Exploding TOAST

I put some Dave’s Ultimate Insanity Sauce into the Mapo Tofu I made for dinner. And it went like this:
HAHH
HAHH JEEZE
HAHH JEEZE
HAHH JEEZE
(gasp for breath)
HOOOOOOO!

By bloody jingos that’s HOT. HOOOOOOOOOOO! I finished eating it half an hour ago, and I’m just returning to normality. I feel as if I’ve just run around the block a few times. A real workout. I doubled the amount of Szechuan peppercorns I normally use to handle the additional heat. The dried whole chillis, the chilli bean sauce, the chilli oil, the roasted chilli paste, the garlic, the ginger, the blackbeans all did their thing. Then the Dave’s Insanity sauce:

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Mouth burns, face burns, chin burns, ears are ringing, covered in sweat.

HOOOOOOOOO!!!

THE GENIUS! THE GENIUS OF IT ALL!

DUDES! YOU SERIOUSLY NEED TO TRY THIS STUFF, RIGHT NOW!

I can’t wait to eat the leftovers for breakfast tomorrow morning! Oh man, the guys at the office are going to think I’m on crack or something!

Oh man, and it’s a beauty as well.

After a MONTH of doing nothing but outlining, I’ve started to put my first scenes on paper. And no, the outline is far from finished, but I’m now starting to flesh out the pilot episode.

I tell you what; it took me some getting used to writing in “screenplay format”. It’s not exactly pure dialogue, isn’t not exactly action, it’s its own beast. Different to a novel, or a news article, or a romantic poem, or an e-mail, or a blog entry. And to tell the truth, I HATED the format when I started. Now, the third day I’ve been writing in the format and using some new software (”Final Draft”) and I’m sort of getting used to it, learning the shortcuts and getting into the swing of it.

It’s a slow process as well. I’m doing this outside a day-job, so I’m lucky to be able to work a couple of hours a day on this thing. A 44 minute pilot is going to be about 44 pages. The first scene took me 2 hours to write, and is a whopping 3 pages long. I’m also doped up on caffeine. So much slower than a blog entry (this one ended up taking me barely 15 minutes).

I originally had a first scene for my pilot episode, and it was pretty good. But the thing I needed to bear in mind about writing a pilot was:

- The main reason for writing a pilot is to introduce your show and your characters to the audience.
- Most pilots you see sort of suck.

And also:

- The other main reason for writing your pilot is that it’s the episode to SELL your series.
- As such it should contain your best stuff!

Dilemma. My best action is in episode #5, but I need episode #1 to be exceptional.

So, I had a brainwave listening to one of the podcasts on www.samandjimgotohollywood.com: To completely re-write the start of episode one to be smack bang right in the middle of the action. Which I did, and it’s excellent stuff. The old episode intro becomes the intro to episode 2 (or will just be buried somewhere else).

I can’t go into details of the plot online. It’s a 13 part TV Dramedy, that’s it. I’ll tell you it’s got an A guy named Abraham, a B guy named Bort and a C girl named Carol. And yes, they’re my actual working names.

But I can tell you about how I can get my Mojo working. I had a brilliant 2 hour productive stretch just then. Here’s how I did it, in case I need it again.
- Went for a walk (in the light rain), 20 minutes or so to the Bourke Street Bakery (OH MY GOD!, that’s another post but OH MY GOD!), listening to loud rock music. Completely emptied my head.
- Came home and had a sausage roll (PORK WITH FENNEL! OH MY GOD!) and a really strong cup of really great coffee. (Stovetop espresso pot, East Timorese fair-trade from Oxfam).
- Started writing.
- 5 minutes later. Couldn’t be arsed, put a load of laundry on.
- Put “Dig JAZZ” Internet Radio on … didn’t seem to be working.
- Put “ABC Classic FM” on … better.
- 10 minutes later, KAZAAM, a brilliant idea came.
- Spent the next TWO HOURS writing the scene out.
- This involved about 50 trips to wikipedia and other websites to get my facts right. By-bloody-jingos wikipedia is a godsend for this project. Yes, I know, there are errors in it and it’s not rigorous enough for academic writing, but for a dramedy, there’s no excuse not to do a quick check of e.g. what country Mount Everest is actually in, or how much a dozen roses should cost, or what polenta really is made from.

