Category: WWdN in Exile

I’ve written a post at Card Squad which may be of interest to WWdN:iE poker readers.

If I adhere to the "it’s just one long session" philosophy, I am
still way in the black . . . but for the last thirty days, I am
seriously in the red, and poker just isn’t very much fun. In fact, I
haven’t picked up a deck of cards, or logged into PokerStars in almost
two weeks, because I am so sick to death of losing. It’s frustrating,
it feels like a waste of time, and it’s hard to go into a game with a
positive attitude.

The experience is uncomfortably similar to the long streaks of fruitless auditions I’ve experienced the last several years. Attitude is an incredibly important part of success, and it is sofaking hard to let past defeats go, and face each new deal hoping for the best, ready to play to the best of my ability. It’s easy to fear that I’m a lousy player who got lucky, or even worse, just another mediocre player who isn’t able to realize that he just isn’t that good. 

Wow, that’s a perfect metaphor for auditions, too, I just realized. I have to go think about that for as long as it takes to smoke a cigar.

If you’re interested, my post is called Riding Out the Bad Times.

My friend and fellow ACME-ite Greg Benson is one of the funniest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. If you saw ACME Love Machine, Greg played Dave in my William’s Tell sketch, and he also wrote and played the title character in Let’s Gab with Saul Bernstein.

He has a production company called Mediocre Films ("They’re better than they sound"), and one of his super-short films (1:39) is a finalist in the Amazon.com Tribecca Film Festival. It’s called Coming Home. I don’t want to tell you anything else about it, but I will tell you that I didn’t rate it five stars because Greg is my friend. I rated it five stars because it’s that good — it made it to the top five out of 297 films for a reason, after all.

So if you’ve got a minute and thirty-nine seconds . . . well, plus the time it takes to click the link and sign in, then you watch the film and vote on it . . . okay, so if you’ve got two minutes and ten seconds, I  don’t think you’ll regret taking a look at Coming Home.

A big problem with the upgrade was trying to switch from a SQLite to MySQL database. To do this, I had to export all my entries (easy) and create an empty MySQL database (also easy). Then I need to reconfigure movable type to look at the MySQL database, instead of the SQLite databse (super easy). Then I rebuild my blog, delete the old SQLite database, and have a Guinness to celebrate (pending.)

Still with me?

Okay. So here’s the problem: my export file is 37M, and the server tiems out when it’s trying to import that file. I didn’t know what to do about that, and all this week, I haven’t had the time to figure out a solution. Luckily, Jay told me that I can break up my thirty-seven megabyte text file into as many smaller text files as I want, and import each one. They won’t overwrite each other (which is what I thought they’d do), and when I’m done, I should have a fully functional weblog.

However, thirty-seven megs of plain text is a ton of data, and I don’t have time to cut it all up, upload, it, and repeat that process probably ten times or so. I probably won’t have time until next week. Luckily, I have 26 days remaining before Typepad comes around with a baseball bat and a paper bag.

A quick thought on TypePad: It’s awesome. The interface I’ve been using to update is the nicest WYSIWYG interface I’ve ever used for anything, and the way they let you choose templates and styles is awesome. In fact, if TypePad had existed back when I started WWdN, I doubt I would have ever configured and installed my software on my own server.

When WWdN comes back, expect it to look and feel a lot like this, but without any of the fixed-width stuff.

I hope the MMORPG Nerds have a better sense of humor than the Star Wars Nerds, because this is fucking brilliant.

Click the picture for hot, full-sized action.

(Link via boingboing.)

I heard Led Zeppelin coming out of Ryan’s room, so I put down my Sudoku book (yeah, I’ve been hooked for about a month), walked down the hall, and knocked on his door.

"Come in," he said.

I opened, and entered his sanctuary: astronomy posters hung from his walls, and a stack of books (Les Miserables, The Count of Monte Cristo, Macbeth, Divine Comedy and a host of other books that your average AP English student with a 4.0 in the class reads*) sat on his desk. A pile of (clean? dirty?) clothes lay in a heap at the foot of his bed. He sat at his desk, looking at The Internets.

He turned around in his chair. "What’s up?" He said.

"Oh, I just heard you listening to Zeppelin II, and I didn’t want to miss a chance to share in something we both love, that I happened to introduce to you in the pre-Pod days."

"I . . . just wondered what you were doing." I said.

He got very excited. "Oh! I found this awesome Family Guy Website, and I was downloading audioclips from it, and putting them on my computer." He clicked a few times, and showed me the website.

"When I was your age, I did the same thing, with The Prisoner and Star Trek," I said,  "on my Mac II."

He frowned. "Weren’t you on Star Trek?"

"Yeah," I said, "but the sounds were from the original series."

He looked back at me.

"So it was geeky, but it wasn’t totally lame," I said. Why did I feel like I our ages and roles were reversed?

"What’s The Prisoner?" He said.

"A show that I love, that I don’t think you’re geeky enough to enjoy."

He clicked his mouse, and iTunes fell silent.

"Wil," he said, "you didn’t think I’d like Firefly."

"Touche," I said with a smile. "Any time you want to watch The Prisoner, I am so there."

"Actually, any time you want to do anything, I am so there, because I don’t want to be a stranger to you for the next five years, and I’ll close the gap any way I can."

"Okay," he said. "Maybe after school some day next week."

"When –"

"When my homework’s done," he said. "I know, Wil."

He wasn’t snotty. He wasn’t rude. He wasn’t impatient or unpleasant. He just . . . was. I saw a lot of myself in him.

"I need to work my a–" he began, "I need to work very hard this semester."

I nodded my head. "I’m glad you know that, Ryan."

He turned back around to his computer. I stood in his doorway and looked at him for a minute.

"He may not have my DNA, but I’ve given him some of the things that matter in life," I thought.

"Ryan?"

He didn’t turn around. "Hmm?"

"I love you."

"I love you too, Wil."

"Ramble On, And now’s the time, the time is now, to sing my song.

I’m goin’ ’round the world, I got to find my girl, on my way.

I’ve been this way ten years to the day, Ramble On,

Gotta find the queen of all my dreams."

*Yes, I’m proud as hell. Sue me.