Well it’s official, I’m the greatest man that’s ever lived.

Yes, that’s a smurfskin rug.

I’m not sure if you saw last night’s picture…but yeah, it said 276.0

So yeah, ummm I lost .4 pounds in a day. Suck on THAT, world.

Yes, I realize that .4 pounds is basically the difference between either a big pee or a small poo, but at least it doesn’t say MORE than 276.00. I’m sure it’ll happen where I weigh more than I did the day before. But today is not that day!

That’s my win for the day. Here are my losses, in order of severity.

1. My ankle was still not great today. It still feels like a big sprain. I twisted that same ankle on a muddy job site today whilst doing an estimate. I actually made a girlish ‘yelp’ type sound. There would be much resting and not any swimming today.

2. I had plans to go to a movie tonight with my bro bro Bradford, and I was planning on being decently early for that 7:40 flick by leaving my house at 7:10 to get a little gasoline to huff for my truck. I glanced at the clock on my stove, and I had plenty of time. So I made a healthy dinner:

But then a funny thing happened. It wasn’t 6:15, it was 7:15. Maybe I’m not all great at updating the clocks in my house, yo! Get off my case, GAWD! So I had to kinda rush out the door and get to the theatre on time rather than early, which isn’t terrible, but that meant less pre-movie snuggle time with Bradford. Wow, that’s really gay. I need a prostitDATE, A FEMALE DATE. Whew, saved it.

3. I had to ask today if South Bend is still an hour ahead of LaPorte, or if were were on the same time now that the time changed. I’m a 31 year old man with a mortgage and a dog, yet a stranger in the restroom of the cineplex had to answer that for me. Don’t ask.

4. I put it together that SXSW and South By Southwest are the same thing and I feel very stupid for not putting that together earlier. I had talked to some people about South By South West going on down in Austin right now and how it was this huge festival for tech and music. I had also recently read that at SXSW there were some big tech and music surprises this week.

My brain was making about as much sense as…

Quick timeout. Did you see the best sketch SNL has done in quite a while? Well here you go:

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/moet-and-chandon/n33637

BEST SKETCH IN A LONG TIME. P.S. sorry ladies, I’m in love with Cecily Strong (The blond in the video).

Well there you have it. My ankle still hurts, I lost .4 pounds, I saw Dead Man Down (I have a man boner for Colin Farrell), I ate healthy all day, and now it’s bedtime.

This is only going to get easier as time goes on, but today was a good first day.

Ankle still feels like I sprained it pretty badly, but it is DEFINITELY getting better.

I’m going to get the diet stuff out of the way because I’ve totally got something better to talk to you guys about tonight.

So here was dinner:

It was eggs and cheese and ham and cottage cheese and toast and jelly

and here’s the scale:

276-274 = 2 pounds in two days. That is almost as insignificant as any of the Kardashians’ talents, so I’m not celebrating quite yet. Still, two days is a mini-streak, keep hope alive for day three!

Now onto the pressing matters of the evening.

My friend and I went over to check out the comedy club over in South Bend (for those of you who were invited last week and that we cancelled due to weather I’M SORRY, this trip was more last minute).

So we went over there to check it out and see what was going on, not looking to perform, just looking to watch the show. There were probably 20-25 people in the room and the first guy gets up, first timer, and tries his stuff. It’s not polished at all of course, he’s just one of those guys that the other guys at work said, “Dude, you have GOT to get out there and try stand up, you’re soooo funny.” Much like the reason I’m sitting there watching this kid…stupid peer pressure.

So directly after he gets off stage, Brad and I look at each other and go, “Shit, let’s DO THIS.” Well, my look might have been of crippling fear but I still wanted to try.

So we sign up.

Ok maybe it was more like this…

Whatever, the point is, now our names are on the list and we’re going to get up in front of other people and try to make them chuckle. The saving grace was that this was open mic night. Some horrible people just wasting your time with shit that has no plot, no direction, isn’t funny, and is boring as hell. Also, some good comics trying out new stuff, working through stuff, not killing it at all, just getting a few laughs here and there. I’d like to think that that’s exactly what Brad and I fit in…got a few laughs here and there, and people enjoyed what we did up on stage. I will tell you right now, I was f*cking nervous. I absolutely want to do it again. I want to get to the point where I feel comfortable up there, and THEN if I suck…I’ll quit.

So if you want to see what uncomfortable joke telling looks like…here you go:

Oh yeah, the only context I think you need is that before the open mic, the guy emceeing was like, “just take the mic stand and put it behind you, don’t leave it out front, it just looks weird…also, don’t look into the eyes of the audience if you are new, it’ll throw you off…just look over them instead.”

annnnnnd now here you go:

So there you have it…what did you think?

If you haven’t noticed yet…I did stand up for the first time last night. From what people are telling me, I’m probably the greatest person to ever live, and my comedy cures HIV.

The video is on last night’s blog post, so feel free to chuckle your nuts off* over there.

*or the female equivalent of nuts…which is…umm…ovaries?

ANYWAY

I thank you all for the kind words about my comedy stuffs, that was nice of you.

I stayed up until about 2am just still all amped up from getting on stage and trying it all out. A few people have asked me some questions that I will answer now:

1. Will you do it again?

Yes.

2. How nervous were you?

Very.

3. What was the crowd like?

20-25 people and about 15 of them got up and did their own set of jokes before or after me, some good, some terrible.

4. When did you lose your virginity?

High School.

5. Did you have anything written down before you went up?

No I did not. I had ideas that I had recorded myself saying, and I had bounced the stuff off Brad a few times, but I really had no clue how to string anything together (clearly). The thing I was most proud of (besides being sober while actually doing those jokes, shit!) was inserting the stuff about having crackhead Facebook friends into the Words With Friends joke as a callback. I kind of just did it without even thinking about it. Thanks, brain.

That was fun Q&A, thanks for your questions. I’m a very famous comedian. I think the best part about my comedy is I’m so modest about it, you guys.

I’m exhausted tonight so I’m going to cut this one a bit short. Here’s the dinner shot…I actually did go out with my mom to Mucho Mas after work for a bite, I got two tofu tacos “veggie style” so I would like major props for that…

I would also like to point out that I believe that is the first time I’ve ever photographed any food in any restaurant, anywhere, at any point in my life. Ever. I felt like a douche-canoe. But it’s for the blog. The things I do for you people:

They were very good. I can’t say delicious, especially because they were loaded up with tons of veggies, but they were pretty damn good.

