morganphillipsblog

New site!

morganphillips — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:58:46 +0000

From now on, all my blogging will take place at the newly condensed mother-site:

http://www.morganphillips.com

The contents of this wordpress blog have been cloned and moved. Please update any and all bookmarks, links and feeds which point here.

See you at the mother-site.

Oh, C-Town

morganphillips — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:34:47 +0000

Q: Is it a bad sign when the grocery store’s response to a mysterious(?) odor in the frozen food section is just to spray a dizzy-making amount of air freshener everywhere?

A: Yes, it is a bad sign.

Q: Can we draw a life lesson from this?

A: Yes. If something “smells bad” in your “frozen food section,” don’t just “spray a lot of air freshener everywhere.”

Q: What are you talking about?

A: I don’t know.

Pi!

morganphillips — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 16:32:14 +0000

Using techniques described by Harry Lorayne, I’ve been able to somewhat easily and enjoyably memorize the following number (broken up into two lines, so wordpress won’t freak out):

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510

58209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679

That’s 100 decimal places. And I generally dislike numbers. And memorizing things.

I think I’m going to stop at 100, for three reasons:

1. Checking for errors takes a really long time already.

2. I have no reason to memorize pi digits in the first place.

3. The world record is apparently 100,000 decimal places. Upon hearing that, a tiny little part of me says, “Hey, I wonder if I could ever…” (Cut to me six months later — rocking back and forth in a chair, muttering gibberish through my long, unkempt beard, in a locked room with strange symbols and seemingly random numbers written all over the walls.)

. . .

If anyone has any suggestions for numbers that would actually be useful to memorize (beyond checking accounts and phone numbers and such), let me know.

Omnibus

morganphillips — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:00:39 +0000

1. There is an awkward dynamic at play in computer-less temp jobs, when it comes to downtime. It frightens the boss if you whip out a book, because then other office workers will think, “Oh, look, a temp with no work to do. Somebody is wasting the company’s money. And that’s why we can’t afford cocoa for the kitchen area anymore.” The thoughtful temp instead passes work-less time in a subtler fashion. Case in point: Today I memorized pi to 20 decimal places.*

2. I have an improv show on Thursday, and might have one on Friday. But forget that noise. You should go see the new Charlie Sanders one-man-show at UCB in NYC on Friday. (Oh, it’s at 8pm? Then you could see my shows, too. Bonus!)

3. This live performance haunts my (morphorotic) dreams. Some day soon I will write a post dissecting the lyrics of this song, possibly the worst lyrics ever written, ever, ever.

If you can make it all the way to the end of the video, you are awesome.

. . .

*Unless it isn’t 3.14159265358979323846 — if it isn’t, then I memorized pi to 20 incorrect decimal places. Which is equally as useful to me.

The Foods of Puerto Rico

morganphillips — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:47:21 +0000

One of the great joys of Modern Digital Blogging is the ability to see exactly how many people are reading each blog entry, and, if they followed a link or a search result to get there, what that link or search result was.

Every day people are driven to my blog by the single post in which I made passing mention of Puerto Rican food (Nachos With Moses).

In an effort to take advantage of this phenomenon, I offer the following short essay:

MONDONGO!

by Morgan Phillips

Some men can live on arroz con habichuelas. Arroz con pollo. Not I. No, when my stomach rumbles, I understand its rumble-talk clearly: Give me mondongo! Give me mofongo! Give me a slab of albondigon, with a generous side of bacalaitos!

The rumble specifically demands a tray of arepas de coco and canoas and guanimes, which I will wash down with a hearty rabo encendido (with a chaser of sancocho de patitas)!

For dessert — yes, dessert — a bucket of barriguitas de vieja and a mountain of buñuelos de viento. Only then will my hunger be sated; my hunger for the foods of Puerto Rico, for Puerto Rican cuisine, for Puerto Rican food!

. . .

By the way, I updated the “upcoming shows” page — a bunch of NYC improv stuff, and a singing show in MA on 12/13…

Problem Solved

morganphillips — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:45:10 +0000

Per the helpful suggestion, I’ve attached the keyboard from my old, half-dead iMac DV — I knew there was a reason I was keeping it around.

Because the resulting configuration takes up so much vertical desk space, I’m considering a Rube Goldbergian setup where I will trigger the “h” on the (remotely located) iMac keyboard via a system of pulleys, but will use the iBook keyboard for everything else.

I realize that this is a terrible idea, and I probably won’t do it.

Mostly because I can’t figure out how to hold down the “shift” key via pulley system.

(Do the kids of today know who Rube Goldberg was? I’ve included an example of his work below.)

A machine that involves a confused football player, a cabbage, and paint.

elp

morganphillips — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 08:35:34 +0000

Te letter between “g” and “i” in te alpabet as died on te keyboard of my iBook. I’ve been reduced to copying and pasting it from oter sources every time I want to use common words like “te” or “tis” or to write my last name (Pillips).

I’ve ad tis laptop for tree years now, and oter tan te battery slowly dying (a problem I’ve cosen to ignore, since I rarely use it away from ome anyway), it as been 100% problem-free. Even if I could afford anoter computer rigt now (wic I can’t), it would be ard to justify ditcing it just because of tis one little problem.

I even tried taking te keyboard apart and cleaning it. No dice. Te key is really and truly dead.

I’m not going to boter going back and pasting te missing letters into tis post. It almost reads like I’m writing wit a strange accent, wic I tink is kind of cool. Rigt?

Anybody ave a dead iBook tat I migt be able to salvage from? Or any miracle cures to suggest?

Tanks in advance for your elp!

Unforgivable

morganphillips — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:58:13 +0000

Now is a time for post-partisanship and coming together. That being said… this video is a must-watch.

VOTE

morganphillips — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 15:36:11 +0000

VOTE

Plug x3

morganphillips — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 06:06:41 +0000

Over the course of the next week I have three improv shows, each of them completely different formats. Please come to all three shows and yell out “proctologist” when we ask for a suggestion.

1. Saturday, 10/18, 9pm @ The Creek in Long Island City, FREEEEEE!

My big improv army Caligula will perform with two other awesome groups. Caligula does a series of thematically linked scenes, and generally goes crazy-nuts.

2. Thursday, 10/23, 10pm @ The Magnet Theater in NYC, $6 (plus $1 PBRs, for realz)

My two-man improv group Chairman Golem (me and Michael Martin) perform an original one act play, improv-style.

3. Friday, 10/24, 10pm @ The Magnet Theater in NYC, $7

Made Up Musical improvises a… made-up musical. See me sing and dance and rhyme and such.

. . .

Remember, you can always see my upcoming shows on my upcoming shows page. If you want to do that.