I've become a wacky recluse in the past couple of weeks frantically working on the Meg & Rob show for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. And even though I do miss sleep dearly, I will admit: I am so excited. Rob and I are doing an entirely new show with a lot of sketches that I'm really proud of.

So hey! If you live in Philadelphia, you should come see our show. We're performing at the Adrienne Theatre at the following days/times:

Friday, August 29 at 10:00 p.m.
Sunday, August 31 at 9:00 p.m.
Wednesday, September 3 at 8:30 p.m.
Thursday, September 11 at 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, September 13 at 10:30 p.m.

Buy tickets here!

Plus! Thanks to incredible cosmic forces, Rob and I will be sharing the bill with improv comedy giants Rare Bird Show. I absolutely love these guys—they do wild, excitable improv that's gotten them into a ton of comedy festivals.

Still not convinced? How about I get you a steak? Here's a little preview video Rob and I put together for the show:

I hope to see you there!

My dear friend Rob already posted this video, but it's too good not to share. This is "Numberwang" from the British show That Mitchell & Webb Look. I first heard about the group when David Mitchell was on The Sound of Young America. During the interview Jesse Thorn describes the Numberwang sketch as "an example of just absolutely...high silliness." Pretty accurate.

I know, I know; I've been bad at updating this blog recently. But I have an excuse: I've been jet-setting. Thanks to my patchwork employment and rugged good looks, I've been to Chicago, Minneapolis, the beach, and New Orleans this summer. Regular posting will commence shortly. For now, here are photos from some of those places, as well as a few from closer to home:

Here's a tip: if you're going to the slots casino in Chester, PA, look up public transportation directions online. Otherwise you might end up getting off at a train station only to discover that you need to walk down the five-inch shoulder of a road appropriately named Industrial Highway where you can see pretty bridges and pray that you don't fall into oncoming traffic. Actually, here's a solution: never go to the slots casino in Chester.

Thankfully, the Broad Street Line Balloon Monster had just eaten a child, and it did not attack me for taking this picture.

Chicago, 3 a.m. This is what happens when you decide not to get a hotel room for the night because your flight is at 6 a.m. We also stayed in a bar until last call and did crosswords in a 24-hour Dunkin' Donuts where Rob was served some of the worst coffee of his life.

It has been a summer of good food. Artichokes at Ansill in Philadelphia.

Filming a sketch and/or auditioning to be an MTV VJ. Oh wait, nevermind. MTV doesn't show music anymore. Phew!

When we visited the Mall of America just outside Minneapolis, the New Kids on the Block played a show. Celebrating a boy band and extreme shopping in one place felt disturbingly patriotic.

Absinthe tasting at the new absinthe museum in New Orleans. JJ Sutherland was interviewing people while I was there. I like the absinthe device in this picture, but I can't get over the fact that it was impossible to photograph without also getting copious crotch. Now maybe you can't get over it either.

Performing at Snubfest in Chicago. I had just shoved a piece of chocolate cake in my mouth. Photo by Bruce DeViller.

Mojo costume at Wizard World Chicago. This very rightly won the costume contest.

Oh, I look calm, but I know the truth: the giant face on the outside of the Guthrie in Minneapolis will kill us all.

One of my best used-book finds ever was a copy of 1912's Hygiene for the Worker, a book published to help young men and women become happy, healthy, and unquestioning factory-laborers. The book is wonderful in so many ways. The illustrations are simultaneously delightful and creepy, the language is charmingly outdated, and the lessons in the book attempt to create a race of scrubbed-clean, milk-drinking super employees who spend their vacations at home "laying up a greater store of health and energy than the young people who come back tired and weary from having too good a time at the mountains and other regular summer resorts."

I love Hygiene for the Worker a lot, and thus I was pleased to recently discover that it has been digitized by Google Books. I highly recommend taking a skim through this hilariously outdated, yet sometimes disturbingly pertinent book.