TurboFool (Neither, really)

Over the many years I spent as an actor, I accrued a pretty darn near decent list of credits to my name. If you’d like to see the entire list, please feel free to visit my IMDb page, but I warn you, it’s long and listy. My wife even noticed once that I actually had more credits than Julia Roberts (unfortunately for me, Julia kept working, while I… didn’t). While I did my best to collect video tapes (remember those?) of all of my work, this was mostly for the sake of posterity. Over time, though, the need to make a reel from those became more apparent. For most of my career it was pretty much unnecessary.  I was a cute kid who could act, so I gained a reputation quickly, and got cast frequently. As I got older, the cuteness wore off, and I had to fall back more and more on the acting skills, which are harder to prove via a headshot.

So, my manager helped me put together a reel which was then sent out to various people. If  memory serves me, the reel was wildly successful, spawning dozens of major film roles, multiple sequel reels, and became one of the very first viral Internet memes. But it was fun to put together, and during the editing process we actually managed to take a scene from a show I won’t name (I loved the job, so don’t wish to put anyone’s work down) and drastically improve the editing of one of my scenes. Pretty cool stuff.

Anyway, during an email conversation the other day, I was asked if I had a reel. I had to laugh at the above memory, as while sure enough, I’ve got one, it’s basically useless, what with it now being over ten years old (am I even ALLOWED to feel old at the age of 27?). I’ve changed drastically since then, and television has to some degree, too. Of course I also haven’t worked in the last four years, so I suppose it couldn’t be THAT bad. Still, it struck me that I should probably track down what I could that’s most recent, and edit together some clips.

Of course now, in this age of web 2.0, interactivity, YouTube, and the like, there’s no reason for me to put excessive time into editing together a single, classic-style reel. I can just as easily clip out my scenes from various jobs, put them in individual videos, and upload them. Then the viewer can pick and choose what they want to watch, and I can even make notes. So that’s what I did. Right here. See? I did have a point to this rambling.

Now I must preface this by stating that to call this a “work in progress” would be an insult to the word “work,” a slap in the face to the word “progress,” and actually a slight compliment to “in.” As of now this is made up primarily of a combination of my most recent work, and the low-hanging fruit of what I was able to piece together from easy-to-access resources. Over time I hope to delve into my older work (I DEFINITELY need to clip out my work from Freaks and Geeks), and put up additional posts, and maybe even an entire page dedicated to my digital reel. But laziness and impatience have won out at the moment, so I’m starting here. The following clips are in chronological order, which just happens to place some real fan favorites at the beginning and end. Lucky how that worked out, isn’t it?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This job was a real treat on multiple levels. I had recently become a HUGE fan of the show, so getting to actually cement myself as part of it couldn’t have made me happier. Also seeing the sets and various cast members was a rare chance to geek out over something I was normally quite jaded over. As for my scene, as you saw, it was a one-on-one with Sarah Michelle Gellar. Now, when I met her, I can honestly say I wasn’t half as excited as I was by everything else that day. The show, to me, has always been more about the supporting cast, so I was left feeling like I was SUPPOSED to be excited to meet her, but was easily twice as excited just to see Alyson Hannigan drive up in her Jaugar XK8. Still, I have to say she (SMG) was one of the most professional actors I’ve ever worked with. She made a lot of her own staging decisions, lighting, camera angles, and simply did her job flawlessly. I had a reputation for being especially professional, as well, so we knocked the scene out in two hours, which is pretty quick. And for what my daily rate at the time was, it was one of the best-paying two hours of my life. At first I got the vague impression that she was kind of rude, but as I worked with her I began to realize she was simply comfortable. She had no need to put on airs, and put most of her focus on the work. She cracked occasional jokes to crew members who seemed at ease with her, and everything ran smoothly. Overall, great experience.

(continue reading…)

Looks like Mr. Deity’s back for season 3, and it’s as hilarious as ever. Check it out:

I actually had the random luck of running into Mr. Deity (Brian Keith Dalton) at my local Best Buy last year. While he was admittedly hopped up on cold medication at the time (this seems to be a pattern for me when meeting actors I’m familiar with), he was extremely gracious and chatted with me for several minutes about the show, our town, an upcoming skeptics convention (that I unfortunately had to miss), and even had a brief exchange via email afterwards. I couldn’t be happier to see he’s still got the project going, and I wish him nothing but success.

