I went to a potluck for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight this weekend. I’m disappointed that Pacquiao didn’t win but not surprised. The food was really tasty though!
I made jalapeño poppers and bacon-wrapped dates yet somehow didn’t take a single picture of them. My parents had pasta salad, hummus, pita, chips, salsa, cookies, and candies. Mark and Elena brought ribs. Duncan baked snickerdoodles while Collin brought garlic chicken bites. I was cooking at the same time as Collin and got to try them repeatedly during the cooking process. Tasty!
gem brought pork buns, two flavors of homemade ice cream, and homemade guacamole. The buns had egg in them too and were delicious!
She also brought balut! Non-Filipinos always seem so scared of this, but it was tasty! I read about how different cultures season it differently, so I’m pretty curious to try it again with some variations.
Pete also decided he didn’t want his Ghostbusters sign anymore, so it came home with me! It lives in the living room now.
This was originally used during the chili cook-off. Joseph made a chili with ghost chilies, so Pete the sign for us to use. Since then, it’s been sitting outside at his house. Pretty sweet!
It was a really fun potluck, and I got leftovers too! Even Sumo and Angel got to eat some delicious ribs. Yay!
Friday night was ImprovCity’s Comic Book Day Show, and it was a lot of fun. The cast all dressed as comic book characters. There’s Alex in the center in his Rocket Raccoon costume. It’s definitely not Bark.
They gave out free comics too! I got Legendary Star-Lord #5 and Star Wars: Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir #1.
The show was hosted by Lumpy the Space Princess Lumpy Space Princess, and she did a good job as her too!
Here’s another shot of the performers. I wanted to ensure one with Speed Racer’s helmet got posted too. After the show, a lot of us went to BJ’s. I got a nice low calories salad, a martini, and then a delicious and unhealthy pizookie.
Today’s actually Free Comic Book Day, so I headed to Alakazam. I got the Jurassic Strike Force 5 one-shot, Terrible Lizard, Bodie Troll, Fight Club, and BOOM! Studios Ten Year Celebration 2015 Free Comic Book Day Special. I’m excited to sit down with these later, but I have plans tonight. I just finished preparing food for the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight potluck. Hopefully Pacquiao wins!
Last weekend was full of improv (as any good weekend should be). First, I saw HIStory/HERstory at ImprovCity again as well as their Thursday Night BS (Basic Scenes). The Thursday Night BS was one of the best improv sets I’ve ever seen. I felt like I was lagging behind, like I was still cracking up at the last funny thing when the new one came along. So. Good.
I saw the premiere of HIStory/HERstory on April 2, but gem didn’t get a chance to see it. I decided to see it again with her. This time it was shorter as they’d cut some skits. It was still great, and I understood why they cut what they did. You can see the Sasquatch family above. It still has a performance left at Second City Hollywood on May 6, so you can still check it out!
On Friday I went to the second night of the OC Improv Fest, hosted by Spectacles Improv Engine. I missed the first night because I wanted to see ImprovCity. I went with gem to this too, and we ran into James while we were there.
The night opened with Well-Behaved Villains, a team from La Habra High School. Following that was CIA – the Center for Improv Advancement. These were two teams I’d never seen. Next was IFL, which is always good.
After that was Big Yellow Taxi. I’d seen them before but was glad to see them again. They had Josh as the guest driver.
My favorite Spectacles team, The Mechanicals, played next. Who knew Alex would make such a good princess?
Jetzo.
Jetzo was amazing. They’re a two-man team performing kabuki-inspired improv. There was a lot of music and interpretative dance, and it was freaking hilarious.
There was also strange grinding on Michael.
He seemed just a tad red. I assume that he meant he was having a good time.
I don’t really remember why they got undressed at the end, but, yup, they did. I would love to see Jetzo more in the future.
Following Jetzo was Kind Strangers from iO West performing Tennessee Williams, and after them was KanYay! West. I called them “the cutest team” when I saw them at the OC Improv Fest 2013. Then there was White Women, comprised of seven very funny black men.
