view to a kill

Wired News: "Steel Curtain Rings Down
James Henry Smith was a zealous Pittsburgh Steelers fan in life, and even death could not keep him from his favorite spot: in a recliner, in front of a TV showing his beloved team in action. Smith, 55, of Pittsburgh, died of prostate cancer Thursday. Because his death wasn't unexpected, his family was able to plan for an unusual viewing Tuesday night. The Samuel E. Coston Funeral Home erected a small stage in a viewing room, and arranged furniture on it much as it was in Smith's home on game day Sundays. Smith's body was on the recliner, his feet crossed and a remote in his hand. He wore black and gold silk pajamas, slippers and a robe. A pack of cigarettes and a beer were at his side, while a high-definition TV played a continuous loop of Steelers highlights.
-- Associated Press"


So Basically, you got to view the lifestyle that probably killed him. Nice.

It's kinda like a death diarama. Leave a comment - come up with your own death diarama.


Winner gets a signed "The Last Broadcast" DVD.

Think you've seen it all ?

TheWMURChannel.com - News - Man Pulled From Women's Outhouse Tank

If you haven't heard about this one yet, check it out. This is as close to the story as you can get - video clip included.

Hey Paul, you still think blogs are boring?

lazy summer day

So, I finished the third draft of the new version of the rewrite of Diamond Road.

This one, I'm going to actually give to a couple friends to read - for notes.

I've spent the last couple days hanging out a bit with friends. A couple in from New York, showing them the town a bit. Actually, since they know the town, I'm showing them things people don't always see when the go to Los Angeles - the mountains, and such.

An evil neighbor of ours lent me a notebook computer - to see if I'd be interested in buying it - It was a great machine, but would represent only a slightly vertical climb from my current machine. However, this set off the great laptop wanderlust of '05. I've been online looking at what the latest greatest offerings are. Whatever I get next, it's gotta be light. This Vaio has been good, but it's so damn heavy. With the battery currently lasting a mere twenty minutes (and that's a new battery), this effectively is not really a portable computer.

Anyone have any ideas on systems they like?
I recently became aware of ASUS notebooks and am quite enamored with them. I think that's the direction I'm heading.

No news on the eviction front - I'm waiting for the axe to drop anyday now. Our landlord (now former, I guess) managed to do one last half-finished job. The main water line between the city and our house broke. It required going through a concrete walk in our backyard and some deconstruction of a little pump enclosure I made. Of course, it's now a huge rubble pile, and I imagine it will remain so till the end of our days here - however many they may be.

Ah well, it's amazing how placid I've become about the whole thing.

Watched Land of the Dead last night. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed. Seemed more like a Road Warrior movie than a zombie movie. I guess if I'd gone in with that expectation, I'd be satisfied - it had a enough gore and all - but somehow it didn't have that sense of dread that all the others have managed to lay over you. I'm going to speak blasphemy here but - my favorite zombie movie at the moment is the remake of Dawn of the Dead. How about that?

Have a good weekend and enjoy the longest days of summer.

I felt it

Okay - 1:55
Felt a rolling quake.
Small, very small...

With the last three days of seismic activity, it's getting a bit nervous.

Update -
This one was near Big Bear and measured 5.3
Not nothing, but still not a major quake. It's enough though to prompt testing the flashlight and looking at the water supply.

In looking around for what could need re-situating, things that could fall from shelves, etc. - the only thing I moved was a large glass bottle of Gin.

Priorities, Baby, Priorities.

firefox

In the endless search for distraction while writing (I've gotten too good at Minesweeper), I finally installed Firefox. (Yes, Steve - it took a while. You know who you are)
It offers some pretty cool stuff, but the load up is so damn slow.

I really like the extensions, and am writing this really pointless post because of the "blog" extension. Pretty cool.

Hey, anyone remember that movie with Clint Eastwood called Firefox?


Writing continues. A first draft finished, I'm going through the depressing moves of crossing out the crep. Not much left of the original. Screenplays are like the bionic man. Rebuild, faster, stronger, better than before -- unless the patient dies on the table.

More soon.

Hey, in regards to this blogging stuff -- if anyone here knows how to add links to the template without having to actually go into the template settings, let me know.

