About a month ago, I was checking my daily mail, when I noticed something strange.

Everyone at some point receives letters from various charitable organizations asking for help, but I found it hilarious that I was getting one in Spanish.  I took a little Spanish in elementary school, but I barely remember anything beyond the Spanish word for yellow (amarillo), so this plea letter was pretty much going to be lost on me.  I had to open it up, though, to see if it was actually ALL in a foreign language.

Yep. I could tell it was a really passionate letter, and that they really wanted me to do something for someone somewhere – but I couldn’t make any sense of it.  I mean, I didn’t even see the Spanish word for yellow ANYwhere!  I tucked it away into a box of collected memories, and chuckled to myself about it all.  I didn’t expect it to happen again, though.

A week after the first letter arrived at my house, I received not one, but TWO letters at the same time.  I didn’t bother opening these because they were obviously all Spanish.  So far, all of the letters were from different organizations, as well, so I had no idea how my name had gotten out there – and I still don’t.  I mean, sure, I can read, write, and say the Spanish word for yellow like nobody’s business – but that’s a little ways off from reading entire letters.

At least one of the letters in this second batch had come with some very lovely artwork on the back of the envelope.

What the heck is poco, poco??  I don’t remember THAT part of the Bible.  Cute bird, though.  I feel a little bad, since they’re paying to send me these letters.  I’d like to be able to at least understand what I’m ignoring, but I figure if I were to respond back in English, it might just blow their minds.  Maybe if I just write the Spanish word for yellow 100 times they’ll get the idea.

Of course, as I’m sure you can guess, the Spanish onslaught didn’t end there – last week I received two more.

The latest one, though, broke new ground.  So far they have all been requests to help the children or something along those lines (again, since they refused to use the Spanish word for yellow, I’ll never really know).  However, this new one was different.  It was unsolicited and in Spanish, of course, but something told me it was a little less serious.

Hey – at least now I can try and keep up on the latest gossip about Alejandro Sanz and I’m thrilled to know that Baje de Peso is Sin Sufrir!  Too bad I took French.

I’ve been making movies for a long time.  Since I grew up doing this, most of them are understandably not great works of cinematic genius.  For the most part, I was a kid learning, so that’s just fine.  However, since I grew up doing this, as I got older I started to grow a personal disdain for making movies that were just “simple and silly.”  I was coming from a place of growth – where I no longer wanted to just make what I had been making for most of my life, I wanted to continue pushing myself and be a part of movies that were only becoming less and less amateur as time went on.  Eventually, though, I went too far.

There was a period of a few years where I had stopped making movies – I was no longer hanging out with my old group of friends who I used to do such things with, and I had yet to find my new group of friends.  After getting involved in a movie a coworker was making, though, the spark was again ignited.  The first few movie attempts with my new friends were great fun for me.  After awhile, though, I began to develop the aforementioned mentality of wanting to do something MORE.  It was never a thought of wanting to become famous or make loads of cash – I simply wanted to create things that were creatively challenging and that strove for more than the project before it.  As I said, though, as time went on this idea festered and ended up mixing in with my own personal creative frustrations, and I was no longer able to enjoy the “simply and silly” that other people still were enjoying.  I’ve pretty much cleaned up my act since then – I’ve grown alot since those days of frustration, disappointment, and the inability to enjoy just having fun, but I’ve really been reminded of all that lately.

About a month ago, I was at a party that Nick and Lu were having, and a friend of theirs sat down next to me and got all excited.  She told me how much she loved my character Max from one of Nick’s older movies – and that made me smile.  Later in the evening, and coming as a complete surprise to me, a few of the guys got the DJ to play “Addicted to Love” – which, for anyone who may not know, has become famous amongst our group as the song that my character Max danced to all those years ago.  I shook my head at what I was about to do, and then I proceeded to recreate the dance, much to the delight of my onlooking friends – and that made me smile.  A week or two after the party, I was taping an episode of Nick’s web-documentary, and of course I got into the performance and ended up making everyone crack up – and again, that made me smile.  People at work have commented on how much they enjoy this web show, and though it’s not something I would create myself, I can’t help but smile when I hear that.  But why am I smiling so much?  Because I’m making people happy.

Really, for all those years I was focusing too much on myself. I wanted to create amazing, thought-provoking work – and yet I would be standing in front of a green screen, wearing a wig, and using a strange voice, and though I would laugh while making these silly little movies, I couldn’t enjoy the end result.  I was almost ashamed of it – and yet there was no reason to be.  I was having fun, and I was entertaining people – and what’s better than that?  It’s been really a wonderful treat lately, to be beyond all that, and to see how many smiles I’m bringing to other folks.  It really does warm my heart when I was dancing and I looked over and saw my friends bent over in laughter, or to hear someone say that laughing at a funny movie I’m in made their day.  Sure, it may not always be amazing work, but I’m making people smile, and that’s just as valuable and necessary as making someone think.  These may not be works of art that I look upon with great respect and admiration, but I can look at them and smile and laugh – and I know that others can do the same.  So, I’m glad for that, I really am.  Now that I have moved beyond those years, I can truly say that I feel blessed and fortunate that I have the opportunity to be a part of something that someone enjoys – regardless of my own personal preferences.  I’m glad that I can provide that kind of entertainment value to people – even when it’s just something that’s “simple and silly.”