So here’s the other picture requirement:

276-272 = 4 pounds so far.

My ankle looks better but I’m STILL LIMPING. I feel like this is going to take a while to recover, so for now everything weight loss is just diet. I haven’t done one athletic thing since I’ve started so I can’t WAIT to get back into the gym now that I’m not stuffing my face with pizza every 45 seconds.

Tangent I: Thanks again for the nice words everyone. I cannot wait to try stand up again. I feel like that should have been on my bucket list. Holy shit. I remember now, I had a bucket list. I think it’s time to dust off a few of those bitches and make that stuff happen!

Tangent II: I saw Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World tonight. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It’s crazy good. I’m an assholeface for not seeing it sooner.

Tangent III: I’ve been in a better than normal mood lately, which is pretty significant because I’m always in a pretty good mood. I guess things are going pretty well right about now, how about you?  How are you Julie? How are the kids?

Hopefully that freaks out like 2 people.

Alright I’m going to dreamland. I’m going to attempt to dream about saving the world. I want that to involve like a James Bond style action sequence, followed by a James Bond style sex scene, but knowing my stupid brain…I’ll end up dreaming about handing out recycling flyers in outer space with an ex-girlfriend that is uglier than I remember.

While I’m a generally positive person, there are times at work when I lose my cool about random things. 97% of the time, it’s due to someone doing something to me or the company that I feel is something only a shitty person would do. When you are a shitty person, and you do shitty person things, I reserve the right to vent about you. It makes me feel better, I get more work done, and I don’t kick my dog.

All that being said, if you would have told me at 10, or 15, or 28, that I would be venting about a building supply house employee’s attitude when I was trying to return gutter and downspout material, I would have thought that that was silly, and gone back to my nintendo, playstation, or xbox game…depending on which Ben year you were talking to.

You know what…this is easier on video:

Also, my ankle is STILL sore. I’m still limping. I don’t know what to do other than rest it and take meds, so that’s what I’m doing. If it’s not better by Monday I’m going to hit up the doctor again.

Here’s a picture of my dinner. It was in Men’s health. 22 minutes from start to plate.

Unless you don’t know what the hell you are doing. I learned how to mince a clove of garlic tonight. I also learned how to dice an onion. I also learned that ground flaxseed and flaxseed might not be the same thing.

I also learned that high heat for 5 minutes is not the same as medium heat for 10 minutes:

I also learned that, start to plate, Ben style = one hour:

I must say, those meatballs were TASTY.

Here’s the scale tonight:

276-270.6 = 5.4 pounds.

Here’s a picture of a dog that ate a bee:

I decided to take my computer with me to PA. I’m taking this whole “stop being tubby” thing seriously. This should be evidenced by the other thing I brought with me:

Yes. You are seeing that correctly….

I brought my scale with me and that would be the bathroom floor at the Holiday Inn. You can actually see my right foot is STILL swollen. At this point I think that it’s actually sprained and it has nothing to do with gout. Just good old fashioned injury. Rub some dirt on it and get back out there, I say! Ok that’s not what I say. I’m a wuss, I’m going to the doctor next week if it’s still jacked up.

I realize bringing the scale in your duffle bag might be a little extreme, but I really, and I mean REALLY want this to work. So far so good, so why change the formula, right?

276-269 = 7 pounds six days.

I forgot to take a picture of what I ate today so here it is in pictures from the interwebs plus one I took yesterday.

Yup, that would be me circling three meatballs. I brought them in a cooler and had them for dinner, out of a ziplock bag.

Today I did not eat all that much, I know this. I’m going to eat a little more tomorrow, I just didn’t think about it too much before I took off for Pennsylvania!

Here’s something to contemplate:

I’ve adopted this strategy. Say no to things that get in way of the goal, as much as possible. I know it’s not always going to happen, but I can give it a big shot.

Tomorrow I have no idea if I’ll have the internet or not, if I do, there will be a post.

Get after something personal to you this weekend. Do something for yourself. Enjoy it. Stop and pay attention to something beautiful that isn’t on your TV. DO IT! I command you.

Odd choice of words to end that last sentiment, but I’m not known for doing anything subtly.

I went to Pennsylvania this weekend to attend my buddy’s mom’s funeral services. It was touching and that whole family is just great. I asked them to adopt me, they said, “Who are you again?”

I recorded this video on the drive back…There is probably zero humor in it…it’s just me talking about the impact the weekend had on me. Willpowerthru gettin’ all PROFOUND and shit! Don’t mind my stupid hair:

Anyway, let me tell you a story. My friend’s dad is basically the most interesting man in the world. He’s lived a damn life. Ex undercover cop, man about town, just an overall cool cat.

We go to the visitation stuff from 2-4 and from 6-8, but we didn’t leave from 4-6…just chilled out in the little back room the funeral home has, eating snacks and laughing and making all the woman folk uncomfortable. Maybe I was the only one making people uncomfortable. I digress…

We’re there all day, and my buddy and his dad (Jr. and Sr.) are just SPENT. They’ve answered the same questions 14,000 times.

To Sr.: “How are you?” “Do you need anything?” “How long is Jr. in town?”

To Jr: “How are you doing?” “How long have you been in town?” “When are you going back to California?” “When are you and your gf getting married?”

I literally heard these same questions over 100 times.

I would have snapped. His mom raised a strong son.

After all that, it’s St. Patty’s Day weekend, so we set out to grab a drink in the nearest watering hole: The Elk’s lodge.

“But, Ben, you aren’t drinking until after the Tough Mudder!” SAID NO ONE,  because no one in Bum F*ck, Pennsylvania reads my blog.

So we sit down and my buddy, his girlfriend, and his dad order a Start up. “What’s a start up?” I inquire.

“Oh nothing, my buddy says, JUST A DRINK MY FATHER INVENTED.”

Now this isn’t one of those college bullshit-style, “I invented a drink because all we had was two week old soy milk, some jack, an egg, and some grenadine.”

No, no my children, this is a bona fide tasty libation that he CREATED when he was a bartender.

It’s Coca-Cola, Cherry Rum, and Bacardi. I don’t know the exact mixture or how many jiggers of whatever to make whatever…but…It tastes like a damn Cherry Coke. Do you know how I know? I had 4 of them.

I’m not going to apologize. You know why?

