Hello, Scott... Is Max there please? Sure, I'll hold. Max? YOU'RE GOD DAMNED RIGHT. That is all. Can you transfer me back to Scott? ..... Hello? (As if Max would actually answer a call.)

I rather like Max and his cusstacular vernacular. It's too goddamned sterile around here sometimes. Only 162? I wonder how many are waiting around til the last minute (cough) ... We should do a "Guess how many jelly beans are in the jar" thing and try to ballpark the number of entrants. I say... 542. Here's a question: What if it's a concept spawned from April's Story Idea a Day series? I've got 2 or 3 poking at me from every direction.

Despina, I believe last year's inflated figure [1500+ entrants] was tied directly to my offer of a free Core or Craft class. Many, many, many of the loglines were inferior and some barely qualified as loglines, so I figured some people just dashed off something to get the free class. Having dispatched the free class offer, I fully expect this year's entrants to be much smaller in number. Hopefully the number of quality loglines will stay the same or perhaps even grow. Upside: Fewer entrants and fewer loglines means better odds for each individual writer. Re Max: Even though he's inconsistent -- sometimes awfully difficult to track down -- I assume he'll be popping up from time to time with his unique observations. He loves the smell of spec scripts in the morning!

hhmmm... note to self: write a spec titled 'Napalm'.