Here’s something you may not realize: I started this site as a means to act as my professional calling card as a screenwriter. Ha. Kind of dropped the ball a bit on that, right? It turns out, I really like blogging and have a lot of shit to say. Because of this, it kind of tends to take the focus off the screenwriting stuff, you know, the whole reason I ever even started a website. So now I only post things that I think are funny. This is good, but it means that regular screenwriting tales and updates get left out. This is a bit of a dilemma, but there is a solution: my friend Chris suggested I start a separate website dedicated exclusively to blogging. I realized (after much prodding and explanation of very basic concepts) that this was a good idea. That’s what I’m going to do. Because I’m lazy and easily distracted by things (shiny things mostly) this is currently only a half-assed reality. The site has been established and I transferred all my former blog posts, but that’s it. I’ve added no links nor prettied it up for the reader. I intend to remedy that soon meaning that this will be the final post of this kind on this site. This is the address for the new blogging-only site:
See what I did there? I made a portmanteau out of “rants” and “anecdotes.” Clever, right? Yeah, it’s not that clever. Anyway, I’ll also put the link to my new site under my Contact and About tabs. Still with me? Okay, good. I’ll see you on the other site! Oh, and here’s a quick post based on a recent conversation. Enjoy!
Someone recently told me that I use a lot of “50 cent words.” For those of you unfamiliar with the terminology, a 50 cent word is one that is atypical for a casual conversation, a big word if you will; one that is often used to prove that you have a vocabulary beyond 11 or so words. (Incidentally, the word I used that prompted someone to claim that I was essentially talking over that person’s head was “disperse.” I don’t know many verbose people.) It occurred to me that “50 cent word” isn’t really an appropriate choice to describe big words for two reasons:
1. The economics – 50 cents really isn’t very much money these days. We need a dollar amount that is more representative of the economic times in which we live.
2. “50 cent word” sounds like slang invented by legendary rappist, 50 Cent. Use it in a sentence? No problem: “Shorty” is a 50 Cent word that means “fly-ass bitch.”
I suggest, no, demand that “50 cent word” be expunged from the lexicon. Henceforth, we shall refer to big words as 5-Dollar Words™. This eliminates the confusion with the rap artist and is a better representative value of modern times. The irony is that because I trademarked 5-Dollar Words™, you owe me 50 cents every time you use it.
Michael P Brennan 
grats on the new blog — but did you have to use the word ‘portmanteau’? i had to look it up and dictionary.com told me it had to do with morphemes and to go fuck myself