Figured it was high time to update this thing.  What it'll be about, however, remains to be seen, as I have no plans for this post.  I'm just gonna run with it and see what I come up with...

( Family Guy Discussion! )

( Theater Vs. School Discussion! )

( Web Series Discussion! )

Well, I think that's all for now.  Other than everybody needs to watch "Glee", "Dollhouse", and possibly "Flash Forward", I haven't decided yet.  But given how I reiterate something like that every time I post, that's not really news.

The season six opening of Buffy (where they resurrect her) is really, really dark.  Like, darker than the show has ever been.  I'm sorry, but tearing apart Buffy's likeness (the Buffybot)?  Willow killing a deer?  Willow's arms slashed open while she vomits a live snake?  Showing Buffy's decaying corpse before she ... re-inhabits it, and then realizes she's essentially been buried alive?

This is traumatizing stuff.

It doesn't mean that I'm going to stop watching the show, of course.  It was just really off-putting for a while.  Was it because they switched networks, and UPN was more lenient about the icky stuff than the WB was?  I'm not sure ... but, at any rate, things seem to be getting back to normal now.

I mean, normal for Buffy.  Which isn't really that, um.  Normal.  Yeah.

In related news, the plot for the Buffy fanfic has changed somewhat.  Oz is prominently involved.  So is Angel.  I'm sure you can guess where this is going.  (It will be a SUBPLOT, the main plot is all action-y.)  Also, I'm working on Episode 4 of the web series and am gonna look for prospective actors at the theater BBQ tomorrow.  It's a better plan than it sounds.  Hopefully we can start shooting soon.

I CANNOT WAIT FOR DOLLHOUSE.  Joss Whedon, stop being so awesome.  Geez.

Yes, Felicia Day ... yes I do.

Thanks to stolen_garden !

(First day of classes was today.  Might post about it later.  Might not.  Who can ever tell?)

First, I got up early to go to work, where we were all told we would continue to get paid Premium Time (basically, they pay us more than we usually get, as motivation for working during Freshman Orientation) through tomorrow, which is freakin' sweet.  I also saw the freshmen Painting the Rocks, a ritual every class goes through where we hike up the hill to the white rocks that spell out the initials to the school's name and repaint them.  Also as per tradition, it turns into an epic paint war and everybody gets soaked in the stuff; and so later I saw people all walking around campus covered with white blotches.  It was Awesome.  (I remember when our class did it; they tried to pretend it wouldn't happen, but then somebody let out a battle cry and dumped an entire bucket of paint on a Peer Adviser and all Hell broke loose.)

Then we drove up to the town where our friends/former roommates are living this year (they're commuting to campus) and went shopping for dishes, electronics, iPhone cases, and suchlike.  I got the director's cut of Watchmen, which we started to watch when we got back to our room but halfway through we realized we were hungry and it felt like a whole movie had already gone by, so we decided to pick it back up tomorrow and get food before watching the new Futurama movie instead.  It was hilarious.

Also, I finished the rest of what will probably be my last BBQ Fritos bag in my entire life (they've discontinued them permanently, it seems) and I feel strangely at peace.  It probably also helps that I have Cherry Dr. Pepper to wash it down with, which is amazing but will probably also be discontinued because it will fail to make a gazillion dollars, which is a sad thing, I promise, so enjoying it while I can seems to be a good approach.

Now, off to do a quick bout of late-night writing before work tomorrow, and possibly I might clean my room.  Or maybe I'll watch all the new DVDs I have until my brain leaks out my ears... did I forget anything relevant?

In the past month your office has failed to do its job correctly in any and every way and caused me to begin to loathe you people and everything you stand for.  Let's review all the problems you've caused, shall we?

1) I left my stuff in my room for two weeks because my roommate volunteered to watch over all of it while I was out of town.  When I was 350 miles away from campus you sent me an email saying I had twenty-four hours to get all of my things out of there or it would be thrown out.  No other warning, less than a day's notice by the time I'd gotten it, and no thought given whatsoever to the fact that my roommate had volunteered what was now his room as storage space.  You didn't even tell him that you were moving another person in.  He's living there, he might have wanted to know that?  Top it all off with the fact that the new person didn't care that my stuff was there either and you had me going out of my way to fix something that didn't need to be fixed.

