Obligatory year-end post

2009 was a good year. The Beefcake and I bought a super awesome house and moved into it. I got Not Dead Yet out there, and it was enough to get me noticed by a few people here and there who want to read my next script. I didn't finish my next script yet, but I got the first two drafts done and got some good feedback. I rewrote the entire thing yesterday in three hours. Now I just need to find an ending.

I kept my job. I didn't kill any children.

This year I have plans. Finish the current script and see where it takes me. And after I finish working on this script, I'll start the next project, as soon as I decide which idea I want to run with.

I want to premiere Game Night and toss it to a couple of festivals, although I admit I've lost some enthusiasm I used to have since it's been so long since I started. This experience has taught me that I don't want to be a director, and although I officially have a "production company" I'm not sure I want to do anything else with it. But we'll see. Maybe making the festival rounds will reignite my interest.

I want to read more this year. Not just screenplays and nonfiction books, but more fiction. I didn't read nearly enough fiction this year. When I was a kid I used to devour literature like The Cookie Monster, but now I just sit and watch tv with my computer.

Speaking of computer, I need to break my addiction. I check my email every thirty seconds. Literally. I feel tethered to the thing and when I'm away from it I have withdrawal symptoms. But this past week I had to go without it and I survived, so from now on the computer stays in the office, not out on the couch next to me, and I will only check my email a couple of times a day.

I will paint the bathroom and unpack the rest of my boxes. And when everything is finally in its place, I will keep it there. This house will not become the cluttery disaster my apartment was. Everything has a place, and that place is clean. I don't want to feel like apologizing when people come to my house.

I will work out more. I used to work out a lot, then I had to get rid of Trainer because I was saving money for a house, but now I have a house with a pretty sweet gym and three Wii exercise games and all the equipment a girl could want except a dip assist and a heavy bag, so there's no excuse. I've let myself go in 2009. 2010 I will be a big buff machine like I was before.

Every year I swear this is the one where I find representation. Fuck it. This year I'm just going to write and send it out and see what happens.

I Survived

I saw Sherlock Holmes the other day. That movie is fun as hell. Just oodles of fun. Best work Guy Ritchie's done in a long time. I kept thinking Rachel McAdams was Penelope Anne Miller through the movie and wondered why she looked so young.

Anyway, I also saw this new show on the Biography channel called I Survived. Talk about story telling. Each episode, two or three people sit in front of a black background in close-up and tell a story. The story is intercut with still photos that are related to what they're telling, so the whole show is just these people telling a story and photos not of them or the story, but of other things. For instance, the pregnant lady who was attacked by a crazy baby stealer was intercut with pictures of dolls and an obvious baby's nursery.

Sounds simple, maybe even boring. But man, it really isn't.

I'm not sure how much coaching the producers do on the people who tell these stories, but they are engaging as hell. They've got ups and downs - almost all of them almost get away and then get dragged back in.

It's also a testament to our expectations of story. One woman was attacked in her house by a guy in a ninja suit with a meat cleaver who had been hiding in her attic for two days. She was wearing a towel. SPOILER WARNING FOR THAT EPISODE. The whole story you kept worrying he was going to rape her but rape seemed so obvious a storyline that we didn't actually think he would. Then he did. And she said it, just like that: "He raped me," angry as hell at the guy who did it. It wasn't fear in her eyes, it was rage. Turns out that since the event - during which she was also knifed and hammered in the head - she has become a victims counselor with the DA's office.

There was another episode where two guys were lost at sea. On the fourth or fifth day a boat almost ran them down but didn't even see them, so as they were touching the side of the boat trying to figure out how to get on board, it just passed them by.

A lot of these stories sound too insane to be true. They were all thrillers or horrors, and any one of them could make a great movie. And all it is is people just sitting in a room, talking about what happened. Amazing.

Back to the script

Computer is saved. Computer Guy turned out to be pretty cool and in the process gave me an education. I was getting too cocky about my computer knowledge because on a daily basis I'm surrounded by people who know far less than I do, but now I have been schooled.

Apparently after all that ranting about the evil virus creators, it wasn't a virus after all. It was merely a coincidence that I opened my friend's email the exact moment a gig of RAM exploded. I just needed a new gig of RAM, but that does not change my beliefs that virus creators need to be gorilla raped.

So after months of working on the house and putting my priorities in domestic life, tomorrow I will spend the whole day revising my script. I have painting to do, and window treatments, and more unpacking because there is no end to the unpacking, but I say Fuck All That. I'm taking a day off from life so I can immerse myself in story. And hopefully work out because I got two new workout Wii games for Christmas and I'd very much like to use them but I've been too busy stressing over computer problems and curtains. Not tomorrow. Tomorrow I exercise, eat, and write. That's all.

My computer is fucked

I am taking my laptop to a guy today to see if he can fix the damage and maybe save My Documents folder. It's so far gone it wouldn't even reload Windows, so it's time to fork over some cash to a professional.

It would be super awesome if someone could make a computer with the superior operating system of a PC and the superior virus protection of a Mac. Hear me, computer people? Can you get on that? I know, I know, some of you guys will be all "Get a Mac" but I cannot stand them. End of debate for me. Instead I'd love it if someone just made my PC more virus resistant. Is that one of those things they put in Windows 7?

Hopefully I will be able to resume posting and writing tomorrow.

What I got for Christmas

I hope everybody had a good Holiday. I hope you guys got presents that were awesome. I got a Snuggy type thing so I was pretty stoked. I put it on and did a dance in it which filled me with glee and mystified The Beefcake.

And then after all the presents were unwrapped and we got ready to relax and drink egg nog, I checked my email. Some lovely person hacked a friend's email account and sent me a virus for Christmas.

I gotta hand it to the asshole, he created one hell of a nasty bug. After 24 of attempting various methods to save the computer I have given up and will be reloading Windows in a minute. My screenplays are safe, but my teacher files, my photos, most of my music, and pretty much everything else are all gone.

So fuck you, asshole who decided it would be funny to destroy someone's computer for Christmas. I hope you die in a fire while being cut with razor blades and doused in alcohol.

I was supposed to be working on my screenplay today. So much for that.

Best laid plans

Today is our last day of the semester and tomorrow starts a two week vacation. I feel bad because I haven't written in forever, but I have been thinking about my rewrite and I know what I need to do.

Today I should have the office finally put together in the house, so it's my objective to complete at least half my rewrite over the vacation. And I'll read some screenplays. And I'll work out too, I swear.

By the way, did you know the Shooting Script for Napoleon Dyanmite is available at the dollar store? Yeah, I bought it. I didn't love that movie, but it seemed like the right thing to do. I'll probably read it over the break.

But first I have to put all this stuff away. I threw away a lot of shit; how come I still have so many boxes?

K.I.S.S.

No traffic today. I love Christmas in LA.

It's a good thing there was no traffic, because I nearly crashed trying to read the name of the upcoming performer at the Staples Center as I merged on the freeway. It was some kind of woman with her mouth open and her hair in her face so I couldn't tell who it was. It was all very pretty, but failed to deliver any useful information. I guess I won't be going to see whatever show that is.

This made me think about a screenplay I read a few months ago that was filled with stuff that was difficult to read. Vocabulary words Miriam Webster would be impressed by, long complicated sentences that meander like Dickens, a true exploration of elegance in writing.

Except this isn't a novel. I got my writing start in journalism, where we were taught to keep our language simple. The objective in a news article is to deliver information in the simplest way possible. If you want to write with skill, so be it, but keep the vocabulary to levels most people can understand.

I'm glad you know what "pedantic" means. Congratulations. Nobody cares. And if I can't understand what you're writing it's not going to help you. You can make fun of my lack of vocabulary and feel as superior as you want, but it's not going to help you sell your script.

Just because you can write like Faulkner doesn't mean you should. If you want to write with elegant, complex writing, go be a novelist. A screenplay is a document designed to tell the story in as visual and simple a way as possible. If you want to be complicated, do it with your images, not your language. Nobody needs that fruity shit in a script. I just want to be entertained.

How's my title?

I listen to NPR a lot - I give so I don't have to feel guilty - and lately they've really been pushing the new Jeff Bridges movie Crazy Heart, about an alcoholic country music singer named Bad something or other.

The movie sounds interesting enough and it's gotten some critical recognition, but all I think about when I hear the title of the film is just how bad it is. The title, I mean. "Crazy Heart" reminds me of other movies with "heart" in the title. Lionheart, Thunderheart, Untamed Heart, Hearts in Atlantis... none of these are movies I was wild about or particularly wanted to see - okay maybe Lionheart. And Untamed Heart in turn makes me think of Bed of Roses, which was an abysmal film, but that's not Crazy Heart's fault. But "heart" in your title to describe your protagonist is a tad cliche, no? And it sounds a bit sappy.

The protagonist's name is Bad; they couldn't think of any way to use that in the title?

Your title is the first thing anyone's going to know about your film so it needs to make me want to see it. Just look at last year's Black List: I Want to Fuck Your Sister, Fuckbuddies, A Couple of Dicks. And of course this year's winner for attention grabbing title: Balls Out. Even Hancock was originally title Tonight, He Comes. Tell me that title didn't get reads.

I was thinking about why the Crazy Heart producers decided to go ahead with that title - didn't they ask anyone what they'd think of that movie based on just the title? Then I realized I hadn't done that either, so I figure I should see what people think of my title.

It's Burnside. What does that make you think?

Smoke in your panties

When I first got to LA, all wide-eyed and hopeful, I met this guy at work who was also a screenwriter. He wrote Saw-like torture porn and claimed to have once been a Nicholl quarterfinalist. I'm still not sure that's true.

He told me he knew these two managers and would love to introduce me to them, so naturally I got all excited and brought him my script the next day with hopes he'd pass it on to his manager friends.

"Oh you don't really want a manager. You want an agent. I know this agent I'll hook you up with, only he's out of town...."

A few months later he told me he has sold a show to a network - or as good as had sold a show, it was really gonna happen any day now - and once he went off to run it he would bring me along as a staff writer.

One night he called me from a bar to tell me these two blonde Russian models wanted to have a threesome with him, but he just loved his girlfriend too much to cheat on her.

And so on.

Once at a party a set PA on Big Love told me he could get my script to the head of HBO. I'm pretty sure he was trying to get into my pants.

I was on the world's worst date once and while I was singing karaoke to avoid the horror, some guy came up and told me he could make me a recording star. He was trying to get my date into my pants, which at this point would not have happened even if this guy had been Justin Timberlake.

Actually if Justin Timberlake spoke to me at all, Justin Timberlake would definitely have been in my pants. But not my date. Ever. I would rather have used my pants as a weapon and strangled him with them.

Anyway, these blow-smoke-up-your-ass people are everywhere in LA. Do they believe the shit they spout? I don't know, but I do know I bought this stuff completely when I first got here. Everybody's just one step away from the big break.

I get why they do it. I met a produced writer the other day and I felt like an ass saying I have screenplays to sell. I sound like every other nobody wannabe in this town with a script in his drawer and a dayjob paying his bills. It sounds way cooler if I just lie to myself and everybody else and tell them a bunch of producers are in talks to buy my latest opus. A little denial may make me feel like I haven't wasted my time.

It can be confusing, though, for someone new to this town. Just like I was completely swept up in the fervor of my former colleague the compulsive liar, I imagine a lot of wide-eyed LA transplants fall for the smoke-up-your-ass types.

So here's how to know if that industry type at the party is the real deal.

1) Is he promising you something? He's full of shit. Every legit insider I've ever met is at best willing to LOOK at your material. They never guarantee anything unless they want to see your underwear.

2) Have they named, unprompted, four or five top executives who are looking at their material? They're probably going to go home and weep on the toilet tonight as they reread their latest agency rejection letter. Most legit people I know don't talk too much about the deals they're trying to make unless you're a close friend who wants to know.

3) Do they talk about how awesome their script is? Most pros I know are pretty humble. I mean, sometimes a douchey writer is an amazing writer, but you don't want to talk to that guy anyway so best keep your distance.

4) Are you hot? Are they drunk? Yeah, they want in your pants. Are you not hot but they're really really drunk? PANTS. I mean, they could have gone home with those two hot Russian models, but you're so smart! You write and stuff! And your racist werewolf/ Mexican zombie love story is so marketable! Take me back to your place and I'll read it right after I take off your panties!

Be on the lookout and keep your pants on. Unless it's Justin Timberlake.

I hope this helps someone.

Army Men

I have this project I do every time my class finishes a novel. I collect as much random material crap as possible, which right now since I just moved into a house is a pretty substantial amount, and throw it on a table. Then I put the kids in groups and give each group a section of the book. Then they get three days to create a three-dimensional representation of a scene from that section, a scene they think is important. Today we do All Quiet on Western Front.

This project does a lot of things. First, it allows me to sit on my ass all day while the kids play. Second, it forces them to be creative, share, work together as a group, discuss the novel, and make sure they understand what they read. Then they present their artwork to the class.

Things went well with first period. That's mostly girls, plus it's early in the morning so everybody's sleepy. One group brought in their own bag of tiny Army men to glue onto their project, then they gave me the bag of leftovers to give to third period for their use.

This was a big mistake.

I tossed the bag of Army men on the table with the construction paper and cardboard and wire and styrofoam and whatnot. As soon as I said go, they nearly killed each other going for the Army men.

One group got the bag, then every other group tried to steal or trade for the Army men. Instead of looking at the tools they had and finding a creative solution by using the plethora of tools I gave them, they ran around like lunatics, hitting each other and screaming about Army men. Usually the projects with the Army men look all flashy but don't have that creative spark I love to see, so if they'd just stop looking for the damn Army men and try to make something nifty with that they have, they'd probably get a better grade.

This is something that has bothered me considerably about the state of action films lately. It seems like everybody's so busy throwing money at films when they should be working on the story. The GI Joes and the Transformers and the Terminators - actually there's a great example. The original Terminator has a fraction of the new movie's budget but it was infinitely better because the story was stronger. Alien. The first movie had a fraction of the budget of that fourth horrific film because it was just a good old fashioned story about a bunch of people in a confined space with a monster. This wasn't a microbudget film by any means, but the spending was restricted to necessary levels.

Just because you have money doesn't mean it's better to use all of it. The storytellers who don't have the money often have to compensate by finding interesting ways to get around budget restrictions.

Aren't we always hearing that some of the best scenes in history arose out of difficulties? Indiana Jones shooting that crazy sword guy, for instance? I think filmmakers should start pretending they have no money even if they do, just like I wish these kids would forget about the damned Army men and try to find a more creative solution.

Oh sweet Jesus, now they're playing cards. I've never had such a hard time getting a group of kids to cut and paste. So much for sitting on my ass for three days.

Be nice

The recent Scriptshadow controversy has really shed a light on some of the issues between aspiring and professional writers.

Take the Black List. It's a list we all wait impatiently for so we can grab a copy of the scripts and read them and discuss them and figure out how we can capture some of that industry love, and yet we've been told we're not allowed to. Professionals are allowed to, but those of us who haven't sold anything have no right to discuss our opinions with the rest of the world.

Several months ago I questioned whether or not sexism was still rampant in Hollywood and was told women just don't have what it takes to sleep in cars, as if sleeping in cars while you pray for a job is the preferred way of life.

