NYC and Olivia Munn Pt. 2...

First of all, I want to start by expressing how pissed I am that my Flip Video camera decided not to charge itself the night before our trip to NY. I woke up on Sunday and it was totally dead. My original plan was to take video and post it here, but that obviously didn't work out too well. Thankfully there are some other videos that people took on YouTube, which I have posted below.

OK, part 2!

Last weekend, “Attack of the Show” co-host, Olivia Munn sent out an email to everyone who had signed up through her website to be apart of her fan group: the OMFG (Olivia Munn Fan Group…love how that works on many levels). Her email told fans that she —who hails from L.A.— was in New York City for the weekend and wanted to take an hour, out of her probably very busy schedule, to meet in at a specific spot in Central Park with some of her fans and take pictures.

Your two favorite doods (that would be us), had a lot of fun on our last trip to NYC, even though we did little but wander aimlessly. We have been talking about going back ever since. Even though we didn’t have a lot of time on our hands, this time, to spend in the city; it had been quite a while since our last trip and this felt like a great opportunity: a chance to get out and see the city again as well as meet one of our favorite TV personalities in person. We knew the time and place, it was just a matter of getting there in time.

8:15am: We make our way into New Haven’s Union Station with 15 minutes to spare (give or take) before the last train to Grand Central Terminal which will get us there in time to see Olivia. We get our tickets and board the train just in time.

Things always seem to get interesting anytime we get near a train; or even out in public for that matter. We talked about our previous NYC trip and reminisced about some of the ridiculous things that we saw; how we got lost more in our own home state than we did in NYC (we blame our friend Craig), our aforementioned friend Craig getting cussed out by a homeless guy because he ignored him (a blog post in and of itself), and the topless woman in Times Square playing the guitar (she only had tiny little shorts, a cowboy hat, and a set of small pasties keeping her decent).

We laughed about the old stories and about the things that were going on around us; The fact that in some strange way New Haven was going to smell like a rose once we got back from the hot trash smell of NYC, the old guy with the (now) gigantic first-gen I-Pod that sat across from us, and how the train made a funny little “duck” noise at every train station we stopped at; something that really wasn’t funny, but then again, really kind of was to us at the time.

10:00: we arrive at Grand Central and immediately look at one another and utter the same words we do every time we get into the city.

“Yup, certainly smells like New York. So, where do you want to go now?”

I knew it was about a half hour walk to Central Park so I suggested we start to make our way there, taking our time and taking in the sights… we knew we would get there well before Olivia if we didn’t.

After about a 45 minute walk; we finally make our way to the Bethesda Fountain, the meeting spot in Olivia’s email, in the heart of central park. We immediately started to look around for her; she’s not there yet, but we do see an “interesting” cast of characters surrounding the fountain. The stereotypes begin to fly as we wonder which ones looked tech-y, or nerdy, or just plain lonely enough that they might be the type that would re-name their right hand “Olivia”.

Finally, a few minutes after 11, we hear Olivia coming down the steps to the fountain, announcing her presence to everyone there. Within seconds a crowd of about 50 or so people converged upon her.

She looked at the size of the group and seemed to be pretty blown away by the number of people there to see her. She commented, jokingly, that she only expected to see 3 people there for her, and told us that she didn’t really have a plan on what she wanted to do; but said she would take a moment to take a few pictures with individuals, as well as with groups of friends.

She started with the pictures; casually bs’ing with the group - about AOTS related stuff and her trip to appear on the Japanese game show Ninja Warrior (also aired in the US on G4) late last year, while taking them. She joked at the passers by that stared at her, the ones the obviously had no clue who she was; she told them “I’m from American Idol”. She made a number of edgy and borderline off color jokes; telling those posing in pictures to look at “The Asian” (her cameraman).

She took at least 2 pictures with everyone; some people posing alone with her, some posing with her and their friends. She did one normal pose and then a “fun” pose; taking suggestions from the crowd on ideas for the fun ones. In some of the fun poses she would “kiss” a fan on the cheek, some were action poses (one of which she was punching a fan in the head); ours (suggested by her camera guy) was inspired by the movie/SNL skit “A Night at the Roxbury”. She positioned us on either side of her as the three of us struck up a “dance” pose for the camera, with my girlfriend also in the shot sporting a pissed look for the camera.

Apparently posing wasn’t good enough for her camera crew, they wanted us to actually dance since they were also shooting video.

We did it again, with Olivia dancing in the middle and us “awkwardly moving “on either side of her. The end result was great though; something I’m sure will get us laughing for a long time, every time we see it...

After pictures, she took some time to shoot some interview style videos for her blog, one with a fan that actually shaved Olivia’s name into the hair on the side of his head; then held a competition: The Saltine challenge.

Contestants had one minute to eat 5 saltine crackers without drinking anything. This was an event that even though she hyped up almost from the moment she arrived, she also told us was going to be nothing special. One guy actually did do it; not sure if he “won anything for it though.

On the show Olivia is quite vocal about her love of pie; having actually jumped into one as a stunt on the show once before. As a gift, someone brought a pie to give to her. At one point; this pie ended up in the face of a fan as her camera guy shot video of it for her blog.

After a bit more discussion and a few more pictures, Olivia told the group that she had to leave, but would be returning in about a month or so. The group slowly dissipated as she began to walk up the steps and away from the fountain.

All in all it was a lot of fun and completely worth the train ride to NY. Olivia was totally awesome and had us all laughing the whole time. When all was said an done she had spent almost two hours there in Central Park with us. I’m glad we got a chance to see her when we did, because I’m positive that not only will the group be much larger next time, but I’m sure she is going to be a huge star soon. With a few movie roles, a book, and some other TV and radio appearances in the pipeline, I’m sure its just a matter of time before she reaches a level of celebrity that will probably prevent her from doing these kind of events like this.

Here are a few links to some Youtube videos that people shot that day.