2) We get here and there is an extra bed in our new dorm room.  It is taking up space.  It is keeping us from moving everything in adequately.  You have had two damn weeks to get that bed out of there -- the people who had lived in the room in summer sent you a notice --- and you just can't be bothered.  I have called you twice and still nothing.

3) When I called, and later went by, your office, your work force was inefficient, lazy and they didn't seem to have been trained properly either.  You hadn't even recalibrated my ID card to open the new dorm hall; I had to go and do that myself at the Welcome Center across campus.  You also have not fixed my Meal Plan and I can't buy any food without spending money that I don't have.

4) Ants. There are fucking ants in the food we just bought.  All the stuff we bought for the new room — to bake, to cook, to even eat on the go — all of it is ruined because your people didn't think to ask Facilities to plug up the convenient little hole in the wall that said ants are all entering through.  Somebody is going to fucking pay for this. And it won't be cheap.

5) When I approach you people, at least pretend that you give a flying fuck about these problems that you have caused.  Because right now I am seriously considering moving off campus just to get away from dealing with your office alone.

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Cavewoman Buffy is one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my entire life.

Also, Oz is awesome and broke my heart by leaving.  Uh, and Willow's, too, which was kind of the point now that I think about it.

I literally cannot stop watching this.  It is all kinds of addicting.

...but I don't have a damn clue what to write about.

I've, uh, started a Buffy fanfic.  (Hands up who's surprised?  I sure ain't.)  I loved the "Vampire Willow" episode(s) to bits, so I decided to write one that dealt with what would have happened if Angel was pulled from the "Wishverse" (as the fandom calls it) instead of Willow.  I've found a couple stories that deal with that (they call it the "Puppyverse", due to Angel's charming nickname in his time there) but I want to put my own spin on it.  The fics I read made Angel too damn wimpy and submissive, and even if he's been tortured for two and a half years he wouldn't run away from trouble with his tail tucked between his legs (ha, pun that I didn't even plan). 

I use a lot of parenthesis.

Anyway, um, it'll probably only be a few chapters long because I don't have much time for anything else, because when I'm writing it's supposed to be on the web series that I'm trying to make and not fanfic, and knowing my crazed writing style this fanfic will probably spin completely out of control and mushroom into this huge thing with Angel vs. Puppy facing off and love triangles and werewolf angst and rewriting the ENTIRE REST OF THE SERIES OF BOTH ANGEL AND BUFFY AND OH HOLY GOD.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

( Cut for length and boring RL stuff )

On a final note, if you haven't already seen "(Do You Wanna Date My) Avatar" on YouTube, do go search for it because it is legendary, and it features Felicia Day, who is amazing.  I'd totally be crushing on her if I wasn't ... er ... flamboyant.

Is that a weird comment to make?

Okay, so.

I have been writing a lot lately, but haven't been posting about it here 'cause I've been so busy with everything else.  (Finished the Shakespeare program and came home; the next day I'm back to working at McDonald's.)  See, I'm trying to start this web series.  The short description is that it's about LGBT youth trying to make it big in show business, but the long description is, uh, a lot more complicated than that.  I have two scripts (the first two episodes) done, and I really like them.  However, there are a few things I want/need to work on when revising them:

1) Dialogue. It needs to flow better and not be so stiff.  I'm used to writing in story format and there are major differences between dialogue for stories and dialogue for scripts.  I have learned that the hard way.

2) Clichés.  They're not good, and I need to avoid them.  "Originality is dead", as several well-known writers have said, but there's the challenge: To take something and do it in a way that hasn't been done before.  If I put too many familiar things in, the story becomes a soap opera, and that is something I'd rather not have happen.

3) Tightness.  Meaning, don't have characters rambling on too long, and don't stretch an idea out if it's not going anywhere.  "Heroes" taught me this, especially the first season: They had so much plot to get through in so little time that there was literally no dead space anywhere in an episode.  While overdoing that might make the story feel like it has no room to breathe — meaning, viewers get lost and overwhelmed — underdoing it and having dead space makes viewers get bored, and some might say that's even worse.  Either way, it's a very hard middle ground to find, but screenwriters have to find it somehow.

In case it hasn't been noticeable, I'm very critical of my own writing.  I'm having a blast doing this, though.  The other day, while I was waiting in the airport to board the flight that took me home, I just sat down and planned out a four-year story arc, twelve episodes per year — so 48 total.  At 20 minutes per episode, that's 960 minutes' worth of writing to get through.  What's funny, though, is that I'm not dreading it or even intimidated by the insane amount of work it'll take — I actually can't wait to tell all the stories I have planned.  That's kind of a new feeling for me, and I really, really like it.