When ever I tell a professional writer that I am hoping to one day write professionally as well, I feel apologetic, as if I'm probably not worthy and they'll most likely think I'm a loser.

There is so much money going to so few jobs and there are so many of us, it's like we're clawing at each other for a crust of bread. We're so quick to jump on each other and say things have to be one way or another and well, I had to suck dick to get my job so you'd better do it too....

Then you get the handful of pro writers who are genuinely awesome. I've met a few. I've been helped by a few.

You hear all the time that pro writers help the aspirings all over town, and that's partly true. Bill Martell, Unk, John August, Mystery Man, many writers who don't have blogs...

But then you get some who seem so afraid of losing their place that they forget to be nice to the new guys. They make us feel undeserving, and we play right along. We bicker with each other, we pass judgement on each others' scripts, we argue over whether or not Josh Olson's attitude is anything other than dickish. We're so desperate for a pat on the head we'll punch each other in the face if one of the pros is watching.

Then you get guys who say they hope Carson does ruin careers so he can get the jobs the old guys will vacate. That's a particularly nasty kind of newbie, one who doesn't really deserve any help. I wouldn't want to be that guy either.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, hey man, don't be mean.

Avatar: Not another teen movie

Sometimes when I start to get all mad about something, I think about starving kids in Africa and it kind of puts things in perspective. Someone compared Carson Reeves to a rapist.

Anyway, today I polled my classes about whether or not they'll see Avatar because I was curious as to whether or not the film appealed to the teenage audience since they were a huge part of Titanic's draw. Generally, the answer is no. Only a smattering of hands went up.

Here's what surprised me. Several of the students asked me why the aliens are blue. "Because they're aliens," I said, making a mental note to read that article I saw where James Cameron talks about why he chose blue.

"But then how come in the cartoon they're orange?"

Huh.

Apparently - and parents may know this, but it came as a complete mystery to me - there is a Nickelodeon cartoon called Avatar: The Last Airbender. All the kids thought this Avatar was that Avatar. But as you know if you've paid attention to previews lately, The Last Airbender is M. Night's latest project.

I was kind of surprised to learn this, since The Last Airbender sounds retarded. He bends AIR? Really? Is that how far down the superpower list we have tumbled? But when you realize it's a Nick cartoon, I guess it makes more sense. Kids like that kind of stuff.

At any rate, apparently the aliens on this show are orange, and since Avatar is also about aliens, the kids are confused. They seem to have liked the cartoon, but most of them aren't interested in seeing Avatar because it doesn't look like the cartoon so they're not sure what to expect.

Teenagers are the most desirable of markets in the film industry. I wonder if anyone in marketing thought about that?

Skipping chapters

I made a confession that horrified a couple of English teachers today. When one teacher asked in a workshop how to get her class through a long novel, I suggested some creative editing. Right now my tenth graders are reading All Quiet on the Western Front. If you've ever read the novel, you may have noticed the preaching.

There's a lot of preaching.

"War sucks. It really sucks. People die. Did I mention how much war sucks?"

Now here's the thing. I think it's a great novel. The scene where he's stuck in the foxhole with the dying Frenchman is probably one of the best all time moments in literature, and the kids always remember the scene where the horses run around with their intestines falling out after a shelling. There are a ton of great scenes to discuss in a classroom setting.

Know what we don't like discussing? All that preaching. "War is bad, okay? All my friends are dead. Here some Russian guys. They think war sucks too."

That's why we skipped chapter eight in its entirety.

I get that Remarque was a soldier, and he's definitely right. War sucks. And as someone who's never fought in a war I can appreciate his desire to make me understand. The problem is, he doesn't trust his own story. He is so passionate about telling the world how much war sucks that he is afraid to let his story tell me how much war sucks. He crams in so much preaching the story loses momentum. You and I might not notice it because we like to read, but let me tell you how quickly a class full of teenagers who hate to read will turn on you when they're bored.

