Somehow I never see it coming.

Every so often, I post something that really pisses people off and it always takes me by surprise.

This Madonna/Forum thing really opened the floodgates and got that peanut gallery typing but good.

Please enjoy some examples of the email I've gotten - I have not corrected any spelling or grammar errors:

Ur stoopid 4 thnking U can pikett Madonna shes superstar and I hope u all die


Union members are paid too much!! GREED IS A SIN!!!


What about the innocent people who just want to be intertained? Your saying I should not go when I've paid and I'm saying you all should go back to Russia.


Shame on you all for using an innocent person for publicity. Why should she care about you or your silly little problems? If any of you had any brains, you'd go get a real job.

Well, that last one sort of has a point - I think I mentioned that I don't expect uber-rich celebs to give a shit about the working man, and the fact is that most (with a few exceptions) of them don't. Those of us who work in the entertainment industry understand this and although we wish things were different, that's the way it goes.

Once again:

I NEVER EXPECTED MADONNA TO GIVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT LABOR.

I was, however, hoping that a group of folks who call themselves Christians would care about their employees receiving a fair wage in a city with astronomical housing and general living costs.

It deeply saddens me to think I might be wrong.

As for using Madonna to generate publicity - you bet your ass. She'd do the same thing if our situations were reversed.


And if you think union members are paid too much, please feel free to go work on a non-union low budget movie. Know that you're showing us greedy union fucks a thing or two while you work 80+ hour weeks for a flat rate that works out to be less than minimum wage and be told by the producer that you should crawl into a building full of toxic waste to place a light because "it's the right thing to do because we all care soooo much about the project" and then get fired when you refuse because you decide to make your health a priority over a movie that no one's ever going to see anyway.

If that doesn't sound good (and why wouldn't it?), please do work on some non-union music videos that shoot for 25 hours straight, don't feed you because they blew the catering budget on coke for the artist and his/her friends, and then have armed thugs threaten you when you show up at the office to try to collect another paycheck because the first one (that they issued, under threat of legal action, 6 weeks after the shoot) bounced.

Oh, and have fun not making enough money - no matter how hard you work - to insure your health and your car at the same time.

Go on, do it. I'll wait.


For the haters out there, it should please you to no end to learn that we'll probably be getting rained on while we picket.

Be there or be square!

Reposted (with permission of the original poster) from our union's mailing list:

Stagehands Locked Out at LA Forum
Faithful Central Bible Church, the Forum's Owner, Won't Meet with Local 33

After more than two years of negotiations, Faithful
Central Bible Church's bargaining agent forced steep cuts on
Forum workers. Wages were cut more than 30 percent. Workable
hours were also slashed.

Not content, management then locked veteran stagehands
out of their jobs. These men and women, IA Local 33 members
eager to return to work, stand on the sidewalk as replacement
workers are brought in on church buses. In spite of its direct
involvement, the Church has tried to wash its hands of the dispute
and all of its unions, including Teamsters 42 and SEIU 1877.
Bishop Ulmer has yet to meet with these workers or their unions.

This afternoon I went down to the great western forum
and walked the picket line with our IATSE 33 brothers and sisters.
Although I missed it, Madonna crossed the line for rehersals
(Peggy's emphasis) for her upcoming concert.
This coming sunday, 21 May, the evening of the concert, Local 33 is organizing a huge rally and picket line from 5:30 PM-8:00PM. For more information on parking and details please go to their website:www.IA33.org.

Although I'm not stupid enough to assume that insanely wealthy celebs give a shit about me, unions or the working man's welfare in general, I'm really surprised that Bishop Ulmer - a so-called Christian - would do something like this.

Before I start getting hate mail (which I know I will), I have a completely biased outlook towards locking out workers and I'm not afraid to admit it.

I'll be there Sunday, and although I wish we lived in a world where this kind of stuff didn't happen, I gotta tell you that picket lines are fun. I get to be disruptive, yell insults at the people crossing the line (and yes, I'm looking forward to yelling at Madonna's limo) and shake my sign menacingly.

Although I know we'd all rather be home watching that wonderful Sunday night television, if you're in the Los Angeles area please do show up.

After all, how often do you get to yell at Madonna?

My life's not so exciting now.

The dreaded call from the concerned girlfriend came yesterday:

Her: "So you're not working now, why don't you put up a personal ad? You need to get out more."

Me: "No time. Very busy."

Her: "You're not busy. You're sitting at home, reading War and Peace to your plants so they'll grow faster".

