My Name is Bruce Trailer !!

The sad thing is, I will probably see this when it comes out.

Glitter Poo

Really?

Seriously, people are spending their money on this? If you are the kind of person who'd pay $425 to shit your money away then here's a deal for you: for $200 I'll come to your house and sprinkle regular craft glitter on your dump, making sure it's nice and shiny. See? I just saved you 225 bucks and you still get to waste money. Everybody wins.

This is All the Decoration I Need

Some dude named Johnny Walker* decided that the best way for me to celebrate Christmas would be to buy the Scotch that bears his name and give it to my friends, complete with the above "complimentary gift tag" to put around the neck of the bottle. Three times apparently, as that's how many they actually saw fit to give me.

I guess I should feel flattered that someone out there thinks I could even afford a bottle of Johnny Walker, but sadly I can't afford one, let alone three. And most of my friends are beer drinkers anyway. And it seems kind of pretentious to think that just because you send someone a gift tag for your product they will feel the need to go out and buy it. Maybe if they'd have sent something useful, like, I dunno, a gift certificate then I would be inclined to check out some Johnny Walker. Alas, they made their mistake in thinking I had more means.

*and I know Johnny Walker is a brand, people.

My First Writer's Block

When it comes to works that are mine, I have never not known where something was going to go, or what a character should say. But now, I find myself having my first case of
Writer's Block.

I do not enjoy Writer's Block. It is a thorn in my side and a pain in my ass. And what's worse, I have no idea how to get past it. I could print off my script and read it and make notes, or I could just do what I've been doing and continue to stare at my computer screen with the program up.

And the more I try to mentally work through it, the worse it becomes. Perhaps I shouldn't force it but I haven't written on this project in weeks (been working on another network spec instead). And it pains me that I can't find the words to my own story, cause it's mine and mine alone to tell.

*sigh*

Bahumbug

What's the internet equivalent of window shopping? Cause that's pretty much all I can afford to do.

On a consumerist perspective, Christmas '07 is going to suck.

How the Mighty Have Fallen

I've been enjoying watching Fuse music television's 10 Videos That Rocked the World (none more than the original episode of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit") and today they bring us Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time," which, of course, launched American into the era of highly profitable, and acceptable sexualization of teen girls, complete with naughty school girl uniform and pretty much killed off the female singer/songwriter Lilith Fair era.

I was one of those uber hip, angst ridden teens who would have rather hit themselves in the genitals with the wrong end of a hammer than listen to "Baby One More Time" one more time, was just waiting for the day when boybands and teen poptarts were finally, officially, over. At long last that time has come but look what it left in it's wake. Sure, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguleira made it out virtually unscathed, but someone had to be thrown under the bus and Britney Spears up and did it herself. while I can't say I actually feel sorry for her now, I don't. But one thing watching this special did was bring home exactly how bad things have gotten for her, and she really can't blame anyone other than herself. You can try as you might to lay the blame elsewhere but the woman is 26 years old with two kids, she has to take responsibility for how she ended up. No one forced her to marry KFed.

To emphasize my point, here's a before of Ms. Spears:

*Photo from Rolling Stone.

Annnnnnnnnd after:

*Photo from Bestweekever.tv

Cheap shot? That's a matter of opinion. It's hard to believe there was a time before Britney Spears but there was. And then there was a time when she had a future, and potential. Both of those times, tragically, are gone. Not that I sympathize with her now, but for me it's amazing how much time has passed and exactly how far someone can fall when they make stupid decisions. Britney Spears serves as the visual example that, "If you can't be a good example, be a horrible warning."

Correction Houston. We Might Not Need That Heat After All

So I was super happy about two days ago when it was cold and rainy and my landlord deemed it okay to turn the heat on for our building, allowing me to revel in turning the thing on full blast and walk around my apartment in my underwear.

However, two days is like months in Los Angeles and now the outside temperature is back up into the 80s, the weather man is telling me.

Damn.

I learned a New Word Today

"Opioid" which is, according to Merriam-Webster, "any of a group of endogenous neural polypeptides (as an endorphin or enkephalin) that bind especially to opiate receptors and mimic some of the pharmacological properties of opiates —called also opioid peptide"

"Opioid Peptide" should be the name of a band. Or a Marvel super villian.

Video of the Day: Wrap Your Junk

So Bad It's Actually Bad

Last night I forwent going out on the town to stay in and watch a group of films with my friend and drink, as that was the cheaper option for the both of us. We made the trip to the video store and I picked out two and she picked out two, though we were both picking out four.

I got Hairspray and Hostel: Part II, and she got I Know Who Killed Me and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Not the best choices, but then again there wasn't much to choose from and we were slightly desperate.

The reason we even bothered to put I Know Who Killed Me in the bunch was because another friend-who'd actually gone to the theater to see it-recommended it to me as something that was absurd and so bad it was funny. Much to our horror, I Know Who Killed me wasn't so bad it was funny, it was simply so bad it was bad. Awful to be exact. A film that should have been at the bottom of a bucket from a cinematic abortion. It never should have happened.

By now making the requisite, "I know who killed Lindsay's career" would be overkill, but note that I tried. Despite the plethora of flaws this shitty films has, the one I kept harping on all throughout was the production value. Or lack thereof. The scenes were always lit very darkly, and there was this blue, theme they kept hammering away at us in every scene, as if we hadn't picked up on it the first 100 times we saw a BLUE rose, or a BLUE window, or some BLUE glass. The sets looked like... sets, as if there was no attempt to be made at making an actual film, and scenes were pasted together, some of which having nothing to do with anything else. And the plot is beyond ridiculous. I would give you a "spoiler alert" here, but trust me, me ruining this is for your own good.

Lindsay Lohan plays twins separated at birth and one ends up with a wealthy family, becoming a good teenage daughter, while the other ends up with their crackhead biological mother, becoming a stripper and a whore in the process. The Good Lindsay, named Aubrey, up and gets kidnapped one day, from a new serial killer in the neighborhood. How do we know it's a serial killer? Because there has been one other victim. That's right, ONE. And the reporters in the film come up with the whole serial killer tag even before Aubrey is kidnapped, so when she goes missing all the reporters wag their fingers at the nay saying cops like, "See! We told you so!" (note: that didn't really happen, but it kinda did).

One day some random woman driving past a ditch, almost crashes her car for no apparent reason other than to move the plot forward and discover "Aubrey" still alive, although she's missing some limbs. "Aubrey" is taken to the hospital where "her" parents are happy to see her alive, and no one really seems concerned that she's missing her right forearm and a good portion of her right leg. She's home is all that matters. That is, until the police come in and want her to answer some questions about where she's been and if she got a good look at her serial killer. "Aubrey" wonders why everyone keeps calling her Aubrey, seeing as her real name is Dakota.

Now, pay attention here kids, this is important. Earlier in the story the real Aubrey was reading from her short story in her creative writing class and what was the name of her title character? Dakota. Moving on...

