Break a Leg

I think that around this time of year, it is typical for people to look back and reflect on the things they've accomplished or failed to accomplish during the last 365± days, accolades they've acquired, people they've pissed off, pooches they've booted, and so on.  Well, I'm not gonna.  I don't feel like it.  Instead, I will share the experiences of the last 24 hours.  I think that'll be enough.

First off, last night I went to dinner and a movie with my brother and my dad.  My brother lives in Hawaii (the bastard) and doesn't make it to the mainland that often, so we decided to go to the local microbrew and have some good old pub food.  Marin Brew Co. has appetizer wings that come in your choice of bar-b-que or buffalo flavor.  Due to a snafu in the kitchen several years ago, I was served the wings with both sauces mixed together...and I've never gone back.  At first I was trying to get the mixed sauces known as "Yarish Style".  I encourage everybody I ever meet to try the wings this way.  Then, I converted my friend Nate without much effort and he coined the term "bufflaque" which I think is much better.  So we had some bufflaque wings, some pizza, some salad (scoff) and some beer.  It was good.

Then we went to see Valkyrie at the movie theater in the local mall.  You will ask "How was that?"  I will answer "Meh".  Perhaps my unenthusiastic response spawns from the kid sitting next to me.  He and his mom came into the theater just as the movie was starting.  There wasn't enough room in our row for them to sit together, so she parked him next to me and sat in the seat behind him.  Through the next two hours he proceeded to crinkle his candy back, slurp his soda, repeatedly turn around to get more popcorn from dear old mother, and generally be mildly annoying.

When the movie was over and we all funnelled out of the theater, he was rejoined with his mom.  Anybody see a little movie called Gladiator?  Remember the hot sister that had a thing for Maximus?  Yeah.  It was her.  Now, anybody who knows their pop culture won't be as surprised at the next part as I was.  There was apparently a second son, because one minute he was holding her hand, the next minute he was yelling "Daddy! Daddy!" and running through the crowd.  And who is our mystery father figure?  Lars.  As in Lars from Metallica.  Now I have what I consider to be a slightly atypical response to seeing famous people in public.  I do not run up to the and ask for their autograph or ask to shake their hand or point out that they are who they are to themselves and everybody in the immediate area.  No.

I compare their height to mine.

Lars = shoulder height.

Story #2:  I have mentioned once or twice that I play Kingdom of Loathing.  I also listen to Radio KoL, which is a free live stream that runs 24/7.  The DJs are people that usually play the game.  They also have lots of games and contests and stuff.  One of the DJs was having a contest she called Skaraoke.  Basically, if you wanted to take part in the contest, you posted on her forum.  What ever number you were in the order of posters, that was your number, i.e., the first post was number 1, the next was number 2, and so on.  I was number 54, which actually largely irrelevant, but I just want you to have a complete picture.  Then, the day after the deadline for entries during her show, the DJ went down the list of entrants.  She had a numbered list of 127 different songs.  Every time she got to the next post number, she would roll the digital equivalent of a 127-sided die.  Whatever number came up, that would be that person's song to sing, and then she would move on.  I ended up with Every Breath You Take by The Police. Then what happened was the DJ would send you the karaoke track: no lead vocals, just the instruments and maybe some back up vocals.  It was the responsibility of everybody participating to provide the lead vocals to the track and send it back to the DJ.

Now, I can sing, but I can't sing like Sting.  And I wasn't about to try.  Especially since I had a cold.  So the first time my voice cracked on a high note, I decided that I would need a little help from my friends, so i started doing impressions: Gizmo, Kermit, a Gregorian choir...whatever.  Pretty much butchering the song, but in a hopefully amusing way.  I'm pretty sure I was the first person to get my submission in.  I'm not sure how many original entries there were on the forums, but at the deadline of 12am eastern time last night, there were 42 submissions (a nice little coincidence for all you Hitchhiker fans).  So then the DJ loaded all the songs into her playlist, hit random, and played them all so everybody could hear everybody else's submissions so that they could vote on them later.

