People of Michigan Unite! and buy each other Diet Cokes!
This morning, I finally saw the movie The Big Lebowski. I rather enjoyed that movie, actually... as there are some gratuitous philosophy parts in it. It just proved to me that you can have almost any character be a philosopher... and it seems to work because every character has a philosophy to life.
As for my philosophy? It's summed up while The Dude and Walter are in the funeral home, with the writing on the wall:
"As for man, his days are as
grass,
As a flower of the field, so he
flourisheth,
for the wind passeth over it,
and it is gone." - Psalm 103.15
I really don't think that's my philosophy, but I thought I'd share that with you. Very metaphoric, no? My philosophy actually comes from Marx: "You're only as old as the woman you feel." That was Groucho Marx, not Karl.
I also spent a lot of time this morning catching up on the ol' blog. I wonder if people check to see if I've posted anything new from a few days ago... or if they just check to see if the top post is new? *shrug* I never check to see if subsequent posts are new on other people's blogs... but most people don't try to post every day like I do. I guess that makes me better than everyone, doesn't it? (Hint: Yes)

By the way, whatever happened to the John that hates people? I mention this because, this evening I was in the Second City Training Center lobby, waiting for Keith, and I overheard someone say they were from Grand Valley State University. So I interrupted, and flat out told them I was eavesdropping and then I started a conversation with the whole table. Turns out they are a Level A Improv class (meaning they all just started this loot). I called them "Chris and the Level A Improv class" because Chris is the only one who took the effort to introduce himself. Does that make me an ass, or does that make everyone but Chris an ass for not introducing themselves? I'm not sure. But I do know that I hit the entire group up to come see the Basically Awesome show. Pretty neat, huh?
I was waiting for Keith because we had decided to finally go see the Second City mainstage show. Our Level C instructor, Claudia, finally made the mainstage... and we've been meaning to go see it ever since the current show, Red Scare, has gone up. Claudia was awesome... as were all the members of the mainstage cast. And, even though the new set cuts the playing space in half, I really didn't miss it. They seemed to do a lot with a little... even setting up that there could be infinite universes out there (I kid you not), and that someone from another universe could exist in the same space and time... but be invisible to us in this universe. Not only was that interesting, they set themselves up to be able to run a transition from one scene to the next by allowing other characters to exist in the same space, but not be acknowledged by the members of the current scene. Ingenious, huh?
Keith, however, could only stay for the first half. He had to catch the train back out to Aurora. I feel bad for him, because the tickets are $18... and he only got to see half the show. Furthermore, the theatre was sold-out, so I had to pay to get in to. Sold out on a Tuesday night in January? Yeah... I think even the mainstagers didn't think it was going to happen. So Keith left, and I was left sitting at a table with two older women, whose names I found out were Susan and Karen. Remember how I started this huge block of text with me not hating people? Yeah... so I started talking to these ladies and I found out that Susan was from Mt. Pleasant and LOVES Michigan... so we talked about Michigan for a while. And then she mentioned she was a family therapist... so I was not surprised when she started asking me questions about myself and about how supportive my parents are, etc. I just kept talking... openly and honestly about my situation. Why not? And it seemed they enjoyed the conversation SO much that I got a free soda-pop out of the deal (Susan insisted on buying me something).

#7 Post of 2004 - Onion Headlines and Fake Movie Trivia! I was obviously going to put these two on the list somewhere. Both the Onion Headlines (posted March 10th) and the Fake Movie Trivia (posted November 3rd) were written for some other reason, but I DID put a lot of thought and creativity into them... so they're here because that creativity level is exactly what this "best of posts" list is all about. The best news about these two: Both are exercises that you can do at home! Go ahead and try it! You've got a blog (most probably, if you're reading this)... come up with ten onion-style headlines and some fake movie trivia, and post your favorite on my comments. Go on! It's fun!