wouldn't it just be easier to get pbx?
And then someone can do a remake of "Ocean's 11" but throw in gay marriage as well as the casino heist.
(Don't send me your answers. This is just a little way to expand your horizons. Honest.)
Darin has been wanting to get a new phone. He wanted a phone that was at least 900Mhz, could handle two phone lines (home and business), and had caller ID and call waiting caller ID integrated with both lines. He and Fernando had to go to Fry's yesterday, so I went with them. While they were looking at oscillators, I checked out phones.
Turned out there were two phones that fit Darin's specs, and one of them he liked much better than the other. The Siemens phone not only had his requirements, but you can expand the number of cordless phones connected to it. That way, every phone in the house can communicate (like an intercom or walkie-talkie) and it's all one phone.
Perfect. We bought a main unit (which has an answering machine for both lines, so instead of having an answering machine upstairs for the house and downstairs for Darin's office, it's just one machine) and a cordless phone for my office.
We got home and set it up. Very high tech, took some doing to get everything set up at the base station, got it all working.
Then Darin discovered the same phone setup on the web for hundreds of dollars less. So he bought it there, and we're going to return the one we bought yesterday.
The part that bums me out about this is, we have to return the current phone setup to Fry's. Do you know how hard it is to return anything to Fry's? They make the return process so difficult specifically to dissuade you from ever returning anything. You have to wait in this long line to talk to someone who makes you fill long reams of paperwork and, once all of the information is entered, the clerk has to go get permission from customer service to take the return.
It's hell, I tell you. Fry's is the largest electronics emporium around, though, covering everything from teeny tiny hobbyist stuff to 51-inch Sonys and every Mac currently available.
I got e-mail today from a long-time reader, Paul, who read my entry last week about going to visit my friend Edgar at Paramount. And Paul, realizing that there are not all that many Edgars in the world, called up his friend Edgar at Paramount to discover that they are, in fact, one and the same guy.
And Paul turns out to be the guy Edgar told me about who has a full-time job and is seriously prolific.
There are, in fact, only 100 people in this town. I swear to God.
Yesterday I also went to have coffee with a former USC student who graduated the year before I did. I asked for some advice about what to do now, since now is a good time to capitalize on my Nicholl status. She's sold a script (her thesis script) and has been trying to figure out how to capitalize on that.
I then called all my working screenwriter friends and got their various takes on things. (It's funny--one of them contradicted everything the rest said, but he's also a guy who thought The Sixth Sense was going to suck simply because it was released the first week of August. I'm beginning to think I should ask his advice...and then do the exact opposite.) Most of them said pretty much the same thing, over and over again, in one form or another: strike while the iron's hot. I just have to figure out how to do that.
Figuring out how to put together a career in Hollywood isn't easy. Who do you talk to about what? What can you do? What is it best to have other people do?
What else have I been doing? I've been trying to figure out how to integrate Michele's comments. Most of her comments had to do with Act I, which needs to be revved up to compete with Acts II and III.
I asked Pooks for advice today, and she told me to go consult The Writer's Journey, which I haven't looked at in a while.
So I did, and I read the first sections, which have to do with the Hero's Journey in Act I, and I saw the line, "What is (the hero) doing the first time we see him, when he makes his entrance?" I thought, Well, I'm not changing the first time we see the heroine, that's a great scene and gets across to the audience in a hurry that something weird is going on.
I can, however, change the scene after that.
Which led me immediately to the conclusion that I have to rewrite Act I.
Amazing how one line of text will do that, eh?
Actually, I don't have to rewrite all of Act I. Just about 20 pages of it. Which isn't terrible, and if I get something really coherent together, it'll be much better than patching elements in here and there, which leads to a very hodgepodge-type feeling. Better to start afresh.
Boy, am I glad I've gotten to the attitude that "Rewriting is my friend." Otherwise I'd be bummed out right now.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com