Back in the saddle

Well, after being laid off from my regular job last week, I’ve decided to get back into doing extra work. After making sure I had all my photos updated and signing up with a fourth agency, I had my first day of work today on Grey’s Anatomy. I don’t watch that show (I think I saw one ep right after it started) but this was fun to work on. I’d thought I had gotten to all the major studios so far, but I guess not. As such, I wandered around looking rather lost until I finally made it to extras holding, after asking several people along the way. One thing that’s nice about doing hospital shows is the scrubs. They’re terribly comfortable, like pajamas. It’s too bad I can’t just wear them around normally. This time, I was not merely a nurse, either. I got a doctor’s jacket (which stated my name was J. Eberton M.D., though my ID badge gave a conflicting viewpoint) and blue scrubs, which I was told meant I was an intern. Hey, it kept me warm and made me feel more important, so I’ll take it. Extras holding was what looked like part of the hospital waiting area. Which was nice in that the chairs were arranged so that it was easy to have conversations. This is important, because chatting with the other extras is what takes up the vast majority of time. Fortunately, everyone was really nice. That’s one of the best things about doing extra work. The other extras are always so nice. It’s great to be constantly meeting all these new people. It very quickly gets to where you find yourself chatting and laughing with this small group of strangers as if you’re old friends—even someone as fairly shy as me. And everyone’s always so helpful in explaining and discussing things about the casting agencies, how things work on set, etc. Plus, you can hear some pretty interesting stories about what it’s like on shows. For example, I knew from the casting hotlines that both Two and a Half Men and Big Bang Theory don’t allow blondes on set. This is rather odd, is it not? Well, from what the extras were saying, there are different reasons for this. Apparently on Big Bang Theory it’s because the lead actress is blonde and had a huge ego and doesn’t want anyone upstaging her. On Two and a Half Men, apparently it’s because Charlie Sheen just got married. They say it’s not that he doesn’t like blondes, it’s that he likes blondes too much. Which is both hilarious and sad. “Sorry, you can’t work on this show because you might have sex with Charlie Sheen.” I admit, both of these reasons seem slightly far-fetched, but if you can offer a more realistic reason for the total banning of a certain hair color, I’d like to know. I ended up being used in two scenes for this episode, though I’m probably blurry in the background if I’m seen at all. The second was a simple walk down the hall, get something, walk back during a hallway dialogue scene with Katherine Heigle and some other people. Pretty standard. The first was just standing at an office counter looking busy with a chart so that there’s something in the background when a door opens/closes, if anything’s actually seen through the door. Nothing particularly exciting about either of those in themselves. But I was just so happy the whole time because I love being on set. It’s hard to explain exactly. It just makes me happy. Part of the fun is seeing the actors. As I said, I’m not a fan of this show, so that wasn’t exciting in itself (not like when I did House or Monk, for instance). Katherine Heigle was on Roswell, which I liked, but that still wasn’t all that exciting. I knew Sandra Oh is also on the show, so I wasn’t surprised to see her. From the way she interacted with some of the crew, she seems nice. What was really funny, though, was seeing someone I didn’t expect (because he’s a recent addition to the cast and, as I said, I haven’t seen it in some time). During that first shot, where I’m fake-note-writing, two of the actors come out of a room at the end of it (the scene is taking place in the other room). So while we were all standing around between shots, I noticed a tall, good-looking guy and thought to myself, “Hey, the redhead actor’s cute.” And so after several surreptitiously snuck glances at him for that reason alone, it came as quite a shock when I realized I recognized him, and I nearly laughed that I hadn’t caught it sooner. It was Kevin McKidd, the star of a show from a couple years ago called Journeyman which was sadly short-lived, but very good. (Really, such a good show.) Of course, he was blond in that show, which I’ll use as my excuse for not recognizing him sooner. And he’s Scottish, which is just . . . always worth mentioning. So then of course I had to force myself not to stare, though at one point he seemed to be blankly looking off in my general direction, so I gave him one of those fake not-really-a-smile smiles (you know, the kind that says, “I acknowledge your existence as a human, but that is all!” Haha, social skills for the win!), which he returned. Really, I do try to smile genuinely at people when I do these things, but I think at some point I’m afraid of being a bit too excited and smiling in a way that would freak people out. Those of you that know me well know that I don’t get freakishly excited about a lot of things, but like I mentioned, I really enjoy being on set. Even if it goes ten or twelve hours, I can still be bouncy from just being around the lights and the cameras and all the stuff going on. (I feel a bit like Guy Fleegman on Galaxy Quest. “I’m just happy to be here!”) Unfortunately, the shoot didn’t go into overtime (which would have meant we’d get paid more). I really wish this job paid more, because it’s super fun in many ways. But after such a long time of very limited social interaction, it is very nice to get out and actually talk with people and be around others. Oh, yes, and the episode number, for those that care, is apparently 5.23. I don’t know when it airs, but you probably won’t be able to see me anyway.

