Monthly Archives: February 2013

Romance, Married Style.

Posted on by
Reply

Hey, girl. You know it’s Valentine’s Day. Today’s the day we show the people we love just how much they mean to us. The day everybody shows that special somebody just how special they are. Today’s all about romance and passion.



You know I’m all about romance and passion.



I know that you think it might be hard to keep the passion going now that we’ve been together for nearly five years. Some may think that Valentine’s day is for couples that have the burning flame of new love but I know just what you want. Today I’m going to cater to your deepest desires and make your wildest fantasies come true.



Today I’m going to do the laundry.



That’s right, girl. All the laundry. I’m going to wash every bit of dirty clothing we have in the house. I’m even going to wash the linens because it’s been a few weeks and they’re really overdue.



I’m gonna wash all the dirty fucking blankets in the house until they smell like a flower strewn meadow in the springtime. You like that?



Don’t even think I’m done because after I wash all the clothes I’m going to put them away. I’m going to fold everything that needs to be folded and put everything that needs to be hung on hangers. All for you. By the end of Valentine’s day, you won’t only be able to see the bedroom floor, we’ll be able to walk around without worrying about stepping on something hidden under some dirty clothes.



Don’t pass out from extacy yet girl because that’s not all. Come in closer. I want to whisper this last little bit in your ear. Get in real close.



I’ll make sure to keep the cashmere sweaters out of the dryer so they won’t shrink down.



This Valentine’s Day, all of your dreams are going to come true.

You Can’t Stop the Signal. Well, Unless You Can.

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday, the “hactivist” group Anonymous threatened to break up President Obama’s State of the Union Address. It didn’t happen.

This could have happened for a number of reasons. They could have tried and failed. I mean, the white house had notification that it was going to happen. Anonymous released a statement saying they were going to like 9 or 10 hours before hand. That gives other people plenty of time to figure out how and to make it not happen. They also could have NOT been planning to hack, or only a small subset was going to and the rest decided they shouldn’t and cut them off. Or, they could have been really intent in their Borderlands 2 campaign.

For whatever reason, SOTU did not get “hacked” last night.

Obamanous.

Obamanous.

Anonymous is a group of hackers. This means they circumvent certain technology  or programming to be used in ways different than the original intended use. As a programmer, I “hacked” systems regularly, meaning I developed programming as a “work around” to the original programming. I do it all the time with WordPress structures. Usually, you want to go in and change the structure itself, but sometimes you have a one off. Sometimes you’re working with third party and can’t change the structure. And sometimes site growth just demands you get it up quickly, and structure change is a lengthy process.

It’s not necessarily best practice, but it is how programming changes happen about 99.9% of the time.

Hacking has gotten a bad rep. I think it’s rather inventive by nature, using the resources and code around you in a creative way to work around a problem. But when most people think of “hackers,” they think of renegade nerds out to disrupt the system, causing havock for havock’s sake. They think of this guy:

WarGames

or these kids

Hackers

or even this guy

Serenity

Ah, the glorification of hacking. They never think of the poor computer programmer, trying to get something changed or updated because a client last minute wanted the product to do THIS instead of THAT.

Anyway, SOTU did not get hacked. Do you know who did get hacked? The state of Montana:

These guys hacked a television show to broadcast an emergency zombie apocalypse. Now THAT’s some quality hacking.

Pick-a-Pope: The Vatican’s Selection Process of a new Leader

Posted on by
Reply

Pope Benedict recently announced that he’ll be stepping down from his duties, citing that his failing health is preventing him from fulfilling his papal duties. This is the first time in about 600 years that a pope has retired rather than die in office trying to burn all the sick days he’s accrued over his career.



To be fair, he really hasn't been looking good recently.

To be fair, he really hasn’t been looking good recently.





This decision has left the vatican with the task of selecting a new pope. It won’t be easy. Anybody gunning for the job has to complete a series of tasks to prove that he has what it takes. Here’s just a few criteria that is viewed in the Vatican’s Pope selecting process.



* Recite the full name, birthdate and birthplace of Jesus.

* Live in absolute opulence, preach the teachings of Jesus Christ, see nothing contradictory about that.

* Wear a 30 pound hat for 5 hours without collapsing.

* Shit in the woods.

* Re-assign 20 pedophile priests to 20 new parishes while blindfolded.

* Go to church EVERY Sunday.

* Ignore 30 gays in under a minute.

* Correctly answer all questions posed by Joan Osborne in “What if God Was One of Us?”.

* Successfully crank call the Dalai Lama.

* Cut off the head of Pope Benedict, steal his power. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE.

Once he has murdered the previous pope, they incinerate the old pope’s head in the Vatican fireplace and a white smoke comes out the chimney, signaling a new pope has been selected.

