Author Archives: Rob MacD

Sketch22: A Trouser Turding

I’m waiting for the bus to take me home from work.  I have headphones on, listening to music.  Some guy, 40-ish,wearing sweat pants, crosses the street and approaches me rather briskly.  He’s saying something to me but I can’t make it out because of the music.  I turn the music off and I hear “…Sketch 22 last year!  My god it was funny! We laughed.  My wife nearly shit her pants!!”
And with that utterance he was off down the street.
I’ve heard of pissing oneself with laughter (and I know that I’ve made at least one person literally pee her pants from laughing so much), but it’s far less common to shit oneself when laughing.  Honestly, it’s a comedic achievement I don’t want on my resume.

Don’t Make Me Come Down There…

So, I’ve been thinking of trying to start this video project.  Very simple, with no reward other than doing it.  Basically, the idea is to get random people (friends, mostly) at random times and at random places to perform a very short, very specific one person, one-take, one shot (partial) scene on my digital camera, and then compile them all.

Here’s the scene:

This is the backstory to the scene:
You play a tough guy or gal.  You’re like muscle for the mob, or something.  A collector. You’re talking to someone who owes money.  This person is someone you know from your past.  Someone you know of outside of your life as a collector, though you aren’t close.  Maybe someone from “the neighbourhood”.  The relationship is up to you.  The important thing is that you are familiar enough with this person that a meeting with them isn’t only about business.  They know what you do, but maybe they don’t know the extremes to which you’ll go to get your point across.

The shot in question takes place after there’s been a bit of “getting caught up” small talk.  Small talking done, you move on to the matter of the money you owe.  The person sort of non-committedly says that you’ll get the money.  They promise.

Now the specific shot and dialogue that I’d shoot each time:

You have three lines of dialogue: 

Don’t make me come down there.  No, relax, I’m just joking.  Seriously, though, don’t make me come down there.

You can say the lines any way you want.  Your objective, though, is to convey that you are serious that if you don’t get the money, the person will get hurt.  The way I hear the lines is this:  first line is said kind of as a faux (but real) threat.  Second line is to lighten the mood of the person who is maybe afraid by your first line.  The third line is said in a way to make it clear that you are not just joking.  But you might find a more interesting way to deliver them.

I doubt I’ll ever get around to getting anyone to give it a go.  If you see me around town, and I happen to have my little camera with me, be brave and ask me to shoot you saying these lines.

Commentucating

Hey, I think I just made up a new word:

Commentuncating, or commentucation

That’s where your relationship with someone is based pretty much solely on communication through the comments you leave each other on your blogs, internet sites, forums, etc.

Commentucating

Technorati Tags:

Meh, Yeah, Meh

Three TV shows I watched last night.  The first hour of the Grammys (meh), the HBO serial Rome (yeah), and the Space soap opera Battlestar Galactica.

This is when I remember being concerned about the future of The Police:


You consider me the young apprentice

Caught between the Scylla and Charibdes.

When I first heard those lyrics in Wrapped Around Your Finger, I started to look for the large aquarium that housed the shark that The Police had jumped.  Not the kind of lyrics, I remember thinking, that a rock song should be made out of.  We lovers of rock don’t want to have to buy the abridged version of the lyrics to understand the references.  Anyway, it didn’t matter, since Synchronicity (the album the song was from) was their last.  Sting, of course, went on to a career full of such Thinking-Man’s lyrics.  I liked my The Police punky and rocking.  Less jazz, more backbeat.

So, when I heard The Police were reforming, and would open last night’s Grammys, I was excited.  However, which The Police would show up?  The Police where the lyric “chasm” might make an appearance as Sting forgo a stand-up bass for a bass-lute?  Or The Police where ears would be ringing a half-hour after they played an impossibly fast version of “Man In A Suitcase”?  Turns out more of the former, less of the latter.
They played only one song (was disappointed in that, was hoping for at least two), that song being “Roxanne”.  After a kind of ugly and lame shout-out “We’re the Police, and we’re back!!” by Sting, they started playing.  First verse, I was thinking “Oh, how I’ve missed this sound!”  Second verse, they started getting a bit flowery with their rendition of the song.  “Uh oh, here comes the lute”.  Fortunately, it wasn’t too awful, and they ended the song pretty solidly.  Overall, though, it was a pretty “Meh” performance for the beginning of a “comeback”.  Still, I’d love to see them in concert somewhere.  The rest of the first hour of the Grammys was pretty meh too.  Although, I got a little shiver of excitement when I saw Prince come out on stage.  Disappointed that he was only introducing Beyonce.  It would’ve kicked ass if a Prince performance was one of the “surprises” the announcer kept talking about.  What were the surprises anyway?

I only watched the first hour of the Grammys because I switched it over to watch a new episode of Rome.  I’m really enjoying this series, and last night’s episode was great.  Full of some neat twists and turns in plot, and enticing in what its unfolding promises for the final few episodes of the series (this second season is supposed to be the final season).  So, a “yeah” from me for last night’s episode of Rome.

A big “meh” from me, though, for last night’s Battlestar Galactica.  In fact, for the most part, this whole season has been mostly “meh” with a few episodes of “yeah” thrown in.  Last night’s show was not a must-see if you happened to miss it.  It was one of those totally self-contained contrivances that don’t add at all to the overall arc of the show.  Barely any forward movement on the show’s main plots, and a storyline that I totally didn’t care about. 

So, just to make it easier for you to keep notes for the test that will be coming up later in the semester, it’s a  meh yeah meh from me on the TV I watched last night.  Write that down:  meh yeah meh.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Happy Valentimes. Seriously.