1) Do not, repeat, DO NOT, jump into math too early.  In particular, do not take Trigonometry during your sophomore year when it should have been your senior year.  Try Statistics.  It'll be fun.

2) You are gay.  You are very gay.  Learn to accept this fact early and it will make everything so much easier.

3) Sometimes people aren't thinking about you.  Acknowledge this, and don't spend your years being so self-conscious that you're afraid to try anything new.

4) Recognize where you do and don't belong.  That goes for places on the internet as well as the times that you are accessing it.

5) Enjoy the time you have.  When you look back on it, you'll wish you could do it again.  Pajama Game in particular.

These came out sounding a little harsher than I anticipated, but I still think that they're true.  Particularly #2.  It would have helped to have somebody tell me that early on.

...You have GOT to be kidding me.

Alright, you know who I'd want on my team?  She's definitely not MLB, but the Cullens definitely aren't either, so...

I'd bring in Buffy, so she can stake the lot of them.

And that is that.

Deathly Hallows, by far.  It had been ten years (and six books' worth) with nothing but questions, questions, and more questions, and then this book comes along and the trio goes on this totally kickass adventure (Ron leaves, which wasn't cool, but then he comes back and saves Harry's life, which was) and they end up having several epic battles, the last of which is at Hogwarts, of all places, and so much more.  And all those questions that the first six books had raised — all of them were finally answered.  She seriously didn't leave out a single detail, and that was pretty awesome.  Plus, Ron and Hermione totally made out, which I had been waiting for since book four.

Happy birthday, Mrs. Rowling.  Thank you for giving us Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and everyone else in your books.  (Yes, even Voldemort — after all, understanding the bad helps the good to be even better.)

I stayed up until 2 AM watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Hulu. D=

Not that it isn't time well spent, I mean ... it's Buffy.  Though it's only the first season.  And Buffy/Angel makes me all happy inside, even though HOLY FRAK HE'S A VAMPIRE.  And yes, I know I'm twelve years late getting into this, but eh.  Besides, I don't really know anything about the later series (other than Willow discovers she's a lesbian, and Seth Green is in there somewhere) so I can watch it without having had the endings spoiled for me.

And GOOD GOD XANDER IS ANNOYING.  Sheesh.  I'm really hoping he mellows out in the later seasons, although I'm thinking probably not.

Actually, the first season has been kind of on/off for me.  I'm told it gets a lot better, though.  But all the same ... a giant, man-eating praying mantis?  Really, Joss?  I love you, man, but come on.

Whoof.  I really need to get to bed now.  Another performance tomorrow!  Here's hoping my hair isn't inadvertently spiked like it was tonight.  Totally does not gel (hah, pun) with the time period.  Yes, I'm vain. *shot*

I think the late hour is messing with my brain...

The people who run this summer program can't expect us to work 15 hours, stay at rehearsal past midnight, then be back bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next morning at 9 AM to do it all over again.  That's not how it works.  And yet it's what we've been forced to do for the past week.

Sigh.  At least most of it is almost over.

Also, rad new userpic, yo.  Thanks, Werewolf Calendars.

And now, I believe it's time for bed...

As one might have noticed, I haven't been online much lately; the summer program has been continuing to occupy literally all of my time. I even dream about it. (I brought a box of kittens to the costume shop in the last one, it was weird.) We've started performances of The Scottish Play, and they're awesome. We've gotten a lot of positive feedback and fortunately nothing too serious has befallen us, so the curse must have finally worn itself out. ( Here's a list of all the stuff that happened before it did... )

In fact, right now I'm at a rehearsal for our next play, All's Well That Ends Well, and since I'm only in two scenes I have a lot of downtime.   (Abrupt topic change alert!)  I've been using said downtime to read some discussions on Twilight for no real reason other than I'm slightly concerned for the impact the series is having on its readers' views on "healthy" relationships. Readers like my sister.  (Here's a really good article about it.)  While I think I'll enjoy the New Moon movie, if only because of Taylor Lautner the werewolves, I find the book to be a very damaging thing. In fact, when I visited Stephanie Meyer's website to try and find out why she wrote it as Bella is literally nothing without her Tru Wub Edward, I found this quote instead, which I just had to comment on. ( Here she's talking about why she made Edward leave Bella, even though Meyer herself didn't want that to happen. )

Well, my scene is about to come up, so I should probably head out... hope you had a great Fourth o'July, f-list! 