New Year’s Resolution Update: Fatty Fatty Fat Fat.

Posted on by
2

I’m eating chocolate chips as I write this. I put a bunch in my mouth and let them just sit in there for a while until they get nice and slightly melted and then just chew on the chocolatey, gooey mess. I’m a fat fucking bastard.

Okay. Chocolate chips have been put down. Let’s do this.



One of the resolutions I made in my Resolusplosion this year was to put down the fucking cookies for five goddamn seconds. I haven’t really been doing a good job with that (i.e. today’s chocolate chip breakfast). It’s really easy for me to justify grabbing a gas station donut if I’m going to be cleaning carpets all day and I have no problem grabbing treats at a party. I figure I’m working hard and since I’m not drinking this can be my one little vice but I’m still a big tub of lard.



Some of you remember that I first made a pledge to stop cramming treats in my mouth after I went to jail for a night and my jail bracelet told me I was 269 pounds. Since then I’ve gotten better with my eating habits and brought my weight down to about 240 but I still got plenty of man boob and since I’ve started a labor intensive job my eating habits fell back into old patterns. I haven’t gained any weight but I also haven’t lost any more. There are plenty of sweets to be blamed but the biggest offender for me is the gas station donut –



so tasty.

so tasty.





They’re so tasty, they’re at every gas station and they’re incredibly cheap (every 7th is free at Super America with my Speedy Rewards card and trust me, I’ve had plenty of free donuts). One time I had five donuts in a single day. That’s probably something like 250,000 calories. I haven’t looked it up but it’s probably close.



I hate to do this but I’m going to have to say goodbye to the donuts. No more, even if somebody brings them into the office. I’m already working out all the time but I won’t lose any fat if I keep cramming donuts down my throat.



Goodbye, Super America chocalate filled long johns. So long, Holiday old fashioned donuts that are 2 for $1.29. Farewell, triple chocolate bismark at Kwik Trip. I’ll be sure to wave to you when I’m buying a banana or whatever at the gas station.

Obama Needs to Stop Giving Hitler Such a Hard Time

Posted on by
Reply

President Muslim McCommie has been compared to Hitler quite a bit by conservatives who don’t like him. He’s been likened to Hitler –



Oh man remember that time Obama tried to exterminate all the Jews? Total Hitler clone.

Oh man remember that time Obama tried to exterminate all the Jews? Total Hitler clone.





He’s been called worse than Hitler, too. I’m sure there’s somebody out there that thinks Obama’s some sort of Hitler Voltron where five different Hitlers come together and form Obama.



Granted… it’s not like my team is completely innocent of Hitler comparisons –



When you think about it the conservatives are just ripping off the liberals of 6 year ago.

When you think about it the conservatives are just ripping off the liberals of 6 year ago.





It’s an easy comparison to make. Hitler was the worst so comparing somebody to Hitler is really just saying they’re the worst. The imagery of the swastika and nazi salute stir up strong emotions in people and that shitty little mustache is really easy to photoshop onto a picture –



My photoshop skills are worse than Hitler.

My photoshop skills are worse than Hitler.





The point is that Obama has been compared to Hitler in a lot of ways but up until last weekend nobody ever said he was too harsh on Hitler. Thankfully we have The National Review.



Last weekend the NR blog “The Corner” posted that Obama was way off the mark in calling the Holocaust “senseless”. Here’s just a little snippet from the post.



Nazism may have been an ideology to which the United States was — and to which the president is — implacably opposed, but it is hardly “senseless.” By the early 1930s, the Nazi party had hundreds of thousands of devoted members and repeatedly attracted a third of the votes in German elections; its political leaders campaigned on a platform comprising 25 non-senseless points, including the “unification of all Germans,” a demand for “land and territory for the sustenance of our people,” and an assertion that “no Jew can be a member of the race.” Suffice it to say, many sensible Germans were persuaded.



…the fuck?



Seriously. I had to check to make sure the National Review wasn’t some shitty satire site because I’ve been fooled by that before (fuck you, Daily Currant!) but they’re serious. These people actually think the president shouldn’t have called the Holocaust “senseless” (which it was) because it made perfect sense to a bunch of Germans at the time. What? Are conservatives really so willing to bash Obama that they’ll say “Hitler’s ideas did kinda make sense” to do it?



I think I can say, without hyperbole, that NR writer Eliana Johnson is worse than VoltronHitler.

How to Save The U.S. Postal Service.

Posted on by
Reply

Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Tough luck getting your mail on Saturdays, though.



The U.S.P.S, which has been hemorrhaging money since the first email was sent, has announced that it’s no longer delivering mail on Saturdays due to it’s money problems.