Lying bitch. While the cat might appreciate Tolstoy, the plants really seem to prefer InStyle.

My life these days consists of trying to cook without using butter or oil, going to the gym (damn crafty goes right to my ass), The Simpsons reruns, begging The Blonde to stop dating D-List train wrecks and trying to organize my closets. Should I throw out something that's now two sizes too small and out of fashion, but for which I paid a small fortune?

On second thought, girlfriend has a point. I do need to get out more.

So, I put up an ad, and then deleted it a day later.

The responses I got fell into the following categories:

a) HeY CutIE!!!!! ur HOTT!!!!!Plz snd phne number sos we CaN taLk nd I can be sure uR really not a dude, Peace.

b) 16 paragraphs of self-absorbed drivel that I couldn't even finish reading.

c) Outright lies

d) Photographs of someone's penis

e) Inquiries as to whether I was 'down with (insert stomach-turning perverted activity here).'


Single's not looking so bad right now.

Besides, the plants really do need to know if green is the new black.

Friday Photo

Cycloramas must be repainted to white if the color is changed for a shoot.

Note: The link above leads to the Wikepedia definition of a theatrical soft cyc - ususally made of cloth.

Permanently installed plaster wall cycs on film stages (such as the one in the photo) are called hard cycs - a term not included in the Wikepedia definition.

No good will come of this, I fear.

I love me some Fug Girls. I think they're smart, funny and I enjoy the hell out of their site, but sometimes I worry about them.

I was at a trunk show (where a designer shows the new clothes for the upcoming seasons in a retail store while onlookers eat mini-quiches and drink bad chardonnay) last night with The Supermodel, and saw something that I fear will lead to one of my beloved Fug Girls climbing into a bell tower with a rifle.

Which I must admit could be fun, but innocent people might get nasty blood stains on their white formal shorts.

That's right. Formal shorts. They're not going away anytime soon.

I'm sorry girls. I hate them too - but I'm sad to say it gets worse.

This particular designer upped the ante by accessorizing the formal shorts/hippie shirt/dominatrix boot ensembles (dammit, why did I forget my camera) with drapery ties, worn around the necks as pendants.

I'm not kidding.

Oh, Heather. Oh, Jessica.

Please don't do anything rash.

Oscar. Winning. Rap. Group.

Think about that for just a moment.

Oscar.
Winning.
Rap.
Group.

Kinda rattles the brain, doesn't it?

The dreaded video finally materialized, but it ended up being just wrapping it out (my occasional working life these days - just enough money to fuck up my unemployment).

The job was uneventful - they were just shooting the rappers against the cyc so there weren't a whole lot of lights; just a few skypans hung on the pipe grid, and a few lights on stands.

The Oscar Winning Rap Group were polite and fairly well-behaved, as rap groups go - but we got there late in the day, so I have no idea what happened earlier.

Sometimes production decide to 'help' us by giving us a sleep-deprived production assistant. Normally they just kind of wander around in a daze, and we tell them to go pick up C-47s just to get them out of the way.

This particular sleep-deprived PA decided he really had to help us and proceeded to start throwing all the equipment in a big, messy pile in one corner while insisting that the stage guys had told him to 'keep everything tight'.

When one stages equipment, it must be done in an orderly fashion so the guys who come to count it can do the count as quickly as possible. 'Keep it tight' means keep it as close together as possible while still keeping enough order that the guys can work.

That means like goes with like, everything is lined up in an orderly fashion, and cable is laid out so that it can be quickly counted and loaded. Dumping everything into a sloppy pile doesn't help anyone, and it makes the rental house guys who come to count the equipment crazy.

Despite our pleas for him to stop helping, he insisted. My boss eventually had to go to production and get him sent home before he started making extra work for us. We probably did him a favor - I think the poor guy'd been awake for over 24 hours.

We got everything laid out to count, and then went home around 3 am, as the rental house guys wouldn't be coming in until 7 am.

Oh, what the hell. One more time:

Oscar. Winning. Rap. Group.

Fuck him? I don't even know him!

When I got home this afternoon, I opened the mail and saw the strangest thing.

An invite to Joe Francis' birthday party at Magic Mountain ("come party with us.. drinks, food and all rides will be open").

Who is Joe Francis? I had no fucking idea, but a free night at an amusement park is fine by me.
When I called the RSVP line, I got the following message: "The RSVP line is now closed. Don't bother leaving a message, it will not be checked."

