Studio Cookies

I managed to get out of bed at seven AM this morning, only half looking and sounding like the Walking Dead. I’m up early again to make the trip into Toronto to go to the studio.

It’s a little more interesting today because it’s the teams first day back in the studio and I baked three kinds of cookies. I lucked out this morning with the train. As I arrived, a train came in to the station, I was still in the parking lot and there was no way I could make it to the platform in time.

The train pulled away just as I crested the top stair and strode onto the platform. Luckily, another train was only five minutes behind the train that had just departed. Apparently, it had been delayed. The upside was that is sucked up all the passengers so that when my train arrived there were less than fifty people who boarded it. This means I am able to write on the train and get some of my words in.

I got to pick a seat that has a bit more space, remember I am lugging in a tin of homebaked cookies and backpack and balancing a laptop. Every little bit of real-estate counts. As the train continues along it gets more and more busy as people board. I am sitting on the bottom level, in a row of three seats right beside the doors. The lower section of the train is for people who want to chat so there is a risk of it becoming very noisy. The proximity to the doors means I get blasted with cold air at every stop, but these are things I am willing to endure if it means getting more space.

Robyn is off on a mission today. She and a friend are scouting out different places where you can print photos onto canvas. She plans to print her digital paintings and then maybe paint on top of them. This will all be an experiment for her and it’s a good thing Laura will be there to give her advice. Laura has been a production assistant on many of the show we have worked on, as well as stop-motion studios and live actions/FX studios. She has the kind of problem-solving mindset that will weight the pros and cons of all the services. And she has the memory of an elephant and will remember every single detail that is spoken to her.

The train is now at standing room only and there are plent of people standing already. I think I’ve just realised why this train wasn’t as full. It’s an all-stops train meaning it takes a little bit longer to get to Toronto.

Not that it really would have mattered as the rule of thumb when it comes to Go Trains is to take the train that’s there, because you never know if the next one will break down or be delayed. A bird in the hand as the say….

It seems Google has rolled out some kind of AI that is deleting emails from peoples gmail accounts. It just happened to my writing teacher and he had to ask us all to resend anything from the last month because a month ‘s worth of his emails were deleted. What a pain in the inbox. AI was supposed to make our lives better, but it just seems to be causing a shit load of problems. I am getting concerned that site like LinkedIn is using our posts to train their AI and even cloud services like Microsoft Word and Google docs have option you need to turn off. The default is to allow them to use your work to train their AI overlords. The ones who delete your work with out permission.

I suspect there will be a new host of services in the near future that are the same as everything else, but they keep your data from being scrubbed by learning models. Maybe they already exist and I am just late to the party.

The lady sitting beside me smells like she sprayed herself with air freshener. The bombastic floral chemical concoction is melting my nasal passages. I feeling I am being gassed by a gang of Nymphs. I wonder if she grabbed the wrong can this morning while getting ready in the bathroom. Maybe she had to get dressed with the lights on?

The cookies were a big hit this morning. My team isn’t big enough to eat all the cookies by themselves so I out them out in the kitchen and they were devoured shortly there after. Another work collegue had baked some cookies as well and came up to me to ask how I made my cookies so soft and chewy. I had to confess that I used preportioned frozen cookie batter to make mine. So, the secret belonged to some cookie cutter corporation.

The day was busier than expected. We discovered a few issues on how different departments were handling things. No one’s falult per say but the problem has to be addressed before we continue or it will snowball out of hand. All part of a new production.

I do find out today that our company is now offering to match RSP contributions up to about three thousand dollars per year. That’s relavtively unheard of in the animation industry and a great step forward. Kinda like getting a raise. This news came out of a townhall meeting where we were given updates on the industry and how meetings with perspective clients were going. It’s starting to sound a bit more positive, and the television industry is starting to get back to making good shows again.

Still, I think it will take another six months before we really start to see any momentum.

I found out my God son, Brandon, has just become a private in the Canadian Military. A proud moment for his family and for me too. The little whippersnapper is joining an elite group of people and who knows where he’ll end up as a result and what skills he picks up along the way.

