Really funny stuff-

Watching the World Series tonight, extremely happy about the Diamondbacks being up two games to none.

Anyway, the Yankees lost tonight, and Aaron (not very sports savvy) said,

"So... if the Yankees lose...?"
And Zac finishes, totally deadpan: "Then the terrorists will have won."

GOOD NEWS! MY BOOKS CAME!

I received a package from the Mail Recovery Center containing my three missing yearbooks and my four Harry Potter volumes. That leaves many books unaccounted for, but I have the most important ones returned. Gosh, I'm fortunate. I'm very glad that they didn't just give up- I'm happy to have my picks.

I'll sleep happily tonight!! :)

The posters for "Trotsky" were posted today, and I am being credited as "The Fantastic David McGee." I like the sound of that!

The "uber-book" I'm reading currently is "Godel, Escher, Bach"- simply an amazing book. But due to the length of the chapters it's impossible to read just a short amount. If I happen to have a fifteen minute break in which to read (fifteen minutes are a blessing in my schedule) I'll have to stop in the middle of learning a concept, so when I get back to the book I'm totally lost. I've taken to reading "mini-books" as well, that I might have some entertainment in my short breaks. I have now read "Dave Barry Turns 50" (by Truman Capote (just kidding)), and I am currently reading (amendment- just finsihed reading)"Equal Rites," the third in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.

The Dave Barry book was hysterical (as his works always are). This book is unlike his past volumes in that it is basically a walk-through of the existence of Baby-Boomers from the late 1940s until now. I would recommend it to anyone that happens to be a Baby-Boomer, those whose parents are Baby-Boomers, those who have ever heard the term Baby-Boomer, and just generally those that know how to read English words. Dave Barry rocks!

Terry Pratchett amuses the heck out of me. If you're into Douglas Adams-ish storytelling but have read all of his books 42 times, pick up something by Pratchett. The first in the Discworld series is called "The Color of Magic" (at least that's the publishing title here, I highly doubt that the British version shares this title- so you could also check out "The Colour of Magic"). I would also strongly recommend "Good Omens", a joint effort between Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. It just so happens to be one of the funniest books I have ever encountered.

Finally, for this week's videogame review, we have "Batman: Vengeance," which somehow manages to be fun despite its plethora of shortcomings. The camera is terrible, the graphics are sub-par for the PS2 (though there are some good animations), the controls need major tweaking. The control scheme is the most frustrating aspect of the game. It is often very difficult to do the simplest tasks, and it lacks the freedom offered by the PS1 Spider-Man games. Somehow, despite all of this, the game is really fun to play. It seems that they got just the right mix of fighting, puzzle solving (even if they are mind-numbingly simple puzzles), and running around Gotham that it's keeping my interest. This seems to be the first fun Batman game since the Genesis incarnation of the first Batman movie. It turns out to be tons of fun (especially when your roommates are all sitting around yelling "You're the best in the biz, Dave!" and "Way to go Batman!" and "Boy do you suck, want me to do this part for you?").

Go Mariners!

Gosh dern it.

The Yankees just beat the Mariners in the bottom of the ninth inning, taking their series lead to 3-1. That angers me. The Yankees are evil and must be stopped. All your base(ball) are belong to us.

No reheasals tonight! Yippee!

I saw a short play last week entitled "What She Found There wriiten by John Glore. It was directed by a friend of mine called Whitney Whetstone- it was wonderful! The performances were superb, the play was clever and well-written, the direction was outstanding. Pick up a copy of the play and take a look- it's good stuff, just as text.

So I know how much it bugs me when Josh doesn't put something new on his site everyday- and even though I have about 1/10th of the readership that his site does, I'm still making it a goal to add a new post everyday. Yes! I stand strong!

And one more thing... I made a "friendly wager" with Whitney Pastorek (two Whitneys in one post!!!) regarding the Yankees/Athletics series. Then the A's went up 2 games to none, but the Yankees ended up sending them home by winning three straight games, two of them in Oakland. When I played Old Joe Boyd in my high school's production of "Damn Yankees" I never thought that "I'd" actually be sitting in my chair yelling "I hate those damn Yankees!" Isn't that "funny"?

Hello all...

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I've been extremely busy, and I just haven't had the gusto to write a new post in a while.

It's been a long week. Rehearsals for Variations on the Death of Trotsky are in full swing. We open in just under 2 weeks, so crunch time is coming. I've had lots of rehearsals for various scenes (assignments from various classes) as well as boat-loads of non-scene-homework. They weren't kidding when they told us that the 2nd year Playwrights curriculum was tough. Jeepers.

