FuzzyCo

So I'm in rehearsals for this play. I haven't been in a for-reals play since, lordy, lemme think... Bare did Sketchfest two years ago with something I'd call a one-act play, but that was words we had written, so no one could yell at me if I got them wrong. Sketches here and there, but I'd have to go back to the Civic Theatre of Greater Lafayette (and thus, the Nineties) for some straight-up written-down play-action.

Which is to say that stretching the muscles of 'saying and doing the same thing every time' is a skill set I'm having to remember. I was going to post something yesterday about how easily it was all coming back to me, but I guess that was hubris because at last night's rehearsal I panicked on a line and blew that scene to hell and then I flubbed the order of the 'phrases' of my fight. Oops. But hey, I've got a whole week to get back on track.

And yeah, I have a fight -- with fight choreography and everything -- because I'm a ninja. Pretty cool. I don't have my costume all together yet, but as soon as I do I'll be sure to share how badass (or ridiculous) I look.

The play is the third 'episode' of a serial super-hero story, so most everyone else has been working together for half-a-year. For one, that means that they're all really comfortable in their characters, but fortunately I'm playing a ninja, which means that the cool comfort of cliche envelopes me like a second skin. For another, it could have meant that they'd be all cliquish, but fortunately, again, they are not and have been very nice to this bearded man in their midst.

Apropos of nothing, our director is also our sound designer and in a rehearsal the other day he tossed out the term 'Wilhelm Scream' which piqued everyone's interest. Chip managed to find this YouTube clip that traces this classic sound from the 50s to the 90s:

Come see Rogue 8, opening February 9, and see if you can spot the Wilhelm Scream in the show.

Happy Birthday, Don Hall! (Tim Whetham, we'll get you next year.)

But it's still totally worth it: Lines From Alanis Morissette's "Ironic," Modified to Actually Make them Ironic

(via The Poor Man)

Christopher and Katie got all dressed up to go to a fancy event on Saturday and Katie lamented that their digital camera was out of batteries. Fortunately, the event had photographers on hand:

What a birthday! After getting up at 5:40 to go give Don Hall his birthday present we picked up Alex and Alyssa from the airport. On the way back into town I took a gamble that the cold weather would decimate the line at Hot Doug's and I was right, so we had an excellent lunch there. While everyone else took naps, I had a rehearsal and then got home just in time to head back out to the Playground. The PoM show was redonkulous -- we had every active member there, plus PoM alum Steve, Alex (who just got on a team at The PIT), and Andrea Swanson all sat in. I think there were 100 people on stage. Don't Spit got canceled, because the heat in the theater was all wonky -- I was a little bummed, because it meant I won't be able to do Dr. Baron Ludwig von Evilschlager until March, but it did mean we got to get drinking early. We left a note on the gate at the Playground, but it was so cold that the tape was having trouble sticking. I hope it held and that no one showed up for the show and got confused. We spent the rest of the evening at the Spoke as friends came and went. Why do my friends like such violently named drinks -- car bombs and shotgunned beers? I owe Dan Telfer enormous thanks for sticking around until the bitter end to be my designated driver and for walking back to Broadway and Belmont in sub-zero temperatures to get his car and come back and pick us up. And now I'm old -- whee!

I just wanted to note that we have a lovely poster for the show now, drawn by the playwright himself.

This week's challenge at Impress These Apes was musical theater. The contestants were paired up and randomly assigned a song. They then had to write and perform an original scene that would lead into that song. And then perform the song. Everyone did a bang-up job, but Erica and Jim Fath's Christopher Columbus & Isabella scene leading into A Whole New World was awesome enough to keep her in the lead with a 5-point margin.

(That box Erica shows the audience says "Small Pox Blankets" and the book is "Exploring for Dummies".)

¡Mi hermano necesita desesperadamente un corte de pelo!

Ay, él es lindo otra vez.

As my brother notes, it is indeed a slow blog day. The Alchemist's Challenge is a surprisingly well-written quiz, covering quite a breadth of knowledge. Sans Google, I got 70% correct.

2247 other users have thus far accepted the Alchemist's Challenge. Their average score is 55 percent correct.

Out of a total of 50 questions, you answered 35 correctly – that's 70 percent correct.

(via Making Light: Particles)

All you really need to know about this show that opens tomorrow is that they let me be a ninja in it. A ninja with a sword. I mean, blahblahblah, there are other people in the show, Dan wrote it, Chris directed it, it's funny, whatever. I'm a NINJA!

