Thursday, April 14, 2011

The Listener/ laughing about death/ goals

Apr. 11 The Listener: I was watching The Listener about Toby who's a paramedic and telepath. In the beginning of the episode, Toby rides a motorcycle again. T is on the job as a paramedic and he reads the mind of a man who doesn't speak English. He is thinking about a stripper. T smiles at seeing that image. lol.

Then it gets kind of serious when he sees the image of what the man's wife is thinking. He sees that she poisoned her husband. There were some good flashbacks with Charlie who got written off, so there's continuity.

At the end, T and his IIB team have to look for a criminal where there are all these cargo containers. There was good suspense and tension during the hunt and chase.

T: Needle meet haystack.

Joke: This is from a few months ago.

Jay Leno: Where do Chinese people go out to eat at to celebrate Chinese New Year? IHOP.

Headline: I was watching Jay Leno and his Headlines segment with my little brother.

JL (reads ad): "Arousal can."
Me: What?
P: Aerosol.

Oh yeah.

Ebay: This was from Jay Leno's segment called "Stuff we found on Ebay." It's real items that are being auctioned off. The audience has to guess if it's sold or not sold.

One ad said: "Wedding dress: Bride left Groom." The Groom modeled the dress on the site. Imagine a man wearing a strapless wedding dress. The starting bid was 99 cents. It sold for $225. That's a pretty good price for a nice wedding dress. Wedding dresses can cost thousands of dollars and it's only worn once.

Apr. 12 Dialogue: I was quoting from The Simpsons. It was the episode where Troy McClure was hosting a special that showed some deleted scenes.

Troy: You're probably thinking "I've seen every episode of The Simpsons, you can't show me anything new."
My sister thought the next line was: "Then I say you're a pompous ass."
Me: Actually Troy says (sternly): "Yeah, well you really got an attitude mister."

However, I will say my sister's line is pretty good.

Laughing about death: My sister bought the entire Buffy series on dvd and she's been watching it. I watched some with her. We were watching the "Homecoming" episode.

Buffy: Do you have parents?
Cordelia: Yes, two, unlike some people.

That was mean for Cordelia to diss Buffy's parents for being divorced. Well if she said that when one of Buffy's parents were dead, that would be way too harsh. However, I have seen meaner. It was done on the sitcom Arrested Development. Michael was giving marriage advice to his sister Lindsay and her husband Tobias.

Tobias: I don't know why you're giving us marriage advice, look at you, you're not married. Why? Because your wife is dead.
There is this awkward pause. I'm sure the audience is thinking: "Oh my god, I can't believe he said that."
Tobias: I'm sorry, I'm terribly sorry.
T walks away.

I thought T was going to say: "Why? Because your wife is....never mind." But he actually said it. If Michael was single or divorced, it wouldn't be so mean.

It also reminds me of The Jamie Kennedy Experiment, this reality show where they play tricks on people. JK was on this fake talent show where he falls off his unicycle and the audience laughs and boos him. The audience was having the trick played on them. The host asks about JK and JK talks about his wife dying earlier that year.

The entire audience went dead silent. I guess pun intended. I was like to the audience: "Oh what? Now you're not laughing? You were laughing at him earlier. Yeah, that's right, show some respect."

There was that time back in 2002, I was watching this interview with the British boy band Blue on the internet.

Host: Do you guys own any pets?
Lee: My cat committed suicide.
The audience of teen girls: What?!
Lee: Yeah, well my cat-
Antony burst out laughing.

A laughing about death. I thought what Lee said was very unintentionally funny. I didn't laugh, but I did it find it funny. Lee's cat gotten run over by a car, and it looked like the cat was trying to get run over.

Boston Public: I was reflecting on this show and it has some really good story lines. That should help inspire my writing. This is a show about the teachers in this high school. It's a comedy drama.

- A jock shoots someone before school starts,and the school has to find out who did it. It's in lock down, and the only thing to identify the shooter is that he's wearing a letterman jacket. They thought it was this one guy, but then a teacher notices a jock wearing a letterman jacket and his hand was bleeding. That's how they figured he was the shooter. He did hold a gun to the teacher's head as another teacher talks him down.

- A boy finds this notebook that has plans for a school shooting. Later he is hailed as a hero. Then he turns out he created the notebook so he would be known as a popular hero. I didn't expect that one.

- An Asian girl is a slave. She works to pay off her immigration debt of $250,000. That's human trafficking.

- A guy was abused by his mom who forces him to be an overachiever. He actually chops off his mother's hand and tied her up in the basement. She actually survives and is later out of the basement. That was crazy.

- A guy was molested by a priest. I guess that was a little "ripped from the headlines" because this story came out in 2001 when the public first learned about child molestation in churches.

- A girl is a stripper because she needs the money.

- A teacher and a student fight, and the teacher knocks out the student. The student was played by Josh Keaton. He was in the boy band No Authority, but quit the band to pursue acting. He's more successful in acting than he was in music. The boy band had 2 cds, but they were never really that big.

Goals: I was reading an article in The Globe and Mail and it said that having goals are important and makes you happy. That by having goals it gives you and your life a meaning and purpose. It also makes you interact with people, so you socialize and that makes you happy. You also go out to achieve your goals so it makes you exercise and travel and explore.

1. Getting my college diploma- I met a lot of people by going to college and I socialized with them.

2. Getting a job- My job search last year, I was going all around town, doing interviews and meeting new people. That was a new experience. I interacted with a lot of people through the internet too because I contacted all my NAIT friends to ask about job prospects.

Now I have a job. But I'm still doing my job search for that office career. So I am still traveling around town and meeting people through job interviews.

3. Getting my script produced- I went to college to study Professional Writing. I met a lot of people in school, but also contacted the Writers in Residence at the library. I talked to Conni Massing, Chris Craddock, and Marty Chan about my scripts. I have emailed, met and/ or talked to producers, writers, and readers.

Priorities: I was losing motivation in achieving my goals, so that's why I wrote the above. I was losing focus on my goals and that's why I'm writing the below list.

1. Get a job- done that.

2. Get an office job- I looked for an office job today (like everyday.) Yesterday when I ran into Dan L., I was so inspired that he got a writing job, that I went and looked at bank websites. I usually go to bank websites and apply to positions on my days off, but after talking with Dan. L, I couldn't wait for two days later and did it that day. Dan. L has a career. I want a career too so by talking to a peer, it really pushed me.

3. Get my Fighter script produced- I haven't been doing that. Today I emailed 3 people about it to get myself motivated.

4. Get the Rain script finished- I pushed myself to get The Fighter first draft of 90 pages written in 6 months in 2009. I did a lot of rewrites to it later, but it was for the most part done. I wrote a 45 page script for a producer in 1 month because he told me to this year. I finished all my Professional Writing school assignments on time. I need to set myself a deadline and write it.

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