W2 - Wendy to the Second Power

Yikes! No AC!

2009-07-14T12:40:12Z

Remember the olden days, when people didn't have freon-infused machinery to make torrid weather bearable? It's a blast of the oldies here -- my AC died last night!

And, of course, the weather is so freaking hot now. The coolest it gets late at night? About 84 degrees.

I discovered lying on your stomach at least lets the ceiling fan waft balmy air across your back. But, not much sleep for me last night. AND I have to lead a departmental conference call at 9:00 a.m. today

So sticky and yucky! Hope the AC man can make it right right away!

MERLIN - A New BBC TV Show

2009-07-12T23:28:58Z

MERLIN is being promoted as the BBC England's first attempt at exporting a TV series for American audiences. I applaud that they use the British historical fantasy and re-tell it, in the story of Camelot and the Round Table. Only in this story, King Uther lives, at least long enough to browbeat his teenage son Arthur. And Merlin is not an old wise man who teaches Arthur, but his same age. Merlin is being tutored by (Richard King as) Gauis, the King's herbalist, but they have to keep the fact he knows magic on the down low. King Uther has forbidden magic in Camelot, on pain of death!

Which is part of the problem with the plotting on this series so far. Every episode has the same arc, the same problem. Poor Anthony Head, his King Uther character serves no other purpose except to be mule-headed and cause plot problems. He behaves like a spoiled nut, just so our main characters can have obstacles to overcome. Must every story have Uther say, "Take him to the dungeon! No magic allowed here!"? Must every story have Arthur, a spoiled teenager but good fighter, be pimped out for death by his own father? There's also a lot of people saying "okay" and "that's gotta hurt" and other modern slang. They also have the rules of chivalry and the knights, but it's not something Arthur created to fix the abuses of the upper classes who believed "might makes right." It's just used as a convenient plot problem when someone (Launcelot, last week for example) needs to be frozen out.

I do like cute little Colin Morgan as Merlin with his delicious dimples. And how fun to have a Guinevere who's a ladies maid with a crush on Merlin. Plus she's played by someone who appears to be a Maori actress!

I'll watch one more episode, but if it keeps being these lame-o stories, it's a waste of my time.

Loch Ness Monster in Minnesota

2009-07-11T20:11:16Z

I think they said this is on Lake Harriet, a big park and lake near Minneapolis. Somebody covertly made and installed a statue of the Loch Ness Monster. Supposedly an artist who does this type of creature work just moved there from NYC, so that's the best guest. For some reason, somebody (the same somebody?) has created a Website for the statue.

I won't publsh the photo since I don't have rights, but a guy I know from my Fortean list took a series of photos. That's his (c)-- D.R. Shoop. Go see, go see!

http://www.darkwatercreativegroup.com/nessieC.jpg

Broiling HOT Saturday!

2009-07-11T19:55:49Z

It's the kind of crazy hot day that makes me glad I have several creative projects so need to stay in!

But first, I had to get some socialization out of the way, so I just met with my progressive (as in, politics) ladies for lunch at the newest Madam Maam's. They turned the Shanghai River place at The Village (where goulo made me eat too many times because it had a vegetarian buffet and was steps from the Alamo Drafthouse) into the more upscale and tastier MM's.

Speaking of the letter M, also at the lunch was my friend MimiM, whom I had lost touch with. I saw her at a lunch months ago, but this time we talked for a long time. She's in line for a PR job in a FEMA deployment. My buddy NancyM also does those FEMA assignments, and loves them. Feels like she's making the nation a better place, helping her fellow man, and getting to live away from Austin for awhile.

Ever since a Chicago Chinese dinner four years ago, I've been questing for a place that makes Egg Fu Yung. Yeah, yeah, I understand it's a "fake" regional dish that was mocked up for American palates. But the dish in the Chicago place was killer. I've been so disappointed when I asked around Austin; nobody here did it and they made a face that I even asked.

Imagine my surprise when I see that Madam Maam's has a "Thai omelette" made with eggs, crispy noodles, onions, pork, etc. Mmmmmmmmm (to belabor the M), it was a wonderful comparison to the Chicago dish. Not the same, but equally as good. Everybody's meals looked yummy -- and HUGE! Tons o' food!

