My Super Exaggerated Resume

I am many things, but modest isn’t necessarily one of them.  Even still, I do try to accurately depict my past experience and current skillset.  But I have noticed, especially in the entertainment industry, a lot of people like to inflate what they’ve done as much as possible.  As such, here is my super exaggerated comedy résumé.  My “claim” is listed in bold and the reality of it listed in parenthesis.

• International Comedian (I performed for my family in Mexico) with fans in more than 50 countries (based on the people who have visited my website).
• Published Author (by publishing an article on ezinearticles.com).
• International corporate humor trainer (An internal training I did had some people call in Europe and Asia).
• One of the Funniest People in Cincinnati (finalist in “Funniest Person in Cincinnati 2008″).
• Award winning corporate humorist (I won an internal award for building the organization for a team-building workshop).
• As seen (in the audience) on The Daily Show, Late Night with David Letterman, and Comedy Central Presents.
• As seen at the Cincinnati Brew Haha Comedy Festival (in the up-and-coming show), the New York Underground Comedy Festival (in the open competition), the New York Comedy Festival (at the open call auditions), and the New York Television Festival (I wasn’t in it, but I was there as an audience member).
• Has worked with Daniel Tosh, Jo Koy,and Mark Curry (they performed after a competition I was in), Steve Caminiti (we were on the same benefit show), Steve Trevino, Joe Starr, and Pauly Shore (I MCed for their shows at the Funny Bone).
• (Co-)Founder of the 8th Floor Improv Comedy Group, the (self-proclaimed) Premiere Improv Comedy Group in Columbus that is “loud, unpredictable, and hilarious” (according the OSU campus newspaper, The Lantern).
• Member of the Smarty Pants Theater Company, the Best Comedy Troupe in Cincinnati, OH (according to a local Cincinnati newspaper), has been described as nonstop hilarity (by a high school newspaper).
• Member of ComedySportz New York, (self-described as) America’s favorite funny, fast, and clean show for the whole family.
• Principle character on the (not much of a) hit sitcom, Kollege (airing on OSUs college TV channel).
• Writer for the PanDesi network (submitting sketches for one of their shows), reaching over 50 million viewers across the United States.
  
• Has been called “hilarious” (as in “that one joke is hilarious”), “funny and smart” (that’s what my mom says), and “one of the funniest people I’ve ever heard” (I have to be in at least the top 1 million funniest people you’ve ever heard).

(2 votes, average: 2 out of 5)

My First Time Voting

Sadly, at 24 years of age, today was my first time voting in an election for the US government. I’ve voted for where our family should go for vacation, who should be Prom Queen,who should be #1 in the AP Preseason NCAA Football poll, and even who should be the Last Comic Standing, but I had never voted for someone for a government position, until today.

If you only count national elections, then really I’ve only missed one. I turned 18 in 2002, and abstained from voting in 2004 (I didn’t like either candidate). But the election of the President is only one of many that take place over the course of 4 years. Considering there are countries where people aren’t afforded this opportunity, and that people die protecting our ability to vote, it seems selfish not to.

More than any year before, I’ve been following this election closely (of course with this media coverage it’s impossible not to). Since the initial caucuses this year, I’ve kept abreast of what’s going on in both parties. As a registered Independent, I could vote either way in any election, it all depends on the candidates and the issues.

And everything, all the campaigning, all the smear ads, all of The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live sketches, comes down to today.

My First Voting Experience

Now that I reside in New York, I registered here many weeks ago. Unfortunately I forgot to sign the registration form, so it got sent back to me and I had to re-send it in. This would prove to be costly as I wasn’t on the voter registration list when I checked in this morning. I cast an affidavit ballot to “have my voice heard” but it doesn’t quite feel the same as if I’d gone in the booth and pulled the lever or whatever it is you do.

I should also mention that I made the mistake of not following some of the other offices I would be voting for.  Aside from the Presidential candidate, I didn’t know a single thing about any of the Senate or House candidates.  Naturally, rather than abstain from voting for a candidate that I know nothing about, I picked based on their name (again I’m Independent so voting only one platform isn’t my thing).  At least I can be happy that my voting location was the lobby of my building, and that I only waited an hour in the morning when I as still waking up.

The results are coming in now, but in a few hours we’ll know the next President of the United States. Hopefully you all had enjoyable voting experiences, and good luck to your candidate. And if you’re curious, I voted for … oh what’s that over there.

(Note: I’m more than happy to discuss the merits of the person I voted for, but that wasn’t the purpose of this article–maybe another day.)

(No Ratings Yet)

Living on a $100 Budget

This week’s project was to live on a $100 budget for the entire week. Below is the “diary” of that spending.

Day 1 - Sunday

9:17am - The start of this week isn’t so bad. Matt is leaving today, so his parents are in town to pick him up. Luckily, we go to breakfast at Bagel Express which is cheap, and even more luckily, Matt’s parents insist on paying for my $2.25 buttered bagel and $1.79 Nesquik Chocolate Milk. One meal down and $0 spent.

11:15am - My first expense! Today is the last class of my sketch class and we have to make copies for everyone in our class. The total comes to $4.39. I should’ve written a shorter sketch, or better yet, printed it out at work on Friday.

2:47pm - I’ve felt my first discomfort from the challenge (yes, already). I only have a short break between my sketch class and an audition for an improv group, so I have to eat fast and somewhere in between the two places. McDonald’s is the only feasible option, and unfortunately it’s Manhattan so the $1 menu doesn’t really exist. Knowing I have an entire week ahead of me, I get a 4-piece nugget, small fry, and cup of water - $2.70.

2:59pm - I’m still hungry.

5:45pm - I just got back from the audition (it went OK, I should know sometime this week). I am starving. I have to make my grocery list. This is probably the most important event this entire week. Poor planning here could leave me miserable towards the end.

6:37pm - Grocery shopping is proving harder than I imagined- individual items add up very quickly. And why don’t these stores put prices on everything? If I don’t know how much it costs, I can’t put it in my cart with confidence.

6:50pm - I’m back from the grocery store and I have to eat something…anything. I elect for a granola bar before even putting away the groceries, even the frozen foods. I technically only spent $13.04, but that’s because I already had a lot of food here. But, in the spirit of this challenge, I’ve decided to total the cost of the food that I would’ve bought if I didn’t already have it (since it makes no sense to waste the food I already have by not eating it and buying it again). My new total grocery bill is 61.97… Holy crap it’s going to be a tough week.

7:55pm - I had my first meal from stuff I bought at the store - 9 chicken nuggets and a piece of bread. I feel full for the first time today.

9:45pm - I’m heading to bed to make sure I’m well rested for work tomorrow and more importantly not get hungry again tonight. My total spending for the day: $69.06.

Day 2 - Monday

8:30am - It’s a really good thing that I started waking up at 6am two weeks ago- living cheaply requires a lot of preparation. I woke up at 6am, worked out in my room at 6:30am, cooked and ate breakfast (3 eggs and a piece of toast) at 7:15am, showered, and packed a lunch for the day and was finally done by 8am. Then, as I was getting ready to leave for work, I realized the laptop bag I’ve been using, a nice leather, over-the-shoulder one, isn’t designed for carrying a lunch. So I made the switch to a backpack to make sure I could carry everything. Who knew saving money meant returning back to your high school days?

11:17am - I’m starting to get hungry- I don’t think I’ll make it to lunch. Luckily we have free pretzels here in the office- they should hold me over for now.

1:55pm - This challenge would be a heckuva lot easier if I had just decided to keep to myself for the whole week- but that’s not what I’d want to do if I really were on a strict budget. With that said, I just spent $16.96 on lunch at europa café. Why? Because a friend of mine was able to hook me up with tickets to David Letterman, and the least I could do was pay for her lunch.

2:57pm - Getting hungry again. Since I didn’t eat my packed lunch, I can grab the granola bar and have myself a snack.

3:44pm - I’m not feeling all that well (headache and a little nauseous. Is it because of something I ate? Or my altered eating schedule? Either way, I did not budget for getting sick).

4:54pm - Not eating my packed lunch has proved beneficial for the second time- I grabbed the turkey sandwich and ate on the way to picking up tickets for the Letterman show.

8:25pm - I just had to make my first public sacrifice , which sucks. The friend that went with me to Letterman (which was pretty cool to see) asked if I wanted to grab dinner after the show. With only $13.98 In my pocket, I can’t afford to do it, so I have to politely decline.

9:35pm - I Just got done eating two delicious chili dogs and watching “The Daily Show” on Hulu.com. Great meal, great entertainment.

11:15pm - It’s about time for bed and I’m not hungry at all. My total spending today was $16.96.

Day 3 - Tuesday

6:15am - I still have a bit of a headache and am feeling a little nauseous. I don’t feel like eating yet, but hopefully the Gandalf of my body will let this pass.

7:01am - Time for the breakfast of champions- store brand Frosted Flakes. It’s a nice, cheap meal, but generally doesn’t keep me very full. We’ll see how the morning goes.

10:30am - I just got done with a conference call, and I think it’s time I worked the rest of the day from home. Hopefully being in more relaxing clothing and in the comfort of my own home will help me feel better. Plus I have a lot more food choices there.

12:35pm - Seeing as how I didn’t budget for being sick, I don’t really have anything suitable to eat. The closest thing to soup I have is $.33 ramen noodles, so I had that plus two slices of buttered bread. Now it’s time to get back to work.

2:45pm - OK, so by work I meant nap off being sick for a little bit. The sad thing is that I actually feel a bit worse then when I went to sleep.

4:30pm - Finally feeling better, and thanks to a delicious peanut butter & jelly sandwich, I’m feeling full as well.

7:45pm - Woodruff is over to talk about how we want to try to get Smarty Pants up and running in New York. Unfortunately I didn’t really buy any food that was good for more than one person, so we have to run to the store. We decide to go with some hamburger helper- him paying for the hamburger and me getting the helper at $3.49.

11:15pm - I still haven’t even made it a day with spending no money. My total budget left is $10.49.

Day 4 - Wednesday

7:30am - I’ve got a pretty long day today, so I have to make sure I plan appropriately. I started the day with a bowl of cereal and just finished packing some sandwiches and snacks to hold me over through work and ComedySportz practice. I hope it’s enough because I won’t be back home till after 10pm tonight.

8:05am - My fear came to fruition this morning - my monthly subway pass expired. Fortunately I wasn’t going to include this cost in the challenge (it’s a monthly expense), but it stills requires a trip back to the apartment to grab a credit card to pay the $81. Also, in the spirit of experiencing what it would be like if I didn’t have the option to take the subway, I’m walking to work this morning. Luckily it’s a nice day, so hopefully it won’t be miserable.

8:45am - What a walk… Google says it’s 2.1 miles. On the plus side it was nice out and I got in a good morning workout. On the minus side it took me 40 minutes to do, I’m now sweaty and starving, I couldn’t read or write like I normally do on the subway, and I have a bit of a headache. I definitely couldn’t do that every morning and afternoon, especially considering tonight I have to go to the west side for practice.

9:03am - I couldn’t do it, I had to eat something. There goes the granola bar for the day.

1:07pm - After a challenging morning (my head hurt the worst it has in awhile), I’m now feeling good and full, thanks to my sliced chicken sandwich and Doritos.

3:56pm - The advantage to packing my lunch was that I was able to pack two sandwiches, the second of which I just consumed. This is supposedly the better way to eat anyway - smaller, more frequent meals.

6:04pm - Thanks to my preparation this morning, I have a chicken pot pie I can cook in the office kitchen. Throw in some left over carrots and things are going well.

10:15pm - I just got back home from improv practice and I’m glad to be back in the presence of food. Even though I had them two days ago, the chili dogs are calling my name again. Bon apetit.

11:47pm - I was finally able to make it a day without spending any money. I’m sure I’ve done this many a-time without realizing it, but when you’re away from home from 8am to 10pm, it requires some planning ahead. Still sitting at $10.49 left for the week.

Day 5 - Thursday

6:41am - I got bored of the cereal, so I went back to scrambled eggs and toast. After starting the eggs, I realized I probably should’ve waited to cook/eat them till after I worked out, but I can’t change that now. Today’s eggs were a little dry, but definitely edible.

7:35am - My worry about eating too much before working out (a weight-free routine I do in my room) was unwarranted. My worry that I’d be hungry after the workout was accurate. Luckily a handful of carrots should tide me over for awhile.

11:11am - My wish for more food came true- someone had leftover bagels after a meeting and offered them up to the rest of the office. Who would’ve thought a simple bagel with butter would be like Thanksgiving in September.

1:06pm - Thanks to the free bagel, I was able to wait a little longer till lunch- a turkey sandwich and some Doritos.

3:47pm - Snack time with Mr. Granola bar.

5:40pm - Just like yesterday, I came to work with two sandwiches. I’m not starving by any means, but rather than take the PB&J home or leave it for another day, I figure I might as well eat it right?

9:34pm - With only a couple days left, I decided it was time to bust out a long-time staple in my “cook at home” diet- pizza rolls. I have to imangine I’ve been eating the pepperoni variety since 2001.

10:12pm - I’m calling it a bit early tonight to make sure I’m back to 100%. It was another $0 day, AND no headaches–maybe I’m not allergic to being broke after all. $10.49 left for 2 days.

Day 6 - Friday

7:10am - Thanks to me forgetting about an 8am meeting I have today, I have to scarf down a small bowl of cereal, throw a sandwich in my bag, hop in the shower, and get to work. We’ll have to see if this poor planning affects my day.

10:11am - Yep, the skimpy breakfast is already leaving me hungry. Pretzels in the office to the rescue.

11:59am - I can’t hold out any longer, I have to eat lunch. Another turkey sandwich and Doritos.

3:47pm - Down goes the granola bar.

6:11pm - I made the mistake of not making a second sandwich for the afternoon, so I am absolutely starving. I decided to finally reheat the pizza from Monday, which at least makes me feel a little bit better about spending $5.50 on it.

12:35am - So I accidentally spent the last 6 hours watching the first 8 episodes of the first season of The West Wing. I had never seen the show but have had Season 1 sitting in my DVD collection for well over a year. While not the most exciting of evenings, it was relaxing and best of all free. No dollars spent today and $10.49 left for the last day of the project.

Day 7 - Saturday

8:41am - The last day of the challenge and I couldn’t be happier (or I guess maybe tomorrow when it’s over I will be). Unfortunately due to me going through my email and RSS feeds for the past hour, I have to eat a quick bowl of cereal before heading out to meet a friend to observe the taping of his weekly talk show. We all know how well a bowl of cereal lasted me yesterday…

11:15am - Luckily I threw a granola bar and sandwich in my bag before heading out the door. Nothing has really happened yet on the set, so I have some time to eat.

11:46am - I wanted to wait until later in the day to resort to the sandwich, but I can’t make it.

2:25pm - Due to some technical difficulties, they still haven’t actually taped anything yet. On a positive note, they did order pizza for everyone.

10:03pm - The good news is that heading into the evening, I had a few dollars left in the budget ($10.49 to be exact). The better news is that I spent $5.78 on cream cheese and tortilla chips, meaning I was able to make Skyline Chili Dip. The bad news is that Ohio State is not doing that well against USC.

11:41pm - With the week almost over, and the OSU vs. USC game being a blowout, I just want to get this post done and get to bed. As a “reward” for my frugal spending Wednesday through Friday, and what was supposed to be in celebration of the OSU game, I spent $5.78 today. That brings my grand total for the week to $95.29, leaving a $4.71 surplus!

(1 votes, average: 1 out of 5)

Day 202 (164) - PDW - Summary

Well it’s certainly been an interesting, positive week.  Writing with a different intent (namely one of sharing knowledge and hopefully motivating), has been a little bit of a challenge, but I think it has netted some good results.  The posts could have been tidied up a bit (and would need to be for mass consumption), but the content itself was pretty solid.

I found that as I wrote the different topics for Personal Development Week, I thought of more and more topics I could talk about, so who knows, maybe we’ll have another PDW in the future.  As a refresher, here are the topics we covered:

1. Introduction
2. Goals and Discipline
3. Success
4. Wealth
5. Health
6. Happiness
7. Summary (this post)

In the hopes of tying everything together, you can break down the past week’s key messages down into 3 bullet points:

• If you want to succeed, you need actionable, measurable goals.
• Regardless of what you are trying to do, breaking projects into smaller, manageable tasks can be the difference in achieving a goal.
• You really are in control of your life - success, wealth, health, and happiness are ultimately your responsibility.

