Idiot Me...

I was debating on even writing about this, but it is kinda funny and totally describes me and my naivity sometimes when it comes to the opposite gender...

Subtitle: "maybe this is part of why I can't get a date"

#Igotnogame

I'm at Penn & Teller. I'm by myself, Surrounded by strangers.  On my left is Phillip and his wife. On my right is a girl and two of her friends. 

After I get back to my seat, she asks if I knew they would bring me up on stage. I said, "no clue. I just bought a ticket and showed up like everyone else."

After the show ends, she asks if I could text her the video so she could watch it. 

I say ok. She gives me her phone number and we wait for the crowds to leave. 

I get bored after 30 seconds and sit back down. "We aren't going anywhere for a while. I'm going to watch the video now. Nothing better to do."

She sits next to me and we watch the video together. After the video ends, she says, "you don't have to send me that.  It's ok."

"Oh ok. Here's this back."

As I hand her phone number back to her...(yes, that's the 'idiot me' part)...and then I walk away. 

As I was turning to leave though, her friend asks, "what was that?" Referring to the paper I handed back to her. 

"My phone number.  I gave it to him. He gave it back to me." She said a little disappointed. 

"...idiot." -Napolean Dynamite and/or Chris Farley and/or Red Foreman 

At A Loss

Got back to the hotel tonight after work. Thought I'd go give a blackjack table a try. Wanted to play $40 worth at a $5 table. It's tough to find a $5 table in Vegas...that's got other people...that isn't full...on a Tuesday night.  

After 3 casinos, I Finally found a $5 table!!  Sat down and was ready to go. Except I sat down at the wrong table. It wasn't blackjack. It was hold em. I know how to play five card draw. That's about it for poker. Trudging my way through, I just followed what the guy next to me was doing...

I won one out of five hands before my $40 was gone. 

Time and money not well spent. 

Vegas Part 2

Honestly, not much of interest today.  Got things done.  Show went on. 

Only two highlights: 

1. Had a Slurpee for the first time. 

It was just a frozen beverage. But it was officially a Slurpee. Still...Nothing special. 

2. Runner issues.  Had two runners to start out. The one stopped at 3pm. Then the other stopped at 7pm but had someone to cover. That someone was simultaneously supposed to drive and run a spotlight during the show.  And somehow we had a fourth person who bought stuff. And another guy. Possibly another gal. It felt like a revolving door of runners all day in 3 hour shifts. 

The Wrong Place, Right Time

After driving ten miles to the venue the promoter gave us the address to this morning - Nobody was there. So we call the promoter. 

Apparently he changed the venue without telling us. 

"The new venue is two miles from your hotel". 

We are now headed back almost to where we started this morning...

Beautiful mountains along the way though:

Idaho Mint

Did you know that the number one money making export of Idaho is not potatoes, but is actually mint?  I'm not really sure if that's true, but someone at the concert felt the need to tell us that for absolutely no reason. 

Someone also brought a poorly trained service dog to the concert...and then it jumped onto the table at the meet & greet.  

In other news, today Mr Talkbox pulled out his game of cornhole again and was playing with it backstage. It was still set up during out meet & greet, so he played a couple rounds with some kids. The kids apparently didn't know who he was until later when their mom asked, "how was it playing cornhole with Mr Talkbox?"

"What do you mean?  We just played with some guy that came over." 

"Yeah. That was Mr Talkbox."

"REALLY?!?!"

I thought it was great they didn't know who he was.  They were all just having fun without it being about 'hanging out with the star'. 

In my world, it always makes me happy (and my boss happy) when she will ask me to do something, and it's either being done or I've already done it. That happened three major times today.  

"Hey Joe. The runner is back with the food for the busses."

I instantly texted back this photo:

"Already on it!"

We also had a masseuse come in.  It was much needed by all the crew.  I got my shoulders and calves done. My neck felt great all day.  My legs felt great for a few hours, then they hurt again from all the walking around the venue. 

I also had these little bits of deliciousness for dessert tonight:

Cinnamon sugar maple syrup with bacon mini donuts. 

Great way to end a meal and end a day. 

Nothing That Happens To Me Stays In Vegas...

What an amazing day!!!  

Understatement. 

Tonight I get a hotel room. With a bed. And a hot shower. Ahhhh. 

The room is kinda cool and also kinda weird. 

My bed sits in the middle of the room. It works, so I'm not complaining about that. But it is weird. 

