And In This Corner, Wearing the Purple Speedo and Flip-Flops...

Wish I could find this pic higher res... is that an amazing photo or what, eh?

Almost makes me wish I could afford to travel the world and see beautifully-Photoshopped places in real life... come on... like that shot happened like that in "real life"? There was really a moment like that? Ya think?

Maybe.

But chances are, if I could discover where that was taken, what time of year it was taken, and travel there again this coming year, and try to take a shot like that, it would likely end up being completely "meh"... I'd probably just end up getting diarrhea and going home... just my luck.

Or I could have the time of my life! And maybe hang out in a great kitchen, and have the thyme of my life, too! Imagine!

I'm not moody today... are you proud of me?

In fact, I got my first-ever smart phone today. An "iPhone 5c"... that's about all I know about it (or care, at this point). All I know is, it's green, and the call quality is about 100 times better than my previous piece of crap phone.

And I've already started taking selfies with it! See?

See how hip and trendy I am now? This is like Selfie Inception! I took a selfie with my new green iPhone, then posed for a selfie with the selfie, taken with my iPad! I don't think my daughter Katie has even done that before! And she's a professional!

Here, I even did a duck-lips selfie! Now I'm a real person! (by the way, no, my nose is not that huge in real life.... it's even bigger! Run! It may blow!)

So I'm tearing through the sequel to Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb... it's called Mad Ship, and it's another behemoth book... 900+ pages. It's a great ride thus far. I find myself really caring about the characters, in a way that I normally don't in books... Robin Hobb has slid quietly into my Favorite Author's List on the strength of the book-and-a-half that I've read of hers in this trilogy. Can't wait to see how it plays out. Plus, she has quite a few other books written, so I have goodness ahead once this trilogy ends. In fact, I have all 4 of her Rainwilds novels bought and filed away for when the time is right... the results of happy book hunting on Amazon. Got each one, at various times, for between 1 and 3 bucks... aww yeah, I shop for kindle books like my wife shops for shoes... (weeping softly and hoping they "fill the void in my soul"....)

Seriously, though... I have soooo many books in my Kindle Library waiting to be read... at the rate I read books (about 35 per year), I could read new titles for 3.5 years and never have to buy another book... and that doesn't even take into consideration the books I want to re-read... However, I never pay full price for a book... my acquisitions run from free to $3 each... and I've been accumulating titles for a couple years now... so it may seem like a lot of dough, but it isn't... I spend "gift card" dough on them, usually... so it's like they're free to begin with! And I've stopped buying games on Steam, so I'm actually saving money!

See? See what a socially-acceptable addiction book reading is? See?

So here we are, on "this side" of Tax Day... I'm nervous. Honestly, there was no way on earth I was going to be able to pay all I owed on the 15th... my tax guy told me to send what I can (which I did) and then they'll contact me about arranging payments for the rest... man, makes me feel like such a deadbeat, but what can I do? Maybe this time next year I'll be rolling in dough, all debts paid off, driving around in a car that has balls (as opposed to my Sentra, which is a eunuch). My worry is that I'll get audited... I don't want to get audited... sounds unfun. I have nothing to hide... (except those two selfies I posted above... those I should hide)... still... the idea of getting audited... *shudder*....

No, I've still never seen an episodes of Game of Thrones. Yes, I'm a huge fan of the books. Still, I know this is Joffrey, and I prefer his wedding to that of Robb Stark's, of course... I may watch the series someday... I'm glad it's such a cultural phenomenon... bodes well for the books being finished... I hope the books end strongly. Wasn't too crazy about A Dance With Dragons... I should re-read that one soon... it's the only one of Martin's SOIAF books I've only read once...

I need to re-read the Mistborn trilogy and the Kingkiller Chronicles again soon too! Sheesh!

Acting classes are going well. Lately, we did scenes from Breaking Bad, which were great. This week, we're doing scenes from Big Bang Theory... in my scene, I get to be Raj... and our instructor wants me to do the Indian accent, lol... why not? I love doing accents. I love my Russian character in the web series... can't wait till I can show you all the first episode... we did some test shoots recently, and it was so much fun. Got to see myself in character on screen for the first time... breathed a huge sigh of relief when I saw the footage... we'll be fine... I'll be fine, I think...

"Are you not entertained?!"

Dangit, I know there was other stuff I wanted to talk to you about. Oh well, your loss... BUAHAHAHAH!!!!