And then Rococo. Rococo was an improv troupe that included former Live Nude Lilan Bowden. I kind of stared in disbelief before looking over at gem. She just looked back and then said “Is that Lilan?” I was hoping to say “hello,” but I couldn’t find her later. I messaged her on Facebook the next day to tell her how excited I was to see her perform and that was a fan of LNP. I later messaged Alex and gem. “Lilan responded to me and I feel like a teenager girl who can’t. Even. Which is also how I felt when I first met you, Alex, so there’s that.”
The evening ended with Ranger Danger and the Danger Ranger, one of my favorite teams. How can two people be so funny?
I didn’t get a lot of pictures on the third night, but here’s one of Dr. God. I’ll get to them. I came with gem again, and we also ran into James.
The first block consisted of The Lobby, Galapagos, Holiday Road, Pick and Roll, and Now Improv. I particularly enjoyed Holiday Road.
The next block opened with Paul Vaillancourt’s Man Vs. Movie. It was a one-man, long form improvised action movie, and it was pretty great. Red Door followed, who I saw at last year’s Coup de Comedy and liked a lot. Pawn Takes Queen was third before Dr. God performed.
Dr. God has an interesting formula. After getting a suggestions, they monologue on the suggestion based on something from one of their lives, and they do improv based on that. I saw them last year and enjoyed them even more this year. If my memory is correct, it seemed like they did less monologues and more improv this year, but regardless, awesome stuff. Derek Mears was with them, an actor and stuntman who also performed at ComedySportz.
In the photo above, there’s a visit to the gynecologist.
Derek Mears must have been talking about something large.
And then he joined the scene to play the part of a tennis net.
That plank seems to have bad form… haha it was great.
Here’s an interesting twist. For most of us, the festival had a fee, but not for gem, who won $50!
The last block of the night opened with FlySpace. He spent an entire scene getting pet there.
After FlySpace, The Lusty Horde perform a long-form scene as an improvised sci-fi/fantasy scene. They were awesome, but it was getting too late for me. We left after The Lusty Horde, unfortunately missing Outside Dog and The Illegitimate Stage.
It was a great weekend for improv, and I have more tonight and this coming week. Woo!
Last week was Anela’s birthday! She was too busy on her actually birthday to do much, so gem, Anela, and I had dinner on Sunday night. We went to Gen in Tustin for delicious Korean BBQ. To pass the time, we went to both Kean Coffee and 7 Leaves Cafe. The wait was about an hour and a half, but it went by quickly while we enjoyed chatting.
gem gave Anela some macaroons with interesting flavors. She opened the French toast one and shared it with us!
The dinner itself was super tasty. We had hardly eaten that day, but we managed to put away a lot of delicious food. We did spend about two hours there, so I guess that’s no surprise.
We even had dessert! I didn’t know Gen had macaroon ice cream sandwiches.
I ordered the cappuccino flavor and wasn’t disappointed! I also tried the strawberry one, which was good too.
We split the bill two ways, so here’s half of what we ordered. It was a really good evening!
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!
I had a number of interesting dreams recently about which I thought I’d write. They’re probably not very interesting to anyone else, but they’re interesting to me.
Zombies
This dream came to me the night after I was playing Assassin’s Creed before bed. I was in a new city in what appeared to be a classroom. They were giving me a sort of orientation, explaining that the norm in this city was to travel by jumping from building to building and jumping into windows. For those that don’t know, Assassin’s Creed features that exact kind of moment, so it’s no surprise that I was dreaming about it.
However, there was a reason for this type of moment in the dream. The city was home not only to humans but also to zombies. The zombies weren’t very agile, so survivors simply moved higher. The first few floors of buildings were barricaded, and people lived above them. I do remember vividly that a zombie was hanging from a rail above a bed, swinging back and forth, which seems to contradict the idea that they weren’t agile. What do I know? It was a dream.