The ironic part here is that the DJ's show is always on when I'm at work so I never get to listen.  This morning was no different.  There is a chat channel for people who are listening to Radio KoL, so I could see the reactions to what was being played.  By the time I actually logged into chat this morning, my song had already played, so I had no idea how people reacted to it. 

Once all the songs were done playing, everybody voted on the songs that they thought were the best and the worst.  There were 3 prize categories: Best, Worst, and DJ's pick.  All the prizes would be in-game items of some value. 

Long story short (too late): I got voted Best Song...which I can only assume or at least hope means "most amuzing".  The DJ announced the winners on the radio...so I didn't know I had won until people started congratulating me. 

Then I went home early from work.

So all in all, not a bad way to end the year.  Now I plan to go eat some good food and get pretty hammered.

Happy Jenday and Happy New Year!

Hey, guys!

We just found out about an award show that our friends over at NewTeeVee, Tilzy and Tubefilter are doing called the Streamys and it requires that people nominate various web shows and people working on those web shows in order to win in their alloted categories. The web series with the most votes get to be the finalists and we ask you to please, please, please write us in!

We'll even help you --

The website is: http://streamys.org/nominate.shtml

And here's a helpful guide on our actors/crew and how to vote:

Best Comedy Series:
Break a Leg
www.breakaleg.tv

Best Directing in Comedy Web Series:
Yuri Baranovsky & Justin Morrison

Best Writing for a Comedy Web Series:
Vlad & Yuri Baranovsky

Best Male Actor in a Comedy Web Series
(our actors, pick one:)

Yuri Baranovsky (David Penn)
Chad Yarish (Jennifer John Bradley)
Skip Emerson (Sebastian)
Drew Lanning (Jimmy Scotch)
Justin Morrison (Chase Cougar)
Erik Bergmann (Voice of Andy Corvell)
Dustin Toshiyuki (Mint)
Flynn Kelleher (Larry)
Duane Schirmer (Andy Corvell)
Claudio Brescia (Stan Marley)
Hugo Martin (Tahko)
Daniel George (Claudio/Humphrey)
Nick Douglas (Nick Shiny)

Best Female Actor in Comedic Web Series
(our actresses, pick one:)

Daniela DiIorio (Francesca)
Alexis Boozer (Amber)
Marilyn Chay (Cherry Laurel)
Laura Secour (Jezebel)

Hillary Bergmann (John Bradley)

Best Ensemble Cast
(copy and paste all:)
Yuri Baranovsky
Chad Yarish
Skip Emerson
Drew Lanning
Justin Morrison
Erik Bergmann
Dustin Toshiyuki
Flynn Kelleher
Duane Schirmer
Claudio Brescia
Hugo Martin
Daniel George
Nick Douglas
Daniela DiIorio
Alexis Boozer
Marilyn Chay
Laura Secour
Hillary Bergmann

Best Guest Star
(pick one:)
Patrice Oneal (Adult Sized Gary Coleman)
Brian Forster (Chris Partridge)
Jon Provost (Timmy from Lassie)
Nick Douglas (Nick Shiny)

Best Editing
Dashiell Reinhardt

Best Cinematography
Justin Morrison

Best Art Direction
Yuri Baranovsky, Vlad Baranovsky, Justin Morrison, Dashiell Reinhardt

Best Visual Effects
Dashiell Reinhardt

Best Animation
Adam Carl Cohen (Claymator)

Best Original Music
Vlad & Monica Baranovsky

Best Artistic Concept
Break a Leg

Please, please, please help Break a Leg get a good send-off and at least vote for some of these! As per usual, we're giving you incentive -- if you vote, email us your name (yuri@breakaleg.tv) and we will put you in the credits of our next project and/or under Special Thanks in our upcoming DVDs of Break a Leg!

Thanks!

-Yuri and The Guys.

So, 2 weeks ago, I was talking about how my roommate had gone on vacation to Taiwan for about a month and left behind a puppy.  In the two weeks since that post the dog has managed to crap all over the floor, eat a good portion of my roommate's shoes, destroy sections of carpet, pile a good deal of my roommate's bedding and personal effects in the middle of the room, and generally annoy the hell out of me.

