Orange Mamba, You're Fired!

Not to pull a Donald here... but I finally got to experience the orange Mamba, and I have to say, it's my least favorite flavor of the bunch. I was so excited at the first glimpse of the orange package wrapping, when I first opened the stick, but I just didn't find anything special about them. Blah.

Also, I found out today that due to the loss of a flex client my company is going to have to downsize our department. Nobody knows who they will need to get rid of yet, but we will be notified within the next 5 days...

I believe this downsizing mainly has to do with the operations team (i.e. claims processing/implimentation/etc.), and I've heard through the questionably reliable grape vine that us in the call center really shouldn't have anythign to worry about, but I can't help but freak out a little bit. Anybody who is going to be terminated will have a month or so before they actually have to leave, which gives them good time to find a new job...

Severence compensation will also be given, once the employee actually leaves... apparently our company's policy is one week's pay per full year of employment. Which means if I got terminated I would only receive ONE weeks worhth of severence. WTF?

As you can tell, today has been rather disappointing. So, I apologize for nothing shnazzy.

Bald Clowns Make Me Cry

The Humorless Albino Clown came to work today with his entire afro shaved off. His hair is now super short. It makes me sad because now he looks semi-normal. Our little albino is growing up and slightly shedding his misfit ways! Now we just need to stop him from texting while he goes pee.

I really am sad... Seriously though, what would you do if you were a clown and your giant afro was your trademark? You wouldn't throw it away, or substitute it for something flat or bald.

Don't you love your clown ways Mr Albino?

It's as if Fabio became a girl... all Fabio fans would be so disappointed that their hunky romantic-novel-model was now a really awkward and probably very ugly woman. Such are my feelings with the clown - you gave me laughs... now you make me cry.

On a lighter note - the entire customer service call center on the 8th floor is having their own version of the Academy Awards, and our small 6 person flex call center is included! We have many topics, and for each one everyone can submit nominations of who they think fits the requirement the best.

For example, this week the topic is "Best Overall Attitude On/Off The Phones" and all day yesterday people were making nominations. Today the top 5 nominations were revealed, and I'm one of them! Huzzah!

The somewhat sucky part is now everyone votes, but only our peers are voting for us, and since there are around 20 new employees on the 8th floor that were hired after my group moved down the 6th floor, there's very slim to none chance that any one of us in the flex call center will win anything. Of the 60+ people upstairs, a very large chunk of them don't even know us. *sigh*

We have a dead air Party Conference line that people can call into when they're working on projects - so it doesn't hurt their other stats - and I'm thinking of campaigning on it during my afternoon break. Granted, most times there's only like 1 or 2 callers logged into it at any given time, but it might help boost my votes!

Now I just need some slogans...

"Vote for Rob Rob, or get a clob clob"...

"Vote Rob McNamee, that's pronounced like Big Macs are Nummy! And no, I will not buy McDonalds for you if I win"

"Ladies and Gentleman of extension 4505. Vote for Rob in this week's Acadamy Awards. He likes you... in a proffesional manner only... and wants to make you laugh. Too bad he's stuck on the Island of Misfit Toys. Only you can pull him out of that slump by showing him he's still great! - I am Rob McNamee, and I approve this message."

"Vote for Rob or go to his show 'The Fantasticks' showing at Bloomington Civic Theatre every Thursday through Sunday for the next 4 weekends - if you do neither, you WILL be dead to him"

Oh man, I just got an e-mail from my manager telling me I can't campaign. Oh well. Here's to crossing fingers. I could use a lucky rabbit's foot key-chain made up of albino's dead afro right now...

Speaking of lucky... help me dry my clown tears, Britney...

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The Word Corporation Means...

boring... bland... statistics... performance reviews... rules... guidelines... suitcases... water coolers... a life of gray... gray suits... gray cubicles... gray coffee cups... gray expressions... gray hearts... no wonder why Milton was so attached to that red stapler.

or, it could also mean 'Town Hall Meetings' like the one we had today - mandatory meetings to tell us workers how we're doing - usually consisting of silly powerpoints that say "1/1 Wonderful!" and the like...

or, as one man said during the Q&A portion of the meeting, "The word corporation means 'making a body'. How is our company working towards doing that? I mean, even geese know to pass information to their next destination"

Shoot me now... please.

What do I care about how my company is working towards "making a body"? To me this either is some gorey literal meaning, close to the skin suit fetish in Silence of the Lambs, or it makes me think of being of one mind, as if I am a small insignificant detail and my only purpose is to serve the collective as a whole - wait, isn't that what I already am? Whatever way, I see no appeal in either of these options.

The topic of call center talk times came up, and boy was it the hot potato in the room. Apparently another of our offices, which resides in New York, has an average talk time of 2 minutes less than our offices - which EXCITINGLY means that their calls are shorter and allow for more calls to be taken every day. Everyone was asking questions about how the statistics of our offices differed - this mainly consisted of two guys (including the goose man above) pretty much complaining about all of the things that they have to do when verifying a caller or documenting a call - the other man even said that he was looked at as pond scum if he didn't include a tax id # in his phone log.

geese... pond scum... a room of hunting Minnesotans... what a party. These two men talked so much, about things that honestly didn't matter, that I think they answered their own question of "where does the 2:00 minute extra talk time come from?"

There was a greasy gleam on the meeting's gray caserole dish though - it was the "feel like a family" time towards the beginning of the meeting where the speaker gives us all a jolly corporate chuckle about their clumsy ventures. We got to make fun of him - a southern man - as he experienced his first Minnesotan winter. The slideshow was... nice, dontcha know.

At one point I turned around and there was Caboose - staring at me from across the room. Well, he was wearing sunglasses - at a corporate meeting inside an office building while it's overcast outside - but I'm pretty sure he was staring.

After the meeting, I came back down to my department to find the Mullet King shaking hands with... get ready for it... the air. There wasn't anyone there... I would be careful if I were you mr Mullet King - or someone might think you're making some inappropriate gesture!

Awww...

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Misfit #6 Harry the Kooshit

If I haven't painted a pretty picture of my work already, I will attempt to do so now.

As I have mentioned before, I work in a call center and there are only 6 people in my team. To make sure that we have as many people as possible on the phones at one given time, we have a "tag" system.

If you've ever heard of a 'talking stick', our system is very similar; just as you can only talk while you have the talking stick, we can only take our break/lunch when we have a certain item that is passed from one person to the next in a pre-determined order. That certain item for us is "Harry". It's a koosh - you know/remember those stringy rainbow koosh balls from the 80s/90s - but it's not in the ball form - it's actually shaped like a 'cousin it' from Adam's Family, but it's rainbow and has a sun hat and sunglasses, and to top if off, it's a key-chain!

