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Friday / IU / photo / television / video — Comments Off
28
Feb 20

Ever see a two-year punchline pay off?

Unannounced. Unheralded. Barely mentioned. We’re to that point now, were you don’t even acknowledge that more of this happened today:

I don’t even think that was in the forecast. So, naturally, it snowed all afternoon and into the evening. At least it will be sunny tomorrow, and we may hit 60 degrees on Sunday.

I was thinking of that as I walked up the street to Studio 5, where this took place.

We tell students you have to do a lot of boring work to get the good stuff, sometimes, and today was one of those times when it paid out.

For two years this show has wrapped every episode with the joke “Tune in next week when Jesse Eisenberg and I …” and some silly activity. Tucker’s said that for two years. Today the punchline paid out when Eisenberg, who’s in town visiting family, declined a dozen other requests and spent a few hours with our show.

At the end of the show he did a bunch of the things the show had been promising. The production went well. That video was from my phone; the actual show will be released Sunday and it has real production value. The crew were thrilled.

It was a great moment for them, and he was so gracious with his time and input. We’re all terribly excited with how it all came together.

After work it was to the grocery store. I bought many items and nearly broke the self checkout system because of it. One needs supplies, though, and sometimes a great many supplies. A problem with the self checkout is that you must put your item in the bagging area, which is finite. And if you move things out of the bagging area, or don’t put an item immediately in the bagging area, the register is not pleased. Do that enough and you start getting warning sounds. Donk! Donk! And if you do that enough an error message appears on the screen: someone will be coming to assist you.

Not that I need the assistance.

Not that anyone is coming.

It’s a symptom of our times, I suppose. A system designed to element staff has reduced staff to such a degree that there’s no one serving in an oversight capacity.

And if you’ve ever stood in line behind a person in the self checkout area — or me, this evening, I suppose — you’d wonder how prudent that is. But, hey, Friday. Weekend ahead, groceries going in the trunk …

I had to type it three times. The first two managed to come out grocers. As if I was stuffing people in the back of my car just because of where they worked. What a way to begin a terrible short story: “He never liked florists. Or butchers. Something about the way they smiled and smelled. Cashiers and stockers, they were guilty by association, and so they’d have to go, too. Not all at once, of course. There was only only so much you can steer in a cart, just so much you could put in the trunk of the car. But if you are precise, if you are crafty, you could manage before the next bulk mail circular went out, or the store owner really noticed.”

Which, hey, for the first draft of a bad short story, might be OK. Feel free to work on it this weekend, punch it into something good.

photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
26
Feb 20

Just writing about very casual photos

Bought gas this morning. Watched the rain turn to snow and marveled at how gross the parking lot looked, which is to say, a lot like a wet parking lot in semi-dark conditions. It’s the most central European experience I can offer you today. Brown turns gray and it’s too cold to qualify as dank. And it was almost the first thing in the morning. But at least the price at the pump was good:

So thank you, Kroger fuel points for the discount.

Forgot my lunch today. I guess I was just too excited about fueling up. So I had to get a sandwich at the nearby sandwich place, which meant chips. Which meant choices and new packaging and …

Cool design, I guess, so they’ve increased the cool, but perhaps not the ranch. The look suggests a chip went subatomic and left only the excess seasoning. There is a little extra seasoning. I’m not sure it required new packaging. You could give me the new chips in the old bag and I would have thought there was a new man on the special spice machine last week. The new guy is always more interested in the customer experience than the corporate bottom line, after all. But that soon passes when the veteran first shift crew talks him into toeing the line.

At which point the new guy becomes just one of the guys, on his way to being the old guy. It happens overnight. Literally. Before he knows it he’s working a double on the third shift because that guy is the manager’s brother-in-law. Everyone knows he’s the weak link, the third shift brother-in-law. No way he’d be working that schedule if the manager liked him. But you know how it goes. And so the formerly-new-guy bitterly starts thinning out the spices.

And that’s when the new design on the chip bag is outdated.

But will you even notice? There’s so much going on, if you’re not leaving big, smeary, fingerprints on everything, how could you notice it all?

There isn’t enough extra cool ranch for big, smeary, fingerprints.

I took a picture of some of the wood stain in the garage, because I needed to make a note of it for my current project. I’m going to start sanding soon. I think. I hope. So here are some stain cans.

And so now I’m spending the rest of my Wednesday evening enjoying getting to go home with some of the day still left in it. Working late on Tuesdays and then having a regular schedule on Wednesday is an unusual thing. Challenging on the at the beginning, but the back end, this is a nice feeling: free time.

Makes getting gas first thing this morning worth it, I guess.

IU / photo / television / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
25
Feb 20

What do you think Gerald is really like?

Last night Phoebe yawned at all the wrong times. And, otherwise, couldn’t be bothered to cooperate. That blanket is cozy. So cozy that this is how she wants to be cuddled.

I wonder how that will work in the spring and summer after they are accustomed to a long winter. She can’t be bothered to worry about that in between her naps though.

But dig those two little freckles on her nose.

We went to Chipotle for lunch today — this is a problem with it being a block-and-a-half away. You visit a lot. Gerald is still causing havoc:

So the last four times we’ve been there — again, a block-and-a-half away — something has been out of order here. Got my order wrong, too. Gerald’s attention to detail is catching. At least they had forks this time?

Believe me, if I knew this Gerald character was going to become a real and so blatantly reoccurring thing I would have created a full backstory for him.

He has one, of course, he’s the third shift leader in charge of drinks at the local Chipotle. The rest is going to write itself. But I should have started detailing that aloud. If this keeps up I’m going to have to, aren’t I?