….

I’m down .4 pounds from Friday’s weigh in, even though I got drunk Saturday night. Why?  The drunk food was limited to one donut, a 6″ sub, and some decaf coffee concoction. Estimated caloric value = 2,000 calories. The rest of that Saturday I had eaten approximately 500 calories.

I also realize I was supposed to post pictures of all the food I ate over the weekend. Well, the premise worked, I took photos of everything I ate, even the drunk stuff, and so that really did keep me from over doing it. I bought a 12″ sub full of amazing meats and cheeses, but I only ate 1/2…WHEN DRUNK. Why? Because I took a picture of the first 6″ part of it and then decided in my drunken state, “f*ck you, other 6 inches…I don’t want to look like an asshole on my blog tomorrow night”

That’s called will power, powered by self-hate.

Also,  I ate 300 calories today….and now I’m going to bed.

That’s why I’m losing weight. I’m being f*cking stubborn, stupid, and reckless. It’s the only way I know how to do anything, and it’s working. I realize it’s not the “correct way”.

You need to eat a bigger breakfast, you need to count carbs, you need to you need to you need to you need to

Ugh. You need to shut up.

You know what I need to do? Lose weight. The scale says I’m losing weight. Ergo, my method is effective, and you should probably take your Paleo diet and shove it up your ass. (and take all of your f*cking Facebook pictures of your stupid food with you on your trip up your own ass, you dick)

It reminds me of when I play basketball. I’m far too fat and out of shape to be “smooth”. But the ball goes in the god damn basket. Ugly but effective.

I died at 40 from laughing too hard at one of my own jokes.

“Does drinking Saturday night mean you’re back as a boozy member of society?”

I don’t know.

I was able to drink Saturday, and really put a limit on the shitty food I ingested that night. I don’t think I can do that like ALL the time, but I think that I can drink from time to time and still lose weight overall. Saturday I drank, but I didn’t drink a whole bottle of anything. I was tipsy, but still able to say, “Eh, I don’t need that other 6 inches of deli meat deliciousness.”*

*this is something I have never said, ever. I ALWAYS WANT THAT SIX INCHES IN MY MOUTH.

The whole point of this is to be able to incorporate a normal life into being healthy and vice versa.

I also think that drinking every night of the weekend is counter-productive.

I think I’m going to play it by ear/liver.

I know that overall, I’m going to win this weight loss BS… You know why? Because I AM AWESOME MADE OF EXCELLENCE.

It’s like my soul is encased in platinum and diamond.

Bottom line, you should try to catch up, being me is AMAZE-BALLS….cc 2009.

Ok, these are all things that make ZERO sense. We’ll talk soon.

Go hug your mom, dad, or anyone else that you have love for….life is fleeting.

I’m super tired. I think the drive back from PA did me in. I had a very hectic day at work and I forgot to eat. That happens a lot these days, when I don’t focus my entire day around food, it just becomes a thing that happens from time to time, and not an anticipatory event. I ate a granola bar around 3pm.

After work I took a nap. After my nap I saw The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, which was much better than the reviews made it out to be. It was entertaining the entire time and I laughed quite a few times. It did it’s job.

I remembered at the movie theater that I hadn’t eaten anything after that granola bar. Now I’m home and in bed and just too lazy too make food, so I think I’m just going to go to bed. Fatty ate enough Saturday to cover Monday’s hunger, so we’re good.

Thanks, Justin.

Also, zero pounds. Nothing gained, nothing lost. I blame Saturday. We’ll see what tomorrow looks like.

I made an appointment with a foot doctor on Wednesday morning because I’m still walking on my foot weird, not really limping as just supinating and redistributing my weight so I walk differently. That’s probably not a good thing.

I’m getting antsy to hit the gym again because losing weight is totally easier when you, you know, BURN CALORIES instead of sitting around doing nothing active all day!

Goodnight.

Also, this:

Early post tonight because I’m going to try to get some household stuff done, you know, around the house. I’m going to go buy some cooking paraphernalia so that I don’t have to try to mince garlic with a serrated knife like some sort of homeless person.

I also have a Dr.’s appointment tomorrow morning super early because my ankle is still jacked up and not healing on it’s own. I really would like that to get back to normal.

I haven’t cooked myself dinner yet so there’s no dinner picture, but here’s the scale today:

276 – 266.2 = 9.8 pounds since I’ve been posting my scale and dinner pictures. I’d say that’s getting somewhere.

285 – 266.2 = 18.8 pounds in two weeks. I’d say that that’s getting somewhere too.

P.S. This is all from not eating or eating healthy. This is 100% diet and 0% exercise. Wait, how much exercise is sleeping? Is it a lot? If so, I exercise like ALL the time.

Honestly, I’m getting more into the swing of things, and it’s getting easier. Yes, I feel hungry sometimes, and yes, my stomach growls sometimes, and yes I don’t care.

I know that it takes willpower to do this, and so far mine is holding up nicely.

I’ve done the math (my brain didn’t explode), obviously my body isn’t going to keep giving up pounds this easily, but if all goes well I should be down another 20 pounds or so by the Tough Mudder, although if my ankle is seriously hurt I don’t see how I’ll be able to recover, train, and run that race in a month and a half. I’ll be playing that one by ear.

My apologies that this is more of an update blog post than an entertaining one, but I can’t hear you complaining over the sound of me BEING AWESOME.

That’s a very Archer-esque statement. In honor of my favorite TV show, aka the only one I watch besides SNL…here’s how it’s going for me, via ARCHER GIFS WHICH ARE BAD ASS!

I used to be all…

And also….

And now I’m more like…

Which means…

Ta da!

I know you are all dying to know what the hell is going on with my ankle, my guess is that it’s Jesus punishing me for something. He does that, right?

ALSO, if you aren’t yet following me on Twitter…what the hell, man?

@kenbonowitz

DO IT!

There’s that.

Oh, the ankle wrap? Turns out if you have a flare up of the gout, and then you walk around with an inflamed ankle that isn’t fully healed, and then you twist your gout filled ankle, it doesn’t magically make things better. Instead, it makes things worse. I was prescribed some, wait, let me look at the box because for all I know the word is in Latin…here we go: Homocil.

Ok it’s actually called Cadista, which is MethylPREDNISolone.

Here lies the saddest photo willpowerthru has ever posted

There is actually a pretty great silver lining in the list of side effects to this medication you guys:

Increased HAIR GROWTH!? YES.