And, bingo, episode one, scene one, draft one in the bag! (No, it’s not buying a bunch of roses and eating polenta whilst scaling Mount Everest)

And the scene SUCKS! Yes, it does. I repeat this to myself as a mantra. “The scene I have written SUCKS!”. If you’re a professional screenwriter and a genius, MAYBE you can get away with 3 drafts. I’m a n00b, so I think it might just be readable after 6 or 7. But anyway, I feel GREAT and ON TOP OF THE WORLD right now because it’s IN THE BAG.

I’m off to grab some groceries and check out a local Zine fair, will try for some more when I come back.
And the big question, I’ve now got an opening for the rest of the pilot, I could go off on a whole new direction, where will it go next? Who knows. But for now, break, walk, snack, coffee.

Currently, the team is hard at work on a 13 part dramedy series for TV. It’s coming along very well, although my initial estimate of “weeks” has blown out to a far more realistic “months”. I can’t talk about it much online, it’s most definitely a “close hold”, in that if I put any of it online, ever, then it will never be bought or made. I’m deadly serious when I say the idea and the project has legs.

I can talk a little about the project and about the process. The first of these things being: I’ve come up with a name for the thing, and the 3 (4) main characters.

For the first time ever, I now annouce, under development:

Untitled Special Agent TOAST 13 part TV Dramedy project.

The main characters:

Abraham, a larger than life character with whom we can all relate.

Bort, a larger than life character with whom we can all relate.

Carol, a larger than life character with whom we can all relate.

and

A little dog named Deefer.

I can also tell you the “genre” of the project. It’s:

Comedy/Drama/Action/Romance/Sport Movie/Buddy Flick/Horror with some cooking thrown in for good measure. And of course there’s going to be plenty of FAN SERVICE thrown in as well!

I don’t even care if it sells (of course it’s going to sell), if this ends up half as fun to read as it is to write, you guys are going to piss yourselves laughing, piss yourselves in fright, piss yourselves laughing again, piss yourselves on the edge of your seat and piss yourselves with romance. And that’s only the first five minutes of episode one!

Ever feel like you’ve “done this sort of thing before” but can’t seem to find a way to generalise your approach? I’ve found methodology that seems to work for me (and a nifty piece of software) that has not only saved me countless hours, but completely saved my ass a couple of times.

You may have heard of the concept of mind-maps. They’ve been around for many years and there have been many attempts at creating mind-map software. I’ve tried several of them and even the very best were awkward and clunky. That was until James Breeze introduced me to Mindjet MindManager at last years OZ IA conference.

I won’t turn this into a commercial for the thing, but the speed and extremely usable interface I really liked, and now I’m hooked. I will precede this with a short disclaimer though. Firstly, mind-maps are not everyone’s cup of tea; you need to figure out what works for you. Secondly, my mind-maps might not make any sense whatsoever to you and your mind-maps might not make any sense whatsoever to me. But, my own mind-maps make perfect sense to me, even re-reading them months later and know that if we were to collaborate on a mind-map, it would make sense to us both.

So what do I use mind-maps for? Well, everything really. Work documents, to-do lists, presentations (sometimes I will present straight off a mind-map in my hand, rather than notes), planning a gourmet dinner, my screenplay is mostly one freaking enormous mind-map, planning a training session, planning a holiday, summarising a book, moving house, the shopping list and more. And yes, I even planned this article using a mind-map.

So, is there a method to my madness? Of course, let me throw you some screenshots.

I usually start with a brainstorm, get it all out there without any structure.

When I’ve exhausted my creativity (here it was about 25 nodes, usually I have trouble pushing out more than 100 in any one session), I choose a bunch of groups to classify the stream.

I then assign the ideas to these categories, adding more if I think of them and deleting anything that was rubbish. This is the advantage of using software rather than doing this on a piece of paper.

And here’s the completed mind-map. For me the colours are completely arbitrary, and I don’t know why, but it does seem to help. This is a fairly simple mind-map; on a large project I can easily push hundreds and hundreds of nodes out there.

The next step, I open MS Word (Yes, I write my blog entries in MS word and export to plain text, simply for the spelling and grammar checker), pop the mind-map on one monitor, my text editor on another and type away.