Then leaving the restaurant at 1:30, I melted from the sun frying everything. OMG. But I'm buying an assortment of gifts for Leslie's b'day. The theme: body care products. (She's been on a strict diet and cleansing for 14 months.) I still had shopping to do, including a sweaty hike through The Domain. But I got various fun and cool (and, in the case of Origins, $$$) gifts. The big gift is a spa detox wrap session at the gym we both go to.

Oh, and I found vetiver and cedar soap (French-made) for myself while shopping. The spicy, woody scent of vetiver sends me into a hypnotic state. So....

Shopping WIN

Deodorant FAIL

FOXnews analyst says he HOPES BIN LADEN WILL BOMB THE USA

2009-07-08T13:48:58Z

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/02/beck-guest-calls-for-osama-bin-laden-to-bomb-america/

I meant to post about this last week, when the crazy ex-CIA guy said it and Jon Stewart broadcast it, with some pithy remarks:

Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer told Fox News’ Glenn Beck Tuesday night, “The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.”

And also, Glenn Beck (an awful commentator hoping to be crowned Prince Limbaugh), just nodded sagely. No, "whaaaa?!" No, "but sir, this is your country!" Just nodded, as if to say our administration totally deserves that.

My Favorite Michael Jackson Tribute Performance

2009-07-08T02:43:12Z

It's timely because we've been seeing this particular video played and replayed lately, RIP MJ, so her imitations of it are recognizable -- and priceless!

Michael Hauge -- Screenplay Structure

2009-07-08T02:05:43Z

Ooh, one of the guys who took the Michael Hauge Story Mastery workshop with me found a good page on Mike's site that lays out his screenplay structure and gives examples from good scripts.

http://www.screenplaymastery.com/structure.htm

Al Franken, Senator (D), Minnesota -- yay!

2009-07-07T18:01:09Z

Love it, love it that Al Franken won the seat of a cranky, grasping old Republican senator from Minnesota. Hate it that the guy fought him forever, using the big money coffers of the Repugnant Party to pay the legal fees. Love it that the courts upheld the win, the recount proved the win, and Franken now gets to go to Washington.

Boy, but I wish I'd saved a book I got for Christmas years ago. "Stuart Smalley: I'm Good Enough..." It was the first printing, and I bet it'll be worth some bucks some day! Instead, I sold it to Half-Price Books.

But who could've guessed??

3-Day Weekend: Day One - Lake fun & Dream Study

2009-07-03T21:49:43Z

So this morning I rendezvoused with NC, who is a long-time water baby, and went with her to her special nook at City Park, aka Emma Long Metro Park. This is a 10-15 mimute drive out of Austin where you can find balmy breezes and chilly lake water despite the 100+ degree days. I hadn't been swimming since the fun at Julie's lake last June, so it was nice! Crowded with hotdogging boaters and jet skis, but refreshing water and a sandy shoal.

My goal was to get some sun, albeit under layers of SPC 30 sun block, and get used to my snorkel gear. I did successfully get sun (we were out from 11am to 2:30 pm, but I was reading in the shady grass when I wasn't in the water) and yet didn't get a burn. Perfect! And then NC had to talk me through my strong claustrophobic aversion to putting on a dive mask and breathing through a snorkel. Even though my mask has prescription lenses so I can see, oooh, I hate that stuff all up and around my face. I got to the point where I was floating, paddling, face down, breathing (panting!) through the snorkel. I realize it's all in my head, and am counting on what the trainers say, that you get used to the mouth breathing and mask after about 5 minutes. The Lake Austin water was green and murky, but when I get to Hawaii in August, I'm planning to get lots of time looking at tropical fish and reefs.

Tonight it's a monthly Dream Study meeting, so I'll get my spiritual fix from that. Tomorrow is mostly about novel writing and reading screenplays down at Austin Film Festival. Plus deciding Y/N on going downtown with friends for the fireworks. It's hot hot hot here, so that's hard to get enthusiasm for...

Wonderful Weekend, with only slight frustration

2009-06-30T02:36:29Z

Man, the screenwriter and story mastery workshop with Michael Hauge went off wonderfully this weekend. He can really cram a lot of education into a single day! The members of the Austin Screenwriters Group really need a hardcore course in structure, too. It's where everybody sort of flails around...

Even me! I'd assumed that my many scripts and many workshops, and, heck, teaching story structure in informal classes for UT, would make me pretty experienced. But nope. When we who'd submitted our story descriptions and first scenes got discussed during class time, I had 10 minutes of explaining and justifying, and it didn't fix my main problem.