P.S. Alcohol and cacti don't mix.  That is a lesson I learned from my fourth of July, and I pass it on to you so you don't have to learn it the hard way like my friends did.

Well, today marks my second day off since the internship program began two weeks ago, and I have to say I think I'm using it well — by doing absolutely nothing.  Just relaxin' in the awesome new dorm room and unwinding.  It's a welcome change, although that's not to say the program isn't fun — it is.  However, it is also extremely time-consuming; I usually work from 9 to 5 (with an hour lunch break) and then have rehearsal from 7 to 11 at night.  All of this ensures that the time I spend fully conscious in said awesome dorm room is perhaps less than 20 minutes a day combined.  And I see my new roommate even less; since he's working too, and his hours are so different from mine, we're almost never in the room at the same time.  He's a nice guy, though, from the conversations I have had with him.  And also rather attractive.

( The acting program. )

( The summer camp. )

As an aside, this business also means I've been neglecting the writing I need to do as well as this journal, but unfortunately that probably won't change anytime soon.  =P  I was hoping to get some writing done today, actually ... and this counts, right?  So yeah, if I post at all it'll probably be in little blurbs about things I find interesting, like my last couple of posts.  'Till the next time then, f-list! =D

Dear Team Jacob,

You win.

Sincerely,
Jeffaplus

Finally got the time to post this, tagged by velvedere ! :)  You'd think vacations would, uh, leave you with *more* free time, but ... anyway.

Comment to this entry and I'll pick three of your fandoms. You must then update your journal and answer the following questions:

01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?

This time around, I got: Family Guy, Hitchhiker's Guide, and Over The Hedge.

( Family Guy )

( Hitchhiker's Guide )

( Over the Hedge )

Well that was fun. =]

In other news, I'm headed back down to campus on Monday to work the summer Shakespeare festival.  This should be interesting.  Certainly not boring, which is more than I can say for other summers.  Although I hope I still have time to be addicted to the internet work on other projects as well.  We'll see!

• 08:19 Oh geez, jury duty. #
• 10:04 They just put "RV" on the TV... Random... #
• 10:30 Wish I'd brought my iPod. #
• 14:53 They still haven't called my name. It's almost 3:00 and they haven't called my name. #
• 15:38 Yay, they don't need any more today! I'M FREE! I mean ... *ahem* Happy to do my part. #
• 19:20 @PoisonTheMonkey And now you have 9! Congrats. ;D #
• 19:21 @nqr Beware! Final episode of HIMYM is on at 7:30 tonight, not 8:30! For some weird reason they changed the timeslot. :P #
• 19:26 @nqr Nope! Here in good ol' Sacramento. :) Bout to turn it on, now... #
• 20:00 @PoisonTheMonkey Pretty good ... had more projects than actual, you know, tests. Still grueling though. :P #
• 20:04 HIMYM continues to dangle answers in front of its audience and then snatch them back away. Taunting us. Still an awesome show, though! #
• 20:06 Oh! And I loved, loved, LOVED how they did the whole Barney/Robin thing. Best way they could have done it, IMO. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

• 23:54 @AudreyAllen Well, there's @kirorz and @PoisonTheMonkey ... other than that, I don't think so lol #
• 00:24 Watching the Dollhouse finale!! #
• 00:25 OMG WTF DR. SAUNDERS WHY. #
• 00:51 OH MY GAH THIS SHOW IS AMAZING. #
• 01:06 Really? The internet's choosing *NOW* of all times to slow down?? REALLY!?!?!? #
• 01:14 AHHH That was SO good. @FoxBroadcasting You really, really, really, really, really, really, really, REALLY need to renew Dollhouse. REALLY. #
• 16:00 RT @princessfaith I want to #savedollhouse because #Dollhouse is an AMAZING SHOW. #
• 18:23 OH EM TO THE GEE FOX RENEWED DOLLHOUSE. YES!!! #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Comment to this entry and I'll pick three of your fandoms. You must then update your journal and answer the following questions:

01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?

I got: Fairly Oddparents, SpongeBob, and Harry Potter.

( Fairly OddParents )

( SpongeBob )

( Harry Potter )

P.S. If anyone wants to comment with any other fandoms, I'd be more than happy to do those too. =]  Now talk to me so I can tag you! lol