Break a Leg

Yuri: Hey, everyone. Gino's going to be a little late, so I'm going to take a few extra jabs. I'd like to start off by saying that yes, my team wears Teal, I've accepted it. I think it's meant to represent the sexy coloring of a Shark. However, Gino's team, the Canadiens, are a very Christmas-ey red and blue. In other words, the match-up tonight are the fearsome Sharks versus the Christmas Trees. I shiver in my teal-colored boots.

YURI: Oh wow, that took all of one minute to score. Scored by the Sharks. By one Patrick Marleau. A Canadian. Oh, the delicious irony.

Gino: I'm a little late, my team is down 2-1 to a teal covered team named after an aquatic creature that represents a city that is nowhere near a beach. How does the world make sense right now?

Yuri: Leading 2-1 in 5 minutes.. that, if you don't watch hockey, isn't so common unless your goalie is a plank of driftwood hoping desperately to stop pucks being shot at him. Oh, by the way, a Canadian team named "Canadiens" -- that's creativity right there.

Gino: also, for those of you that aren't very familiar with hockey at this point San Jose (Yuri's team) is beating Montreal (my team) which translates to his team of Canadian players are beating my team of Russians 

Yuri: It's a beautiful little irony of life. On a completely unrelated topic, do the Southwest Airlines commercial want to make anyone else commit suicide?

Gino: I live in Brooklyn, so I'm getting the San Jose feed. Why is Al from Tool Time in all of your commercials?

Yuri: It's the only job he could get. What did you expect, Al in a hard-hitting political drama? On an unrelated note, did anyone else completely hate Syriana? I know it was supposed to be the best movie ever, but I think I'd rather watch the Southwest Commercials over and over then to sit through that awful, rant-y mess.

Gino: They just showed a "classic" moment from San Jose's long, rich history. I think it was from a tie game all the way back in 2006. Tradition.... 

Gino: The Sharks are now on, what in hockey is described as a "powerplay" what that means is that Montreal commited a "foul" and one of their players has to sit in a box for two minutes and ponder his mistake while San Jose plays with an extra player on the ice. If you still don't understand, that's because you live in San Jose and you don't even know that you have a hockey team.

Yuri: One way to get a "powerplay" is to shoot the puck purposefully over the fence because you're terrified of the other team. This happens rarely because you have to be fairly dumb to do it. Not only did Montreal just do that, one of their defensemen just shot the puck directly into the shin of his own teammate. This is why no one takes Canada seriously. 

Gino: I'm sure that there are many other reasons to not take canada seriously, but I find it seriously sad when the Sharks give up a goal to a teenager that has never before put the puck in the net in his professional career. 2-2. And even though it's tied, it still feels like Montreal is winning.

Yuri: It takes a lot of losing to willingly suggest that, "even though it's tied, it still feels like Montreal is winning." It's because it's taken 15 years for Montreal to remember how to score.

Gino: Yuri's right. The Canadiens haven't won a Stanley Cup in 15 years. Luckily, he's been very fortunate watching the Sharks not win it all, not win it all, not win it all, not win it all, over and over again. 

Yuri: We're waiting for the second period. We'll be back in minutes to insult each other further.

Yuri: Goal! 3-2 for the good guys.

Gino: Yes, Montreal is losing, for now. I take pleasure in the fact that my girlfriend just mentioned that the Sharks uniform is "pretty" like a prom dress

Yuri: I'll take pretty over losing.

Gino: San Jose has combined both pretty and losing throughout their entire franchise history. I wonder if the team's motto is always the bridesmaid, never the bride. And by bridesmaid i mean dressed like one.

Yuri: To be fair, the Sharks were created roughly around the time that Montreal won their last cup. That said, Montreal has had so many players torn apart by their crazed-foaming-at-the-mouth fans that if San Jose is the bridesmaid, Montreal is the 60 year old bride who's rounding on her 10th bitter marriage. 

Gino: If marriage is a metaphor for championships, Montreal has been proposed to 24 times while the Sharks have spent their lives going as far as the backseat of a used Chevy with the best man's unemployed 2nd cousin. Oh the memories...PS Habs just tied it 3-3. Hehe, posts are so much more fun when your team scores while you're posting.

Yuri: You know what's more fun? When your team's enforcer -- which is basically a huge dude who doesn't play hockey that well but smashes people in the face and defends the talented players -- shoots the puck from like 50 feet away from the net, and it bounces off the goalie (piece of driftwood?) and goes in. Sharks lead 4-3. Scored by a bruiser who just scored his first goal all year.

Yuri: 5-3. A goal by the little indian that could, Jonathan Cheechoo. One of our players who grew up on an Island in Canada, came all the way to the Sharks just to score the prettiest goal against Montreal.

