Man, you know what I hate?
When I’m running late, and I grab a pair of pants out of my dresser, and I don’t realize until it’s too late that they sat in the dryer too long, so they’re sort of funky smelling.
That’s right, I’m wearing my funky pants today.

Today, I present to you, the faceless internet monkey, a short collection of news items featuring me, or my friends.
Enjoy them in moderation. (+1, Interesting…I hope):

• My good friend Seth Wiley, genius director of the award-winning film “The Good Things,” featuring yours truly, is the focus of a really cool story in today’s LA Times. (May require annoying registration.)
• Another film that I’m in and I’m extremely proud of, Jane White Is Sick And Twisted, was recently entered into the Melbourne Underground Film Festival, along with about 80 other films. The festival awards 12 prizes, and Jane took home 2 of them: The Special Jury Prize, and Best Actor: Wil Wheaton. (!)
• This Thursday, you can watch me on TechTV’s The Screen Savers, before I head into the DNA Lounge in San Francisco to defend your right to free speech and parody on the Internet as I go toe to toe with Barney in a celebrity boxing match brought to you by the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Chilling Effects project.
• My friend The Dave at KWOD 106.5 in the land of Muscle Cars, Mullets and Tank Tops is spending the next week living on a mountain (sort of) to raise money for Chicks In Crisis.
• All these damn links mean that this entry has taken longer to write than “The Trade,” and all three parts of “The Wesley Dialogues.”
• I’m helping my dad auction off this spiffy Elvis thing he has on eBay. Look for the link tomorrow.
• I decided today that my birthday present to myself will be a Magellan Meridian Platinum GPSr.
• I am now going to have a romantic dinner with my wife.
• So there.

Spudnuts is a familiar name to the regular WWDN reader.
He makes me, and everyone else, laugh and think, and laugh some more.
He also types in this form.
That.
Is.
Very.
Unique.
Well. I recently read something he wrote, and asked him if I could post it here, because I thought it was really cool.
Quoth Spudnuts:

I have this thing for cemeteries. Always have. I’m not morbid or goth or anything. They usually are just scenic, empty, and verdant.
But I always notice the generic script that accompanies even the most flamboyant tombstone. It makes no sense. Surely, there must have been some cut-ups, clowns, subversives, eccentrics, mavericks, firebrands, freakshows, or just someone who wants MORE on their grave than…
“Died in Troutdale.”
What is so fucking sacred about a tombstone that you can’t be shocked or amused when you happen upon the burial site of some HUMAN?
Jesus.
It’s like being interred at the Christian Science Reading Room, laundry mat, or DMV.
So…
INSTITUTIONAL and sterile.
Then…
Who knows?
Maybe only the boring ones actually get a gravestone. All the interesting ones had their ashes scattered from a hangglider over Euro Disney.
Two years ago, I wrote down about fifty variations I would like on my tombstone. Here are a couple of the better ones…
– Caucasian. Gamer. Hermaphrodite.
– He was better than you
– It’s fucking dark in here
– Buried with a big sack of emeralds. No, really.
– Secret agent
– He owned a television
– He was kind of funny in an annoying sort of way
– RIP BFD
– He went straight to Hell
– Feeds upon the blood of the Irving
– He is in space now
– Deposit urine here
– He neglected his colon
– Yet another dead guy
– He was full of shit

