Spilled water and Auditions

As devotees of the blog may note, I have had many troubles with Earthlink. Nothing whatsoever has been resolved, but now whenever a page is loading too long, or the bar at the lower bottom of Firefox isn't moving, my breath becomes short, tears well up, and a lump appears in my throat.* It happens a lot.

Not much going on in Ben news of late. Tim spilled water on my keyboard (boo) so it gave me an excuse to go out and get a new one (yay) from Best Buy. My thought on the matter was that the Apple keyboard would be the most expensive one there; pretty logical, right? Walking past, neglecting the helpfulness of the genius bar, oh sorry, apple technicians, I saw that the (very thin for) $50 keyboard was beautiful as it was available to buy. Just for shits, I went around searching to see what the normal population uses as their keyboard. The non Mac fools.

Turns out, $50 was one of the lowest prices out there, with "gamer" boards all over the place going for 70 bucks or more. Certainly there were some average keyboards, but honestly, for 20 bucks more I can have a wafer thin beauty that is slightly obnoxious to try and type on, but still so beautiful I don't care.

Really though, it's easy enough to type on. See? No typos.

Because I love me some technology, I almost bought another external hard drive that would connect with my Firewire port (firewire on my computer is slightly faster than usb 2.0), because I have an extra port there, and am all out of usb ports. I stopped myself because:

• I have space remaining on my current external drive.
• I don't have the money for a Terrabite drive.
• I don't have stuff to put on it.

So I guess I'm going to have to wait for more media to fall off a truck onto my computer.

---

Audition for Theatreworks tonight, followed by a Callback for Last night at Ballyhoo. Excited about both. Especially because if I don't get Ballyhoo, I can still stage manage Dot's new show, Lead. So it'll be a busy first part of the year, up through Wildcat.

Typing it all out like that makes me feel I've been doing a little better than I thought when it comes to my acting career.

*this is a lie

Writing again

I just finished all the newer Doctor Who series (they rock and have made some amazing art, the British really know how to make a television show) and now am going on to Torchwood. Yes, I know they're really supposed to be viewed slightly together, simply because they're on the same timeline, and that Doctor Who finale would have been great if I knew where the crossover was coming from, but whatever. It's all good. Good art, and I'm actually learning more about my craft from watching this show; neat, huh?

Anyway, working on a new piece for a Monday audition. Fortinbras. Should be fun and a little silly - it's for Theatreworks, and since I've seen their show, and have been denied some work there before, I'm just going to go all the way and follow the tradition of the style of their shows. Big and campy! At least, they might be in the mindset of them, since their current show is in fact, big and campy. And they seem to hire big and campy actors, or at least those that are capable... so might as well show I'm capable.

And super glad that winter is back to the bay area! Yay! I was getting tired of the endless lovely summery days and the glorious temperatures and the marvelous sunchine.... yeah. Rain is nice too, I guess.

And I'm writing. That's what writers do.

After months, months of trying to get someone here to fix the phone line, Earthlink sent someone yesterday, and we found out that they couldn't fix it. The phone lines aren't AT&T, so they cant touch them.

Such bullshit. Why do we have 18 things conflicting for some service that shouldn't be that fucking hard. Months. And now I have to call them again and tell them all that's been going on. Before that, however, I'm going to tell my mom to just switch to a different company.

It's 2009, the internet's blazing fast; shouldn't we not have these kind of fucking problems?

You get what you pay for, I guess.

Reason to Write

1. Where is your cell phone? pocket
2. Where is your significant other? work
3. Your hair color? auburn
4. Your family? necessary
5. Who you miss the most? friends
6. Your favorite thing? laughing
7. Your dream last night? disturbing
8. Your dream/goal? success
9. The room you’re in? mine
10. Your hobby? gaming
11. Your fear? failure
12. Where do you want to be in six years? happy
13. Where were you last night? bed
14. What you’re not? selfish
15. One of your wish list items? cottage
16. Where you grew up? midwest
17. The last thing you did? complained
18. What are you wearing? outfit
19. Your TV? waiting
20. Your pet? old
21. Your computer? loved
22. Your mood? tired
23. Missing someone? many
24. Your car? sturdy
25. Something you’re not wearing? necklace
26. Favorite store? woot
27. Your Summer? intern?
28. Love someone? definitely
29. Your favorite color? green
30. When is the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? today

via Reason to Write

I Just Want To Sleep

Devotees of my life will know that I've been having trouble sleeping lately. And this isn't some artist thing where I wake up and I need to create, or read, or recite a poem or something - this is just sitting in bed, mind blank, wide awake. Not cool at all.

So I guess that's why I'm up pretty late after a busy day just typing random nonsense into here. There's nothing to talk about; Futurama in the background entertaining me while I try and will myself to sleep, I suffer through the late night commercials and sigh, wanting to just fall asleep. Sigh.

Tried a little FusionFall. Fun.

Mostly my mind is filled with ideas for this game I'm going to play in a little bit. An online 4e D&D game with some twitter friends. It should be fun, and I'm really looking forward to the new system; Wizards of the Coast made a good system with this latest incarnation. Good work, chums.

Eyes drooping, I should take my sleepy chance while I have the... chance.

Time to update more often.

After 58 minutes and 47 seconds, I was off the phone with Earthlink. I learned several things in this conversation/patience testing game:

• AT&T owns the phone lines, and they're responsible for maintenance.
• I hate customer service reps.
• Customer service reps have a hard job.
• I hate being mean.
• It was strangely satisfying being mean to the people on the phone, especially the billing department.

