Seeing as we are now on the precipice of a significantly less open and more expensive internet, I figured “Hey! What a great time to share with you all some of the many benefits of having an LA library card!” (Why, it’s the Best Card in LA!)

Aside from the always remarkable ability to check out and read actual, physical books, you can also check out most of those very same books in e-book (and audiobook!) format through Overdrive! Read them on your eReader! Or your computer! Or through your ear holes!

 

You can also get books through Hoopla! And that service also includes music! And movies! And graphic novels like “The Walking Dead” (which will help prepare you for the upcoming apocalypse)!

Curious about the news? I really wouldn’t reccomend it.

BUT, if you’re a glutton for punishment you like to stay informed, you can get a FREE daily pass to read the New York Times!

Or, instead of folowing the news, perhaps you just want to leaf though some magazines to distract yourself from our not-too-distant dystopian future? Well, there’s a surprisingly good collection of digital magazines available – for free! – through RBDigital.

Perhaps you’d like to learn a new skill or trade to help you when our economy crashes and burns? Try Lynda! (Just a head’s up, you can use the service through a web browser but not the Lynda app.)

Maybe you want some digital copies of your favorite songs before streaming music sevices start reducing their selection while becoming increasingly oppressively expensive? Try Freegal! You can download 5 songs per week!

Wanna learn another language so you can move to another country that’s not slowly repealing freedoms and dissolving into a totalitarian state? Try Mango!

And, once the internet finally collapses under its own weight, you can still get your information the old-fashioned way, by checking out genuine, honest-to-god books!

In fact, get a head start by using the Library Chrome Extension. That way, when you’re browsing sites like Amazon or B&N.com, it’ll show if the book you’re looking at is available at your local library!

If you don’t have a library card, are you crazy?? Fill out an application in person at any Los Angeles Public Library location, or download the application form , fill it out and take it in! Do it while you still can!

I had 4 HOURS between my last set today and a company meeting this evening.

So, instead of driving home and back (and therefore dealing with LA traffic 2 extra times), I got me a large coffee at Voodoo Doughnuts, found me a nice quiet spot to write some blog posts and then proceeded to be interrupted every single time I got on a roll.

I don’t know what it is about my wearing giant BOSE QuietComfort Noise-Cancelling Headphones and typing intently on a laptop in a corner away from the world that says, “Hey! Come interrupt me!” but, as hard as I tried, I simply could not finish the post I was working on. People kept sitting down to chat with me.

Now I’m home and more-than-slightly drunk (giant company meetings full of fellow actors always stress the introverted hell out of me) and have decided to finish my post tomorrow. Until then…

That didn’t last long.

Remember how I said that, after years and years of having to work on Christmas Day, I was finally going to get to just spend the holiday at home? Well, at work today, two of my managers caught me coming back from my set to ask if I could possibly be available on Christmas.

I told them I’d get back to them and, honestly, I’ll probably just end up doing it. Considering those managers played a huge big part in the scoring that moved me up the roster recently, it’s the least I could do. Plus, it’s nice to feel wanted at work (especially since I’m not Grinching it up this year) and, of course, holiday pay.

Besides, like I said before, I don’t mind celebrating the day before or the day after a major holiday. Still, I was kinda looking forward to this, especially since it felt like a badge of honor to not have to work. Also, I’m in the middle of trying to convince my Halloweencentric finance that Christmas isn’t awful (she hasn’t had the best of luck with it in the past) and this doesn’t make it any easier.

Perhaps that’ll be the way I’ll know I’ve finally “made it” in the world, celebrating holidays on the actual holidays.

Tonight’s win felt great.

And it looks like a huge part of it happening was thanks to black voters, particularly women, getting out to vote. (White people, we gotta get our shit together!) And a lot of the organizing that helped get out those crucial votes was done over the internet.

An open internet.

A… (chokes back distaste at this awful, awful term) “neutral net”.

So, naturally, once again, people are trying to kill net neutrality. I don’t know why this battle keeps happening but, my guess? Rich people wanna get richer as well as prevent others from succeeding. (Sound familiar?)

Well, the vote’s in 2 days so let’s use the momentum from this win and get the word out.

Go to Battle for the Net or Save the Internet for more information.

Don’t let the FCC kill net neutrality.

 

I’m trying something new today as well.

I’m currently sitting on my couch, cat in my lap, attempting to do a entire blog post by dictating it into the Drafts app on my iPhone, editing it with the onscreen keyboard and then sending it to the WordPress app.

Since I started blogging back in the early aughts, I always did it from a computer or laptop so composing this way feels completely unnatural, like writing with my non-dominant hand, but mastering it could really help increase my ability to post more often.

You see, aside from trying to get myself into the habit of writing every day again, I’m hoping that this “30 Days of Blogging” experiment will really get me comfortable with the WordPress platform (I’d always used Blogger in the past) as well as with how far technology has come in the past decade.

My ultimate goal with this is to use what I learn, and any momentum I get, to help me turn an unwieldy first draft of a book I wrote several years ago into a running series of blog posts, a serialized story of my first year (and perhaps beyond?) in Japan.

When my original goal was to write a capital-B Book and have it capital-P Published and have it end up on bookshelves at the bookstore, it was such a monumental, overwhelming undertaking that, no matter how much work I did, I never felt like I was making any progress. It was an old-fashioned approach to an old-fashion goal.

But, as time has passed, I came to realize that my goal was less about HOW my stories were told, and more THAT my stories were told at all.

So, much like my goals are evolving, so are my methods.