After Andy's post on the secrets from the Teletubbies set, I felt compelled to post this bit of Teletubbie gossip. Find out the truth. Click the link below.
From The Smoking Gun
Friday, September 30, 2005
Teletubbies In Cocaine Bust?
After Andy's post on the secrets from the Teletubbies set, I felt compelled to post this bit of Teletubbie gossip. Find out the truth. Click the link below.
From The Smoking Gun
Cheese Friday: Locals only
Today's Cheese Friday is mostly for those of you in the greater O.C. area. It's a link to an article from the O.C. Weekly that lists a few places to go and eat... Cheese, of course. For anyone outside the area, think of it as a restaurant guide for the next time you visit.Happy Cheese Friday Everyone!
Eat well.
This Week in Cheese
Insomnia Posting #27G: A few thoughts about my flight.
So, the last film of the last screening is copying right now. I have a moment to discuss my flight here. It was uneventful, but got off to a rocky start. Here is my plane. All shiny and clean.
But look closer, or just scope out the poorly executed blow-up shot below.
That's my pilot sitting on the window sill, wiping off the window with what appeared to be his jacket. Thinks I "This does not bode well for our hero" (me). I mean, I know that the airlines are having a tough time of it right now, but they can't afford the squeegie guy? What the hell is that poor bastard gonna do for a gig now? How much transferability could those skills possibly have?
"Uh, so tell us why you think you'd make a great addition to the team here at Gigantocorp™, Bob"
"Well, Back in the day I was the squeegie guy for American Airlines, until they let me go. Downsized, you know how it is..."
"Actually Bob I don't know how it is... I sold my immortal soul to Gigantocorp™ back on my prom night, and never looked back."
"Sweet where do I sign?"
... and SCENE."Well, Back in the day I was the squeegie guy for American Airlines, until they let me go. Downsized, you know how it is..."
"Actually Bob I don't know how it is... I sold my immortal soul to Gigantocorp™ back on my prom night, and never looked back."
"Sweet where do I sign?"
So the pilot likes clean windows, no biggie.
Then we sat on the jetway for an hour because Chicago was 'socked in'. The little rubber-ended ramp was retracted, technically we had left the airport. I sat in Irvine for the first hour of the flight, it was absurd. They even started the in-flight entertainment.
NOTE: Herbie Fully Loaded is sucks butt, and no I wasn't surprised to discover that, thank you very much.
Then I was offered a small boxed snack thingy, contents included tiny round corn chips, alleged Salsa, and something vaguely cheese-like... oh and a turkey jerky thingy (a gift for Nels when I arrived!). All for 3 bucks!! It's so sad what has become of American airlines, and American Airlines (how's that for intellectual?). Luckily they seem to have an endless supply of Everybody Loves Raymond to quell the angry horde - and it worked.
From Chicago:
thePrisoner (is 'mildly fond' of Raymond)
Click This And Save A Kitten!!
I love trailers, and so do you.
thePrisoner (hears voices, not the friendly kind)
courtesy of Scott Francisco, Hi Scott!!
thePrisoner (hears voices, not the friendly kind)
courtesy of Scott Francisco, Hi Scott!!
Toby: Chicago Days pt.2
THURSDAY 9:00pm (Chicago Time)
I just finished the Romantic Comedy Reel (a good show). Nels is trying to figure out if he wants to make little openings and a thanks to the sponsor spot to put in each show. I don't want to. So I try to help him, it's like hitting your hand with a salami (it doesn't really hurt, but you don't really enjoy it either). I'm trying not to get all Mac vs. PC on him, but he doesn't have any decent applications so he's trying to make a DVD using some LE version of Nero from 2001.
Progress does not happen.
Scott arrived (I think it was an accident) and was only 3 hours late (Nels says 2.5, generous guy that he is). I have nothing to say to Scott and I think he knows it. He had to pick up 2 extra tapes for the last day of screenings and uses that as an excuse for his tardiness (he called 20 minutes before he arrived here to ask where the nearest Walgreens is, so I call shenanigans on that).
Nels is trying to edit a music jingle together, so I turned him on to Audacity. It is pretty basic, pretty simple but it doesn't read minds - therefore he had some adaptability problems with it. I can relate, but I am a lot more receptive to instruction than he is.
