The ad Facebook showed me this evening

I'm not an expert, but I'll play one here. I think that's a dude pile-driving a shark.

Um, yeah. Okay, Facebook. I get that you cull my personal data and browsing habits to direct particular advertisements in my face. I get that. But this ad here? Do you want to go ahead and...

You know what? Nevermind. I don't think I want to know.

Parties, Weather, and a Heavily Redacted Story

It's holiday party season - which get stacked up against each other like Tetris blocks. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that my calendar shows five straight days of multiple parties. My goal is to attend all of them without flaking... but my resolve is already flaking.

Plus it's insanely cold in Southern California right now. Instead of a nice cool winter that we normally get, we got 95 degree heat in November, followed by crazy 45 degree cold in December.

Wow. I'm whining about having too many parties to go to, and now I'm whining about the weather in California. Cry me a river, huh, Eugene?

As long as I'm whining, let me whine about one more thing. See, I have this really really cool story that I'd love to tell... but I can't. Longtime blog readers may remember this classic rant from 2005 where I complained about how I have to be careful about what I blog about. Work is work, and I don't want to cause problems because I let stuff out of the bag too early.

But this week I had something amazingly cool happen - and it's killing me I can't tell everyone about it. So much as I hate to do this, I have to blog this heavily redacted story.

So Wednesday morning I went to a voice record for an episode of something that I'd written. It's a fun show and I'm having a blast writing it - and as a joke, I'd written REDACTED into the story. He'd done a guest-star appearance earlier in the season, and it made for a great joke to use him again, so I wrote him into my episode. It was only three lines of dialogue. I just assumed they would use another voice to do a sound-alike, or change it, or something.

The record goes on Wednesday with the regular actors, who are amazingly funny and talented. Before the record, the announcement is made - REDACTED is coming in at 1pm to record his lines.

We're giddy! I mean, I had met REDACTED once before at a comic book show when I was a kid, but now I wasn't meeting him as a dopey kid, I was meeting him as a professional writer. Ah, who am I kidding? I was geeking out like a dopey kid. Everyone at the record was geeking out like a dopey kid.

Of course, REDACTED is a hero of mine. Then again, he's hero to millions.

He arrives early for his record. As he's filling out his paperwork, we're standing around - all nervously watching him and afraid to say anything. He's 85, but he looks in fantastic shape as he shakes everyone's hands. The executive introduces me as the writer who wrote the episode. REDACTED tells us that he read the episode, then immediately starts to give us good-natured ribbing about making him drive across town in the rain for three lousy lines of dialogue. We're laughing and promising him we're writing a starring role next.

He goes in and records his lines. Total professional. Of course, while he's being a professional, I'm being the complete opposite. I'm taking pictures of him, shooting video of his performance, jumping up and down and crying like those schoolgirls in the crowds of old Beatles concerts.

Afterwards, REDACTED posed for pictures and signed a bunch of autographs. Personal hero to me and many other - all-around awesome guy. And he read MY LINES. Lines I wrote got performed by one of my heroes.

So excuse me if I whine about the weather and whine about too many parties. Because I'm feeling awfully blessed right now and don't have anything else to whine about.

My Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

Let's not beat around the bush. I won't waste your time with lying about how good I've been this year. We're both adults. We don't need the charade.

The L.A. Times just published my Christmas list here-

Fanboy gift guide for 2008

Anything from that list would be fine. Particularly the Battlestar Galactica toaster. And don't make this like that train set I asked for when I was 7 that you stiffed me on. If you don't come through for me this time, I'm converting.

Your pal,
Eugene

10,000 Hours

Everyone should check out Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers. I don't think the writing in his new book is his best writing (too much "wait, but there's more!" in it), but the theories he presents and defends are absolutely fascinating.

The chapter everyone seems to be buzzing about is the one about 10,000 hours. Gladwell posits that someone needs 10,000 hours of practice to become great at anything. Athletes, musicians, computer programmers. Gladwell presents the magic number.

10,000 hours.

Which immediately led me to wonder about my writing. I don't know if I'm a "great" writer, but to get there, let's suppose I need 10,000 hours to hone and sharpen my craft. How many hours have I put in?

From 2004 to 2008, four years, I've been a full-time writer. I've probably written on-average 6 hours every weekday. 30 hours a week, times 52 weeks, times 4 years. Guessing approximately 6000 hours.

From 2000 to 2004, four years, I was writing three or four nights a week. Say 8 hours a week, times 52 weeks, times 4 years. Approximately 1500 hours.

From 1992 to 2000, eight years, I wrote on-and-off. I wrote comic book stories, a huge stack of short stories, plays, finished a novel, started and abandoned at least four, finished five screenplays, started and abandoned at least ten, four or five tv spec scripts, and endless short film scripts, joke scripts, school papers, script coverage, apology letters to girls I'd dated, etc. Assuming 200 hours per screenplay and novel, that's guessing about 2000 hours there.

Grand total... somewhere around 9500 hours. So I'm close to that 10,000 hour mark for greatness.

Waitaminute. I'm close to the mark of greatness... and THIS IS ALL I HAVE TO SHOW FOR IT?!? A blog with a handful of semi-amusing jokes?!?

Sigh. Well, I wrote this blog post. So let's put me at 9500.1 hours. Maybe something good'll happen if I get to 20,000 hours...

16 Things

This was one of those Facebook forwards that I got from a friend. I don't normally fill these out, but I did for her - and she suggested that I post it for everyone to see.

So here it is. 16 random facts about me.

