Friday, January 25, 2008

Lazy Weekend Charperson

Friday is my first day off on the weekend, since I work on Sundays (to put out Monday's paper). It's been raining for the past couple days, and today is wet and cloudy with rain off and on. We had an amazing rainbow over Hollywood which we could see out of the office windows on Thursday. (That picture is NOT doctored; that's really how it looked.) Maybe it's a sign that the WGA finally will settle their strike. Rock man (we have not given him a name yet, though I think Steve suggested Beuford) is now squeaky clean, wearing that same stupid smile.

Speaking of clean, I'm doing the laundry...all of it...lots of it today, rather than just sitting around vegging. OK, I'm sitting around vegging between putting loads in the washer and dryer. My goal is to have everything washed before Steve gets home from work, and to have sat around doing nothing at the same time. Also, I'm writing this, and putting something on this blog can take FOREVER, since often it takes several minutes just to open an edit window, or five to ten minutes to upload each picture. Then I get to goof around with the HTML coding to get the photos in the right place

Nothing much has been going on, at least nothing I can think of. The Oscar nominations came out on Tuesday, which meant a crazy day of putting together the 12-page noms package along with the regular news pages. By the time we left on Tuesday, we had put out 36 pages (well, 72, actually, since we put out 36 for New York and repurposed them as another 36 pages for L.A.) Add to that the extra pages we've been doing for the Sundance Film Festival coverage, and it's been a busy week at work. The NATPE (National Association of Television Production Executives) conference is coming up in Las Vegas next week, and the Berlin Film Festival is just around the corner and, before you know it, the Academy Awards will be upon us in late February. Oh yeah; and there's a Super Bowl in there somewhere.

In one of the few comments on this blog site (people need to leave more comments so I know you're actually reading this), my sister complained that I had pictures of her husband Dave on here and even Rock man (I mean, Beuford), but none of her. So here we go. This is a picture of my sister Kittie, for those of you who don't know her. She's really sweet and often pushy. She once gave me a coffee mug (which I cherish) that says: "Brother, you were always there to pick me up when I fell down (of course, you were the one who pushed me)." We have a very healthy relationship.

Enough for now. Remember to leave a comment (just click "nickname" and enter your name, fill in the comment box and that's it).

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Get Me to the Church On Time

Ed and Vicki got married on Saturday. This was the first church wedding I'd ever attended. It was a very nice affair, but no one told me I had lines, or that I had to sing songs. We all got a script (I'm sure it's called something else in church), and we kind of followed along.

Now, I have to tell you that I have this recurring nightmare where I'm backstage at a show and I'm put into a teddy bear costume and shoved out onstage where other actors in teddy bear costumes are doing a musical production number. I have no idea what the show is or what I'm supposed to do, so I just wing it. That experience went through my mind when I saw the script (that I'm sure they call something else), so I studied my lines before the wedding started.

As it turned out, the celebrant (that's what they call the minister doing the ceremony) pretty much walked us through it (motioning for us to rise and even telling us what to say before we had to say it), so if you weren't a practicing Episcopalian, you could still get through it without feeling too stupid. One thing that helped me feel not so bad was one of the maids of honor who fidgeted and rocked back and forth during the entire ceremony. With everyone watching her, who had time to realize I didn't know what I was supposed to do? I wasn't in a teddy bear costume, either, but a suit and tie is almost the same thing for me.

At the end of the service, Steve said when they were talking about love and devotion and the other good stuff, it reminded him of us. I told him that was half the purpose of a wedding; to remind people who are together just how lucky they are, assuming you don't hate each other. But really, Vicki and Ed are so well suited for each other, and I'm not just saying that because they might read this. It's really true for them. Two other people like that are Mary Ellen and Gary, who sat with me and Steve in the church, since we were just about the only people we knew.

The reception was at the Westin, which is just a walk around the block from All Saints Church. When we got there, the hall wasn't ready yet, so everyone stood outside in the large hallway waiting for the doors to open. There was punch and hors d'oeuvres (the crab cakes and mini beef Wellingtons were great) to keep us sated until the room was ready. Mary Ellen was our official hors d'oeuvres scout, but Gary was the one who figured out where we should position ourselves in the hall to obtain maximum appetizer coverage.

