I just saw "8 Mile" with Eminem. The reviews were right. It's a standard Hollywood plot, updated for the Detroit 313. What makes this otherwise boring movie a standout is Eminem. He has the same kind of intensity I've seen in Sean Penn's film, and which I saw up close when Penn was in a Sam Shephard play with Nick Nolte at the Magic Theater a few years ago.

Eminem is very watchable. You see all these emotions wash across his face, which is great for a movie audience. I loved the guys arguing in the car about the difference between west coast and east coast rap styles, and how Tupac Shakur influenced rap style. I'm sure half the people in the audience with me, had no clue what these guys were talking about.

And Kim Basinger. She looked almost too natural, too familiar playing Eminem's trailer trash mom role. The music was great, but I wished it had more of Eminem's own music. I'm not sure Eminem would do well in another kind of movie role, but he was great in this semi biopic of himself.

"Contact" the movie was on TV last night, and every time it's on TV, which seem like once a month, I have to watch it. I love the Ellie Arroway character. I so relate to her focus, her single mindedness, her intensity and how her driven qualities lead to her inevitable incredible loneliness. But in the movie, she's at least got her JC man, Palmer Joss, the ruggedly beautiful Matthew McConaughey. I'm like so jealous! Like where's my spiritual, beautiful JC man?

WOOHOO!!! I finished National Novel Writing Month a day early, and wrote 50,184 words. I'm not even done with my story, but I do intend to finish it soon.

I even figured out how to post a graphic to my bloggie. I'll have to post more pics soon.

I'm exhausted from writing like a fiend this whole month, but now I have to get back to writing my screenplay. I'm taking a class from Richard Schultz, who I believe is the head of the screenwriting department at UCLA and has taught most of the current screenwriters who have Hollywood films out. The class is in two weeks, and last year in a radio interview, Schultz said he would read screenplays if people brought them to class. I would so love to get feedback from him on my screenplay.

I can't believe I completed another year of Nanowrimo. It's so hard, so maddening, yet in the end I always feel good that I've pushed myself and accomplished something really cool like write 50K plus words in 30 days. Now that's great writing production.

I've got the day off, and I can't decide if I want to venture outside and brave the shopping hordes. I need a new watchband for my Timex Ironman triathlon watch, and would love to pick it up today but I'm not in the mood to deal with crowds.

Today is the supposed to be the best day to shop for deals at the stores, but it's you and everybody else in your neighborhood doing the same thing.

I feel like such a slug though. I finally made myself take a shower, after lounging around in my jammies for most of the day and picking at my leftover Thanksgiving food. I feel like I should at least get out, and do something like maybe go see a movie or something or run some errands. But I've got two more days of my weekend to do it, and part of me just wants to kick back and relax like a stuffed whale at the beach. Too bad there's no blazinlgy hot sun for me lie around in, to make the image complete.

There are three movies I want to see; Die Another Day, 8 Mile, and the new Harry Potter. But even these aren't temptation enough for me to want to leave the comfort of my own home.

There's a Mervyn's up the hill from where I live, and I'm pretty sure they sell watchbands, so I might just take the bus up there. If I go to Union Square, it will be a crazy zoo and crawling with way too many people. I feel to do just one productive thing today.

God, and I really have errands to do. My company Christmas party is next Friday, and I want to see if there's anything out there that I absolutely need to wear for Christmas this year. I want to see what's in style, what's hot and trendy, and then decide if what I have in my closet is still okay for another wearing. Now that I've lost some pounds, I can wear some holiday clothes that I haven't worn in a few years. Maybe they'll look kind of new because no one has seen me wearing them for quite some time.

I also want to look at Christmas decorations. I always buy at least 4-7 ornaments every year, just to have new things on the tree. But those darn crowds!

And then there's christmas shopping. I haven't even started that yet, although I did buy some stocking stuffer type things a few months ago.

Maybe if I just go for an hour, it won't be so bad. I just hate shopping when it's crowded.

Wow, Stars Wars Phantom Menace is on TV. God, I love Ewan MacGregor as Obiwon Kanobi! He is so darn cute!!! And I so don't care what the politically correct people say, I love Jar Jar Binks! Bring back Jar Jar!

I just got back from my aunt and uncle's house in San Jose. It's nice to see the relatives, since we don't get together very often. I brought a green bean and onion dish that I found at Epicurious that I debuted last Christmas. It's simple, easy to make and very tasty.