I have been a baseball fan my entire life. When you cut me, I bleed Dodger Blue. I can remember stats and significant dates in baseball history as clearly as I can recall birthdays and anniversaries in my family.
I hate the DH, I wish they’d raise the mound. I sing “Take me out to the ballgame” when I watch the games on TV.
I buy the Baseball Prospectus each year.
I calculate player’s OPS.
I play roto every season.
I keep score during most games I watch, and I save my scoresheets in a folder in my closet.
When I play softball, I hear Vin Scully and Harry Carry calling the game in my head.
Yeah, I am a baseball fan.
I watch the All Star game. Every year. If I’m not going to be home, I tape it, and if I catch a replay of a classic game on ESPN, I’m lost for the duration.
Yeah, I’m a baseball fan, and I am furious. I mean, vein-popping, ear-steaming, teeth-gnashing, hair-pulling furious.
Just when I thought that Bud “King Jackass” Selig couldn’t do more damage to the game, just when I thought that we’d nearly hit rock-bottom, he calls the freakin’ All-Star game!
A major comeback by the AL, amazing individual efforts from players on both teams, towering home runs and extra innings, the hated Barry Bonds being robbed of a homer in the 2nd only to hit a two run shot in the third.
The first game in a decade that is TRULY exciting and Selig calls it.
No winner, no MVP. Randy Johnson couldn’t even be bothered to show up.
Those fans who paid their money to watch a game tonight in Milwaukee expected to see a full game. With a winner and an MVP ceremony. That’s what they paid for, and that’s what they deserved.
What they and we got was a nice big “thanks for your money, now please leave.”
I don’t buy this idea that the game doesn’t mean anything, so the players shouldn’t give their all. Maybe it doesn’t mean anything to the players, but it sure means a lot to us fans. Sure, it doesn’t count towards anything in the standings, but we baseball fans wait each year for this mid-summer classic, when the best of the best show us what they can do. It is supposed to be an honor to play in the All Star game. It is supposed to be a time when the owners and players give something back to the fans.
Major League Baseball should be ashamed of itself. During a year when Selig has talked of contraction, players are threatening to strike, and the spectre of steriod abuse looms large over each and every ballpark, this game was an opportunity for Baseball and it’s players to transcend the controversy and just play, the way we all play in sandlots and back fields and vacant lots all across America.
Instead, they showed us what they’re really made of, and it’s outrageous.
I have been a baseball fan my entire life, but I promise you this: after tonight’s disgraceful ending to an otherwise magnificent game, if there is even one day of strike or lockout, I’m done.
Let them play, Bud. Let them play.

If you liked the make yourself as a South Park Character thingy, you’re going to LOVE this! Or, if you’d prefer something more educational, you should read this.

So the Lakers just won the NBA Championship for the third year in a row.
You know how I know that I am 100% Los Angeles sports fan?
As soon as the game was over, I turned on the local news channel so that I can watch the victory riot.
So far, it’s pretty bush league, but I’m sure they’ll be flipping over cars within the hour.
UPDATE: Dang. The LAPD got in there with their rubber bullets and tear gas, and they didn’t even let the fans start one fire.
Oh well. There’s always the victory parade.

Okay, so I’m probably way behind the curve on this one, but I found my way to this guy’s website, and because of that, I found my way to the Build-Yourself-As-A-Southpark-Character-Thingy.
It requires flash, and it entertained me for tens of minutes.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
Go Lakers!

Summertime in my youth was always a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, it meant no school, and long days of swimming, exploring the wash, daring each other to race our bikes without hands down The Big Hill, and endless sleepovers.
On the other hand, it meant that there wouldn’t be anything new or interesting on TV for at least four months.
Isn’t it strange, that as children we could watch the same episodes of Scooby Doo and Gilligan’s Island over and over again, and never get tired of them, but when summer showed up, and CHiPs went into re-runs, it was a major thing?
Maybe it’s just me.
So I hated re-runs. I always felt like the people making the shows were loafing, and I wanted my TV, dammit.
Then eMpTyVee came along, and gave me the attention span of a ferret, and I didn’t care any more.
Oh, this is totally unrelated to anything, but I have really nasty poison oak on my right arm, and the back of my left hand. I must have gotten it when I took Ryan geocaching last weekend. Yesterday, I scratched my arm so badly I made it bleed. I looked like I was from one of those scary movies about a guy who has poison oak and he scratches his arm so badly it bleeds. Scary!
Where was I? Ah. Reruns.
So I hated them. But, since I work primarily as a writer now, I understand that there are days, weeks, or even months, when you are just completely out of ideas.
This week has been like that. All of my creative energy is going to Arena, the ACME show, and getting ready for the sketch comedy show on the cruise.
But you know the cool thing about re-runs? If you didn’t watch every episode, the re-run would be what the geniuses at NBC called “New To You!” Meaning, of course, that they wouldn’t have to do any new work, and they could entertain a whole new group of people for free.
So guess what I’m doing today? Re-running an old weblog entry from August 27, 2001.
It’s a story that I really like to tell, and that I’d like to share with anyone who’s just showing up for the first time around here.
It’s the story of how my wife found our dog, and it’s called “Save Ferris.”