So, either I got my invitation really late, or the RSVP line was never open and they just sent out invitations to generate publicity or waste money or something.

When I told The Blonde about it, she said, "Well, fuck him and the horse he... oh, wait. I'm going to that party. Never mind."

Then, after I'd turned on the computer, I saw the same invite on Defamer and learned why Joe Francis can afford to throw a party at Magic Mountain.

Yeek. The guy made his money from porn.

It's probably just as well (I have issues with porn - but, since I know you're all wondering - I have worked on a porn. Once. I'll never do that again unless I get really, really broke), but I love roller coasters and was looking forward to having a fun time on them.

For this morning's non-work related errand, I went back to the podiatrist (his office is in Santa Monica, and it took me over an hour to get there from Hollywood. Fucking traffic) to get yet another tweak on my orthotics (apparently my feet are being difficult), and he was telling me that no one's working now - not even the people who do commercials (they're almost always busy).

What kills me is that some folks seem to always be blindsided by the work drying up, even though it happens roughly at the same time a few times a year.

In the waiting room, a production co-ordinator was complaining to someone on the other end of her cell phone that she couldn't find a job and didn't know what the hell happened. The lady sitting next to her waited until she'd hung up, turned to her and said "It's summer, honey. Happens every year."

How I'm spending my down time.

Saturday found me on a wild goose chase for road bike tires.

The bike I normally ride is a mountain bike but the other day, I was investigating an abandoned house with a friend of mine and, on the back patio, found a Montgomery Ward 10-speed from 70's - it was covered in dust and in need of some work, but I've been wanting a road bike and haven't wanted to spend the money. The problem is that the bike's tires are super skinny and these days, the only bikes that use 1 3/8" tires are high-end racing bikes with appropriately priced accessories.

I'm determined not to spend more than I absolutely have to on a bike that - with a lot of work - could possibly one day be called a rideable piece of shit.

Saturday night I went to see a good friend who's been out of the country for a year and a half working on a documentary in South America - I'd missed her and was very happy to see her again (and glad that she got back safe). We hung out, drank wine, had dinner, caught up, and had a great visit.


So far I've scrubbed the stove, flipped the mattress, caught up on all the blogs that I love to read and never have time for, have watched some DVD's and turned in my draft to the magazine editor (and I've not heard back from her - that's a good sign. When they hate it, they write back immediately).

I'm hearing rumors of a possible music video later this week, but we'll see.

Let's hear it for seasonal unemployment

All the TV shows are on hiatus, pilot season is over, and the movies won't start up again until June or July, so I've got some idle time facing me.

If I'm very lucky, I'll get one day a week on a music video or infomercial (cheesy, but they pay well) this time of year, and it's fine.

I have a list of projects around the house (fix the running toilet, re-do the grout in the kitchen, clean out the closets, write a magazine article that I committed to months ago and haven't finished yet, replace the hard drive on the laptop if I can find the hard drive I bought and then put, well, somewhere), and the cat's alternately appreciating the company and wishing I'd go away and stop tripping over her (the crazy beast insists on napping in the middle of the floor, but I'll fix her. I'll run the vacuum).

I also rented the DVD of the Penn & Teller show Bullshit. I love those guys, and that show's great fun to watch. I may have to rent it again.

I also invariably gain a few pounds when I'm working a lot - I can't go to the gym, and when I'm standing on set I'm eating and not getting any kind of exercise that melts off pounds (wrapping cable is not an aerobic workout), so I suppose I should add "going to the gym at least once a day" to that list.

I've been riding the bicycle everywhere since gas is way over $3 per gallon out here, so hopefully that will help me drop some lard (okay, it's only five pounds, but why does it have to live on my ass?) quick.

The problem is that I like to eat things that aren't so good for dieting, but I've got nothing but time on my hands so I can go to the gym in the morning, and then spend three hours on my bike every day.

Speaking of fattening food, I'm off to a friend's house to cook Italian, watch Fellini films and drink wine. It's okay, though. I'm going to walk.

Warning: WAY off topic today.

It's not that I'm in favor of illegal immigration, it's that I'm against the xenophobia that seems to sometimes grip otherwise sensible people.

I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but a significant percentage of the population of Los Angeles were born in another country and immigrated here - some legally, some not.

