Category: Thespian

Issues related to my roles in various film projects

The Hourlings Podcast—Episode 6: Developing Characters

TimeHorse December 9, 2020 No Comments

In this episode I mention my stint acting for my friend Shea. She wrote a cute series of situational comedy episodes taking place in a Zoo. My character was a rival animal husbandry expert from the local aquarium, and my character didn’t like the land-loving animal tenders one bit. I don’t know if it will ever be released, but I did get an IMDB credit out of it.

In this episode, I also talk a lot about Project Kronosphere. I recently decided to novelize the series and was excited to talk about the Kronosphere cameo in my story Let’s Kill John A. or John Wilkes Booth Must Die. I’m excited to get this project started and hope to work on an episode over the weekend!

The Hourlings Podcast—Episode 6: Developing Characters: Another Finely Structured Meeting

I really enjoy working on these episodes but I have been concerned with how long they are. This one was 75 minutes and other episodes have been about the same. We therefore agreed to make a change to how we release the episodes. Stay tuned to this page and keep watching Channel 137!

Jeffrey’s Jammin Birthday Bash

TimeHorse June 24, 2020 4 Comments

Join me to find out how I like my new job, the exciting plans I have for the upcoming year, and so I can give a personal thanks for your personal friendship!

Please note, the official start time is 20:00 because I want to make sure not to start it before I finish my first full day of work at the new job. If I finish sooner, I will open the room earlier. This is, after all, an exciting time for me. My first new job in 18 years, and the first of four steps on the route to make me a better man, and much, much happier!

This event is opened to everyone who claims to know me! All of my software colleagues, all of my fellow authors, fellow science readers, fellow Doctor Who fans, fellow cosplayers, fellow Electric Car drivers and enthusiasts, all of my Equal Rights Amendment sisters and brothers in arms, all of my National Popular Vote Interstate Compact supporters, all of my avid gaming friends, all of my friends abroad except those in Europe—have your kip, mates—all of my fellow Toastmasters, all of my fellow aviators, all of my fellow musicians, tous mes amis qui parle français oder Deutsch или по-русский o italiano, my acting friends and my friends who eschew meat!

The only thing I ask is you be respectful, kind, and know that I hope you all consider any friend of mine a potential friend of yours!

There is a password to this event. It’s not hard to guess if you know me but if you want to know, and you are reading this on from Twitter, message me, on Tumblr, message me, on LinkedIn, again, message me, or join me via the Facebook event. Or, just comment on this blog, with your email address, and I will mail it to you.

See you all next Wednesday!

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Tesla OS 2020.16.2.1

TimeHorse May 20, 2020 No Comments

Finally!

TeslaFi had been spamming me with news about TeslaOS 2020.16 for a while and I’ve been itching to see what, after giving us the amazing stop at a stop sign in the last minor update.

Turns out, not much. I am mostly unimpressed by Tesla with this update, though nonetheless very appreciative. Autoformatting a DashCam drive—I wonder if it supports 2TB yet—and a better layout for Easter Eggs are, after all, improvements, even if the Easter Eggs aren’t really hidden gems anymore.

The coolest new feature, though, is the new SuperCharger filter, allowing the driver to only see Version 3 stations and filter out all the slower ones. I love the fact that I have free, lifetime SuperCharging, and one of these days, I’m gonna cross the continents with that perk.

Overall, I’m not disappointed despite being underwhelmed. And one rumor is that this, or a soon to be released version will add V2G to the Tesla. I can’t wait until that rolls out as the Tesla Battery Pack may make for a new, mobile Powerwall. Mind you, even if #CO2Fre could do V2G, my house isn’t equipped for it anyway. So, even if it doesn’t have V2G, it’s still a cool update!

