Dime me up, dime me down

What are your characters doing just before they enter a scene? I find that my characters are usually doing something stereotypical - in my Grey's they'll be checking a chart, in my Bones, they're usually doing something kind of sciency. So basically, they're sitting around waiting for that other character to come and talk to them and move the story forward.

Bad.

What are your characters doing just before they enter a scene?

In House, the go-to actions for House are: watching TV; playing piano; bouncing his cane.

In Episode 23 of Season 3 of House ("The Jerk" written by Leonard Dick), this happens in one scene:

Cameron and Chase approach House at the nurse's station, all abluster with their news (they're all 'it's an infection!' or whatever). House is, inexplicably, on his knees behind the desk.

They start talking about the case, lots of doctory dialog. Then, a nurse reaches into frame and hands House a dime. He looks at her, says 'Thank you' and continues talking to Chase and Cameron.

A tiny look from Cameron shows that she's just figured out why House is on the floor. He was looking for a dime he dropped.

No one ever comments on it, nothing ever comes of it, it's just a lovely little character moment, so bleeding wonderful because it's totally believable that the miserly House, despite being crippled, would get down on the floor to look for a dime.

It's those moments that take an episode from great to grrrreat (to quote my favorite tiger).

Now I need to work on building a few more moments like that into my scripts.

Slacker excuses
Anybody who has been monitoring my progress through House Season 3 will have noticed I've watched at least three episodes a day for the last week. Only one more episode and I'll be all caught up. It's going to kinda be like running out of Vicodin. Man, will it hurt, but I'll be a lot more productive afterwards.