Scott just called the 3 Penny to arrange dropping off the 35mm reels to get spliced up for the show. His phoney telemarketer voice freaked out the girl on the other end of the phone (it's only her 3rd day at the place) so she handed the phone off. Maybe she thought he was trying to pull the toner scam on her. I have to admit for a second I thought he was too.
Now I do another reel, more to follow.
2:27am - We are making the 'Best of..." reel. I hate to break it to you but we select the best before the very first screening even begins. We have to, there are only so many hours in the day, and only so many folks to do the work. Nels is selecting his favorites, the whole show is based primarily on his selections and input from the other two judges. I can only guess how many films he has sat through in the last few months. I really think the show is pretty good.
I'm pretty beat, we didn't eat until a couple of hours ago and maybe that was too long.
Anyway, it'll all be over soon.
Andy, if you donate to Katrina...
So, Brian Wilson is crazy.
"Here's my challenge: For anyone who sends a donation of $100 or more, I will call you personally and answer a question you may have, or just say hello. Also, Melinda and I will match the donation."
(from Boing Boing)
Katrina: Donate $100, get a call from Brian WIlson
If you donate $100 to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, Brian Wilson (the Beach Boy) will call you on the phone. "Here's my challenge: For anyone who sends a donation of $100 or more, I will call you personally and answer a question you may have, or just say hello. Also, Melinda and I will match the donation."(from Boing Boing)
Further Ranting (and then I'm done)
The government just gave New Orleans relief fund 58 BILLION dollars!!
Have you been to New Orleans? If it was totally destroyed down to rubble and had to be rebuilt from scratch it wouldn't cost 58 billion dollars. Sure Bourbon Street is fun, but once you set foot off of that street it's like walking through that invisible wall in Time Bandits.
I'm sorry people lost their homes, but a lot of my sympathy went out the door when shooting of rescue helicopters and harassing of rescue officers began not but one day after the effort to get peopole out. Then 40% of the debit cards given out ($2,000 a piece) were spent on non-essential items (as verified by the merchants who cashed the things) such as t.v.'s and other luxury items. Sure not everyone took part in these blatant acts of stupidity but it is defintiely the 1,000 bad apples poil the tree kind of theory for me on this one. I blame the city of New Orleans for not getting these people out (no demanding they leave) when they should have. If people stayed voluntarily through this and still expect help when the inevitable struck them - well tough titties. For the people who couldn't get out, they should have been removed. They knew this was going to be bad (we had 5 days of warning about this storm on the west coast for christ's sake) they should have extracted them into shelters while they had days to do so. All this just about killed it for me.
There has been well over 300 million donated by sports organizations, 58 billion by the feds, a couple mil in debit cards for immediate help, countless rescue workers being harassed for trying to save people and they still want private citizens to take a hit on their paycheck day after day? Yeah sorry, noble cause and all (for the beginning) but I think they're ready to put the money to use.
I don't like watching people get hurt, but I really don't like watching the American public get guilded in the name of charity. Unless this money is being fully documented on exactly where it's going, I can't see giving any cash (especially after federal relief). Natural disasters are often horrific and never controllable (although some politically over-active people would like to blame everything and anything on those with power), however there are plenty of other disasters that go unchecked and uncared for day after day in this country with no attention whatsoever. I can't see how this is any worse than some of the other things going on in this country nowadays (and for a while as well).
Donate if you will, but know that you are donating blindly into a cause that is already well-funded by the agencies that are there to fund these type of things in the first place. I'm not going to get into why other countries around the world won't help us out (sans 1 or 2 with this hurricane deal) when we are constantly either bailing them out of trouble or being begged to help them financially at each and every turn.
It's gotten old. I'm sorry this happened, but it did and no amount of hearings over what went wrong will get things back to normal. Something messed up, fine, get over it and move forward. Start using the money for what it's intended for and cut the begging out. There's enough to get started, finsihed, destroyed, started and finished again.
You can't go forward if you're always looking behind you.
Whew! All better now.
So - - tits? boob? farts? dick? poopy pants?
Have you been to New Orleans? If it was totally destroyed down to rubble and had to be rebuilt from scratch it wouldn't cost 58 billion dollars. Sure Bourbon Street is fun, but once you set foot off of that street it's like walking through that invisible wall in Time Bandits.
