"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Ranting..."

Picture the title line being sung to the tune of that well-known Christmas song, and you'll have an inkling of what I am about to go off on...

Yesterday was October 17th. Halfway through October. Two weeks before Hallowe'en. (Or, as I like to call it, "showing MFJ the subtleties of Jago family dynamics in action in a car heading to Jasper") Two months and one week before Christmas.

While I was running through the Bay en route to my store, I noticed that fake evergreens were placed everywhere. And there were ornaments on them.

Fuck. The mall has entered Christmas Overdrive.

My least favourite place to be is a mall during November. Because you can't escape retail's golden quarter. Every store will make sure that customers know it's time to hock their life savings to buy gifts for those special someones.

I love Christmas. LOVE it. It's a time where I can get together with family members I rarely see, and just have a good time with my loved ones.

I avoid malls like the plague during Christmas, usually taking three hours of one night to buy gifts and never coming back into the stressed-out environs of the concrete mass of retail goods.

It's kind of hard, though, when I work in a mall. The past three winters, I've worked in malls. So I grind my teeth and try to ignore it.

"Try" being the key word. It'll be a long two months.

* * *

Went out and improv'd last night. I enjoyed it immensely.

I was hoping I'd be able to make a team up with Dev and Canton, since the teams we assemble will be with us for the long haul.

Unfortunately, Dev was working last night, and Canton had tickets to the Eskimos/Blue Bombers game.

So I arrive at the theatre, figuring out if I wanted to go on a team, or just play in the elimination round.

I ended up on a team with Randy and Paul (the Wombats). And we had fun.

And we won. Whoo!

My fave scene from last night had to be the Shakespeare scene we were given.

Randy asked for his character's tragic flaw. "A lisp!"

So the way the scene played out, every citizen of the country (well, Randy as the king, and me as his servant) spoke with a lisp.

I ended up trying to mispronounce as many S-words as I could. "Sthall I sthlay him, sthire?" Etc. It was one horrible Daffy Duck/Sylvester cartoon, diction-wise...

It was revealed that it was a curse on the land that was broken when we slayed a demon.

So I tried it out. "Sally sells seashells on the seashore. My liege! It worked!"

The audience of six (sigh) seemed to enjoy themselves.

So an open invite to all my readers (who aren't already involved in Survival): Come see some fun improv comedy on the occasional Friday night! Dev, Canton, D!, Marauder, and I are all there busting our humps for some laughs, and it would be a shame to see the troupe die due to no audience.

I can give you details to shows as they happen.