I dubbed it Harry the Kooshit. - This can be looked at as Koosh-it or Koo-shit; I prefer the latter. The little guy/girl/it is cute, but the system, while potentially great, does have some flaws.

When you factor in the possibility that any given call could last an hour or more and that it could possibly sneak into your break/lunch time, or the fact that some people just simply forget to pass Harry on, we inevitably get really far behind our regular schedules.

My schedule is as follows:
10:15 - first break
1:00 - lunch
3:45 - second break

However, somedays it looks like this:
10:30 - first break
1:20 - lunch
4:30 - second break

and so far today it's been:
11:00 - first break
2:00 - lunch.

Oy.

I accidentally broke Harry a couple of times - the string of its hat that holds it to the keychain will unravel through the metal loop and detach - causing its sun hat to fly off. I think it might be time to intentionally KILL Harry... for good... 2:00 is just too late to go to lunch... any ideas?

What a vacation!!

Art! ... Deco!

I finished my new layout! I still want to change the main colors though, I'm not sure if the grays really work with the rest of the color scheme of the page, but I'll leave that for another time.

If you missed my pin-stripe layout, which I had for only a short time, here's a picture!


The spacing was off a little bit, and I didn't think it matched the "Center-spot" theme. So, I had to change it.

I pretty much spent my entire free-time yesterday making the 'art deco' background/banner for my blog and trying to figure out the HTML of my template. I was planning on playing some bioshock to finish my geek streak, but my blog's "outer wrapper" was giving me some hard times.

I did find out how to put a background image on my blog, as well as what margins, padding, float, $startSide, and $endSide mean and how to effectively add them to my blog. So the day wasn't a total waste.

On top of that - we had a performance, and it went really well - although there were some comments that for a Saturday audience it was pretty bland, but I didn't think so.

So, do you like my new layout?

Want to hire me to maybe do some graphic design on your page? Here are a couple of things I made that I totally forgot about...

A Livejournal Icon.

A random girl laying in grass.

A robot farmer and his hay bale neighbor.

A random alien guy - I could never really fix the flower...

A flaming magical hand... not gay at all.

A drawing of my grandma Hansen

A picture of some wonderful stockings that I took during a Rocky Horror Show Live! rehearsal...

Not sure what I was thinking when I did this.

A banner from another blog I had.

And I made some puppets...

I guess I just like any medium with which I can express myself!

Wanta Gypsy Robe?

Maybe I should have named my blog "Pin-stripe" as that seems to be the new theme of my layout. I just created the new banner and the background and they are completely temporary until I get the motivation to do something better. I want to do something art-deco style... hmmm.

Yesterday was very interesting. I woke up with very puffy and painful skin around my eyes, so I took the day off. I applied aloe vera on the areas all day until I headed to do our opening performance.

I was already having an off day, with the eye-fiasco, that when it took me 30 minutes to get bobby-pins in my hair, I just broke down. I refused to go rehearse the bows, got a little snippity with the assistant stage manager, and I ended up having a co-cast member help me. Once the pins were finally in, the costumer came up to me with a wig cap and said, "I hear you need this". I am so glad I have a wig cap now, but goodness it definitely would have helped to have it a half-hour prior.

Embarrassment was the emotion of the moment, after letting bobby-pins open the flood gates to the entire days frustrations, when I was suddenly awarded the Gypsy Robe from the last show (Urinetown)'s owner Michael Fischetti. I can't tell you how bad I felt at that point.

Long ago, actors didn't really have venues to perform in and had to tour with the clothes on their backs from town to town to do their shows. At that time they were referred to as 'gypsies' and they would take a little something from each town as a memento. Well, at Bloomington Civic Theatre we have a tradition where someone from each show is awarded the Gypsy Robe for having portrayed a wonderful theatre spirit. Usually its given to someone who has made some sort of accomplishment in the show - whether its making a change within their own acting career or making a simple change in their cast members' lives. The person it's awarded to then attaches something to the robe to honor the show and its experiences and hands it off to someone in the next show that they feel best exemplifies the qualities previously mentioned. It's a popular tradition for many New York theatres - and you can see the gypsy robe for one such theatre above - yay Avenue Q!

Only a couple of minutes before I got the robe I had pretty much refused to participate in a theatre activity (with reason though, as my make up usually takes anywhere from 45-60 minutes and it was only 30 minutes before the show started), and I had been stern with the asm and teared up at my station. I did not feel like I exemplified a wonderful theatre spirit at that time. I accepted the robe and apologized to a couple of people that had witnessed my embarrassing moment.

I am extremely excited though to attach something to the robe, I just need to think of what it could be - The show is called "The Fantasticks" and when I first auditioned for it back in High school someone asked "what's a Fanta Stick?" so maybe I could take the drumsticks in the show and put Fanta soda labels on them? Um, no... that would be too cheesy. This show is so beautiful, I have to do something that reflects that beauty. I'll think of something.

Meanwhile, I know my friend Meghan LOVES this commercial to death, so since we're on the topic, I'll post it!

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I'll Be The Indian, You Be The Cowboy!

Every day this week, and every performance for the next five weeks, I have had/will have to put on make up to transform myself from my 23 year old self to an old, old man. A majority of this is done through make up. I thought I would show you what I do backstage before every show in order to get this accomplished.

First, start off making sure you have all the essentials. A bottle of liquid latex, a container of face powder, a powder puff thing, blush, a blush brush, white face paint, foundation that is slightly darker than your natural tone, sponges, a shadow creme, a small paint brush, red make up pencil, an eyebrow comb, a hair dryer, a paper towel, your stereotypical native-american wig, your directions to the opening night cast party, and a bottle of water as it's just plain healthy.

Now that you have everything, make sure you get your mic pack on, pin your mic to the top of your head, and don your costume - in my scenario, a full body long-john underwear in red.

The first, and most time consuming, step is applying the liquid latex. Pour a small pool of the liquid onto your paper towel. With one hand pull the skin below one of your eyes so that it's very tight. Now take a sponge and apply it along the bottom and outside parameter of the eye as shown below.

Sorry about my twichy hands - I'm not the steadiest picture taker when I'm multitasking. If you can see the application area - about one inch thick - make sure the liquid latex is even and that you are still pulling the skin tight, this is very important.

