The bad news: I have a miserable cold (thanks Charlotte) and I slept for an hour last night.

The good news: I had to speak in front of a hundred people today.

Why is that good? Because every once in a while, my company asks me to host an event, and I get to boost my stature while doing something I love, which is making a crowd laugh. Today's occasion was a roast for the longtime HR director upon her retirement. Nothing is more fun than getting to rip into the senior executives in public and getting laughs instead of worrying about a pink slip. And when it's a roast, there's no such thing as too mean. Let the individual speakers pay the compliments and go for the warm fuzzies; I'm there for the zingers.

I was afraid having a cold was going to sink it at the last minute, since I can't talk for long without having a coughing fit. Instead, I talked my kind coworker Marlon into reading the speech from a sheet of paper while I pantomimed next to him, and damn if that didn't work out to be even funnier.

What a great way to spend a birthday.


One Reply to Comedian

Jackie Mason | May 27, 2007
[hidden by author request]


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

Survivor Guilty

As a longtime Survivor viewer, I've been bothered by its slow decline. Some of the show's problems are apparent on its surface, like Jeff Probst's appalling gender bias and the show's overemphasis on tacky "themes" for the season. But I got to thinking about what's wrong under the surface, on a conceptual level. Go »

Tom's Ball Smells Like Apple Pie

For the last four months, I've spent Tuesdays at a bowling alley playing in a just-for-fun league. Score was kept, but the mood was friendly and non-competitive, except for one of my teammates who kept competing with us instead of the other teams. :-) I struggled with it at first, partly because I thought I was signing up for a six-week league and it turned out to be a sixTEEN-week league, and partly because my skills had somehow diminished even though I'm in better shape now. Go »

WLW: Here's What You Do

No kooky doctor stories this week, as I've been left to my own care, or should I say, the care of everyone around me. I don't want to sound ungrateful, because I'm sincerely glad that people care about me enough to offer advice. It's just, there's a LOT of advice, from all directions, at the drop of a hat, and much of it conflicts with other advice. Go »

R.I.P. Katie

Go »

Trial of the Century

I served on my first jury last week, for the gripping case of the Walmart Protein Bar Bandit, accused of a $1.46 theft. Voir dire was oddly focused on whether grazing (eating groceries before you pay for them) was acceptable, whether eating protein right after a workout is important, and whether any of us had strong feelings about the Walmart corporation. Go »

Space Out

As Denise suggested I do, I've gotten partway through the Unsolved Mysteries set on UFOs. (link) It's not my favorite topic, but the show is entertaining no matter what it covers, and they put on a good show. The problem is that most of it is so hard to believe. Go »