I have been chewed up and spit out by the Hollywood machine. After many, many months of telling everyone, "My hand is in a movie!" we finally went to see Kids in America only to find that I had been cut. My big scene was left on the cutting room floor!! I was so disappointed considering I had brought my digital camera so that I could take a snapshot of the scene and then print it and have it framed, or maybe put it on my business card so that people would recognize it from the movie and say to themselves,"This guy has got it goin' on." But I'm getting ahead of myself. Saturday morning I got up at 6:00 and got myself ready, grabbed my suitcase and hit the road. It took me about 20 minutes to get across town, but then I tacked on an extra 15 minutes just looking for a parking space at the airport. So, luggage in hand I saddled my way through the front doors and over to the Delta check in desk, where I handed the worker my itinerary and announced that I needed to check in on the 8:00 flight to Dallas. She looked at my itinerary and announced, "You are at the wrong desk, moron." Now, I admit, I've only flown a handful of times in my life and I've always had someone else do the checking in and all that, so this was my first time to fly completely by myself. However, in my defense, yes the itinerary said the flight was operated by Continental but there in big bold colors was the Delta logo. I still don't understand the logic behind it. It's like Delta and Continental put all their differences behind them and teamed up just to make me look like an idiot. Moving on. I flew into Houston and had an hour layover and then boarded my flight to DFW. Well, apparently it was the 27th Annual Reunion of the Annoying Plane Passenger Association. The entire back of the plane knew each other and, therefore, thought it would be alright to act like they were at happy hour at some dive of a bar that you would only go into to either get directions or look for someone to "take care of" someone who owed you money. From the volume of their voices, you would think that they were actually on two different planes and needed to communicate to each other by yelling at each other and then passing a digital camera around to see the "cute" pictures that one of them had taken at sporadic moments during the pre-flight safety instruction presentation. I guess as it turns out they were all from a church in Dallas on their way back home after some wedding/funeral/happy hour that they had attended in Houston. Take your pick. The flight took a lot less time than I thought it would. Unbelievably, about 10 minutes after we took off, the captain came on the intercom to announce that we would now be starting our descent. After landing, I grabbed my bags and Erin picked me up. At this point, it was starting to sink in that I was finally going to see the fruits of my 5 week labor last summer. I made some calls and we left to eat. At the theater, we (which at this point included me, Erin, Jon, Tom, Paul, Tina, and a girl whose name I can't really remember) got our tickets and were soon joined by Kaela Weeks, Lee Jones, Miriam Marshall, and her fiance Aaron. The movie was actually funnier than I thought it was going to be, mainly because I had incredibly low expectations. One critic's response to the movie was "Better than it has any right to be." Everytime I think of that I smile a little. What does that even mean? Is that one of those compliments wrapped in an insult, like "You look better in real life than on TV?" Afterward, we all went to Starbucks and I got to regale everyone with stories of all the on set antics and where I was standing in every scene, and how I was the one that cued Gregory Smith to walk in the house from outside, and how I brought George Wendt some trail mix, and how I walked Nicole Richie to makeup and wardrobe, and how I hung out with Julie Bowen between takes, and how....I could go on and on. But I'm no name dropper. After church the next day, we had planned on going to the fair on the last day, but a cold front had moved in that morning and it was frickin freezing so we didn't go and I took a 3 hour nap instead. It was great. That night I went out with Lee, Courtney and Michelle to Taco Cabana and we chilled for a little while. Everyone seems to be doing great. The next morning, Jon took me to the airport and I flew back home to Little Rock and had the rest of the day to chill until I went to FOX at 6. So that was my exciting movie premiere. I had a really great time and it was great to be in Texas again and see some good friends. Wow, this post is really long. Well, until next time.

Last night, I was at the zoo with a lot of people and we were concerned about the monkeys being trapped in their lavish many acre environment. So whoever I was with decided to kidnap the monkeys and take them somewhere else "to save them". At this point, I was really worried because, as so many people know, I am, and always will be, a rule-follower. I don't park in the take-out spaces at restaurants unless I'm picking up food. I stand at the "Please Wait Here" sign and wait to be called at the checkout line at Barnes & Noble. And I always, always, always use my turn signal even when going around a curve where you have no choice but to turn. So, in summation, I follow the rules. Well, imagine my shock when the other person wants to steal the monkeys. I tried to convince the others that the monkeys were well fed and comfortable and loved the zoo but the others wouldn't listen. "These monkeys deserve to live free," my associate said, "and once we take them to their new home at the aquarium, they will be able to live as nature intended." At this point, I was beside myself. "No, we can't do this. These monkeys deserve to...wait a second...did you say you're taking these monkeys to the aquarium." And that's when the light bulb went off in my head, the hamster hit full speed on his little wheel, and all the pieces fell into place. I was in a dream. It's a rare occurance when you're dreaming and you actually stop and say to yourself, "wait, this is all too ridiculous. I'm in a dream." So at that point, I lost all interest in the monkeys. "Sure, break 'em out. Sell 'em to the circus, I don't care. Now, if I can only find the Tropic Tan swimsuit team..."