Last night’s 30 Rock was great.  Alec Baldwin is wonderful.  The whole cast is fun.  My biggest laugh came when Rachel Dratch, this episode a trampy prostitute, screamed “Happy Valentimes!!”  I appreciated that the line wasn’t commented upon by any of the characters.  It was just allowed to live on its own merits.

Anyway, I just saw a photo, and then read a story about a couple who recently got married.  I’d recommend you read the story first.  Then look at the photo.  Because if you do it vice versa, like I did, you’ll likely feel sad, until after you read the story.

Here’s the link to the story.

Here’s the link to the photo.  It won first prize at this year’s World Press Photo.

I hope it makes you feel good.  I hope any cynicism you have can be ignored for the duration of your involvement in the story and picture.

Happy Valentimes.  Next week.

Happy Valentimes. Seriously.

Last night’s 30 Rock was great.  Alec Baldwin is wonderful.  The whole cast is fun.  My biggest laugh came when Rachel Dratch, this episode a trampy prostitute, screamed “Happy Valentimes!!”  I appreciated that the line wasn’t commented upon by any of the characters.  It was just allowed to live on its own merits.

Anyway, I just saw a photo, and then read a story about a couple who recently got married.  I’d recommend you read the story first.  Then look at the photo.  Because if you do it vice versa, like I did, you’ll likely feel sad, until after you read the story.

Here’s the link to the story.

Here’s the link to the photo.  It won first prize at this year’s World Press Photo.

I hope it makes you feel good.  I hope any cynicism you have can be ignored for the duration of your involvement in the story and picture.

Happy Valentimes.  Next week.

Rob’s Top 50 Artists Listened To

I’ve had my music player on my computer and iPod synced up with Last.FM for a while.  Here, then are the top 50 artists who’ve been played.  Even though I have my players set up to play random tracks, I think this is a pretty good representation of what I’d consider my favourite music.  A couple of anomalies are the Theme Songs showing up at Number 8, and Emmanuel College Chapel Choir showing up at all (don’t understand that one??).  Elvis Presley is surprisingly high, too.  And, really, Emmylou Harris probably shouldn’t be on that list (I’d replace her with Iris Dement).

Top Artists

One Long Drive For A Woman…

…One giant leak for Womankind.

I don’t follow stories like this one about the astronaut woman who drove from someplace to someplace to allegedly kill someone, mostly because news channels like CNN glom onto them and make them much, much bigger than they deserve to be.  Kind of like a Slow News Week “being called up to the big leagues” sort of deal.

But even I’ll admit that 1) female astronaut, 2) driving a long distance while wearing a diaper, 3) attempted murder charges, 4) love and intrigue, and 5) look-like-a-nutjob photo makes it hard for ratings-craving news agencies to ignore this one.  Still, though, a brief skim of the headline and first couple of paragraphs of an internet story about it will be enough for me.

Auto Body, Manual Choice

Hey, anyone in the GCA (Greater Charlottetown Area) have any positive experiences with auto body shops?  This morning, a non-observant driver did us the favour of making us require the services of a fair and honest auto body shop by becoming rather too familiar with the back end of our vehicle.

Where has my loyal reader gone and was rewarded with honest and fair auto body service?

Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller? 
(and the award for pulling out an age-old reference goes to… Rob MacDonald!… “I’d just like to say, I’m surprised and shocked that I won this award.  I mean, the competition was pretty crazy this year.  There’s that guy who was blogging about his dog, and wrote “Who let the dogs out?”.  And of course, that lesbian-written blog post entitled “Where’s the beef?!”.  Worthy competitors, all.  [orchestral music starts to surge]  Anyways, I just want to thank everyone who voted for the Bueller reference, and also thank God and the marvelous Mr. Ruddy, my grade nine Industrial Arts teacher.  He’s gay… wait, that’s common knowledge, right?  That he’s gay.  I mean, I’m not telling secrets out of school, am I?  Revealing that Mr. Ruddy is gay, right here in this award speech for age-old references?  Anyway, looks like my time is up.  I’m just so happy that you love me!  That you really, really love me!”)

Yeah, so about those honest and fair auto body shops?  Anyone got one?  Anyone?  Anyone?

Congratulations, Graham the Conquerer!!!

Graham the Conquerer 142-125 (53.2%) 159 pts
Jim Simmonds 131-136 (49.1%) 126 pts
spragger2002 122-122 (50.0%) 122 pts
reverseflash 128-139 (47.9%) 117 pts
RFTT1985 127-140 (47.6%) 114 pts
annekenstein 123-144 (46.1%) 102 pts

Here are the final results for The Annekenstein Monster’s The Weekly NFL Picks Page pick’em pool.  Graham the Conquerer smashes the competition with a startling 53.2% picking accuracy.  Yours truly performed atrociously, embarassingly so.  Never before have I picked so poorly.

Congratulations Graham!!
Thanks for playing, folks.  Most likely, it’ll be back next August, when I’ll vow to kick ass, and make it my personal goal to finish each week on the plus side of 50%.  Of course, I’ll also be high on the speculation that the Miami Dolphins will be able to make it to the playoffs (where anything can happen) this coming year.  I predict great things for the new coach, Cam Cameron.  Ricky Williams will be back, will remain drug-free for the entire season, and will be a legitimate backup to Ronnie Brown, who will have a banner year.  Culpepper will rebound from a terrible (injury-crippled) season and make a star out of Chris Chambers.

By the way, with Peyton Manning winning the championship, Dan Marino once again retains his mantle as the unquestionably best quarterback ever to never win a SuperBowl.  I’d say when Peyton didn’t have one, he’d have given Dan a bit of a run for that title.