If you're an old friend who's wondering what I've been up to lately, you've come to the right place. If you're a curious stranger who wants to know more about me, you've also come to the right place. If you're a pervert looking for naked pictures of Melissa Joan Hart, sorry, you've come to the wrong place.
You can use the menu to the left to explore my past and present projects, or check out my journal below to see exactly what's bothering me today. To view memorable entries by category, click here. For your convenience, my journal may also be accessed through RSS, Atom, or LiveJournal.com.
I admit, I don't follow politics. I couldn't tell you if Obama's health care plan is a good thing or even how he stands on immigration reform. But if there's one thing that Obama has done that I can surely get behind, it's the popularization of the fist bump as an acceptable physical greeting. In fact, I move that federal legislation be introduced to make it the only acceptable physical greeting.
I am not a terrifically social creature to begin with, but when I meet an old friend on the street and he comes at me with some sort of initiation to a physical greeting, I seize up and invariably do the wrong thing, ending in an abortive confluence of fingers and elbows.
Last night I ran into a couple of guys from work outside of Target. One of them came at me with some sort of physical greeting that I misinterpreted so grossly that it ended up turning into some sort of full-body spooning with a pirouette that I could not recreate for you now, even using powerful computer visualization models. The other guy just looked on in horror and silently thanked God that he was holding a parcel large enough to preclude any interaction with me.
In the aftermath of this incident, I feel it prudent to lay down some ground rules delineating exactly what behaviors not to exhibit if you intend to avoid disaster when greeting me.
Don't extend a low hand, palm up. What do you want here? Is this an invitation for a low five? Do you expect a handshake? Either way, I guarantee I'm going to do the wrong thing, leaving us both feeling awkward and stupid.
And if it is a handshake you want, are you going to throw some kind of jive grab-tug-pistol-fingers thing at me? Are you going to pull me in for a one-armed, back-slapping man hug? I have no idea what's going on, and I panic. I might even pee on you.
Don't extend a high hand, elbow up. Aaagh! What's going on? Is this an exuberant "airplane coming in for a landing" handshake that I'm supposed to meet halfway? Am I supposed to put out a hand to catch a rapidly descending low five? If I am, I guarantee that I will not find the proper alignment and we will create a sloppy, noiseless finger grope that leaves us both feeling dirty and inadequate.
Or are you going to try to hug me? I have no idea what's going on, so I'm going to tense up once you're on me, thus beginning our chance encounter with you feeling guilty, like some kind of hug rapist.
Don't put both arms out, coming in for a hug. This one I can usually decipher, but I'm still not into it. You might notice that the way I'm "hugging" you back is a tepid, open-palmed pat to the back, like a manatee trying to paddle its way out of the grasp of a predator.
Don't lean in with your shoulder down. What the hell is this thing? Are we playing football? Am I supposed to tackle you? Is this some kind of chest bumping thing or the foreplay to a manly hug? I don't even have a volume to reference for this one in my mental library, so if you come at me like this, I am just going to stand there motionless and wait for whatever happens to be over.
Don't come in for the European double-cheek kiss. Thankfully nobody has ever actually tried this one on me. I guess this is the silver lining to my scabby, pus-filled completion.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you absolutely must make physical contact with me upon our casual meeting, the only acceptable means to do so is...
Give me a fist bump. Outside of a utopian future world where nobody touches one another at all (as depicted in the movie Demolition Man) a fist bump is the best possible physical greeting for many reasons.
- Its intent is clear. When somebody holds out a fist, they are either going to bump you or punch you out. There is usually no ambiguity as to which is going on.
- It requires very little accuracy. Unlike the high five, which reports a failed completion with a weak, flaccid slap, the fist bump keeps it on the down low. Even if you're some kind of spaz who can only connect the knuckle of your pinky finger with your partner's, a fist bump will still let you quietly save face.
- It is less of a disease vector. Yeah, that's right. If you do manage to actually get a firm handshake or hug in on me, all I'm thinking is, "Germs germs germs germs." If you happen to be moist or smelly at the time, I will actively avoid you in the future. With a fist bump we can sidestep all of this unpleasantry and not have to worry if the other is contagious.
