By Mark O’Neill
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

I’ve just returned from a short holiday to Scotland and one of the highlights of my trip was a visit to a standup comedy show at the Edinburgh Festival.   The comedian in question was Dean Haglund.   Don’t know who he is?   Well here he is with my girlfriend and I after his show (he’s the one in the middle) :

Still struggling to place him?  OK, let’s go back to the late 1990’s and see what he looked like back then.   This is sure to jolt your memory.

Yup, it’s none other than Langly from the X-Files!   These days, since the X-Files went off the air, Dean has been making a living touring as a stand-up comedian as well as doing podcasting and also some inventing.   His acting career is also still extremely active.

If you can make it to his comedy show, I can highly recommend it.   It’s hilariously funny and it is similar to the “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” show.  Basically he makes up a spontaneous X-Files episode on the stage with the help of the audience who write random lines on pieces of paper and they get passed up to the stage.   Members of the audience are picked at random to join him on the stage and they play X-Files characters in the episode.  Since the episode dialogue entirely depends on Dean’s comedy skills and the audience’s pieces of paper, you are guaranteed a laugh a minute.

It was also made even funnier by the fact that some of the audience were drunk because there was a bar next door.  So some people were late and then brought their beer in with them.  Dean also heckled two ladies a bit who spontaneously decided to check out the show and who had no idea who Dean or the X-Files even was!   When they marched in, Dean called them “Mom” which I think the ladies didn’t like.   One of them said “I hope you’re worth the money I just spent!” and a while later Dean said to them “are you enjoying the show Mom?”.   One replied “I’m reserving judgment till the end young man!”.   Dean stood there for a moment and then said indignantly “you bitch!”.   That sent the entire audience into an uproar and some of the beer went flying all over the place.

When I got his autograph and photo at the end, I tried in vain to get Gillian Anderson’s phone number but he just chuckled and said “sorry don’t have that on me!”.   Oh well, you can’t blame a man for trying!

I am very intrigued though by his Chillpak invention and if I had a laptop, I would surely buy one to try it out.   It’s supposed to cool down your laptop to stop it overheating so it runs faster.   I would be interested in hearing your views on it and whether you think this is a good invention or not.   If you decide to buy one, let me know and when it arrives, please post a comment and let everyone know what you think of it.

In the meantime, here’s the Chillpak promo video.   Quite amusing.