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The Contender

I guess maybe ‘reality TV’ is an acquired taste, but I think this show is almost empirically good. I suppose there are those who ‘don’t like boxing’, and I can accept that but, for the rest of us, this is a super show. I think it’s because boxing is such an ego-centric sport. More so than basketball, football, baseball, hockey, soccer, and on and on and on. Also, the thrill of rooting against a boxer or for a boxer is much greater than rooting for or against a team. It’s just fun to watch such a battle of huge egos. These guys all think they’re the best thing ever… and only one of them will finish on top.

Anyway, my grammar is horrible and I’m not making much sense. Note to self: don’t drink Sleepy Time tea before posting.

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Gainesville trip: Day 7

This should be the shortest and least interesting post of all. Basically, I woke up, went and ate lunch at a local Chicago-style pizza joint called Leonardo’s, watched a little of the NFL Draft, packed up my stuff, drove to Jacksonville, hopped on a plane, drove home, ate dinner and watched a bunch of TV. Nothing exciting, nothing extraordinary, just me trying to assimilate myself back into my new reality.

Tomorrow, I’ll relax, try to rest up and do my best to be mentally prepared to return to work at 8 am on Monday. It’s really nice to be home, sleeping in my own bed and surrounded by my things, but I am already missing Gainesville and thinking of the next time I’ll be able to make a trip home. It was a fantastic week and a well-timed vacation and I can’t wait to do it again.

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Gainesville trip: Day 4

I spent most of the morning sleeping and watching TV. Then, I went to lunch with a couple friends at the Chicken Kitchen and went over to see their new place where they will be living this fall. It’s a pretty nice place, but it reminded me that, for some reason, architecture here in Gainesville is really strange. There was one place in the living room where the previous owners had cut a hole in the carpet in the middle of the floor, so they could run a phone wire up to an end table or something. I guess they were pretty certain they’d never move that end table.

Frisbee golf

Then, we went and played a round of frisbee golf at the old course. My best score there when I was playing a few times a week was 3 over par. I shot a 13 yesterday. Most of that was just general rustiness–I hadn’t played in about 9 months or so–and some bad luck–if there was a tree, even if I made a good throw, I found it. Anyway, it was fun and we all had a good time.

Newberry Backyard BBQ

This place has some of the best baby back ribs I’ve ever had and I’d been looking forward to going there since I started planning this vacation. Of course, they didn’t disappoint and I had a great time with about 7 of my friends. I hope I can make a trip out there every time I visit Gainesville.

Kill Bill Vol. 2

Even better than the first. I don’t want to do an all-out review or analysis, but I’ll say that I’m seriously impressed with Trenton ability to mix various genres of film from different eras into a seamless, solid movie. Also, Uma was spectacular and I was very surprised by her performance. I could see that she took direction very well and that she was a great fit for the role. I can’t wait to see the DVD with special features and “making of…” kinda’ stuff.

Funnier ’cause we were tired

As we were all startin’ to go to bed about 4 am, I was walking through the kitchen when the phone started ringing. I looked at the caller ID and saw that it was one of the other guys in the house calling in on his cell phone. I decided not to answer, but my roommate did and this is what he heard at the other end of the line: “Hey. What’re you doin’?” Then, the same guy called about five other people around the city and did the same thing. That delayed our getting to sleep by about an hour because we were just laughing too hard to realize we were tired.

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Dinner with friends

Since I moved to Dallas, I’ve been quite the hermit. I hadn’t really noticed it until tonight when a friend and his wife invited me over to dinner. I hesitated before I accepted the invitation, but then I asked myself, “What’re you gonna’ do if you don’t go over to their place for dinner?” The answer: Sit around watching TV and reading like I do every other night.

Anyway, it was nice to get out and see some friends and get off the couch. I need to get out more often… maybe I’ll go to Florida for a week or something.

