The People That You Meet When You're Walking Down the Street...

The People that you meet each day. Well, living in LA it’s always an adventure on who or even what you’re going to see on a daily basis. Sometimes you think “Well, that can’t be real” and then it goes and pulls it’s Prius into the Trader Joe’s parking lot. Here are a few of the things I’ve observed. At least I think I have. Sometimes the brain can’t quite process what you’re looking at.

I shop at Whole Foods a lot, because we like being poor but well fed. That’s kind of ground zero for hippies, stars and weirdos. Of course the fact that I’m there a lot doesn’t mean anything. It’s all the OTHER people who are weird.

Occasionally I see comedian Charles Fleischer there. He was the voice of Roger Rabbit and was on Welcome Back, Kotter. I’ve opened for him on the road a few times. He’s a really nice guy and when I run into him he entertains my kids for a few minutes with cartoon voices which is frankly, really helpful.

One day I saw the girl from Scrubs there, and then I saw an African Witch Doctor get out of a jeep and walk towards the Whole Foods. I’m not even kidding. I’m HOPING it was someone who just came from a movie or TV set. Otherwise, again, brain can’t process. It was the whole nine yards too. This guy had a cloak, no shoes, lots of bracelets around his ankles and various piercings on his face. He was driving, so he didn’t fear technology. Although I can’t imagine teaching an on the road driving school and having him next to you and trying to explain parallel parking in a click language. I would have loved to have gotten that whole story but sometimes I think it’s best that you don’t know.

I saw Eric Idle (one of my heroes from Monty Python) at a small comedy show in Hollywood as an unannounced guest performer. I didn’t get to meet him, unfortunately.

I saw Scott Baio at a different supermarket before his resurgence as a reality show star.
When I was hiking with my five year old last weekend a guy was hiking the other way with a parrot on his shoulder. Need attention, much, Johnnie Needy?

Audge and I were having dinner and as we were walking out of the restaurant two guys drove by in a Rocket Car. That’s right, a rocket car. It was a car in the shape of a rocket. Audge and I just burst out laughing. How often do you get to see a rocket car?

Months later, I saw a boat car drive by. Yes, it was a car in the shape of a boat and I could have SWORN it was the same guy driving. Like the dude was freaking building crazy cars in his garage and driving them around. But then again, if you COULD build a rocket car in your garage, why wouldn’t you?

I suppose it’s one of those things that keeps LA exciting, like the traffic, smog, earthquakes and slim chances of finding employment. I can’t really say that I LOVE LA, but I do like Southern California and anyplace that I can occasionally see a rocket car is OK with me.

Random Stuff and Guest Blogging

Hello everyone.

I have been busy over at honestbaby.com Here's my article on MY LIFE WITH VIDEO GAMES.

http://www.honestbaby.com/my-life-with-video-games/

Also, they did a very nice review of my book:

http://www.honestbaby.com/book_for_new_dads_pacify-me/

Also, I finished DRAGON AGE on the PS3. It was a pretty amazing game, I have to say. It was a cool mix of retro Dungeons and Dragons with a hard edged, morally ambiguous story. Like you're an adult but really it's your inner teenager playing in the basement listening to Def Leppard while reading the Dungeon Master's Guide before your other lonely friends come over for a gaming session. Anyway, Dragon Age has sex, violence, betrayal, and dragon slaying! And that's just some of the stuff you can do...

Me:"Are you still taking the kids to Costco?"
Wife:"Yes, why did you need anything?"
Me:"Yes, I need you to take the kids to Costco"

I love my iphone, but I don't see the point of the iPad. I really don't. It does less for more! The whole point of technology is to replace and combine stuff. I don't need something extra. Of course, when the REAL one comes out six to eight months from now we'll see...

Still really enjoying the fact that I didn't need surgery again. Thank you to everyone who e-mailed and posted comments. It really made my day.

This bears repeating: To truly appreciate Death Cab for Cutie you have to hate them first and then let them slowly win you over.

I am still really enjoying LOST, even though it often makes no sense. I think that's a compliment.

