Each week, when I sit down to write my The Games of our Lives column for The Onion AV Club, I have several “I can’t believe I get to do this!” moments when I giggle, spin around in my chair, and hope that nobody saw me.
Anyway, I’m particularly proud of this week’s effort, which is about a fantastic Atari 2600 game called Alien. Check out my column, and then try to get your hands on a copy of the game. It’s really fun.

Tomorrow night (Thursday) I’ll be performing with the Liquid Radio Players down at the ACME.
Liquid Radio is an improvised 1940s-style radio show, complete with live foley sound effects and a wonderful cast in swell vintage costumes.
Most of the comedy shows I do are decidedly not appropriate for children, but because Liquid Radio is set in the 1940s, the show is totally acceptable for teenagers, and middle-schoolers who can sit quietly through an entire show.
Details about the show and the cast are here. You can also buy tickets online.

I just got home from ACME rehearsal. It takes me at least an hour to unwind, and my favorite way to do that is to grab a Stone Pale Ale, let Sketch hop up into my lap, and check out my friend’s blogs.
I just discovered that my friend Shane has a positively brilliant entry at his equally brilliant blog. It’s about an audition he just had.
Shane says:

“I had an audition today.
Normally, that statement wouldn’t mean very much because normally, I am an actor.
Today, however, I had my first audition since August.

On the business side, we who act all know that we’re going to miss more than we hit. If we were baseball players, most of us would be batting .095, and we’d be thrilled. I’ve had about six auditions in the last twelve months, and I think four of them have come in the last eight weeks. It’s not a big deal, because I’m currently able to support my family by writing, and I get to act once a week at ACME. Like Shane, I’ve found other priorities in my life . . . but there’s this thing in my brain that demands I get on a stage and perform for people. If you’re a creative person, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve ever gotten paid for it, you know how good that feels, too.
Shane’s been working as a Supervising Producer on a show for several months, so he hasn’t put on his Actor’s Shoes in a long time. I could really relate to his story, because I’ve been wearing my Writer’s Shoes for at least a year. Even when I did CSI, I had a hard time focusing on the acting . . . there were a ton of great stories going on all around me, and I wanted to tell them all.
One more excerpt from Shane, and then you’ll have to go hit his blog to read the rest:

I showed up at CBS Radford about a half an hour early and read through it a few more times in my car. The audition was at 3:30. At 3:15, I walked over to Bungalow 15. Walking through the lot felt strange. I felt like an interloper, certain that everyone who saw me could tell that I didn’t belong there…at least, not in THAT capacity. I had to remind myself that I’ve been an actor for 15 years and a producer for only 8 months. This should feel natural. I entered the Bungalow and looked for the sign-in sheet.
“I don’t have one,” the assistant behind the desk said with a smile.
“Was I that obvious?” I asked her.
“You had that look in your eye,” she said with another smile. She brought over some water, as if pre-emptively answering the typical actor’s next question and I smiled.
“Are you trying to stay one question in front of us?” I asked her.
She laughed: “Uh-huh. Also, the bathroom is down the hall and to the right.”
It felt good to be back in this world. Actors are often looked down upon here as a necessary evil, but I had forgotten how much I enjoy filling those shoes.

