Joshua Zamrycki’s Weblog

Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling. Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes… The dead rising from the grave. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together – mass hysteria.

The party last night was at Nat and Paul’s house. Nat prepared three huge platters of sushi and four different types of curry dishes (all amazingly delicious!). We ate extremely well.

By about midnight, the empty wine and beer bottles had covered most of the tables in the house, the music was steadily getting louder, and Nat entered the living room with a little silver contraption and a cheeky smile. “It’s time for Russian Roulette” she exclaimed.

After raping and pillaging all of the remote controls in the house for their AAA batteries, Nat turned on the machine. It looked like a version of the Simon Says games, but instead of four colored pads to press, there were four little holes where the players were meant to insert their fingers. In front of each finger was a red light. After pressing the unassuming “Start” button, one of the red bulbs would light up and then travel around the circle like a little roulette wheel, beeping all the way. After a few seconds, it started to slow down and the lights would go out but the beeping would continue – slower and slower. When the beeping finally came to a halt, one of the four red lights would flash and the person with their finger in that hole would inevitable scream and yank their finger away, having received a shocking little jolt. We played for about 15 minutes.

Juls played a round by herself sticking four of her own fingers into the holes.

Later we contemplated sticking other body parts into the little holes, but no one was brave/stupid enough to actually try it. I challenged the room to a round with tongues instead of fingers, but there were no takers. I swear I would have done it, but we’ll never really know.

Spring Training has started and Fantasy Baseball Opening Day has arrived. Call me a Geek if you will, but I’m excited.

I love it. It gives me an excuse to keep up with MLB all the way from Spain (where we get about three games a week on satellite TV and they’re usually aired about two days after they happen). And it gives me an opportunity to flex my math muscles. This is where I think I have the advantage over other managers: I imagine they play with their hearts whereas I play with my noggin. I gobble up those statistics and then spend hours working out multiple possibilities. I’m Geeking out just thinking about it!

The season doesn’t start until April and I’m already signed up to play in two different leagues (the same ones as last year). One is a “keeper league” so I have the same players that were on my roster at the end of last season: Pudge, Tejada, Beltran, Schilling, and Oswalt (just to name a few). It should be a good year.

Less than a five minute walk from the train station, Restaurante Cabassa Castaño’s entrance delivers you between the main building and the “carpa” (a permanent outdoor tent). The main building houses various little dining rooms, the bar, and the cozy “rustic room”. Just outside the carpa is the swimming pool – sure to be welcome on a hot Spanish summer day. We were thinking about adding the pool to the weeding itinerary, but don’t know if it’s really feasible. On the other side of the pool is the garden with its lush lawn, ceremony tent, and wooden footbridge that offers beautiful photos over a quaint little babbling brook. We’ll probably spend most of the night in the carpa. Since it can comfortably hold over 200 people, our 100-some-odd guests will have plenty of room to wine, dine, dance, and schmooze the night away.

I could go into much more detail concerning the day’s events, but we think it’d be best to leave some things as a surprise

Sunday July, 24 2005!

It went like this: we would compile a list of potential wedding sites outside of Barcelona, download a map and driving directions, rent a car for a day, argue about highway exits and inevitably get lost, fall in love with a dining hall, swimming pool, dance floor, castle turret or mountain view, shudder at the outrageous price, and then discuss all of the necessary details with the Toad/owner of the place. And then we’d start the process all over again.

Well this past Tuesday we met a wonderful little Toad and fell in love with a little garden and footbridge out near San Cugat (just 15 minutes north of Barcelona). The place is called Restaurante Cabassa Castaño and we’ve booked it for Sunday July, 24. I’ll give you all the juicy details tomorrow.

Yes, Wednesday was my birthday. And since I didn’t make any wholehearted New Year’s resolutions this year, I thought one and a half months later was better than never. They are as follows:

1) Curb my negativity. I have a nasty habit of speaking my mind. My belief that honesty is always the best policy has apparently broken the filter that normally resides between one’s brain and one’s mouth. I want to stop saying negative things about people and lighten up my sense of humor and Jan has agreed to help me. After watching episode 27 of Seinfeld (The Stranded) where Jerry says to Elaine at a party, “In case one of us gets in a bad conversation, we should have a signal that you’re in trouble so the other one can get us out of it.” and they decide on head patting, Jan has agreed to help me realize when I am being unnecessarily cruel by the implementation of a discreet signal. The signal we have chosen is that of an eagle’s cry. If I am being unkind and I hear the unmistakable screech of an eagle, I know that I have gone too far and will try to inject some optimism.

2) Stop grinding my teeth.

Last week, I got a call from a major studio in Barcelona to dub the voice of the main character in a feature film. Apparently, I was the third person they had called. The first two didn’t work out and they had heard of me through others who were working on the project. I came in and gave it my best shot – and the director was over the moon. He thought I was perfect! Not only was my voice what he was looking for, he also said that it was refreshing to work with someone who was obviously a “real actor”.

I had never worked with this director before. He usually works in Catalan and Spanish and only occasionally works on English projects. I told him (half in jest) that I would love to one day work in Catalan as well.

Two days ago, I get a call from the same studio. They’re dubbing a cartoon and want me to come in. When I got there and walked into the studio, I saw absolutely no one I recognized – except for the director. There were four other actors there – all speaking Catalan! The director said with a cheeky smile, “You wanted to work in Catalan, so…”

The film was Doraemon – a Japanese anime. They had me do a lot of ambient scenes where there were four of us speaking at the same time. I also got to do the minor parts where the character had to speak in Japanese! I had a great time, met some cool new people, made some sweet cash, and opened an important door.

Saturday. No work. No volleyball match. Go skiing!

(more…)

The sleep deficit had to be worked off, so I set my alarm for 1:20pm today. I could have set it for 1:00, but the deficit was looming large. 2:00 would have been greedy.

My phone sleeps on the night table just beside my dreamy head.

Murphy’s Law kicked in at around 10am when someone phoned in regard to the ad I had placed in a local magazine looking for actors for the next play I’m directing. I don’t remember the person’s name, but I have it written down on some random scrap of paper. Somewhere.

10:30 – Jan called asking for directions. She was out in Sabadell looking for one of the dubbing studios that I normally work at. They finally got around to calling her for a job. She had to do the voice of a little piggy girl. Yes, it was a cartoon.

Ed called at 11:00 to tell me about an amazing park in Barcelona that no one knows about and may be the perfect venue for my upcoming wedding. He’ll call back tomorrow after he has a meeting with the owners.

Another dubbing studio called me at 12:00 to see if I was available to come in this very afternoon to record an “emergency” trailer. It seems like most things at this studio are emergencies (meaning they have to be done TODAY). They like the work I do and they know that I don’t have a full-time job so I’m usually available. And so I have become the go-to guy in these emergency situations. Trailers are great: they take about 15 minutes to record and I walk out of there about 100€ richer. That’s why I leave my phone on.