Monday the 11th – UH OH! – When last you read, I had just returned from a fun weekend in Vegas and started to feel a little strange. It felt like I was coming down with something but I wrote it off to all the smoke in the MGM Grand. I knew it had affected my friend Zandra quite badly, but now it was affecting me. I just slept all day and took Zicam in the event it may turn into a cold. The last time I caught a cold I was coming back from San Francisco from Wonder Con. Stupid airplanes. They’re more like flying Petri dishes! Full of germs and disease! So all day I slept and tried to stave off a possible illness. I didn’t even meet up with any friends in the event I may be contagious.
Tuesday the 12th – FEELIN’ GOOD! – I could tell that my nose was stuffy when I spoke, but I didn’t go through the usual sore throat that usually accompanies a cold. I went to a session for “Ratchet & Clank” in the morning at Technicolor studios and felt really great. I even had a lunch meeting that same day with a producer/manager who goes to my church. I even found the time to stop by Best Buy and pick up some DVDs, mail some stuff at the post office, and run a few other errands. Just to be safe I was going to meet up with my doctor in the afternoon in the Hollywood area to have him look me over, but he was running late and our schedules didn’t coincide. So, based on what he gave me the last time I had a cold, he represcribed me the meds I needed to fight off a new virus. I started on the antibiotics right away. But by the end of the day I was starting to feel it. Sure as s**t, I was sick! I spent the rest of the day sleeping and resting with the steamer by my bed.
Wednesday the 13th – BARK BARK! – I was supposed to do a quick session for a videogame demo in the afternoon but I didn’t have the pipes. A bit of laryngitis had set in. Plus my lungs were full of junk. Luckily, they rescheduled the session for the following week, so I’ll still be able to do the gig. I slept the rest of the day and picked up some more medicine at night at the drugstore. This sucks! Next time I fly, I’m going to wear a surgical mask! I don’t care what ANYONE thinks!
Thursday the 14th – AVENGERS…COFF COFF! – I was supposed to do an episode of “The Avengers” but I didn’t sound like Dr. Pym because of my laryngitis. I’m sure they’ll pick me up next week when I’m sounding better. More sleep….zzzzzzz.
Friday the 15th – FEELING BETTER! – I was starting to come out of it. The meds were working! Though I slept all day, I did get together with my friend Chuck McCann for dinner. We were joined by my pal Ginny who had just returned from Voice Over class. Finally I was feeling back to my old self. But I still had an annoying cough.
Saturday the 16th – REALLY BETTER! – I continued to improve. In fact, I took great delight in GETTING UP EARLY IN THE MORNING! Yup, you heard right. I was literally TIRED of sleeping! So I went to an autograph show at the Beverly Garland Hotel and met up with classic comedian Shelley Berman, who signed an album cover for me. I had seen Shelley at my buddy Malachi Throne’s birthday party awhile back. He sure is a good guy and a real legend! I also met up with David L. Lander, who plays my brother in the “Garfield” series. I took great delight in telling him that we got picked up for a second season and would be recording again soon. I had him sign my DVD and VHS copy of “Tunnelvision”, a movie I absolutely loved throughout the 80’s. It starred many comic actors before they became stars. So I’ve made it a hobby to have as many of the actors in the film sign my DVD and VHS. In fact, the VHS I own was the very first VHS I ever bought! It was marked $39.95 and I remember back in 1982 that seemed like a MILLION dollars to me. But I rented the movie so much from the store it just made more sense to actually buy it. So far I have about 5 signatures on it including Laraine Newman from SNL! Later, I got to meet three of the original actors from “Land of the Giants.” I’ve been enjoying watching the episodes on DVD over the course of the past few months, and I only have about three episodes left to watch. Don Matheson who played Mark, Don Marshall who played Dan, and Deanna Lund who played Val were there. They’re all really nice folks, especially Don Marshall. Every time I’ve seen him at an autograph show he’s always got a smile and a kind word. What a cool guy! While talking to him, I learned that he’s written a sequel script to “Giants” that explains what has happened to them all these years since the series ended. It sounded fascinating, and with the current technology with CGI, it would look amazing! Don also played Mr. Boma in the “Galileo 7” episode of Star Trek, which we just watched on Blu Ray two weeks ago. I was relating to him how amazing the episode looked and he should try and see it.
With the cast from “Land of the Giants”
I left the autograph show when I had my mission accomplished, and went home to let my maids in. As they were cleaning, I took Sassie over to the groomer’s to get her a bath. When the maids finished, my friend Sara came over and we went to Best Buy to pick up the James Bond movie “The Man With the Golden Gun” on Blu Ray. Sara also needed to charge her phone at the Verizon center, since the charging portal on her phone was broken. While she was waiting for her replacement to arrive in the mail, she was losing charge. They were nice enough to charge it for her while we ate lunch. We also went over to Firing Line in Burbank and shot a few rounds. I let her shoot my Walther PPK, which was just about the right size for her, and I shot my new .45 automatic model 1911. She’s not a bad shot and she had fun plugging away at the target. But the Walther jammed a few times, and we’re not sure if Sara may have accidentally hit the clip release button while firing, or if something else was amiss. The attendant looked at the gun and said that it looked fairly dry. He thought it needed a cleaning and some oil. Sure enough, I’ve run about 400 rounds through it and it’s definitely due for a cleaning. I’ve got to get to that soon! After that we drove to get Sassie at the groomer’s and took her home. I got the house ready for guests, as we were going to have another Blu Ray Trek night, selecting a few episodes of the original “Star Trek” season one Blu Ray edition that just came out. We had watched 3 a few weeks before, and we were going to watch a few more tonight, in addition to the Bond movie “Golden Gun.” Everyone arrived around 7, and we were talking in the house, and all of a sudden the power went out. Nobody’s unit but mine was affected. Luckily I remembered what happened the last time my power went out, and I found the cabinet and clicked the breaker. I’m not sure why my breaker went off, as I didn’t have that much electronic stuff going…just some lights in the living room and the a/c. The power company said sometimes the breakers get old and lose their flexibility and just pop off. So now I have to ask my association to replace my breaker. But we got the power back on and all was great. The first episode we watched was ‘A Taste of Armageddon’, a politically-driven episode about the tragedies of war. My friend James was hoping the next episode selected would be “Shore Leave,” a light-hearted episode that most Trek fans remember fondly. But since we select all the episodes purely at random, his chances weren’t good. Out of the 28 episodes on the set, we had already watched 4, so his chances of selecting “Shore Leave” was 1 in 24. However, I let him pull the name out of the bin and VOILA! He opened it up and there it was! SHORE LEAVE! What are the chances?! We laughed at the odd coincidence and wrote it off to the “power of suggestion.” We all enjoyed Shore Leave and then watched “Golden Gun” on Blu Ray. By the time it was over, it was quite late, so everyone headed for home.
Sunday the 17th – BACK TO BIZ! – I was definitely feeling better, but slept late anyway just to be sure. I eldered at the evening church service, then went to get a bunch of groceries. I was running low on a lot of stuff and needed restocking. I took a short nap in the evening after dinner, then got up to do some auditions in my home studio to e-mail to my agent. Then I prepared for the upcoming week heading into a holiday weekend!
And how was – ACHOO! – your week??!!!
