Information Diet: Rich Sommer

Specs

Age 34

Accomplishments Plays Harry Crane on Mad Men, returning to AMC this Sunday, March 25; appearing on Broadway in Harvey beginning in May; avid board gamer (visit his blog Rich Likes Games at games.richsommer.com)

Base Los Angeles

What’s the first information you consume in the morning?

I have an RSS reader, Feeddler. I mostly subscribe to board game blogs—they have reviews of new games and discussions about trends. It’s straight-up dork talk. Then there’s Lifehacker and AMC’s Mad Men RSS feed, just to kind of see what they’re saying about us. Oftentimes they have interviews with cast members that I didn’t get to work with or know that well, so it’s kind of fun to read about their experience.

What do you read or watch or listen to at the breakfast table?

If I can convince my kids to let me have the news on, I usually get about 15 to 20 minutes of the Today show in.

What occupies your mind in the car, on the subway, train or bus?

I listen to a lot of podcasts, which are split down the middle between comedy and board game podcasts, and a couple of eclectic ones like The Dinner Party from NPR, where they take an event that happened that week in history and give you a cocktail recipe inspired by it. My two big hobbies are board games and cocktails.

Are you a TV junkie or on an airtime-restricted diet?

Our airtime is somewhat restricted because we have two kids that we don’t want to always have in front of the TV. But we end up watching Sesame Street.

Once your kids are in bed, do you watch anything else?

My wife and I are fans of a lot of shows—Modern Family, The Office and Up All Night are three of our favorite shows. I’m a huge Breaking Bad fan. I have never and will never miss an episode.

Before bed, do you bite into a novel, graze on Twitter or fast until morning?

I’ll usually stay up a little later than my wife and play Xbox, a little Modern Warfare 3. Or I’ll have a friend over, and we’ll play board games until late at night. I’ll always choose fun over sleep.

Which is more nutritious: print or Web?

Instinctively, I want to say print, but I think that the Web is an as valid if not more valid means of transporting information.

Give us the skinny on your favorite app.

So many! Disk Drivin’ is a racing game that I’ve been playing a lot lately with Jon Hamm; Jay Ferguson, who’s also on the show; our head hairstylist; and our makeup artist.

What’s your biggest digital indulgence?The lamest is this app called Start Player whose only purpose is to figure out who goes first in a board game. And I paid money for that. It makes me feel like an idiot every time I use it.

With such a bloated media universe, how do you cut out the fat? I’m pretty quick to delete something off of my phone if it’s become obsolete. And things like RSS readers have made life easier—all of the headlines are going to be related to a topic I’m interested in.