Tesla OS 2020.16.2.1
Tesla OS 2020.16.2.1 adds a new toy box interface, a SuperCharger filter, and auto-formatting of DashCam media. © 2020, Jeffrey C. Jacobs

Gentle reader, if you have been keeping up with me since 11 February of this year, you know that I have been posting once a day since then. As such, today marks a hundred days of a hundred daily posting. Through that, I’ve shared with you exciting electric car news, updated to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, my struggles to get the Equal Rights Amendment to be our Twenty-Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, written about my many works of fiction, and the many books of nonfiction I voraciously read to be a better scientist. I’ve shared with you my cosplay adventures, and my love of Doctor Who, my love of games, and a bit of my speaking in tongues as well as delivering speeches and singing to my heart’s content. I’ve talked about international travel and how I love to fly there in my own plane, discussed my acting and my dietary needs. And most of all I’ve told you I’m an excellent coder who is always keen for new work. Thanks for riding with me as we cruise upon the cloud to another one hundred posts!

Virtual Campus ERA Day

TimeHorse April 28, 2020 No Comments

Although, yet again, I was not able to attend this wonderful conversation about how close we are passing the Equal Rights Amendment and what we can do to cross the threshold, I did think the video was inspiring and though there were too many wonderful folks for me to name all of them, I wanted to thank our next Governor, Jennifer Carroll Foy, for being a part of it.

As Alyssa Milano points out so eloquently, we’re all in this together and every voice counts. Alyssa is amazing and I grew up watching her on Who’s the Boss (as a fellow thespian I hope she knows I don’t pigeonhole her that one role given her expanse of other work) and am so delighted to see her working so hard to extend equal rights to women. I have been a supporter in my heart since before the show premiered, although I’ve only been actively lobbying in Richmond since Delegate Carroll Foy came to office.

Alas, we didn’t get the ERA in 2018 despite my friends and my lobbying. But when I heard the bill was passing through the Illinois General Assembly, I immediately started posting, messaging, and tweeting to my friends in Illinois to get the bill passed, even if it meant Virginia couldn’t be 37. No shame in 38. And no shame in 39 either, as I always tell my dear friend Triana Arnold James in Georgia. I’m just delighted Illinois has a wonderful Republican State Representative Steve Andersson was behind us there and made sure the Illinois made it to 37. I was so proud to shake his hand when HJ79 passed.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Nevada State Senator Pat Spearman. Without Spearman’s push in Nevada, I don’t think I’d have been aware that we still had hope for passage despite the arbitrary and unconstitutional deadline. Thank you Pat. You rock and I hope someday to shake your hand too!

There were so many wonderful people at the event, but most inspiring of all were the student organizers. They inspire me to see the next generation as passionate about this issue as I have been.

Learn about the Equal Rights Amendment

Posted by ERA Coalition on Monday, April 27, 2020

Thank you my lady and gentlemen friends for watching and soon we will have our Twenty-Eighth Amendment, with your help!

Learning about Public Relations

TimeHorse March 10, 2020 1 Comment

Today in my friend C.J.’s Author Meetup, the wonderful PR person, Ami Neiberger-Miller came and spoke about what goes in to promote your brand. As usual, C.J. held a wonderful event and I was able to get some great advice on how to increase my public presence to help sell my books, my speaking engagement, screenplays, acting performances, and my many advocacy issues.

The first question you must ask yourself: What are your personal goals? Who are you writing for? Personally, I am not sure. I think I write for folks who want to escape reality, who want to get away from their dreary lives and see what could be. Who want to see what science teaches us and what the future will bring. Who like fast cars and fuel efficient cars and cars based on domestic energy that drive themselves and help protect the Environment. Some have said no woman would ever willingly read my material. I would be sad if that were true and I don’t believe it to be so. I love it when women, men, young, old, African, Indian, Chinese, and European all love my work. But I know I need to focus.

Once you’ve decided your audience, it’s time to set goals. You need benchmarks to see where you stand and see where you need to improve. You should make sure you’re not overextending yourself either. Take some time to think about what you think is feasible and work towards that. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Once you have your goals, make a plan. What do you plan to post, tweet, share, or whatnot on which days. Make a schedule. Perhaps Mondays are Lasagna days, Wednesdays are Beach days, and Saturdays are days for green plants. Check off your progress as the month progresses. C.J. has some great books, in fact, to help you keep yourself on schedule.