I haven’t delved far enough into this game yet to give a truly professional review, plus I’ve rarely spent time reviewing games in the past. But since it’s E3 week, so far the game seems to have been passed over in the review process. In fact, due to the lack of reviews, I almost didn’t buy it. But as I have great trust in the team over at WayForward for being one of the more solid developers out there, I decided to take the plunge. The fact that I’ve known the lead artist, Matt Bozon, as well as Voldi Way potentially jades me a touch, but in the end I either enjoy a game or not.

In this scenario, so far, I’m definitely enjoying it. As is common to most good puzzlers, the gameplay is deceptively simple. The character can move only left or right (no jumping, ducking, etc.), climb fences (think of Mario), and change pages. Wait, what?

See, each level’s made up of multiple pages. So far I’ve seen as many as six, and as few as two. Each page is essentially a different platform layout for the current stage, each with its own hazards, walls, pathways, fences, etc. When you reach a limitation in your current page, you simply hit any button, and it swaps for the page that’s displayed on the bottom screen. Your character remains exactly where she was, whether she be on a platform, fence, or falling through the air, and ends up in the corresponding place on the new page. By continuously flipping pages, moving your character, and figuring out where you need to be on each page, you’ll work your way to the goal.

So far one twist’s been thrown into the gameplay, and I can only assume there will be more: little critters you have to collect along the way before you can exit the level. This often requires more creative movement and backtracking, and adds some challenge.

Beyond that, most of the game has a very classic feel. Gameplay graphics are simple, with an almost 8-bit (well, maybe 16-bit) feel, but purposefully so. It seems like it’s meant to remind us of the classic puzzlers of that age. Meanwhile the between-stage artwork, in particular, is classic Matt Bozon, with all of his charm fully intact. Music and sound effects also pay homage to the classic style, although they’re slightly more modern. That said, I tend to play my DS games with the sound off so I don’t bother those around me, so I don’t hear much of them.

It’s one of the most expensive games on DSiWare at the moment, being one of only four (if I’m not mistaken) selling for 800 points. But that’s still far less than any retail game on the DS, and I think it’s worth it. Along with the Art Style titles, I think it’s one of very few titles on DSiWare that show off the true potential of the medium.

If you’ve picked up the game, please pass along your comments here. I’d like to hear what you thought of it.

In this day and age there’s a definite feeling among atheists that we’re on the shit list. We rank below the “terror” that is the Muslims (no pun intended), we’re barred from public office in several states, and considered sub-human by well-spoken members of the clergy. Most atheists are afraid to admit their lack of belief, and will do whatever they can to avoid the subject. Some go so far as to fake belief in order to avoid detection.

I typically find a middle ground between this and the heavily outspoken atheists that are finally making us known. I rarely directly bring up the subject (except online), especially as there’s rarely a point, but I also don’t avoid it. If someone asks me my religion, I’ll readily state that I have none, and am an atheist. But that doesn’t mean I don’t dread the moment, wondering what reaction I’ll get.

Now I’ll admit that in Southern California it’s really not that hard for me as it would be elsewhere. I can’t really think of any moments where I’ve been directly, recognizably persecuted for my lack of belief, or treated especially poorly. That said, outside of my circle of friends, it does generally bring up challenges. I’ve had people tell me it takes as much faith to be an atheist as a Christian. I’ve had people start questioning me on where love comes from. I’ve had people try to prove the divinity of the Bible. I’ve had people in a conversational, accepting, friendly tone let me know that they accept that I’m an atheist, but feel bad for me that I’ll be burning for eternity in Hell. The point is, it’s very uncommon that it’s mentioned and doesn’t lead to someone trying to save me, or point out that I’m wrong, and that’s never comfortable.