So as a defense mechanism I developed my own edit of All Quiet, where we stick to minimal preaching and just focus on the action. Then we discuss what we learned from the action.

Maybe that's just a screenwriting thing. Maybe I'm just the worst English teacher ever, but I actually think the kids are onto something.

The Scriptshadow conundrum

A debate rages through the screenwriting world today. John August started it. And Done Deal continued it.

His premise is that Carson Reeve's website Scriptshadow, where "Carson" reviews both produced and unproduced screenplays and posts links to the scripts on his site. August says this hurts screenwriters because it puts their screenplays under lock and key so Carson can't get at them.

I gotta say, if that's true, Carson took less than a year to become one of the most powerful guys in Hollywood without even working at a studio. You know that's gotta get him a lot of tail.

I see what JA is saying. I think if I were a pro screenwriter I'd be pretty pissed if some upstart reviewed my script and said it was crap, but probably no more irritated than if some upstart reviewed my movie and said it was crap.

My theory on the subject is that if Carson can get the scripts, Carson absolutely should review them. I'm not so sure he should be posting links to them. As much as I enjoy having access to those scripts, I'm not sure posting them is okay. On the other hand, let's say Carson posts a bad review. I can download the script and read it for myself and I might disagree. In the end I think that should be the writer's choice.

Someone on Done Deal posted a viable solution. Tell the writer you will review his script and offer him the opportunity to give you a newer draft and to choose whether or no you want him to post it. The studio will probably object to it 9 times out of 10, but personally I don't go to Carson's site for the script. If I really really want the script I can get it elsewhere. I go there for the reviews and the following discussion and the opportunity it gives us to talk about what makes a spec screenplay work.

My two pennies.

Thoughts on the film: The Goods

A tip: Always read the reviews for the business before you hire them. I will never, ever rent from Budget Truck Rental again. Horrible. Just horrible.

On the other hand, I will eat at Koo Koo Roo many times. Always nice, those people, and good food.

Anyway.

I watched The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard this weekend. So sad. This movie began so well. We were all laughing our asses off at some expertly written unexpected jokes. At one point during a Will Farrel cameo Beefcake doubled over in uncontrollable laughter and couldn't breathe.

Why did a film this funny bomb, you may ask? That's what we asked too, at the beginning. But as the movie wore on it became glaringly obvious where the flaws were. I kept thinking there were pages missing. There were all these character development moments that didn't make sense. Suddenly our protagonist cares about the dealership? Suddenly the owner doesn't? There was kind of a ticking clock, but nobody seemed terribly concerned about it, and there was a father/son thing that felt sort of thrown in to fill up pages.

I'll expand on that if you don't mind some minor spoiler warnings. There's a character named Blake who looks nothing like Jeremy Piven but does this hand motion he does, so naturally Jeremy assumes the kid is his son. Okay it's a quirky comedy, I may be able to buy this, but then Blake gets barely any screen time. In fact, there are a bunch of characters who get almost no screen time. Why is Ken Jeong in this movie? I suspect because somebody thought the Pearl Harbor joke was irresistible.

That's the big flaw in this film. Somebody loved his jokes a little too much. There are multiple times in this film when a joke hurts the plot. The joke may be hilarious, but it's so far out of left field and not the best move for the overall story that it drags the movie down.

It was definitely a case of "Hey this movie's really funny! And it really sucks!"

And in keeping with the Frankenstein plot choices this movie's got, there's a scene where Jeremy's character sits down to a family dinner and pulls out a bucket of Arby's. Why? Clearly because Arby's bought screen time. It has absolutely ZERO to do with the plot.

So in short, great jokes and interesting scenarios pieced together with a crap story. It kind of makes sense when you realize that the two writers (Andy Stock and Rick Stempson) and the director (Neal Brennan) have almost no experience working with features. Their combined history is mostly sketch comedy.

We can learn two lessons from this, lessons we already know but should always bear in mind.

