Saturday, February 28, 2009

And Even More Stuff for a Saturday.

O.K. This is really more of a teaser.

We're loving the new range. WE CAN BAKE! And I'll be putting up some recipes soon. Tonight we're having homemade pizza from a recipe that GF found...I'm just too lazy to take pictures this time. And I found a Challah recipe that's absolutely amazing. I just need to work on getting it to rise high instead of wide and I need to adjust the quantities a little. This recipe made a loaf the size of California. I'll post the recipe when I get it closer to Rhode Island sized.

One More Little Thing to Pass on This Lovely Saturday.

I'm sure I've discussed how whenever something nasty happens on set, the Locations Department gets the call. Toilets clogged, trash overflowing, some extra puked, you name it...we'll get the call. Well yesterday, I stopped by a friend's apartment who also happens to be a Producer I work for quite often. When I left, I got to call him from the street and have the following conversation:

Me: "Hey, Dan. You're still your Co-op Board President, right?"

Dan: "Yeah, why?"

Me: "I'm pretty sure someone pissed in your elevator. I just wanted to make sure you were the right one to tell."

Sometimes I take my pleasures from very small things.

Phun With Phobias

We all find ourselves wandering aimlessly through the internet occasionally. This morning, I landed on a list of phobias. First, I wanted to confirm my understanding of the word itself.

(All emphases are my own.)

One definition of phobia described it as "an anxiety disorder characterized by extreme and irrational fear of simple things". Another was "an intense, unrealistic fear". One more was "an unreasonable sort of fear that can cause avoidance and panic.

I think I need to take issue with this. I've scanned this list and I find absolutely nothing "irrational, unrealistic or unreasonable" about some of these fears. Let's look at a few, shall we?

Agrizoophobia- Fear of wild animals. I call bullshit. Hey, a lady got her face removed by a tamed chimpanzee last week. Every year or so, there's a story about some guy in NYC keeping a 10' python in his apartment, or a guy living with a tiger. Last week, an 11-year-old killed his dad's girlfriend. I say, go ahead...be afraid. Be very afraid.

Alliumphobia- Fear of garlic. Some of you are vampires. Duh!

Ballistophobia- Fear of missiles or bullets. What are you fucking stupid? This is about as rational a fear as I can imagine. (Note: it's the pointy end you should worry about.)

Cleptophobia- Fear of stealing. I'll acknowledge that this one may be a little stupid, but do you really care about curing it?

Coulrophobia- Fear of clowns. There's not a damned thing irrational here. Three words? John. Wayne. Gacy.



Dutchphobia- Fear of the Dutch.
O.K. I don't recall having met any Dutch people, but if you say they're scary, I'll hear your arguments.

Hadephobia- Fear of hell. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. It's not a fear I can personally identify with, but isn't a lot of Western Civilization founded on this one? I could go either way.

Homilophobia- Fear of sermons. Sure. Torture the poor Hadephobics!

Levophobia- Fear of things to the left side of the body. I'm convinced that Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity and Joe the Plumber can be cured. If not, there must be some way to seclude them together and let them live out their phobia without bothering the rest of us.

Mastigophobia- Fear of punishment. Another perfectly acceptable fear. You really think most law-abiding citizens are just nice? Puh-leeeeeeeeze!

Novercaphobia- Fear of your step-mother. I'm not afraid of my step-mother, but I never paid attention to all those Fairy Tales I was told as a kid. I may have been Mythophobic (fearful of stories). Another win? I think so.

Paralipophobia- Fear of neglecting duty or responsibility. Oh, Come On! Do you actually think anything would get achieved in most work places without this one? Whoever comes up with a drug that reinforces this one is going to be very, very rich.

Pellagrophobia- Fear of pellagra. I'm a little afraid of things I can't define, so I'm on board with this one.

Porphyrophobia- Fear of the color purple. I hated that fucking movie. YMMV.

Symbolophobia- Fear of symbolism. This doesn't really scare me, but I prefer seeing movies with fairly straight forward plots.

Walloonphobia- Fear of the Walloons. Oh, sure! Tell me you wouldn't cross the street if you saw this guy walking toward you.


Obviously, I'm not about to comment on every phobia listed, but I think a lot of these make the world a better place. I won't necessarily fall off a cliff if I stand at the edge, but if I stand at the bottom, I should have plenty of time to dodge the guy who does fall. I'm not particularly afraid of the dark but I prefer not bumping into things. I'm not sure if mercurial medicines are those containing mercury, or those that are prone to rapid and unpredictable changes, but I'd just as soon not take any chances with either.

I may just found a Society for the Promotion of Beneficial Phobias. Are there any that you guys want to champion?

Friday, February 27, 2009

The Trivial Shall Set You Free.

Today, I'm going to offer some unsolicited advice to my fellow bloggers. Some of you, (and you know who you are), like to post about topics that tend to upset people. As often as not, it's on a topic that is highly Googleable (yes, dammit, that's a word). This often results in you being found. It's also a known fact that among the people who take the time to Google a topic which might upset people, there is a large subset of people just looking for something to be upset about. They can be divided into further subsets, consisting of the bat-shit crazy, the frothy, the poo-flinging monkeys, the hideous arse-candles, the unhinged, and possibly worst of all...MENSA MEMBERS! As often as not, they show up to defend some paragon you've dared to insult and for some unfathomable reason, they take umbrage that in addition to the fact you may have called into question their idol's credentials and/or sanity, you may have used bad language to emphasize your point. They get particularly wound up when you call the object of their affection a Fuck-nut weasel.

I, on the other hand usually stick to inanities. For the most part, inanity begets inanity and I rarely find myself forced to deal with anyone who gets me all het up. One notable exception was when I posted this picture of a candidate (for what, I can't remember) who thought it would be a brilliant idea to speak to a group celebrating Hitler's birthday. (I didn't even notice at the time, but the "Happy Birthday" streamer across the front of the dais was an especially festive touch.)



Much to my surprise, I got a prompt response from some Grand Muckey-muck with the American Nazi Party telling me that I was a Northern-Liberal-WhiteGuiltAfflicted-Jewboy, etc. etc. etc. I can't give you an exact quote because I deleted his ass faster than you can say Achtung, Baby.

The fact is though, that was an aberration. For better or worse, what I write here rarely causes a visceral reaction. I mean really, how many people get overly bent out of shape about Grocery Store Baggers, or my disdain for Jeffery Deaver's knowledge of film production, or even experimentation with Stinky Tofu. Sure, this stuff gets me frothy, but the reaction it provokes is usually finger pointing and giggling at the silly man. I can live with that.