Not sure what's going on with movies right now: Hot Tub Time Machine, How to Train Your Dragon, and Ghost Writer were all GOOD. Food Inc is a MUST SEE on DVD. Spoiler alert: Corn is in everything.

21 month old slept until 5:00 am which was unusual. We're having trouble with our sleepless toddler. Anyone have any advice for us with a toddler who only sleeps 7-8 hours a night and is not tired? Of course, he's not tired but it's killing us... We're going through the suggested list of remedies and we're about ready to add a few of our own involving ether. Anyone experience this and how did you solve it? Is it even solvable? Maybe our robobaby just doesn't need sleep...

Unexpected Ear Surgery, Part III (conclusion)

I should be at the hospital getting my ear surgery about now. But I’m not. I’m sitting here at home typing this post. No, I didn’t chicken out. I received the medical equivalent of “Bank Error in Your Favor” and I did indeed jump back and almost lost my top hat.

The doctor called me and said he had finally heard back from the lead pathologist and melanoma expert at UCLA. This opinion apparently trumped the opinions of the regular pathologist and a dermatologist. I’m not really sure what the doctor pecking order is, and I don’t care. But I think they use some type of Rock/Paper/Scissors system. I’m just happy not to have to be put under and have a knife stuck in my ear again.

The lead pathologist thought the surgery was unnecessary at this time and thought careful clinical follow up will suffice for now. The growth was benign and didn’t even show signs of melanoma, so there was nothing to be concerned about at this time. Woo-hoo!

I felt my whole body relax. Wow. No more of Michael Jackson’s favorite anesthesia. No more of the doctors and nurses mentioning that it was his favorite. No skin graft. No tube in my ear for a week. But no getting out of childcare for a few days. Oh well, it’s a fair exchange.

The call came right after my wife had rearranged her entire work schedule around my surgery and recovery. She then proceeded to call everyone back. I’m not sure if her boss thought she made the whole thing up or not, but that’s her problem.

So I have to go to the ear doctor every three months to be monitored. No problem.

Truth be told, I’m not really sure what freaked me out more. The anesthesia was something I was a bit frightened and anxious about. Visions of everything from complications and alien abductions to the ending of The Sixth Sense all had me quite uneasy.

But was that really it? Probably not. The real uneasiness was feeling my sense of mortality. I’ve felt it before, and I don’t like it. It sobers you, makes you think and makes you realize your time on this planet is finite. It’s like getting a reminder card from the Grim Reaper.

But come on, only old people have surgeries. They’re not for people like us, right? People who use the internet don’t have surgeries. We’re too young, hip, and on the cutting edge… I have an iPhone! But after the denial wore off I just wanted it over with. Again. For the third time. Luckily there was no third time. I can now go back to my regularly scheduled blissful, ignorant denial of my mortal coil. Who’s with me?

Unexpected Ear Surgery Part II

This I had to share. I was walking with our 20 month old and a guy drives up to me and says “Have you seen a little dog running around, looks like a fox?”
“No. What’s it’s name?”
“Foxy”
“I’ll keep an eye out. And you are the most uncreative person in the world.”

So I go in the next day for my ear surgery to remove some tissue with some atypical cells in it. I am very nervous, more about the anesthesia than anything else. After a brief wait in the lobby they called me back and my adventure began.

The first thing you always have to do is “get changed”. Is there anything in the new Obama healthcare package about replacing hospital gowns that cover nothing and are impossible to tie? It’s 2010 people. Let’s advance hospital gown technology, shall we? So while they are working on my ear and I still had to strip and put a gown on. Great.

They gave me a warm towel which was interesting and I sat and waited for the event. The doctor came in and talked to me and told me what he was going to do, again. Cut out the growth in a 2 mm margin down my ear canal. Got it. Then he told me I may need a skin graft but he’ll see how it goes. Wait, what?!

Then the anasthesologist came in and told me that it was safe and there was another Michael Jackson reference. OK, I got it. He used it at home without supervision. I’m assuming there is going to be a bit more supervision here at the hospital than at Neverland Ranch, right?
I have to admit, I was really nervous. I didn’t want to be put under and I have a fear of… all sorts of things. But the doctors did their best to reassure me and I did feel better.

