We just wrapped “Harold and Kumar 3,” marking the end of my first experience acting in a film.

In fact, before we started shooting, I had never even been on a movie set. To me, the entire shoot was a crash course in movie making.

Here’s what I learned:

-I learned that acting is difficult, and the audience is unforgiving when it comes to excuses. Nobody cares that you only got two or three takes to say a specific line, or that you’re talking to a piece of tape on a camera, and not a human. They just expect you to be good, and in my case, they expect you to be funny — which is often a difficult task.

- I learned that while it’s difficult being on the cast, it’s probably more difficult being on the crew. On our movie, over a hundred extremely hard-working people were constantly busy moving lights, building sets, cooking food, running cables, balancing budgets, running errands and a thousand other things I probably don’t even know about. They arrive on set before the actors arrive and leave after the actors leave. And they don’t get any days off like the actors do — I was probably there for only half of the nine week shoot. It takes crews of hundreds of people working twelve hour days for several months just to make a two hour movie! That type of man-power and money could probably build a really tall building — though, to be fair, it’s probably difficult convincing millions of people to pay $12 to see a building (or $17 to see it in 3D!)

- I learned exactly what movie producers do, and why I could never be one. Coming up with a shooting schedule that fits various actor, location, and budgetary constraints is like putting together a two million piece puzzle– and receiving no credit for it. Name a famous movie producer. You can’t! Okay, fine, Harvey Weinstein, but you get my point. As difficult as it sounds to make a movie, being a part of the few people to finance, drive, and/or organize the effort seems nearly impossible. I met some of the producers of Harold and Kumar 3 but I bet there were several more that I have never (and will never) meet.

- I learned that actors have down time. A lot of down time. There were days that I was on set for 14 hours and shot for 30 minutes. Basically, I spent more time in a trailer near Detroit than Eminem. I was taught a very valuable lesson early on by another actor/writer, which was to treat downtime as an opportunity. Pick a hobby or a sideproject to work on, so that you look forward to those six-eight hour breaks. I tried to do that, but instead often just wandered around set talking to people and asking them mundane questions like “Does any actor have such perfect skin that you don’t need to put make up on them?” and “What was the wrap party for THE HURT LOCKER like?” (the answer to both is Cecil B. Demille.)

- I learned that you can be a “movie star” without being a “giant asshole.” The cast of this movie is extremely eclectic and talented, so I got to act/talk to a lot of popular, successful, prolific, attractive people, and everybody was so friendly — not only to me, but to the crew. I was kind of annoyed because I’ve been pretty eager to become a huge prick once I got a few more movies under my belt. However these other guys have been in hundreds of movies, and were extraordinarily kind and funny to everybody. It’s really starting to look like I’ll never be able to berate an intern for fucking up a lunch order. Speaking of which…

- I learned that it’s extremely easy to get fat on set. The only thing stopping me from eating a sandwich right now is the fact that I can’t have any sandwich I want for free at a moment’s notice. On set, you can eat whatever you want, all day, for no money. And that’s in between delicious catered meals. Do you have any idea how much cereal and fruit and turkey jerky and bagels and yogurt and donuts and potato chips and snacks you can eat when the only limit is will power and available room in your stomach? It’s a lot. There’s a reason actors get fatter when they get old. You’d get fatter too if the only thing keeping you from sucking down a cookies n’ cream milkshake right now is the shame of asking for it. Because that shame goes away right quick.

- I learned that Michigan is awesome. I was only able to see a small fraction of one percent of that great state but it was enough to inspire a return visit, perhaps to the UP. That’s right. I know acronyms about Michigan. It stands for the Upper Peninsula. Not a big deal.

- I learned that I really want to write a major motion picture. As fun as it was being an actor, I’d really love to sit on a big set one day, and see hundreds of talented people working tirelessly on something that came out of my brain. Best part of all: I could just turn around and ask for a turkey burger with avocado and they’d have to give it to me. WITH fries.

Three great Q’s and A’s from an amazing Ron Artest Interview. I used to think Ron Artest was crazy– now I realize he’s just 100% unabashedly truthful.

DO YOU STILL WANT TO PLAY FOR TEAM USA?
I want a gold medal so bad, I’d be the water boy. But they won’t even let me try out! I’ve been trying to get on that team forever. Three years ago, I called Jerry Colangelo. He answered the phone. I said, “Hi, this is Ron Artest,” and the dude hung up!

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON KOBE?
I thought you’d never ask. We’ll be on the plane, playing cards. Kobe will walk up, stop the game and say, “Ron, come to the back of the plane.” Then, he’ll show me some tape and say, “Look at this. Here’s what you need to do.” I’ll go back to my seat, and then he’ll walk up to Shannon Brown, stop the card game and do the same thing. And it doesn’t matter if you’re sleeping. He’ll wake you up and show you things you’ve never thought about. He puts so much time and passion into the game.

WHO DO YOU WISH YOU COULD’VE PLAYED AGAINST IN HIS PRIME?
Jordan, because I’d want to see what he’d do to me. I think he would’ve busted my ass.

okay… one more. But then you should really read the whole thing here.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE?
Titanic. When DiCaprio is trying to save the young lady, that was dope. When she tries to save him, and he dies, that was dope too. That whole situation was tragic. When I saw the baby in the water, frozen? I cried a little, but mostly I was pissed. I’d just had my daughter, so when I saw that frozen baby, I was like, “What the f — !? That’s bull — !” And let’s not forget about Céline Dion. That woman is unbelievable. You know how much I love my music? Well, I wouldn’t put out a song for 10 years if that meant I could put out a song with her. Her voice sounds like pure fresh air. It sounds like what it sounded like when the world was created.

