I'm curious about these "acting games"

Could you explain that and give a few examples?

This is targeted towards individual performers, so they're things that actors can do to practice on their own. Basically, this book has individual exercises that focus on 21 different categories including:

• Creative State
• Imagination
• Concentration and Focus
• Voice
• Performance
• Characterization
• Understanding Your Objective

All of the exercises are designed to be entertaining or stimulating in some way that will also aid in growing as an actor.

One of the exercises in the book I really enjoyed pertained to music in a way:

Basically, you take a song you know really well - like all of the lyrics to. Then you think of a really emotional time in your life - it could be positive, like the time you won the State Championship in bowling, negative, like remembering a horrible accident...anything really. Just something in your own memory that elicits really strong feelings and memory. Then, by yourself, you try to explain this using these song lyrics. You're not just reciting the lyrics and thinking about the event; you're saying the lyrics as though those are the words which actually describe the event, like those are the only words you have to explain it.

The first time I attempted this one, it was a little rough. It's a really interesting exercise though - as an actor, the words you're saying aren't your words anyway, and sometimes there are lines in the script that just seem like something you would never say or couldn't really see your character saying initially. You have to think about what's actually going on, and get the context behind someone else's words to express what you're thinking. It's pretty neat.

Hmmm....that music exercise sounds pretty interesting. I might try it out and see how well I can accomplish that. I have zero acting experience but it sounds like something fun to attempt. I think if I were to do this, I would focus more on facials to convey/express my emotions during certain parts of the song that I pick. hmm interesting indeed.

Hummus with perfectly toasted focaccia:

http://dolcevitadiaries.files.wordpr...s_focaccia.jpg

Shrimp cakes:

http://www.mygourmetconnection.com/r...rimp-cakes.jpg

A Manhattan:

http://www.esquire.com/cm/esquire/im...nhattan-lg.jpg

Ha ha. Okay! I was like...hmm... :laughing:

yummm...

Ah man, I'm in bed and I am not willing to eat anymore food today.
But man... That looks great :D

6'x9' rug for my bedroom (chocolate brown)

http://images.crateandbarrel.com/is/...id=598&hei=598

5'x8' rug for my living room (steel grey)

http://images.crateandbarrel.com/is/...id=598&hei=598

Bed coverlet and pillow shams

http://images.crateandbarrel.com/is/...id=598&hei=598

Ordered Sunday before last, picking them up this evening.

Got another sample o' this. Amazingly lovely stuff. It reminds me of Florida. I didn't know why at first, but then I figured that it's probably because of the heliotrope and the yellow mandarin note. For whatever reason I make a clear connection between Florida and flowers. Oh, and sunshine. But that actually makes sense.

23" Asus LCD monitor, 2ms response GTG
Intel Core i7 960 quad core processor @ 3.2 ghz, (which I will overclock to 4, at least)
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 CPU cooler
Asus Sabertooth X58 motherboard, LGA 1366, with SATA III and USB 3
MSI Twin Frozr NVIDIA GTX 560TI 256 bit graphics card with 1GB GDDR 5 RAM
12 Gigs G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3 RAM, for use in triple channel mode, at 1600Mhz, overclockable
2 WD Caviar Black 500GB 7200 RPM HDDs, ready for RAID (which I'll put in RAID 0), 32MB cache each drive
650 watt Corsair PSU
Standard CD/DVD RW combo drive
Bought another CoolerMaster mid ATX tower as my last. (has great cooling options and space)
Windows 7 Pro, 64 bit (OEM)
And a couple SATA II cables

Total: 1,547.51

I feel like I'm robbing a bank. My current computer, after I put it together, cost me 1,200 dollars in 2007, and 4 years later, it's sub-par for even a crap computer you could buy at Walmart now days, as far as technology is concerned. But it still plays games like a champ. I gotta pat it on the mobo for that. This is my first upgrade from that.
Thankfully, I got a guy who wants to buy the old system. I'll see if I can sneak in one of my old 20" monitors for like 75 bucks more, seeing as I'll be replacing it with the new 23" for main.

Funnily enough, absolutely none of the dollar amount is coming out of my bank account. Thanks to the good-hearted tax payers, I simply went to school while not working, and qualified to get free money! Thank you guys! I will use the new computer in every one of you working American's honor.

*drools a little*.

That's very nice man. I just wonder, with the current prices of harddrives, why not 2x 1,5TB?
Maybe the prices are different there, I don't know.
And if I were to spend that much money on a PC, I'd go for solid state, at least to install my stuff on.
But that's not criticism. It's really a very nice thing that :D.
Congrats. You've made some very wise choices :D

I don't feel like upgrading yet. For what I do, my PC is still more than good enough.
I might aswell tell you what I'm using. This is going to be quite the list :D

Asus M2NE SLI, AMD64 x2 3ghz, 4GB ram, a 1TB and a 500GB 7200tpm Seagate s-ata drive, MSI Geforce 9600GT w. 512mb ram, ESI Juli@ soundcard.
600 watt PSU by Zalman. All this in a Coolermaster Centurion.
Running Windows 7 Pro 64.
Bought this one new in 2007 along with a 19" iiyama prolite. Now using it with a 21" fujitsu and an old 15" iiyama (just for my video monitor).
That's my audio/video/photo/gaming PC.

I'm typing this on a PC I built from some new and some old parts.
Mainboard is a (new) gigabyte UD3Lsomething. 2GB of ram (new), with a Core2duo E6750 (the whole reason why I bought this PC. Got the processor for a tiny amount of money), 500GB 7200tpm Seagate IDE HD (old), Geforce 8800GS (old).
Put this in an ugly but very functional Aopen H500C housing with a power supply. I believe it's a coolermaster. I'm not sure. It works :).
Windows 7 Enterprise 64. It's my office PC so this one gets used most of the time.

My testing PC is a Fujitsu Siemens X102 with 1gb of ram, 80gb hd and I put a (PCI...) Radeon 9250 into it. Runs whatever I want it to (XP, some ubuntu, some Mac OS, whatever, it's my testing PC after all)

In my living room there's an IBM Thinkcentre hooked up to my TV. Pentium IV 2.66ghz, 1TB HD, 2GB ram, put a Geforce 6200 into it I found (boxed) in my basement :D. Haven't got a clue how it got there. It's bad, but better than the onboard thingy and it looks a lot sharper on my TV now. This PC mainly is there to share files and play vids via my TV. It's a reliable thing. Always on.

Then there's an awful lot of pentium IV's lying around. Some microatx pc's with Pentium III's in them and then very, very much laptops. Like... 20 of them or so. I only use three of them regularly.
One is an Asus X50V Dual Core 2x 1.86ghz, 2gb of ram, soon 4gb of ram and a 500gb hd. Not too expensive when it was new, but it's a nice thing for sure. Runs Windows 7 Enterprise smoothly
Another one is a sturdy IBM Z60M that I got for free (!). 80GB HD, 2gb ram, WinXP.
And there's a Toshiba NB100 1.6ghz atom netbook running XP too.

That's about it.