The How I Met Your Mother Script

Earlier this year, I wrote a script for an episode of the TV series How I Met Your Mother.

I chose HIMYM for this project specifically because it's not really all that funny. Don't get me wrong, I dig the show (and, during the course of writing the script, watched I think every single episode). It's solid TV. Still -- it ain't Arrested Development. It's a traditional, multi-camera series with a laugh track that is by now louder than most of the dialogue. This was my first time trying anything like this, so I wanted to stick to the basics. HIMYM seemed like a good place to start.

The Tami Taylor Paradox

The music used in TV and film can be split into two groups: Diegetic and non-diegetic. Music is "diegetic" if it originates within the action of the movie or show, and both we as viewers and the characters onscreen can hear it. (So, for instance, "Tiny Dancer" in Almost Famous = diegetic.) Non-diegetic music, on the other hand, originates outside the action onscreen, and is audible only to us as viewers. (So, for instance, the Jaws theme = non-diegetic.)*

The Candyban

At some point in all of my personal relationships, I have to reveal to the other person what is probably the strangest fact about me. That being the case, how 'bout you and me just get it out of the way right now?

Here goes: I've never eaten candy or chewed gum.

Now then, If you're anything like 100% of the people I have revealed this fact to, you probably have some follow-up questions. Let's get those out of the way, too.

Career Opportunities

1. I got a job this week, which is nice. It's probably about time that happened.

NBAnCo

New post coming soon. In the meantime, please enjoy this Animal Collective/classic NBA mashup video I put together.

UPDATE (9/7/12): Oh snap! SPIN Magazine recognizes: http://www.spin.com/articles/the-nba

Hit Singles

The history of players choosing at-bat music is pretty hazy. The practice developed in a gradual, organic kind of way – and information on the subject is scarce – so it's tough to pin down when it started exactly. An article on an NBC affiliate website claims that walk-up songs came into popularity after the '98 Padres started (on a whim, apparently) playing "Hell's Bells" to announce Trevor Hoffman's entrance into games. The fan reaction was so positive, the article claims, that other clubs quickly moved to copy them. Thus: at-bat music.

Korean Klassic: The Morning

I maintained a blog (http://nexenheroes.blogspot.com/) on and off during my year in South Korea. This post, from March 2011, details the events of a typical morning with my kindergarten kids.

9:55am 

I show up at school and spend a minute or two straightening my classroom.

Dry Cool Wit

It was a Saturday night at the end of October 2007. Halloween was on a Wednesday that year, creating a confused situation where half the people went out dressed in costume that weekend, and half didn't. My friends and I were in Ziggy's, one of the three (terrible) bars that make up the "tri-bar" area just outside Fordham's campus.

Accidental Encounters With Musicians

We Rocked The Body

One night in the summer of 2008, I was hanging out with my friends in a karaoke bar in Williamsburg. It was a Tuesday and the place was empty, so we were able to go up and sing pretty much whenever we wanted.  

Getting Weird

This is a flyer I wrote up for a "get weird" party thrown by my roommates in college. The idea was to print out a bunch of copies and hang them up around the party for people to read. Never really got around to that part, but, anyway, it survives here:

Brownstones

I was sitting alone at a bar in Williamsburg. A girl ("Caroline") approached me. We struck up conversation. I asked her what she did. She told me she was a pre-school teacher. I'd spent the previous year of my life teaching kindergarten in South Korea. I told her this. She furrowed her brow.