FIFTEEN MINUTE BREAK July 15, 2003

The worst part of preparing to go to San Diego is the packing and the purchase of necessities needed for the duration of the trip. Credit cards are all juiced up. Bank account must have more than three figures in it before I board that train. That means I have to work half a day tomorrow until I get my check and then leave to deposit it in the bank .Everything is planned out to the T - I got my approval from KATHY THE GREAT this morning for a early departure. I had her check the logs to look back at holiday time that I did not take off around Easter time and everybody in my department already took advantage of that free 4 hours but me. Time is like currency when I'm working here- if I have to take time off for any reason either for a doctor's appointment or to catch a flight to Vegas- I gotta fill out a permission slip.

So I'm going down the lot to the studio store to purchase a last minute dress shirt or anything that shows pride in working for the company I enjoy working for. (We're also having a employee screening of Finding Nemo a movie, I've long been putting off to see.) Then I'm going home to do some last minute touch ups on my Deposit Man 6 scripts before I whisk it off to Larry. In fact, one of the special things I'm looking forward to do on the train tomorrow is to prep up a package to be send off to Manitoba with the entire scripts, reference photos and magazine articles. I figure I have nothing else better to do. If I bring something to read on the train, I'm going to zonk out and I'll wake up in SD feeling so very unaccomplished. Then, I'm packing everything and setting it in the living room, so I come home from work tomorrow with my dry cleaning- it's all there waiting for me. Then I'm watching an episode of Farscape before I go to bed.

I did a hundred or so hand cut Deposit Man purple postcards to pass out. I realize I'm going to have to make a few hundred more while I'm down in San Diego. They look okay- but I'm going to have to be a wizard on the cutting board- because each one comes out a different size.

It's really hard to write a entry when EVERYBODY IS ARGUING IN THIS ROOM ABOUT TAKING OVER OTHER PEOPLE'S OFFICES!! I'm supposed to get my own little office here and people are complaining that this department shouldn't be broken up and blah, blah, blah- holy shit- the excitement never ends around here.

I've got 26 promo copies of Arena's Contagion to pass out at the con- but I'm reserving those for fellow comic pro colleagues and people on my mailing list- those who will have a actual reaction to it. I need more Arena fans out here.

Well, goodbye old blog- I'm going to San Diego for the next five days. Don't wait up for me.

~

Coat

FIFTEEN MINUTE BREAK July 14, 2003

Not much blogging to do this weekend- too wound up about San Diego. My boss of whom I shall now deem KATHY THE GREAT in these blogs will be giving me your final answer on whether I get to leave early to join the party at the earliest tomorrow. This feels weird being restrained during Comic Con. This is going to be my eighteenth San Diego Comic Con in a row- I've been there all four days for each and every one of them- (well, maybe except for last year- I played hookey for one day and went to see some of my old haunts of where I used to live in North San Diego- but I think I came down and went to the Friends of Lulu awards that last Thursday. I plan on picking up my badge on Thursday whether or not, the boss lets me out early on Wednesday. I'm taking my floating days- so I'm getting paid for it anyway. That will be another weird sensation- being down in San Diego while I'm getting paid for not doing work in Burbank. I plan on doing something similiar this year, taking a day for myself to go get refamiliarized with another area I used to live in San Diego-
in fact- this is the place where I did my first typed draft for the Deposit Man 'pilot episode' that eventually got published in the Malice anthology- the strange but beautiful Ocean Beach, CA. Tranquil, but serene -like as if David Lynch were doing a remake of Biniki Beach Bongo movie or some surfer homage. I'm going to take pictures for Larry, because I have a Deposit Man story that would take place in beach resort in Heaven- ( a sea of stars and cloudy white sands?) that will taking place after my mini-series is over.

More reminiscining tomorrw- now I gotta go and delete my mailing list rejects.

~

Coat