Thursday, June 18, 2009

You never know when a couple of crazy producers might be looking for you....

Last Friday at work I spent almost all day in a casting session. We were auditioning lots and lots of people for a couple of very last minute television commercial for company X, that we then shot on Monday and Tuesday this week. We saw lots of great actors - I was particularly happy about one particular couple who were going to play a certain role during Monday morning's shoot.

Fast forward to Monday. We had a large crew on site (about 2 hours out of Brisbane), and I'm waiting for Mr. Y - the male half of the starring couple - to arrive on set. He was late. I got out the mobile and started calling. He wasn't answering the either of his phones, and when I finally got on to his agent, I found out that he'd been in a car accident! So he wasn't going to be there after all (he was okay, but his car was totaled). It costs a lot of money to shoot, and we had the whole crew there (on the clock) and the female actor, and Brisbane (and the other male characters) was at least 2 hours away...

So my boss and I found ourselves driving through small town Z looking for trendy young guys who might be good at acting. It involved us splitting up, and stalking rows of shops/offices: Open door, stick head in, look from side to side, realize for the umpteenth time that only older-not-so-good-looking-guys work in town Z, close the door again, and move on to the next shop/office.

We met up at the local newspaper office, and asked them about trendy young guys. The giggling receptionist and her friend (over the partition) told us the podiatrist next door was hot, so we went next door. He wasn't there, but his mobile number was on the side of the building. We called him. He assured us that he was indeed hot, but that he was in Brisbane for the day. We asked if he had any hot friends. He told us he did, and gave us a phone number. So we called the hot friend - Mr H. He was down the street from us at the store, so we went to see if he really was as hot as the podiatrist had said. We all said hi, we looked him up and down, asked him to take his sunglasses off so we could see his face, and decided that he was indeed young and trendy enough to be in our ad.

He was very excited. The money was very good, but he only had 1 and a half hours to spare. So we followed him to his house (around the corner), and up into his bedroom so we could look through his wardrobe and help him pick out a couple of outfits that would work well. Then we drove like crazy people to the set, where he then spent the next hour picking up the very pretty actress and twirling her around and around. Mr. H seemed to have a very nice morning. I think his favourite part was the moment when the director yelled out to the actress "Good! now kiss him on the cheek". Turs out Mr. H wasn't too bad at acting at all.

So all that casting, with all of those actors, and we went with the the man off the street!

Mr. H enjoyed his lucky break, and he's now caught the bug. He emailed me yesterday asking if I could recommend a good talent agent for him...

xo Tammy

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Random thoughts

It's 12:36am, and I'm a bit tired. But I scared of falling into 'Tammy who doesn't blog for months' land again, and this is the last thing to do on my list before going to bed tonight. So here it is.

Another post.

Ta-da!

Had stake meetings tonight. I always enjoy them, but they always go for a looooong time. 7pm to 10:45pm tonight... but we got some good stuff done. The priests/laurels ball, the next fireside, a stake dance, and a upcoming YM/YW service project are all on the agenda for the next month.

My mum and sisters all went to an advanced screening of "the Proposal" at the movies tonight. I had invited them all so we could have a girls night, bought the tickets, and made up cute little gift bags for the night. Then I noticed that a few of the constant YW emails I get were making references to tonight's meetings, and a quick check in my diary (you know, the book that I keep now, so that I'll stop double booking myself) pointed out that I had meetings tonight and couldn't actually GO to the movies... Apparently they had fun.

Someone just signed into MSN and my computer made a 'bing' sound so loud I actually jumped! Bing sounds should automatically get softer when it's late at night.

Last night, when I was driving home, there was a full moon, and it was REALLY yellow. I loved it. It was other-worldly looking. The kind of moon that makes you wonder if maybe magic isn't going on somewhere in the world... Fairies, goblins, wizards. Basically, yellow moons make me think of Enid Blyton books.

And speaking of moons makes me think of the song 'Blue Moon' which makes me think of you Emily. There are few things more entertaining then 26 consecutive key changes.

Myer has a stock take sale on the moment. It's wonderful! (If you read mum's blog you'll notice all the toys she got there last week). I went shopping on Saturday, and bought some really nice winter stuff. I also bought a really nice new pair of shoes. I wore them to work yesterday, and they killed my feet all day. I didn't care though, because my feet looked so good. This is something I suspect members of the opposite sex will never really understand.

Okay. I'd better go to bed. I've put my mobile phone (aka my alarm clock) up on a high shelf in my room, because I'm pretty sure it's going to be a battle between the 'Tammy who remembers that she has to get into work early tomorrow' part of me, and the 'Tammy who'll kill anyone standing between her and the snooze button' part of me.

May the best girl win.

xo Tammy

PS. I make more sense in the mornings than I do late at night. I've really never been a night person. I'm a morning person. Accept for those times when I have trouble getting out of bed. Which was pretty much the entire 5 years that I lived in the US, so I realize that this whole 'Morning Person' thing may come as a shock to some of you...

