Thursday, September 23, 2004
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Damn you, Sprint PCS
Ok, I get it. It's stupid to ask people to guess how many minutes they are going to talk on their cellphones every month. And I also admit that I thought it was both clever and cute to get children to illustrate their point. But holy crap, enough already. If I see one more kid being told by an adult that they owe $74.50 for going over their handstand minutes or macaroni minutes or whatever-the-hell minutes, I'm going to kick a Puma-sized hole in my TV. So there.
But what can I say, I work in reality TV. And on to happier news, tomorrow is the first shoot day for Distraction and if the show goes anything like the run-throughs, this show is going to be hilarious. This may be the first show I've worked on that I really want to watch. I mean really. Anywho, Jill is packing for another wedding and I'm headed back to watching TV and avoiding commercials for Sprint. Maybe I'll even catch that sweet Chef Tony infomercial. Goodnight.
Saturday, September 18, 2004
Rants, raves and Jay Leno
Welcome, it looks like I’ve done it again. As fragile as my computer is, I can never get it through my head that I cannot run more than one application at once. So I am again sitting here on the couch, writing on a laptop borrowed from work and trying to figure out how to once again unfuck my computer. I am lucky enough that I have retained some sort of bizarre mismash of knowledge jammed into my brain that I can meander my way through a few DOS commands, thus enabling me to partially boot up my computer but disallowing anything sophisticated to come anywhere near my crapbox. But my life does not revolve around technology, Oh, quite to the contrary, technology revolves around my life. So on to better things.
My first charge from the category of "better things" is, VOTE! If you don’t vote in November, you don’t have a voice. This is the most important decision our generation is going to make. Our generation, or generation Y or generation next or whatever the good people at Pepsi use to describe people our ages when attempting to figure out what busty preteen to thrust onto out TV screens to get us to guzzle down their sugar water, was in peril. And the next part of this diatribe, I hate to even bring up but I believe it’s important. I know that the right loves to bring up September 11th and issues of national security to bully and cower voters out of their good sense, but I truly believe that our generation was asleep at the wheel before that tragedy took place.
Our great depression was a sense of moral vacancy. Before September 11th and the administration that both allowed it and seeks to profit from it, an entire nation of teens and twentysomethings were doomed to watch idly as a great untapped purpose lay dormant. But now I believe we have reached that oh so important crossroads that presents a generation with their greatest moral test. Are you going to lay down and accept what the religious right and moral authoritarians push as an agenda for safety, or are you going to stand up and be counted. This is with out a doubt the most important presidential election our generation will vote in. To miss it or choose not to vote is to take you future and throw it away. If you don’t vote, you don’t have a voice, so shut up.
Ok, enough with the political ranting, just vote ok? Now, on to work related info. While I was casting for The Swan Season 2, The Tonight Show sent a comedian to cover our LA casting call and interview some of the people involved, including the doctors and the creator, Nely Galan. I was also briefly on camera as I did interviews alongside our casting director Amy. I was under the impression that I was going to be included, if only briefly, but alas it was not to be. I happened to catch the Tonight Show that included it and I was nowhere to be seen, along with most of the footage they shot. My friend Jessica was the only person to be featured briefly. Oh well, she’s better looking than I am anyway.
This has been a really long post, so I’ll end it now. I’m off later to go hiking in Griffith Park with a few friends of mine. Later.
My first charge from the category of "better things" is, VOTE! If you don’t vote in November, you don’t have a voice. This is the most important decision our generation is going to make. Our generation, or generation Y or generation next or whatever the good people at Pepsi use to describe people our ages when attempting to figure out what busty preteen to thrust onto out TV screens to get us to guzzle down their sugar water, was in peril. And the next part of this diatribe, I hate to even bring up but I believe it’s important. I know that the right loves to bring up September 11th and issues of national security to bully and cower voters out of their good sense, but I truly believe that our generation was asleep at the wheel before that tragedy took place.
Our great depression was a sense of moral vacancy. Before September 11th and the administration that both allowed it and seeks to profit from it, an entire nation of teens and twentysomethings were doomed to watch idly as a great untapped purpose lay dormant. But now I believe we have reached that oh so important crossroads that presents a generation with their greatest moral test. Are you going to lay down and accept what the religious right and moral authoritarians push as an agenda for safety, or are you going to stand up and be counted. This is with out a doubt the most important presidential election our generation will vote in. To miss it or choose not to vote is to take you future and throw it away. If you don’t vote, you don’t have a voice, so shut up.
Ok, enough with the political ranting, just vote ok? Now, on to work related info. While I was casting for The Swan Season 2, The Tonight Show sent a comedian to cover our LA casting call and interview some of the people involved, including the doctors and the creator, Nely Galan. I was also briefly on camera as I did interviews alongside our casting director Amy. I was under the impression that I was going to be included, if only briefly, but alas it was not to be. I happened to catch the Tonight Show that included it and I was nowhere to be seen, along with most of the footage they shot. My friend Jessica was the only person to be featured briefly. Oh well, she’s better looking than I am anyway.