I know I'm geeking out about all this but I just can't help myself. Two more days until the release of Kids in America!! This is a big deal to me people. I know there may not be many people left reading this blog because of my successful attempt to talk about the movie non-stop, but if you are reading this than go see it because it is pretty much video form of the old "What Did You Do For Your Summer Vacation?" report you have to do every year in school. This is how I spent summer 2004. You can even go online and check for showtimes. SHOWTIMES!!! I at first thought that maybe, if I was lucky, it would be playing at the Magnolia theater in Dallas. Turns out it's playing at 10 theaters in Dallas, and it's even playing here in Little Rock. And to top it all off (this has to be a sign) we went out to dinner last night for Becca's last day here and as we were all sitting enjoying our burgers, the song "Kids in America" comes on. I'm definitely geeking it out at the theater on Saturday.

After days of flip-flopping about whether or not to go to LA for the premiere, I've decided to skip out on it. I really wanted to go but in the end it came down to money. I couldn't quite justify spending $500 to fly there for one day and then fly back, even though it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. Whatever.

I forgot to rant last week about what happened with John Edwards. A couple weeks ago John Edwards came to Little Rock for some kind of conference or something. Sidebar: It's not John Edwards from the TV show Crossing Over where he talks to dead people, it's the guy that ran for president and then for VP with Kerry. Anyway, he came to speak at the Clinton School of Business and the CSB people told us that Edwards agreed to an interview for the show. I got very excited even though I'm not a Democrat and I went home to practice on how to talk to semi-famous people without giving off the impression that I'm mildly retarded. Well, the night before the interview was to occur, we got an email from the CSB people and they said that Edwards wasn't going to give any interviews because "he didn't have time." Now, I usually put the show together on Fridays so that I can have the weekend off and then the show airs on Sunday night. Well, we get the email Thursday night. Edwards was supposed to be the whole show. So the night before we had to finish the show, we had nothing. Luckily, Roby got two interviews for Friday morning and we finished the show by Friday night. But that Edwards better watch his back. Maybe the other John Edwards can talk to some dead people and get them to go haunt him. Note to self: die so that John Edwards will talk to me so that I can get him to convince my fellow ghosts to haunt other John Edwards.

So just a few more days til the big premiere in Dallas. I also discovered that the Texas State Fair ends the last day I'll be there so I am definitely going to get my fair on. I can hear the fried Oreos and twinkies calling my name. Or maybe that's just my heart trying to talk some sense into me so I don't destroy it before I turn 24. Well, it doesn't matter anyway, I don't need it. I got two of them right? Or is that kidneys?

I've been working hard lately which would explain the lapse in updates. October means many things to many people. Halloween. The beginning of fall weather. Christmas season starting in about a week. But if you work for a FOX affiliate, as I do, then October means only one thing. Baseball. The all-American sport that makes me want to stick my head in the oven. Nothing against MLB, I enjoy going to games, but what I don't enjoy is working 15 hours a day, as was the case Monday. I went to Job #1 at 8 Monday morning and worked diligently. At 4:45 I had to leave to go to job #2 at FOX. Since the playoffs are playing on FOX for the month of October, our newscast can't go on at 9 as usual. So instead, we do a half hour show (normal show is an hour) at 6:30 on FOX, another half hour on our sister station UPN at 9, and then the normal hour show whenever the game is over. So instead of working until 5 and then going into FOX at 6:15 and finishing at 10:15, I worked until 4:45, sped over to get to FOX by 5, and did three shows with the last show ending at 11:30. I then went home and wanted to bash my TV in because, after all, both my jobs are in television causing me to work for almost 16 hours that day. Oy.

Next week is the big premiere. I'm so excited about going to Dallas (wish I could go to LA for the real premiere) because not only will I be seeing my movie but I will get to see a lot of friends that I haven't seen in quite a while. It's gonna be great.

There are certain times of the day that just bring a smile to your face and an overall warm and fuzzy feeling. Like 4:55 pm when you're coasting your way through the work day. Or 7:00 pm when a favorite show comes on and you get to relax on the couch and just let the TV waves completely zap you of the energy and will to do anything. However, waking up to see 5:30 am on the trusty alarm clock doesn't exactly whip me into a frenzy. I was awoken by the tap, tap, tapping of some guy's fist on the door of the apartment next to mine. And the ringing of the doorbell. And then more knocking. I eventually got up, threw on some clothes in the dark, and stumbled downstairs to see what was going on. I watched the guy for a few seconds until he left. I then wandered back up the stairs (thinking back, I'm really impressed that I had the agility to navigate the stairs in the dark, half-asleep) and got back in my warm bed. 5 minutes later, more knocking. I wanted to go down and open the door and tell the guy to shut it, but then my desire to see my kids grow up outweighed that plan. After about a minute the guy left for good.

I got my invitation for the official world premiere of Kids in America last week and everytime I look at it I want to throw up. It's in downtown Hollywood and I would do anything to go so if you would like to contribute to my fund to fly myself to LA (should only be about $300) then let me know. Amy already pledged $20, who can beat her? Come on people, let's send me to Hollywood. I'll take lots of pictures of me with all the celebrities. If that's not a selling point, I don't know what is.