Category Archives: UCI

Rude Boy, Wayzgoose, and reggae yoga

Lots of interesting things happened this weekend!

Friday night was the first screening of Rude Boy the Movie at the Frida. It follows Rudy, a Mexican-American teenager from Anaheim in 1984 who doesn’t fit in at school. He eventually finds ska and rude boys. It was a lot of fun!

Saturday was Wayzgoose at UCI! I walked to campus and spent a little time wandering around, taking in the festivities. It seemed a lot smaller than previous years honestly.

The Psychology Student Association had this awesome Adventure Time booth with sweet cosplay. I had to get some tacos from them for that! I hope tons of people bought from them.

Some people seemed to be practicing quidditch too. It wasn’t a full game, but they were definitely out there having fun. I talked with them a bit, and they seemed really cool. Quidditch sounds like a pretty fun activity, and it’s cool to see people at UCI playing! Thanks for all the info, Anteater Quidditch!

I’ve been going to Wayzgoose since 2007, and every year I get a shawarma from the Muslim Student Union. Yum, yum, yum. Besides the tacos and shawarma, I also had horchata, a churro, spam musubi, and a brownie. It was a delicious day.

The 3D printing club had a booth showing some of the neat things they made. Here’s a bulbasaur.

And here’s a squirtle. I like the bulbasaur more. I didn’t see a charmander even though charmander was clearly the best of the three.

The anteater was pretty cool though!

On my walk back home, I decided to walk through Middle Earth. I stopped to take a picture from Gondolin.

I also saw cool restrooms in Middle Earth. When I lived there, they were men’s and women’s. Now they’re both all-inclusive. Pretty cool.

I had to stop by my old dorm too. It seems weird to think that I lived there a decade ago.

Later that night I went to Sean’s reggae yoga workshop. It was a two hour yoga workshop with DJ Tory playing reggae music. It was a lot of fun. After the workshop, I went to an after party. There were a couple people I knew and a lot more that I didn’t. Everyone seemed really cool, making a really awesome night!

Coup de Comedy 2014

Last week was Improv Revolution‘s Coup de Comedy Festival 2014. There were a ton of hilarious events. While not everything was my cup of tea, the majority was great fun, and some groups were simply amazing.

Wednesday, May 7

The festival began on Wednesday, May 7 with the Improv Revolution / Live Nude People joint show. As a long time LNP fan, this was actually the show about which I was most excited. I particularly like their dance party game in which everyone on stage dances until the music stops. At that point, everyone freezes, someone touches the persons they want to see stay, and then everyone clears. After a short scene, it repeats.

After the opening show was the Revolutionary Comedy Awards honors Tony Hale. While waiting in line, we were allowed to put questions on post-it notes for Tony Hale to answer. gem wrote a particularly funny one, but you’ll have to ask her what it said. The event itself opened with a stand-up act, Sky & Nancy Collins.

This was one of my favorite sets from the entire festival. Sky & Nancy Collins present themselves as a wealthy married couple from the gated community Rancho Pico de Gallo in Orange County. I suppose you have to understand some of the Orange County stereotypes, but luckily I do. “We’re married to each other. I guess that’s okay,” said Sky Collins. Mentioning right off the bat that they’re friends said they were funny, prompting them to try stand-up, they nonchalantly talk about their normal life in Orange County, with their disconnect from the non-wealthy making for many hilarious moments. Sky & Nancy Collins are actually Marc Evan Jackson and Carrie Clifford.

Tony Hale was funny even though he wasn’t performing. He discussed his life, both leading to his role as Buster Bluth on Arrested Development and after. He seemed very down-to-Earth and gave a lot of life advice. He specifically mentioned that a lot of people seem to be constantly looking ahead to their next gig or stage of life, and while it’s good to have goals, he reminded us to be happy in the present. “You have value exactly where you are now.”

Thursday, May 8

The second day started with Awesome Sketch Presentation with Adult Babies & Humble Bees, a sketch show with performers (mostly?) from iRev. After that came Red Door. I remember thinking Red Door was very funny, but now I can’t seem to remember specifics, which is too bad. Next up was Octavarius, an improv team traveling from the future to keep history on the correct path by performing improv.

Following that was The Resistance from ComedySportz. Wow. They were amazing. The Resistance improvises action / sci-fi / horror movies on stage. Rolling around on mats? Gunshots? Monsters? Torture? Fight scenes? Fight scenes with strobe lights? Heck yes, the Resistance had all of these things. It was, of course, funny as well, but I actually got into the story too.

The night ended with Sparks to Fire. They performed short stand-up sets followed by improv based on those sets.

Friday, May 9

Friday began with the ClownMa dell’Arte show. This was the second clown show I’d seen, and I guess I must really enjoy them. It was a hilarious show that included one clown eating the flowers from stems before trying to get her heart’s desire to eat the petals she spit from her mouth. I also essentially had a clown grind on me. No, it wasn’t one of the cute ones.

