SoCal Flower Porn

Unemployment Day 4&5

Meh, with occasional writing.

SoCal Flower Porn

Famous Banana Exchange

Unemployment Day 3

Well, the third day was writing most of the day. I finished an act, leaving only two to go for the second half of the pilot script. Stopped writing when I got so obsessed with finding out how much a London Times cost on the street in 1889 that I could do nothing else. Luckily someone solved that for me. It cost 2d, which is two pennies, which is a tuppence. Of course the paper was the weekly edition, but at this point it’s in the ballpark and I can move on. I’m sure later the scene with the paperboy will be cut out, but for now, I’m keeping it. It cost too much to throw out.

Once I got stumped, I wandered to the bar, where I had a few pints to clear my head. Didn’t really end up paying for them since an elderly acquaintance, he was born in 1929 and comes in each day for a glass of tea, had gotten a new pay-as-you-go phone and needed me to activate it for him. I activated the phone, and he bought the pints.

Back home I watched FAY GRIM again until I went to bed. Didn’t get to the best bits yet, where Henry Fool goes all philosophical. I can listen to Henry Fool preach all day. If you haven’t seen Hal Hartley’s films, do so.

Getting ready to start writing again here. The Red Bull is kicking the coffee deeper into my system and I can almost see the Past.

Cost of Living

Just for a lark I plugged in Los Angeles and Knoxville into the CNNMoney.com "How far will my salary go in another city," calculator to see what the average cost differences were for living here as opposed to there. It's basically the difference between enjoying life and simply making it through it.

Unemployment Day 2

Well, the second day of unemployment wasn’t as productive as I had hoped, but now that I’ve settled on what I’m going to finish, I was able to read it through to the point at which I stopped writing it and am slowly getting back into the flow of it. I spent a little time walking to Staples and copying all the proof I needed that I had paid my CA state income tax and mailed it off with their insistence that I did not. A plus side to paying with credit card I guess. I had plenty of paper trail.

I walked over to a cook out I had been invited to later in the day, and sat around enjoying a few cervezas and some BBQ pork wraps. I was sent home with 4 cupcakes, which I gave to the front house for the enjoyment of the wee lasses inside.

I watched the third ep of this season of Weeds, then I read in bed until 12:30. Don’t even remember when the last time was that I stayed up that late. I can slowly feel my body trying to get back to its natural rhythm of up at 8:30 instead of the 6:00 it’s been for last many years.

I am enjoying John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War. It reads like snarky Haldeman. I highly recommend it.

Breakfast

They use dry ice here

SoCal Flower Porn

Unemployment Day 1

[Something seems to be wrong with the Blogger interface, so I'm sending this post via email.]

So, what did I do today on the first full day of my temporary (let's hope) unemployment? Glad you asked. I grilled 5 split chicken breasts with bone in, then removed the chicken and made stock with the bones. I reread a number of half finished ideas to see which one would be the most likely to be finished in a week. So far, it isn't looking good. Instead I have decided to finish writing the second hour of Clockwork Airship. Hopefully this will be doable since there are only two acts left to go and then a quick top to bottom polish. Hopefully I can wrap it up in a few days. I've known where it was going for over two years now.

My hope is that by next week I'll either finish a previously started screenplay, or just write a rough first draft of a new one. I write pretty quick. Won't mean it will be good, but it will be done, and then I can use the little bits of time I have to rewrite it.

On Sunday my writing partner and I finished a rewrite of a script and I sent it off to the people who asked to read it. There is something nice about finishing something like that. We've been working on it on and off for the last two and a half month. For me it was really only on the weekends. Hopefully someone will like it.

In two weeks I will begin to start looking for work again. I have enough to make it through the end of July, but really need a job two weeks before the end of July so that there isn't a hiccup in money coming in.

It's a rough plan, but at least it's a plan.

SoCal flower porn

Rearranging office

California Honey Suckle

Riding the bus

Would you buy a turtle from this man?

LADWP Rattlesnake Trophy

May 2009 Round-Up

May 2009 Round-Up

I’m tracking everything I watch, read and write in 2009. Here’s the May Round-Up. The writing was visibly up. The TV watching seems to have gone down and I seem to have read almost nothing, other than my own scripts, many times.. But, I did watch more movies, even went to the theater once, and read a few comics.

Words Written: 14703 (although with rewrites and polishes a bit more, and lost on ep of Wizard and all 7 pages of one, which I'm working to reconstruct)
Projects Worked on: 4
Scripts Read: 0
Movies Watched: 10
TV Shows Watched (episodes): 49
Books Read: 0
Comics read: 6 issues 1 Collection

Comics Read:

Batman R.I.P. [Meh]
Fables Vol 11 [Highly recommend as usual]

Movies Watched:

Push [Nice idea, beautifully shot, not completely successful]
Star Trek [Could have used less lens flare and slap stick]
The Day The Earth Stood Still (remake) [not worth anyone's time]
Valkyrie [Surprisingly suspenseful]
Twilight [I'm too old to care, and didn't]
Coraline [Quite beautiful and humbling in execution]
Lesbian Vampire Killers [Very Fun]
Sin City [Always nice]
Changeling [High Marks]
Frost/Nixon [High Marks]

TV Watched:

30 Rock 3 x 20
Reaper 2 x 9
Pushing Daisies 2 x 13
In Treatment 2 x 4
The Unusuals 1 x 5
Supernatural 4 x 20
Primeval 2 x 5
Fringe 1 x 18
My Name is Earl 4 x 25
The Tudors 3 x 4
In Treatment 2 x 5
Better Off Ted 1 x 7
The Tudors 3 x 5
Lost 5 x 14
Reaper 4 x 10
Fringe 1 x 19
30 Rock 3 x 21
Supernatural 4 x 21
Dollhouse 1 x 11
The Unusuals 1 x 6
Terminator: TSCC 2 x 22
Fringe 1 x 20
Dollhouse 1 x 12
Legend of the Seeker 1 x 18
30 Rock 3 x 22
My Name is Earl 4 x 27
Reaper 2 x 11
Supernatural 4 x 22
24 7 x 20
Pimeval 3 x 8
Red Dwarf: BTE 1
Red Dwarf: BTE 2
Red Dwarf: BTE 3
Reaper 2 x 12
Legend of the Seeker 1 x 19
In Treatment 2 x 8
Glee 1 x 1
Primeval 3 x 9
The Tudors 3 x 6
The Tudors 3 x 7
Lost 5 x 15
Lost 5 x 16
Lost 5 x 17
The Tudors 3 x 8
Breaking Bad 2 x 6
Batman:TBATB 1 x 16
Batman:TBATB 1 x 17
The Invisibles 1 x 1
Batman:TBATB 1 x 18

Let's Ride