Adios for now,

Dave the Goof

Batten Down the Hatches! Or At Least Something Approximating Such A Thing!

I don't care how heavily-doctored that photo is... I love it.

As in "love"....

Man, for all the strengths the English Language exhibits, it is sorely lacking in properly expressing the various facets of the word "love"... other languages capture the shades so much better....

No! I will not launch into an uninteresting diatribe on the various facets of the word "love"! You've heard them all before, I'm sure. So let me just admit that I "love" that photo and move on...

So, I did it. I finally, after 43+ years, smoked my first cigarette...

That's me, in character... not me in "real life".... Gads, I hope I wouldn't be that ridiculous in real life...

My character in the Web Series is a smoker. I need(ed) to learn how to do it... All these months dreading it, and I finally just went for it. And you know what? It's no big deal. I smoked it, and it was no big deal. I didn't cough or wheeze or anything out of the ordinary... I even did my lines, in character... thought for some reason it would be difficult.... it wasn't. The good news, I won't need to smoke again until we film. The bad news? Man, what a stinky habit. One cigarette and I couldn't lose the smell. Gross. I showered, brushed my teeth, rinsed with mouth wash, and still I reeked like a wonderful combination of ash tray and butt. Lovely. How anyone can get hooked on this is beyond me....

So, yeah, that.



Next!

I know a guy named Dimitri.... I've known him since he was a wee lad, toddling around the church. He's a grown man now, and guess what he's done? He's been training for the past couple of years to enter the Navy SEALS... and he has just completed the infamous Hell Week portion of the SEALS training. Do you have ANY IDEA how difficult and impressive that is? of the 200 men that started the training, only 36 survived Hell Week, and Dimitri was one of them. I am so friggin proud of him, it isn't even funny. He isn't even my son, and my chest feels like it's going to burst. So amazing. He DID IT.

Of course, the full training program isn't over yet... but Hell Week... that's the part that makes or breaks a potential SEAL candidate. He nailed it. I'm so proud of him, it almost hurts.

If you'd like more info on it, read the book Lone Survivor, by Marcus Luttrell. The first part of that book covers the training, including Hell Week. Also, a series of Discovery Channel DVD's (which I own, wut wut!) called BUDS Class 234, which goes in depth into what SEALS trainees face... in fact, I had loaned those DVDs to Dimitri back in the day. Maybe that somehow helped, eh!

Bottom line, he's awesome. I envy him the camaraderie that he is experiencing, and will continue to experience if/when he makes it to full-blown SEAL. Something I'll likely never get to experience myself.

Nuff said.

And now, something else I find impressive... this guy does a quick tour of the British Isles, doing the accents of the region...



You might have seen that already. Either way, I wish I could do that.

It's been an interesting time for me, on many levels. Personal, financial, spiritual and marital. Kinda hard having them all Perfect Storm on me like they have. It drives me to simply cling to whatever I find nearest and hold on for dear life. Good thing I have good books to keep my mind occupied, eh? Ship of Magic, by Robin Hobbs is a behemoth (880 pages!), and is almost entirely character development... which I would have avoided had I known... but fortunately, she has done such a wonderful job, I'm thoroughly hooked. I'm about 75% through it right now, and am loving it. Expect a book review soon...

What a selfie!

My kids have been singing songs from the movie Frozen non-stop lately... it's driving me BATTY.

I guess nothing else needs to be said on that front...

In fact, I can't think of anything else to say on any front... so I'll be signing off for now.

If you still haunt this blog, I appreciate it. It's therapuetic for me to simply write and post stuff... but if someone actually reads it, it's even better... so thanks!

Adios for now,

Dave the Holding On For Dear Life

Nothing To See Here. Move Along...

Wandering... wandering... you can't tell, but I photoshopped my own face on that dude in the desert there...

Kind of sums up how I've felt lately. Last couple weeks, in any case. Lots of stuff to deal with. Oh, well, no sense complaining about it. Even though my last name is "Whiner"....

What? It's "Wagner"? Oh, ok... well, close enough...

Been here before, I'll be here again, I'm sure. "Some flowers only grow in the low places..." OK, fine, I'll look for the flowers.

I've been wondering again lately, how a person with so much going for him (read: me), could feel so spent. It's like every area of my life is just so tiresome, I want to, literally, walk away from it all. But where to? Nowhere to go. And no reason to, to begin with. It's like erosion at the sea shore, I guess. The waves, individually, don't amount to much. Given enough years of steady drubbing, the effects can be pretty stark.