Yesterday was the big May Day (a worker's holiday in much of the rest of the world) immigration protest (immigrants protesting our proposed 'anti-immigrant' legislation, although I'm sure there were several anti-immigrant gatherings) in LA, and I wasn't going to miss all the fun, so I left the car at home and took my bicycle out (good thing, too. Traffic nightmare from hell on the streets).

As I was riding around, I was taking a sort of informal tally of how many businesses were closed (no one was supposed to shop or go to work today - since I'm currently unemployed, not working was no big deal. Not shopping was a bit harder, especially when I remembered I was supposed to wear a white T-shirt to the march but instead had worn a blue polo, but no, I didn't buy anything yesterday - I just lived with my unfortunate wardrobe misstep). In Hollywood not many businesses were closed, but as I got nearer to the intersection of Wilshire and La Brea (one of the rally points), the place was a ghost town. IHOP, closed. Marie Callender's, closed. My bank, alas, also closed. I swear I wasn't going to buy anything - I just wanted to make a deposit.

Wilshire Blvd, one of the busiest streets in the city, was completely deserted early in the afternoon.



Until the marchers came - waves and waves of them.








Chanting, waving flags, laughing, talking - I've been to a lot of protest marches and this was the calmest crowd I've ever seen. There weren't even any angry cops floating around scowling - just happy well-mannered folks walking along Wilshire.






Since the day's events have been discussed to death just about everywhere else, I'll spare you my version and just leave it at my having had a great time.


I do have to mention something that happened after the rallies ended, though.



About 7 pm, after everything was over, people headed back along the march route in the deepening twilight. Still orderly, still well-mannered, they walked east on Wilshire - the flags were put away, and everyone was quiet as they made their way to wherever they'd joined the march (some of the folks with small children parked along the route so that the kids wouldn't have to walk the whole way).

A woman, seeing a business opportunity, had set up a grill on the side of the road and was making tacos for the marchers (who still had quite a walk ahead of them).

She had at least 20 people lined up next to her grill - talking, nursing almost-empty water bottles, carrying sleeping children. Not all of them were Hispanic, either, but everyone was hungry, worn out and eager to fork over cash to someone who was in the right place at the right time.

To me, that's America.

Big late night adventure!

The call came around 10 pm.

"Hey" my friend said "you wanna wrap out this set tonight? Production wants us off the clock, and you'll only be here for four or five hours and get paid for eight."

"Isn't that the same as them paying you double time?"

"Yeah, but we told them it's not safe to give us 6 hour turnaround, so they have to bring in another crew."

Whatever anyone else may say about the safety passport program, it's given us ammo against producers. In pre-passport days, the producer could scream "I'm not paying you to think, asshole! Do it now!" but these days, once we say something's not safe, the argument's essentially over.

I was all warm and cuddly in bed, watching a movie, and I really wanted to say no, but then I remembered all the money I'd spent in Vegas.

"Sure, why not. I don't need sleep."

"Great! It's in Long Beach"

"Fuck."

"Too late - you already said yes. Get your ass down here."

Long Beach is a forty minute drive for me, if there's no traffic. If we worked too late, I'd be screwed coming home and get caught in the rush hour crush - that and it's looking very likely that all hell is going to break loose in Los Angeles today due to this May Day thing.

As soon as we got to the 'stage' - an old warehouse that's been converted into a place to shoot - the production person started in on us about hurrying. "I don't want you going into over time! Do you understand why this is important?"

Yes, of course we understood, except that we had to contend with pipe grid.

Warehouses that have been converted into stages don't have catwalks. They just have a grid made of pipe hanging from the ceiling (hence the name), and the only way to hang any lights or cable is to get a lift under spot you want, raise the lift, do what you have to do, lower the lift, clear the whatever junk's in the drive path, move the lift and then start the whole process over again.

Needless to say, this takes a long time.

"Towering" - driving with the lift raised - is strictly verboten, even though it can be a time-saver.

There's also a way to run cable on a pipe grid which makes it fast to wrap (hung underneath the pipe, tied on at intervals, so all one has to do is cut the ties and let the cable fall), and a way to run cable on a pipe grid which makes it take forever to wrap (run over the pipe so that the cable must be pulled up and fed through to the next opening).

Guess which way the cable was rigged?

So, the production person, watching and pacing, waited about two hours and then started asking how much longer. Each time she asked she got crankier ("Why aren't you done yet? What exactly is the problem?").

I understand why - she was sitting there, bored and tired, watching six guys using three lifts saying 'goddammit' an awful lot with no sign of anything resembling progress happening.