A counselor is hired to see if "Aubrey" is lying but he comes to the conclusion that she's actually just "delusional" from the trauma she's had to endure. The cops don't buy it because Dakota, as they come to call her to be nice, has the exact same cuts as the first victim and if she wasn't with the serial killer then how'd she get the amputations? Limbs don't just fall off do they?

Apparently if you're an identical twin they can!

This is where the film just totally goes off into "We just don't give a fuckville" and asks the audience to believe in the existence of "twin stigmata" which is ordinarily just the case of one twin feeling another's pain, however IKWKM takes it to the extreme. Not only does Dakota feel her twin's pain, but when Aubrey gets a limb cut off, then Dakota's randomly falls off as well! And that's how Dakota's limbs fell off.

Now, how Dakota figures this out is amazing. She brings up AskJeeves (I guess the budget couldn't afford Google, or else Google had the good sense not to have their search engine be associated with this travesty)and looks up "stigmata" even though she's never actually experienced stigmata. She's losing limbs, not bleeding from her palms and feet. That leads her to check out one of those little extra interests that you get on the side, where she just happens to see "twin stigmata". She clicks on a picture and it immediately takes her to a cheap, Twilight Zone rip-off video on a "case" of twin stigmata. Now she's got it in her head that she has a twin out there, a twin that's losing limbs and she's got to find her!

Dakota takes this information to Aubrey's mother (and by the way, Dakota's also fucked Aubrey's boyfriend by this point as another means of "proving" she's not Aubrey, by way of asking the boyfriend, "Has Aubrey ever fucked you like that? No? Then I'm obviously not her.) Back to what I was saying. Aubrey goes to the mother, telling her she's got a twin, a twin that this mother who supposedly gave birth to her never knew about. I guess maybe Dakota thinks she might have snuck out of the vagina and made a run for it or something. The mother insists that's not true, showing Dakota the video of her ultra sound, which, sadly for Dakota, only has one fetus in the picture. As Dakota's hopes and dreams are dashed, Aubrey's father lurks around in the background, looking "mysterious" and creepy so that we know something's up.

Dakota goes to her room and I guess in order to keep the film from reaching the two hour mark, Dakota has a vision of Aubrey in a wedding dress by a river and puts the pieces together. You're probably thinking she realized where Aubrey was? Nope! Dakota goes to Aubrey's father and right out of the gate she tells him that she knows his wife's original baby died and that he went down the hall to where the crackhead had also given birth-to twins-and he bought one off her, switching the babies so the wife wouldn't be heartbroken her daughter died in childbirth. That's it. That's the conclusion she comes to without any prior knowledge or evidence. Naturally, because he'd been creepy lurking a scene earlier the dad cops to everything. I am stunned at this turn of events even though I shouldn't be. Nevermind how you'd get all the witnesses in the hospital to agree to such a thing, but the fact that she literally just pulled this out of her ass from a vision about a river caused my suspension of disbelief to pack it's bags and leave. I sat for the rest of the film with my arms crossed and very angry.

There's more, Dakota ends up figuring out "who killed me" (no, not you honey, we've already established you've got a twin) because she went to visit the grave of the first victim and found an award for a piano recital, given by the same guy who was Aubrey's piano teacher. That's right, it was apparently so simple that Dakota figured it out but not the FBI, who some how failed to make the connection of, "Your daughter studied under this piano teacher and she's now missing? Funny, the first victim studied under him as well and she went missing and ended up dead. Wow. That's odd."

No, no. It took a boozed up stripper to do the job of our government. The ending is, in a nutshell, the father and Dakota go to the piano teachers house (without telling anyone where they were going, of course)and dad ends up dead while Dakota saves the day, finding the spot by the river where Aubrey had been buried alive. Instead of calling the cops to come and get her sister much needed medical attention Dakota decides it's best if they just lay on the ground for a moment, as the camera pulls back.

It was a shitty film is what I'm getting at.

The other three weren't much better, Hostel II somehow managed to be more boring than the first one and I cared even less for these victims than I did for the guys. Everyone of their decisions was the absolute stupidest decision a character could make, so I didn't feel sorry for them when they ended up getting their stupid asses killed. The ending was supposed to be a controversial "twist", but it was really just a cop out.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry was supposed to be one of those films where the main characters become better people for pretending to be an oppressed group of people and walking a mile in those shoes, but it really just came off as offensive. There weren't any real gay characters, just stereotypes and I really have a hard time believing Adam Sandler as a regular joe firefighter could possibly attract as many women as his character was supposed to. If it were actually Adam Sandler with all his money, no problem, but just a regular guy? Not a chance. The entire set up to the premise didn't hold water either. I'm supposed to believe that Kevin James' character was so distraught after his wife's death it didn't occur to him after a whole year, or that no one reminded him, that he needed to transfer his wife's pension? He's a father, with his wife dead he could take the time to mourn but sheesh, for a YEAR? He didn't realize that when he was going through his wife's affairs? He's either stupid or negligent.

And finally, I fell asleep during Hairspray, I'm sorry to say. It was the last film after six hours of drinking and watching other crappy films and I just couldn't make it through. What I did see wasn't all that great and it just made me want to watch the original Hairspray.

Houston, We Have Heat

Let the warmth spill through the apartment. My landlord finally decided, I guess since it's raining, that it's cold enough to turn on the heaters.

Rejoice!

WTF Canada?

Really, is cooking this dangerous in Canada?

Video of the Day: Support Jericho Writers!

It's a bit late, but it's cool.

Freaky

I bet there's going to be a movie about this.

L.A. Blues

A survey in Self magazine ranks Los Angeles number 32 out of 100 for the healthiest living for women. This would be a good thing, if right at the bottom it didn't rank L.A. "Among the five areas with highest depression rates." That's right, women might be super healthy in L.A. but those endorphins can't battle the depression they feel. And why, exactly are women in L.A. depressed? Some speculation from the women at Jezebel:

1) People in L.A. are superficial
2) It's really hard to meet those superficial people
3) And when you do meet those superficial people you find out they're stupid on top of it.

For this, Self magazine figures women in L.A. are depressed. Well, to Self magazine I go all the way back to Jr. high and say, "No shit, Sherlock."

Having managed to live in L.A. for three years I can attest that findings 1-3 are totally true. While there are some cool people I have met, for the most part it is very difficult to meet people outside of work and unless you just love skanky dive bars, or enjoy paying $20 to get into some shitty club (and that's if you meet the dress code) good luck to ya. Most of the people I know who are in relationships here imported those from previous cities and locations.

You, as the reader, may be wondering if I'm ever depressed. To that I answer, "I live in L.A. don't I?" ;)

Video of the Day: Kids Love to Jump on Beds

Ha ha. Happens every time.

Thank God for Coffee Shops

So, in order to not lose what's lest of my sanity, and to not be a total bitch to my family when I go home for Christmas, I've taken up residence for two hours at a Hollywood coffee shop, playing the part of the broke, Hollywood writer with his/her laptop and a cup o'joe, sitting at a table with other writers doing exactly the same thing. Except I don't drink coffee, so I shelled out 2 bucks for a bottle water, just so they can say I made a purchase and have the right to be here. I don't know how many days I'll do this, there's no lot parking so I have to run out every hour and feed the meter, and I'm really fond of my change.

