So I tried headed over to The Pirate Bay a little while ago [not intending to do do anything illegal, of course...], but noticed something odd: it’s down.

In all seriousness, I don’t frequent the site, so I don’t know how reliable the servers normally are, but this seems to be on a slightly larger scale than a simple server outage. Down for everyone or just me? seems to think it doesn’t exist:

Now the question everyone seems to be asking is whether this has anything to do with The Pirate Bay’s recent hosting of a torrent for The Dark Knight, a movie of which I’m sure Hollywood is a bit more protective than usual, given it’s highly impressive box office stats. Though I’m not sure why this event in particular would suddenly trigger an effective legal strike against the site, when there has already been a steady stream of legal threats from the MPAA etc. over the years.

So, what do you guys think is going on? ISP block? DoS? Servers down? Who cares?

Update: Annnnnnd they’re back. Looks like they got the servers back online sometime early this morning, but as the 300-400 hits that post got shows, not before the entire internet community spontaneously combusted.

So I’ve had my new phone for a few months now (okay, so that might declassify it at “new), and I’m quite happy with it. It’s a Samsung Blackjack. Unfortunately, everyone who sees or borrows it to make a call seems feel it necessary to fawn over it and freak out.

“Oh my god, is that an iPhone?!?!”

Now let’s take a look here:

They look nothing alike. Upon my explanation that it’s not an iPhone, they ask if it’s a Blackberry. Now, that’s a bit more reasonable - they’ve both got QWERTY keyboards. But then I have to explain that it’s a Blackjack, and all hell breaks loose. Leave it to Samsung to name their product something that not only should probably be considered trademark infringement, but is bound to confuse the crap out of anyone that doesn’t also have a Blackjack.

Ah well.

Do any of you remember the joy you felt when you turned on the television to watch your favorite show, and discovered that this week’s episode happened to be a musical episode? One of those special episodes in which the writers decided to throw every common-sense limitation in the writing, throw in as many television-industry inside jokes as they could, and (of course), make the characters break into song every few minutes?

Meet the short, internet-based series that doesn’t just have one shark-jumping episode - but is entirely based off that sweet, wonderful concept: Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog was written during the WGA strike earlier this year by the Joss Whedon (who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, apparently), and it is glorious. It’s the story of an evil “mastermind” trying to get into the League of Evil, while (naturally) trying to get the girl. Oh, and it’s all told as though the show were an entry in Dr. Horrible’s Video Blog. With singing.

There will be three, 16-minute episodes released online this week, but only this week, so check it out sooner rather than later at DrHorrible.com.

Well, today was the first Sunday morning since I think Christmas (and one of only a few in the past two years) that I didn’t have to get up uncomfortably early and drive into WNRN to produce the Sunday Morning Wake-Up Call. Don’t get me wrong - I love Rick Moore’s show, and producing it likely led me down the path of audio/visual engineering volunteering that likely wound me up accepted to NYU Film. Volunteering there was probably the single-most [pin-pointable] life changing event of high school.

But let me tell you - being able to wake up at 11AM this morning and spontaneously go swimming at Chris Green Lake… Wonderful! Mind you, I hadn’t been swimming in years and I now have the worst sunburn of my life; but these things happen.

What I find a little ironic though, was that I ended up celebrating my first Saturday night where I didn’t have to worry about getting to bed early for a talk show by watching a movie (Joe Dirt - terrible movie; I resisted heavily, but Jordan insisted) which is essentially a story being narrated on a talk show. Love it.

I have this ritual I go through the opening night of every show I’m in. It started with my school’s 9th grade production of West Side Story, and I’ve been repeated the process (more or less) with ever production I’ve acted in or directed.

It starts out with me getting to the theatre way before anyone else. In high school, our call for opening night was usually 5 or 5:30; I’d be at the theatre by 4 (after a quick run to Charlottesville’s favorite bagel bakery). Then, for the next hour or so (until we had to start getting makeup and costumes on) I’d wander aimlessly around the theatre, munching on my two plain bagels while being excessively perky towards the few techies or band members who were already setting up. This gets me in a good mood. I should note that the timing in eating these bagels is strategically planned - too early, and you’ll be hungry during the performance; too late, and you’ll feel full and distracted on stage.

Next step: laying down in the middle of the stage and closing my eyes. I’d call this “Becoming one with the stage,” but that sounds way too melodramatic and downright creepy. But I do feel like the single-most effective preparation I can carry out before a performance involves becoming comfortable with your acting environment. And no matter much time I’ve spent on the set before that (or how closely I’ve come to know it if I helped build it), it’s always just a set to me before that opening night. When your four hours away from the first real audience, with the worklights shining down at you from the grid and the final coats of paint still sticky from the last minute touchups, the set finally becomes alive. For some reason, laying down on the uncomfortably hard set floor in total silence without anyone else there gives me the peace and focus to go on stage and leave the outside world behind.

Finally, I visit tech land once again. Most actors ignore the techies either out of spite or lack of understanding, but I personally love the techies and find them to be the perfect way to keep from getting sucked into the overdramatic mess that is the actor collective pre-show. In may cases, I actually like the techies better than the actors (just don’t tell the actors that…).

Interspersed with the aforementioned steps, I generally lay down in the house seats, walk up in the lighting grid, and basically run amok through the whatever glorious theatre I’ve gotten to know over the past few months of rehearsal.

And somehow during this process, I manage to lose any nerves I might have had for the past few weeks as the clock ticked down to opening night. By the time I step on stage and the lights are shining down, I’m the happiest person alive.