Gettin' by

We went to see another show in the comedy festival a few days ago. It was the second show of UK comedian Dan Willis, whose first show we saw a few weeks ago. The man is a workaholic - he was running two one-hour shows on the same nights in venues half an hour's travel from each other. And he only gave himself half an hour between shows.

His first show was more story-telling than belly laughs, but it was enjoyable. His second show, "Ferris Bueller's Way Of," was a much more traditional stand-up show. We went with Ryan and Sara to both. Willis is a good comedian with a very naturalistic stage presence and good crowd control. He shoots down hecklers immediately and mercilessly and asserts his authority over a crowd without being belligerent.

The boys met up for dinner before the show, but Sara and I arrived right before the show was due to start (she had class and I was working WAAAAY the hell out in the 'burbs). The pub was British-style and served food, so we ordered food at the bar before we went upstairs to the room where the comedy was being held. They gave us these plastic things that look like mobile phones and vibrate and beep when your food arrives. We ordered it about twenty minutes before the show was to start, so we figured we'd have it by the time we got upstairs, but it wasn't ready when we were told to go into Willis' room. The room was completely packed full, with people standing. The seats were in straight rows facing forward, rather than with tables as in a normal bar set-up. We were on the inside of a row, about five seats in.

Midway through the set, our plastic food alerts start vibrating and beeping loudly. Willis looks straight at us, thinking it's our mobiles, and says "what did I tell you about mobile phones? Oh, it's dinner..." The entire room then looks at us as we slink out (as well as you can slink past five seated people and a bunch of standing people). Willis continued "why does it take two of you to carry a plate of chips?"

When we got our food from the donwstairs bar, Sara and I weren't sure if we should go back. We were both terrified of being made fun of by the comedian again and were aware that everyone would turn and look at us as we went back to our seats. But there was nothing else for it, so we took deep breaths and braved going back in.

Dan Willis completely ignored us when we came back and kept going with his set. Most people in the audience probably didn't notice us coming back, and our disruption was minimal. My face had been on fire since the beeping thing had gone off, so I was finally able to breathe normally again.

After the show I thanked Willis for not being mean to us on our way back. He was really sweet about it. He said "I was in the zone," looking for hecklers, "and I thought at first 'mobile phones, I'm really gonna get them.' But then I realised it was the dinner things, but I'd already gone there so I had to say something. I know you had to go get your dinner though, I didn't want to make it worse for you."

I'm working all of this week in the city office. Everyone there is lovely and I really enjoy the work I'm doing. I also really like the office - the view is really fantastic, with huge windows all around and a view of the bay on one side and a view of the mountains on the other past the city.

My favourite headline that I wrote this week was for a story about a charity that is taking donated refrigerators and revamping them to make them more environmentally sound and then giving them to low-income families. My headline: "Making refrigerators cool again, and green."


Leslie's been running around for the past two weeks getting two big sets of assignments done. He's got a lot of really ambitious, really creative ideas. They're so ambitious that they take a lot of work and don't always turn out the way the perfectionist in him wants. He's using me as a prop in several, including one for which he took me down to the pier at dawn to stand in a red dress and 3" heels. A short-sleeved dress. And standing on one foot. Now he's not thrilled with the composition, having gotten his film back, so tomorrow morning we're going back to the pier at sunrise to try it again. But when it works I'm sure it'll be great. He really is getting a lot of great stuff. We'll post some eventually if he scans them, but they're all on slide film at the moment.

Our neighbour's cat, Megsy, comes to visit a lot. We know her name because it says it on her collar. She strolls in like she owns the place if we're coming or going. She's a weird cat, though - I tried to give her some tuna today and she didn't eat it. But it's like a little timeshare of a cat, which is about all we can have right now until my job situation gets more stable (and we ask the landlord if we can have a cat of our own).

These two dogs were lying outside a restaurant when we walked down to the beach the other day. The big one had a vest over it, and the little one's face was buried under the vest. I thought it was a cute picture, so now you can see for yourself.