I'm on the Internets

I really have been kind of MIA lately. On the internet sure but also in real life. It's amazing how quickly time can go by when life things are happening. Is it really the last night of Hanukkah? Only a week til Christmas? When did that happen?

Well, you'll be happy to know that the roommate search has ended, we've found the lucky person who will soon become the latest edition to Bonaparte House. She's a friend which is a HUGE relief and K and I are both confident she's going to fit right in with our crazy. Plus, bonus, she comes with a pup! How excited are we? K and I have both missed having a dog around. It's going to be wonderful.

Of course we're still sad to see J go. We'll keep in touch though and there are nefarious plans in the work for an adventure of epic proportions. That may turn into a movie. I dunno. Anything can happen. Be sure I will tell you more as this THING develops.

Speaking of movies and making them and being a woman who plans to make them... The New York Times ran this article about women in the film industry last week. It's a topic I keep alluding to and yet never get around to actually writing about. Seriously though, it's hard being a woman in this industry! There are opportunities for sure but honestly not as many as you'd think. Especially when your goal is to become a director. Female producers? I have known plenty. Most of them are batshit crazy (it all relates I think) but they do exist. When have I worked with a female director? Um. Twice. Once was a super low budget indie film that shot in Ft. Myers, Florida. The other was a super low budget indie film in San Francisco. And have you heard of these women? Not yet. Hopefully you will someday but yeah. Not yet. Anyway, read the article. It's good.

In other places, I'm on the internet! Go check me out. I'm silly. I really, really am.

Thoughts of the Day

The roommate search continues. It was an, um, interesting weekend of meeting potential roommates. Okay, some of these emails K and I have been getting are just plain scary. A guy emailed K today professing to be a "Submissive" and expressing his hope that we would not only let him rent a room but make him our slave. Er. Yeah... That happened.

How hard is it to find a nice, normal person in LA? Apparently that hard.

Also apparently difficult, getting anything useful passed by the Senate. Can Lieberman just go away already? I mean seriously. Apparently reasonable access to health insurance is too much to ask of our government. Public option? Nope! Health insurance for people under 65? Nope! No big deal that people have lost/are losing their jobs and with them their benefits. No big deal. Who needs health insurance really?

I do like how my friend put it on Twitter: @DanMazinOMG If Joe Lieberman were a soup, he'd be Cream of F*cktard.

Bah. Sorry. Mini-rant. Moving on.

Nikon is running a video contest to share your day in 140 seconds or less. My friend entered and made an awesome little video about recovering from a foot injury. He really was a gimp for the last couple of months! Yay for returning to mobility.



It's the end of the year which means it's time for the annual slew of "Best of..." Lists. Slant magazine has their 25 Best Films of 2009. That one definitely makes me feel like a slacker. I've seen maybe two of those movies? Three? I have a lot of movie watching to catch up on.

io9 has their 20 Best Sci Fi books of the decade. I also have a lot of reading to do. My Amazon Wish List just got a lot longer. I haven't read a lot of those but there are a few by authors I like a lot (Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom), a couple I've been meaning to pick up for ages (Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, World War Z by Max Brooks), even worse ones I own but haven't read yet (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke), and best of all ones that I'm not familiar with (like The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia).

And as always I'm always happy to take recommendations for things I should read/watch/consume in some fashion. I like discover new little bits of wonderful. Share away!

Unemployment Thursday

Today is not a good day in unemployment land. It's been one of those days where the light seems to have gone out of the tunnel entirely, where there is no end. I'll spare you the details but basically I started the day feeling like I was having a financial meltdown. Everything is overwhelming, I'll never get things straightened out, I will be broke forever, etc. etc. etc. Of course it's never as bad as all that but some days it takes a lot to convince yourself things will be okay.

The frustrating thing here is that it feels like I every time I start to get a handle on things, every time I can maybe get ahead, something will happen and there will be a set back and I never get anywhere. Stuck perpetually in the same hole. It never gets deeper but it's impossible to get out of nonetheless.

I feel this way. I know that it's really not as awful as it feels on the bad days. I'll feel better tomorrow. I'll feel even better than that on Saturday. Then next thing I know I'll get a job, things will work out. It's the cycle, it's how it goes.

This week is probably particularly bad since we're also dealing with finding a new roommate to join us here in Bonaparte house. We'll be losing one at the end of the month, in three weeks actually, and neither myself or K are particularly happy about. We love J, we're sad to lose her, and the task of finding someone to fill her shoes is going to be huge. If you happen to know anyone looking for a place in LA, we've got an open room! Our Craigslist ad.