I’ll be donating my hair in like a week rather than waiting until October!

The bad news is that the doc tells me I have to stay off my feet for 48 hours while the anti-inflammatory meds take effect. So I spent 4 hours at work today with my ankle elevated at my desk, then went home to sleep because guess what else Cadista does? Makes you woozy (see also: dizziness).

I’m going to try again tomorrow to sit at my desk, and hopefully by Friday I’ll be right as rain. Unfortunately, staying off my feet also happens to be the exact opposite of exercise. Simply laying around all day doing absolutely nothing except thinking about how awesome a jelly donut would be isn’t much of a calorie burn. Thankfully, sometimes the internet makes you feel better:

Using industry averages, it costs about five dollars of fitness center usage to burn off the calories from a 99¢ jelly donut.

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) March 5, 2013

Thanks Neil, I don’t think I need that jelly donut now. Still, I’m not expecting tomorrows scale to say anything other than I’ve gained weight, which I’m fine with. I’ve got a couple days of that before I’ll be up and active enough to offset the calories that I consume.

That being said, I am currently happy about are my food choices.  At dinner last night with my friend I had a steak, with a lame salad, and a side of the world’s smallest bowl of cottage cheese. I did not have the Ben’s normal restaurant order:

• Appetizer containing more food than most meals
• Deep fried entree 
• Side of deep friend somethings with ranch/bacon
• One gallon of root beer/beer/something else witty and fattening

It was a win. Now back to the cottage cheese.

It might as well been the server coming over to the table and saying, “here comes the airplane”, and then giving me one spoonful of cottage cheese.

Actually, that would have been awesome.

Also, Round The Clock cooks a decent steak. I learn something new everyday.

ALSO, as I’m writing this I received a text from my brother, who lives in Hollywood and works on movie sets as a grip. From Wikipedia (click to go full screen if your eyes suck):

He texted me to let me know that he’s on set with James Caan, and also that James Caan is awesome to be around. I always enjoy hearing stories about how nice actors and actresses are, especially due to the fact that he’s told me stories about a lot of very famous people that are kind of dicks.

I absolutely love that movie, it’s called “The Way of the Gun.” It contains by far and away, the best insult I’ve ever heard in a movie or real life. It’s got filthy language so you’ve been warned. Here’s a video of it and you can decide for yourself if you want to watch Ryan Phillippe give the best/most offensive three second insult ever:

Today is my day off from life. I’ve been told to lie down for 48 hours. I’m watching the NCAA tourney and eating and drinking and living life. I’ll post more after I get up and you know, start being a legit member of society again.

also…

I’m so loopy from these meds!!!

But my ankle feels SOOOOO much better!

Sorry bout that…I kinda fell off the deep end over the weekend. Willpower eluded me. Orrrrrrrrr I eluded it. But I will say…

IT WAS AWESOME.

I ate and drank and carried on and blah blah blah blah:

I think that’s like 2 pounds back up from 265.something

I’m ok with that. I partied my booty off. LADIES, don’t worry…my sweet, sweet backside is still there, it was merely a play on words.

I’m absolutely not ready to go hardcore back into it again…

“But I Must”

So now that my ankle feels marginally better I’m going to go to the gym after work everyday. I have no time for Noon Hoops…and to be fair my ankle is STILL hurting. BUT TOTALLY NOT BECAUSE I WAS A LITTLE DRUNK THIS WEEKEND AND DID AWESOME THINGS AND WAS AWESOME AND DON’T TELL ME HOW TO LIVE MY LIFE.

Not tonight though.

Tonight I’m sitting at home playing a video game. Which might entail some delivery food. I DON’T KNOW.*

This video game:

I’ve been waiting for around a year for this to come out. I played Bioshock 1 and 2 and I LOVED them. This third version is supposedly amazing and I will render my verdict toot-sweet on the issue henceforth scalawag otherwordsthatdon’tmakesensehere

I’m going to go play.

I love you all. Don’t fight. Follow me on twitter: @kenbonowitz

*it must definitely will involve delivery food.

I promise to get serious tomorrow.

Tomorrow I’ll be at the gym at 5pm until 6pm doing squat thrusts or maybe something that looks like this:

My son was a good boy. He was a little misunderstood. But he didn’t deserve to lose his life, by his hand or by any other. I’m sorry to say that Ben is dead. I don’t know how to make any of his funny pictures saying that we’ll miss him, but we will. Love and blessings,

Ben’s Mom and Dad.

I realize I haven’t posted in a while. I don’t care.

I have maintained something like 267-270 for about a week now.

Once again, I don’t care.

I followed doctor’s orders* regarding my ankle and I’m still limping.

I think it’s AIDS.

Anyway.

The doctor told me to stay off it, but I have this whole JOB thing where I have to walk around a lot and also you know…there’s this whole life thing that you can do if you want.

I don’t sprain my ankle anymore, I step slightly wrong and I get this big TWINGE that feels like shit for 3 seconds.

It’s not like:

But it still hurts, and I do it almost daily.

So my new plan is to try to take it as easily at work as I can, and then come home and put my foot up. I’m going to do this for one week. If it’s not better, I’m going to kill myself.

Ok that’s a lie, and kind of insensitive to people with suicidal thoughts. What I’m really going to do is this:

Kill a bunch of people that I think suck, and THEN kill myself.

See? That’s better!

OK OK

God, tough crowd.

I’ll post more later, I’m just really pissed at my ankle right now – says the unhealthy guy that could have easily avoided this.

*I DRANK LIKE TWO DAYS while I was taking that anti-inflammatory medication.

SO!

My ankles are still jacked up and I can run around too much, and I’m still right around 270 somewhere and blah blah blah.

I don’t care because I’ve found a new hobby that I am THE WORST AT but also LOVE.

Stand-up comedy. I’ve always wanted to try it but my vagina just wouldn’t let me. Finally I said “f this noise” let’s DO THIS. I found that I love it.

I’ve done it three times.

Here’s the video evidence:

First time doing it:

Soooooo nervous and shitty.

Second time doing it:

More confidence, more sweat^^^

Third time was NOT an open mic…it was a comedy competition that I did not win. I thought it went pretty well though. It was this last Friday night. There were 70 people that PAID to see comedy that night. My third time ever being in front of anyone. The fact that I did not piss myself and pass out AMAZES me.

