February 17, 2003
3:20pm Monday

WE ARE THE ENERGY, WE ARE THE SAME AS YOU

Please let me never see another frame of this again in my life. At least the CG's finished, which it wasn't last month when I first worked on it. In fact it was kinda fun seeing a big dummy-doll with popped-out eyes catching on fire. But now it's all fancy, all ILM-ed out and shit.

They added some footage since the last time I went through it, and there's a shot of Jet Li hanging off a helicopter that wasn't there before, and I swear... it's not Jet Li. They totally hired some Taiwanese stuntman to scrunch up his face and hang from the landing gear. The tricks of the trade you see when you're scrutinizing every frame, it's crazy.

I did work on this too, which looked pretty dang amazing for CG. Not so sure if those brothers made the right decision making a character say "Fuck!" in a 10-minute tie-in trailer, though. Could've opened the audience up way wider if they hadn't.

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So I watched the Michael Jackson special. Thanks to those of you who offered to lend me yours, but my friend's mom taped it and that seemed the most expedient way to go. It was surprisingly unscandalous, and I think he's just really messed up and not, probably, a sex-crazed deviant. He's odd, certainly, and he lies like a rug, but I don't know if that translates into him being a monster. It's pretty funny, by the by, that Tatum O'Neal went out of her way to issue a press release stating that she did not, in fact, attempt to seduce Michael Jackson. Her quote was something like, "That would've been pretty advanced for a twelve-year old!" Perhaps not in her case.

His poor offspring, my God. Poor Blanket, Paris, and Prince. Jesus.

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Last time I wrote I forgot to document my dumbfoundedness over "About Schmidt" not receiving an Oscar nod when it *won* the Golden Globe. What's up, Academy? And didn't everyone generally agree that the script for Gangs of New York was ass even though some biggie names worked on it? I think them biggie names might be the reason for the nomination.

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Much work is being done to the front of this house, and as is our tradition, it has been well-documented on video. In the midst of the block-laying, I shot nice footage of Paul leaping through the air to eat dirt, which shall appear in Quicktime form here shortly. Given how I've been with updating I wouldn't set your watches to it, but my wish is that you'll be amused when it finally appears.

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Sometimes I wish I had a forum, because I'd love to hear what everybody thinks about writer's groups. Presumably some of you are writers, and some of you are in groups, and I'd love to know if you find them helpful and why. I've been having my doubts lately, and part of it is wondering if the time I spend driving to them and reading and critiquing other people's stuff and doing group-specific exercises and socializing wouldn't just be better spent writing. Hmm.