I should be sharing fun links, babbling about how pleased I am that I actually finished my NaNoWriMo novel, talking about other pleasant things. Will you forgive me if I don't? I have to admit I'm lacking in energy at the moment. I promise I will do better next time!

Unemployment Tuesday: Happy Thanksgiving!

Another installment of Unemployment Tuesday here. Let's keep our fingers crossed that we only have a couple of these left. There are glimmers of hope, good things on the horizon, possibilities. Like I said, fingers crossed.

Hey, so Thanksgiving is this week! Happy Thanksgiving!

This year's been pretty rough for a lot of people. There are always folks in need and this year is certainly no different. There are a lot of great programs out there, food banks and whatnot, and it would be great if we could all give something small. For example, in Santa Monica there's this Turkey Dinner. Or Amber Benson is running Tara 4 Charity where if you buy a Tara doll this week 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the Los Angeles Regional Foodbank. If the price tag of the doll is a little steep for you, you can make a donation directly to the foodbank and send your receipt to Amber for a chance to win one of three dolls they'll be giving away. Check out her blog for more details.

For those of you not in LA, there are food and clothing drives going on in pretty much every city. A quick google search should find you a good one.

Other links!

My friend is still trying to go to China. Only one week left for him. Click to vote and help him get out of here!

Another friend of friend has a video trying to get on TV. Check out Be Like A Duck (it's really, really cute) And click it a vote if you're a fan. I think you will be.

Inkwell Bookstore had this link up the other day for this super cool little video. It's recommended viewing that's definitely worth the two minutes.

PC Pro ran this feature on the correlation between science fiction and, well, science. For anyone who's ever been inspired by a sci-fi story, seen the possibilities for the future, it's an interesting read.

LA Times has a couple of interesting reads this week. First there's this one about the changing of the guard at Disney. Disney's new chairman Rich Ross is changing the game on the lot. Several execs are out all ready, the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea remake has been nixed (thank goodness for that one), and who knows what's next. The question remains whether or not these changes will all be for the best. (Thanks to L for linking to this one)

On a lighter note is this piece by Scott Timberg about Cormac McCarthy and the upcoming release of the adaptation of his novel The Road. If anything involving McCarthy can be considered light that is. The Road opens tomorrow and stars Viggo Mortensen. Whatever Timberg has to say about women relating to McCarthy's work, well, I'm a fan. The Road is a fantastic book and I'm looking forward to checking out the film. (And thanks to DL for this)

If nothing else it's gotta be better than New Moon. I actually went to see it this morning, don't ask what possessed me, and yeah. I almost walked out after an hour. I probably should have.

That's all I've got at the moment. Need to get back to my novel writing. We're into the final week here. I've got a lot of work to do.

Unemployment Tuesday: Still there

Another Tuesday, still unemployed. Sent my resume out to a bunch of different places over the last week, have so far gotten zero phone calls. Ah well, next week is Thanksgiving. I'm going to eat lots of food and more pie and by the end of November I'm going to weigh 500 lbs. Who needs a job when there's pie?

SPEAKING OF PIE!

I've spent a lot of time in the last week baking it. On Saturday I took part in KCRW's Good Food Pie Contest that was held at the Westfied Topanga Mall. Didn't win but I did get to eat a lot of pie so really, who lost? 

Actually, speaking of winners, I happened to be standing next to the winner of the cream/custard category as we were all waiting to hear the results. Her peanut butter pie looked amazing! She's got some pics up on her blog, they make me wish I could have tried it.

Congrats to all the winners :)

My pie all plated for the judges and stuff

My pie was okay but it was nothing wonderful. I made a Raspberry Marzipan pie which was pretty tasty but due to an unfortunate power outage the night before I never had time to make a test pie. Heh, I'll plan things better if I ever try this again. I did however have a chance to make a few adjustments and redeem myself on Sunday for a potluck I hosted.

Actually, you can see my pie in one of the pictures in the LA Times article about the contest! Okay, it's not even close to being featured but they did take a pic of the table my pie was on. It's the second from the farthest end in the picture of all the pies. That's at least a little bit neat, right?

Pear & Blackberry Marzipan I made for Sunday's dinner. 

Soooo much better than Saturday's effort!

See, I told you, this last week involved a lot of pie.

