5:58 AM: Printed. And now, I sleep.

4:52 AM: I think I’m just about done this thing. I’ve lost all ability to judge how good it is. It’s in the director’s hands now. The director’s patient, patient hands.

4:10 AM:

….to Hell.

4:01 AM: Blargh.

3:33 AM: I now have a draft. Let the improvening begin. Look how excited I am:

3:15 AM: A thought occurs: everything I write is garbage.

2:29 AM: I am always impressed by the massive urinal here. A family of vacationing Belgians could live in there for a week if they wanted.

Also, may now be going a little squirrely.

1:41 AM: There was jerky!

12:41 AM: I’ve got about a page and a half now. I only have one actor, so the whole thing is a sort of long monologue. I don’t much envy the poor sod who has to memorize all of the bleating. We’re coming up to the traditional 1AM snack run, so I can get away from this thing for a few minutes. What wonders will I find at the corner store? Do they have jerky? Will it even be open? So many questions.

11:48 PM: We have video!

Note to self: the cradled-laptop shot is not the most flattering.

11:08 PM: I have a title! And a character name! Are they good? Probably not! God, this is fun. All the angst of writing compressed into eight hours.

10:35 PM: It begins. I’ve received my room and actor assignments. I will be writing for the chapel. This is both delicious irony and a happy turn of events, since it can seat a lot of people. I am nothing if not an egoist. For posterity, here’s a picture of my looking happy and caffeinated after completing the obligatory Timmy’s run:

And now, I begin the random stream of consciousness that will loosely resemble a play.

Since 2004 (and with an I’m-living-in-England absence in 2006), I’ve been taking part in a nifty little event called Trafalgar 24. The gig is pretty simple: you show up at 10PM at the Trafalgar Castle School, get assigned a room and some actors, and then write a 10 minute play due at 6AM the next morning. Then you get shuffled off to a hotel to crash, and a bunch of actors and directors show up and attempt to stage your delirious, rambling mush. Come 7:00PM, a bunch of nice people show up to watch them. The whole thing is a chance to pretend I’m a writer for a day, and it’s a fundraiser for the excellent  Driftwood Theatre Group. They’re the kind of people that deserve to have money raised for them, so I get a big charge out of the whole 24 hour extravaganza.

This year, I thought it might be fun to “liveblog” (as the cool kids say) my experience of churning out a play overnight. So, starting here at 10PM, I will be providing real-time updates of my slow slide into madness. Here’s a photo of me taken around 2:30AM last year:

I promise to look even more crazy and less flannel-clad this year.

Plus, it’s an all-girls school, so I’ll also be posting the endlessly amusing things you find stuck to the wall. Here’s an exemplar from last year:

Clumsy renditions of bad teen romance? We got ‘em.

So, tune in here tonight for all sorts of wacky good times. It’ll be totally rad. I promise.

I don’t really like vampires. Of course, in the imaginary worlds they inhabit, no one really likes vampires, unless you’re also a vampire or Anna Paquin. I’m talking more about the idea of vampires as fictional characters or plot devices. Zombies are my thing – they’re way scarier, and I find the metaphor more compelling*. The creepy sexuality of vampyr films makes me vaguely uncomfortable. I also dislike how a once-frightening movie monster has morphed into either a clumsy metaphor for racial intolerance in the Deep South or a stand-in for the tortured romantic yearnings of moony adolescents. More to the point, Twilight is a crime against the written word, the moving picture, and the dignity of humanity, in that order. This franchise may well have ruined the vampire genre forever.

And then I saw the trailer for Suck:

Yes, it will take the combined weight of Dave Foley, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, and Henry Rollins (that wig really echoes his Black Flag era Jim Morrison-esque hairstyle) to pull me back to the vampire oeuvre. But just barely. And Moby doesn’t help at all.

It is a bit strange that it’s billed as a “Rock Musical Comedy”, and yet no one appears to actually sing in the trailer. But, you know, Henry Rollins. If I suffered through Wrong Turn 2 for Hank, I’ll put up with this**.

*I have a convoluted theory – cribbed from a variety of sources – that classic movie monsters are metaphors for aspects of humanity we find frightening. Vampires represent our fear of taboo sexuality. Werewolves are all about the terror of our animal selves. Zombies represent the terror of losing the self, of being subsumed into a faceless mass. In this sense, the walking dead are more of a political metaphor than the other two. And yes, thinking about these things is how I spend my time.

**I’m being a bit unfair to WT2 here. While not great, it was one of 2007′s better slasher/gore horror movies, especially considering it was direct-to-video. Also, soundtrack by BSG’s Bear McCreary! There’s a fun fact.

A Voice Pro student goes for it in the recording booth

As someone with very few interesting traits – and a variety of profoundly boring ones* – I am fortunate to have made the acquaintance of a variety of very engaging folks. It occurs to me I should write about them more, so I’m going to try doing some more profiles on the site. Hence, this.

Back before my knee ass-ploded, I enjoyed a brief career as a mediocre recreational Ultimate Frisbee player. Despite being rather ineffective as a defensive mid-fielder, my days in the heady world of barely competitive frisbee did yield some new friendships. One of them was with Melissa Altro, who, in addition to being an all-around cool person, is also a professional voice actor. And, as she informed me a few weeks ago, is now running her own business aimed at helping aspiring voice actors break into the business. This all sounds pretty neat, so I thought I’d chat to her about it.

By way of an introduction, give us the  100 word  Melissa Altro bio.

I’ve been using my voice to animate cartoon characters for over 15 years. I’m originally from Montreal, and since 1995 I’ve played ‘Muffy’ on the 4-Time-Emmy-Award winning program Arthur. Read the rest of this entry »

British comedian Charlie Brooker massacres TV news in this video, and the carnage is hilariously glorious to behold.

Mmmmm. Now that’s good satire. Via MN.

In short: I want one. I was skeptical at first, maybe even a bit standoffish. But once I saw the word processor functionality, the handy keyboard dock, and the price ($499 base, $599 for the one I’d want), I was sold. For a guy who does a lot of writing and jotting on the go, this just makes so much sense. In fact, this could be an excellent home computer for about 90 per cent of users- folks who just need a web/media browser. The brilliance of this thing is that it hits the most lucrative emerging computing market – those who use it for entertainment and recreation – so squarely, it’s like a tactical nuclear strike.

I’m getting a bit fanboyish, so I’ll stop before I drool all over my lame, so-last-year, physical keyboard.

As usual, Gizmodo has a nice round up of all the details. I also enjoy MightyGodKing‘s take.

If you have money to burn, this video will make you want one, too.

I, unfortunately, am one of them.