1) Kill your darlings. The joke may be hilarious, but if it fucks up the story, it has to go. At one point in this film there was an opportunity for a great turning point when the bad guys offer to buy the dealership, but that moment is sacrificed in favor of a funny joke. I don't care how funny your joke is. If it throws the story out of whack, it has to go. You can tweet it if you want, but take it out of the script.

2) A bunch of nifty characters and jokes do not a story make. Is there a plot? No? Then write something else.

Good advice

A friend of mine asked a TV writer to speak to his class today and teach them how to write dialogue and I took pictures and sat in on the lesson. She worked on Life on Mars, so I was able to tell her how awesome that ending turned out to be. She said they came up with it like the first week of brainstorming and were really satisfied with how it turned out.

My friend told her I write so she asked what.

Then this is the part of the story where I lose all confidence. See, this woman has no way of knowing if I'm just one more delusional wannabe who writes shit and hides it away in a drawer, or if I have even a modicum of talent. She probably meets people all the time who just suck horribly and want to tell her about their pilots.

So I stare down at the floor and shuffle my feet and kind of shrug as I say "Just screenplays. Usually action."

If she thought I was a loser she refrained from saying so. I told her I'd had a script out to some people but hadn't really gotten very far and she graciously gave me some advice.

"Just live your life," she said. "I went off and wrote for TV news and had a baby and went about my life, and then a representative came to me and it all just happened. If it's meant to be, it will happen."

Just live your life. Write your screenplays and live your life and eventually things will happen. Seems simple enough.

DVD placement

One of the first boxes I opened was the three holding all my DVDs. I sat for about an hour with all of them laid out neatly in rows on the floor in front of me as I carefully arranged and rearranged them. A tad OCD? Yes. But one of the more fun parts of moving.

I usually like to arrange my movies by categories. I have two shelves of TV shows - One shelf dedicated almost exclusively to Joss Whedon and one shelf that is 50% Farscape. I have a shelf of foreign films and a shelf of movies I need for school. The rest I'm not sure. do I put all the comedies together? The trilogies? What about subcategories like noir, should those get their own shelf? Alphabetical order is so old school, but it's an option. I have no tv and spotty internet, so this is my current form of entertainment after making dinner in my new stove.

How you arrange your DVDs is very important. Chances are, however you arrange them that first time is how they'll stay forever. You can't just toss them up on the shelf all willy-nilly. There has to be some logic behind your order.

I feel so High Fidelity. These DVDs look pretty cool all laid out on the floor. Maybe I should just leave them like this so all who visit can examine my collection with ease.

How do you arrange your DVDs?

All moved in

We put the TV on the curb. Five hours later we came back to clean and it was gone, so I hope someone will love it now.

Budget gave us the wrong truck so we had to make two trips - one to my apartment and one to the Beefcake's - but we got it all done, and I got to scream at the Budget clerk while The Beefcake intimidated. We make an excellent team: Blind Rage and Mr. Scarypants.

I was packing or unpacking or cleaning from 7 am to 3 am. By the time I got back to my apartment to clean I decided the security deposit can go fuck itself. I threw some shit away, swept and walked out.

I think the moment I realized I owned my own house was when I got really cold after my lukewarm shower and decided to turn the heat on, then figured we can probably fix the shower temperature on our own. Because it's our house. I enjoyed eating Carl's Jr on the floor and then figuring out how the hell I'm going to fill up all these kitchen cabinets.

The new TV doesn't work, the internet doesn't work - Sorry, neighbor I'm hijacking. Thanks for not putting up a firewall - and the refrigerator has a piece sticking up that scrapes against the top and is going to drive me batty. I also observed that even though we already have ATT internet, there is only one phone jack in the house and it in the dining room. I guess we're switching to cable.

So I'm spending the first day in my new house mostly on the phone. I wish you could program your own hold music.

I guess I should at some point plan for work tomorrow. I haven't been there in a week.