Month: January 2010

Another day, another dollar

I missed my regular train this morning — or, rather, the train I normally get when I oversleep a little and miss the earlier regular train. There’s a 7:37, and then an 8:15, out of my station and I can get a good half-hour nap in if I catch the later of the two. It means I have to work until 5 instead of 4:30, and I much prefer getting the earlier train in the evening if I can do so. It’s less crowded, for one thing, and it gets me home a good forty-five minutes earlier than the next train. (Because it’s less crowded, has fewer stops, and requires less waiting around in Penn Station.) But it’s tough making that argument with my body when I haven’t had enough sleep, and at least twice this week my brain has lost it.

This morning I couldn’t find my hat — it was underneath some papers on my chair — and so I missed the 8:15 by a couple of minutes. I live less than five minutes from the train station, and I could see the train pulling into it as I raced that one block, but I just didn’t make it. I had to stop running when my iPod went flying out of my coat pocket anyway — its edges are a little chipped, though it seems otherwise okay — so I just accepted that I’d have to catch the 8:30 train instead. I just stood on the platform and listened to Studio 360 — the time travel show I’m sorry I missed when it taped live here in New York — and waited. And I’ve got to tell you, I’m really glad I didn’t give up looking for that hat. I’m glad I found it before the next train — not until 9:23 — but it was really too cold today to be without it.

Anyway, I think I’ve spent all this time talking about my train schedules and brief morning mishaps simply because the day was otherwise uneventful. I worked through lunch to make up some of the time the missed train cost me, and I read what I think is a really good chapter on a book we’re developing for counseling older adults. I worked a little more on that short story, and right now I’m watching the third episode of that Monty Python documentary.

According to my desk calendar (one of three I received this Christmas), today is Haxey Hood Day, which I’m amused to discover is still a very living tradition. That’s really neither here nor there, but it’s a whole lot more exciting than my day was.

Wednesday various

  • Movie popcorn is really bad for you. [via]

  • Then again, so too, in another way, is buying a computer at Best Buy. [via]

  • I can’t decide if this —

    An upcoming film called The Raven posits a story about what would happen if Poe were faced with the very murders he wrote about. In the movie, at the end of Poe’s life, a serial killer challenges him to solve a series of killings inspired by Poe’s fiction.

    — is a really cool or really dumb idea. I’m leaning towards dumb, to be honest.

  • I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this Random Roles interview with Alan Thicke. He’s a man who can speak intelligently and honestly about his (surprisingly interesting and varied) career.

  • And finally, who even knew there was a “murky world of Canadian ‘exploitation’ cinema“? [via]

    “Now in the U.S. when a mommy and daddy love each other, they perform bipolar sexual intercourse and make a baby. Canadians, however, are a breed of hermaphrodites who reproduce by means of auto-insemination, thus eliminating the need for sex. This also explains why we don’t really have a film industry.” – Dave Foley

Deja Tues

At the start of the new year, I made a sort of unofficial, unspoken pledge that I would post something here every day. (Beyond the occasional assortment of links, videos, and random song lyrics.) But some days, there just isn’t that much of anything to report.

I mailed off my entry in the Geist Postcard Contest this afternoon, and tonight did a very tiny bit of work on another short story that’s been sitting on the back burner for awhile. Right now, I’m watching the second episode of Monty Python: Almost The Truth and thoroughly enjoying it. (Seriously, I defy anyone not to at least giggle a little at this sketch.)

And that’s about it.

Tuesday various

  • Scientists develop ‘golden fleece’ lozenge to fight off all cold and flu bugs [via]:

    The pill, which would cost 20 pence a day and would be taken once before breakfast, could be sold over the counter in as little as two years.

  • “Most expensive” foods like this often seem like a cheat to me — of course it’s expensive if it’s served in a solid gold dish! — but this one seems like it might actually earn its hefty price tag, if only because the most expensive ingredients are also edible. That said, there’s not a chance I’m paying $750 for a single cupcake. [via]
  • Arachne Jericho on embracing the inconsistencies in the Sherlock Holmes universe and why a gay Holmes/Watson relationship really isn’t such a stretch.
  • I once tried getting a book endorsement from Desmond Tutu. When his assistant turned me down, I didn’t turn around and fake one. This is one of several reasons why I am not an African dictator. (Nelson Mandela Foundation accuses Congo president over fake foreword) [via]
  • And finally, a fascinating story about a Wired writer who tried to disappear. I was particularly amused by the idea that his trackers created real Twitter accounts to look like automated spambots to draw away suspicion. Seems like the inverse of how these things usually work. [via]

Back to work

Today was my first day back at work since December 18 — which was itself a much shortened day, consisting mostly of our group’s holiday lunch and setting my away messages on phone and e-mail. That’s actually a shot of my cubicle up above on the right; true, that picture is from way back in March of last year, but there really hasn’t been a significant change to the layout (or clutter) since then, and certainly not in the time that I was away. I spent the morning going through e-mails, but most of the big projects I have in development are on hold until I receive feedback or manuscripts from authors. So it wasn’t the most exciting day back at work, but that’s probably a good thing. I feel like I had a really good vacation, just enough time off, but there’s no reason for a mad rush back into things.

Other than work, and easing back into that daily commute, today was pretty much uneventful. I opened Kaleidotrope back up to submissions again at the start of the new year, and the slush pile continues to build. Meanwhile, I finished my entry in Geist’s Postcard Contest and expect to mail it off tomorrow. It’s a short piece — there was a 500-word maximum — but I had fun with it.

I broke down and bought a copy of Season 2 of The Big Bang Theory on DVD this afternoon. (I had a leftover Borders gift card from the holidays.) It’s very quickly become one of my favorite shows. I also bought a copy of Monty Python: Almost The Truth, which so far doesn’t seem to be offering anything particularly new about the troupe — I have, after all, read this massive tome, among others — but does so in a very fun and engaging way. I’ve only watched the first episode so far, but it’s a really good introduction to how the whole silly thing got started.

And finally, I was also offered a chance to attend an invitation-only “historic event at Carnegie Hall” where I can acquire a Steinway piano “at substantially reduced prices.” They advise me to schedule my appointment early, since it’s “first call, first served,” and this “impressive selection of used and restored vertical and grand pianos” won’t last! I suspect I’m on their mailing list after my mother and I attended a taping of Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! in the Stern Auditorium. And it’s not like I’ve never “considered owning a fine piano.” But for now, I think I’ll pass.