Later I saw another awesome ComedySportz show – U-Sical: The Improvised Musical About You! They listened to some audience members talk about interesting events in their lives, including the man who knocked himself out by riding a bike into a tree, the woman who got to feed a bear cub (oh man, I love bears), and Josh Nicols’ story of how he delivered a copier to a hospital and got attacked by patients. It’s probably no surprise that we got to see Josh’s story, because that did sound like the funniest one. U-Sical did a great job, and I’d love to see them again.

After U-Sical, we got to see Carrie Clifford (of Sky & Nancy Collins) again in a two-person improv show, Razowsky & Clifford. After that was Stand-Up on the Spot: The Improvised Stand Up Show with Jeremiah Watkins. It involved a variety of stand-up comedians performing sets on-the-fly based on audience suggestions. I didn’t find all of them funny, but some certainly were. The night ended with an Improv Jam. I watched, but I didn’t participate.

Saturday, May 10

I started the day watching some Spectacles Improv Engine – specifically Ghostlight and FlySpace. Both are some of my favorite teams, with FlySpace performing more traditional scenes and Ghostlight always performing hilariously spooky scenes. I really like Ghostlight, and it’s surprising how often I get into the stories they conceive.

Following Spectacles was the Epic Open Mic, in which people tried their hands at stand-up. I think they were all students or recent graduates.

Next was another highlight of the festival – Twilight Zone UnScripted by Impro Theatre. It really felt like I was watching a couple hours of Twilight Zone episodes! I was pretty blown away. For each “episode,” the group would take a simple suggestion from the audience on which to base their performance. I saw a man haunted by vivid war flashbacks, a long line of mayors put in place by aliens, a woman preyed upon by memories of a fire in her childhood and scared of s’mores, and more. Impro Theatre also performing in other styles as well. I’d particularly love to see one of their westerns!

There were two more shows. First, there was The 313, who were very funny. The festival ended with Delicious Moments, a two-man improv team. I don’t know if it was just for this show or if they always do it, but their gimmick was that they each performed multiple roles at the same time and would run back and forth between them. They’d even interrupt the show at times to recap who was on stage under the guise of reminding themselves (but also, most likely, for comedic effect). It was very interesting and amusing. I like it when improv comedians/teams have a gimmick that make them stand out a bit.

And that was the 2014 Coup de Comedy Festival! There were so many talented people performing. It was fun to see Tony Hale, and of course I already know iRev, LNP, and Spectacles. I would totally love to see Sky & Nancy Collins, The Resistance, ClownMa dell’Arte, U-Sical, or Impro Theatre again. Hopefully I’ll have that opportunity in the future!

Celebrate UCI / Wayzgoose 2014

Today was Wayzgoose! I always really enjoy returning to UCI for Wayzgoose. It might be more fun now that I’ve graduated because there’s a novelty to looking around. There are campus tours, booths for all the organizations, performances, a car show, and in past years a small medieval showing (although I didn’t see any this year). While not part of the festivities, there are usually a lot of dogs on campus, which is a plus to me.

One booth didn’t seem to be setup yet, but it did have a guy playing his ukulele! gem joined him, and they played together for a little bit, teaching each other.

I had some spam musubi, lumpia, and chicken kabobs, which were all delicious. I was going to get a shawarma from the Muslim Student Union like I do every year, but I wasn’t hungry enough today. We also checked out the cars at the car show. I like looking at the Model As the best.

The medical center had a giant inflatable colon. In this photo, gem is poop.

We also ran into some Improv Revolution members inside the colon and discussed improv. It was fun!

I’m ready to begin the operation! This reminds of me of Trauma Center: Under the Knife.

We walked back to our car by passing through the courtyard between Engineering Tower and the ICS building. gem took my photo in front of Engineering Tower.

And I took one too.

gem stopped to play ukulele near Engineering Gateway too.

I still think UCI’s a really beautiful school. I can’t help but think, “I’d like to go to school here,” even though I already did.

Wayzgoose and Golfing

I had another fun and eventful weekend. On Saturday I went to Wayzgoose at UCI with gem, Collin, and Edward. Mostly I ate a ton – horchata, spam musubi, horchata, a chicken quesadilla, horchata, a schawarma, horchata, and a bacon-wrapped hot dog. And horchata. Seriously, I drank a lot of horchata.
We didn’t really spend much time at the medieval part this year. When we went over there, everyone was sitting around tired rather than fighting. Oh well. Collin went to buy an icecream sandwich from a little tent with one simple sign when he noticed it was being sold by the American Marketing Association. He pointed out that they should have better marketing. I have to agree with that. We spent three hours or so there, and the skin on my neck was mildly upset about this for the next couple days.
On Sunday I went golfing at Casta del Sol. Joseph cancelled, so it was just Pete, Jim, and me. While I was still terrible, I was doing much better than the first time I golfed. Too bad I still miss the ball a lot (and can’t get the ball to go far). The league is going to be quite embarrassing next month!
Speaking of next month, I’ll be going to the Lithium Network Conference in San Francisco next week. It should be fun!

Baby Anteater at the Santa Ana Zoo

I had to repost this video Braeden shared on Facebook. So cute!