So now I’ve been asked to do a “guest spot” next Saturday…7 minutes followed by a featured performer doing 20 and a headliner doing 45.

We’ll see how it goes.

I’m super happy I decided to try it out, I’m in love with stand-up.

Thanks for watching and I’ll be back soon!

Here’s the catch up:

We are running longer hours at work now that it’s getting into our busier season. So 6:30am to at least 4:30 everyday, but most times it ends up being 5:30 or 6 before I actually get out of there. Since I think I’m just sooooooooooooo funny, I’ve been trying out my stuff at random open mic nights, mainly at this place called, “The Drop” over in South Bend. The owners are amazing and super encouraging and I really can’t say enough about how lucky I feel to have found this place.

www.thedropcomedyclub.com

So I get off work at 5:30, go home, shower, drive over to South Bend, do comedy/watch comedy, and come home.

Get it?

So I’ve not been doing any “willpower” related stuff as of late. I’m really focused on my job and also getting up in front of strangers and trying to make them laugh.

I’ve been on stage exactly 6 times in about a month and a half, and that includes 3 times last week. I just keep ramping it up and trying to do more and more venues and open mics and shows, which really cuts down the time I have for anything else besides work.

I don’t know what the goal is supposed to be with this comedy stuff, I just know that I love being a part of comedy no matter how insignificant it is. I love it.

I also know that it’s exactly 50 billion times harder than anyone thinks it is. Think about getting on stage in front of people that paid money for you to make them laugh. What would you say? How would you say it? What would happen if someone yelled something out at you? What if you heard crickets? What if you couldn’t get the mic out of the stand smoothly? What if you peed yourself? These are ALL VALID QUESTIONS THAT TOTALLY DID NOT HAPPEN TO ME.

Also, sometimes at an open mic…CRAZY things happen. This very drunk man got up and told “jokes?” for us in Bremen, Indiana. It was incredible. You might get bored with the video but just watch the whole minute and a half, towards the end…the best…BEST thing happens:

That’s me at the end saying “I don’t think anyone can follow that”

I also have learned about comedy as a business. Shoot, every comic has a business card and a website.

I have a blog and a drinking problem.

I don’t know if this is going to work out or not, but I’m going to really give it a shot. I’m so happy and busy all the time, I wouldn’t change my life in any single way currently…unless anyone knows of a penis enlargement pill that works.

Alright I’m tired and in need of more sleep than usual, so that’s that.

I’m going to pick up some will power stuff after I get back from Boston this weekend. After that bullshit bombing stuff…I felt I needed to go out there and infuse the local bar economy with my dollars.

Have a great week everyone, we’ll talk soon!

also….THIS:

http://www.funnyordie.com/articles/70e3b1cdce/nathan-fielder-asks-kids-to-play-crazy-drug-dealer-prank-on-their-parents

Well it’s been about a year since sat down and wrote my first blog post. June 2012 was a great month. For those of you that are new-ish-er to the blog, that was the first Willpower month that I attempted. So that means if you read that first post. YOU ARE A FULL YEAR OLDER THAN YOU WERE THEN HOLY SHIT WHAT HAPPENED I BLACKED OUT.

Here’s the list from that first month:

1. Keeping a blog of my shenanigans and updating it daily. Duh.
2. Waking up every day before 8am. This includes Saturdays and Sundays
3. Go for a jog every morning.
4. Do a “Green Blend” every morning.
5. Do not cut my hair or shave for the month
6. Use the term “ma lady” (including the hand gesture) once a day.
7. No television other than the NBA Playoffs.
8. Nothing other than water to drink
9. Full abstinence including “self” pleasure.
10. No logging onto Facebook.
11. Complete one project around the house every week.
12. Volunteer two times somewhere.
13. Read one book every week.
14. Say something positive into the mirror about myself every morning.
15. Do one random act of kindness a every day.
16. Do one workout besides the morning jog every day
17. No biting the fingernails.
18. Make every meal that I eat, with one “cheat” meal per week.
19. Text msg 5 people every day and share a compliment/oddity/or fun fact.

So that month last year was amazing.

I still haven’t cut my hair…Locks of Love is getting this mane of amazing in November or December of this year…

Stuff is getting LONG.

So let’s catch up a bit…I’ve been doing stand up comedy for a few months, and I was just asked to become a house comedian over at www.thedropcomedyclub.com

They just took my headshot the other day, so that should be up soon. Crazy stuff.

I’ve just had three shows this last weekend, and the late show Saturday, I felt really good on stage and got a good response from the crowd, so I was very happy.

Other than the comedy, it’s been back to 11 to 12 hour days at work for the fambiz, but that’s to be expected.

Every time that I’m not going over to do comedy or not working I just feel like…

I’ve begun thinking in terms of priorities. I don’t think people can use the excuse that they are “too busy” to do anything really. Everyone just prioritizes differently. If you want to make something a priority, you will. It will cost you other things in your life, but that’s the price you pay for  your choices, right?

So I’m single, I’m currently not in any sort of “good” shape, I work hard at the fambiz and that’s going well, and the comedy thing is really panning out well so far.

So my priorities look like this: FAMBIZ, FAMILY, COMEDY, FRIENDS/FEMALES, SLEEP, NETFLIX/PORN, WORKING OUT/EATING RIGHT, WORLD PEACE.

That first two will never change. That’s my dedication and I will ultimately cancel any and all plans if I have to stay and work. It’s what I choose. That then benefits the family, to which I owe everything.

Here’s where it gets tricky, because I think I’m going to re-prioritize the rest and I think it’ll help me out long term. You know, because right now if I eat any more delivery pizza I might have an actual heart attack. Literally. I don’t know what my cholesterol is, but I feel like it’s in the millions.

I haven’t even gotten on the scale in a month. So let’s just go see. *Ben physically gets off the bed and weighs himself and then comes back and sits down and types this next sentence*

283

Meh, I was expecting 290 or so.

I’ve done so many awesome things this Willpower calendar year. Keeping weight off has CLEARLY not been one of them.

Priorities are lacking here, Benny boy, and booze is totally not helping.

I’ve had some of the most amazing nights these past few months doing comedy it’s impossible to describe. The awesome people I’ve met, the support from friends and family, the laughing. Just straight up laughing ALL THE TIME.

So here’s my idea for reprioritization (spell check does not recognize that word) F*ck ‘em.

