Caturday: Fast Exiting Kitteh Edition

Music fans: Ten on the Tenth is happening NOW! You have until tomorrow at 9 AM Pacific / 12 noon Eastern to post 10 songs that fit the theme of love.

Speaking of now, tonight is a fully improvised comedy show with the Magic Meathands (including me!) and Jump Start Comedy at the Mary Pickford Studio in West LA. Tickets are $7 ($3 for kids 12 and under), and the show starts at 8 PM.

Meanwhile, at The Comics Observer:

Music Fans: Tomorrow it’s time for Ten on the Tenth

Yesterday, the music theme of the month went up: love. Yes, it’s the month for makin’ romance.

Share your list of 10 songs that fit the theme – tomorrow at Ten on the Tenth starting at 9 AM Pacific / 12 noon Eastern.

This Saturday: Family Friendly Improv Comedy with the Magic Meathands and Jump Start

Jump Start (l-r): Steve Lurie, Chris Moore, Kendra Nicholson, Craig Woods, Julie Martin

The Jump Start comedy ensemble from the South Bay of Los Angeles is a fun group of improvisers that joins us monthly for a family friendly show at the Mary Pickford Studio. We’re doing it again this Saturday night at 8 PM. Tickets are only $7 ($3 for children 12 and under).

They’ve been our partners for this show for a couple of years now, and it’s always amazing to watch another group in action. We’ve gotten to see new members join and grow, and the group as a whole get stronger and stronger. I hear tell there’s another Jump Start/Magic Meathands show in the works that will be in their neck of the woods. Details to come!

But in the meantime, get yourself ready for a fun time with our two groups at the Mary Pickford Studio this Saturday night. It’s probably our most popular show. We keep things network TV clean, so you can bring the kids. And we keep things fresh enough for adults.

The above was cross-posted on the Magic Meathands blog. I’ve been a member of the Magic Meathands for nearly 3 years, performing well over 100 shows of improvised comedy. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, give yourself a treat and catch one of our shows.

Caturday: Playing Catch Edition

Here’s a round-up of me on the internet this week:

The Comics Observer launched this week:

Meanwhile, Ten on the Tenth gets tweaked: Announcing the Updated Rules! If a day isn’t enough time for you to think up 10 songs that fit a given theme, you’ll like how it will be run this month and going forward.

And the improv comedy team The Magic Meathands have some Ch-ch-ch-changes to our performance schedule. Short version: We’ve got a show next Saturday night at the Mary Pickford Studio in West Los Angeles, but we say good-bye for now to our monthly Friday show at the Westside Comedy Theater.

Oh and if you’re in Hollywood this weekend, you can go buy some of Joni Mitchell’s furniture. No kidding!

Ten on the Tenth – Revised Edition

Yesterday the new rules/guidelines for Ten on the Tenth were posted. This is a site for music fans to come together to share and discover music around a given theme each month. When does it happen? On the tenth of every month. Everyone shares ten songs. Hence the name!

Ten on the Tenth had its inaugural run last month, January 10th (scroll down to the comments to see everyone’s lists). We had a great turnout, especially considering I came up with the idea exactly five days earlier. But not everyone that wanted to participate got a chance. It turns out not everyone can drop everything to put together a list of 10 songs within 24 hours. So, I decided to loosen things a bit to allow people more of an opportunity to play.

So the short version is that I’ll announce the theme on the 8th of every month to give people a couple of days to think about it. Then, I’ll open things up on the 10th, when everyone can post their 10 songs within the given theme. Instead of only 24 hours, you’ll have 48 hours, until the morning of the 12th. So if you missed playing last month, now you’ve got more of a chance to play this month. Now don’t blow it!

Oh and in case you missed it, The Comics Observer launched yesterday! Tomorrow I’ve got a special article posting about a unique hybrid of a play and graphic novel.

Introducing The Comics Observer

Tomorrow morning, The Comics Observer will go live. I hope you’ll check it out if you have any curiosity about comic books, graphic novels, manga or the like. I’ve put a lot of work into structuring a site that will hopefully be more unique than the standard comics news site or blog. My aim is to post content for people with differing levels of interest in and experience with comics. Some of what’s up there now will give you an idea of what I’m talking about, but it will hopefully be more evident going forward.

The Comics Observer also has its own Facebook and Twitter accounts. Please like and/or follow, respectively.

Everything that I’ve posted here under the Dig Comics category will be there as well, along with accompanying comments and what-not. I haven’t decided yet whether I’ll remove them from here. It’s kind of redundant to have them in both places, but there are a number of sites linking back here to specific articles and I haven’t figured out a way to automatically forward/redirect visitors without redirecting the entire CoreyBlake.com site to ComicsObserver.com. Since CoreyBlake.com will remain active, that obviously won’t work. So I guess for now, doubles is what we get.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who has visited and followed my comics writing so far and I hope you’ll enjoy the new site. See you over there!

Caturday: Kitteh and Puppeh Make Out Edition

Coming back to life after getting walloped by a killer cold this past week. Finally feeling like I might be able to string together enough words to form some semblance of a thought.

Next week, my new comics blog launches! The name? The Comics Observer. You’ll be able to check it out next Wednesday at ComicsObserver.com. If you’ve enjoyed my comics coverage here, like the Facebook page or follow on Twitter to learn more and keep up with the latest.

Cynical Musical Snob Says…

Did you see that an over-produced remix of a Shania Twain song is up for a Grammy? Oh wait, that’s a Lady Gaga song. Well, at least she’s moved on from imitating Madonna.

(Disclaimer: Actually I don’t mind Lady Gaga, but when I first heard this song, I couldn’t believe how much it felt like a ’90s country/pop song with modern flourishes. I didn’t even notice that it samples Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and even features Brian May on electric guitar.)

Caturday: Anomymous Kitteh Edition

Yes, the “Friday is Brought to You by ___ Kitteh” has been moved to Saturdays because Saturdays are Caturdays.

If you’re in LA, there’s an improv comedy show with the Magic Meathands, teaming up with Darwin’s A-Team, tonight at 8 PM at the Mary Pickford Studio. Details are on the Magic Meathands blog and our Facebook page.

Corey Blake protests SOPA/PIPA

If you stopped by here yesterday, you might’ve noticed that the whole site was blacked out to protest some pending legislation.

Here’s yesterday’s statement:

Many websites are blacked out today to protest proposed U.S. legislation that threatens internet freedom: the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). From personal blogs to giants like WordPress and Wikipedia, sites all over the web — including this one — are asking you to help stop this dangerous legislation from being passed. Please watch the video below to learn how this legislation will affect internet freedom, then scroll down to take action.

While the activism got a lot of sponsors of the bills to switch positions or agree to rethink their strategy, the fight is not yet won. SOPA will be reintroduced next month.

You can write Congress here and here. I also highly encourage calling your representatives, as that type of input can make the biggest difference.