Hey, it's going to be a lot of Rogue 8 around here for a bit...

Dan also took some photos at rehearsal a few nights ago. Here you can see a awesome moment where Tilt (Amanda Lanier) is sticking her hand through my face*:

* Hand-through-face is not guaranteed to occur in show.

And if you're worried because this is the third installment of the series, here's all you need to know to catch up (click on this one for a printable copy):

Thank goodness we didn't let anyone bring their digital cameras along when we knocked over that gas station, but Dan sent along his photos from earlier in my birthday evening and Chris Biddle handed me a CD of photos from which I added a few to my birthday set.

The Bastion came out to see Rogue 8 and said we "moved fluidly in action and dialogue. Nary a beat was dropped in the 45 minute performance, and several hearty laughs were shared." Several, folks. Four weeks left, if you want to share several hearty laughs.

Sometimes I wonder if an attempted explanation would make us sound crazier than simply noting that over the weekend we put Parker in dog shoes for a while. Not so that she could go outside, but just so she could lay on the couch wearing them. Because... oh, never mind.

Week 6 of Impress These Apes was, I think, one of the hardest for the contestants. The challenge was to create a piece of performance art in protest of something. Erica protested emo. It wasn't her strongest scoring week, but she's still in second place.

For next week the contestants have to produce a 3-and-a-half minute short comedy film. And the challenge for the final week was also announced. For the 8th and final week the show will be moving to the 300-seat Lakeshore Theater (3175 N Broadway) and the entirety of the challenge is "Impress These Apes".

My sweetheart is giving me two great gifts for Valentine's Day.

For one, she let me order a new iPod. My last one broke months ago and I've been limping along with some half-ass solutions (an old 256 MB MP3 player, my PSP, etc). I'm pretty sure it's just the harddrive, but as I went to order a replacement, it was going to be in the $100+ range and I'd still be warranty-less. So, I'm getting a brand-new black 30GB iPod. Video! 2 years of Apple Care!

And for another, tomorrow on Valentine's Day itself, robots are going to shoot lasers at my eyes.

Which is to say that I'm getting laser corrective surgery. In my eyes! Lasers!

I am simultaneously excited (I've been actively planning this for a year and a half now) and terrified (I use my eyes a lot). I'm very confident in the procedure and the staff at Northwestern Laser Vision Center, but the most important question is "will I still be as cute and lovable without my geeky glasses?"

To mark his 40th birthday my friend Lawrence is blogging 40 quotes that have some importance for him. Today's quote harks back to a time that was milestoney for me as well -- the first time I was a professional actor, the first time I (co-)wrote a piece of theater of any real length, the first time I bought a 50-lb bag of popcorn.

The laser robots did not burn a hole through my head. But, as my sweetheart is reminding me, I should be asleep right now (doctor's orders) and certainly not staring at a computer. Thanks for all the well wishes from the well wishers.

My brother and Kyle convinced me to give the new version of my childhood favorite Doctor Who and I tore through the episodes of seasons one and two on the train on my PSP. (Erica can't stand any version of Doctor Who, so it was easiest to watch it out of the house.) And that led me to the spin-off series Torchwood, which is kinda like The X-files only with more having-sex-with-aliens-and-time-travelers. There are a number of foibles to each series, especially when you binge on the episodes, but I have to say that I enjoyed them both immensely.

For the record (and because I'm terrible at remembering this sort of thing) my prescription was right eye -4.5, left eye -3.5. I went to the Northwestern Laser Vision Center and my doctor is Dr. Basti. I've been telling people that I went to Northwestern because of their "world class reputation," but a big part of going there was that it's a few blocks away from my work (I'm laaaazy). I chose to do IntraLase (meaning that they cut the flap in the cornea with a laser instead of a tiny blade) and Custom LASIK (which means, as far as I can tell, that you pay them to do a more complete job. Seriously.). Your mileage, as always, may vary.

Yesterday morning, Erica and I got up and had breakfast and took the train down to Northwestern. (When they were telling me how I should prepare for the surgery they said, "Eat what you normally eat for breakfast, because we want you to have something in your stomach for the valium." "I normally have a cup of coffee for breakfast," I said, "so I'll make sure to eat something.") There was some paperwork to fill out including, oops, the consent forms listing all the possible hideous side effects. They had given me copies of those months ago during the initial consult and, really, you don't want to be reading those for the first time minutes before your procedure. I also had to pony up several thousands of dollars. I've put the money away in my Medical Flexible Spending Account at work (pre-tax! taken out of my pay check in manageable chunks!) but I have to pay upfront and then get reimbursed from my FSA, so I had signed up for financing (12 months interest free!).