But, as long as I don't turn into the Grinch for Christmas it'll be worth it.

Happy Thanksgiving

*Whoops, almost forgot;)

*photo curtosey of I Can Have Cheeseburger.com

Fogged Out

Last night, coming in from a viewing of Beowulf 3D (save your money if it's not in 3D) there was a blanket of fog covering L.A. (nature's way of promoting The Mist?). Driving through it, I freaked out because I hadn't watched my local news before leaving the house. Though once I got home and turned on my DVR to finish watching "Chuck", I was relieved by those 10 o'clock previews where the weather man warns of the incoming fog in a dire voice, as if he's trying to promote The Mist.

This morning the fog is still here, which might take away some of the thunder of the big WGA rally today on Hollywood Blvd. It was one of those mornings where, since you don't have to be at work anyway, you forgo the alarm and sleep in. I have no idea how long this fog will be here, probably once The Mist comes out it'll see no reason to further promote the film it's staring in and carry on. Though I hope it doesn't put too much of a damper on what will already be a scrappy Thanksgiving.

A Picketing We Will Go

Today was another fine picketing at Fox. I actually met up with two people I'd worked with last year on a show and it was good to catch up. There were also three "celebrities" on our line, Eddie Izzard, Ali Larter and Seth McFarlane. I didn't talk to any of them because they don't know me and that would have been weird but I did see them. And that counts.

Tomorrow is another bit picketing, as everyone is being assembled to march down Hollywood Blvd. before Thanksgiving break. After Thanksgiving, the WGA and the AMPTP are to resume talks and we can hope there's something in that to be thankful for. :)

Video of the Day: This is the Best Huckabee can do?

Wow. Just... crap man.

Random Sighting

Walking home from the grocery store and what do I see? A yellow Lamborghini lookin' at me.

This wouldn't be so odd if I lived in say, Beverly Hills, or even Santa Monica, but I live in Korea Town. East Korea Town. Like, near Downtown. And this beautiful creature was parked on my street, parked, which makes it all the more unbelievable.

Naturally, I ran back to my apartment, got my camera and took some photos.

Sweet.

Back to Negotiations

If you've been keeping up with pop culture then you know that the WGA (Writer's Guild of America) has been on strike for the last two weeks. For a moment it looked like they were going to go months without talking however, good news has come forth. On November 26th the WGA and the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) are going back to the table.

This is a very good thing, as it might lead to an early end to the strike. A little talking is better than no talking.

F*ck the Gubment

You know what I hate? Calling the Employment Development Department for the state of California. While they have some awesome agents when you do actually get on the phone, it takes FOREVER to get through. I've been doing an experiment where I've been calling-literally-every three minutes for the last two hours and NOTHING. Hell, chance alone should have worked in my favor one of those times. What is it with our government and it's shittiness?

UPDATE: Exactly how long did it take me to get through to the EDD? Three hours. But as always I got a very awesome and understanding agent who squared me away in under five minutes. All will be right with the world...

TOO FUCKING COOL Video of the Day

The Cal Marching Band does video game themes. They even get the Mortal Kombat theme, which made my heart soar.

Video of the Day: Cat and Hamster

Video of the Day: Strange Cat

It occured to me that I haven't done a video of the day in many days, negating the whole, "video of the day" moniker which I'm still using. So here it is, the return of video of the day. Try to guess what the hell this cat is doing...

Kickball, Picketing and Boob Sweat

Last night was our last kickball game for the season. It was a playoff game, one of those "lose and you're out" types and we lost so no more kickball for us. It was fun while it lasted. We actually went out with a bang, only losing 1-2 against a veteran team who were awesome to play. Unlike other teams they weren't pissy about every call and didn't act like douches. I actually did well for a change, driving in our only run, getting on base (TWICE!) and making two vital catches for the out. :) Beer at Big Wang's was great as well, I even flirted with a dude until he opened his mouth and spoke and all kinds of stupidity floated out. Oh well.

This morning I picketed the Ellen show in Burbank, trying to get lonely housewives and the occasional lesbian to turn away in support of the WGA. No such luck as Ellen fans are about as rabid as Old Yeller. I guess once you get that taste of off rhythm white woman dancing you can't get enough.

We got some people to honk for us, until a nice police officer asked us not to because, as it turns out, we were right across from a hospital and sick people don't like their recovery disturbed by honking. It was hot when I was out there and there was very little shade as we walked in a very tight circle, some guys trying to come up with chants and failing miserably. I passed the time by mentally tracking which was sweating more: my back, or my front and it turns out my boobs were more than up for the challenge. It's times like that where I can't imagine having C's, or DD's in the heat of the day.

I also had a celebrity siting today, Dwanye "The Rock" Johnson crossed the picket line, probably in order to do Ellen. A few writers asked him not to, but, like her estrogen charged fans, I guess Dwayne had to have him some of that dancing.

A Picketing We Will Go

I marched in my first rally today. The WGA organized a massive onslaught of the Fox studio in the hopes of pissing off a lot of executives. We won't know if it worked or not, at least not until Sunday. If it didn't then we'll keep picketing until it does:)

I don't have a final count but there was an estimated 3,000 people there today, and while I can't say I felt that our voices were heard I was really proud to be apart of it and support the WGA as well as supporting the writers with whom I've worked.

Jesse Jackson was there, which was weird. But I will say that man is good with rhyming.

Is It Just Me...

Or was Saturday Night Live actually kinda funny tonight? I found myself watching it out of boredom but I laughed out loud quiet a bit. Hmmmm

Oh Yeah...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Video of the Day: Cheerleader Gets Run Over

Am I going to hell for laughing at this?

Video of the Day: Weird Cat

Video of the Day: The Condom Song

Wow. Just. Wow.

Shoutout to the DMV

"Really?" you must be thinking, "the DMV?" Why yes, I want to give a shout out and much praise to my local DMV which just helped me tremendously in my time of need.

I had to get a(nother) temp tag for my old and ailing car in order to keep me mobile and I got in and out with not one single problem and the woman who helped me was very understanding and didn't even freakin' charge me. That's right, she helped me for FREE. Of course I am singing her, and the DMV's praises right now.

I know, DMV's are usually shitty places of pure Evil but methinks I lucked up. When I asked the woman what I owed her she said "lunch". And I was far too giddy to ask if she wanted me to fetch her something right then and there so I just smiled like an igit and skipped merrily out the door. So, if I were to take this woman some form of lunch 1) what could I get that's not insulting and 2) would that seem like bribery, or that we had some sort of arrangement. She very well could have been joking for all I know but I feel the need to thank her in a substantial way. That, or pay the compliment forward, like that shitty Kevin Spacey movie.

So, my three readers, what would you do in this situation? Pay it back? (and how?) Or pay it forward?