Church, work, home life, acting class, the blog, my hobbies (gaming, reading, music)... about the only thing that doesn't feel like all the juice has been wrung out of it is the BTI web series... it's like my lifeline at the moment. Nothing else makes sense any more. Nothing to do but ride it out. Ebb and flow, eh? Again, been here before. Have to find the lessons and move on. Still, you should see me, lol, sitting in my office on the floor at 2am, staring at the wall like some kind of zombie, hoping the ball of fire in my chest subsides long enough for me to drift fitfully off to sleep... it's kind of pathetic, in a way.

So I tell myself to grow up, grow a pair, stand on my feet like a man and move forward. "Quit whining, you putz. No one wants to hear it. It makes you tedious to be around." I get it. It colors everything I do lately. Even if I don't say or do anything, but just sit there with a fake half-smile plastered on my face, it leaks out. No one wants to hang out with a downer like that, and I don't blame them... as much as it's hard to stomach being in the company of someone like that, imagine "being" that person... no escaping that for me...

Still, there's no denying something is going on. Not sure how to deal with it. Ignoring it does nothing. Berating myself about it also doesn't help. Praying about it doesn't help. Sleeping helps! I wake up in the morning, and the edge is off it. Of course, it doesn't last long before it's back again. Honestly, I don't know what to do.

My friend J. tells me to quit feeling sorry for myself. I can certainly respect that advice. And again, I wish it was that easy. To me, it's like having a broken forearm, and cradling it, trying to decide how to handle it... and having someone say, "Shake it off, dude. Come on, quit whining. Look, my forearms are fine! See?" I get it, I should be fine... from the outside, I don't have much I should be worried about. Life is good. Still, trapped in here...

Forget it...

Here, check this out...



That dude painstakingly recreated a classic painting in a 3D computer program, and was able to make that amazing video clip. Man, I wish I could do something like that...

Having my dad restring my guitar for me. Maybe getting back into playing guitar will help.

I'll figure something out. Maybe once we start filming, things will fall into place. I enjoy it.

That reminds me... I'm going to wax theological for a moment. I'd pretend to open it up for discussion in the comments section, but I don't think anyone reads this blog anymore, much less anyone willing to discuss it. That's fine. I still type here, like a diary of sorts, whether anyone reads it or not. Not that I don't love or appreciate your occasional patronage, I do... I just want to vent... since it sort of ties into my current mindset of late...

So this idea of "denying yourself"... it's making less and less sense to me. So God gives us abilities and interests and gifts... but if we're spiritual, we deny ourselves instead? Tell me the logic in that. Does He give us these interests and abilities to enjoy and use? Or to despise and deny? How is it a spiritual act to "pour out" a drink that God has set before us? In other words, are we supposed to enjoy life, and the things He's wired us to enjoy doing? Or deny ourselves and treat life like a slog? How is denying oneself spiritually beneficial? It used to make sense to me... now, not so much. Maybe I'm tired of feeling guilty for wanting to enjoy life... acting, writing, watching movies, playing Minecraft, reading books, listening to a variety of music, drawing, hanging out with people... if I enjoy doing these things, does that somehow mean I'm less spiritual, as opposed to "denying" them instead? I'm tired of having to view life as a day-to-day breath away from disaster. At church, our Pastor has been saying for decades now that "war and bloodshed and disaster is right around the corner! Prepare! No time to be frivolous! Pray! Live "wire-tight" before God!"

Why?

In the interim, years and years go by, looking around like a prairie dog, waiting for some dreadful thing to happen, praying to be spared... and all this stuff I could have been doing and enjoying the whole time is undone. Deny yourself! I'm not saying I should "indulge" myself, like some glutton or hedonist... but why squirrel myself away, waiting for the shoe to drop, feeling guilty for enjoying something simple and fulfilling? Why is it more mature to take a gift God has given me, turn right around and give it back, saying I don't deserve it? Why is "denying myself" preferable? What's the fruit?

I'm probably making a mess out of my thoughts here.

Here, a velvet-covered Ferrari. Now all is well again.

