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Responses to this rant
Tim Whittaker   Thursday, 6/21/2018 3:39 PM
Bart   Thursday, 6/21/2018 7:58 PM
Older rants
January 31, 2023   Nothing, really
November 23, 2021   Goodbye GoDaddy, Bunches of Books, and Vinyl additions
June 1, 2020   Birthday trip to the Grand Canyon in 2019,
Code Talker
Mar 21, 2020   The World Famous San Diego ComicFest
and the testament to dorkness that is my cubicle
and my sad, sad little doodles
Mar 8, 2020   A return to Potterland,
Meg & Dia's Christmas album, December Darling,
some other random stuff
Feb 21, 2020   Agorafabulous!,
Emeli's amazing creations
Nov 27, 2019   David Savakerrva Volume 1
The cubicle of nerdishness
Oct 28, 2019   Art Matters, Neil Gaiman
Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, Eric Idle
Alternate Routes, Tim Powers
Disneyland - Galaxy's Edge
Oct 4, 2019   Meg & Dia, HappySad tour San Diego 09/18/19
September 21. 2019   David Bowie - Scary Monsters,
More Adventures in Leasing,
More cubicle fun,
A new doodle
September 10. 2019   The Cranberries - In The End,
The Cranberries - Something Else,
Icicle Works, Icicle Works (vinyl),
Dia Frampton, Red,
Juliana Hatfield, Juliana Hatfield Sings Olivia Newton John,
The Lemonheads, The Lemonheads,
Green Day, Insomniac ,
and
Flight of the Conchords, Flight of the Conchords Live in London
August 28, 2019   Heir of Ra (Maciek Sasinowski,
The Catalyst Series (JK Franks): Downward Cycle, Kingdom of Sorrow, Ghost Country
May 11, 2019   Goodbye, little friend
Nov 30, 2018   Fire of Our Fathers,
a Science Fiction Book Club rant
Nov 24, 2018   The Dinosaur Lords,
Dragon Teeth
Nov 20, 2018   My cubicle revisited, really-old ComicCon stuff, Emeli's Art, More Disney Adventures, The Zoo and Safari Park
September 9, 2018   Perimeter - an eBook thriller
September 3, 2018   Take Back the Sky Starcraft Evolution
August 11, 2018   Idaho Dunes Awesome soda Ethanol-free gas an awesome Bald Guy card Our rough dig Harry Potter Interlude story
July 21, 2018   The Cup in the Shadows (The Forbidden Powers Book 1)
June 24, 2018   Jake, Lucid Dreamer
June 13, 2018   Troll-stalking
May 23, 2018   Another badbartopia email spoofer, A sunny-day Disney adventure, Raymond E Feist book signing
May 15, 2018   A rainy-day Disneyland trip The Bassoon King
Apr 28, 2018   Down and Out in Purgatory
Apr 13, 2018   Operation Hail Storm
Mar 4, 2018   American Exodus
Jan 22, 2018   Christmas, Didn't Get Frazzled, The Sea People, The Rooster Bar, Last Burial Night, Doctor Who and the Krikkit Men
Dec 15, 2017   Mistrial, City of Death and Disneyland
Nov 14, 2017   Grace Vanderwaal - Just the Beginning
Nov 11, 2017   Tim Powers Signing at Mysterious Galaxy for Down and Out in Purgatory
November 4, 2017   Return to Disneyland, Halloween at the office, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, The Long Cosmos Maximus One year After War Dogs, Killing Titan Daddy, Stop Talking
October 29, 2017   Bruce Campbell Signing, Hail to the Chin, Further Confessions of a B Movie Actor
October 20, 2017   Meg & Dia, Imagine Dragons in concert, 2 Years 8 months and 28 Nights
October 17, 2017   All Apologies
October 16, 2017   Thrawn
Septempber 7, 2017   The Rage of Dragons, The Lincoln Myth
August 10, 2017   The Molly Ringwalds, Dia Frampton Musical awesomeness, Beauty and the Feast
July 28, 2017   The IT Sweatshop revisited, How to Talk to Girls at Parties, American Gods and The Magicians, Rogue One, Camino Island
July 24, 2017   CRV glovebox difficulties, San Diego Comic Con rant
July 11, 2017   Beauty and the Beast at the Lyceum, Earthweeds, Sons of Neptune Book 1, Aftermath, Empire's End, If Chin's Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor
June 30, 2017   Eastwood: No Direction Home book 2
June 23, 2017   Excellent Adventures on the PCH (part 4/4) - The PCH family vacation tale concludes, my new record, record player, and Emeli's site is live!
Jun 14, 2017   A noteworthy eBook mention before I return to my vacation ranting - No Direction Home
June 9, 2017   Excellent Adventures on the PCH (part 3/4) - The PCH family vacation tale concludes...almost. More pictures of spooky old houses, trees, rocks, and other things that nobody cares about! Plus, Goonies stuff
June 2, 2017   Excellent Adventures on the PCH (part 2/4) - The PCH family vacation tale continues... And more pictures of trees and other things that nobody cares about!
May 31, 2017   Excellent Adventures on the PCH (part 1/4) - Way more detail than anyone wants about our vacation up the coast of California and Oregon. And lots of pictures of trees!
Apr 26, 2017   Resurrection America, Pizza Studio art, AmandaLynn, Emeli art, and Disney art, and Gifted
Apr 14, 2017   My San Fransisco OSI PI adventure & "Thanks for the Money: How to Use My Life Story to Become the Best Joel McHale You Can Be"
Apr 12, 2017   Neil Gaiman speaks, Norse Mythology, American Gods comic adaptation, The Magicians TV series, and Dirk Gently on TV
Feb 2, 2017   A trip to the ever-less-magical land of Disney, The Prince of Outcasts, the Whistler, and a brief mention of The Magicians.
Jan 21, 2017   An update to my nerd wall at work, Found out about Richard Thompson (Cul De Sac) being gone, A list of all the stuff (or most, anyway) I've given up to new homes, A review of Dave! and Warp, and a couple of new doodles.
Dec 23, 2016   My final visit to Potterland and a couple of doodles
Dec 11, 2016   Books and related comics, and free/cheap stuff. Not taco Bell Material, President Me, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, The Hedge Knight (comic), The Sworn Sword (comic) Ooma, Ringplus, Amazon prime and other money-saving stuff.
Dec 4, 2016   I'm sharing my sad doodles with the world again. They're not very good, but I'll bet they're better than your scribbles!
Nov 12, 2016   Yet another trip to The Wonderful World of Harry Potter!
Nov 7, 2016   Blathering on about a few of the books I've read recently - Spire, The Check, and Dangercide, Pirate Detective
Oct 7, 2016   Yet another Visit to Harry Potterland. Oh, and my lease-mileage calculator.
July 25, 2016   Another Visit to Harry Potterland, a new car, a new shirt, a new dog, and a whole lot of the same old complaining
May 17, 2016   Email spoofers, Phishing emails, and scammers galore!
Apr 30, 2016   Winter's Edge and a Management zombie attack
Apr 23, 2016   Harry Potter land re-visited
Apr 9, 2016   Xenia...again
Apr 2, 2016   Sing Street, Batman vs Superman, Craigslist griping
Mar 1, 2016   The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Hollywood preview, fun at work, Xenia's new song, A Vanishing Glow, Our Fair Eden, Race Wars, The Force Awakens
Jan 27, 2016   Text Wars, Books I've read... Yup, that's pretty much it
