Ah, Sunday afternoon. Let's you and me sit down and have a little brunch together, shall we? You look absolutely beautiful on this cool autumn morning. Is that a new sweater? The pancakes are delicious here, you should try them. No, no mimosa for me, but you go ahead.

So, the other day, I was talking about JonnyBoy's short film, and how he cast me in a lead role after making me audition with everyone else. Some clever wag left a message in my guestbook pointing out that Tori Spelling was made to audition for 90210, her daddy's show, just like everyone else, and she got the part based on her talent, too!

To this person, I say: While Jonny and I have a relationship that's extremely close to father/daughter (he calls me "daddy"), we hardly behave like the Spelling clan. Still, though, point well taken, and I only wish I had made the connection myself so that I could have made the joke. It was well said, and pretty damn funny, so why didn't you claim the glory, you wussbag? Did you fear a scathing email reprisal? I give credit where it's due.

Since no one owned up to it, I can only assume it was the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade. Those guys are always busting my chops, the wacky pranksters.

Every once in a while, I get these quick burning infatuations with one thing or another. Back a while ago, it was the French language, and I'm sorry to say that those CD's have not seen the inside of my computer's CD drive in far too long. After that came my 24 hour interest in the RealDoll. Were these things a brilliantly executed prank, or were they...well, real? Did people really buy them? After some snooping, I came across some Salon.com articles that verified their existence, and later some websites that proved that, for some people, they are a bit too real.

So, my new fascination has nothing to do with overgrown, sexually charged barbie dolls or cheese eating wine swillers. Actually, I don't know that for sure, but I'd say it's a safe bet anyway. Right now, I'm taken with a new film.

And this relates a bit to the the new theater at which I'm working. I haven't talked about it much, but it's pretty great. It's a small theater in Hollywood where they're putting on a production of a play called "Boy's Life." It has a website, which you will find if you enter "Split Id" into Google. The space itself is great. It's intimately small, almost cramped, it's dirty-ish and thrown together. The actors themselves take care of the upkeep of the place and they move their own props in between scenes. In other words: It's theater. It's wonderful.

Anyway, they tried to have a film festival a few months back, but for some reason it fell through. As a result, they have six or seven large crates in the lightbooth filled with short films that were submitted. If you ever want to see hundreds of short, mostly crappy little films, advertise somewhere that you're having some kind of film festival. You'll be drowned in VHS tapes.

I asked if it would be all right if I could take some of the films. I figure that since Jonny and I are working on a short, we might as well watch a whole bunch of them and see what we can learn. I took a few of the more interestingly packaged shorts, one of them being Rutland, USA. The cover caught my eye, and so did the blurb that the movie was 90 minutes long and made for less than $4000.

At first glance, I thought the thing was going to be utterly, painfully unwatchable.

And, at first, I was right. But it began to grow on me. And then it even charmed me. And I forgave some of the performances, and the scenes that were spliced together that had wildly different lighting as they were shot at two different times of day. The writing was the one thing that never bothered me at all.

In particular, there are two great scenes. One is between two cops, Officers Peaches and Cream, who are discussing some parents reactions to a kidnapping.

PEACHES: Isn't this just the saddest thing you've ever seen?

CREAM: I don't know. What about when Goose died in Top Gun?

PEACHES: (sadly) Why did you have to bring that up?

And then they hug.

In the same vein, a minute later, one of the detectives on the kidnapping case is taping a body outline to the floor.

DETECTIVE 1: What are you doing? Nobody died there.

DET. 2: We don't know that for sure.

DET. 1: Good point.

Oh, so stupid, but funny. It won me over. And as I watched the credits, I realized that this was something of a family affair, with real siblings playing brother and sister in the film, and apparently lots of locals from the real town of Rutland pitching in to help. I'm thinking I may even sit down with the commentary track, as I'll bet there are some useful tidbits for guerilla filmmaking.

All in all, not bad. Especially on that budget. The website sells copies of the film for $8.99. I don't know that I'd recommend it for that price. I've certainly seen better films for cheaper, matinee prices. Still, if you've got the cash, and you're interested in a few cheap laughs, it might be worth your while.

So, that's pretty much it. All of this just makes me more excited for our own film.

I started writing this hours ago, and got sidetracked. Brunch is long over by now. And Jonny just walked in and told me to "stop fucking around and finish the update," so I guess I'd better. What an adorable little girl he can be!