Then it was showtime and I was shown to my warm bed surrounded by machines and tools. They plugged me into the happy juice and made me keep talking.
“Feel it yet?”
“No”
“Wow, you’re a tough one. Think about somewhere you want to go on vacation. Seriously.”

I talked about New Zealand and soon enough I was out. It occurred to me as I was going under that with two children, this is probably the only way I’m going to get any uninterrupted sleep. So maybe I should relax and enjoy it a little bit. But it’s a dreamless sleep. You get put under and you wake up as if no time has passed.

When I woke up I was so nauseous that I forgot to be joyful that I was indeed awake. So I got to throw up and get a nice shot in the leg for nausea. But hey, it worked. I felt better. Then my wife came back and while I was happy to be awake, I kinda wanted to go back to sleep. After effects of the drugs.

So I went home with my ear completely blocked up and was uncomfortable and disoriented for about another day. Then I was just uncomfortable, then just annoyed, which is what I am all the time anyway so I was almost back to normal.

I went back to the doctor a few days later to get all the bandages and the tube out of my ear. That’s when he said,” I have mostly good news for you” said the doctor. I didn’t like the sound of that. Well, I liked the sound of half of it. Turns out everything was benign which is awesome, but the bad news is that it looks like they didn’t get it all. I have to go back in and do it again. Next week. They are going to take more tissue out and it will be a longer recovery. Great. The worst part is that I was just thinking “wow, I won’t have to have anastesia again for a while.” Apparently a while was about two and a half weeks. Meh.

Unexpected Ear Surgery Part 1

The last thing you want to have to hear are the words “unexpected” and “surgery” in any sentence. I’ve been a bit sick lately, from my two children trying to kill me slowly with cold germs, but then things got a bit more dramatic. This has all of course affected my computer time and I realize I’m a bit more obsessed than normal. “The internet misses me!” Yes, indeed. It misses all of us.

So I go to the ear doctor once a year because I have a ridiculous problem of overproducing ear wax in my right ear which them blocks up to the point where I lose hearing in that ear. But this time I went in and the doctor found something extra. A “growth”. And no idea what it was. Wart? Mole? Cyst? Alien spore? He suggested we snip it off in the office and I setup another appointment to do so.

So I went back and they numbed the area, or so I thought and snipped it off. All this is taking place inside my ear canal through a microscope. Now I couldn’t feel it, but I sure could hear it. Not pleasant.

“We’re just going to cauterize it now.” Wait, what?! Great, now not only could I hear the sizzle, I smelled smoke as well. AND some of the numbness went away. “We call that a hotspot” said the doctor after he saw me wince. But now it was out of me and off to the lab.

I go back for a follow-up and that’s when it gets weird. “We needed to get a second opinion. It appears benign, but it’s a growth that shouldn’t be there. We’re recommending we get the rest of it out. I do surgeries on Fridays. I’ll have to put you under.”

Whaaat?! I need surgery?! AND I’m going to be put under?! I haven’t had anesthesia since I got my tonsils out as a child, or since I saw Avatar in 3-D. Honestly, I was more than a little nervous about it. I just remember counting backwards into a big black gas balloon and waking up with my throat sore. At least then I got ice cream. Not sure what the policy is now.

The doctor reassured me that it anesthesia was much safer now than it has ever been. I’ll be getting the same drug as Michael Jackson. And that’s supposed to make me feel BETTER?! The doctor then went on to explain that it’s a great drug when used under supervision at a hospital. Oh, you mean not at home recreationally? It then occurred to me a lot of people must be asking that question now. The poor drug company. Nothing like the most famous person in the world dying from your drug to give you a little bad PR. Then I thought, on the other hand, if Michael Jackson was using it, it must be pretty good.

