Having finished a rough first draft of our four hour, sixteen act near-future miniseries, I’ve moved on to reading and reviewing Paul’s work on Part I (a robust 108 pages. I have to admit, he’s done a might fine job on the rewrite, pulling everything together into a nice, tight, suspense-filled seat-of-your-pants narrative. I have all of four notes concerning 1. His use of the term “raw deal” in relation to one character’s backstory, 2) Use of the term “flying” in a subsequent scene, 3) Some necessary elaboration on the accessing of information available online, and 4) I’m not so sure about Pokemon. Aside from that, it’s great. I’ll set it aside for a couple of days, and then go over it one more time with an eye to punching up the dialogue. Tonight, we take a break to have dinner with the director who has flown in to Vancouver to begin prep on the miniseries which shoots sometime in July.
Once our work is done on the miniseries (in a couple of weeks), I guess I’ll be shifting gears to that rewrite of my horror script. I’ve been asked to compress some of the build-up in the first 65 pages and get to the All-Hell-Breaks-Loose twist a little sooner. A little more stalk and suspense in the late second act and through the third act is what a couple of readers have requested.
There’s also a comedy pilot I’ve been meaning to finish up work on, but I’m not sure where that will fill in my up-in-the-air schedule. I was hoping to go away in June (Hawaii!), and then visit Montreal and San Diego (Comic Con) in July, but my dog-sitter’s availability may deep-six those plans. I may be able to squeeze in a Vegas getaway at the end of July, but another trip to Europe to attend the wedding of some dear friends (Berlin, Paris, and Madrid) may also have to be scuttled. On the bright side, Vancouver IS beautiful in the summer.
With a break in my schedule, I finally got around to asking my vet to write me a letter of reference for the Seattle Pug Rescue. I’m considering adopting an elderly pug (or two) and they, evidently, want to make certain I’ll be able to provide the pooches with a good home. Anyway, my vet wrote a terrific letter that ended with: “His care is so fantastic that I hope to be reincarnated as one of his pets!”. Stellar.
I’ve got to get around to selling my car. Ivon suggests craigslist and I suppose that’s the way I’ll end up going but, to be honest, it just seems like such a pain in the ass. How many kooks (or worse) am I going to have to wade through before making the sale?
As we head into the summer season, various farmer’s markets start popping up around the city offering the sort of fresh fruit and vegetables you’ll be hard-pressed to find at your local supermarket. The other day, we picked up some fresh corn and Akemi made a wonderful soup.
Dense, sweet, and delicious. It made me nostalgic for the fantastic corn soup Chef Belcham used to make at Fuel/Refuel.
For some reason, the usually spry Bubba has slowed down in the last couple of weeks. Jelly, meanwhile, keeps chugging along –
Cookie Monster asked me to remind everyone that the Supermovie of the Week Club reconvenes this Monday. Up for discussion and review: The Shadow (1994). The trailer looks promising:
Pokemon? What Joe? That’s a childrens anime series, and francise designed to extract as much money from parents and kids as possible lol.
You’l probably find in regards to Bubba Joe that’s probably just that time of the year. Everyone gets tired eventually, I’m sure Bubba will be fine!
And speaking of fruits, I love Pineapples, was shocked when I learned how long the things take to grow. Amazing how something that takes years to grow tastes so good 🙂
Comedy script? I don’t know that I read that you were working on one of those, although I’m sure it will be great.
Did you figure out if leaving the country would affect Akemi’s application with immigration? I sure hope that all works out well.
Also, why are you selling your car? I thought it was fairly new. Have you thought of Kijiji? I’ve sold some stuff on there (it’s free) with little hassle. Still, you get quite a few “tire-kickers”, who aren’t really all that interested, or was something for nothing.
The corn soup sounds delicious and not too complicated. I may give it a try!
Why are you selling your car? Did you get a new one? You have to have one, the dogs can’t ride the bus. Just advertise in the news paper like the old days.
Go Jelly Belly, go!
“The trailer looks promising”
It does look better, more serious. Look at the young Alec Baldwin! He’s an old geezer now!
“His care is so fantastic that I hope to be reincarnated as one of his pets!”.
Don’t we all! 🙂
From the can’t win for losing department:
I wished yesterday that we could have one more day in Vancouver. Lo and behold, we were notified this AM that there was a flight delay. Long story short, we are rebooked for tomorrow, Sunday, although on separate flights.
