1. Hey! Guess what? Now you can follow my Twitter updates from my website! Just scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see it in all its scrolling beauty. Thanks to Fringefamous.com for giving me the idea.

Q: Why put a new feature at the bottom of your page? Doesn’t that seem…like a stupid thing to do? Most people don’t scroll. They’re too busy, silly billy!

A: I wanted to put it at the top of my site, but when I did, horrible horrible things happened to my layout. So, it’s staying at the bottom for now where it seems happy until I can figure out how to fix things!

2. Is it difficult to replace a brake light? I know that replacing a headlight lamp is pretty easy, but does such ease of replacement span the length of the car?

3. I’ve had a few people ask about ordering tickets to the BNW’s holiday show. Just click here and the ticketing site will give you options for the final preview (tomorrow!) as well as for the run of the show! Neat!

Ok, that’s all. I’ll be sure to Twitter later on today? I guess?

Mike

1. New podcast is up! Enjoy!

2. I bought a new hat yesterday and by doing so, officially became an old man.
I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I will tell you this. This hat is the most comfortable thing I have ever worn. Ever. I feel like I should apologize to those I love for ever purchasing a hat like this because surely I will be an embarrassment to anyone I share public spaces with from here on out. What can I say? I have now officially reached the stage where I choose practicality over style.

Mike

1. Preview week at the BNW is over. Well, that’s not entirely true. There’s one more left on Thursday, the day before opening, but the truth is by the time that preview goes up, 99% of the show is complete. So in a way, I hesitate to even call it a preview mainly because the chance of failure and misery is so very slim. Let’s refer to it as the “almost opening”.

As for this weekend, I wasn’t surprised by the audience reaction to my stuff as I was reminded yet again, that my humor is an acquired taste and one that doesn’t necessarily resonate with…people.  As for the show on the whole however,  I was caught off guard by what the audience liked and didn’t like. Normally, I have a pretty good gauge for that stuff, but for this run my “audience-tron 550″ was a little off.  So, stuff I thought was pretty solid is probably gone and stuff i wasn’t sure about hit HUGE.  After doing this for a while, it was kind of nice to be surprised.*

Each preview was met with wild enthusiasm and I’m pretty sure a statue is being erected for Lauren Anderson, who in her comic brilliance, essentially put the crowd into a comedy coma**(***), with everything she did. I would come to this show is all I’m saying.

2. Kerry Wood is no longer a Cub. Most people will look back at his career and see it as something of a tragedy. Hall of Fame talent, that got wrung through the injury grindhouse. And there certainly is that angle. There’s no denying it. But he will always be one of my favorite Cubs, because he never complained about his lot, kept the game in perspective and frankly turned himself into one hell of a closer.

I was always impressed by him.  Good luck!

*I believe firmly in the show over the individual and kind of hate myself for starting off this paragraph talking about myself, but what are you gonna do?  Sometimes, all the editing in the world still yields narcissism, despite best intentions. Give me a break.

**You might think I’m trying to garner favor with this, but let me assure you, if there’s one person who I know for sure doesn’t read this blog, it’s Lauren.

(***)Everyone in this show deserves a statue. Whew. Dodged a bullet! By lying.****

****Just kidding.

Mike

1. First preview of All I want For Xmas Is 700 Billion Dollars is in the books, left to judgment of history as to where it belongs in the great hall of comedy.  There’s a great hall, didn’t you know that? Every comedy that’s ever been done ever, is judged by history, ranked and then sent to the great hall of comedy for inventory.

Anyway, preservation of that which makes us laugh aside, the first preview went pretty well. All the best of stuff hit exactly like we thought it would (can you imagine how annoying it would be if it didn’t?) and the newer material, when put in front of an audience stood up well and bent at the weak points.  Now, we clean up or remove the weak points and try again.

It’s a science really.

2. Have you guys heard of the band Parts and Labor? They’re pretty great.  I’m not sure how to describe them, but you should give them a listen if you like your rock loud and messy and layered. All of the songs on their latest album, Reciever,  might be best described as carefully busy, always building to a frenzied finish.  FOTIs. It’s been a while, huh?

Mike

1. Well, tonight’s the first preview for All I Want For Christmas Is 700 Billion Dollars. Per usual I am filled with nerves but not really nervous. Might I suggest you check out this preview so that you can see this show in all its weird glory. Seriously, this show is really, really goofy. Check it out homies!