Yesterday, though, I was at a client’s office, assisting with the phone support for their email host. I spelled out my name to the support technician, and heard the owner of the company joke to her associate, “ooh, a nice Jewish boy!” I chuckled slightly at this since yes, my surname and background back up this assumption, and I’ve heard it before. I’ve also had the least problem with Jews as while I disagree with their religion no less than any of the rest, they tend to be some of the most likable and least judgmental towards others of any religious group that I’ve dealt with.

Anyway, her associate chided back that she had no way of knowing I was a Jew. The owner pointed out my last name. The smirk on my face was growing by the second. Her associate parried back that just because I had a Jewish last name didn’t prove my religion. Maybe I was Catholic. “Heck, I bet he’s an atheist. I’m sure of it.” I could barely keep from laughing on the phone at this point as I finished up the call.

Once I hung up, the owner asked me if I was Jewish. I laughed, gestured to her associate, and said, “nope, she wins,” with a chuckle as I got back to work. Her associate cheered over her successful guess, we chatted for a few moments about my family history, explaining the blood connections and roots of the name while I worked, and nothing else was said. It was friendly, open, non-confrontational, and felt nice.

Why can’t we have this more? Why do people like us have to live in dread of these conversations going the other way? Why can’t all of us be this tolerant of others and their idiosyncrasies? I think people’s religious beliefs are completely wrong, but I’m respectful enough to begrudge them their right to them and not treat them poorly over them. And likewise I’m sure many of my friends and coworkers who accept me believe I’m nuts for not accepting Jesus Christ as my personal lord and savior, or whatever their religion dictates. But the people I choose to surround myself with are respectful enough to recognize and accept that difference. Heck, one of my best friends from my old job, and one of the most intelligent people I know, is an extremely hardcore Christian, but I only learned this from his MySpace page. Hasn’t changed the way I interact with him one bit, and considering how open I am about what I believe, I can only assume he’s aware of me. Yet neither of us has ever discussed the topic, and I hope to keep it that way. I respect him too much to get into a religious argument that could damage a friendship. And don’t get me started with the most important person in my life, the woman I’ve chosen to spend the rest of my life with. We even take the risk and have the conversations, but we still work hard to respect each other’s differences and grow our perspectives off them, and it’s fantastic.

My point is that there’s plenty of room for this in the world, but there seems to be so very little of it. Right now Christians claim there’s a war on their religion from the secularists. But what they don’t seem to realize is that they started it. Their lack of respect for beliefs no more crazy than their own, and their push to either convert us or make us live by their laws has forced our hand. We’re not at war with them, but we’re also not going to be stepped on by their bigotry, prejudice, and disrespect any longer. We’re here, we live alongside them, we’re just as valuable to society, and we’re HAPPY to work together with them to make our towns, cities, states, and countries a wonderful place for us all. There is a middle ground, and most on our side are merely striving to reach even that. Right now we’re barely pushing back from the edge. But we’re gaining. Mingle with us in the center, like so many of the wonderful people I’ve managed to associate with, and everything will be just fine. Those that don’t will likely eventually find themselves on that very same edge.

So just got the exciting confirmation that I solved the latest puzzle in the mystery of the Lost Coin-Op over at PixelVixen707.

See, Rachael’s been searching for an arcade machine she played with at a then-local restaurant as a kid. She had a chat with her dad about it, argued a little over what game it is, and ended up making a pretty wild bet that one could track down the EXACT MACHINE she played with all those years ago. Seems absurd, and she was definitely kicking herself for it, but the thing is, they’re sort of pulling it off. And it’s taken quite a wild ride. To watch the story unfold, check out the appropriate tag here.

On a COMPLETELY unrelated note, J.C. Hutchins’ podiobook precursor to his forthcoming novel, Personal Effects: Dark Art has just been released on his podcast feed. I strongly recommend you check out Personal Effects: Sword of Blood for yourself. Now where have I read the main character’s name before…?

So a few weeks back, one of our local City Council members, Bob Kellar (ex-mayor, if I’m not mistaken), shocked the room by proposing we add “In God We Trust” to the city seal. His feeling was that it’s somehow raised morale in other cities that have done it, and in these trying times, we all need a little more… what, exactly? What is it that a few words on a sign that reference something a large percentage of the population have no belief in is expected to do?

