(Sent via e-mail to everyone at the station. Complete with the audio file.)
My fellow Americans, your long national nightmare is over – I’m outta here!
It’s been a fun seven years, but all things must come to an end, whether it’s a peaceful end, or a cranky, noisy (and in all likelihood biologically improbable) end.
I’d try to give everyone a shout-out one-by-one, but it’s 11 o’clock at night, and I’m sure I’d forget someone, so…
To the talent here: thanks for putting up with my incessant requests that you read four or five second snippets of words that, when strung together, might just meet the minimum requirements for “Tarzan English” (or, on my off nights, “Jar Jar English”). I’m a writer even away from work, so trust me when I tell you that you’ve enjoyed reading those as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them!
To the tape ops, board ops, directors and the rest of the control room gang: thanks for putting up with me running in there with promos at the last minute and acting like they’re the single most important things that you’ll ever personally see on a DVC tape, even if it’s dramatic video of someone rescuing a treed cat. And thanks for those times when you’ve let me know that a spot I handed in didn’t have video. Or audio. Or control track. It takes talent to screw up a spot as magnificently as I’ve managed to do it on many occasions (i.e. every night at about 6:57), but even more talent for you to turn around and actually get the stuff on the air.
To everyone else: thanks for putting up with me. Seriously. Thanks for having patience with me when I’ve been in foul moods or, worse yet, when I’ve actually been somewhat chipper and wouldn’t shut up. If I knew where the paperwork was, I’d apply for a bunch of sainthoods for you right now.
I’ve always tried to put cool stuff on the air here that would make the other stations wonder how in the world we did that, and I’ve always tried to save the even cooler stuff for the blooper reels (which, let’s face it, were my best work hands-down). Hopefully, somewhere along the way, I’ve made you folks as proud to work with me as I have been to work with you. It’s been my privelege and my pleasure to be at 40/29 for the past seven years, and as scary as it is to jump right out of the building with no net, sometimes the stuff that scares the bejeezus out of you is the stuff you really need to do the most.
I’ll still be in the area, doing much the same thing I’ve been doing here, only probably in my pajamas and with my cats playing at my feet. (I would’ve done that here, only I think polite society frowns upon the coming-to-work-in-pajamas thing. Or it least it did the last time I tried it.) (Don’t ask, it wasn’t pretty.) Here’s hoping that everyone here can take 40/29 to new heights in 2007. (I sure hope you can, because I’ll be watching.)
I’m enclosing an informative musical guide to the importance of television promotions. If ever you doubt anything I’ve had you do in the past few years, give it a listen. (Man, if this overloads the e-mail system, I am so fired. Oh…wait…)
[audio:https://www.thelogbook.com/earl/podcast/ode2promos.mp3]… Read more
Outpost Gallifrey is reporting that Paul Cornell’s two-part script for season 3 of Doctor Who will be a full-on TV adaptation of his absolutely brilliant novel “Human Nature.” I’m filled with both joy and trepidation at this news. Trepidation because I really live in fear of how the story will be vastly simplified to fit into, essentially, 90 minutes, and the inevitable tonal shift that will happen when altering the story from Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor to David Tennant. (For those not in the know, “Human Nature” was published in early ’96 if I’m not mistaken, in the “wilderness years” that stretched from the original series’ cancellation through the 1996 Fox movie starring Paul McGann.) … 
