daniellei:

atsween:

“It’s fun to say Allosaurus with a Cockney accent.”

- Me on Twitter

SEE?!

Could you also do recordings of the word “Birmingham” and “Buckingham”?

I can also use them in a sentence! Perhaps everyone should record themselves saying “Allosaurus” and someone do a dance mix.

(I couldn’t figure out how to reblog and add my own audio file. We could create amazing piecemeal conversations if we could do that, though.)

This song has been played 31 times.

Today is sleety. I went for a nearly three-hour walk. (via fancycwabs)

Trying something new:

There had been a posting on the local theatrical callboard for “Caucasian guys, aged late thirties to early forties” for a Public Service Announcement, and I thought to myself, “Why I am am a man from Caucasia! And I am also in my late thirties to early forties! Why not give it a shot?” So I called the number and left a message.

They called back while I was at work (with no cell reception), and were the first people to call after I’d set up my iPhone to go straight to Google Voice instead of the standard voicemail, so I got an email with a transcription of their call before I heard the actual message, and Google Voice’s transcription is still just a li’l bit wonky, but they do a good job with numbers, so I managed to call back and make an appointment for an audition. Which was yesterday.

I showed up at the studio, filled out the form and issued a set of sides for the commercial, had a quick headshot taken (I was wearing this, which I would have taken to calling my “Brad Pitt ensemble” based on how my students described me in it but may relabel—read on to discover why), and escorted back to the green room (which had an awesome vintage pinball machine) to study lines and get all nervous. Several other men from Caucasia were similarly escorted back to the room, including the fellow who played Sweeney Todd when we did that show over a year ago, so we had a few moments of catching up before I was called to do my bit for the camera.

I walked into the chilly room with an overhead boom mic in front of a plain white backdrop and a fixed camera rig positioned at about waist level, with cue card set below it (whew!) and rehearsed the bit a couple of times before we filmed two takes of it.

I don’t know if I’m at liberty to say what the PSA is for, but I’ve done a bit of research into it, and I will divulge the following facts about the program:

• It involves a Republican Governor using federal stimulus money that he’d previously hinted he might reject.
• The way were instructed to read the name of the program sounds makes it sound like a Microsoft product, but I’m pretty sure we were supposed to say the name of the state involved. The number of S’s involved in the program’s name, especially in one fo the lines, made this a tongue-twister par excellence after three or four times through, until they told me to change how I was saying it.
• Program money cannot be used to hire strippers.

The PSA itself involved my playing a guy at a gas pump, discussing a few benefits and details of the program, and giving out a phone number for more information at the end. Nothing too taxing, but I was told that I moved my head too much for camera work, so I tried to tone that down before we actually recorded the bit. They told me that I had a pretty good look on camera, and that I resembled an “older Ashton Kutcher,” which adds one more name to the long, long list of celebrity lookalikes I’ve acquired (for those keeping score at home: Dennis Quaid, Tom Hanks, Jim Carrey, Tom Cruise, Dylan Walsh, Tom Green (!), and, as previously mentioned, Brad Pitt). Beyond concentrating on not moving my head, the most difficult bit was making sure I didn’t hold the prop gas pump right in front of my junk.

I’m pretty sure that would have been bad.

I did my two takes, was told I’d done a fine job (I’d asked them to be gentle, as it was my first time—so they may have been being nice about it), headed back to the green room to wish Sweeney a good audition (and to let him know there was definitely a cue card), and headed out. I don’t necessarily expect to hear anything, but it would definitely be cool if I did.

I don’t know if they’ll look kindly on my ad-libbing “this money cannot be used to hire strippers,” though.

nickdouglas:

indefensible:

merlin:

JasPer, Mad, and I just broke the news to Anna.

This —this — is what we do to onions here.

“According to Aboriginal lore…”

Fixed the “it’s”.

Thanks, Nick. That was driving me crazy.

