My Head Hurts

I’m sick. But I’m not going to dive into the “throwing and going” as Kerrin puts it.  No, I want to talk about that state you reach when your head hurts because you’ve been sleeping too much. Weird isn’t it? We lie flat for 8 hours (if we’re good to ourselves)  and if we’re stuck around the house for a day lying on our side (or the other) our we get a headache. Now, I’m no longer running a fever but when I was in the throngs of it I didn’t wake up with a headache so I can only surmise that I gained this headache because of something I was doing during the day.  Hmm, this is where my logic is breaking down as I’m writing this. It could merely be because I was resting and now I’m active, even if it is switching to the other couch to watch the next episode of the West Wing. Ignoring that counter-thesis statement, I wonder if my brain is not meant to press against my skull on the sides so long? Maybe when we are a sleep we spend some time on our sides but mostly just…naa…this is all popcock. I’m sick..I’m tired already of writing this, I’m going back to my episode of West Wing.

Scripted by Aaron Sorkin

I want Aaron Sorkin to write dialog for my life.  Who is Aaron Sorkin? He is the primary writer for the West Wing, probably the best known of his works.  His dialog is snappy, witty, funny, and engaging. Sorkin would make telling my spouse (if I had one) that I’m going to brush my teeth an eloquent announcement with pity references to Aristotle,  13th century philosophers and Laurel and Hardy.  No, I want Aaron Sorkin to script my dialog just like I want the Peter Gunn theme playing in the background as I stroll down the street.

marketing pessimism + shaving

On the theme of shaving, I must admit that my general pessimism about marketing did me in. I’ve always mocked the commercials for 3 blade razor blades. I mean isn’t two enough? What next, five? [turns out there already IS a five blade razor]

But when my luggage was lost for a prolonged period of time while in Germany I had to buy a replacement razor and a triple blade Gillette razor was free with a couple two blade razors blades. I was amazed. It gave me a really good shave AND lasted longer. This can’t be! No! No! No! Wa! It’s supposed to be a silly excess..but one blade lasted me a month before I had to replace it.  My cynicism was challenged and defeated and, while I want my cynicism to be defeated and something good to come of it, I don’t want to waste that defeat for razor blades.  But nonetheless, I will ante up and spend more money for the triple razor blade system.

shaving

Any guy that shaves with a blade knows you have your good days and your sacrifice blood to scry the future days.  Sometimes I try to pay attention to how I go about shaving–my mood, the thickness of my scruff, aggressive approach, timid approach, sharpness of the blade, et cetera..and just when I think I have discovered the key ingredient to unlock the shaving conundrum, the next time it eludes me. Take this morning for instance and the contributing factors:

• brand new blade.
• a little hung over.
• shaving cream a little old (left over from Germany–tell me where I can purchase Nivea shaving cream locally!).

Indeed many of the ingredients for a bloody massacre. But no, instead an almost perfect shave. I still don’t get it.

OK men and women, what approach do you have?

I love the meta: tennis & Roger Federer

I’m becoming a Federer fanatic. Even in Sampras’ prime, I don’t think he ever was in the finals of all four grandslams for the last TWO YEARS. That’s amazing. I watched the US Open coverage one night and they had McEnroe AND Agassi commentating. It was very interesting to hear the two of them riff off each other. Andre made very interesting observations one in particular that stuck with me–Federer has the most flexible striking zone in tennis. Most players, I think Andre said himself including, have a specific line in the X/Y/Z system that is their sweet spot for striking the ball. Federer, however, has a box he can strike the ball in and he can choose that spot to hit the ball to maximize the apparent “dwell time” of the ball on his racket which gives him more time to read his opponent. Amazing. If Agassi is saying Federer is better than Sampras as well as McEnroe then I have to listen and start believing it. I’ve always been hesitant to do that because I’m not sure Federer is great or just doesn’t have quality competitors. What I’ve failed to recognize is greatness can make other players look bad.

Improv Party

Some random comments and observations from “Craig’s Rarely Annual Improv Party”.

The party last night was a lot of fun. We didn’t have enough long form performers (only 4) to do scenes , but we did a lot of short form games which helped people in the audience participate. Two of my friends, Liam and John, were particularly good at improv. John was a professional actor (now a part time teacher and fantastic Dad) doing a lot of theater, a couple of commercials, as well as a short foreign documentary so his improv’ing skills should not be a surprise. Liam, who has a very seemingly random sense of humor but in fact it is remarkably connected, was excellent at improv garnering a lot of positive comments from the audience. David, a roommate of Jimmy, is a rising star. I hope he takes improv classes somewhere.

Kudos to Rob and Shira for showing up and being remarkably active for two people who just threw a party and were up to 2 o’clock in the morning cleaning up.

Slide show with 20+ people is terribly amusing, BTW, try it out sometime.

What I find amusing is how a party can be terribly amusing and entertaining with very little props, mechanisms, et cetera. I cleared out my living room and just had a very large empty space. A tribute, I think, to human nature–people want to have fun.

After the majority left 12 of us hung out and played some fun paper & pen games. Napkin poetry was fun but what was particular amusing, suggested by Kerrin, was Question & Answer. You write down a question at the top of a piece of paper and pass the paper to the next person (everyone has a piece of paper). They write an answer to that question then fold the paper to cover the previous text so only the previous line is visible. Then you write a question to which the previous line was the answer. Then fold, pass, repeat. It’s a lot of fun. It was particularly amusing when a Question-Answer-Question sequence loops back on itself. Seems like every hated Michael Jackson, were thinking of sex, or were fixated on my shag throw pillow. Some of the highlights, from the top of my head:

Q: What would you change about your body?
A: More visitors. [ahh, Ryan your humor kills me. ] [note: Susan and Liam rightly pointed out this comment was 'More visitors' rather than what I originally wrote, 'A vistior'.]

Q: What are your earliest memories? [ Kerrin ]
A: Double Data Rate 3G RAM. [ Keith ]
Q: Won’t you talk to me dirty nerd boy? [ Lisa ]

There is a similar game with pictures–draw a picture. Write a description. Draw a picture. I guess it’s like telephone. Anyway consider yourself invited for the next one whenever I hold it. Maybe early spring. Who knows. I do enjoy taking fun, nice people and mixing them together and see what happens.

Man am I tired. Now I have to clean and drag everything from my bed room back into the living room. I’m not complaining–it was well worth it.