And what utterly inconsequential issue has got me obsessed this morning? Optimum Fucking Online! For those of you who don't live in their service area, Optimum is an internet and cable and phone provider in NY, NJ and CT. I have no idea whether or not they provide a decent service. For all I know, they're the Mother Theresa, Greenpeace, PETA, American Heart Association, Easter Seals, and Jerry's Kids of Internet Service Providers.* They may be the best Internet Service Provider in the whole wide world. This is immaterial. What matters is that they annoy me.

Why? A couple of reasons. The first is that they are the Official Sponsor of Daytime Television on every single damned channel in my viewing area.** Their commercials get more airtime than every derivative of Law & Order including every cable and local syndicated version. That's a lot of airtime. Second, their commercials are jaw droppingly stupid (some say offensive), and earwormy in a way that makes you want to destroy that massive HD TV you just dropped six months of grocery money on.

Anyway, these commercials have been airing and annoying me for a year or more, and up to now, I've managed to ignore them to the best of my ability. I cringed when they were on and then I got over it. Their latest spot not only pisses me off at them, it offers stupid people all over the Tri-State Area a really good idea for how to annoy me further. Watch this:



Here's what gets me. It starts with Uber nerd pretending to turn on his camera and saying to the lens, "Hey Optimum. Check out my commercial." We're supposed to believe that some Optimum customer is so fucking in love with their service that he made his own commercial for them. I suppose the cheesy animated crap (and the use of his pretend girlfriend), is supposed to make us think he really could have come up with it. And then it ends with the pretend girlfriend pretending to walk in on him with an "Oh, my guy" expression. I assume this is supposed to be like having Mom walk in on the Tweeners' slumber party and embarrassing them while they jump on the bed and emulate Hannah Montana with their hairbrush microphones.

And here's the part that's got me losing it. This commercial is nothing but a nefarious plot to get stupid people with too much time on their hands*** to take this thing viral. Their genius Ad Agency said, "Hey, we'll get bazillions of your customers to make their own commercials for you and that'll prove that everyone loves you and you won't have to pay anyone (except us), for your commercials and you'll save a fortune and you'll make a fortune and would you like some more fizzy water and biscotti?" So far, nobody seems to have taken them up on the idea. This makes me hopeful for civilization.

But know this. I'm going on record here to let all of you know that anyone who does take them up on this horrible idea is moving to the top of my shit list. Yeah, go ahead schmucks. I will hunt you down...don't think I won't.****
-----------------------------------------------------

P.S. If I've ticked off any Mensa members, I'm going to humbly suggest that you learn how to use the internet before you tell me off. Responding to me one of my commenters blogs (as one such exemplar of the breed recently did elsewhere) is not likely to impress anyone. Just a suggestion.
-----------------------------------------------------
*It's actually kind of hard to come up with a list of organizations that are universally adored...you try. So if any of you want to point out anything nefarious about my list, feel free to not bother. We'll both be happier.

**Anyone who wants to point out that I could turn off the TV may also feel free to not bother. Or that I should leave the house. Or any other constructive advice you may have to offer. Please see above.

***The irony of me having the time to post about this is not lost on me, thank you very much.

****Those who know me wouldn't necessarily classify me as a particularly dangerous person, but I know people and I'm not afraid to call them.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

My Subconscious is a Plagiarizing Bastard

I rarely remember my dreams when I wake up. This morning, I woke up with a fully formed novel in my head. I actually started typing notes while the coffee was brewing. With each note, my excitement grew; could it really be this easy? Without thought, I had a beginning a middle and a wham-bam ending. I knew who the characters were, if not their names. Subplots flashed across synapses faster than I could get them written down.

"Genius!, I'm a fucking genius", I thought.

As the first cup of coffee thinned the fog, clarity took hold. Euphoria waned.

Ken Follett may have written this already.

Fuck coffee and fuck Ken Follett.

Note to subconscious: If you're going to plagiarize and convince yourself you thought of it first, I'd really rather have you skew toward Terry Pratcett. Your cooperation would be appreciated.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Waily, Waily, Waily. Ach Crivens! (But in a good way.)

Some of you may have noted the following comment from Tania yesterday. (I'd provide a link but Tania hasn't updated since 2008... ::cough, cough::)

::cough::

Did it get delivered to the right place?

::cough::


Anyway, yes, there was a delivery yesterday. And the box held no clues as to the sender.

The company it was from:

One of their mottoes:


And another:


Still not sure who sent it:


If you can't read it, it says, This glass is now half-empty.

And then, the answer is apparent. Tania followed through on her promise (threat).

Two things. First, I wish I could have gotten a picture of it before the cats crawled all over it. It was perfectly clean when I opened the box. (Edited to add: That's a T-Shirt if you can't tell.) And second, I'll be mourning the end of my professional relationship with Christian by wearing this at the first opportunity (to work, of course).

Thanks Tania.

I Believe It's Called a Saute' Pan.

Last night GF arrived home and said, "Mmm, what's for dinner? That smells good." I proudly showed her the pan filled with Kielbasa, peppers and onions.

Then she said, "Didn't your doctor tell you you're supposed to be cutting back on fried foods?"

"I didn't fry anything," I said. "It's saute'd."

It made sense to me.

Just got the following email re: "Your Dinner Tonight"



Yup. When Nathan is left to his own devices, things go WILD here. Can you say Hamachi?

I'm Still Not On Twitter.


Shamelessly appropriated from these folks.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

And with your hair combed right, And your pants fit tight, It's gonna be all right

Title stolen from The Byrds -- So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star.

Once again, I find myself totally agreeing with Eric. I loathe memes; except when I think they're einfach wunderbar. So Eric ran across this meme where you generate an album cover with the title and the name of your band. I like it. There's no excuse for not playing. You can even just copy and paste the rules straight from Eric's blog. Watch:

Via The Onion AV Club, which in turn is borrowing from Buzzfeed, we have the following awesomtacular meme:

New meme: here's a totally random way to make your new random band's new random album cover. Post one! Go to “Wikipedia.” Hit "random" and the first article you get is the name of your band. Then go to "Random Quotations" and the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. Then, go to Flickr and click on "Explore the Last Seven Days" and the third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.


Wasn't that easy? And look! Here's the latest album from Joelma Fire! We're an effete little band, reveling in our obscurity and refusing to sell out to the man. It's titled Visualize and Go Eat a Sandwich.