You may notice that the mind-map has some points on bringing in a template, how mind-maps can be exported to MS word, and how I set out my workspace for larger projects, but this blog entry has a strict 30 minute time limit while I’m on my lunch break, so those are going to have to wait for another time.

So yes, I find mind-maps invaluable for both my work and my other activities, the software makes it all possible. If you’re interested, the software has a trial period and is reasonably priced. And no, they’re not paying me for this.

There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the geekosphere regarding the Australian government’s proposed Internet protection measures. Indeed, it seems that the major error on government’s part was to release the news on New Year’s Eve, with the inner circle of the dorkerati stuck at home with too few of their World of Warcraft clanmates online to form a raiding party and nothing better to do than shoulder blogs and let launch with the sound bites.

“Protect the children? Absolutely”, as long as it doesn’t take away my porn. “If there is one certainty(…) once they start(…) it doesn’t stop” taking away my porn. Electronic Frontiers Australia, who are surely on every commercial IT journalist’s speed-dial is firing out the big ones with their “China, Burma and Saudi Arabia” taking away their porn. What next? “Soviet-Russia” jokes?

People, take some time, read the articles, get some facts. As far as I can see, the opposition to this proposal (proposal, not law) is along three main lines: reduction in civil liberties, costs and technical difficulties.

Firstly, the proposal is an optional system. If so, does this not indeed increase our civil liberties? The proposal is opt-out rather than opt-in, but aren’t many of the people opposing this the same people that think it’s a good idea for wireless routers to be set up locked-down out of the box to “protect users from themselves”?

Understandably there are objections regarding costs, especially if these are passed on to consumers on the “opt-out” stream. However, does it not make sense that such costs be worn by the government who are proposing this change? Of course it does, and like all policies would have been planned for in Labor’s campaign. Don’t forget, most you voted for them.

Finally, I’ll have nothing negative said about the technical skills and competency of IT workers in the government sector. How many of you have ever had to bang your head against the desk whilst trying set up an account with a new ISP? Compare that to the number of successful Medicare or doctor’s prescriptions you had last year. Check your own friends lists. Many of the most skilled and talented technologists that I know work in the government sector.

I’m not saying that it’s going to be easy and I’m not prepared to give the government carte blanche, but I am saying that this does sound like a reasonable solution worth further investigation.

There is a point between one beer and four beers where people start to play pool really, really well. That’s the space I was in where I invented a steak sauce this will change the course of humanity as we know it. Combining the scientific genius of Heston Blumenthal with five thousand years of Chinese wisdom, I stood upon the shoulders of giants and created something incredible.

In his book and TV series _In Search of Perfection_ Heston Blumenthal sought to create the ultimate steak dinner. The conclusion was that the key to making a steak taste out of this world is to enhance the “Umami” flavour, the so-called “fifth taste” found in things like miso, mushrooms and steak. His approach consisted of extracting the flavour from large amounts of button mushrooms, cheap and readily available, and used star-anise with its curious property of enhancing meat flavours.

Let’s talk mushrooms. Walk straight in to your Asian grocer and head for the dried Shiitake mushrooms. If you’re fortunate, there’ll be half an aisle of them. Shiitake are not all the same, so look hard and see if you can find the ones known as “flower mushrooms” or “white flower mushrooms”. They’re still Shiitake, but grown in cold climates and have a half white, half dark flower / cracked chequered pattern. If there are couple of brands, choose the ones that look the meatiest. Be prepared to pay a few bucks, it’s well worth it and you don’t need many.

A day or two before the big event take 6 mushrooms, place them in a bowl and pour over 2 cups of hot water. Leave them sit for a couple of hours to soak before transferring to your fridge.

The process of cooking a steak from “flame-on” until resting and plating takes me around half an hour, which fits nicely with the timing of this recipe. Remove the mushrooms, squeezing them out a little, making sure not to discard any of the soaking liquid. Into a small saucepan, put the soaking liquid, a similar amount of beef stock, a tablespoon of rice wine, a little salt, a good grinding of black pepper and 2 star-anise. Slice the stems off your mushrooms and the caps into strips, not too thin, and add to the sauce. Bring this to a boil and allow to simmer and reduce while you cook your steaks.

When your steak is just about done, remove the mushroom stems and star anise, check for seasoning and thicken with 2 teaspoons of cornflour dissolved in a couple of tablespoons of cold water. You can throw in a small piece of butter at this point if you like the sheen it gives. Perfection.