Sorry about the one big paragraph.  WordPress doesn’t like my formatting.

Figures

So apparently there’s no Stargate tonight (well, last night now, I suppose) because Ghost Hunters is taking over the whole night.  Which is sort of annoyingly ironic in itself, that my current favorite show is sort of being preempted by a show that I work on.  The really frustrating thing is that I just learned that Amanda Tapping (Sam of SG-1) was the guest investigator tonight.  Which would have been pretty awesome and kind of a thrill for a Stargate fangirl like myself… except that tonight, Halloween, is the live show, which means that I don’t have anything to do with it and it’s pretty much the one episode of the year that bypasses my station completely.  (And since I don’t watch finished GH episodes because the field tapes are far more interesting and enlightening…)  Grr.

Given that we had very little to do tonight, I kind of wish I’d found out she would be on earlier.  I may have gone downstairs to the GH offices to see if I could watch a bit of what was going on (I could probably have said that I wanted to help, as I heard that they were going a bit crazy).  Ah, well… woulda coulda shoulda, as they say.

Breaking Dawn, book 1

The third book in the Twilight series is broken down into three “books”.  As the novel is about 750 pages long, I thought I’d review it by book, starting with the first and shortest.  There will, of course, be spoilers here.

The first book centers around Bella and Edward’s wedding and honeymoon.  It begins by showing us Bella’s new car that Edward got her, a ridiculously expensive, ridiculously hard to get car.  It embarrasses her.  Again, Bella seems really silly.  I couldn’t help thinking, “Yeah, you’ve got an inhumanly rich and handsome fiance who wants to give you the world.  That’s gotta suck.”  It is a bit sad not having her old truck there, though.  It was practically a character itself.

At least we got to see the reactions of her parents to the news of their engagement.  The way the last book ended, I was a bit worried that had been skipped over.  Charlie’s initial assumption that she was pregnant, while totally predictable, was also kinda funny.  What teenagers sit there and calmly tell the girl’s dad that she’s pregnant by beginning with, “We have good news”?

Jasper and Emmett showing up to drag Edward off to his bachelor party, which apparently was going to involve more mountain lions and grizzly bears than strippers, was rather amusing.  Actually, I’d kind of like to read about that little trip.  The idea of them sitting him down after killing some large predators and giving him what was at least in part a sex talk… is pretty funny.  Also, when Jasper peeked in Bella’s window, reassured her and winked before he left reminded me of that part of Midnight Sun where he initially wanted to find and kill her, which was the whole reason Edward started coming to her at night in the first place.  Oh, how things might have been different.

The story of the immortal children was interesting, and actually made perfect sense.  This idea of vampires freezing not only physically, but mentally, developmentally, at the age they’re at when they’re changed (a term I like far better than the overused ‘turned’) seems to be somewhat new.  In this world, with these rules, it seems totally natural that vampire children would be outlawed.