We're pleased that our reviews are stellar:
Joelma Fire's latest outing is a daring departure from their previous offerings. Visualize and Go Eat a Sandwich takes their earlier efforts at prompting the listener to create their own experiences a quantum leap further. Some fans may wish for the comforting hisses, pops and static that made their first three albums instant hits among their small but devoted following, but the total silence of this album challenges the listener to comprehend when the album has actually ended. You'll find yourself mesmerized for hours, listening to it over and over again...or just wondering whether or not it's time to start it over again. Be warned: visualizing the sandwich is easy; eating it takes dedication.


Note: The awesome cover art is call it love from ps,,,,;s Flickr photostream. I apologize most humbly for involving the photographer in this nonsense.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Mixing & Matching

As has been noted in the previous comment thread, TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY! Reading the thread, however, it's not clear whether I should have more fun celebrating my birthday or going back to mid-town to try to find a wealthy octogenarian woman who's a little unstable and creatively tormenting her.

I'm going to take Vince's advice (even though he wasn't really offering any). Yup. I'm baking today...and I'm gonna do it like an eight year old. I'm going to peek under the towel every five minutes to see if the bread dough is rising. I'm going to get flour all over myself (ooops, did that already). I'm going to have something childish for dinner.

And I think I'll make this really work by setting the Way-Back Machine to 1968. I want me some verisimilitude. Damn! Wish I knew where my Slinky, Hula-Hoop, Clackers and Lawn Darts got to.

P.S. Once I hop in the Way-Back Machine I will temporarily cease to know the meaning, pronunciation and spelling of versi...very...smileytudes!

P.P.S. I think the poor old lady has had enough.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

I ♥ NY!

This morning, I was a little early for our scout (both days went very well, thank you very much), so I stopped to kill time getting a cup of coffee. As I was leaving, I spotted a much older woman on her way in. This was a woman clearly from old money...wearing a full length mink; hair coiffed to within an inch of its life.

Having been raised in the genteel South, I held the door for her. We've discussed elsewhere our disdain for people who fail to acknowledge such courtesies, but I need to know...is there any proper response when such a blue-blood shrieks at the top of her lungs, "Get away from me you fucking maniac!"?

I thought it was funny so I laughed...for the next three blocks.

The Filmmaker's Uniform.

Note: If I was a normal person who makes a living working on movies, you might expect to see something Oscar related here today. I'm supposed to be deeply invested in an event that honors the finest achievements in film for the preceding year. I'm supposed to be conflicted over what I feel was actually the best work as opposed to "I worked with that actor and he/she is a complete asshole and I hope they get snubbed while the TV camera is right in their face and they react badly and zillions and zillions of people see it live and tomorrow, every paper and blog known to man shows the picture and backs me up on what an asshole they are."

I am not, however, a normal person who makes a living working on movies. Evidence?:

1. I'm a huge fan of Jeopardy and I'd love to be on the show because I do really well while sitting on my couch. However, I know that if I ever got on and "The Oscars" was the Final Jeopardy category, I'd bet $2.75. I know I'll never get the answer right in that category. I watch the Oscars every year, but I forget who won by the next morning.

2. I know it's unreasonable but I resent the fact that there's no Oscar for the Locations Department. If Locations ever does get singled out by the Academy, I'll resent the fact that they'll give the award at the Technical Achievements Dinner instead of at the gala event that gets televised. "I'd like to thank the NY Dept. of Sanitation for cleaning Fifth Avenue after we shot the ticker-tape parade scene. Thank you to Mr. & Mrs. Smith, owners of that lovely brownstone in Brooklyn. I hear the studio is planning to settle your insurance claim any day now. Thanks to our director, who demanded the best and settled for what I could deliver out of my 3-year-old files. Your creativity in shooting that hospital scene in the closed-down department store was nothing short of amazing.."

3. I must admit that I haven't seen a single one of this years nominees. If I do have an opinion, it's a totally uninformed opinion, and while that's considered perfectly valid on the internet, I won't fall back on that easy out.


So, I guess I'll have to actually find something else to pull out of my ass to write about...ergo, The Filmmaker's Uniform.



Let's start by saying that once you leave the hallowed halls of the Production Executives and Agents and other movers and shakers and arrive in the trenches where movies are actually made, suits and ties and power suits are rarely seen. Most of us dress for comfort and many of us dress with an eye toward utility. And some of you aspiring youngsters just haven't gotten a chance to hang around long enough to know how to dress. Simply put, when we see some poor schmuck walk into the production office for his interview in a sport coat and tie, we immediately think of that tied-up goat in Jurassic Park...room service for the T-Rex. (And to be perfectly honest, even if you were showing up to a more corporate setting, your sport coat looks like shit and the only job you can hope to be offered is one in the basement where the clients won't be able to see you.) Please accept this post as my continuing service to inform the uninformed: in this case to clue them in on what they should wear to work if they want to be accepted at first sight as serious members of the tribe.

The Director: This is the one position where whatever you want to wear is the right thing to wear. You need to project a don't-give-a-shit, I'm-in-charge confidence. Individuality is king. Your clothes should show that you are so much in your own head that the rest of us can only hope to participate in your vision. We're all there for you, dude.

I worked with one director who wore a do-rag every single day. This is not a slam at that director and I'd love to work with him again, but the fact is, he's a middle-aged, somewhat nebishy Jewish guy who doesn't have the slightest whiff of street-cred going for him; I still don't get the do-rag. But we all got used to it. It was his thing. But one weekend when I was putting in a little extra time in the office, he showed up without his do-rag. I had no idea who he was and I proceeded to rudely ask him what the fuck he was thought he was doing wandering around our space.

The Scenic Artist: Scenic Artists (a.k.a. painters) are among the most recognizable denizens of the set. Scenic Artists wear the same pair of cargo pants to work every single day. The pants have so many splotches of dried paint that when you take them off at the end of the day, they stand up by themselves. The Scenic Artist's t-shirt is always immaculately spotless. We have no idea how they do that. They must teach that when they teach the secret handshake.

Wardrobe: The uniform for the wardrobe department changes depending on hierarchy. If you're a costumer (the person who actually dresses the cast), you must wear baggy clothes with lots of pockets. You need room for scissors, needles, thread of every color, double-stick tape, velcro strips, markers, grease pencils and other magical items you may never use (just to look a little mysterious). You should also be covered in safety pins and have a massive ring of polaroid pictures showing every actor in every permutation of their wardrobe by scene. If the entire movie takes place in one hour of real life, your polaroids must show the development of each wrinkle, tear, fray and stain during that one hour. (Note: I know you can't get Polaroid film anymore, but you old-timers all bought cases and cases of the stuff right before they stopped making it. You don't give up on your favorites easilly.)

If you're the costume designer, your goal is to look fashion forward and creative without out-shining the people you're dressing. They have delicate egos. And you should be prepared to take off anything you're wearing and give it to the actress who decides she'd look great in it. True story: A hugely famous actress showed up one day for a wardrobe camera-test. Moments into her fitting, she pointed out that her contract called for her to be able to keep any wardrobe she liked and for every stitch of wardrobe to be provided by the production...including underwear. The Costume Designer had to hand over her own bra...which the actress liked and took home with her.

Script Supervisor: Your uniform is less about the actual clothes and more about your accessories. You wear a floppy hat with a sizable brim to protect your delicate skin from the sun. You wear cat's-eye glasses on a chain around your neck regardless of your perfect eyesight to project the gravity of your responsibilities. You carry an impossibly thick notebook that seems to be filled with indecipherable notes even before we expose the first frame of film. You have some variation of a portable desk. You go nowhere without a comfortable folding camp chair except at the end of the day. You regularly go home without your chair and then ask Locations if they found it in the alley where you were shooting at wrap.

Grips & Electricians: These folks (both male and female) wear steel-toed boots, knee socks and cut-off shorts to work most days...especially when the temperature drops into the teens. They are tough. They do all the dirty, heavy lifting and their uniform says "I'm busy and you should fuck with me at the risk of having me reach down your throat and show you your left lung". Note: Another reason for this uniform is so that when you get to be the Gaffer or the Key Grip, you get to wear sandals, khakis and a pastel Polo shirt. The message here is "I don't get dirty any more. I point. You lift."

The Locations Department: Once again, hierarchy makes a difference. If you're low man on the totem pole, dress to mess. If you're not willing to get garbage on it, don't wear it to work. The manager, on the other hand, needs to be prepared to interact with people in every level of the socio-econimic strata. One minute you'll be walking into a Fortune 500 office asking if they've got a conference room you can use, and the next minute, you'll be climbing down a manhole to ask the Con-Ed crew if they can't work somewhere else today. Most Location Managers I know opt for somewhat casual dress, but nothing they couldn't wear to an exclusive country club.

Me? Not so much. I'm all about the comfort. I like people to think that my cargo shorts, sandals and t-shirt are part of a carefully calculated persona...one that says, "Clothes don't make the man...the man makes the man". I like people to think that, but the truth is, I'd just rather be comfortable. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow will be a day at the beach.

This is an incomplete list. If I left out your chosen department, I'm sorry. This post is long enough already and leaving you out leaves me with a ready-made post for some day in the future when I don't have any bright ideas for a post. Your contribution to solving future lack of inspiration is appreciated. You may pick up your Oscar at the Loading Docks.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

A little Bit Of This. A Little Bit of That.

At 1:00 P.M., I have to be in Mid-town, where I'll hop into a van with seven other people. We'll then proceed to go look at a bunch of places. We'll continue to drive around and look at a bunch of places until about 10:30 tonight. Then, we'll do it again tomorrow, but we'll need to finish early because some folks have flights out tomorrow night.

Here, have an advance look at my next two days. In no particular order, this is what we're going to be looking at so we can choose a total of 5 locations for a two-day shoot. (We'll go look at them in a particular order because we have a schedule to keep and some of the locations are expecting us at specific times, but I didn't have the energy to make Blogger show them to you in a particular order. Besides, some of my readers prefer randomness.)

BTW, we won't actually shoot in NY until early April and I haven't the foggiest idea when you'll be able to watch it on T.V. Anyway, here's the tour for you...just quicker and warmer with less car-sickness.

I like this place a lot, but it probably won't make the cut. Looking cool doesn't always fit the script best. Too bad. This place would hurt the Producer's checkbook, but it would be a piece of cake for me.


What could be more iconic than a place under the elevated train.

Wouldn't you sit in that window if you were bribing someone in government?

A place to "Blah, blah, blah, blah blah".

Sure hope the cops can't see us.


Hey, it was a tough day at work today. Let's go bond.

Who knew the cops had long lenses?


This looks like a great place to rendezvous at 2:00 A.M. Incidentally, some artist may actually own the intellectual rights to this stuff, in which case, we'll need their permission to shoot this street. The entire block looks like this.

Hey, Chuckie. I bet dey're in dehr.

Oooh. Such a lovely night spot.

Nah, I like it here better.


Probably not here, because, believe it or not, there are a bunch of actual nightclubs here now. The street is jammed with limos and Hummers until 3:00 a.m. It's hard to make a place look desolate and scary when there are hundreds of hipsters pretending they don't want to be seen arriving.


Oops. Gotcha!

Look, we live in the city, but we jog with our dog across the river. Pay no attention to the massive jump in geography.

We, could, however jog a couple of miles away across this other stretch of river.


Uh, what the hell has this got to do with the show?


I want a lawyer!

No, really. I want a lawyer.


Never mind the lawyer. Wouldn't this be more fair if we both had guns?


Don't you all feel like you got a free advanced viewing of the show? Sure, it might have been better with actors and sound and dialog and stuff, but the locations are really the most important thing. And it's a lot easier at this stage of the game before you have to haul a bunch of trucks and one-hundred or so of you closest friends around with you everywhere you go.

Yes, us crew-folks do all have a very narrow view of which part of the process is most important. And the rest of you annoy the shit out of those of us who are right.

Friday, February 20, 2009

It's An Experiment.

I've changed the privacy setting on my Sitemeter so that anyone can look at my stats...how many visits, who's visiting, etc.

1.) I'm not sure why I had it set to private before.
2.) I'm not sure why I'm making it public now.
3.) I'm not sure I'll leave it that way (or change it back).
D.) Do any of you care? have any opinion whatsoever?
5.) That last was an invitation to weigh in on this, oh so weighty issue.
5a.) Was the comma in the right place in that last sentence?

P.S. I'm out scouting on foot today (walking, subways, buses) and my backpack will have my notepad, a bunch of printed out leads, my camera, a book (entertainment on the trains), and my laptop. This weighs too much, but since I'm meeting the Powers-that-Be at 6:00 pm, I don't want to have to come back to Brooklyn before heading to their Mid-town hotel. And while it's not really that cold here today, it is windy as hell, so I expect to periodically adjourn to various coffee shops and check in here. (Hopefully, I'll also be uploading new photo files for them to look at when I meet with them, since...well, that's what I'm being paid for.)

P.P.S. I doubt any of you really give a shit how cold, windblown or weighed down I'm going to be today, but it truly sucks trying to make phone calls from a refrigerated wind tunnel with noisy tractor trailers driving by. Yes. this is a pathetic attempt at garnering pity.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Good News! I'm Not Pregnant!

