Another whirlwind weekend! Fun but, at times, weird.
Friday, Faye and I ditched work to putz around. We shopped a little, to finish off our Halloween costumes. Then we hit happy hour at Julia's. We were waited on by a man who looked like a young Giles from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. That made me rather giddy, despite the fact that he was pretty gay. We ate delicious food and drank beer at 4pm. Then we headed back to Faye's to watch the debates with Dom and Sherrard. As most of you know, the debates were ABSOLUTELY FUCKING INSANE. Bushy was grasping on to sanity by a tiny tiny thread, as illustrated by the fact that he was yelling at the audience and coining such catch phrases as “The Internets” and “Babbling Green Eyeshades”. Meanwhile, Kerry was intelligent, gentle, personable, and for the first time, I wanted to vote for him because I liked what he was saying and not because of necessity. That still could have had something to do with who he was juxtaposed against. But when he gave his answer to that raving pro-lifer about his stance on abortion, I was very close to standing up and cheering.
We then tried to watch Lady in White, but it was curtailed because we were just to drunk at that point. That's what we get for making drinking game rules for the debates.

Saturday, I went to see DiG! with Faye, Elyse, Gene and Andrew. It was a REALLY well orchestrated documentary about a band called the Brian Jonestown Massacre and their one-sided rival with the Dandy Warhols. Basically, the premise is that the main guy in the BJM is a mad genius with severe emotional problems. He has every opportunity to be a much bigger star than the Dandy's but he constantly sabotages himself with drugs and hissy fits. The film was extremely intense, and at times, hilarious. Afterward, I had a mini anxiety attack because I had just watched a man's life fall apart before my eyes. I do, however, recommend the film.
Later, we supped at the Canterbury and rushed off to see Dom's short “Kitchen Soup For the Soul” play at the NW Film Forum Local Sightings Festival. It was part of the “Tragedy and Comedy” series of shorts. Dom's played right after a very long “short” about people dying/killing themselves/living in drafty houses. The best part was that the women who played the dying, neglectful mother in the previous short, also played the mother in Dom's short. That's comedy, baby.
After a day in dark theatres, we went to the Wok and Grill and were horrified to discover that the greatness of the place is catching on with the locals. This is upsetting as I was hoping we would be the only ones who would annoy the old lady who runs the place and make her stay up way past her bedtime. If other people do it too, we won't be special in her eyes. Sad.
After a brief excursion to the Rosebud, where we realised we never want to go there again, we had one final (probably unnecessary) drink at The Satellite and then retired. Good times and loud conversations were had by all.

Sunday I nursed a hangover (why do I even TRY to drink hard alcohol anymore?), fucked around in the apartment, went to yoga (great class!!) and then it was MY turn to see my work on the big-er screen. “Terry” played in a series called “Dancing and Dating”. I'm pleased to say that “Terry” looked great on the big screen. The music was a little loud, but that's what happens when you ROCK. It was also, in my opinion, one of the better pieces. But there was one, called “Rent's Due” that seriously kicked the asses of all the shorts I've seen so far. I hope you can all see “Terry” on Thursday at 7:30 and you will also be able to catch “Rent's Due”.

This morning, we all arrived for our Monday morning 7am crapfest. Everyone, that is, apart from the Lil'est Dictator, who fucking requested the 7am meeting time in the first place. She arrived at 7:50 and her only contributions were to bitch at Boss Man for making jokes, violently smack her tea bag around inside her cup, and ask me if I've done my homework. (She assigned me readings to do “outside office time” in order to “better acquaint” myself with my “new position”. I haven't done them). Hate. Her.
It's going to be another long week.

October 11, 2004
Categories: Dear Diary, I'm Working . . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Much to report.
First of all, I got my raise! That is very exciting for me. I will finally be able to start putting some money aside. It will take effect November 1st!