Later in the dream, moving on the ground became more normal. The zombies were slow, and one bite wasn’t enough to transmit the zombie virus (or whatever it was). You had to be critically wounded and usually killed by a zombie to turn into one, so they weren’t as big of a threat. People still resided higher in the buildings, but many would still walk between buildings.
At one point, I was at some sort of street fair getting food from a cart or stand. Someone yelled that zombies were coming, and gates were simply shut to keep them out of the area until they wandered off. One managed to graze me with his teeth, but it wasn’t a big deal.
Being robbed
Here’s a different dream! I was on my way to a theater with gem and Anela to watch a play but needed to stop by my place first. It was a small apartment, and I seemed to be really happy with it. It might have been new, but it was definitely cozy. Unfortunately, someone had broken into it. I don’t think they took a lot, but I was definitely robbed.
Above and behind my couch, there was a panel in the wall that could be opened leading to a secret room. I seemed to have been using it for storage, and I was very relieved that the burglars hadn’t found it. I have no idea what was in it.
The closet and theme park
I forgot about this one until I started writing the last one, but thinking about gem and Anela reminded me! In this dream, I was in a large, walk-in closet that was too cluttered. It was of vital importance that it become more organized for some reason. You could hang clothes on four sides, and in the center was a large table. I found that I could clean off the table, freeing up a lot of space. I guess?
Anyways, then gem urgently needed Anela and sent me to get her. She was at the theme park, which might have been a cross between Disneyland and a waterpark (get on that, Disney). I rushed over and told her to come back with me.
This dream makes less sense than the last two.
War
Here’s my last interesting dream. I was swimming in a huge swimming pool that was on the beach in some third-world, Middle Eastern country. The pool was built right in the sand of the beach, and the beach was absolutely huge. While I was enjoying the water with gem and Antonio, helicopters flew by and were followed with planes that began dropping bombs. We realized that the US was bombing the country, and we scrambled to get out of the water and run inland.
As we were running up the street, I realized I left my phone and wallet back on the beach. Despite gem and Antonio thinking it was a bad idea, I went back. I saw what looked like huge computer cases with the doors missing sitting on the beach. Large aircraft were dropping them onto the beach, and the sides were missing because they opened, allowing troops to emerge. These belonged to the side that was opposing the US. I was scared they were going to turn on me, but despite all the shooting, they seemed to accept me and not see me as an enemy.
I don’t remember if I found my belongings or not, but I left the beach and tried to find gem and Antonio again. After locating them, we ran down some alleys when a door in front of us suddenly opened and Alex Hurst popped out, telling us to get inside quickly.
Saturday I went to the Getty for a Watson Adventures scavenger hunt! gem planned the whole thing, and it was a ton of fun. Each team is given a set of clues consisting of a specific room number and a description of a work of art that includes missing information. Participants need to determine which artwork is the one referenced and then figure out the piece of information requires. At the end, you also need to figure out, from the information learned from the clues, who committed the murder and his motive.
gem drove Duncan, Anela, Jonathan, and me. We met her friends and some of their friends at the Getty. Here’s a photo of Anela, Jonathan, Peter, Rezwan, Richard, Duncan, me, James, Vincent, Sarah, Vivian, and gem! We had to split into two teams, and I was with gem, Jonathan, Peter, and Rezwan. With eleven total teams, we tied with two other teams for first. Unfortunately, the tie-breaker wasn’t kind to us, and we ended second. We weren’t good at guessing when the board game Clue was released. Oh well!
After a day of hardcore detectiving, most of us went to Thai Boom for a delicious dinner. It was a fantastic meal. Better yet, it was great getting to know people over dinner. It made up for not getting to spend time with everyone during the scavenger hunt.
Friday night, Daniel and I accompanied Anela to iHOOKAH in Riverside where she was performing. She invited us so there could be some friendly faces with her. Here she tries to teach me to dance with her while I awkwardly fail at it.
