Wherein a contest winner is announced and I share my love of Billy Mays

Although I can usually sleep through earthquakes, car crashes, and Metallica at volumes meant to drive Noriega insane, I've been sleeping in fits and starts for the past week. So last night I decided I should take some Tylenol PM. You know, just so I wouldn't wake up at 4 a.m., wander to the couch in my robe, and find myself strangely entranced by the bewildering Billy Mays.


(As an aside, if I'm ever really wealthy, I will be hiring Billy Mays to follow me around all day and having him translate everything I say. We'll be at the Dim Sum place and I'll whisper in his ear and he'll nod politely and then: "WE NEED A PORK BUN AND WE WILL NOT SETTLE FOR ANYTHING LESS!!!! KABOOM!!!! DON'T MAKE ME COME OVER THIS COUNTER AND GET IT MYSELF!!!! SHAZAAM!!!!" See, some people squander their riches: not me).

And it worked. I slumbered like baby. But of course, it's a well documented fact that babies wake up about 300 times a night, so, really, for the past week I was sleeping like a baby. No: slept like a baby high on OxyClean.

I'm still groggy though. I've got that muslin sheen over everything. Almost feel drunk. But there are announcements to make, so let us make them.

We had a little contest before our New Year's show, asking folks to send in their presale ticket receipts so we could draw one and then end up playing at that person's house. It seemed like a nice "thanks" for people spending their New Year's with us, which I was kind of humbled by and very appreciative of. (My 11th grade English teacher just read that sentence and cried). Anyway: we concocted a robust and expensive randomizing tool (names on paper in a hat) and selected a name.* The winner is Ms. Zara Evans. We will be contacting her, presenting a bouquet of incredibly cheap flowers (maybe just wadded up newspaper, honestly), and one of those sashes that Miss USA gets. To everyone else who sent in receipts, well, thanks. We're always appreciative that people take an interest, come out to see shows, and would actually want us in their homes. We're barely house-broken, to be frank.

* Actually, we did it on the computer with a randomizing program. But that's not funny, so I lied.