More random thoughts ...

You know what hospitals should hire? Name consultants. You know, for all of those mothers who give their kids embarrassing names without thinking about it. They wouldn't even need college degrees or anything, just half a brain. Hell, they could be fourth-graders.

"Mrs. Seaman, this is Billy, the local schoolyard bully. Billy, tell Mrs. Seaman why you would beat the crap out of Peter if he were in school with you right now."

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I've decided that I'm really glad I'm a virgin. You know, since they're not throwing us into volcanos anymore.

They're not, are they?

Um, forget I said anything.

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Madonna has two kids named Lola Leon and Rocco Ritchie. Is it just me, or is she producing her own strip club? One stripper, one bouncer.

See, you people think I'm kidding. But if she has another kid and gives it a DJ name, don't say I didn't warn you.

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Did your mother ever pull off those useless mommy threats, like, "You keep this up, and I'll put you right back where I found you"? I always wondered how she planned on explaining to people how my head got in there.

(no subject)

My journal says I'm 55% masculine.

What does your LJ writing style say about your gender?

LJ Gender Tool by hutta

I write like a guy?! But ... but ... but my name is trollprincess, for crying out loud!

So how the hell do I remedy the situation? OOO, I know --

BREASTS! BREASTS, BREASTS, BREASTS!

Would that work? Oh, wait --

MY BREASTS! MY BREASTS WHICH ARE ATTACHED TO MY CHEST AND WERE NOT PUT THERE BY A PLASTIC SURGEON AFTER A FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR BAR BET!

Hmm. Much better.

EDIT: On second thought, that might not work, either. As Hugh Grant said in Notting Hill, "Meat Loaf has a very nice pair."

(no subject)

Hee! It's the gay penguins! *user bounces up and down happily* Yes, as you can plainly see, homosexuality is totally unnatural. *eye roll*

And yay! I have a temp job! Granted, it means someone's going to have to tape Jake 2.0 for me tomorrow, but moneymoneymoneymoneymoney!

EDIT: Am watching "Whale Rider". She's just so durn cute, but her grandfather's a real jackass.

(no subject)

Just out of curiosity, I figured that now that I have a paid account, I'd check to see if there was anybody else from Forest City with an LJ.

You know, if I weren't from town, I'd think there was an overpopulation of teenaged jackasses running around getting plastered, stealing boats, playing video games, and wasting their English education.

Pshaw, I say. As a townie, I know for a fact that not a single one of those little brats ever got anything near an English education.

*sighs* I love my hometown, but the teenagers in it have the combined intelligence of pudding. (Which, I should add, is about twice as intelligent as the mayor, but I would never stoop to insulting the dead while they're still in office.)

Don't mind me ... a screenwriting-related ramble.

You know, every so often, I go back and take a look at what's going on in the screenwriting section of Zoetrope, and I just cringe. Seriously.

Zoetrope is the website for Francis Ford Coppola's production company, and what's really cool about it is that it has a number of different sections with information on everything from costuming to set decoration to directing, acting, and writing. The writing section in particular stands out, with divisions for short stories, poetry, novellas, short scripts, and film-length screenplays.

For an example of what goes on there, take the screenwriting section, which I mostly frequent. What you do is, you can submit a script, and other aspiring screenwriters will review it for you (God willing) and you have to review four scripts from others on the site. This isn't where I have trouble, because frankly, it's fair warning for anyone who wants to set foot on Zoetrope. Out of the initial four scripts you get to look at, maybe one might be of filming quality, might being a pretty big stretch. Inevitably, one script will be a blatant ripoff of one or two movies you've seen a million times, one will be a comedy with inane jokes written by someone who considers themselves a comic genius, and one will consist of enough gaps in logic, plot construction, or character development that you'll end up being disgusted. The fourth, on the other hand, is usually not great, but with a bit of massaging and polishing could be good, which is what most of these screenwriters should be aspiring for at this point rather than an Oscar.

In any event, if you can get past that first set of reviews, you should theoretically have what it takes to maybe not write a script, but at least understand what one looks like and enough of the English language to get by. (Zoetrope, as far as I know, is an English-language site, but it's yet another one of those situations where I've seen people of non-English-speaking nationalities posting in the forums using a better grasp of the language than some of the English-speaking members.)

A number of things get to me every time I go on the site. The one thing that usually hits me hardest is the complete inability of anyone ... anyone ... to write a logline. You know how Mary Sue and badfic writers will post something on the Pit of Voles with the summary (and this would be in all caps), "This is for my best friendz Ashley and Britney ... hi guyzz! ... and it's about how Harry and Ron go to Hogsmeede one weekend and meet three really cool girlzz! Pleeeze read!!1!"? The scary thing is that it's one thing if it's Fanfiction.net and it's for fun and nobody's trying to make any money of it, but it's a really creepy thing to go onto a site for people who want to be professional writers only to see stuff like this on the logline list for scripts. (Granted, not that bad, but close enough to be frightening.)

How is that every fanfic writer I know, including the ones on my friends list -- *user passes on the shagging for tonight to bow to her friends list's combined ability to write ... feel the awe* -- can write a one- or two-sentence summation of their story, regardless of how complex it is, yet the Zoetrope screenwriters, for the most part, feel the need to write a five-sentence "sneak preview" that mostly sounds as if they wrote it imagining the Movie Trailer Voice Guy as he announced it in their local Cinemark?

That's not to say that they all do it, of course -- there's always the handful I spot while searching the "Read" section that make me stop and want to read the script, but for the most part ... No. No, I do not want to read something where you feel the need to spend half the logline explaining what you fixed, what you changed, what awards you've won for it *snorts*, and/or whether or not it's autobiographical. In fact, never tell me it's autobiographical, particularly if it features aliens, magick, vampires, gun battles, murder, car chases, alternate realities, or talking bunny rabbits. In that case, I will assume that you eat crayons and paste and have long involved conversations with your pointer finger, in which case I will not read your script so as not to encourage your freaky ass.

Also, while I'm at it, I once saw someone post a script for "Godfather 4". On Francis Ford Coppola's freaking website. I can only imagine that the writer in question has to get around using two different wheelchairs -- one for him, and one for his enormous balls.

Just for crying out loud, is it so hard to just sum up your script in two lines or less? I go on there and there are these huge, terrifyingly long loglines which I imagine are longer than the scripts themselves. And it's not like these people can't get help on the forums, because there's posts asking for and offering logline help every day. It's like watching someone bleed to death in a Band-Aid factory.

And to the truly good and decent writers on Zoetrope, I salute you, because damn it, I get the impression you don't get enough love as is. I've read scripts on there that I've desperately wanted to see produced, yet never heard a damn thing about again. If you want to know why movies like "Gigli" severely piss me off, it's because there's scripts like the intruiging story of the suicide case telling you why he did it and the extremely detailed and well-researched script about Dr. Holmes, the Chicago Fair killer, and they're just lying there on Zoetrope. (What I'm hoping for is that I'm proven wrong and both of those scripts get produced. The suicide case story was not only excellent, but it made me care for a guy who, to be honest, was pretty much a scumbag, and the Dr. Holmes story was one I'd wanted to write myself, knowing the case pretty well, but the guy nailed it to such a degree that I just couldn't.)

You know, I'm not an expert on screenwriting, but even I know when something needs a serious amount of overhauling. Sheesh.

(And don't get me started on the very small contigent of "elitists" wandering around that site. Gyah. There's a whole lot of writers on there who are intelligent, accepting, and helpful, and then there's the usual snot-nosed rabble. Blech.)