Today, we celebrated Paul’s belated birthday by watching the final mix of Miller’s Crossing and ordering the “festive special” meal from Swiss Chalet which, sadly, according to Paul, proved neither festive nor special. Fortunately, our off-key rendition of Happy Birthday more than made up for the sub-par lunch. Sure, Paul did his best to ignore us, even going so far as to pulling out his headphones at one point, but I’m sure he appreciated the genuine outpouring of affection/ass-kissing on the part of his fellow producers. Raises for everyone!
This day was also marked by my interview for Ivon Bartok’s deleted footage special feature for the upcoming season four box-set. Unlike last season, he asked me to preface each deleted scene with a commentary. “But I already covered everything in my blog,”I protested. To which Marty G. rather cold-heartedly replied: “Not everyone reads your blog.” While I find that very hard to believe, I did nevertheless repeat my clever insights for the official record. At the end of the day though, it’s really neither here nor there as most fans will be fast-forwarding past that particular section to get to the bloopers. Yep, you heard right. For the very first time in Stargate history, we’ll be offering up the number one most fan-requested extra. Exactly what ends up as part of the special feature will depend on the actors, but there are plenty of fun clips to choose from.
We went to our favorite Vietnamese restaurant last night – Thai Son on East Broadway. I had the number 47 with extra pork fluff and split the special seafood-stuffed egg crepe with Fondy. I love this place. Too bad they don’t also do sandwiches (like the one pictured from Au Petit Café).
Finally, to all those who care (which I’m sure is many, many, maaany of you), my eye is almost all better (although the antibiotics I’m taking are knocking me out at a little after 9:00 p.m. every night). Which brings me to one more item I’d like to add to my banned list: fiber glass. It’s material made up of REALLY TINY GLASS FIBERS! Why the fuck would anyone invent something like this? What possible practical applications could it have? I’ll tell you. None. But this revelation apparently came too late along the manufacturing process and so, saddled with this innocuous-looking pink atrocity, someone figured – what the hell, let’s get rid of this shit – and just stuffed it behind walls or ceiling panels for unwitting husbands to stumble across. Seriously. It’s like inventing an acid hat or radioactive shorts. Why?! What the hell were they thinking?!
Today’s mailbag:
Charles Schneider writes: “Any ideas on what your main hobby will be this next year (like chocolate, ice cream, books, etc.)?”
Answer: I’ve narrowed it down to speed skating, rug hooking, and collecting bottle caps from discontinued sodas.
OctoberMoon writes: “So, since I would live to change careers, what exactly does a producer do?”
Answer: Blogs, discusses the weekend sports highlights with his fellow producers, and generally tries to avoid ordering lunch from Swiss Chalet.
Philly writes: “How do you feel about dance offs?”
Answer: I’m all for them so long as they involve members of our production. Last season, we had a huge dance-off that came down to Carl Binder vs. my sometimes driver Larry for all the marbles. Carl got served!
Crownglass39 writes: “ On a completely unrelated note, you may enjoy reading Soon I Will Be Invincible: A Novel.”
Answer: Intriguing. I’m putting it on my to-read list.
PG15 writes: “I read on Alex Levine’s SciFi blog that you guys were going to dress up as the peptobismol commercial guys for Halloween; whatever happened to that?”
Answer: Alas, Chris was in New Zealand so there was Halloween Party. But that didn’t stop me from dressing up as Heartburn and wandering the neighborhood until some concerned parents called the police and I was escorted back home.
Girl Curl 3 writes: “Laura Cadman has always been a favorite – any chance we could see her in the future?”
Answer: Chances of seeing Laura Cadman in season five = approximately 0%.
JJ writes: “Have you mastered putting in eye drops yet?”
Answer: No, but Fondy has.
Annie writes: “Can you add marzipan to that ban list?”
Answer: Hello, no! I love marzipan!
Anonymous #1 writes: “You need someone in the writing room with you guys who actually understands the science of how things really work and can tell you when the psuedo-science bullcrap you guys think up is bullcrap.”
Answer: I hate to be the one to break it to you, but pseudo-science is, by its very nature, bullcrap.
AMZ writes: “I noticed when you talk about he writing process you said it was a team effort for Stargate…do you think that’s the case for other tv shows?”
Answer: For most other t.v. shows, yes.
Mandy writes: “Did Joe Flanigan do all the stunts in Doppelganger?”
Answer: All? No. Some? Yes.
Anonymous #2 writes: “Any chance the Shankster will be reprising his role as DJ in S5?”
Answer: It’s possible.