I'm not dead...and
this long ass entry will prove it.
You all should
know by now that if I go 20 days without an entry,
that just means I'm busy. Because if bad shit was
happening, I'd be telling you all my deepest most
personal feelings because I'm a pussy like that. Go
look at January of 2000 to get an idea of what I mean.
14 entries in one month...CRIMINEY.
So yes, I'm here,
and no nothing has changed - except for the obvious
delay of the Trinitrons. All I can say in that respect
is that I want this thing to be right, and I'm not
gonna rush it. As well, Charlotte is a perfectionist
too and two perfectionists compromising takes a bit of
time. I'm on the 2nd rewrite since my last entry, and
it's all slowly winding down. We're down to a few
lines being punched up and starting to go into
"production mode". I've decided that I will get into
this in a bit more detail in a few weeks when
I present the very first: "Trinitron Chronicles".
A series of entries devoted solely to "where we are"
in the production schedule to that point. I'll only
write one when we've actually accomplished something,
and when the script is finalized - that will indeed be
"Part One". The next parts should be a blast to read
as you slowly get introduced to each character as I
change my appearence during filming. On "The
Trinitrons" website you'll begin seeing a "backstreet
boysish" layout with bios about each member and
histories and such. On that site, there will be
absolutely NO hints that this is one person: A
stranger to it will assume it's a new boy band, and
that's completely what I want. That should be
quite a fun site to build over the next couple of
months.
As well I've
almost completely grown back my beard (damn 2 weeks
and it's there!), preparing for the first TV that we
hope to shoot the first week in June. We honestly
aren't THAT far off of my own expectations.
I wanted to do it in late April, but 6-8 weeks of
script refining will be completely worth it in the
end. So be patient with the Trinitrons news, I assure
you it is forthcoming.
On the weight side
of my life, I must say I've had the greatest
month of my life simply "maintaining" the weight loss.
After the strict diet that I adhered to for 4 months,
being able to splurge feels like eating for the first
time. Honest to GOD, my first Super-size fries at
McDonalds in almost 6 months tasted better than I
could've possibly imagined. And all I did was go
back to diet food the next day and didn't gain a
thing. I actually like my diet food of rice, chicken,
and veggies - so it's not a big deal. Now red meat on
the other hand may be out of my diet for good. I love
a juicy steak as much as the next guy, but my
digestive system has been permanently reshaped. And
red meat most certainly stands out as the greatest way
to make my ass EXPLODE. I was able to eat some
pizza with peperonni and was alright, but I think I
was lucky if anything.
The great part is
that I'm finally introducing "fun" food into my diet,
and I'm not gaining weight. I'm very aware of my
weight, and I fluctuate between 150-153 everyday.
I also took a nice 2 week break from working out and
was able to pick back up where I left off and
still felt great. So I'm completely happy. At some
point I know I need to add weights and start
working my body fat % down to athlete levels (I'm at
12.5% now - would like to be 8-9%), but I'm just
having too much fun right now "maintaining". I also
don't have a clue how to work the right muscles for
the body I want - so hopefully I meet someone who
can give me a good regiment to follow.
The Boyles
animated? I knew I'd get a few of you excited in the
last entry about that - LOL. I haven't really
"pitched" the idea of The Boyles to Greg as of yet.
You all know I'm not into the whole "slimy
LA scene" and am more interested in actually
having a friend at this point. It's not like
I could do anything with The Boyles now anyway...
Of course everytime he talks about the personal
cartoon pitches he's working on I get boner. Well, not
really, but I know if done correctly, the
relationship between Lester and Johnny could EASILY be
turned into a great half-hour show. An old ornery guy
getting his grandson into trouble just works with
Lester & Johnny. My other problem with "pitching"
the idea to Greg, is that I haven't the slightest idea
HOW to do it. The Boyles humor was so slow in
comparison to today's great cartoons. That doesn't
mean it can't work, but I feel Greg would have to
listen to EVERY FREAKIN' EPISODE to understand
the potential. But again, I'm too busy right now, and
having too much fun talking "videogames" with him to
think about a working relationship. But in time I'll
make him listen...
SPEAKING of
videogames...or should I speak of "Family Guy"
first? Yeah, I'll leave E3 for the end...
So Greg worked on
"Family Guy" the past 8 months. Ironically enough it's
gonna be paired up with "The Tick" on Fox this
fall. Unfortunately, they decided to put it on
Thursdays nights, so we just may see them for about 3
weeks. It's too bad too, because I got to see a
screening of an episode next season at the studio, and
it was truly one of the funnier 30 minute shows I've
seen in a long time. It was pre-censors, and some of
the best stuff will be gone, but the show is
A LOT funnier than what I had seen a few
years ago and I'm glad they're bringing it back. Too
bad they've basically doomed it to fail by putting it
against "Friends", but you never know. ANYWAY, guess
who came to the screening? Sarah Gilbert who played
"Darlene" on Roseanne. How obtruse is that? Apparently
one of the animator's wives was a writer on Roseanne
and Sarah came by to see one of the screenings. Greg
and I even shared an elevator with her. Actually this
story is a bit funny:
So we're leaving
and end up sharing the elevator down with Sarah and
whomever brought her. Sarah asks Greg and I if we have
the time. I didn't have a watch, and said: "sorry" as
Greg pulled his out. It was in his pocket for some
reason. He sits there and stares at it. For a good
while too. I look over and couldn't tell if it was
upside down or not, but there was this uncomfortable
silence. Sarah looks and says "11:30?" and Greg goes:
"Yeah, sometimes I have trouble reading these..."
