Would a Vegetarian-Zombie feast on humans?

I would imagine said zombie would shove the fleshling aside and sink his teeth into the tree behind him/her. Oh! It's the end of the world for tree-huggers!

Having said that, I have successfully gone meat-less in my diet for 1 and a half weeks thus far. Only side effect is that I get hungry easier and faster after every meal, usually within 3 hours. I can deal. It only means I need to eat more at each meal.

However, it's not until I initiated this conversion to vegetarian-ism, that I realize how difficult it is to hunt down a single meal without meat in it. Everywhere I go, I'm surrounded by flesh (excluding females in low-cut tops). Part of my practise in Buddhism is to end suffering and to cherish life, so killing of anything is verboten. It's very 'Vash the Stampede' like which I dig!

Now my goal is to go veggie for 30 days, so this change of lifestyle can be successfully locked-in. Man! I am hungry again...

Acting is?

I am still not entirely sure what that means, but I did it in front of the whole class. It felt effortless. Although I didn’t have the whole monologue memorized, but for the half of it I did, it felt very natural. Didn’t seem like I did any “acting” at all.

Monday night. Upon setting foot in class, I had but one objective in mind – to maintain a high level of nervousness! So when the time came for me to show my instructor my “homework”, I would have already embodied the very emotion and energy required in the text and my performance would come across as genuine or convincing.

I stood in front of the whole class and went “method” on my monologue. Right off the bat, I noticed my body, more specifically, my hands were doing things that wasn't included in my visualization of the character. Still, I continued to stumble my words. "Acting" nervous and uncomfortable. The more I talked the more excited my hands got! It was this moment the left side of my brain tried to make the rest of my body match the preconceived image of my character. So I tried to suppress my movements. The experience is comparable to taking a bra off with your teeth but you wind up hurting the girl! Awkward!

Having sat through my embarrassing "act", Tom the instructor roasted me in front of everybody. He did warn us that if he caught anybody "acting" he would slap them! Tom pressed me for specific answers that would give me a clear character objective in the scene. I gotta tell ya. His method of coaching is part interrogation and part humiliation. I felt so uncomfortable. Then again, if I can’t even stomach this kinda criticism, how could I ever stand to face any auditions and shit?

I understand this is all part of my learning process, and unfortunately, I learn best from my failures…This no pain no gain thing is very taxing sometimes.

After Tom had accomplished his objective on beating my character’s objective into my fragile mind, he told me to do my monologue again. With that, I entered the class room once more and started moving my lips. The text naturally poured out like they were mine. It was me up there saying those words. No character. No method acting. Just me talking as myself. I had no conscious control over my body and limbs. I didn’t plan how I should enter the room or move my body. I simply let go and watched the whole thing unfold before my eyes. The whole process felt organic. I didn’t even have time to ‘think’ about my lines. The words just came out. It was quite magical!

In the end, Tom was thrilled with my performance and gave his seal of approval. I candidly responded with, “But I didn’t DO anything up there! I was just talking!!”

Even now I am still puzzled by what I did with my non-acting on Monday night.

I have finally watched this movie and it did a pretty good job keeping me awake til 2 a.m. Thankfully, when I finally did sleep! I didn't have any nightmares.
After this movie ended, Megster, Mandy and I ducked into the adjacent theatre and watched "This is it", so that might have softened the blow for me or else i would be up all night....

I do have more to say about the movie but I am too tired to write out a lengthy commentary. Maybe I'll add to this post tomorrow.

Robot Improviser or Roproviser?

Tuesday night marked the end of the Level 100 Improv class with Bad Dog Theatre. It was a very emotional evening for us all. Really! We went over the subject of emotion in class and played a variety of games that required us to take on various emotions within a short scene. It was a challenge for me. I got nervous.

It was that same nervousness that creeps into my head whenever I am put on the spot on a foreign subject. I simply didn’t know how to act out certain emotions to their fullest. I was quite stiff. Perhaps my ego was more concerned with how funny my classmates were and trapped myself in a perpetual loop of critical thinking:

“When the time came, will I be as funny as these people?”

Always the same question but never an answer. Having said that, I did notice I got positive reactions from the rest of the class, whenever I focused my attention on the scene and actually listened to my fellow improvisers on stage. Granted, 'positive' doesn’t always mean funny but it’s a favourable beginning. The positive energy projected from the audience is enough to get me to my next confidence boost on stage.

At the end of the night, Shannon jokingly asked me, “Why can’t you show more feelings?” or something to that effect. What a great question?! It really got me thinking. I had been holding back a bit(Bullshit! A lot!). When we were playing the “Emotional scale” game where 1 being neutral and 10 being the peak of a particular emotion. My 10 always seemed to fall flat. It felt more like a 5 or 6 at best. Am I emotionally devoid like some sort of war-hardened veteran? Or was I simply holding back out of self-consciousness?

I really don’t have a good excuse for my emotionally-challenged portrayal. I'm sure my Ego got in the way, so desperately holding on to my idea of 'self' and refused to let go and give rise to my emotions. Well, it's either that or I don't get the label that attaches to each emotion. For instance, how do you act out 'Paranoia' to the max? Well, maybe you can and don't fucking tell me! Neutral scenes I can do with ease because I am simply being the fun me. Cracking wise and all. But the moment an emotion was introduced in a game, I felt uncomfortable (maybe it's a macho thing?).

I know I can emote better than that famous robot actor - “Caculon”! I have caught myself experiencing different stages of anger, depression, fear, joy and LUST in real life before! The biggest challenge for me in that class was having the moxy to put these emotions under a microscope and blow them up in front of an audience. And my emotional response for that was – fearful!
Oh! So I did emote in class after all. haha

Dr. Who A.D.

Check out these on-set photos from the new Dr. Who A.D. (After David) series and her new leggy companion, Reddy McLeggy! Well, no! her real name is Karen Gillan. obviously, this is the post-regeneration Doctor being chased by an unusually appealing authoritative figure! You have about a one in a million chance to come across one in real life. Good Luck, Boys!


Supposedly, this Scottish lass had been in the "Fire of Pompeii" episode as one of those soothsayer chicks with eyes tatooed on the back of their hands.