I fed the dog, I played with the dog, I took the dog for walks, I event let the little bugger sleep with me at night.  I bought a litter box and put it in the spot that the dog habitually pooped in the naive hope that the dog might get the idea.  I showed it where the poop went.  I put it in the box and pet it, trying to instill the sense that the box was a good thing, a great thing, a thing which would help to avoid so many future beatings.

And every day, I would wake up, put the dog in the room, take a shower, come out of the shower, open the door to the dog's room...and smear shit all across the rug because the dog liked to poop right in front of the door. 

And perhaps you're thinking "Well, it's been a long night.  Maybe you should have taken the dog out for a walk before you got int the shower." To which I respond: I could take the dog out for a walk, letting it take its sweet-ass time, sniffing everything that needed to be sniffed, it would even pee several times on the trip.  The minute I put it back in it's room it would shit on the floor.

Aside from the poop-factor, the dog whined, squeaked, and barked whenever it was stuck in the room.  If I let it out of the room it would tear around the house, find something it wasn't supposed to eat, eat it, and then shit on the carpet again, only this time the poop would have the consistency and color of melted chocolate ice cream. 

My family has rented a beach house this year for Christmas.  My sister is down from Portland, my brother and his family are over from Hawaii.  I haven't seen my niece and on of my nephews in 3 years, the other nephew I've never met before.  There are no pets allowed at the house.  I was not going to miss the opportunity to do so because of this damn dog.  I spent Saturday night out there and felt this anxiety the entire time about the dog, which isn't even mine.  I certainly couldn't leave it alone for 3 days while I was out try to have fun with my family, because I wouldn't be having fun.  I would just be sitting there worrying about what the dog would destroy next or which one of my neighbors would complain about it and get me kicked out of my apartment.

The dog had to go.

I thought about a boarding the dog, but balked at the idea of paying $35 a day plus vaccination fees for a dog that wasn't even mine.  I thought of just leaving the front door open and letting the dog play in traffic.  "Whoops" I'd say.  This actually happened accidentally.  I was carrying something inside the house and my hands were full and the dog bolted right by me, down the stairs and out into the street where it was almost run down by a passing car.

Finally, I called the Humane Society and told them the situation.  The girl on the other line at first gave me a guilt trip about having accepted the responsibility and now having to deal with it.  I really couldn't disagree with her, but I really couldn't have the dog in my house any more.  She eventually told me that if they could get permission from my roommate for me to release the dog to them they would take it. 

So, today, I took the dog to the Humane Society.  I think she knew something was wrong because on the ride there, there were little doggy tears running down her nose.  If I wasn't such a cold hearted bastard, I might not have laughed in her face.  I brought her into the front foyer, explained the situation, handed the dog over, signed a piece of paper, and walked away - the anxiety that had been plaguing me since the dog first arrived starting to disapate like fog in the sunlight.

This whole situation seemed to be what it would be like if you suddenly found out you had a kid, without having had the fun of making the little bastard in the first place.

Happy Jenday and Merry Christmas!

P.S.  I'm posting this a day early because tomorrow I will be out at the beach house enjoying a snifter of mead and not worrying about any dogs.

Hey, guys!

Long time no talk!

Here's some news!

On January 9th, we'll be releasing a new SECRET series for a SECRET thing that's SECRET until January 2nd when we officially announce it. Stay tuned for that. All we can tell you now is it'll star Claudio (Stan Marley) and Dustin (Mint).

Sometime in January we'll be doing a few promotional videos for a company that, again, I won't mention until they're out, but, ideally, theoretically, we'll have Drew (Jimmy Scotch) and Skip (Sebastian) in it.

Finally, in March -- and this I can talk about -- we'll be filming a short film with our new actor (Sammy Wegent) and his sketch comedy team, SPF7.

We're also putting together the Pilot for Lurker and are talking to potential investors. We hope we can get this show off the ground and, at the very least, we hope that we can get a Pilot shot to at least show you guys. I have a good feeling, though, that we'll be able to conjure up the significant funds to create a 10-ep run, in whichcase, it should, I'd guesstimate, be out sometime in May -- but we'll keep you updated!

