Facebook, Twitter, Blogger oh my!

It's really hard to keep posting to a blog when I also have a Twitter account, a Facebook account, a web site, a blog, a Buzz and Toast (okay, I made that last one up...but it'll soon be the name of some sort of social media -- count on it!).

Happy 2010

It's a new year and I can't believe I haven't posted anything on this blog in over three months, and certainly nothing 'substantial' in a much longer time than that.  I'd say that I've been Tweeting on Twitter, but I haven't.  If anything, I check my Facebook page and respond to the occasional post from others on there.

I've been working on the writing and have sent a few things out and have had the occasional acceptance (two short puppet plays will be anthologized this year).

Teaching at a local university took quite a bit of my free time in preparation.  I'm teaching again, a different course at a different university, but feel a little more confident about it since it's a course in something that I've worked in during my professional theatrical career.

Managed to direct a play in the fall, which received good comments and made some good money for the producer.

Can't wait to see what 2010 holds.

Random Album generator

A friend recently posted one of those silly "try this" posts on his Facebook account. It was three steps to generate an album (band name, album title, album photo). It goes like this:

1: Go to "Wikipedia." Hit “random... Read More”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2: Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage....com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3: Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4: Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

Because I had nothing better to do, I tried it, and although slightly disappointed with my band name, the results were rather uncanny. I feel as though my album already exists somewhere... probably in a bargain bin in an antique shop. My album is here..

Cat-less

My cat, Ice, passed away sometime between midnight and 9am today. He was nearly 18 years old. We've known the end was coming, and when I checked on him at midnight I suspected he wouldn't last the night.

I am now cat-less, for the first time in about 22 years.

My son has had a dog in the house for about a year now, so it's unlikely we'll have another cat for some time.

I've only had three cats in the past 22 years. First, Mrs. Malaprop, an orange tabby given to me by a friend in Los Angeles who was moving and couldn't bring her along. Mrs. M was joined by Bug, a grey and white kitten who was a stray at my ankles and wouldn't go away. He was barely bigger than my fist and was wearing a flea coller so tight I was surprised he could breathe. No one claimed him, despite my posters trying to reunite him with whomever put the collar on him. He was covered in fleas and he was pesky to Mrs. M, hence the name, Bug.

When Mrs. M passed on, Bug was the only cat in the house for quite some time. But as I was planning to go on tour, I wanted the cat to have a playmate, so I adopted Ice (originally named Ice Cream) from a woman who rescued stray and abused cats. Ice was a mostly white with grey streaks cat.

I don't think Bug and Ice ever got along as well as I had hoped (ask me sometime about Ice's change when Bug died). Bug was put to sleep three or four years ago, so Ice had some time to be the dominant pet ... and he was dominant. He put the black-lab in his place more than once.

Goodbye, Ice. Goodbye cats.

Tweet.

I'm all a Twitter.

Oneactwriter
and
danielmunson

Cool YouTube video.

I love this YouTube video...! (If you don't see the video below, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpZnq_3P_dc

Star Trek.

I have, of course, seen the new Star Trek movie. If you haven't, shame on you. If you have, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Overall, I quite enjoyed it. Surprisingly, my least favorite character was the Spock figure (new, not the old). Though I had been quite excited about Quinto playing the role as he appeared to be quite similar, naturally, he annoyed me the most. There seemed to be a petulance about him. Perhaps it's the small, tight, pursed lips. Perhaps it's the slightly whiny sound to his voice. Perhaps it's the actors very slight, but evident, speech impediment. Whatever it was, it didn't strike me as the cool, logical Spock that i grew up with ... and I missed it. All the other characters were different in their own way, but I liked them. McCoy and Scotty were particular favorites.

How sweet it is!

I haven't posted here in awhile, but I decided it's time to get back into it.

I happened across a great website (I was directed there by the MinnPost on-line newspaper). The site is called"Sugar Stacks" and it actually shows you how many cubes of sugar are in your favorite snack foods. Check it out here: http://www.sugarstacks.com/

Fart.

I just read this release from NASA:

NASA Science News for January 15, 2009

A team of NASA and university scientists has discovered 'substantial plumes' of methane floating through the atmosphere of Mars. The discovery indicates Mars is either biologically or geologically active.

And I think it's actually quite funny that we know a planet is active because of the amount of farting happening there.

Games, games, games.

It's a rare occassion that my family doesn't go away for a holiday, but this thanksgiving, most of the rest of my extended family were off visiting others, so we had the long weekend to ourselves. The wife and I decided to treat the kids, then, with a weekend full of nothing but game playing.

Our family loves to play board and card games. We're generally a step beyond the basic Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers types of games, though some of those are on our shelves and played as well.

As of last night (Saturday, November 29), we've played well over one thousand hours of games. And we'll play a few more today!

Because we add our game-playing minute totals to the Million Minute Challenge, we've kept careful track of our playing times. Just for kicks, and for you to see how much we've really played, I've listed below the games we've played and the minutes played for each game. Please note that at times we had two games being played at the same time by different family members. Still...this is a lot of game-playing!

Tripoley - 53
Monopoly -101
Dragon's Gold - 60
Torres - 83
Digging - 52
Five Crowns - 73
Battleship - 33
Moose in the House - 12
Elfenland - 115
Phase 10 - 30
King of the Elves - 66
Lost Cities - 45
Rack-O - 25
Speed/Hong Kong - 19
Odin's Ravens - 68
Queen's Necklace - 65
Payday - 44
Doodle Dice - 41
Wizard - 129

That's 1114 hours of games in two-plus days! Today we have to finish our game of Wizard; we promised the two boys we'd teach them a new boardgame called Space Walk; we may play some dominoes; and who-knows-what-else?