I am continuing to read Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach." This is such a wonderful book! At times the math concepts seem a measure above my head, but Hofstadter is able to both teach the math and explain the ideas in clever, intelligent, simple ways.

Still now word about my books.

More to follow!

I made an extremely funny joke (yes, I do say so myself) in design class on Wednesday. While we were discussing foam-core (a cardstock/styrofoam hybrid) my instructor said "Make sure you don't mix big foam-core and little foam-core."

I said, "Those sound like Civil War battles."

Blank stares all around.

I followed- "You know, like "Battle of Big Foam-Core?" My friend Sheila gave me a courtesy chuckle, but that was it. To be so misunderstood... :)

It's been a while since my last post. I've spent the past few days getting extremely annoyed at little things that just irk me.

1) I have a cold. I don't like being sick at all. Chicken soup, vitamin C, and the Playstation 2. I'll be better soon.

2) There are 12 stairs between floors in this building. There are twenty-six floors and only two elevators. So some informal rules (that were posted last month) remind people that consecutive floors should not be visited- for instance, if 25 is pushed, one shouldn't push 24. I'm on the top floor... it had been a very long day, I came home yesterday, got into the elevator. Someone else had pushed 25, so I was ready to walk up to 26. Two people got into the elevator, and pushed 23 and 24. So I yelled at them a little bit. in a nice way. OK, I simply suggested that maybe they wouldn't want to do that again, because I was too tired and sick to argue.

And then, this morning, as I'm in a rush to get to the bus-stop, someone gets in at 23 and pushes 19. The hell? That's just laziness. Pure laziness. That makes me mad. It made the elevator stop at two unnecessary floors. I got to the bus on time, but that's not the point... you get it.

And finally...
3) I saw a sign in a store window that read:
"Please"
Check All Bags

Have you noticed this phenomenon? Like

This is a
"Non-Smoking"
Restaraunt

I put quotes around words like that when I'm being facetious. It makes it sound like they're joking. If they want to put emphasis on that word, UNDERLINE IT. OR PUT IT IN CAPS LIKE THIS. QUOTES DO NOT GIVE EMPHASIS. Grrr....

OK, I'm off my soapbox. For now.

So Bonds set the new single season home-run record last night... twice. He hit #s 71 and 72... which is great and everything, but they lost the game and are out of playoff contention now. I'm not too happy about that... but I'm glad that at least one of the goals was achieved. I still wish they would win the Series though...

Yet even in my sadness over the loss of playoff possibilities for my Giants, there is still enough gusto to point out the sweet, sweet irony of life.

Just before Bonds jacked #71 in San Francisco, Mark McGwire struck out in St. Louis. Isn't that great?

I have a question... are they going to fly the McGwire family out to San Francisco, in case Bonds breaks the homerun record? So that he can go hug them? Get it?

(This should be followed by hearty laughter in healthy amounts. I swear, it's very funny.)

I watched the special episode of "The West Wing" last night. I thoroughly enjoyed it- especially because it is obvious that Aaron Sorkin frequents this page (and is ripping off my moves!). In all seriousness, it was interesting to hear the dialogue unfold as it paralleled, almost perfectly, the conversation that I had with my roommate Aaron (which is the subject of a previous post). I greatly admire Aaron Sorkin's writing... and as a student of theater, also interested in politics, it is a boost to my ego that on this occasion our theories, indeed our words, were very similar.

I just landed the role of Trotsky in David Ives' play "Variations on the Death of Trotsky." It's a student production here at NYU... I'm quite excited to be acting again, and looking forward to it yippee-skippilly. If you're in the New York area at the end of October/beginning of November, you should come in for 15 minutes of the Fantastic David McGee. :)

More videogame reviews!

We rented "Red Faction" for the PS2. Here's the review- get Half-Life for the PC.
We rented "High Heat Major League Baseball 2002" for the PS2. Wow, is it ugly. The graphics look like slightly-better-than-meidocre Playstation graphics, which is sad. But the gameplay is absolutely wonderful. Finally, a baseball game has a contol scheme with which I am completely happy. If you're looking for the best in graphics, I'd check out other titles. If you want the best gaming experience, go with High Heat.

The eleven o'clock news team on my local NBC station just announced that "Osama bin Laden has the capablity to launch bio-war."

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn, damn fear tactic. I can't believe they're pulling this kind of stuff now. The situation is already terrible enough without them adding this into the mix. I have the capability to launch bio-war.

All I have to do is order or create the biological weapon, and throw it out my window.

I certainly have the capability, and so certainly does Osama bin Laden. Does he have the means? Does he have the supplies?

Well, the NBC news team doesn't know. But they're sure willing to use semantics to scare us into thinking he does.