Wrap-ups

To close a number of outstanding issues:

1) The kids did finally get paid, and I met Josa in person. Each kid received $250 Cdn for one day’s work. I could have quiblled that Children Two and Three worked two days, but I didn’t want to completely alienate Josa or the producers.

2) I still haven’t fetched any mousetraps.

3) The toe is coming along nicely.

4) I wrote my portion of the Will and Sylvia story for the collaborative script project at the Screenwriting Life. I spent my pages trying to tie things together, but I may have only succeeded in adding a new twist.

5) The lab at Concordia worked fine Monday in JOUR 319, but Wednesday in JOUR 202, I couldn’t get the projector to work. After class, I found Simon, the TA, who informed me that they have discovered that the ceiling-mounted projector freezes up. Only unplugging it will reboot it. It’s a good thing I have a few strapping young lads in my classes to reach it for me.

6) Soly hasn’t written back after my offer.

7) If you use Safari 10.3.1 on OS 10.3.9 and Blogger undergoes maintenance, you need to close and restart your browser to get www.blogger.com to show up again. Clearing your cache won’t help.

Bleh

I feel like crap. I have a headache and after an unusually rhinovirus-free year, I’m coming down with a cold. I also have more work than usual to prepare for tomorrow’s JOUR 202 class. The class used to hook up to Infomart through Telnet. This is my first time teaching it through the Web interface. It’s easier in some ways, less powerful in others. Regardless, I had to teach myself how to use the Web variety, and then write up lecture notes on the process.

Sunday, while watching yet another substandard episode of “Family Guy”, I was caught in a brainstorm. I thought up a decent plot for the short Nearmiss and I will be writing. She liked my idea “A LOT”. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that she makes some money in the biz – neither of us is an amateur writer, although I still am an amateur screenwriter.

We hashed out an outline in chat Monday afternoon. She said it reminded her of a “Twilight Zone” episode; it is of that genre. She said she’d take first whack at a treatment and get it to me Wednesday.

Time for me to send some notes on “Medieval” to Alex. In some aspects, it resembles “Sheep’s End”: medievalized pop music (Alex used the Beatles, I used New Order and the Hoodoo Gurus); supernatural beings; and the whole swords-and-sorcery culture and audience.

I also have to get in touch with Lorne. I probably send him “Sheep’s End” as a sample. If he likes it, we may end up collaborating.

What with how I feel, and the workload, I had to cancel on hockey tonight. 🙁

Bonus observation:

Not a single obituary has mentioned Don Adams’s work on the execrable Canadian sitcom, “Check It Out”.

Are things happening?

All of a sudden, I’m very busy with scriptwriting. I may even make some cash from it.

A small group of TriggerStreet users is holding a non-competitive project. Teams of two people take on a genre and McGuffin and have to come up with a script for a short film up to ten minutes long. I’m teamed with a woman who goes by “Nearmiss” and we have to put together a SF script based on a watch.

Our title is due tomorrow morning, and I only just found out that the teams were sent out Friday night. Thanks for trashing all of Nearmiss’s e-mail, Videotron. I just switched the default e-mail on my TriggerStreet account to my Gmail address.

I’m also chatting with a member of the Montreal Screenwriters group about writing for pay. he has a number of scripts partially done and wants to pay to get one completed, so he can shoot it. I think I can get one of his comedies done.

Lastly, I’m on deck for the collaborative screenplay at the Screenwriting Life blog.

And then there’s all the stuff I’m doing for Alex. I feel particularly proud of getting his PowerBook back on his wireless network after a Tiger update wrecked the networking scheme. I had to create a new AirPort port under a new name (LN AirPort), delete the old AirPort port. set the port to keep scanning for networks, and created a specific network setting rather than have the computer log on automatically. I have more work to finish for him, as well.

It’s going to be a busy week.