I felt like mangling Paddy Chayefsky’s quote because I’m sick of USC. Sick, sick, sick. They make me angry. It’s been over a year now and I STILL DON’T HAVE MY FRICKIN’ DIPLOMA. Sorry, FUCKIN’ DIPLOMA! I took all the courses, passed all the courses, but because of some stupid little paperwork error I haven’t yet received my blasted diploma. I think I’m going to call them once a day every day until this matter gets resolved, because this is just ridiculous. Prospective USC students: the film school there is great, but bring a knife sharp enough to cut through all the red tape.

Scorsese rocks. I liked the film. I didn’t notice how long it was until it was over. And it was long. Vicious and brutal at the end. You could say gruesome. Nicholson was not the “cuddly” Jack as Roeper put it. More like an older, larger version of what we saw in The Shining with a bit of a Boston accent. The rest of the cast was great, too. Damon and DiCaprio worked well opposite each other even though they were (almost) never in the same scenes. And Mark Wahlberg had a small but memorable role as a polite, refined police sergeant.

I got this e-mail forward from a member of my family today. Included is the text of the e-mail and my response to it: Dallas ATC: “Tower to Saudi Air 911—You are cleared to land eastbound on runway 9R.” Saudi Air: “Thank you Dallas ATC. Acknowledge cleared to land on infidel’s runway 9R—Allah be Praised !!” Dallas ATC: “Tower to Iran Air 711—You are cleared to land, Westbound on runway 9R.” Iran Air: “Thank you Dallas ATC. We are cleared to land on infidel’s runway 9R.- -Allah is Great !

After four years of sitting in the garage, I’ve decided to put my 1995 Chevy Caprice 9C1 back into limited use, mostly for weekend driving and stuff like that. There are a few repairs I need to tackle, including recharging the A/C 134a refrigerant and finding a replacement bolt for the right front brake caliper (I had nightmares about not being able to stop—now I know why)! But most importantly I recently took care of a non-functioning fuel pump. Turns out the wires had fried but now I have a new pump, too.

As I prepare to put my own company’s media online, DRM and copyright keeps popping up in my head. I had the thought the other day, “what’s to keep tweenies from buying a show then posting it on YouTube for all the world to see for free?” That of course is just one poor example. But DRM is a huge issue. It’s not about large corporations being greedy but for me it’s about small corporations who plan to make their entire income online being kept afloat at all. I guess time will tell.