(I Want the)THE BEST HIGHLIGHTS IN HOLLYWOOD

Summer is now supposedly gone - but you couldn't tell out here by the lingering heat. Come late October, (fall season begins late in Los Angeles) the temperature will be dipping a few degrees and the freon will make the water in the pool unbearable to swim in, as the days become shorter and everyone will have to set their clocks ahead just because a bunch of stupid farmers have to wake up to a sound of a rooster squawking rather than possessing the technical know how in setting up a simple digital alarm clock in order to get up and milk the cows. Words cannot express the massive hatred that aggravates me to no avail when it comes to daylight savings time. There's no scienitific reason or logical explanation as to why we go to such tremendous lengths to keep some hillybilly farmers happy in order to see the sun set exactly at 6 AM.

Now, I'll have to get the windbreakers out of the closet, all the obligatory company embroidered jackets, make sure the windows are shut tight at night and set enough time aside in the morning to blow dry my hair before stepping foot outside the door to work. What is going to really suck total degenerate ass is that all the highlights in my hair that I've accumulated from swimming in the pool and walking in the boiling sun is going to fade from my musty mop and transform into a deep dark shit brown. I need those highlights to remain in place until I've finished with the Las Vegas Comic Book Convention - it's completely for the image, you understand.

The tension mounts.

Alright, time is of the essence tonight as I gotta rush off to fiddle with my VCRs. As some of you may already know, after all the Emmys are given out, that usually signifies the major networks- them being ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox, with the minor leaguers the WB and UPN tailing behind are ready to unveil a whole new barrage of shows inept with any inclination of a original idea or concept. Every show this season is a hybrid abomination of the ones that already premiered the previous season. And the ones before that season too. Now the next big thing going around these days are the setting up of franchises to monopolize the prime time schedule- it's nearly impossible not to tune in and see either a show that belongs to the CSI or Law & Order canon. Tonight, CBS has set the CSI premise within our military with the title tongue twister, Navy: NCIS with Mark Harmon and David McCallum investigating real boring crimes that just happen to occur on all our major army and navy bases. And the punished get to peel potatoes in the barracks for the next ten to twenty.

Speaking of major pain in the asses, there's nothing more disparging than the shifting of tv schedules that worked fine for me last year, and it appears once again that the networks don't give a fuck about my feelings when NBC pits the new season of Law & Order: SUV to conflict with another of my favorite shows on ABC (and one of the few that I watch on that Disney owned network), NYPD Blue - and I'm sure there are others, but I can't seem to list them off the top of my head right now. But the television fall season is now upon us, and lord, (or the deity of your choice) if it isn't already fucking addicting.

Work today was interesting on two levels: 1. Once again , a whole mess of Constantine related stuff has come to my attention and I got to see the set construction going on in progress and: 2.) I attended my first mandatory sexual harrassment class on the lot and what made it different from previous classes and seminars I've had to attend to through other corporations is that a major portion of it was performed by actors in several different skits to demonstrate how not to be accused or be the accuser of sexual harrassment.

Believe me, I needed a refresher coarse more than anybody on this subject- just when you think you know all there is to know, something comes along and throws a wrench into your pillar of previous knowledge - outdating every rule and regulation that you once abided by as evident in a incident last year, when a contractor tried to make my life miserable over such a tedious incident. I won't get into the specifics here, but after hearing something that once resonated to me as a form of abuse that I may have been guilty of, I gotta admit, if a major investigation were launched on the basis of her claims, I'm sure after a short while, the imprint of my company's emblem would have been tattooed on my ass as it was being kicked out the security gate.

I learned to be good after that fiasco blew over.

The small actor troupe performed five possible scenerios of what could be coined as sexual abuse in the workplace: a). The joke - what you may think and what others around you may think is funny, may not be funny to one single minority of the group. One such person could make your work environment a living hell, if that person were to declare that joke you just told offensive or completely inappropiate.

Then there is b) 'The Compliment' - it may be okay to say someone looks nice or conservative in a dress or shoes, but it's not okay to say that person looks very fetching in that short mini dress or skirt. Don't try to assume that favorite female co-worker of yours is wearing a thong or a pair of your grandmother's favorite K-Mart Jacklyn Smith 's panties while she is bending down to pick up a No. 2 pencil - or if your male supervisor moonlights as a Chippendale dancer on the side- it will only benefit you in directing you towards the path to Rt 86. Personally, this is really nothing for me to worry about, as there's really nothing for me to look at on the job, since nearly all my co-workers have problems making their peace with their 'weight watchers' gods, or are a couple of years away for making permanent reservations to a one way trip to the old bibby home for the cruel and cankerous- they're at the age where that they even have emergency room doctors added to their Christmas Card lists.

Later, then we were subjected to 'the female admirers' segment which went on to explain that even females can be the sexual harrassment aggressors. This doesn't happen often, I would personally renounce my atheism if a caddy of female co-workers were ever to oogle over me while I was on the clock- but the only stipulation to those conditions would be if all my female co-workers looked like Laura Elena Harding and Naomi Watts . And that is probably why they don't allow me to work on the main lot, I have too many conditions to adhere to, but I'm sure it's in the interest of my self- preservation.

I wish I had a stalker, only then would I truly know the definitive meaning of true attachment.

Another skit performed, and this one certainly struck a nerve, as it dealt with downloading porno on the internet while on company time- which a lot of people in my department are already guilty of whether they admit it or not, as exists some consortium or private network of those who exchange graphic e-mail jokes with each other on a mailing list. I personally didn't sign up for it - but I like to check out singles websites and while there are some that be a little graphic, I have confidence knowing that the female that I've just downloaded is completely obtainable in my neighborhood. I don't like to think what I download as porn, as most of the girls in the pics do try to keep their clothes on and none are depicted in any sexual acts. Downloading porn on the job is messing around with fantasy geekdom. Checking out what saucy wench you can actually set up a date with within the hour is mucking around with reality and could be construed as having to run an errand on your way home from work - but to be on the safe side, maybe I should quit while I'm ahead.

The fifth skit was boring, as it pertained to looking out or giving the heads up to each other in preventing ways to sexually harass one another (i.e; verbal warnings), so I'll jump on what stuff I have on Constantine tonight-

A) Bills are coming in on the set construction phase: gallons of latex and flamable paint are coming in by the truckload and they are going out by the truckload. Sticks, brushes, rollers, paintrags, you name it- it's all getting ordered.

B) A Script dept supervisor was giving me details on a few drafts of the script that he edited (but he wasn't familar with the original source material) and what I could ascertain from our conversation is that there are two major plotlines to follow in the movie and one is that one of Garth Ennis's famous storylines on his run of the book is depicted on the subject of John Constantine being diagnosed with cancer, the other I will not devulge right this moment as I do a little background check in my own Hellblazer collection.

C) After the the sexual orientation got let out, I strolled over to the set (make that sets! Plural, my friend, PLURAL as Ian Anderson would say. )today and watched a little construction. I happened to speak to one of the set construction foremans and he told me something that totally exceeded my expectations of how many soundstages it's going to take to get through this production: They are erecting five, count 'em five huge stages to shoot this movie- something that hasn't been done for a single movie in years on my favorite movie lot.

Well, gotta split to tape these new fall premiere shows.

~

Coat