One year ago yesterday, about a bazillion people were married.  Why?  Because the date was July 7, 2007… 7-7-7.  Being married on a date that is composed of only sevens (not counting the zero’s or the 2 in 2007, which does admittedly break the rules a little) can only make the marriage even luckier and more blessed, right?  That’s what these bazillion people thought, and as I updated my site tonight I thought about these bazillion people, and the lousy divorce rate in this country, and I got to wondering just how many one year anniversaries were celebrated yesterday.  Practicality tells us that it definitely was far less than a bazillion – but I hope not too far off.  So, happy belated anniversary, to all of you superstitious couples, I hope it actually DID bring you luck

And, while we’re at it – congratulations to those semi-superstitious folks who were married yesterday!  Who needs more than two 7′s in their anniversary date to be lucky, right?  Right??  Eh, you go ahead and tell yourselves that, you "7-7-8" couples… we all know you’re doomed.

I decided a little while ago that I didn’t want to do regular reviews on this site.  Matters of creativity and art are so subjective, what does my opinion matter?  And besides… I couldn’t do a proper review, because I don’t like giving away any parts of the story.  From time to time, though, there may be something I love so much I have to share that, and so here we have our first Non-review Review – of what will easily be my favorite movie of the year.

If you have an inkling to see WALL-E, but you haven’t yet, just go and don’t read about it.  See it fresh, and hopefully it’ll be something that you enjoy.  If you have seen it, or if you don’t have any interest, well then, read on I suppose.  I’m not here to talk about the details of the story, or anything too specific – I just want to tell you that I loved it.  To me, it was perfection.  I read a review that mentioned this as "hope for Hollywood" meaning that this was a sign that Hollywood could still produce something wonderful.  I may not take it to that extreme, but I do have to agree that I haven’t seen a movie that moved me this much in quite awhile.  Actually, it’s the first movie I’ve ever ranked on IMDB – and I gave it a perfect 10.  For me, there was nothing wrong with it.  It embodied so much of what speaks to me in a movie: loneliness, innocence, heroism, passion, and of course – love.  Because, ultimately, at it’s heart that is the main thrust of this lovely little picture…love.  This plucky little guy is easily one of my favorite movie characters of all time.  For me, the love started when I saw the first teaser for the movie last year.  "After 700 years of doing what he was built for, he’ll discover what he was meant for."  I really just can’t say much more, or this review will end as a bubbling mess of me saying the word’s "I love…" incessantly.  The story is wonderful, the backdrop is compelling, the characters are adorable and charming, and anyone under the influence that this is a "kid’s movie" would be remiss in skipping it for that reason alone.  I saw this in a theater packed with kids, and while the opening trailers were for mindless, inane "kid movies", once the Pixar film started, the audience was silent.  Nowadays kids are entertained by loud, crass, obnoxious movies, which does nothing more than increase their ever-growing ADD nature.  To see them treated to just a good, solid movie again, well…the captivated silence spoke for itself.

Maybe nobody will love it as much as I do, and I understand that.  I mean, it made me bawl like a baby – it’s one of the most touching pictures I’ve ever seen.  But, that’s me.  At the very least, I hope you can see it and enjoy it for what it is – an elegantly simple and deep tale of hope and love.  Because, really, what more could you ask for!

Facebook either doesn’t know who I am – or even worse, it does and it just hates me.

For those of you who may be unaccustomed to using Facebook, whenever you’re logged in, small advertisements are placed on the side of the pages that are relevant to whatever information you’ve provided.  For example, my profile information says that I am 25, straight, and single.  Therefore, I would often see advertisements like this…

and that’s just fine.  After a little while, I noticed Facebook started missing the mark on it’s ads, though.  I’m a guy, and the last time I checked I can’t get pregnant, so this one was a little confusing …

and, while Facebook could have no idea that I’m lactose-intolerant, this next one just made me laugh.

I’d be keeled over for hours if I had that much pizza.  A couple of months ago, though, Facebook seemed to lose it’s mind, and I started getting ads like this. CONSTANTLY.

"Um…Facebook? Hello? Uhh….I’m straight?"

"No, Mark…that doesn’t matter, you WILL look at all of our gay ads."

And gay they were.  It seems I wasn’t the only straight guy afflicted with this annoyance, so that was a little comforting, but still – I can’t say I enjoyed signing on every day to see shirtless men in sunglasses inviting me to join them today!  Just as suddenly as the gay-barrage started, though, it seemed to end.  Though I never click on the ads, I was happy to once again start getting the straight ads back again.

Things were fine for awhile, though I noticed the ads were getting slightly more aggressive in their phrasing.

Still Single?  Well, I guess that’s not TOO bad, because I am after all still single.  And the girl is cute, so it’s fine.  Yesterday, though, I signed on only to be welcomed by an advertisement that’s gone a little too far.

Haha, I mean… great scott!  Sure, I want a girlfriend (though the young girl wearing too much makeup in the picture ain’t for me), but do you really have to call me pathetic?  The best part is that it supposedly is advertising for eHarmony – an online match site that prides itself on connecting people’s personalities.  So, this hot little thing is sitting there, calling me pathetic for not having a girlfriend at age 25 – and I want to love her for it?  I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I first saw that.  So thanks, Facebook.  Thanks for rubbing it in – you jerks.

Now I almost miss the gay ads – at least they didn’t insult me