ENTER ADAM THE DICK:
"YOU CAN'T READ A FREAKIN'
WATCH WITH HANDS? HAHAHAHA! What the hell is
wrong with our generation!!??" I get a good kick out
of it and as the elevator door closes behind Sarah and
her friend Greg says: "Dude, I was nervous, that was
Darlene man..." And I just felt like such a
wanker. I thought he really couldn't read it, but he
was probably all freakin' out because Darlene was
staring at his crotch looking at his watch. HAHAHA. I
of course felt it necessary to razz him a bit more,
but still felt a bit bad. Either way -
FREAKIN' DARLENE FROM ROSEANNE! Pretty
cool.
Ok, so E3. The big
Electronic Entertainment Expo featuring the newest
videogames in the world. The big attraction this year?
Nintendo's GameCube and Microsoft's Xbox. I won't turn
this into a review of videogame consoles (though I'd
REALLY like to), but Nintendo easily impressed.
Whereas the Xbox games seemed very rushed and
incomplete, Nintendo's polish SHINED. Even if you
don't like the kiddie games (though at 25 they're
still a blast for me) - their older gamer line-up is
just jaw dropping. The new Star Wars game has to be
seen to be believed. PS2 also had incredibly
impressive titles (FINALLY) and will most likely own
the 18+ crowd in the upcoming videogame wars. Nintendo
will dent it a bit, but unfortunately people still see
them as an "18 and under" console. And that's a
demographic that Nintendo certainly owns. So where
does Microsoft end up? Their deep pockets will draw
out the inevitable failure of the system I'm afraid. I
had hoped they could come in and stir up the
competition but they just AREN'T. Everything gets
launched in early November this year, so it'll be
interesting to see how it all plays out.
That was a review
of videogame consoles wasn't it. Sorry.
But at E3, I got
to play Tekken with Gary Coleman. At least I tried to.
They were having trouble with the PS2 freezing and we
never got the chance. I did get a chance to see
him be an annoying little brat to everyone involved.
Heh.
First of all,
lemme say that I LOVE Gary Coleman. I was the biggest
Different Strokes fan in the world as a kid, and to
meet him was REALLY cool. I immeditaely felt
for him because some guy came up to him and said:
"WHATCHOO TALKIN' 'BOUT WILLIS" and you could see
the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It's as if
he said to himself "Ugo.com is paying me to stand out
here and talk about their product, I can't pummel this
fuck..."
How you can't
think that line wouldn't annoy Gary Coleman after 20
years of hearing it is beyond me. I sure hope in my
life I'm not remembered by a catch phrase. Shoot my
ass before that happens.
The problem was,
Gary was just a dick to the people at UGO.COM who were
trying to set-up this PS2 for us. Apparently it's
tradition to play Gary Coleman at PS2 games at E3. Who
knew. But they couldn't get it hooked up right, and
Gary's like:
"CAN'T YOU PUT IT ON CHANNEL 3!"
"It's a monitor man, there's no tuner in it for
channels" "HIT TV/VIDEO" "There is no
tv/video...."
The cool part is
that I got this on video. Once they got the system up
and running, it kept freezing after we selected our
fighters. I really thought Arnold Jackson was
gonna kick some ASS. It was so funny. He's yellin' all
these demands at people, and this thing was not
working. Finally they reset it as we're both holding
our controllers and he says: "Just let the graphics
play" the SECOND I hit the start button and made
it go to the menu screen. Arnold yells: "Awwww SHIT"
and I just lose it laughing. I mean, it was just
funny. No matter what, Gary Coleman still looks like a
little kid and that coming out of his mouth was just
classic. I apologized as we picked our players.
It then froze up again and he said: "Aww to hell with
this..." handed me the controller and walked away! I
had waited for an hour to play his ass. I of
course couldn't stop laughing, but it did suck. I
wanted to BEAT HIS ASS in Tekken Tag
Tournament.
Unfortunately
the video didn't come out too well, as
Gary looks like a silhouette, but I got
some lighted footage of him earlier and
edited
it
together.
You can definitely hear him - his voice is
SOOO unique. And of course to his
credit, it was hot, the
FREAKIN' THING WOULDN'T WORK,
and we were all a bit frustrated. Who
knows, when I've been catered to for 20
years, I may be the same whiny little brat
he was - but I'll try my damndest not to
be.
And the best E3
news of all: I've made a KILLING on EBAY. I mean,
some serious jack. When it's all said and done it
could very well be over $1000. They were giving these
foam GameCubes away for various things, and I stocked
up. I got like 29 of these little bitches.
I sold 2 there for $5 a piece, and then put a
couple on Ebay. Little did I know they'd be garnering
$35 a PIECE. On top of that I picked up a bunch
of prmotional DVD cases with a GameCube liner.
The new GameCube games will be in DVD cases and
they had them on display in their booth. Well,
I don't think I was supposed to take so
many, but they were really cool and I wanted to
put them in my DVD collection and look al cool:
Then I put them on Ebay and got $40 for one of
them. AN EMPTY FREAKIN' DVD CASE FOLKS.
What people will pay for is absoultely AMAZING. I will
make more off Ebay this year, than I have for every
4TVS Productions project I've done. Amazing. And not a
moment too soon - because the money is so freakin'
tight right now I'm eating fuckin' ramen noodles
again. (sigh) - it never ends man. This city is so
expensive.
So there's my
life. Jess's life has been pretty stressful too lately
as her hours have increased substantially. I feel so
freakin' guilty. I try and do as much as I can,
but I never feel like I measure up. The
truth is...right now I don't. But it's temporary and
the tables will turn soon. I just can't tell you
how much I love her for what she's sacrificing to
better our future. An absolutely, amazing woman. The
most caring, decdicated, commited person I know.
She deserves the world, and will soon get it. The day
I can tell her to "Breathe Deep" is gonna be the
greatest day of my life.