Jul 30, 2015   Xenia Martinez news Still selling stuff on eBay, Hyperbole and a Half (the book), The Path Between the Seas, Trigger Warning, In Fifty years We'll all Be Chicks
Mar 17, 2015   Selling my treasures on eBay, Hyperbole and a Half, the Long Mars, Gray Mountain, Anathem, The Golden Princess, The Given Sacrifice
Mar 12, 2015   You'll be sorely missed, Sir Terry
Jan 21, 2015   More BBC 4 radio dramatizations by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett: The Amazing Maurice, Guards! Guards!, Neverwhere, Night Watch, Small Gods, Wyrd Sisters
Jan 10, 2015   JabberWocky, Neil Gaiman style!
Dec 24, 2014   The Good Omens BBC treatment
Aug 03, 2014   Every hobby has to end eventually, right?
Oct 8, 2013   Warning: Extreme Geekness ahead!
Oct 1, 2013   The Bloody Crown of iGoogle
Aug 26, 2013   Headphones at work
Aug 22, 2013   The guvmint is gonna getcha
June 25, 2013   Dweebs vs Big Bang vs IT Crowd
Jul 3, 2012   Xenia Martinez & Dia Frampton concert
Feb 24, 2012   Reading...just not much
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Being an idiot with Lev Grossman
Jan 7, 2012   If it ain't broke...
Aug 22, 2011   non-ComicCon report 2011
A Thousand Splendid Suns
An Act of Self Defense
May 5, 2011   On Stranger Tides
vs.
On Stranger Tides
March 2, 2011   I'm a gigantic slacker...
Ikariam
Wild Guns
Lord of Ultima
Metin 2
Lord of the Rings Online
Dec 15, 2010   Bring out your dead!
Aug 17, 2010   San DiegoComicCon 2010
August 11, 2010   I'm not dead yet...
May 3, 2010   Hero Comics
Liberty Comics
Dr Horrible
Neil Gaiman & Sam Keith in Batman
The Guild, Felicia Day
April 27, 2010   Mean Gene Wilder! Grrr!!!
April 24, 2010   If it's not one Jihad, it's another...
April 20, 2010   The Satanic Verses
March 15, 2010   Unseen Academicals
Feblueberry 8, 2010   The un-reading shelf (from most of 2009)
Feblueberry 2, 2010   Emily the Strange, the Lost Days...a novel
Nov 25, 2009   Happy Halloween, Mom!
Nov 18, 2009   Summer Vacation in Idaho
Aug 20, 2009   San Diego ComicCon 2009
Aug 12, 2009   I'm a big, fat slacker
June 05, 2009   The networks are helping me cut back on my TV viewing
June 04, 2009   Mandy Moore's Amanda Leigh,
Chris Isaak's Mr Lucky
and
My name is Bruce?
and Emmy Rossum? Where am I going with this?
May 21, 2009   Randy would have really liked Fanboys...sigh
May 3, 2009   The Spring reading shelf
Apr 21, 2009   Holidays On Ice (a little late for Christmas)
Apr 18, 2009   Leviticus Cross and other Hector Sevilla comic book stuff
Apr 16, 2009   The fantastically amazing and banal Badbartopia RSS Feed
Mar 31, 2009   Neil Gaiman's Blueberry Girl
Mar 30, 2009   My Amazon mis-order turns out to be not so annoying as previously expected...
(AKA the Dr Horrible soundtrack)
Mar 23, 2009   Stephan Pastis & Richard Thompson have me looking forward to the 2009 SD ComicCon
Mar 19, 2009   Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog,
The Guild
Mar 08, 2009   The Wonderful Wizard of Oz comic adaptation,
Neil Gaiman's Sandman: The Dream Hunters
Mar 04, 2009   Little Brother
Mar 1, 2009   Pete & Pickles
Feb 11, 2009   She & Him
Flakes
Pushing Daisies
Jan 26, 2009   The Scourge of God,
When You are Engulfed in Flames
Jan 14, 2009   On the Road = hippy nonsense
Jan 12, 2009   One-by-one, my fish have met their maker
Dec 26, 2008   My Azeroth-avoidance continues
Dec 23, 2008   Nothing to see...move along
Dec 15, 2008   New scribbles
Dec 10, 2008   The Oct-Nov-Dec reading shelf
Dec 1, 2008   Shalimar the Clown
the economic impact of the events in Mumbai
Nov 21, 2008   Star Wars: Allegiance
Nov 20, 2008   Daredevil Black Widow: Abattoir
Nov 17, 2008   Travel Team
Nov 16, 2008   A new comic adaptation of The Wizard of Oz
Nov 14, 2008   Berke's Books:
The Last Basselope
Edward Fudwupper Fibbed Big
Mars Needs Moms
Opus: 25 years
Nov 13, 2008   Return to Azeroth?
Nov 12, 2008   Goodbye, Opus
Oct 29, 2008   Halloween costumes of 2008
Project Superpowers
Marvels
Ruins
Oct 23, 2008   The Graveyard Book
Interworld
Oct 16, 2008   Nation
Oct 10, 2008   The Joy of Programming
My foray into Ajax
Oct 9, 2008   My Saturn Scare
Opus ends
Terry Pratchett's condition
Oct 3, 2008   The Hitchhiker's Guide, Book 6...by Eoin Colfer?
Oct 2, 2008   Media master - music online
Sony builds a "better" camera
Sept 24, 2008   The September reading shelf
Sept 17, 2008   Still missing Randall
The Fish tank...again
The Graveyard Book
Sept 15, 2008   Slacking...as usual
The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang
Sept 9, 2008   The dearth of Opus strips
yes, I meant to say "dearth"
Sept 8, 2008   A new monitor goes bad...but it all ends happily
Sept 3, 2008   A Boy and His Dog,
Richard Corben,
H.P. Lovecraft's Haunt of Horror
Sept 2, 2008   A slightly newish look
(aka "why I will never be a graphic designer")
Aug 11, 2008   Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in all its incarnations Mike Kunkel's re-imagining of Shazam
July 29, 2008   San Diego Comiccon 2008
July 24, 2008   Neil Gaiman
July 17, 2008   Chris Isaak!
June 30, 2008   The Woman Who Wouldn't
Legends II
Mouse Guard Fall 1152
the Jetta's latest round of repairs
fishtank overpopulation
June 10, 2008   The Reading Shelf
Fish tank jungle
Attack of the bees
June 3, 2008   Missing Randall
May 9, 2008   My French Whore
Apr 28, 2008   Fish tank fatality
Flight of the Conchords
The Dangerous Alphabet
Mar 5, 2008   Gene Wilder book signing at Borders
new fish tank
subpoenaed!
Jan 11, 2008   The Jetta Strikes back!
The Plucker
The Anubis Gates
National Treasure II
Nov 8, 2007   San Diego on Fire,
A clean break from WoW,
UCSD Extension Java I graduation (kinda)
Making Money
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Oct 2, 2007   Back to school, Java class at UCSD
AT&T's Uverse
new sketches
Blockbuster movie pass
August 28, 2007   Mandy Moore concert!
Aug 19, 2007   ComicCon 2007 - Neil Gaiman, Iron Man and all the usual suspects
May 22, 2007   World of Spamcraft (and other spamalicious topics), forum fun...gus, the woes of being a contractor and PIRATES!!
Apr 5, 2007   I'm a conservative - bite me!
Timbaland? Dumb!
Marie Antoinette - snaggle teeth and teasing glimpes. Sweet!
John Q - a lesson about fatherhood or a liberal-propoganda film?
Mar 30, 2007   Things that make me grumpy-er,
employed again at last,
Finn and assorted other ramblings
Feb 8, 2007   The search for employment continues..and the unemployment benefits are NOT pouring in!
Jan, 22, 2007   Freed from the bondage of employment, a very brief review of a few books and films
Dec 17, 2006   Sad excuses, The Innocent Man, 1776, THe Man in High Castle, Absolute Sandman, Wintersmith, garage sale treasures: Ghost in the Machine
Aug 20, 2006   Writers of the Future XXII/Tim Powers, more movie reivews