FAMBIZ, FAMILY, SLEEP, COMEDY/EATING RIGHT/NOT DRINKING AS MUCH, FRIENDS/FEMALES, WORLD PEACE

Of course world peace is still at the end, here’s my favorite thing I’ve ever seen on the internet to explain why (It’s very old but I still laugh every time I see it):

No but really, I’m going to make an attempt to take better care of myself. I’m not putting numbers up or a schedule, all I know is that I’m going to cut back on the drankin…cut back on the pizzas and fast foodish behavior…and we’ll go from there.

So here’s to June 2013 being different than June 2012. I’m going to just be a normal person and see what happens. Sounds super lame.

You know what. As I’m typing this I’m realizing that being a normal person kinda blows. Let’s just do this. I realize I’m going to be going down to the Limestone Comedy Festival in Bloomington. That weekend will be just a mess.

So let’s pull that weekend out of June.

Besides THAT weekend…let’s try this…For June:

Nothing but water to drink.

No delivery or drive through food.

That’s it. Just those two.

Seems easy compared to last June right? Well now I’m in a comedy club a lot of the time…where booze is like a prerequisite…so we’ll see what happens!

It’s about 7PM. I’ve been Googling (I shit you not) Small-Business Strategy, and other buzzword type thingys on the interweb for about an hour.

I think I got a few decent ideas to try out at the Fambiz, so that’s fun.

Like…did you know if you don’t pay taxes you can save like 33% a year? Shout out to commenter DumpsterDick732 for that tip.

I’m so ready for sleep. As I type this I realize that I’ve never publicly stated my distain for people who say “only X more sleeps before I…” as a way to indicate how long until they get to do something fun. Usually, it’s “Only 17 more sleeps before I see my baby punkin David”. Well, I hate to be a spoilsport, but punkin David is down at college, straight up RAILING some tang in between alternating his Facebook status from “Missin my boo” to “goin out with the boyz”

SO…if you are 18-23..stop saying “sleeps” to indicate the passage of time. If you are over 23…

That was harsh ish, here’s a picture of a bunny:

We good?

Cool.

So I worked today from what…6:45? 7? 6:30? I don’t know…to sometime this afternoon, it all blurs together.

NOT NOW ROBIN THICKE.

I did get to fit in some time with the friends at a Fantasy Football Draft for a few hours. We did an auction draft instead of a snake draft the main difference beingOHH MY GOD BEN SHUT THE HELL UP.

Not the most interesting thing to talk about, I know.

RAOK! Today was one of those that I don’t want to mention because blah blah blah. You’ll have to trust me that it got done.

I got a phone call from my friend Teresa today letting me know she was in town visiting from Utah. See, a phone call is basically a vocalized text that no one is comfortable using anymore.

Teresa and her boyfriend Shawn swung through and we had a nice convo about all the horrible things I eat, my alcohol tolerance, what it’s like to live in Utah (that was her, not me…I don’t know what it’s like to live in Utah…well I mean NOW I do because she told me…ugh, pay attention)

I surprised Teresa today because I told her I’d never heard of her shoes. I forget what they are now…Keens maybe? If you weren’t surprised that I’d not heard of them Teresa, let me know, and I’ll surprise two people tomorrow.

I give you my fat Thor promise

………

Here’s the tweet jokes of the day:

THE LIST:

1. Blog about it daily. DONE!

2. 1600 Calories a day. DONE!

3. Only meals that have been cooked by someone not paid to cook. So like mom’s dinner yes, delivery pizza no. DONE! (Lot’s of sandwhiches)

4. Read 4 books. (I’m open to suggestions!) 2/3 the way through my first book: Delivering Happiness by the CEO of Zappos.com

5. Work out once a day for more than 30 minutes. (this is going to be lenient, like walking is acceptable) DONE!

6. Tweet one joke a day (I will be posting this one to Twitter @kenbonowitz) DONE!

7. Drink only water. DONE!

8. 100% Abstinence (yes, that means no flogging the pope, or whatever awesome euphemism you use) DONE!

9. Do one RAOK a day! (this will probably be pretty lenient as well, but we’ll see) DONE!

10. Surprise someone everyday. (probably my favorite submission out of all of them) DONE!

11. Learn to juggle 4 things. YOU KNOW WHY – NOT DONE

12. Learn a song on the trumpet. YOU KNOW WHY AGAIN – NOT DONE

13. Spend zero dollars. DONE!

14. Look like fat Thor (DONE!) TODAY YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE IT!

15. No texting. I will be available to call or Skype or email. But I won’t be texting. (I’m texting back to say I’m not texting…so DONE! and kinda not)

This is how I feel every time I tell a joke on stage that I personally feel should have got a better reaction. Especially if there is some sort of wordplay involved. Adding to the confusion, I have a one liner that gets a good reaction 90% of the time, so I know it’s at least not a bad joke. I remember telling it to an audience over in South Bend that was made up of quite a few people that I would consider to be pretty stupid. The joke bombed.

In that same vein, I’ve been posting jokes to Twitter and Facebook everyday as part of this willpower month thingy. Normally if I think of something that I think is clever, I’ll share it. Making sure to get out at least one written one liner a day isn’t terribly hard, but it’s completely different than thinking of something funny and then writing it out. Now the thought has become, I have to write it out, what’s something funny to say? I sit there and construct/rework/rewrite each one for a few minutes before I post it, and it does take a little time…BUT…I really look forward to doing it a few times a day because it’s really the only break I get from work. Also, it’s so completely different than my thought process is for work, it’s a nice little mini mental break.

I have some comedian friends that make crafting one liners look it easy. Brett Terhune (@BrentTerhune) is a guy I met at the Limestone Comedy Festival in Bloomington. He writes for Bob and Tom, and he is constantly throwing out one liners. It’s really impressive.

Keeping it to under 140 characters is also a big challenge because sometimes if you could just add another few words you could really get the wording the way you want but Twitter is just all

So here are today’s Twitter jokes:

The belabor joke went over a LOT of heads. Which is disappointing because that’s one that I thought was pretty clever. SEE TO BELABOR SOMETHING MEANS TO TALK ABOUT SOMETHING OVER AND OVER AGAIN AKA BELABOR THE POINT BEAT A DEAD HORSE REPEAT YOURSELF A LOT AND SINCE IT’S LABOR DAY I MADE A PLAY ON WORDS ABOUT CELEBRATING A MADE UP DAY CALLED BELABOR DAY…GET IT??? Whatever, I’m not even mad.