Video of the Day: REPO! The Genetic Opera

So, there have been a litany of shitty movies throughout the years, but MY GAWD does this thing look like someone actually wrote it with a felt pen tipped with excrement. On one hand, that something this shitty gets made gives me hope for myself, and then on the other hand that something this shitty gets made makes me fear for myself. No matter what they say double edged swords are not cool.

Possibly Worst Come-On Line EVER

Me, sitting quietly at a PepBoys, reading a book that is clearly NOT the bible.

Random Guy, older fellow, standing next to me, going over a come on line in his head, this is what he comes up with:

Random Guy: "Is that the bible?"

Me: "No."

Random Guy rethinks his strategy, comes up with this: "Do you go to LACC?" (Los Angeles Community College)

Me: thanking god that the electric ratchet tool the PepBoy guys use just came on and I have an excuse to ignore him, under the guise I can't hear.

While I can't say it's the worst come-on line ever (I still have a lot of living to do, knock wood) it ranks up there fairly high.

Video of the Day: Reporter in Front of His Own Burning Home

For those of you living under a rock here's what's been going on is SoCal...

Purple Haze

Well, not so much "purple" as it is burnt sienna and not so much a "haze" as it is a thick (thicker than usual anyway) smog.

Ahhh, living in L.A.

Benadryl is Your Friend

It is certainly mine at this point in time. I would say I'm sick as a dog but I had that privilege yesterday. Today I am in sinus/allergy limbo, where it could go either way, depending.

I tried to write, but I wasn't up for the task of actually having to think about what I wanted to say on paper, and I kept thinking everything was crap anyway so I decided it would better serve me to edit my material in a better frame of mind.

I have been self medicating for a day now (I really don't like taking pills so I tried to rough it the first day, bad idea) and am looking forward to popping those two sweet little pills into my mouth, only to be unconscious sometime thereafter. I remember the first time I took Benadryl and it knocked me on my ass, in a wonderful, trippy kind of way. However, seeing as I might have to operate heavy machinery later on (i.e. my car, getting me to the kickball game, where I will not play, just watch) I have some time before my awesome date with the Dryl.

Video of the Day: Rude Awakening

Second Verse, Better Than the First....

So I literally just finished my first draft of my new spec, (the actual first draft being more of a "rough" aka, shitty, draft). And I must say I'm feelin' good about this one. Things were a bit murky and slow going in the middle but by the time I got to the end I was moving a lot more quickly and now it's done. I'll take a day off, read and relax a bit and then hit it head on starting on Friday, getting a second draft done.

Writing can be utterly frustrating but so f'in fulfilling...

Kickball Recap

We had our regular Monday night kickball game and I am proud to report that after three games I finally got on base! And eventually made it all the way around to second! whoo-hoo. I'm used to kicking the shit out of the ball and having them caught, or trying to bunt only to have myself thrown out at first. But this time, I got a grounder and the guy bobbled the ball, allowing me to get on base:). Better yet, our team won, which makes us 2-2 I believe. Sweet.

WTF? #2

When I was at Target yesterday I was walking to the electronics section and on my way there what did I pass? An entire section of Halloween candy and accessories. That in and of itself wasn't odd, it's SUPPOSED to be there, it's Halloween season after all. No, what I found odd was what was across the aisle from the oodles and oodles of Halloween candy: CHRISTMAS CARDS.

That's right, we're no longer waiting for November 1st it seems, that's just too far away. Hell, we're not even waiting until the end of October. We've got to start Christmas shopping RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!.

Arrgh.

Night on the Town

I don't get out much. It's due to various reasons that I will not go into detail here, but yeah, one can consider me a type of shut in come the weekend. It pains me at times because I feel I should be partying my ass off every Friday and Saturday night, and occasionally I will, but as time goes on I find myself preferring the company of Battlestar Galactica.

It wasn't always this way. I was whittled down over time. Living in L.A. you'd think there were grand opportunities to party, and there are, but mostly if you're rich and willing to stand in line and be dismissed by a portly body guard for wearing the wrong jeans. I have not done this because I don't own a $300 pair of jeans, so I see no point in the humilation.

Instead, I'd hang out with a few people at what would be described as "dive bars". For me, the dive bar is not the place I'd like to spend a lot of my free weekend time. Especially since I tend to be an asshole magnet and always end up with the weird city guys hitting on me. I had one experience where this guy thought it would be cute to hover over my shoulder while I was ordering at the bar and then refuse to back away when I tried to leave. He just stared at me and for a moment I thought I was going to be stabbed. With Love, of course, but stabbed nonetheless. He finally did get the hint, probably due to my every so bitchy, "move the fuck out of my way" facial expression. But he didn't make it easy to move past him.

Since this is a lot of what I'd get going out in L.A. over time it just became a pointless endeavor. For guys, they get all the hot young things trying to become actresses. For women, or more specifically, ME, I get the Creepy Guys, and the Old Black Dudes and the occasional illegal immigrant (don't ask). Not to encouraging.

So for a while I traded in weekend nights out for Best Week Ever and the aforementioned Battlestar. And I got used to it. And eventually I gave up on going out, because, really, what was the use? Even though it's L.A. at some point it's just the same old people doing the same old things.

But I went out last night. Though I had to force myself. I didn't want to but my friend had another friend in town so I said, "what the hell". We ended up going to an awesome bar called the Library Bar downtown, which had great jukebox music (Modest Mouse!) and cool drinks. I had an ale/lager (not sure) called an Old Rasputin and though I hate Guinness I enjoyed the Rasputin. I even got hit on, by a young man just out of the Navy (save the jokes), who wasn't a Creepy White Guy or an Old Black Man. It was refreshing to say the least.

Is there hope after all? Who knows, I'll just have to continue being social and see what happens.

Video of the Day: VIRGO

This is the video that represents my birth month? Holy Jesus. Thanks for the heads up, Lovely!

For Mike: Video of the Day

So tacky it'll seal your mouth shut. If you've already seen it, enjoy it all over again!

Video of the Day: Battlestar Galactica Season 4 Promo

Hell's motherfrakkin' YEAH! Let's just hope SciFi goes ahead and runs the entire season, instead of breaking it up into 2008/09 like they said they would.

Video of the Day: More Cowbell Edition

Video of the Day

We should all have days like this.

Another Spec Finished

There is something both satisfying and terrifying about writing your own, original material. If people don't like it then you have no one to blame but yourself.

I prefer to write my own material, however there is comfort in being able to blame at least a little bit of the suckiness on someone else. I shall explain for those uninitiatied in the TV business.

As a writer you can write your own material, written on "speculation" aka a "spec" that shows your unique (hopefully) voice or you can choose to do a "spec" of an already existing show, preferably a show you actually, you know, like. If you don't like the show, or aren't to familiar with it then it'll show.