After late lunch, Husband and I were sleepy, so we didn’t get out to enjoy this afternoon’s glorious sunshine. His flight leaves in early AM, so we don’t have enough time to try one of Chef Rob Belcham’s restaurants tonight.
Yet another of the many reasons to return as often as we can!
Travel tip: If you want to
–be near YVR airport and the Bridgeport SkyTrain station,
–enjoy a little gambling &/or a live show, and
–receive help from friendly, efficient staff,
the River Road Casino Resort or The Hotel at River Rock (across the street) are pretty darn good.
Disappointments & frustrations:
1. Advertised hotel-room wifi service was very spotty in our eighth-floor room; had to go to lobby for strong signal. Bring an ethernet cable to connect to network port in desk, or sign up for an international data plan before you leave home.
(Anybody know whether ethernet cables are available for iPad /iPhone? Would it be easier to bring one’s own wifi router?)
If you choose the intl. data plan, buy twice as many “bytes” than you think you’ll need. I solved my problem by both ordering intl. data plan online (via lobby wifi) and calling my data carrier’s toll-free number.
2. Casino has few video poker /blackjack machines when compared to Las Vegas.
3. There are apparently no limited-access highways through or around Vancouver to ease travel between southern communities, downtown, and northern suburbs. (We’re spoiled; San Antonio, TX, has such arteries, making travel through and around the city /county quite easy.)
4. We tried but could not coordinate visits with certain folks, including our affable blog host. Not their fault that we visited during the standard work week! Another reason to return sooner rather than later. 🙂
Overall, we enjoyed the trip and can plan for longer trips based on this week’s experience.
Gilder
4) I’m not so sure about Pokemon.
Joe, if you’re mentioning it as a card game, maybe you should mention Magic: The Gathering instead.
That game is the source of my username.
Craigslist is so much fun. We sold a bunch of stuff through there last summer. I’ll never forget the person who bought our big screen tv. He drove a SUV that was JUST big enough to fit the tv in. Hubby helped him get it in there, and when they were tying down the door, noticed it was about to begin raining. Told the guy, “Hope you make it home before that starts.” The guy looked at the sky and pealed out of our driveway. When he was gone, I said, “Are you gonna give him back his money if it gets rained on? He said, “Nope, he assumed all risk when he put it in his car.” We both had a good laugh. I wish you luck with the car selling.
Your vet had it right with the reference too. Hope everything works out.
Oh, and apparently my WordPress account is now screwed up. This is Lisa R for anyone who is wondering.
Have a great night!!!!!
Only 4 notes for that much. Nice.
Gotta’ love short deadlines.
——
I’ll help you punch up the dialogue. I’ve been feeling punchy lately. I’ll just work in the word “classy” in three places, then everything else will seem punchy by comparison. Done.
——
You know, them subversive types don’t talk punchy in real life. Conversations meander into pet topics and they’re sure you only disagree because you haven’t watched 80 hours of youtubes. You’re not truncating that conversation without getting called a sheeple.
I’m not saying you should write them that way. That and some other tendencies are annoying and you’re not trying to fill screen time with annoying stuff. I’m just meandering into a pet topic of mine – how annoying the conversation habits of (some) subversive types are.
Joe- A completely off topic question to today’s blog post:
What do actors on a cable TV show like Stargate, Sanctuary or The Walking Dead typically make? Obviously the main characters make more and I imagine that they do “well” from royalties. But did the actor that played a regularly recuring role on SG1 have to use a few extra blankets in the winter to keep his fuel bill down? Or do they make a liveable wage?
Joe, i think it would be fascinatiing to see the actual process of you and Paul writing a script. It would be interesting to take 2-4 pages of a script both of you completed and show us how those pages evolved by going back and forth between you until completed.
The corn soup looks good. On this end we had oyster stew (which was delicious), so it must be a soup/stew kind of night!
@Baterista9:
Thanks for the Fodor’s review 😉 I’ll be in Vancouver a week from Wednesday, so your info is helpful. I’m considering taking the Skytrain downtown since the hotel I’m staying in is just a couple of blocks from a Skytrain station. It looks like a convenient way of getting downtown, but I was wondering if you tried it…
@ imperialcoins, — the year before Atlantis was cancelled they did list salaries of a few of the actors but I no longer remember any of them except it was considerably less than half of network stars of good but not TOP mainstream tv shows.