July 20, 2006   San Diego ComicCon 2006
July 15, 2006   Superman Returns, inconsiderate morons, Peewee's Playhouse returns, my plea for more pirate movies
July 8, 2006   Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Wild Animal Park critters, site remodeling
Jun 27, 2006   The good, the bad and the mediocre (a bunch of movie reviews in the new forum).
June 15, 2006   Because of Romek - A Holocaust Survivor's Memoir
May 21, 2006   The DaVinci Code, Aeon Flux, Everything You Want
May 12, 2006   World of Warcrack, the Office, Coraline, my apologies...
Jan 24, 2006   Christmas Vacation 2006, Syriana, Traveling Pants, Wish You Were Here
Dec 19, 2005   Festive Neighbors, the death of Olivia, Media Misinformation surrounding Brent Wilkes/ADCS, Make Love the bruce campbell way
Nov 15, 2005   Microsoft Technet 2005 launch party, Lexmark printer problem, a bad, bad day, changing dentists.
Oct 22, 2005   Thud!, Anansi Boys, Where's my cow
Oct 18, 2005   Terry Pratchet Thud! signing, Neil Gaiman Anansi Boys signing
Oct 15, 2005   A very, very late Comiccon 2005 report.
Jun 23, 2005   The black hole of Warcraft, The Years of Rice and Salt, After the Sunset, Madagascar, Mr and Mrs Smith, Taxi.
Jun 3, 2005   All is quiet on the PM Front, War of the Worlds (the novel), Kingdom of Heaven, Sahara, Star Wars Episode III, Flight of the Phoenix
May 9, 2005   The program managers strike again, More of my horrendous sketches, Spanglish, A Lot Like Love, Elektra, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (the film)
Apr 9, 2005   Stuck in Corporate Hell, a few of my recent sketches, Miss Congeniality 2, Collateral
Mar 21, 2005   Revenge of the Jetta (car problems), a Newegg purchase, a few new drawings, more Opus
Feb 13, 2005   The Mail mystery solved, more of my crappy sketches, A few new photos of the girls, bill-bert (introducing the new Project Manager), sweet phone skills, Opus, Dungeons and Dragons, In Good Company
Jan 27, 2005   Mystery mail, new photos of my beautiful kids, some new sketches, an Episode 3 spoiler, Opus, Going Postal, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Ubik, Remember the Titans, Lemony Snicket`s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Dodgeball
Jan 7, 2005   Christmas 2004, Update to the site, Elf & King Arthur revisited, National Treasure, Opus, Blade Runner
Dec 18, 2004   A new Stephanie sketch, another Target web page goof, the SD Union Tribune confirms Greg Bear`s research for Vitals, Miramar VW proves my dealer service assertions wrong, neighborhood Christmas fun, Opus
Nov 24, 2004   More of my mediocre drawings, nw russian mail-order coins, Star Wars toys, a big green spider comes to visit, Opus, Dies the Fire, Digital fortress, The Incredibles, Twisted, Van Helsing
Nov 03, 2004   Some thoughts regarding the 2004 election, rants about the environment, a memory rebate update, new computer issues, Opus, The Lone Drow, Deception Point, Roswell season 2 on DVD
Oct 12, 2004   An interesting quiz, mal-in rebates, a parrot joke, my new computer, thoughts on frame removal, web logs, Opus, Vitals, Star Wars trilogy on DVD, Ladykillers
Sep 23, 2004   My "Heath" sketch for Mark Oakley, an update on my a PNY rebate check, the fictitious AWNA Act, Browser Issues with the site, Opus/Pickles, The DaVinci Code, Garden State (Natalie Portman), Man on Fire
Sep 11, 2004   A new drawing: "Stephanie", redneck wisdom, my salary to hourly reclassification, funny video: news from iraq, an update on my mail-in pny rebate, a new rebate through Costco, Ella Enchanted, Highlander Endgame, Princess of Thieves, The Whole Ten Yards
Aug 27, 2004   Fun with my VW Warranty, Opus, Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix, The Land of SokMunster, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Wedding, Napoleon Dynamite, Hidalgo, Chasing Liberty, Out of Time
Jul 23, 2004   San Diego ComicCon 2004, the family summer vacation, Bruce Campbell, Opus, Nanny Ogg`s Cookbook, Angels & Demons, Folk of the fringe, Bourne Supremacy, i robot, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Cody Banks 2, Hellboy
Jul 19, 2004   *** PNY Rebate fun, IE Patch, Linux and socialism, liberal scum, Opus, BIM, timeline, master and commander, tad hamilton, stuck on you,cold mountain, 50 first dates, the terminal, spiderman 2, king arthur, a hat full of sky, the thousand orcs, meditations on middle earth
Jun 20, 2004   Memorial day pictures, Duplex, Mark Oakley/Heroes, Wild Animal Park Dinosaurs, B-52s concertman, Say After Tomorrow, Big Fish, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Eragon, A Hat Full of Sky, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
May 08, 2004   Pat Tillman, LOTR Toys, 13 Going on 30, Mean Girls, Tolkien Miscellany, Last Juror, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Pork Tornado
Apr 06, 2004   Roswell season 1 DVD and a some other mindless drivel
Feb 19, 2004   Highlander site contest results, new downloads, princess gallery updates, lord of the rings toys, harry potter, underworld. lost in translation, the hunted, a tolkien miscellany...
Feb 09, 2004   Murder at 1600, Radio, Cheaper by the Dozen, King Arthur, Spiderman 2, Van Helsing, Harry Potter, Tolkien Miscellany, Mark Oakley, massive snow in Idaho...
Jan 28, 2004   Swat, Uptown Girls, Somethings Gotta Give, Along Came Polly, Seabiscuit, Ashley Judd Marathon, Van Helsing, Harry Potter, Science Fiction Bok Club, Nanny Ogg`s Cookbook, RA Salvatore, Mythology (Alex Ross), Fastner & Larson, Best page in the universe, etc, etc...
Jan 07, 2004   Clint`s rules, X-Men 2, Holes, Pirates, Two Towers, Freaky Friday (Haley Hudson), new drawings, Thieves` World, Playskool Star Wars, new Interest section
Jan 02, 2004   nothing all that interesting...
Dec 21, 2003   Nemo, Highlander page, Christmas vacation 2003, star wars kid
Dec 12, 2003   E.T. (Erika Eleniak), new drawings, Opus, Santa Claus 2 (Elizabeth Mitchell), Legolas toy/pics, How to Deal (Mandy Moore), Myth update, Last Samurai
Nov 27, 2003   Another Fine Myth, Elf
Nov 22, 2003   Dude, Where`s Bill & Ted
Nov 18, 2003   Not much to say
Nov 15, 2003   Disneyland, Astronaut`s Wife, Dumer and Dumber-er, Monstrous Regiment
Nov 10, 2003   Terry Pratchett, Matrix Revolutions
110103   School of Rock, Terry Pratchett signing, Darth Vader MBNA bust, San Diego fires
Aug 17, 2003   Johnny English, San Diego Comic-Con
Jun 17, 2003   Assorted ramblings
May 28, 2003   Not much to say
May 24, 2003   Almost nothing of note
May 17, 2003   Matrix Reloaded, Pirates
Mar 23, 2003   The Police, Pirates, Lord of the Rings grievances part II
Mar 16, 2003   Lord of the Rings grievances part 1
Super auld stuff   A big list of old submissions with boat loads of broken links

A rainy-day Disney adventure...and Dwight Schrute!

I mentioned a few months ago that I had again purchased annual passes for Disneyland for the family. So near the end of February, the wife and I decided to have a quick little visit and just use Downtown Disney parking for our visit (to save $20 on parking). We'd tried this the last time we had annual passes, but without buying anything in Downtown Disney to receive validation, so we were only able to park for free for two hours - which made the trip seem a little less worthwhile since the round-trip to Disneyland takes at least this long.

This was before the current, more stringent, no-longer-free parking validation rules were put into place that require validation with a minimum Downtown Disney purchase of $20 for the first three hours in the Downtown Disney parking lot. I did a little research on Downtown Disney parking validation and discovered that if you buy a meal at any of the Downtown Disney the table service restaurants, you can get validated for 5 hours of free parking. Granted, the table-service restaurants are going to cost you more than parking at the satellite Disney lots - we generally spend between $40 and $50 for just the two of us. But the cost of parking in the other lots doesn't include a meal. So depending on the amount of food ordered - I suspect the number of hours they validate depends on the amount spent on food, but I'm not 100% sure about this - and the planned duration of your stay, this may not work out to be a big money saver. But there is one definite added benefit: you don't have to take a bus or tram in from the parking lot to get into Downtown Disney. You just walk into Disneyland like you did in the good ol' days of Disneyland.

