Cold Cruel Existence 1, Eugene 0

This morning's rerun of Duel Masters was the same version as the first run - meaning it didn't list me as writer. But I ain't bitter. It wasn't an intentional attempt to stick it to me and rob me of credit - it was just an honest mistake.

Two writers wrote episodes 201 and 202, so when the masters of 203 and 204 were submitted to Cartoon Network, they forgot to update the writers title card. There was some apologizing and hope that they would create new masters for Cartoon Network and/or possible DVD production, but it doesn't look like that happened.

Again, not a big deal. It's just amusing that my first produced credit on television had the wrong name on it. It's pretty funny if you think about it. And I'm all about funny.

No Pancakes For You @ 6 A.M. on Cartoon Network

As you can tell, I'm back from my working vacation / coked-out drug binge / blog hiatus.

My episode of Duel Masters #204 ("Enemy, Mine") airs tomorrow morning on Cartoon Network (6 am). I don't expect you to be awake at 6 am, but if you are, I'm sure that watching my cartoon will be more fun than whatever it is you're doing. I'll be watching to see if they corrected the end credits and put my name on there. Chances are they didn't and it's still credited to the wrong writers. But I ain't bitter - if that's the worst thing that happens to me in my career, I'll be one very lucky guy.

< PLUG > Duel Masters - 6 A.M. on Cartoon Network. < /PLUG >

Random Things I Shout at People from Street Corners

I'm at a break point in my script, so I took a few hours to get away from it.

The NHL lock out is over. I know that the NHL isn't very popular, but hey - I would love the NHL if I was the only person on earth who followed the NHL. And by sheer coincidence, I AM THE ONLY PERSON ON EARTH WHO FOLLOWS THE NHL.

I'm convinced that Commissioner Gary Bettman is a secret undercover mole sent by David Stern and the NBA to destroy hockey. Seriously. Thanks to Bettman, the league had two work stoppages, an entire season cancelled, the #4 major sport now gets worse ratings then bowling and spelling bee, went from a multi-million dollar network television contract to one that pays them no money, went from a multimillion dollar national cable contract with ESPN/ESPN2 to no cable contract, turned obstruction, holding, cheating goalies, and zero-zero ties into an art form, and has several struggling expansion teams in cities where they don't even have the engineering technology to build indoor ice rinks. What does Gary Bettman do for an encore? Use the Stanley Cup as a toilet?

Welcome back NHL. And if I see Gary Bettman, I'm dropping the gloves and pummeling him Stu Grimson-style.

Congrats to Dan Santat. His animated series, The Replacements was greenlit by Disney and will be coming to a television set near you in the fall of 2006.

My wife got a letter trying to get her to subscribe to PEOPLE magazine. This letter is awesome - they got her name and address of some mother's list, so they tailor the letter towards moms with passages like-

PEOPLE. The perfect therapy for your mind, heart, and soul.

Steal moments with Johnny Depp or Jude Law over your morning coffee. Then, for an afternoon of pure bliss, curl up in your favorite armchair and catch up with friends old and new - like Julia Roberts and Jennifer Aniston.

The quiet moments you spend with PEOPLE are yours to savor all month long.

Your heart and soul will reap the benefits.

God bless the marketing folks at PEOPLE magazine. They either have no shame - or they're America's comedy geniuses.

Big hello to (judging by the comments section of the blog) the only person reading my blog right now. Phillip Donnelly is a friend from my days as a webmaster of a G.I.Joe collectors web site. He also, like me, graduated high school from behind the Orange Curtain (the O.C.) and graduated college from my alma mater, U.C. San Diego. You can check out his website at http://www.phillipdonnelly.com/.
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Okay - laughing time is over. Back to work. See ya next week!

Inaugural "Won't Have Time To Blog" Post

I'm only one week into this blogging thing and already something's come up. I've got a script assignment that I'm working on and it gets priority over the blog. I know I know - it shows my complete lack of devotion to the blogging artform. But seeing as the script assignment is paid work, I remind the readers of this blog that I am, by strictest definition, a dirty whore. So money is kinda important to me.

So very few blog updates these next two weeks. I've gots me some writin' to do.

The 96 Hour Job Interview

Comic Con 2005 is over. Very fun and very draining - I feel like I should sleep for the next week.

Best thing I heard at Comic Con this weekend was said by a fellow freelance writer, when they described Comic Con as a four day job interview. Very true. Work comes out of meeting and networking with people at Comic Con. You never know which person you meet will be the one who ends up becoming your next friend for life, your next co-worker, your next terrible blame-it-on-the-beer-goggles mistake, or your next boss. So you try to be pleasant and funny and talented, and hope that no one discovers that it's all a sham act to cover up the unpleasant and unfunny and untalented truth.

Everyone asks about the costumes at Comic Con. As always, there were some great ones, like one guy in a Transformer that actually transformed into a car and an amazing General Grievous. But who cares about the good ones? The fun ones are the train wrecks! Like the trashiest Wonder Woman I've ever seen, dressed in a sagging costume and sucking down cigarette after cigarette.

Next year, I'm going to play the game - "Costume or Slut?" Because when you see a woman in a long flowing skirt and a tiny bikini top or an obese guy wearing a tight belly shirt, they could be dressed up like a character from an obscure anime or comic book that you've never read.

Or they could be sluts.

And in our modern world with our rapidly changing definitions, who's to say what's a costume and what's a slut? I'll tell you who - ME. And next year I'm going to do it. Because Preview Night for Comic Con 2006 is only 365 days away...

