Category Archives: Photos and Screenshots

Spectacle’s Star Wars show

Saturday, May the Fourth, was Star Wars day. (It’s a pun on “May the Force be with you,” but you all knew that already, right?) Spectacles Improv performed a Star Wars show, and as a fan of both improv and Star Wars, I couldn’t miss it.

The show was awesome. There were a lot of people I liked, and it’d be hard to talk about specifics. But I’m going to do so anyways. Alex was Yoda and the Emperor. He was great, and his make-up was especially fantastic. I also liked Jac as the Imperial cadet quite a bit. Lloyd was a funny C-3PO; I enjoyed it when he translated Chewbacca’s song. In another scene, he was being carried by Chewbacca. I forget the exact game, but it was one in which people step forward when they have something to say. The person playing Chewbacca walked to the front of the stage backwards, effectively volunteering Lloyd as C-3PO. They probably talked about it ahead of time, but it was still really funny. Also, check out Lando in the picture on the left. I forget the name of the performer, but I liked his costume!

After the Star Wars show, I saw Lloyd in the lobby, and I had the opportunity to introduce myself to him. I was critical of him on the blog previously, and I just felt like he had a right to know who I was. I plan on coming to a lot of shows in the future, and I don’t want to awkwardly feel like I’m hiding. He was very nice, I enjoyed talking with him. Plus to be completely honest, he’s becoming one of my favorite performers! He’s particularly witty and quick-thinking.

After a brief break, there was a Comedy Kaze show. They performed 45 scenes in 45 minutes, with the scene names coming from suggestions written before the show. My scene was “super itchy,” which they turned into a scene about a superhero named Super Itchy. His nemesis was Wool Sweater. gem’s scene was “a Cinco de Mayo Miracle.” In that scene, someone brought tequila to a party. They thought it would only last a short time, but miraculously it lasted for days!

It was a very entertaining night, even if I was jittery because of coffee!

Jackie and Kenneth’s wedding!

Saturday was Jackie and Kenneth’s wedding. It was beautiful, and the weekend was fantastic. I’m tempted to start talking about the actual wedding, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

We left Southern California early Friday morning at 6:00. We had some quick breakfast, stopped for coffee, and then headed north on the 101. The 5 would have been faster, but we opted for the more scenic route along the coast. Not only did the drive provide ample time to talk, it also allowed us to listen to many episodes of the podcast My Brother, My Brother, and Me.

We stopped at the Madonna Inn because gem had heard of it. It’s apparently a landmark of California. At least, that’s what Wikipedia tells me. It’s known for an exterior that’s reminiscient of the Swiss Alps, 110 guest rooms and suites with unique themes, and a waterfall urinal.

The coolest part, I suspect, are the themed rooms. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really see those without paying for a room. The exterior was neat looking though. The waterfall urinal was… a little gross. It was basically a couple drains in the ground with some water running over a fake rock above it. I didn’t really want to get splashed.

They did, however, have some extremely cute chocolates for sale. You can see what I bought in the photo above! There was a lemon ladybug, an orange ladybug, a strawberry ladybug, and a chocolate lamb. I also got a chocolate heart flavored with some sort of alcohol. They were all quite tasty.

We decided to look in the surrounding area for lunch. It just seemed like a cool area at which to eat. I didn’t realize it at the time, but we were in San Luis Obispo. We looked around for a bit before settling on Creeky Tiki Island Grill. It was a nice little place with great outdoor seating near a creek. It was really nice. The food was pretty tasty – I had a BBQ jerk chicken pizza, and gem had a great salad (and they were willing to accommodate a special order). We also had a chance to play with gem’s new camera!

After getting off in Santa Cruz by accident and driving around, we finally made it to Los Gatos. It was about 5 o’clock when we checked into the hotel. We were originally hoping to do a little hiking, but it was too late for that. We also wanted to grab dinner or drinks with a couple friends, but we couldn’t make it happen. Instead we went for a walk through a park and around a neighborhood. The trees were definitely pretty!