As of now, I consider my opinions on this matter to be entered into the public record. If you meet up with me and you still feel you must somehow touch me to mark the occasion, a fist bump is the only gesture I will accept.
Thank you for your attention this matter, and I look forward to not awkwardly grasping your fingers and torso in the future.
Yes, the aforementioned "guy from work" was TV's David Henrie, while TV's Gregg Sulkin looked on in horror. The only thing worse than an awkward public physical encounter is one involving Tiger Beat celebrities.
In this episode, Alex goes through the looking glass into a magical alternate universe where everything is not what it seems. You might think that I am just ripping off Alice in Wonderland, but that's not the case. I'm actually ripping off Star Trek.
Although my name is on this episode, keep in mind that making a TV show is a collaborative effort involving the considerable talent of the writing staff, crew, and cast. So if there's anything in this episode that you really like, you can assume that I didn't write it.
And, yes, as scripted, Zeke was supposed to say "132 bags."
It's true that I spent most of Comic-Con in an overstimulation-induced sensory haze, but in my few brief moments of clarity I noticed a few consistent trends.
It seems that if you want to have a new, breakthrough pop-culture trend, all you have to do is take one from each column, combine, and profit!
Sexy
Gory
Misunderstood
Baby
Ironic
Vampires
Zombies
Ninjas
Pirates
Robots
Superheros with lame, nontraditional powers
Gamers
Bacon
based on something you already like (probably Star Wars).
displaced forward or backward in time.
but extra bloody.
hilariously juxtaposed (probably super cute characters who are violent and use bad language).
We just got back from Comic-Con 2010. This was probably the best one I've been to yet. That said, pretty much every time I've ever gone to Comic-Con the trip has fallen somewhere on a scale between "sort of unfortunate" and "outright tragic." Basically "the best one I've been to yet" means that I came back with both shoes and all of my original blood.
Here's how Saturday went.
"Wow, this prepaid, reserved parking is great! We're parked SO CLOSE to the convention center and we didn't even have to kill a man or mortgage anything to do it. This is going to be the best Comic-Con ever!"
"Hey, when you show up at noon on Saturday there's no line to pick up your working professional badge. That took all of five seconds. I've got a good feeling about this."
"Well, here's the convention floor, let's just walk in and AHH IT'S VOLDEMORT AND HEY STOP SHOVING AND PIKACHU AND TITS AND OW YOU STEPPED ON MY FOOT AND BUMBLEBEE AND ASS AND TITS AND TRON AND CAPTAIN AMERICA AND BLUE TITS AND LEGO SPONGEBOB AND SHIT AN ELBOW TO THE FACE AND STAN LEE AND ASS!"
Amanda tells me that after I was in the convention hall for about eight seconds she smelled a burning odor and I became unresponsive and didn't say a word for six hours outside of the occasional threat to start throwing windmill punches.
A picture being worth a thousand words typed in all caps, I think the experience can be best summed up with this photo Amanda shot.
Last weekend zeekster and Tom threw a "1920s attire required" party.
Amanda and I went as a flapper and the excavated mummy of King Tutankhamen. Or as Amanda put it, we went as "cliché and didn't-understand-the-assignment."
Who has an all-in-one DVD player/recorder with free, non-subscription DVR unit?
Do you like it? Which one is it?
I know, I could build my own. I don't want to. I'm just looking to buy something cheap on eBay that will fit in my entertainment center where the DVD player is and will be used almost exclusively for recording episodes of Jeopardy at the same time every weekday from my analog cable.
Basically all I want is a VCR where I can watch the first episode on the tape without having to watch them all or fast forward to the end of the recorded episodes to queue it up before the next day's recording.
We have a problem. I don't want a subscription to Entertainment Weekly. Apparently you do. So I can't help but wonder why you chose to have your Entertainment Weekly subscription sent to my address.
