I love to fly and it shows!

Hi guys, hope your holidays are going well. To be honest, mine started off a bit rocky. My wife had a death in the family and we flew to Texas last week for the funeral. Everything went well and Nancy is doing fine.

We flew home last night. It's not the biggest secret that I'm not a huge fan of flying. It freaks me out pretty bad. I've gotten better over time, but some flights still press my freak out button from time to time.

Last night was the worst flight I've ever been on, but I handled it pretty well. I know a lot of people have had terrible flights, and undoubtedly the second I post this a 100 people will tell me their "horrible flight" stories. Let me just say upfront, I don't want to hear them. I already hate flying and I don't need to hear "horrible flight" stories to add fuel to my anxieties, thank you. Let me tell you my story and then lets all pretend that it's THE worst story and just agree to move on with our lives. If you give me this one I'll let you tell me all your "horrible dentist" stories whenever I talk about having my wisdom teeth pulled.

Our flight was scheduled to depart at 3:35pm. We checked online at around 1pm and it was already delayed an hour, so our new departure time was 4:35pm. It was cold and rainy outside so we figured it was just the weather. We looked at ALL the departure times out of DFW and NONE of the other flights were delayed. Just the ones into New York. LaGuardia Airport sucks the biggest balls of all time. I'm talking bigger than that dude in Africa with elephantiasis of the balls. You've seen that video right, where he uses his balls as a bean bag chair, but I digress....

We get to the airport and check in around 3pm. Everything seems fine. We actually board the plane at 4pm and they close the doors around 4:40pm. Then, once they have us all captive, they tell us we will be on the tar mack... is it mat or mack? Anyway, we'll be waiting to take off for at least 45 minutes.

We're in the back of the plane and people are still sitting down. This crazy dude comes in wearing a tan fishing vest. Those vests that have 100 pockets. He stops in the isle and tries to put his bag in the over head compartment. He has trouble because, as I stated before, he's fucking crazy. He's holding up the last 4 people that have to sit down and he's taking his crazy time. That's when this evil flight attendant starts yelling at him to sit down immediately so we can pull out of the gate. As it turns out, Hitler had a daughter and she became a flight attendant. She's about 43 years old, blond, and she wears a festive Christmas embroidered vest. I think the vest was camouflage so you would think she was nice, right before she stabbed you in the face with her switchblade.

This crazy guy's a little slow and doesn't really understand what's going on so he just sort of doesn't listen to her, which makes her even crankier. She yells and yells and he crazies and crazies. He takes of his tan vest, under that is a jacket, he takes of his jacket, and under that is a regular black vest. This dude loves him some vests! Eventually he sits down and we pull out of the gate around 4:50pm.

At 4:55pm there's a jolt and weird noise. The plane just sits there for a few minutes. The pilot comes on the speaker and says the auxiliary motor won't start, and thats how they start the two actual motors. He then says we have to pull back into the gate and have the maintenance crew come out and start the two engines manually. This make Nick freak out a teensy weensy bit in his stomach.

We pull back into the gate and 35 minutes later the engines have been successfully started. We pull out of the gate, again, at around 5:45. I'm still a little uneasy with the whole engines not starting thing. As we taxi out the plastic cover on the outside of the tv monitor hanging from the middle of the aisle is rattling like a some of a bitch. It needs to have a couple screws tightened. This loose monitor casing isn't helping to relax me. Apparently everything was fine though, because at 6:10pm we took off.

The weather was pretty icky outside, however the take off was fine. About 10 minutes into the flight there's a huge jolt of turbulence that causes gasps, but everything is normal for a while afterward.

We get into the air, then what will go down in history as the busiest airplane bathroom EVER opens it's doors for operations. About 20 minutes into the flight a nonstop line starts to form at the back of the plane for the restrooms. I shit you negative when I say there were at least three people in line for the restroom for the ENTIRE flight.

Nancy finally had to go so she got in line. As I waited for her to come back there is an even bigger jolt that drops us a bout 50 to 100 feet. I learned about 2 minutes later that, unfortunately, my poor little wife was on the can when it happened. I almost shit my pants when it happened, and I'm sure if I had been on the toilet at the time, all bets would have been off. I would've dropped a deuce no questions asked.

She was a little shaken up, but fine. It took them about ten minutes to finally get the drink cart going because the line to the bathroom was in the way. They finally had to just ask all the people waiting in line to come all the way to the back and stand in the flight attendant lair while they went by. For some reason it literally took the drink cart 50 minutes to make it all the way from the front of the plane to us. By the time it got there they were out of pretty much everything. We hadn't eaten dinner and it was around 8pm at this point. We bought chips and vodka tonics to calm our nerves.

The turbulence was horrendous the entire flight, and to make matters worse, the in flight movie was "How the Grinch Stoled Christmas"

We finally make it to the New York area, to my relief. It was a short lived victory however, after the captain informs us that we will be in a holding pattern over New York for at least 45 more minutes. My tummy was sad.

At 9:30 the captain tells us we have been cleared for landing 15 minutes early, only to come back on and tell us that two other planes had to go in front of us for medical emergencies. Meanwhile, this extra 45 minutes meant 45 more minutes of turbulence. We get cleared to land and I swear to God the plane is tilted 35 degrees to the right up until about 30 seconds before touch down.

The landing was met with applause. Of course being in the back meant an extra long wait to get off the plane. Meanwhile the crazy guy is trying to get his bag that is literally three people ahead of him as we wait to leave. He manages to get it without banging anyone in the head.

A flight that was supposed to get us home at 8pm, got us in around 10:30. Fun.

Needless to say we are flying back to Texas for Christmas in 11 days. Hooray! I hope they show "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" again.

Find God Tonight!

There's going to be a Miracle in 26th Street tonight. Hope to see you all there!

Computers Can Bite My Virtual Ass

I had a bit of a freak out this weekend. I installed an update to my Mac, because updates are supposed to help right? Well this update just made the most important programs on my computer crash over and over. This make Nick mad.

I started searching the interweb only to discover many other people were having the same problem. So I reinstalled my old directory. That fixed one problem, but created an even worse one. Now I couldn't even open my video editing program.

I re-installed that program and was able to then open it. However it wouldn't read any of my projects because they were saved on an updated version of the program. After many failed attempts to update the software, I called tech support.

An hour later the problem still isn't solved, and the douche bag from tech said I probably would have to back up all my shit and erase the entire drive and re-install everything. What good is tech support without the support part?

I was a tad pissed off.

I desided before I did anything drastic I would once again check to see if my software update thingee would find the update needed for my editing program. Up until now it wouldn't find it. Steve Jobs decided to smile on me, the update popped up. I installed it and BAM it totally works now.

If creating an update for your operating system just fucks up your operating system, I could totally get a job at Apple writing software for 300 grand a year. I'm sure I could write software that REALLY fucked up your computer.

Happy Thanksgiving, from the past

OK so it's a little late, but at least it's still November. We had a great Thanksgiving this year. One of my best friends, Tom, and his cousin Lisa came over to celebrate the day we stole the Indian's land from them.

Me and Nancy prepared the meal that afternoon. On the Menu: Breaded and fried turkey cutlets, green bean casserole, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and homemade pecan pie.

Here are those yummy yummy yams.

After I licked the dirt off, we cooked and mashed the hell out of them.

Here's a cup of my nuts.

Gravy anyone? Gravy makes anything taste better, we tested this theory on a homeless mans leg later on that night, and it holds up!

Look at me fry! Fry Nick Fry!

I'm the batter monster from episode #347 of Scooby Doo.

Sweet potatoes and green bean casserole.

Stuffing!

Pecan Pie!

And possibly the most important part of any Thanksgiving meal, the jellied cranberries. Just like he pilgrims had in the first Thanksgiving Day feast. Of course we forgot to put them out when we actually ate, just like we did last year. I love the damn things I just can't remember to grab them and put them on the table. That's what happens when you get old like me. I'm 74 years old after all.

Nurse! Marshmallow, Stat!

Look at that delicious fried turkey! My God, stop licking your computer screen, it's embarrassing.

Here is our beautiful spread. Dig in!

We wanted our Thanksgiving feast to resemble the original Thanksgiving as closely as possible, so we played Guitar Hero. Just like the Indians and Pilgrims did back in 1769 BC.


Look at my face, you can see how much fun I'm having. I'm oozing excitement. Maybe it was the triptifane.

Here we go, my inner Guitar Hero has emerged. After this picture was taken I smashed the guitar, pissed on the floor, and set Tom on fire.

To calm us down we played Trivial Pursuit. Tom is very competitive. He cried for an hour every time he got a question wrong.

The horror! Thanksgiving Day fallout. So many turkeys slaughtered, and for what...

If anyone wants to come over and wash those dishes they can. They're still in the sink. It would be awesome if we could get a real Indian to wash them, just like the first Thanksgiving Day.

A friend of mine is doing a show...

If you're in New York, please come out and support my friend, he's kind of a big deal.

It's going to be like a talk show only hosted by God. It's going to be miraculous!

Monday December 3rd, at 9:30pm. At the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater on 307 West 26th Street in New York City. It's only $5 bucks.

Please come out, he would go see your show.

What happens in Vegas, could give you Syphilis.

This is another long one, grab some popcorn.

I'm back safe and sound from my Las Vegas adventure. Lets start at the beginning, I feel safe talking about it now because it actually happened.

About a month ago I uploaded the video of my "Lie Detector Bit" into a web contest for something called "The Andy Kaufman Award". If you don't know who Andy Kaufman is, Wikipedia his ass. If you haven't seen the bit here it is for your consumption:



I didn't think I had a chance of making the finals because that bit is pretty tame. I have much crazy stuff, just not video taped. Long story short I get a call about two weeks ago, informing me that I had been selected as a finalist. This meant I would be flown to Las Vegas, get a room for two nights in Caesar's Palace, and perform in the live stage contest of The Andy Kaufman Awards in Caesar's Palace that was part of an even bigger festival called "The Comedy Festival". Some of the people performing in the festival this year were Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Ellen, Eddie Izzard, and a ton of other great comedians. Oh yeah and me.

I was freaking out to say the least. The next week was the week I tried out for that Comcast commercial and made it. So needless to say I was under a huge amount of stress that manifested, or I should say manifestered, itself onto my mouth.

After I got back from the commercial shoot in Boston on Wednesday, I packed for my trip to Vegas the next day. I heard that there were 200 entries into the contest and only 8 finalist were chosen.

I'm pretty freaked out about flying, so the thought of flying 5 hours alone to Vegas was bonus stress. Hooray! I was a super absorbent stress sponge last week.

As I was waiting in the terminal to board the plane, I notice an acquaintance of mine, Mitch McGee. Mitch is a really funny improv performer/film maker who has done tons of great work on Channel 102 here in New York. I've seen him out a lot, but never really talked to him one on one. He was with his girlfriend, so being the shy introvert I am in public settings I didn't say anything to him.

After we arrived in Vegas it turned out Mitch was also a finalist. We reacquainted ourselves and ended up hanging out quite a bit. He's a really great guy and if his girlfriend were any nicer I would've had to slap her. I'm so glad they were there, it was nice to have two very friendly people to help ease the nerves.

Here is a nice shot of the desert. It looked very solid and bumpy, which didn't help my flying phobia. I would much rather have flown over cherry jello or nerf.

There are slot machines in the airport in Vegas. I'm pretty sure there are slot machines in every building in Vegas. I hear Las Vegas Memorial Hostiptal has pretty loose slots and a great buffet.

We had a ride waiting for us when we got there.

Here we our in our lavish high class chaffered white van.

This was our driver. He said his name was Driver. I didn't believe, but as you can see he could have eaten me in one bite, so I didn't argue with him.

We got to Caesar's Palace and checked into our respective rooms. The rooms were really nice. Here's my bed, it had a padded wall behind it. I guess that's so guest don't break their necks when they hire prostitutes and have freaky sex.

The room had a flat screen TV, but it was the worst reception I have ever seen on a television and you only got about 15 channels. On top of that the remote didn't work at all. It's the first thing I broke when I recked the room at my kick ass rock n' roll after party. I was the only one at the party, but it was still awesome.

Here's the bathroom. I pooped and peed in this room. I pooped and peed in the bedroom room too, but this is where I was "supposed" to do it.

This was the view from my room, LITERALLY. I didn't doctor this at all. All I could see was the roof and air conditioning units. But I didn't come to Vegas to gaze out my hotel window, I came to bury hookers.

