Back to the Cave

Yes, the new spelunking school term has arrived. So far I LOVE my teachers and classes...although that tends to be my beginning of term reaction to school. Hopefully it will continue in this vein.

There's been a little drama here and there at the spelunking school, most of which I won't go into, except to mention a funny little pet peeve. We got this really nice new cave last term, much prettier than our old cave. But it turns out that there are all these kind of annoying rules for the new cave, like you can't eat in any of the caverns, or drink anything except water. Now spelunking classes are lengthy--three or four hours. The best/most passionate teachers give five minute breaks, and tend to teach up to the next class. So if you're lucky enough to have a couple of great teachers consecutively--you find yourself going without food or caffeine for seven hours. I came to the cave on Tuesday at around noon. By 5:30, like a criminal, I was desperately trying to palm a piece of string cheese before I toppled over. Fortunately, my spelunking teacher is a rebel. He turned to me and said "You don't have to hide your food." It almost brought tears to my eyes. I hate to be a wimp about it, but, come on. I was registered for a class after that, which would have brought my time-in-foodless-cave up to ten hours--but I dropped it. Adrenaline only gets you so far.

On any film set, morale goes down as meal penalties go up...

This could well be the first semester that I am THRILLED with the level of education I am receiving. But these kinds of rules don't let me forget -- someone out there cares more about their cave than the students inside it.

Bloodless

So Paul used that fact that he's taking my sister's family to the airport early tomorrow morning to guilt me into leaving a party early. Then, when we got home, he proceeded to screen two episodes of Trueblood! Augh! And of course, since I have no inner resourses or discipline, I had to watch...

On the positive side--that was the last of them (except for new weekly episodes) so maybe now I can have my life back.

In The News

Michael Vick...He's this football player who was convicted of running a dog-fighting ring. He just got out of jail and was recruited by the Philadelphia Eagles (I think). Some people are incensed by this, others say hey, if he can play ball...

In other news...Since I don't know anything about football, I'm joining my first fantasy football. I know so little, that I've asked my brother-in-law to mentor me so I don't completely annoy the rest of my league...

Health care...lots of talking and arguing about Obama's health plan. On facebook, a few of my friends are up in arms about this editorial written by the CEO of Wholefoods, and are planning not to shop there anymore. Maybe this is one more thing I haven't done enough research yet to understand fully, because when I read it, his ideas seem to make sense, and don't seem so much at odds with the things Obama is saying he wants as well...I'm not planning a boycott yet.

Trueblood...It's not in the mainstream news, but in the "industry" news, it has taken the summer by storm, garnering 11.3 million viewers per episode. And that's not counting people like me, who watch it on questionably legal sites on the internet...Like so many TV shows, Paul has brought this into my life. I have very ambivalent feelings about the show, which I think is probably BAD on so many levels, and it leaves me feeling vaguely oogie and void after watching...like eating too many sugary donuts.

If this post seems kind of superficial and lacking in consideration--it's because I'm writing it while watching Trueblood.

Two Stupid Things I Want, and One I Don't Care About

Some of you will remember my brief (okay, and admittedly ongoing, or it will be when it's no longer ninety degrees out) love affair with the Slanket. A residual side effect of the Slanket affair is that I have been added to the Solutions catalog mailing list.

So every few months, I get the catalog and flip through it and see some stuff that I think I really need, until I throw out the magazine and forget all about it. The catalog showed up again this week, and my desire flared up anew for the following items:
These mop slippers. See, when you scuffle around on the hardwood floors (of which we have a lot) it's like you are dusting them (which we do...never) with your feet.

This jar that counts your money. We have loose change on almost every surface in some rooms. I bet we are millionaires in change. But it would be nice to know for sure.

And here is something I don't care about at all:
A "Butter Boy" that spreads butter on your corn-on-the cob. I just don't care about that. I'm okay with using a knife, even if the butter drips a little. Or...you know what's really good? Put the butter on soft bread, then use the bread to spread the butter. The butter gets really melty...yum.

Intimidated by my RSS Feeder

I used to love my RSS Feeder. I still do, but....

Up until this summer, I was only subscribed to friends' blogs, and a few random blogs I was personally interested in. From my email, I could flip to my Google Reader and it would have a number at the top of unread posts, usually a number between "2" and "7." Few of my friends try to post daily.

Now, however, in an attempt to "get serious" about my latest career goals, and under the duress of many speakers at panels I have attended who all say "read the trades if you want to be serious," I've recently subscribed to multiple feeds from Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

Part of the problem is that when you subscribe to a new feed, it will load a large amount of back-content all at once, and these need to be physically scrolled through in order to be cleared. Then I think--well, as long as I'm scrolling anyhow, I should just skim the headlines. Skimming leads to reading, so I'm not clearing out the backlog as fast as I would like.

My current Google Reader post status: "1000+". They actually use that plus sign--as if to confirm, that if you have over a thousand posts to read, the exact number doesn't matter anymore, you should just be overwhelmed.

For any other wanna-be industry types out there like me, who want to keep up with the information-Joneses but don't want to be crushed under the weight of it, I highly recommend "Film News Briefs." They cull through the other industry news sources and give you the low-down on what they think is interesting. Breezily written and easy to read, when the day comes that I start deleting some of my new feeds, this is one I'll keep.