Nerd Prom 2005

The annual San Diego Comic Con is the biggest comic book convention in the world. It's been running since the early 1970s and has grown every year. It used to be called the San Diego Comic Con. A few years ago, they renamed it Comic Con International, to better reflect its enormity. But now a new nickname for it has become quite popular.

"Nerd Prom."

What a great nickname. NERD PROM. It brings up visions of dateless nerds wearing ill-fitting suits with clip-on ties, trying to pin corsages to pocket protectors, awkwardly slow dancing to They Might Be Giants, and gathering up at the cheap motel for an after-party of Dungeons and Dragons. That's pretty close to what Comic Con is really like.

When I was a kid, I went to my first Comic Con - bought tons of comic books and toys, met a bunch of my favorite comic book creators, watched movie trailers and movie sneak previews, and gawked at the crazy fans in costume.

Today as a grown-up, I just don't have time to indulge my inner nerd and buy all the stuff I used to at the Comic Con - though, I still make time to gawk at the crazy costumes. Now, all of my time is spent meeting new people in the industry over lunch/dinner/drinking contest, and seeing old friends (never mind that we all live in Los Angeles - we never have time to see each other except in San Diego every summer).

I've made great friends at Comic Con - and much of the writing work I get can be traced back to Comic Con.

Nerd Prom 2005 starts tomorrow. I'm going stag.

Showtime Free Preview! What a Bargain!

Showtime is having a free preview week. At the moment I write this, one of the Showtime channels is showing something called "Flesh Gordon vs the Cosmic Cheerleaders." I kid you not - look it up. On second thought, don't.

[Note to self : This would be a perfect opportunity to create a link to the DVD on Amazon. But if anyone actually DID buy the DVD through one of my links, I don't think I could ever forgive myself.]

This movie (I use the term loosely) involves a lot of scantily clad women running around for one reason or another. You'd think a movie like that would be interesting, but it's not. And once again, I'm amazed what my wife lets me get away with. If she used the excuse, "I killed him because he was watching Flesh Gordon on Showtime," I don't think any jury on earth would convict her.

Thanks to the good folks at Showtime, who in their infinite generosity, deemed me worthy to receive a free preview week of their many many channels of fine programming. I don't know what I did to deserve such a kind offer, but I'm sure someone at Showtime realized that I deserved it.

Why I HATE and DESPISE Blogs (and Welcome to my Blog)

I've always resisted the urge to blog - which would seem odd, seeing as I'm a writer, an internet junkie, and a huge egomaniac that likes to tell everyone what I think of everything. When anyone asked why I didn't blog, I explained it with a quote that I once read, "Once you get paid to write, you don't like to do it for free." It's a great quote, in that it also defined how greedy and money-driven I am.

But alas, some of my favorite writers keep great blogs and as far as I know, they don't get paid for it. I needed a new excuse not to blog, and these two reasons kept coming up.

Most Blogs Suck.

How many blogs have you seen that look like this?

Snippet from another website about how some person-with-political-views did or said something dumb

Allow me to feign righteous indignation towards the NERVE of that person-with-political-views who did or said something dumb! Allow me to make a pathetically sad attempt at humor that no one will find funny! Now allow me to rage that this snippet from another website proves that all people who share remotely similar political views are stupid!

Sound familiar? I've only seen that format, oh, about a THOUSAND times in the past week or so. Now, I actually regularly read a few websites that have this format - but I like them because the person writing is ACTUALLY FUNNY. It's not easy being funny, and when you're blinded by righteous indignation, chances are that you're not funny.

Most Bloggers are Boring.

I have no scientific studies to back me up on this, but there are a lot of painfully dull people with internet connections. A good blog makes me care about the blogger and what's going on in their lives. I realize that not everyone on this planet can live an exciting life - we can't all be Al Roker. And I realize that with the internet, you don't have to have a broad appeal because it's very easy to find other people who share your obscure passion for Montreal Canadien finger puppets (if anyone has an extra Andre Racicot, please email me). But if I ever met any of these bloggers at a party - the bloggers with no point of view and no insight into the world around them - I would just tell them, "You're so boring I'm not even going to waste my time coming up with a polite excuse to walk away" and then throw my drink at them.

Okay okay, Eugene. You've made it clear you hate blogs. Why are you keeping one now? The answer to that isn't simple. There are many complex reasons. Perhaps now was just the time. Perhaps I've gained a little maturity and perspective that I wanted to share. Perhaps I've had enough success now that I feel that I have something worthwhile to blog about. You've probably realized by now that these are just made up reasons ( I know, I know - the "maturity" bit gave it away). The real reason I'm blogging now?

Because I'm a cheap whore.

I have some projects coming up in the future that I want to be able to hype, without spamming all my friends and professional acquaintances. This blog allows me to do the equivalent of a Saturday Night Live monologue and promote myself and my projects. So if I have an episode of something I wrote coming on the air, I'm going to post it on this blog in big obnoxious blinking 72pt bold underlined italicized fonts.

Other than the cheap whore bit, I have this hope - this little itty bitty hope - that someday this blog will be useful to somebody. When I was an aspiring writer, I got a lot out of reading the blogs of professional writers. Picking up and learning a little nugget of wisdom here and there. All pathetically sad attempts at humor aside, I've been really blessed with some good fortune in my life to live the dream of being a professional writer. I'd like to try and give something back. Even if this means that everyone who hates my guts (Yes, you. Don't think I'm not onto you) will have access to my blog, I feel confident than the time is right for me to blog.

So welcome to my blog. It's free - so you're going to get what you pay for.