After I marked my room with my scent, I went downstairs to pick up my festival stuff. Here I am with Carla and J.P. Buck. J.P. was the director of talent and development
for HBO and The Comedy Festival. This guy was extremely cool. He was always upbeat and very genuinely nice any time I talked to him. He really treated all the contestants with the utmost respect and I can't say enough good things about him without sounding totally gay.

This is my magic badge. It got me into places no normal human being could get into. The best thing about the badge was, it allowed me entrance into the Caesar's Palace employees cafeteria. The cafeteria lay deep within the bowels of Caesar's Palace's basement. You had to navigate a maze of tunnels to get there, but once you found "Cleo's", you were privy to as much free food as you could keep down. It was like heaven only more hair nets.

I didn't find out about the hidden cafeteria until later that day, and I was hungry after the flight. I wondered around looking for a quick and cheap bite to eat. I wandered into a buffet by mistake and my shyness screwed me over again by making it hard for me to tell the greeter that I didn't want to eat the buffet. They sat me down and informed me that the "dinner buffet" had just started, so my quick cheap bite to eat ended up costing me 25 bucks. Oh well, I eat the shit out of some crab legs.

Here's a very appetizing shot of my third plate of crab legs and desert on the same plate. Yummy yummy crab legs and chocolate torts.

Here are some random shots around Caesar's Palace. I'll start with this horse fish.

They decorated this statue for the comedy festival. Those darn comedians, they're hilarious?

Here is a sign. It says The Comedy Festival.

There's a huge mall inside Caesar's Palace. At the FAO Schwartz store they have an enormous Trojan Horse that you can get inside. I have a theory that this FAO Schwartz used to be a Toy's R' Us but the FAO Schwartz wheeled this Trojan horse into the Toy's R' Us as a "gift". Then that night FAO Schwartz employees jumped out and slaughtered the Toy's R' Us staff and took over the spot. On a side note, I couldn't find the backward "R" on my keyboard to correctly type the name of the store Toy's R' Us.

This is a shot of the Caesar's ppol. I took it from the third floor, because any closer and i would have looked like a pervert. I mean I AM a pervert, but I don't want to look like one.

That Geico lizard is much larger in person.

One of the shows I was most excited about seeing was "Tim and Eric's Awesome Show Live". With my badge I get in free to any show that isn't sold out, so I went ahead and bought a ticket,$35 bucks, just in case. When I went to get a seat they didn't even ask for a ticket and I sat in the front. Oh well, I didn't need that $35 bucks anyway.

The show was insane, just as I thought it would be. Afterward I got a picture with David Hart. He's on the show from time to time, but is most infamous for his completely fucked up L.A. based cable access Christian Science puppet show. Along with sidekick puppet, Chip the Black Boy, Dave teaches kids about Christian Science, the dangers of drugs and UFOs, also he is literally not quite right in the head area.

Here I am with the guys themslf, Tim and Eric. I would like to say after this picture we became really good friends and they asked me to help them on their show. Instead I just walked off and went to "The Lounge" to drink for free.

The Lounge was a big room set up for the performers at the festivals with X-Box's, couches, free internet, free booze and free food. Here's a couple picks.


I did a little gambling that night and actually came back ahead, take that Vegas!

The next day, Friday, we had a show tech rehearsal at 9:00am. I got to meet all the other contestants, and they were all very cool people. The rehearsal lasted for 2 and a half hours. Here is the stage.

The place sat 350 people.

Here's the stage from the other side.

Here I am being my awesome cool ass self.

The winner of the contest got 5 grand and this Andy Kaufman bongo drum.

This is our tiny but nicely decorated back stage area.

After the rehearsal, I ate at the free cafeteria and then decided to walk around Vegas a bit. I discovered really fast that Vegas is the loneliest place on earth if you're by yourself.

Here are my random site seeing pictures. I'll start with these guys. Don't worry, I told them Halloween had been over for weeks now.

Outside in front of Caesar's Palace, the Comedy Festival had set up an outdoor comedy village. There were little stages set up and stuff going on from 3pm till 10pm each day of the festival. I didn't stick around to watch much of the stuff, but I took a few snappy snaps.

Here is some sort of aerobic demonstration. It's funny because it's aerobics.

