2Plays1Relay

I can't believe I actually managed to do it. I nearly doubled my record for most consecutive waking hours this weekend, topping out at 42. What could possibly have compelled me to undertake such a seemingly-impossible task? Read on, or else be damned to lack of knowledge.

I woke up around 8:00 am on Friday, not exactly willingly. Normally I'm allowed to sleep in 'till 10:00 due to my awesome schedule, but for reasons unexplained my biological clock wouldn't allow for it. (Which is odd, because I'm so old, my biological clock usually just flashes 12:00, 12:00, 12:00...) Anyway, Friday night I had another performance of "While The Lights Were Out", mentioned previously, and afterward came the main event: Relay For Life.

I'd never been to a Relay event, but for both family members who have attended in the past, it was a blast, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Prior to the event I'd managed to reach my goal of raising $150, with thirty of those dollars being donated online DURING the event... thanks again, Lorraine! Our event was held inside our rec center, though the weather outside was good enough all night to warrant being outside for it... oh, well. The theme was Heroes For Hope, though I seemed to be the only one dressed as a superhero... Captain Canada was very well-received. Tent areas and the like were set up for each participating team, and many awesome fundraisers were to be had at each campsite. (Lemme tell ya, the Panther Paws lady won me over with a back massage at 5:30 in the morning; almost fell asleep in the padded chair apparatus thing.)

The highlight of the night came rather early in the event: Miss Relay. A few days beforehand, I'd been selected for the honorable position of dressing up like a woman and participating in something of a beauty pageant. My stage name was "Donna Cherie... but you can call me Cher" for a reason: damned if that outfit, black wig and all, didn't make me look like her. Trust me, there's at least 20 photos of my get-up circling Facebook at the moment. Anyway, there were three portions to the pageant: Q&A, talent, and "finances". I can't even remember what my question was for the Q&A, but it got a laugh all the same. I totally won the talent portion by improv-singing "My Heart Will Go On" in falsetto; those standing O's never lie. And then came the most fun part... earning money within a 10-minute timeframe. Problem was, they never told you HOW to earn the money, and as such, I shamelessly whored myself out to men for cash.

I earned 97 goddamned dollars in 10 minutes. Honest. My fake boobage was racked (ahem) with bills by the end of those 600 seconds. I didn't end up winning the competition; that honour went to a quite generous "frat girl" who pulled out a $350 check on behalf of the team. But all of the awesome, purple-shirt-wearing cancer survivors said I'd been robbed of the title, so that makes me happy, in a strange and deeply confusing manner. Also, note to women: Please do not torture yourself any longer with those damned high heels/pumps/whatever godforsaken uncomfortable footwear you decided to popularize. Had a friend who said at the end of it all, "Well, now you've walked an hour in a woman's shoes." A) That sounds like a very cheesy proverb, and B) Gimme back my almighty running shoes of comparably heavenly comfort. Kthxbai. (Got the walk down though, and thanks to the other College Players team members, the makeup actually made me look like the real deal. So... thank you, I think.)

Returning to slightly less shameful areas of interest... well, it's karaoke, so I guess that "slightly" would be like if "x" was less than 10^-5 and therefore negligible in an equilibrium constant expression. (Shameless nerd joke FTW.) I went for the women's heartstrings by singing the King's "Can't Help Falling In Love" and ended up in the finals, where I think I got in third place out of seven in terms of voting by singing "Return to Sender". Shoulda gone with Heartbreak Hotel in hindsight, but whatever.

The following are just bits and pieces I remember:

1) Theme song trivia: Can't believe we came in second by one song (15 total). Darkwing Duck and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers were pulled from what I thought to be relative obscurity, and were fully awesome. #14 was the best, though: When I happened to hear the first second of trumpet playing, I instantly knew it was Dudley Do-Right and, considering my outfit, laughed hysterically. The judge even looked over during the answer part and said, "OK, anyone but the Canadian is allowed to answer #14."

2) Themed laps: One of them involved leapfrog, and I think the first time I came down from a leap I gave a minor head injury to my compadre, so apologies for that, Mike. Best one though was the "run-around-like-a-superhero" lap. Captain Canada, cape and all, in the bag, done, no question.

3) Tug O' War was held outside at 3:00 am, and I was one of the five who helped College Players come in second. It was rather satisfying to help the theater nerds beat 2 frats in a row. I still have the rope blisters and wear 'em as a badge of honour.

There's almost certainly things I'm forgetting, buy hey, you know... me with my addle-brained mind and all. Overall I ended up earning $250 towards cancer research, which was totally amazing for a first-time Relayer. Thanks again to everyone who donated. Oh, and by the way, you're still allowed to donate despite the main event being over; Relay season doesn't end 'till August. Send money and save lives NOW!

Relay finally ended around 11:00 am, and by that time I had already broken my consecutive conscious hours record. Honestly, I felt exhausted from all the walking and events, but couldn't fall asleep. I don't know what it is, but I just can't get to sleep when I know there's daylight outside. And so, I performed the final performance of While The Lights Were Out running on (at that point) over 36 hours without rest.