Either way, it was agreed to table it and discuss a vote at a future meeting. That meeting was held last night.

According to SCVTalk.com, that discussing didn’t go quite as was expected. Seems the council felt it completely unnecessary to have the fair citizens of this city vote on the subject. “I strongly believe we are a representative government,” Mayor Frank Ferry said, according to The Signal [warning, link full of incredibly ignorant comments]. “We are elected to represent the people.” And so, with that understanding, they went ahead and made the decision without us.

Apparently these people are unaware that their view of God is not the only one that exists. Not only that, but apparently it never crossed their minds that the people who voted them into office didn’t do so with any remote expectation that they would be representing not only their interests in managing the city, but also their religious affiliation. While I didn’t vote for any of the people who make up the current council, I also didn’t vote for the people I did based on their likelihood to vote against combining church and state. That was never discussed in campaign speeches or mailings. But then again, with comments like “What I don’t want through a city election is for this to become a religious issue; where it’s atheist verse Christian, Atheist verse Catholic or Christian verse Jew” by Mayor Frank Ferry, maybe I give them too much credit. Apparently they were aware we exist, and were aware we would be upset by this. So, as opposed to recognizing it’s a controversial subject and skipping it, or as opposed to allowing us to be adults and have those arguments, they simply made the decision for us to approve one of those viewpoints over all the rest.

I’m unbelievably frustrated, saddened, angered, and disenfranchised by this. I am not the only atheist in this valley, nor are atheists the only people given the finger by this decision. In God I don’t trust, but I was under the impression that I could trust the people who were elected to manage this city to make decisions in the best interest of its people, and their personal freedoms. Deciding their religion needs to be displayed all over our city in an official capacity does not protect those interests.

Santa Clarita is not in the middle of nowhere. We’re not in the bible belt, we’re not a small town with nothing but churchgoers. We’re in Southern California, not that far from the coast, right outside of the big city, and our town’s made up of people who commute to those coast cities. We’re therefore a melting pot of beliefs and opinions. Yes, this city tends to lean right-wing, and therefore religious, but I never had the impression that it was this close-minded and foolish as to forget such a large percentage of its citizens in exchange for what? Simple platitudes on a wall? Something that will make a few religious people smile when it happens, and then forget about it within days, but will stand as a silent, yet blaring reminder to the rest of us that our city thinks we’re irrelevant?

I don’t know what else to say. I’ve never felt this directly persecuted before for not going with the status quo and pretending to believe in something for which I see no reason to believe. I would never, and will never, begrudge these people their beliefs. And I would never decide, if elected, to modify the city seal to represent something that I believe that others do not share. I would, instead, leave well enough alone and choose to keep the city seal the simple, non-denominational, non-controversial seal it was, and leave the personal beliefs to our homes, churches, temples, synagogues, libraries, strip clubs, movie theaters, and wherever else we feel comfortable expressing interest in things others don’t necessarily share.

I don’t know what, if anything, can be done. But if there’s anyone else out there who’s as pissed off as I am who wants to do it, please join me. Let’s make a difference and remind these people that their entire citizenship matters.

EDIT: A friend of mine recommended the following revision to the seal. Seems just as fair:

A hastily-drawn alternative

EDIT 2: Dave Nichols does a great job addressing this issue, and its overall implications, from a much broader level. Check it out here.

All right, I haven’t been this pissed off in a while. Twitter just made an update supposedly in our best interest to stop displaying half conversations. In a nutshell, if someone you’re following is replying to someone you’re NOT following, they’re doing you the favor of not displaying it to you. See, they claim this is just too confusing, and we wouldn’t want that.

Thing is, they used to have an option for this. You could choose if whether you wanted to see these half-conversations. By default it was turned on. So now, in order to avoid confusing us simple folk, they’ve REMOVED THE OPTION COMPLETELY. No, they didn’t change they default. They just removed it. They didn’t want to worry our pretty little heads with complex things like options. Nope, just remove the option and stick to one thing.