NOW I discover a screenplay really needs a finish line/final goal. Not to achieve a final (good) state, but an actual Something. I'd had that in my 2nd screenplay (THE CUNNING MAN) that did so well in Nicholl's and other contests. But I realize now it's not that final oomph thing in many of my other scripts. Dang. So I'm working on it, and Mike was nice enough to read another pass at my story template when I took him back to the airport yesterday.

Another wonderful event this weekend was going to the home of Peggy Schatz in Spicewood for the informal potluck party with Mike Hauge. OMG, what a gorgeous home! Full of art and antigues, but with casual Texas elegance. It's landscaped and set in trees, out in the Texas Hill Country. She even has a German farmhouse they renovated as a guesthouse. That's where Mike stayed (saved us the cost of a hotel, yo). She grilled a mess of fajitas, so it was all lovely.

So for my weekend: WORKSHOP WIN! Here's Mike objecting to the camera in the room:

Big-Time Event Coordinating: Mike Hauge in Austin

2009-06-25T04:55:14Z

Screenplay consultant and best-selling author Michael Hauge is coming to Austin Saturday to do a workshop on story mastery. Know why? Because I ASKED HIM TO. I coordinate these things because I get to have very cool conversations with important Hollywood people, yo!

It's gonna be very cool to workshop with Mike again (like I did in San Diego in 2007), and it was supportive of the Austin Screenwriters' Group to let me invite Mike as an official ASG workshop.

But dang, I've been project managing my head off for this. It's a bigger deal and costs more than the events we've done in the past. So there are about a dozen people all volunteering or contributing something toward the event. Very generous of us all, since nobody (but Mike) is getting paid for any of this. But you gotta admire the spirit of cooperation that's gotten us this far!

Right now I've got 5 boxes of his books and DVDs. I went to the Oak Hill Methodist Church yesterday and viewed the room and got the key. I've sent out 15-20 emails coordinating. I've promoted to all the major writing groups in Austin. I put up the Web page onto our ASG site. I just went to HEB today and bought still water, sparkling water, coffee of all types, Diet Coke and Dr. Pepper, granola bars, etc. I'll get fresh donuts on the way to the event Saturday morning. I figure, with a price of $95/$125, we should have some drinks and snacks for the folks.

The good thing is, we needed 17-18 people to break even, and we have 30 or so. Yay! It was a gamble and it paid off financially. Now looking for the day to come and all the stuff to work out... Then Saturday evening, PeggyS is hosting a potluck BYOB social at her home for all to hang out with Mike!

Obama vs FOXNews, Again!

2009-06-22T14:28:42Z

http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=1306

Interesting site that really takes the media to task. You may have heard that ABC TV is going to do a special about the President's
Healthcare initiative? So immediately, FOXnews spokespeople, the Republican National Party, Karl Rove, etc. start screaming "Glorified Infomercial" and that there has never been this horrible misuse of the media by an administration ever before -- !?!! Sean Hannity states "It is the death of journalism!" [Despise that stupid Hannity.]

Batsh*t crazy, they are.

They horribly abused the notion of journalism themselves with Faux FOXNews coverage and special shows. This page has just a few excerpts of Bush and Cheney's special TV shows, on FOX stations, which played for the past 8 years.

When people can act SO VERY blind and ignorant, and expect that we have no memory or clips to replay or documented evidence, it makes me wonder about human beings in general. Are they lying? Are they just crazy people who don't see what they don't want to see?

Austin Film Festival -- Reader/Judge Again

2009-06-21T04:05:39Z

I have time between now and August 1 to read 100 or so screenplays. Sure I do.

That's the plan anyway. I went ahead and met with Alex, the new coordinator of the Austin Film Festival's screenplay contest, on Friday. I also want to write the first chapter of my supernatural mystery novel, PINKY BLACK AND THE BITERS, and enter it into the Hawaii Writers Conference competition. That's due August 15. That would give me a little something more to possibly network on when I'm there for 11 days in August!

But back to this summer. I am a fast script reader -- can do a 100-page script in about an hour and make the notes on it in 5-10 minutes. Alex wants me to read first round. I almost turned up my nose; I was considered by most of the previous coordinators to be one of the best 2nd-round judges they had. But then I checked myself. You only have to read 30 pages in first round if the story is crap. That can make a lot of difference and go a lot faster! And I want to earn my Producers Pass by reading, since my fond hopes of getting in free for being a finalist have hit a roadbump.