When we had our fill of walking and got hungry again, we decided to drive to San Jose to check where gem needed to go the next day. We went to Santana Row, which was a large shopping center. It was really packed – exactly the type of place I’d usually avoid on a Friday evening. We ended up going a few blocks away to A Slice of New York for pizza. Yes, I had pizza again. Their gimmick is authentic New York pizza. It was good pizza but nothing amazingly special. After dinner, I crashed pretty much immediately. It had been a long day.

Saturday morning we grabbed some breakfast before gem’s appointment at Dry Bar in San Jose to get her hair done. It seemed like a nice enough place. gem told me that her stylist mentioned that some people come to get their hair done multiple times per week. One wash, and the work is undone. It seems odd to get it done regularly, but for special occasions, it makes sense. Her hair looked great!

We had lunch at Blowfish Sushi to Die For in Santana Row. They didn’t have blowfish. Odd! They did, however, have something called the Ultimate Spicy Tuna consisting of spicy tuna, diced jalapeños, spicy sesame oil, fried jalapeños, habanero tobiko, spicy mayo, and Sriracha. It must be really spicy, right? Wrong. Zenko Sushi’s spicy tuna was spicier. It was still tasty, but why bother promoting it as “ultimate spicy” if it isn’t really spicy. I’m not even sure it was what I’d call “white person spicy.”

We hurried back to the Los Gatos Lodge to take the shuttle to the wedding site, Nestldown. It was a beautiful location. You can see one building in that photograph. There were flowers and tall trees everywhere. I suddenly didn’t mind that I hadn’t had the chance to go hiking. There was amazing nature right here. We also ran into some friends that we hadn’t seen in a while. I wish we had had more time to catch up!

A path led down some wood steps to the edge of a lake where the ceremony was to be held. I took a few photographs and chatted while waiting for the ceremony to begin.

This is no surprise, but Jackie looked beautiful. Her entrance involved the same stairs I mentioned. I wonder if that was an extra bit of stress. Not only were all eyes on her, but she had to walk down the steps in her wedding dress. Of course, she descended gracefully.

After the ceremony, it was time for some socializing and food. Our friend Joseph took this photograph of us as we waited for the train.

Did I say train? I sure did! gem said it’d be like playing Pokemon Snap; we could take pictures of wild Pokemon as we went along the track. Sadly, I didn’t see any Pokemon.

We had some cheese, crackers, and wine near another lake and chatted with our new and old friends.

The happy couple arrived via the train and made their rounds talking to the guests. We took some photos together; I’m happy to have the physical reminder of the memories.

There was also a photo booth, complete with props. People who know gem would probably not be surprised to find that her favorite was the mustache on a stick.

At dinner we received cards with name tags attached. The color of the card indicated our meal, and the name tags were labeled bottlecaps pinned to the cards. gem had the salmon, and I had the stuffed bell pepper. Both were quite delicious! We sat at the same table as Mai, which gave us a nice chance to talk. Dessert consisted of the wedding cake, a pineapple cake, and Oreo milkshakes that I didn’t know about until much later

With dinner came dancing, which was a lot of fun. There was modern music along with older dance tunes, and it was all great. They did a wonderful job selecting music. We even danced to Gangnam Style, of course.

As the evening came to a close, we headed back to the Los Gatos Lodge. We hung out and chatted while some people made an effort to finish the beer. I wasn’t interested in the beer, but I was definitely interested in talking with friends.

Sunday morning we had brunch at Hobee’s Restaurant. Oh my god. It was good. I had an orange swirl French toast sandwich with sauteed streusel bananas and toasted almonds. I also tried some of gem’s chicken, artichoke, mushroom, spinach, and cheese omelet as well as some blueberry coffee cake. Jackie’s parents also thanked people individually for coming. They were very friendly, and Jackie’s mom reminds me of her. After brunch, we walked back to the lodge for the final time with our friends.

