Plans, not resolutions, for 2012

Happy New Year.

If we are to believe this Maya prophecy mankind’s last year has begun. So, here’s to it: We’re all gonna die!!!
Now that that’s out of the way we can get to the matter at hand, my plans for 2012. I say plans, as I am sticking to my New Year’s resolution of 2000 of not making any more New Year’s resolutions. I don’t really like to make up any crazy plans about how I want to change my life for the better and end up not doing what I set out to do.
This year, however, is a little bit different. Maybe because it’s because we’re all gonna die, but I actually think that it’s just that I feel that there’s a lot of loose ends that have to be tied up, and it’s finally time to get going.

Roasts, and more…

I like Roasts. Both culinary and comedic. But this article is not supposed to be about my indulgences at the last family BBQ, but about the recent broadcasts of the celebrity roasts on Comedy Central Germany.

The roasts were presented by Desiree Nick, who is known for having a sharp tongue, but in the light of what is being said at these roasts she still seems kinda nice. And her overacting and exaggerated facial contortions don’t really make her presentation more enjoyable. After the previews I actually thought she’d be the right choice for this, but after seeing her in action I am a little disappointed on how this worked out.

Comedy Withdrawal

It’s been 1.5 months since I moved back to Germany, and 2 months since my last performance at the TakeOut Comedy Club, giving a great opening performance for the very funny Wali Collins.
Since then I haven’t been on stage, but I feel that soon it’s time to get back into performing.

Gearing up for my last show.

Tomorrow, on Saturday, July 23rd, I will be having my last regular show at the TakeOut Comedy Club Hong Kong. It’s not my last show, that will be opening the 8PM show for Wali Collins on July 30th, but it’s the last regular show with some of the other guys from the club. The last show where people do not come to see a pro from the US, but us locally bred comics. Or maybe even me. Yes, that actually happened once. Or at least there is one instance I know of. And it certainly is something special. My farewell show.

There being only 1 days left before this show I think it is time to think about the past, the present and, of course, the future.

A whole lot of comedy: 12 hour charity Comedython

So this past weekend we held our 2nd Annual TakeOut Comedy Charity Comedython for the Hong Kong Dog Rescue. 12 hours of comedy to help saving a bunch of cute, little puppies from the frying pan.

Despite the, quite honestly totally useless, typhoon warning 1 it was a nice day, if hotter than hell during a forest fire can be counted as nice.
Due to the infernal heat and my inability to find the right exit of the MTR station the walk from Causeway Bay station to Champs Bar wasn’t quite as pleasurable as it could have been. Upon my arrival, panting, sweating and generally in disagreement with the Hong Kong climate, I was approached by Pete Grella over the possibility to do a set, a few hours before I was scheduled to perform. Because I love going on stage and doing my thing I agreed to that in a heartbeat. And at a rate of 450 beats per minute that was pretty quick.

But wait! There’s more! See my show dates right here!

At absolutely no expense to myself or others I have decided to use the vast amount of time of about 1 minute to add an additional page to my blog.

Thus, now and henceforth, you can see, live and in color, the dates of upcoming shows I’ll be performing in right here on my blog.
I know, amazing, isn’t it?

Thank you!
Dennis Wronka

Rekindled

For about a month now I have my new Kindle. The awesome model, in gray, with WiFi and free 3G.
I had a Kindle 2 already, but managed to break the display, so I had to replace it with a shiny new Kindle 3.
Little word of advice: Don’t keep your Kindle in your ass pocket after a long night out.

I love reading and a quite a few books stand on top of our TV cabinet. And some more are still in Germany.
So, quite naturally, I was pretty excited about the international release of the Kindle, and I was quite an early adopter on it.
By now you can sometimes spot this useful device here in Hong Kong, but when I got mine I felt like I was alone with it.
Maybe people here just aren’t big readers. I don’t know. But then again I’ve recently met a girl with the hardcover version of Stephen King’s Dark Tower standing in line at McDonald’s. So I guess it’s probably an international trend that books aren’t that popular. Possibly due to a trauma caused by the inexplicably bad selection of books kids are forced to read in school.

Comedy, more comedy and even some comedy

Assuming their existence, for the sake of this statement, the comedy gods have been good to me lately.

As I have said before, I have started the comedy year strong. And I am very happy to say that I have kept the momentum going, if not even increased it, since then.

Since February, when I celebrated my 2nd anniversary of having people laugh at me, quite a bit has happened. Thus I figured it may be time for another update. And also because I haven’t been blogging for a while and found this would be a good reason to get going again.

Crispy Christmas Boracay

For this Christmas we decided we needed to get out of town for a while and relax into the New Year.
So we went to the Philippines.
The first two days we spent with my wife’s family, mostly chilling out, watching the kids play and checking out a couple of places, like the Mall of Asia.
And that was Christmas. Quite honestly pretty much the way I like it, with very little Christmas spirit.

The following week though was destined to be different, because we left the family behind to go where non of us had ever gone before, to Boracay Island.
We arrived in the afternoon, which pretty much left us with time for dinner and a little exploration before starting to wind down for the night. That was pretty cool though, as I could manage to get a little time away from the family and have a beer with a couple of friends from the TakeOut Comedy Club Hong Kong who happened to be on the island at the same time.

Insanity included: 2 years of stand-up comedy

February 13th 2009 was the first time I got to do a show at the TakeOut Comedy Club Hong Kong.
After attending the workshop in January and doing only 3 open mic sessions owner and founder Jami Gong asked me if I wanted to do a few minutes on a show I came to watch.
I wasn’t really prepared for this, but somehow insanity won out over reason and I did it.
It wasn’t great and I wasn’t really comfortable on stage, but it wasn’t all bad either. And most importantly, I did it!
Since then 2 years have passed, with ups and downs, but clearly more ups. It’s been a wild ride so far, and I’m ready for more.