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Monday, January 21, 2008 There Will Be Bludgeoning

2010-10-11T01:10:00.000-07:00

Monday, January 21, 2008

There Will Be Bludgeoning

I finally saw There Will Be Blood and it was definitely good but it didn't hit me the same as the rest of PT Anderson's movies did. Daniel Day-Lewis was incredible and it makes me want to see every movie he's ever been in but he hasn't been really in that much. I mean sure, he's been in over 20 movies(http://imdb.com/name/nm0000358/), but for his age I would think he would have been in more. Maybe he does a lot of theater or something.
Or maybe he's cobbling shoes or whatever. I still think he's great but I haven't followed up with seeing all of his stuff. I've seen Gangs Of New York and I recently fast forwarded through Nine with Ash.

I got my first LA celebrity sightings tonight. I went to an improv show to benefit below the line workers who are losing money because of the strike, on Hollywood boulevard and at one point before the show I was standing in arm's length of Ron Livingston of Office Space fame:
I should go back to iO West because it was really fun, but whenever I get the chance to see comedy I always go to UCB.

and Jack McBrayer, 30 Rock's Kenneth the NBC page:

I saw them at iO West. It's a cool place. Bob Odenkirk is going to be there next week and there's a show with Andy Richter every once in a while. I can see myself possibly going there often. It was only $10.
And I ended up seeing Bob Odenkirk at UCB and most UCB shows are only $5, woop woop.

I think I pretty much got rid of all the celeb sighting stuff, just like personal movie reviews and things like that, who cares? My hope for this blog now is to track my journey and if no one cares about that it doesn't matter because I do and I'll be able to track my "career" from the very beginning if I ever do have any sort of major success. I can look at my naivete and all the different projects I was working on and which hit and which didn't, etc, etc. I see a lot of blogs that do have a lot of filler in the form of movie reviews, movies to watch, books to read, and some, most, are a lot more 'popular' than my blog, but all of that is just regurgitation. If your blog is nothing that I can't just find by googling it myself then you've got nothing new to offer.

Another purpose my blog could possibly serve is if I get to the point where anyone cares about my writing they'll have a great resource to research my path. I wish I could track the people I admire in their rise. If Quentin Tarantino or Charlie Kaufman or someone like that had a blog like mine I would be so excited (and confused as to how they blogged before the internet existed).

Tomorrow we find out about who gets to direct for our Hollywood Production class and we find out what scripts are getting produced. Either I'll have bad news, good news, or great news. So wish me luck and tune in tomorrow.
I guess the great news would have been if my script was being made AND I was directing a project? I don't know exactly where I was going with that.

If you need me I'll be watching the latest episode of Wainy Days.

I need to seriously catch up on that and I really want to rewatch Clark and Michael.

Simply "work sucks."

1 hollers:

Andrew said...: Spoiler Alert!http://dragolife.com/blog/2008/01/22/teeth-the-movie/Ps. The writer/director and the producer were at the screening and during the introduction the writer said "I hope everyone has a hot dog to munch on during this movie" and everybody groaned.; January 22, 2008 7:59 PM

I saw that movie, it was kind of lame from what I remember. There were more cringe worthy scenes in Frozen than Teeth. And there I go reviewing a movie. Dang.

Thursday, January 17, 2008 They Lock Us in The Tower Whenever We Get Caught

2010-09-22T02:26:00.000-07:00

Thursday, January 17, 2008

They Lock Us in The Tower Whenever We Get Caught

Exciting stuff going on around here. First of all, the LAFSC staff is picking 5 directors to direct scripts this semester. There are 48 students and I am one of the 9 finalists that is being considered. They liked my reel and I was interviewed the other night. My reel consisted of clips from: The Pen, The Eddie Complex, and a scene from When Harry Met Sally that I did for directing class, as well as the Picture Frame super short in it's entirety. So, what I'm saying is, I think my reel is funny but it is definitely ridiculous. However, I guess the staff thought it was funny as well (or maybe they just liked that I have worked with HD and 16mm film before). I'll keep you updated as to whether I make the next cut.
I'm still not sure on this one, but who could have known all the way back then that I would go on to direct one of the main scripts, mine would (arguably) be the best one produced that year (ever?) and that it would lead to jobs writing feature screenplays...and that that would lead to getting a manager. Crazy.

Yesterday I went to Burbank and protested with the WGA writers. I walked around the NBC studio with a sign and got people to honk and then ate some free fruit snacks they provided. I didn't see any celebs but one of the strikers was a writer for the show Smallville. Here I am all like, c'mon Leno, get with the program bro.
And this was before all of the Conan drama, way before.

Also, I have an awesome picture as my current facebook profile picture, so check it out.

"Well you are the luckiest person I know. Let's hope it doesn't run out by tomorrow."

Posted by Pete at 7:47 PM

Labels: 16mm, animaniacs, clark kent, fruit snacks, smallville, Super Dave, t-shirts on dogs, Vantage Point, WB, WGA, Writer's Guild

1 hollers:

Andrew said...

The writers flipped, we have no script, why bother to rehearse?

January 18, 2008 5:46 AM

Remember Good Idea, Bad Idea on Animaniacs? That was a great part of the show. Good Idea: writing a note to your wife. Bad Idea: writing a note ON your wife. Or something like that, I'm sure that was definitely not one of them, but it was Emo Phillips type stuff like that.

I don't have too much to say tonight, and this post from the past didn't really spur any topics for me to write about, except one that really irks me and I don't know if this is the right venue for it because usually I just make-a with-a the silly.

Oh, but I am super tired though. I've been working nights and then pursuing creative endeavors during the day, which sounds pretty good on paper...will we still use that term in a few years when hardly anything is actually on paper? We'll probably switch the phrase to something like 'it sounds good via text,' 'it sounds good on my facebook wall'...but in actuality it's strenuous, especially when the creative things I'm pursuing are for free with the hope of making money and they're not necessarily what I would want to be working on if I had my say. So it's weird, I'm doing things for no pay that I don't love, what's the point? The point is to make money so I can do what I love. Is this a fool's errand? Perhaps.

And let me add that when I do "relax" I feel guilty, there's a script I should be doing a new draft of or an outline that has to be scripted, or a phone call I need to make. Today I woke up after not enough sleep, directed something that I didn't write, for no money (but I think will turn out great so it was worth it), then went home briefly to walk my dog and shower before immediately going to work and transcribing even though I was promoted to Logger (potato potato you're probably thinking).

But I am super grateful to have a steady job and people that want to collaborate with me on film projects so the above is just whining I guess. I love my family and that I am playing in a basketball league. Woop woop.

Alright, everything of mine is running out of batteries, my phone, my computer, it seems like an apt metaphor.

Monday, January 14, 2008 Eastern Standards

2010-08-26T01:59:00.000-07:00

Monday, January 14, 2008

Eastern Standards

Even though I have been in California for almost a week I am still on Maryland time. I have been going to sleep at 11pm LA time and waking up at 7:30am LA time. Maybe I'm not on Maryland time but I've just always been on California time.
During my semester at LAFSC I was by far the healthiest I've ever been. I exercised very regularly, slept a lot, and ate well. I felt awesome all the time. I currently do alright in all of those areas but I'll always look back at that semester as the pinnacle of my health, unless I get my act together and do better.

I have been pretty busy these couple days. Today we had another orientation sessions
Grammar!

in the morning then a 'get to know the equipment' session after lunch.
In that equipment session there was a thing called a Chymara or however you spell the mythical beat but for some reason the film tool is pronounced like shimmer-a. It was pissing me off the whole time.

That reminds me of in Mr. Stauffer's science class in 7th or 8th grade he taught us the word 'inference' and I thought he was mispronouncing the word 'interference' for so long.

Sometimes we called Mr. Satuffer 'Mr. Stauffer's Lasagna' or 'Mr. Staufflapogas' becuase middle schoolers are idiots.

Speaking of middle schoolers being idiots, only idiots would wear wide legged jeans. It baffles me that grown adults make products for middle school aged idiots, and writers write movies for them. Why are we catering to the lowest common denominator?

Tomorrow morning: internship session, tomorrow afternoon: Hollywood Production Workshop. Finally on Wednesday I'll have the afternoon off and I may go to see the writer's strike at one of the studios. I am excited to get my internship. I'll let you know which one I get soon I hope. This morning we turned in our scripts and directing reels. I feel like I have a pretty strong chance at maybe being one of the directors.
I wonder where this sudden burst of self confidence and high self esteem came from. Maybe I sized up my competition, or maybe I was just that confident in my reel, which was ridiculous.

