Dispatches from the Abyss - Wednesday, Oct. 7th

Well it took an extra day for me to get around to writing another Dispatch, but fear not, my intrepid readers, last night I did get some writing done. I have an opportunity to do some real script writing for a change and I do not want to jinx it so I am not going to talk about it too much here on the Opiate until there is actual news to report. Just keep your fingers crossed for me and with any amount of luck and a little skill you may see my name on the silver screen in a couple of years.

Monday, being the 5th of November, was Scott's birthday. We are all able to remember this because of the couplet we learned in V for Vendetta:

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
And Scott's birthday...

Wait a minute, that's not right at all, but it is marginally (VERY marginally) funny. Anyways, several of us got together and went to Truluck's for dinner where I engaged in an orgy of crab consumption that would make mere mortals blanch. While "All you can eat"* and "buffet open" remain some of my favorite phrases in the English language, I do not actively like crab meat. It is not that I dislike crab meat, but it is not something that I actually like. I will eat it without complaint** however the next time I am going to order a steak. The funny thing is that since Scott and I had discussed all you can eat crab night, I have been craving crab, or what I thought was crab. I have the same problem with Big Macs. From time to time I will just CRAVE them and the only way to get over it is to go buy one and eat it. Every time I do this I get about three bites in and wonder what the fuck I am doing because this sure as shit does not taste like the Big Mac I have been dreaming about for the last few weeks; in fact this taste pretty much like shit. Oh well. The second lesson of the night is that when purchasing gifts for Scott, Rob and I need to coordinate our shopping. While I am certain that Scott will find a happy home in his stomach for the two bottles of Macallan 18 he received this year, I am the girly sort that worries about my gift being somewhat original.

When I got home from dinner I pretty much crawled into bed and suffered through food coma until I was able to fall asleep. Tuesday night I spent working on my idea for the afore mentioned writing project and then hit Downing for a round or two with Scott. While I still like drinking at Downing, staff departures over the past year have sucked some of the fun out of the place. Back when John, Emily, Shannon, and Ashley were all there it felt like home. Now it is just another place to drink. With shitty jazz on Tuesday nights. We have got to remember that and stop going then. It is excruciatingly bad and Downing is not a good live music venue. A guy with a piano might work in there, but even a jazz quartet is too much.

Tonight I rushed home from work and then went over to a friend's house to discuss the super secret project. I feel pretty good since she is on board with the idea I sketched out last night, with a couple of modifications. Now I just have to work on breaking the story and then coming up with a treatment. Again, keep your fingers crossed as this might be opportunity knocking.

And now I am home getting my hour of writing pounded out before I retire to the bedroom and finish watching Casino Royale before I sack out. I got in the mood to rewatch the movie because of a post on one of the Star Trek forums I read. With every new announcement about the new Star Trek movie, which began filming today, the Trekkies get up in arms and bemoan how terrible the movie is going to be. The most recent announcement which spurred a paroxysm of fannish rage came from Philippe Dauman, the CEO and President of Viacom, Paramount's parent company, during Viacom's Q3 2007 earnings call. While discussing the upcoming slate of movies he said, "Paramount will close out the year with Star Trek, a completely reconceived version of this franchise by, again, J.J. Abrams." (You can view the whole transcript here if you are really that bored.) The biggest problem people have is with the word "reconceived." A lot of people are reading it as J.J. Abrams is throwing out everything but the names and trying to rebuild everything else about the franchise, including the core concepts. I believe this word really means nothing, particularly in this case. Reconceived is a nice buzzword that people like to throw around. What they want to say is, "This ain't your daddy's Star Trek," however since their audience is made up of high-dollar investors and not the Montrose Beer and Gun Club, they feel the need to use buzz-worthy words. Now I am not saying that the fears about the film are completely unfounded as people with significant access have expressed concerns AND from the sketchy details which have been leaked about the plot there is clearly going to be some reimagining shenanigans going on, but I am personally trying to take a wait and see attitude and think the CEO was talking out of his ass.

I said all that and the next response was some cat going on a tear about how he is sick of things being reimagined and reconceived. He had earlier posted a similar rant in which he singled out Casino Royale for reboot suckiness as they turned Bond into nothing more than a petty thug for hire. I was shocked when I read that but then figured what the poster was really bitching about was that, much like in the books, James Bond was not a nice person in the new movie. Sean Connery played Bond the right way. Once the movies went off-book and they replaced Connery, James Bond became a bit more sentimental. I was so in awe of his comments that I felt the need to go back and watch Casino Royale again. While I really enjoyed Brosnan's work as Bond, except for the last one which was a stinky, stinky poo, watching Casino Royale was almost like watching my first Bond movie all over again.

Well, it is getting on in the evening and I want to hit the sheets before midnight, so I am going to end this a little early so I can get it to the Opiate and into your greedy little hands. I think tomorrow night I have an industry mixer I need to go to for work, however I should be back on Friday when I will discuss the WGA writer's strike. Till then have a good one!


* While I was at the office on Monday my office mate, Brian, and I were discussing the plans for the evening and I told him that "all you can eat" were my three favorite words in the English language. Of course he pointed out that it was four words and after a VERY lame attempt at defending myself by claiming there was a hyphen in there I responded that he was right and now I was going to go be a snarky dick about other people's grammar and spelling on the internet for a while to make myself feel better. It worked.

** Well I will kind of complain about it here, but that's what blogs are for, right?