Event horizon

I'm off to a decent start in my effort to be a regular blogger again. But my lack of writing in recent weeks means my readers have missed out on many of my recent adventures! I've done a lot of exciting things in the past six weeks, things that all could've received their own posts, but because of my blog apathy during that period I'm going to cram them all together and just give the highlights. Here they are (at least the ones I can still remember) in chronological order:

WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE TAPING
I went with my friend Aja, and both of us were surprised by two things: they had the same warmup comedian that we saw when we went to a taping of The Daily Show in April, and overall the experience wasn't as boring as we thought it would be. Both of us also failed the 30 question test afterwards, the first part of the audition process to become a contestant. Will I ever achieve my lifelong goal of appearing on a trivia-based game show?

HALLOWEEN

I one-upped all the other guys dressed as Joe the Plumber by wearing my He-Man t-shirt and becoming Joe Sixpack, who happens to be a plumber. I also pinned a sandwich-board poster of sorts to my back, where I made a few political and plumbing puns ("exposing the cracks in the economy," etc.). My own abs look almost as good, but the church dance I went to had a dress code so I had to keep my shirt on. Best costume of the night: a group effort, with the guy dressed as Robert Palmer and some girls as his backup band.

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE TOUR
I joined five of my friends and made my first ever trip to New Jersey (Newark was the closest the SYTYCD tour got to Manhattan). If you watched the show this season and liked it, then you'd like the concert--nearly all of the dances were ones they did on the show. Cat and Nigel were only there in prerecorded video form, which meant the dancers got to show off their mic skills in between performances. They tried to do some comedy bits with Gev and Courtney that didn't really work. The most memorable part of the evening? On the return trip, I fainted on the train! Seriously. It was weird and embarrassing, but ultimately I was ok. Thanks for breaking my fall, Gaby.

YEAR OF CHAMPIONS II
Not as big a turnout as the first one, but still a really good time. I sang my "Complicated" parody, and there were several other impressive talents, including Amy and Becky's mirror dance, Brook's bubble within a bubble, Elin's speedy caricatures, and especially Eric LaRue's Ukrainian hip hop song.

TWILIGHT PREMIERE
Just kidding.

BYU/UTAH FOOTBALL GAME
Obviously, the result was not what I wanted, but the game was still fun. I went to a real sports bar for the first time ever (ESPNZone doesn't count), and was there with about 30 other Manhattan Mormons. I wonder if Blondie's has ever had such a high percentage of their customers on one evening not buy alcohol. The chicken wings were tremendous.

SPECIAL STAKE CONFERENCE
Elder Holland was in town, so we had a special stake conference in the Hammerstein Ballroom (none of the chapels on the island can hold all of the members). It was a really cool experience; I wish I could have church in a place with balconies, especially one that's hosted WWF events, every week. In addition to the uplifting, spirit-filled words Elder Holland spoke, he also quoted Bryan Adams at one point. Seriously.

24: REDEMPTION
Jack is back! And better than ever. Well, better than Season 6 Jack at least. Not that that is hard...but I'm still excited for the new season that starts next month.

THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE
My friend Tamara is a producer for Good Morning America, and she invited me to the ABC VIP parade party at their Times Square studio. It took me forever to make my way through the crowds to the studio, but I got there in time to see Santa pass by, and more importantly, just before they put the breakfast buffet away. I hadn't had a credential of any kind for a long time, so I wore my VIP pass the rest of the day, long after the parade was over.

ENCHANTMENT UNDER THE LEAVES

Thanksgiving dinner was amazing. All of the decorations (title and motif inspired by Back to the Future's "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance) and a lot of the food were prepared by my roommate and his girlfriend. "Borrowing" some tables and chairs from the nearby chapel was more of a hassle than it should have been, but once we got things started it was fantastic. We had 32 people in our apartment for dinner, but there was plenty of food: turkey, stuffing, potatoes (sweet and mashed), stuffed mushrooms, rolls, cranberries (in sauce and ice cream form), pie, pumpkin roll, cookies...oh, and we went through almost 25 bottles of Martinelli's. It was so good.

THE SEXY TOUR
Tamara and I saw Jim Gaffigan (who declared himself a potential "mascot of the Mormons") perform at Town Hall, the venue featured in what is probably my favorite movie, A Mighty Wind. As expected, he was hilarious: jokes about escalators, why camping and recycling are no good, waffle houses, bacon, and tons of other stuff (including Hot Pockets, of course)...it was an hour long tribute to gluttony and laziness. Naturally, I loved every second of it.

WINTER'S EVE AT LINCOLN SQUARE
My first time attending this annual event, and it was a doozy...the Bacon Brothers were there! By movie-star-band standards, they're decent, which means they're decidedly mediocre. But the concert was free, so I won't complain. And I'm envious of Kevin Bacon--you can tell that he's having a great time (evidenced by his Mick Jagger impression and other goofy mannerisms) and doing exactly what he wants to do, and he's in a position financially where it doesn't matter if he succeeds or not. Good for him.

MARTHA STEWART TAPING
Aja and I teamed up for yet another TV taping, by far the most lucrative one yet. While waiting in line before the show, we got free hamburgers, bagels and hot chocolate, and after the show everyone got gift bags full of items featured on the episode, including a really fancy dessert cookbook (a $35 value according to the cover!), a bag of Christmas M&Ms, and Kristin Chenoweth's new Christmas CD (skip to the 3:50 mark of this clip for a funny slip of the tongue from the show, then skip back to the 2:04 mark to see me!).

KNICKS VS. BLAZERS
My second trip to MSG. The Knicks lost to Portland, which continues my lifelong streak of backing the losing team when I attend NBA games (I'm about 0 for 8 overall; this was the first time I went to a game that didn't feature the Jazz). I was with friends and I bought some Cracker Jack, though, so the night wasn't a total loss.

NATIONAL COOKIE DAY
Since I eat cookies on a very regular basis, I usually celebrate National Brownie Day instead, but some friends of mine hosted a Cookie Day party, and I was glad to attend. I brought a tube of cookie dough and some plastic spoons, and it was a big hit. I love things that are both creative and lazy. There were plenty of delicious fully formed cookies to eat too.

NEW YORK IMPROV
There was an after party on Cookie Night. One of the hosts has been taking improv classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade, so a few of us went to watch her coach in a show. It was very funny, very affordable, and not as dirty as I feared it might be (though certainly more adult than Laugh Out Loud). Best of all...even though the performers were good, I didn't feel that they were much above the level of people I've performed with for years. It made me feel good about the shows I've been in in Utah, and made me want to take a class at UCB when I can afford it. It would be great to perform there.

2008 LINGOS
The Lingos are the annual film festival for the Manhattan singles wards. Overall, this year's slate of movies was kind of ho-hum, but there was this gem of an entry starring my roommate Ryan. Here's one I like from last year's Lingos starring several of my friends.

KARAOKE
I joined about 20 of my friends and acquaintances at a downtown karaoke restaurant last weekend, and it was awesome. This wasn't a bar where you sing in front of strangers; we had our own room, with a couple of couches, a giant TV, two mics, and 15,000 songs to choose from. For a lot of the songs, the original music video plays on the screen. Each person pays by the hour. I sang a bunch of songs, but my favorite was getting everyone into the holiday spirit by busting out "Christmas in Hollis."

I did all of these fun things, but did not take a single picture at any of them. You'll just have to take my word for it that they were all great. After all of that, any of you who are living vicariously through me are probably exhausted.