What gets you off the hook on writing a spec on an already existing show is that it's not "your" voice but that of the showrunner/creator of the show you're specking. So technically it's not "you". Not that that gives you cart blanch to go poopy on paper, not in the least. What it does i show that you can mimic the showrunner's voice and thus be able to work in a writer's room, preferably on staff.

Don't get me wrong, it feels great to finish a piece of writing, whether for myself or as a spec of another show, and I'll probably be returning to the specking world of TV shows as soon as I know whether or not the show I want to spec is actually going to get picked up for a full season, but there is that extra bit of satisfaction in knowing that I've created something that came totally from my head.

Let's just hope it's good.

Watch Friday Night Lights

It's a big bag of AWESOME.

You wanna know another show that's a big bag of awesome but gets better promotion? DEXTER, on Showtime. And that one has cussing!

But seriously. watch both if you're not. They're two great shows that deserve third seasons.

update: also, watch Out of Jimmy's Head on Cartoon Network. I just realized Kenny might still be reading my blog...;)

Video of the Day: Kanye West Spoofs Himself on SNL

Video of the Day: Sponge Monkies

Remember these guys?

Unemployment Blues

I've been unemployed for going on two weeks now, and it sucks balls. However, I shouldn't really call it "unemployment" seeing as in the television world it's called a "hiatus".

See the difference? Neither to do I. Either way I'm jobless. And it's in "hiatus" that I discover how much I can miss having a place to go to every day and that wonderful weekly paycheck. Ahhh, the weekly paycheck. I think that's what I miss the most.

The first time I was on hiatus I had no idea what to expect. I bought a bunch of books from Amazon.com and was reading almost a book every two days (some were thicker than others). I was also doing a crap load of writing, one sample of which resulted in my first true attempt at a spec pilot, (which now seems to be going nowhere so I've moved on to working on what will be my first serious attempt at a comic book. Wish me luck). That was fine and dandy at first, but then there were problems with my unemployment insurance that held up the money for a good two months and at the the time I didn't have wireless so I was tethered to my internet modem, which meant if i was on the computer I couldn't leave the couch. After about a month I thought I was going to lose my mind.

Having learned from my mistakes the first time I prepared for this hiatus. I called my employer to make sure all my paperwork was good to go (it was) and I bought a few more fun reads from Amazon.com, created an exercise schedule for going to the gym and splurged on a new (video!)and a wireless internet router, so now I can work on my computer from anywhere in my studio apartment. I'm finding I quite enjoy working in the kitchen and have made it into my little "mini" office. I guess sitting right beside a window (ahh, the breeze) where I can see outside helps the cabin fever.

Now all I have to do is hunker down and wait to see when the show I work for will be brought back. I have been told I will be asked back, so it's nice to have a bit of job security.

Any other tips for surviving "hiatus"?

Video of the Day: Bonaduce -vs- FairPlay

Reconsidering...

So, a few days ago I alerted my readers that I would be taking down my blog. However, I am no reconsidering this. Why? Call me shameless, call me superficial, call me a whore for attention, hell, call me Jay-Z (or 50-Cent) but I discovered that I now have THREE readers instead of only two (as I discovered in the comments). That warmed my heart.

What also made me reconsider was that I had another kickball game last Monday and through that I discovered that I do indeed still have something to say on this blog. And also the fact that I will miss posting videos of the day when I find them.

So, I'm going to keep on keepin on, and today, my dear three readers, you will get a video, and me recanting the tale of how I became the goat of my kickball team:), first up, the kickball:

So, my team has had three games thus far and we've lost two. I've been told that's not to bad for a rookie team. We came close to winning our last one, however a lot of our players made simple mistakes, one of which (made not by me) cost us two runs when we were ahead by one.

Now, for those of you who don't play in a kickball league, there are only five innings and that's all you play regardless of whether or not the home team is winning. This is got to be the only sport that ends in a tie and is happy to do it. It's down to the fifth inning and we're down by three (5-2) and there are two outs. I'm figuring that someone is going to get out before me and seeing as I've been kicking for shit (it's not your P.E. kickball, these pitchers take their shit seriously and give you all kinds of funky "pitches") I'm hoping I'm not going to have to be the last out.

That hope was for naught as the kicker before me actually did well and brought in two runs. So now we're one away from at least a tie and it's up to me. You can imagine the string of curse words going through my head as I walk to the plate. I figure it's best if I just "bunt" the ball, bunting kin kick ball meaning you just let the ball tap against your shoe and roll off. As long as it goes past home plate you're all good. So the ball comes to me and instead of kicking the shit out of it (which I probably should have done in 20/20 hindsight) I tapped it against the front of my shoe.

The bunt was good. A bit too good. It rolled off my foot and I took off running for my life, however the pitcher was able to get to it in time and throw me out.

Which was our last out and we lost the game.

And that, boys and girls, is how I came to be the goat of my kickball team.*


*even though the other players were totally cool
with it, and I wasn't the only one who made
mistakes I still felt crappy. We went to a sports
bar afterwards and I made up for it by buying the
table a cheap pitcher of beer.

Last of the Blog

So, I'm not really keeping this up anymore so I'm alerting my two readers that this blog will be going down just as soon as I figure out how to delete it:).

Video of the Day: Pluto Chases Little Kid

The Joys of Kickball

So I joined a kickball league. I joined this league many weeks ago and can't remember if I've told any of you about this but I'll just repeat: I joined a kickball league.

Why did I join this league? For various reasons. I know the captain of the team and he was worried he wouldn't have enough players so he emailed me one night asking that I join right away (that night) or else I'd miss the deadline. Under duress and feeling bad he wouldn't have enough players I did. The other was that I thought it would be an opportunity to meet new people. And I also got a free t-shirt.

With those reasons out of the way we had our first scrimmage a week ago and I was too lazy to blog about it at the time but it was fun and I did meet new people and I also helped our captain narrowly avoid stepping on a used needle in the park. You read that right; He almost stepped on a used needle. In a park. In L.A. Go figure.

I hadn't played kickball since, like, eighth grade and it wasn't as easy as I'd remembered. Then again, I didn't have a P.E. coach gently rolling the balls straight at me. These people take their kickball seriously. There are rules and people skinning their knees and cleats. A good portion of players have bought cleats! Those are the people who play year after year I'm guessing. I will not be one of those people so I see no need to buy cleats.

Our team is doing well thus far, right now we're 1-0, and it feels good to be undefeated. I got to kick once, and while I kicked well it was caught in the outfield, so right now I suck at kicking. I never had to catch a ball, so I never missed a ball, so right now I'm awesome in that regard. But I do have something to show for my effort: the front of my ankle is swollen and if I'm lucky it'll turn blue or even purple! There's nothing like an injury to show how hard you tried to kick it. Or the fact that you almost completely missed the ball when it bounced and it connected with your ankle instead of your foot. Either way sports injuries are cool.

Video of the Day: New Lemon Party Commercial

WTF?

Video of the Day: Kitten Eating Melon

Video of the Day: IT Crowd Antipiracy Ad

WTF?

