Contest Update #3

Nope. Nothing again. Which, after three weeks and three opportunities to win at least the shitty door prize I'm starting to get disheartened. But, as my last post said, I'm not a lucky person. Never have been, never will be. (I guess, there are some things I could probably count as luck but I won't go into them here).

I guess I could say I'm not lucky when it comes to money. Pretty much all my money I have to work for, and it seems, work hard for very little. Hell, even winning the smallest monetary prize the lot has to offer would help tremendously but alas, fate does not favor me.

I will continue to put in my contest tickets, if only because I'm taking the bus anyway and at least I'm saving oodles of money on gas, which I haven't had to buy in over two weeks, so I've got that going for me.

Tomorrow Is Contest Day

So tomorrow is another announcement for the contest winners, I have no idea if I will even win one of the shitty door prizes but I think I'm due for one. If I'm really lucky I'll win some big bucks but I've come to realize that I am not a person who luck favors. I've never really been "lucky", everything I've earned I had to work for so I guess winning money should be no exception. I wonder what it would be like, however, to win the big bucks. It'd certainly help with paying the bills and such, then again, so would a better job and I haven't seemed to be lucky at landing one of those either. I dunno, maybe it's just not my year because I was hoping the second half of 2008 would be better than the first but it seems like it's just the same old thing and I may be in for a craptacular year overall. *sigh*

Contest Update #2

So, uh, yeah. NOTHING again this week, not even the shitty door prize and this time I got the full five days. I'm going to give this two more weeks before I declare the contest rigged.

And the Darwin Award Goes To...

Spokane man accidentally shoots self in face.

Way to go, Billy Bob.

Contest Update

So on Tuesday the lot I work for had the drawing for the winners of the first week of their save gas/parking spaces contest. They drew the names on Tuesday morning but decided it was too much trouble to write them out and post them online so they waited until 1 in the afternoon on Wednesday (today). Sadly, on this inaugural outing I didn't win anything.

Not. One. Thing.

I didn't even win one of those crappy cheap lot prizes that they had an abundance of.

I am not deterred, however. I will continue to ride the bus, if only because it really does save me on gas. And I will continue to drop in my contest tickets, if only because I'm riding the bus and might as well anyway. There are still plenty of weeks to win at least a shitty lot prize and in the end even if I don't win anything I will still have the reward of saving the environment. And the lot's parking spaces.

Again?

This is usually Kenny's territory (see; Fat People Are Beneath Contempt) but after witnessing the awfulness that is the Disaster Movie trailer I must say we need to call a cessation on all these [Insert Genre Here] Movies. Or, if only to make the writers actually earn the laughs, limit the references to the movies that, you know, actually FIT THE GENRE. Hannah Montana and Sex and the City might be topical but they have absolutely nothing to do with disaster movies and everything to do with laziness. And the poster is just stupid.

Incentives

I am currently working on a major studio lot. Yesterday, when driving to this lot I was stunned to find myself having to drive all the way to the roof to park, as it was 8:50a.m. and lack of parking spaces usually occurs for the slackers who arrive after 9:30a.m.

Now, I don't often drive, which will become an important tid bit momentarily. But twice a week I do drive because I go to my gym in the morning and then shower and head to work. It's good for me because it's first thing in the morning when I actually have the energy to even think about exercising. Anyway, I head into the lot and discover why there are almost no parking spaces so early in the morning: The lot is operating at full capacity. Every single stage is being occupied and will be through till fall.

You can imagine how difficult this will become for many people, especially the lot itself but they have come up with a way to dissuade drivers from driving their car to the lot:

Though good ole' American competition.

Our lot is having a weekely giveaway, only eligible to people who use "alternate" means of transportation to get to work. That's carpool, bike, bus or, god forbid, walking.

Now revelation that I only drive to work twice a week becomes important: I'm already using public transportation to get to work. I've got the bus pass and everything!

Since I use the buss and I'm already in the system I got my little ticket vouchers that you turn in every day to show that you've not polluted the earth or taken up precious space in the parking garage. And every week there will be a drawing for one of five awesome prizes, the biggest of which is over a grand.

So I'm going after that weekly grand prize. Though I missed yesterday I will from now on be taking the bus to work and home every day and hitting the gym nearer to my apartment at night (which will be totally hard as I'm super tired at the end of the day and the bus doesn't exactly help). Every week I will log on to post and let you know if and what I've won.

Wish me luck!

R.I.P. Stan Winston

It's hard to process my feelings right now on this incredibly sad news. I didn't know the man personally, wasn't anything more than an avid fan of his work but I find myself extremely sad now. Stan Winston was one of the best special effects artists of his, and especially our time. As special effects gear more and more toward what can be created in a computer Stan Winston stood above as someone who could actually build a creature and bring it to life.

