News from the front...

Once again an apology for the lack of updates. I could blame it on the emotional freefall I've been in since learning that Gilmore Girls was coming to a close, but you know, it had run its course and resolved itself about as well as I had hoped, plus I'm a little too tough to let the future of a CW network television show affect my creative output (actually, Veronica Mars may be cancelled too as of Thursday morning, so maybe I should wait before making a bravado-filled statement I might regret).

Some serious computer problems out here in minneapolis, and I don't know if I'm going to be online with my computer the whole time I'm here (about 2 1/2 more weeks). Apparently my computer is too NEW to be compatible with the modem & wireless security at the place I'm subletting. Way to go, Apple. That's what nearly $2000 gets you. Oh, my 90-day tech support window is over already too? Unless I want pay $350 to extend my warranty and regain the right to hear some Indian operator posing under a fake American name type what I'm saying into their own help software and stall me with pre-scripted babble (personally I would feel in better hands if they used their own names; the smartest kid when I was in elementary school--let me rephrase that to allow for my younger self, who was able to get much further ahead with little effort--the second smartest kid when I was in elementary school was named Deepak, and I know if it was him instead of "John" on the other end of the line I wouldn't be so skeptical). Alright, maybe it was Qwest, the ISP, who was outsourcing the help line jobs, but allow me a little poetic license in combining the two corporate brick walls I just hit, for pete's sake.

What this all means is no pictures, which, let's face it, is a great way to not have to sit down and actually write something on a regular basis. Since I just spent the most part of a week driving across the Great American West, I was hoping to share some of the visual record from said trek, and I assure you there's some great stuff scattered among the typical Me In Front of Mount Rushmore shots (there's actually a Me Appearing To French Kiss George Washington's Profile shot, but I'm sure that's been done a million times as well, no offense Martha).

Do you want to see me ride a 6-foot-tall jackalope? Or Ryan's face in the cut-out hole of a squaw, holding a papoose? Yeah, well, you're going to have to wait. Unless you all want to pitch in to pay for my AppleCare package (if I knew there were more than 5 people reading this blog I'd try to start one of those Everyone Just Donate A Dollar For My Insignificant Unnecessary Purchase That Somehow Becomes a Noble Quest Because I'm Shamelessly Throwing Myself On The Mercy Of The Masses And I'll Have Enough To Get It things that some girl used to pay her way through college or whatever). I guess that only happens if you absent-mindedly lose or break something important so your friends feel bad and pitch in to buy a new one for you (right, Alexis?).

Some would say, hey, you have a work computer you share with a guy who's now gone most of the time hanging out with his girlfriend, so what's the big deal? You still have internet access. Well, I'll tell you. I do a lot of downloading. I'm not sure if I should say it's porn so the music and television industries won't come after me, or admit to being the kind of guy who scours torrent sites in hopes of tracking down fragments of his past (hey, someone uploaded that cartoon I saw once when I was 8! I guess I have to spend 3 days and 1.5 gigs of memory getting all 24 episodes of it, even though I'm either [a] never going to watch all of them, if any or [b] be totally disappointed about how shitty it is compared to what I remember). Take your pick; I can't win.

Others would say, maybe this is a sign to stop spending so much time online, and actually use your computer to write something constructive, like another screenplay you won't do anything with, or a script for one of those short films you keep talking about making but never do.

Hey, great idea.