With the help of my wonderful co-actor, Suzie Juul - who plays the ONLY female in the show - I can now show you the next step. With your plugged in hair dryer, dry the latex that you just applied on your face. Once dry, the latex will appear clear.

Now take your face powder and with your powder puff apply some powder to the area. This whole time you should maintain a nice tight pull on your face.

Once you have finished powdering, you can let your face go - the latex will bunch up causing wrinkles to form around your eye. Do this a total of three times on both eyes to make the wrinkles predominant enough to show up on stage.

Now, take the liquid latex and apply to the top of your eye - reaching just below the eyebrow, and just above the eyelash, as shown. Do the same steps as pulling the skin tight, applying, blow drying, and powdering three times to both eyes.

You will then get a very wrinkled affect around your entire eye. It helps a lot when trying to make yourself look very old onstage. Next comes the actual coloring of the face with highlights and shadows, but first we must apply some foundation to even out the skin tone.

TA DA! The make up will look a LITTLE darker on the surface of the latex - but this won't read on stage at all, especially after applying all of the other make up. First, we'll start with some rouge - I like that word more than "blush".

First apply some of the blush around, but not actually on, your chin, as shown. Highlight your cheek bones and also around the hair-line. Next we're on to the shadows - you'll notice a more drastic change once you apply this.

First, with your finger - apply the shadow just under your eyebrows, and, since I'm going for a sunken in cheek feeling, make two 7's on your cheeks with the open end facing your ears. Now with your paint brush make sharper lines from the outside of your nose down your "smile lines" to the outside of your chin, make some lines to extend the crease of your mouth, and a few lines on your brow/forehead (wherever they naturally show when you scowl/crinkle your face).

Now, take your white face paint, and run it along the bridge of your nose - this will keep your nose from blending in too much with the rest of your face. Apply some white on top of your eyelids, also to help those pop out more, and whiten your eyebrows - this is where you will want to use your eyebrow comb to help your eyebrow hairs stand up more and appear textured/bushy, otherwise you'll have flat white smudges on your face. Also, take your red make up pencil and use that as eyeliner instead of a black line as is usual.

Put on your native-american wig, and your headband of feathers and you are ready to go! From stage you will look marvelously older than usual, lol. Unfortunately, if you have my luck, when the photographer of your show takes shots, your hour (YES, this takes me about an hour) of hard work applying make up will inevitably go unnoticed...

Yay for action shots with my coworker/helper Suzie!

To see me in all my aged glory, order tickets HERE and see my show "The Fantasticks"!

WARNING: Make sure when you take off your latex (it peels off very easily) make sure you moisturize the area!!!! Your skin gets very dry, and if you don't moisturize the next time you put on the latex it will STING like no other... I learned the hard way and currently I'm sitting at home with puffy eyes that sting. It sucks.

Thank You For Calling...

Working in a call center I get many interesting calls. Apart from the standard calls asking for their flex balance or the status of their recently submitted claims, we also tend to get a few crazies calling in here and there.

One such exciting crazy happened to fall onto my line just before my lunch break today. I answered the phone:

"Thank you for calling the service center, this is Rob, how can I help you today?"

"ffar eee invitations?" - the woman on the other line sounded aged, and unlike a good wine the years hadn't improved her. Her tone was extremely soft and her voice, shaky at the least. I couldn't understand some of the things she said.

"I'm sorry, this is *company name here*"

"Do you invitations?" Do we invitations?

"We don't have anything to do with invitations, we are a medical insurance company..."

"ooh... nice to meet you!"

I didn't know how to respond to that. Fortunately, she spoke again before I needed to come up with something to say.

"you a party with invitations?"

"No, we don't have any parties, I'm sorry."

"Oh..." I could tell that her hopes had been crushed from my last statement, and even if she had snuck out of her padded room to make this call while the nurses had their backs turned, I still felt bad for crashing the party in her head.

"Well, enjoy yourself," she added very sweetly.

"Thank you, have a good day," I said.

Calls like these make me laugh, and they at least take away from the monotonous calls that my days are perpetually littered with.

There are six of us in my department. We get to be the voice of the company to anyone willing to hear; even when the majority of our callers aren't willing to listen. Five of us have a specific day of the week to do projects, which involves clearing out the voicemails and e-mails that come in; Wednesday is mine.

Yesterday, as I was emtpying our voicemail box, I came across a lovely man who obviously was very passionate about his flexible spending account.

"The next message is:"

"FUCK THIS!" *click*

"End of message."

I am honored to work in this highly optomistic, patient, and sane environment. It's what keeps me going through the day and it gets my bills paid. I just can't wait for a day to go by when everyone who calls in can show standard mathematical skills and understand that our company has an uncountable amount of guidelines set into place by the IRS and other companies, which we can't control, and not let their panties get in a bunch. Talk about a day when pigs fly!

If I could tell all of these peolpe one thing... it would simply be, be happy!! Be happy like us customer service folks. We're always smiling!!!!! ...

A classic:

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The Canine Caper

While on a mission that our agency had labeled "The Canine Caper", my partner-in-crime and I were standing in a dimly lit office, waiting for the man with whom we would do business to arrive. Our briefings had included us to be on our toes at all times, but being on your toes during a simple trade-off seemed unnecessary for the most part.

"There are things out there you will only believe on sight," we had been told rather vaguely before we had been sent on our way.

We were only waiting for a few moments before the door opened. My partner and I watched in amazement as a man-sized poodle walked upright like a human into the dimly lit office.

"Down!" the dog said with a rough bark-like tone.

My partner immediately kneeled on the ground and sat on his feet. The poodle turned it's head in my direction. He lifted a puzzled eyebrow and cocked his head to the side as if looking at me diagonally would answer any questions in his mind.

"Down!" he barked again.

I had a strange feeling that I should follow the advice of this poodle, even if I consciously didn't want to. Whatever this silly game was, I would follow along and pretend to be as brainwashed as my pathetic partner. I knew that it would be in my best interest for the time being, so I too kneeled on the ground and sat on my feet.

"Beg!" demanded the poodle.

My partner lifted up his butt, making a backwards L with his body, and attempted a yapping sound. His hands hung limp at his sides like a t-rex. His tongue hung limp from his mouth as if trying to catch some popcorn that had just been launched into the air. I followed suit.

"Stand!"

We stood up.

"Turn"

We turned around 180 degrees so our backs were now towards the dog-man.

"Walk!"