I got on a mostly full train for the ride home. Once again, I am writing this on the train as no one is currently setting to my left. This gives me a bit more elbow room to get some typing done. There is a pair of young Indian women have a hearty conversation in Hindi, but they are not being so loud as to be distracting. At least most of the time.

Whe I get home we are to our friend’s house for Survivor Hot Tub Pizza and my back is really looking forward to the hot tub part of the evening. Robyn is off getting the pizza as we speak so I won’t have to take care of that when I get home.

After last weeks disappointing pizza from Justino’s, my former favourite pizza joint, we decided to go with a Domino’s pie that we enjoy. Its sausage, olives and the oh so controversial pineapple. A delicious combination that will change your view on the whole pineapple on pizza question. There is no debate, pineapple on pizza is divine. The only reason Italians never made it that way was because they didn’t have a reliable supply of the fruit. And it’s not a pizza if it doesn’t have a topping! It requires dough, sauce, cheese and then a topping to be considered a pizza in my opinion.

  I managed to get about thirteen hundred words written between the two train rides which is great. I’ll write a bit more during the TV show, so I have the least amount left as possible to write when we get home from the festivities.

I’m also hoping to hear my friend John’s new song on the big speakers so I can hear it in all its glory.

One the ride in this morning I managed to reread my last assignment to my mentor. I had to write a scene with two characters talking while one or both perfomed an action that was unrelated to the topicof conversation. This is a technique writers use to make a scenemore interesting and add tension. Its good for when you want to convey a lot of information to the reader as well. In my scene I had a retired private eye making malt bread. Her former business partner and private eye enters the kitchen to try and persuade her to come out of retirement and solve on more case. A simple scene. By the end of it there was enough information that you could make your own malt bread, the set up for the story is complete and you have met the main characters and should have sense of what they are like.

Sounds simple but its more difficult to execute than you’d think.

I will write the next scene, or at least start it tonight after we get back from our socializing. I hope to get a big chunk of it written this weekend and that means sitting in the writing chair for hours. And it means I’ll need some worthy snacks. And lots of tea.

If all goes well the story will help me get ahead in the 2026-word challenge and give me a bit of breathing room. A day of rest might be nice in the near future, but to get it, I will have to hustle.

My stop is coming up and it’s time to pack everything back up.

When I next pick this up my belly will be full of two kinds of pizza!

Belly full and muscles are jelly.

Our friends ordered a ten-topping pizza from a place called Toppers and it was delicious. I was a but late getting home so the pizzas were a bit cooler that we’d hoped for but still went down nicely. I actually watched this week’s episode of Survivor for a change as I was wiped out by the time we got to their house. They have one of those couches that you push a button, and it reclines. I thoroughly enjoyed lounging in that position and nearly nodded off a few times during the show. Somehow, I managed to stay conscious.

My furry little friend, Wizard the cat, was too busy soaking in the warm of the nearby fireplace to show any attention to me or any other human. The only time he perked up was when we were eating the pizza. His weekly visit to my lap is becoming a thing of the past and maybe it’s because he is getting older or maybe he’s realized we won’t give him any of the human food.

My stepdaughter texted on the family group chat to ask if we thought she exhibited any signs of autism? We all chuckled and wondered why she was asking. She mentioned that her roommates had said she had autistic tendencies.

The best response came from our stepson who said, “There is nothing wrong with being autistic.” And cheers to that. My stepdaughter is a person who marches to her own beat, but she is a happy person and has a kind heart, so we’ll keep her just as she is. Minus the load out of tune singing in the backseat of the car every time we go somewhere.

And speaking of going somewhere. We are thinking about the two places we usually travel out of the country to, Cuba and Mexico. Now we are wondering if we will be able or willing to visit any of these countries will all the craziness going on around the world. I feel bad for some of the people we met in Cuba. They were incredibly fun and outgoing people. The man who was in charge of the buffet section where we sat was incredibly happy and had a bright soul. He wasn’t playing a part; he was really glad to see people everyday and wanted them to have a great experience.

His name was Hermes.

I often wonder if he is still living his life to the fullest and making the people around him smile. I like to think that he is.

That’s all if got for tonight. It’s about ten PM and I think I have a bit of time to read and still get to bed before eleven AM.

Good Night all and I hope you are all safe.