However Flanigans was made public due to a lawsuit:
>>>>Sept 25, 2007
UTA filed suit Monday against “Stargate: Atlantis” actor Joe Flanigan in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming that the actor owes $99,225 in commissions.
The agency claims Flanigan entered into an oral contract with it in 1998, agreeing to pay 10% commissions on projects, including his deal to play Lt. Col. John Sheppard on the Sci Fi Channel series.
Flanigan paid the agency for Seasons 1-3 of the series but has not paid commissions on his $992,250 salary for Season 4, UTA claims.<<<
To me, 992,000 a year is incredible. But when actors on mainstream shows get $100,000 and more per episode (even 20 episodes and you have $2 million), it's only half. And then you look at manager/agent and other fees– and the fact you act and may not work for 5 yrs… not exactly rich.
Yum on the corn soup. I am sending it to the daughter. 🙂
I miss that soup…
Go, Jelly, Go! 😀
@ JeffW – How’s about Whine and Dine? Doncha think that would be a good name for Joe’s food critic column? 🙂
@ gforce – I’ll ask my doc about some therapy. Mostly I think they’ll say surgery (since 2 years ago or so they said I needed surgery then). I’m avoiding surgery because I’ve only been put under once, and it seems that instead of going sleepy-byes, I became combative. I remember hitting the nurses as I woke up in recovery, sooooo…yeah. I have this superhuman subconscious, or something, and it does not like anesthetic. 😛
das
Mmmm, corn soup!
Which island in Hawaii? They are each so unique.
I love corn and the soup looks so good. Nutmeg might be a good addition.
Yay Jelly! I hope Bubba bounces back.
Wishing you much luck on all the things on your “To Do” list.
JeffW: I’ve never seen crawfish served around here but I don’t live on the coast. I used to catch/release crawfish back home in the creek. They were so small, I can’t imagine making a meal out of them. If you are poor enough, you’ll learn to eat anything though. It would explain Cajuns frequent use of okra.
Das:
Unfortunately it’s been done:
http://whiningdining.com/
It’s also the name of a Human Resources group in New Jersey…???? Must be a restaurant trade group or server’s union.
@Tam Dixon:
I’ve only eaten crawfish in Georgia and Louisiana. We had crawfish in the creek near my house growing up in Maryland, but with the crabs available from my watermen relatives, there was no need to go after the crawfish. Bluecrab is much better! 😉
I love okra! But I understand how it puts off some people.
I think okra gets a bad rap due to it’s tendency to produce “snot” if not prepared properly. Just cutting it up and boiling it or steaming it like it’s a bag of green beans is almost guaranteed to produce snot. As a result, I tend to like my okra cut up then breaded and fried, pickled whole, or in a soup (like Maryland Crab soup).
Now that I’m living in Chicagoland, I miss the foods that I took for granted growing up, so I had a bit of a nostalgic food weekend and fixed oyster stew last night and scrapple this morning. I can have live bluecrabs flown out, but that’ll cost me around $300 a bushel, so we reserve that for special occasions (like when I turned 40).
When my wife did that for my 40th birthday, we had a bunch of our midwest friends over who didn’t really get the crab feast thing (let alone the live crabs running around the bathtub), but I, my mom and kids had a blast.
@imperialcoins
Hate to sound rude but what salary an actor/actress makes has nothing to do with the general public.
No one of value associated with Stargate was paid a poor wage. I’m sure Joe would agree.
Jelly!!!! You go girl!! ” 😀 Look at you go! 🙂
Mmmmm…that corn soup sounds and looks yummy! 🙂
What’s this so-called miniseries you working on? 😉
Yay, Jelly! She’s still got “spit and git,” as some people say. 🙂
What if your dog sitter were to recommend a backup sitter? She’s like a member of the family by now, and you trust her judgment completely. With her connections, she could find the right person, because she knows what the doggie kidz need (meds, etc.). Do an hour or so training session one afternoon, if needed. The backup sitter can always call the regular sitter (or you) with any questions. If human parents have backup sitters, don’t know why not doggie parents. 🙂
Are Alexander and Sarah getting married this summer? Wondered about that when you posted pics of Alexander in a suit (sans cowboy boots) earlier this spring. It looked like it was in front of a court house. Cool, if so!