We started walking towards the wall. I noticed a marking on the floor a few feet in front of us. It looked like a square etched in the wood; a very large square big enough to fit two people. Cutting down the middle of the square was another marking. The poodle was leading us to a trap door!

I pushed my partner off his course. He fell to the floor with a hard thud.

"Where am I?" he asked. His hypnotic state had worn off.

"DOWN!" The dog spat. "DOWN!!" He started hopping towards me. I ran around the markings on the floor to the other side of the trap door. In his rage the poodle headed straight at me, blind of what was in his path. As he hopped into the middle of the square, the floor gave away and the poodle fell into darkness.

I hurried over to my partner, helped him off the floor, and the both of us started raiding the office. We found what we had been looking for hidden at the back of a desk drawer. Just as I grabbed the item in my hand, the office doors flew open with a bang.

The poodle was standing there, growling. An orange plastic ball was balancing on his nose.

"It was a slide into a ball pit!" He barked, and with a twich of his snout sent the ball flying up in the air only to come back down in his mouth. His sharp teeth pierced the ball and it popped with the sound similar to a gun when fired. The dog spit out the orange mess onto the ground. "I just wanted to have some fun! You RUINED my fun!" He ran at us, but my partner was quick and stabbed him with a syringe he had drawn from his pocket.

The dog tumbled back off his hind legs. He awkwardly walked around the room on all fours before falling over, unconscious.

"Down," said my partner, as he pushed the dog over the trap door and back down the slide.

With our mission complete we left the office on our way back to headquarters.

---this story was inspired by a dream I had last night---

Remember That Sunscreen Song?

Some advice to myself and to anybody else who wants some words of wisdom - do not spread yourself too thin. Make sure you always have time set aside for yourself or you will go crazy. Also make sure that you get enough sleep and try not to make it a habit to exchange your very valuable bed time for a not as valuable "me" time. If you don't get enough sleep everynight you will be cranky and tired and ultimately that will be worse than if you didn't get to watch a recorded show or play a video game - those will always be there when you have the time. Plus, going to bed earlier will make the week go by that much faster.

Be patient. Take a deep breath when you're feeling "touchy" and don't let it get to you. If you had a bad conversation on the phone, or you just in general have bad encounters with people lately, chalk it up to them having a bad day. Only you can stop the misery disease from spreading.

Pay Tony for the liquid latex - this is mainly for myself only - You might not want to spend a half hour putting the gross stuff on your face before every show, but you agreed to play the part so follow through. Also, you need to buy some more transluscent face powder, as well as new foundation, and while you're at it some white face paint and a new make up box; your cardboard Ben Nye box that the make up came in when you bought the student pack 4 years ago should be replaced. And don't get too worked up/nervous about auditions. You can do it, just relax and be yourself. You'll have more fun and everyone else in the room will too.

Work pays your bills. Don't have too many thoughts of taking days off. You needed the break yesterday and no matter how rough and busy this week will be you can make it through. Just make sure you go to bed early tonight. No more of this after midnight crap - not for this week at least. Not everyday will be slow enough for you to fall asleep at your desk.

Enjoy life

No video today - it's an exception.

DoML For Short

I took the day off from work today for various reasons. Mainly, I have been on a nonstop working/rehearsing streak that I needed some time off to catch up on my sleep and have some much needed "me" time.

One of the things I worked on today while sitting in my room was a book that I have been writing for a while now. It had originally started out as an idea for a musical - but after I had written the entire first act, including lyrics and a very small amount of music, my hard drive crashed and I lost everything.

The story was fun and colorful and being it really had been the result of much scattered inspiration I wanted to keep it going. Making it into a musical though was something I had been having a lot of problems with; some of the characters are young children who have to endure painful beatings, which nobody would ever want to witness - even if staged; and lets face it, I'm just not a good composer of music. SO, I decided to adapt the concept into a book.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a little summary of the story - keeping in mind those little paragraphs that you find on the back of a book cover, or on the inside of the flap - and to give you a more understanding of what it's about, I thought I would share it with you.

"Maddi Lavare lived in the same house in Paris her entire, miserable life. As an only child, she spent most of her youth locked up in its cellar and getting undeserved beatings by her father. It wasn’t long before the darkness, in both its literal and metaphorical senses, started affecting her mind, and Maddi soon grew to be one with the house's beautifully aged rooms and crevices. After her father died a premature death, Maddi, who was now in charge of her own path for once, kept herself shut away inside the house, hating anything and everything that lived outside of its embracing walls.

"Now, with her newly-deceased but still cherished cat, Martin; some imaginary friends from childhood who have never quite gone away, and an inheritance of two mysteriously related and incredibly snoopy children, Maddi’s place of inhabitance is starting to feel a little crowded to the middle-aged woman. As plans for a new dog park arise within the city, and the secrets of her past are revealed, everything starts crashing down around her; the bed posts, the ceiling fans, the murders and lies."

The book has a title in progress right now of "The Downfall of Maddi Lavare". I thought that maybe it was just too obvious of a choice and not inventive enough, but until I come up with something better I'm just going to stick with it.

I am currently starting my 9th chapter, and have written 81 full pages so far. It's proving to be a challenge, as sometimes I just don't have the motivation, while other times I don't have the time. It's nice to have both in this short window of opportunity - and THIS time, I'm keeping a copy of my work on a portable disk drive thing! Can't risk another crash!!!

At one point it crossed my mind to maybe write the book in french as well - just to practice my french writing skills (which need improvement) but then I thought that it would take up way too much time... who knows though.

Would you know the question "What orbits around the Earth" even if it was translated in french? I don't know what these french people are even thinking, lol.

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Half-ass Blog Post 1

I want to do a blog post a day - but some days I just might be super busy (like today) and when I finally get around to being able to do my blog I just have nothing to write about - SO, this is my first of probably only a couple of white I call half-ass Blogs.

Many people do half-ass blogs, like posting a picture with only a title, or writing one sentence for examples, and sometimes these blogs get a huge amount of comments - in my opinion, if the blog itself is not strictly about photography or one-liners, then I find those to be a poor man's blog. I admit that at times I will be a poor man, but at least I will admit when I do a half-ass post - like this one!

Woah!!!

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I Saw It, It's Alive! - Cloverfield Review

Disclaimer: I will not include any spoilers in any reviews I do on this blog. I myself hate it when I find out something before I experience it, (I even close my eyes and ears when the "coming up after the commercial break" sections occur on tv shows) so I won't do that to others. Alrighty? On with the review!