Happy Memorial Day

Hey, it's raining!

what the heck is that? Here in Sunny Southern California, that simply should not be possible. 2005 has been one wet year. Some friends moved here from Atlanta and I keep telling them - no rain, every day will be sunny. So far, I'm sounding pretty delusional.
I'm guessing there are going to be many a memorial day BBQ chef concerned with this. Here in SOCAL we don't know what to do when wet round things comes from sky. It'll be a top story on the news for sure, maybe even supplanting Michael Jackson.

House update:
The Final Walk through... a couple days ago, the soon to be 'new owners', their snake, I mean - agent, and the present 'owner' (my soon to be former landlord) and his agent, went through the house to do last checks. I heard the one woman comment to the other as they entered my office - "hey, this is a cute bathroom back here. I never saw this before."
wh-wh-what??? You just spent 700k on a place and you don't even know all the rooms? If I were spending that money, I'd be on my hands and knees looking at the moldings. I, as our neighbor commented, would be crawling through windows, over the roof, etc.
I actually feel sorry for them. They look so scared. I don't know if they have any real allies - certainly not their agent. He walks around like he's on egg shells or a mine field. Maybe they'll have the last laugh, but I do feel like they're lambs being led to the slaughter.

So our landlord could barely make eye contact with us, couldn't say anything, nothing.
I guess from here we're looking at 60-90 days and "It's ovah, Johnny"

Weather update - Rain just stopped. BBQ's are on again. Things can continue in SoCAL, though now the roads are probably going to be slick and full of car accidents.

As I wrote this, the house started making this weezing sound - right above me. Very creepy. I looked around and finally spotted a neighborhood cat in the eaves, avoiding the rain, but coughing up a hairball. The sound of the cat echoed in such a way as to make it appear to be coming from the ceiling.

Immortalized the moment with a digi-pic.
.

writing update:

After a strong first two days on the screenplay, cranking 51 pages out (yikes), I lost two days. Followed by a tepid (in comparison to the first days) 10 pages yesterday, it closes the week out with a daily average of (61 divided by 5) 12.2 pages per day. Hmm.. That means that I could have a first draft ready to be dissected in aproximately 7 more days. That'd be pretty cool.

Let's see how that goes.

By the way, I'm not claiming it's a great 61 pages, just 61 pages. I'm sure every word needs to be re-written at least three more times.

SOCAL resident/weather awareness update:
Marianne just came home from somewhere. We commented on the rain, and she said, "Yeah, I kept telling myself, wow this mist is really heavy today. Even as I was turning on the wipers, I couldn't understand that it was rain".
See - happens to even the most rain aware people, us folk from Pennsylvania.


Happy Memorial Day and I hope you enjoy YOUR time off, and even though their leader (and ours) is an absolute idiot, give some thought to the troops in Iraq.

The writing begins

Well, the official beginning of script re-re-rewriting has begun. After spending a good two months on the outline, I feel that I may have the skeleton upon which to build - er re re re rebuild Diamond Road (as it is currently entitled).
I'm guessing that it's such a radical redux that I will rename the script as well.
The Adventures of Eddie Dungrin. Hmmm... sounds like Richard Dreyfuss would be the lead in that. No. Don't think so.
I'll have to give it thought. Kind of a shame cause the last scene of the movie now is of eight diamonds laying on a long desert road as a pickup truck drives away.
Diamond Road, get it?

I hear that the house closing is coming this week. We're trying to enjoy ourselves as much as possible though we take turns waking up with stress nightmares, or whatever. I feel like someone nearing an execution.

I started looking at rentals today. Good news is that in spite of the real estate purchase INSANITY that continues to abound, rents haven't gone up much.

The whole real estate crash/bubble thing is starting to make the main news, so I really have the feeling that we're going to start seeing the cracks in the financial walls getting larger pretty soon. Check this Blog out if you're getting the urge to buy.

Marianne and I went to a drive-in this past weekend! Yeah! This used to be a favorite past time of ours in Pennsylvania as there actually was a drive-in near where we lived. Alas it is now a Target center. That, let me tell you, is Bucks County, PA's loss, not gain.

This past Saturday night, the breeze coming in through the open window really gave me the Drive-in urge. Feeling a bit melancholy, I set about looking for something that might still exist. After going through depressing lists of drive-ins that were no more, goggle actually found that one still exists in L.A. County. Better yet,it wasn't too far from us - located in the City of Industry.
Slight digression: When I heard that was an actual place one could live, I had visions, (in Black and White of course) of people marching to and from work, Trader Joes, etc. ala the Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis'.
In fact it is pretty much a train yard, freight, automotive repair type of place.