Wouldn’t that be neat if you did go to Europe, and got to meet up with Francois Berleand for dinner, too?
The corn soup looks good! Will have to try that next time with sweet corn and some smoked Spanish-style paprika. Yum!
The dog rescue people take themselves way too seriously to the point of being ridiculous. Someone who wants to adopt two old dogs, who can afford the care of them, and who will give them a loving home is made to jump through hoops. Most people would not put forth as much time as you have. Makes me wonder how many dogs could be saved if the rescue people were smarter. Kudos to you for your continued efforts. Those pups deserve you.
@das: If surgery is not an option (with it’s apparent side effect of making you go all “Incredible Hulk”) then at least the therapy may lessen the symptoms and make it more bearable. In any case, best of luck and I hope it improves for you.
All of us crazies that comment on this blog and NOW you’re worried about kooks? 🙂
@ JeffW – Okay…then how’s about Kitchen Bitchin’?
das
@JeffW @TamD
Okra in gumbo is ok….but do agree in general with the rest of how it appears. Actually, have been exposed to “breaded deep fried okra” with the same snot problem. yuck.
Anyway, my vet wrote a terrific letter that ended with: “His care is so fantastic that I hope to be reincarnated as one of his pets!”. Stellar.
that’s a good recommendation.
i hope you your dog sitter’s schedule clears up for you. hawaii, vegas & europe are on my travel wish-list.
Joe, I’m the first to sing the praises of Craigslist, having bought, sold and even given away many items without incident, but just today we listed my son’s bunk bed as we are remodelling his bedroom and promptly the lunatics found the listing. One person wanted to know if I wanted to take a wristwatch in trade. He attached a link to a horribly ugly watch that retailed less than 1/2 our asking price. Needless to say he did not get a reply.
I forgot to mention that your vet rocks! That recommendation should smooth your way. Bless you for wanting to adopt these two old fellows. Did you get a good history on the gents? I’ve been so upset over a local news story about a tortured pug. It’s hard for me to imagine how a person can so cruel. I’m praying they find this future serial killer but animal cruelty laws here are a joke.
JeffW: I can eat okra but it has to well seasoned and disguised. However slimy okra looks, its crazy easy to grow here. It’s understandable how okra worked its way into the southern diet.
Hi, Joe.
Saw this on the Vancouver Sun. Thought you might be interested.
Video: Fable: From farm to table
http://www.vancouversun.com/videos/entertainment/video.html?embedCode=0zZzB4NDpCDVD8P6UWfvrdE5z_dQAdDu
@ gforce – Well, I’m certainly willing to give therapy a shot, especially if I get a young, handsome physio. 😉
@ JeffW – I love okra, too – sometimes sauteed up with tomatoes and peppers and onions (the tomatoes seem to cut the ‘snot’), but especially pickled. Yum!!
RE: Gumbo. The new Smithsonian magazine is all about food (I thought of you first thing, Joe 😉 ). Here’s an authentic Creole gumbo recipe from the issue (I believe there’s also a link to the article, where you can read up on the difference between traditional, and modern, gumbo).
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Creole-Gumbo-Recipe-From-Mrs-Elie.html
Enjoy! (And Joe, I hope you decide to tackle that recipe – will be interesting to see how you like it. Since I don’t do seafood I would ‘ruin’ it by using chicken, instead.)
das
@Das:
Google say no:
http://kitchinbitchin.com/
How about Whinging-Whiner-Diner? http://www.whingingwhiner.com and http://www.whingingwhinerdiner.com are open according to whois. As a bonus it semi-alliterates. 😀
@sylvia:
Have you tried soaking in milk and then breading in corn meal? Seems to help with the snottyness…
@ JeffW – I give up! Unless we can go with ‘The Lamb Bastard’. 😉
das
@Randomness – Not asking for specific actors salaries, just wondering if they are hurting when they are out of work for years at a strtch. I imagine that it is hard to transition to a new part after you have been on a show for ten years.
But the real question is how does it compare for the actors that are series regulars but not main characters? I imagine that the actor that played Walter (sorry- dont know his real name) did not make anywehere near what was posted concerning Joe Flanigan’s salary. I also also would be surprised that Joe made that much considering the “relative” small budget per episode. They must have included his royalties, cons and autograph fees or SOMETHING. If he did make just under a million bucks a year than I am VERY happy for him, he did an incredible job and earned every penny of it (and some!)