As you can see above, the toilet on the right has its own cove that sits behind a mirror.  I swear I've literally ran into that mirror half a dozen times because I've been coming from the left side and the reflection looks like a new room. So I keep running into my own reflection at the last moment. 

The shower on the left makes me a bit clausterphobic. It's literally a water closet. 

Beyond that, there is a fridge in my room with a sign that says, if you use this fridge for personal use, we will charge you $13. 

Next to that is a rack of food with a sign that says if any item is removed from the rack for more than 60 seconds, you will automatically be charged for that item. 

There's also a mirror on my ceiling. It's creeping me out. I don't want to see myself as soon as I wake up. And every time I look at the mirror, there's someone staring at me as I try and sleep. Creepy. 

The ceiling also looks like a scene from Dexter. Why would you do this in a hotel room????

My bed also lights up. That's kinda cool. 

Jenn and I made a trip to the Pinball Hall of Fame:

Spent $20 in 3 hours. Money well spent on entertainment.  Pinball games including the Flintstones, Xmen, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Transformers...the best ones were KISS, Star Trek and the Wizard of Oz. 

I even made a high score on Apollo 13!!

Yes, that's actually me and my high score.  Not just my name found on one of the games. 

We then made a walk to Joe's New York Pizza.  I got pizza and had to virtually beg to buy a shirt. But I got one!!

Then I was off to Penn & Teller by myself. I walked 2.8 miles to get there. Totally worth the exercise, other than the sweat. Pretty sure I had a good body odor going. Oh well. As we were getting seated, we all had a chance to go on stage and sign an envelope. I figured I might as well since it may be the only time I get to go on the P&T stage. 

Bzzz. Wrong. 

A video begins to play before the show. Penn asks us all to tie our phones ON. 

"We need to use one of your phones. Please make sure it's on. Make sure the volume is on. Make sure you get signal in here."  

I had to have the stranger next to me call my phone as Teller is choosing me and my phone to be part of the first trick. The stranger is Phillip, I find out later. 

That's me and Phillip. 

I then go on stage and the video the next 120 seconds on my phone! 

It's interesting to watch after being on stage with them and seeing a different perspective. 

Some screen shots of the video:

I'm waving there, but you can't see my arm. 

I got to talk throughout, but there were also a few other spots I got to pantomime with them too. After he stepped on the styrofoam cup that held 'my phone', I mimed crying which got a good laugh from the audience. The biggest laugh came when Penn states that we sometimes find our phones in strange dark places. I turn around and Teller is putting on a doctors glove to do a cavity search. So I turned and bent over preparing for an excavation. 

My phone ended up being in the 15th row, under a seat, in a box holding a real dead fish on ice. 

After the show, I went out and got to get a photo and autographs from both Penn and Teller!

Penn remembered me by name. That was cool. 

Teller tells me that I was the very first person ever in the history of that trick to have a stranger call them on their phone. 

**I made Penn & Teller history!!**

I had them autograph the sanitation wipe they gave me to clean off my hands and phone in case there was still some fish residue. 

Portlanding On Both Feet

Today was a rather eventful day for us being somewhere I wasn't expecting too much to occur. 

It started out fairly slow paced like normal. Walk around the venue. Get the lay of the land down. Use the toilet. Lay some tape arrows down. But then....

We set up our production office for the day. Comfy couch, nice smelling candle, two of my new favorite foods:

And then things get more interesting...

We had some bus issues that forced us to empty the bottom bays of the bus. 

BUT...

These made the day a little brighter:

And the sunset was great tonight too!

I also found out today that I made it on to Jimmy Kimmel Live. I guess if you can't make it into the audience, the next best thing is to be ON the show. 

They wanted stories about bad bosses. I thought I would tell the story about my internship in a music studio where I was fired for not cleaning up syrup that my boss spilt.  He actually fired me via text too!!  Half way through my story, the interviewer interrupts me and tells me I have to speak of a present day boss...but "it doesn't even have to be real. Just make it up."

So I made up the first thing that came to mind.  "By boss is so controlling she orders my food at a restaurant for me."  I've never had a boss do that. Lol. Idk how I even thought of that. There was some laughing from the audience at the end of my part, so that was a good thing.

Oh. And this accidentally happened:

The kids started crowding the front of the stage on the floor for no reason.  As we were about to return them to their seats, Matthew invites them up on stage. 

One little girl would not leave the stage. Matthew had to chase her down and return her to her father. 

After the show, we had a group of three people try to sneak on to our bus. Luckily Jenn was there to stop them, but still. Just one more weird thing that happened tonight.