The wedding chapters involved a great deal of description of getting ready and the frills of the wedding than a lot of other people would have written.  Again, it’s indulgent.  But maybe that’s the draw of these books.  It’s fun to read about Alice dragging Bella off to get her ready, about all the hubbub about the day.  It’s a girly thing, I guess.  I thought it was terribly sweet that Carlisle was Edward’s best man, especially since that avoided the problem of which one of his brothers would he pick.  And if he’d had both Jasper and Emmett as his best men, given Alice being Bella’s maid of honor, it would kinda suck for Rosalie, being the one really blatantly left out.  It was also really sweet that Seth was there, that at least one of the werewolves wasn’t prejudiced against them and could be friends with the vampires.  That’s nice to see.  The description of Edward dancing with Esme afterward made me think, what would Edward’s human mother have thought if she’d known it would be another woman dancing the mother/son dance with her son on his wedding day?  Seems like that would hurt a little.  On the other hand, she’d probably have been thrilled just to know he’d get a wedding day, that she’d done the right thing in asking Carlisle to save him, even if it meant that Edward didn’t really even remember her.

Once again, we’re reminded that the Cullens are probably the richest people on the planet, and I think my suspension of disbelief on that matter is being stretched to the limit.  Not only do they have their own private island, which they seem to spend very little time in, but it’s got a cleaning staff and a really nice house with a plasma TV and more DVDs than a rental store.  Seriously, there’s just no explanation for that kind of excess.

Now, I don’t want to sound pervy, but… Meyer’s been pretty dang descriptive so far when it comes to Bella and Edward’s physical relationship.  She’s never shied away from giving us details, as evidenced by the 2-3 pages she spent describing a single kiss in the last book (although that was with Jacob, but still).  So why is it that when it finally gets down to them having sex, we’re given one of those scenes like in old movies where all you see is the guy sweeping the girl off her feet and carrying her to the bedroom?  There’s not even a reaction of any kind when he sees her naked for the first time.  I mean, come on, the story’s been building to this since some time in the first book and now Meyer’s decided to be coy?  Naturally, this is a book for teens, not adults, so it’s not like she could be completely detailed, but a bit more of what they thought and how they reacted in the moment would have been nice, and would have been more in keeping with how she’s handled things so far.

That said, Edward’s rather violent tendencies are pretty dang funny, even if all we get to see is the aftermath.  The whole pillow-biting and headboard-destroying is just… well, funny.  And the poor negligee… hehe… the term ‘bodice ripper’ comes to mind.  I do have to question Bella’s sense, though, being so willing to risk him slipping up rather than waiting the couple years after she’s changed for her mind to settle down back to normal.

