Category Archives: Journal

HIStory/HERStory and the OC Improv Fest 2015

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!

Happy birthday, Anela

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!

Look how full of meat we are.

And here’s a bonus picture of Sumo.

Happy birthday, Anela!

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!

Watson Adventures – The Murder at the Getty Scavenger Hunt

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.

It was a good way to spend a Saturday.

Belly dance trip to iHOOKAH

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.

Betrayal at House on the Hill

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!

By the archive, it’s Intergalactic Nemesis: Twin Infinity!

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!

Awesome weekend of tacos, moving, ice skating, and clowns

My weekend was pretty packed with awesomess, which is the right way to pack a weekend.

Friday night I had dinner with my mom and Pete. Pete made tacos, tostadas, and taquitos. It was super delicious.

Mom offered to bake me a cake because this was the first time I was seeing her since my birthday. I chose chocolate, and I chose right.

After dinner we watched The Devil Wears Prada. I’d never seen it, and I enjoyed it.

Saturday I helped Darnell and Alex move to a different apartment in the same building. Alex’s parents were there as well. It’s always nice to see everybody, especially when Henley is as cute as he is. I think he’ll enjoy having the new patio! He really seemed to enjoy playing with the water – scooping it out of one container and pouring it another or simply drinking from the dog’s water bowl, haha.

I was so busy that I expected to miss celebrating Pi Day, but Hal and Mary Margaret brought a peach pie. After moving that evil dresser, it was good to eat pie!

Saturday night was ice skating time! My friend’s wife lives in Canada, but she was visiting, and he decided to celebrate with some ice skating.

We were a little late getting there because we stopped at Pinoy Pinay. I would have taken pictures, but I jumped right into the food. Yum yum.

There was a small collection of ouchies in our group, but we had a great time. Or at least I had a great time! I assume we all did!

Afer working up an appetite ice skating for a couple hours with Sterling, Chrissy, gem, Kelly, and JT, we headed to Umaya Ramen.

I shared some mini-burgers and had a few beers.

Eventually we found the lounge in the other room and finished off the night with sake. It was a wonderful evening.

Sunday was mostly a relaxing day at home (full of chores too actually). However, it started with a clown show! I saw The π’s of March, starring Clown Collage. It was absolutely hysterical. I could try to explain how great it was to see Alex, I mean Fransuave, drink some Tobasco, freak out, desperately drink something to cool off his mouth, realize it was Fireball Whiskey, and freak out some more. Or I could try to explain how he did cat’s cradle with a woman in the audience, how funny it was when he basically bowed out, yielding the applause to her. Or how much awesome it was when he came back later, doing it with a big rope, and how funny it was when the girl screwed up when she tried to help with the rope. I could talk about how much I loved watching Babs try to bake a cake to LazyTown’s Cooking By The Book before she heard Lil Jon join the mashup. But, well, it’s probably not very funny to read my descriptions of it.

I did get pulled out of the audience again this time though! The clowns performed Julius Caesar, but as they’re mute, they needed people to be their voices. I got to read the lines of Julius Caesar, which degraded into “blah blah blah.” It was a lot of fun!

Later that day I ate some bibingka, wathced Netflix, worked on my ticket stub organizer, and relaxed.

And that was my weekend!

Elliott’s first birthday

Yesterday was Elliott’s first birthday party. Thanks for inviting me, Sayaka and Anthony! I know I had a great time, and it looked like he did too!

Elliott seemed to really enjoy his yellow cup. It was the first time I’d met him, and he’s super adorable.

The food was amazing – lechon, salad, hummus, bruschetta, pancit, cupcakes, pork buns, ice cream, and more. I was nice and full after my first plate, and then I ate a few more. They even let guests pack up food to go!

gem and Elliott had a good time playing with the balloons.

Elliott was so smart when he received this envelope. He fooled around with it until he realized it opened and then promptly went about getting the card out. Once he had it, he tried to give it to gem and me. Sayaka says he loves to share.

When they were trying to get him to eat/destroy his cake, Sayaka dipped her finger in the cake and offered it to him. It looked like he was starting to understand, and he dipped his finger in the cake. And then he offered it to Sayaka and Anthony. Such a good sharer!

Some adults played some weird pickle/slinky hybrid game. I don’t know.

And best of all, we went in the bounce house!

What an awesome party. Happy birthday, Elliott!

Mathematical Adventure Time mug!

Last week was gem’s birthday, and we went to Color Me Mine to celebrate, about which I also posted.

This weekend, I picked up my piece! It’s an Adventure Time mug featuring Finn!

Or is it an Adventure Time mug featuring Jake?

Oh my god, it’s both!

Totally mathematical, right?!

Credit where credit’s due. I got the idea from a reddit post by /u/Corrupt_Core who was posting photos of a mug painted for him by his friend /u/Just-Another-Teenage. Thanks for the fantastic idea! I know it’s a bit sloppy in places, but I’m really happy with it.