I saw Cloverfield last night at midnight, and as sleep deprived as I have been, I'm glad I did it. I wouldn't consider myself a very good critic of movies with regards to the popular opinion, but I do know my own likes/dislikes and it is here where I'll display them for this movie and any other random piece of film that inspires a blog post.

Some background information first - Cloverfield was actually named by the director, JJ Abrams, as a temporary title that he took from a road sign near where he lived. It was sent out as a code name so nobody truly knew what the movie was about, and it was intended that the title be changed to Greyshot, but the original "Cloverfield" had already spread and was popular - so they kept it.

What was the movie about? Well, JJ Abrams had been in Japan and had seen all of the Godzilla merchandise and thought it was about time that New York had its own Monster - I mean afterall, King Kong was only a big monkey, right? So, that's what he created; a monster that has come up from the ocean to destroy the city of New York and humankind, and literally deface our country's symbol of freedom. What a politically motivated beast!

The movie is told through a "raw recording" of the attack, and has since become top-secret video, property of the U.S. government. The film was taken by a group of friends who had only intended to tape some goodbye speeches at a going away party, until they were placed right in the middle of the horrifying event. The recording is them trying to get all of their loved ones out of the city and to stay alive all the while documenting the tragedy for whatever purposes.

I had a couple of problems with the movie, the main of which is in regards to the actors' reactions during various parts of the film; whether or not they were actor or director choices - they just weren't believable at points... let's do some hypothetical situations here...

If a gigantic thing just attacked your city and you got a glimpse of it, would you stand around and talk about it? Would you try to decide the best roads to take to get out of the city? Or would you just fucking run away from it? Of course, you can't understand a lot of people when they're running, but would you have to have so much conversation?

Here's another one... Now, let's say that one of your friends just had someone close to them be hurt or die in some massive accident... hypothetical now - regardless of the fact that many people around you are freakishly perishing by the second - would you sit there with a worried look on your face and say "sorry buddy" and then joke around about shit? Now I'm not talking about trying to 'make light of the situation' - I'm talking about the everything-in-the-world-is-fine-and-you're-laying-in-a-field-of-daisies kind of joking around? That would be virtually impossible unless you were Helen Keller and had no clue what was happening.

I just didn't believe that any of these people were panicked or even in shock half of the time. I think these emotions were attempted, but some of the time I just didn't believe them. Granted there's a lot of action in the movie that will mask these poorly executed emotions, but sometimes it just seemed painful. Now I understand that a movie has to have an arch - if there's screaming at the top of your lungs nonstop through the movie you're going to get bored - but at the beginning of the attack I was unimpressed with the unenthusiastic behavior and didn't know if I would like the movie - it did get a lot better towards the middle of the film though and kept a somewhat-realistic vibe throughout the rest of the story.

Other than that I thought it was amazing. The monster is very cool and not cheesy, which I was scared about. Some things about the creature are never really explained, but then again - how would you truly know where it came from or why it does what it does when you're looking through the eyes of some innocent bystander. It was very creepy and its 'sub-creatures' make for some of the best scenes.

Speaking of the monster - the special effects are amazing - especially for the style of video, they really make it all look realistic. Half of the time I was sitting there going, how did they do this!? Did they rent out parts of the city or just create A LOT of duplicate sets or what!? It's part of the wonder of the show, and it all makes for some interesting camera shots.

The plot line is also interesting. The movie isn't simply unknowns running away - you get somewhat attached to the characters, not horribly, and they have goals and obstacles during the movie that fill up the time and make for good action.

I also hear that there's possibility of a sequel - the current idea behind a second movie atm, is having it be the same evening and the same attack, just through someone else's life/eyes. It could be from the military's point of view, or someone that was on a water craft, viewing it from afar - and they could have a couple shots where they unknowingly cross paths with the people from the first movie. I think it would be a very cool idea. Afterall, a sequel showing a second attack or something would be boring and would probably make for a dud of a movie. Been there done that!

Go see Cloverfield movie and let me know what you think! It's very good - in my own opinion.

I can't wait to see this next:

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A Beautiful Set of Hypno-Disk Eyes

I came home from work yesterday to find a present that had been delivered to me earlier in the day by UPS. It was from Barnes & Noble, and it confused me greatly. I didn't remember ordering a book from online, and I would definitely hope to remember something like that especially since I almost never order anything online anyways.

With a little difficulty I tore open the cardboard wrapping paper and found, to my delight, a book of poetry titled "The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories" To those who know my artistic style, you'll know that I love tastefully dark, mysterious, and twisted stories - very similar to the style of Tim Burton - which this book just happens to have been written by.

Unlike some of his movies in the past, this book was nowhere near disappointing, but was instead very delightful to read and a welcome addition to my ever-growing book collection. It has many different small poems and a couple of longer ones, some of them have reoccurring characters or themes, and they all have cute little illustrations very reminiscent of the styling of Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride. It even has stories of Mummy boy and Stick boy who are close to the mummy and Jack respectively in Nightmare.

Here's an excerpt from the book - illustration above:

VOODOO GIRL

"Her skin is white cloth,
And she's all sewn apart
And she has many colored pins
Sticking out of her heart.

She has a beautiful set
Of hypno-disk eyes,
The ones that she uses
To hypnotize guys.

She has many different zombies
Who are deeply in her trance.
She even has a zombie
Who was originally from France.

But she knows she has a curse on her
A curse she cannot win.
For if someone gets
Too close to her,

The pins stick farther in"

My sister was the one who gave me this gift :) She was in her warm state of Florida when she saw this book and thought of me. She just HAD to get it for her little brother! I love it when little surprises are tailored to my personality, just like this one. It means more than some standard card or flower - which I always kill off anyway. On a short tangent, I have decided when I get flowers I will kill them on purpose by drying them out. I have a bouquet of dried red roses, which I love so much, resting on top of my bookshelf. That deep red color is my favorite.

Speaking of my sister Rosie - she recently moved to Florida with her boyfriend Dan, but she is home for the weekend! I haven't seen her in at least a month, which is a big thing for us as our whole lives before this we lived very close; even in the same apartment building once (with our own apartments). She was on the second floor and I was on the third. I won't go into how she tricked me and stole away my childhood bedroom, but it's all in the past anyway as when she moved to Florida I stole it back.

We talked on the phone yesterday when I called to say thanks for the book. She told me that after experiencing a Florida winter that she doesn't know if she'll ever be able to move back to Minnesota due to it's chilly weather. I don't blame her, but at the same time it's sad. My sister and I are very close, and thanks to her gift, I will have Oyster Boy and his freak friends to keep her near when she's enjoying the sunny south in all it's glory.