So this morning's appointment was to have a sonogram and I am not with child. Actually, it was of my heart. (Don't anybody freak out. My doctor said that since I'd never had one before, he wanted to establish a "baseline".)

First, the crappy part. You go into an exam room that's about 10º cooler than the waiting room. The tech tells you to take off your shirt and freeze a little. Then he starts rubbing that wand all over your chest, but not before squirting a huge glob of gel on the end. Why does medical science have the ability to look at live pictures of the inside of your body, but doesn't have the wherewithal to make that gel crap warm?

The cool part, however, is watching all the little valves in my own heart going blub blub blub blub blub. As far as I know, they were all doing what they're supposed to do. At least I didn't see anything like this in there, although I admit that woulda been kinda cool too.

When the guy finishes, he just says he'll give the results to my doctor. So, if this was something I was nervous about, I could just spend a day or two freaking out.

What else is going on? There was a story on the news here a couple of days ago. A woman had left her 14 month-old child with his usual babysitter and when she came home, no sign of child or sitter. The sitter, allegedly decided to take the child, but the cops caught her only a few hours later. Not to take anything away from the obviously fucked up parts of this story, or to negate the happy ending, but...the kid's name is Hashish. How fucking oblivious do you have to be to name your kid Hashish? "Mom, Dad, I've met the woman I'm going to marry. I'd like you to meet Crack-Whore Weingarten." Or how about, "Children, Ms. Samson is out sick today, so I'd like you all to welcome your substitute teacher...Anthropophagus Terwilliger."

Tomorrow, the Director, Producer, Writer, D.P. and Designer for the show I'm on are flying in for our first scout. Most of what we'll eventually shoot is night exteriors, so, of course, they want to see most of the places at night. And we'll be scouting all weekend. Great fun will be had by all. {/sarcasm} At least I have the night shoots to look forward to...which I hate even more than night scouts. Hey, what can I say? I prefer to be inside and warm at night. Eventually, I'll tell you about this show. It's a TV pilot for one of the networks and they'll only come to N.Y. for a couple of days of exteriors. The rest of the show will shoot in Canada. Deal with it Nathan. Deal with it all.

Incidentally, you may recall that once upon a time, if they shot a pilot, but didn't decide to go ahead and make the show, they'd still air the pilot as some sort of lame special during rerun season. They don't do that anymore. The last two pilots I worked on didn't get bought and never saw the light of day. That's a little depressing. I'll admit it may have been more depressing if I'd seen the pilots that were so terrific they didn't get picked up, but I really would have like to have seen them.

So, I promised you new content today. For what it's worth, this is it. And I didn't make any of it up. Let me know if that would have been better.

New Content Alert!

If you scroll down the page, you'll note that recent posts have been...uh...somewhat light on content. I've received thousands of emails and comments (o.k. maybe one comment), bemoaning the lack of recent entertainment here.

Sure, I'll admit the Anti-Internet-Bacon-Crusade hasn't exactly caught fire. I'll even acknowledge that the whole thing may be hideously backfiring. Rest assured, I won't let that stop me. If there's anybody who can pound a square peg into a round hole, I'm the guy. I learned at the feet of the "Get a bigger hammer" guru.

That being said, I will post something new and original later today (promise or threat?...YMMV.)

So, I'm leaving in a few minutes for an appointment. During my journey, I will pray for inspiration, rant-able annoying events, or hilarious subway mishaps (I'm sure you heard about the guy who went on a 4-hour bender, fell on the tracks, lost a leg and successfully sued the New York City Transit Authority for 2.3 million dollars).

C'mon New York. Don't leave me hanging.

(BTW, if nothing interesting happens this morning, I'll be making up some shit.)

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Utterly Negligent Blogger

Sorry. I'm up to my eyeballs doing stuff I'm being paid to do, so...no time to blog at the moment. Maybe later tonight if you all behave (or throw tantrums). Whatever.

In the meantime, here's something to think about while looking for alternatives to humiliating bacon (or Bacon; you know who you are).




-The International Internet Bacon-Abatement Coalition.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Owie!

My feet hurt.

That's all.

Go about your business...nothing to see here.

Beware! Just Keep It Up And Our Revenge Shall Be Sweet.

Do you really want to keep humiliating us on the internet the way you have been?



What did we ever do to you? Do we really look like buffoons for your derision?

We may look cute now, but just see what happens if you don't find something else to ridicule!

-The International Internet Bacon-Abatement Coalition.

--------------------------------------

P.S. My multilingual awesomeness continues. I bet some of my readers even have a clue what I wrote there!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

My New SuperHero Name.

Not much to report today. One thing you should know is that GF and I decided to go for a drive today and have lunch in another state. Before leaving, we decided it might be prudent to drop off the laundry.

The ladies who accept your laundry are all very nice, but none of them have English as a mother tongue. (I'm pretty sure they're all Guatemalan or something.) Anyway, if it's one of the women who doesn't already know my name, she'll usually come up with something creative when I tell her what to fill in on the ticket.

From now on, my SuperSecret SuperHero name is...NENATON! (I don't know what my super powers are, but the name kicks ass.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

An Apology...Of Sorts.

I'm guilty of any number of things...most of which aren't any of your business, so I'm not going to mention them. What I will cop to being guilty of this morning is falling back on one of the Handy Uninspired Bloggers' Fallback Posts. Yeah, today I'm going to post about GoogleSearches that bring innocent unsuspecting dupes here. Please be totally clear in your minds that I don't feel horribly guilty about this, just an itsy-bitsy teensy bit guilty.

The standard Uninspired Bloggers' Fallback Post seems to be where you show us the various pervy searches that unwittingly end up at your blogs for whatever odd reasons Google points where it does. You all express varying degrees of feeling bad for the Searcher who ends up utterly unfulfilled by ending up on your sites. (Some of your versions of feeling bad have a decidedly gleeful tone and if you can't actually reign in your feelings of schadenfreude, you might want to consider, at least putting on a facade of reserve. Gloating is not attractive.)


I've got an entirely different type of search landing here lately. Due to the fact that I decided to get all cutesy with a couple of headlines, I'm getting people who just want a little bit of biblical internetty stuff. The unfortunates who want to enlighten themselves on why confession is good for the soul are probably just looking for some comfort and inspiration. Granted, I don't think there's anything particularly upsetting about that post for the devout, but neither is there anything comforting for anyone seeking solace for their conscience. Alternately, I'm not sure I want to know what somebody's got in mind when they Google An Abomination in the Sight of the Lord. I suspect that this person might have issues and I really doubt I'd enjoy having any type of conversation with them. In fact, I suspect many such people would fit into my description of tedious. And once again, that particular post shouldn't really cause any Exorcist-style conniptions to the pious, but nevertheless, they really don't deserve me. I'm really all about the Truth in Advertising. I'd like those who end up here to do so because this is actually the type of content they're looking for.

Now, in my defense, I think the tagline on my current banner is a fairly blatant warning about what type of place you've found yourself in. I mean, if this place is going to offend you, it's really quick out of the starting blocks on the effort. Really. If you end up here by accident, you've only got yourself to blame if you stick around any longer than it takes the page to load.

But, nonethess. I'm a nice guy and it doesn't cost me anything to issue an apology to those who would rather maintain their innocence. I heartilly regret any defilement you may have suffered.

On the other hand, there's a more insidious search that seems to be finding me of late. Brace yourselves, but yesterday I had six different people drop in as a result of searching for "Emo Phillips". Yeah, that's right! Emo fucking Phillips. First of all, I still can't figure out how that search gets anyone here. I can't duplicate the result. And second, Emo fucking Phillips? I hate that guy. If he's not actually on my shortlist for AntiChrist candidates, he's at least one of the most annoying characters to be foisted on an unknowing public in recent memory. I can't, for the life of me, figure out how his shtick ever translated into a career, much less one that has endured in any way, shape or manner. Holy Christ on a Crutch, Shit on a Shingle, just go ahead and Poke my Eyes out with a blunt poison-laden Fork. Emo fucking Phillips?

On this subject, at least, I believe I'm owed an apology. How am I going to get that guy out of my head now?

Note: I'd consider offering an apology to you for raising the hideous specter of Emo, but I think the more important consideration is that misery loves company. Thank you for your support.

(I suppose I will apologize if this post is reminds you of biting into one of those chocolates from the sampler and finding some unfamiliar gooshy substance you didn't expect. I'm just glad you bit into it instead of me.)

Friday, February 13, 2009

Busy Today.

I'm doing that thing where I have to run around scouting on foot and by subway today, so I really don't feel like lugging around a ton of laptop in my backpack. All of which means, I won't be chatting with you all until later today.

Most people who announce that they won't be around invite you to entertain yourselves. To hell with that! I'm inviting you to entertain me. I fully hope and expect to find myself utterly amused when I get back to the computer this afternoon.

And just to start you off in a direction (and, by no means, feel constrained to continue in this direction), in the last week or so, I've had two different people who I haven't crossed paths with in over 20 years, friend me on Facebook. Anybody else running into people from your distant paths?

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Eric's Gonna Be Awfully Proud of Himself.

In fact, we may never hear the end of it.


Now let's be done with gloating over marmosets and get back to defending bacon's dignity!

The Middle of the Road is a Great Place to Get Run Over.

I don't have time for a lengthy post right now, but Tina Brown has a post up (published Monday 2/9), on The Daily Beast that's worth taking a look at. Much of it is summed up in the second paragraph:

"I for one hope he dumps his obsession with “bipartisanship.” It’s time for him to recognize that overrated concept as what it was: a campaign theme designed to sharpen the contrast between his own reassuring serenity and the Republicans’ crazed, kill-’em-all negativity. It worked—but now the election’s over."
I think I (mostly), disagree. A lot has been made over the fact that Obama doesn't seem to be getting the benefit of the traditional honeymoon granted to the newly elected. McCain and his fellow Republicans certainly didn't wait long to pull off the gloves. And don't even get me started on blowhards like Rush Limbaugh who, as far as I'm concerned is just barely skirting the line between free speech and treason. (No, I'm not going to start making a case for trying to shut his piehole, but couldn't he even pay lip service to the usual spirit of "we lost, they won, let's give them a chance?")

I actually see nothing wrong with Obama continuing to champion bipartisanship. I like that he intends to make the Wednesday cocktail session at the White House a weekly event. He promised something different and if he bails on his efforts to reach across the aisle, he'll be reneging on part of that promise.

I do think he should get a little more hard nosed about what he's willing to give up to Republicans in return for a measley three votes in the Senate and zero in the house. The fact is, he's going to get what he wants with or without the the folks on the right. Continuing to take the high road costs him nothing and shows a commitment that he's going to do things his way instead of gleefully turning the tables on the school bully.

Let everyones' voting speak for itself and we'll see where it gets them when the next mid-term elections roll around.

Your thoughts?

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Mommy-eeeeeee! The Big Kids Are Picking On Me.

A couple of days ago, "D" of Dollygrippery posted about his hate/hate relationship with layout board. For those of you who are uninitiated, layout board is a fiberboard product that comes in 1/8" thick by 4' by 8' sheets. Think of it as really dense cardboard. It's used to protect floors and walls from being gouged or gettin dirty from all of the equipment we haul around everywhere. Depending on where you are in the country, it can be a few different people's jobs to deal with the stuff.

In L.A., there are companies who do pretty much nothing but deal with the layout board for productions. Here's a guy (I've chopped off his name), who has almost 80 credits for doing "layout board". I guess someone's got to do everything, but talk about being removed from the glamor. (Can you just imagine having Christian Bale launch into a tirade at the poor layout board guys? "You and I are done professionally!")



Regardless of who has to deal with it (and regardless of the fact that it has its necessary applications), the stuff is a flat-out pain in the ass. It's unwieldy and wants to bend every whichwhay when you're carrying it. It's a lot heavier than you expect it to be. It's a bitch to cut and you're always at risk of slicing a finger off when you're trying to work with it. And it's A.) always having to be moved out of the shot and B.) never replaced in time to protect the floor from that Mambo Stand that needs to be in that corner, right fucking NOW!

Other than to to agree with "D" that most every type of wheels we have on dollies and stands, won't leave a mark on your lovely wood, carpet or marble floors unless they're dirty or greasy, I'm not about to continue the whole layout board discussion here. No, I want to address something else that became apparent in the comments section, namely that Location Managers get blamed for a lot of shit. I feel singled out here. (Not really. I've got a pretty thick skin and I don't think I'm often guilty of what they were complaining about, but it gave me a cutesy idea for how to start off this post, so I'm blaming "D" and his readers anyway.)

Basically, the gist of some of the comments was that Location Managers sometimes forget that the whole purpose of a location is to be somewhere they can get a movie made, massive crew, truckloads of equipment and all. To be more plain about it, some crews feel like they're getting fucked over by Location Managers a little too often. Fine. Go ahead and feel that way. But turnabout is fair play. I've had more than my share of crews fucking me over.

That room we're not touching.