Edward’s going into complete shock when he realized she was pregant was pretty funny, and I do wonder what was going through his head then.  I think a lot of people take issue with Edward’s immediate desire to abort the baby, but I have to say, it doesn’t bother me.  I mean, he knows far better than Bella how dangerous the baby is, that it’s not like a normal baby.  I’m not sure how he knows at this point.  It’s obviously not common knowledge that it’s possible for a vampire and a human to have a child, or he would have taken some precaution to make sure it didn’t happen.  I imagine there may have been some legends, some horrible stories of such a thing happening, about a woman getting pregnant by a vampire and then suffering a horrible, gruesome death.  Stories that no one really believed until it was too late.  And it’s been pretty well established that the most important thing to Edward is to keep Bella safe.  I’m not surprised that he doesn’t have the same instinctive reaction to protect the baby that Bella does.  After all, he can’t feel it moving inside him.  It’s not all that uncommon, as I understand it, for some men to not really feel connected to their children until they actually see them, and for someone as single-minded as Edward, it’s not surprising at all that he’s one of them.  For that matter, I can’t imagine it would be easy for any man to have to choose between the woman he loves and a baby he’s never even seen.  Though I have to think they didn’t exactly have a family meeting before deciding to go ahead with Edward’s plan.  I mean, Carlisle’s reaction makes sense.  He knows probably better than anyone how deadly giving birth to a vampire child would be for Bella.  And given the fact that he knows Edward would kill himself if she died, it pretty much comes down to an unfortunate matter of one life or two.  Besides that, I think he’d respect Edward’s wishes in this matter, knowing that it’s probably the only thing that would save Bella, that he couldn’t offer any other alternative.  He wouldn’t be happy about, though, and I imagine he’d still try to come up with some other option.  However, while he would go along with the necessity of it, I have to think Esme wouldn’t be all that thrilled with her son for deciding to kill his child, or with her husband for doing it, considering that she tried to commit suicide after losing her own baby.  And Rosalie, of course, would probably be infuriated that such a thing could happen in her own house (particularly since she’d likely care more about the child than Bella)–Bella was smart (for once) in calling her for help.  Jasper, practical guy that he is, would almost certainly support Edward’s decision, unless he thought for some reason that saving the baby was more worthwhile than saving Bella.  Of course, if he could sense emotions coming from the baby (and given the rate of development, that seems like a possibility), that would probably affect his view on the matter, as well.  I’m not sure how Emmett and Alice would react.  Alice would probably see the outcome, or possible outcomes, and that would affect which way she’d feel about it.  Emmett would probably also go along with Edward’s decision, but I think he’d be really depressed about it, because he seems like the kind of guy who would love to have a little kid around the house to play with and be a bad influence on.  That’s what I’m guessing, anyway.  Let’s see if I’m right…

New Moon, ch. 17 and 18

(spoilers)

Chapter 17 -

- Heh.  Bella forgot that vampires drink blood.  Naturally.

- Sounds like Alice is talking to someone in her head, too.  What’s going on here?

- LOL.  “He’s sort of a werewolf.”  Is that like being sort of pregnant?

- Go ahead, Bella.  Tell her all about what you’ve been up to.  Tell her about how you’ve spilled everything you know about her and her family and their special powers to their mortal enemies.  That’ll calm her concerns.

- “the truest of true loves”?  Gak.

Chapter 18 -

- Why can’t they be there when Alice is there?  She already said she wasn’t around when the treaty was made.  Shouldn’t that mean she’s not part of it?

- Hey, there’s something the werewolves have in common with the vampires.  They all think Bella smells bad.

- “He’s at the funeral.”  LOL!  Yeah, ’cause that’s not going to send them into a fit of worry and have Edward racing back at all.

- Oh, apparently he’s not racing back to check on her, like a sane person would.  No, he’s racing to go off himself.  Apparently Edward is channeling Harry Potter circa book 5.  What is it with teenage boys racing off half-cocked to do ridiculously stupid things?

In related news, I saw the new Twilight trailer.  Lines like “I’d rather die than stay away from you” and “You are my life now” just sound so much cheesier when you actually hear them.  And since when did they climb trees like spider monkeys?  Also, I’m not sure how I feel about that horribly obvious attempt to incorporate the image on the cover of the book.

New Moon, ch. 11 and 12

Yep, still doing this, because apparently that’s about as exciting as my life gets at present.  (Well, there’s the novel I’m writing, but most of the people who read this already know about that, anyway.)

(Spoiler warning.)

Chapter 11 -

- “I yearned for his carefree laugh and his infections grin (…) his warm hand around my cold fingers.”  He also doesn’t make a half-bad guard dog either, evidently.

- Heehee.  “Holy crow.”  That’s quaint.

- Yeah, Bella.  You are pretty stupid for not realizing that sooner.

- Looks like Quil might be on his way to the fur club, as well.  If these noticeable growth spurts are any indication.

- Yep, Jacob’s definitely beginning to remind me of Edward now.

- Aw, Edward’s voice in Bella’s head is kind of sweet.  Hey, if she can’t have her boyfriend, at least she can have his voice in her head to warn her when she’s about to do something stupid.