This has been a really long post, so I’ll end it now. I’m off later to go hiking in Griffith Park with a few friends of mine. Later.
Saturday, August 28th 8:15pm (Warning: This post contains adult language)
So here’s the timeline on things. Josh sees Garden State. He likes it, a lot. He spends that evening downloading two songs from the movie and listening to them in a melancholy fashion. The next morning he looks up Garden State on the web and is surprised to find that the writer/director Zach Braff has on online "blog." This gets Josh thinking, he was going to send out some sort of monthly email and just never followed up. Oh well, so much for sticking with it. Then Josh realizes that Scott and Susan, his good friends that live in Glendale California, have their own website. You can find it at www.freewebs.com/zarzyckilife. Josh is about to call the Zarzyckis and ask if he can post some sort of daily/weekly column when he decides that it would be just as easy to start his own site. Tah-dah, here we are. So he sits down and spends five minutes punching buttons on his computer and "builds" a website. He is really excited about this. This the future of thought. He goes home that night and puts some pictures on the site and some of his personal thoughts (which was the whole reason for the website.) Now he is really excited and writes a snarky email and sends it to everyone he has ever met or traded emails with. This may have been a bit hasty, I say this because of what happened next.
So to really understand what happened next, you need to understand that I live right next to the Los Feliz branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. That right, my apartment is library adjacent. Not Beverly Hills or West Hollywood or waterfront but library-parking-lot adjacent. While this has it's many drawbacks (the mentally unstable love free goods and services) but it has just now come with one benefit, wireless internet access.
Which brings me to this weekends big blunder. I figured that if the library was willing to offer free wireless internet accress to everyone in and around the library, then why couldn't I just set up a wireless adapter in my apartment, which is within ten feet of the edge of the parking lot. Here's where my greed and desire for frickin' high speed internet has been my downfall. So needless to say I've spent my entire, and I do mean entire, Saturday, trying to unfuck my computer and just now, at almost 9:00pm, am I getting this damn thing back to normal. I had to use the system recovery disc twice before I could even get it to boot up properly. The system recovery disc, if you aren't familiar, is a CD, or in this case three cd's that contain all of the computer's original programs. This means that everything you've installed to date will be erased if you use it. I used it, twice. They take so long that the second time, I put it in and went and had dinner with friends, came back and it was still chugging away. Thats what I get for letting MicroCenter talk me into buying this glorified abacus. MicroCenter, what a wonderful company. Almost better than Circuit City, but I digress.
So after telling everyone under the sun that I have my own website, I almost couldn't update it from home, at all. This puts a crimp in the idea of updating things all the time. But for now, I'm back on the web and I can breathe a sigh of digital relief, oh yeah, and check the lotto numbers. For crying out loud, it's up to $100 million! That would buy a lot of bandwidth... Hmm...
So to really understand what happened next, you need to understand that I live right next to the Los Feliz branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. That right, my apartment is library adjacent. Not Beverly Hills or West Hollywood or waterfront but library-parking-lot adjacent. While this has it's many drawbacks (the mentally unstable love free goods and services) but it has just now come with one benefit, wireless internet access.
Which brings me to this weekends big blunder. I figured that if the library was willing to offer free wireless internet accress to everyone in and around the library, then why couldn't I just set up a wireless adapter in my apartment, which is within ten feet of the edge of the parking lot. Here's where my greed and desire for frickin' high speed internet has been my downfall. So needless to say I've spent my entire, and I do mean entire, Saturday, trying to unfuck my computer and just now, at almost 9:00pm, am I getting this damn thing back to normal. I had to use the system recovery disc twice before I could even get it to boot up properly. The system recovery disc, if you aren't familiar, is a CD, or in this case three cd's that contain all of the computer's original programs. This means that everything you've installed to date will be erased if you use it. I used it, twice. They take so long that the second time, I put it in and went and had dinner with friends, came back and it was still chugging away. Thats what I get for letting MicroCenter talk me into buying this glorified abacus. MicroCenter, what a wonderful company. Almost better than Circuit City, but I digress.
So after telling everyone under the sun that I have my own website, I almost couldn't update it from home, at all. This puts a crimp in the idea of updating things all the time. But for now, I'm back on the web and I can breathe a sigh of digital relief, oh yeah, and check the lotto numbers. For crying out loud, it's up to $100 million! That would buy a lot of bandwidth... Hmm...
Sunday, September 05, 2004
Labor day
So work has been good lately. I just found out that I will be working for at least another two weeks. Yippie. It's a very precarious situation to work in Hollywood as a freelance person. What this mean is that even though I have some tenative connections, job security is still sort of iffy. For all of you that don't know, I've been working as a casting associate sice the beginning of this year. What that means is that I work with a casting director and usually at least one other casting associate to bring in contestants and other people to be on reality and game shows.
The show I just finished working on was The Swan, season 2. I know what you are all thinking, how could I participate in a show that so stresses physical appearance? Well, I have to say that since actually working on The Swan, I've realized that they (the show) give women what they need both mentally and physically. The Swan isn't just a "makeover" show, it really helps people. Even if you don't agree with the show, I have to admit I had a prety good time working on it. While casting for the show, I got to travel a little and hold open casting calls in Phoenix and Detroit. Both casting calls got a fair bit of media attention which was a first for me.
When I was casting for the show Mad Mad House, I spent ten days travelling in the south and hitting almost as many cities, but the only press that showed any interest was a newspaper in Shreveport, Loisiana. But when I went to Detroit, I actually had to go to the studio and do a live interview on the mornign news. Also, a TV station from Cleveland sent a crew to cover the casting call and a couple of friends of mine actually spotted us on the morning news. Thats a wierd feeling. But what was even more strange for me was to come back from the two city tour to find the women who had come out and hadn't been selected were bad-mouthing me on the Swan website. You may actually be able to find them talking shit about me if you go to www.fox.com/swan and check out the message boards. Until later, peace out.
The show I just finished working on was The Swan, season 2. I know what you are all thinking, how could I participate in a show that so stresses physical appearance? Well, I have to say that since actually working on The Swan, I've realized that they (the show) give women what they need both mentally and physically. The Swan isn't just a "makeover" show, it really helps people. Even if you don't agree with the show, I have to admit I had a prety good time working on it. While casting for the show, I got to travel a little and hold open casting calls in Phoenix and Detroit. Both casting calls got a fair bit of media attention which was a first for me.
When I was casting for the show Mad Mad House, I spent ten days travelling in the south and hitting almost as many cities, but the only press that showed any interest was a newspaper in Shreveport, Loisiana. But when I went to Detroit, I actually had to go to the studio and do a live interview on the mornign news. Also, a TV station from Cleveland sent a crew to cover the casting call and a couple of friends of mine actually spotted us on the morning news. Thats a wierd feeling. But what was even more strange for me was to come back from the two city tour to find the women who had come out and hadn't been selected were bad-mouthing me on the Swan website. You may actually be able to find them talking shit about me if you go to www.fox.com/swan and check out the message boards. Until later, peace out.
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Bold new blog-tier
Depending on how well this works, I may end up using blogger.com to host my webblog. It seems like a good idea, seeing as how team josh HQ only has 50mb of storage. If I need to branch out, this will be where I post.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Wednesday, August 25th 11:45pm
Good evening all,
It's another chilly night here in Los Feliz. I'm not being sarcastic, LA just gets cold at night, it's not like in the Midwest where the humidity and cloud layers trap heat during the day and the nights are nice and warm. Anyway, I just thought I'd check in before bed and at least get one entry under my belt before anyone other than me actually visits the site. I'm still trying to figure a better way of blogging on this site, but for now I'll just create a new page item for each entry.
Right now I'm working for FremantleMedia and Comedy Central on a new game show based on a British show on the BBC. I've seen a few episodes of the UK version and its really funny. We even have the original UK host. It should be really funny so check your local listings for Comedy Central, the show's called Distraction. Watch it and keep me working.
My other order is to see Garden State. Since I'm so LA now and movies open her before they open anywhere else, I may have seen it before other cities can. In which case, go see it, you'll love it. If it opened in your city the same weekend that I saw it then I'm sorry, I'm a pretentious jerk
That’s all for now, I'm going to bed. I'll write soon and try to add some way of sending me feedback so I know when I suck. Otherwise, tell your friends about the internet's number one non-porn website, five-hundred millionth overall. Until then, goodnight.
-Josh
Los Angeles, CA
It's another chilly night here in Los Feliz. I'm not being sarcastic, LA just gets cold at night, it's not like in the Midwest where the humidity and cloud layers trap heat during the day and the nights are nice and warm. Anyway, I just thought I'd check in before bed and at least get one entry under my belt before anyone other than me actually visits the site. I'm still trying to figure a better way of blogging on this site, but for now I'll just create a new page item for each entry.
Right now I'm working for FremantleMedia and Comedy Central on a new game show based on a British show on the BBC. I've seen a few episodes of the UK version and its really funny. We even have the original UK host. It should be really funny so check your local listings for Comedy Central, the show's called Distraction. Watch it and keep me working.
My other order is to see Garden State. Since I'm so LA now and movies open her before they open anywhere else, I may have seen it before other cities can. In which case, go see it, you'll love it. If it opened in your city the same weekend that I saw it then I'm sorry, I'm a pretentious jerk
That’s all for now, I'm going to bed. I'll write soon and try to add some way of sending me feedback so I know when I suck. Otherwise, tell your friends about the internet's number one non-porn website, five-hundred millionth overall. Until then, goodnight.
-Josh
Los Angeles, CA
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