So now I was faced with a choice. Try to explain to her - in words that she'd actually be able to understand - exactly why it was taking us so long, or tell her what I was pretty sure she wanted to hear and say "you're right. I'm gold-bricking just to piss you off, and because I like to be up in a scissor lift at one am, breathing in toxic waste. I don't even need the money."

I just sighed, told her we were working as fast as we safely could and that if she wanted to catch a nap in the office I'd come and get her when we were close to being done.

People get cranky late at night, and I'm sure she's a very pleasant person when she's not tired.

We got done in five hours, so I got home before all today's predicted mayhem, and even had time to catch a nap.

I'm going out to see if I can get any good photos today.

Humping the American Dream

I don't mind the drive to Vegas. The desert scenery is very pretty, and there are conveniently placed coffee joints right wherever I have to stop in order to give my aging vehicle a rest (the advantage to an SUV with a V-6 is that the gas mileage is really good. The disadvantage is trying to crawl up the really long hill just east of Barstow without blowing up the engine).

I made it in about 5 hours and checked into New York, New York. They bill this as being just like Manhattan, and I guess it is - my room was tiny, had no natural light coming into the window, my view out said window was the wall of the next building about 10 feet away, and I could hear the screaming baby in the next room through the paper-thin walls. Just exactly like New York City. Oh, and they wanted ten bucks a day for internet access. Fuck that.

After I got my stuff dumped into the room I went out, had a few cocktails and hit the Strip.

Hunter S. Thompson wrote that line about "humping the American dream" in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and while he was describing gambling while hopped up on goofballs (so to speak), I think it's pretty descriptive of Vegas in general, especially after one has had a few cocktails.

Alcohol makes everything in Vegas better. After a couple of drinks, the over-blown decor in the casinos just seems whimsical, and the displays on the Strip (fake volcanoes, dancing waters, pirate shows, etc) seem magical and fun instead of cheesy and stupid.

I know it's bad of me to promote alcohol use at all, but trust me on this one. Have the martini before you go out.

Sunday - met Dan and helped set up his seminar. Dan's the person who got me the pass - this is the first time I've ever met anyone who only knows me through the blog (a lot of folks who know me in real life anyways read the blog, but it's not the same thing). He turned out to be a very cool guy with a very interesting seminar about making your own camera rigs.

Sunday night I went to dinner at Red 8 - the Chinese place in the Wynn (the Wynn is right next to the convention center and there's a handy shuttle), where the waiter was extremely unpleasant until he saw me taking a photo of my jellyfish salad (deelish, if you were wondering) and asked me why. "Oh" I said "I'm going to send it to a guy who writes a blog called Deep End Dining".

The waiter cracked a huge smile and said "Eddie Lin! Did you see the TV show he was on? That guy's crazy! You should have told me you knew Eddie Lin!"

He still charged me full price for the meal, but he was really friendly after that. I'll take what I can get.

Thanks, Eddie. I'll have to throw your name around more often.

Monday was the convention floor - and it was pure madness. NAB takes up the ENTIRE convention center, and the closest thing I can think of is a rugby scrum - people literally fighting over swag, vendors hawking wares like its a carnival sideshow, etc.. The whole thing was so big that my brain shut down. I had been given advice to peruse the floor map before I went in so I could plan on what I wanted to see - advice I ignored on Monday and was sorry when I staggered out into the afternoon heat of Las Vegas with a serious case of the brain rot. Over dinner Monday night I pulled out my map and had a good look at what was where so I could make a precision assault first thing in the morning.

Tuesday I got there as soon as the convention opened, hit the vendors I'd been interested in (mostly lighting stuff, of course), got out of there before the crowds got too crazy, then went over to the Bellagio and snuck into the pool for a couple of hours before heading home (the Bellagio's pool is much better than New York New York's).

Flat Stanley turned out to be a conversation starter, all right - but not in the way I'd hoped. Most people were happy to take a photo (some of them even took photos that included heads and background), but they all seemed to think that the Flat Stanley looked like me because my kid made it.

Me: "It's my friend's kid, actually."

Them: "Amazing, isn't it? They always make these look just like mom - I can really see the resemblance when you hold it up."

Me: "It's my friend's kid."

Them: "Just amazing. How old is your son?"

Me: "For fuck's sake."

Oh, and Cirque du Soleil is officially out of control:





It's good to be home.

This seems to be the closest thing to a vacation I ever get.

I've been to Las Vegas more in the past 12 months than in the preceding 12 years.