- Hahahaha!  Boy, I loves me some angst.  Yes, it’s very sad, but having skimmed ahead enough to be reasonably sure of a happy outcome all around… I do love the angst.

- “I’m not good enough for you”?  Wow, Jacob is seriously taking some pages from Edward’s playbook.

- Wow, abandoned by two guys for her own good in less than a year.  Ouch.

- Aww.  Aside from the utter cluelessness as to the proper response when one’s offspring is ill (which evidently doesn’t also include injury, if the van incident in the first book is an indication), Charlie really is a good dad, and one of the few just plain decent folk in the story.  Also ignoring the fact that Bella’s able to dupe him with some frequency and he didn’t realize her boyfriend was a vampire, even after supposedly eating pizza with him (really, just the two of them there and he didn’t notice that the other person wasn’t actually eating?).

- Well, it seems Bella’s subconscious, at least, sees the resemblance.

- What’s this?  An exciting cliffhanger?  Finally.

Chapter 12 -

- “I’m trying to keep my promise!”  “When did you ever promise to kill yourself falling out of Charlie’s tree?”  LOL!  Guess Jacob’s not quite as good at sneaking into Bella’s room as Edward is.

- Um, “the day we first met”?  But what about that whole deal they made at various points about him being an old friend she’d see in the summers?

- So, are we supposed to be on the same page as Bella here?  Are we really supposed to wait around for her to figure out something that was blatantly obvious several chapters ago?

- The answer comes to her in a dream?  Really?  Isn’t that kind of a cop-out?

- Why has she not thought that maybe it was the crazy rogue vampires killing hikers?  She’s not the cleverest of girls, is she?

Comic-con Sunday

Sunday morning, I drove down to San Diego for the last day of Comic-con.  Unfortunately, it turns out this is about the least interesting day to go.  Most of the panels I’d have wanted to see had already taken place on other days, so I spent most of the time checking out the gigantic room with all the booths.  It was absolutely mad.  If you don’t like crowds, this is not the place to be.  It was cool to check out all the merchandise, though, and there were some fun things, like a life-size Batman and Indiana Jones made of Legos, and the big studios had booths pimping their upcoming films/shows, and some of those were sort of flashy and fun.  EA Games had a booth where I got to play the Wii version of the upcoming Harry Potter game.  It was sort of fun, but a lot of the innovation is lost without the Wii remote.

I did try to go to one panel (there were two others I was going to try to hit, but I missed one and I completely forgot about the other).  It was running late, apparently, because when we got into the ballroom, a panel for the upcoming film Hamlet 2 was there, so we had to sit through that (saw enough to decide I probably won’t be seeing that movie), then the people came out for the panel we had come to see.  It was the one for the new Harold and Kumar movie.  Now, I haven’t seen the first one, so I didn’t really care too much about the movie, but Neil Patrick Harris was supposed to be on the panel, and since I’d missed the Joss Whedon/Dr. Horrible panel, I figured it was the next best thing.  But then when they came out, they said he was in London, so I was like, “Psh, forget that” and left.  Though later someone gave me a “WWNPHD” bracelet that they got somewhere, which I found quite amusing.

I decided to dress up a bit, just for kicks, so I dyed my hair pink and went as Tonks.  There were some people who really went all out with the costumes.  I saw one guy just as I was walking past him who had a great Nightcrawler costume, and there were some pretty great anime outfits, as well.

I met up with some ladies from an online fanclub there, all super nice and fun, and hung out with them a little.  After the con closed, we went to dinner at a place that I think was just called Studio Diner and had some good food.  Then it was a three or so hour drive back home.  Quick trip, but it was fun.  I think next year I may try to make the whole thing.

(I know this is an especially brief and uninteresting blog, but I’m afraid I just don’t have the time or inclination to put the effort into it that I usually would, so I figured this was better than nothing.)