I did, however, get most of my reader read during the time waiting, and found a backup plan if Vista doesn't come through (i.e. a copy of Windows XP that was sitting on the floor of my room). All in all, a productive morning. Oh yeah, and I exercised. I'm finding exercise to be more and more fun... maybe I'll crack out TurboJam again; it works for some people.

The more I get into the world of being fit and eating healthier, the easier it becomes to actually do the exercising, which in turn gives me energy for the rest of the day. It's a fantastic cycle, one that I'm happy that's entering my life. In a couple of weeks, however, I'm going to need to crank it up a notch, whether it be a class or a gym, I really need somewhere that will push me more than my own resistance does. This is not to say I don't have a good natural resistance to work against; my weight is decreasing, but it's still tough to push myself up off the ground 60 times. YEAH 60!

Oh, and did you hear that Andrew Lloyd Weber is getting into games? True, and odd. I just hope for a Cats game, or maybe a Phantom of the Opera melodramatic shooter.

And last.fm is awesome. Why haven't I found this before? Here's my site. Ta ta for now!

The tables have turned!

Buahahaha! I've been on the phone with Earthlink for about an hour now, and I just got a semi revenge!

After being transferred to the billing department ot get a credit on our bill, they asked for some information from the account - information that I didn't know, because I'm not the person who signed up for the account! BUT!

(Here's where the revenge comes in!)

I told them to hold while I found my information! I said "one moment" and called on my cell phone to get the information! It was about 2 minutes on hold!

I feel great... hahahaahahehehehohohohohar!

Here's something interesting

I was messing around with vista today and found a little thing that
says "11 days to activate. Activate now." admittedly, I didn't purhase
vista, so I shouldn't have anything to cry about; if after the time
allowed Im not allowed to login, I'll simply reformat the bootcamp
part and set up xp again, that or find a better copy of vista.

Now that I think about it, that might be the case; I might have to
have done a fresh install, not an upgrade from xp, like I did. All in
all though I'm not impressed, even after the service pack has been out
for a while, the system is not as fast as xp service pack 3. Why don't
you just "upgrdade" back to xp, ben? The throngs of you ask. Well,
that's a good question.

The main problem is that i've lost my (legitimate) copy of xp which I
purchased a while ago. I've been searching for it off and on for a
year now, in various states of frustration, and finally, acceptance. I
did a quick perusal around my room... No go. So, I either buy a new
copy (ha!) or find another way. I may go for option two.

Or, I may wait 11 days and see what happens. After that time, I can
try a fresh reinstall, and if that doesn't work, a reformatting of
bootcamp.

Surprisingly technical, but the geek in me is actually interested in
these things.

Cool stuff and afterthought: wow I'm out of practice writing.

Pretty cool stuff. I made some calls, and I'm going to be heading to callbacks for Mountain Play loveliness. And I'm going to go to auditions for Marin Shakespeare. Cool shit, really, keeping busy, and doing what I can for my career. It is a little odd though; Jim called me and said the callbacks were on February 1st, when the website says 7th. I'm more inclined to believe a website than an old man, but I'll give him a call later this week just to be sure.

More cool news: I'm going to be in a D&D game, one of which I actually haven't made a character yet - not worried in the least. One of the best parts of playing the game is making the characters, and I actually plan on making several, probably ending up with a Gnome or Halfling Warlock. I might end up with Gnome.... they're just so much more plucky. See what my geekery comes to? It's going to be awesome.

---

This past weekend was a little strange. Saturday ended up being a day of loafing around, mostly by accident. In some strange occurrence, Monica and I ended up completely misinterpreting what we wanted to do, and ended up fucking around on the computer and on my DS pretty much all day. Funny about that, though; it's fun to play games, and I did have a good time, but we wasted almost the entire day, and a slightly awkward walk afterwards where I thought we were tense, but in reality, it was a completely okay walk.

It's things like this that give me a little pause when it comes to thinking about contentment. Even when there's a great relationship like Monica and I, there's still miscommunication that happens way too much for my liking. Gotta work on that. In addition to all the other resolutions that I'm committed to this year. Let's hope they last longer than my previous resolutions.

Don't know why I'm doing this, really.

So I think tomorrow (or later today) I'm going to upgrade to Vista. I know, I know, it's a weird thing to think, but I found a pretty good version of it online and I'm not afraid to try new things here. Worst comes to worst, I can undo the bootcamp partition and reinstall windows, of which I have a disc.

The big poop when it comes to Vista is that unlike the Mac's awesome OS upgrade, this upgrade will delete all my data from this side. Not a total loss, since undoubtedly there's some weird programs I installed that I no longer need, and in theory this upgrade is faster and cleaner than normal Vistas; it's a custom job.

Honestly though, I'm not quite sure why I'm doing this. Maybe I'm in need of a change... in any case, I'm doing the necessary things to save some files. It's kinda fun, in a silly techie sort of way.

Its the new year!

I had a spectacular holiday in Disneyland with Monica and Vicki (and Bill, a little). Like a little child, I was blown away again at how fun that place is; maybe it's just that I haven't had it in my life at all, and these past 2 years I've gone twice, giving me the feeling that I should have had when I was 7. But without the tantrums. Honestly though, I like it better now that I actually have a fully developed mind.

And Monica and I are doing better, which is great. We made some resolutions that I am determined to succeed with following through. Wow, can you tell that I haven't written anything in a while?

In any case, it's been the same stuff going on in my life at the moment. Looking for work, exercising, setting up auditions. It's a somewhat dry season for acting right now, at least in my world. Although I did hear about one of my friends getting an understudy gig at Berkeley Rep. I am happy for him, completely jealous, and a little angry. Natural feelings for an actor to have, and I'm accepting them for a little while, when at that point I will let it go.

2008 Sucked Royal Ass. I am fucking determined to make 2009 an awesome year.