As luck would have it, there was rain in the forecast on the day we planned to go. And rain it did - for about 10 minutes. It even hailed for a few minutes. We had already arrived at our Downtown Disney dining establishment of choice, The La Brea Bakery Cafe, and were seated during the brief downpour, waiting for our food so we didn't get to experience the rain pelting down on us (we enjoyed the discomfort of the employees and light crowds walking past the restaurant from our dry, but outdoor, table).

You may be wondering why I thought it lucky to be at Disneyland on a rainy day. These photos may help explain my love for rainy days at Disneyland.

Because of the cooler temperatures and the rain, the crowds were really light. It would have been a perfect day to park in all-day parking and enjoy the the park, but we ended up just going on a couple of rides, having some ice cream, and buying a shirt for the wife (because you know what good deals they have in the shops on Main Street) - leaving around 4 hours later. We could have stayed another hour, but the parking ticket we received from the Downtown Disney lot said validation was only good for 4 hours of free parking, and the big red "4" validation stamp on the ticket seemed to back this up, so we didn't want to take any chances. We found out, after asking the waiter on our next visit, what the real deal was. But I'll be blathering on about that in a second.

But first, some thoughts on one of the many books I've read recently (actual physical books, not eBooks I was asked to read and review)...

The Bassoon King My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy

I found The Bassoon King on the discount book rack at Barnes and Noble. I'd like to say that I'd been aware of Dwight Schrute's literary opus before I saw it there...but I wasn't. I hadn't heard anything about it on any of the the podcasts I listen to, web sites I visit, or book-related emails I receive. And yes, I intentionally said this was Dwight Schrute's, not Rainn Wilson's, literary opus because even though Rainn Wilson isn't Dwight Schrute (as you'll become very aware throughout this book), he will always be Dwight to me.

But speaking of Dwight, if you enjoyed Rainn's character on the office, you'll love the book's introduction, penned as Dwight.

I do not read books for funny stories or whimsical insights. Ever. If I am reading a book, it is for the purpose of absorbing factual information about what is happening on Planet Earth, Middle Earth, Westeros, Galactica, Asgard, Mount Olympus, or Lackawanna County.

This writer, "Rainn Wilson," is a laughable idiot. He thinks he's funny, but he's merely pathetic. Unless you think stories about weird religions, nerd-loving parents, bassoons, and acting are fascinating. I sure don't.

Ooooh, you did live plays in the theater. Big deal. So did the cast of Glee and nobody cares about them anymore.

Oooooh, so you were an actor on TV shows. Well so was Jack Bauer. You don't see Jack Bauer writing a book about his life. (He's got serious work to do, plus his life is classified. And when the hell would he write, anyway? I've seen every minute of his day, the guy doesn't even have time to urinate!) Actually, maybe he has Written a book about his life. I wouldn't know. The last time I was in that section of the bookstore was a long time ago, and I stormed out in anger because they did not have a book by Sam Neill that I had gotten my heart set on during the long drive to the Wilkes-Barre Borders (now defunct) from my farm (still in business, thank you very much).

OOOOH, YOU'RE A MEMBER OF AN OBSCURE, STRANGE-SOUNDING RELIGIOUS MINORITY. WELL, WHY DON'T YOU RENT WITNESS AND WATCH THOSE TEENAGE PUNKS DAB ICE CREAM ON ALEXANDER GODUNOV AND LET'S SEE WHO'S BEEN PERSECUTED WORSE!

Also, why is this privileged Hollywood windbag writing a memoir when he's in his forties? It doesn't make any sense. He's not even close to death. (Although, after reading this pile of steaming goat feces, I wish he was.) Fact: NO. ONE. CARES.

Rainn isn't Dwight, but in some ways (judging by the Dwight comments above), he very much is Dwight. They both have the same uber-nerd interests.