I am frightened.
(click photo for story)

Video of the Day: Korean Baseball Fight

And I use the term "fight" loosely, because seriously, what the hell kind of goddamn fight is this?

Movie Review: Hatchet

What can I say? I enjoyed it. Hands down one of the funnest horror films in a while and I actually jumped a few times (accompanied by that ever present LOUD GUITAR RIFT) and found myself laughing at the silliness.

It's not a perfect horror film by any means, but it's a cheap, independent film with great production value that actually looks like a professional film crew was involved, and not the director's brother and best friends with a digital camera.

The premise is simple enough: Two college buddies in New Orleans for Mardi Gras go on a haunted swap tour only to get stranded in "forbidden" territory by their con artist tour guide and have their hapless group picked off one by one by local legend Victor Crowley, a severely deformed, severely angry human mutant with daddy issues. Not that his daddy beat him or anything, quite the opposite, his daddy loved him dearly and died of a "broken heart" when he'd thought he'd killed his little ray of deformed sunshine on accident and thus Victor has been on a killing spree ever since...for no apparent reason.

It's all part of the fun I assure you. There are boobs for the boys, and gore for everyone else, including some unique killing scenes, one involving a sander, but for the most part Victor relies on his bare hands to get the dirty jobs done. There's a lot of humor (some unintentional) and I was happy to see the black guy not be the first one picked off (that honor went to the Jesus freaks in the film).

If you're looking to kill an hour and a half, it's not a bad option.

Video of the Day: Sliding Doberman

I Was Mistaken For A Prostitute

Walking back to the offices after running an errand down the street, I came across a vagrant on a bike who eyed me lecherously. He was on the other side of the street I was crossing, and when I got to his side he asked, "Are you working tonight?"

Here's the thing: It wasn't night, it was evening at best. And I can only guess he was asking me if I was going to partake in some nocturnal whoring because there was no other indication that I was employed (didn't even have my studio badge on) and since he was a guy asking a women about "working" and we were both standing on a "street" I guess he was expecting me to work that, which is odd seeing as I would have been the worst dressed whore EVER, in my jeans, Kswiss sneakers and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle T-Shirt. Asshole.

Observation

I caught the beginning of the Justin Timberlake special on HBO tonight, right when he was performing "Senorita." There's a part in the song where he does a to/from call (or whatever it was called) between the men and women. I was a bit confused. When he had the guys do their part it stayed focused on Justin and the male members of his band, but when they did the female call the cameras cut to the audience where hundreds of young, probably hormonal women, let out the chant without so much of a reminder of what they were supposed to be saying and you could hear it echo throughout Madison Square Garden. They went back to the men's portion and once again it cut to Justin and his band, and there was no such echo from the men in the audience. "I wonder," I wondered, "why they're showing the female audience of the crowd and not the men."

And then I had a revelation: This was a fucking Justin Timberlake concert. There were no men in the audience.

Video of the Day: Floating Dog

Video fo the Day: Kerouac Scroll Unrolled

I knew very little about Jack Kerouac's On the Road, but either I find this to be really cool or really odd, I can't figure out which. Considering he wrote it while on Benzedrine I think I'll lead towards the latter.

Cool Down

So last night brought a reprieve from the near sweltering heat Los Angeles had been suffering from. I left my friend's apartment building expecting to be smacked in the face with heat and instead I was greeted with a cool breeze, which continued through the night.

It was much appreciated, as I could actually sleep past 8 a.m. this morning, whereas before it would have been too hot to try and catch a bit more shuteye and no one likes to sleep in their own sweat. For many nights I'd been creating a wet spot and not the fun kind.

The news tells me that the worst of the heatwave is over, and I'd like to think that the weather actually read my blog and realized it was being unreasonable, seeing as it is now September and August is now long gone. There were some unfortunate losses from the heat wave, thus far a total of 15 people have died, most of them elderly and every morning I listened to the radio DJ reminding people not to leave any living thing locked in a hot car. You'd think people would have known that by now already, but I guess stupid can be slow on the uptake.

Video of the Day: Reggie Bush leveled

Seeing as he wasn't permanently injured I feel just fine posting this.

It's Getting Hot In Here...

And I will, I WILL take off all my clothes. Just try and stop me.

I'm from Missouri, which is, from what I've been told by friends and family, scorching hot right now. However, California is trying to give it a run for it's money. Callie might never beat Missy, 'cause Missy's got this little Ace up her sleave called humidity, which added onto normal heat is a total bitch to deal with. As far as I know Callie's got what my boy from Aliens described as a "dry heat," ("Knock it off Hudson!")

Even still, I find myself no longer contemplating buying another fan to add to my little apartment, but now knowing I have to. It's like the weather in Callie up and realized it was August (which it isn't any longer) and went "oh shit!" and remembered to turn up the heat. It doesn't even get cool at night, which makes me think the weather is trying to catch up with what it's missed.

I had no choice but to wake up at nine a.m. (on a SUNDAY, the horrors!) because the heat was covering me like a blanket.

Hopefully the weather will cool down a bit as the weeks go on, it is September after all.

Video of the Day: Poor Cat

That kid is going to get his someday...oh yeah.

Video of the Day: Mark the Retard

Fun at the DMV

I had an appointment at the DMV this morning and I am surprised to say it went well. Los Angeles is notorious for having horrible, hell inducing DMVs but the one local to me was, dare I say, almost pleasant.

I don't know how it could have actually been pleasant fore I believe that no matter what they have to make it drap, least people have too much fun at the DMV and want to go there all the time. As it stands now, no one really likes a trip to the DMV and will try to avoid it at all costs, like I was doing.

But my trepidations were for naught. I made an appointment online for 9 a.m. went in early to fill out the paper work and got out by 9:11 exactly. And I got what I'd come for: A 60 day temporary car tag while I try and repair my car to bring it up to CA smog standards.

If it turns out I can't, then at least I will have my car long enough (well, legal long enough) to continue to drive to work, since the show's production ends the first week of October and I'll have till the end of the month to continue driving. After that I will either have to get a new car or return to Public Transportation. *sigh*

We shall see what becomes of that and I will hope for the best.

Video of the Day: Frisky Tito

Apparently cats love boobs just as much as frat boys.

A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words Friday: If Only

Video to Make Me Feel Better: Finnish YMCA Cover

Not only did it make me laugh after my stressful day, but I think it turned me gay. No, really. I think I grew a penis and still had a hankering for dick.

Worry Wart

I like to worry. Well, I don't like to worry but whenever I find myself worrying it's like a domino effect and one worry leads to another and to another and so on and so forth until in my mind the world has ended in an apocalypse.

Yesterday was a good day for me. I did good. I did Something Right and by the end I was walking out of the office on a high. Today, however, not so much.

I made a mistake at work. I take responsibility for my mistake and have learned a valuable lesson that I already knew but last night I went against my better judgment and finished up work at home and this afternoon I had my boss give me a little talk about stuff that was missing and or wrong. Naturally, in my head I freaked the fuck out and even now I can feel the pressure in my mind as I go over every little detail and beyond on how I Fucked Up.

