The Planet of Insanity and Monotony
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "wildezword" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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12:37 pm
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3rd Horror Script Optioned
Hey folks, everything's been going extremely well. I haven't posted lately because I haven't felt like being a blogger the last few months.
Yesterday, I officially optioned a 3rd script. Technically, its actually not an option rather it was an assignment...the production company approached me last September to write an adaptation of an H.P. Lovecraft short story. I didn't market myself to get this opportunity, rather the relationships from LEFT IN DARKNESS got me this gig. The contact was made through Chris Engen, one of the LEFT IN DARKNESS lead actors. His career is blossoming. He landed the lead role for the official prequel to EASY RIDER. You can see some pictures related to that project on his Myspace page:
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=85598263&albumId=0
So after seeing my final draft of the Lovecraft story, the company has now committed a sizeable chunk of resources to the budget and is now looking for a partner.
Back in September when I was pitched the idea, the producer asked if I could make the script extremely faithful to the short story, but intertwine modern day sensibilities and themes. Initially, I was like WTH, how do you make a faithful and modern 90-page adaptation of a 7-8 page short story that's supposed to take place in the 1920's? And it's Lovecraft...people are going insane merely by seeing things that aren't described.
But, I did it. If you stare long enough at a blank page anything is possible. My take on Lovecraft has gotten some curious reactions. My manager says its the "best thing you've ever written." A couple friends also said that. I was like, "huh? I think the best scripts I've written are my Sci-Fi's and Fantasies." When further clarified, the comment was about the accomplishment, not the script. They said the script is extremely respectful to Lovecraft while walking the tightrope of being fast-paced and cinematic. I preserve almost every line of Lovecraft's dialogue from the short story. Almost every Lovecraft visual and situation is used. I preserve almost all of Lovecraft's original characters and keep them in the roles he envisioned them. I also interwove the trademark Lovecraft moment of characters going insane purely from a visual (btw, I'm very proud of the trick I developed to pull that off).
The only moderately big departure from Lovecraft is that the production company asked that I flip the genders of one of the characters. I argued about it, but ultimately the reality is that securing a budget for a Horror movie with no female characters can be very difficult. And Lovecraft does have a tendency to use a lot of tweedy, nerdy men in his stories. It was felt that this quality could be a little overwhelming in a visual medium.
So, that's the latest news from me. Flavia's doing great. She's a little stressed from some projects she's working on. However, she's doing fine, is very productive and is finding her satisfaction.
My 2nd Horror script DESPAIR'UL seems to be doing well. Ed Sanchez e-mailed me last month saying he thought everything on the project was proceeding smoothly and that they plan on moving it into production this year.
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10:42 pm
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Romania and Wedding pictures (at last!)
I finally finished my writing projects and have time now to sift through hundreds of photos.
These photos are long overdue in being posted. I've tried to pick out the best ones. I've very blessed to have been married both in the day and the night, in the sunshine and the rain, in a small private ceremony and a huge chaotic party...I love it all.
Aida's photo's.
Here are some of my sister's pics of Romania and the wedding. As you can see, the wedding cake has 8 flaming Roman candles on them. If I seem a little out-of-mood it's because the cake actually caught fire on the side facing us. Flavia tried to blow the flame out, but it only made the flames bigger. Very funny.
The girl with black hair is my sister Aida. The dorky looking guy is my sister's husband and my brother-in-law David. The cute boy monster is my nephew Ryan. And of course, the family is Flavia's brother Alex, mother Catalina and father Mihai.
Austin Wedding photos.
These are photos in and around the Austin wedding day. The marriage ceremony was very quiet and peaceful. If anybody is getting married soon, I highly recommend having Judge Jan Breland preside. She's very smooth and soothing. Hopefully, I'll have video up soon, so you can see her in action.
The actual wedding pictures occur more often towards the end of the slideshow. The wedding party was pretty ethnic. I'm Chinese-Arabian, my bride is Romanian, and the guests included my Chinese mother, a German girl dating a Japanese man, an Indian-Muslim, my practically albino best friend Ryan and, of course, my sister, nephew and her husband. And our judge was a woman with a thick Southern accent. Very cool.
Romanian Wedding photos.
Here are a bunch of photos from the wedding in Romania. I'm not very happy with the job the photographers did, but que sera, sera. The party lasted from 8 pm to 6 am. We're at the top of a restaurant with a large attached balcony. Unfortunately, they didn't get many shots off the balcony because there was an expansive garden beneath us.
The woman in red is Flavia's best friend Andrea. The pictures really don't do her justice. She's gorgeous. The woman in green is also one of Flavia's best friends, also named Andrea. She made that dress herself. In photo F1030011, the two women on the far left are both also good friends of Flavia, also named Andrea.
It was really easy remembering their names.
By the way, Andrea (except for the one in the green dress) is single if any of you American guys feel adventurous. In fact, all the women to my right in photo F1030011 are single. Hopefully, I can get video clips up before New Years, so everyone can see the party move.
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06:31 pm
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Bon appetit
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061228/ap_on_sc/cloned_food
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06:46 am
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Giving yourself your dreams as this year's Christmas gift.
Merry Christmas, everyone. I saw this video and liked it a lot. Basically, Will Smith talks about giving yourself everything you want in life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4NBJG1B4KE
...Chris Gardner and I had this in common...that we both believe that our desire and our commitment to the idea of our future is all that matters...Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity. Why would you be realistic? What's the point in being realistic?
Only in the last two years have I finally begun to grasp how important it is to believe in my dreams and believe that a path exists to my dreams from no matter what position in life I currently inhabit.
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10:41 pm
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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS
An excellent movie. It's pretty much everything you'd expect in this type of story, but probably only those peeps who see movies very, very often might feel fazed by that. What makes the story of Chris Gardner even more powerful is that the movie doesn't even come close to portraying the horrendous shit he went through even before becoming a father.
Some links:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&endeca=1&isbn=0060744871&itm=1
http://joblo.com/interview-chris-gardner
And, of course, his website:
http://www.chrisgardnermedia.com/
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05:20 pm
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Introducing the Dec. 20th club.
Today is a wonderful day! Why, you ask? I have my loved ones around me. I have a lot going on careerwise. Birthday loot is starting to roll in. I love it all! Another amazing year lived.
This day doesn't belong to just me. In one of the weirdeset flukes I've seen, Ed Sanchez, co-director of BLAIR WITCH, e-mailed asking if today was my birthday. Not only is today Ed's birthday, but it's also Rob Cowie's birthday, another BLAIR WITCH producer, along with Jamie Nash, screenwriter for Ed's latest release ALTERED.
Weird. It seems Haxan Films has a Dec. 20th fetish. We're like a living script pitch. "Four men come together to make Horror films, but little do they know they have a mysterious connection..." We could all be characters in IDENTITY 2 or something.
My first present today was a Remington electric shaver. I've been wanting one for YEARS, but was always too lazy to get one. I'm kind of tired of the old foam/razor thing. And...I got a copy of Guild Wars: Nightfall. How cool is that when your wife gives you a video game? And it's perfect, I love PVP. Gotta keep some presents closed for dinner tonight with family. Urg.
Have a great day, everyone!
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06:33 am
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Relative sizes, Part III
This is a cool video.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3974466981713172831&sourceid=docidfeed&hl=en
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06:09 am
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LucasArts is hiring.
Haven't posted a job link in a while. I just got this announcement from their newsletter. LucasArts is hiring artists, among other things.
http://www.lucasarts.com/jobs/
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04:38 am
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10 Tech Concepts You Should Know for 2007
Popular Mechanics has a neat year-end article. I find myself visiting Popular Mechanics a lot lately.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4205068.html
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03:48 am
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Ryan pans Pan's Labyrinth
http://blog.rosika.com/?p=128#respond
Not a very promising review, at least for me. He and I tend to share the same taste in movies.
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05:33 am
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So, exactly how big is Earth compared to the Sun compared to Antares?
Same food, different flavor, as a previous post.
http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm
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02:59 am
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States in Germany propose real prison terms for video game violence.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1969920,00.html
Politicians in Bavaria and Lower Saxony have proposed a new offence that will punish "cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters" inside games. Early drafts suggest that infringers should face fines or up to 12 months' jail for promoting or enacting in-game violence.
