Wednesday, August 11, 2010

headlines/ The Sausage Factory/ birthday

Aug. 7 Little joke: I told my Professional Writing friend Cherie about the Writer in Residence Chris Craddock. He reads your writing and provides tips.

Cherie: Thanks Tracy! What a find! I'll keep him in mind. (Rhyme was not intentional :P)

Aug. 8 Headlines: Here's another batch of headlines I found, and will send to Jay Leno.

"Firefighters Dismantle Police car to Rescue Kitten."-Arizona Republic

"Where's granny? Japan searches for missing centenarians." -Edmonton Journal

"%&*#@! Canadians out-cuss Yanks, Brits." -Edmonton Journal

"Hell, no Kitty! It's now a motor oil." Hello Kitty's face is on a motor oil can.

Classifieds: "Good Farm Lady 61+ to live acreage near Stony Plain to care for senior gentleman."- Edmonton Journal

My favorite: In the Edmonton Journal Sunday Reader, an Amish youth fled police in a horse and buggy. He went through a stop sign in Leon, NY, and didn't pull over. "That triggered the slowest cop chase since OJ hit the cruise control on the Santa Monica Freeway." lol.

The kid upended the buggy on a sharp turn. The horse and driver weren't hurt. This could be used for a movie. No disrespect, but the Amish are a pretty easy target to diss. They live in the 18th century though the world is in 21st century.

Bear: There was a black bear that walked into a house in New Hampshire and took fruit, took a drink from a fishbowl, and took a stuffed teddy bear and left. -New York Daily News

Places: Did you know there's a place in Saskatchewan called Big Beaver?

Funny picture: There is this huge 2-D plastic pine tree, and some is standing behind it. It looks a giant air freshener.

Borderline funny: This is kind of funny, but kind of not. "Deer attacks on rise in B.C." The headline's funny, but not the article."

Nuns with record deal get death threats." It's the same as above. The nuns had won a deal to create a chart-topping album. Some people didn't like it so they gave death threats.

"Latest BlackBerry takes aim at Apple." I thought it was kind of weird that technology companies are named after fruit.

The Sausage Factory: This is a TV show that aired in 2000-2002. That's the Canadian title. In the US it's called Now What? It's about 4 teen guy friends. There are actual episodes on Youtube. I was thinking about the ep called "Sex, Guys, and Videotape." It's the one where Gilby and Zack get jobs at a video store and Gilby lets teen boys rent out porn tapes. He puts The Empire Strokes Back tape into the The Empire Strikes Back tape and scans it through. Money to the rental, and extra money for Gilby for scanning it.

Zack: What if you get caught?
Gilby: I'll say I simply misread the title.

G becomes the assistant manager. Z wants to be it, so G let Z have the position.

It's like the line from the show Dollhouse: "You can't always predict or control the consequences." The consequence was a man comes in and threatens to beat up the assistant manager Zack thinking that he let his teenage son rent out porn tapes.

G: He misread the title, it was an accident, it won't happen again.
Their friend Ted enters and returns a tape.
T: Thanks for the porn.
It does teach a lesson to not do what Z and G did. You will get caught, and you will get fired.

Aug. 9 Writing: I was reading Susanna Daniel's article in the National Post about how it took her 10 yrs to write a novel. At the end of the article she says: "it took 1 yr to write the first half, another yr and half to finish it, a few weeks to sell it, and 18 months for it to lumber through the publishing process." The novel is called Stiltsville.

The Fighter: That made me reflect on how long it took for me to write The Fighter. I thought it up back in Feb. 2006. Maybe a month of writing it here and there. Then in Dec. 2007, I talked to the screenwriting teacher Geo Takch and I finished the first draft. It was 24 pages. I started pitching it in Jan. 2008.

Then in Oct. 2008, Glynis Whiting from Super Channel read it and gave me 1pg and half of notes on it. I was told a screenplay is at least 90 pages. I then wrote 20 more pages. In Nov. 2008, I emailed it the new 2nd draft. In Dec. 2008, she emailed me back with another 2 pages of notes. I was referred to Conni Massing, the writer in residence at EPL.

I emailed her the script, she read it and gave me some tips. In Mar. 2009, I finished the first 90 page script. The whole script was written from Oct. 2008-Mar. 2009. It took 6 months to write it. I'll throw in 2 months (Feb. 2006, Dec. 2007) for it's original first draft.

Aug. 10 Summer: I thought summer was a good time to be unemployed. If I get sad, I go outside and enjoy the weather. I like passing out my resumes by walking on the street. The con is that I rather have fun than stay inside on the computer looking for my job.

Same goes for the winter. You get sad because of the weather, but it makes you want to stay inside and buckle down and look for a job.

Aug. 11 Birthday: So today's my birthday and here a few jokes like on The Simpsons.

Grandpa: Bart, you remembered my birthday.
Bart: I sure did. And here's the bus schedule.
Grandpa: Fits right in my pocket.

Or the one where Patty and Selma exchange gifts.
Patty: Happy birthday.
Selma: Happy birthday.
They open the boxes and scream because there's a virus that was unleashed on them.

The one on South Park where Cartman is passing out invitations to his bday party. He's dancing and he's jiggling his round body and saying: "Cause it's my birthday."

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