Goodbyes are always sad, but they have to be said. We exchanged goodbyes with Jackie and Kenneth, Jackie gifted gem the mustache on a stick, and we left for Orange County. This time we took the 5 instead of the 101.

When we reached the Grapevine, I saw fire in the distance. There actually was a fire to the side of the road. Luckily it seemed under control, and I don’t think there was much damage.

By the time we got back, the day was done. I crashed quickly once again.

Congratulations again to Jackie and Kenneth! They’re great people and are both very lucky. They’re also both wonderful hosts. Hopefully we see them again soon.

OC Improv Fest night three

With the third night being on a Saturday, there was no rush to get to STAGEStheatre for the third and final night of the first annual OC Improv Festival. We ate at Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant a block down from the theatre, picked up some Starbucks, and then headed to the theatre. Once again we managed to snag front row seats.

The night began with two family-friendly sets starting with May Contain Nuts. I saw their Halloween improv show back in 2011, so it was nice to see a team I knew again. Honestly, I have no idea if any of the performers this time were the same I saw previously or not, so maybe that didn’t really matter anyways.

ImprovCity was second, and I actually was familiar with the performers. They were generally very funny, but certain parts were a little hit or miss. They normally perform Friday and Saturday evenings close to my house; I really need to see them more often as I enjoy their performances.

After the family-friendly hour, Dr. God Revival with Dave Holmes performed a double-length, hour-long set. They actually featured Dave Holmes! Okay, I honestly had no idea who he was, but he totally has a Wikipedia page, which makes him Officially Famous. My friend Stephanie pointed out that he was VJ on MTV. I assumed she didn’t mean my high school friend VJ so I quickly guessed a VJ is like a DJ but for music videos. MTV was definitely not in my TV rotation.

Anyways, I don’t intend to belittle Dave Holmes. I only knew him as the guy performing improv, and he did a great job. In fact, they did things a little differently, and I always appreciate an improv troupe that has something unique. Dr. God used a lot of monologues by Holmes supposedly based on his own life. He would perform a monologue for five minutes or so, and then the team would perform scenes loosely based on the monologue. I really enjoyed the monologues. I’d love too see an hour of just monologues. I realize lengthening a five minute idea to an hour might be a lot of work, but it’s seem conceivable that it could be done if a group of four or five took turns telling monologues, each person beginning when he or she had something to say related to the previous monologue.

After Dr. God was the The Reckoning. I don’t remember disliking them, but I don’t remember much of anything, and I didn’t any photos either. I jotted down that they performed longform. They were decent enough, but I don’t think they were great.

At 10:00, Ghostlight performed. The Spectacles webpage described them as “a blend of hilarious and spooky,” so I was really looking forward to seeing them. Honestly, they didn’t live up to my expectations. However, I feel like it might have been due to time constraints and the luck of the draw. I’d really like to see them again in a full show.

During their set, they asked the audience if anyone had ever had a supernatural encounter. One person said he had, and they asked him to come tell them about it. He eventually came down to talk, but it took him a while to do so. As he told the story, he seemed to stall a lot. I get the feeling he was joking when he raised his hand and didn’t mean to volunteer for it. I guess that’s fine, but it also ate into their short half hour allotted time.

“Strange religious harmony what”

I wrote that in my iPhone to describe USS Rock N Roll as soon as their set was finished. I don’t mean religious in the sense they were spoke about religion. It’s more than they seemed like a strange cult. They were either far more artsy than me or pretended to be for the laughs.

USS Rock N Roll performed longform scenes, but their transitions were very odd. Let’s say that in a scene, a person said “no, no, no.” Someone not involved in the scene would stick their arms and circle around the people in the scene as if a child pretending to be a plane. They’d repeat the word “no” as they did so, and everyone else would follow until there was a circle of people chanting. Some would say a different word related to the scene or the feelings of the last scene’s characters. Eventually they would all be chanting loudly together until breaking apart into a new scene. They had a couple other ways of transitioning as well, but this is the basic idea. It was the oddest improv I’d ever seen. That said, I really enjoyed it. They were also able to perform what was effectively multiple scenes at the same time. It was funny and very entertaining. (But again, what? Odd.)

Mission IMPROVable, from Santa Monica, was one of my favorite teams. I’m fairly certain they were a team of secret agents sent, in secret, to perform a comedy. They performed a lot of the staple improv games with high energy. I wish they didn’t normally perform so far from home, because I’d love to see them more.

The festival ended with Laugh Chance, another Spectacles-produced team. Laugh Chance decides what games to play randomly. They had three categories of games – A, B, and C. When it was time for a new game, Lloyd, the host, would pick a category and then get the audience to roll inflatable dice. The letter combined with the number of rolls determines the game based on a board. You can see it (through the terrible blur) in the picture. The games themselves weren’t different than games I’ve seen before, but I appreciate putting a different spin on the normal. It’s nice for an improv troupe to have something that makes them unique. They were funny, but strangely I’m fairly sure not everyone who came on stage with Laugh Chance actually performed. What the heck?

It was a terrific third night, but it felt weird for it to end. After three nights of non-stop improv (except for when they stopped at the end of the nights, of course), I felt like I was improv-crashing. On the other hand, I learned that using the magic of Starbucks I can actually stay up late, so I suppose the festival also taught me that I can always come back on Friday or Saturday nights for more improv!

OC Improv Fest night two

The second night of the OC Improv Festival featured local teams as well as teams from out of town, which was really cool. The show consisted of Secret City Comics Society (Fullerton), Upperclassmen (Long Beach), Kanyay! West (LA), The Lobby, Ranger Danger and the Danger Ranger (LA), Detroit Rock City (Detroit), StrongBose (LA), Acme Improv (LA), Puppet Mayhem (Fullerton), FlySpace (Fullerton), and Bat Manatees (Fullerton)!

Night two opened with the Secret City Comics Society. They were funny and friendly to the audience as well as family friendly. I liked them a lot, but I felt a little bad because the audience only had five people or so at the start of their set.

The Upperclassmen, from Long Beach, swung around on the family friendly scale to a much more adult show. They were very funny, but I couldn’t help but wonder how they can act silly and do improv without getting killed in Long Beach. I’m glad I live in Irvine now.

Kanyay! West from LA was by far the cutest team. Just look at them! And look at that sloth climbing on that man’s back.

The Lobby is another Spectacles team. With the Spectacles teams, there seems to be a lot of “in” jokes. The improv is still hilarious of course, but it seems like I miss out on the whole experience by not being a regular. It’s also odd that they’re listed as if they’re separate teams, but it’s really just different configurations of the same people.

Ranger Danger and the Danger Ranger from LA were unbelievably funny and just two people. They performed a longform about two brothers, their taco truck, and their quest to find one brother’s biological parents and restore Mexico’s gold. That’s quite the endeavor.

Detroit Rock City (someone tell me why I keep typing “Detroid”) came all the way from Detroit. I wonder if they really came just for this or if they have friends here or something. It seems odd. Regardless, they were amazing. Detroit Rock City, Ranger Danger and the Danger Ranger, and Puppet Mayhem were my three favorite teams of the night. Detroit Rock City performed a longform about three people on a road trip. As they drive, they slowly discover that one of them is a mass murderer who keeps killing people who “have it coming.” It’s the eyes.

StrongBose and Acme Improv were up next. Sadly, I have nothing to say about them. I just have to be honest. Sure, they were definitely funny, but you can’t expect me to have comments on every team.

I was looking forward to Puppet Mayhem the most, and they didn’t disappoint. Improv? Hilarious Puppets? Well, those are just awesome of course. Obviously combining the two who would make for a lot of laughs. It was great to see my friend Alex Foster, plus the team featured two of my new favorites, Michael Rosenbaum and, uh, maybe his name was James. I don’t know! I was amazed to find out that Puppet Mayhem has an on-going continuity as well. That’s such a fun idea and really makes me want to never miss a show. I’m definitely going to continue watching them.

The last two teams were FlySpace and Bat Manatees, both Spectacles groups and hosted by Austin Floyd. I mentioned last time that I didn’t care for Austin’s hosting style. He’s a funny player, but I disliked his aggressive hosting. In general, his banter with the actors and the audience seems forced, but I particularly didn’t like him cussing as his actors or berating the audience. During FlySpace’s set, he announced that their were smores under everyone’s seats. I don’t remember the context, but it was a joke that made sense at the time. After a few people checked their seats, he singled-out one person in the front, saying “You’re dumb. You’re a dumbass. You’re dumb for looking.” When the Bat Manatees were playing, he asked for a film genre. A member of the audience suggested noir to which he replied, “sounds like a great suggestion, but it’s shit. It’s just smoking and darkness.” Now at one point he specifically asked for a bad suggestion. Remembering last night, I couldn’t help but yell out “strangers!” As I was in the front row, he turned to me, laughed, and commented on how I must have been there the previous night. I suppose that’s encouraging the hosting that I don’t like, but I couldn’t help it. Regardless, I don’t think his style would stop me from seeing improv, but I really dislike it.

The night was fun one, and I’m looking forward to the final sets tonight. I can also say that getting Starbucks before the show definitely helped. On the first night, I was struggling to stay awake at 11:00, but last night I was fine even though I didn’t get home until 1:30. I’ll get some more coffee tonight!

OC Improv Fest night one

Last night was the first night of the OC Improv Fest at the STAGEStheatre. It was a lot of fun even if I had to stay up later than I intended. We saw Improv Shmimprov, Cherry Spitz, Improv Revolution, Fart Jar, Comedy Kaze, Improvfessionals, and The Friday Society. The OC Improv Fest is three nights of comedy featuring most comedy troupes in Orange County and some from out of town! Each team plays for a half hour. Thursday night was 8:00 to 11:30.

The first team, Improv Shmimprov, was my favorite. I’ve seen twice previously back in 2005. I can’t believe it’s been eight years! Some Live Nude People graduates moved on to Improv Shmimprov, which is why I saw their show in the first place.

They were hysterical, and their host said my sweater was quite dapper! Thank you! You can see them in the photo above. I particularly liked the person second from the left in the photo who was very funny (but as I wrote what he said I realized it was a bit too graphic to post). I also enjoyed the person to his right who pretended to be Saddam.

My second favorite team, shown here, was Cherry Spitz. First, check out the one guy’s hair. Glorious! The girl in that photo was so great. In one skit, she played a mountain. She was the best mountain I’ve ever seen!

Next was Improv Revolution. I have to admit that I think I was a bit biased. I found out that they’re from UCI. Why does UCI have two teams? Why wasn’t Live Nude People here if iRev was? Argh!

Also, two of their members just weren’t funny at all. In fact, they were bothersome. I did, however, enjoy their longform improv about the bounty hunter type person from the Gap.

The rest of the teams were all pretty funny. My only complaint is about the Improvfessionals. While funny, their host, Austin Floyd, berated the audience when he got suggestions he didn’t like. There’s no reason to do that. If you don’t like a suggestion, wait for another one. For some people, it takes guts to even speak up. I saw him in the Improv to the Future show and really liked him, but now my opinion of him has plummeted. He asked for a relationship between two people, and the suggestion was “strangers.” even if he hated that suggestion, which was fine in my opinion, he could have easily just used another.

The last team, The Friday Society, featured some people I had seen in earlier groups. They were definitely great, but their scenes were hard to follow because I had trouble staying awake. What can I say? I don’t usually stay up to 11:30!

My friend Alex Foster is a member of The Friday Society but didn’t perform that night. Luckily I’ll see him tonight with a different group, Puppet Mayhem.

And now I should stop blogging because it’s time for night two!

Ugly cupcakes

Look! Look at that cupcake! gem tells me “there’s an ugly cupcake downstairs with your name on it,” and I find this little guy. Yep, that’s coconut on the top. Ugly or not, he was delicious.

These are the good-looking cupcakes. I’ll admit, they do look beautiful!

Lost hamsters

After dinner earlier this week, look what I found in the parking lot. On the base of a lamppost in the parking lot was a cage with five hamsters. They were adorable. I watched them for a couple minutes, unsure of what to do.

I didn’t really want to just leave them, but what would I do with hamsters? Plus, what if it was an accident and there was a family rushing back to the parking lot while I stood there? In the end, I didn’t do anything. I sure hope they’re okay though.

gem named them Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe, and Tiger.

Archery lessons

gem and I took archery lessons this weekend! I haven’t used a bow since attending a summer YMCA camp in elementary school, so it had definitely been a while.I was surprised that it wasn’t physically difficult at all, although I guess we had bows for beginners. It was pretty fun! I wasn’t very good, but on the other hand, the sights were a little screwed up. I don’t think I’m ready to buy a bow, but I’d enjoy coming back in the future.

A birthday celebration at the Dinner Detective

To celebrate gem’s birthday, I got us tickets to the Dinner Detective, a murder mystery dinner show. I’d been wanting to do this for her for some time now because I know she likes mysteries. This was the perfect time!

The show was fantastic. It was incredibly funny and more of a show than I expected. I thought there’d be more mingling (and I wasn’t sure how that was going to be), and there was a little, but there was only 10 minutes or so of it total besides talking to the people at our own table.

Having actors mixed into the crowd meant that you weren’t sure if someone was part of the show or not, which really added to the fun. Everyone wore name tags with aliases. gem chose Charlotte Charles (“Chuck”), so I chose Ned to match her. (It’s a reference to Pushing Daisies.) Roleplaying was encouraged, which was really exciting yet odd. It made the evening feel kind of surreal. Usually when you socialize, you’re getting to know people, and you might make new friends. At the show, I socialized with people without knowing if they were choosing to tell me about the real them or a make believe them. I think it’d be fascinating and fun to throw a party at which each person was supposed to roleplay as a made up person. In fact, it’d be fun to attend a normal party and just make up a personality.

Unfortunately, gem and I didn’t figure out who the killer was. Despite having figured out very few of the clues, Pete actually won!

We didn’t get a chance to take any pictures at the show, but we took one after the show with our name tags still on our shirts. gem is holding her birthday gift from my parents. You can tell that Labbit is smart and distinguished from his magnificent mustache.

No more Disneyland

Our Disneyland Annual Passports are expiring, and thanks to the holiday weekend, Friday was the last day we could go that wasn’t a blockout day. We managed to go the Matterhorn Bobsleds for the first time since it reopened, which was a relief. gem really wanted to go on it last time we were at Disneyland, but they kept closing it temporarily.

We also went on Star Tours a number of times. Since it reopened as Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, we always get the same second scene, Naboo. We’d seen both introductions, two of the three first scenes (never having seen Kashyyyk, two of three transmissions (never having seen Yoda), and only Naboo for the final scene. We decided to spend our final time at Disneyland going on Star Tours again and again in an attempt to see the rest. We got to see Kashyyyk, which was cool, and finally, on our last ride, we saw the Death Star in the final scene. No, we never did manage to travel to Coruscant, but this will give me something to do in the future!

The fireworks show was cancelled, so we didn’t get to watch that unfortunately. We did, however, get an apple pie caramel apple. Then, on our way out of the park, we stopped at the front to get our picture in front of the “True Love” sign!

I miss my annual passport already. I don’t want to spend the money on it right now, but I doubt I can stay away for too long.