Memorial Day Weekend

Last minute plane trip home for the weekend thanks to Shrek 3's opening weekend box office. Snagged Friday morning til Tuesday morning red eye. Bren needed the help to get the house a-shambles. Painted the dining room, prepped the cabinwet doors for painting, cleaned and rearranged the office, shampooed the dining room carpet, mulched the front bushes, setup the garage sale and played with the kids. and serviced the wife. both very important. they deserved it. Bonnie and Larry came down to help. VERY much appreciated. The house looks quite formidable to pack. One-room-at-a-time approach better work.

Everything was groovy all weekend. Kids were great. Twins are babbling up a storm. V has got a real pitching arm but needs work on the catching. Natalie still managed to get another goose egg from the "protected" coffee table. Sam knows how to turn up the volume on the radio. Bren needs to check it before the alarm goes off. I guess I have a beef with someplace called iSeatz.com. Bren bought a voucher for me for transport from the house to DFW (at 3:30 AM). Voucher cost $25. Super Shuttle grudgingly accepts voucher for only $18 of the fare because i'm not being picked up from a hotel. No word of error from iSeatz when I confimed the voucher and stated I was at a residence. No mention of extra fees because I wasn't being picked up in front of a lobby. I had to fork over another $14 for the rest of the fare. Total: $39 for a $32 fare.

Parents were in Mexico on vacation. Good for them. Here's a puzzler. They suggested to fly Virginia out to L.A. so they could spend some time with her and drop her off at the new house. When we thought it'd be a better idea to make the trip as a family but they were more than welcome to fly to L.A. to help with the move and spend time with their grandchildren in L.A. ... no, that's ok. Mom tends to picture things as all or nothing. She has declared to forgo any sort of major wedding anniversary plans if I can't be present. Even though Julie and Steve would come up from Austin - that's not good enough. I don't get it. Empty Nest has hit big time.

Gore Verbinski Loves Pirates

One more hero of mine from Waaay back showed up in SoCal this week. The legendary Berkeley Breathed showed up at Dutton's Bookstore in Brentwood to tour his new book Mars Needs Moms! He reminds me of Jeff Foxworthy. Very nice and gracious. He talked about the new book, of course, and about how he's in development talks with Disney to turn it and Flawed Dogs into movies. Gore Verbinski - Dogs, Robert Zemeckis - Moms. Berkeley got sandbaged by a blogger couple days ago and was quoted saying Verbinski is sick of Pirates. Not True! "Verbinski loves Pirates as much as his own mother" says Berkeley. As to other projects, Red Rider Came Calling was in heavy development stages before it got dropped as well as the Opus pic by the Weinsteins. They got cold feet even after there was a solid story in place. Such is Hollywood and B.B. won't be working for the Weinsteins any time soon.


The real Milo was at the signing as well in the trademark striped PJs from the book. Cute. Hard to see cuz he was wearing an Opus shirt over it. This is the whole Breathed clan.

Fire season begins

This is actually the second fire on the same mountain in a month. Griffith Park went up in flames again today. Not as big as the one in April but this one was much closer to the studio. We were standing right outside our building and had ringside seats. This is how high the plume got in about 15 minutes.

More photos Here

another hero geek-out!

Got to meet the man himself. Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy, came to Golden Apple Comics today to help with Free Comic Book Day and to promote his first Hellboy comic in almost a year. He told me things are progressing with the second Hellboy movie. He just got back from Budapest where they are finishing up pre-production and haggling over money. This will be an expensive movie, not Spiderman 3 expensive but still. He also seemed pleased with the Hellboy Animated series coming out. He liked the second one which i've heard mixed reviews about. The third one is to be the best yet. Here's hoping!

This weekend also included a visit to the Sante Fe Art Colony. I was inspired. It was neat.

all alone this week

Double-A is heading back to East Coast for a month while he waits out the doldrums. He's had a few auditions here and there and he's getting a lot of experience but he's not really pushing it. i don't think he ever got a j-o-b. maybe because he knew he was heading back. Greg is back from Delaware for now but he said he was going to steal Aaron's mecedes and head out to Palm Springs for the rest of the week to visit his "aunties". So i got the place to myself for the week. joy.
I'm going out to get me a copy of Venture Bros Vol 2 to break the monotony of porn and bad TV. I don't have enough content on my phone to keep me occupied and Bren and I never got around to a "screen test". On top of that, Greg is planning to move back out east for the summer to work on his dad's house. not sure when that's going to happen but surely soon. Greg was very generous to suggest moving the family into his house for the summer to prep for the big move but i think if/when we move, it will be for reals. plus he has a lot of stuff to complete before i'd feel ok about letting my kids loose in there. My goal is to nag him into getting SOMETHING done in the house before he takes off. or at least started with a workman on site or something. Got him to empty out the closet that is to be his master bath. now it actually looks doable.
I have a sketch of Bren i thought up taped to my monitor. it pleases me. sure there are anatomical inconsistencies and it really doesn't look like her but i managed to capture something that tells me it's her.
Mike Gasaway called with an offer for Layout at Omation. I really want to finish KFP before jumping ship. Greg and Johan think i should jump due to the fact that DWA holds no allegiance to me and have made it clear Layout has a questionable future. I don't want to burn any bridges and I don't want to cheese off a friend like Mike. I don't have a problem going to Omation, I'd just like to finish the dance with the girl who brung me.