Folks, last week was crappy. Between my work computer self-destructing and me getting sick, I basically lost a whole week. An entire five-day span slipped into utter nothingness, as though it had never been. That's a surprisingly disconcerting feeling. But it's over and done now, and one trip to the Central with Sarafina later, I am aces. What a difference a date makes.

Yesterday I sat in on Demetre's casting session. I enjoyed myself thoroughly, but casting is a damn strange business. It's nice to sort of get to toe-test the filmmaking universe a bit without actually having to commit to spending every second of my day and night worrying about a project that's going off a week from now, but sitting in a casting room you become very uncomfortably aware of why the world is the way it is. You actually can't just go by objective performance merits; you have to consider whether the girl's boobs are too big, or whether your lead character can be ethnic, or whether the gay guy comes off too gay. You become so instantaneously hyper-aware of every goddamned cliché, stereotype, and unwanted subtext that could possibly flood its way into your picture just by picking any one person who is not statistically identical to you (6 feet tall, male, 32, white). It's amazing anything interesting ever gets made at all.

Nerd alert: toys for new Star Trek movie to be in same scale as Star Wars figures, plan your fights accordingly. (Captain Christopher Pike vs. J'Quille the Wiphid, FTW.)

Nerd alert 2: I am sick beyond words of hearing about Dollhouse. I feel like I've been hearing about this crappy show with no definable premise for half my fucking life. Just get it on the air so you can cancel it already, Fox! It's Joss Whedon's, which makes it an obligation, but also means it will be canceled by its second act break (having been moved to a different timeslot during its first). Get 'er done.

A big fancy feast (and further fondue frip-frappery) this afternoon, a lovely end to a week (or start to a next), and now having felt like I've not had ten minutes to myself for 72 straight hours, perhaps a bit of couch, perhaps a MacCutcheon, perhaps some television like regular people.