So once I'd signed my life away, they gave me a valium and then, after we'd waited in the lobby for just a little while longer, they brought us into an exam room and then things started happening pretty quickly. I had just sat down in the exam chair when they popped me back out and took me into the procedure room. They laid me down on a special chair and gave me a teddy bear to hold onto (and that teddy bear got squoze, I tell you). Numbing drops in the eyes, and then Dr. Basti put a disk right onto each eye in turn and cut the flap with the IntraLase. (It's the pressure from that disk that caused the pretty noticeable clot in my right eye, not any of the lasers.) Interestingly at this step, I'm not sure if it was from the pressure or the laser, but everything was black and I could see little tiny dots of color, almost like static. It was, in the midst of all this somewhat frightening procedure, pretty cool.

Then, for each eye again, Dr. Basti put an ocular speculum (as Kenner pointed out tonight, wouldn't it be fun to hear Sean Connery say that? Ocularrr Speculuuum.) in the eye (think, though much nicer than this, A Clockwork Orange) carefully pulled back the flap and then let the laser pop-pop-pop away part of my eye to (customly) shape it. Then he gently laid the flap back down and went on to the other eye. And then I was out of there. In all, I was in the procedure room less than 20 minutes.

We took a cab home and I went right to bed. ("I just got up, I don't know if I'm going to be able to... zzzzzz.") I got up an hour later to have a quick panic attack and then slept for most of the day. Erica gave me a little blue dog to hold onto that she had used when she had her major life-changing elective surgery, and she stayed home from work all day to bring me glasses of water whenever I woke up and answer people's email all day about how I was doing. My sweet Florence Nightingale. Last night she watched A Prairie Home Companion and I lay on the couch facing the wrong way and listened to it -- it was much like listening to the radio show. ("I don't know if I'll be able to get to sleep tonight, I mean I was asleep all day and... zzzzzz.")

Today I slept late and then went in for my 24-hour checkup. "Looks fine," was the official prognosis. My right eye is seeing much clearer than my left, which makes everything a bit blurry and disorienting, but I went to work afterwards and I was able to get some stuff done. And I can see well enough to type all this. And lights at night have nice big halos around them. Hmm... I'm sure there's more, but it's time to rest my eyes. Gotta let them heal.

FAQs:
1. No, it never hurt. It was freaky, but there was never pain.
2. That white stuff in the corners of my eye is from the steroid eyedrop I'm using and I can't wipe it away because I can't touch my eyes for a week.

Based on my last entry, the Gender Genie says I'm a lady. A very pretty lady.

(via Making Light)

Four weeks left, 8 more chances to see me be a ninja and Chip be super-geeky in an already-geeky show.

I was a little worried about my fight in Rogue 8 (no contact sports for 2 weeks, my care sheet says) and I was a little tentative at fight call on Friday. But we didn't do the fight on Friday (it's in one of the optional scenes) and on Saturday it was fine.

I'm rather surprised, given how eye-phobic I am, but even after this short amount of time I've gotten really good at popping eye drops in. Drop drop drop. I'm a freakin' eye drops master.

I'm realizing that I need to be patient. Which I'm not. For the last 30 years, if my vision was blurry, I put on my glasses and, instantly, everything was clear. Now, everything is just a little blurry all the time and there's no glasses to fix it. (I tried putting on my old glasses and, woah nelly, that's blurry.) Patience and rest, Fuzzy. (Oh, and maybe don't watch so much TV -- I just finished Season 2 of Doctor Who and now I'm barreling through Torchwood. (How did Captain Jack get off Satellite Five and back to the 21st Century? Is this known?))

Erica's now in a very close third place, but what the numbers don't show is how proud she is of the very Erica Reid-y movie she made for this week's challenge. And how grateful she was that both Tim Nordwind and Mike Doughty came through to help her get the "use a celebrity" bonus points.

"Blink completely," is advice my doctor gave me about working at a computer, post-surgery, but it keeps resonating in my brain like it's some important life lesson. I'm not sure what it means other than its literal meaning, but yes, blink completely.