Things I should have gotten correct on the Jeopardy test, but couldn't pull out of my brain in under fifteen seconds:

* The architect in The Fountainhead is loosely based on Frank Lloyd Wright (I’ve never read it, but should have been able to guess this).

* Polonius’ son in Hamlet is Laertes (I KNEW this one, but had a brain fart).

I DID manage to come up with both Justin Timberlake and The Lost Symbol without too much hesitation, and a few more-obscure answers as well, so it probably makes up for it. 50 questions in 12.5 minutes is a pretty breakneck pace, if you’re just taking the test for kicks. I’m sure there are folks who cram and prepare and practice practice practice for these things, but I’m not sure I’m cut out for sober trivia anymore.

Rock Rulz! Think Good Eats, only with music instead of food. I’m sure they owe some kind of debt to The Show with Ze Frank, too.

I have my creative writing classes writing their resumes, so that I’ll have taught them at least ONE useful thing this year. On one of them I came across this…club.

Was anyone else in the “Pretty Girls Chest Club” in school? Why was I unaware of it before today?

YEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAA!

On making an ass of myself for love.

I’ve recently been taking count of the demonstrations of love I’ve shown in the past, and thought it worthwhile to share the things that were a little more creative and inspired than the candy and flowers and champagne and poems and powerpoint presentations outlining a partner’s attributes and such that are de rigeur for romance and list a few of them here:

• Once acquainted with a companion’s various sizes, I’ve bought her a new outfit, blindfolded her, and changed her into it.
• I’ve written love letters in colored pencil that made floating hearts when viewed with red-green 3-D glasses.
• I’ve completely filled an automobile with balloons, each with a note inside.
• I’ve made a cardboard sign that read “WILL WORK FOR (COMPANION’S NAME)” and stood by the side of the road along the route that she took home, waiting for her to pass by and see me. She took a different route home that day, and I stood there for two hours before giving up.

With Valentine’s day less than a month away, I heartily encourage y’all to take any and all of these ideas and run with them, or add your own. I’m looking forward to the day when I get inspired to come up with some new ones.

Writing instead of painting

Part of today’s plans include starting to repaint the kids’ rooms, which have been painted and repainted at least two times apiece during my marriage. The boy’s will require fixing holes in the wall, too, so it’s second on the list, but it’s not a completely daunting task, at least physically.

The problem is that I don’t want to do it at all. The thought of spending however many hours alone, uninterrupted (you can’t exactly paint in fits and starts), doing something that will undoubtedly bring out some painful memories and and no small amount of feeling sorry for myself just doesn’t appeal to me.

There’s no guarantee of a reward at the end, just the knowledge that this place, that we’d bought to be our home, is now something weighing me down and preventing me from completely moving on with my life. It’s more than I can afford on my present salary, it’s at the limits of what I can maintain alone, and it’s full of the ghosts of a promise that never got fulfilled.

I can’t get rid of the burdens of finance, time, and memory until I get into those rooms and paint—painting involves much more than getting enamel flat Snow Cap* from a bucket onto a wall.

——-

* Counterpoint to the melancholy self-absorption of the rest of this post: When I got the paint at Lowe’s yesterday, the guy told me that his white paint would be fairly off-white, but they mixed it to be the WHITEST PAINT EVER. I noticed that the label had read, instead of whatever “candlelight” or “eggshell” or “this is the white color they showed you on the card,” ULTRA-WHITE.

“That doesn’t look off-white to me,” I said (this was before reading the custom-printed color label, just looking at the splorch theyd painted as a sample on top of the can).

“It’ll dry darker,” the guy at Lowe’s said.

An hour later, after the usual time at the gym, I checked the cans, noticed that it was still WAY TOO WHITE, read the actual label, and headed back to Lowe’s.

“Um, honest, I was looking more for off-white, not Klan headquarters white. I thought we’d talked about this,” I told the Lowe’s guy.

“Oh, yeah. that’s pretty white. How about we darken it up some?”

“Yeah, that’ll work fine.”

Anyway—now it’s Snow Cap.