To think this movie is turning 15 years old. What the hell?


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"C2," My Fingers Punched

Let me tell you of something so horribly delicious but so junkie that I have refused to look at the Nutrition Facts because I want to eat them forever.

Mrs Freshley's Crunch Mini Donuts is the name, and tickling my tastebuds is the game! They're pretty much mini donuts powdered with coconut and brown sugar mix. They make me happy when I'm having a horrible day at work. What can I say, I eat my feelings. Thank god for theatre giving me a high metabolism!

Everyone knows I love them, and one coworker even told me that they would buy me a case of them... no strings attached... uh huh, that's weird. You would just buy me a case for nothing? What if I said I loved money? Would you buy me a case of that? Please?

We had a "get to know your co-worker" survey, and I listed 'Mrs Freshley's Crunch Mini Donuts from the vending machine' as my favorite food. It got a corporate chuckle during the "get to know your co-worker" get together.

Today, I found out that they added a second row of the mouth-watering goodness in the break room! I have single handedly changed the vending machine economy here on the 6th floor. Demand is IN for crunch and OUT for chocolate mini donuts. Too bad so sad for the chocoholics, time to jump on the coconut bandwagon I say!

My show opens next thursday and I'm already exhausted. I don't get a day off from theatre until the 29th of the month. I'm so tired. HELP ME MRS FRESHLEY!

I love this guy...


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Dontseemepeephobia

Guys in the coporate world are so weird when it comes to going to the bathroom, at least the ones on my floor are. A majority of them seem to have this insane fear of being seen in the bathroom. They purposefully will avoid anyone and everyone else that's in the room with them.

Granted, I'm not asking them to shake my hand as I stand at the urinal, but they act as if every other guy but themselves has some airborne disease that they need to get away from. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, such as the humorless albino clown who is so comfortable he texts while peeing... but that's just gross.

If you ever walk into the men's bathroom in my department and there is a guy at one urinal, but the other is free, you can pretty much guarantee that if you walk up to that empty urinal the other guy will pack up and run away as fast as possible solely to avoid some imaginary feeling of awkwardness. If the man doesn't run away, you know he's testing his strength not to - or he's completely comfortable with himself - these seem to be a rarity around here.

To my surprise today, I walked into the bathroom and both urinals were occupied, so I snuck into a stall. One of the guys flushed his urinal, and walked out - I didn't hear the sink. Then, the other guy flushed his urinal just before I flushed mine. I opened the stall door and the man was pretty much running for the door. Yes sir, watch out for my medusa eyes! If I see you in the bathroom I will turn you to stone and you will be embarassed for the rest of your life as we reconnect the pipes and turn your mouth into a bidet!

What is up with guys and not washing your hands anyways? Neither of these guys even stopped to do the somewhat popular half-ass and soapless water toss. I mean come on! First of all, it only takes a maximum of thirty seconds to wash and dry your hands (unless it's an air dryer, at that point you might take up to a minute). And if you're going to approach the sink, you only turn the faucet on with one hand anyway, so dispense some soap in the other at the same time! I know most of you guys can multitask! It's not hard!

When I leave the bathroom I almost feel like my hand washing was for nothing. There are two doors that you have to go through to exit or enter the bathroom, and in between them is a hallway of only 4 or 5 feet that doesn't do anything but connect the two doors, it's rather pointless, but with so many guys who don't wash their hands the two door handles are pretty much riddled with germs. I'm not a germ freak, but when you break it down I clean my hands of my germs just to attach other people's germs to them. It's kind of disgusting.

Every now and then the bathroom smells like lemon pez. It's heavenly.

There's also a smaller private bathroom with only one door, but I stay away from this at all cost. This is the crapper bathroom because it's built for only one person and the person going number 2 has all the privacy they would need. However, this bathroom was made extremely poorly and has close to no ventilation. I only walked in there once - when I was stuck behind a family of 10 people who took up the entire hallway leading to the other bathroom and were walking about .5 miles an hour. I will never go back.

Yay for family guy video today!


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Misfit Encounters of the Third Kind

Q: What's black or white and red all over?
A: Misfit #1 - Adidas Baba and his forty hoodies.

I was amazed yesterday when our good friend who is always wearing the same red adidas hoodie came to work wearing something DIFFERENT! Granted, it was a black adidas hoodie, but at least this proves that he isn't physically glued to the same piece of clothing, and that he actually isn't destined to wallow in it forever.

Although, my good coworker friend Jason brought up the good point that it might actually be the same red hoodie just dirtied to the point of blackness... which would be the complete polar opposite from my theory above that he can change clothes. In this case he would make flies and flowers drop dead as he passed; snow would turn brown from the stench and dogs would bark at the otherwise unseen odor.

Remaining optomistic that a misfit will not be my downfall, I would like to assume the former of those two ideas, and say yay! Let's throw him a party! Baby steps... baby steps!

Another misfit encounter I had yesterday was with the leader of Misfit #4 - the permed mullet king. None of the mullets that make up Misfit 4 compare when put up against this man's super chic curl. He seems like a nice guy, and he's always making copies and running around with a box of paper. I don't think I've heard him say one word, but that's how mullets work - they conspire in secrets.

Yesterday, I walked by the small copy room - which isn't too far from my cube - and the king was in there, doing what he usually does, and all of a sudden a huge whiff of fruit struck my nostrils as I meandered by. Misfit #4 smells like pears. Maybe he's made of pears and all of his mullet followers are pear wannabes? That would be scary. Maybe it's his shampoo. Either way, it was interesting.

Then, today... I made contact with Curls. I was getting help from one of our claims processors when he came up to her desk and said "Happy Birthday! Wait, now who's birthday is it? Yours?" he said, pointing at me "Or hers?"

"Hers!" I quickly spat back. Whatever this birthday present was I didn't want it. It was probably some kind of alien puree'ed pear vomit.

"Alright, well Happy Birthday!" He threw down some pre-opened envelopes onto her desk and walked back down the isle of cubicles saying to everyone "Sorry! No more presents today! Ha ha ha... ha"

My claims processer friend turned to me and said "We don't like his presents."

They must be secret mullet presents that are given to people to make them busy so the mullets can then have easy access at controlling the world!

I have never seen this movie... but my sister hates the potato scene, or that's what I remember her saying... hmmmm


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I Feel Naked Without It!

I left my wallet at home.