As an actor, I can so relate to Shane’s story. I’ve been in that room at least a thousand times. I bet that it’s got drab grey carpet, particle-board furniture, and the ever-present copy machine whirr Ka-chunk!-ing its way through hundreds of script pages. As a writer, I totally admire his ability to put into words some of the things we actors go through when we do that thing we do.
Please visit Shane’s site and read Old Shoes Fill Easy.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to make some changes and updates to WWdN. (After I finish my Slashdot interview. Put down your pitchforks.)
Most of the changes will be at the code-level, so I can make my site more compliant and hopefully faster, but I’m also going to update some of the static pages that haven’t been touched in years. For example, the about and FAQ pages are so many years out of date, they don’t even mention any of my writing gigs. Oops. I also hope to add some sort of backend that will let me update my READ LISTEN WATCH links and my appearances page more frequently and more easily. Looks like I have to actually learn more php and MySQL. I believe the emoticon for that is =:o
Yesterday, I switched my RSS feed over to Feedburner, and added a few easy subscription buttons over on the left side of the page. I did this because I have noticed that actual site visits have dropped off significantly since I went to full feeds, and Feedburner gives me subscriber stats that are useful to me when I talk to the press, or try to impress my friends. (For some reason, “About 7500 people subscribe to my feed” just sounds cooler than “I think a bunch of people read my feed.”) I’m also using Feedburner to jam some Amazon DVD links into every 3rd entry in the feed. Click ’em if you want, ignore ’em if you don’t.
I used .htaccess to automatically update existing subscribers, but new subscribers can easily add my site’s feed to My Yahoo!, My MSN, and Newsgator. Hooray!
I’ve also switched my audioblog feed to Feedburner, and it should now support Podcasting. Hooray hooray!

A bunch of people have asked me, via e-mail, to comment on the Oscars.
Someday – and that day may never come – I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this justice as gift on my daughter’s wedding day.
Because we ran the race Sunday morning, Anne and I dedided not to go to any parties we weren’t invited to, and just watch at home in HD. (Here’s a fun fact about me: I am a complete sucker for HD. I have found myself watching the most dreadful tripe just because it’s in HD. But when something I actually enjoy is in HD, I’m in Heaven. [And let me add that I hope the real Heaven, if it exists, is nicer than my living room with a more comfortable couch and 100% fewer cat pee stains in the corner. Thank you.])
I have yet to see most of the movies that were nominated,(I just can’t stand the way audiences behave in movie theaters, so I usually wait for films to come out on DVD) so I can’t comment on who got screwed and who deserved it (other than The Incredibles for Best Animated Movie. That was the best movie I saw last year. Hooray for them! 🙂 Instead, I’ll comment on the show itself:
Usually, I can’t stand the Oscars. They feel like marketing to me, and the show is usually boring and predictable. I always turn the TV off after the second or thrid commercial, if I bother to watch it at all.
But this year, I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. I thought Chris Rock was very funny, (with the notable exception of the painfully bad Adam Sandler bit), and I hope he’ll be back next year. I loved his opening monologue, and I loved the way he nailed just about everyone who took themselves too seriously. I especially loved how he called out Sean Penn. I thought the bit down at the Magic Johnson theater was pretty offensive. I felt like they were saying, “Hey! Look White America! We be Black and Stupid! You White People like smart movies like Million Dollar Baby, but we like stupid movies like White Chicks! Ha ha ha! Yeah, we sure are stupid!” I thought they pulled it out a little bit at the end with Albert Brooks, but that’s more because I absolutely adore Albert Brooks, and if he ever loses all his money at my casino, I’ll gladly give it back to him. Maybe it’s because I just hate stereotypes, and maybe I’m too sensitive and need to sit down with Chris Rock’s accountants, but I thought they could have done something funnier, with more Albert Brooks.
I also hated that they had some people accept from the audience, and I didn’t like the way they brought some of the nominees all onstage at the same time. It felt like a line up to me. I hope they lose both of those things next year.
I loved that Sideshow Bob sang for Counting Crows, and I also loved that Yo Yo Ma played. It’s so easy for the cello to be maudlin, but he just makes it beautiful. And I’d forgotten Tony Randall died. Mr. Short-term Memory is going to be devastated many, many times.
I didn’t pay much attention to the acceptance speeches, but I thought some of the pretty pretty ladies were oh so very very pretty. But what the hell happened to Scarlett Johansson’s hair? That made baby jesus cry.
Even though there were some elements I didn’t like, I’ll be definitely tune in next year. I’m glad they took some chances and made some bold choices. I think they played it way too safe the last few years, and the telecast consequently became boring and preddictable.
Even though I haven’t been interested very much in going to the movies lately, I was inspired to see some movies because of the show. I’m actually going to get out of the house this weekend and see Motorcycle Diaries or Hotel Rwanda, and if you havent seen Super Size Me, you must. The power of Chris compels you!