Though I don't know you, I've done some cursory detective work to see if you live at the apartment building with the same address as mine but with the last two numbers transposed. It happens sometimes. But, unless you didn't put your name on your mailbox, you don't live there. I also did some web searching for you, but I didn't find anything in searches for your name with the name of my street or my zip code.
I guess what I'm trying to say, Joel Roberts, is that you should call Entertainment Weekly and have them change the address on your subscription to where you live. And then you should come over to my house and take the issues that have been delivered to me, before I get really interested in Iron Man 2 and the finale of Lost.
Sincerely,
Marcus
UPDATE: The man who just delivered my pizza was named Joel, but he was not Joel Roberts. How awesome would that have been?
I've got signs on each of my front gates that clearly and non-ambiguously state "NO SOLICITING." Just in case you make it through the gate without seeing them, there's a third sign on the front door that also says "NO SOLICITING."
Yet I still get those occasional knocks at the door from well-dressed people who say, "We saw your signs, but we're not soliciting. We're not selling anything. We just want to take a few minutes to tell you about the good news of the Lord."
And then there are those eager, slick-looking young people who say, "Oh, we're not soliciting. We're not selling anything. We just want to make sure we can count on your vote for Drillzy McWarmonger for congressman."
To which I reply by pulling the dictionary off the nearest shelf and reading to them the definition of the word solicit: "'To try to obtain by earnest plea or application.' It sure sounds like you're asking me to do something for you. That's soliciting. Get the hell offa my lawn."
In a continuing effort to just be left the hell alone, I had this sign custom made. The next uninvited guest who tries to circumvent it with semantics is getting a Webster's College Dictionary to the forehead.
My body, which has proven time and time again that it hates me and wishes we had never met, discovered a completely unrelated new thing that it is allergic to the day before. By the time I went in for surgery, my eyelids were red, raw, and looked like they were stuffed full of peanut M&M's. This would have sucked on any day, but it's a special kind of insult to have my eyelids revolt on the very same day as my eye surgery, which, it should be noted, had been procrastinated for approximately thirty years.
But since the trouble was only with the eyelids and not with the eyes themselves, the doctor said that he was still good to go if I was. I was just like, "Whatever. Just knock me out and get it over with already."
As the time for surgery approached and I was tagged with an ID bracelet (and a red one alerting the staff to my newly discovered allergy), put in a gown, and prepped for an IV, suddenly everything got real. While my heart started to race, an orderly came in to confirm, once again, that I was the right person and was slated for the right surgery.
After I confirmed that I was to have the surgery done in both eyes, she, in order to make this clear to anyone who came across me after I was unconscious, wrote "YES" on my forehead over each eye. With a Sharpie marker. Now I was nervous not only about the surgery, but that even if I came through I'd spend the next month looking like a flirty 1960s college girl who is trying to play winkies with her professor but has really bad aim.
And then I was in the operating room. The last time I was put under general anesthetic was when I was a kid and I got my wisdom teeth out. Back then, when they started to put me out (I believe with some kind of IV solution), they asked me to count backwards from ten. I was out by seven. This time, I guess in an effort to keep me calm, they tricked me. One of the doctors put a breathing mask on me and said "This is just oxygen. Take a few deep breaths while we get you prepped." After one breath my vision got cloudy. After two I was in the recovery room. Sneaky.
After waking up and enjoying large doses of painkillers, (and confirming that they had somehow removed the Sharpie affirmations from my forehead) I was ready to go home. Now that it's the next day and I can actually open my eyes and get a look at myself, I've got to admit, my pupils look alarmingly far apart. I'm sure this is what they're supposed to look like, but after 34 years of seeing them turned in, it's going to take some getting used to.
I still can't tell if the surgery was a total success, because my eyes aren't really working yet. I've been lurking around the house with the shades drawn and wearing sunglasses like an insomniac vampire.
I can't open my eyes very for or for very long, but I just wanted to let everyone know the surgery was a success and I am okay. I'll post more later. Now, back to the Vicodin...
Last year I was given the opportunity to write an episode of TV's 
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