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The Life and Times of Andy Affleck (already in progress)

April 25, 2013
by Andy Affleck
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The Playlist

I have been a dedicated collector of those little cards at Starbucks. You know, the ones that give you a free song if you type the code into your phone or iTunes? I’ve even gone so far as to purchase music if I somehow missed the card (or, more recently, was unable to download the song via the link in the Starbucks app due to REASONS) so I would have a complete collection.

Today, I realized I haven’t listened to all of the songs so I made a smart playlist that aggregates the unheard songs from that collection so I could listen to the ones I haven’t heard yet. I’m embarrassed to admit that the resulting list is 94 songs and 6.4 hours worth of music.

Read into that what you will. I’m going to go listen to music for a while now.

September 23, 2012
by Andy Affleck
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…One flew east, one flew west…

This October, I’ll be starring in Swamp Meadow Community Theatre’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as Randle Patrick McMurphy. This I’d my first leading role since I played The Boy in The Fantasticks in high school. 

If you have seen the play before or if you have read the book, you know that this is quite different than the movie. While I like the idea of playing a role that Jack Nicholson made famous but ultimately, I am playing a very different character than he did. 
To prepare for the part, I have been dieting and exercising a lot, practicing card tricks, and getting in touch with my inner sociopath. All very exciting!
Anyway, I am very excited and not a little nervous. So call the box office and reserve your tickets! Now!

March 18, 2012
by Andy Affleck
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Quasimodo for a Day

First Unitarian Universalist Steeple, Providence, RIWe arrived early, much earlier than we normally do. On a typical Sunday, I’ll drop Jack off and then drive a few blocks to find an open spot and get into a pew just as announcements are finishing up. Today we were early as we thought today was the field trip for Jack’s Sunday school class to a local Mosque. But today was the day the permission slips were due. So, we were a half hour early. And it was very lucky for us that we were!

Shortly after 10, a woman came through and asked if anyone wanted to go up and ring the bell. I beat the kids to saying, “Sure!” and after rounding up Jack, two other kids, me and Ann, we headed to the steeple.

The current building was built in 1816 and survived significant fire damage in 1966. Climbing up into the steeple was a trip in a time machine back to the nineteenth century. The higher we climbed, the more I felt I had to squeeze myself into tinier and tinier spaces. And the steps got smaller and steeper as well. But after 98 steps (yes, I counted, why do you ask?) we arrived at the top and had a glorious view of Providence on all sides.

First UU BellThe bell itself was one of the last, and largest, cast by Paul Revere and his son in the early 1800s. It weighs one or two thousand pounds (I forget what she said). When rung, it was a lovely tone but I am getting ahead of myself.

The kids had a blast looking out at the city and Ann and I played tourist taking lots of pictures. When 10:15 rolled around much too fast, we headed back downstairs to ring the bell.

Providence, RIA large rope went up through the ceiling above and to the pulley system attached to the bell. You give the rope a good heave down, as if you are trying to throw it through the floor) and on its way back up, the bell rings. When the rope stops moving up you grab it again (don’t hold on or you will either get rope burns or go for a ride in the air!) and repeat the process. The kids did most of the work, each taking turns to do a few pulls in succession, but I also got a good run of rings as well.

The Afflecks in the Bell TowerAfter five minutes we were done and it was time to complete the trip back down to the meeting house. I don’t know if or when I will get back up there but it was such a wonderful, fun experience. I highly recommend it!

February 25, 2012
by Andy Affleck
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“Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

“I’m not arrogant, I’m pedantic. There’s a difference. Let me explain…”

— Seen on a T-Shirt.

For my birthday a few days ago, Ann gave me “The Book of ‘Unnecessary’ Quotation Marks.” She knows me too well. My obsession with inappropriate quotation mark usage goes back to my days working for Dartmouth College in the early 1990s. The person who was in charge of communications for our department was an abuser of the quotation mark. She, like so many, used them for emphasis and, while it is a bad habit and possibly forgivable in most people, it drove me crazy that someone who wrote and communicated for a living was making so blatant a grammatical error.