Second, last night Dom, Faye and I saw a sneak preview of I Heart Huckabees, the new film by David O. Russell (Three Kings). I was a little nervous at first because the previews made it look like an Eternal Sunshine rip-off (and indeed critics have been perpetuating that rumor). But this is not at all true. (I also realised that the reason these comparisons are being made is a sad one: There just aren't that many introspective films out there). Where Eternal Sunshine examines ONLY the effects of romantic relationships, I Heart Huckabees goes whole hog. It is about the meaning of existence in a meaningless and often cruel world. That sounds very heavy, and sometimes, it can get emotional, but the film is also hilarious. At times, uproariously so. Mark Walberg, it turns out, is not just a good actor, but a GREAT one. Jude Law also does a great job and it appears that he has the Johnny Depp curse of beauty and it will take a lot for him to convince casting agents that he's more than a pretty face. But this will help. Jason Schwartzmann was as good as he was in Rushmore. He's got perfect, dry comic timing. I loved this movie and I will see it again. You guys should too.

Third, tonight, after Faye and I have a writer's meeting, we will begin our annual October Friday Film Fest wherein we watch a classic horror film each Friday during the month of October (we're all about literal titles around here, people). Tonight's selection will be “Carnival of Souls” which is one of the first (if not THE first, but don't quote me on that) zombie films. And also one of the best. You should ALL come over and celebrate the best month with us, zombie style.

Anecdote: Last night, while we were waiting in line for the movie, an S.U.V. (of course) full of frat boys drove by, grunted and threw a banana peel at us. They found this hilarious and drove away laughing like buffoons. Back to school, indeed.

October 1, 2004
Categories: Dear Diary, I'm Working . . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Hello my little breakfast pastries.

This morning was my first ass-early meeting. Boss man and I were the only ones there because Lil D. is on vacation (till Wednesday, I am Lil' D.-less!!) and the other guy forgot. It was a good opportunity, though, because I was able to go over all my bullet points that I wrote out on the bus on the way home on Friday. The end result is that Boss Man is going to re-visit the raise thing. He saw my point about deserving to be compensated for doing two jobs. He also saw my point about doing Lil D's work and said that maybe we can get her to officially hand over some of her clients to me (since I'm doing the work on them anyway) and then I will get commission on it. Yay! Again, nothing immediate is going to happen, but I could be seeing a significant increase in income very soon which ALMOST makes getting up at 5:30 worth it. ALMOST…

This weekend was great. Our readthrough on Friday was very successful. People seemed to enjoy it and laughed at all the right places, so that is promising. We video taped it so that Faye and I can re-visit it and pinpoint exactly what works and what doesn't. We realise that while we have a pretty solid comedy, we want to make it a little more meaningful than that. We need to inject some character into it (in other words, we need to Whedon-ize this mo fo). So Faye and I need to have a few more beer-laden writing sessions. I believe we can make this thing more than just “entertaining”! Yipcha! After the reading, we bought more beer and got a little crazy with the karaoke machine. Our neighbors must LOVE us.
The next morning, my landlord came by with a plumber to fix our shower fawcett. I had totally spaced on the fact that she was coming and so, when she walked in, she was greeted to a mess of a living room including beer bottles strewn everywhere and a video camera set up. Uh…hello elderly landlord. Welcome to the home of the “Indies Gone Wild” video series.

Saturday we saw the opening of Shaun of the Dead. The theatre was chock full of die-hards. You could tell because the clapped at the end of the movie even though no one involved in the making of the movie was in attendance. Also, you could hear people playing “I know more than you” (AKA “AintItCool Trivial Pursuit) before the movie started. No sign of Fan Boy though. He must have been grounded. Everyone seemed to enjoy the movie so we won't be having another LJ spat :) After, we went to Wallingford and ate some pretty delicious (albeit overpriced) food.

Sunday was pretty typical. Laundry, grocery store, yoga class, impending doom about Monday morning.
And here I am slacking off as usual. The difference is today I am dog tired. But hopefully, I gots me a raise comin'.

OOH! The ps: is that late last night, after I was SURE we were out of the running, I got an email that stated that “Terry” has been selected to be shown in the NWFilm Forum Local Sightings Film Festival. It will be playing October 10th at 9pm and October 14th at 7:30 pm. Please come and check it out on the big(ish) screen! Jub jub!