I met a bunch of cats from this comedy website called Garage Comedy. They were cool guys and they had a "comedy Tent" in the comedy village. They did little acts all day as well. This is a picture of that, but mainly I wanted a picture of the dude in the purple wizard outfit. I actually don't think he was part of the show. I think he was a real wizard.

This is a puppet. I think he was strung out on heroin.

I hopped on my private jet and had lunch in Paris.

I think this statue is raping that fish.

Here is a tiny porcelain recreation of the Last Supper. I looked at it and discovered that "Da Vinci Code" everyones talking about. It was on the bottom. I don't know what it means, but it said, "Made in China"

Me and a one-armed bandit.

This statue kicked my ass after i took it's picture.

This is a horse and a Roman dude.

Went back to Caesar's to check my e-mail at The Lounge and bumbed into some old friends from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York. They now live in LA and both work for the website Funny or Die. Seth is on the left and Amy is in the middle. I don't know the dude behind them.

The best thing about my trip was the fact that, completely by coincidence, my dad was in Vegas the same weekend. He was playing baseball in a tournament. He met up with me at Caesar's around 7pm and we grabbed some more crab legs at the buffet together. Then the Gibbons boy's played a little roulette together. After I lost 40 bucks and he won 100 bucks, we went to my room so I could get dressed for the big show.

We made our way down to the Emperor's Ballroom where my show was taking place, got Dad a good seat, and hopped backstage.

This is Chad, he was another finalist. He was super nice. His act was just him taking off about 30 pairs of pants to Randy Newman's song "Pants". I loved it.

Here's Chad in all his pants.

This is Mitch. He is drinking water.

This is another finalist, I don't remember her name, but she was super great and her act was hilarious. The dapper young man in the powder blue number is Reggie Watts. He is a fabulous comedian. He co-hosted the show.

This was one of the stage hands that looked like Andy Kaufman, so they dressed him up as Andy. Or maybe it really was Andy.

This is Kristin, she also co-hosted the show. She is very funny and super sweet. You may recognize her from the HBO show Flight of the Concords. Or not. It's up to you.

The show was amazing! Every act went over extremely well and the entire theater was full. I even did pretty good. Not good enough to win, but still pretty good. I saw most of the show and I have to say every performer was great and very talented. The winner's name was Brent, I didn't see all his act because he went right after me. It was an amazing experience and I was so honored to be a part of it all.

Here I am in my room right after the show. Damn I look good. I dropped off the lie detector and made my way to the Lounge for free drinks and partying with semi famous comedians.

Here I am with Chad (in the middle), and Nick Kroll (on the left). Nick Kroll is one of the main 3 cavemen on the show entitle Cavemen. He's also a great guy. I like his name too.

Me and Reggie Watts. Seriously, you tube Reggie, he has some good stuff on the you tube.

This is Owen Burke, Kurt, and Seth again. I love Owen Burke with all my heart.

At 2am they kicked us out of the Lounge, so the party moved into the ginormous hallway outside the lounge.

I was good and lit at this point, and fully ready to call it a night. I went to the lew, and got on the long escalator down so i could go to my room.

At the bottom of the escalator I turned left to go to the elevator bank that would have lead me to my room. All of a sudden I felt a hand slam down on my shoulder and someone say, "Wrong way Nick it's this way." I turned to find J.P. Buck leading me away from my room and to some yet unnamed place. I went along with him and 4 other girls. He lead us all to the dance club inside Caesar's, which was themed after the Pussycat Dolls. There was a long line out front, but we just cut and got in like the mother fucking VIP's we were. There wasn't anything special about the night club. It was packed and loud. We weren't there for more than 5 minutes when we hear the DJ announce, "Chris Rock is in da house!"

I had forgot to mention I saw Chris Rock the night before in The Lounge with Jeff Ross.

Anyway, our little group went upstairs in the club which lead to an awesome outside club area. We drank there till 4am and it was timeto go to bed for real.

Here I am posing for the "Ocean's 14" movie poster. I'm waiting for Clooney to give me a call.

That is pretty much the trip in a nut shell.

Oh yeah, I saved the abso-freaking-lutely best picture for the end. This is going to get blown up and put in a gold frame on the wall in my house. Of course I'll only hang it up at Halloween.

To be honest Mr. Top was a really nice and genuine guy. He talked to us for a while and he couldn't have been more pleasant.

I gotta take a nap after writing this blog.