I could blog about something useful. Or I could not.

I’m stressed out about assignment due tomorrow. I have 8 hours of time to do the work and I think it’ll take me closer to 15.

In conclusion, I am a stupid over-achiever for going so far beyond the assignment brief.

I’d like to paste in a snippet of a MSN convo, proving once again, why I love Debra so much – her turn of phrase is just wonderful:

Lady Bunbury – Explodes on demand says:
but loss for words man
Lady Bunbury – Explodes on demand says:
once again proving that hot men are really just men

My sister is home from England for at least 2 weeks!

I attended Comicide: Murder For Melbourne last night where Patrick actually asked me to review it on my blog (!). So here goes…

I love going to Comicide, and started going to it last year when I was interested in Comedians (or shamefully a particular one…) but loved it so, that I went again to the next show. What I love about Comicide is that it’s sketch comedy (I find sometimes that pure impro can get rather tedious when the actors really have lost the plot or have not figured one out yet) and so it has that structure, but the actors are of a higher calibre than that of University Revues. Comicide, being sketch comedy written and then done live on a fortnightly basis means that there is very little production value and rehearsal time. This is where their impro skills kick in.

Murder For Melbourne is a fund-raising show for them to take it to Melbourne. They had five actors in it: Dan Ilic, Toby Truslove, Killian David, Janis McGavin and good old Patrick Magee. I actually liked it having a small cast – not only did it make it easier to have running gags without people missing out on stage time (a common problem with Revue casting) it made the show feel tighter and more coherent.

The show actually displayed the actors’ virtuosity. Dan was brilliant in his Alan Jones parody with his ability to just change characters really quickly and Killian was simply hilarious as a cerebral palsy sufferer. There was a wide range of accents used across the board and it amazed me how versatile the actors were. Patrick always has me convinced anytime he picks up a new accent.

The order of the sketches was quite tight and organised with a nice flow. It really did not feel like that almost 2 hours had passed. A running gag that I loved was the time travel one and it was more intellectual. They had a wide variety of humour which was lovely. Janis as the bible cheerleader always has me in stitches, especially now after I’ve seen the documentary ‘Jesus Camp’ where I can actually see some of the hardcore evangelists doing that kind of thing. And, I always love anything with Chip Calhoun with it. Toby’s characterisation always makes me giggle, especially when he’s reading some of Chips ‘literature’. However, I thought the mining gag was a bit weak and that it depended on the audience and room size was small to get what Dan was doing in the dark.

However, they didn’t have time to rehearse properly and it really showed. They are all terrific actors and pulled it off with great aplomb, but they sometimes had a hard time keeping a straight face and sometimes repeated themselves. Being Comicide, the production value was low. However, last night (to borrow a word from Patrick’s vocabulary) was completely shambolic. The lighting cues were way off and sometimes even went down before they had even finished the sketch! I found the music was overpowering (maybe because I was next to the speaker) and I couldn’t hear the cast very well at the start of most sketches, appearing like they hadn’t sorted it out yet and the DJ was doing it on the fly – making it seem very amateur.

One of the things I infinitely love about Comicide over Revues is none of the elaborate set changes are required so there are no big blackouts with voice overs. But the quick changes were too quick! Toby regularly had to get into a shirt and a tie for his Chip Calhoun sketches and having almost no time for the quick change meant they slightly missed their cues. I don’t know how they’ll figure it out for Melbourne because that pace was extreme. Though the actors are all terrific, it would have been nice to see real props and real costumes because that would have seriously lifted the show.

However, I remain a fan of Comicide. They always deliver humour. I never think “this is not funny” as I do sometimes whilst I’m at University Revues. The show needed a little more polish, but worth the trip to go out to see. The actors are all terrific, and one day it’ll cost me a fortune to go watch them, so the door fee at the Roxbury is worth it.

You should go see them with that thought in mind. They are performing at the Roxbury in Glebe at 8:30pm on Saturday night for their last “Murder For Melbourne” fund raiser.

So in more people capers, I ditched my usual TAFE crowd and hung out with another two kids at TAFE on our excursion today. Talking to the girls, I told them how I absolutely hated this girl in our class who was a class-A bitch and it irritated me how she never paid any attention whatsoever, interrupted our lessons on whim and then asked all these questions which would have been answered if she listened in the first place. Her joking insults have an edge of malice which sets my teeth on edge.

However, one of the girls responded back with that what irritated her the most was the crew (the ones that I end sitting up with) who would hold the class back because they were slow and then end up giving up on the course anyway.

It’s really very interesting. This is because it illustrates what we as different people find important. The girl is obviously  ambitious and really minds when people hold her back. However, my ambitions are more laid back, and I really mind when people cause disruption and aren’t very nice. This indicates that I prefer things to be like calm water.

It got me thinking about what my people philosophy is. I have been told over and over again that my reputation as a noisy, annoying attention seeker is why many people dislike me. However, because I have a philosophy of believing the best in people, I’m generally very easy going until they actually piss me off in person. And as a result, I get very upset when people develop dislike towards me because I generally try to like everyone.

On a different note, Vanessa came over on Sunday to help me de-clutter my room and it was really great. We had a lovely chat and some of it was about how people irritated us, or how we lost contact with people.

In the cleaning process, a lot of old things resurfaced. Pictures of my first love Eric, leftovers from old projects that I had done which had me pulling out an old scrapbook I had made whilst Alex and I were dating. It was bloody painful and I wanted to cry as all the memories of those times came rushing back.

But I wonder what is it that makes me nostalgic? Is it because it was a happy time? Is it because I miss the person? Is it because I regret losing what I had and becoming what I am? This doesn’t wash as I can honestly say that I am more happy and satisfied with myself as a person right now than I have ever been in the past, especially while I was dating. Maybe it’s because I miss the emotional ties as my relationships with people who were so very important to me. Maybe it’s because I miss having someone to dream about and make things for.

I don’t really know.

However I am struck that human emotion and interaction is so very complex.

Back on the original topic, I’ve noticed nowadays that my usual crew at TAFE is starting to annoy me because of their singular lack of ambition. I miss being able to completely nerd out and have that accepted as opposed to being cut down for ‘showing off’ my intellect. So I just bury myself in my books and my knitting.

And in more not-so-nicety, it’s nice to have company during lunch, but beyond TAFE, I will most likely leave them behind. That makes me sad at myself somewhat.