Stuff and things, things and stuff
I used to hate it when all my LJ friends dropped off LJ for weeks at a time, and now look what I'm doing? But I'm caught up, yay! Now to catch you guys up on me, in a format I'm mostly stealing from kelleah:
Things I like right now...
-Wii Fit: My parents got me (and by extension, Matt) a Best Buy gift certificate for Christmas, to buy a Wii Fit with. Well we've had it for a week now, and we're both in love with it. It's so much fun, especially the balance games, and you can actually get a work out. Way cheaper than gym membership, if you ask me!
-Community's back! Also: Supernatural, 24, Lost, and a bunch of new shows that I hope are good. I'm excited about the cast of The Deep End, but I'm haven't read a script or seen the pilot, so perhaps I shouldn't be.
-Scrivner*: It's a mac-only writing program, like Final Draft but not just for screenwriters. The program is incredible, and makes it really easy to organize ideas and sort, label, and search them. Instead of having multiple documents in a folder (Characters, World History, Outline, Scenes, etc) you can make all the documents part of a "binder" which contains everything related to a particular project. You can access and alter these documents from anywhere, in any view, and changes you make in one area are reflected in another. It's genius.
-Money: Not to sound crass, but I'm loving these unemployment checks. There was a paperwork snafu, so for a month and I half I was living off my savings account and not much else. That meant I cracked down hard on purchases, and credit card repayments. Thankfully just before Christmas it got sorted out and now I've got some money coming in. Whew.
-Veronica Mars: Wow I'm late to this bandwagon, huh? I started watching in December, and just finished the last episode yesterday. What a great show - tightly written (for the most part) and well acted (for the most part). I was so sad to see the series end, but I absolutely hated how it ended. Sigh. Also: My girl crush is now officially Kirsten Bell. How is possible to both love her and hate her? She's so beautiful and tiny and has such a gorgeous voice. Grr.
-Our Magic Bullet: My parents got this for Matt for Christmas, after I told them he was obsessed with the infomercial, and I've fallen in love with it. We don't have a blender or a mixer, but this is both! We've made frozen hurricanes, guacamole, tomato sauce, and garbanzo bean burgers using the Magic Bullet already, and I see more food prep on the horizon! I know, I know, we've fallen prey to the infomercial world. But it's so enticing!
Things I dislike right now...
-NBC: Do I even need to elaborate? If you're obsessively checking Nikki Finke like me and most of Hollywood, then you know that they've screwed Conan over multiple times, and they're about to ruin late night, again. (also: I love the use of "zucked" as a profanity, as in "NBC really zucked this up!") I can't wait (repeat: CAN'T. WAIT) for Comcast to finally take over. Zucker better be out, after all the mistakes he's made. I'm starting to think the most stable job in the industry is at NBC, since apparently they're incapable of firing anyone even if they're utterly incompetent at their job. Even the upcoming 5 additional hours per week of programming doesn't excite me that much, because if NBC had been doing their job right in the first place we never would have lost it.
(I'm honestly considering going to a rally that's planned for Monday, outside the NBC studios in Burbank, just to show support for him and his show. But then I remember that there was an earthquake in Haiti, and there's unrest and poverty everywhere, and I wonder if that's the best thing to be doing right now? But then I remember (thanks Matt!) how Conan supported the writers during the strike, and spoke out on their behalf repeatedly, and a part of me thinks I should have his back too. Is it just me, or do you guys also feel a generation thing happening? Like the young people are up in arms over Conan because he's actually funny, and Leno isn't, and thus Conan represents them in a way Leno never could. A victory for Leno means the comedy of twenty year ago remains in place, and everyone age 18-35 deserts NBC after 11pm.)
-The reality tv job market: It's dead out there right now, and most of the people I usually work with are unemployed. I knew that I'd never find a gig in December, because that's rare, but I was assuming something would come along in January. I think we're all crossing our fingers for the next month or so....
Things to accomplish before my next job comes along...
-Write: (*Hence why I'm using Scrivener) I really want to attack fiction the same way I attacked tv writing a while back. Scripts are great, but I feel limited by the format. I'm actively working on two fantasy ideas right now, one of which is a finished (mess of a) novella, and the other is just an epic idea I'm still brainstorming. I want to make significant inroads into that story before starting a job, and I'm trying to devote an hour a day to making that happen. Side note: My new favorite place to write: Our balcony. We bought a cushioned love seat, and I sit out there with my laptop and I can see for miles and miles and it's just gorgeous. Birds are chirping and the sunlight is hitting the hills just so, and if there's no copter overhead it's almost like I don't live in Los Angeles. I need to be in touch with nature when I write, and I feel like the balcony allows me to do that perfectly.
-Build a small loom: Yeah, I'm weird. I'm really fascinated by the process of weaving, but the paper loom I made (from an issue of :Craft magazine) is falling apart, and real looms are like $200 at the cheapest. So there you go.
-Crochet more: A friend from work is trying to teach me to crochet, and I need to really buckle down and learn the basics. It will never replace knitting as my craft of choice, but there are so many things you can do structurally with crochet that knitting can't quite approximate.
-Finally move into this apartment: This means having a yard sale to get rid of the crap in our office. Until that's gone (and those piles in our bedroom), this isn't a real house. We also need to finish putting things on the walls, buy some more storage solutions, and get some new pillows/sheets for the bed.
