Ahhhh, finally the weekend is here! The last couple of days at work were pretty insane, but the initial rush seems to have subsided and the next week will be busy but not too crazy. I haven't made much progress on the new screenplay, though getting the stuff that I wrote on paper into Final Draft gives me a good opportunity to revise as I go along. I'm not using the PDA and folding keyboard this time around because I've been having trouble getting it synched with the computer which is a drag. I hope to bang out a few more scenes over the weekend (right now I have about 1 1/2 scenes written and some of the story outlined) as well as get more work done on my dad's site.

Well, I didn't have any work today. Long story short, we couldn't get the materials we needed. While I'm a little bit disappointed since I'm right in the middle of a huge job, I was able to get around to starting a couple of projects that I've been wanting to get working on. First is a website for my dad. For those who don't know him, he retired from teaching last year, moved to Florida, and is now a regularly gigging musician and needing a website. That should be up sometime soon. I also started writing my next screenplay. It's inspired in part by our weekly guilty pleasure night. That would be two hours of the most degrading stuff that reality TV has to offer. First is My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance. This poor woman and her friends and family are just mercilessly abused for our entertainment. Then Average Joe 2: Hawaii, where they put a bunch of insecure guys against a bunch of buff yuppie fratboy types for the affection of a midwestern beauty queen. It plays out like Revenge of the Nerds. But with real people instead of actors, it's pretty brutal on the nerds. And that's all I'm going to say about it for now.

Our corporate crony "president" is about to finalize changes in the laws governing overtime pay that could take away overtime protections from at least 8 million people. His changes will cut paychecks for families, erode the 40-hour workweek and encourage employers to require more overtime work. Basically, it's typical behavior of this administration helping out their rich buddies by directly screwing over working people. Click here to take action.

Bored of the same old presidential candidates? Well there's a new one on the block. His qualifications: he sang for Ritchie Blackmoore's Rainbow, he replaced Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath, and he led his own eponymously named band. Who could it be but Ronnie James Dio? Tenacious D have released the following press release about this candidacy: "Dio has rocked for a long, long time, Now it's time for him to pass the torch. He has songs of wildebeest and angels, He has soared on the wings of a demon." (via metafilter)

Can't make it to Sundance? Live vicariously with photos.

JasonBuckley.com in print? Well, yes and no. Don't worry, I'm not talking about a vanity press copy of the day to day shit that I post here. And I'm not talking about the parts of this blog which make up the Washington Interns Gone Bad production diaries which are part of the "Screenplay and More" book that I have on cafepress. No, I'm talking about an actual book, being put out soon by an actual publishing house. It's called "Never Threaten to Eat Your Co-Workers: Best of the Blogs." The editors went through something like 30,000 blog posts from all over and they thought that one of mine (sorry, but I'm not telling which one - you're going to have to buy the book and find out!) was worth putting in. Reading the pre-copy-edited, non illustrated, formatted or typset version which I got today (no, you can't see it until it's out) knocked me out. There's my little post amongst some bigger name bloggers, professional writers, journalists, actors and others. And if being published with this incredibly talented group of writers wasn't enough of a thrill, I am actually getting paid for it. Even if this thing is a bestseller I don't think I'll be able to quit my day job, but that sure makes it all the more sweet. Details (and an Amazon link) will definitely come as I know more about when it will be available.

I SO have to see this film! Open water is being called a cross between Blair Witch and Jaws. It's about a couple who get abandoned in the open sea after scuba diving, and they shot it in the water with REAL SHARKS! Here's a review from Film Threat.

Who is Frank Chu? He's a the San Francisco Bay Guardian's protestor of the year. He has a few fan sites. Watch this video and see if you can figure out exactly what it is that he is protesting. Learn about the 12 Galaxies and what goes on behind closed doors in Washington, DC.

Today Anne and I went to the San Francisco Zoo and it was great! We saw a baby howler monkey pestering all the older howler monkeys. We were about 5 feet from the face of a rhino. We saw a pair of bald eagles. And we caught the big cat feeding. That was the shit! There's nothing like seeing a tiger tear into a rabbit like its name was Roy Horn. The male lion was very mellow, just munching away, while the lioness was less interested in the dead food she was given than the live prey (little kids and everyone else) just feet away on the other side of the bars. She was roaring and pushing at the bars and even made eye contact with Anne, who would have been a tasty morsel We saw firsthand the amount of water a giraffe can hold (a LOT!). I really wish I brought my camcorder. I can bet that I'll bring it next time and all the animals will be napping the whole time.

Don't forget, today is the last day to enter the Photo Caption Contest and try to win a Washington Interns Gone Bad DVD. At midnight (PST) tonight, the threads will be locked from any new posts amd the judges will start deliberating.

Son of a bitch! After two sessions of congress have rejected Bush's judicial appointment of right wing loonie and anti-choice zealot Charles Pickering, Bush is trying to sneak him in using a recess appointment during the MLK holiday weekend. Get in touch with your senators ASAP (prochoiceaction.org has set up an easy way to do it online) and tell them that this will not fly.

And speaking of anti-Bush ads, the winning Bush in 30 seconds ad has been rejected from the superbowl.

There's an even newer anti-Bush ad making the rounds, and a bit in Salon by the guy who made it discussing the right's reaction to it. If you don't want to watch a short ad to have access to Salon, the long and short of it is that the right did their usual hypocritical whine about how unfairly they are treated by the left. Boo hoo, piggies.

This just in: Bush Booed in Visit to Martin Luther King's Grave. SWEET!