I'm sorry people lost their homes, but a lot of my sympathy went out the door when shooting of rescue helicopters and harassing of rescue officers began not but one day after the effort to get peopole out. Then 40% of the debit cards given out ($2,000 a piece) were spent on non-essential items (as verified by the merchants who cashed the things) such as t.v.'s and other luxury items. Sure not everyone took part in these blatant acts of stupidity but it is defintiely the 1,000 bad apples poil the tree kind of theory for me on this one. I blame the city of New Orleans for not getting these people out (no demanding they leave) when they should have. If people stayed voluntarily through this and still expect help when the inevitable struck them - well tough titties. For the people who couldn't get out, they should have been removed. They knew this was going to be bad (we had 5 days of warning about this storm on the west coast for christ's sake) they should have extracted them into shelters while they had days to do so. All this just about killed it for me.
There has been well over 300 million donated by sports organizations, 58 billion by the feds, a couple mil in debit cards for immediate help, countless rescue workers being harassed for trying to save people and they still want private citizens to take a hit on their paycheck day after day? Yeah sorry, noble cause and all (for the beginning) but I think they're ready to put the money to use.
I don't like watching people get hurt, but I really don't like watching the American public get guilded in the name of charity. Unless this money is being fully documented on exactly where it's going, I can't see giving any cash (especially after federal relief). Natural disasters are often horrific and never controllable (although some politically over-active people would like to blame everything and anything on those with power), however there are plenty of other disasters that go unchecked and uncared for day after day in this country with no attention whatsoever. I can't see how this is any worse than some of the other things going on in this country nowadays (and for a while as well).
Donate if you will, but know that you are donating blindly into a cause that is already well-funded by the agencies that are there to fund these type of things in the first place. I'm not going to get into why other countries around the world won't help us out (sans 1 or 2 with this hurricane deal) when we are constantly either bailing them out of trouble or being begged to help them financially at each and every turn.
It's gotten old. I'm sorry this happened, but it did and no amount of hearings over what went wrong will get things back to normal. Something messed up, fine, get over it and move forward. Start using the money for what it's intended for and cut the begging out. There's enough to get started, finsihed, destroyed, started and finished again.
You can't go forward if you're always looking behind you.
Whew! All better now.
So - - tits? boob? farts? dick? poopy pants?
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Toby: Chicago Days pt.1
It's midnight in California. That means it's two a.m. in Chicago.
I'm making the documentary reel for the Second Annual Chicago International REEL Shorts Festival (CIRSF2). I'm watching a really good documentary about a neighborhood in Brooklyn that goes crazy when it's time to decorate for Christmas. I judged this film back in California and now here I am making sure it get screened. Yay me!
Nels is answering e-mails, a lot of people who didn't get into the festival are complaining because they got an e-mail inviting them to attend anyway. For some reason they are really mad about it. My favorite two e-mails so far were (and I quote):
"First you reject my film, now you keep me on your list... not cool" and that was his entire e-mail!! My response was not kind and included the phrase 'grow up' Nels edited my reply, but it was still pretty harsh.
The second: "No, I will not attend. You are not showing my film 'Jack' and that is your audience's loss." what a pro!
By the way, Scott cashed it in for the evening at midnight, I asked Nels what he had done today, and Nels just shrugged. Unfortunately there is a lot of that. Folks getting by with zero accountability, and I can't just blame Scott for that, Nels doesn't want to get too organized either. Now pause for a second and consider this; I am the most organized and disciplined person here... yeah, I shuddered too!
THURSDAY 5:30pm (CHICAGO TIME) Been awake about 90 minutes. Worked all night until 10:30-11:00. We have Friday and Saturday's shows built and ready. We are still getting e-mails from filmmakers, some are now asking if they can bring a new screener copy of their film, or if they can have 20 passes for their extended family... the answer to each is the same (CLUE: Rhymes with "Go" as in "Go $#@! yourself"). Some of the films are really interesting, the documentary show is particularly strong (sure to be unattended) but Nels thinks overall the submissions were slightly weaker than last year. However he is a bit burned out, and I haven't seen all the shows yet. We are supposed to meet Scott in about an hour for a strategy session where he explains how walking around the DePaul University campus is sure to put asses on the seats (last year he did the same thing, student turn out was low and he had to buy himself new sneakers because his fallen arches were dessimated by the punishment they had endured). Seriously, Scott has avoided making eye-contact with me since I got here (he didn't have very long tho' because he split when the work started). He is supposed to be organizing a filmmaker's breakfast (last year's fizzled due to zero planning) and watching the screener copies of the fest to select the best of show program (which I will be assembling tonight as you all lie sleeping and dreaming the dreams of the just). It's fun to be here and have a mission. I am functioning on a steady diet of pb&j sandwiches and Diet Dr. Pepper. Don't tell anyone, but I wish I had another week of this.