Workout busted

I decided to take a nap after work and before my workout today, but when I finally got off the couch and went to the gym, they were closed. I guess they had posted signs saying they’d be closed today for Good Friday, but I never bothered to read them. Maybe I should start payin’ attention to stuff like that; it’d save me some time if nothing else.

Basketball tomorrow

I didn’t get to shoot around too much this week, but I still feel like I’ll probably play well tomorrow. I guess there’s no telling since I’m often not even awake at 9 when we play, but I’m hoping to start steppin’ it up. Last week, I played pretty well, but I still have a lot of room for improvement. I guess I’ll just wait and see.

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A different direction with acting

Well, I spoke with my friend and former acting instructor tonight and I’m beginning to have a clearer picture of where I’m going and how I’ll get there. For now, it looks like I’ll be taking private lessons (or being “coached”, to use the preferred nomenclature) once a week. Ultimately, I doubt if I’ll pursue the 2-year degree I’d been considering because it is more of a hodge-podge degree covering all aspects of acting and the business. I think such a degree would be great for someone who knew only that he wanted to act, but didn’t know how, where or why. In my case, I’m pretty set on TV and film, so much of the curriculum would be outside the scope of my ambitions.

Here’s the best part: I couldn’t have taken classes at the conservatory until October anyway, so I’m really not making a decision not to pursue the 2-year program, but I’m making a decision to pursue private coaching to see if that works for me. As October nears, I’ll re-evaluate my situation and make a final decision on the degree. Essentially, I’m filling my time with productive training that may ultimately make the 2-year degree unnecessary.

Regardless, I’m excited about getting going and I’ve already ordered some books to get me started:

Acting in Film: An Actor’s Take on Moviemaking
How to Get the Part . . . without Falling Apart!; Featuring the Haber Phrase Technique for Actors
Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation

Another great thing about not taking the 2-year program is that it’ll save me a ton of money. The program costs about $20K while private coaching costs only about $50-70 a week. And, what’s more, I think I’ll probably get just as much (if not more) useful information out of private coaching that I would at the conservatory.

Good night.

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Slippin’

Well, of eight games today, I essentially lost six. I still have all my Final Four teams and most of my Elite (or “Great”) Eight teams, but it ain’t lookin’ good. Unfortunately, others who’ve picked Kentucky to go all the way have very similar brackets to mine and haven’t gotten burned like I did in the second round today. There’s still an outside chance I could win it, but it’s a slim one.

Watchin’ the game with the guys

I spent several hours today watchin’ the Tourney games with my buddies and I have to say it was a blast. For one, it’s just fun sittin’ around with a couple guys, screamin’ at the TV and crackin’ jokes at the commentators. For another thing, Tourney time reminds of being at school every March, when things get kinda’ crazy in Gainesville. Usually, around this time, we’ve all just gotten back from Spring Break and, although most people think they can avoid it, we refuse to do work and our performance in our courses begins to slip. Then, just as we’re getting determined to pick it back up in school, March Madness rolls around and we’re sunk. A full month of Conference Tournaments and then the National Tournament distracts us from from school and forces us to spend hours and hours of our time in front of the television, rooting for thirty-something teams, many of which we’ve never heard.

Ah, the Madness. Just thinking about the fun my friends are having in Gainesville right now makes me miss it… and it makes me glad I’m going home for a week at the end of April.

What a poorly written, but emotionally motivated post. I really gotta’ work on that.

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Blogging on location

…and by “on location”, I mean from my little office where I’ve finally set up my computer desk. It’s about time too, ’cause I was gettin’ sick of my previous setup. At first, I enjoyed being able to watch TV and then, on a whim, turn to my right and check my e-mail. After a while, I got tired of constantly having the glare of the computer screen shining on me while I channel surfed. It was almost like my computer was a conspicuous voyeur, monitoring my TV viewing habits, constantly asking Whatcha’ watchin’?. Of course, I realize that’s exactly what TiVo’s doing, but at least TiVo doesn’t have a big, bright screen constantly reminding me it’s there.

