Scavenger Hunt

Yesterday, I was a bit bored, and thought about going for a walk. Not very exciting, I know, but it's what I do. However, as I was leaving, I had the idea to include my friends by making it a scavenger hunt! I text some of my friends, informing them of what I was doing, and to send me an object to find on my walk. I then agreed to send pics as proof of finding the object. I have great friends, and so my hunt list became: A purple flower, a car with a sun visor in the window, a hipster, statuary, a Prius, wasted food, a bird pooping on a car, a manly blue truck, a license plate with the #7 in it, a man in white sunglasses, a woman in clothing that was too small, a bee hive, a car on cinder blocks, a nice car parked in front of a poor house, a house with plumbing equipment in the front yard, and a garden gnome.
Here are my finds!

I could not find a garden gnome, or a man in white sunglasses, and at the time I was walking, I refused to go to the neighborhoods where I could find the others. All in all, I think this was a great add on to my walk!

Pride in Work

I haven't always been the hardest worker, nor the best, but when I do, I take a certain amount of pride in my work. I've recently been reviewing some of my past jobs, and what I did while I was there. The one that has caught my attention the most was when I was a Partnership Developer at Plattform Advertising, specifically on the Self Growth Engine. For those that remember, that was the project that encouraged me to truly pursue an acting career.
Out of nostalgia I went and checked on the website to see how it has progressed in my absence. To my dismay, it has not. I can not find any articles added after I was let go (Dec. 2010). The only new content seems to be comments posted by scammers to drive traffic to completely unrelated websites. They do this in order to make their websites look like they have more people posting links, which makes Google think they are more popular than they really are.
I know that I have no real reason to be upset about this. But I put a lot of hard work and research into that project. So seeing it abandoned, and left to the whims of unethical spam companies hurts a little. That website had a great potential to help so many people, and now it's being used like a $5 whore in a frat house!
Sorry about the vulgarity, but it bothers me to see something that held such pride for me in that state of disuse.
If I could, I'd by that property, and fix it.

Check this out!!

Hey guys, Jess found this on stumble... totally check it out!

http://sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com

"You can't be a pirate if you don't have beard. I said so. MY boat, MY rules"

Random Thoughts: So True!

(found at http://everythingrandom.net)

Random Thought: Awareness is Support

Apparently today is the national To Write Love On Her Arms day, at least that is what I am hearing from a lot of my friends. So of course I call up Cody to find out what this is all about, because I have no idea and am behind on news as usual. To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) is an organization whose goal is to give hope and find help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide, and to help raise support for their cause, they asked that today you write “Love” on your arm so people can see it. This way when asked what it is for, you can tell them about it. This is what Cody was telling me, when someone else (don’t know who, couldn’t hear) started saying that this was a stupid promotion and doesn’t raise any support because there is no fund raising (or something like that). This started enough of an argument on Cody’s part that he had to say Goodbye to me to fight for his side. So I didn’t get the full story, but from what I’m thinking the argument was about; here is my side:

Not all promotions to raise support for organizations like TWLOHA involve the giving of money. In the Marketing and Advertising world this is what we call a “Branding Campaign”. It’s whole purpose is to make people interested enough to find out more about it. Or, in terms of a non-profit movement, it creates Awareness. Fund raising is very important to any not for profit, but if no one knows about you, then you’ll never raise any funds. I believe the other side was saying that this doesn’t really benefit the company at all. I disagree, and know for a fact that companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to create brand awareness. Not to get people to buy their product, but just so that, for example, when you think of a small medical bandage for simple cuts and scrapes, you call it a …? You see, I would put the answer, but it has a copywrite. I would argue, that Awareness is the best kind of Support.

Now the follow up question people usually would ask is “Does it work?”. And the answer is yes. Look at me for an example. Here I am reading all these Facebook status updates about my friends writing “Love” on their arms, and asking if others have too, and I finally ask what it means. Now I know, and how much did TWLOHA pay for that? Nothing. That’s not stupid, that’s smart advertising!