On one show, we took over a house for 30 days of shooting. After multiple scouts, it was decided that there were two rooms in the house that we never needed to shoot in and we didn't need them for staging areas or video village. These two rooms were to be locked up and sealed off and be the only two spaces in the house we wouldn't need to concern ourselves with restoring. With only a couple of days shooting in the house remaining, the A.D. came to me and mentioned that we owed an insert shot. (An insert is a closeup of a hand or face or whatever and there is very little background that will be seen.) She wanted to know if we could do it in one of those two rooms since it would only need a few crew members and just a table for background. I said, "O.K., but let's please get in and out of there with a minimum of fuss."

Ten minutes after they started setting up, I discovered that someone had sliced off two feet of carpet so the door could be closed when the cable was run under it. D'oh!

The 6" diameter vent stack in exactly the wrong 6" space.

On another job, we had a crew of construction grips build a platform on a rooftop. The platform was a massive undertaking, ultimately covering about 40' by 50' of rooftop and solid enough to support a ton or two worth of camera crane. Now, the geometry of camera cranes is both interesting and complicated. If you want to have the lens precisely at position "A", there is a 360º circle around that point where the base of the crane can be. Obviously, not every position for the base is feasible because of surface conditions and some other positions place the base squarely in the shot you want to get. Factor in the fact that position "A" is probably only where the lens will be at the beginning of the shot. The lens may boom up or down. It may pan left or right. The arm may be swinging one way or another. And the base may need to move during the shot. All of these things taken together mean that there really aren't many choices about how to position the crane to get the shot.

This particular platform meant that the crane base could be placed anywhere within that 40' by 50' space except the one spot they had left a hole to accommodate a 6" vent stack coming out of the roof of the building. And that wasn't a problem...until the director created a shot that required one wheel of the crane base to be precisely where the vent stack was. The grips come to me and ask if they can cut the vent stack and cover it with the platform. I ask the property owner. I don't remember the details exactly, but the property owner didn't want the vent stack cut. (Some silly thing about trapping the smell of sewage in 20 or so apartments or some such nonsense.) I delivered the news to the grip that we'd have to work around it. He said O.K. I left the roof to deal with something else.

When I returned half an hour later, the platform covered its entire space with no sign of a vent stack anywhere. Lot's of innocent "who me?" glances met my arrival. The building owner was not pleased.

One roof's pretty much like another.

It's really common on a tech scout to have the gaffer point out a bunch of rooftops and fire escapes and tell me they'd like to put lights on them for a shot. We do our best and line up as many of them as possible. To do this, we're usually dealing with both a tenant (because the fire escape is right outside their window) and the building owner ('cause it's his damned building). I wish I could count the number of times we had permission to be on the roof of one building and someone decided the light would work better from the roof next door. From their point of view, it's moving the light 30' to the left and hoisting it over a 10" parapet wall. From my point of view, it's a roof owned by some guy I don't know from a hole in the wall.

The cast gets in on the act.

I was working on one movie that had lots of thuggy characters shooting guns at each other in every other scene. Yay! Fun stuff.

One morning, I popped into the Church Basement we were using for the cast to hang out in and found them all smoking pot and showing off their guns to each other. First, I radioed the A.D. and asked him to deal with the pot smoking in the church basement. Then I radioed the Prop Master and asked if there was any reason the prop guns had been handed out before the cast was on set. He reminded me that we didn't actually have any weapons on set that day and all of them were locked up in his gun safe back at his shop.

I left that for the A.D. to deal with as well.

Actually, now that I look back on this and a bunch of other stuff I didn't bother including, I'm thinking some crew in my future is going to get the short end of the stick just on principle.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Variations on a Meme.

I pick and choose which memes I'll follow. I (almost never) assign the meme to others 'cause I think that's just plain rude (usually). Now there's one running around that I like. It first came to my attention on Kim's blog and I responded, following the rules, in her comments thread. Then Eric decided to jump on board. Feel free to join us and play (on your blog or in anyone's comments you choose...or not). (BTW, in the interests of mayhem, I hereby invite you to post your response in any blog flying the UCF Logo and to do so without any explanation whatsoever. Go ahead. They'll thank you. Really!)

Anyway, I decided that since I'd already done one version of this following the rules, I should put something up here with the rules slightly changed. Here's the original rules:


DIRECTIONS
1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book #1 -- first sentence
3. Book #2 -- last sentence on page fifty
4. Book #3 -- second sentence on page one hundred
5. Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
6. Book #5 -- final sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph....


I did two slightly different versions. First, here's a version where I picked out the right sentences, but, instead of random books, I chose from five books by Neal Stephenson, in order of publication:

William Anothy Cozzano’s office was a scandal. “Staring at us.” “People started doing this about the time you left for Cambridge.” Nevertheless, the very notion that such a rustic fellow would challenge Upnor to a duel practically had the French nobles falling down into the path with tears running down their cheeks. “I’m going home now,” he says.
These come from:

Interface
The Cobweb
Quicksilver
The Confusion
and
The System of the World

My second paragraph all comes from one book; Jeff Shaara's The Glorious Cause.

He had sat out the raw misery of the storm through most of the night, keeping his boat tight against the shore. At least this day would have accomplished something. The lookouts slouched in their towers above him, and the only sounds were low voices, quiet conversations, and, back in the wooden huts, the work of the cooks, the rattle of tin plates already piling up for the evening meal. When they saw the officers, hats went up, the flag held out, and behind them, more men, a second flag, one man holding it aloft on the point of a bayonet. And it is Christmas Eve.
O.K. Here's what I find interesting about this.

1. I actually like that the one paragraph cobbled together from Shaara's book tells the entire story of the American Revolution without any of the nasty battles and stuff. (Quick. Without looking it up, tell me what year the Revolution began and when it ended. Score extra points if you know how much longer it took to ratify the Constitution. Extra, extra points for Furiners getting it right.)

2. In spite of the fact that Stephenson is usually a fairly difficult (though completely worthwhile) read, Shaara manages to pack almost twice the word-count into his mashed-up paragraph. The fact is, Shaara never met a sentence he didn't think would benefit from a bunch more words. And his tactic seems to be that you can just keep adding commas as long as you like and you won't have to start a new sentence until someone jams a period in there. Let that be a lesson to you schoolkids trying to come up with 1200 words on the history of your hometown.

3. That's all I find particularly interesting here. Sue me.

Oh, BTW, there's still time to join The International Internet Bacon-Abatement Coalition. Bacon is embarrassed and it needs your help.

"I don't make fun of your delicious belly, do I?"

Monday, February 9, 2009

Porky Wants You!


Only you can save us from further mockery. Please won't you help?


I might even stop looking at you this way.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

The Wheels On The Bus Go Round and Round.

For another take on the whole Christian Bale kerfuffle, read this post by the Hollywood Juicer. It's
well reasoned and answers some of your comments from the other day here.

Well worth a few minutes of your time.

And something else.

Regular visitor Steve points out a site I'd never been to before. (Well, actually, Steve was telling us he'd had a story rejected...Sorry Steve...but was also telling us where else he'd be submitting it.)

Read this story there. You'll like it.

Thanks (and sorry) Steve.

Adventures in Breadmaking.

Since we have the new dual-fuel Humongo-range, GF has decided it's time to bake some bread. With that in mind, she found a number of recipes online.

Take 1. Mix the ingredients, knead the dough a little. Set it aside to rise. Uh...no rising. Turns out that yeast had expired.

Take 2. Mix the ingredients and try to knead the dough. The dough is all crumbly and hard...not at all the consistency the recipe describes. Ah well, maybe it changes as it rises. It doesn't rise.

Take 3. While letting the yeast soak in warm water, GF mixes the dry ingredients. A noise catches her attention. She turns and finds Teufel sitting in the bowl of yeast. He doesn't rise either.

More as news warrants.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

A Brief Morning Query.

As was pointed out a day or so ago, other folks' blogs seem to be periodically popping up as links to some of my posts. Now I have nothing against people linking my posts...in fact, I'm completely in favor of it. But the links seem to be generating spontaneously, without any action on the "linkee's" part or mine. And the links seem to have no relevance to the post they're linking.

Take, for example, the two links to yesterday's post. I can't find any relevant connection. I seriously doubt the linkee generated these links. Based on the fact that I know the linkee has visited here periodically, I'm confident the internet didn't just randomly select her blog out of all the blogs in the world, but how did the links appear?

If anyone knows how this came about, please educate me. I'm confused. (which is a natural state of affairs, but I've got enough to be confused about without any outside influences, thank you very much.)

P.S. If the linkee wishes to be un-linked, let me know by email (linked on my profile) and I think I have the technology to delete the links.

P.P.S. The word "link" was used 15 (now 16) times in this short post. I humbly regret its overuse and am amenable to any suggested substitutes or synonyms. Suggest away.

Friday, February 6, 2009

We Are No Longer Amused. (With an Update of Questionable Consequence.)

Today, We shall tackle a subject which has lately, become insidious. We are, of course, speaking of the widespread use, throughout the internet, of bacon as a punch line. To restate the case, We are no longer amused.

Why, you may ask, is Nathan suddenly referring to himself in the third person? Simply put, this blog, alone, does not carry enough weight to champion this movement, so a little whiff of royalty is deemed advisable. This post shall be fiat and edict-filled and We believe that anything which increases our appearance of authority is entirely advantageous. How could it be otherwise? We so decree. (We are also not certain of the proper use, if any, of commas in the previous sentence, so We shall dispense with them entirely.) So let it be written; so let it be done.

We are certain that bacon was written about humorously upon the internets long before Mr. John Scalzi took it upon himself to tape bacon to his cat, but this was our first major notice of the theme. We were highly amused at the time. We told other friends to view the magnificence of bacon on a cat. We laughed and laughed and laughed. And while We'll reiterate that We are certain others attempted baconesque humor and adoration prior to this occasion, We're not alone in tracing its rise to prominence to that particular event.

A very brief perusal of websites will demonstrate that things have clearly gotten out of hand. The sheer volume of bacon-related links on the above-mentioned blog are adequate to cause coronary issues. It's madness. Sheer lunacy. Note: We'll admit that the above-linked blog has archives that predate Mr. Scalzi's post, but We are doggedly, (even piggishly), and steadfastly maintaining our assertion that Mr. Scalzi bears a disproportionate measure of the blame for the current overexposure of virtual bacon.

We hereby assert that the age of bacon humor is at an end. A moratorium of indeterminate length is now declared. And what, you may ask, has tipped the scales; broken the camel's back; engendered this moment of shark-jumping notice? This personage (whose intellect and long-term health prospects, We shall not openly question), has declared that he shall eat nothing but bacon for the entire month of February.

We shall say it again. We are no longer amused.

We must also, in all fairness, acknowledge that Mr. Scalzi has, on a number of occasions, gently admonished his readers to cease and desist in their compulsive need to send him links to each and every bit of bacon-related arcana that appears upon the aether. In this, We applaud him, yet We also must say, "Mr. Scalzi, as ye sew, so shall ye reap." This wholely untenable proliferation is, hereby, deemed your cross to bear and your only expiation shall be found in joining this holy crusade to reign in and quash this obsession with cured pork products.

Simply put. fellow denizens of the World Wide Web, your continued attention to all things bacon is proving embarrassing to an otherwise blameless breakfast meat. Bacon, in its innocent greasy goodness, stands on the brink of backlash from your questionable fixation. We realize you intend no damage to the meat you so worship, yet you risk irreparable harm to the object of your affection. Put clearly, you are making a mockery and a laughing stock of this yoemanly breakfast treat and We object most strenuously. We are no longer amused.

Consider, if you will, all of the other items upon which you might heap your love and irony. The leap to sausage patties is a short and easy one. Lamb chops, (the rib type, not shoulder cut), are an appropriately tasty and greasy treat worthy of your temporary adulation. Some cultures worship at the fragrant feet of stinky tofu. Haggis has its adherents and is intrinsically amusing.
Or if it is the gluttony-factor you seek, chocolate has been known to cause a visceral reaction in a significant slice of the population at large.

We also believe that you might find an appropriate proxy in non-food items. We wholeheartedly endorse ridiculing and/or championing The Snuggie. The surface has barely been scratched with regard to mining The Hawaii Chair's potential as blog-fodder. For God's sake, use your imagination. And failing that, feel free to produce more LolCats, (but kindly refrain from commenting on them in LolSpeak or otherwise.)

In closing, We implore you to desist from further sullying the previously fine reputation of bacon. Your continued saturation of the landscape with all things bacon will merely cause the uninitiated to recoil in horror and to never know the joys of the use of bacon to impart a smiley face to a duo of perctly formed sunny-side up eggs; to never experience the perfect BLT, leaving avocado unaccompanied and crunchless. You are only hurting the one you love.

We are no longer amused.

-----------------------------------
Update 2/7/09: We find ourselves slightly troubled. We cannot determine whether Mr. Scalzi is flagrantly flouting our new crusade or if, as his closing remarks seem to indicate, he has seen the light. Let us devoutly hope for a happy and low-sodium outcome.