Pre-Beta Reader Polish

Tidying up the script for the Saturday send-out to designated readers. Nothing seems too funny at this juncture since I've seen the lines over and over. But I'll resist the temptation to re-write the whole thing.

Friday Sitcom Update

Up for air after powering through the first two acts. I hope to finish act 3 this weekend, then work on something else for a few days while the story marinates. My goal is to complete another draft and polish, then send out the script to trusted friends for review, spruce it up and off to my agent by the third week of April.

So, by next Friday I will complete act three and polish.

How's everyone been?

Good Catch

About that sitcom . . . I'm looking at notes last night and suddenly come up with a great NEW idea. I jot down some thoughts and it looks even funnier. This morning I'm about to re-file my old idea, when I stop myself. I have "new project fever," a condition whereby anything NEW seems more worthy of attention than something OLD that's encrusted with several problem-filled drafts. Fortunately, I stopped myself. Other than a general incoherence, the OLD contains many usable lines. Info needs to be reshuffled and the acts could use some sanding. So to work. No Evil Dead II laugh breaks. No Iranian loon-theories. No NEW ideas.

Tom and Jerry: Zionist Tools

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In the crazy world of animation, you learn something new everyday. For example, in Iran, Professor Hasan Bolkhari lectured students on how Zionists manufactured propaganda cartoons like Tom and Jerry. He also discovered through his scholarship that the characters were animated by Disney and not MGM. In later lectures, Professor Bolkhari explained why Dora The Explorer was a metaphor for Israeli Special Forces, and why lovable Doug was created in order to manipulate children into accepting Jewish/Masonic world domination. Currently, the Professor is working on a book, I Can't Wait for Iran to Have a Nuclear Weapon.

h/t: The Religion of Peace

Inaugural Talk Like William Shatner Day

Maurice "Brain" LaMarche has declared today to be the first. He . . . explains here. (Sharp inhale.)

Unfinished Writing

I opened the hard copy file on my sit-com. After flipping through three drafts, I opened Final Cut, started a new file, choose sit-com format, closed and saved the file. After which I went to the gym. Could the following action sequence be why I have boxes of drafts and three-ring binders stuffed with the uncompleted?

Ha, no more. This thing's getting finished.

Right after I watch Evil Dead II.



Or maybe I'll write instead.

What Shall I Write Next?

The tribe has spoken: from here, Facebook, plus conversations with my wife and friends, we have a muted vote for the Viking, three votes for the aliens, and a resounding Huzzah! for the sit-com.

Sit-com it shall be. My last draft was October with economic circumstances fast overtaking the story. The fact that times are tough only helps the narrative, though I'm not 100 percent sure just how.

In any case, let Friday be report day. Next Friday, I will have an entry on the week's work. This will continue until I finish a draft.

Should this project succeed in getting me a paying job, we're all heading out to Griffith Park in Los Angeles. If small horses scare you, there's still the wee train ride. (But no boats at Disneyland.)

The Three

So far the tide is running unanimously toward sit-com. In fact, opinion favors a program based on the adventures of a chicken named Flip who can tell the future - or can he? Flip is owned by a man no older than 23 and has a neighbor named Mr. Wilson whose catchphrase is: "Here come da eggs!" Of course, I've crafted nothing that creative.

My sitcom is about three "Dodgeball"-like slackers who inherit a party clown business in Santa Barbara.

Novel 1 tells the story of a young suburban teen who reluctantly helps snotty aliens catch an interstellar bad guy using the power of ventriloquism.

Novel 2 is a graphic novel about a pacifist college professor who, through a bizarre chain of circumstances, finds himself turning into blood-thirsty viking whenever someone says "child crisis" or any other phrase found in It Takes a Village.

Friday will be decision day.

Updates will be bi-weekly.

Pony rides hang in the balance.

Projects Three

I have before me projects three,

A novel,

And another,

And a sit-com, see?

Complete?

Ignore?

Help me decide,

And for such aid,

You'll get a pony ride.

(Paul has infected me with contest fever. The projects will be listed tomorrow. Help me choose which to finish. I can't guarantee any fancy prize, but I can promise a pony ride. And I have.)

Super-Memory Man

Before he was Super-Memory Man, Bob acquired other names based around the root word "Asa." "Asa" was how Bob's Pennsylvania accent rendered the phrase, "That is" or "That's" as in "Asa pretty good sketch." As a result, he became Robert Asa, Bob Asa, Bobby Asa, Bobby A, Mel Asa, and others that Bob would remember.

Nightline story here.

See the Astounding Robert Petrella!

I've known Bob many a year, extending back to our L.A. Connection days. This evening, he'll appear on Nightline, in a story showcasing Bob's phenomenal memory. Heavy on sports info, Bob's memory contains so many Pittsburgh Steeler thoughts, the Steelers should pay him for warehousing their past. In any case, I won't forget to watch this evening as Bob puts that heavy duty mind through its paces.

Housekeeping

Henceforth, most of my running, recovery, exercise posts will be on a separate site. I've been meaning to do this for awhile in order to use Write Enough as something more than a training log.