Last night I woke up in a panic twice because I had unconsciously put a knuckle up to my right eye to give it a good rub. I think (I hope) I got as far as applying a gentle pressure before the higher level "you're not supposed to do that" thought processes kicked in.

Halos certainly make the city at night look more exciting.

I ordered a pair of cheap glasses with flat lenses so that I can, if desired, be the 'old Fuzzy' every now and then.

Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin.

It took me several months to finish this dense, rich novel, but it was well worth the time. It's just a freakin' awesome read.

Last year I set myself the goal of reading 50 books in the year. No problem.

This year I set myself no such formal goal, and it's probably a good thing because I only just finished my first full book of the year - Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. Now, I'm not ashamed that it took me almost two months to read just one book because 1) I've watched a lot of TV and movies in that time, which is valuable media consumption as well, 2) the novel is both 600+ pages and dense, rich text and 3) it takes place over 100 years of winter in New York, so it was somewhat apropos to read it over the course of the winter.

But it wasn't bad to tear through a whole 1/4 of a book on the train this morning. Caviar is great, but popcorn is nice, too.

I had my one week followup visit today. My corneal flaps are "perfect", my eyes are "on the right track", and I can clean my eyelids of the goop left there by the steroid eyedrop I was using.

The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld

I read a lot of Westerfeld last year, enough that I think I'm pretty much out of books until he writes more. Fortunately, he's prolific. The Last Days is a sequel to Peeps, set in the same world, but focused on a different group of kids, who are more concerned about getting their band together than the looming apocalypse.

A fast, fun read.

I watched Infernal Affairs and The Departed back-to-back this weekend. If you didn't know, the Scorcese film is a re-make of the 2004 Hong Kong movie about an undercover cop and an undercover mobster. In typical Fuzzy fashion, I've actually had Infernal Affairs lying around for a couple years, but only just got around to watching it. It's a good movie, but The Departed is a great one. Of course, it's also a full hour longer than the earlier film, so there's a lot more room to flesh out aspects of the movie.

The Oceans 13 trailer made Erica and I realize we hadn't seen Ocean's Twelve yet. We had both enjoyed Ocean's Eleven, so we figured it was worth a whirl. Ocean's Twelve is a delightful bit of brain candy. Fluff, but nice fluff.

By the time they get to Ocean's Twenty, introducing the characters is going to take most of the movie.

Penny Arcade Volume 3: The Warsun Prophecies by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik

Penny Arcade is a webcomic with lots of video game in-jokes, strong language, and juvenile humor. I love it. This book is a collection of every strip that appeared on the site in 2002. Let me emphasize that those strips are still online -- you can read them for free. But I like having them around in dead tree format. I sometimes laughed re-reading a strip that I had read a few minutes before. There's something about PA that (often) plugs straight into the humor receptors in my brain.

It's been a long two month journey, but the finale of Impress These Apes is tonight. Among other embiggenings, the show has left the cozy comfort of the Playground for the grandeur of the Lakeshore Theater (3175 N Broadway). So if you've ever skipped coming to the show because I'd mentioned that the show was selling out, this is the week for you.

Erica's in third place, 9 points behind the leader, but the apes keep saying it's anyone's game. Erica's put together another very Erica Reid-y piece. Sometimes the judges have grooved on that (like the magic challenge), and sometimes they have not (like the film), so we'll see what they think tonight. Either way, I'm incredibly proud of her for completing all seven challenges so far. Good luck, sweetheart.

After the jump I've collected all of the videos of Erica's first seven weeks of Impress These Apes:

It's a sneak peak at the Intro Video for tonight's show. That's 8:00 pm at the Lakeshore Theater (3175 N Broadway).

Well, Erica did not win Impress These Apes, but she came in second and I'm super proud of her. And thanks to Ben Taylor for joining Erica for her oh-so-Reid finale piece (doesn't it almost look like they'd practiced or something?).

It's fun to listen to the crowd during Erica's thing and hear when people 'get' it. A lot of people figured it out at shangaroo kit. Justin Kaufmann, guest judge and professional comedian, never got it. Which might be the funniest of all.

One of the reasons I chose to do my LASIK at Northwestern was that their office is two blocks from my work -- so if, at anytime during the day I got, say, panicky about something in my eye and whether it was my flaps coming off or whatever, I could just walk over there and have them check it out. Which I did this morning. So, yeah, my corneal flaps are not coming off.