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The Hines Bros went to Gosport, Indiana this weekend (population 700) to witness the high school graduation of our cousin Paul Craig. Above is a picture of Kevin standing outside the Gosport Tavern, which was as small and divey as central casting would wish. I would say this trip was a rousing success. Family events ebb and flow with the Hineses. We’ve gone five years without seeing anyone outside of us and our father, and then — boom — suddenly we’re seeing the extendeds three times a year.

I like my family’s reunions. Constant, low-key sarcasm is essential currency. I think it’s a midwest/Canadian thing — the need to [...]

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I played a two-second part on Late Night with Conan O’Brien yesterday. Am I bringing this up to show off? Yes. Yes, I am.

Although “bit” or “extra” parts are glamorous in only a shallow way. You’re AROUND famous people, but you’re not doing anything that couldn’t be done by… kind of anyone. Still, just by association, you feel oddly successful. And people get excited by seeing their friends on television. Two years ago, Jeff Blackman let me be “Scientist #2″ in a Comedy Central promotional spot (that was advertising their new deal to broadcast, fittingly, new Conan O’Brien episodes). I simply stood in the background as a chimpanzee demanded to see more Conan, but I got phone calls from [...]

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A few days ago I bought raw almond butter to substitue for my peanut butter, thinking it would be healthier. I know it should be healthier because:

a) It tastes like crap.
b) It cost a lot ($9 for a jar).
c) All this weird liquid floats to the top of the jar after it’s been sitting. Weird food = healthy, yes?
d) It has no added sugar. It’s just the pure, unadulterated taste of very bland almonds ground into a syrupy paste.

Then I finally checked the ingredients. Turns out it’s still got tons of fat in it. Less sugar, sure, but it’s still just a jar of fat cream — this time without the taste or inexpensive price.

Tune in tomorrow [...]

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I had an audition yesterday. You might ask youself “Hey, are you just going out of your way to mention that you’re the kind of guy who gets auditions as a plan to sound really cool to people who are not trying to act for a living?” Yes. Yes I am. I’ll say it again: I had an audition yesterday.

I audition about once a month. Usually for commercials, and occasionally for something more. I have friends who audition all the time, like every day and for them it’s perhaps routine. But I am always disproportionately excited and nervous for an audition as if it might perhaps TOTALLY TRANSFORM MY LIFE INTO ONE OF WEALTH AND POWER. When really the most [...]

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A sign that I am listening to my iPod too much: Today I became enormously frustrated in my apartment trying to find where I had put my iPod until I realized I was at that very moment listening to it.

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Volume 3 of The Complete Peanuts came out recently. I bought it this weekend and am currently devouring it visually. It makes me so happy that I wish you all would read it. Peanuts gets a bad name among those only casually acquainted with comic strips because a) it was so over-merchanidized that even Garfield’s Jim Davis would be appalled and b) it wasn’t really funny after the mid-80s (with some exceptions, as John Reynolds will tell you).

But from 1950 until somewhere around 1985, Peanuts was pretty consistently hilarious. Not in a “you have to remember being a little kid” hilarious. Not in a “hip to things that smart people [...]

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I’ve got this thing about food, which is that I don’t care about it. Despite having pretty elaborate opinions on popular music, movies, books, television shows, coffee mug humor, quality of life in various cities — I have never developed an appreciate for food in almost any sense.

Last night I had dinner with Mitch Magee and his gal Kaveri Nair at a great Chinese restaurant on Ninth Avenue. I know it’s great because I’ve heard other people tell me it’s great. As far as I’m concerned they could bring out the food in tubes of paste, because my main concern about food is how fast it arrives. Also, perhaps partly because I have little opinion on food — I [...]

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I’ve taken improv classes and practice improv comedy on and off since (gasp) 1996, and with great intensity since the fall of 1999. So you think I’d have it figured out by now, as much as anyone ever does have it figured it out, and of course, I don’t.

But I do have one thing figured out. And that is the answer to this question: what does it take to feel good about an improv show? See, before most shows, I come up with a goal or a focus for that show. Like “Today, I’m going to focus on starting with strong energy.” or “Today, I’m going to be mindful to end scenes when they should be ended.” Or something. [...]

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In an effort to keep the Hines coffers flush with cash, I’ve picked up a bunch of computer programming free-lance work lately, and contrary to my work habits sometimes — I’ve been plugging away at it. I’m trying to decrease turnaround time and crank through as much stuff as I can. But that means I’m sitting in front of my computer for fairly long days, most days. And, as always happens when I adopt such a lifestyle — I have become a robot. My nervous system has merged with my computer and I am now, as they say in the William Gibson novel Neuromancer, “jacked in” to the internet and can no longer remember what my physical body feels like.

I [...]

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Compared to a PC, typing on a Mac is like typing underwater. There’s a slight delay, it seems, before any letters show up on the screen.

I spent most of yesterday writing a PHP script which could report how many hits and unique hits a series of web sites received. Then I went to UCBT and was in a Gameface sketch in which Mitch was a shirtless Abe Lincoln. That’s a good day.

Through an email glitch, every email I’ve sent this year to promote Monkeydick shows — there’s been about seven — were sent yesterday afternoon. None of them had gone out when I actually typed them, dating back to January. But they all went yesterday. I got about 12 or [...]

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