Since I Fucked Up I was told to redo the work and I did but I am now worrying that I have Fucked Up again and am on pins and needles that my boss is going to email me or call me telling me that despite my second chance I have still Fucked Up. I will not be fine probably until Monday when the boss is finished working on the outline.

I know that I shouldn't be as stressed as I am but I can't help it, again, it's my nature and I'm realizing how mentally addictive it is for me to nit pick myself and thus far I've gotten myself to the point where I'm waffling between I'll never work in this town again and throwing a childish tissy fit that when I have my own show I'll be better off.

In order to calm myself down I actually had to pour myself a glass of red wine (Momma calm down, it was one glass and I'm not becoming an alcoholic). But while the rest of my body was relaxed and at ease my mind was still going a mile a minute with all the possible new ways I could have fucked up.

One thing is for sure, I will never work at home again. Home is play and relax time and I can't concentrate. And the second thing is that various gods and dieties will be hearing me asking for favors for the next few days. Zeus, I'm looking at you.

Video of the Day: David Blaine Street Magic

I Think I've Been Had

About two weeks ago I was talking to one of my co-workers who's down the hall from me in production and we're hanging out after hours and he telling me how ignorant of TV he is, so much so that he's dating an actress on one of the most popular TV shows out there now and he had no idea who she was. I asked him what her name was and he tells me. I will admit I was impressed, not so much by the fact of who he was dating, but by the fact that he honestly had no idea who she was. That smacked of a bit of B.S. to me but I let it go 'cause we were on our way to a one a.m. dinner at Dennys.

However, today I'm reading a gossip blog and there's a post about said actress and her boyfriend and the name is not of my co-worker. With a puppyish head cock to the side I go, "hmmm" and rethink our conversation. I come to three possible answers: 1) they have broken up and she has moved on very quickly 2)I misheard what he said due to loud music and the conversation might have been in past tense 3) he's lying and I've been had.

He seems like a nice guy so I don't want to think badly of him, but I also don't want to bring this up either. It would be awkward and there's no real subtle way to go, "Hey, you know that actress girlfriend you were dating? Well, apparently she's banging someone else."

Methinks I'll just let it go.

Faux Penis Envy

Have you ever felt just, I don't know, totally useless? I find myself feeling that way a lot lately. And I know it's probably just me being my own worst critic but even still I worry about my performance. Or, to put it more bluntly, whether I measure up.

I have, what I have just made up right now, Faux Penis Envy, or F.P.E. It's not like Freud's penis envy where he thought women wanted a penis of their very own cause the things just look like so much fun (and not to mention practical) but I'm basing my F.P.E. on the real penis envy, where dudes think their little dudes just don't measure up to everybody else's dudes.

For some reason I always feel like I don't measure up. And in reality I have no idea what's going on but that doesn't even matter cause the only thing I care about is what's going on in my head. Unless what's in my head actually happens in real life and it either confirms what I'm worried about or it doesn't and my nerves are calmed.

Like I said, I'm probably worrying too much but I can't bring myself to believe that. If anything I don't think I worry enough. I need to relax and I'm sure Karen and Mike will have awesome, super ways of doing that.

Observation

It's not very fun to watch Food Network when you're hungry. Not. At. All.

Are You There God?

It's me. I know I bitch and moan to you constantly about how unfair my life is (really, why aren't I dating Keanu Reeves, I asked you for that years ago) and how I need more money and a new car but that I can over look.

What I can't overlook is that when I ask you for a new, hot bodied male neighbor after the geeky, sweaty bodied neighbor moved out, you give me what? C'mon God, fess up. What was it? C'mon, out with it...that's right, you give me a black chick as a new neighbor which is no where near what I asked you for.

Shame God, shame. I'm sure you give those kids in Africa the corn or rice or whatever the hell it is they want.

Oh, wait...nevermind.

Video of the Day: Tokyo Wading Pool

Seeing this literally made my skin crawl. My god.

Observation

Oreo's new Cakesters are like lite, puffy, chewy orgasms. And they taste good too.

Skin Issues

So it seems that my skin blemishes didn't end with the nasty bed bugs. Now I've got different bumps of a different kind and I'm not sure where these came from, though I suspect foul play.
No, not really. I suspect that my skin is either reacting to me getting hair spray on it or it's not happy with the new bedsheets. To fix the first problem I'm no longer using the hair spray as for the second those sheets are going to be washed in hot water. The bed sheets should be happy I'm giving them the chance. The last time I suspected bed sheets of damaging my skin I threw them out without so much as a second thought.

The thing with my skin though is that I've got great skin. It's awesome. It's got a nice tone and everything. But the drawback to that is whenever something is agitating my skin it breaks out like a California forest fire. It's not even gradual, one morning my skin is fine, the next it's riddled with bumps. My face seems to be the litmus test for possible irritations, as the rest of my body is totally fine (aside from the bug bites).

Thank god for Calimine lotion. I know I must have looked like was doing a sorry assed attempt to start a Pink Man Group last night, there was so much irritated territory to cover, but this morning the bumps seems to be drying out. Let's hope this continues...

Video of the Day: Pimp My Credit Commercial

Damn Hummer

I come home from a hard days work at my job and a good workout at the gym and what do I find in my parking space? A fucking Hummer. I don't know why it was there or whose it was but I was not happy. That's my $25 a month parking space and I happen to like it. I parked in another slot this time but if the fucker is there tomorrow I'm blocking the asshole in.

And later I will complain to the landlord.

Damn Hummer.

Video of the Day: Squirrel Falling Over

No Bit

I had the pleasure, or eventual lack thereof, to watch Norbit last night before I bleached my brain with a night out at a MOCA show.

I admit I laughed a bit in the beginning, and every single time I covered my mouth, surprised at myself. Perhaps there was something in my brain that new later on I'd regret laughing in the first place.

To say Norbit is mean would be an understatement. It's a film that thinks awful of just about everybody, so maybe I should be happy about that. However it seems to take most of its hatred out on fat black women, who don't have enough awful stereotypes about them. You see, Norbit, who's an idiot savant without the savant, is a put upon skinny man who is strongholded into a marriage with Rasputia, that's right, her name is a play on Rasputin, get it? Har har har.

If you didn't get her evilness from her name then you get it from her actions, whether she's verbally or physically abusing Norbit. I don't know, perhaps in another film, spousal abuse would be funny. But just because it's woman on man abuse doesn't make it so, it just makes it sad.

If it's not Rasputia who's being awful then it's the horrific Chinese caricature Mr. Wong played by Eddie Murphy himself. This portrayal of yellowface only stems to serve the belief that black people can get away with racist behavior that white people cannot. Had a white person been in black face talking about chicken and watermelon, all hell would have broken loose and rightfully so. So why is it okay for Murphy to do it?