I haven't heard about the TimeWarner Poker video, but I hope Eric made it pretty. In 12 hours no one will care.
More later (wireless permitting)
thePrisoner (come on Andy, give to the Katrina fund...)
I'm making the documentary reel for the Second Annual Chicago International REEL Shorts Festival (CIRSF2). I'm watching a really good documentary about a neighborhood in Brooklyn that goes crazy when it's time to decorate for Christmas. I judged this film back in California and now here I am making sure it get screened. Yay me!
Nels is answering e-mails, a lot of people who didn't get into the festival are complaining because they got an e-mail inviting them to attend anyway. For some reason they are really mad about it. My favorite two e-mails so far were (and I quote):
"First you reject my film, now you keep me on your list... not cool" and that was his entire e-mail!! My response was not kind and included the phrase 'grow up' Nels edited my reply, but it was still pretty harsh.
The second: "No, I will not attend. You are not showing my film 'Jack' and that is your audience's loss." what a pro!
By the way, Scott cashed it in for the evening at midnight, I asked Nels what he had done today, and Nels just shrugged. Unfortunately there is a lot of that. Folks getting by with zero accountability, and I can't just blame Scott for that, Nels doesn't want to get too organized either. Now pause for a second and consider this; I am the most organized and disciplined person here... yeah, I shuddered too!
THURSDAY 5:30pm (CHICAGO TIME) Been awake about 90 minutes. Worked all night until 10:30-11:00. We have Friday and Saturday's shows built and ready. We are still getting e-mails from filmmakers, some are now asking if they can bring a new screener copy of their film, or if they can have 20 passes for their extended family... the answer to each is the same (CLUE: Rhymes with "Go" as in "Go $#@! yourself"). Some of the films are really interesting, the documentary show is particularly strong (sure to be unattended) but Nels thinks overall the submissions were slightly weaker than last year. However he is a bit burned out, and I haven't seen all the shows yet. We are supposed to meet Scott in about an hour for a strategy session where he explains how walking around the DePaul University campus is sure to put asses on the seats (last year he did the same thing, student turn out was low and he had to buy himself new sneakers because his fallen arches were dessimated by the punishment they had endured). Seriously, Scott has avoided making eye-contact with me since I got here (he didn't have very long tho' because he split when the work started). He is supposed to be organizing a filmmaker's breakfast (last year's fizzled due to zero planning) and watching the screener copies of the fest to select the best of show program (which I will be assembling tonight as you all lie sleeping and dreaming the dreams of the just). It's fun to be here and have a mission. I am functioning on a steady diet of pb&j sandwiches and Diet Dr. Pepper. Don't tell anyone, but I wish I had another week of this.
I haven't heard about the TimeWarner Poker video, but I hope Eric made it pretty. In 12 hours no one will care.
More later (wireless permitting)
thePrisoner (come on Andy, give to the Katrina fund...)
DONATE!
Please, if you have some time donate to my "Relief From The Hurricane Fund".
Seriously if I hear one more damn plea for cash I'm going to get all Jacob's Ladder on everyone and shake my head so hard it'll fall off and/or tend to make me a might queasy.
I couldn't fuckin' take it any more - I had to say something.
I suppose these guys will change their name now right - Sick Of Hearing About It
There now I feel better (at everyone's expense, ah hell - screw it).
Seriously if I hear one more damn plea for cash I'm going to get all Jacob's Ladder on everyone and shake my head so hard it'll fall off and/or tend to make me a might queasy.
I couldn't fuckin' take it any more - I had to say something.
I suppose these guys will change their name now right - Sick Of Hearing About It
There now I feel better (at everyone's expense, ah hell - screw it).
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