As we were leaving her place, there was a DUI checkpoint. If she’s not going to take a selfie, I’ll grab a quick snapshot!
Anyways, iHOOKAH was a pretty chill place. Daniel and I split a hookah and each had a beer, and it was only $20 or so excluding tip. The people around us were pretty fun, and there was even a small birthday party sitting next to us. They brought a cake! And of course, it was fun to watch Anela perform.
iHOOKAH even recorded it!
It’s been years since I’ve been to a hookah lounge – nine years maybe? I think it was back when I worked at Albertsons. I wouldn’t mind going a little more often.
On Saturday I got together with gem, Jonathan, Duncan, James, and Michael to explore a creepy old house. I, Madame Zostra, saw in the stars that we were to find things beyond our wildest imagination!
The game involves exploring the house, turning over random room tiles as rooms are explored. You’ll get into different encounters or find items, but you can also find strange omens. When an omen is uncovered, you roll a haunting check that gets progressively more difficult the more omens are uncovered. Once the haunting happens, a scenario is triggered that is determined based on the room in which the final omen was found and the omen itself.
In our scenario, James betrayed us. It was now him versus the five of us. He left the room so we could discuss, because each group had private goals. We could feel ourselves getting older and needed to perform rituals to stop the unholy aging process. Unfortunately, we made some mistakes in the setup of the scenario. James triggered the haunting, but it actually should have been gem who was the traitor, which would have made it easier for most of us.
In the end, we weren’t able to stop the process, and James killed us. Thanks a lot for bringing us to your creepy house, jerk.
Here’s the final layout, with the second floor in the top-left and the basement in the top-right. We should have explored the basement earlier!
Well, I, Madame Zostra, was right. We did find things beyond our wildest imagination. I just wish the stars had told me to stay out!
Sunday afternoon gem and I saw The Intergalactic Nemesis: Twin Infinity at the Segerstrom Center. I saw the first two in 2013 (and wrote about them) and have been eagerly awaiting the third.
The Intergalactic Nemesis is a live-action graphic novel. The panes of the comic, minus the speech bubbles, are projected sequentially on a screen while three voice actors perform all the dialogue live. They’re accompanied by a Foley artist and pianist. The performers are all a little more than their roles as well because they use gestures and facial expressions even though it’s also conveyed through the graphic novel. It’s really fantastic. All three books of Intergalactic Nemesis have audio drama as well as live performances. The first two have graphic novels, while Twin Infinity’s graphic novel isn’t yet released. There’s also a podcast spinoff that’s getting released as a novel soon too.
Book One: Target Earth is available on YouTube. Maybe it’s be easier if you just checked it out. The YouTube videos were produced by KLRU-TV, Austin PBS. I enjoy seeing how the content is adapted into different mediums. While the YouTube videos are recordings of a live performance, it’s still a difference experience in that the video is segmented so you can see multiple things at once. It’s a cool solution.
After the show, I had the performers sign my ticket so I could put it in my ticket scrapbook with the tickets to the first two shows!
Before the show, they had some fun activities. At the Foley station, gem and I watched a short animated video to get an idea of what was happening and then made the sound effects while they recorded us. We used a wind machine, rain sticks, shoes on a board, and a thunder sheet. After we were recorded, they played the video back again, this time with our sound effects. Being a Foley artist must be really fun!
There was also a voice-acting booth with Jamieson K. Price. He’s a voice-actor with a long list of credits including some Blizzard titles. He was Ga’nar, known to Horde players as a rather important orc in Frostfire Ridge! gem and I took turns reading lines while Jamieson added altered our voices. He was really nice, and I had fun chatting with him. We even got the chance to talk to him after the show, too!
I haven’t yet listened to the audio drama version, but I’ll do that soon, and then I can check out the podcast! Each medium is a bit different, but they’re all excellent. I highly recommend The Intergalactic Nemesis!
You must be logged in to post a comment.