Margaret Cho goes off on all the rightwingers who have been sending her hatemail over the out of context snippets from her bit at the Bush in 30 Seconds awards (posted by the king of right wing pseudojournalism, Matt Drudge). If you want to read some really funny stuff, check out what the fine folks at the Freak Republic have to say about all of this.

So the first batch of Washington Interns Gone Bad DVDs have gone out and folks should have watched them by now. What I need you to do if you've seen this DVD, please visit its Internet Movie Database page to rate and comment on it. Of course, this message does not apply to you if you hated it. Oh yeah, if I sent you a copy and you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for?

How cool is my wife for getting a photo-op with Paul O'Neill just days before he left office? She was a nanny for somebody who worked at the treasury department and he was taking pictures with people and their families before he left. The look on his face is not happy. I hope he's smiling now.

And what was keeping me so busy that I missed last night's 60 Minutes? I was building this. The full site should be up in a few days.

I had made every attempt to catch Paul O'Neill lay the smackdown on the Bush administration on 60 Minutes last night, but I managed to miss it anyway. At least the segment transcripts are up. Good stuff, though the fact that Bush and company are a bunch of assholes who don't give a rat's ass for anything that goes against the agenda of their corporate criminal warmongering neocon think tank puppetmasters isn't exactly news, it's great to hear it from somebody so high up in the administration. I wonder what Colin Powell will say about these clowns when he retires after this term.

Bored with Friendster? I know I am. Their servers are slow as hell and it's more about being seen than any sort of online community. Looking at slow loading pictures of your friends' friends' friends gets old pretty quickly. What if their servers were faster and they had user-created communities and forums, kind of like a cross between Friendster and Craigslist? Then you would have Tribe.net, the better friendster. Anne had heard about it a while ago and signed up a few days ago. I checked it out last night and it seems pretty cool. I've joined groups for filmmaking, blogging and even one for my neighborhood. I highly recommend all you friendsters out there to try this instead.

Reminder: the photo captioning contest is still underway and we have some new very funny entries. We also have our first celebrity judge signed on, and it's Adam Kroloff. You may know him either as rock and roller Captain Paradox, or as Congressman Richard Ford-Brainston in Washington Interns Gone Bad. If you don't know him, then you REALLY need to get a copy of Washington Interns Gone Bad because he's funny as hell. If you can't afford to buy one, you could always try to win one in the contest.

Margaret Cho has her reaction to the republicans and their Bush in 30 Seconds non-scandal on her blog. Besides being a kickass comedian, she's one of the celebrity judges in the contest. Margaret, if you somehow wind up reading this (who knows, you could be as obsessive about checking your referers as most bloggers I know), you can do the umlaut u (ü) by holding down your [alt] key and typing 0252 on your number pad. If you're on a mac, you're on your own on that one. Oh yeah, I have a movie you should see.

"These 9 drawings were done by an artist under the influence of LSD -- part of a test conducted by the US government during it's dalliance with psychotomimetic drugs in the late 1950's. The artist was given a dose of LSD 25 and free access to an activity box full of crayons and pencils. His subject is the medico that jabbed him." (via metafilter)

Newsflash: Republicans panties in knots again, this time over 2 Bush in 30 Seconds ads that pointed out some very real similarities between Bush and Hitler. These ads did not make it into the final round and now the only place they can be seen is on the RNC's website, but they are outraged, OUTRAGED! and demanding an apology from Moveon.org for sponsoring these ads. What they fail to mention is that Moveon.org didn't sponsor any ads, only an ad contest. Nonetheless, the republicans are demanding an apology for this, though they are notably silent about the multitude of rightwing websites referring to "Hitlery Clinton."

The first color photo from the Mars rover is up and frankly, I'm a bit disappointed that it's not red enough. But seriously, I think it's pretty damn cool.

They have announced the top 15 Bush in 30 Seconds entries, and to no big surprise mine is not amongst them. The top 15 are really good though, and I'm feeling like a good sport about not making it to the next round which is somewhat uncharacteristic for me. This was a great contest and I'm just glad to have been part of it. And speaking of contests, a lot of people have been looking at my photo caption contest but nobody has entered yet. I know there are some witty people who read this thing on a regular basis and would probably enjoy a free Washington Interns Gone Bad DVD. Don't make me break this thing down for nothin. I want to see you on your baddest behavior. Lend me some sugar, I am your neighbor. Caption it like a polaroid picture.

Win a free Washington Interns Gone Bad DVD! That's right, you can get this DVD for free and have some fun while you're doing it. I've started a photo caption contest in the forums. There are 4 photos. You need to register to use the forum and caption all 4. The winner will be chosen by myself and a panel of pseudo-celebrity judges to be named soon. You have until January 18th. Have fun and good luck!

The Spirit Rover has landed on Mars and is sending back some of its first pictures!

For anyone who reads Bust magazine and saw the little blurb in the latest issue about POM Wonderful pomegranite juice and vanilla vodka, unless you enjoy drinks that taste like cough syrup, don't bother with this one.

Yesterday we saw 21 Grams. It's by the same guy who directed Amores Perros and it had much of the same really great look and feel. Like Amores Peros, it connects different people whose lives were all affected one way or another by a car accident. Unlike Amores Perros where they told each story one at a time, the three stories here are interwoven and out of sequence. It was very confusing at first, but at one point it all makes sense but still doesn't quite give away what is going to happen. It was really inventive and powerful storytelling of an incredibly tragic story and I highly recommend it.

I've seen this ad a few times on yahoo, and it always makes me think "what is Rob Halford doing to that guy's butt, and what does that have to do with DSL?"

Happy New Year everybody!!!