Roadbump! I learned Alex is doing categorizing differently than the past, which gave me a sinking, "Oh, I'm screwed" feeling about the CAN'T SAY NO script I killed myself to entry on the last day. I wrote it knowing the failings of comedy scripts in that contest, that often they don't have jokes, or only one every 10 pages. As a reader you think "this is supposed to be comedy?" I wrote my script to have 3 jokes on every page for like the first third of the script. Bam bam bam! Then there's at least one joke on each page there after, but the zany plot complications take over and keep the comedic tone.

As I entered it, I remembered there's a Scifi sub-contest too, where if your script is SF/F/H and gets to the finals, some high-ranking producers in Hollywood might read it as well. So I paid the extra $20 for that. In years past, you'd go into the Comedy or Drama stack. This year, Alex made a Comedy, Drama and Scifi stack. I think my script will do well for jokes, but it's only science fiction/fantasy in the way that THE ABSENT MINDED PROFESSOR or LOVE POTION NUMBER 9 are SF/F... dang. My first round reader might kill it entirely!

ANGELS AND DEMONS - A movie review

2009-06-21T03:36:45Z

One thing about Ron Howard (good old Opie!) is that he can direct a movie well, where the plot moves along in a snappy pace, the POV is not too arty but adds a little extra to the visuals, and everybody turns in a solid performance. That's pretty much my opinion of ANGELS AND DEMONS, the Part II of the DA VINCI CODE series. Even though it's from a book written by Dan Brown and set in character Robert Langdon's (Tom Hanks) life before the Da Vinci code stuff.

For that reason, I was a little, "Who is SHE?" about the Dr. Vittoria Vetra physicist character. Audrey Tautou was so memorable in the first movie, and surely Agent Sophie and Langdon began a long-term relationship from that adventure? But you only see her as a photo at Langdon's home...

Like many folks, I found Ewen McGregor in priest's robes as the Congomongo (or whatever; they took some Vatican term and made a fake position of power of it for the purposes of the story) to be somewhat erotically charged. Everytime he's used to play someone spiritual or sickly, nope, I don't buy it. He always seems lusty and earthy to me no matter what he plays. (Seeing him buck nekkid in THE PILLOW BOOK all those years ago imprinted me bad, maybe?)

The plot and its 4 deaths to prevent each an hour apart at certain mystical locations only sussed by doing a sort of geocaching, where the powers that be fight Langdon, but some secretly support him, all that is fine. There's a point when I realized that a character was being so purely sacrificial, and the background had been set up for that so it made sense, and I confess I leaked a few tears... It was dramatic, and the special effects were both metaphorical and fascinating.

But then it's a twisty who-done-it, and it twists so crazy much that by the end, I was like "Wait, how could that plan even work?" Meaning the whole logic underpinning the whole movie was rank suckage. It's still a fun ride! But at the end you wonder if Dan Brown and the screenwriters even knew what the underlying story was.

Pres Obama Takes Aim at FOX News

2009-06-17T15:59:00Z

O'course, I believe the phrase "FOX News" is an oxymoron, have for years. But even discounting them as I do, the crazy crazy commentators they have on there yakking about insane issues they have with the current administration and with Democrats, not using even half their tiny pea-brains to come up with logical arguments... well. They've sunk to such depths even jaundiced eyes must stare in disbelief.

So President Obama is taking them with a grain of salt, ha! When questioned by a reporter recently whether he thought the media was being "too easy" on him, he said one entire news station was entirely devoted to attacking his administration. So, no, he doesn't think he has it easy.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/17/obama-takes-aim-at-fox-news/

UP - A Movie Review

2009-06-14T04:32:11Z

Saw this UP movie last week as a small break in my marathon of screenplay editing. Boy, it's delightful! Cranky old Ed Asner does a great job of voicing a sad, moribund 78-year-old man. But I REALLY loved the other voices. Jordan Nagai, a darling young Asian American actor (see him here uncomfortable next to the 3D costume of Russell) voiced Russell, and he was never false or even boring for one tiny second. Just precious! Wonderful energy, a wonderful obsessive POV (obsession is the greatest gift to humor, man), touching, and still with a recognizably Asian sound to his voice. I also loved Dug, the doofus dog, who was voiced by the co-director and co-screenwriter, Bob Peterson. Dug had a voice, thanks to a high-tech collar designed by his master. And what Dug said and how he said it was the same EXACT way I make up dog voices in my head.