And yes, I did write Love on my arm… did you?

It is no secret that I have an overactive imagination, in fact most the time my mind is in about 5 different times and places doing a million different things. This active imagination of mine is kind of why I started acting. After college, with the loss of easy access to pianos and violas, I needed a creative outlet to contain my constant daydreaming. Acting was a way for me to "Play" the scenarios that took place in my mind, and I get to pretend to be other people, it's the greatest thing in the world. So it really should come as no surprise that one of my favorite cartoon characters is Calvin and his pet/toy/best friend Hobbes. Calvin always had the best adventures with Hobbes, but he never left his backyard. This style of play was the staple of my childhood, and I drew inspiration from Calvin! So when I came across this rewritten version of the best comic ever, I almost cried. This is what Calvin would be like if he were a modern day child and today's child psychologists got a hold of him:

(Don't know if I can legally show this, but the copyright is on still on it!)

Found it here: www.thehighdefinite.com/2009/08/this-is-the-saddest-thing-ive-ever-seen//

And just like that, no more adventures, no more cannibalistic snowmen terrorizing the front yard, and no more imaginary friend (I can feel the tears coming again!). I think the reason this is so sad, is because it is true. Psychologists today would more than likely spend 10 minutes with young Calvin, prescribe 3 different medications for ADD and ADHD, and call him cured (there is nothing wrong with him in the first place!). Then I look at all the other children in comics that I grew up with: Charlie Brown would be on anti-depressants while Lucy van Pelt was in anger management courses and Schroeder was being treated for OCD. Dennis the Menace would be in a home for boys with behavioral issues, and Hagar the Horrible would be a contestant on "The Biggest Loser" with Garfield!

Sorry, went on a bit of a tirade there, but when you think about it, it's really scary and sad, especially for a guy like me with a highly active imagination and a Peter Pan complex to top it all off. I keep thinking, if I were a kid today, would my parents have medicated me? If so, then I would never have even thought about acting as a creative outlet, and I would not be posting on this blog right now.

An intriguing Concept...

So I was stumbling the internet yesterday (thanks Stumble Upon!) when I came across http://survivingtheworld.net/Lesson407.html by Dante Shepherd. Now normally his daily lessons are just funny, but this one really got me thinking. He proposed the thought of the Sixth wall in theatre (wait sixth! When was there a fifth!? Read the link):

“The sixth wall, of course, involves two plays on different stages interacting with each other sporadically over the course of the evening. The audiences will be forced to choose sides in the potential war between casts and crews. Lighting designers will play key roles in utilizing the spotlights in flashbang style attacks. And theater critics will rip into both sides gleefully”

Now Dante might have been joking, but it struck a chord with me. All of a sudden I got this image in my head of a theatre with stages at either end, and all the chairs rotate so that the audience can switch back and forth. I know, most of you are probably thinking “That would never work” but I beg to differ. I can remember going to the Drive In as a kid, and it had 2 movie Screens, one at either end of the parking lot, and if you got bored with one movie, you could turn around, change the radio station, and watch the other movie! It was great!

I know, I know, it had a radio, and you didn’t have to listen to both movies at once, that’s a very good point. But this idea would need a new kind of show. Imagine if you can, a play performed on two different stages at the same time, each stage appears to be presenting a different kind of show, but in reality they have been written to give a complete picture. The only way to get the full story is to watch bits and pieces of each show. The lighting and sound crews would have to have their cues down, and the actors would need some of the most incredible timing. But think about it, you could tell a story from multiple perspectives by having action on both stages. It could bring a whole new concept to musicals! Think about being able to watch a show like West Side Story, and re-write the opposing groups songs to be sung at the same time! I know, I’m starting to ramble, but I think it would be pretty awesome! It could really show that while we may all be different, we are all very much alike.

Best,

Mike