Well, believe it or not, all this barely scratches the surface of what I'd like to talk about. This isn't even the Short Version. But I'm going to stop. Not because I'm afraid I'd bore you - that ship has passed long ago, I'm sure. But because I'm ambivalent. Once I post it, it's out there, in the ether. Not sure how comfortable I am with laying open why I'm yet again contemplating ending my marriage (for example). Don't think I'll end it, ultimately - I think ending it would (literally) kill me, actually... "til death do us part," eh, lol? But I think perhaps some internal struggles should stay internal. It's nothing I haven't wrestled through before. Might be nice to have someone to talk about it with, though...

OK, I better end this post before I set the world record for blogging awkwardness...

Adios for now.

Dave the Dave

Write What You Know... or Just Fake It... Who's Gonna Know, Eh?

Why, yes, I'm sleepy... why do you ask?

Well, it has been a difficult, weird week, which I will now go into here, in excruciatingly tedious detail....

Kidding.

See, it's April Fools Day today... so, yeah, I pranked you by threatening to unleash a tsunami of personal minutia upon you, when all you did was pop in here to read some fart jokes, right?

You can relax, I'll pretend all is well!

Here come the fart jokes!!!

Kidding again.

Yeah, I'm tricksy like that. Double-pranked. Don't you feel foolish?

I know what you're thinking... "Will Dave try the nearly-impossible triple-prank on me?"

Answer: No.

I'm a tool... but not THAT big a tool...

Trying to decide if I should play hookie from Acting Class on Thursday Night and instead go to the Captain America Double Feature at the local cinema... I haven't seen the first one, so they'd both be new to me. The second one is getting stellar reviews so far, from what I've seen. In fact, my favorite YouTube movie reviewer Jeremy Jahns gave it this year's first "AWESOMETACULAR" rating... which is, of course, his highest accolade...

I invited a good friend from church (Lloyd! You are The Man!), but now I'm having doubts about going... not because of Lloyd (who is The Man, by the way...), but because my attendance record at acting class is perfect! For just over a year now! Heck, I've gone to class even more than Steve, our instructor! I've even showed up on two occasions when there wasn't even class! Once was a holiday, and the other Steve was sick and they couldn't find anyone to fill in for him... so I had class by myself and did improv the whole night!

Fine, I pranked you again... those that attend class with me may recall how thoroughly I despise doing the improv exercises in class. So, there...

All that to say, I may cancel out on Lloyd and risk the wrath of The Man... and go to class instead, like a good boy. We'll see...

And now, Alive, by Pearl Jam...



Dividing my time lately between script-writing and Minecraft... hey, two different types of "building", but both creative. I think I get credit for them both! Sometimes there's nothing that helps me unwind like working on my Creative Plot on the Epikcraft server, listening to music. Helps me take my mind off the various shades of nonsense I get pummeled with daily. Some of the nonsense is my own doing, some not. Either way, there it is. Minecraft is better for me than rum.

Although sometimes a little rum hits the spot as well...

All I'm saying is that I will be happy to be on the other side of Tax Day... man, I'm getting destroyed this year. But I have options. None of them fun. But, hey, who said being a grown-up was all sunshine and roses?

What am I reading, you ask? Well, let me tell you!!!1!

First, a fantasy novel (surprise!) by authoress Robin Hobb called Ship of Magic. It's a mammoth book (880 pages) and the first of a (completed) trilogy called the Liveship Traders Trilogy... she focuses on characters almost entirely for the first 20% of the book, with very little that actually happens... didn't think I'd stick with it very long under those circumstances, but actually, the characters are quite interesting, so I'm plugging along. Perhaps a book review will follow, when I've meandered across the final page...

The other book I'm reading is called The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA by Antonio Mendez. It's a non-fiction retrospective written by a dude who used to be a CIA guy... it's part of my research for the web series. Man, I've bought a lot of books for the project... I wonder if they're tax deductible, lol... never even thought about it... I should ask my tax guy... I've bought books on test pilots, WW2 flying aces, spycraft stuff, space-military stuff, private investigator stuff, and a book called "Spy the Lie", about techniques to tell if someone is lying to you...

"Write What You Know", right? Isn't that the saying? And if you don't know it, learn it and THEN write it!

That "math doodler chick" is back, with a new video rant about how PI is over-rated...

Take a look, eh!



I still think her video on Fibonacci Numbers is my fave of her series...

The past couple posts have gotten no comments! I feel so unloved! If you leave a comment on this post, I'll love you forever! Alright, fine, I went a bit overboard there... leave a comment and I'll greatly appreciate it...

There, how's that?

Adios for now.

Dave the April Fool