Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 
Blogtastic?

Today's little bit of nowhere has been abruptly cancelled due to an unexpected change in my work shift (I blame the Evidence mice), a peculiar headache (again, I blame the Evidence mice), and a very curious Email from 4Kids Entertainment asking if I want to whore myself out and help them promote the DVD releases of Yugioh and Shaman King (I'm not sure if the Evidence mice are to blame, though their involvement might explain the Pokemon craze).

I'm leery of just how much I'd have to sell myself out, as they seem to be waiting to see if I respond at all before giving more details, but hey! If it gets me free swag and Shaman King DVDs, I say why not see what happens. And if I get free Yugioh DVDs, I can just sell them on Ebay and then go out & buy more Last Exile DVDs.

I still win!

Coming tomorrow: The Blog of Eternal Stench. Bear textual witness to the world's first fully flatulent work of art!


posted by Phillip at 8:15 AM

 
1 + 1 = 1 Pair!

So there I was a day or two ago at work, randomly killing time in an empty store (that, might I add, had been in such a state for roughly an hour by now) by considering all the possible words that rhyme with 'ketchup'. By contrast, I was amassing a longer list of words that rhymed with 'catsup', which is a peculiar thing considering they both end in up.

Abruptly the phone rings. I pick it up and give my usual greetings of: "Greetings and salutations! Thnk you for calling Helga's House of Pain, how may we hurt you?"

Well, in all honesty I can only dream of doing that. I've vowed to make at least one caller's day more surreal my last day at the store. It'll probably amount to me picking up the phone after the first ring, shouting, "We don't want any!" and then hanging up the phone on the bewildered caller. It is so swift and senseless, that I might actually get away with them thinking they called the wrong number by mistake.

But let's return to the little bit of nowhere at hand (which is probably better than two in the bush, since the shrubbery around here hasn't been trimmed or pruned in weeks, and is looking rather frightening), shall we?

Just to recap for those of you already lost: I was bored at work; the phone rang; I answered it. And who should be calling me but the bestest saucy wench ever, Mel. Here's how the conversation went, more or less:

Me: "Hey, Mel! How's it going?"

Mel: "Oh, fine. I just wanted to call and let you know."

Me: "Let me know about what?"

Mel: "Chris and Ysabet are getting married. They just sent an Email out to the gang telling us."

Me: ^-^ "Good for them! It's about time those crazy kids did that. So when's the wedding? Next year? End of this year?"

Mel: "Oh, about two hours from now."

Me: o.O;; "Um...okay."


This is the way the conversation transpired, right down to the emoticon facial expressions (without the actual emoticons present, of course). It's one thing to hear that friends of yours are getting married. It's another thing to hear that said friends are getting married a few hours following your discovery of it all.

I'm certainly not objecting, of course. Chris and Ysabet have been together longer than Mel & I have, and while Mel has to contend with the likes of me, all Ysa has to contend with is Chris' prototype for an Aibong. I just don't understand why they went and got married in Hawaii without smuggling me along in their luggage.

I mean, I eat light!

And upon reading that from over my shoulder, Mel would like to add, "You eat light if you're an elephant, dear. And stop eating those Sour Cream & Onion chips! They're mine, get your own!"

How I am persecuted because of my healthy appetite.

All tongue-in-cheekyness aside (provided cheekyness is even a word), this little bit of nowhere is dedicated to Christ & Ysa. Mel & I both extend our official congratulations and best wishes to the two of you. May you enjoy and enrich each other's company for all the years to come. And may your love stay strong in riches and poverty, in sickness and health, and during any rampant PMS session. (I know Mel would want me to add that last one in there. ^^v)

A toast to the married couple! And make it peanut butter on that toast too! I'm getting hungry...

Mel: "Again?!"

Pointless Rumination of the Day: given Ysabet's love of the manga series "Fruits Basket", does this mean her Neko-Kyo plushie was the ringbearer for the ceremony?

Someone should really draw a picture of that...


posted by Phillip at 6:14 PM

 
The Update Blog (or, “Nothing Interesting Happened Today”)


Grammatical Blowjob Update: Krystal, another coworker (which makes for a grand total of 2...2 ‘Crystals’ working with me. Ah-Ah-Ahhh! Insert Count cackling and lightning flashes), has concurred that the word ‘blowjob’ is in fact one word. It began as two separate words that were inevitably spliced together in a way I’m not entirely sure the English language intended.


Evidence Mice Update: upon rereading the book “Coraline”, I am starting to believe that author Neil Gaiman either knows about the Evidence mice or else is a part of their insidious conspiracy. Take into careful consideration, for example, the song sung by the fiendish mice found in the Otherworld:

We have eyes and we have nerveses
We have tails we have teeth
You’ll all get what you deserveses
When we rise from underneath.

This means that either Gaiman is aware of the Evidence mice and is desperately trying to warn us all of their diabolical plans before it’s too late. Or else he is one in their ranks, and this is a warning to all who would dare to cross the Evidence mice’s path. On the plus side, this means Neil Gaiman himself might be dispatched to terminate me, which would constitute him showing up one morning wanting to have tea with me. On the downside, the tea would be promptly followed by a most gruesome demise, probably right before I can ask him to sign some of my copies of his books, or ask him to lick my coffee table.


Soup In The Corridor Update: it’s big, it’s bold, and it’s definitely tomato. Or maybe cream of mushroom...


Couch Update: yep, they’re back in the dumpster. Have been for the last 3 weeks too now. This week it’s a smallish-looking chesterfield with a pattern that vaguely resembles the designs off some of the questionable wicker purses our company has opted to sell.