Then they picked me as one of the finalists to be interviewed for a director's spot and I did well in the interview. Wow. And then my movie turned out well. I can't believe any of that.

But maybe I just have recently had my self esteem lowered by becoming a tiny fish in an enormous ocean when before, in college, I was like a medium sized fish in a medium sized pond.

That said, I hope it is a possibility that we can direct our own scripts.
That would have been cool, I still want to make the script I wrote for that.

I have had the experience twice recently that when I try to be really cheap and save money I end up buying something that sucks and doesn't work the way I intended and therefor costs me anguish, time, and probably more money than if I had just invested a little bit more in something better. I hope that was a real sentence.
This ends up happening to me a lot.

The Ten comes out tomorrow. Get familiar.
Meh. I still really like the Adam Brody part.

One of my roommates has an awesome DVD collection so I am going to watch a movie until I promptly fall asleep at 11pm.
And by awesome I mean satisfactory and pretty basic.

"Go fly a kite, Gretchen! Go fly a kite."
?

I'm glad I stopped doing quotes and all that BS like anyone cared what I was watching aka like my parents cared what I was watching since they were and probably still are the ones who read my blog the most if they even still do.

Posted by Pete at 7:59 PM

Labels: Best Semester, fall, LAFSC, scooters, segues about segways, vacation
Segues about segways is funny! "So I was riding a segway the other day, speaking of Segways, have you ever noticed how many gyroscopes those things have? I mean, could there be anymore gyroscopes on that thing?"

Lol.

Sunday, January 13, 2008 Freaks and Greeks

2010-08-11T02:11:00.000-07:00

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Freaks and Greeks

Once you hear what I'm about to say you'll understand why today's blog title is so clever.
Doubtful.

On facebook I changed my network to Los Angeles right? Well since then I have friended Clark Duke (of Clark and Michael, one line in Superbad, and the show Greek) and Samm Levine (of Pulse but more importantly of Freaks and Geeks). They both seem like regular dudes who have been in some cool stuff.
Now that I've met a couple working actors that are semi recognizable, I think that's true about the majority of actors, the vocal minority are the Tom Cruises, whatever AC Slater's real name is's, and Lindsay Lohans.

I moved into my LA apartment yesterday. I'll post more later today, I have some meetings this morning.

Posted by Pete at 8:02 AM

1 hollers:

Andrew said...

How do multiple viewings figure into the number of movies watched in the year? Because I've already seen Superbad twice and I'll probably see it again before the year is over. This weekend I watched Superbad, Sweeny Todd, El Orfanto aka The Orphanage and How High.
I think I counted them.

Ps. I bought the first season of Clone High on DVD, jealous?
Yes! Clone High had a robot that always said "Oh, Wesley" even though no one on the show was named Wesley. It was a great show. I actually got a little bit emotional when I watched the last episode, I forget why, but I remember thinking something like do these characters know they're never going to get unfrozen? Or something like that.

January 14, 2008 6:17 AM

Is everything always embarrassing in hindsight? Does anyone ever look back at an old picture or a diary entry and say that's an awesome haircut, or wow I was super mature about that instance in my life?

The haircut thing is for the old picture and the being mature is about the diary, but it would be funny if it was reversed. Your diary would be like "parted on the side and combed to the right..." and the picture would be of you paying your taxes on time or something.

Will I look back on that silly joke and think it's stupid? I hope so/ not. So because it probably is really stupid, not because I hope I never die inside and I'm always a silly guy, man, old man.

It's crazy that I want to be/ am sort of a professional writer (in that I've been paid to write before) because I'm not good at getting my thoughts in order and I'm one of the worst, not just public speakers, but private speakers around these here parts. But I guess that's not true about the writing part, but I'll sit on facebook or twitter (obviously not this blog though) and debate over the wording of a status update or something stupid like that forever, then finally just delete it and not post anything. Especially when it comes to something politically, emotionally, religious(ally?) charged. In the end I think, either no one cares or the only people who will care are either people I don't agree with at all whatsoever anyway with so it doesn't matter what they say and whatever they respond with will only bum me out about how hateful and selfish people are, or I'm like Pastor Jones and I'm Preachin' to the Choir and they'll just agree with me so what's the point.

I think an important attribute, nay, virtue, is to be able to change your mind. So. Few. People. Can. and I don't know why I used the periods between those words, now I think it's a bad idea but at the time I thought it was a good idea so I could show the emphasis of how much I believed. See, I just changed my mind over whether I should use the periods or not.

Man, I just published my post and something messed up and I lost a couple of solid sentences. I'm not going to try to recapture that lighting in a bottle because that would be against the spirit of this blog. What I had said was something vaguely smart and insightful, probably not very though, but, so I'm going to do the opposite.

Fart sound.

FADE OUT.

Lol, I should end it there but what if that was how you ended a screenplay!! I would love/ hate that movie.

Friday, January 11, 2008 Are You My Skype?

2010-07-23T01:38:00.000-07:00

Friday, January 11, 2008

Are You My Skype?

If anyone wants to call me or video chat with me
And by anyone I mean Ashlea and my mom.

for free they can use skype. It's totally free.
Did I mention it was free?

All you do is download it from www.skype.com and create a screen name then you can call other skype users for free. Ash and I used it a bunch today. If you would like to skype with me my screen name is PeteTheComputer

I joined the Los Angeles, CA network on Facebook.
Who cares?

Actually though, I guess it is kind of big, I moved across the country and lived in an entirely new part of the country. The farthest I had lived before then was in Towson, an hour away from my parents' house and still in state.

I think a vast majority of people never live outside of the state they were born in and 99% of Americans I'm sure don't live outside of the country (also, 59% of all statistics are made up hardee har har), and I'm talking about for the majority of their lives, not for a summer after college with their graduation money.

So it is a big deal that I joined the LA network on facebook, wait, no that's still not a big deal, the big deal is that I moved away from the comfort and safety of my birth state.

Also, my parents moved to Nashville right after I moved to California, so there was no moving into my parents' basement for a few months, my parents' new house doesn't even have a basement!!!!!

I also am attempting to friend Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar Go To Whitecastle) and Clark Duke (Clark and Michael and he has maybe one line in Superbad). So we'll see how that goes. Danny met Kal so hopefully Kal will see that we have a friend in common.
It's crazy that even in two years 'the internet' has changed so much. My freshman year of college was the year facebook started opening up to a couple colleges, remember when facebook was only college students and not even to every college? Those were the days(?) I feel like I could leave facebook behind like how I say that I haven't looked at CollegeHumor since I graduated, which I have looked at it a couple times but in college i used to look at it like every day brah. I keep going back to those 'the more you... the more...' graphs. I like those. Anyway, let's see what else I have to say!!!

Today we went around my new apartment and it is one of the nicest areas I've ever seen.
Probably an overstatement. It was kind of nice but if you told someone from LA that Park La Brea was one of the nicest areas you'd ever seen they'd punch you in the stomach for being a stupid hick.

I move in tomorrow and I'll post some pictures probably. I have some pictures of where I'm staying now too but I'll post them tomorrow in contrast. I went to The Grove mall today. It is too nice.
I wonder if I meant this like, it is exceedingly nice, or it is nice also. Either way I'm lame.

The Abercrombie and Fitch store had live models hanging out in it and there were stores like Coach and an Apple store and stuff. It's across the street from my complex. I'll be up early tomorrow to move in first and hopefully get the room with just two guys and not three (5 to a two bedroom apartment).
I did!!! Such a great decision. I kept my half of the room clean, the other guy had old cereal bowls stacked up on his computer desk. I would have hated the 3 to a room room because I wouldn't really have my own little section like I did in the two person room.

Short post, it's late. I didn't watch any movies today but I'll try and make up for it soon. I believe I'm 11 for 11 right now so that's fine. "Fast food. High times."
I haven't eaten fast food in 2010 yet.

*Editor's Note: I already made the change but my skype name is actually PeteTheComputer not PeteTheRobot

Thanks Ash.

Posted by Pete at 10:07 PM

Labels: beauty and the geek, beauty and the geeks.com, Clark and Michael, Clark Duke, CSI: Miami, geeks.com, Greek, Lemony Snicket, Not even close, skype
I like the progression of this. It reminds me of a young me. Oh wait!

2 hollers:

Ashlea said...

you can skype me too. my user name is ashelt2.

~ashlea

January 12, 2008 8:21 AM

Ashlea said...

also i thought your skype name was petethecomputer. thats what is says on my contacts....

ash

January 12, 2008 8:25 AM
Damn, Ash was blowing up my comments section young.

Thursday, January 10, 2008 Avocado

2010-07-12T01:55:00.000-07:00

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Avocado

First off I think I coined a new term today. You know how people say n00b slammed? No? Well some do because I saw it on a t-shirt once. Well today I said n00b slammer, as in: I hope I don't get thrown in the n00b slammer. It's a jail for neophytes.
I hate that I say neophytes here. I don't talk like that, I don't use that word. If anything I would use the word n00b, or possibly newb, but I was attempting to not use the same word in the definition.
I am so terrible at grammar, which is weird because I've been paid to write a couple times but anyway, I was about to say 'I was trying to not use the same word in the definition.' Trying to not use doesn't sound OK. I mix up the order of words and we all know about my pronunciation issues.
I think all of that stems from a desire to be understood. I over-enunciate so people know exactly what I'm saying. I start sentences then abort them and start over constantly, and I'm talking about in speech, not just writing.

Maybe the term already exists but I've never heard it before.
What, they didn't have Google back in 2008? Sweet burn on past Pete current Pete. Thanks slightly past Pete, love current Pete. Future Pete is going to read this and call all these past Petes a bunch of loons.

I know everyone is wondering how I'm doing with my 366 movies this year.
Read: no one. But I was probably being sarcastic anyway.
Also, this shows that 2008 was a leap year. It didn't really effect me whatsoever.

Today is January 10th and I am currently watching my 11th movie which is The Boondock Saints. Is anyone else embarking on this task with me?
I don't think anyone did. A couple people halfheartedly did. Oh wellllllll... I didn't even complete mine. Really it's devoting two hours of every day to something and that's tough. Currently I work 8 hours, sleep 8 hours, and try to hang out with my wife and dog while pursuing a writing career and take meetings and exercise and blah blah blah. So my list has been lacking.

I'd like to hear how many movies you've seen so far, what they were, etc. The rules are: go to the theater, rent, download, watch on TV, buy on iTunes and watch 366 movies this year (since it's a leap year and there are 366 days in 2008). You can contact me at PeterLHarmon@gmail.com and I can send you my list also.
And then I discovered IMDb's My Movies. So much easier than what I was doing.

The only movie I've seen in the theater so far this year is One Missed Call and it was really bad. It was a The Ring/Final Destination ripoff except not as scary or well done as The Ring and not as funny or ridiculous (or Devon Sawa starring) as Final Destination. The best parts of One Missed Call were Shannyn Sossamon and Johnny Lewis (aka Chili from The OC). I really want to see There Will Be Blood and Southland Tales right now.

The people I was watching The Boondock Saints with just turned it off and are now turning on Blue Crush instead... no comment.
I was live-tweeting before it was popular.

I guess I'll begrudgingly erase Saints from my list, so right now I'm 10 for 10. Hopefully I can stay awake through all of Blue Crush but I doubt it.

Anyway, today we went all around California. Newport Beach, Dana Point, Ocean Side, LA, etc. My car held up and my GPS was a lifesaver. I bought a digital camera today so I'll be able to post pictures on this blog. I got it at a place called Geeks.com. It was a huge warehouse and they had incredible deals on computer stuff and video games and TVs and stuff like that. It's also a website, same good deals so check it out:
http://geeks.com/
I'm glad I gave the website for a place called Geeks.com, otherwise how would you have known to go to Geeks.com to find Geeks.com? That camera sucked by the way and I sold it for almost the same price I bought it for on eBay. Now who's the geek dot com?

I dropped some serious Targ Skrill at Target too.

One thing I really like about California is that you can get avocados on your sandwich at Subway. I thought avocados (plural) had an e towards the end but spell check says that that is not the case.

mmmmm.
I've told this story too many times and it's not funny or interesting but still. When I was first in LA I would go to Subway and be all like, avocados on my sub? Nice. Then the guy would ring me up and the footlong (I believe this was before the $5 footlong craze) would be like $7 and I would just think, man, LA is expensive. Eventually I opened my eyes and read that adding avocado to your sub cost like 60 cents per 6 inch.

As a famously brilliant movie's tagline once told me "If you want to feel the rush you have to take the risk."

* Editor's Note: I did stay up late enough to watch all of Blue Crush. It turns out that the screenplay was inspired by an article written by Susan Orlean who wrote the book The Orchid Thief which of course inspired Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation.
In Boston accent: Who carrrrrrres?

Posted by Pete at 8:55 PM

2 hollers:

Andrew said...

By "the people I was watching it with," do you really mean "the dad I was watching it with?"

January 11, 2008 5:54 AM

Pete said...

and some interns

As if this makes it better.

January 11, 2008 9:08 AM

And, because this is the blog that even less people read than my real blog, which already no one reads (in fact, negative people read this blog, this blog gets read so little that other people are starting to write it. I don't think that actually makes sense) I will say this:

I saw that the blog post before this one was about Carmax. Today Ash and I bought our first car (she's pretty much buying it, but I was there when she did and I'll probably throw her a couple bones, especially when this blog gets monetized and I start making the big bucks) and it really solidified something that I've been grappling with lately.

Side note, people who want to say they've been wrestling with something but want to say something fancier than wrestling say grappling. What's fancier than grappling? I've been Greco Roman wrestling with this for a while.

Anyway, a lot of people have absolutely no shame in straight faced lying if it benefits them. I asked these car salesman direct questions and they lied to our faces then the truth would be revealed later in the transaction and I would call them on it and they would lie and say they had told us the truth earlier. I am not that kind of person. I am honest and probably kind of a pussy. Liars continually push me around.

I'm sure they are fine with themselves, they rationalize it by telling themselves it's a job, it's an art, whatever. I wouldn't be able to do that. I wouldn't be able to do a horrible, deceitful job and feel OK about it.

A recent example is this "rewrite" I did for Black Christian Movies. They sent me a script I was supposed to rewrite, it was bad but not horrible, still I didn't feel comfortable just fixing it up and putting my name on it, I didn't want my name to be associated with a bad script (which is funny that I care if you've seen Johnson Family, just kidding the SCRIPT is good). So I worked my ass off for a couple days and completely rewrote the whole thing. I mean, I didn't rewrite anything, I wrote an entirely new script from scratch using absolutely nothing from the script they sent me. It was more worth it to me to do that than to take the easy way out.

So many people are willing to take the easy way out.

Are you...?

Haha, what if I seriously ended this post with that? That'd be so weird!!

Or would it...?

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

2010-02-28T09:03:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

I'm out in LA. Yesterday I flew from Dulles to Las Vegas where I put $1 on the slots (I didn't win anything).
At one of the first nights of LAFSC we had a get to know each other dinner, which I'm so bad at those kind of things by the way, and after we ate we had a go-around-the-room-and-answer-questions-so-people-get-to-know-you kind of thing. The questions were like what's your favorite movie and tell a story about your trip here to LA and some other BS. The movie question devolved into a how pretentious can you get question. Everyone's favorite movie was Citizen Kane and Battleship Potempkin and Wings of Desire and stuff like that. I said mine was Mean Girls because it is up there and I wanted to lighten the room a little bit, although other people said dumb movies too so I'm not saying I was the most hilarious person ever for picking that movie, I don't know, I wasn't part of the solution is all I'm saying.

Anyway, the story I told about my trip to LA went like this "I flew into Vegas at night and the strip was all lit up. I had a layover so I went to the slot machine, put in a single dollar..." like I was building the suspense and everything then I was like "pulled that one armed bandit and!!!!! lost my dollar" and I got some laughs. In hindsight I probably sound like an A hole for both of those things I said.

It was nighttime so I got to see the strip lit up. It was great. Then I flew to LA. I re-watched Paris Je T'aime on the plane and the shorts that are good are so good.
I don't remember that, that sounds so crazy to me. At this point in my life, 2010, I can't watch movies on the plane, I can't read, I'm too anxious and scared of flying. Now the only thing I can do is read maybe magazines and listen to my iPod while staring out the window the whole time, sweating.