At one point Dug looks up with round, hurt eyes and says, "I hid under the house because I love you, that's why, and I'm very sad that you might be mad at me." Another character named Kevin has no dialog, just squawking, but that's a wonderful creation of a character too. My cat Tucker has a vastly more dog-like personality (I love you all the time, hey is that food you're eating, wait a minute I'm coming too) than an aloof cat personality. I hear his voice somewhat like Dug's...

I really would love to find a place to buy the merit badges that Russell wears! Each one is a gorgeous design in embroidery, and several are clever with in-joke things. This Website on movie easter eggs tells some of the details.... I'd wear several of them on my coats and sweaters, were they marketed!

There's been some discussion on a list I'm on about how this movie just is not as charming / moving / engaging / whatever as WALL-EE. And that's true. But Wall-EE was an extremely stylized robot character who could only communicate through squeaks, beeps, a scant few "facial" gestures... when a character is so non-human, we humans watching invest a huge amount of brain magic to keep up with the story. That was the genius of the design of Wall-EE, and why they deserved their Oscars. Also, Wall-EE was a story about finding your true love and living with her forever. UP is about losing your true love and finding some small solace in other relationships until you can join her on The Other Side.

Very different underlying emotional message.

Literal Video No.2 - Total Eclipse of the Heart

2009-06-13T21:54:54Z

Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" had a truly insane, incoherent video. They literalled it up, like with "Take On Me" by Aha. That one's still my favorite because the literal song is even catchy ("Piiiiiiipe Wrench Fiiiight!"), but the images on this just beg for this treatment.

It's Hitting 100 Degrees Already -- we needz PhatDippin!

2009-06-13T21:21:50Z

These funny white boy rappers come up with some funny lines. They get a bunch of their friends to make a land/water video for YouTube, ha! And the topic is a good one on this deadly hot day: "Put on your clothes and jump in the water."

Hulu is AWESOME!

2009-06-12T03:11:04Z

I still use a macintosh G4 tower in my home office. The Safari browser has been limping along, pretty much broken down on YouTube & wouldn't let me access Facebook & crashed several times a day (and people do NOT try to make their sites backwards compatible anymore, yo!) -- so I had Bryan my handy mac guru come out and upgrade. I'm on a new version of Leopard, some directory things that were broken are now fixed, and so...

I can watch THE DAILY SHOW and THE COLBERT REPORT! Whenever I want, right on my mac! And re-watch episodes of 30ROCK and pick up on some weird & very funny offhand comments and bits of business in the background. It's like it's 2009 all up in here!

Comedy Script -- Final Draft Done!

2009-06-08T03:36:55Z

I worked about 25 hours on this project in the last three days, was just down at Kinko's/FedX making my copies tonight at 8pm... Worked on it until 2 am last night. Started again at 1pm today. And I've achieved a completed and fairly polished draft of CAN'T SAY NO, my first (true) comedy script! W00t!

I say first true comedy script because I've tried to write comedy before and the script turns out only funny some of the time. Humorous bits for tension relief. A True comedy script is OMG so hard! A joke or two on every page! There is something humorous on every page, and on many pages there are 2-3 jokes on this one. It reads sort of like 30ROCK crossed with BIG BANG THEORY. Here's the blah-blah.

CAN'T SAY NO is a family comedy about a geeky, ignored engineer who invents creativity glasses to help his overworked team of product developers become more productive. Their job at a combo Ronco-type product company and Home Shopping Network is driving them all crazy since the new Assoc Producer cut their project schedules by half. But turns out the glasses have a side effect: they make the wearer so charismatic people hang on their every word and give them anything they ask for.

The immediate deadline was Austin Film Festival -- tomorrow is the final, final day to submit to their contest. I also am taking this to the Hawaii Writers Conference and working on it (or on HEAVEN & NELL? I'm still puzzling that) at the retreat. But that's not until August. Here are the reputable (and some not-so-much but I'm trying it out) contests I'll be submitting to. I missed March deadlines for some I'd planned on; catch that in 2010 I guess.