...dammit, now it's 5-4.

Gino: So for those of you that were confused by the Sharks taking a "Too many men on the ice" penalty, i'll make simple sense of it for you. There are only 5 players (besides the goalie) that are allowed on the ice per team. The Sharks put 6 on the ice. That means their coach is okay when it comes to counting up to 3 or maybe 4 but 5 and 6 seriously confuse the hell out of him. But he shouldn't feel so bad. There are plenty of other people that have trouble counting to 5...like Walt Disney in his current state and the statue of liberty, all who have won the same amount of Stanley cups as the San Jose Sharks. Yay!

Yuri: I'd just like to say that a minute ago, one of the Montreal defenders literally sat on one of the Sharks players for a good ten seconds. This appears to be the only way the Canadiens are able to stop the Sharks offense.

Yuri: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Sharks win 6-4! The most beautiful 6th goal scored by our new red-headed defensemen.

You know what this means? This means that sometime in April, Gino is coming to SF, wearing a Sharks jersey and admitting on camera how much better the Sharks is than Montreal. He's also going to admit how much Break a Leg is better than his two step children, Patrice Oneal Show and Dadlabs.

Woooooo.
 

----------

If you haven't read my previous blog, I mentioned that tonight between 7:30-10:00pm, For Your Imagination's very own creative director, Gino Tomac and I will be live-blogging my hockey team, the San Jose Sharks, playing his hockey team, the Montreal Canadiens.

Okay, I know what you're thinking -- you're thinking, I don't care about hockey. And this has nothing to do with Break a Leg. And I'm pretty sure a Shark can eat a Canadian.

These things are all true. However, you won't need much hockey knowledge to enjoy our little live-blog, as mostly, we'll be hurtling witticisms at one another (while trying our best to not make those witticisms revolve specifically about things non-hockey fans won't know about. Like icing. Or goals. Or hockey sticks) for your enjoyment.

Secondly, you're right. It's not about Break a Leg. But Break a Leg is funny. And we hope to be funny. And since we and Break a Leg are funny, then it's kind of about Break a Leg too.

Thirdly, yes. Both a real Shark and a hockey-playing shark can easily eat a Canadien.

Aside from this blog, Gino and I also have a bet that I think you'll enjoy.

If the Sharks win, Gino has to wear a San Jose Sharks jersey on camera and read a short manifesto that I will write for him.

If the Canadiens win, I will wear a Canadiens jersey and do the same thing.

And then you'll all see it and say, "Guys, that was cute, but I really, really don't care about hockey."

So, stay tuned, we'll be beginning shortly.

Hey, guys.

Come on down to the Episodes section and check out our newest conversation -- Jen-Affair. Jennifer feels guilt over cheating on his wife ten years ago and wants to tell her the only proper way he can -- by asking Stan Marley to put it in the tabloids.

You can also see the episode on YouTube, where I will, as per usual, beg you to favorite it, rate it and comment!

Thanks, guys!

Oh, also. Gino Tomac, Creative Director at For Your Imagination (and the guy who put us up when we flew to New York) is a big fan of the Montreal Canadiens. For those of you who don't care about hockey (all of you?), that's a hockey team. Anyway, Vlad and I are big San Jose Sharks fans and our team is playing Gino's team tonight, at 7:30 pacific time.

Vlad's out of town (though he may chime in) but Gino and I are going to trash talk one another when the game starts right here, on the Break a Leg blog. We're going to keep updating the same blog with witticisms to cruelly insult one another and our respective teams.

This is our very first wit-off. So, I hope you'll be joining us.

'till then!

-Yuri

Hey everyone,

So, for those of us who've been with us since the very, very beginning, one thing that we've been constantly trying for is to get a main page feature on YouTube. They've been very kind to us recently and have featured us a lot in the entertainment section, well, now, they're even kinder.

Observe:

That's right! We're on the front page of YouTube and can't wait for the wtfs to flow in.

Thanks guys, you all rock! And thanks to Felicia and the YouTube guys, you rock equally if not more.

-Yuri

I've just discovered this great blog called Fail Dogs, naturally available at www.faildogs.com. Similar to LOLCats, but unlike it in that the point isn't to find the most disgustingly cute picture of a cat or other critter and then caption said picture with an even more disgustingly cute internet meme phrase. No, at Fail Dogs you have two things: a picture of a dog failing, and the word "FAIL".

Happy Jenday, everybody.

As most of you know, we here at Break A Leg are the little guys: aside from the creation of the show, we mostly do normal, low-paying jobs and lead normal, un-glamorous lives...well sorta.  My point is that we have not yet achieved the dream of having somebody pay us to do Break a Leg so that we wouldn't have to, for example, make coffee for an endless stream of caffeine junkies, or work in a hell-hole like Kinko's, or heaven for bid - lick envelopes. 

