Category Archives: ramblings
Filk Ontario
This past weekend, I attended Filk Ontario (or FKO in its shortened form) for the first time. For those of you who don’t know, Filk is a vast network of geeky musicians who get together to sing old and new songs about sci-fi and fantasy, most of them falling under the folk music genre. In terms of legacy, it’s been around as long as any sort of geek culture has existed. FKO is the annual Filk gathering in Ontario and Errol convinced me to go with him and Debs after I’d attended a couple of Filk events.
FKO was definitely a different sort of convention experience for me. Strap yourselves in, this is going to be a long blog post. There’s a lot to unpack about FKO…
This is Urban Tapestry…they are awesome.
Spec Ops- The Line
Wow…just…wow…
My friend Dan, who edits all of my Whitless Letters, told me that as payment for his next one I had to watch him play this game Spec Ops- The Line and then write a blog post about it. Now, I don’t normally play shooters. I certainly don’t play anything that resembles Call of Duty or Modern Warfare. Well, I’ve played with my dad on occasion but my inability to shoot straight in tense situations and duck has rendered me fairly useless. Read the rest of this entry
Opinions
A bit more of a boring blog post, but hey, it can’t all be fun and games and we’re in the midst of Camp NaNoWriMo so it’s a good time to have a post about writing! No pictures in this one, sorry. There’s just no time! But if you find it boring, watch this video about being bored. And then buy the book. It is awesome and hilarious:
I’m Bored Music Video (inspired by the new picture book from Simon & Schuster BFYR) from debsanderrol on Vimeo.
I’m writing a new webseries now. This one is a bit different than NaNoMusical. For one, it’s a lot smaller in scale: no musical numbers, two actors, and one location. This makes for easier scheduling and filming. For another, there’s no definite deadline (ie, 3 freaking months). This has given us the chance to play around with the script a bit more before we finally get filming it. Read the rest of this entry
Treadmills
Me: I’m going to the gym today!
Errol: OOH! You should track your kilometres!
Me: Well…I’m going on the elliptical…Half an hour is usually only 2.5 km on the elliptical.
Errol: Oh really? Well, just go on the treadmill then.
Me: …I can’t.
Errol: Why not?
Me: It goes too fast! I’m clinging on for dear life!
Errol: So slow it down!
Me: …I can’t.
Errol: Why not?!
Me: Because then I’d just be walking.
Errol: You really are scared of everything, aren’t you?
Neil Gaiman Tweeted Me…and Normal People Don’t Care
For those of you who don’t know, back in November Errol and I wrote a musical webseries about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). You can find all the episodes here.
It involved a ton of work that resulted in a lot of sleepless nights and bleary eyed days but it was also a great amount of fun and an experience I will remember for the rest of my life.
One of the songs Errol wrote was called “Neil Gaiman Tweeted Me”. Of course we wrote it for his character and there was a reason in the plot for including this, but it was also a way to chronicle the real life incidence when Neil Gaiman actually tweeted Errol. Errol went rather mad. See the song for proof:
Goodbye to the Elastic Ball
I’m in the middle of writing a script, and was going to use the next entry to pontificate on the creative process, but a tragedy has occurred, far greater than anything else that might happen today.
My elastic ball, an elastic ball I made myself from two measly elastics, that has been with me for six years, that is the one personal item on my desk…is gone.
I know, I know. I’m upset too.
It begins!
In an attempt to practice my writing, I am starting up a blog. Right now, it is the barest of bones blog until I can get a nice, helpful friend to maybe teach me the ins and outs of designing this thing since all things internet tend to scare me a bit (okay, that’s a lie, I’m just lazy).
So welcome! My name is Manda! I am an actor, a writer, and a geek, the last of which will become painfully obvious as these entries go on in all likelyhood. I write many things like scripts, reviews and cheques, but I don’t actually have a space to share my thoughts on the random things that come up in my life. Well, I have my personal journal, but those are for emo thoughts, which is something I’d like to avoid here.
Instead you’ll get stuff like this…
Thoughts from the Test Chamber 