Otherwise I'm still just focusing on my writing. Got a little behind for Nanowrimo with all the pie baking but after 3k or so words today I'm starting to get caught up. This novel writing in a month thing is intense! It's also taking up most of my words.

Links! (Because I really am out of words now)

Meant to post this bit about Ginger Snaps way back before Halloween. Oh well, it's still an awesome movie which you should watch. Then you can read this. Lots of talk about the horror of female puberty. Mostly about the horror of being a female going through it, but also the damage that our raging hormones can inflict on others. Why do I enjoy these movies so much? Well, actually, I guess that's probably obvious if you've seen them.

Another link probably more Halloween than Thanksgiving related but whatever! Martin Scorsese's Top Eleven Scariest Films. Some obvious choices like The Exorcist or The Shining but also some other pretty great selections.

What else? NASA found water on the moon! Neat!

Entertaining blogging about the spectacle that is Megan Fox, her (fake)boobs, and how this all relates to feminism. One of these days I really will write about what it's like to be a woman in the film industry. Sometimes it's everything you'd think it would be, sometimes it's entirely different. Either way, it's pretty hard to forget about gender and the politics that result from it.

So anyone else think Left For Dead 2 looks pretty rad? I kinda wish I had a way to play it!

Since I haven't had a chance to scan things that need scanning, I haven't really written everything I've planned to write on my trip to Israel. My friend Jen is more proactive than I am! Check out her blog Creative Confectionary and see some great pics of the delicious food we ate.

That's all I've got for this edition of Unemployment Tuesday. Should I keep doing this every week? At least until I find a job? I'm thinking about it! We'll see how many words I have left next Tuesday.

Girl Talk Thursday - Roommate Love

This week's Girl Talk Thursday topic is about roommates.

Roommates. I’ve sure had a lot of them. College, after college, now, I even had a roommate on an indie film I worked on once. We were shooting in Ft. Myers, FL and while I lived close-ish it was definitely too far for a daily commute. So the producer put most of the crew up in what used to be an assisted living facility. My roommate was the make-up artist and she was a really sweet girl with a boyfriend who built us awesome curtains out of a furni pad. The place was also haunted…

Miraculously I’m still on speaking terms with most of the people I’ve lived with and the rest it’s more of a lost touch kind of thing rather than a “She (or in one case He) was awful” kind of thing. I have good stories from a lot of the cohabitations but no real horror stories. Honestly, my roommates may have more horror stories about me than I have about them (just ask J about the now infamous Jameson night back in April. Or even better, DON’T).

Actually speaking of roommates, K and I have just passed our 2-year anniversary in Bonaparte House. We moved in October ’07. This just occurred to me. Right now. As I typed the above paragraph. Wow.

My Bonaparte Set on Flickr.

I love my house and my two roommates. Sure, we’ve had our spats, if you can even call them that. Occasionally something will be said about the dirty dishes, that sort of thing. For the most part though we all get along. We hangout, we have beer & pizza nights, we IM during the day when we’re all at work. There will be long email chains making elaborate plans for weekend activities. So what if there’s a honeycomb still stuck in our wall? Living at Bonaparte is great.

What are some of my favorite memories?

Since I don’t remember half of it, I can’t really qualify our first Halloween party as memorable per se. It was pretty epic though. A great crowd, good costumes, tasty snacks (spicy popcorn!), and a bit of scandal. Epic I tell you. Epic.

My 25th birthday was also pretty epic. K and I devouring a smorgasbord of bad for you food including I don’t even remember what. There was mac and cheese? That sort of thing. And a bottle of vodka… Then J joined us for bar adventures and general goofiness.

Speaking of birthdays, K’s surprise party this year was pretty great too.

Then there was the painting of the living room of which I was only marginally a part. I spent most of that day fighting with my old Ikea bed, trying to disassemble the damn thing. I helped paint one wall though!

Pretty much any day that’s involved a bike ride to the beach or visit to the farmer’s market has been awesome.

Or how about the night J came home late with her friend C and they decided I needed to join them for an impromptu dance party in the living room? I remember I was in bed, mostly asleep, when I became aware of whispering in the hall outside of my bedroom. Next thing I know the door is busting open and two drunk people are jumping on my bed. C picked me up, literally picked me up, spun me around, and announced that the dance party was on. What do you in the face of the craziness? Grab a beer and join it of course! I remember being spun around to the music of Justice a lot that night. It was great.

Sometimes the house feels small (it is a little), sometimes the landlord drives us nuts (leaking shower anyone?), and sometimes we all just need our alone time. Overall though, we’re three kinda nutty girls who get along and over the last two years have become close friends. I love my Bonaparte Bitches. I can’t imagine two ladies I’d enjoy living with more.

West Hollywood Book Fair... and Cookies?

The Ginger Cookie madness is never ending. Mostly because I will not let it end. Delicious, delicious madness.

I was meeting a friend for dinner at Real Food Daily Sunday after the book fair and as I was a little early, I decided to grab a beer at the counter while I waited for him. On display they have a variety of tasty looking baked things under protective, pretty glass covers. What happened to be right in front of me? Giant Ginger Cookies. It was fate. Or destiny. Or some such thing. It was also an incredibly tasty way to finish a very satisfying dinner.

At least this time I included a picture.

Book Fair was great! I knew there was a reason I linked to it ten billion times. I forgot about the triathlon or whatever it was going on Sunday morning which unfortunately meant I was stuck trying to make my way up from the westside in the most oblique manner ever. But after two hours of back tracking and driving in circles and getting vaguely lost (why have I been getting lost so much lately? Thomas Guide, where did I put you???) I finally arrived to find free parking and the Border Grill truck. And my roommate who was very confused as to how she managed to beat me there.

We wandered around, caught a few panels, got things signed, I bought more books as I figured I would. We took a break at one point to grab some water from the grocery across the street. That ended in an almost awkward disaster as I saw a former co-worker I had no desire to ever make casual chat with again. Luckily I was able to escape before being noticed.

Panels! I didn't make it to all of the ones I wanted to check out (like the one about Zombie stuff with Amber Benson) but I really enjoyed the few I saw.

Bryan Lee O'Malley and Joshua Dysart talk Scott Pilgrim

Josh Dysart (Unknown Soldier) had a great panel chatting with Bryan Lee O'Malley about Scott Pilgrim and the process of adapting that comic into a film. I'm such a nerd for things like this. I love hearing about the different experiences people have from various angles of getting into Hollywood. It's always a challenge regardless of whether your experience is good or bad. I also found interesting how the movie and comic evolved sort of together and yet end up in different directions. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all compares.

Josh also did a a great job as a fan and fellow comic person leading the discussion. It was fun to watch them both talk.

Gerry Conway, Asterios Kokkinos, John Rogers, Laura Valdivia, Kevin Seccia

The Comics on Comics panel was hilarious. Good points were also addressed and the super enthusiastic kid in the audience made for some additional entertainment. He was really into his Venom.

D.J. Kirkbride, Darren Clavadetscher, Ed Laroche, Kiyoshi Nakazawa, Joe Matt

(Jordan Crane eventually showed up too!)

The last panel I caught was the Indie Creators panel. I think it was actually one of the more interesting panels I've seen. The guys up there had quite diverging opinions on various comic type things, from the practical side of marketing to the more esoteric question of "what is the perfect comic?" They got feisty!

And if you've been following my comments section, you'll be happy to know that I did manage to say "hi" to D.J. Kirkbride after the panel. I also bought Jordan Crane's comic which I'm very excited to read. I would have grabbed more (including Popgun which is just a bit out of my financial grasp at the moment, sorry D.J.!) but I'm still broke. Oh the glamorous life of the freelance filmmaker...

I really did enjoy the book fair and I can't recommend attending next year's enough. My afternoon focused pretty heavily on the comics but that's by no means all that's there. They had a variety of panels on all sorts of genres, poetry, theater, etc. I talked to various booth people about indie publishing, writing classes at UCLA, some cool sounding theater stuff, more comics, books, and lots of writing.

There are also a number of things going on for kids and families. Kids should be encouraged to read and love books! This is a great thing! I would totally bring kids if I had any! Maybe next year I can borrow few. Parents won't mind if I just pull a few off the street, right? I'll return them after the book fair...

What I did manage to buy:
Uptight #3 by Jordan Crane
Unknown Soldier by Joshua Dysart
Death's Daughter by Amber Benson
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith

Completely unrelated, I've been listening to a lot of Neko Case, Regina Spektor, and David Byrne lately. In case you were wondering. I don't know, it seemed pertinent that I share this information with you... um... yes...

Go read stuff!

Thinking Things Through

There are always lots of things to think about. My mind has been mostly full of one of them for the last few weeks.

In just over a week I'll embarking on one of the biggest trips of my life. No exaggeration! I'm leaving L.A. for two and half weeks and what's more, I'm leaving the COUNTRY for 10 days. This is huge guys. I'm 26-years-old and I've never left the country. Maybe it's my socio-economic place in this world, but from where I'm coming from this is not really normal. Almost everyone I know has at least been to Mexico or maybe Canada. I never have. Up until two days ago I didn't even have a passport.

Needless to say, I'm very excited. Excited and nervous as heck. Mostly emphasis on the excited though. My plan for the weekend involves lots of last minute shopping and packing. I don't need to get much but there are few items that need to be purchased. I've already picked up my shoes.

I'm also not planning on bringing my computer with me so this means that as of a week from Saturday I will be offline. No blogging, no Facebook, no Twitter once I leave the states... no more online timesuck. I will have my ipod with me so I could potentially be updating from there when wireless makes itself available. But that's about it.

I have to admit that I'm almost as excited about the prospect of disconnecting as I am about the trip itself. I love the internet and what it does for me but sometimes... I just need a break. This sure is going to be a big one.

In the meantime, there are still other things to occupy my brainspace with.

Roman Polanksi. Okay, not going to say much more about this but I think I can better articulate my thoughts on it all after reading more and talking to folks and thinking about it. Here's what I think. Looking at the crime - reprehensible. There's no excusing it, plain and simple. Looking at the reactions to the story - ridiculous. On the one hand, we have people yelling for his head. People who up until a week ago couldn't have cared less. 33 years and you get offended now? Come on. On the other hand, this petition to free him? No matter what else, he's still guilty. Whatever other absurdity is going on, how can you justify signing a petition to release someone guilty of the crime? And Woody Allen signing in support? Seriously? I feel like I'm watching a satire, not real life. It's all absurd.

And I'm done. That's all I'm going to say about it. I didn't much care about what Polanski was doing last week beyond a passing interest in what his newest film might be and I think it's probably best to stick to that. There's all ready enough hypocrisy to go around.

More fun things!

For the Vegans: Came across this site thanks to @ecovegangirl. Curious if your beer/wine/liquor is vegan friendly? Check out Barnivore! Happy to see that some of my favorites like Stone and Abita are on the list.

Also on the vegan front is Vegan Oktoberfest  at Verdugo Bar on Sunday. I probably won't make it since I'll be at the book fair all day but it looks tasty!

And how many times can I link to the book fair? Really?

Rashomon is playing at the Nuart! I have so much going on and I've seen this movie not just a few times but still. A nice new 35mm print? Tempting...

Thom Yorke is doing a surprise show tonight but good luck getting tickets to that! And if you did get tickets, don't tell me. I don't want to know. You jerks.

Adam P. Knave has an interview up about Stays Crunchy in Milk. It's good! Go read it! And then read his book that my favorite grammarmonkey edited.

That's all I got at the moment. This work thing is actually requiring me to work. So back to that!

Paramount Ruined My Morning

Okay, maybe it was more the cop on Venice with the radar gun, but Paramount isn't helping! Remember that hilariously wonderful clip I posted of Alan the Marmot and the Not So Scary Sharks from BBC's Walk on The Wild Side show? Yeah, we're not allowed to watch it in the US anymore. The sharks singing the Jaws music is apparently copyright violation or some such nonsense. BOO Paramount. Boo!

Whatever Paramount, I'm just going to watch the Nighttime, Daytime bird instead. So there!



In other news... I had three ginger cookies for breakfast...

Hey LA, what are you doing this weekend? Nothing you say? Well, you should be going here! The West Hollywood Book Fair is this Sunday from 10 AM - 6 PM in the West Hollywood Park.

I'm excited to check out some of the panels, attend a workshop, say hi to people, spend too much money on more books... you know, the usual Nerd things that typically excite me.

In tasty food news, Eco-Vegan Gal put together a great list of Vegan bakeries in LA. I know this isn't necessarily of interest for everyone, but there are some really great places on that list! Even if you're not vegan! It's worth looking at by anyone who enjoys tasty baked goods. Extra points for tasty AND responsible eating.

Other things that are making my morning happy beyond eating too many cookies include my pizza that I picked up from Pizza Port in Carlsbad last night. Sooo good. I love that place. Sort of the opposite of vegan with all of the cheese covering everything... ah well. I went with onion, tomato, and PINEAPPLE. A pizza guaranteed to put me in a brilliant mood. Well, a brilliant mood as long as I'm not sitting in a parking lot on the 405 or getting a speeding ticket on Venice... Um.

Okay, ignoring the bad, focusing on the good.

I think it might be time for another cookie.