Remotes & the holidays

Why I love doing ComedySportz remotes in small towns and why I love having a camera phone:

This was found in a Subway in Centerville, IA, and just too good to pass up.

We are in our busiest time of year for CSz right now, and yours truly is putting more miles on his car than ever. It would be interesting sometime to map out just how many small towns we have been to in the 16 years of our troupes existence. I think the southwestern corner of Iowa is seriously the only place we've yet to venture to in the state of Iowa, but I may even be wrong about that...

Merry Christams, Kwanza, Hannukah, and Festivus to you all, by the way. I hope you were all taken care of by Santa et. al. I had a pretty good haul myself this year with some highlights including the Trivial Pursuit - 80's Edition, a graphic design book I had been eyeing, The Venture Borthers - Season 1 on DVD, and Talledega Nights and Superman Returns on BluRay. Although, I will admit to be insanely jealous of Corey & Monique's new Match Game collection on DVD as it makes me miss not having the Game Show Network more and more.

I also got to go see a really good basketball game early in December featuring the Iowa Hawkeyes VS. University of Northern Iowa, with UNI taking them to the wire and actually pulling out the upset win. It was a great game and it made me kind of resent the fact that I never went to a large university for school. My sister went to Illinois and I visited and went to many games down there as I have in Iowa City too, but back then, it just wasn't appealing to me to be at a large school. Now, looking back, I really wish that I would've gotten a full collegiate expereince and had a university atmosphere to call my own. Ah well, that's what grad school is for, I guess...

On the blog maintenance side, thank you for pointing out to me that I had a couple of dead links over there in the Links section. I have removed the dead ones, but have left a couple up there that are currently inactive, but I think will be live again in the near future. If not, I will eventually take them down as well. And speaking of links, I added a new one for anyone who ever has been a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Mike Nelson, head writer for MST3K, has a new website called RiffTrax where you can download his (and sometimes fellow MST3K'ers) commentary for blockbuster films and then play them on an MP3 player synched up with the DVD. I'm going to give it a try and let you know the verdict soon.

Also I joined the masses and finally set up a Facebook too. Between that and MySpace, I think I'm pretty much covered cyberly for awhile. Click the link to the right to check it out.

We had a great year-end review for the Prenzie Players in The Reader praising our production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and also lauding the start of The Henriad Trilogy by the reviewer touting that Steph's performance as the title role in Richard The Second as the best female theatrical performance he saw all year. Well deserved kudos to her and to the rest of the troupe as well. The Henriad continues in late February with Henry The Fourth and Jeremy Mahr (fellow CSz'er) in the title role. He was very strong in part one and I'm sure that momentum will continue into part two. Personally, I'm extremely intimidated as I have been cast as Hal/Henry V in both this upcoming show and in part three (Henry The Fifth) and it's easily the largest role I've ever had to take on.

Also, if you are in the area, the Prenzie's are having a fundraising gala in the beginning of January. If you can come support our troupe, that would be fantastic (click below for larger image):At the behest of my buddy Jake, I have checked out and am now a full fledged fan of AskANinja.com. If you've never seen it before, I added a link to it and you should really check it out sometime. Also there's a ton of Ask A Ninja stuff over on You Tube, if you are interested.


That's all for now. Have a safe New Years and a great start to 2007!