Some other assorted CIF thoughts:

I was unable to get the mp3 player that Cochran had bought installed. I felt like a major failure, but gd, that driver simply would not install on Windows XP. William Owen Cochran needs to just shell out $35 more and get one of them fancy iPod minis. Or fuck, an iPod proper.

Here’s a list of shows and groups that I saw this weekend, not all-inclusive because I don’t know who some of the people I saw at Improv All Night were: Improv Bandits, Baby Wants Candy, the Groundlings (with famous people!), Carl and the Passions, the Defiant Thomas Brothers, Bassprov w/ Castallanetta, Stewtopia, ProNouNced, Drum Machine (Jill Bernard), Anchors Away (Bob Wiltfong), Totally Looped, Neutrino Video Projects, WIT’s Jackie, Obsessed, a group from one of the Universities of Arizona (whoever the Sun Devils are), Pimprov, Sutton & Hallal, and the Mikes from ComedySportz-Chicago.

I will say only good things about ProNouNced– they’re a group of App alumni who have banded together when they moved. Essentially, they’re a college team that turned pro. I think those kinds of teams are cool… Littleman did that, I think, and you hear of other groups here and there. As the night wore on and I saw more improv, I was more and more impressed with the quality of the show they put on with a smallish audience (I’ve seen smaller) against a large performance stage. They made smart moves, they played energetic but didn’t get too goofy, they played on a number of levels, both physically and emotionally… good stuff.

I’m ridiculously envious of the abundance of theater space and the sheer number of places to play in Chicago. I’d imagine that I would find it daunting/depressing after about a week in Chicago. One of the nice things about the Chapel Hill scene is that we’re all together… building the audience for one space is easier than building it for 20.

I ran into Rebecca from WIT, who took my class at DSIF and was super-nice– she had family who had driven to see the show. It’s fun to see peoples’ families beaming after a performance. (WIT, by the way, has a killer website.)

A few years ago, I attended the MERLOT (distance learning) International Conference in Tampa, FL with Wally, with whom I will have lunch today.

At some point while we were there– I think it may have been while we were at a Devil Rays/Twins game– he misheard me saying “I’m afriad you…” as “Fred Liu.” He said he puzzled for about 20 minutes as to who Fred Liu could be.

We ended up in a Cuban diner talking about Fred Liu and all of the international adventures he’d had while he was trying to meet us in Tampa. Later, we drove over to Legends Field, where the Yankees hold spring training, and did a little trespassing.

Now, in our defense, there was an open gate that one of those utility carts had driven through to take some stuff down to the field, so it’s not like we broke in. But yeah, we basically broke in and walked around some. Wondering if anyone would challenge us being there, we decided that we’d tell them that Fred Liu had told us to just walk on in and he’d meet us down by the third base line. A number of folks who worked there saw us absorbing the sights, but no one really crossed our paths, so our meeting with Fred never needed to happen.

Which was just as well– we decided he was probably somewhere over the Atlantic in his private jet, cosmopolitan in hand and surrounded by beautiful women. Fred’s notorious for missing his meetings– why, in fact, he’s been scheduled to show up at every lunch Wally and I have had since then, though he never does. Still, we ask for a third place setting, just in case.