Once inside, it was a very opulent layout. In the middle of each table were kiddie toys, like gliders, Slinkies, paddle balls and generic Playdough. At each placesetting was foam clown nose and a funny nose and glasses in a bag. This is so Ed and Vicki. (They were sporting red foam noses when they made their entrance into the reception.) The buffet was very tasty, with chicken and salmon, and there was even a pasta bar, which was the stop for most people going back for seconds.

When it came time to throw the bouquet and garter, they invited everyone come forward and gave away prizes to the people who caught them. (I almost got the bouquet, but a woman in her 50s cut me off and the thing flew apart when she nabbed it.) They were prizes similar to what was on the table, like a badminton set.

They cut the cake and everyone was around them, taking pictures. You can see a camcorder and another amateur photographer in the way, but you do get a fairly good view of the cake and Ed. It was pretty good cake, for a wedding cake. I asked several people why wedding cakes don't every taste so hot, and the only answer is they have to make them ahead of time. Well, they have to make Hostess cupcakes ahead of time, too...well, come to think of it, THEY taste pretty terrible, too.

As the reception devolved into stunt glider shooting and toy paratroopers being hurled into the air, Steve and I left at the same time MaryEllen and Gary did. It was a really good wedding and a cracking good reception. I don't know if Ed and Vicki took a honeymoon afterwards, but if they did, I hope they're having lots of fun.

Monday, January 14, 2008

And the Weiner Is...

Was that boring or what? For those of you who actually tuned in to the "awards," you probably recognize these folks as the "presenters" of this year's Golden Globe awards. Personally, I was at work so I watched it on the E! streaming video page as I collected the winners so I could pull artwork. Even with the jumpy download, it was a tedious affair.

I got to work at 11 a.m. and spent a lot of time building the page templates for our reporting of the event. I took off around 7 p.m. and let the paginators (who did not arrive until 3 or so) take care of putting the dismal copy into the templates to create today's pages.

Actually, the copy wasn't dismal at all; quite clever, in fact. But the story it told was really all about nothing much happening. The whole thing was rather a non-event, and now it has people wondering what's going to happen when Oscar time rolls around. (After all, there's only a week or so before they announce the nominations.)

Whatever.

The one thing last night did point out is how absolutely unimportant the Globes are, awardswise, and how a handful of critics have turned their choices into something that everyone uses to gauge the potential Oscar success of the films in question. It's also important to remember that the vast majority of the human beings on this planet really DON'T CARE, if they're aware of awards shows at all.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Walk Between the Raindrops

It has been wet this week. Starting last Friday: Rain, rain, rain. Amazingly, none of it fell during my commute to the Miracle Mile from Pasadena. I am so lucky. But it has also been cold. Well, not cold like in Wisconsin cold or in New York cold...

All right, it hasn't been cold. It's been chilly, not getting out of the 50s during the day and dropping into the upper 30s during the night. But for people who are used to every day being in the 70s and 80s, this is cold. It doesn't seem to phase the little rock man on the patio: He's still grinning and his empty glass eyes follow you around wherever you go. He is endearing, in a creepy sort of way.

We took the Christmas tree down last Saturday, which is always much quicker than putting it up. The other decorations almost jumped into the storage boxes by themselves. Afterward, we went out to a pre-wedding dinner (not the rehearsal one, since we're not in the wedding party) at Yamishura, which is a great Japanese restaurant up on the hill above the Magic Castle in Hollywood. A very enjoyable evening, if a little on the pricey side.

This upcoming Saturday (the 12th) is our anniversary (2nd), which is the official, the-state-certified-our-domestic-partnership anniversary (no presents, please). Other than going out to dinner, I don't think we have anything planned.

The Saturday after that is Ed and Vicki's wedding, which should be a lot of fun. (They don't want presents, either).

Beyond that, things are going well. The WGA strike, the cancellation of the Golden Globe Awards and all the attendant parties has had a real impact on work at the Reporter, but we persevere. Another entry will inevitably follow here.