Monday, January 25, 2010

I'm a dog uncle!

My roommate's girlfriend, who pretty much lives with us even though she technically has her own place, adopted a 1.5 year old German Shepherd/Australian Shepherd mix on Saturday. I am now a dog uncle, so I get to play with her and have fun with a dog in the house while having none of the ultimate responsibility.

She's a rescue dog, so she's taking a little time to get acclimated to our place, but I think she makes a nice new addition to the family.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

On dodged bullets

My college girlfriend's fiance (also a college friend of mine) responded to a facebook posting I had made about the odd feeling of reading DUNE while it poured rain outside. This prompted me to take a look at her facebok page, where I saw she had excitedly posted pictures of their china pattern, something called Russian Dream. Out of curiosity I clicked on the link.

And my god were those dishes ugly.

Made me all the more thankful that I didn't end up marrying that girl. While we got along and complemented one another in a lot of ways, clearly we don't have the same taste in stuff.

It's really not like me to be all like, "she has the worst taste, omg!" So you have to ask yourselves, if it was enough to make me want to post about it on here, how ugly were they?

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Dropped a pilot

Last week I went to this one night screenwriting seminar sponsored by my college's alumni in entertainment group. The speaker had a whole talk about what made a good movie/tv pilot, and how it's all about finding your voice as a writer.

She started listing things that made a good character, and engaging story. Every point she was making I thought back and recognized in my last pilot script, the one that got me the meeting at a cable network. I then thought ahead to the new half hour sitcom pilot I was working on, and it just wasn't there.

Suddenly it made so much sense to me why the last pilot was a joy to write, and the current one felt like pulling teeth to get anything down on the page. So I decided to drop the sitcom pilot, and instead I'm having my group help me workshop my webseries, because as it stands it's pretty much a half hour pilot on it's own. Since I need to get that thing off the ground basically on my own, and I've been trying to get notes from friends anyway, it felt like the right thing to do.

The next pilot I write will be closer to my own "playful and a bit nerdy" voice again. Perhaps Writress and I will get cracking on the idea we broke story for a few months back. Maybe I'll come up with something else that makes my inner child go, "coooool." Because let's face it, that's who I am. And that's what I'll have fun writing. I still think I could write a good sitcom, and could certainly write a How I Met Your Mother spec script or something like that, but especially when I'm working a full time day job it just isn't as much fun to write comedy alone. It works a zillion times better when there's someone else to bounce jokes around with and you're able to just have fun with it.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

On my own with the web series

Spoke to my actress friend last night. Looks like she's not going to be able to work on it, so she gave me her blessing to continue on without her.

Another actress friend of mine expressed interest in helping and playing one of the side parts, but maybe she'll want to read for the lead now, I dunno.

And it means that it's on me to find a director and crew, which is somewhat daunting.

The script is in really good shape though, and I'm proud of it. People seem to like it, so hopefully this is just a hiccup that will still lead to a great project.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Set backs

Friend of mine who's developing a web series with me is having some career success, which is great, unfortunately that means she won't be able to be in the web series after all.

This is a set back I have to deal with now.

Either I wait for things to cool down for her after pilot season, or I have to recast her part.

Not sure what I'll do yet.

In other news, my best friend from home is in town starting tonight, and I'm psyched to hang out with him.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Girls that have "girlfriends"

I had drinks with another assistant last night. She and I had similar interests, and ended up having a pretty fun conversation. My tv watching habits came up, and so I mentioned that I watch a lot of hulu with my aspiring tv writer girlfriend (you all know her as the Writress). During the rest of the conversation and when I walked her out to her car, this girl asked more questions about Writress.

I wasn't really sure what her motivations were on that. I don't know her well enough. I do however, know one reason that girls ask a lot of questions about a girlfriend they don't know: they might be attracted to you. In college, I got that a lot. Girls I saw on a daily basis who had a somewhat flirty relationship with me were always asking, "hey, how's [CollegeGirlfriend]?". They didn't know her, they never did, but some of them were clearly asking because we got along well, and it was a good way of asking, "hey, are you single?" There's also the fact that girls find it sweet that I like to talk about my girlfriend sometimes, and that's another reason why those questions get asked.

I made facebook friends with this assistant from last night this morning, and her relationship status is "it's complicated" with another girl from her college. And here's the thing: I can't tell if it's a for real relationship, or if it's one of those situations where college girls have a close best friend and think it's hilarious that they joke about "dating" each other. She's got pictures of the two of them having date-esque dinners and hugging all the time, but really, there's no way to tell.

I'm hoping it is a real relationship, and not for the reason most of you think. If this girl is straight and just joking with her friend, she's kind of a cliche. If she happens to be dating a girl for real, that's actually pretty interesting. She'd clearly have a very different perspective than I do on this town and industry, and I'd probably enjoy becoming better friends with her.

So here's a plea: girls, don't put a fake relationship out there like that. Especially when you're nearly three years out of college.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Hey, it's a new year!

I kind of dropped everything in my life for the vacation. Didn't do any writing, and the only real work I did was reading a book my bosses asked me to. And it was a good book to read on the beach, so things weren't too bad.

Writress and I have had a fun week so far since we aren't in separate states anymore, which is nice. My best friend from home is coming in for a two week visit next week.

I've been playing WAAAY too much Dragon Age, but I don't really care because it's really fun.

Other than that, my life is settling back into it's regular routine, and things are good for the moment.