Thankfully I brought a pre-made lunch; leftovers from yesterday's amazing dinner prepared ever so wonderfully by my excellent chef of a father, dad. It consists of pork roast, peas, juliene potatoes, and stuffing (a.k.a. dressing) - this cheesy heaven potato dish and this stuffing are two of my favorite things to eat, soooo yummy.

Unfortunately, I was in the mood for my daily diet doctor pepper and I was going to spin the Mamba lottery wheel again, but it was probably for the best I didn't have a way to pay for it. It's probably a sign saying - you just bought a 360, save your money.

This kind of thing hasn't happened to me in a while - I have been very good at keeping my wallet with me - I just happened to take it out yesterday to write down my flexible spending debit card number on a bill I just got from my chiropractor and I forgot to put it back in my jacket pocket. Usually I forget it in a time where it isn't necessary to have it - like today... but there have been a couple of times where I did need it...

The very first time I was pulled over for speeding I was driving in my father's truck to a callback with Minneaolis Musical Theatre. I didn't have my wallet on me, which meant I didn't have my liscence. Add it to the fact that my dad had a bandana hung from the rear view mirror which is against the law, you can see why my first time talking to a police officer on the side of the road was horrifying and traumatic. I ended up driving away with a pretty hefty fine.

Then there's the time I forgot my wallet when I was on a date. It wasn't anything big, we were just going to the Green Mill in Uptown for some eats, and AFTER we ate I realized I didn't have my wallet... it was a first date so they didn't truly know how clumsy and forgetful I can be, and they probably thought I had planned it... I promised to pay for the next meal but there wasn't a next meal, lol. I wonder why... I still feel bad about that day.

Today I will take my absent wallet as a sign and I will be healthy. I will eat my well-rounded lunch without snacking on sugars afterwards or drowning myself in carbination, good thing I have my water bottle!

I've been wanting to go back home and play xbox all day - it's addicting! Here's a video from the game Portal, I described in my last entry - it's a fun game but you can easily get turned around when you're going through a portal - listen to the comedic robot voice that describes the board for you. A fun puzzle game!

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It's Like Culture Shock, But From Games

I bought the system, along with The Orange Box and Bioshock, which came with a free copy of The Darkness. So being that The Orange Box has 5 games in it, I walked out of the store with 7 games for the price of 2. Sweetness! I then got home and realized that every last one of those 7 games were first person shooters. Funny thing, apart from a couple of James Bond games, I have never really owned any shooter games, mainly because they scare the shit out of me.

First, I played a little bit of Half-Life 2 (a game in The Orange Box). The graphics are amazing in this game! I'm in this city and there's this blue tower that goes up above the clouds, and I zoom in to see that panels of the tower are moving and there are birds flying around it... it looks like I'm watching a real life video of birds flying around a tower. I got a little freaked out by the monsters and so I decided to try another game in The Orange Box called Portal.

Portal is a very fun, puzzle-game. It's a shooter-styled game, but your only weapon creates harmless portals, and the only enemies are androids that sit in one stationary position, so it's not like you could turn around to some scary ass half-dead guy running at you with a knife. There was a funny computerized voice in the game that would tell you about the levels. The only creepy part of the game was towards the end when you were done with the tests and you were trying to escape the building... the computerized voice was eerie with the music. I beat Portal, and now have a goal to get all of the achievements.

That's another super cool thing about Xbox 360 - you create a profile and every game you play there are these things called "achievements" which are tiny goals that you get little badges for. For example, while playing Half-life there's one achievement that you get for obtaining the crowbar - it happens automatically in the story, but they're tiny goals like that, some of which are tedious like Portal's "destroy all 35 video cameras throughout all levels" or they can be fun challenges like Bioshock's "electrocute an enemy who's standing in water." Your profile tracks all of your achievements in one big list for all the games, they're fun side goals.

I started playing Bioshock today, and my god that's a creepy game, but it's very fun. I have only played it for about a half hour, and I already have 4 weapons. The graphics are also amazing in this game, along with a storyline that's extremely intersting - your plan crashes and you find a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean and inside there is a water craft that takes you to an underground city created by a man who wanted to experiment with science without all the hassles of laws, but things went wrong and now these scientific and altered freaks rebelled and you have to help the "good citizens" that remain. I'm sure there's more to it, but so far that's what I've uncovered, lol.

THis is probably a boring blog for most of you, but of all the systems I've owned - which include a lot of systems - I have never had so much fun and been so awed by the graphics in EVERY game within the first day as I have been with the Xbox 360 - I highly recommend it. I can't wait to get an rpg or a puzzle game for it.

Here's a video trailer for Bioshock depicting the city and one of the worst enemies in the game - The Little Sister and The Big Daddy, a small but evil child who is protected by a huge tank of a beast. It also shows how insanely imaginative the weapons are.

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Fast Forward to the Gaming!

Now that I'm living at home, and I don't have too many bills, I have the opportunity of making some nice purchases that I otherwise would have to take weeks saving up for. I got paid yesterday, and it was in my plan today to go out and by an Xbox 360. I'm a gaming guy, I grew up in a neighborhood with no other kids, and while playing house with my sister was fun, I pretty much entertained myself - mostly with video games.

Being more mature, I now have many hobbies such as writing and reading and practicing tap dance that I can do by myself, but I still get the gaming itch every now and then. So, I was going to get up this morning, clean my room, and go buy an Xbox 360 along with The Orange Box set and Bioshock; however, my mood changed a little as I cleaned my room.

I like to clean with background noise/music/movies -- today it was the movie Click which had just arrived yesterday by netflix. There I was thinking, this is the perfect movie to watch while cleaning - it's a happy go lucky comedy with the amazing talents of Christopher Walken, Jennifer Coolidge, The Hoff, among others... how can I go wrong!? Well, let me tell you - this movie is depressing. It has a wonderful moral and in the end you just want to hug every living thing and family member you have, but before you get there you're dragged through the mud on an adventure filled with fun feelings such as loneliness and hopelessness.

I haven't cried cleaning my room since I was seven and in protest of obeying my mother's orders to pick up my mess. These Saturday viewings that bring up unexpected emotions/vomit have to end!

Anyway, now that I've watched the film, I am torn. Do I go buy an Xbox 360 to get instant pleasure that will eventually and rather quickly become outdated by some new gaming system? Or do I put that money towards the future down payment that I'm saving up for? It would be a nice chunk in my savings account, but then again, why should I be in such a hurry to leave? It's one of the morals of the movie to appreciate family and not try to rush through things... I mean, I should at least buy my future plasma flat screen before I move out and have no extra money until I retire! It's only logical. I don't want to be stuck with a super old tv and no Xbox 360 forever!

