The game that will steal me away from Final Fantasy Online …

Here it is. The sweetest looking MMORPG I’ve ever set my eyes on.

I can only pray it plays well. I fell in love, had a relationship, and got dumped by the Clock Tower on the gallery page.

~sigh, swoon …~

Now, if only I wasn’t sick with a cold, I could really appriciate that page.

Toodle-Pip!

I update so rarely …

But today, I’m really excited.

See, before I wanted to be anything, I wanted to be a paleontologist. You know, the Dinosaur Diggers. Even after I decided it was time to become a comedian, I saw Jurassic Park in the theater 6 times. I watch “Walking with Dinosaurs” on DVD, and … err … do Velociraptor impressions during shows.

And today, we got one step closer. Scientists were forced to break open a T-Rex bone to shove it onto a helicopter … and they found CELLS inside!!

This is a First.

I mean, in theory, we’ve just stumbled on a great big beautiful Pandora’s Box. I pray we open it. I mean, it’s not like we found a Deinonychus cell. It’s a T-REX! The mind staggers at the chances of that happening.

I don’t mind if the dinosaurs get loose and kill us all. To be eaten by a dinosaur would be a hero’s death.

Production value

Hey! Look what I found on the web! It’s a HUGE collection of 1980s commercials.

Certainly they must have realized that the production values were terrible. I mean, that Zelda commercial actually makes me want to throw the game away.

Pilots and Promos

In the last 24 hours, I’ve gone from concept to execution. Yesterday, Matt, Jim, Suzi and I were invited to talk about a pilot concept with some Los Angeles filmakers from Spyglass Entertainment and Snackaholic. We met with Tedd, Belisa and Megan, who are variously involved in Emmy-award winning television, documentaries, and UCB’s show that ran on Comedy Central. They had a pitch: American Expats experiencing Europe in a documentary-style series for cable.

So today, from noon till 9pm, we shot footage. And it was awesome. We assumed characters not too distant from ourselves, like heightened versions of our worst characteristics. We hung out in a Hostel, walked the streets of Amsterdam, stepped into tourist shops and did scenes with Real People. Matt was a wanna-be novelist who lost his backpack shortly after landing in Holland. Jim was a clueless and charming gross-out-guy. Suzi played the self-absorbed songwriter, and I played the 9-5 assistant, too uptight to join in on the drugs and fun. We shot hours of footage which will be edited together for a presentation to network in the hopes of obtaining the funding for a pilot.

They put it like this, “I can’t believe how lucky it is that we met you guys yesterday and here we are shooting this amazing stuff today.”

I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Suzi kept describing it as a backpack version of the Office. Matt and I dropped LA names and talked locations, and Jim entertained with unfathomable anecdotes. Everyone was charmed and excited. I can only hope that the reel looks good.

Luck

Hail isn’t a very common form of precipitation. I would guess that large hail storms are probably as rare as blizzards or tornados.

Last night, it hailed for 7 minutes. Again, this was large hail; roughly marble-sized, and it hailed so hard that the street was white within seconds. Amsterdam was cluttered with the unfamiliar sound of metal being furiously pockmarked, mixed with the shrieks of surprised, drunken Dutch girls.

Hail is exciting, and feels a bit apocalyptic. In the two years I’ve been in Holland, I’ve only seen it hail like that one other time.

Both times, I have been on my bike.

That’s pretty shitty luck.

Some Links for your Day.

Feeling out of Shape?

A Poodle Movie.

A Quiz that lets you consider your philosophical tension, if you’d like:

Quiz For Philosophers.

And then finally …

The updated link to the best Flash Game Ever Created: Nanaca+Crash!!

Current Personal Record: 10268!

There are a lot of special rules to that game, I don’t want to give any of them away. But here’s a hint: You don’t just click your mouse once.

Bite The Bullet.

So, yesterday, Pep announced the division of the cast, and sent half of us on our merry way to breakfast. At the Irish pub Hole in the Wall, I considered the rectangle of creative people around me, and thought, “This is gonna be a good process.”

Jim
Suzi
Matt
Tarik
Tim

And myself. That’s the development team for my final Boom Chicago show, Bite the Bullet. A six-person artistic revolution. We’re being told that we can pull from anywhere; the producer wants elements of Harolds, Television, Music — a Pinata Full of Bees style makeover of what a Boom Chicago show represents.

Of course, I’m skeptical. How can I not be? Last year, one week before we opened the show, Why Aren’t You Happy Yet, creative control was wrenched from us and the show hijacked. The flavor was poisoned, the sketches dumbed down, and jokes *forced* into the piece. We were humiliated, angry, and hurt.

So here we are at the top of Bullet, and we’re being promised the world. And I imagine that if it’s taken away from us at the last moment, I’ll be miserable. I don’t want to leave BC with anything but roses. And I want the show that Dan and Lauren see apon their arrival to be something special. I can only hope that Pep and Andrew stick to their guns.

Snowfall and Consideration.

Tonight, I’m sitting on my windowsill, a tiny bit drunk and eating stale french bread. Normally, I’d spare you, my reader, from the ramblings of an incoherent mind. But I’ve decided to write because Amsterdam has received it’s heaviest snowfall in almost 30 years.

That’s why I’m staring out the window. There’s almost a foot of snow. It’s breathtaking, still, and heavy. And it’s deceptively playful. I fell off my bike twice on the way home. And I watched one car spin completely in the center of the street.

It feels special, critical, and precious. My adjectives are only coming in threes. While I was out taking photographs, I saw a horde of Dutch people doing the same. Suddenly we were all tourists in Amsterdam.

Currently, we’re revving up to the show process. Tom Janis is in town this week directing us. He’s the father of the Second City revolution, a SNL alumnus, and director of Michael Moore’s one-man-show. He’s pushing us, provoking us, and commending us on our work. It’s so so amazing to fall in love with improv again after being here for two very stale years. Stale like my bread. Yuck.

Alright, I’m going to bed.