You can blame the Post Office’s money woes on many different things but it’s pretty clear that the USPS can’t survive on it’s current business plan. To actually make a profit it would have to jack up the price of stamps astronomically and I’ve already got a bunch of those “forever” stamps anyway –



I've got like 10 of thes in my desk. I'm set for life.

I’ve got like 10 of thes in my desk. I’m set for life.





If America wants to revive it’s dying postal service we’re going to need to take action. We’re going to need to act like our grandmothers.



People like my grandmothers (RE: Other grandmothers) have been propping up the postal service for decades with the practice of unnecessary mailing. Here’s just three ways that my grandma has used the mail when she hasn’t needed to.



Clipping out newspaper articles she thinks I’d like and then mailing them to me
Also keeping the ailing newspaper industry alive, my grandmother has a fresh paper delivered to her door daily. She clips out articles about stand up comedians in town and then mails them to me. She’s never mailed me any clips that have mentioned me (it’s happened a couple times!), it’s usually about some other comedian or an article about a comedy club in town. If it’s about another comedian, she’ll circle his/her name for some reason.



Demanding birthday cards
My grandmother loves having birthday cards mailed to her. She doesn’t like having birthday cards handed to her. They must be mailed. I’ve asked her about this. I live in the same city as her and have gone out with her on her birthday but she insists that I mail her a birthday card rather than hand one to her. Maybe getting a bunch of mail is like a status symbol in a nursing home. Like a full mailbox is the old person equivalent to having a lot of friends on facebook.



Mailing cards on unnecessary holidays
I’ll get Christmas cards from her even though I see her every Christmas. A birthday card even though I’ll see her almost every birthday. She even sends Valentine’s Day cards which is a little creepy but she’ll usually include some chocolates in that one so I don’t complain.



So there you go. If you want to save the USPS, just grandma it up!

THANKS, OBAMA

Posted on by
Reply

So on Sunday the lights went out in the Superdome for about 30 odd minutes and the world went online to post all their hilarious and original jokes about the blackout. I was no different. I posted on facebook –



Boom! Take that, buzzfeed!

Boom! Take that, buzzfeed!





No more than ten minutes after I posted that, my friend Patrick commented on how buzzfeed buzzfeed already had a article up about people on twitter blaming the blackout on Obama. 13 tweets with people saying things like “I blame Obama” and “THANKS, OBAMA.”



Just one problem, though. As people have commented on the article and on my post, the whole “THANKS, OBAMA” thing is a meme.



Seriously. It’s a joke. It has it’s own entry in “Know Your Meme”. One of the tweets they screencapped for the article is actually from a comedian.



Now, I get that buzzfeed’s bread and butter is rounding up screencaps saying awful, stupid and racist things on twitter but they totally jumped the gun on this one and missed the joke. Has buzzfeed become so jaded that it can’t even recognize sarcasm anymore? If so, I totally have some articles I can submit to buzzfeed.



20 Rap Songs That Were Originally Written by an 18th Century French Painter
josephducreux



Top 500 Things Xzibit put In Other Things So People Could do Things While Doing Similar Things
yodawg



BREAKING NEWS: Bear Escaped From Zoo. Raping Children and Being Really Smug About it.
pedobear



Chuck Norris Apparently has Countless Amazing Superpowers. Here’s a List of the top 50.
chucknorris

On the Fringes of Society…

Posted on by
4

Last night, I was at the lottery drawing for the Minnesota Fringe Festival. This is the 20th year of the theater festival, and with it, the MN Fringe staff announced their new logo:

You see, the "I" in Fringe is an exclamation point, because it's exciting!

You see, the “I” in Fringe is an exclamation point, because it’s exciting!

Teasing aside, I love it. I mean, it’s no Wobbles, but that cat is gone, man. I need to learn to let it go.

For those who aren’t in the know, the Minnesota Fringe Festival is a large, unjuried theater festival that takes place in the Twin Cities every August.

Unjuried. Fringe throws that term around a lot, but let’s take a look at that. A lot of other Fringe Festivals have producers apply to their festival, and then a committee goes over the applications to decide which shows are going to get in. In Minnesota, instead of all that careful deliberation, we assign every application a number, put the number on a ping pong ball, throw those ping pong balls in one of those spinny cages, and randomly pull numbers out til all the spots in the Fringe Festival are filled. Then the rest are pulled and put on a wait list.

There are a lot of pros and cons to an unjuried festival. You get to see a lot of shows you might not otherwise get to see. Some of them might be utter garbage, but some might be hidden gems.

Also, our Fringe staff is pretty lazy, and deliberating over applications smacks of work. (Robin, this is a joke. Please don’t send that creepy penis guy from last year after me.)

This isn't the most penisy picture of him, but it's still rather dickish.

This isn’t the most penisy picture of him, but it’s still rather dickish.