Powderpuff Pilots Dress Rehearsal

I went to the Powderpuff Pilots dress rehearsal last night with gem, and we met up with Jenkins and Margaret. It was a lot of fun! Melissa had an awesome role, and she did a great job. It was about the first Women’s Air Derby in 1929. Besides being a fun performance full of good songs, it was also an interesting bit of history about which I knew little to nothing previously. Of course, I have since read about it on Wikipedia more.
Besides Melissa, I recognized a couple other people in the show. There were former Live Nudes performing, including Tony McConville! Woo hoo fun! You know what I wonder? Where do the performers look while on stage? Do different people do different things, or do they all usually use the same trick? It seems so strange to be staring at people who are staring off into the back of the room.
After the show we talked with Melissa and met Brandon before heading to Yogurtland. It was tasty. And Alex and I were wrong. Trader Joe’s is open until 10.
It was a great night!

Graduation!

I graduated today! I might have been done with classes for a while,
but today was my actual ceremony. My dad stayed the night last night
at my place so he could come to the ceremony. My mom, Pete, James, and
gem also came. I wasn’t expecting to know anyone there, but Jon was
graduating too. He looked much happier than I’m used to seeing him!
Gabby was there, which was a nice surprise. Originally I wasn’t sure
if I wanted to walk or not, but I’m glad I did. In the evening we ate
at Famous Dave’s BBQ. Very tasty!

UCI Zombie Invasion 2009

UCI Zombie Invasion 2009, originally uploaded by theuser.

Today a horde of zomies attacked UCI! There were about 15 people in the
group, with 5 or so in zombie make-up. They came up the stairs at the
front of the school and lumbered to the Langson Library. They walked
in, crowded around the elevator, and began to bang on the doors. When
it opened, they yelled, "brains!" and began to push into the elevator.
Two girls ran out, laughing but obviously a bit startled. I heard them
mumbling "what the hell are they doing" and similar things, but then
they said "let’s stay and watch." The zombies waited for another
elevator to come for a couple minutes before one yelled "stairs!" Then
they all began yelling "stairs… stairs?" It was obvious they didn’t
know where the stairs were. One yelled "stairs!" and pointed, and then
they lumbered towards the stairwell. I had to leave to go to class at
that point, but I heard startled yells coming from the stairwell as I
left.
The organizers want to make this a yearly tradition. I hope they do!

Papers and Presentations

Papers and Presentations sounds like the evil twin of Dungeons & Dragons. Anyways, I’m making an effort to post more.
I had a six page paper on video game consoles due Tuesday night that as of Tuesday night, I hadn’t really started. Usually the teacher is fine with assignments getting submitted anytime before he or the TA goes to look at them, and the TA wasn’t going to look at them until Wednesday morning. I stayed up all night writing a paper about the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii. It was fairly interesting actually. I had forty-something sources, but they were all web sites. I talked with Corey and Casey over Facebook about how we were all working on our papers. After finishing at around 6:00, I got to start my next assignment.

In my Classics class, each person has to do one “criticism forum.” For this assignment, I had to read a paper about how spectacle in ancient Greek novels represented political commentary about the Roman empire. I read the article and then wrote a few hundred words on it. It wasn’t anywhere near as stressful as the other paper.
I slept around 7:30 and woke up around 1:00. In Classics that day I had to talk about my post for a few minutes. That’s not really graded though; the assignment is the writing. We just talk about it in class as well. I talked for about thirty seconds before the professor started talking and let me stop. I think she could tell I was nervous. Actually, I wasn’t so much nervous as I was simply as a loss for what to talk about.
Today I had to present that video game paper. It was just a three to four minute presentation. I was kind of nervous. I know this instructor marks down for each “um” or “uh” stammered, for going over time, and for the normal not presenting ideas clearly. I got a perfect score! I was pretty surprised.
After class we went to Kaisen! I ate thirteen plates worth of food. I’m very full.

World

I’m bored in class again! I’m taking two other classes that I didn’t talk about last time – Game Development and an AI project course. Both ofthese classes are project courses, and both worry me.
In my AI project course, I’m working with gem, the Kubos, and Ethan. We’re creating AI algorithms to play the game of Battleships. I feel like we’re pretty behind. We’ve yet to combine code at all. I’ve been working on the actual algorthms, but until I get the file reader/writer and main game loop, I can’t really test my algorithms.

Game Development is worrying me too. Here at UCI I’m working with gem, Ethan, and a person I met in class named Tony. They’re all programmers. In addition, we’re working woth a group of artists from the Paguna College of Art and Design. Our planning has gone great. We know what we want to make. Art design is coming along well. I’ve been impressed with the concept art Ive seen so far, but we haven’t finalzed by designs yet. We’re meeting this Saturday for the first one to really discuss things.
We’re just getting started on the prgramming for it though. It’s due in about five weeks, which is not very far from now. By that time it needs to be playable, but we don’t really need it to be complete. It should have one level, a small selection of enemies, etc. After the class ends, I’d like to continue working on it. I know most of the artists feel the same way; I don’t know about the other prgrammers though.