Next week I will ask the Write Enough family to help me choose which half-finished project I should complete next.

To all (or both) who entered Paul's Ethel Merman/Flipper contest, I am wearing a hat indoors just to tip it in your direction.

Doctors and Swimming and Knees, Oh, My!

Monday I'll visit the HMO-approved orthopedist. Here's hoping this fine medical fellow approves my MRI. I wanna know whaz'sup with my knees. Besides, swimming is becoming dangerous. My health club pool turned into a free-for-all yesterday. Are Friday's Savage Swim Days? I'm not sure. But between machine-like swimmers tearing up the lanes, big fat men bobbing aimlessly like rogue planets, very pregnant women attempting to organize the chaos, and teenagers determined to jack the chaos up to professional levels, I was grateful to escape the water unmarked. Sunday morning, I'm taking a "swim test" with an organization set up to assist the older swimmer. I think they want to see how many laps I can do without swallowing half the pool. Then they make recommendations such as lessons or finding another sport. I could be looking at no running for months. So, it's time to find out what I can do and do it.

Just not on Fridays.   

From Asia

More from way over there.

Dogacide

My neighbors have two forms of communication: loud, angry hectoring and unrestrained rage. Mother yells at child who yells at dog: Maslow's aggression displacement. As a result, the dog, a book-sized yappy beast, has become emotionally fragile. I lay down early this evening for a nap, but quit when the dog began a high-pitched, barking jag. Naturally, its neurotic owners weren't home. I considered various forms of quieting the animal: buying a small dog of the opposite sex, poison meat, singing to it. Eventually, the Dysfunctionals returned and the dog clammed up, knowing a drum-load of aggression would soon be emptied onto its wee furry head. It's really not the dog's fault. Mother yells at child who yells at dog who yaps away who upsets neighbor who silences dog with a trench shovel. But they'd just get another. And if I truncheon the neighbors, then I risk prison where I'd sit around all day without meaningful work. Like now. Maybe I'm under house arrest? Maybe this has already happened. Jurassic Park III is on television. Instead of Sam Neil and Tia Leoni, I imagine my neighbors and their dog trapped on an island of hungry prehistoric beasts. Then I imagine all the dinosaurs swimming away exasparated. But neighbors and dog remain on the island. I feel better.

Ruegger Storyboard Sample (In Color!)

As promised, here is sample of what Tom Ruegger is doing in the animated squirrel department. Thanks to Keeper for recalling the original post.

Growing Nuts

Back in December, Paul and I recorded voices for characters drawn by Tom Ruegger. Since then, Tom's been working on getting the characters animated. Shortly, I should have a sample from the storyboard of two squirrels whose argument on nuts soars into philosophic realms before descending to an earthier plane.

My Sucky Swimming

Had to meet some friends out in the San Gabriel Valley this afternoon. My health club is on the way, so I stopped for an hour of swimming. First I kickboarded 20 lengths. This was harder than it looked, at least for me.  Then I swam freestyle for awhile, but have terrible form and end up gasping for air at the end of every length. I didn't swallow water, but maybe that'll come if I swim more often.

Hurry up MRI!

Tubby Man in a Doctor's Office

That's me. I was weighed at the doctor's office yesterday and the technician giggled and asked if I had recently performed in any aquatic parks. (Later, I "accidentally" spilled urine on her shoe.) But there's no denying that in six months of injury, I've put on 20 pounds. Now I must commit to losing weight. I'm so unmotivated, but I really don't want to go back to 244 pounds with ridges of fat on my back like sand dunes. So, off to the gym today, then my wife and I will order in pizza . . . maybe not for a few weeks.

Laptop Face

A strange man obsessed with bread products relates his day.

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Peg's Wedding

Cousin Peg's Windy City nuptials. Other than not having pictures of the ceremony, groom, and bride's mom, I pretty well covered this thing.

Running and Walking the Foothills

Trails above Jet Propulsion Labs in the San Gabriel foothills. Mostly an excuse to explore the slideshow thing on iPhoto.


UPDATE: I actually ran and walked 5.3 miles, stopping to photograph now and then. Knee felt Okay, but still needs a'fixin.'

UPDATE: Visited my new doctor today. He's going to recommend an orthopedist - huzzah! But no running 'till then. MRI. Everyone think MRI.

View from a Window

What lay outside my Windy City hotel room.

Paul Recalls "Good Days"

Froynlaven remembers the Pea . . . . . . . . bodies!

Something Old, Something New

Old for regulars, new for all my old Chicago friends.

Comic-Con 2008: Freakazoid & Tiny Toons

Snow Place Like Chicago

Snow flurries last night with a few inches accumulation this morning. Temps were in the 20s as I arrived at O'Hara Airport. My flight home was delayed because hydraulic fluid spilled under the plane and they had to mop it up. Back in LA with temperatures in the 70s the way they're supposed to be in February.

A few pictures to post from my cousin's wedding, but not just now.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZ!