Random crap with Uno.

[ColdWizard]

The colors seem a bit to pastel to me and overly bright.

[Buster's Uncle]

Absolutely.

Also stumbled on the test run for Talia's July costume.  Don't know if I ever posted it.  Tried for giggles, having never tried my hand at 'face painting' before.  She had fun with it for the rest of the day, creeping out the neighbor kids.

She's a perfect little Wednesday Addams right now, I think.   You might ought to actually do that before she gets too old.

We try to avoid water works.  "Clinging to parents legs, not up all night with nightmares" is our motto.

I wonder how my kid did that night...

[Unorthodox]

Alright [must not type and break the curse filter] iphone has GOT to quit deleting my movies every time they update the ios. 

What the HELL?  (again, I typically prefer to listen to full musicals, thus the movie rather than the soundtrack to said movie)

[Unorthodox]

I've acquired the unfortunate reputation for being an adept ringmaster at this three ringed circus. 

Not that I'm not adept at such a thing, I just prefer to do it on my own terms.  Ad libbing for ill prepared acts is not something I appreciate being put on the spot to do, and NO ONE is prepared outside my freaks and clowns.  We have OUR show down.  If you need me to cover for the other acts, not just lead my own, tell me up front I'll be the ringmaster and I'll prepare a gag or two 'just in case' the other acts are not ready, don't just drop it on me. 

[ColdWizard]

Someone got one of those music playing skeletons for the office.

[Buster's Uncle]

don't just drop it on me.

No luck trying to tell them that, I take it.


This reminds me of the turd of a joust I had to make a show out of/polish on the fly as MC in my renfair days - the one when there was exactly one (1) knight/horse present and able to perform turned out to be one of the best shows -no, it was actually hands-down the best- and was a masterpiece of improvisation for me and the knight. 

The knights' company was a perpetual trainwreck who collectively had no business being out there doing something so dangerous.  They weren't ready, they weren't going to EVER BE ready, and I got thrown out there not even knowing their show (that never ended up actually happening) or them.  The first day, I was bad and so were they.

It's hard to have a boring joust, you know, because it's HORSES -LIVE- and you can FEEL the hoofbeats as they run.  So not complete failures as shows, but no thanks to me or the other humans, several of whom got hurt.  It was so bad that one of the things I'm proudest of for the experience was being one of the only people who was in every show and never got hurt.  By the end of the second show the first day, I'd gotten down off the podium with the royal court and was moving around the tilt yard working the crowd up close - and horses have a thing about me where they like me a little too much and start doing little dangerous dominance moves trying to bite me and stuff - but none of these skitzo horses managed.  Didn't get bitten, kicked, trampled, thrown over a fence or anything, which put me out way ahead of some of the knights, and not because I wasn't in the line of fire (made a point of spending a lot of time with the knights during the week, vainly trying to help them organize into a real show and helping with the horses to let them get to know me -the night we fed them after dark was truly frightening and should never have happened- so I handled the horses a lot and ended up doing a fair bit of squiring during the shows.)

(My secret to working with horses up close -it was hardly my first time- is the same as the one that makes me a safe driver and hard to hurt in a fight - fear is your best friend when you manage it well, and if you're not -a little- afraid of something as big as a full-grown horse, never ever get in the corral with them, because a smallish mare can spook at anything and make you dead without trying hard.  -If you're not able, on the other hand, to convince your inner child that you're meaner than a horse and smarter than a horse, and that you can whip a horse in a fight if you have to, given any chance at all, stay out of the corral; they will smell it.  "My ancestors ate your ancestors and I could eat you, so let's be cool instead" I've cheerfully told many a horse I handled.  I'm aware of the danger and very careful, is all.)

My secret to MCing what's otherwise a bad show into a good one -and this was at the heart of what I did right in my own stage act, which wasn't really anything but 'renaissance' standup comedy- is getting the audience chanting and shouting and making their own fun.  It turns out a bunch of people sitting on bleachers to see fake violence and horsies running are VERY receptive to this.  (I'm not sure exactly how that would apply to some indoor corporate thing, Uno - telling a story, not trying to give advice.)

So the second weekend, mid-day show, between injuries and crazy horses we had one (1) knight and his horse present and able to perform at showtime.  By definition, can't do a joust with one knight/horse, and quite a creative challenge for us two humans with a crowd already assembled...

The knight and his horse were both giant brutes and dangerous to be around -just perpetual walking disasters with no emotional control- but that session, they followed my improvised verbal cues exactly while we struggled to make one (1) knight on horseback doing tiltyard training tricks interesting.

I got the crowd cheering for them to break the pail (target he was tilting at, a shield on a wooden stand).  HE had the genius inspiration of dismounting, when they'd indeed broken the pail, picking up the pieces and holding them over his head roaring in triumph.  The crowd totally lost it.

(I daresay it was the greatest moment of Jason's life to that point, too - the boy had SERIOUS issues, and needed that affirmation SO desperately.  I'm as proud of my part in that for the poor broken SOB as I am in the making a show out of it.)

[Unorthodox]

Had to rope Federal, State, County, and now City Gubments and steer their heads all in the same direction.  This is an overly ridiculous amount of beaurocracy for something so entirely trivial, and believe me, I've spent 20 years on Gubment crap, this goes well over and above. 

The massive weight of all that beaurocracy moving, though, is enough to ensure nothing's stopping completion tomorrow. 

[Bertilak]

I hear the jobs at call centers have even worse conditions than retail . . .

[Buster's Uncle]

Flipping burgers gets nearly equal pay and less abuse, I hear.

Had to rope Federal, State, County, and now City Gubments and steer their heads all in the same direction.  This is an overly ridiculous amount of beaurocracy for something so entirely trivial, and believe me, I've spent 20 years on Gubment crap, this goes well over and above. 

The massive weight of all that beaurocracy moving, though, is enough to ensure nothing's stopping completion tomorrow.

And then you don't have to worry about it anymore.  Good man.

Sounds really opposite to what I was up against with the joust...

[Bertilak]

We need to start a Political Activity Commitee that espouses less government intervention in accordance with Lao-Tzu's principles about this subject.

[Unorthodox]

Sounds really opposite to what I was up against with the joust...

Oh, the circus is another issue all together. 

[Unorthodox]

October is here.
6 months of working on the "impossible" about to be completed.
Once done, it establishes a pipeline with all relevant parties, making the next 6 years much simpler. 

! No longer available

[Unorthodox]

Completed a second project today, this one 10 months in the making.   

And it's my Friday.   

[Buster's Uncle]

Congratulations, sir!

[Bertilak]

Completed a second project today, this one 10 months in the making.   

And it's my Friday.   

I agree with the above smilie about Friday (or its equivalent) .