But mostly, it gives us an opportunity to throw a party centered around the holy drawing of the ping pong balls. There’s boozing and schmoozing. It’s a decent sized elbow rubbing affair.

Jesse trying to rub elbows. Picture by Rob Callahan, who usually does a much better job with his investigative reporting.

Jesse trying to rub elbows. Picture by Rob Callahan, who usually does a much better job with his investigative reporting.

The lottery number were pulled, and a lot of my friends got in. Our Fearless Fringe Sponsorship winner Jakey Emmert got in (and I am ridiculously excited for him). Denson and Young got in. Rooftop Theater got in. Six Elements got in. Navel Gaze got in. Snikt! Bamf! Thwip! is 19th on the waitlist. The YoungNotions “not a musical” is #88 on the waitlist, so maybe.

In 2009, I first applied to the Fringe, and my number was pulled for a slot. I was sitting next to Ari Hoptman, who had applied for 4 years in a row without getting his number pulled. But this year, his 5th year trying, his number got called too! Hooray and excitement! We all get to produce! Everyone wins!

Since then, my ping pong ball has been so far down on the waitlist even Robin tells me there no hope. Usually somewhere between 20 and 7 from the end of the waitlist. It happened to me in 2010, but that was okay, as I had a wedding to produce. In 2011 when I didn’t get drawn, I ended up doing Highlander: the Musical instead. Last year when my number was at the end of the waitlist, I already had a couple possibilities lined up, and ended up participating in 3 different shows.

Every year I hope it will be different. But no. That solo show that I’ve put in for faithfully every year for the past 4 years? It’s #197 on the waitlist.

Who the hell doesn’t get drawn for Fringe 4 years in a row? I mean, aside from Ari Hoptman

Ari Hoptman. That sneaky son of a bitch. HE PASSED ON HIS CURSE TO ME!!!!!!!!!! When we were sitting next to each other, he gave me the curse so he could get in! And he seems like such a nice guy…

Ah well. There’s always next year.

New Year’s Resolution Update: Drinking!

Posted on by
Reply

It’s Monday so let’s have a look at one of the umpteen resolutions I made this year and see how I’m doing. Today I’d like to talk about #3 on my list. No alcohol for the year.



I figured this one was going to be a little tough for me. I do enjoy drinking. A lot of my friends enjoy drinking. Stand up comedy usually takes place in a bar and comedians usually get free drinks. While the challenges were numerable this has been one of the easier ones to keep. I went the whole month of January without drinking and I have to say, I could start to feel the health benefits that come with it. I dropped a few pounds, I had more energy and didn’t feel like shit if I didn’t get a lot of sleep. No hangovers and no gut troubles. There are plenty of advantages to not drinking.



Then again, the downside to not drinking is that you don’t get to be drunk so I decided to briefly break my resolution Saturday when I went out to a show and a going away party for a buddy. I had 32 days under my belt, I figured what’s the harm in drinking one night?



There’s lot’s of harm. Just heaping piles of steaming harm.



I woke up Sunday morning after a full 8 1/2 hours of sleep feeling like I just got ran over. I have had hangovers of all sizes before but this was the first time where my muscles ached. My whole body screamed out in pain like I had gone to the gym for the first time in my life and really overdid it.



That’s the thing about booze. You need that tolerance to deal with the negative effects as you get older. I find myself drinking less and less just because the hangovers are hitting me harder and harder and I’m packing weight on easier and easier. If I’m ever at some dive bar in Northeast Minneapolis and see those 65+ year old dudes at the bar just pounding them back I always wonder how they can handle all the booze at that age when I’m having trouble with it at 30 and the answer is they don’t stop drinking. Their tolerance has just been climbing and climbing with them over the years to keep pace with their age. I don’t think I can do that.



I originally thought I’d take monthly breaks from my drinking resolution but now I’m not so sure. Not drinking might just keep me from drinking this year.

Young and Fearless!

Posted on by
Reply

Hey, there! Jena and I are putting together a new sketch show in April for Fearless Comedy Productions called Young and Fearless!



My logo idea of me in a diaper was shot down pretty fast.

My logo idea of me in a diaper was shot down pretty fast.





Me and the wife will host the shindig, internationally renowned folk troubadors Denson & Young will stop by to debut a new song, there will be some stand up comedy and we’re currently looking for sketch writers who want to get something on stage. We’ll help you out with script editing, act in it if you need extra roles filled and promote the show for you!



The theme for our first show is “a day in the park”. We’ll have the stage set up to a park setting the best our shoestring budget can allot!



You can submit your completed first draft scripts to YoungFearless@fearlesscomedyproductions.com. The show will be April 4th at the Bryant-Lake Bowl and the deadline for submissions is Feb. 14th (Valentines Day)! Get crackin’!