Month: May 2007

There are all these stories about the uproar when Dylan went electric back in ’65, so I found this little mention from today’s Writer’s Almanac quite amusing:

It was only after he enrolled in the University of Minnesota that Dylan became interested in folk music. He heard a record by the folk singer Odetta in 1958 and immediately went out and traded his electric guitar for an acoustic.

Also amusing: early in his writing career, Michael Chabon was asked to model clothing for The Gap.

He and Dylan share a birthday today.

Over at the Sci-Fi Wire, there’s an item about the upcoming Creepshow III (and how it might just be, well, awful):

The stories include “The Radio,” about a guy who is ordered around by a female voice that comes from his radio; “Alice,” about a snotty girl whose family changes each time a magical remote control is pressed; “Call Girl,” about a serial-killer prostitute who hooks up with a vampire; “Professor Dayton’s Wife,” about two students who dismember their professor’s fiancee because they think she is a robot; and “The Haunted Dog,” about a mean doctor who kills a homeless man by giving him a contaminated hot dog. “We did not want it to seem too comic-book, but we wanted something different that was also fun and silly,” Dudelson said.

Am I the only one who sees a sort of pattern in those stories? I don’t want to read too much into it, especially without having seen the stories in question, but those don’t seem like the strongest roles for women imaginable. (I wouldn’t be surprised if the mean doctor was a woman, too.)

I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday. I left work early, got a different train, paid a few bucks for cab fare. And when I got there? The office was closed. The door was locked, and the answering service, which I was finally able to reach on my cell phone, told me that they were gone for the day. Luckily I didn’t have to wait around too long for my ride home. Today, the answering service tells me (and not the first time I call, but probably the third) that the office is closed until next Tuesday. So I won’t even know until then who screwed up (I’m pretty sure it was them), or if and when I can re-schedule.

This is kind of ridiculous.

Addendum (approx. 6 pm) Apparently the doctor has two offices, about half an hour apart from each other. They were at the other office yesterday. I still need to wait until next Tuesday to talk to anyone but the answering servince and re-schedule, but at least now I know what happened.

Addendum (approx. 7 pm) I’ve now spoken with someone at the actual office. They’ll try to fit me in if there are any cancellations next Tuesday (or maybe June 2), but failing that, they probably couldn’t see me until August. It’s nothing serious, by any means, but I definitely would like to be seen before then.