Ah, yes, I can't wait for them to try and enforce this if it passes. Imagine, German jails overflowing with teenage murderers...or "murderers" rather.
And all of you World of Warcraft fanatics who have been running around killing furry animals for Gold and XP...beware! I'm certain every single one of you has killed thousands...THOUSANDS. You're a walking virtual holocaust.
On the other hand, if these laws actually pass, remind me to go hunting for German players once I get back into my practice of grief-mongering PVP. Just kidding. Kind of. But, not really.
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08:04 pm
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So, exactly how big is a Star Destroyer compared to the USS Enterprise?
Geek heaven. A man compares the actual proportions of all famous Sci-Fi vehicles and ships to each other, as well as all sorts of quirky pop culture things like Godzilla and King Kong.
http://www.merzo.net/
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07:24 am
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British man gambles his life savings on one bet in Las Vegas
And this is what happened.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGCdBsOIKYA&eurl=
And some very pretty nature photos as a bonus.
http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/article.cfm?issueID=79&articleID=1158
(both links yoinked from www.blog.rosika.com)
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08:17 pm
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Blind kid uses echo location
This is amazing. Attitude can produce miracles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBv79LKfMt4&eurl=
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06:48 pm
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How to prank a telemarketer.
This is hilarious.
http://howtoprankatelemarketer.ytmnd.com/
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05:53 pm
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Women talk 3 times as much as Men do?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=419040&in_page_id=1879
...the simple act of talking triggers a flood of brain chemicals which give women a rush similar to that felt by heroin addicts when they get a high...
..."Women have an eight-lane superhighway for processing emotion, while men have a small country road," said Dr Brizendine, who runs a female "mood and hormone" clinic in San Francisco.
I don't really know what to believe about this article. I just find the implication that women find talking as addictive as heroin to be funny. However, if you get a man on the right topic, we never stop talking either.
I love this part, made even funnier by its attempted scholarly way of describing it.
There are, however, advantages to being the strong, silent type. Dr Brizendine explains that testosterone also reduces the size of the section of the brain involved in hearing - allowing men to become "deaf" to the most logical of arguments put forward by their wives and girlfriends.
But what the male brain may lack in converstation and emotion, they more than make up with in their ability to think about sex.
And the Comments section has some funny moments in it, too.
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05:44 pm
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Teen creates nuclear fusion in his garage.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061119/NEWS03/611190639
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09:09 pm
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The wonder of onion rings.
Today, Flavia ate onion rings for the first time in her life...and liked them(!)...after disbelieving that such a thing could possibly taste good.
She's been in America for quite a while even before meeting me, but every once in a while we stumble upon something new for her.
The last one was carrot cake. After all, how could that possibly be any good? :) When we told her parents about how she likes carrot cake in a video call they both wore faces of disguest. Carrots in a cake? That's insane.
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06:59 pm
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We have 18 free tickets to the Cap City Comedy Club
Lately, Flavia and I have been semi-regular visitors to Austin's Cap City Comedy Club. I highly recommend it for Austin locals. My wife recently won a bunch of tickets through a drawing.
We'd like to invite up to 18 warm bodies to come join us for a comedy show next Wed., Nov 22 at 8:00 pm. The headlining performer is the hilarious Jimmy Roulette. Does everyone love laughing?
http://www.capcitycomedy.com/comedians/Jimmie_Roulette.html
If you wish to attend, please e-mail me your name ASAP and any possible guest coming with you. My e-mail address is wildezword@yahoo.com. You can also respond here on my LJ if you wish to attend. We must inform the club how many people are coming and their names beforehand, so they can identify you at the door.
Here are the details:
JIMMY ROULETTE
Wed., Nov. 22 at 8 p.m.
Cap City Comedy Club
8120 Research Blvd
Austin TX 78758
512-467-2333
Be aware that there's a two-item minimum. So, even with free admission, you'll still be spending around $10 to $20 for two people depending what you order.
Also, my wife has been having a taste for Romanian food. So, at 6:00 p.m. before the show we'll be going to a restaurant called "Drakula." If anyone wishes to experience Romanian cuisine, the restaurant is in the same parking lot as the Cap City Comedy Club.
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