  • 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.: Run around in the woods with Chris Cole's bow and arrow and shoot it at a bunch of old tires.
  • 3:00 - 9:30 p.m.: Strive to finish clearing out the dungeons of Aktar, making sure to find Hosgurd's key (which we would need to get the treasure from Klur the Copper Dragon, of course).
  • 9:30 - 10:00 p.m.: Snack on fruit from the giant boxes of free produce the Higginses had stacked in their garage from their divorced, absent father who ran a food distribution company and supposedly sent bananas and apples over by the pallet in lieu of making child support payments.
  • 10:00 p.m. - 2:00 a.m.: Attempt to finish level nine of the dungeon and slay Klur the Copper Dragon in order to obtain entrance into the Castle of Garadrel.

Sunday
  • 10:00 - 11:00 a.m.: Eat runny scrambled eggs with parents (eye-roll a lot, classical music plunking away in the background).
  • 11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.: finish the Castle of Garadrel. Celebrate with Twizzlers and Slurpees and some furtive, adrenalized glimpses at a stack of Cheri porno mags that Tim had found at the bottom of some old boxes in the corner of their basement. (This was the late seventies. Porn wasn't as ubiquitous and "one click away" as it is now. We had to work for our porn back then!)
  • 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.: Do all of the next week's homework while watching Colombo.

About once every month or two we would forgo a day of gaming in order to head out to one of the rare gamer/comic stores in the Seattle area. The best one was in Kent, Washington, which was a two-hour bus ride away. The trip would be a daylong event but totally worth it. A bus full of dork meat, meandering its way to the hobby shop, where we would stock up on the little metal miniature figurines of orcs and trolls and warriors and the model paint to adorn them with, the multisided dice that drove the game, and, most important, the dungeon maps and books of monsters and spells that were our bible. I will never forget the musty smell of those stores and the mystery of their aisles, filled with magical possibility and the strange, almost-always-bearded man grumpily gargoyled at the cash register, reading The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks for the seventh time.

Before Hollywood discovered the world of comic book nerds and sci-fi geeks, before the cultural tastemaking explosion of Comic-Con, there was a special yearly event at the saddest Hyatt in the world: Norwescon.

This was (and still is!) a yearly fantasy and sci-fi convention that would draw out all the nerd vermin from the mossy burbs of Western Washington. There was a huge bookstore and D-level actors who had once guested on Star Trek signing glossies. Favorite sci-fi authors like Philip Jose Farmer and Frederik Pohl were treated like rock stars there, signing copies of their books and walking the halls like members of House Lannister. And the capper was a big party called the "Masquerade" on Saturday night, where you were encouraged to dress like a Klingon or barbarian or alien.

My dad would go every year to sign a handful of copies of his book and speak on various panels, and I would proudly watch him among the other author-gods. Yes, there were actual panel discussions on science fiction, fantasy, comics, and gaming. I remember once ducking into the back of a conference room where a team of dandruffy professor types were intensely pondering whether it would be in character for Conan the Barbarian to boil water during his travels.

There was a "screening room" (i.e., dilapidated conference room) that had movies showing in it twenty-four hours a day. That is where I first saw Silent Running with Bruce Dern, Zardoz with Sean Connery, and The Fearless Vampire Killers by Roman Polanski. The unwashed sci-fi hippie contingent who didn't have the money to get a hotel room would simply sleep in the screening room in their sleeping bags with loud, poorly projected sci-fi movies blaring and flickering around them all night long.

I even played an elven thief in a Dungeons & Dragons competition, taking second place at age fifteen. A group of ten lost souls sat in a boardroom at the Hyatt, playing various imaginary characters for an entire day, while outside in the real world, hearts were broken, sacrifices undertaken, connections made, babies born, tears shed, and lives lived. Not in the Evergreen Room at the SeaTac Hyatt, though. There, chaotic-neutral dwarves and half-orc magic users pranced about in imaginary caves for hour after hour seeking treasure, glory, and magic scimitars.

Eventually, because of my dweeby exploits, I would be given the key to a magical, mythical city. A city that others can only dream of. The renowned municipality of Nerdopolis. I would also be made its lord, mayor, and spokesperson (as you're about to read).

As with most biographical-type books, there's a middle section in the book full of photos (there are a few black and white photos elsewhere through out the book, as well).

But the Fantasy role-playing, convention-frequenting nerd was just the tip of the iceberg. He was a member of every club that would get you a beating from the cool kids.

I ASK YOU TO SAVOR THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE: FOR SEVERAL years, off and on, I was a member of the following clubs at school: marching band, pep band, orchestra, debate club, computer club, chess club, Model United Nations, and pottery club.

Note: The above list does not include my aforementioned role-playing gaming, Baha'i youth activities, medieval weapons sketching, kung fu movie obsession, or vast Columbia Record and Tape Club* cassette collection featuring Journey, Styx, Asia, and REO Speedwagon.


* The Columbia Record and Tape Club was the most brilliant scam perpetrated on young Americans since the Vietnam War. For one dollar you'd get like twelve cassettes sent to you just for joining. Then you'd have to buy a handful of tapes at the "regular" amount (which was like $16.99 or some similarly astronomical price) over the course of the year. You'd get mailed a brochure of new releases, and if you didn't mail the postcard back saying, "No, thanks, I don't want anything this month,", they'd automatically send you their selection of the month and BILL YOU FOR IT. It was a duplicitous scheme, preying on knuckleheaded teens who didn't have the wherewithal to return a postcard every month and who would end up with a Peter Frampton cassette they never wanted and a bill for $l6.99. It did, however, launch many a young person's Van Halen cassette tape collection!

As you may have noticed, Rainn's not above an explanatory tangential footnote. There are a lot of them throughout the book. One of these spans the bottom of five consecutive pages.