Special Delivery

After over five weeks of patiently waiting, my couch and loveseat will arrive tomorrow. As I cleaned out my living room this evening, I realized I’d been living as though my apartment were a hotel room and I was on vacation for a week: stuff everywhere, no organization, little true comfort and a continuously unfulfilled hankerin’ to clean stuff. After they drop the plushness off, I’m declaring an official naptime on my new couch. I’ve been dyin’ to take a nap on a big, soft couch since I got here and there’s nothin’ more frustrating than having to go get in bed for a simple little nap.

I’m tired of babbling and I know I’ll be bored out of my mind when I read this later, so I’ll end the misery now.

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Headed to El Segundo

It looks like I’ll be spending next week in El Segundo. I’m pretty excited about it because I should get some time to go into L.A. and have a look around. Also, I get a pretty good deal regarding a per diem and accommodations and all that.

What I’m not looking forward to is being without a computer and internet access. My weblog will probably be on hold and I’ll spend a lot of time watching TV and reading at night. I guess I can’t have it all, but it sure would be nice anyway.

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Need to start gettin’ out

I’ve been spending entirely too much time staring at my TV lately. Last time I was here (Summer 2002), I spent a lot of time reading and wasting money at Starbucks; I figure I might try getting back into that racket. I might burn a few extra bucks on Frappuccinos, but I figure the knowledge I’ll gain from all that reading is priceless (I should consider getting Mastercard to sponsor my blog).

Fast day at work

Today went by so fast, my head spun. I’m not sure what happened, but I lost (or really gained) about two hours some time this morning. Now, I’d like to think that the time went by so quickly because I was having fun or really buried in my work, but really, I think I totally zoned out for a bit. I just hope I didn’t fall asleep or something. Nothing could be more embarrassing than “the new guy” passed out, face down on some circuit board with drool drippin’ on my shoes.

Speaking of passin’ out… I’m headed to bed.

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Plano: Day 13

First off, I’ve decided to stop the monotonous “day count” at 14. I figure after that, everything will be best chronicled normally. Other than that, I don’t have too much goin’ on. I didn’t go to church today because I’m trying to find churches to visit, but I didn’t find anything for this morning. I’m sure I’ll find somewhere to go for next Sunday morning. I mostly just laid around watching TV, playing GameCube and messin’ with TiVo for most of the day. In fact, I don’t think I left the apartment.

I spoke with a couple friends on the phone and that was nice, as always. It’s good to know that I have allies back east and that they’re thinking of, praying for and lookin’ out for me. It sounds like a friend of mine is coming out sometime in March, near the end of “Spring Break” (for the college kids). I figure I’ll be getting back to Plano around that time, so I should get to hang out both here and there with friends from there. That should be a good week.

Digital Camera shopping

I don’t know how soon I’ll buy one, but it seems like I should go ahead and get one while my life is still in transition. As I look around me, I see things that are so ridiculous that they need to be captured on film. The pile of boxes in my dining room is so big, a friend of mine said, “You buildin’ a fort?”, as soon as he saw it. I’m sitting in a computer desk chair with my feet propped up on a coffee table. My computer is to my left and my TV is in front of me. I’ve been sitting here, checking e-mail, surfing the web, doing some online shopping and messing with TiVo for several hours now. Not to mention that the place is a total wreck and I don’t see an end to that coming for a few weeks now (as that’s when the rest of my furniture will be arriving).

More work

It’s midnight and I’m still up, though I’m finally getting tired. I’ll be up at 7 for another day at work and I’m hoping to be doing something interesting soon. So far, I’ve just been reading documents, looking over drawings and looking through some training material related to my project. Once I’ve ingested all that background stuff, I should be ready to head out and start working with the actual equipment. Hopefully, that’ll happen tomorrow.

More Wardrobe

I’m still reading the Chronicles of Narnia and enjoying them very much. I’ve slowed down recently–mostly ’cause I haven’t been home much during the week–but I intend to get back on track this week. I’m having to pace myself, though, ’cause I don’t want to exhaust this source of intellectual entertainment too quickly.