Problem is, people wanted this. I know I sure as hell did. Some are pissed off about how it’ll ruin #followfriday. Reality is, I’m not sure that’s true. It only blocks the messages that begin with an @mention so as long as you start with #followfriday or something you’re covered. RTs aren’t affected, either. It’s just replies. Why is this a big deal? Well, I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds his most interesting conversations and most fascinating follows through those very half-conversations they’re sure are confusing us. I constantly see a conversation mid-stream, check out the person being replied to, jump in, and soon enough I’m engaged for several hours. I end up gaining one or more interesting people to follow, and I get several new followers from people watching the conversation unfold.

Does Twitter really want to destroy this ability to constantly grow and expand the communities and networking this option provided? What’s the goal, here? Are they just trying to cut bandwidth any way they can at the expense of one of the things that made us even want to use their service to begin with? If so, I foresee an even bigger drop in bandwidth as people start giving up altogether. It’s that very expanding universe that sucks me in. A closed-off one like what they’ve just created can only serve to stifle my interest. They’d better catch on fast before the damage is too great.

All right, I’m posting this video out of obligation. Why? Because I’m obligated to do whatever small things I personally can to ensure the success of one of my absolute favorite authors, J.C. Hutchins.

If you’re into podcasts or podiobooks, odds are you’ve heard of him. His podiobook novel, 7th Son, was one of the hottest sensations in weekly serialized podcast fiction ever, reaching massive numbers of listeners, rave reviews, amazing guest voices for “The Story So Far,” events that stretched across unusual boundaries such as Second Life and street teams of dedicated fans promoting the book AFK, and that doesn’t even get into how damn good the novel (well, novels, as it was divided into three, driving his signature habit of making his fans feel “cliffhangered” to the extreme) really was. And damn was it good.

I have no interest here in recapping the novel for you, as I feel like anything I say about it will ruin each of the amazing surprises. I managed to go in late, yet still blind, so even the main plot was a surprise for me, making the reactions of the characters to the first big twist just as exciting for me. And every step after that was clever, drove me to the edge of my seat (which, btw, was dangerous since I was usually listening while commuting), and kept me listening for more. It just about took over my life for the couple of months I was listening to it, pushing all my other favorite podcasts to the side, and forcing me to sit in various parking lots after having reached my destination just so I could reach the end of the episode. It took me through a wide range of emotions, and I had to sit in my car long past the ending of the final novel to dry my eyes and regain my composure. Very few novelists have ever grabbed me that hard.

One thing that always had me sad, though, was that I didn’t get to be part of that phenomenon while it was fresh and ongoing. I came in after it had completed. I didn’t get the cliffhangering experience others did, and I didn’t get to join in the fun of promoting the novel with all the other fans (or Beta Clones). That always disappointed me.

But here we are with a new experience from Mr. Hutchins, and I think it’s something truly groundbreaking and exciting. And since I missed out on the last round, I feel obligated to be involved this time.

So, without further ado, I present the trailer for the new experience from J.C. Hutchins, Personal Effectis: Dark Art.

In a nutshell, if you didn’t piece it together, it’s a horror novel combined with an alternate reality game. The book includes various physical objects that go along with the story, such as files, ID cards, evidence, etc. These objects work as clues and contain information that not only goes along with the story, but more importantly, goes along with the game that plays out online, over the phone, etc. Now I’ve been assured by J.C. that this ARG is perfect for those of us who are either new to, or rusty at, ARGs (I haven’t played one since Majestic), as it’s an effort by the co-creator to bring new people into the genre with a more approachable concept.

So please, pre-order the book from Amazon (link is to J.C’.’s site so every penny goes to him), and start checking out the elements that are already in the wild. There’s a genuinely great blog from girl gamer PixelVixen707 that’s worth reading anyway for her great insights into gaming, completely ignoring the fact that her boyfriend (who she talks about on rare occasions) is one of the main characters in the novel. Or how about the site for the Brinkvale Psychiatric Hospital, where said boyfriend works? And let’s not forget the kind, helpful people at the support forums, Back from the Brink, which accepted me as a registered member not too long ago…

Whatever you do, don’t miss out on this killer experience from one of the truly great minds in internet fiction. I can guarantee this will be one hell of a ride.