So I scheduled the pre-op and the op. One is the day before so you can fill out paperwork and get really good and nervous before your surgery. They ask you lots of questions, and the nurse asked a few that I found interesting:

“Do use any medical devices or machines at home?”
“Recreationally or practically?”
“Do you have any problems with anxiety, depression, drugs, or alcohol?”
“…That’s a lot of things in one category. Shouldn’t we split them up?”
“(silence)”
“OK, anxiety”
“Are you feeling nervous right now?”
“What do you think?”

So after a long grilling, blood tests, an EKG, etc. The nurse said “OK, you’re free to go”
“Until tomorrow, right?”
“Right”

Next post: The surgery!

Promoting a Pal

As I'm sure a lot of you know my pal Stefanie Wilder-Taylor has been on most of the television shows on your television by now. But did you know she does PODCASTS too?! I know, can you believe it?! She stopped by to do out Comedy Film Nerds Podcast right before the Academy Awards and she talked about movies and how angry everyone was with her about ruining Up In The Air.

You can go to comedyfilmnerds.com and listen to episode 8. But most importantly, why would you do anything if there wasn't something in it for you? Of course there is. How about a chance to win a FREE signed and personalized copy of her new book It's Not Me, It's You? It couldn't be easier. Go to comedyfilmnerds.com and go to the message boards. Enter the contest thread and tell us who you think should play Stefanie in a movie and why. OK, it could be a little easier. Now, afraid of coming in third? No worries! Stef is giving away THREE books. THREE winners! Do it! It's free! It will help the economy. Don't argue.

Either way, it's a great book and you should buy it even if you don't win, signed and personalized from the comedyfilmnerds.com store. But I hope you win. I really do. Cheers.

stefaniewildertaylor.com is her home if you want to read more about her. Oh, and you will.

Why I Love Japanese RPGs.

That’s Japanese Role Playing Video Games, for those of you not in the Geekknow. They are usually brilliantly imagines, immersive, surprising, but they can be long, slow, tedious and sometimes even boring. And yet, I love the negative stuff about them too. So why?

The first reason is that with two children my video game time has let’s just say, greatly diminished. I can play the Wii or Rock Band with Bella but that’s it. A little Resident Evil time has to wait.

Then I discovered the Persona games. Persona 3 took months and months to play. Even then you’ll miss part of it since there is so much to do and there is a ticking clock, and get this, the Persona games are currently PS2 games. Luckily I have a PS3 that’s backwards compatable, but I know, it feels like you’re playing an Atari 2600 sometimes. It’s soooo 2005…

So what makes it so great? Well, what’s so great about it is how… insane it is. Only Japanese game developers with a few issues about death, sexuality, and high school could come up with this. And I love it.

So the game opens up mysteriously. At midnight, everyone turns into… coffins? OK. Wait, OMFG. I’m a high school kid. I go to class. I go on dates. I can go to the mall. And at night if I so choose I go into a giant dark castle and fight monsters. Oh no, it gets better. I fight monsters by bringing my own moster out of my body. How do I do this? By shooting myself in the head over and over. Fricking twisted genius. Then you think, oh, it can’t get any weirder. But you’d be wrong. Soon a female robot shows up joins your team and then you can date her as well. Finally!

My wife watched me playing one night. She watched me walk around, talk to people and read the poorly translated Japanese dialogue. She then expectantly commented “This is boring.” To which I replied “Exactly!” That’s the point. Sometimes to relax I just go in the game, go to a few classes and then go to the mall to buy new armor and weapons. All malls in Japan seem to have armories, right? Right next to Cinnabon?

Sure, if I want to shoot myself in the head and woop some monster ass I can certainly do that if I wish. But not always.

But the point is, I'm tired. While I love video games, sometimes at the end of a seemingly endless day I may not be looking for the FPS viceral experience. Sometimes, I like to relax virtually as well.

So when I should be doing work late at night, or at least trying to catch up on my sleep sometimes I may not be home at all. I’ll be in Japan, going to school, studying for exams, fighting monsters and solving mysteries. Or I may just walk around and buy new pants that have a protection rating against fire magic. And why the hell not? I’m older now. My priorities have changed. I still want to fight monsters, I just like to wear some nicer things while I’m doing it.