So, how do you cook your steak? Well, that’s another article, but for a mid-week treat, get yourself 4 to 6 inch thick piece of rib-eye / scotch fillet. Blowtorch the outside, and cook in a low oven (120 degrees) for about an hour. Carve off a couple of good, thick steaks and sear / char in a grill-pan for no more than 60 seconds. The leftover roasted beef cut thinly make great sandwiches with a little horseradish cream and your favourite crunchy green. Be sure to make at least twice as much sauce as you need. The leftover sauce is incredible on scrambled eggs on toast, or better yet, poured over a freshly made rice omelette.

Brillat-Savarin said that the discovery of a new dish brings contributes more to humankind than the discovery of a new star. If so, then this is a supernova.

I asked the guys what their 2008 New Year’s resolutions were. Henry TOAST-Rollins immediately smacked down the concept, saying something about weak and pathetic. So we’re calling these our “2008 objectives”, one each. Hold on, aw for Pete’s sake, Not-toast is now complaining that he doesn’t believe in the concept of years and Cheeky-toast is complaining that he celebrates Tet (Vietnamese Lunar New Year). Iron Chef Battle-toast is agreeing with him, something about liking cha gio. Now Fail-toast is whining about something as well.

We will be finishing our MBA and starting a second study program this year, which is a fait accompli, and moving heaven an earth to try and get to My Bloody Valentine’s comeback shows in London as well.

Folks, I’m posting the list as-is. I don’t think we’ll be seeing any more of these ten-barrelled posts for a while.

Damian TOAST O’Neil: To become Sydney’s #1 Information Architect for corporate websites. Working smarter, not harder.

Henry TOAST Rollins: Get my ass back into the gym. At least for a 20-rep squat program and a one of 5×5s.

Bruce TOAST Campbell: To suck it up and to see the tax man.

Iron Chef Battle TOAST: Lose some weight. 25kg is realistic and achievable for someone my size.

Professor TOAST the Scientician: To increase my portfolio to 3 great Australian shares.

TOASTiclese: Speak at an industry event and to blow them away.

Cheeky TOAST: Speak at webjam and to blow them away.

Special Agent TOAST: To finish our dramedy screenplay.

Not TOAST: To have our flat set up and Zen-like by mid-year.

Fail TOAST: To fix my BRAIN!!!

Greetings my good reader, my old chum, my faithful pal.

Ten years ago, a young computer science student in a small laboratory in a medium sized university started something that didn’t even have a name at the time. Barely a hundred existed in the world at the time, and barely a dozen grew to more than a hundred thousand words. John Carmack, we tip out hats to you. But little by little, grow it did. Eventually, this phenomenon came to be known as a weblog, or “blog” for short.

Alas, the Internet sands of time eroded the Sphinx’s nose, and the ancient works disappeared into oblivion. Too early even for “Google” or the “Internet Archive” to help. But a single flame, a single flicker, a single grain of amber glowed within that little computer science student’s heart, mind and soul. And grow did that little computer science student, to learn the ways of the wild and wicked corporate world, to fall in love, more than once and to have his heart broken, less than twice. To know joy and sorrow and intense pain and anger and furious rage and hope. That little computer science student started reading and learning and cooking and lifting weights and meditating and writing and romancing and dancing and more. Oh yes, he achieved his degree in computer science, and a Masters in business administration. He worked hard and faced his demons and fears and grew his second pair of testicles. And he learned his craft and learned it well. And he saved a little money on the side. He stood upon the shoulders of giants and had much help and guidance along the way. The doctors gave him pills, but he did not give up hope. And he made friends and wrote and cooked and moved into a lovely little flat, right above the mortuary, where he had time to think.

And from those thoughts, came an idea that changed the face of the Internet as we know it. For in his heart he had much wisdom and messages to send out to the world. And started a new blog. “But!”, he thought, “there is so much to tell and so many people who yearn for wisdom”. He sat and he meditated and he thought very, very hard. “Eureka!” came the call of triumph. “Why have one blog when you can have TEN!”

So, with an open heart, with an empty stomach, with SWORD and SHIELD and SPEAR, we created what you, my friend, are about to read. We are proud and honoured to present…

WWW.EXPLODINGTOAST.COM

Read our bios to discover more about us…