We're going to try and embed all the new shows/videos we do on the BaL site for now (unless it's Lurker, which will have it's own place) -- so, keep coming back and watching for the new vids! January 2nd will be the official promo for the new show we'll be doing.

Also, according to our site statistics, we are somehow getting more views in the last two months than we've gotten in the months prior (during the finale release) -- are you all robots or are you just lurkers, lurking around, waiting for some news? We're here, guys, we watch the boards and the blogs and the videos so, feel free to post or comment -- we'll be here responding!

Thanks!

-Yuri

I was on the phone with a co-worker yesterday, and he was giving me a ride to a meeting that was outside of town. He called and the conversation went something like this:

Him: What time are you coming by?

Me: What time should I be there? When do we need to head out?

Him: Well, I wanted to get there early and talk to a couple people.

Me: ...

Him: It's like, there's this bottleneck around the 280/101 merge.

Me: What time do you want me to meet you?

Him: I don't know, whenever.

Me: <seething, annoyed>

Him: Around 2?

And there it is, worthless back and forth followed by an answer. I hung up the phone, turned to my assistant, and said (more like shouted) "That was like having a conversation with a woman!"

Now don't get me wrong, I love women. They're essential. All I really wanted this guy to do was Man Up. Here's how the conversation should have gone.

Him: What time are you coming over?

Me: When do you want me over?

Him: 2.

Me: OK

Then we hang up without saying goodbye. That's how Men do it. I would then show up at 2, say (preferably from the street below, shouting to be heard through a window) "Let's go!", and we tarry forth on our merry way.

Alright, Men should probably not tarry forth on their merry way, unless you're Chad. Chad may tarry forth, given he's wearing a proper tarrying outfit.

I was at my local mall the other evening, trying to swap out my not-really-broken-but-annoyingly-marred iPhone for another (that's a whole story unto itself). There are these stupid little kiosks right down the center of the pedestrian walk where people peddle their wares, and as I passed by this particular booth twice I was each time entreated to stop and chat. I have no idea what the woman actually said, she was speaking very quickly and I wasn't listening, but it was something like "Excuse me, would you beyuenbewhdkjfjk...?"

Now on the second pass as I headed back to the parking lot, I glanced over my shoulder after I had rebuffed her, to see what she was offering. The booth said "Skin Care". 

Skin care? She wasted her nonsense jibber-jabber sales pitch on me for skin care? Was she in such a hurry, or so absolutely desperate for a sale, that she failed to notice that I am A DUDE?!

Yes, granted, there are dudes that are into skin care. Maybe there are a lot of them, what do I know? I stopped watching Queer Eye after they tried the lesbian spinoff. Those hunks couldn't have metro-sexualed that many of us before the show was cancelled, could they?

Get it straight, there is nothing wrong with taking care of your skin. Wash your face, use aftershave, moisturize if you must, and by all means use sunscreen. But to stop at a kiosk in a mall? I don't even think the most metro metro-sexual would do such a thing. Kiosks are for things that you either don't really need at all, or things that you need immediately. To whit:

• remote-control helicopters
• coffee
• flowers

Here are some things that dudes do not buy at a kiosk:

• skin care products
• Tupperware
• Crocs (this should be on the "Dudes should not by ever" list)

Everything else sold at a kiosk is a judgment call. Do you need it right now, desperately; or is it utterly pointless and a waste of money? Both are probably OK. If it's neither of those things then you should probably just walk on by.

So this woman was wasting her breath and possible missing a true sale of her product by trying to flag me down not once, but twice. 

I hope she and all other kiosk-peddlers read this and take note, learn to properly profile your customers. 

I hope all men reading this remember the next time they're on the phone to keep it short, say what you have to say, then hang up before you're even done with your sentence.

I hope everyone else reads this and just knows that I'm one man, fighting against a sea of adversity, trying to make the world a little bit better one blog at a time.