After two hours of YouTube tutorials, the ante has been officially upped.

Next step: Learning to solve this baby without help.

Step after that: Lead an active social life.

Really excited about my first real original art purchase.

I found the painting by doing a google image search for “Woody Allen Portrait” and contacted the artist: Gayle Bell. Three weeks later Woody was back where he grew up, in Brooklyn, NY.

(For more Gayle Bell artwork, check out GayleBell.com!)

To me, weather prognostication is like stacking pillows: The first two or three may find themselves accurately above the ones below, but once you’re ten pillows high the tower will come crumbling down in a heap of inaccuracy.

That is to say, tomorrow or the day after’s weather prediction may be accurate, but I’ve always operated under the assumption that 10-day weather forecasts are bullshit (and judging by conversations I’ve had with my friends this is not an unpopular opinion.)

The problem is, who is going to call out weather forecasters on their faulty 10-day predictions? Nobody remembers what tomorrow’s weather forecast was nine days ago. People only look at tomorrow’s forecast, because frankly anything beyond that is fairly inaccurate.

But just how inaccurate? How wrong is that 10th day prediction? And does it get more accurate the closer that day gets to today? That’s what I wanted to find out.

First I poked around the Internet looking for old 10-day weather forecasts. When I couldn’t find any, I started recording my own data by taking screencaps of weather.com’s 10-day weather forecast for my old Manhattan zipcode.

I assembled my first ten days worth of data into the info-graphic below:

Superficially this looks like a regular 10-day forecast, though take a closer look and you’ll notice one large exception: These are all predictions for the same day: Saturday, May 01. (GROUNDHOGS DAY!!! No, just joking.)

It’s organized in chronologically descending order with May 1st forecast at the top, and April 22nd prediction at the bottom — I should note now that 9 days away is the last day in a 10-day weather forecast, with the first day being todays prediction. You fucking idiot, did you really not know that?

It hardly takes a statistician to notice accuracy and time are inversely proportional. Or perhaps more simply put: The farther you are away from the day you are predicting, the less accurate your prediction becomes. Again, this is common sense, lets look at the farts. Just kidding, the facts.

Nine days away, on April 22nd, Weather.com had predicted a rainy day, with a high of 66 degrees. Well I hope people checked the weather for May 1st since that day, because they would have looked awfully dumb in a rain jacket and umbrella when May 1st approached and it was in fact 86 degrees and sunny! “At least take off that jacket you dumb fuck!”

Some other interesting things: you’ll notice a great leap in accuracy between 4 and 5 days away from “today’s date.” Meaning by April 27th, four days away from May 1st, weather.com had finally zeroed in on an accurate prediction, getting the high wrong by only 3 degrees Fahrenheit and the lows completely accurate!

Certainly one set of data isn’t very telling, which is why I kept recording forecasts until we landed on a rainy day. I was eager to find out if weather.com, which wasn’t very accurate about temperature, was perhaps a little better at predicting precipitation. I’m crying right now. It won’t stop.

Below is a similar info-graphic compiled from 10-day forecasts from May 3rd thru May 12th.

So for this set of data, these are all predictions for May 12. Based on temperature alone, weather.com was even less accurate then our first info-graphic. Nine days away, on May 3, they were not only off by 22 degrees (predicting a high of 73, vs the actual 51) but they were incorrect about rain (predicting mostly cloudy, but no precipitation). And they say banks need to be bailed out? …What?

You also may notice that 4 days away, May 8th, weather.com is still very off with their prediction, estimating highs and lows of 69/54 against the real 51/44 — a very chilly day for May! Yo quiero taco HELL!

However, on a purely precipitation level, by May 4th, weather.com pretty much nailed it, and never relented: it was going to rain on May 12th, and you know what? They were right!

Obviously this is just twenty dates worth of information (out of a possible two-million-eighty-thousand-five-hundred — Creationists do it from behind!) but it should hopefully help shed a little bit of light on just how much these so-called “professional” weather predictors get away with when it comes to 10-day weather forecasts.

;)

I’m going to be in the new Harold and Kumar movie! It’s true.

Three cool facts:
1) It’s called “A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas”
2) Todd Strauss-Schulson, the director, also directed Die Hardly Working.
3) It’s being shot in 3D!

It comes out a year from this Christmas so hopefully you all stay alive to watch it.

MyJewishLearning.com asked me to talk about Jewish summer camps.

(…Click on the underlined part of the sentence above to see what I said…)

(…Sorry. Just… you should know to click on it, though. I hate having to tell you guys — nevermind. I’m over-explaining it…)

I couldn’t make the Webby Awards last night because I was not in New York so I trusted Jake to go up there and accept our People’s Voice Award for best Comedy Series with grace, dignity, and respect.

Every winner is allowed a 5 word acceptance speech and I was certain Jake would find a way to succinctly and brilliantly sum up how grateful we are for having the best fans in the world and how humbled we were to even be considered for the award.

He did not let me down.

In college I used to make videos for the Internet with my roommates/friends Offer and Pavla before most people even made videos for the Internet. I eventually parlayed my mild Internet video and writing skills into a job at CollegeHumor.com, which forced me to move to New York.

Saturday, June 12, 2010 was my fifth year anniversary of moving to New York, and also the day Offer got married.

I love it when milestones cross paths like that. It makes them easier to remember! And congratulations to Offer (and his wife Jackie) for setting the bar unbelievably high in my first friend wedding.

Finally a webshow that combines my two favorite things: Dan Klein and Seinfeld. So funny.
(More at SeinfeldComedy.com)