   Currently, I work at a sign shop doing graphic design and customer service.  I hate customer service.  I refuse to subscribe to the addage that the customer is always right.  Sometimes they are dead f*&#ing wrong.  Here's a situation that I have had to deal with more times than should be legal: a customer comes in to order a sign.  Fine.  That's what we're here for.  We're called FastSigns.  So far so good.  The customer tells us what they want on the sign.  Par for the course.  We place the order and let the customer know when we will have a proof for them to review.  The purpose of the proof is so that the customer can make sure that the sign is set up exactly the way they want it.  This is the point where everything goes wrong.  I will be the first to admit that I am the world's worst proof reader and I'm pretty sure I have some unquantified learning disability.  Ergo, I make mistakes.  I try to counter this by showing my work to another coworker before sending off the proof, but this isn't always possible.  Now, the thing about people, see, and people in the role of customers is that they assume that the sign they want is the sign they are getting, which is a natural assumption, but means that they don't always pay as much attention to the proof as they should.  So often times, people will approve their proofs with some minor but significant flaw in the design.  Approving the proof means they are saying "Yes, this is the sign I want and I want you to make it for me."  Then, they will show up to pick up their sign.  This is usually the point where they choose to pay special attention to every little detail.  This is the point where they notice the flaw.  This is the point where they exclaim that WE the sign makers messed up their sign and demand that we fix it free of charge.  Now, yes, we made the mistake in the first place, but we showed it to them that way and they said that was the way they wanted it.  And now they're saying they want it different.  For free.  They are making us do more work.  Now don't get me wrong: I don't mind difficult problems, but I do mind people that make them more difficult by being total ass monkies.

   For this special brand of person, the ass monkey, I have developed what I call "The Customer Service Stare."  This is a technique is used to display absolute vile derision without overtly making your target aware of it.  First: go dead inside.  Turn off every part of your humanity.  Tuck it away somewhere until you're ready to let it come out later.  Next, let your face go blank.  Do not blink.  Let your jaw go slack and hang open slightly.  If you can manage to drool this is a plus.  Also, relax your posture a little bit so your shoulders are slightly rounded.  The purpose of all this is to indicate with every fiber of your being that you care so little about the person in front of you that you can't even be bothered to exist properly.  Of course, any person you find worthy of the Customer Service Stare is usually so self absorbed that they completely fail to notice.  Which is usually for the best.  No point in exacerbating an already volatile situation.

   Anywho, moving back to my original point...We all have to do something to pay the bills so that we can bring you the magical world of Break a Leg.  But what to do other than find some hopefully not too mind-numbing desk job and cranking out "product" day after day after day?  This is where my day dreams start...

    As anybody who has spent more than 5 minutes around me knows, I am a pirate.  I started my piratical career a couple years ago after playing the part of Antonio in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, who is in fact a pirate.  I enjoyed playing the part so much that I just decided to be like that all the time.  I also have a group of friends with whom I attend SCA events.  We call ourselves The Dread Ship Black Rose.  Then, the other day, a coworker of mine made a suggestion that really got me thinking.  Obvisouly these days, pirates are in: Pirates of the Carribean, International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and so on.  But some people think you can just throw on an eye patch, scream "yarrr!" and suddenly you're a pirate.  There's so much more to it than that.  There's a frame of mind that you can only acquire from participating in various piraty activities that one may not have the opportunity to indulge in or suffer through.  The progression here is one that I feel is quite natural: Pirate Camp.

  At Pirate Camp adults could learn the finer points of pirate-craft, such as boozing, wenching, fighting, swaggering, and so forth.  By day piratus potentia would learn the rudiments of sword play, semiphore and ship to ship combat.  At night they would learn sea shanties around the fire while getting toasted on rum.  And at the end of the week everybody would get their own doo rag to signify that they are ready to go out into the world and pillage to their hearts content. Hi diddle dee dee, the pirate's life for me. 

   And then reality comes rushing back in and I have to go deal with the fat schmuck in the bad toupee who, no matter what, insists that he didn't pay that much for his banner last time so he shouldn't be charged differently this time even though his previous order was from 5 years ago for half the amount of signage...

   Speaking of pirates and songs and such, I've written a few piratical songs myself and have always dreamed of recording them, perhaps putting together an album.  But what I really think should happen is we here at Break A Leg should make a music video out of one or two.  Yuri has mentioned the desire to do a few musical numbers, but seems to think they should be BaL related.  I would like to suggest otherwise.  So, to all you pirate fans out there: pester Yuri.  Tell him all my ideas aren't necessarily bad ones.  Yarrr!

Jen