Went to check out a house today with our realtor. Our very first house. Holy guts, did this place ever define "craphole". It was built in 1903, apparently, and it's decided to celebrate its 100th birthday by scaring the bejeezus out of us. This place should be condemned. A pile of peeling, rotted, splintered wood held together by termites. Susan (remember the Smeller?) walked in with us and said, "well... it's... got possibilities. How ambitious are you?" Not ambitious enough to rent a friggin' wrecking ball, Susan, but thanks for the thought. Yick.
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A new script is up and this one's title was suggested by my good buddy Kirk Millett (the most talented animator I've ever met. Do yourself a humongous favor and check out his website, www.veenvop.com, for some truly entertaining Flash-based web cartoons. This guy is the real deal, trust me.) Anyhow, he threw Panty Claus my way and you can see for yourself what I came up with. I must warn you, though: from the mouths of babes comes wicked profanity, so, kids, make sure you're accompanied by an adult for this one. There. You're all warned.

Friday was Good Friday. We went to our parent/sister church, Seaside, for an evening service. I performed a monologue about the cross I'd written in college called "Malchus". It went really well. Strange performing something from my school days, though. A bit like jumping in the Way Back Machine and giving the high school production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown another go-'round. But, the reaction was overwhelmingly positive, which is always nice. In fact, the worship leader, Moses Toth (who writes and produces Christian musicals), asked me to help him re-write his latest opus for performance this Christmas. So, that's cool.
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Easter was lovely, and our good friend Ben Bays came down from Northridge to spend the day with us. After church and hosannas in the morning, we headed back to Long Beach for a full Easter feast, prepared by Carey. The brand of ham was "Hog Wild" (with a picture of a delighted chef-pig on the label, which almost made us feel guilty) and Carey was innovative enough to make a very strange gravy for the mashed potatoes consisting of ham bits, flour, milk, and a can of beer.

So, after spending the day with Ben, we wrapped up our evening and began to retire to bed. I'd just taken my trousers off in the bedroom when I heard Carey shriek in the hallway... "Whaohp!"

I'm thinking, okay, what did the cats do? What's broken? What's spilled? Who threw up on the carpet? And then, I heard a distintly male voice in our living room: "Hi, is this Barry's place? Am I in the right apartment?"

And, friends, I don't know what came over me. It must have been the hunter/gatherer/protect-the-family-farm side of my persona or something. But, I jumped up, underwear and all, and bolted toward the living room. The guy continued: "Barry said he was going to leave the door unlocked... is...?"

As I was rushing toward this unknown fellow (who's voice was decidedly effiminate... it didn't exactly take an Ivy League education to guess what this guy wanted from "Barry"), my only thought was how badly I was going to hurt him for breaking into our home. I guess it's partially my fault for forgetting to lock the door, but the guy was, by all accounts, an intruder and I was prepared to seriously f*** this jamoke up before letting him near my wife. I don't care if you're gay, straight, black, white, or friggin' Jehovah's witness, dude. You're going down.

The guy ran back out the door yelling, "sorry, sorry, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry..." and I followed him, yelling, "it's okay, get out, it's okay, get out." I slammed the door and locked it and that was that. Still a little spooked, I gave the apartment a once-over to make sure no one was in it. Oh yes, there are crack addicts and gangs and all manner of a-holes in Long Beach. You just can't be too careful.

In the end, I never really did get an eye on the guy, but Carey told me that he was a baldish fellow in traditional Gay Ghetto attire. I'm sure it was just some confusion concerning the whereabouts of Barry's orgy or somthing. But, what in the holy hell, you know? I don't care who you are, you don't just walk into somebody's living room if you're unsure who they are. Please! We have a doorbell! It works!
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Went and looked at a house over the weekend, courtesy of the realtor. I dunno. It wasn't really doing it for me. It's in the restoration part of Long Beach, i.e. the sucky part of town that the government is trying to turn into the trendy part of town. Not a bad place, I guess, but parking is our biggest headache in our current spot and it looked as though the problem would be two-fold over there. No garages anywhere. And the house was obviously maintained very poorly. And, the big kicker, they want 10% down up front. Since Carey and I don't have $14,000 laying around, we may need to pass. But, I guess the hunt has begun.

Well, happy Tax Day +1, everybody. Hope you all got your returns in on time.

Carey and I made a big move yesterday. We went ahead and paid a visit to ...sh-shudder... a realtor. Century 21, as it happens. We're sick of renting, I tell you. Sick. We've been flushing money down the crapper for years without building a bit of equity and, frankly, it's time for a change. Carey made the appointment and we showed up.

I won't go into too many details because... well, because it's a bit depressing. As luck would have it, we can't afford our dream home. In fact, we can't even afford a condo equal to what we're renting at the moment. Between my new business start-up, Carey's career ditch last year, and our modest income, the lenders saw fit to frown on our situation. The good news is, we've got great credit. The bad news is our adventurous, seat-of-the-pants lifestyle has kind of screwed us out of a home for the time being. Well, what can you do? I guess we'll keep renting for awhile.

Our realtor agent's name is Susan. She's... ah... nice woman, don't get me wrong. But, dear friends, I cannot be bothered to lie (unless there's a national TV appearance offer somewhere...): the woman's a "smeller". She obviously knew what she was talking about, but the wife and I were bowled over by bad breath and bad B.O. Wouldn't hygene be a standard prerequisite in a realtor? This woman holds the keys to our American Dream! Is it too much to ask for a little perfume or at least some Lady Speed Stick?

Oh, Susan.
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I've decided that I'll never do my own taxes again. Believe me, it's well worth it to go to a tax preparer. We used H&R Block and we're more than thrilled. I thought we were going to get utterly screwed this year (what with my new biz and all), but we even came out of the deal with a modest return. Yahoo! I'll never hesitate again. True, their bill was steep, but they paid for themselves with aggressive deducting. Bless you, H&R. You're on our side.
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And, let's see. It's new script time. This one comes from Pete Webb (an actor who happened to bring one of my characters to life on the Indie screen a couple of years ago... not to mention a hell of a nice guy). Pete's been patiently waitng for months to watch his title flesh out on good ol' JB.com. Well, wait no more, Pete, bless ya. It's a slice of life called Corpulent Raiders. I did my best, Pete. I did my very very best.

So, goodnight.

Apparently, everyone's a friggin' comedian. I've gotten several script titles recently, all having "cats", "pee", "Leno", and "lying" somewhere in them. I suppose it's pennance. You lovely, lovely people, you.
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Woke up this morning, got ready for work. On the way out the door, caught some TV footage of Baghdad, with all the locals pulling down the big statue of Saddam in the middle of town. For some reason, it struck me as one of those historical images that we'll probably see a lot in the years to come.

But, you know, it's all very abstract to me. It's very difficult to relate to that lifestyle. To wanting freedom that badly, I mean. Needless to say, I take my opportunities for granted.

Sheesh, if this isn't starting to sound like a middle school Social Studies report... sorry about that.
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Came across a really spectacular link yesterday: The Brick Testament. Apparently, somebody told the story of the Bible by building and photographing Lego scenes. Reading into it, he was obviously aiming to mock Christianity, but, jeez. That's a lot of work to put in for a joke. Cool nonetheless.