September 27, 2004
Categories: Dear Diary, I'm Working . . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

So I just got a decree email from my boss regarding that “Meeting After Hours” thing. His decision is as follows:
-Since we couldnt agree on whether to come in an hour early or stay an hour late, we are now doing both. So on Monday we come in at 7am and Wednesday we leave at 6pm.
-I had to open my big fucking mouth. In an attempt to get him to NOT make us work an extra hour unpaid, I suggested that since we usually leave early on Fridays, that we just maintain the normal office hours on Friday and use THAT as our meeting time. Well, he liked that idea. So he tacked that on too. And now we are meeting 3 times a week with no leaving early ever.
Obviously, this puts a damper on many things for me. If I want to have time to have film meetings and work on film projects, my evenings are even more full. No more yoga twice a week, I reckon. Unless I want to have exactly ZERO evenings a week at home to chill.
No staying out late on Sunday nights ever either.
And I STILL make fucking ass peanuts compared to everyone else in this company. On Monday, I am going to talk to my boss and see if he can't expedite the raise process for me because this is fucking bullshit. I can understand these lifers wanting to put more into the company, but why me? WHY ME?!
AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGG!

Maybe I'll get lucky the apocalypse will happen soon and swiftly.

September 24, 2004
Categories: Dear Diary, I'm Working . . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

I am very disgruntled this week. If The Lil'est Dictator tries to get me to do one more thing that's her job, I very well might get violent with office supplies. This morning, in our meeting, she said “Since Jessica handles all the paperwork NOW…” as if I have only just started doing that. I have been doing that since before I was even full time here. Something that came as quite a surprise to Boss Man when I had my 6 month review. And now she seems to have stopped handling alerts all-together. So someone in Portland asked me to handle them. I explained that it wasn't my job and I would inform Lil' D that it is not done. Her response “Why don't you take care of it and let me know if any of us need to do take any action?”. Um…because it's YOUR FUCKING JOB!!!! FUCKING HELL!!! You get paid 3x as much as me and slowly but surely I am taking over all of your job duties while you sit in your office and study to get your certification to become MORE QUALIFIED and make MORE MONEY to do nothing.
Hmmm. I wonder how much pressure is needed to break skin with a letter opener…

September 21, 2004
Categories: Dear Diary, I'm Working . . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

This weekend wasn't nearly as hectic as last weekend. Yet somehow, I am exhausted. Probably something to do with the tremendous bruise my spirit took on Friday afternoon. We were having a lovely little meeting when, out of nowhere, Boss Man suggested that we pick an hour a week OUTSIDE of office hours to meet and discuss business strategy. I won't go into too much detail. Just to say that I suggested about a hundred different things to try and get him to reconsider. I mean, what's so difficult about picking an hour DURING THE DAY and sticking to it? Why do I have to give up an extra hour of my free time (UNPAID mind you) to discuss something that, ultimately, I will be the LAST PERSON to benefit from?! It really upset me. Especially since I seemed to be the only person who was opposed to the idea. My free time is precious to me because it embodies the phrase “free time”. I feel like I'm in prison when I'm here and when it's 5:00, I get to be on parole for a while. What was decided was that we would pick a day and come in at 7am to meet before work. Granted, I would only have been sleeping that extra hour. But on the other hand, I WOULD HAVE BEEN SLEEPING THAT EXTRA HOUR! Sleep is important to me too. Any why was Lil' D. so keen on this idea? Jesus Christ.
Anyway, I spent much of Friday evening harping on this so I won't go into it too much now. I'll just say this. Even though it's not a HUGE deal, something happened to me in that meeting. Something was irreparably crushed. I haven't worked out the full implications of it yet. I just know that it is now even more important that we make Snow Day and then Plight. It is vital to my existence that I don't have a life of 7am unpaid meetings to look forward to.

That aside, the rest of the weekend:
Friday night we had our budgeting meeting for Snow Day, and we realised that it's a damned good thing we're still willing to make movies for no money. Because if we were to do this the proper way, we would need to start robbing banks.

Saturday, we went to an interview, hosted by Women In Film Seattle with Lauren Schuler-Donner who has produced bazillions of successful films including Ladyhawk, Pretty In Pink, and X-men 1 and 2. (And 3!). The lecture was pretty informative and cool, but the highlight was when she mentioned her husband, Dick, was sitting in the audience. Dick…Dick Schuler? No. Dick Donner? Who's that? Well, it's none other than RICHARD DONNER, the director of such films as Ladyhawk, Goonnies, Superman, Scrooged, The Lethal Weapon movies, and most importantly, Michael Crichton's Timeline. Needless to say, we were a little starstruck after that. So was this woman (who was inexplicably dressed as Carmen Sandiego) who's “question” after the lecture was whether or not Lauren and “Dick” would sign her Ladyhawk DVD. The Q & A was pretty annoying, as many of the questions went like this:
“Um…My question is, I'm a writer/director/producer and I'm working on my first feature. I've been trying to get financing and blah blah blah blah blah. Me me me. What would you suggest I do?” (Read: Will you please finance my film?).
She handled these questions with grace as did she the honest-to-god Inside The Actor's Studio ending to the interview. (Which we had joked about earlier).
After that, we went to the Metro to see Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow which was, as I expected, dumb but pretty. I also got to see my nemesis, Fan Boy, dressed in a stupid Landmark Theatres poncho, trying to chat up one of his female co-workers. The fun part was where we filled in the dialog.
FANBOY: “Hey, my mom goes to bed at 9:00 on Saturdays. Do you want to come over to my basement apartment tonight to watch Blade II?”
GIRL: “Um…is that a flashlight in your pocket?”
Later, we made dinner and watched Firefly. I heart Firefly.
Sunday we cleaned house and then went to yoga which kicked my ass.
And now I'm here. Joy of joys. Lil' D has already tried to get to me do another one of her jobs. Luckily, boss man called her on it and she is in her office pouting.
My saving grace today will (hopefully) be reading Elyse's blog about her weekend and having lunch with Dom.

September 20, 2004
Categories: Dear Diary, I'm Working . . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Yesterday sucked exactly as much as I imagined it would.
At 6:23am I caught the bus downtown. At EXACTLY 6:45, I arrived at the rendezvous point. It was windy and pretty cold. I hid behind a pillar as I waited for E. and Lil’ D. At 7:05, Lil’ D called and asked where I was. I said “I’m waiting where we said we’d meet”. She said “Ok, we’ll be there in 2 seconds”. It was then that I realised that SHE got picked up. Why didn’t anyone offer to pick me up? For fucks sake. Anyway, 10 minutes later (not 2 seconds), they pulled up, and I found out it was E’s fault for running late. However, I bet if Lil D had taken the bus we all would have arrived at the same time. We drove to West Seattle to pick up Boss Man and then switched cars (though I have no idea why. They were identical in size and comfort) and we were off, stopping quickly at Starbucks for, what I consider to be, the most rubbish drip coffee in all of Seattle. At 7:45 we were finally on I-5 south. Boss started off the music selection with Dr. Dre, which isn’t SO bad, but 7:45 am at full blast is neither the time nor the volume for it. After that, Boss asked ME what CD’s I brought. I couldn’t believe it!!! I listed off a few and they all liked Queen. So in MY Queen CD went. Things were looking up. However, Boss’s A.D.D. set in (he CANNOT listen to a whole song or album) and he began skipping tracks. I had to request to be allowed to listen to all of “Don’t Stop Me Now” and then he took the CD out. Lil D. said “My turn!!” and whipped out her Usher CD. Luckily, Boss had the same A.D.D. with Usher, but when he turned down one song to talk to E., Lil’ D said “I want to hear the whole song and it was interrupted. Play it again from the beginning!”. It was played 3 times in a row. (This was repeated on the way back with her Cranberries CD. Turns out, the Cranberries are a lot more annoying than I remember them to be). Long story long, eventually, Boss put in his mix CD on which were such favorites as Sarah McLachlan and that FUCKING TRAIN SONG where he rhymes “life” with “life” THREE TIMES IN A ROW.
We arrived a bit late for the meeting, but they were kind enough to wait for us so we wouldn’t miss a SINGLE MOMENT of the riveting speeches. I didn’t understand most of what was said, probably because I wasn’t paying attention. I spend some time trying to zone out and go into my Cave. When that didn’t work, I started doodling and writing down snippets of mis-heard phrases or things I thought were funny. Here are a few examples:
“Heroes or goats?”
“Evil Crest”
“So that’s in my pipeline”
“The Perfect Storm” (Which has become one of those wonderful little business meeting catch phrases, apparently)
“My shorts are gonna go WAY up”
The rest of it was absolutely meaningless to me. I feel bad for my Portland counterpart who was forced to take down the minutes. In fact, I feel bad for him in general, because while Lil D sucks a fat one, at least I have the two boys to make things marginally fun. The rest of the Portland lot seems utterly humorless.
At around 1:45, someone said that we were behind schedule so we would let the next guy speak until the photographer came at 2:30 and then we would RESUME THE MEETING AFTER!!! It was then that I realised we were NOT getting out of there at 3. We took our group picture and stupid little individual pictures (I hope my mom buys me package B so I can exchange wallet sized ones with my friends) and small talked until everyone was done. Then we resumed the fucking meeting which could have potentially gone on for several more hours has Boss not spoken up and said we had to leave. We got out of there around 4:20 (dude), and headed back up. More music debacles occurred wherein fucking bitch complained about my Radiohead CD because it “wasn’t the one with that creep song on it”. Happily, Boss discovered that Oasis is my very favorite band and he happened to have Morning Glory. He tried to skip “Hello” (one of my favs on that album) because he wanted to get right to the Wonderwall. Lil D said of “Hello”: “I don’t really like this song” so I said “Can I PLEASE hear all of it?”. And I was allowed to. Then he skipped to Wonderwall, Don’t Look Back In Anger, and Champagne Supernova. That’s very annoying for obvious reasons but beggars cant be choosers, now can they? It was no music for the rest of the trip (during which the three bitched about the way of things in Portland) which took forever because we had to stop at Burger King where I got the world’s worst Veggie Burger. Then we had to go back to Boss’s house to get E.’s car. E gave me a ride home, which was nice, but it was still after 8:00 when I got home. Longest fucking day ever. I never want to spend that much consecutive time in that small a space with my co-workers again. Which will make the drive for the X-mas party that much more exciting. Maybe I can score some Valium for that trip.
Sorry for the long, whingy rant. I just needed to get it out of my system. Thanks for bearing with me.
Oh, and one more thing: I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S ONLY FUCKING THURSDAY!