They have a DRIVE IN!

We got there with time to spare except for one snafu. We had to cross a set of said train tracks and a freight train happened to be rolling past. A freight train that was about two miles long.
Twenty odd minutes later, we finally were on our way again. We went to see "Kingdom of Heaven" (eh) while the rest of the crowd was evidently there for "Revenge of the Sith". I pondered seeing that as the first time I saw Star Wars was at a Drive in during a birthday party. I was nine. Anyway, we watched Ridley Scott redo Gladiator. When the crowds settle down, I'll spend my bucks on a digital presentation of Lucas's last (hopefully) star wars movie.

Back to the drive in. Many nine year old will have the same fond memories of Sith that I have of Star Wars. A beautiful summer night in California with jedi battling it out. Before our movie started, I walked to the concession area centrally located to get Popcorn. 'Sith' was just beginning and I have to admit, the kid in me got a thrill out of hearing the Star Wars theme reverberate from about eight hundred car stereos. You could even hear it coming from the cars on the road still pouring in. Nowadays, with the squawk boxes replaced by FM transmission, you get to hear movies much better, and from much further away than the old days.

I think I see a tradition beginning. Lawn chairs, some boom boxes, friends and a double feature on a summer night for seven bucks per person. Life doesn't get much better than that, does it?

Oh, guess what our second feature was?

xXx State of the Union. Okay, our buddy Johnny is the evil henchman, but I never thought I'd watch that again on the big screen. We sat through it though and goofed on it. I don't think Johnny would mind. Dammit, we paid for it, we're going to goof on it.
Good for the heart. If you're feeling down, go to a drive in with someone fun. Make noise, laugh. It may not be the best way to see a movie, but it's one of the best ways to experience one. Trust me. You'll feel better.

May Day

So, lots happening here. As I wrote, the agents were here... then the open houses.
UGHHHHHH!!!

We left a few minutes before the first one, but already there were people waiting. I swear, if you beat the Addams Family with an ugly stick, what was waiting outside is what they would look like.

The second open house, which was a Sunday, we left good and early and came back good and late. The house looked untouched, and there wasn't really any evidence of anyone having been here. I was thankful for that, and it made me wonder how many, if any people had showed up. Later, a neighbor dropped by to give us some stuff, so we asked her if people had shown up.

They had valet parking. I can't believe it. Valet parking for an open house!

Three days later, the agent called me up to tell me they had an accepted offer. I asked him what the price was, and he told me that while he couldn't tell me the price until it was recorded, it did go above asking.

I'm figuring in the $700,000.00 range.

He then was wondering about a time for a home inspection.

So, the home inspection was a couple days ago, and I got to see who the Einstein's that are the buyers were.

Da Da Da Dum (finger) snap snap

It isn't quite the whole Addams family, actually it's a couple (two women (I think)) who look Goth (though they had a DANZIG bumper sticker on their car which I don't think of as quite goth)

According to their agent, they just started a record label. It hasn't made any money so basically ----
They're unemployed!!

Now, I understand theres some money coming in from somewhere else, still -- remember that cipherin class in a previous post?

These are the people that are getting to the party right before it's over. I kinda feel bad for them, except I feel worse for myself losing my place.


So, it's becoming a reality. We're going to have to hunker down in the desert and wait for the real estate armegeddon to pass before doing anything.

If you want to read about the real estate bubble, there's no shortage of stuff - just google it.

However, I just saw something today which I think may bode much more serious.

If you don't know what Fannie Mae exactly does, here's a quickie. If you do know, jump to the link.

A person wants to get a loan to buy a house. They go to a mortgage lender. The mortgage lender lends the money. Then they sell the Loan to Fannie Mae for an origination fee (a combination government/private company)
This, by the way, is how interest only, etc. -- the whole crazy real estate thing - has been working -- it's largely government/bond subsidized.

If Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac were to go under/close shop, the real estate market would be dead and buried in twenty four hours.

Now - the link...

Here's a link.


Whatcha think? Could this be serious?



What else?

We had a great time a week ago for opening night of xXx State of the Union.
Pretty bad movie, but our neighbor Johnny!!! rocked!
He got to kick Sam Jackson's ass as well as Ice Cube - ending up getting killed of course. Juicy part, Opening credit billing. Can't ask for more than that.

We had drinks at the Lucky Strike Lanes in Hollywood before checking the movie out at the Chinese Theater. Ultimate Hollywood for an ultimate Hollywood movie.

Diamond Road is getting the serious re-working. For those of you who don't know, or want to know what's next - that's it. I'm doing an action adventure next. Old School. None of this Michael Bay crap that's been infecting action so much. Speaking of, if you want to see a fun, old school adveture, check out Sahara. Not bad.

So, there you have it in brief on this May 6th, 2005
Oh - which means that tonight is the big screen premiere of HEADHUNTER, a movie I was heavily involved with for the last year. Hell, I'm a co-producer.
If you live in Los Angeles, and you read this before midnight tonight... check it out. Santa Monica Laemmle 4 at midnight.

For those I don't see there, see you in the digital ethers.

There goes the neighborhood

So, as I bemoaned earlier, I might have to move...

Well, the wheels are in motion. Today, I got a call from the landlord's real estate agent talking about open houses, etc.

DAMN! People traipsing through MY HOUSE, looking at MY STUFF.
Okay, it's not my house, I rent, but still - it's my home, dammit.

So, I'm now thinking long and hard about the next step. I want to buy a place. Plain and simple. Problem is, that things are out of control here in sunny California. Lately, I've been thinking that the only real way to do it is to buy some land and build.

Of course, finding land in SOCAL ain't so easy either. I looked at some lots in the 100k and under range. Put it this way - you'd need rappelling gear to get to your house.


So maybe I'll wait. I'll be patient. I must remember the stock market of 2000. That hurt, and there's no way that Los Angeles real estate is any different. According to any sensible estimate, the average person is buying into something that's three times more than they can afford. (math will follow shortly)

I guess the other thing I'm thinking about is that when everybody thinks something is hot - that's when it's not gonna be for long.

When everybody is jumping on a bandwagon and speaking with 'knowledge' about "interest only loans" and "ARMS" and "low or no money down" something, has to be seriously screwy. I remember it got that way right before the Nasdaq went south.

Also, I'm getting five emails a day trying to lend me money for a home.

Come on, they're spamming us to buy a house even more than spamming for penny stocks, hard-on pills or Ethiopian money in our bank account!


Repeat after me... THE BUBBLE WILL BURST ANY MOMENT NOW. THE BUBBLE WILL BURST ANY MOMENT NOW.



So, maybe you're wondering, what is the landlord going to ask for our sweet little home in Silver Lake?
Don't get me wrong... I love my place but it is what it is...

A total of 1768 square feet, and honestly - a teardown (crappy plumbing, leaky ceilings and walls when it rains - which were bad this year, and trust me, when walls leak, that ain't good - termites, busted foundation...

As the landlord's wife once said to me - when 'fixing' the back sidewalk after it had been jack hammered by replacing the former concrete with sand, "I think the house has reached the end of it's economic usefulness"

A real "home sweet home" statement, eh?


$675,000.00

Here's a quick cipher'n class for mine and your amusement in case that didn't knock you out...


Figuring 20% down (if you're one of the few remaining sane buyers) of $135,000.00 - that leaves a rough monthly nut of $4700.00 mortgage, taxes and interest!

That's $53,436.00 per year. (for 30 years)

Your mortgage is supposed to be no more than 30 percent of your income so - it means that to buy MY soon to be former home, you're gonna need to make about - $178,000.00 dollars annually.

Hope whoever buys it gets to enjoy MY old home.

On the bright side, it does have great views, is in a quiet, private neighborhood and the fireplace and hot tub have a fun, funky seventies feel to them.

And it is famous after all, having been in a supernatural thriller once.


Come back soon and share more of my pain. Pictures too, I promise.

Is this what blogging is about or what? Let me know.

stick in the head

I went skiing for the first time in four or five years. Thankfully, it's like riding a bicycle. I don't mean the sitting on your ass part, though there is also that similarity. No, unlike languages and software, both of which one does forget when not used frequently, skiing you don't forget. You will be in pain, you will be rusty, but the essentials are still with you. I think muscles have a better memory than the conscious brain.
Hmmm.

Before hitting the slopes, my left ski boot came apart - and I mean cracked and split. Exploded.



So, that sent me to the rental area, a place I haven't been in about twenty years. I went with the hope of only renting boots. They took one look at my skis though and offered to cut them up and put them on the ceiling. Wow... more memories. I remember when I bought these things. How new and shiny they were, etc. Time does fly, doesn't it? It was sort of disconcerting to think that my skis were older than some of the people on the slope. Where has the time gone? It was my first time on parabolic skis, so that was a new experience. Forced me to be a lot more cautious, which is good - seeing as it was a newer, steeper mountain, first time in four years, etc.
My ski pants also re-alerted me to the fact that I gotta lose some weight.

I watched Gallipoli yesterday. First time in many years. That memory held up well. Great movie, really very under appreciated. BUT... there are several music cues that are real cringers. Most notable and embarrassing are two synth cues which come out of nowhere. Here's a movie that sets up 1915 in a perfect way. It uses almost no cue music, no really lengthy dialouge scenes... and then - the synths circa 1980. Were they cool then? The way these cues abruptly start and end also makes me wonder about the reasoning. I'm sure someone went over Peter Weir's head on that. He's too good a director to have those lapses in sanity.

So, off to imdb to see that the offender was... Brian May??? Wait, the guitarist for Queen did that? I thought he had good taste, and would know how to stay in a proper historic musical style.
Oh, no. It's a different Brian May, as this one - the Gallipoli one died a few years ago, and I believe the only dead, um, Queen, is Freddy Mercury.

Oh, andthis Gallipoli Brian wasn't the offending party.
It's not Bizet, not Albinoni. Those are easy to eliminate. That leaves... ah yes, it all comes back to me now... that leaves Jean-Michel Jarre with his "Oxygene" theme. I also know this to be the one because, long ago, 1982 in fact, I had a music demo that would show off how amazing my commodore 64 was for making music. This "Oxygene" rubbish was one of the tunes it played, along with "Tubular Bells" and O.M.D. Ah, the memories.

In order to fully realize the embarassment, I tracked down the actual midi file of this cue.

Join me now as I set up the scene:

Imagine young Mel Gibson runnig for his life and the lives of his 'mates' in the desert of Egypt - the pyramids, the dust, the camels. The machine guns of the Turks roaring, mercilessly mowing down young men as the come out of the trenches. It's 1915. The Australians are going to war, and you have the sense that Mel and his friends are doomed - an All Quiet on the Western Front feel. Did I mention it's 1915? If you're still having trouble visualizing all this, think Lawrence of Arabia or even Raiders of the Lost Ark to a certain extent. This should give you a fairly proper mental picture of the dust, the grime, the clothing, the era.
Got it? Okay - now play this midi file starting at 53 seconds and keep in mind - what you're going to hear through your computer is EXACTLY what it sounded like in the movie. The cheaper your soundcard, the closer to accurate the actual sound.

How did that work for you? :)

Kinda wished they hadn't used the Albinoni cue repeatedly either.

Okay, the rest of the movie is great.

Another movie that I finally, after ten years, had a chance to see was Grosse Point Blank. Well, for the twenty people who may not have seen that yet, see it. It's a great movie. Fantastic. Everybody in the movie is spot on, and at their best. It appears that they all must have known they were doing something great and having a great time doing it.
More memories for me too... the premise involves going to a class of '86 high school reunion. Since I was class of '86, the music and the way Jeremy Piven dances absolutely struck home.
Ah, the good old days.

Unlike Gallipoli, Grosse Point Blank had a great score that fit perfectly.
Also, the movie is about violent people, but it's not a violent movie. That having been said, there's a hand to hand fight and a shoot-out that are quite spectacular, worthy of any good action flick.

So, bouncing through, using memory as the vague commonality, I finish.

Oh, I almost forgot. I promised I'd tell. I got released from Jury Duty on Tuesday. That's what enabled me to keep my ski day. The trial was a murder trial. I believe they had no evidence, but plenty of witnesses. Everyone involved was going to need to speak through an interpretor and the prosecutor, defender and judge were spending the majority of time creating a jury that wouldn't care about that or other things.
The fact that they all guarranteed that the trial would be done by Monday seemed to me to indicate that it was a cut and dried case. I'm guessing in a very particular way.
I guess it's good that they eventually booted me, eh?

Well, it's a beautiful day out, and I've got some cleaning up to do. Enjoy your day, and hope to hear from you.