--

1. I used to make fun of people with claustrophobia. Guess what I developed in the last year? I have it kinda under control and can fly on an airplane with the appropriate sedative, but having claustrophobia is LAAAAAAAAAME. So much for a second career as a submarine captain...

2. I have a mysterious surgical scar in a, errr, PARTICULAR spot on my body. It must've been some surgery as an infant. Alas, no one seems to remember what it was for, so I have no idea if it was serious or not.

3. I took five years of piano lessons as a kid. Hated every moment of it. Never regretted not taking it seriously... until I got to college and learned that chicks dig guys who play piano. Methinks my piano teachers should've mentioned that to me at some point.

4. I've always been really freakishly smiley. In elementary school, some girl called me that kid with the springy step. In sixth grade, one of my teachers dubbed me "Guy Smiley" after the Muppet. I don't think I smile all that much, but everyone else seems to disagree.

5. When I was thirteen years-old, I was at a comic book show in Anaheim, California, flipping through long boxes of comics. The man next to me complained that he'd just turned 29 and that he was feeling old. The two others assured him that 29 was not old. I laughed and said inside, "He's OLD." I remember nothing else about that comic book show - but that snotty thing that I said has resonated in my head nearly every day since I turned 29.

6. My singing voice has been described as sounding like Ben Folds.

7. Apparently when I was six years-old, I threw a temper tantrum and cried to my relatives that I would grow up to write cartoons. I don't remember ever saying this or even thinking that this. But twenty years later, my relatives told me this story... right before I started writing cartoons.

8. I inherited a raging temper from my dad. I've learned to keep it under check, since I don't really like who I turn into when the temper is raging. Though I freely admit I turn the temper on myself, cause I'm very demanding of myself.

9. The only time the temper comes out is when I play ice hockey. My teammates tell me I curse a lot when I play. I don't think it's that @#$#-ing bad...

10. I took years of Spanish, years of Latin, and many many years of Korean - and yet I'm terrible at all three. I'd like to think it's because of my obsessive devotion to mastering the English language as a writer's tool, but there's a part of me that just thinks that my brain be muy dumb when it comes to foreign languages.

11. I have a lot of cities on Earth that I love, but only five that I could live in and be happy - San Francisco, San Diego, London, Kihei, and of course, Los Angeles.

12. I used to talk to myself in my head while figuring out stories and character. Unfortunately, as I've gotten older, I've caught myself having these talks out-loud. I'm very worried that I'm going to be that 60 year-old guy sitting on a park bench talking to himself with stuff like, "What if his half-sister is the murderer? No, that would be stupid. Who're you calling stupid? You, stupid!"

13. Remember in Citizen Kane when the Mr. Bernstein character talks about how not a month goes by that he doesn't think of that girl? Well, I don't think a month goes by that I don't wish that I was back in college again.

14. My family moved around a lot as a kid. So I hate hate HATE moving and avoid it like the plague.

15. I'm a terrible poet. I can't write poetry to save my life. I'd like to think it's something I could develop if I put some work into it, but the truth is probably that I have an evil heart with a complete absence of a soul.

16. My hair started turning white when I was twelve. I'm not going down without a fight, but somewhere that 29 year-old man is laughing at me...

Hello Kitty has gone too far

Hello baby! Hello Kitty welcomes Taiwan newborns

YUANLIN, Taiwan - Mommy, daddy -- and Hello Kitty -- welcome newborns at a cat-themed Taiwan maternity hospital that hopes the Japanese cartoon icon will ease the stress of childbirth as well as boost business.

The 30-bed Hau Sheng Hospital in Yuanlin in central Taiwan claims to be the only institution of its kind authorized by the popular cartoon cat's parent company Sanrio Co Ltd.

Wish that hadron super-collider would hurry up and destroy our planet...

Yet Another Apology for not Blogging

It seems like I do this all the time now. Apologize for not blogging, flake for a few weeks, then apologize, flake, apologize. Curse this charade that we go through.

I actually have work to do - have some pitches I should be working on, but since I feel momentarily guilty for not blogging, here's some thoughts-

-Big congrats to the cast and crew of TNT's new hit show, Leverage. If you're not watching it, watch it now.

-Equally big congrats to the cast and crew of the Warner Animation series, Batman: Brave and the Bold. Equally big endorsement of this show - watch it on Cartoon Network.

-And while I'm plugging, my friends are performing in a couple plays at the Theatre of Note. Holy Mother of Hadley New York runs through the 14th, Mulholland Christmas Carol runs through the 21st.

-I've started playing video games again, thanks to Left-4-Dead. It's a fun single-person game, fighting off zombies and such. But when you play online or with friends online? The game becomes more than a game. It becomes an EXPERIENCE. If you have it, let me know - you can find me playing online.

-I spent a few days helping a friend set-up his new website. If you want to check it out, it's the new DwayneMcDuffie.com. The irony is not lost on me that I used to spend my days developing websites and my nights and weekends writing scripts - now I spend my days writing scripts and my nights and weekends developing websites.

-Christmas shopping. Still doing it. Almost done.

-Holiday party season has started. Last Saturday night was Kent & Amy's annual Singapore Slings. In addition to hanging with Kent and Amy, spent time with awesome folks like Holly, Brian, Nicole, John & Leigh, Ford. Next up on my holiday party list - the Animation Guild Holiday Party.

-My office is clean! Thanks to friends Dwayne and Charlotte, I got their old shelving - which went straight into my office. Now my office is cl... well, okay, it's not CLEAN. But it's less disastrous than it was before. To show you how far it's come, I have actual unused shelf space for the first time in decades.

Now I can find all those comic books that I've been meaning to read. I better get on that...