The film is tedious overall and not really funny. Norbit finds salvation from his wife in the form of Thandi Newton though why on Earth she's in this film is beyond me. From the look of the sets I can't believe this film cost more than 40 million so I can't believe that she got paid much. Murphy is the real criminal here, because until I saw the credits I was lead to believe that this was just another horrible opportunity for him to dress in fat drag he'd stumbled upon and then I saw that he not only came up with the story (with brother Charles, "Charlie Murphy! Murphy), but he co-wrote the script and produced this mess. Which makes his Oscar loss justifiable for me.

I know, I know; Norbit shouldn't have any bearing
on the work he did on Dreamgirls but this really just goes to show that for actors, what works usually come after they win the Oscar show that they probably shouldn't have gotten it in the first place. None more so than Halle Berry and Cuba Gooding Jr. I'd bet money that had Catwoman/Perfect Strangers come out before the Oscars she might not have been able to get up there and perform her crying. Ditto for Gooding Jr. and Snow Dogs. The same would go for Charlize Theron and "Aeon Flux," And I'm pretty sure everyone understands Kim Basinger's win for L.A. Confidential was a total fluke.

Maybe that should be a rule from now on, you don't get your Oscar until they see what's coming behind it. Because at least in the case of Murphy, people didn't like what came before it.

Video Of the Day: Kitten Smackdown

Last few seconds are great. That will end a fight every time.

Movie Premier Update

So it seems like Leonardo DiCaprio was at the movie premiere after all and I missed seeing him.

I'm heartbroken. No, really. I am. My heart is leaking out of my body as we speak. It hurts a little, but I know it's my fault.

My First MoviePremiere

Well, the first one I saw I should say. Let's hope that my first movie premiere that I'm involved in is still on the horizon.

I was at the gym and across the street they were having the premiere for this film, which, looking at it means I probably didn't miss much. Unless Leonardo DiCaprio was there but I doubt that judging from the small crowd of screaming girls. It seemed relatively tame and there wasn't that much security so I'm to guess that paparazzi and young girls don't care too much about the environment.

Reasons to Relax and Bug Update

So I'm going to choose to believe that spending 10 bucks on ointments yesterday is helping my bug bites, though a few on my hands don't look like they're going anywhere anytime soon. There are some elsewhere on my body that are slowly fading so I'm gonna say the ointments are speeding up their progress.

And I'm super stressed today, for no real reason just I'm anticipating the worst at work, which I have no real reason for since I am doing my job. I'm just worried people are work are going to think/accuse me of slacking off. It's worrisome being an assistant sometimes. But in a week or so I'll be home free. Keep your fingers crossed.

Battle of the Bugs

More so battle of the bug bites.

I still have a lot of bumps from my bed bug encounter and now I'm bringing out the big guns to treat them. Thanks to my wonderfully knowing mother who gave me advice on what to do I now have three weapons against the bumps: Aveno lotion (with oatmeal like mommy said), an antibiotic ointment for the possible infection and calamine lotion to sooth me at night.

Hopefully this will work cause I'm sick of my arms looking like a mine field.

Video of the Day: Chocolate Rain

Monday Good News

Well. Not necessarily good news. My car didn't pass smog inspection on Saturday (shhh, don't tell the LAPD) so now I've got 30 days to get 'er fixed and I took my car in to Pep Boys today and they said that a basic tune up will cover what needs to be fixed for the smog inspection, though he couldn't guarantee that it would pass. So this weekend I've got to take my car in on a Saturday morning and leave it there all day and hope to god it gets fixed cause if it doesn't then come September I'll either have to use all my savings to get another car or else I'll be back on L.A.s oh so not too terribly good public transportation. Either way sucks cause I'm not financially ready for the responsibility of car payments nor do I want to get back on the Metro.

So, like Peter Pan did for Tinkerbell, lets all clap our hands for my Camry in the hopes that my baby will pass its next smog inspection.

Film Review: The Bourne Ultimatum

To bad this is probably the last in the Bourne franchise 'cause they really do get better and better.

I saw this at sold out show on Saturday and it was great fun with very little downtime throughout the film. It really does jump from action scene to action scene but unlike Transformers there's an actual story and plot and my god I found myself caring about the characters.

I don't want to give too much away that would spoil the fun but in this *final* installment we find Bourne closing in on just what exactly happened to him to turn him from the kid named David Webb from MO (look at Missouri, producing bad ass assassins) into hard driving, always escaping, beat your ass with a rolled up magazine Jason Bourne (and if you haven't seen The Bourne Supremacy, please do, that magazine bit was the shit). He's in a race with his former bosses from the CIA, including Joan Allen as Pamela Landy, who may or may not be on his side, to find a CIA mole who knows the origin of Jason Bourne. What I like most about these films is that they somehow managed to get all of the cast back so even though the films are years apart it really feels like they were made back to back and someone was thankfully paying attention to continuity.

The action set pieces are some of the best I've seen in years. I thought it would be hard to top the rolled up magazine, however this installment finds Bourne kicking ass and taking names with a book. Hell's yeah. The great action set pieces were met with either audience applause or muted, "Oh my gods" which is always a good sign for action films. My only real compliant with this film, and the series overall, is that the action is filmed with a hand held camera instead of a steady cam. I know this is supposed to pull the audience into feeling like they're there, however it's just confusing and you can't really see what's going on when the fighting gets intense. Aside from that, it was great.

The War on Bugs

So I was at Comic-Con a weekend ago. I came back Sunday night and by Tuesday morning I noticed these little red welts that sprung up on my arm. I figured them for insect bites and they itched like hell. I changed my bed sheets but by Thursday I still had a new set of red bumps cropping up, this time on my legs.

My mother, god bless her, told me that I probably brought back bed bugs with me from the crappy hotel I stayed at (there were several problems with my first nights stay) and that I needed to wash my sheets in hot water, and probably all the clothes I'd worn as well.

I did her one better: I threw out both sets of sheets I'd used last week, sprayed down my futon mattress with a good dose of RAID, as well as spraying my favorite pillow and the big quilt I had. I then took my big quilt down to the laundry room and ignored the sign that said "Please don't wash big quilts" and shoved my big quilt into the washer. Even though my big quilt is multicolored I put the wash on "whites" to get that scalding hot water my sheets so desperately needed (and to also get the smell of RAID out of the quilt).

Did it work? I have no idea. New welts keep cropping up, to the point now where I'm going to mark them with clear nail polish to keep track of them. Some of the older ones are drying out I think but those little bug fuckers bit my nose and under my eye making it look like I had two bright red zits on my face. And that's what prompted my revenge via RAID.

I certainly hope it worked, 'cause i don't know what else to do beside rewash everything that came into contact w/anything I was wearing at Comic-Con and to get a new mattress, which I don't want to do.

Video of the Day: The Soup Presents Rainbow Brite

Too frakkin' funny.

Second Guessing Everything

What prompted this topic? The fact that I just emailed my co-workers a correction email and now I'm fretting if I should have used the word "appreciate" rather than "like".

Damn I need to relax.

Video of the Day: Keanu Reeves vs. Teddy Bears

My gawd that man was hot. Still is.