Returning to the nerdly life of Rainn Wilson, at this point in the book I had begun to feel some kinship with Rainn, having been a fantasy role-playing nerd in my own High School career. I was almost a band nerd, but abandoned that path well before High School. And I was never social enough to be in any clubs, so I escaped all those nerd trappings. But I really felt a kinship with Rainn when I read Chapter 6.

TWO THINGS HAPPENED TO ME WHEN I TURNED SIXTEEN. I discovered punk rock and I moved to Chicago.

In suburban Seattle there were two radio stations: KISW and KZOK. If you didn't listen to those you were pummeled into oblivion by the rockers that be. They played one kind of music only: CLASSIC ROCK ROCK rock rock rock!!!!

Then, out of the blue, a friend gave me some cassette tapes she had recorded from her hi-fi player: the Clash's London Calling, the Police's Reggata de Blanc and Outlandos d' Amour, Squeeze's East Side Story, and Elvis Costello's My Aim Is True. My world was turned upside down and inside out in an instant, and my ears pinwheeled in delight.

After years of Billy Squier, Van Hagar, Air Supply, and Styx, I had never dreamed music like this existed anywhere. Sure, classic rock was awesome in its way, but the bloated, obvious, macho crooning and endless midtempo guitar solos were becoming an ear-sickening cliche. Nineteen eighty-two brought us some great radio fare, such as Queen and the Cars and Cheap Trick and Blondie and ELO, who all crafted some delightful tunes, but the angry young men of punk and new wave, with their whip-smart lyrics and rebellious melodies, made musical and lyrical explosions that completely captured my soul.

Rainn is a little bit older than me, but we both grew up in essentially the same decade. I still remember when I heard The Police for the first time over a Christmas Holiday in Arizona when I was probably twelve years old. We were on our way home and I listened to a Ghost in the Machine cassette I'd gotten for Christmas over and over again on my gigantic knock-off Not-Sony Walkman, savoring every note, every clever lyric. That led to acquisition of the previous three Police albums. And an endless pursuit of all things related to The Police (posters, books, magazines, single-records, buttons, etc.)

But enough about me. Let's get back to Rainn...

The book is primarily a Rainn Wilson biography, but there are a few chapters devoted just to stories about The Office. And let's admit it - that's what I really wanted to read about. I enjoyed the rest of the book, but The Office is what we all know Rainn for and that's why we bought the book. This excerpt is pretty lengthy, but well worth the read.

I believe my first audition was in November, but I wouldn't get a call back for a "network test" until January.

Normally screen-testing for lead roles on network television shows involves traipsing into a conference room filled with ADHD television executives who are furiously thumbing away at their phones, doing a couple of short scenes in the most nerve-wracking environment known to man, and then waiting an hour or two to hear if you got the part or not.

Greg Daniels, our exceptionally bright creator/show-runner, did things completely differently. The pilot for The Office was to be shot on a soundstage but in reverse. We would shoot the scenes in the upstairs production offices and prepare for the shooting down in the giant soundstages below. This had never been done before in the history of Hollywood, I believe.

It was up in those drab offices above the enormous stages, over the course of a weekend, that Greg, our keen director Ken Kwapis, and the other producers held the final auditions for the finalists. It was there that I would first work with Jenna Fischer, John Krasinski, and Steve Carell.

There were five or six people testing for each of the major roles. The producers mixed and matched all of us over the course of a weekend in scripted scenes as well as improvised ones.

There were some really interesting and talented actors, but the only scenes I really remember doing were with Jenna and John, who were absolutely adorable and hysterical in the roles. I remember thinking that they WERE Jim and Pam. They WERE the characters, effortless and charming as all get-out.

The other actresses were kind of nervous and flustered in the waiting room, but Jenna just sat there, reading Wired, a John Belushi biography. I remember asking her about the book and her offhandedly saying something about how it was a book Pam would probably be reading.

John was SUPER young back then (seventeen? twelve?) and had a fun, exuberant energy that was really positive and infectious. The funny thing was that the NBC New York casting agent told his manager that John was only right for the character of Dwight and insisted that he would only bring him in for that role. John rightfully refused to go in for Dwight and kept trying to get an audition for Jim. Eventually, of course, they relented and allowed John to try out for Jim Halpert, and the rest is history. We did some mix-and-match, scripted audition scenes, and then came the fun part: the improvisations.

I remember doing an improv with Jenna where Greg instructed me to let her know that if she was breaking up with Roy, I was available to date.

I was off to the races. I knelt in REALLY close to her (too close, creepy) and started telling her about my girlfriend, Regina, who was stationed in Kuwait City, and how much I missed her. I went on and on in a really hushed, conspiratorial way, and Jenna just sat there with an impossibly pained expression on her blank, lovely face. I let her know that I was a good sympathetic shoulder to lean on if she ever wanted to talk about her problems with Roy and with men in general, and that we should go out sometime and get a smoothie.

Here was the most brilliant thing about this improvisation: not my silly prattling on, but the fact that Jenna said almost nothing. Many actors when improvising believe that talking more is the key to being more interesting and/or funny. The very best improvisers have the ability to use silence and understand that less is more. Most actors in her situation would probably have started babbling and trying to get some jokes in. Not Jenna. She bravely just sat there looking disgusted, polite, sweet, and constipated all at the same time. I knew that she was going to be Pam.

For YEARS afterward the writers talked about giving Dwight a former girlfriend who had been stationed in Kuwait City and would come back to town and butt up against Angela. I begged them to cast Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica in the potential role. It never quite happened. But the card with the idea written on it, based off of the improvisation from my audition, hung on the wall in the writers' room for years and years.

During this endless and incredibly fun audition process, I got to do a number of improvs with John Krasinski. It was a blast and we had amazing combative chemistry right from the start. We did a scene where he had to ask me to mind his phone while he went to the bathroom (I refused, of course, infuriating him). And another where he generously gave me a glass of water (which I was terrified of and paranoid about to an impossible degree). Our characters butted heads in a visceral, exciting way from the very beginning of our coming together at that now-famous desk clump.

(To the very end there was no one I had better chemistry with than John. As different as we are as people, there was a strange, almost psychic rapport we had while acting. We would often know exactly what the other was going to do and say, and play off of it. I also really appreciated the working relationship in that we could direct each other without any ego. We would often give each other lines to try out and little comic bits to play. Some of Dwight's funniest moments came actually from the fantastic brain of John Krasinski.)

All I remember about working with Steve at the audition was an improvisation where he was taking me to task for borrowing his coffee cup and leaving it dirty on his desk. I denied it, of course, and that's when he told me with disgust and venom that he had found OVALTINE in the cup! I started laughing and I couldn't stop. They had to end the scene right then and there.

Later I found out that I was the only person the producers submitted to the network for approval for the role. Soon thereafter I was cast as Dwight and my life was transformed.

Here's some more because I'm sure that wasn't enough...

Our show got picked up for five additional episodes in the spring of 2004, but we didn't air until the spring of 2005. And then when we did, we tanked.

Everybody hated us. Our reviews were awful.* People either didn't understand the show or HATED the fact that we had done a pilot that was 90 percent similar to the lionized British Office. I know this because I sat in front of my computer for hours reading all the online comments with a sad, long, diarrhea face. (I now know better than to do this.) I was called "over-the-top," "annoying," and "pig-like" on countless online message boards. The show was reviled as an ugly-looking, unfunny train wreck by some, and a blatant, pathetic, unfunny rip-off of the classic BBC gem by others. "Unfunny" was the common ground that both camps could agree on, apparently.

The reason we did essentially the same script as the BBC Office was a very simple, practical one. When you do a pilot for a television studio and network, they are notorious for meddling with the material. They give notes on every aspect of the script and shoot. They want control of the casting. They want the set design to be brighter


* A note about reviews: Pretty much everything I have ever done, other than Juno, has gotten slammed in the reviews. I have been eviscerated by hundreds of film and TV critics for over a decade. l believe it is much easier to write a negative, snarky, contemptuous review than to write an evenhanded one. It also gets more reads. But the thing that gets me the most is comparisons. The Office was compared (unfavorably) to the British Office. The Rocker was compared (unfavorably) to School of Rock. Super was compared (unfavorably) to Kick-Ass. Backstrom was compared (unfavorably) to House MED.

See a pattern here? There are a limited number of stories on the planet. Shakespeare told most of them. And The Sopranos and The Simpsons the rest. The easiest, laziest thing for a reviewer to do is to compare something to another work that is a classic and has some similarities. It's a gross misuse of critical power and a disgusting waste of ink and time. Take the Rocker. There are similarities to the flawless classic School of Rock in that there is an older character who loves rock and roll and he's interacting about said music form with younger people. But that's where the comparison ends. One is a movie about an unemployed rocker who gets a job teaching at a prep school and charmingly and chaotically coaches his twelve-year-olds in a battle of the bands. The other film is about an old former metal drummer who accidentally becomes a YouTube sensation and goes out on the road with his eighteen-year-old nephew's band. Yes, there is an older rocker character and younger characters, but past that the comparison just doesn't hold water. And yet, every single review of The Rocker said it was trying to be School of Rock and wasn't as good.

As for Backstrom, is every single show that has an antisocial, destructive, and brilliant lead character going to be compared to House until the end of time? when does that stop? ls it not a viable setup for a television show? The differences between Backstrom and House FAR outweigh the few similarities. (Not to mention the fact that the entire conceit of Backstrom is based on a series of Swedish books.Do the reviewers believe that the crime novelist Leif G. W. Persson based his books on the American TV show House?)

Now, is an occasional comparison warranted in a review? Yes. Occasionally. But for the most part it's a lazy, easy, obvious way to review work. But let's face it, for the most part reviewers have never created or made anything. They righteously pass judgment from their laptops on other people's work and have simply never laid out their hearts and minds and souls to an audience attempting to entertain, uplift, and challenge. So suck it, critics.

Here's one last quote from the book that I thought was worth sharing. And it has one last footnote. And also explains the title.

It was through the creation of SoulPancake and Lide that so many of my personal passions have been pulled together: comedy and spirituality, entertainment and big ideas, the arts and service to humanity. I've been blessed with these two great outlets in my life. With SoulPancake I've been able to combine creativity, humor, and service in a tangible, impactful way, and with Lide, I've been able to use the arts to help heal, educate, and transform.

Actually, I should say, three great outlets. Because when I need to get a little crazy, just throw out all the rules, and vent the wild, untamed part of me, I break out my old bassoon. AND. I. ROCK. To quote Jim Morrison: "I am the Bassoon King! I can do ANYTHING!"*


* I may have gotten this quote wrong.

I only highlighted the stuff in the book that I found funny, or relate-able, or was Office-related (which doesn't exclude it from the previous two categories, but is still a category of its own). But that's only a small part of the book. There are a lot of funny and introspective glimpses of many other parts of Rainn's life that I enjoyed - but I can't mention everything. And then there were the odder, and sadder, parts of his life that are also well worth mentioning, but...you'll have to read the book to find out about those.


I had planned to mention yet another Disney trip, a couple of CDs, always more books, a signing with Raymond E Feist I attended, and several other mention-worthy things I've jotted down...but this is already unreadably long. So next time. Possibly soonish.



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