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Considering so many movies that aren’t that entertaining get greenlit for sequels, it’d be nice to see something a bit more rare happen: that a movie with a loyal cult following gets a worthy sequel. Clerks II proved that the idea can be done, if not exactly proving that it always works. Here’s a couple sequel ideas that just might work.

Office Space Connecticut: Rather than try to reassemble the original cast, Mike Judge should simply revisit his style of office-life humor at an entirely new location, with an all-new cast. Done right, this could work, though a cameo from Jennifer Aniston wouldn’t be completely unwelcome.

Jumper II: While this was a more recent film and seemed to be built for a sequel, I still love the idea of the young jumper having to go up against his mother, played by Diane Lane, as a person who loves him but is sworn to kill him. Talk about action!

In a professional writing environment, this strike-shortened TV season has shown the importance of developing a succession plan in creative environments. One of my favorite freshmen shows from this season, Moonlight, is a great example of just why.

Moonlight, the sudsy CBS drama about a vampire private eye, started off life last spring with veteran Angel scribe David Greenwalt as the show runner. When health concerns took him out, a replacement was found; and when the strike ended, leaving Moonlight without a boss due to Greenwalt’s replacement moving on, the show was pushed forward without a creative head.

If the show is greenlighted for a second season, a replacement will be named, but if the producers had a plan in place to deal with such eventualities, they would not be scrambling now to produce three or four more episodes without anyone running the show to really creatively oversee the direction of those episodes. Too bad.

One of the trends in drama that I’m actually glad has gone out of vogue is the focus on people going through their alcohol rehabs. Sure, there have been some intense and emotional movies made on this topic, such as Michael Keaton’s Clean and Sober or Sandra Bullock’s 28 Days, but considering that alcoholism has touched my life personally, I just find them a bit too painful to sit through.

One movie, supposedly a comedy, that also ventured into this territory was Stewart Saves His Family, by Al Franken. While he’s not much of a politician, and I don’t care for his politics, Franken hit home in his observations and portrayals of dysfunctional families, without the film coming off like a Hazelden tract.

Perhaps I’m too close to the subject, since I grew up with a father who drank to excess until I was about 12. I’m more blessed than most in that, once he got himself clean and sober, he has stayed away from drinking ever since. But I still can’t imagine formulating a drama or comedy that would be really entertaining, per se. Painful? Sure. Touching? Perhaps. But entertaining? I haven’t seen a single example yet.

My wife’s father is someone I never had the chance to meet; he passed from this life years before my wife and I ever met. I’ve been told that his death was due, in large part, to mesothelioma. Another brush I’ve had with cancer is when both my mother and the mother of my next-door neighbors came down simultaneously with breast cancer; their mom died, but mine lived, back then.

As I grow older, thoughts of how cancer has robbed people, including me, of a chance to know certain people, or have them around as long as might otherwise have been possible, weighs more heavily on me. The power of writing is sometimes not purely creative, but therapuetic. I can’t meet Andy, or bring back LouAnn, but through writing about them, I can at least work out how I feel about missing those opportunities.

It’s a poor substitute for the real expereince of knowing someone; but in lieu of a better solution, it’s really all a person has, sometimes. The power of words, memory, imagination and the expressions of the heart.

If I can turn this into a nice little roll, it could soon be time for me to forget about truck tool boxes and other such concerns and focus a bit more on my writing. For several months now, I’ve been hinting that I had an article published by a Jack the Ripper-centric true crime magazine, and now that the issue I’m in has hit the stands, I feel free to finally share which magazine it is.

My essay, “Romanticizing Mary Jane Kelly” appears in the current issue of Ripper Notes #28. The issue I’m in is available on Amazon.com, and my article is even mentioned in the promo text, about halfway through.

Needless to say, I’m hard at work on my follow-up to this successful publication credit.

I’ve never used Cisco-based networking equipment, but after the experience my wife and I had using LinkSys for our first home wireless network, I’m beginning to think we’d have been better off. The LinkSys product just wasn’t reliable or speedy and since upgrading to a new brand, only now do we know the difference.

Sometimes folks are like my wife and me, buying low-end products due to price concerns. But there are times when spending a little more can save a lot, further down the line. Having equipment that performs well, lasts and holds up over time is certainly worth a bit more money invested, especially when your work and creative efforts depend on that equipment.