Austin Film Festival - due 8 June - √
SlamDance - due 15 June, but they take electronic submissions, top prize $5,000 - √
Final Draft Big Break Screenplay Contest - due 15 June, take electronic submissions, over $30K in prizes - √
ScriptShark Insider Contest - due 30 June, take electronic submissions
First Glance - due 12 July, take electronic submissions - √
Cynosure - due 27 June, has to have a female or minority protagonist (my main character is a geeky white guy, but his antagonist who becomes his romantic partner is a Korean-American woman) - √
Writers on the Storm - due 27 July, take electronic submissions - $10K grand prize - √
Zoetrope All Story - due 8 September - prize is consideration by Francis Ford Coppola

Who else? I've posted lists of reasonable contests a couple of times; I'll check to make sure I haven't left someone off. Ah, found them: Scriptapalooza, Scr(i)pt Magazine, Nicholl Fellowship, Writers Network.

Allergies Attack!

2009-06-06T06:04:03Z

When we get rain in Austin -- and we've been having drought conditions -- love what it does for my yard and plants. Hate what it does for the inside of my head and general health.

The mold blooms something terrible, and I get horrible sleep, pounding headaches, red eyes, sometimes tearing like I'm crying. Man. And I creep around. Barely get home from work, and I have to sleep for 2 hours! Which is bad anytime, but now it's critical I finish my CAN'T SAY NO script for the Austin Film Festival. Final deadline? Monday, June 8th!

So this morning I emailed in sick. My headache was so bad it had made me pukey. In fact, I didn't eat anything today until 6pm. And I amazingly crashed to catch up on sleep and was knocked out until 2pm today. I think it helped I turned on the ozone machine in my room, together with the HEPA filter, I was finally breathing some mold-free air.

Then from 6pm until now, I've been coordinating the Michael Hauge workshop and closing in on my final screenplay draft. Procrastination -- it's an addiction.

Tax Protesting - 1st Round

2009-06-03T13:03:45Z

Because I'd protested my taxes before, I knew to come to the Travis County Tax Assessor's office ready. It's a stuffy, crowded space and they make you wait even when you have a scheduled pre-hearing. So, a light, summery dress, sandals and a book. Sure enough, there were about 30 people crammed in a hallway and my hearing was 45 min late.

The young man was nice who reviewed my case. When I explained I lived, not just on the edge, but at the corner/tip of a nice neighborhood with a fast drop-off in quality of homes behind and to the right of me, he allowed me to choose the streets for comparables. So that was easy to choose.

But then I noticed: all the sales he was showing me were from 2008. June, July, August. The most recent was Sep 2 2008. Maybe someone else wouldn't have noticed that, but the real estate market really started taking a dive in the fall. The prices now reflect the implosion finally getting to Austin.

So I asked for 2009 numbers. And he got a kind of odd look and said there weren't any. As in, no sales in my neighborhood in the past 8 months?? A day later and I now suspect that Travis CAD was chosing not to put the recent figures into their system on purpose, so they could argue the higher numbers.

I can't go for that. I'm doing the formal hearing next week. In the meantime, I've got to get a real estate agent to give me comparables from my neighborhood from the MLS database. The pre-hearing officer did offer to relook at my case if I emailed him something, but right now he only offered 3% less. As in, with Zillow showing N. Austin trended down by 16% in the past year, the tax appraisers will "only" raise my value by a positive 13%.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE FOR THE SMITHSONIAN

2009-05-30T06:21:22Z

The new NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM is pretty fun, with some chuckles, and a lively Amy Adams as Amelia Earheart spouting spunky 30's phrases. Many of our favorites from the 2006 movie are there. Ben Stiller of course. The little diorama guys, Jedidiah and Octavius, who now are best buds, the cowboy and the centurian. Teddy Roosevelt has found love with Sacajawea. The cavemen and the monkey, the Easter Island "dum-dum head" head...

Now Ben Stiller has become a Ronco/Ginzu Knife type of inventor. Much like the TV show personalities in my comedy script I will finish polishing this weekend -- CAN'T SAY NO. Something makes him go back to the New York Museum of Natural History, where he learns the exhibits are being boxed up and sent to the Smithsonian. Including the magical Egyptian scroll that makes all the exhibits animate each night and have wild adventures. Somehow this is an event he needs to prevent... because...? The plot mechanism isn't really strong, obviously.