Or maybe it’s just a stupid joke.

In leiu of a transition, please accept this picture of Bart Simpson if he were a real person:

My talk with my friend Teresa got me thinking about the food that I’m eating the month. Sure I’m not eating shit delivery food or anything like that, but really, it should be even better than that. As long as I buy it from the grocery store and make it at home, I’m eating it. That’s a good start, but we talked about the “less ingredients the better” philosophy, which I’m pretty sure I talked about with Erin and Cary about too…but I might have been drunk. Either way, when I went to the grocery store tonight, I took note. Two packages of cheese:

shut up about my ugly thumb

14 or 15 ingredients on the bottom in Kraft Singles, 6 ingredients in the “natural” cheese.

Next up:

So I think for the rest of this willpower month I’ll be going with things that have less ingredients. I guess the good news is I can eat all the steak I want. Because steak has one ingredient….STEAK!

Here’s what my dinner looked like:

It’s not fresh baked bread and it’s not deli sliced beef, but for 9pm on a Sunday in LaPorte…it’s not horrible.

While I was scrolling through my phone to get those pictures, I came across a few more that I forgot about. The first one is from work, signifying that we are bad asses.

The other one is from my last night before I gave up beer for the month…I think it was trying to tell me something:

DO YOU SEE THE DEMON IN THE FOAM!?

Ok let’s get to the list:

1. Blog about it daily. DONE!

2. 1600 Calories a day. DONE!

3. Only meals that have been cooked by someone not paid to cook. So like mom’s dinner yes, delivery pizza no. DONE!

4. Read 4 books. (I’m open to suggestions!) 2/3 the way through my first book: Delivering Happiness by the CEO of Zappos.com

5. Work out once a day for more than 30 minutes. (this is going to be lenient, like walking is acceptable) DONE! WALKING IS MY SUPERPOWER

6. Tweet one joke a day (I will be posting this one to Twitter @kenbonowitz) DONE!

7. Drink only water. DONE!

8. 100% Abstinence (yes, that means no flogging the pope, or whatever awesome euphemism you use) DONE!

9. Do one RAOK a day! (this will probably be pretty lenient as well, but we’ll see) DONE!

Today’s RAOK:

I went to my parent’s house for a BBQ today and as I was leaving I swung into work for another few hours, this time to finish some stuff I had to do, but I also took some stuff off my dad’s plate and finished it up for him. Weak RAOK I know, I’ll do better tomorrow.

10. Surprise someone everyday. (probably my favorite submission out of all of them) DONE!

I feel like a dick for this one, but I was at the grocery store and someone wasn’t looking and we were walking kind of close together and they were getting into my “lane” so to speak…I could have just been like, “ohhhh” in a soft voice and they would have corrected their path…instead I absolutely thought of this as an opportunity to surprise someone so I went “AYYYYY” pretty loudly…she was surprised.

11. Learn to juggle 4 things. YOU KNOW WHY – NOT DONE

12. Learn a song on the trumpet. YOU KNOW WHY AGAIN – NOT DONE

13. Spend zero dollars. DONE!

14. Look like fat Thor (DONE!)

15. No texting. I will be available to call or Skype or email. But I won’t be texting. (I AM however SNAPCHATTING BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME) If you don’t have Snapchat…you are missing out on stuff like this:

Hair like a champ!!!

Also check out this photo I found from my X-mas card photo shoot:

Upon my own reading of this blog, it contains VERY little comedy and is written very business like…probably because I was “to-do” listing all day…feel free to not read this one as it contains next to zero redeeming comedic value. Thank you.

I gave away my ticket to the Oddball Comedy Tour for Saturday and canceled a stand-up gig on Sunday so that I could go into work and get caught up. I went in for a few hours today as well, but the bottom line is I feel decently caught up with everything at work. I feel like I’ve got a good handle on where I want this week to go, and how to get there.

I also organized all the paperwork around my house, cleaned out the back of my SUV, cleaned out the cab and the back of the work truck, threw away a bunch of old stuff that had been piling up around the house, cleaned up a little, put my new sink together…well 90% there.

…read the rest of Delivering Happiness, made my lunch for tomorrow and put it in the fridge, read a few articles in a Men’s Health magazine, watched a comedy special I’d be meaning to get to (Mike  Birgbiglia’s My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend…which was very one-man-show-ish…but I still really liked it), shaved my beard, took a shower, created a plan of action for this week at work, and now I’m writing this for you because I like you.

This post is going to be super short because It’s already 9pm and I have more to do before bed.

If I took anything away from Delivering Happiness, (written by the guy who took Zappos.com from an idea to a billion dollar company) it would be that when you have a passion for your business, and not just a “talk the talk” passion…but a “I’m investing my last dollar in this because I believe in it” passion, you give yourself the best chance at success.

Ok, that’s pretty obvious. What wasn’t as obvious to me anyway, was the idea that you have to lay the groundwork for future successes by hand. I was really blown away by how much the company brought in house instead of finding a reliable third party to perform those functions. It seemed the more the company delegated responsibilities, the more they faltered. The more they brought things in house, the better off they were.

While we’re no million dollar business, the reasoning is sound. Instead of delegating things from the get go, doing them yourself the right way and THEN handing them off is by far the takeaway here.  My pop has done a pretty great job at building things himself from the ground up…the handing them off part…well…we’re working on it.

Scheduling all of our jobs has always been challenging, and we always said if we could make the system better, it would probably help tremendously. Instead of looking at improving the current scheduling system, I’m going to take it and start over completely (in theory, of course!… could you imagine how quickly PoppaKon would stroke out if I created a whole new system overnight?) If I just start from scratch and design a scheduling system from the ground up that maybe we could EVENTUALLY utilize, that might be better than taking what we have and revamping it. I don’t know. What I do know is it’s all got to start with me if I want to take the business from where it is currently and make it bigger/better/less stressful/more profitable. Reading that book gave me some good perspective into the ‘why they did it’, not just ‘what they did’.

WHATEVER. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT ANYWAY

What else…oh yeah…the list!

1. Blog about it daily. DONE!

2. 1600 Calories a day. DONE!

3. Only meals that have been cooked by someone not paid to cook. So like mom’s dinner yes, delivery pizza no. DONE!

4. Read 4 books. (I’m open to suggestions!) Done with Delivering Happiness…next up is Let’s Pretend This Never Happened…then Teresa’s book which I forgot the name of because I’m a bad person.

