I can't believe it's Friday, which means tomorrow is the weekend. Where did this week go, anyway?
A few things I wanted to mention before I get busy:
1. If you'd told me a year ago that I'd be going to bed between 9 and 10 every night, then waking up entirely on my own between 6 and 7 the next morning, I would have called you a name ... but it's what I've been doing the last six weeks, because I'd rather wake up on my own, than be woken up by the fucking construction next door.
2. Scott Kurtz' PvP is always wonderful, but The Incident just killed me. Start with part one and work your way forward - it only lasts a minute, though, so don't rush it.
3. I don't know how I lived without click2flash until this morning, but since I installed it, my Mac is easily 5000% faster.
3+1. My friend Amber pointed out that today (1120) = (1 × 2 × 3 × 4 × 5 × 6 × 7 × 8) / (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8). I love that, and it makes me wish I was better at math.
5. Speaking of wanting to be better at math, I have this idea for a class at a community college. It's for people like me who are in their 30s and have realized that they've forgotten a lot of the things they learned in high school, things like rules of grammar, algebra, chemistry, and civics. The truth is, unless you use those things every day, the reality of adult responsibilities pushes them out of your head. I mean, I'm a pretty smart guy, and there are times when I have to write down a math problem that I used to be able to do in my head, and some of the spelling and grammar errors I make are just embarrassing – and I'm a writer! So my idea is for an 8 week class that meets once or twice a week for a couple hours, that would be a mental tune up for guys like me. We don't need to relearn everything from the beginning, we just need to stimulate that part of our memory where algebra and geometry are stored so we can remember the things we used to take for granted. Someone do that, and do it at PCC so I can walk there, okay?
6. Speaking of college: I'm going to CalTech today to do an awesome thing for NASA. I'll be on campus for a few hours, and I had an idea that could be fun: I'm pretty sure a non-zero number of people at CalTech read my blog or follow me on Twitter (or are a few degrees from someone who does), so the first person to find me there today and say "Qapla'!" gets a signed copy of Uchu, one of the Star Trek mangas I wrote. (NB: If I'm working with you today, you're ineligible*. Sorry.)
7. Is it just me, or has the last week brought a significant uptick in people being dicks on Twitter? I'm blocking a lot more people than usual. It has a Long September feeling to it, but I realize my user experience isn't the same as a normal person's.
√64. I've been asked if I'll be at ConCon (the Leverage convention) next year in Portland. I'm not sure they're interested in bringing in guest stars (and, honestly, if you had to choose between me and Mark Sheppard, I'm obviously staying home) but if they are, yeah, I'd love to be part of it.
9. People ask me all the time if I'll come to their city for a show. I haven't been willing to travel very far, because it's too risky to invest in travel and shipping merchandise only to have 40 people show up. But Paul F. Tomkins wrote a post for his blog about how he's letting people build an audience that makes it worth his time and money to travel to their town and do a show, and it makes a lot of sense to me. I think it's a model I could duplicate (or at least attempt to duplicate) so if you're at all interested in seeing me perform live in a town near you (read: not Los Angeles) then please read his post. I'll expand on it next week. (Related to this: let's say I could do a live show that was streamed online. I would perform some stories for about an hour or so, and then take questions from The Internet. It would probably cost about $5 or $10. Does that sound like something you'd be interested in doing with me?)
X. Looking for something to do this weekend? GET EXCITED AND MAKE THINGS! There's a ton of inspiration from your fellow creators in the comments on this post.
*Sigh. I had to look up the proper spelling of "ineligible." Please, someone, get to work on that class, okay? I feel stupid.