It's hard for me to pick a favorite, but I really like Torres for a multi-player game, and I still think Lost Cities is one of the best two-player games around.

President Obama.

Good luck, Mister President. I don't envy going in to this job at this time. The good news is, you're following the President with the lowest approval rating ever. The bad news is, he left you quite a mess.

New play.

My newest play is offically out and can be found at: http://www.histage.com/playdetails.asp?PID=2156.

I'm sure you'll all go out and purchase a copy...!

A great game for nerds!

Thanks to the SciFiChick blog, I came across this nerdy little game!

If you haven't played the electronic 20 Questions game, you're probably in the minority. A bundle of the little buggers made an appearance at a recent family gathering, and everyone from the 8 year old to my 85 year old father wanted a crack at beating the thing. Not many did.

Game manufactureres are never content with a simple toy and of course they keep making variations, and now there's a 20 Questions variation for the nerd in me! 20Q -- Star Trek-based questions!

One of the nicest things about the 20 Questions series is that there is an on-line version of most of the games, including this one. My understanding is that the game manufacturer WANTS you to play the on-line game because they can add information to their database based on your play.

I've played this Star Trek game three times (so far). It correctly guessed "quatloo" on the 20th guess. It guessed "fizzbin" correctly after only 17 guesses (and I could see it considering "fizzbin" as early as guess 13). I did finally beat it with a word that's pushing the boundaries of being a word..."kronk." For those of you who don't know what a 'kronk" is, it's the last card dealt in a game of fizzbin.

Ah...Star Trek obscurity.

Anyway, go have a play: http://www.20q.net/startrek/

Barack.

I attended a rally today, in which Democratic Presidential Nominee, Barack Obama, spoke.

It was good. I heard him say some things that I had not heard before.

I also brought my 12 year old daughter. She's not old enough to vote now, or even in the next presidential election, but I thought this would be a great experience for her.

Athletes and sex.

I really dislike all the commercials on television for sexually-related products. Viagra. Cialis. All those ads drive me crazy (although I admit to a chuckle over the 'big Bob' ads).

This evening I was reading the fine print on the bottom of the screen during a Cialis commercial. I laughed when I read, "See our ad in Golf magazine."

Golf?!

Who's done the study? What does this say about golfers? Is there a reason they hang out on the golf course all day long...?! They can't get it up at home? Golfers can't get it in the hole? They only putter around?

Very amusing.

Perhaps they should learn a little something from those other athletes, the football players. Just take a look at this old Star-Tribune page...

Say It Isn't So...

I have my own problems when I write. Most of us do, or we'd have published bestsellers galore. But an email I read recently from a literary manager at a theatre, makes me thank the heavens that I've never been this low on the totem pole.

I thought you guys would get a kick out of a few descriptions of what the latest batch (of play submissions) contained:


--A script where the "technical directions" informed me that we'd need lighting, costume and sound designers (Duh), as WELL as a stage manager to, and I'm quoting here, "wrangle the running crew, which is the person who will help the actors with set changes." Oh for Christ's sake.

--A playwright who sent me copies of his Dramatists Guild ID cards. (Just send me a copy of a decent script and I'll be thrilled.)

--A playwright who included his Social Security Number with his contact info. (Is he nuts??)

--Another script about how all soldiers are corrupt thugs.

--An autobiographical script about the wonders of pot.


--Last, but certainly not least, a short one-act from a woman who wants us to stage it, or at least put up a reading of it, so she can, and AGAIN this is a direct quote here, "get on talk radio". Huh???

Six-Word Memoirs

I saw an ad for a book today -- Six-Word Memoirs: What'd yours be?

Although I can't imagine paying $10 for a book of a thousand six-word sentences, it did make me wonder what mine would be. I came up with:

How can I make it art?

What about yours?

et tu, Abe?

The most disturbing email subject line I've read recently came from Publisher's Weekly, which read: Amazon to Buy AbeBooks.

According to the very brief article, AbeBooks will "continue to act as a standalone operation" and the talk is all very positive about what being part of Amazon will bring to the Abe customers and vice-versa. Of course.

Now don't get me wrong... I really like Amazon. Like many, I've been buying from them for years. But I also really like Abe. When looking for something older, out-of-print, rare or even something new that I don't want to pay full rpice for, I first check Abe. The Amazon used books have all seemed grossly over-priced, whereas the Abe books ususally have something in the affordable range.

Let's face it -- monopolies just aren't good for the buying public. Choices stimulate challenge among retailers. By buying up AbeBooks, Amazon had pretty much put the lock on owning the used book market. They already cracked the whip and own the self-publishing market (you can self-publish anywhere, but Amazon, the largest book retailer, won't sell your book unless you self-publish with them!).

I've liked Amazon, but is this really a good thing?

Giant Dog Turd in the News!

How often do you read a headline in a paper about a Giant Dog Turd Wreaking Havok? I think this is hilarious!

Read the article.

Dog Days

Yup. We've got a dog in the house. A puppy. About 7 weeks old as I write this.

It's a Black Lab/Golden Retriever mix. People who like dogs say that this is a really good combination. They also say he'll get pretty big.

I'm not a dog person myself, but I'm not anti-dog. I like animals and am actually fine with "Buddy" being in the house. However, I did let it be well-known to the family that I would NOT be taking care of the dog. I've had cats for most of my life and we still have a cat in the house that I'd had even before I got married. Other than the very occassional cleaning of the litter box or feeding, no one has lifted a finger to help care for the cat or clean up after it. I figure I should be allowed to do the same with a dog in the house.

The dog is actually an early birthday present for my soon-to-be 11 year old. Some boys should have a dog for a pet, a friendly companion, and I think my son is one of those boys.