S n a r k A t t a c k

I Want to Ride My Bicycle

So the other writers were talking about the British Open.  This is golf.  This is golf on television - which is not the most riveting thing you'll see on t.v., obviously, so I thought it was safe to mention another televised sport that is erroneously considered to be boring.

And not Nascar, which is, without a doubt, incredibly dull.

No, I mentioned the Tour de France and in return got a lot of blank stares.  I like the Tour de France.  I actually think the strategy is interesting and the physicality required to finish - let alone win - the Tour is amazing.  Every year I dutifully set the Tivo to record the live 5am broadcast of the Tour on Versus (previously on OLN) and sit back as Phil Liggett waxes rhapsodic on various riders 'dancing on their pedals' as they zoom up some treacherous mountain stage or how so-and-so is riding with 'tremendous heart,' or something along those lines.  It's great fun. 

Yesterday as I walked the pups down La Cienega, I was thinking about all of this, and how I felt somewhat uncool in liking televised cycling over televised golf and how cycling is underrated.  As I was contemplating life's unfairness, a guy on a mountain bike pedaled quickly towards me - on the sidewalk - forcing me to pull the dogs closer to me so he wouldn't hit them. 

I had this massive urge to shove him off his bike and into traffic. 

As in most things cycling-related these days, I blame drugs.   

Everybody Dance Now

I am currently looking for a dogwalker. 

Here's what I don't get - it should be easy: you make a list of dogwalkers, you call them, they call you, you meet them, you decide that they are not that crazy (n.b.: every dogwalker is slightly crazy, and I don't mean this as a dig, only that anyone who spends most of their time talking to dogs is going to be a little nuts and that's usually okay) and then you make a deal where they get a key to your house and you pay them an ungodly amount of money to walk your dogs around the block.  It's about a buck a minute.  To walk around the block.  Maybe pick up some poo.  It's a good deal.   

In exchange for such outlay of cash money, you arrive home every night, secure in the knowledge that upon entering the house you will be greeted by happy pups and not, say, a urine-soaked carpet.  Everybody's happy. 

The problem is that I haven't been getting calls back from these people.  Who would have thought it was such an ordeal?   

I did find out that the only way to bring dogs onto the lot is to put them on a call sheet, which would be kind of cool, and perhaps then the pups would get their very own IMDB listings and...well, maybe not.

But speaking of IMDB, one of our friends is now a new resident of IMDB, following her performance in an Outfest short.  The song is a nice little tune, sort of a love song, not quite a ballad, and definitely not danceable.  Cut to (and this is how we talk now) - ten minutes after the screening when we all convene at Bungalow Club to celebrate the short.  In the background we hear something... what is that?  Why, it's the love song...which has already been remixed as a dance song.  Oh, you gays!

All You Can Do Is Write About It

Yet another hiatus from the blogosphere, but this time, it was time well-spent: after nearly two years of purposeful unemployment while I focused on getting a job writing for television, I landed a job...writing for television. 

I won't get into too many details here but in short, I had reckoned that I'd completely missed out on the 2007 staffing season and so was preparing to settle into a nice year of depression fueled by endless Monday morning quarterbacking (is there something else I could have done?).  Then, in June, I found out that a show might still be hiring and so it began - I came in, interviewed with the producers who liked me and later brought me in to meet with the showrunner.  A week of fretting ensued while they made a decision.  Never ones to sit around, the GF and I decided that if we're finding out - either way - on July 3rd, that we might as well hedge our bets.  Thus, when I got the news, the GF and I were in line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland.  The happiest place on earth, indeed.

Sweet.

I started this last Monday and it's been a hoot.  And I still can't believe this is my life.