I'm not really a gambler, so I always kind of feel like an imposter, and yet circumstances as of late seem to keep sending me back.

Someone I know through the blog hooked me up with a pass to NAB, so I'm leaving tomorrow and coming back on Tuesday (I'd stay longer but I've really got to try to drum up some work for next week).

I normally go to Vegas with The Blonde, who makes for great theater but is a bit stressful to travel with. This time I'm going by myself, which should be fun just because it means I'll be able to spend part of the trip actually relaxing by the pool without worrying what trouble I'm going to have to deal with next.

"You'll have a great time," my friend said when I told her why I'd be missing the Blasters concert a group of us had planned to attend Saturday night. "You'll tear the town up - just like Hunter S. Thompson."

"Um, yeah" I said.

A nice sentiment, as we're both huge fans, but Vegas isn't the same town as it was when Thompson terrorized it.

It's not the 70's anymore and the strongest thing I'm going to ingest is a watered-down vodka tonic.
The Dunes is gone, and while the Flamingo's still there it's a moldering hulk with a half-assed remodel awaiting a date with the wrecking ball so that we can have yet another themed resort hotel/casino.
One cannot - anywhere in Vegas, or Nevada for that matter - get a steak for $1.99 and I'm pretty sure that Hunter S. didn't have to bring along Flat Stanley.

When another friend heard that I was going to Vegas, she insisted I take along Flat Stanley for her kid's school project.

"You know, just take Flat Stanley's picture in a variety of interesting places, but you have to be in the photo or it doesn't count."

"I'm traveling by myself. How am I supposed to get in the photo?" I asked.

"You're a college graduate, I'm sure you'll figure it out".

So now my plans to do not a lot (besides gawking at all the cool NAB stuff and lounging by the pool) have changed and I have to spend at least part of the weekend cajoling complete strangers into taking our picture at various locations around the Strip.

One thing I'm sure of, though. Flat Stanley will be a hell of a conversation starter.

It's official - the magic's gone.

One of my DVD rentals was the TV show Firefly.

It's a good show, but while watching it, all I could think was "Damn, I feel sorry for the poor bastards that had to work on that thing".

On a TV show, you have standing sets, swing sets, and locations.

Standing sets stay the same episode after episode - once the lights are rigged they don't move around (much - unless you're the victim of an excessively cost-cutting producer who forces you to pull the lights out of one standing set and put them in another each time you move), and all we really have to do is move around the 'floor units' (lights that are on stands and not hung in the rig) each time we shoot the set.

A swing set is a set that's only there for a short time as it's only going to be used in one episode. On a TV show, every time you see a place just once, that's a swing set. Watching Firefly, I noticed that over half of each episode seems to have been swing sets (alien spaceship, ballroom, bar interior, bad guy's office, etc..).

A swing set has to built, dressed and lit before it can be shot - that requires a lot of man-hours even if there's a rigging crew, and once it's ready to go the lighting always has to be tweaked, set pieces have to be changed, etc... Needless to say quite a bit of this tweaking takes place with the producers standing there, yelling about how we're not working fast enough.

Oh, and you'd think it would take less time to build and light a really small but complex set - like the interior of a spaceship with teeny little cubbyholes everywhere, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong. Sometimes the teeny cubbyhole-laden sets are the worst.

Here are my thoughts on shooting in those little western town sets (all the backwater towns on Firefly seem to be western-themed).

The magic's been gone for a while (I know too much - so I notice things like boom mic shadows, lighting mis-matches, sound glitches and actors looking in the wrong direction on a reverse angle), but the fact that I was sitting on my couch thinking about how badly the crew must have gotten spanked instead of rooting for our intrepid heros as they escape just in time really brought it home.

I wonder if this is how magicians feel when they watch a magic show.

Poor bastards.

So I'm selfish. I can live with that.

It's still incredibly busy out there, but over the weekend I decided to be selfish and take a few days off.

I didn't get offered any work, so I didn't turn down anything down for Monday or today, I just didn't didn't make any effort to get on the phone and see who's hiring.

A friend of mine called on his way into work and was shocked that I was at home, stirring risotto and getting ready to put a movie in and relax when everyone else in town is standing on a set somewhere.

I know that I have to make hay while the sun shines - but at some point, I just can't anymore and have to take some time to rest.

Four days in a row (five, counting tomorrow) has felt like a six week vacation, and I really needed that.

I'll make work calls tomorrow.