Ah, yes, Prank Night. This magical time happens during all of College Players' final performance nights. Basically the rules are, don't change the show and don't let the audience see the pranks. Well, with 40 random Sweet 'n Low packets and a hearty helping of various phalluses littered about the stage, I was surprised no one really broke character; mad props to them. Oh, and when two people drag my body off (SPOILER ALERT FAIL) they decided to drop me five times in the process, and I ended up being the only one who kept a stone face. Sweet.

I had also been volun-told a few nights before to, after the final performance, present the traditional signed cast posters to various people integral to the show. Yeah, over a day-and-a-half of no sleep made for some interesting improv. A friend presented ME, however, with a signed poster as well, because apparently I am now the official voice and spokesperson of College Players. Which is awesome, because I get to publicly represent raging nerds who happen to be very nice and like the performing arts.

After the play, we went to T.G.I. Friday's where some very nice CP'ers paid for my meal since I'd been up for so long, and done two plays and many, MANY events at Relay in between those performances. Next time you go, I wholly recommend the Gourmet Mac 'n Five Cheese. Chicken bacon penne cheesy awesomeness for $7 right there, folks.

So there you have it. The absolute longest I've ever stayed awake, coupled with likely the craziest weekend I've ever had. Now get the hell outta here, the Old Man's going to bed, and whichever one of you damn kids wakes me up, you'll be the first to die by my cane.

Dan

...Is This Thing On?

...OK. Hi. I'm Dan. You may remember me from such historical posts as January 10th's, or maybe even January 4th's for all of you crazy (fellow) old people who can remember that far back. Needless to say the New Year's resolution to keep my blog regularly updated has failed fantasmagorically. University has a habit of shifting priorities towards schoolwork, but I think I've recovered from that now.

The following is a feeble attempt to recap what's been going on in my life for over the past two months. The last blog post had me at the day before the start of spring semester, so grab the popcorn, it'll be a while.

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*Following the critical and commercial success of Urinetown, I decided to try out for Florida Tech College Players' latest foray into the world of acting, "While The Lights Were Out". Auditions were in that first week back from break, and we're already halfway through performances. All you need to know is I play an old stuffy Scrooge-like British guy in a murder mystery farce. Also, watch this commercial to be even more confused.

*This semester finds me with five classes: Chem II, Calc II, Physics I, Physics Lab I and Aviation Meteorology. Got all B's on my midterms but those are definitely subject to change, based on some of the recent test results. (For reference to my fellow Canuckleheads... the letter grades are skewed by 10% from what you're used to. In Florida at least, a 60-69% is a D, and so forth until A=90-100%. Hit me like a ton of bricks when I found out.)

*Last year, I was in Florida for my 18th birthday, enjoying a free day at Disney... this year was slightly different, to say the least. For one thing, being of legal drinking/gambling age in Canada and not being able to take advantage of said for another three months... kind of sucks. I mean, I don't plan of binge-drinking or whatever, but it'd be nice to just have something. The Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Olympics happened to fall on the same day, and were almost painful to watch being so far away from home. Throughout the week I confirmed for myself what I already thought: NBC gets the gold medal for Olympic coverage fail. It's bad enough they try to pack a full day of live sports into a neat little noticeably-not-live package for primetime and still wonder why they're losing money. But here's the kicker: When I desperately tried to get live coverage by logging onto CTV's website, I found out that NBC had specifically made it so Americans couldn't watch CTV live coverage, without offering ANY live online coverage of their own. I've said it before, I'll say it again: NBC is like the snotty little brat who flipped over the chessboard because he was losing. At least that made the dejected sound of the commentators after the gold-medal hockey game all the more music to my ears. (GREAT game on the players' part, though.)

Oh, not to mention the maple-infused awesomeness that was the Closing Ceremony. Highlights include: William Shatner on making love in a canoe without tipping it over; Michael J. Fox simply being there; and the "Made in Canada" sequence extravaganza which was quite possibly the funniest and greatest moment I've ever seen on television. Seriously, it was like watching South Park Presents: Canada On Ice. I've never been so proud of my country's sense of humour.

And to leave this Olympic discussion (which was still longer than NBC's, incidentally), I give you NBC confusing Terry Fox for Michael J. Fox.

*And because I haven't mentioned how much NBC truly fails in other venues yet, there's that whole Tonight Show debacle. I was extremely pissed at how it turned out, but the outpouring of support for Conan was amazing, and the last week of shows even more so. Conan proved that the funniest comedy comes when you've got nothing to lose; all the punchlines were NBC-related and fully deserved. Not to mention it allows Conan to be his old self on another network in the future, but not for seven months after the last Tonight Show... thank God for "Conan's Legally-Prohibited-From-Being-Funny-On-Television Tour."

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...Huh. Thought it'd be longer than this. (TWSS.) Guess a disadvantage of being old is forgetting things. Who knew? Well, anyway, I hope to add more to the blog eventually and hopefully not another two months down the line. Thanks for reading the discontinuous adventures of Old Man Dan.