Category: Enjoyed

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Enjoyed

Del Close Marathon 8 Wrapup

In total, I spent 14 hours at the 8th Annual Del Close Improv Marathon. I took in 26 shows across two days, and as can be expected, that much improv leads to one being a bit overloaded. It is hard to look back over that much hilarity and remember individual bits, suggestions given, scenes edited, etc.

But with that said, here are my best attempts at something resembling awards. I should note that these distinctions are only for the shows I saw – I am unable to praise that which I was not in attendance for. The 26 shows were (in chronological order): Kid Dervin, Death League Tea Party, Asia-Town, Neely O’hara, Pax Romana, Rogue Elephant, B-Roll, Primal Bias, I Eat Pandas, Mister Diplomat, Delaney & Merrit: Omlette Vision, The Upright Citizens Brigade, The Academy, Krompf Breakfast, The Improvised Mystery, Ugly Stick, Pearl Brunswick, Flux Capacitor, KNC, Dr. Fantastic, BirdDog, Scheer-McBrayer, The Swarm, Fivesome, MySpace, and Walsh & Roberts.

I should also note that I’m effectively giving one award to every group I really enjoyed. This isn’t to say the ones that didn’t get awards weren’t enjoyable (although a few were not), but these were the real standouts.

BEST TRADITIONAL IMPROV GROUP

The Swarm
What can be said about the veterans? Fast paced, great teamwork, and even a bit of wall breaking. Semantic arguments have never been so much fun. It’s a damn shame they don’t perform anymore.

BEST NON-TRADITIONAL IMPROV GROUP

I Eat Pandas
Mark my words: Glennis, Eliza, and Travis are going to be – if somehow they are not already – the next huge act out of NYC.

BEST CHAOS

Upright Citizens Brigade
Besides the previously mentioned accident: there was trying to jump the cooler over a ramp constructed out of plywood and Ian Roberts. There was Matt Walsh destroying a chair for no reason. There was a six person beer drinking contest. There was a two person banana eating contest, which had a fight on the cooler in the middle of it. There were scenes with nazis and six year old girl hockey pucks.

BEST BREAKFAST

Krompf Breakfast
Fresh bacon, lots of OJ, bagels, eggs with scallions, and unlimited Bloody Mary refills? KROMPF! Also, the improv was good too!

BEST USE OF GIMMICK

Flux Capacitor
Flux revisits the same situation from multiple locations. It worked better than I expected, with some great running jokes and unintended hilarity.

BEST TWIST ON THE FORMULA

Dr. Fantastic
Inspiration used for horrible jokes, and then doing scenes off of those? WHAT A TWIST! No, seriously, it was a good twist.

BEST AURAL JOLT

The Pearl Brunswick
Nothing will make you pay attention like five gifted women singing with all their might.

BEST MORNING IMPROV TEAM

Asia-Town
Out of all the morning teams I saw, Asia-Town ran away with my personal laugh count. Given that I was groggy as shit at that time, this says something.

BEST SEMANTIC ARGUMENT

Walsh And Roberts
Is sour cream a garnish? They argued for 15 minutes, and I’m still not entirely sure.

THE JEN MALINSKY AWARD

(given to one performer who stands out across multiple groups, as Jen did last year)

Tim Curcio – holy shit, he was everywhere, and he was great! Go Tim!

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Enjoyed Reflected

The Baron Breaks Free

A week from today marks the day I officially left Freeverse Software and moved into my current position at Weill Medical College.

During my tenure at Freeverse (which somehow lasted nearly five years), I had the chance to work on a [lot](http://www.freeverse.com/bms/) [of](http://www.freeverse.com/tsg/) [games](http://www.freeverse.com/squabble/) that I was proud to say I took part in the production of, even if my roles were nebulous and ill-defined.

But the one game I always held dearest to my heart was Wingnuts 2. The sequel to the first really notable commercial game Freeverse ever did, Wingnuts 2 was mandated to be bigger and better in practically every way.

More importantly (to me, anyway), I was tasked with game design. It’s the only game that I worked on that I sat down and worked out new gameplay elements, level progression, characters, enemies, and so on. Mark Anderson’s engine was amazing, and I couldn’t wait to explore the possibilities.

Of course, six months later I ended up leaving.

After I left Freeverse, I didn’t hear much about the game. They were busy, and justifiably so. I had always held out hope that someday, Wingnuts 2 would finally reach completion.

That day is today: [Wingnuts 2: Raina’s Revenge](http://www.freeverse.com/wn2/) is finally available.

It is, for all intents and purposes, the very last Mac game I have ever – or likely will ever – work on. So if you have a Mac, give the trial a download. And look for my name in the credits.

Categories
Enjoyed Happened

Work Anecdote 1: Speedy Delivery

Yesterday, I was told that one of the 250GB drive modules in one of our Xserve RAIDs had apparently gone kaput. While this is the first time I’ve seen this happen in two years, and it doesn’t affect production (horrah for hot spares!), we did need to get it replaced.
Today, at 2:45, I called Applecare Enterprise Support. 10 minutes later, I had a case number and a dispatch number.

At about 3:15, I got a call from the service courier, who wanted to confirm that I had the dispatch number, give me their number, and told me they’d be in touch Monday about scheduling a pickup for the dead drive.

I took a few minutes to run up to the unit in question and swap out the dead 250GB for a spare 400GB, just as a temporary lest we have another failure over the weekend.

At 4:40, I got a call from our front desk, saying that there was someone here with a package. I scratched my head, not putting two and two together (for reasons to be detailed in the next anecdote), and told the desk where to send them.
Five minutes later, a courier appeared with the drive module.

Literally two hours from when I called, I had my replacement hardware in hand.

I realize this is not typical, but man oh man, that was lightning quick. Kudos to Applecare Enterprise.