I think this one is settled. I can buy the gaming system, and if I ever feel bad I just won't play it, and instead I'll spend very good quality time appreciating my family. That sounds like a good plan, Stan! Thank you blog and the movie Click for helping me sort out my priorities!

I found this clip of a casting shoot for an Xbox 360 ad, pun intended... (you can see the finished ad in the clip's menu - it ended up being banned from tv) makes sense... don't worry mom, I'm not going to have these tendencies after playing.


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There Are A Lot of Lights, When You're Not Looking at the Sun

Call me slow, but you know what I just realized a little earlier today? The background to my blog - which is one of the blogger-created layouts - in my opinion looks like the many lights on the set of the Larry King Live Show.

There are two tv's in the lobby of the Bloomington City Hall - which is where Bloomington Civic Theatre performs and where I've been rehearsing for The Fantasticks - and it's always turned to CNN. During our break today I went out to the Lobby, and saw that the Larry King Live Show was on. The backdrop on his set is a bunch of small colored lights (mainly blue) that create the shape of the continents. Maybe that was Blogger's inspiration... I just never thought of it until I saw it.

ANYWAY, I was thinking about what to possibly write about in tomorrow's (today's) blog last night as I was laying in bed, and my mind wandered to things that go bump in the night... Well, I used to be scared of the dark to the point where I would NOT allow myself to sleep in a pitch black room - I didn't like the time it took for my eyes to adjust. My thoughts would always go to the scene in Silence of The Lambs when Anthony Hopkins is watching Jodie Foster through night vision goggles in the basement. I was too creeped out in thinking that some cannibal was looking at me clear as day only a foot or so away from my face when I couldn't see him at all... what would that fear be called? Also, for some reason I used to be scared of closing the door at night.

Now, I not only sleep with my door closed, which is best if there's a fire, but I sleep in pitch black too. I always check my closet before bed, so that doesn't scare me anymore, and I just realized that I feel SO comfortable in my bed now. I looked outside and wished to see a UFO when before I would have freaked out.

Speaking of which - I swear to the heavens that I once saw a UFO in the sky. I was laying in bed, looking out my window, when I saw a star zig zag through the sky. It wasn't a satellite, it wasn't a meteor, it ZIG ZAGGED! I freaked out. Also, I once freaked myself out by reading a couple UFO books I got from the library. Why I read those stories I will never know... but recently I noticed that I don't get scared about that stuff anymore - and it's because I feel so safe. It's nice to feel that way.

I've been kind of out of touch with my comedic writing skills lately - so I apologize if my posts have been boring recently :P It'll be back shortly :)

I'll now leave you with a video of the very Larry King Live Show I was talking about earlier - and it just so happened that this one is about UFOs! It's kind of humorous. My favorite quote is Buzz Aldrin (on one of his many tangents) saying "It's gonna occupy a lot of our time trying to explain what's going on" while occupying a lot of our time trying to explain that he saw a UFO while flying to the moon...


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Got the Dream, Yeah, But Not the Guts

In October and November I performed in an amazing and hilarious show called Urinetown with Bloomington Civic, I can talk about that show later. During the run, a guy who works at the Old Log Theatre, who has now become a good friend of mine, came to see Urinetown. He picked me out of the crowd and said I should audition for the musical Forever Plaid at the Old Log as they are planning on doing the show for three months starting in mid June.

I can't tell you how excited and scared I am for this audition. The Old Log Theatre (link on the left) is a very respected and well known theatre in the twin cities, not to mention it's an equity theatre (associated with the stage actor's union). I would be doing the show full time if I got in (meaning I would have to take a leave of absence from the insurance company I currently work at) so I would get paid for this show, and I would also gain hours towards joining equity later in life.

Also, the auditions are closed, meaning that it's by invite only, and right now there are only 8 guys, including myself, being considered for the role (they only have one role to cast). I really look the role, I know I could nail the acting part... and I really think that I can sing the part well (although it will be a good challenge for me). I just have this fear of auditioning. I always get nervous and flub up and I have a tendancy to forget my words...

The auditions are later this month.

I had a dream last night though that the auditions had approached. Although the show was going to perform at the Old Log in MN, the auditions were at some place called "The Storage Room" in San Francisco. I spent the first part of the day in SF walking around, looking at the sites, photographing some female model (wtf?), and thinking I should call my friend Meghan and let her know I'm in town!

I then realized I only had 30 minutes before I had to be at the audition space and I didn't even know where it was. I somehow got in a car and I drove to the ocean and took a right, going North. I spotted the theatre, almost hit two cyclists on the road, and ended up passing my turn. I pulled into a driveway and turned around, getting stuck behind a really slow old man driver. I thought It'll be ok if I'm a little late, I had to fly to SF, they'll understand and then I woke up.

My dream had a lot more details, like what the roads looked like and the houses and the driveways and garages... my dreams are usually insanely detailed, but I don't want to bore you with all that.

I'm planning on singing either "Mooning" from Grease or "Catch a Falling Star" from Forever Plaid itself, or BOTH for the audition!

Speaking of musical dreams - this should be my motivational speach before every rehearsal. I'm strong! I've got the goal, I can do it! But then again... life didn't turn out the way she wanted... but I'm not trying to live vicariously through some children...


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Misfit #2, He's Coming For You!

I stumbled upon Misfit #2 - The humorless albino clown - in the hallway just a few moments ago. He was pacing back and forth in a space that was maybe four feet wide, which meant he was pretty much going in circles. He was talking out loud, and at first I assumed he was on a bluetooth headset, but then I realized this was the albino clown; he's a misfit on the 6th floor who has no social skills. How could he be advanced enough in technology to have a bluetooth headset? On further inspection I realized he was just talking to himself.

"Calm!"
"Take deep breath!"
"Think about this logical!"

He was making hand motions like he was dribbling two basketballs - look at me using sports references! He obviously was trying to calm himself down from some traumatic/frustrating event that just occured.

Maybe he was offered a short cut to the next pit stop, but to get it he had to shave off all his hair. Oh, wait, that was on an old season of Amazing Race....

Bottom line, it was a little creepy. At least he was taking some measurements to try to prevent some kind of outburst...

What do you think that would be anyway? - An albino clown outburst? Think he would run through the cubicles with a big blow-up hammer? Or maybe pop balloons in everyone's ears? Who knows.

I'll probably have some kind of dream about this now.

Speaking of creepy clowns...



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