5. Work out once a day for more than 30 minutes. (this is going to be lenient, like walking is acceptable) DONE! Cleaning out everything is going to count for today because I broke more than 4 sweats.

6. Tweet one joke a day (I will be posting this one to Twitter @kenbonowitz) DONE! I’m kind of going overboard lately…

7. Drink only water. DONE!

8. 100% Abstinence (yes, that means no flogging the pope, or whatever awesome euphemism you use) DONE!

9. Do one RAOK a day! (this will probably be pretty lenient as well, but we’ll see) DONE!

Today’s RAOK:

Even though I can’t spend money this month…it doesn’t mean I can’t plan it out for the future…So I realize that I’m going to be losing some weight from now until the 21st, and I stepped on the scale at the beginning and took a picture so I’ll know how much I’m down. I’m going to donate 5 bucks for every pound I lose to a random charity that I’ll pick later) I figure I’m not spending any money on Monster energy drinks or candy or movies or concerts or well…anything…so I’ll have some change to spare.

10. Surprise someone everyday. (probably my favorite submission out of all of them) woah…NOT DONE.

Unfortunately, I didn’t surprise anyone today. I spent every single minute of my day completely alone today. Which is a little strange now that I think about it…but yeah…I had zero human interaction today…weird.

11. Learn to juggle 4 things. YOU KNOW WHY – NOT DONE

12. Learn a song on the trumpet. YOU KNOW WHY AGAIN – NOT DONE

13. Spend zero dollars. DONE!

14. Look like fat Thor (DONE!)

15. No texting. I will be available to call or Skype or email. But I won’t be texting. (I AM however SNAPCHATTING BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME)

I was feeling lazier than normal so I just recorded the majority of tonight’s stuff. There’s a decently funny story right off the bat but after the 4 minute 30 second mark I kind of just ramble.

Here’s the Amish romance novel I saw:

Oh Jebediah…I want to raise your barn and churn your butter.

Also if you were wondering what the Tyler Perry joke was it’s very stupid and didn’t work. I just said “Tyler Perry presents: Why is Tyler Perry trying to give black people white people problems.”

I asked a black guy in the audience if that joke was racist. He said no. I responded with “ok, just not funny then”. Which then got a laugh.

Here’s the twitter joke for today:

I’m exhausted. Here’s a couple things that made me laugh today, goodnight:

My favorite thing I saw online today:

I think the way the guy laughs seals it for me…just good stuff.

Update on my track-marked looking arm from donating blood yesterday:

My arm looks like I use drugs. Larry, as always, is passed out like he’s actually on drugs.

Today’s twitter joke:

Some of my friends thought that I was being serious about not knowing John Candy was dead. I’m a little offended at how dumb they think I am. Or maybe I’m offended at how dumb I now think they are for not getting an obvious joke? I don’t know, the jury is still out. In their defense I don’t always know if something is obvious or not…I did Google to check if it was ok to drink water out of water bottles that had been left in a car for a few months in the summer. I remembered hearing something about the hot plastic leaking cancerous gremlins into the water or something. Long story shorter…I’m stupid, of course it’s fine to drink that water, and John Candy is dead.

Also…

Today’s Random Act Of Kindness is brought to you by the letter B….as in Ben brings you a letter.

I was driving down el road-o (total spanish speaker, you guys) and I saw a letter blowing down the road. I pulled over and found out that it looked like some sort of greeting card envelope and that the address wasn’t that far away so I tracked down the house and put it in the mailbox.

“Awww videos are fun, eh?” – Canadian Ben

Also, I was thinking that I could surprise someone everyday like “aww that’s a nice surprise” But I’m relying more on getting a reaction like:

you know, by scaring the SHIT out of somebody everyday.

So tomorrow I’m going to try to do the nice version…today I just went “HEY…nice bike” to some teenager on my way home from my buddy Brad’s house after watching sooooo much porn  The Roast of James Franco. I don’t feel bad because he was riding on the sidewalk. Don’t ride on the sidewalk, jerk. He

P.S. Sarah Silverman. wow. just wow.

She was absolutely hilarious, too…but you know…Jewbs.

That stands for Jewish Boobs, mom.

ANYWHOO

Did the walk through for the event at the Little Theatre coming up in a scant 17 days….The place is better than I remembered and it’s going to be flat out sweetness on the night.

ALSO, I Street Family Tavern is doing the following:

Providing local brewery Back Road’s beer at 5 bucks and Bud Light at 4 bucks, with all proceeds going back to the charity…AND we are going to have the after party down at the tavern 4 minute down the road from the theatre and they are keeping the kitchen open late with 15% of all proceeds from 10pm on going back to the charity as well!!

SO…if you are coming to the show and want to hang out with the comics afterwards, we’ll be at the I street tavern around 10:30 or so!

Back to today…

1. Blog about it daily. DONE!

2. 1600 Calories a day. DONE!

3. Only meals that have been cooked by someone not paid to cook. So like mom’s dinner yes, delivery pizza no. DONE!

4. Read 4 books. (I’m open to suggestions!) Done with Delivering Happiness…next up is my friend Erin’s recommendation: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened…then Teresa’s recommendation: The Art of Racing in the Rain.

5. Work out once a day for more than 30 minutes. (this is going to be lenient, like walking is acceptable) DONE!

Ever seen a fat-ish guy jog around a house? If you were in Union Mills today……bucket list item CHECKED OFF AND YOU ARE WELCOME

6. Tweet one joke a day (I will be posting this one to Twitter @kenbonowitz) DONE!

7. Drink only water. DONE!

8. 100% Abstinence (yes, that means no flogging the pope, or whatever awesome euphemism you use) DONE!

9. Do one RAOK a day! (this will probably be pretty lenient as well, but we’ll see) DONE!

10. Surprise someone everyday. (probably my favorite submission out of all of them) woah…NOT DONE.

11. Learn to juggle 4 things. YOU KNOW WHY – NOT DONE

12. Learn a song on the trumpet. YOU KNOW WHY AGAIN – NOT DONE

13. Spend zero dollars. DONE!

14. Look like fat Thor (DONE!)

15. No texting. I will be available to call or Skype or email. But I won’t be texting. (I AM however SNAPCHATTING BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME)