MUGWUMP

This and That

Anyone else noticed how refreshing it is not to have any Anna Nicole Smith news in the news?

Drive got cancelled after 4 episodes. Bit of a bummer, but Fox plans on airing the other two episodes this summer.

I was disappointed with the 30 Rock season finale... but great first season overall.

Mika and Lily Allen would be great together out on tour.

I saw the movie Notes on a Scandal the other night. The Philip Glass score totally ruined what could have been a great little dark comedy... which is how it should have been played.

Oh... I finished a first draft of a new script last week. Trying to sort out finding a manager for myself this week.

Outsourced wins

I finally got to see my friend John Jeffcoat's film OUTSOURCED last Friday night at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles held at the Arclight. It was great! I mean, it's always a good thing that the thing that you're going to see to support a friend doesn't suck, so afterwards you're not hemming and hawing and trying to come up with some lame compliment... but this was really touching and heartwarming and there was absolutely no need to search for faint or false praise.
In fact, Outsourced was the recipient of the audience award for best feature at an awards ceremony John invited me to on Sunday night. After the awards bit, we all danced and I learned some funky Indian dance moves with odd names like "the butter churn" and "the genie". Was a great time.

Being First Lady is "Hard"

After seeing this I've come to the realization that I've always given Laura too much credit.

Waitress

I got to go to a screening of a movie called Waitress on Thursday night. It's the film that was written and directed by Adrienne Shelley, the actress who was in most of Hal Hartley's films and was murdered by a construction worker in New York City before her film got to theaters.
The movie was funny and charming and a great little crowd pleaser. And who knew Andy Griffith was still acting?
Highlight of the night though was as I was walking to the bathroom I saw Joss Whedon duck in just ahead of me. When I got inside, he was already in one of the stalls and I was standing at the urinal thinking, "Ok... so if we're both washing our hands at the same time, do I say 'Hey, love your work' or what?" Just about then I heard that he wasn't doing a number 1... but a pretty loud number 2.
There was no chit chat at the sink. I made a bee line out of there, kinda embarrassed for both of us.

Drive premiere

Watched my friend Kevin Alejandro's show, 'Drive', during its 2 hour opening last night and had a blast. This is fun t.v., not a whole lot of thinking to do... just the sit back and go along for the ride kind. Funny characters who each have their own things going on and their own stories to fulfill. Looking forward to tonight's installment.

Oh, almost forgot.... Kevin took me with his wife Leslie and our friend Arsen to watch the show at Nathan Fillion's house.

Nathan Fillion... who played captain Malcolm Reynolds on Firefly.

Yes, you may touch me now.

Bus Riding Cat

Odd little story in the Daily Mail about a cat who takes the bus on his own everyday. (nod to: dlisted)

32 Million Dollars? When do we start?

Here's a head's up for anyone that has come across my site on a Kevin Alejandro search. He's been lucky enough to score parts in Alias, Sleeper Cell, JAG, Big Love, and most recently Ugly Betty (on which he still appears as 'Santos').... but now my friend Kevin is a lead in a network series. The 2 hour premiere of DRIVE is this coming Sunday at 8pm on FOX.

Blow me up once, Shame on you. Blow me up twice, and... well... you can't blow me up again.

I was a little amused when I first read this Detroit News story. I mean, you can tell it's intended tone is sort of "awh, gosh":

Ford President Alan Mulally, right, had to be quick on his feet to make sure President Bush plugged a power cord into the right socket on a Ford hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid.

Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.

Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel tank.

"I just thought, 'Oh my goodness!' So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front," Mulally said. "I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen This is all off the record, right?"

Boy, our president. What a guy. Right?

My initial amusement soured however when I took the funny little spin off the story.

Here is someone that had to be physically stopped from injuring himself because he has this "leader of the free world" complex and doesn't want to be seen taking instruction from anyone.... or just simply doesn't want to take instruction. He just goes and does, results be damned.

HE'S the decider. HE'S the president.

It sorta makes you wonder how in the hell he hasn't inadvertantly sparked an all out nuclear war just by walking into missle silo and thinking, "Ooooh, pretty red button. I'm gonna push that."

At least the Vice-President was present... so we know it really was a near-accident and not some bizarre two-birds-with-one-boom assassination attempt spearheaded by Cheney to ascend to the presidency and to scare the oil-addicted U.S. off of alternative fuel cars. Although that bemused look on Cheney's face makes me think he doesn't really expect this crazy hydrogen car to work. ("A horse-less carriage, you say??? Well, I'd like to see that!!)

A&F hits London

Tom Mitchelson, a journalist for the Dailymail, goes undercover to work in an Abercrombie & Fitch store to report on the goings-on there. Choice bit:

The interview room at the Abercrombie & Fitch headquarters was packed. The woman interrogator asked which three words I'd use to describe myself.

I repeated what the girl before me had said "I'm approachable and friendly". My interviewer smiled and wrote this down.

She informed us that the company had a "tagline" which we would have to use when greeting customers. She explained, very seriously, that it was, "Hello, how are you?"

"How did you come up with that?" I asked. She said a company of marketing consultants had worked intensively at developing it.

They wanted to audition me to see if I could deliver the line - this was make or break. "Hello, how are you?!" I said clearly. "Very good" she reassured me.

I had cleared my first hurdle and said four words in the right order, a test that floored some of my fellow-would-be-models - honestly.

When Geeks Attack

I gotta give this guys props for their choreography in this homemade Star Wars battle.