But there are some new characters brought to life, including Hank Azaria (I love him!) as evil Pharoah Kamenrah who does a wonderful toffee-nosed Boris Karloff English accent with a Castillian lisp. He's got some funny scenes where you know he's riffing ad libs, and they keep them in. Kamenrah plans to take over the world, and must be stopped! Oh, and since there are 15+ museums in the Smithsonian, they have lots of more contraptions and critters and people to play with. A feature in this movie is that the magic makes paintings and photos live and visitable. The physics of it all really doesn't work plausibly, but it has some funny stuff and a set-up that pays off at the very end.

It's doing well in the box office. I love visiting the Smithsonian, so hopefully this helps them get more traffic and sell more gift shop stuff. Every time I go visit Samily, we do the Smithsonian at least once. In fact, their condo is built on a hill that Wilbur Wright flew a plane to from Washington DC during a special demo on the use of flight for federal purposes. Planes are a big deal in this movie, as is the whole of Washington DC. Stuff like that is fun.

But the movie isn't great. It doesn't have much of an emotional arc or a heart at the center. And it, like the first one, cannot get the magic to work out logically. Spoilers!
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Much like the first one had Teddy Roosevelt being Teddy Roosevelt and gung-ho when it was needed to enliven the plot, but then in a key moment when it was needed to manipulate the audience, the TR character was reinforced as just a wax character with no heart? This one has Jedidiah being menaced with smothering by sand. Ben Stiller has to rush urgently to do the bidding of the evil Pharoah! Otherwise Jed will cough his last cough!

But there are also scenes of the many human and animal characters being put into shipping crates, no air holes, just locked in. And they were fine about it, cheerily waving as if saying 'goodnight.' If that's okay, why does the magic require that Owen Wilson need to breathe?

And if Pharoah Kamenrah will lose his animation when the sun comes up, how evil can his world domination plans be? Yes, he claims the magical tablets will do other nefarious things, like enslave mankind. But we don't see that. We sure don't see that he can command the tablet to any degree. So the threats and menace? Missed the mark and not too great.

Like a tiny person in a bunny suit

2009-05-30T05:20:59Z

"Hello! Like my costume?"

This is an extremely rare Fennec Hare. Isn't this a freaky looking photo? Or maybe not so freaky to you. I have most of a zoology minor so I know that the typical hare has eyes set on either side of its head. That, in fact, makes it one of the few animals that can pretty much see 360 degrees. When you're a classically juicy prey animal, it helps to see all over!

He and many other adorably precious babies are blogged regularly on www.zooborns.com

Unfortunately, this little guy is too cute to be real. He's an April Fool's joke; a cute kitten given ears in Photoshop. It says he's from the Iperian Steppes -- which is not a place you can find on Google!

Gay Marriage is going to be a Done Deal -- a good SFgate article

2009-05-28T13:39:29Z

A very good perspective on the awful ruling by the Calif Supreme Court upholding Calif's ban on gay marriages.... I'm also seeing that the youth of today are really changing voting patterns and politics, yay!

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The big gay shrug
Sorry, enemies of gay marriage. Prop 8 or no, you've already lost
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, May 27, 2009

<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/05/27/notes052709.dtl>

Here's a fun thing to do to calm your frazzled, saddened nerves in the wake of the CA Supreme Court's very unfortunate, but also merely annoying and karmically fleeting Proposition 8 decision:

Head on down to your local high school -- hell, make it a junior high or even an elementary -- and take yourself an informal survey. Ask the various wary, bepimpled youth of Generation Tweet what they think about those scary gay people getting married.

Ask them, in your most panicky, alarmist, Mormonified voice: Aren't they horrified at the very idea? Aren't they shocked at the very thought of two people in love having their union officially recognized and validated by the state?

Don't they know the musty ol' Bible mutters some barely coherent, mistranslated silliness about it in a single word or two written 1,500 years ago in a long dead language by acidic church elders with powermad political agendas and violently repressed libidos who nevertheless wish to instruct us all how to live and love and screw?

Please note the response. Please observe how the kids merely look at you as though you're more than a little bit deranged and prehistoric, so out of touch you might as well be Dick Cheney talking up the diesel-powered rectal thermometers he so loved back in World War I.

Watch carefully as they sigh and roll their eyes, then whip out their Nokias to text their friends about how this creepy elder just tried to convince them that the harmless, yawningly commonplace homosexuality currently saturating the popular culture all around them, from fashion to Facebook, movies to "American Idol," is not only wrong, but so wrong that the law should ban it forever because... well, no one really seems to know exactly why.

[go to Website for the rest]