Improv Everywhere

Improv Everywhere causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places. Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has executed over 70 missions involving thousands of undercover agents. The group is based in New York City... where else can you create a flash mob of folks in their underwear, create a synchronized swim team in a fountain, or stage a wedding on a subway train? Check out their work on You Tube (they have their own channel) and on their website... guaranteed ROFL fun.

Deep thoughts about trivia bees

So last night I swallowed my pride, gathered my kids and my vast trivia knowledge, and participated in my town's Trivia Bee representing the nonprofit Friends of Choate Park group. I thought I would be all that and a bag of chips. WRONG. My limited knowledge of sports and geography held me back... my teammates astounded me with their quick answers to questions about the British monarchy, literature and U.S. demographics (who knew one densest states is little Rhode Island, which I fondly call the Speedbump State?)

Trivia bees are odd creatures. They bring out the most competitive natures in all of us, that "Look at me! Praise me! I'm smart!" facet of us latent in every other area of our boring lives. Where else but a trivia night can you crack open that vault in your head, revealing that you have memorized all the passive verbs, or name all the presidents in order, or studied baseball cards religiously? It's an odd, quirky observational human condition, and I loved every minute.

Best of all, the Medway Foundation for Education spent $200 on the event, rustled up some amazing sponsors (thanks Strata Bank!), and made over $6,000 for educational programs. Now THAT'S profitable!

Want to hold your own trivia night? Check out http://www.3streetstrivia.com/ for a kit that makes the planning easy and fun. That way you can spend more time studying facts like who was the oldest president inaugurated (Reagan) or what the first live televised murder (Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby). The important stuff.

Deep Thoughts

My friends say I'm funny. I like to write, especially about stuff I like. So why not blog? I may be writing to a handful of friends, prison inmates with coveted internet access, and an occasional procrastinator who stopped by holding a Crock Pot, thinking "THIS isn't my scrapbooking party?!". So what. Write on, I say.

The plan is to make this blog kinda fun, interesting, definitely quirky, and as unique as possible. I'm a public relations consultant and principal of my own boutique firm in Massachusetts, but if you've come for networking or PR tips, you are knocking on the wrong door. That's the red door next door, the one with the funky typeset sign and the lime green logo. You can find me and my PR colleagues from the PRConsultants Group (shameless plug #1) on Facebook, where we congregate, swap fish stories, and terrorize much larger agencies with homemade slingshots for sport.

My strategy is to post stuff that makes me laugh out loud, not the schlocky stuff that no one cares about. No yawners, just interesting observations, musings from people I admire (things that make me go HMM), and ROFL kind of content. Not LOL, just ROFL. There's a difference.

Just to give you a taste of what you'll find here, I'm a fan of Dave Barry, Chuck Jones, Danny Kaye, Robin Williams, Lewis Black, Jon Stewart, old SNL episodes and "TV Funhouse", Stephen King novellas, old 1950s comedies, 1980s John Hughes films, all kinds of animation, and even Disney specials and Lifetime fare. I love to Stumble around the web and pick up with one gloved hand pop culture items and funny writing from everywhere and anywhere, and will post here as a sort of compendium - montage - mosaic of cool and interesting and somewhat useless content.

The title of this blog, "Deep Thoughts," is a tip of the hat to the SNL skit I was obsessed with back in the day, "Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts," which taught me to expect the unexpected.

One of my faves, the rest here: http://www.alexras.info/edeep.php#:

"I'll take that little one, way in the back," I said. "That little collie mix?" said the animal shelter guy. "No," I said, "the one behind him." "The gray terrier?" he said. "He's gray," I said, "but way in the back, in the corner." "You mean the water faucet?" he said. I realized then it was a
water faucet, but I didn't want to look like a jerk, so I said, "Yeah, that's the one I want." It ended up costing me almost five hundred dollars to get that faucet removed. But you know, I've still got that faucet, and I wouldn't trade it for any dog in the world."

As eclectic as that seems, there's a common thread here, and that's to remind us that the only thing we can predict in life is that life is unpredictable. Death, taxes, blah blah blah.

Enjoy!