Save Ferris

I’m listening to Cake right now. Have you noticed that Cake is one of those bands that evokes a visceral reaction in people? I mean, they either really, really love it, or they really, really hate it. I dunno, maybe it’s just me.
Here’s the story of Ferris:
My wife is the coolest, ever. You know that stupid corny hallmark-card thing about someone making you want to be a better person? Well, sorry, I like to be anti and all Emo and shit, but it’s true. I love my wife more than anything, and she really does make me want to be a better person. I could gush about her for pages here, but I’m not gonna. I am going to exercise restraint.
Oh, fuck that. I knew from the moment that I saw Anne that I would marry her. Isn’t that weird? Has that ever happened to someone who wasn’t in some godawful Nora Ephron movie? And the way we met…it was all timing. My best girlfriend, Stephanie, worked with Anne for YEARS, but she never introduced us…I mean, she even babysat Anne’s kids, at MY PARENT’S HOUSE when we were younger, and she never introduced me to Anne…because, when we look back at stuff, the timing was just all wrong. We weren’t ready to meet each other. But when we did, it was bootylicious.
Anne is beautiful. I mean, she is fucking hella rad.
Hella.
Hella.
Hella.
I always joke that when we are out, people look at us and complain that there’s another hot babe with a geek. I say that I am Bob Goldthwait to her Nikki Cox, David Copperfield to her Claudia Schiffer, Sigfried to her Roy…I truly adore my wife, and that’s all I have to say about that.
One of the things I adore about her is how she has what Soul Coughing called “Boundless Love”. Anne works every day, takes her kids to school, picks them up, deals with their dad, and still has time to make me feel like I’m important in her life.
We have this fake dog poop that someone gave us a long time ago, and we have the game that we play, where we try to put the poop in each other’s stuff. Recently, I stuck it in the toe of her shoe, which was in her suitcase. She found it when she put her shoe on in Vegas. She put it in the exact middle of my bed, under the sheets, and it scared the hell out of me when I jumped into bed around 230 or something last week. My point is, my wife is cool, okay? Yesterday, when I was sobbing like a little bitch in our bedroom, she came in, sat next to me, put her arm around me, and just sat there, loving me. I could feel it. Then she gave me Kleenex, and told me that she’d leave me alone until I felt better.
So you need to know that to understand the story of Ferris.
Anne is a sucker for hard-luck cases, especially animals. One time a few years ago, she almost got hit on the freeway, because she saw a kitten running in the slow lane…so she stopped her car right there and got out to save the kitten, but it got hit by a car just before Anne could get to it, and Anne sat on the freeway, holding the kitten while it died in her hands.
She was fucked up about it for months.
So about 18 months ago, she and I are on our patio, and we hear this meowing coming from our garage. We both thought it was one of my cats, Biko or Sketch, (who are both inside cats, but occasionally get out), so we went to look…and out comes this skinny black cat with no tail. Anne immediately falls in love with him, and she takes him to the vet, to get him healthy again, while I make the “Found Cat” posters. Long story short: We thought he was going to die, the vet said he was just dehydrated, we got him shots, and Anne named him “Felix”. He has lived with us ever since, and he is one ot the coolest cats, ever.
Shortly after Felix came to live with us, a woman Anne works with told us about this guide dog she trained, who was also named Felix. She told us that Felix works for a guy up in Canada (and you can’t spell “runaway production” without Canada!), and Felix had been hit by a car, and they weren’t sure if he would be able to work as a guide dog any more. I guess when a service dog has to be retired, they give the person who trained that animal the right of first refusal as a place to live out their life, but Rita (Anne’s friend) lives in an apartment with her husband and young son. Not the best place for a 90 pound lab. So Rita asked her if Felix could come to live with us, and of course Anne said “yes”. Long story short: Felix was okay, and he’s still working with his guy in Canada. Which is great, because I can only imagine what the bond between service dog and owner must be like. I would just speculate that it’s similar to parent-child, and I always hoped that Felix would be able to stay with his guy. In the process of waiting to see if Felix would come live with us, we got on a list for guide dogs who flunk their final exam, because we have wanted a dog for AGES, and we thought that would be the best way to get one.
