It’s Happening.

I am really liking my sitcom pilot so far, and I hope you do as well. Don’t make me put on makeup for nothing.

One of the trickier stages – editing – is nearing its finish and yesterday I got to look at the latest cut. I loved it.

It feels so good to kick off the year this way. We all should. Do your thing. Get after what you love. Especially if it means quitting your job to pursue your dream of quitting your job.

Culinary Corner.

People who genetically engineer food, why don’t you make celery that tastes like Reese’s peanut butter cups? I bet that would shut people up.

Fine, I’ll do it myself. With the help of my nephew. First, we scrutinized the cups by making them ourselves. Then we refrigerated them. Then we crunched the numbers on the whole celery hypothesis. We may have cracked the code.

Also, in what is now an official January 1st tradition, I made buttery soft pretzels. Fatty new year.

New York Leftovers.

When friends send me home with leftovers in plastic containers, they’re essentially saying, “Here, you throw this food away and then clean the containers.”

So I bring you low maintenance leftovers, from my Christmas trip to New York. Like the shot above. Come for the lasagna; sit next to a legend. Ted Koppel at Osteria al Doge.

I am so going to write a film that includes a high-speed chase through an airport in a currency exchange mobile.

Christmas explodes on the front lawn of this dude one town over from my hometown every year. I’ve posted nighttime shots of this lunacy. Here’s a daytime one for contrast.

Any pizza can be a personal pizza if you don’t have any friends. I have a very good friend since 7th grade, Doug Logan, so we split slices. 

31 Seconds Of December.

January. That month in which everybody puts their shitty Christmas gifts on Ebay so that poor people can buy them.

So let’s focus on December. Here’s mine, one second per day:
 

Neighborhly.

The other night, my friends were measuring the alcohol while making drinks. I need new friends. 

Maybe I’ll follow the lead of the young South African girl who handed the above note to my mom the other day. I thought it was super sweet, and a little heartbreaking.

So I wrote a reply, and left it in her mailbox. Click on the photos to read larger versions.

I Can’t Throw A Punch Without Hitting My Friends.

I gave my stoner friends fruitcake for Christmas, just so I could imagine them hating me while they couldn’t help eating it.

But I celebrate my other friends, especially the ones with prolific careers. Like my friend John Kapelos, who while I was laying on my mom’s couch last week popped up in Nothing in Common. Above is Tom Hanks, Sela Ward, and John.

Or my friend Ariel, playing a doctor on “The Drew Carey Show”. (One scene after my friend Marci played a nurse!)

On the other hand, you know who aren’t friends? At last night’s Sugar Bowl, the Texas and Georgia mascots:

Whoa. Bevo just went after Uga!pic.twitter.com/rjCXk7IbWi

— Mike Leslie (@MikeLeslieWFAA) January 2, 2019

Happy New Year.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions so much as I just carry the ones over from the previous year and add “this time I’m serious.”

That didn’t prevent me from having a really great 2018. I taught myself how to cook and paint. I booked a nice role. I shot my pilot. I traveled.

It’ll only get better in 2019. Let’s all realize what makes us happy and get after it. I highly recommend it.

Thank you to my mom for the cookies. See? One day in and it’s already a kickass year.