My dad and I had to wait at Carmax today for 5 hours but I eventually got a car. A Silver 2004 Toyota Echo.

Good gas mileage, compact, kind of cute, handles well. I like it.
That's not a picture of my car though, mine doesn't have those black wheel well things.

My GPS is going to be my best friend in LA. Her name is Jane and she has a British accent. She calls highways "motorways."
That was funny for about two seconds, someone gets in the car and you have a British GPS lady. Now I can't stand the lady talking to me at all and I have it on silent always. I can't believe I ever drove around without it though. I mean, I don't use my GPS every day by any means or even every week but whenever I drive somewhere that I've never been before I use it (which sounds stupid, like duh) but anyway, I used to have to drive places in DC without a GPS, all over. I guess in like five years every single car will have one and the government will secretly have a chip in there, actually let me back that thought up, the government won't, companies will have a chip in there that tells them where you drive to and then they'll email you and telemarket (not a word) you about the places you went to.

I can't think in complete sentences right now so I'll blog later.

"Thomas Listen. Listen. There are times when life calls out for a change. A transition. Like the seasons."

Posted by Pete at 3:57 PM

Labels: Billy Madison, Jane, LA, Las Vegas, Michael Ian Black, Motorways, Paris, TomTom
1 hollers:

Andrew said...

What time is it there?
January 10, 2008 5:16 AM

I just checked my email before I published this post, I just realized I am going to tangent this baby up right now, but anyway, I checked my email and I had an email from Apple asking if I was satisfied with the support they gave me the other day. Andrew sent me a iTunes gift card for my birthday and when I went to scratch off that tin foily stuff that covers the activation code I used a key and scratched the activation code off.

I went to Apple and the 'geniuses' told me first, not to scratch the codes with a key, use a nickle, which, in this world of putting do not drink the coffee cause it's hot on hot coffee, you would think there would be an idiot disclaimer on my iTunes card saying don't scratch the thing with a key, please use nickle, right? Also they said that I had to go online and email their support to get the issue resolved. That's fine.

If I had a company or store or whatever like Apple, they call their workers geniuses. Does Abercrombie call their employees 'brahs'? Like Apple says 'a genius can service your Mac now.' Abercrombie would say ' a brah can help you find the perfect sandal/ pre-destroyed faded jeans for your kegs and eggs event.' Forever 21 can say 'one of our Skanks will be right with you.' Best Buy would say 'one of our Hairy Nerds will sweat near you soon.' T-Mobile could say 'one of our Ponytail Guys can make fun of your phone now.' It goes on and on.

Long story long I got helped by Apple's online support, they emailed me the code, and I could go back to downloading Lady GaGa or whatever. But, what I was getting at this whole time was, in my email I have a bunch of different folders, Family, Work, etc. I also have KIT (keep in touch for the un-l33t) and Random. I have a folder called random and KIT, it sounds like a middle school girl named my folders. I usually find myself tagging things both random and KIT which makes me wonder if I actually need the random folder, if I'm tagging it random and then archiving it away, aren't I by default KIT-ing?

I think so.

Monday, January 7th, 2008 Carmaximum

2010-02-05T07:11:00.000-08:00

Monday, January 7, 2008

Carmaximum

I got back from New York yesterday. It was a fun trip, we got to see Darrell Hammond from SNL do stand up at the comedy cellar. He was funny, did some good impressions, and said that he was on acid but he might have just been really drunk. Then we went to some bars around town before heading home the next day.
One thing I remember about this trip is that when we were going to eat dinner at the hotel before we went out for the night Ash had to get ready, take a shower or something, so I went with Andrew and Rachel around to find some food. I ended up for some reason getting all this low quality fried food from a carry out/ market kind of place because it looked OK and I thought it was going to be cheap. It ended up being expensive and hardly lukewarm. Ash was pissed and I was sad myself because I paid a bunch of money for the worst meal. Andrew and Rachel of course got delicious gourmet hamburgers because they didn't immediately buy the first thing they saw.

I met this guy on the bus who's name was Rodney Burton and he said he was a DJ. His DJ name is DJ Danger. What's weird is that DJ Danger Mouse's (of the infamous Grey Album) real name is Brian Burton. Coincidence? Probably.
I don't know or care about any of this, this is weird that I wrote this. The DJ guy was really nice though but we were so squished in the back of the bus with him, it was the three seat part that's not really three seats big at all.
This was also another example of people wanting to talk to me. I hardly ever want to talk to strangers but everywhere I go people want to talk to me. They tell me about how they're a DJ or they complain about the building manager or they ask me if I've had Triscuits before because they're good. I know Triscuits are delicious, you, strange middle aged woman, don't have to tell me.

I'm selling my car today then finishing packing up.
"I'm selling my car," like I had anything to do with it. I think my dad took it to Carmax. I don't think I had anything to do with it.

I leave tomorrow for LA. I have a one way plane ticket.
That is cool.

Once I get here this blog will probably be even more exciting then it is now, what with all the hobnobbing I'm going to be doing.
I do agree that my blog was a million times more exciting, but in hindsight I kept my hobnobbing to a minimum.

The Ten comes out on DVD on January 15th. It is really irreverent but that's almost the whole point. It's ten short stories that interweave somewhat, bookended by an ongoing narration by Paul Rudd's character, about the ten commandments. It is directed by David Wain and stars Paul Rudd, Jessica Alba, Jean Grey from X-men, Adam Brody, Michael Ian Black, and a slew of other comedy superstars. It's definitely worth a watch.
Meh. Watch Wainy Days, Role Models, Wet Hot American Summer, or anything else David Wain does instead.

I might be seeing One Missed Call later today so I'll let you know if it compares to The Ring besides the strikingly similar premises.
That was a bad movie.

Also check out Wainy Days at mydamnchannel.com
Oh, there you go, I didn't see that.

My last sign off was of course from Southland Tales, the most elusive movie I've ever tried to see.
But until next time "if [I'd] meant [these blogs] literally, [I'd] have written them in stone."
Oh jeez. So nerdy and weird.

Posted by Pete at 7:05 AM

Labels: acid, BMW Z4, David Wain, Greyhound, LA, New York City, One Missed Call, Paul Rudd, Shannyn Sossaman, SNL, The Ten, The TIck, Wainy Days

Wednesday, January 2, 2008 24/7/366?

2009-12-19T07:41:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Wow, it still seems like it's 2008 but it's about to be 2010 in a few weeks.

24/7/366?

First of all, I hate it when people say 24/7/365, let me explain why: The first number (24) is the number of hours in a day. The second number (7) is the number of days in a week. The third number (365) is number of days in a year but hold on, we already covered days with 7. The correct continuation of the numeral phrase
Numeral phrase sounds so smart, did I make that up or is that a real thing?

would be 4 or 5 or 6 as in 4 or 5 or 6 weeks a month, but I get why they wouldn't want to say 24/7/5 or 6, it would be silly and confusing. We could almost just round to 5 weeks a month as pretty standard. However, I propose that we say 24/7/12, as in 12 months a year. That way we're saying 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 12 months a year. At least then we're keeping it fresh and not talking about days twice.
This makes so much sense to me.

So if you ever say anything about 24/7/ etc, which you shouldn't anyway because it's stupid, say 24/7/12 or 24/7/5/12/10/10/100/infinity and we'll have a chuckle.
No one has in these whole two years.

Also, this year is a leap year.

But anyway I leave for LA on the 8th, here's me packing with Ash:
In the original blog post the picture got cut off and Ash wasn't in it which explains her comment later on. I guess I've gotten much better at picture posting since 2008.

cute. I'm sure I'm going to need those red Aeropostale swim shorts for all the Blood Pool Parties I'm invited to.
Which I haven't gone to any yet.

I am going to try and watch 366 movies this year. So far it's January 2nd and I've watched 3 so I'm well on my way. I'm keeping a list that I'll post on January 1st 2009 so if you never read this blog again, at least read that one. I might even put them in order of how I liked them!!! How exciting would that be. I wish that some of my readers/friends would do this with me. If so we could talk about it and compare notes and be nerds about it. As always you can message me on this blog or at PeterLHarmon at gmail.com
I think maybe two people almost did this with me. Ever since I discovered IMDb My Movies this has been so much easier. I didn't get to 366 though. It would be so hard to watch a movie every day even though I feel like I do. It means that two hours-ish of every day is devoted to a movie. At LAFSC though at night almost every night I would sit on the couch and watch something and eat cookies and milk after the gym or pool. Not as bad as it sounds. I'm so glad I did LAFSC, it has been awesome and so helpful, however, I am really glad it's over and I don't have to do it again.

DVD pick of the day: Shooter. A lot of people were telling me I should see it so I did. I don't usually go for that type of movie but it was really good, not too complicated with all the government inner workings and top secrecy or whatever for the layman (aka me), and just plain exciting. Plus Mark Wahlberg is an awesome actor. He was my favorite part of The Departed and that's a feat. I don't want to ruin one of his upcoming roles, in case anyone cares about it, but check who he is playing in 2009 in this movie. http://imdb.com/title/tt0380510/ I don't know how I feel about it but I'm excited nonetheless.
Wow, this is weird that I'm re-blogging this today because I'm probbaly going to see The Lovely Bones today. It's also weird because Mark Wahlberg was in The Happening since this post and even though it was dumb I still thought he was so funny in it which maybe isn't a good thing. Everyone hated on him and that movie so hard and yeah, the movie was dumb and kind of boring, but I loved Mark Wahlberg in it and that iPhone video was so funny. Also, didn't Zooey Daschanel "only" have dessert with some guy? I think M. Night was messing with us with that movie.

I also saw Wayne's World for the first time ever today. It was super-90s. Kind of funny, the character of Wayne reminds me too much of Austin Powers mixed with Ted Logan from Bill and Ted. There were a lot of quotable quotes that I've heard before too many times.
Yeah, whatever. I haven't seen a lot of movies from people's childhoods and then when I catch up with them now they suck. THE GOONIES is one of the. The Goonies sucks. It's OK that you liked it when you were young but don't let that nostalgia taint your current opinions. It's even OK if you want to watch the movie now and remember it fondly as part of your childhood, but don't tell me it's a good movie for me as an adult to watch and then I watch it and it sucks and then you tell me that it doesn't.

Does anyone know where I could see Southland Tales? I don't want to have to wait for the DVD. I'm going to New York this weekend, maybe it's playing there. Or of course when I live in LA it might be playing.
I ended up seeing it and it was not what I expected. It was fine though.

I haven't been signing off of these blogs, like I haven't been saying "good night and have a pleasant tomorrow" or anything so I might just use a tagline or a quote from a movie I mention in the blog as the sign off. That could be a fun game for all of us. The first one might be really easy.

Oh well "have a nice apocalypse."
I'm glad I didn't keep doing this.

* Editors Note: lol at the blog formatting cutting off Ash in the picture, maybe once there are more postings it will show the entire picture, but she is in it and she did help me a lot.

Posted by Pete at 5:33 PM
2 hollers:

Ashlea said...

i was seriously wondering if you cropped me out on purpose. lol
January 2, 2008 7:22 PM
Woopsies!! I think these are my first comments though. Who knew they would be from my future wife!!!

Ashlea said...

also your blogs dont sound like how you talk outloud. so i'm wondering if thats how you sound inside your brain...you know?
January 2, 2008 7:23 PM
Ash and I just had a funny conversation about how we might sound in our heads but I can't explain it in words. Also, really? They don't sound like how I talk out loud? How do I sound out loud? Is this smarter or dumber than I sound? Do people think I sound dumb? Ah!!?!!

Saturday, December 29, 2007 For Pete?

2009-12-11T07:20:00.000-08:00

Saturday, December 29, 2007

For Pete?

Thanks to everyone who came to the going away party. I had a lot of fun and I was definitely surprised. I think I would have figured out that something fishy was going on if I had a couple more minutes. I saw Drew P's car then Brendan's but Ashlea said it wasn't there
woopsies, *their

cars and I believed her. Also, thanks for the kind words and the lewd drawings.
I think I might still have that piece of wrapping paper somewhere in my archives. It's funny that everyone drew wieners and wrote silly stuff like that to me for my going away party, but then at the lunch after my wedding rehearsal when we played that game everyone was so cordial and polite and mature with their drawings. Instead of like 'Hey Pete, don't go gay in LA' (not a real thing anyone wrote) the messages were like 'Pete has always been funny while maintaining his morals' (a real thing, paraphrased, that one of the fellas wrote). I guess they stepped it up since my whole family was there. Thanks for being appropriate guys!!

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story was great because it had a similar tone to how I write.
I am less of a Walk Hard fan now that I've seen it again, I think it was more of a one watch kind of movie. I'm not hating, but meh. I know Ash loves it though which, this is going to sound weird maybe, but I love it when Ash really likes a movie that I don't particularly like. It just shows me that we don't have to love the same movies and she has her own tastes and all that. One of my favorite days was when I told Ash she could pick the movie we saw at the $5 matinee because it seems like I always choose the movie or at least I suggest them, and she chose Notorious which is awesome because I love Biggie and that's what I was going to choose anyway.

Speaking of movies at that theater, Ash and I went to see Saw VI (I think it was 6) and a woman, man, and child sat behind us. They started talking in non-whispered regular voices part way through the movie. Ash and I moved to the other end of our row and we could still hear them. I went over to them and said, in a firm but not jerky tone, "Hey, we had to move because we could hear you talking and we can still hear you."

The woman said "OK" in a really mean voice.

I said "I'm asking you to be quiet, I don't want you to think I'm being passive aggressive and just being a dick, I'm actually asking you to be quiet."

The woman said, in an even meaner voice, "I said OK."

I said "Thank you" and went back and sat down.

And I seriously was that nice and I didn't curse at her (except for saying I wasn't being a dick, whatever) and her kid was too young to be watching Saw but that's another story, but she got mad at me! She was ruining MY movie watching experience. She paid money (and this was no $5 matinee sister) to go sit in a theater and talk? This isn't your living room. Why are you mad at me? Oh, because I exposed you for being a jerk, now you're going to have to tell your kid why that man had to reprimand you in a public place. Because you were being inconsiderate and wrong. That's one reason why I'd rather watch my movies at home. I've adopted the thinking that if a movie I sold out, or has the potential of selling out, I'd rather not see it then anyway and watch it at home on my awesome TV with my baby dog.

That's one of the first times I've ever really done that, told someone to be quiet in the movies, and thankfully I didn't get stabbed.

I'm glad there are ridiculous comedies getting made out there.
Sure.

It had most of the Apatow crew in it and some SNL alums.
It also had Matt Besser in it and now I see him all the time at the UCB theater.

It seemed like an Apatow movie mixed with an SNL digital short mixed with The Brothers Solomon (in a good way). I know it's been out for a while but go see it. I would watch it again right now, there are so many jokes and it might even be better a second time through.
They weren't.

Junebug is also on the list of must see movies. It's incredible.
Yes!

I leave for LA in a little over a week. I still need to get rid of my car,
What a cool thing to say, get rid of my car. I'm like (adapting a cool guy voice) Yeah, I don't need this car anymore, Ima just get rid of it, probably like drive it towards a cliff and then jump out and let it run of the edge and watch it burn brah.

buy some stuff, and pack. I'm visiting New York a week from today though. Hopefully I'll see Tina Fey or Conan on the street because they aren't working right now.
Sweet burn? I love writer's strike humor!!!!

Thursday, December 27, 2007 Sweeney Todd

2009-11-05T17:14:00.000-08:00

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Sweeney Todd

See Sweeney Todd. Period.
I still feel this way. I want to see it again on Blu-Ray for sure.

Buy the soundtrack.
I never buy music hardly ever, not to mention soundtracks, and I mean I like never have bought a soundtrack ever, except for maybe the Next Friday soundtrack, but I bought this soundtrack (on iTunes what what) because it was awesome. There are people the buy a lot of CDs, I don't understand where they get money from to buy them, it seems like poor people always have a lot of CDs. I used to go to Record and Tape CDepot or whatever, they're all named some combination of those words, and trade in like 30 CDs and get one CD for the price of the 30 I traded in. And one time I bought a Silkk The Shocker CD and to my dismay it was edited. Now, if you know anything about Silkk the Shocker, you may know that his songs already sound edited because he pauses all the time and has no flow. I should have gone with Mystikal or maybe C-Murder, pre-murder of course.

Remember Funcoland? You used to be able to play the game to make sure it worked because technology still sucked. The Funcoland guy actually had to blow on the game before he put it in the NES or Sega or what have you. The only time I ever played VirtuaBoy was in Blockbuster and even as however young of a gentleman I was, I was like wow, this sucks...but I want one. You're either super rich or super poor if you owned a VirtuaBoy. A sure sign that you're poor is if you owned a lot of CDs and a VirtuaBoy.

Back to soundtracks for just one more second. Some people are soundtrack nerds. They're like, oh, I loved Batman's theme in Dark Knight, or the music in There Will Be Blood was spellbinding. My answer to that is, wait, were you watching the movie or being a weird nerd. Then they buy the soundtrack? Why not just buy the movie for the five extra dollars and then you get a whole movie too. You really wanna listen to 'Joker's Lament' or something like that in your car? Come on.

All that said I bought the Sweeney Todd Soundtrack so I'm a hypocrite. I guess I would have bought the movie but it wasn't out yet and if I had bought the movie I'd be pissed today because I didn't get the Blu-Ray.

Posted by Pete at 8:55 PM

Monday, December 24, 2007 VHS Tapes

2009-10-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

Monday, December 24, 2007
Blogging on Christmas Eve.

VHS Tapes

Right now I am undertaking the huge
Aka not that huge.

project of transferring my movies that I have made over the years from mini DV, Avid file, Windows Media Player file, and VHS all to my MacBook and iPod.
I'm really glad I did this. I don't think the VHS transfers every actually worked out though.

A lot of them are terrible but a couple of them are awesome. It has been a great timeline that has shown how I've changed since my early movie making days. It's also great that I'll be able to have my movies on my iPod.
I've probably shown people them on my iPod twice, maybe.

I'll be able to transport them anywhere and show them to anyone. However, I need to borrow a VCR to complete the task.
Anyone!!?

Does anyone have a good VCR with an output RCA port that I can borrow? Message me, leave a comment, or email me at PeterLHarmon at gmail.com
Yeah, I don't think that ever worked, which may be for the best. One of my early video projects I was a part in high school was a remake of a scene from a Friends episode. I played Chandler. I was so bad. I should have at least watched the episode ahead of time so then I could mimic his line readings. I should go to one of those shady 'we turn your VHS into a DVD' places and get my VHS tapes changed.

Has anyone seen Juno? I had really mixed feelings about it. Actually I really liked everything but the main character, Juno.
Still pretty true but why did I have to talk about Juno soo much. And then it's weird that my internship was at the production company that made Juno, right after I started this blog.

Michael Cera was great, both hilarious and heartbreaking. Jennifer Garner walked a fine line between seeming to crazy to still being able to be related to.
I don't remember writing this or ever writing like this.

Jason Bateman was good as well. However, Ellen Page's title character (it wasn't all her fault) made me hate her nearly every time she opened her mouth. The slang and tone of her character wasn't natural. I think it was mostly the script's fault. I mean sure, people do really talk like that in real life, but I dislike those people in real life too. Also her character liked punk music...who cares? Is she Kirsten Dunst's love interest in Bring It On?
Good reference, srsly.

He liked punk music too. They're both such rebels.
But apparently people loved the way she talked because the theater was responding very well to it and Diablo Cody got a Golden Globe nomination. I would like to hear someone who really loved Juno's character to tell me why they liked it.
Still haven't.

I didn't, but the movie is still good and watchable in spite of it. Michael Cera, again, was breathtaking and so is the closing shot of the movie.
I copied the end shot of Juno in Jasper.

The direction was really good too.

Here's a pic of Michael Cera I got from this blog http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/oscars/index.html who's got a much better blog than I.

This isn't going to turn into a Michael Cera fan blog, I swear.
But he is wearing some shoes I have.
Instead of reviewing movies I should have started posting pictures of celebrities wearing shoes I own. That would have been a lot more interesting.

There are too many movies out right now that I want to see.
This is usually the case. There's usually two or three good movies out that I want to see but then I end up going and seeing like One Missed Call or something. Then, when it was my birthday this year there was nothing at all out. I had to go see the Friday the 13th remake. At least I avoided the temptation to go see Zombieland last weekend and Ash and I saw the Toy Story 3D double feature. It was so good but Ash and I forgot that there would be a lot of kids in the theater, duh. The couple next to us had a kid that fell asleep in the first movie and snored throughout the rest of it and the second movie. An old grandpa next to me fell asleep, he didn't even pretend to put on his 3D glasses. Basically these people are paying nine dollars (it was a matinee plus the 3D charge) for someone to take a nap. No one shows discretion when they go to a theater. There were babies when I saw Saw V! But at nice theaters like the Arclight the tickets are like fifteen dollars, maybe that's the price you have to pay to weed out the babies.

Merry Christmas.

Posted by Pete at 6:15 PM

Thursday, December 20, 2007 Waiting For My Big Break

2009-10-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

Thursday, December 20, 2007
Ooooh, almost Christmas!!!

Waiting For My Big Break

I just finished the first
And only, I'm a one take kinda guy.

draft of the script I am going to submit for the LA program. It is supposed to be 8 minutes (aka 8 pages in standard screenplay format).
Thanks for the necessary clarification.

Mine is about 7 pages but some of my concepts will be longer in the film than they are on paper I think.
The script is titled Waiting For My Big Break and it is about a young woman who moved to Los Angeles to follow her dreams and become what she always has wanted to be since she was a little girl...a waitress. The only problem is that all she can get is acting jobs on the side while she's waiting for her big waitressing break.
I need to reread this script but from what I remember it was legit. I should try and make it at some point.

Get the title now? The pitch sounds a little hokey but I think I found a great tone and I'm really proud of the script. I was going to post the first couple of pages to give you a sample of the humor but the blog wouldn't let me format it correctly and it looked like a mess.
A hot mess.

If you would like to read the first couple of pages of the script just email me at PeterLHarmon at gmail.com and I'll send you them.
No one ever did...

Or you can just wait five months until it is produced (hopefully).
Broken dream right there. Documented.

I wrote this script more descriptively than I usually write just in case I'm not the one who eventually directs it at the LA program. I have a very clear vision of how it has to look and I don't want it to be messed up.

Online TV shows to watch: like I said yesterday, Wainy Days at www.mydamnchannel.com also Clark and Michael at www.clarkandmichael.com which if you haven't seen it by now you're really late but it's still worth watching if you're a fan. It's smarter and probably generally funnier than Superbad and I know how much we all love that movie (which I do but it's not the end all be all).
I am definitely going to go back and rewatch all the Clark and Michaels. This is how you know though that I didn't have anything interesting going on, and I'm not saying I ever have, but the fact that I'm blogging about what Internet TV shows to watch?

And look how I get a little snooty about Superbad. I really like Superbad. Who says end all be all?

Fun fact: I'm friends with Clark Duke on youtube and I messaged him one time and he responded.
I also messaged him when I was casting Jasper because I really wanted him to play Jasper and I thought he was still kind of unknown and maybe Clark and Michael was the only thing he had really done but what I didn't know was that he was about to be on the show "Greek" and be in real movies. He would have made a great Jasper but I think the guy who ended up doing it was perfect.

the aforementioned Clark and Michael

Movies to watch: Eastern Promises.
At this point I've only posted on this blog like 4 times and I think I've mentioned Eastern Promises every time. I guess that was when Viggo handed me the big bag of money with the dollar sign on the side.

It's so good. And of course Superbad but before you watch any Judd Apatow productions you need to buy the DVD boxed sets of Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared.
Apatow snobbery.

Or borrow them from me but you'll have to give it back by January.
Or don't, whatevs, I'm breezy.

Questions, comments, feedback, (movie, etc related) announcements you want me to post send to me PeterLHarmon at gmail.com
Because my blog is the hub of all entertainment and not just a way for my parents to see what mid level celebrity I saw at The Grove.

Posted by Pete at 3:19 PM
Labels: celebrity gossip, Eastern Promises, Jamie Lynn Spears lol, jk, pitches, river bottom nightmares, scripts, serving, Superbad, X-Men 3 blog, youtube video
Jamie Lynn Spears must have just gotten busted being pregnant, see, in two years no one will care about any of the celebrity news that they did.

1 hollers:
My first comment!!

Ashlea said...
Future wife!!

dont forget that i am friends with michael cera via myspace for his short film "darling darling." he has messaged me twice!!

ash
You're gonna need to step up your grammar and punctuation for all future comments please. But that is cool, a little back and forth with Mikey C. Totes jelz...

My battery of my laptop is about to run out soon, so I won't talk about how dumb I think every kid is going to be eventually, but young kids and texting right now is out of control, and I try to talk to people my age about it and they all make some joke about me sounding old, like an old grandpa or something, but when your only source of communication or writing is like this: r u gon 2 da mall l8s? You're going to be an idiot. I just know one day I'm going to have some job where I'm reading these idiots resumes and I'll have to be all like 'So, it says your skillz include being a l33t hax0r and making your peepz lls off da chane?' and they'll be like 'what? sorry, I was live tweeting this job interview.'

December 20, 2007 8:53 PM

Wednesday, December 19, 2007 Stellllaaaaaaa

2009-10-11T22:09:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Stellllaaaaaaa

David Wain has an internet TV show called "Wainy Days" that is really funny.
I need to catch up on this series, it was really funny.

It has millions of special guests
Well that's an exaggeration if I ever heard one.

like Michael Ian Black, Elizabeth Banks, Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Fogell/McLovin from Superbad), Martin Starr (Beard guy from Knocked Up), etc. There are about 15 episodes so far, they are only about 3-5 minutes each. You should sit down and watch them all right now.
Or else?

I think the latest episode comes out this Friday. Here is Episode 1 to give you an example.
It would be sweet if I had embedded Star Wars Episode 1.

Sweet? Who says sweet? Am I in Dude, Where's My Car? The best part though of Dude, Where's My Car was when they were trying to tell each other about their tattoos.

I'm always sad when people that I am positive are dumber/ poorer than me (and I'm pretty dumb and poor) have more tattoos than me. How are they affording tattoos? I was transcribing one of the first episodes of "Intervention" that I ever transcribed and the addict and her boyfriend had matching tattoos. The boyfriend said something like 'I bought me and her these matchin' tattoos with my first paycheck from my job at the bank but then I got fired from the bank cause she was calling me too much on the bank phone.'

You live with your parents but you spend your first paycheck on matchin' tattoos? Come on.

Also, I don't spend money on cell phones. The phone I currently have I paid $10 for when I re-upped my plan at T-Mobile and I think that's too much. This $10 phone is my first ever camera phone, which I used to hate on, but it's actually pretty cool. But anyway, how come the guy putting granola on my Pinkberry for me has an iPhone and I have the $10 re-up phone? I bet he has so many tattoos also.

Alright, I gotta re-watch this Wainy Days episode.

Silly right? Totally.
Totally. I watched the Stella: Live at Boston thing the other day, it's on Netflix watch instantly right now, and it was really funny. I would/ am currently recommending it.

If you have a video or link or announcement or whatever that you want me to put in my blog just send me an email at PeterLHarmon at gmail.com explaining yourself.
There's that at instead of @ thing again. Whatever Pete. Also, I used the words 'explaining yourself' that's weird. If you email me you have some 'splaining to do.

The other night at dinner, Ash and I went to a birthday dinner for her coworker, eh nevermind, I'm not even going to set up the story because as I think back on it now it really isn't that funny or maybe it just wouldn't be funny written down and maybe it was funny at the time.

Whenever I think of jokes ahead of time in a conversation I never say them because I feel like that's cheating. I only feel like off the cuff remarks deserve any credit. But thasss jus me ya'll.

Yesterday I watched The Kingdom and The Heartbreak Kid. The Kingdom was great, Jamie Foxx did a great job and even though I usually don't care for political thrillers this movie made everything pretty clear as well as having some great action scenes where you could actually tell what was going on.
This semi-pisses me off that I would say something like this at any point in my life for a couple reasons. One is the whole who cares about your movie opinions Pete? Another is that I listen to a lot of movie related podcasts and whenever a big action movie comes out every single 'critic' aka nerd with a podcast, is all like 'I didn't have any idea what was going on in the action scenes.' Really? Because I saw Casino Royale or Bourne Whatever and I didn't have any trouble telling who was doing what am I'm not even a critic!! I don't think these guys actually had any trouble knowing anything, I think they're just exaggerating to make the point, which I understand is entertaining to other d-bags, but I personally appreciate honesty. I would appreciate it if they just said 'hey, you know what, the action was shot and cut a little frenetically for my taste.'

Heartbreak Kid was better than I expected. I didn't really like There's Something About Mary so I didn't expect this to be any good either. There are the typical shock humor moments that really aren't very funny but if you get a chance to see this movie for free (like I did) go ahead and take it. There are some bro twins who are kind of funny in it, maybe just because they're twins/bros (I mean bro like fraternity brother, not like biological brothers because that's implied by them being twins).
No comment.

Once again, you should all listen to the Creative Screenwriting Podcast. It is fascinating to listen to writers discuss their breaking-in stories, how the studio (or independent) system works, and everything else you'd want to know about writing a movie.
Jeez Louise, I guess this was when Jeff Goldsmith handed me the big bag of money with the dollar sign on it. That's a super nerdy Creative Screenwriting related joke, haHA!

Go to iTunes and search for Creative Screenwriting in the Podcast area. Hostel Parts I and II are on there, Brick, The Kingdom, X-men 3, and probably about a hundred or two more.

Posted by Pete at 12:02 PM
I consider myself relatively smart. I did pretty well on the SATs, got good grades, sometimes know the answers on Jeopardy, etc, but I also know that I am super dumb about so much stuff. For example, reading this timestamp I really have to think whether 12:02 PM is right after midnight or right after noon. So I just thought about it for a second and I'm going to say that I know it is right after noon but still, it wasn't automatic knowledge. I think that I care so much about the stuff that I care about that anything else is very inconsequential. I don't even remember a lot of the roads' names I used to drive every single day in Maryland around Greenbelt or whatever just because I usually navigate based on sight so road names don't matter so I forget them, or never learn them.

Labels: David Wain, Elizabeth Banks, LOL, My Damn Channel, pwn3d, Stella, Tom Hanks, Wainy Days
I'm starting to get a little silly with the labels here. Tom Hanks? Pwn3d? Hilarious!

One of my favorite parts of the 17 Again Blu-Ray Extras (which is a funny sentence in itself) is when Zac Efron tells Tom Lennon that he should say pwn3d when he's playing all of his video games in that one scene. This makes Zac Efron seem a little bit cooler or maybe a little bit lamer, can't decide right now. Not that I'm gonna hate whatsoever, because I really, legitimately like 17 Again a lot, because it's a lot like the late 90s teen movies I really like, but watching it in Blu-Ray you can see Efron's weird, probably spray on, tan in the scene where he has his shirt off towards the beginning.

Speaking of Tom Lennon, why, when, and how did Jon Hamm from "Mad Men" get to be so friendly with the UCB/CDR comedians? He does all their podcasts? I'm not complaining, it's just weird because he has an Emmy and, I'm seriously not hating at all, I love going to UCB and I listen to all those comedians podcasts.

This has gotten to be too much about podcasts and not enough about 17 Again. In summation, let's have a 17 Again Blu-Ray party at our house, you're invited but BYO soda.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007 I Forgot

2009-10-10T16:37:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

I Forgot
I can't wait to find out what I forgot.

Yesterday when I said that I was going to send out query letters soon, I forgot that the writer's strike is still going on
Oh, there it is.

I don't think I ever sent out those query letters, in fact, I didn't send out any query letters at all until really recently which I talk about in my real blog at length.

which probably means that even if production companies and literary agents were accepting queries or specs that it wouldn't be a good idea for me to pursue them right now anyway. So for now I will continue to write and hopefully have a stockpile of work to show once the strike ends.
Show who? That's the problem I still don't know the answer to.

I'll try and register at least one of my scripts right after Christmas
My gift from me to me.

so that I'll have something to talk about. I have one in mind that is about 100 pages and has pretty good structure.
I don't know what I'm talking about. I have a script in mind that's about a hundred pages? How would I ever know that?

Registering a script with the WGA costs $20 and although it isn't airtight for defending your ideas if a lawsuit were to come up, it provides a date for when you registered so if your opponents date is later than that you'll hopefully win.
Why am I trying to sound like I know anything about it? Maybe I had just heard that on the Creative Screenwriting podcast.

Speaking of the Creative Screenwriting podcast, when I was working at Blockbuster I one time had to do an all night shift while the store was closed where we scanned every single copy of every single movie on the shelves so that the computer knew what we had in stock. There's a word that means that but I can't think of it right now, it's not restocking, it's like what you have in stock though, oh!!! I just thought of the word, inventory. So I had to do an all night inventory shift and the whole night I did the mindless task of scanning every single movie with this barcode gun and I listened to a bunch of Creative Screenwriting podcasts and I enjoyed it. I really don't mind meaningless/ repetitive jobs if I can listen to podcasts or music or something while I'm doing it. That's why I like to work out while watching a movie. There should be a BYO movie gym. They provide the equipment and you bring in your Netflixes, Netflixi, Netfloox and you can watch whatever (to a certain extent obviously).

Ash and I quit our gym and got a Gazelle thing because I wanted to work out and watch movies and also the trainers at our Van Nuys branch of LA Fitness told us we were fat and were basically a-holes to us because we didn't want to buy their expensive training sessions. The North Hollywood LA Fitness was awesome. It had a basketball court, sauna, and pool and one time I worked out like three feet away from Ryan Gosling, no bull, but the Van Nuys one sucks.

We saw a girl perform at UCB who had a song about Ryan Gosling going to her gym and it was a great song and she had a good voice and the whole song was about loving Ryan Gosling and how he went to her gym and then after the show Ash said "my husband saw Ryan Gosling at the gym, you guys must have went to the same gym" and the girl said that she made it up, Ryan Gosling did not actually go to her gym (at least as far as she knew). That makes me question whether she went to the gym at all!!

I've never registered a script before so I'd like to talk to someone with experience before I do.
Now I'm a pro.

I'm so glad I didn't actually talk to anyone with experience about registering a script. They would have been like, OK, go to the website, then you click the mouse on the 'register script' link you idiot...because it's really easy to do is what I'm trying to say.

I might e-mail my directing teacher to get the basics about it.
Who gave me the job at "Intervention" that I still do to this day!

My last day of working at Blockbuster went fine, I got to rent movies for this week.
Nice.

I'm excited to see Eastern Promises because A History of Violence was so good.
I'm glad I didn't continue this whole thing of reviewing movies or talking about movies or whatever.

When do Academy Awards nominations come out?
Did I not have the internet?

I still have a lot of movies to see before they do.
Psh.

Out of the Golden Globe nominations for Best Screenplay I've only seen No Country for Old Men but it was awesome.
True.

I'll probably see Juno soon (maybe today) which was written by Diablo Cody (a pseudonym) who is an ex-stripper. I hope one of those movies wins.
Dear Past Pete, no one cares what you think, this is stupid.

Posted by Pete at 7:07 AM
I guess I got the worm that day.

Labels: Blockbuster, Eastern Promises, screenwriting, Writer's Guild
These are the tags I picked for this post. Very no nonsense.

This was another pretty short post, why didn't I explain why it was short in this one? Um, this is gonna be a short post, I put a bagel in the oven then came up here to blog and I don't want it to get burnt (or burned?).

You can read the real post here.

Monday, December 17, 2007 New Blog

2009-10-10T15:27:00.000-07:00

Monday, December 17, 2007

New Blog
Sweet blog title bro.

I am about to go to my last day of work at Blockbuster.
I think I remember working at Blockbuster a little too fondly. I got five free movies a week and I always watched all of them and sometimes the commentaries too. That was the semester I lived at home in Cheverly, with my parents, so I could save money. I think it was actually mostly about my parents maybe saving money because I had virtually no expenses yet I still only managed to have like a thousand dollars when I went out to California. Probably because I kept buying Ashlea iPods. Back when Ashlea was only my girlfriend!!

That's crazy to think about. I even made a joke when I gave her one of the many iPods I bought her (I actually only bought her one) about how the present was unfortunately shaped like an engagement ring box.

Anyway, back to Blockbuster, a funny story about that. One day my manager's managers were checking up on our branch or location or whatever, making sure our checkout line corralled customers through the impulse aisle and such, and about halfway through the day I realized that I had been calling my manager the wrong name all day, in front of her bosses. Her name was like Samantha or something like that (I still can't remember her name, also I just realized that with these parenthetical statements I'm commenting on the commentary of my own blog posts, ah!) but I kept calling her Sandra. I do remember that I called her Sandra. Alright, next.

I leave for LA in 22 days. This blog will be a way for people to keep in touch with me and/or hear about how my attempt to make movies is going.
I think I've done a semi-successful job fulfilling that thesis statement right there.

I have written 3 full length screenplays so far, I am in the process of writing a fourth and outlining a fifth.
I don't really remember which ones I'm talking about, maybe Suicide Watch though which I eventually wrote at LAFSC.

I decided to actually outline this latest script because I've been listening to the Creative Screenwriting magazine's podcast (someone's going to have to teach me how to link things)
I'm a pro at that now.

and most of the screenwriters they interview do some sort of outlining process.
I now outline everything with note cards, my how I've grown!!

My goal is to write at least a 25 page outline before trying to write the script.
This never happened.

I will talk about my stories and scripts probably once I register them with the WGA.
I started researching production companies/literary agents today so I can send out query letters soon.
Who cares?

This is a short one because I waited to start writing it 5 minutes before I have to go to work.
I was like "People are going to wonder why this is such a short blog post? Are they all going to be this short? What does he have to do in five minutes?" and so I felt I had to make everyone clear on all those questions' answers.

I see that the time stamp below says that I posted this at 4:50 PM, when was my shift going to start if I had to leave in five minutes? I worked in Greenbelt and lived in Cheverly (for all you non PG Countyers that's about a ten to fifteen minute drive depending on traffic) I remember working 6 PM to close shifts often. Was I really allowing myself an hour and ten minutes to get to Greenbelt? Which I can assume the answer is yes because I am a freak of nature when it comes to being early.

When I used to go on dates (or whatever they were) back in the day I would always get to the girl's neighborhood so early I would have to drive around listening to music or something for ten to fifteen minutes before I was actually supposed to pick her up. I get anxious. Sometimes, if I had saved some of my allowance or had some change banging around the super dirty cupholder of my awesome van, I would stop at 7-11 (for all my Southern US readers a 7-11 is kind of like a Piggly Wiggly) for like a lime green tea Snapple.

I got thirty dollars for my allowance every single week, which sounds like a lot, but not when you factor in that I had to pay for my own gas and I drove to school every weekday. So that was 20ish dollars right there, so I'm trying to be a high schooler on ten dollars a week and that is how I became so thrifty and why I started shopping at the thrift store. This is all stream of consciousness by the way if you couldn't tell. Now I'm debating whether or not to delete that explanation that this is stream of consciousness. I guess I won't.

My new e-mail address is PeterLHarmon at gmail.com
I don't know why I did that thing with the word at instead of the @ symbol. I guess Twitter hadn't made the @ en vogue yet which it actually didn't do because everyone's email address was somethingsomething@whatever.com (by the way I wish that was my email address. People would think you were such a dick. "What's your email address Steve?" "Oh, it's somethingsomething@whatever.com" "If you didn't want to tell me just say you don't want to tell me, you don't have to be a dick." aaaaaand scene.)

When people say their Twitter names they always say my Twitter is at-whatever. Can't you just say my Twitter name is whatever and the at is implied? I'm sure that this has been said a million times before, I don't even have a twitter and I don't really know how it works. If I did have a Twitter I would also have a Twitter where I commented on that original Twitter's tweets.

I can't believe I devolved into saying unoriginal things about Twitter. Why don't I reference Kanye doing whatever to Taylor Swift or Obama winning the Nobel Prize too? Jeez Louise.

Posted by Pete at 4:50 PM
Since I was called Lindsay for the first several years of my life I have this weird thing in my head where I don't really refer to myself as anything, like I'm not like secretly thinking of myself as Lindsay and having to remember that it's Peter now but I'm also not like, my name is Peter. I think at the most basic level I'm like, I'm Pete because one time, which I think I talk about on the original Pete's blog, Ashlea and company threw me a surprise going away party and when I walked in and everyone said surprise I said, out loud, for Pete?

Maybe no one thinks about their name in their head ever and right now reading this you're just like, what? Rereading this I'm even a little bit like, what? Just kidding, I know exactly what I'm talking about and so should you.

So I think that was fun and awesome and if no one ever reads this I really won't care. To read the original post go here.