September 16, 2004
Categories: Dear Diary, I'm Working . . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

I had a great time last night at mine and Dom's birthday dinner. Thank you all for your kind gifts and great company. The food was delicious too and my leftover daal beckons me from the office refrigerator. I can't wait till tomorrow! I get to take the day off and spend it wandering around Seattle with Dom. And then, of course, tomorrow night I will be tossing 'em back at the Canterbury! Wahoo!
But in the meantime I have to get through today which will be trying because I have a (possibly Indian wine induced) headache and I have a billion things to do BECAUSE I'm not going to be here tomorrow. Which is why I'm bloging now instead of working. Ha ha. After I do my billion things, I have to spend the evening with my co-workers doing one of our “Appreciation Events” with the people who send us our business. It would ordinarily be fine, but I'm sure the Lil'est Dictator will find some way to make things needlessly complicated. Although tonight will be nothing compared to having to spend SIX HOURS in a cramped car with her next week, when we drive down to Portland for our quarterly meeting. Maybe I'll keep a hip flask with me…
I am excited, though, because I finally have a friend at work! Of course, he is in the Portland office, but I feel I have an ally nonetheless and it's nice. (Hello P!:) I found out yesterday that he also has experienced the evilness (evilocity?) of the Lil'est Dictator and is not a fan. Hooray for solidarity! Also, hooray for knowing in advance that I will have someone to talk to at the Christmas Party (I didn't meet P last year because I skipped the X-mas party to see Return of the King on opening day with you lot).
Anywhosel, I should get to work now. Right after I raid the ibuprofen…

September 9, 2004
Categories: Dear Diary, I'm Working . . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

So far today I have gotten birthday wishes from Dom and the All Things Zombie.com Forum Moderator. I have a feeling they all forgot at work which means no free lunch. And I'm not ABOUT to whinge about it like Lil' D. did. So…Oh well. When they figure it out, maybe I'll get another day off.

I'm looking forward to dinner tonight with my very good friends. I love you guys.

I gotta go make a billion brochures now.

September 8, 2004
Categories: Dear Diary, I'm Working . . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment