Author Archives: Michael C. McGreevy

Going Pro

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Image courtesy of upside of inertia via flickr

I often wonder what the actual threshold is for being able to claim that you are a “professional” in any given activity. The basic definition I have always used is whether or not you get paid for what you do. I have been paid to act in every production I have been in since 2001 (with one exception), so I am comfortable calling myself a professional actor. Is that enough, though? I mean, if you do ONE show in your entire life when you get a paycheck can you call yourself a professional? Is there a minimum number of shows you should do? Should you have to have an Equity card? Perhaps you can only say you are a professional if you actually make a living acting.

I was recently part of a production of Biloxi Blues that was criticized by Tampa Bay Times writer John Flemming as being “amateurish” because nobody in the cast was a member of Actors’ Equity. This caused a bit of a stir in the Tampa Bay area, because the fact is that around here most of the paid actors who appear on our stages are NOT members of the union. He, in a nutshell, called anyone out who didn’t have a card as being an amateur. Needless to say, that rankled.

I feel this way about my blogging on occasion as well. This blog has never generated any kind of revenue in the past. I have sold a few of my Cafe Press T-shirts, but those sales have come through direct links on my Twitter feed or through people stumbling across my shirts in the Cafe Press store. I got some work at WoWInsider as a result of being a part of the now-defunct ShrinkGeek blog, though, so I wonder if I can now say I’m a professional blogger? I’ve been paid to write for a blog that gets millions of page views every month, so does that count? Or do I have to actually be working full-time as a blogger to earn this achievement.

My former boss decided, after his position with our company was eliminated, that he was going to try earning his keep by playing poker. Does that make him a professional poker player, or does he only get that distinction if he shows up on ESPN in one of those big tournaments? Is it enough for him to make his living by playing through a web site like [redacted]?

Does the fact that I’m now getting offers to place paid advertisements on my blog make me a professional?

Or does it make me a sell out?

Does the fact that I wrote an entire post about the subject in order to include a paragraph that was relevant to the advertisement that was purchased add or detract to my sell out factor?

Do you see what I did there?

Yeah, I figured you did.

Maybe I’m less professional and more prostitute, but daddy has bills to pay and this blog ain’t paying for itself.

Edit – April 24, 2014

So I was asked to remove the link to the site in question due to my advertising no longer being needed. Funny, that. They only paid me for a year, but I completely forgot about this and they could have just let it ride forever rent-free. Ah well.

So long, Rick…For now.

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So Rick Santorum has finally dropped out of the Republican race for President, leaving the path clear for Mitt Romney to accept the nomination and go up against President Obama in the Fall.

Oh, sure. There’s still candidates left in the race. Ron Paul is vowing to stick in there, and for some reason crazy-assed Newt Gingrich still seems to think there’s some kind of logical reason for him to put up a show of being a candidate. This is a guy whose campaign is bouncing checks in Utah, folks. The proverbial fat lady is screaming in his ear but for some reason he’s refusing to listen.

Wow. I just re-read my last paragraph. You know someone is off his rocker when, compared to folks like Ron Paul I consider him to be the crazy one (and before you start your shit with me, Paul supporters, understand that while I agree with a lot of what he has to say you gotta admit that he’s a bit on the insane side for continually throwing himself into the grinder by trying to get elected on a Republican ticket).

But this post isn’t about Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul. This post is about Rick Santorum. Frankly? The dude scared the shit out of me. The thought of living in a country with him as President was enough to make me seriously do some research into what it would take to move to another country. This is not an exaggeration. I looked things up.

Spoiler alert – It’s a real pain in the ass.

But with all of his insane religious viewpoints, his intolerance of homosexuality, his unrealistic view of the Middle East and why exactly some of the otherwise nice folks who live there would like to see us die in a fire, and his general lack of supporting pretty much anything that I hold to be precious as far as politics are concerned….

I’m going to miss him.

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An Appeal To Authority

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So I put my application letter to attend the Republican National Convention in the mail today. I thought you all might like to read it.

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To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to formally request access to the 2012 Republican National Convention as an Independent Blogger.

I have thought long and hard about how to present myself in this letter, trying to think of the “best” way to convince you that I’m not some kind of crazy hack that is attempting to get in to the convention as a joke. In doing so, I realized that if I had to trick you into believing that I was something I am not then I wasn’t being honest about who I was or why I wanted to attend the convention.

And that’s just not me.

So here’s my pitch, with no exaggerated claims or grandiose promises, and with all of the many reasons you can probably think of not to let me in stated right up front.

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Live Blog – 2012 State of the Union Address

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So I’ve been pretty critical of the Republicans during their 8 bajillion debates. I believe, however, that I’ve also been fair. I’ve certainly admitted when I agreed with them, even if the person who I was agreeing with was Rick Santorum. So tonight I’m turning my snark-o-tron on the guy I’m currently supporting in the 2012 election. I doubt I’m going to end up being nearly as harsh, but if he says things I think are full of crap I’ll admit it.

Let’s see how this goes…

[liveblog]

[sociable/]

Live Blog – ABC News/Yahoo News Republican Debate in New Hampshire

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It’s certainly been an interesting week. I’m honestly shocked that Santorum has suddenly risen to such a prominent spot in the race for the Republican nomination. I mean, from my perspective? The guy is a joke as a candidate. When you look at his petulant behavior during the earlier debates it’s pretty clear that, unless he went through a major personality change, Obama would shred him in a debate during the general election. His views on “family values” and homosexuality range from laughable to offensive, to the point where I think there’s very little chance he win enough votes from moderates and independents to actually win the election. The only real hope he’d have is that a whole slew of people would just stay home instead of choosing between him and Obama.

