "Britain's Got Talent." And with every previous viewing. Seriously. Watch it. It melts even the chilliest of human hearts.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? Not these days. It's very erratic.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Is brie meat?

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Nope.

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Hells, yes. I'm a blast, and I'm a great friend, and I'm a great networker on other people's behalf.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? I'm a stand-up comedian. I'm sure you can deduce.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes. But no gallbladder.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? No. Too jerky. But skydiving is a scream.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Lucky Charms. With whole milk.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Only if they have laces.

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? I weight train 5 days a week, so, yes. Emotionally and psychologically, though, I'm strong as a starving kitten.

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Chubby Hubby or Chunky Monkey. Or something carmel-y.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? Their level of genuine interest in others, and overall curiosity and desire to challenge themselves. Those things are paramount.

15. RED OR PINK? My blog nickname is "Bella Rossa," so, maybe...both?

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOUR SELF? Inability to accept praise. Inability to stop my mind from whirring, and my infinite capacity for self-criticism.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My brother Steve. He's been gone for 19 years now. I miss him every day. I wish he could see how far I've come.

18. DO YOU HAVE ANY TATTOOS? Yep. One so far. It's in Latin and it's about comedy.

19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Rolled-up blue jeans, white leggings underneath, white and blue running shoes.

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? Overpriced roast beef sandwich and Lorina sparkling French berry lemonade at the coffeeshop where I am now.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? The Pretenders: "Message of Love."

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Pasty/pink #323.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS? The smell of a swimming pool, sweaty horses/saddle leather, and jet fuel.

24.WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Tony Sam.

25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? I love her to tiny beautiful little pieces. (I love my nieces to pieces?)

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Eh. Why watch when you could play? Maybe baseball. But then, maybe it's the hot dogs and beer and cute boys I like.

27. HAIR COLOR? Red.

28. EYE COLOR? Green.

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Nope, I walk around in in a fuzzy, nearsighted haze. I like it that way.

30. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FOOD? Mangoes and blueberries.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? I'd like to say happy endings, but they're rarely believable.

32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? "The Girl Most Likely To..." I relate a bit too much. Well, not to the murdering part. But the radical transformation/everyone treats you differently part.

33. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? Blue, with a black hoodie.

34. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer. But with SPF 70.

35. HUGS OR KISSES? I haven't had a kiss in awhile. Ask me again later.

36. FAVORITE DESSERT? Pie. Pie! PIEPIEPIEPIEPIE. I even worked it into a "I used to be fat" joke onstage. It killed.

37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Kristy Mangel.

Mary Tyler Moore Gets Personal With Maria Montessori, and Explores the Origins of Life

I can't believe I've forgotten to mention that I had the pleasure of being MTM'd. Yes, I reached out to the delightful Coaster Punchman, and he left a beautiful, custom rendition of the Mary Tyler Moore theme song on my voicemail while I was recuperating from surgery. I played it on speaker phone for my mom. And cried. Twice. It was really sweet and touching. Thank you, CP. You truly are bestowed with awesome powers.

What else is new? I'm toying with the idea of snagging comedy dates by way of online personal ads. Yeah. I can't believe it either. But it's hard to meet people, and several friends have had good luck meeting some pretty cool people this way. I spent some time last night perusing the local matches on one site, and had my interest peaked by several interesting candidates. I also noticed a lot of cliches - suspiciously heavy photoshopping (what are you trying to hide?), conspicuous "look, I have black friends" pictures, fuzzy, long-range photos taken from what must be LandSat geosynchronous satellites, and more. Wish me luck.

Why does it not surprise me to read in a recent New Yorker profile that Sims and Spore mastermind Will Wright was a Montessori-educated child? Everyone I've ever known (including my darling niece and creative cohort Sloan) who grew up with the influence of Montessori educational principles has been a fantastically imaginative and problem-solving human being. From that article: “Montessori taught me the joy of discovery...It showed you can become interested in pretty complex theories, like Pythagorean theory, say, by playing with blocks. It’s all about learning on your terms, rather than a teacher explaining stuff to you. SimCity comes right out of Montessori—if you give people this model for building cities, they will abstract from it principles of urban design.”

I have lost countless hours of my life to Sims and Sims 2 (and wisely decided not to reinstall the game the last time my laptop crashed) and am scared at the thought of trying Wright's latest opus, Spore. It sounds absolutely fascinating. "The game draws on the theory of natural selection. It seeks to replicate algorithmically the conditions by which evolution works, and render the process as a game." A game designed by someone as brilliant as Will Wright, who's equally as enchanted by Powers of Ten and Drake's Equation as I am, is a danger to my personal productivity.