Not able to stand it any longer, I finally went to her and (quite pedantically) informed her that emphasis was best handled by italics or, less often, bold, or, even less often, bold and italics together, and, never, ever, with underlining. I was politely told that this was her profession and that she knew what she was doing.

I let the matter go with no small amount of effort. But in the years since, I chafe whenever I see quotation marks being used for evil and not good. Of course, I am older and wiser now and am more amused than annoyed because I have learned in my old age that if you can’t laugh at these things, then you are just doing it wrong. My favorite example now is the card scanner at Trader Joe’s that invites me to “Swipe my card” (sounds dirty when you put it in quotes like that) and to “Enter my PIN” (as if we are both in on the joke about what that really means), and so forth.

So, Ann, being a brilliant person who knows me far too well, buys me this wonderful little book with all kinds of “wonderful” examples of “inappropriate” uses of “quotation marks” and I cannot help but be “highly amused.”
A little later, we go out to lunch at Ted’s Montana Grill and I note in the menu that for dessert they have:

Homemade “Scratch” Cookies

Part of me suspected what was going on here but I wasn’t 100% certain. So, I asked the waitress if they really were from scratch or if they were being somehow ironic? She just stared at me, not understanding at all what I was asking. I thought about explaining and then I remembered all those years ago and just smiled and said, “Never mind. Chocolate Chip and Vanilla Ice Cream.”

The cookies were from scratch and “really delicious.”

January 27, 2012
by Andy Affleck
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Interview in Social Media Week

I was interviewed for Social Media Week on the topic of Children and Social Media. While I do think about this topic a great deal (as is evidenced by how much I’ve written and spoken on the subject), I am turning my attention to how I, as an adult, communicate with my Facebook friends who are under 18 year of age (yes, an article is being written). It’s an interesting topic mainly because I am still figuring it all out for myself. If anyone has any insights from their own experiences, I’d love to hear them.

November 30, 2011
by Andy Affleck
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NaNoWriMo 2011

Five years. Wow. Five years in a row, two as a Municipal Liaison (though I was so busy this November I hardly did anything) and five completed novels. People keep asking me if I will post them. The answer is an unqualified no. What I write is not even first draft. It’s rough sketch at best. As such, it’s also highly embarrassing. I don’t want to share that stuff with people. This year, I plan on focusing my efforts and either pulling one of the five into better shape or doing something new but not in sketch mode but actual author mode. I promise select friends will be asked to proof that and give me constructive feedback and, later, everyone else will get a shot at reading it. Whatever it ends up being.

I spent this year doing a lot of self-analysis and figuring out where I was weak as a writer and what I needed to work on. I now have a list of areas I want to target and am going to be looking at resources to help me (classes, books, whatever). I want to make 2012 the year I get my act together, hone my ability as a writer, and go from playing around with words to working with them instead. In short, me want write good.

But for the moment, I’ll just bask in the glow of five straight years as a NaNo winner. I’ll get to work tomorrow.

October 21, 2011
by Andy Affleck
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Chained

I haven’t gotten a chain letter in quite some time. I think I have managed to train most people around me that they are usually flat out wrong (or at very best, wildly outdated) and, if nothing else, sending them to me means that I will take the time to debunk them and will reply telling the sender that and a small diatribe on the evils of chain letters. I figure most people have either learned not to forward them at all or, more likely, to avoid sending them to me.

So, imagine my surprise when I received one late last night about how illegal immigrants are costing this country more than the Iraq war has and blames our economic woes on them. That was too good to pass up. It only took me about 3 minutes of searching while sitting in Panera this morning to find a good debuking of the entire email and send it along.

I hope I was nice about it. I’ve long known that being a jerk to people about chain letters makes them ignore the fact that you just debunked their screed and just get mad at me for being a jerk. So I am very nice about it, usually ending with a statement about being cranky when I get chain mail or some such.

But to me, the biggest revelation of this little event is how infrequently I get chain letters. It took receiving one to realize how long it’s been since I last got one. So, that’s an improvement!

Now, I have to go forward this email to ten friends so I can win a million dollars next week. Drinks are on me!

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