I arrived at my aunt's house at around 1:00 pm, and helped her with some last minute preparations. We ate at 3 pm, watched the football game on TV, and gossiped about the family. My other aunt and uncle from Oakland also were there, and it was nice to see them as well.

Then armed with leftovers, I drove home. I would have stayed longer, but my aunt wasn't feeling well so I decided to leave. I think she has the flu that everyone is getting. I hope she didn't cough on the food. She made a ton of food, and there was so much desserts to eat, I kissed my eating plan goodbye for the day.

I was so sleepy on the drive home, probably from the turkey. I was glad I only had a glass of wine with appetizers and a glass of wine at dinner, and no beer during the football game, even though I really wanted one. We were done eating by 4 pm, so I had a couple of hours to sober up before the drive home.

Maybe I got sleepy from the pumpkin pie, apple pie, chocolate cake, pumpkin cream cheese cake and ice cream that I had for dessert. Yes, I really did eat all those desserts and they were so heavenly and yummy. I thought I was going to burst at the end, and felt like a distended fat cow couch potato watching the football game .

Thank god I wore stretchy waist pants. I had better exercise double tomorrow, so I can work all that dessert off. I don't know how I fit a plate full of thanksgiving food and all that dessert into my tummy, but I did.

Speaking of football? What is up with Steve Spurrier and the Washington Redskins? Wasn't he that great college football coach who was supposed to make a splash in the NFL? At least, that's what all the sports talking heads were predicting about him. My uncles were bitching about their fantasy football league teams, and how they thought for sure Spurrier was going to be a winning coach in his first season. One of my uncles was pissed because he picked a couple of players from the Redskins teams for his fantasy football team.

Fantasy football sounds like such a trip. One of the companies I worked for had their own Fantasy Football League. It was run out of the Finance department that I was a part of. The draft was like such a big deal, and was very serious business. All the VPs played, and the directors, and what other football nuts they could find. Everyone took it so seriously.

I asked if I could join, and the director that I worked for said I could join up with him and this other guy. But then he started telling me about all the work involved and I was like "NO WAY". You have to watch the games, and keep track of the stats. Then when your players are doing badly, you have to research trades. Everyone did their research at work of course, but then you have to watch a ton of football games. So much work, and for what? A little money and prestige. It's such a guy thing.

Pet peeves of mine this morning. God, I hate that SF Chronicle radio ad for classified ads, only because it bugs me that the woman answering the phone says “chello”? I mean who the hell says “chello” Isn’t it Hello? Is this some new way of saying Hello that I’m blissfully unaware of?

I hate when people say “often” and they hard pronounce the “T”. This is a relatively new phenomenon. No one in England says often with an over annunciated “T”, and no one said the word this way ten years ago. Why are people saying it now? I asked my acting speech teacher, who was a stickler for speaking correct English, and he said it was so totally wrong and people are over annunciating the “T” to sound intelligent. Whenever I hear someone saying it, and everyone seems to be saying it lately, I think of that person as snooty and snobby, and trying to prove to other people that they’re intelligent. And if they’re trying to prove they’re intelligent, it must mean they think they’re stupid. And you know what, they’re right.

I'm at 41,881 words for Nanowrimo and back on schedule. Unlike last year when I only was behind a couple of times in my word count, I've spent most of this year's Nanowrimo always being behind and having to play catch up. The loss of a fully functioning computer for three weeks didn't help me either.

So many participants have already passed the 50K mark. I have half a mind to write more every day, just so I can finish early. My writing limit seems to be 5,000 words. I think Stephen King said in his book "On Writing", that he wrote 10K words a day. I don't know how he does it, and the only explanation I can come up with is 1) his only job is to write and 2) he's been doing it so much longer than I have.

Working a full time job really does take up alot of my energy, energy that I could be devoting to writing. Still, 5,000 words a day isn't that bad for a day's worth of writing, but those 5,000 words don't come easy. The first 3,000 words pretty much flow out, and the last 2,000 I have to really figh to get out. 1,667 words a day is by comparison relatively easy compared to the 5,000 word days I've been forced to do.

And on November 30, I still won't be done with my novel. I think the Nanowrimo folks wanted a fully completed novel, and my novel will be completed, but the story just isn't finished yet. By November 30, I will have finished the the first part of the story, but I still have parts 2 and 3 to go. Part one of this story could stand on its own as a mini novel or be part of serial novel. Dickens wrote this way I believe.

I definitely intend to finish parts two and three though, only because I'm curious to see how it all works out. I mean I know how the story ends, I just don't know the details and it's the details that I'm most interested in knowing.