Television tonight. In addition to the two shows, they had a comedy troupe do a bit of improv. So the gimmick here is that everyone is in on the bit except for the woman in white. She left the studio while the improvisational bunch got a person, place and activity and she had to figure it out based on the context clues of Sarah’s inner characters.

To see the whole thing, which should be online soon, is to get the whole joke. It’s pretty clever, really. But, mostly, I’m impressed that the show that invited them in is now doing different little things every day. Last week they had the furry exotic animals, the week before they had musicians and they did a food feature the episode before that. It’s always nice to see the student shows feeling empowered to spread their wings, and to keep doing it. Better than doing the same thing over and over.

Chili tonight. And a lot of shouting on TV. Only some of it the debate.

We’d been having a conversation, as television people, about how you might obscure the other candidate from scoring points. Because, as we know, the real impact of a debate isn’t about the night of, but about the replay, the day after. Or, these days, the social media clips and the next day’s television replays. If you’re a producer, you’re looking for glib and pithy lines that fit in an appropriate length. You want clear audio. Not a lot of crosstalk.

So, really, if you’re getting whupped on the campaign station, turn it into a continual shouting match. And the closer we get to votes that are sincerely impactful the substance of the “debates” becomes less and less substantive. Sounds like the country of late, really.

cycling / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off
24
Feb 20

Leave room for cream?

Friday night we saw Bert Kreischer, who is as clever and frat-tastic as ever. He played two shows at Butler, and we stood outside in about 20 degree weather until almost the published curtain time, which meant the actual start was, of course, later. Someone said he started the first show late, and that it went long. So the rest stood to reason. That meant we were going to get extra comedy, but first we had to move seats. Because I sat in the wrong row. Joke’s on me!

Anyway, the show was terrific. If you like bawdy material it works. He can put the whole room in his hand and give them whatever he wants. The crowd control of it all might be the most interesting thing. They’re just stories. Stories he’s spiced up for maximum impact, and often even the tangents are deliberate, but how he can hold a room for 90 minutes just telling tales is interesting.

Near the end he basically took requests, because he’s reaching some interactive iconic level of comedy now. I assume that’s owing one part to his talent, but another to the times in which we live, how there are bits online everywhere, and how he has embraced the intimate part of fandom that social media creates as a bit of his act.

And of course he has to tell The Machine story because, as he said Friday night, a Facebook version of that story changed his life and put him where he is today, which is selling out shows across the country and about to premiere his third Netflix special.

The Facebook version of The Machine story works, he said, because the Facebook algorithm put a key, but unnamed player in the actual story as a top commenter and she verified the whole thing. You can look the whole story up on YouTube. It’s 10 minutes or so long, and if you like bawdy, over-the-top humor, you’d find it amusing.

If that’s not, however, your thing … errrmmmm … here are two quick cycling videos!

The Yankee got her tri bike. And this weekend she braved some cool temps and finally gave it a try. (It’s a cruel thing to buy yourself a bike in February and wait.) The fit isn’t there yet, but she looks pretty pro, don’t you think:

If that one is a little blurry I blame my upload connection and her speed.

But watch this one, she’s coming right out of the screen!

I’ll never be able to keep up with her on that thing.

Also, it is my turn to buy a bike. Hmmmm …

I should mention this:

Yesterday we had sun for a record-breaking fifth day in a row. I don’t remember the last time we saw the sunshine for five consecutive days. Maybe November, for sure in October, if I had to pick a definitive time. Certainly it has never happened here in February. Yesterday, even, we got all the way up to 56 degrees — making for an excellent afternoon for a run. Maybe this sort of weather will happen some more.

It rained all day today. We’re due for snow on Wednesday.

food / Friday / memories / photo — Comments Off
21
Feb 20

We are leaving the week behind

Quite a few years ago we impulsively pulled into a Sonic. I feel silly saying that because, really, how often does one pull into Sonic as part of a plan? We’re coming back from the beach and decided we wanted blizzards. We parked, the guy’s voice came over the little speaker and we placed our order, feeling a little like we were in a different era. Maybe they’d skate our snacks out to the car. Maybe it would be just like you imagine.

We aren’t Boomers and the guy wasn’t a carhop. He shuffled slowly, painfully, aimlessly, like there was nowhere to go. Like he didn’t know which of the other empty spaces this order was supposed to go. Like he didn’t know what to say.

“We’re out of spoons. Can I interest you in a fork?”

The blizzard is an ice cream with a thick viscosity, but, no, you can’t interest me in a fork. (We went to the drive-thru at the McDonald’s next door and said they’d forgotten our spoons and they, of course, gave us two.)

That was the precise wording, though. “Can I interest you in a fork?” So polite and, yet, absurd, that we committed to memory, added it to the lexicon and turned it into a perma-punchline.

The Sonic orbited a grocery store. I just measured the distance on Google Maps. It is 618 feet away. So my near-incredulous “Walk across the parking lot, walk into that Publix and buy a box of plastic spoons,” remains on point.

Today I got to make the joke again. Because we went to Chipotle (again) and they were out of forks.

Chipotle on Kirkwood, I observed, should join forces with the Sonic on Whitemarsh Island. Between them, they could maybe they could put together a full set of plasticware.

Have you ever tried to eat rice with a plastic spoon? It can be done, but you shouldn’t try to do it if you can help it.

Also, that same out of order note has moved down the line.

Gerald, the fictional third shift leader in charge of liquid refreshments, really is the worst.

Here’s the classic Friday evening photo. See ya, work week:

There’s not much better than putting it all in the mirror, is there? And sometimes if the car is pointed in the right direction you get lucky with the sideview.

One of the few things better? Terrific pizza:

We went to Indianapolis for the night, which meant we went to nearby Carmel for a decent pie. Because, again, in a college town with 46,000 students, you can’t get a superlative slice. Mellow Mushroom should always be closer. We’d be there every week.