PPS. I'm really tired.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

The problem with not blogging for 2 months

is that it's really hard to get back on the horse! I've just tried to start this entry 3 or 4 times, and I'm not having much luck. Constantly, over the last 2 months, I've composed blog entries in my head - mostly while driving - and let me tell you: some of them were really great! I've been laugh out loud funny, spiritually poignant, edge of your seat interesting, and life changingly thought provoking. Well, in my head, anyway :) Of course now that I've finally committed myself to an evening at the computer, I'm going completely blank!


Hmmm... So what have I not written about... well, my brother got married (he's so happy!). My grandmother come up from Adelaide and stayed with us for 2 months (it was so nice to be able to spend some time with her). I flew down to Melbourne and saw 'Wicked' with Mum, Dad and Grandma (what a great show - totally loved it!). We had the Stake Young Womens Camp (which totally consumed our lives for a good couple of weeks and kept me busy for a month or two - but the girls had a wonderful time when all was said and done, so it was all worth it in the end). My niece is getting cuter and cuter and I love hanging out with her and her parents. Bethany and I have discovered that we're mystically lucky when it comes to getting the best car spots (touch wood). Abby cut my hair (a great story, check out this entry on her blog). My family has had lots of fun activities, including a BBQ in the bush (2 hours later we managed to get a fire going and cook our breakfast!) and a video day (we got ourselves into two teams and each spent the day making a movie). I've had some fun evenings with the twins - they're such great boys. General Conference came and went again (I love, LOVE, general conference - what a boost!). An old friend got married, which made my heart hurt but also helped it finally start to mend. I've actually managed to have a few conversations with people my own age, even a few members of the opposite sex (*gasp*) so that's a good sign :)

I had a really nice night out with Dad - we went to see Barry Douglas a concert pianist play (we were the only people under 87 there, but I loved it! I hadn't realized how much I miss beautiful classical piano music). We had a lovely mothers day (with my wonderful mum who is honestly the best mother I could possibly imagine). Work got crazy busy, then crazy slow (yucky global financial crisis), then crazy busy again (why oh why can't it just be nice and steady. I could do nice and steady!). I've been busy in an ongoing way with Young Womens, and I've accidentally become a sort of video specialist in my stake, being asked to shoot and/or edit videos for Young womens, the stake Welfare committee and the stake activities committee. I'm really happy to serve in these ways because I feel quite strongly that with all of the bad Satan's doing with media, it's important that a few of us are trying to use it in good ways, but editing is really time consuming!


And just recently, I was lucky to fly down to Canberra for a few days last week - the church asked 80 of us YSA from around Australia to go to a day of meetings at Parliament House to be ambassadors for the church. We had several training meetings leading up to it, and they'd put in a lot of preparation. I really enjoyed it. We met with several really prominent government leaders and Ministers of Parliament in small groups, and it was heartening for me to realize that we're not the only one's trying to uphold high morals. It also made me really feel like getting more involved in my local community, or joining a political party - I think it's important that we stand up and make sure our voices are heard. I guess I'll do that in my spare time! I had the chance to spend several hours at the national war memorial too, which was a really moving experience. I'm always touched when I realize how much was sacrificed for us all. I had to blink back tears a few times as I read old letters and pieced together people's stories. I spent some time looking for my great-grandfathers name on the two giant walls of people who died serving in Australian's armed services. It was moving to say the least, and I felt proud and saddened.


While we were in Parliament, it was also a wonderful surprise to catch up with Elder Holland. He was in Parliament the same day we were (meeting with various government leaders I believe), so he took some time to come and speak with us, which was lovely. And then, the night after I got back to Brisbane, I went to a special fireside for the Priest, Laurels and Young Single Adults, where Elder Holland (who'd also flown to Brisbane) spoke to us for the evening - what a wonderful uplifting experience that was :) I really needed to hear some of the things he had to teach us.


So there's a lot going on. Lots of good stuff. I'm trying to learn how to enjoy things as they happen, rather than stressing constantly about how I'm going to tackle the next deadline. The last couple of weeks I've been feeling like one of those crazy rodents in a hamster wheel - always exhausted from running so fast, but not really getting a whole lot done!

And to make matters worse of course, this giant Tammy holding hamster wheel is only figurative, so the running hasn't resulted in ANY weight loss at all :) But not to worry. Last night I got some personal paperwork done, and tonight I've checked in on ALL the blogs I used to follow (before this 2 month mystery disappearance), so I'm getting some things done :)

Well, I'd better head to bed. But it's been nice to read through your blogs and catch up a little. I hope you're all doing really well.


Lots of love,
xo Tammy

PS. I was looking for pictures of hamster wheels to post with this entry, and I found this one. It has nothing to do with my entry of course, but I loved the idea of it :) A way to walk on soft grass wherever you went - I love going barefoot! Of course, I realize this idea would never work for me. I'd be terrible at steering, and I'd spend the whole time climbing OUT of the wheel in order to move it away from the pole, wall, road, etc. etc. etc. But this guy seems to be doing pretty well. So good for him :)