Things You Learn In 372 Days

Uprooting your entire life and moving it to another coast teaches you a few things - both about yourself and your new hometown.

Let's review them in a semi-random, self-important manner, shall we?

• If you don't lock your car doors overnight, the homeless people will steal the change from your ashtray.
• The cab driver who tells you he's "absolutely saving you time" by not taking the freeway to the airport will be eating crow when he gets pulled over for speeding through West Hollywood.
• You might be surprised to find yourself more amused than angry when the cabbie starts to argue with the motorcycle cop and the officer tells you "Wanna step out of the cab, sir? Because this man is going to jail."
• Every day on my way to work, I drive by a place in Silver Lake called "Lovecraft Biofuels". I want to stop in some day and ask what to put in my shoggoth.
• That's easy: more hillbillies.
• NEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD!
• I'm convinced that the sad, square concrete ditch called the Los Angeles River was the original inspiration for the Star Wars trench run scene.
• A picture's worth a thousand words, but ten credits on IMDb are worth thirty pictures.
• Yes, thirty thousand, very good. Now how many words is one credit worth?
• Aha! Trick question. The answer is: five. And they are "Not Interested At This Time."
• When you work in the entertainment capital of the world, everyone else's job seems more fun... but it's probably not.
• If you get in your car and discover your headlight is burned out, expect to drive a maximum of six blocks before the LAPD pulls you over.
• It's the moment when the cop has his hand on his holster and the flashlight blaring through the window that you wish you weren't a self-styled hipster who keeps his driver's license inside a cigarette case in his backpack.
• Only once you accept the fact that the cop is going to write you a ticket for $300 and there's nothing you can do about it -- only then will the traffic gods bless you with a warning.
• Which costs more: a new lamp for the headlight in your 97 Acura Integra, or a California Certified Emissions Test?
• God, who knew there'd be so much math in this thing, huh?
• At least it's multiple choice.
• Yeah, it's the smog test. Takes longer, too.
• I am the Napoleon Dynamite of wedding receptions.
• L.A. is the kind of place where you go to a wedding and it's for Jim Belushi's nephew, and Jim is there and it's like, all cool and stuff.
• No, I didn't talk to him.
• You live in LA for a while and you realize that celebrities are normal people too. They shit their pants one leg at a time just like everybody else.
• Just for clarity's sake, there were no embarrassing acts of defecation at the wedding. At least not that I saw.
• Farting is not defecation, right?
• 30 Rock is the best new sitcom on TV. It's the only thing on TV this year I'd actually consider getting the DVD of. Except maybe for The Lost Room.
• I'm taking a class that applies improvisational technique to scripted work. If that seems counter-intuitive, it is.
• Yesterday I almost cried about my inability to lay on the floor and cry. Figure that one out without writing up a prescription.
• IMDb PRO has this crazy thing called a "STARmeter" that is supposed to measure a person's "buzz". It is powered by voodoo and a team of meth-addicted squirrels.
• I don't like telling people I'm an actor because, by and large, I don't think actors are well-respected.
• Maybe if actors didn't act like desperate jackasses and ask predictable, cloying questions all the time we'd get more respect.
• Someone needs to slap Billy Bush for coming up with that "Hot Danny/Slacker Danny/Spiritual Sandy" crap on Grease: You're the One That I Want
• Listen: I don't program the TiVo.
• I met a producer at a party who gave me some good advice. She said, "Look, there's no A + B + C = D formula to this stuff. You have to get yourself out there. You have to put yourself in harm's way." That was smart.
• The reason every third-rate red carpet reporter asks "What was your big break?" is because there is no ONE answer. Everyone's journey is different.
• February and March are probably the best time to come visit LA. Man, the weather is perfect.
• I like making postcards, it's fun.
• Most people speak English, I haven't been shot, and my apartment hasn't fallen into the ocean.

Overall, I'd say I've had a pretty good year.

That's the beauty of low expectations.

-Tom, who's hoping you'll buy his snowblower. Great condition, low miles!