2. Recently, my website has been nailed with spam comments.  Well, maybe they’re real comments and I just don’t know what 8Whf49*! means. Maybe 8Whf49*! is this year’s LOL.  Peggy Larson, in my haste to delete all of these comments, I deleted one of your comments. Sorry.

3. Thanks to those of you who have chimed in about whether the cookbook will appear via website or actual booky book form. It’s a tough call. Others, please feel free to chime in.

Byee for now!

Mike

1. I just don’t take the sun going down at 5 in the afternoon very well. It’s all I can do to will one leg in front of the other in order to glumly make my way through the day. It’s weird. I love fall, the leaves on the ground, the barren trees, the cooler temps and the girls in their sweaters but come 430-445 this sense of doom falls over me and by 530 I just want to collapse no matter where I am and sleep or sob.

I should buy some UV lights and rig them so the second I open the door to my home I am blasted with all its UV goodness.

2. On the plus side, I made some awesome turkey burger sliders yesterday.  The trick is to make the patties super duper thin. Just do it. You’ll never regret it.  Yum City! The only problem was that I didn’t have any pickles to go with the burgers.  Sliders without pickles are just…well, they’re just not as good.  So there you go. Make em’ thin and put pickles on the bun. It’s that simple.

1. The little Chicago warrior is in town! yippee! She sure is the neatest.

2. I am in tech for the BNW’s latest Holiday Extravaganza, All I Want For Christmas Is 700 Billion Dollars; Our 50th Noel. This is going to be one heck of a good show! If you like Santa, tampons, cooks, elves and boobies mixed with your pine scented potpourri then this show will be right up your alley.  Previews start this Thursday.

3. For those of you who are wondering if the cookbook is still on, it is. I am just ridiculously busy right now. It’ll happen. Maybe it’ll be a website? Yeah. Maybe.

1.  Thank you cable. Thank you for making it possible for me to watch Sunday Night Football in all its static free glory. Thank you cable and TIVO for giving me the option of watching Saving Private Ryan and allowing me to rewind the movie to watch a soldier blow up multiple times. Thank you for allowing me to watch Sportscenter so I could watch highlights of games I had already seen earlier in the day. Thank you for allowing me to watch a show on Food Network about a bunch of inner city kids who have been given a new life all thanks to a loving and kind chef named Jeff.  Thank you for allowing me to watch Kill Bill  Vols 1 and 2.  Thank you for giving me a legitimate reason not to participate in National Novel Writing Month. Thank you for everything. I love you.

1. Hi snow! How’s it going?

All the potted flowers in my backyard that I meant to plant into the ground before the first snow have now died due to my  negligence.  Sorry  perennials.  I’m a dick. I guess there’s a chance that they may still be alive come tomorrow, but I doubt it. I’ll be honest, I have no idea how nature works. Maybe as long as the ground is soft, I can still plant. But that doesn’t seem right.  Maybe, come next spring, they’ll just re-appear. Right? Maybe? Right?

2.  Closing weekend of The Lion, The Witch And The War Hero begins tonight! If you haven’t seen this show yet, you should really come on down. It’s awfully funny.

3. New podcast is up! Check it out!

1. Man, I’ve got nothing today. I wish I did. But I don’t. Oh well. I will try to come up with a few more things to talk about.

2. Cable is great. So is internet that works. No fibbing, my blood pressure has dropped considerably since I’ve said goodbye to mpls wi fi. Nothing fuels the rage like not being able to connect to something I pay for.

3. I have zero words written for NaNoWrMO or whatever it’s called. I will catch up. Hopefully. If I understand this contest correctly, I am 60,000 words behind.  Man, if you replaced the word “behind” with “ahead” and “words” with “dollars”, I would be so happy.

4. I am pleased that Southwest will be offering cheaper than the competition fares to Chicago. I am sad that this will begin after the holidays have already passed.

5. Last night after a cable/wi fi glutton fest. I read a book just to make sure that I was still capable of doing something that didn’t require a start up disk.

6.  Six. Six, I forgot what six was for!

7. Norm Coleman chiding Al Franken for going ahead with a state mandated vote recount by saying that it’s time for the country to heal is soooooo fucking dicky. I think I am a fan of instituting an election runoff. I think.

8. Bought a new coat the other day. This coat replaces my favoritest all time coat in the world which was lost during my otherwise awesome trip to Toronto. Replacing that coat (I had other coats, but none as awesome) was hard, because it meant officially saying goodbye. If you see me in my new coat, say hello and then take a moment to think about a piece of clothing that you’ve loved and lost.

Mike