That said, I think his moment in the spotlight is going to be fleeting.

I really hope that Huntsman is able to make a splash in South Carolina and continue his campaign. I like Huntsman. I don’t agree with his politics in many ways, but he’s not a jackass. I can’t say that about the rest of the contenders.

I also hope that Gingrich decimates Romney. That will be fun.

Commentary is starting, so here we go…

[liveblog]

[sociable]

And so it goes…

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2011 is a few hours away from ending, and like twenty bazillion other people in the world I’m reflecting back on the previous year. For some reason I’ve decided that you, my faithful readers, may be interested in this.

I don’t know why.

Probably because I’m an egomaniac.

Yeah, that’s it.

So anyway…

Went back to school this year. That was pretty damn cool, even if I did have to go to an out of state school because the University of South Florida is run by a bunch of chode monkeys who wouldn’t even acknowledge me when I tried to appeal the fact that they rejected my application. Funny, that. One of the things they tell you when you go to a two-year college here in Florida is that if you graduate with your Associates degree you are guaranteed admission into any of the public four-year universities in the state. Turns out that simply isn’t true. Like, at all. In any case, I’ve been attending the University of Maryland University College and I’m doing quite well there. My grade point average is 3.65 and I’m on track to graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science in the Summer of 2014.

Work is…work? My company spent a lot of money installing SharePoint 2010 and I spent much of my time this year learning new skills to help me program in and administer that software. Part of my training involved a two week trip that included New York and Las Vegas. It was pretty cool, but shockingly enough after two weeks of intense training even “exotic” locations like Las Vegas get old and you start to yearn for home. Not to mention the amount of weight I put on while I was out there.

Oh, yeah. Health wise? This year sucked donkey balls. I managed to stay off the cigarettes (it’s been about 13 months now), but beyond that it’s been almost nothing but disappointment and setbacks. I was diagnosed with gout and as a result I gave up eating meat back in May. You’d think that being a vegetarian would be good for the waist line, but I’ve struggled mightily ever since. I think part of it has to do with the sheer amount of carbohydrates that go into your body when you aren’t eating animal flesh. Who knows? What I DO know is that I am, yet again, back up over 280 pounds. I haven’t weighed this much since we got back from the Goth Cruise, and I’m up 40 pounds from where I was just a few years ago. The gout episode completely derailed my running routine, and I’m still not fully back into it yet. Most of my clothes aren’t fitting properly, I have low energy, and my self-respect is pretty much in the shitter as a result. The last few weeks have been a bit better in that regard, but I’ve still got a long way to go before I start to feel comfortable in my skin again.

Krystalle and I celebrated our 8th anniversary back in July. Jareth turned 21. Alex turned 16. Kimmy split from her husband. My kids are getting older and I have my best friend at my side. That’s pretty awesome.

Theatrically? Did two shows. Should have done four but two of them were canceled (three, technically, but the second wouldn’t have gone up until January). I had my first ever theatrical role, and I had the privilege of, yet again, being the first actor to play a role in an original production. That would have happened twice this year, as I was supposed to be in a musical where the part I was playing was written specifically for me, but that fell through.

Celebrated my 10th season with Jobsite…but ironically haven’t been cast in anything yet for said season. Still one show up in the air, though.

Managed to whip the finances into pretty decent shape for a while there but the last few months have reversed a bit of that. I pulled a major remodeling surprise on Alex while he was out of town for Thanksgiving, and as glad as I am that I did the work the investment was considerable. It seriously needed to be done, though. That room was a health hazard, and that wasn’t ENTIRELY his fault.

All in all it was a good year. It wasn’t a great year, but it wasn’t a bad year. It was very busy. At times it was hard, and on many occasions the one thing I wanted more than anything else was sleep.

That’s still the case, really.

Happy New Year, my friends.

 

How To Survive A Raptor Apocalypse

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I mentioned on Twitter and Facebook that I had selected a “silly” topic for my final project in the Advanced Technical Writing class I am taking at the University of Maryland University College. Several of you said that you’d like to read it, so here in all of its glory is “How To Survive A Raptor Apocalypse”.

P.S. At the end of the post I’ve uploaded a video of the PowerPoint presentation I made to accompany the paper.

Big thanks to my buddy Ned for giving it the once-over with this Technical Writing mojo!

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INTRODUCTION

In 1993, Steven Spielberg amazed the world with his blockbuster film Jurassic Park. The movie, based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton, was a cautionary tale about the potentially horrible consequences that could result from attempting to clone dinosaurs in the modern world. While many audiences were thrilled by the movie, they all went home from the theater that night safe in the knowledge that it was entirely fictional, and that nobody could actually clone dinosaurs.

They were wrong.

A team of Russian and Japanese scientists has announced plans to clone a wooly mammoth sometime in 2012. By combining the DNA of an elephant with marrow cells from a thigh bone of a deceased mammoth, the researchers believe they can re-create an animal that has not walked the planet in more than 10,000 years (Poeter).  When Jurassic Park was released back in 1993 it was impossible to imagine that science would ever be able to actually re-create the fictional experiments that were portrayed in that film, but not even 20 years has passed since then and mankind is playing with fire by reaching back thousands of years to defy the laws of Natural Selection and raise a species from the dead. If these scientists are successful, it’s only a matter of time before they reach even further back in time to satisfy their mad desires to see dinosaurs walking the Earth again.

When they do, it will be a sad day for us all.

If you wish to survive the inevitable dinosaur apocalypse, the time to prepare is NOW. If you wait until the creatures have broken free from their mad creators it will be too late. This guide will help you prepare yourself and your home for the horrible day when science trumps logic and we are thrust head first into a war with a vicious and deadly foe.

Raptors.

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