At the end of the month, track your progress. Use things like Facebook and Twitter Insights. What worked for you? What was a total failure. Who are your fans? Which posts/tweets got the most likes? Where is there room to improve? Where should you cut your losses? All these questions will help you plan the next month and where to focus.

And then you repeat.

All in all, a great event. Thank you C.J. and can’t wait to see what you have planned for our next event.

Who is the TimeHorse

TimeHorse February 20, 2020 No Comments

I joined Toastmasters last year to both practice my public speaking and to lear to be a better performer when acting. I enjoyed answering Table Topics and being challenged to come up with a spontaneous speech—at least when I knew what the topic was—but when it came to my own Ice Breaker speech, I kept putting it off.

The thing is, I don’t like talking about myself. I love writing fiction and talking about Science but when it comes to my personal life, I get embarrassed and ashamed. Much of my personal story is really not for public consumption and is rather confounded with emotional difficulty and lack of self-worth. I do hope through Toastmasters, to overcome that, just as I have found Cosplay to help with my self-image, but that journey isn’t the subject of this post.

Instead, I want to talk about my Ice Breaker.

I decided to cover my digital self. As you can see from the side menu in the upper-right corner of my site, I have a lot of social networks accounts! Indeed, the currently 26 or so I have listed there are only a fraction of the dozen or so twitter accounts I have, the half-dozen Facebook pages I run, the three instagram accounts I control, the dozens of meetups I’m in with my two accounts, one professional, one personal. Or even the fact that I have a separate blog for Reston Writers and one for the Affordable Electric Car NOW!

The long and short of it is, I wanted to talk all about these accounts, right back to the Original George Harrison and Tomorrow People home page and MINITEL in France and 1200 Baud Modems. I wanted to covey my diverse interests in so many subjects, and I planned a 6–7 minute speech to do it.

Of course, seasoned ToastMasters will know that your Ice Breaker is actually 4–6 minutes, not 5–7, so my speech ran long. And I did tend to lose my place as I spoke, having had no time to memorize it word for word. Nonetheless, I did my best and delivered my speech and got some great advice from my friends and colleagues at the Loudoun ToastMasters, club 5154. My mentor Jonathan gave me some amazing and helpful advice and I am so thankful to all of my fellow Toastmasters!

What do you have to say?

The Neighbor was crazy, the question was which one

TimeHorse February 15, 2020 No Comments

Last month a attended the Fairfax Filmmakers meetup, run by Justin Snyder. Justin has been running this meetup for a number of years and last year he and one of the members, Michael, worked on a cute script, Bottled, involving a genie and an artist getting everything he ever wished for, or so he thought. I audition for a part and table read for the lead but in the end I wasn’t selected. I did try to remain attached to the project and be available for it, but in the end the whole thing came apart and the project was abandoned.

Fast forward to 2020, and Justin, just coming off of his latest personal film project, conducts a new meeting of the group and has invited us to join his latest project, a suspense film. He wanted to do it as an anthology with four short films, each with a unique director, where he would be the anchor.

Personally, I’ve never had a desire to direct, though it’s something I would eventually like to get into, but I did have the kernel of an idea of a story so I teamed up with a woman who wanted to direct and we came up with a 20 minute film all based on the Ring doorbell. I wanted to do something with a black widow and a bit of Hitchcock‘s Rear Window. The director and I bounced ideas off off one another and then I wrote a 21 page script, You Rang, which the director liked.

Script in hand, last week, I submitted it to two of my writing groups, The Saturday Morning Review, and The Hourlings (my own writing group, Reston Writers, doesn’t allow Screenplay reviews). I submitted the first two acts to the first group, as the final act wasn’t ready in time, and then submitted the whole screenplay to The Hourlings. Both gave great feedback—about 75% of it useful—but enough to make the script a whole lot better, and inspire me to come up with a better ending. Finally, with my director’s approval, we submitted it to Justin.

The Suspense manuscript was supposed to be due today. Justin emailed me shortly after submitting You Rang to tell me he would be sending me notes, and I’m waiting for those notes and to start work on this awesome project!

Break a leg, everyone!