Finally

I moved on Saturday.  I now live in North Hollywood.  See, my thinking is this: Northridge –> North Hollywood –> Hollywood –> Beverlywood –> Beverly Hills.  It’s all part of my master plan.  I figure it should take about four more years.

Also, very much hoping that I will not have to speak to or have any dealings with my former landlord ever again.  Although, as one final eff-you from the place, when I left with the last bit of my stuff, I grabbed the convenient handle of the big metal sliding gate (which I’d almost never used) to leave, slid it neatly closed, and crushed my fingers between the metal post and the gate.  Two of them are more or less fine now, but the middle finger of my right hand is still all swollen and purple, so I’m now typing with nine fingers.  Which is a lot of fun, considering my job consists entirely of typing.

Also, I set up the new computer I bought a week ago, all excited to start playing with it, but there’s some sort of problem.  It’s like the signal’s not getting from the computer to the monitor, even though it’s all plugged in.  Although I haven’t heard anything from the speakers either, so I’m worried it may be a problem with the computer itself.  So if anyone has any tips, feel free to share.

I hate ants with the fiery passion of a thousand suns

Really, I don’t care for them at all. I mean, WTF? I’m getting ready to go to work and I happen to look down and notice a swarm of at least hundreds, probably thousands, of ants in the kitchen sink…or crawling all over the bathtub ledge…or on my bedroom floor…or, in today’s case, in a massive trail from the corner of the room, across the floor, and into and onto the sofa, where I’d left an unopened bag of cat food, still in the plastic bag from the store, and my ex-roommate’s cat (who still lives here) apparently tore it open. So my other ex-roommate quickly sprayed their entry point, then I had to throw away a ten-dollar bag of cat food and spray again just to make sure, and now I get to freak out about it all night and hope they’re gone by the time I get home.

I really, really hate ants.

In good news, I was approved for the apartment I applied for yesterday, which means I don’t have to worry about that any more. And I get to move out in another week and a half. I just hope I’m not eaten by ants before then.

I really hate apartment-hunting in L.A.

Hello there. For anyone who’s wondering why I haven’t written anything lately, the answer is that I’ve been pretty busy. Not fun busy, of course. More annoyingly busy. Here’s the deal: my landlord apparently hasn’t been paying his mortgage, so the house I live in is getting foreclosed on. It was supposed to go up for auction this Monday, but got pushed back a month. Meanwhile, the landlord gave me and my roommate until the end of July to get out, while carefully not mentioning anything about a foreclosure and simply saying that he’s been having financial issues. As you can see, this is not a guy who’s up front with us, and was in fact lying about the foreclosure notices we’d been getting in the mail for several months, telling us they were nothing to worry about. So you can understand my reluctance to give him any more money (i.e. July rent). Thus, I am trying to find a place to move as soon as possible. I don’t have high hopes that I’ll get my deposit back, but I hope that I might guilt trip him into it, as I’ve been a good tenant and he has no reason at all to keep the money, since he’s certainly not going to be putting any more money into a house he’s losing. And if that doesn’t work, at least I can give him a piece of my mind about it, because, like I’ve said all along, someone who drives a hummer can’t complain to me about money issues and expect to get any sympathy. So until I find a new place and get this all settled and sorted, I’m probably not going to have a lot of spare time or energy to do a lot of the things I normally do, like write. I’ve been pursuing various options, but so far haven’t found anything for sure. There’s one I’m considering now, but the place won’t be vacated until next Tuesday or so, but hopefully after that I’ll be able to look at it and see whether I want it or not.

Meanwhile, Lysander is attempting to nurse on my arm.

…Great. Now my sleeve is all soggy with kitten drool.

New blog

Greetings all who may read these words,

I’ve decided to move my blog over here, as I like some of wordpress’s features, and also in hopes that a new blog will give me incentive to blog more frequently.  If I succeed, that means there will likely be a lot of randomness and talk of books/movies/tv, as my day-to-day life is in fact very boring.  So, there you have it.