Well, like I announced earlier, on Wednesday night I was up on stage clutching a mic in an attempt to do some stand up comedy. It was an event called 'Raw Comedy', a competition for amateur comedians held all over Australia, with the best from each state heading to Melbourne to compete at the Comedy Festival.

I figured it might be fun to have a go, you know, see if I soared or crashed, try new things, have a laugh etc. Left to my own devices I'm a shy, quiet person with no self esteem, so I figured I needed to challenge myself once in a while.

I was in Adelaide's heat one, the whole thing was happening at the Rhino Room, reasonably small and cosy comedy club like place, although it was packed with people.

I had no idea what to expect, only that we were supposed to have 5 minute acts. I didn't know if they were expecting to get through 30 different people or what. As it was, the lineup was 8 comedians, divided into three brackets with stuff between each person. I was third, last of the first bracket, which was actually a really good spot. I didn't have to go first, but I didn't have to spend the whole evening biting my nails either.

Quite a few of my friends turned up, which was very gratifying. They ended up claiming the back wall/couch for themselves, which made a great place to retire to to watch the rest of the acts.

Anyway, about two seconds after the first guy opened his mouth, I suddenly realised I might be the only person who hadn't done this before. First and second guy were reasonably funny, but more noticeably they were smooth, they knew what they were doing and while the second guy stole all his material from other comedians, they looked just like real standups. Oh dear. I think Justin Hamilton from Triple J, who was MCing the event, must have noticed my mask of terror because he made a point to reassure me a couple of times.

I had wandered back and forth at home repeating my act over and over until I could do the whole thing off the top of my head, but the neat thing about the actual event is you only get one chance to get it right. It felt strange up on stage but I wasn't terrified - the fact that the lights were bright and the audience appeared a sea of black definitely helped, and I tried to run through my script as best I could. The audience was really friendly, and in the end it was actually kind of a rush.

In hindsight, I needed more one liners, I needed more joke stops, short sharp laughter points. I definitely got less of a response than the other comedians, I think the crowd was kind of wondering what to make of me, and it probably came as a relief to all of us once I managed a reasonable line or two. I managed a few genuine rounds of laughter, and a roar of laughs when I resorted to pulling my cue card out of my pocket after I forgot where I was up to. I left out a line that I was rather fond of, which irked me later that night when I realised, but some parts got a better response than I was counting on. I got through my act, finished where I meant to finish and got off the stage alive, successfully completing my primary objective.

Everyone seemed to think I did a pretty good job, parents, friends, strangers on the way to the bar - even if when I watched myself on video afterwards I winced at my drawn out prose and the way I sat on the edge of forgetting my lines the whole time. In hindsight I should have used more than a couple of days to develop and practice the act, but that's my time management for ya. To be honest, I had real trouble getting my brain to focus on the task at hand, I didn't come up with usable material until quite near the deadline.

When they came out to announce the winners, I have to admit my heart beat a bit faster. It was strange, I was there, I knew how my act went so I didn't expect to get through to the finals, but I had this tiny hope in the back of my mind that they'd say "due to everyone else getting disqualified, Tim wins", but alas it was not to be. ;)

As it was, I think I was the only one up on stage that night that was just giving it a go, rather than being an aspiring professional with gigs under the belt and/or a graduate of the standup comedy school they have here. So I think I did bloody well considering!!

Probably the important thing was that I didn't bomb, I went up on stage, told jokes and got a room of people to laugh, and I actually had a lot of fun. It's not a career I'd like to pursue, but it was definitely something interesting to try, and I'm really glad I went through with it.

Thanks to everyone who wished me well!