Were it not for Stan Winston I wouldn't have been scared out of my mind watching John Carpenter's The Thing. Were it not for Stan Winston my mouth wouldn't have hung open in total awe and disbelief as the T-1000 pulled it's liquid metal form from the floor of the mental institution that housed Sarah Connor, or I wouldn't have felt the urge to cry along with Dr. Ellie Sadler as she (and I) saw the might of the Brontosauruses as they grazed in the field of Jurassic Park. Had it not been for Stan Winston, the Predator would have been nothing but a goofy faced failure, but Winston, called in at the last minute, took a fateful plane trip with James Cameron who goaded his friend's artist rendering by quipping, "You know, I'd like to see something with mandibles," and Winston took the challenge and it lead to one of the greatest ugly motherfuckers of my generation. Winston also had a hand in the Predator's greatest nemesis, improving upon an already existing concept by designing the queen alien in Aliens, which to this day is my all time favorite film. And, while he didn't design it himself, Winston took a turn behind the camera to direct Pumpkinhead, another all time favorite, which to this day I cannot watch late at night because it's still a guarantee to give me nightmares.

I personally had hoped to work with Stan Winston one day, as he was at the top of my list to design and make the things I write that go "bump" in the night. I am saddened that I will never get this opportunity to work with him personally and he and his creations will be deeply missed. His last turn in creating awesome designs came with Iron Man and he should be deeply proud that that is the last stamp he left on the world. Iron Man was a better movie for having him build the suit instead of leaving it all up to computers.

Rest in peace, Stan Winston. You will be greatly missed.

The Homoerotic Jokes Write Themselves...

So I don't have to.

Something You'll Probably Never Hear at Your Job, Part Two

"I'm going to need you to photocopy your ass."

And there is a second part to this which I believe I can safely say you will NEVER hear at your job:

"Okay, I need you to do it again but this time lift your sac."

Yeah. Film and television is awesome.

Gainfully Employed (Again)

I got a job!

And it's not from temping!

As you may or may not have guessed from the post below, I have a new job back in the "entertainment" industry. Now, I don't put "entertainment" in quotes because I'm working in porn, I haven't fallen that far yet but it's close.

I got a job working on a reality television show (though I probably should have put "reality" in quotes). I had a friend who was completely overworked and she needed an assistant in post production and I needed a job and we came together like peanut butter and chocolate. I got a job working on a major studio lot and she got the help she needed.

I'm not sure how long this will last, I'm guessing for a while since there doesn't really seem to be any kind of legit work on television shows but we'll just have to wait and see. I'll at least have a job for the next three months which is a great weight from my financially loaded shoulders.

All in all, I'm grateful to have the job and I am learning stuff about post production so I guess it'll come in handy somewhere down the line.

Something you'll probably never hear at your job:

"I'm going to go look at prostitutes."

Mind you this is an edited clip he's talking about reviewing, but still.

The Times, They Are A Sucking

I try to be a positive person. I try not to air my dirty laundry, even though about three people will read it. I try to be a good person but it can be trying at times and these are one of those times.

I got rejected on yet another television show job this morning, one that a few people I considered allies were working on. They said they loved me and they were keeping me in mind. I'd hoped I'd at least be considered for a writer's assistant job but in the end even that went to someone else. It seems as if the studios are cutting budgets and that's heavily affecting the hiring of writing staffs, as they don't have the money to hire as many as they would have had the writers strike not happened. It would seem that this is a kind of payback from the studios and producers, a final "Fuck you" to the people who thought they could stand up to the conglomerates. But not only is affecting the writing staffs themselves, it's affecting people like me who weren't already in at ground level.

Because I have not "officially" been on staff (i.e. hired as a staff writer) I am considered to have no experience even though I've been in two different writers rooms. Even though the main thing you're doing in the writers room is tossing out ideas and eventually writing a script, which is sad considering that despite having never been paid to write a script I have actually written several.

I could try to keep hope that something, some kind of last minute reprieve from the fairy job governor but after eight months I just don't have the energy or the desire to hope anymore. I have to face the reality that it might be a good, long year before I can even try for staffing again. As we come to June the opportunities become nill to none, or, as my hero Bruce Campbell so eloquently put it in Army of Darkness: "You ain't leading nothing but jack and shit. And Jack left town."

It seems dear readers, that for me, Jack has left town.

How the Hell Did This Happen?

No, seriously, how the hell did this happen? That cow looks like it could eat me.
Source.

We're All Gonna Die

I for one will welcome our robot overloards. Then again, hopefully I will just get to experience sex with robots and die before they gain true artificial intelligence and kill us all.

Times Is Hard

It's taken me a while to come out and publicly admit this but right now times suck.

I know, I know. That should be obvious.

At first I thought it was just me, toiling away in a seemingly endless, incredibly boring temp job but I'm finding out from a lot of other people I know that it's rough out there for everyone. For some, they'd take comfort in the fact that you aren't alone, and a small part of me does. However, if times are hard for everyone and they're hard for people who are at a higher career level than I am, what does that mean for me?

Right now it means I'm stuck in a job I don't like. It means I have to face the possibility I won't be staffed this season. It means I will have to find some other long term job I can tolerate, or else the next time you hear about me it will be because I was at the top of a clock tower picking off pedestrians.

But lets hope against that.

WTF

Seriously, what is it with food and beverage companies mixing lime into everything? Did no one learn from Coke?

Get Back On the Bus

I know I've been awol for a while and there's a very good reason for that: I work with old people.

What I mean by that is exactly what I said. I work with old people in my new, open ended temp job, and old people like to get up early to go to work which means I have to get up early to go to work with them. I know most people wouldn't bat an eye at having to work at 7:30a.m., however, I am not one of those people. I'm used to being at work at 9a.m. max which means I get up at 8 instead of 6a.m. Not since grade school have I remembered why 6a.m. is such an unholy hour. No matter what time I go to be, no matter how many days I continue to get up at 6a.m. my body refuses to get used to it and every morning it like an electric shock to the system when the alarm goes off.

While working with old people means getting up well before God, it also means having my afternoons back, as I'm getting home by five instead of having to leave at six. I can swing by the gym and still have time for a few hours of writing at night. So I got that going for me.

What I also got going for me is a bus ride. You see, to get to the the job where I work I can take one bus to and from, which I've tried doing for a week and it's saved me a crap load in gas. I didn't want to have to ever ride a bus in L.A. again, but circumstances, mainly the price of gas, have forced me to reconsider. It's not too bad, like I said, it's once bus and I get there on time and the wait to go home doesn't take that long either. And at that time of day there are no weirdos (thus far) riding along with me, though on the first day for some reason the bus smelled like hot vinegar. Ewwwwwww.

While I enjoy (and I use that term loosely) having a steady gig I honsetly don't know how much longer I can work there. I've been doing a lot of paper shredding for the company and eventually I will run out of paper to shred, no matter how deliberately slow I go (quite frankly, I should have finished a full week ago)and also because the job is so non-mentally stimulating. I straddle a chair for seven hours and feed paper into a shredder. Luckily for me I can bring my iPod and I've been enjoying episodes of Frisky Dingo to help pass the time but I'm going to run out of those as well.

Here's hoping there's a light at the end of the tunnel that isn't a train and I'm going to be back on a show soon.

Review: Dragon Wars

"Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

That apt quote from Billy Madison pretty much sums up how I felt after suffering through the utter shite that is Dragon Wars. I know, I know, I Netflixed a goddamn movie called Dragon Wars for Pete's sake, I got what I deserved. However, when reading the title, and even watching the previews I thought the film was going to be about, you know, FUCKING DRAGONS WARRING.

That was painfully NOT the case. Oh there was a "fight" and I'm being generous in that description, but there was no WAR. And they didn't even really look like dragons, just over grown serpents. I know Korean culture has their own mythology but you'd think they'd at least add, I dunno, legs or wings to the fucking things. Otherwise, it don't get to count.

Because there were no dragon wars in a film titled Dragon Wars, that left plenty of room for Teh Stupid, and yes, "the" is misspelled deliberately in this case. I'm not going to get into all the details of Teh Stupid, only to say that even I was slightly offended that in the beginning there was a Korean prince/warrior who was trying to protect a young Korean maiden, cut to the present and we've got Robert Forester, who, despite his mild resurgence in Jackie Brown, I still recognize as the guy from Alligator. Robert is telling this Korean legend to this little boy and for a moment I'm allowed to believe that this is going to be a Princess Bride style film where grandpa is entertaining the kiddy. That was not the case. What was the case was the absurd notion that grandpa was the reincarnation of the Korean Zen master to the little boy's reincarnation as the Korean prince/warrior. Why the director, who is Korean, did this I will not know but I didn't need another dooey-eyed white boy saves the world story.

And he didn't really save the world. The majority of the plot revolved around him and the reincarnation of the maiden, now a blond, blue-eyed native of Los Angeles, running from the giant snake (I refuse to call it anything else) to a car, the car stalling or getting into an accident, them running some more with the giant snake right behind them and apparently unable to gain enough thrust, despite it's hugeness, to run them down and eat them. They would reach another vehicle, either a car or in one case a helicopter, and something would happen to it and they'd have to get out and run away again. The film did end, thankfully, but I honestly have no recollection of what happened besides the re-incarnated white girl dying, or "ascending", and then a "good" giant snake flying around in the air for no apparent reason as the white boy looked on in awe. Perhaps it was too much shitty for my poor brain and I blocked it out.

You could guess that at a certain point I gave up on this film, and you'd be right. It was an incredible waste of time and I can't believe I re-activated my Netflix subscription for it. Well, at least I have Hitman to look forward to.

Rick Astley Must Be So Proud