Pranks.

Steveo has a notoriously cluttered desktop. Icons covering every free space on his two monitors. On April 1st, Allard took a screen shot of Steveo's desktop, made it the wallpaper on Steveo's computer and moved some of the actual icons around. Then we waited to see how long it would take for Steveo to notice.

It took about half a year.

Steveo: I figured I'd finally auto-arrange my desktop, but some of the folders didn't move and I couldn't get them to do anything even if I clicked on them. I couldn't figure it out until Allard told me what he'd done.

Here's Steveo with his new, "cleaned-up" desktop.

After a few months without an official coach, Diplomat Motel is jumping back on the rehearsing-every-week wagon. Here's our new coach, Todd.

There was some scheduling confusion and Gill Park placed us in a tiny room with the radio play-by-play of the season ending White Sox game coming out of a small speaker in the ceiling. Not very conducive to rehearsing. So, instead we had a discussion about the direction of the team. A where-are-you-going,-where-have-you-been sort of thing.

Todd asked questions like, "Does the name Diplomat Motel have any special significance to the way you play as a team?" and "What one thing does Diplomat Motel do better than any other team at iO?" We gave answers like, "That's a good question," "I don't know," and "I'm not certain why but it seems important that the name is Motel and not Hotel."

My key to the laundry room has gone missing. The landlord can be tough to get a hold of sometimes, so I asked the owner of the dry cleaners downstairs if I could borrow his key. It's odd to ask the owner of a dry cleaning establishment to help you get into a free laundry room, but he's a good guy and lent me the key without hesitation.

I asked him about his bird, which I hadn't seen around in some time.

Me: How's Kevin? Your bird.
Dry Cleaning Guy: Oh, I don't have him anymore.
Me: Did he... die?
Dry Cleaning Guy: No. I just don't have him. He flew away. A long time ago.
Me: Again?
Dry Cleaning Guy: Yeah.

Trupe's 30th birthday party. Here he is with Wonak and their daughter Vivian (with a special appearance by Nick's daughter, Jane).

We had some drinks at O'Donovan's. The Halloween decorations were up and I pretended to get stuck in the giant spider webs. Not even the little kids laughed at that one.

Later, some of us watched the painful last game of the Cubs season at my apartment.

Trupe: Ugh. The second the game is officially over, you need to change the channel. The second.
Nick: [holding remote control at the ready] I will. The second the last out is called, I'll change it.
Trupe: I don't want to see any of their celebrating. Change it!

'Yes We Can't,' the Whirled News sketch show opened last night. Since we were competing with both the Vice Presidential Debate and a Chicago Cubs playoff game, we figured we'd have a very very small crowd. Showing up at the theater and seeing all the nearby streets closed off for the Cubs game, it became even clearer. No one was going to come. Under those circumstances I wouldn't have come (and I subtly suggested to a few people that they wait for a better week).

We decided to view it as a positive. The show is still a little rough around the edges and we could use the time to do a dress rehearsal.

Chin: We knew this was going to be a soft opening.

Then two people showed up. So... we did the show for two people. It's a little awkward to have only two people in the audience (especially during the audience participation scene I wrote), but it also keeps you more honest than a dress rehearsal, because even though it's just two people, it's an audience. No starting over. No yelling, "Line!"

We had to delay the start of the show by a few minutes.

Glynn: [whispering backstage] Are we ready to go?
Me: [whispering] We're holding. The entire audience is in the bathroom.

Midway through the show, I sneaked over by the bar and took a picture of the whole room. Cast on stage, Brady in the booth, lights shining down, two people in the audience (for whatever reason sitting in the fifth row, way over to the right side). It was blurry, but still, a great picture. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted all the pictures on my camera. A painful loss. So, like all live theater, good and bad, the moment is gone. You just had to be there. And I feel fairly confident you weren't.

Both Chicago baseball teams are in the playoffs. Sarah is an avid White Sox fan. I am a Cubs fan in as much as I am a sports fan at all, which is not very much.

I realized recently that the question I ask most often when watching baseball is, "What is the longest a baseball game has ever gone on?"

This week's 'Time Out Chicago' has some nice things to say about Whirled News Tonight. With the election season heating up they did a piece reviewing various Chicago news-based shows.

They write, "We have all of the makings of a citywide political-comedy powerhouse, but why is most of what’s out there—with the exception of WNT and parts of Second City’s shows—broad, obvious and boring?" Later on they write, "Where _____ falls flat, Whirled News excels. It wisely humanizes its players via improv, thereby creating honest, hilarious political commentary."

Steve is singled out in the piece as being "casually brilliant," something he's sure to be teased about when we all see him next. This was the same reviewer who referred to Steve as an "urban folk artist picking material off the street" in a review of his (admittedly great) sketch show with Jordan. Mr. Heisler lurvs Steve.

And luckily he seems to like Whirled News too. He writes that our upcoming sketch show 'Yes, We Can't,' "has the potential to be the brightest of the bunch." Well, we'll see. It opens tomorrow.

You can read the article here.

Edited to add: Apparently Whirled News was also mentioned on the local TV show 'Chicago Tonight.' (You may remember this is the show Glynn and I appeared on back in January, making jokes about the years biggest news stories) An editor from Time Out shared fun tips for weekend activities with the host, Phil Ponce. Near the end she recommends Whirled News, explaining how we pull news clippings off of the back wall to inspire our scenes.

Phil Ponce: So, this show is... literally... off the wall?

Time Out Editor: Oh... Phil...

You can see the video here. The brief WNT discussion is at 4:45.

In honor of Young's birthday, here's an old picture of him high-fiving Wonder Woman.

Drinks and $2 burgers.

Martin is back from his honeymoon.

Me: How was Miami?
Martin: Great.
Trupe: I heard the hotel was bad.
Martin: It was rundown, borderline seedy.
Nick: It had a five seed rating.
Martin: Not the best place.
Me: That's good luck, though, right?
Martin: Yeah, in the Philippines it's good luck.

Comedy question...

Is it funnier if the person in the normal-size yellow chair is super-happy or super-sad? I go back and forth.