We are ADAMANTLY opposed to pet stores selling dogs and cats, by the way /soapbox.
Anyway, cut to Memorial day this year. We have no dog. Anne is taking the kids to Home Depot, so they can buy the materials necessary to make a grind rail (they’re all about the short boards. I’m all about the long boards. It makes for an interesting dynamic when we skate).
Funny aside: Ryan (12) and Nolan (10) were talking about how excited they were to get a grind rail, which they kept calling a “pole”. Nolan says to Ryan, “We TOTALLY have to get some grinding wax, Ryan!” Ryan replies, “Yeah, so we can wax our pole!”
Okay, so they’re leaving the Home Depot, and instead of going to the left, to get back to the freeway like they always do, Anne goes right, and passes this bus stop, where this tiny little dog is chewing on a t-shirt. Anne says that she felt compelled to stop and save her. So she did. As soon as she got out of the car, the dog ran into some Oleander bushes, and Anne spent close to 30 minutes getting her out, and took her to an Emergency vet, for some shots and to get the ticks out of her ears.
So Anne brings home this skinny, 27 pound, depressed little dog, and I must be totally honest, I was pissed. I was so mad that she had made this huge decision to take on the responsibility of a dog without consulting me. I mean, we have enough responsibilities already, you know? We really had it out. There was much gnashing of teeth, and Sir Robin soiled his armor. We finally agreed to keep her for a few days, and see how she was, and if she wasn’t any better, we’d take her to a shelter where they don’t euthanize the animals.
Well, the dog was terrified of me. She had CLEARLY been abused by a man, and she was terrified of men. “Great,” I thought, “I’m going to be responsible for a dog who never lets me pet her. Terriffic.”
And for the first 12 hours–wait, I know I’m not supposed to start a sentence with a conjunction. But I can’t spell for shit, so why are you complaining now? Jeeze. Get off my back, Mrs. Lee [9th grade english teacher who flunked me because she said I couldn't write. I win.]–for the first 12 hours, she sat by the side door, never moving, never eating, just looking depressed. But somehow, my amazing wife loved this dog enough, and totally turned her around. Within 12 hours she was wagging her entire body, eating, chasing a tennis ball, and generally acting like a dog. And she let me pet her, and started following me everywhere around our house.
So we decided to keep her. But she needed a name…and that was very important. I wanted to give her a name from Mythology…”Athena” or “Psyche” or something. I know, lame. Deal. The kids wanted to name her “Haley”, which didn’t work for me at ALL, because in high school I had the most painful crush on a girl named Haley who treated me like Duckie…so we decided that we’d try on different names for a few days, and the right one would reveal itself to us.
Anne comes home from work the next day, comes in the door, looks at me and says, “Ferris.”
“Bueller?”
“Sort of. Save Ferris!”
Okay, there is this band from OC that we LOVE called Save Ferris. They play with our friends fairview a lot. They rule.
Anne says, “Get it? Save Ferris. I totally saved Ferris!”
I looked at the dog, looked at her sweet, marble eyes and soft little puppy-fuzzy-head, and it was perfect. Not surprising, considering that it came from my wife.
So her name is “Ferris”.
Isn’t that a cool story?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Bueller?
Bueller?

This is a public service announcement, with guitar!
I have signed on to attend the upcoming CruiseTrek to Alaska.
CruiseTrek is always lots of fun, and I’m really looking forward to being a part of this year’s cruise. I’ll be bringing a small sketch comedy troupe with me, and we’ll be performing a sketch show, similar to the one we did in Las Vegas, but with some new material. We’ll also be performing an improv show, and we’re going to run some improv workshops for anyone who’s interested. You can get more information about the cruise here.
In completely unrelated news, I hung a screen door over the weekend, and it was one of the hardest, most frustrating home improvement things I’ve ever done.
How about a thought for today? We haven’t had one of those in quite some time:

“Consistency is the last resort of the unimaginative.”
-Oscar Wilde