If you only take away those 3 things from this week, then these posts were certainly worth the paper they were written on.  I enjoyed writing the articles, and certainly learned some things through the process, and hopefully you all did too.

(No Ratings Yet)

Day 201 (165) - PDW - Happiness

For the last category of Personal Development Week, I’d like to talk a little bit about happiness.  The first thing I have to say is that if you take some of the steps (or at least the intentions) mentioned in this week’s previous posts (Goals and Discipline, Success, Wealth, and Health).  , you’ll be well on your way to finding sustainable happiness - happiness that isn’t just tied to small individual events, or fleeting emotions, but a happiness that answers the question “Am I happy?” with a resounding yes.

It is important to note that happiness is a state of being.  You don’t feel happy - you live it, breathe it, be it.  And it is something you can control.  Though emotions are irrational, and you can go from happy to sad to angry in minutes, the general feeling of happiness can be sustained.  When it comes right down to it, happiness is a choice.

The funny thing is that before I started performing improv, I had this stigmatism against overly positive people as “hippies” or “free spirits” who were basically just weird.  But in improv, there’s really no such thing as a mistake because of the fundamental improv rule: Yes, And.  The idea behind Yes, And is that you don’t negate offers or “gifts” (anything that happens in the environment), that you accept what is given and build on it.  Life as a whole can be treated in a similar way.

People sometimes ask me if I’m happy with some of the life-decisions I made (where I went to college, what my degree was, what job I took after graduating), and my answer for all of the above is yes.  In fact my answer would be yes for every life question you could ask me (Are you happy you went to Princeton High School? Yes.  Are you happy you were an RA/RM for three of your four years at college?  Yes.  Are you glad you dated someone for 3 1/2 years even though it didn’t work out?  Yes.)

When you consider that, I either: a) am an amazing decision maker and always choose the right thing, or b) I tend to make the best of any given situation and grow from there.  Though I do have complete faith in my decision-making abilities, when it comes to why I’m happy right now, I’m gonna have to go with B.

Now I’m not saying that terrible things don’t happen, or that you have to be happy 100% of the time.  I’m also not saying that you just have to accept what life hands you and never work to change it, or even that you always have to say “Yes.”  I’m merely saying that once you make a decision, or once something happens, accept it as what happened.  There’s not much sense in dwelling in the past for any longer than it takes you to learn from the experience to make a different (not necessarily “better” which is such a subjective word) decision next time.

There has always been a large number of research and books geared towards finding happiness.  There are different viewpoints all offering up tips (whether it’s the new “The Secret” book, Covey’s 7 Habits, or plain-old religion).  And none of the viewpoints is necessarily “wrong,” it’s just that some of them aren’t for you.  If a belief in a “master plan” created by some supernatural being helps you survive life and be happy, then good for you.  If, instead, the “Law of Attraction” seems to make sense to you and has shown you some good resuts, the keep using it.  Regardless of what your belief is, as long as it’s making you happy and not harming others, who cares what it is - I don’t.  I just care about being happy.

You see it doesn’t matter that there are multiple, often conflicting, views on life, happiness and our existence in general.  Just because some of these theories contradict, doesn’t mean they can’t co-exist.  One of my main problems with various religions is the idea that there can only be one “right” belief and that if you aren’t following that belief your S.O.L.  If we were to consider the example of God creating each of us in his “kitchen,” how could He expect to get everyone to align with the same “gospel truth” (for Christians - Jesus) when everything else about us is different and unique to our circumstances.  What does it matter that your “savior” came down by rocket ship or from a virin?  As long as you are using that belief as a boost to your overall happiness, then it doesn’t matter.

And some people might think that this is too naive of a view on life, that things couldn’t really be that simple.  While that may in all actuality be true, I DON’T CARE, because it’s a belief that I have found that works for me.  The key is for you to explore your own feelings and beliefs.  Once you’ve identified your beliefs, and fundamentally your purpose, you can start to build towards your end goal - which of course will lead to happiness.

(No Ratings Yet)