Things I like right now...
-Wii Fit: My parents got me (and by extension, Matt) a Best Buy gift certificate for Christmas, to buy a Wii Fit with. Well we've had it for a week now, and we're both in love with it. It's so much fun, especially the balance games, and you can actually get a work out. Way cheaper than gym membership, if you ask me!
-Community's back! Also: Supernatural, 24, Lost, and a bunch of new shows that I hope are good. I'm excited about the cast of The Deep End, but I'm haven't read a script or seen the pilot, so perhaps I shouldn't be.
-Scrivner*: It's a mac-only writing program, like Final Draft but not just for screenwriters. The program is incredible, and makes it really easy to organize ideas and sort, label, and search them. Instead of having multiple documents in a folder (Characters, World History, Outline, Scenes, etc) you can make all the documents part of a "binder" which contains everything related to a particular project. You can access and alter these documents from anywhere, in any view, and changes you make in one area are reflected in another. It's genius.
-Money: Not to sound crass, but I'm loving these unemployment checks. There was a paperwork snafu, so for a month and I half I was living off my savings account and not much else. That meant I cracked down hard on purchases, and credit card repayments. Thankfully just before Christmas it got sorted out and now I've got some money coming in. Whew.
-Veronica Mars: Wow I'm late to this bandwagon, huh? I started watching in December, and just finished the last episode yesterday. What a great show - tightly written (for the most part) and well acted (for the most part). I was so sad to see the series end, but I absolutely hated how it ended. Sigh. Also: My girl crush is now officially Kirsten Bell. How is possible to both love her and hate her? She's so beautiful and tiny and has such a gorgeous voice. Grr.
-Our Magic Bullet: My parents got this for Matt for Christmas, after I told them he was obsessed with the infomercial, and I've fallen in love with it. We don't have a blender or a mixer, but this is both! We've made frozen hurricanes, guacamole, tomato sauce, and garbanzo bean burgers using the Magic Bullet already, and I see more food prep on the horizon! I know, I know, we've fallen prey to the infomercial world. But it's so enticing!
Things I dislike right now...
-NBC: Do I even need to elaborate? If you're obsessively checking Nikki Finke like me and most of Hollywood, then you know that they've screwed Conan over multiple times, and they're about to ruin late night, again. (also: I love the use of "zucked" as a profanity, as in "NBC really zucked this up!") I can't wait (repeat: CAN'T. WAIT) for Comcast to finally take over. Zucker better be out, after all the mistakes he's made. I'm starting to think the most stable job in the industry is at NBC, since apparently they're incapable of firing anyone even if they're utterly incompetent at their job. Even the upcoming 5 additional hours per week of programming doesn't excite me that much, because if NBC had been doing their job right in the first place we never would have lost it.
(I'm honestly considering going to a rally that's planned for Monday, outside the NBC studios in Burbank, just to show support for him and his show. But then I remember that there was an earthquake in Haiti, and there's unrest and poverty everywhere, and I wonder if that's the best thing to be doing right now? But then I remember (thanks Matt!) how Conan supported the writers during the strike, and spoke out on their behalf repeatedly, and a part of me thinks I should have his back too. Is it just me, or do you guys also feel a generation thing happening? Like the young people are up in arms over Conan because he's actually funny, and Leno isn't, and thus Conan represents them in a way Leno never could. A victory for Leno means the comedy of twenty year ago remains in place, and everyone age 18-35 deserts NBC after 11pm.)
-The reality tv job market: It's dead out there right now, and most of the people I usually work with are unemployed. I knew that I'd never find a gig in December, because that's rare, but I was assuming something would come along in January. I think we're all crossing our fingers for the next month or so....
Things to accomplish before my next job comes along...
-Write: (*Hence why I'm using Scrivener) I really want to attack fiction the same way I attacked tv writing a while back. Scripts are great, but I feel limited by the format. I'm actively working on two fantasy ideas right now, one of which is a finished (mess of a) novella, and the other is just an epic idea I'm still brainstorming. I want to make significant inroads into that story before starting a job, and I'm trying to devote an hour a day to making that happen. Side note: My new favorite place to write: Our balcony. We bought a cushioned love seat, and I sit out there with my laptop and I can see for miles and miles and it's just gorgeous. Birds are chirping and the sunlight is hitting the hills just so, and if there's no copter overhead it's almost like I don't live in Los Angeles. I need to be in touch with nature when I write, and I feel like the balcony allows me to do that perfectly.
-Build a small loom: Yeah, I'm weird. I'm really fascinated by the process of weaving, but the paper loom I made (from an issue of :Craft magazine) is falling apart, and real looms are like $200 at the cheapest. So there you go.
-Crochet more: A friend from work is trying to teach me to crochet, and I need to really buckle down and learn the basics. It will never replace knitting as my craft of choice, but there are so many things you can do structurally with crochet that knitting can't quite approximate.
-Finally move into this apartment: This means having a yard sale to get rid of the crap in our office. Until that's gone (and those piles in our bedroom), this isn't a real house. We also need to finish putting things on the walls, buy some more storage solutions, and get some new pillows/sheets for the bed.