I realize this may sound a tad crazy, but I actually believe I’m being harassed by gremlins. Last month, it was the water damage in the furnace room. Weeks later, my satellite stops working. The other day, my cell phone dies on me. This morning, I go to turn on the t.v. and am greeted…
June 20, 2008: Comic Con update, dinner at Fuel, and yet another chunky mailbag
No official word on this year’s Comic Con line-up yet, but I hear that there will be both a Stargate: Continuum and Stargate: Atlantis panel. The former should include writer-executive producer Brad Wright, director Martin Wood, and Michael Shanks, Chris Judge, Amanda Tapping, Ben Browder and, if the rumors are true, one Richard Dean Anderson.…
June 19, 2008: Gunfire on the set!
I‘m offered a choice: “Do you want plugs or cans?” I take the cans, fishing the oversized headphones out of the box and horse shoeing them around my neck as the cast and crew prep for the upcoming sequence. Distances are measured, the armorer checks the guns, the camera operators hunker down behind their plastic…
June 18, 2008: Black Belt Pope to Take On All Comers!
Went into the office today and found a huge shipment from Amazon.com awaiting me. The veritable treasure trove of titles included Tobias S. Bucknell’s Ragamuffin, Jeff Carlson’s The Plague Year, Karen Jay Fowler’s Sarah Canary, Ken MacLeod’s Newton’s Wake, about a half-dozen books by Jeffrey Ford, and numerous others. I selected a few from the…
June 17, 2008: Month of September Cancelled Due to Lack of Interest
So I was watching Euro Cup today and it got me to thinking. One of the biggest complaints I hear about soccer (occasionally a.k.a. football) is that it’s too slow-paced. Not enough points. The final scores are always Two-Nil or One-Nil or the dreaded Nil-Nil. Three goals are considered an offensive explosion. Well, I came…
June 16, 2008: New Crabgrass and Vaseline Diet Yields Quick Results!
For some mysterious reason, my cell phone has stopped working. Despite various attempts to turn the damn thing on, it remains unresponsive. Dark. Dead. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what happened. I didn’t drop it, knock it against something, or otherwise damage it in anyway. It never left my possession so…
June 15, 2008: Court Rules Entrance Exams Discriminate Against the Stupid and Lazy
“There’s a spot,”I informed Fondy as we rolled into the parking lot. I pointed. “Right there.” “That’s the difference between you and me,”she said as we rolled by the empty space. “I’m more of an optimist. Instead of settling for a spot, I’m willing to take a chance and find something closer.” We spent the…
June 14, 2008: Archdiocese Spearheads Campaign for Itinerant Hamsters
Last night, I went from the living room couch to a mattress on the floor of my home theater which was the equivalent to being upgraded from a room in a Motel 6 to a room in a Motel 6 with a black-out screen. A little more comfortable, yes, and I did get to sleep…
June 13, 2008: Grass Roots Movement Killed After Being Sprayed with Glyphosate
I slept downstairs on the couch last night. Now before you all start making assumptions about the state of my marriage, I’d like to make it clear that I wasn’t banished I went of my own volition. It’s all because Fondy has decided to realize a dream. No, she’s not skydiving or learning to…
June 12, 2008: Remains of Professional Golfer Found on the Moon
Success! We finally have all 20 episode slots filled for season 5. Now, as Marty G. pointed out, all we have to do is write them. We finished breaking Alan’s script today, formerly Antidote, now Infection. Carl put out a beat sheet for his episode and, after some discussion, finalized the beats - and…
June 11, 2008: Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved! More of a Trapezoid.
I was running a little late. Traffic on West Broadway had slowed me down so it was a little after 9:00 a.m. when I hit the lights at Boundary Road. In five minutes, I’d be dropping the dogs off at doggy daycare, then five minutes later I’d be dropping Fondy’s car off at Open…
June 10, 2008: Cereal Mascot Knife Fight Claims the Life of Beloved Franken Berry
We started the day with a morning notes session on my latest, Remnants. As is customary, we kicked things off with a round of “cover notes”. Cover notes, as the name implies, refer to general script notes like “I think you need to do a pass on the villain’s voice to make him less…
June 9, 2008: Chinchilla Wins Mayoralty Race in San Monito County
I went over the script one last time, then handed in after lunch. Finally, I’m done. Until, of course, I get the notes and have to begin the rewrite. Alex Levine, who went over the script before distributing it, had some thoughts. He found the Shen imbroglio too subtle (I thought it might be). He…
June 8, 2008: Flipper, t.v.’s beloved dolphin, now homeless, living out of a van.
It’s been ages since I’ve made ice cream, much to the disappointment of my fellow producers but Carl in particular who always looked forward to Ice Cream Fridays with a touching, almost childlike delight. On the last day of every week, I would bring in three, four, sometimes five different flavors - burnt sugar…
June 7, 2008: Paris named “Frenchest City”. Philadelphia a close second.
Exciting stuff today! The Belmont Stakes was run, the third leg in the Triple Crown. Now, normally, I’m not into horse racing but today’s event offered potential history in the making. Big Brown, an American thoroughbred, had a shot to be the first horse in thirty years to win the Triple Crown. That’s the…