Today's Lesson: you can try to take the Christians out of the U.S., but you can't take the inherent stupidity out of some Christians. As demonstrated by this brainchild:

http://www.christianexodus.org/index.php?module=PostWrap&page=home




posted by Phillip at 9:00 AM

 
"I Think This Line’s Mostly Filler..."

From what I hear, if you venture down to Los Angelos, you will meet people trying to pimp off their screenplays. They’re banking their hopes and dreams on whatever they’ve written down, with the fullest intention of becoming internationally famous. If not that, then they’ll settle for being invited to bad parties in the hopes of chancing across a good potential client to hawk their script on.

Your waiter has written a screenplay. Your cab driver has written a screenplay. The squeegie kid washing your windshield has written a screenplay. The landlord has written a screenplay. The man mugging you likewise has crafted something, and upon deducting a small reader’s fee (that being the contents of your wallet, and possibly your shoes) you can read it, and then show up one week later in the same spot to give constructive feedback during a second mugging incident.

To them, I shake my head and cry aloud to the heavens, “Why in God’s name subject yourself to so aggravating an exercise?!” Since this little bit of nowhere’s currently in a Hollywood slant, picture me with my shirt torn open, my chiselled chest bared at the camera, as I fall to my knees in the middle of a street amidst a pelting rainstorm, and I lift my hands to the skies above as I scream that aforementioned phrase.

Seconds later, there’s a loud honk from a car horn, as some irate cab driver tells me to get my ass off the road, and if I could be so kind as to read his screenplay. (Which I guess makes this particular little bit of nowhere a comedy.)

So whatever would make me give such an exclamation? The short of it is: I’m in the process of writing a screenplay. Amidst the half a dozen other major projects I’m desperately trying to balance in my spare time, writing a screenplay is proving the most vexing of them all.

It’s nothing grand by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t even know if anything will come of it. In fact, the evolution of this entire script began as a joke during the filming of the vampire movie, “Let Me Go”, I was lucky enough to take part in. The joke was that two of the characters--an Irish priest and a hard-drinking cemetery catetaker--should have to fight a werewolf now that they’ve axed a bunch of vampires. (That joke in fact made it into the movie, and should the editing on it ever get completed, it’ll be one of the last lines uttered before the credits roll.)

John (playing the priest), Ralf (playing the caretaker) and myself (playing the hit-him-again-one-more-time vampire) all laughed at the time, saying how we needed to have a third movie featuring the two of them having to contend with werewolves. Cecelia, the director, did not laugh. She stared seriously at us and said if we were willing to crank out a screenplay, she’d do what she could to get it made.

We laughed incredulously. We caroused over someone thinking a bunch of grinning idiots like us could pull off a film script. Then we said, “Why the hell not? Let’s try it out and see what happens.”

It’s been roughly six months since that offer was inclined to us. John & Ralf have supplied most of the ideas; I’ve been filling in the scenes and the dialogue, with them doing edits whenever the chance comes for them to give it a perusal. I don’t think there’s really a time deadline involved, but I really want this to be finished by the end of August. That’s two months to finish…I fear to consider how many more pages.

More than anything, I’m trying to work through this as an exercise. I’m holding it up to my usual standards of personal writing, but at the same time I’m not entertaining notions of becoming some famous playwright. This is at its heart me trying something completely new. It’s educational, it’s certainly unique from anything else I’ve ever tried writing, and as a result it’s also as annoying as all seven levels of hell.

I think what’s made doing a screenplay more gruelling for me is that I’m used to writing full-blown stories. Forget me being almost physically unable to write anything small, as Mel often laughs/laments--though that’s certainly showing here. I’m too used to writing out entire scenes describing what’s happening in large paragraphs of detail. So here I am, sitting in front of my laptop, with respectively 130 pages of mostly-all-there script.

This unto itself isn’t bad. The problem lies in the fact that most scripts, from what I hear, range around the 160-180 page mark, from start to finish. Our script can be divided into four major acts. As of roughly page 130, we’re just ending the second act. And that more or less just finishes introducing all the characters and dynamics. I fear how many more pages (and bottles of Corona) are needed to actually finish this turkey.

Not to mention I’m formatting this based on the script for the vampire movie…or rather, what I can recall from it, since I’m not in actual possession of that script. So whatever technical aspects like indentations, Caps locks, scene & action descriptions and the like, I’m either making up as I go along or am hoping that my memory’s good enough to recall what this format or that looked like. And I’m too poor to buy some polished screenplay to use as a guideline, or a book discussing how to write a screenplay.

Besides, books on those are infinitely boring since most of the time, you’re subjected to a series of grammar & creative writing lessons I don’t need a recap on. I have little enough time to spend on writing, I’d as soon not waste it on reading a book that takes 100 pages to tell me every bloody thing I already knew.

As for those of you who would tell me to surf the web for online scripts that have been posted…have you ever tried to copy & paste one of those monsters off a webpage and into a document? Almost all of the formatting goes screwy to the point where I’d spend more time figuring out how everything should have gone in the first place.

By now, I am well aware that this is probably a case of “Methinks the baka doth protest too much”. I am also acutely aware that some of you reading this will feel inclined to vehemently strangle me while uttering curses along the likes of, “You can write so well, what are you complaining about, you stupid git? You’re writing a bloody screenplay on a whim, mostly just for fun, and here you are whining about it?”

For the record, I lament the tediousness of the process, which is something altogether new to me and vastly different from the presentation style I’m used to working with. Do I regret having the chance to even try? Definitely not. Whatever becomes of it, it was fun and I learned quite a few things from trying.

And when it comes to the screenplay, ultimately on the plus side: vampires and werewolves and demons (oh my!).


Today’s Lesson: chances are the true perfectionists in the world are the ones who would boggle at being labelled ‘perfectionists’, and instead insist that they just have high standards.

posted by Phillip at 6:36 PM