Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

Google shares the 600 ways you can spell Britney Spears . Google...gotta love those folks. First Google Maps , then Google Earth , then Google Moon , and now this! Good Lord! I've gotten email from some of these names! They said that I...well, never mind.

The latest Google Job Opportunities have been posted. Watch your career soar to new heights! See the world in a new light! Relocation will be required. Benefits will no doubt include a rapid weight loss program.

Saw War of the Worlds this afternoon with Ed. A pretty amazing film. It has been called by many the first truly post-9/11 movie . An interesting point made in the article above is that every production of this story seems to make concrete the paranoia of the age when it was produced. Orson Welles's 1938 radio adaptation, for example, fed off fears about Hitler and what was at the time the "European War." The George Pal (of Puppetoon fame) version done in the 1950's was about Cold War paranoia. And in this version, after the first attack, the character of Tom Cruise's terrified daughter wants to know "was it terrorists?" Rod Dreher (who I'm no fan of), writing in the Dallas Morning news, said "From now on, when people ask me what it was like to be in New York on Sept. 11, I'll tell them, 'Like the first hour of War of the Worlds.'" The scenes of destruction of the cities were amazing, thought Spielberg resisted the temptation t...

My clever wife had reserved a copy of the new Harry Potter months ago. So when we heard the Barnes and Noble where we reserved it would be open at midnight to sell it, we think: "Oh what fun! Let's go pick up our copy!" So at 11:30 we gather ourselves up and drive over. While we were doing this, John, my oldest calls and says he and his buddy are going to go over and try and buy a copy. I say, "Great. Look for us; we'll be there." The first clue that our plan was, shall we say, ill-conceived, comes as I make my way down University Drive towards the B & N entrance. University is normally not that busy at midnight, and there was fair amount of traffic--most of it turning into the University Park Shopping Center. I turn in and see the parking lot is really full. We are talking 3 days before Christmas full. Outside the store are stray people milling around. I can through the store windows to see the lines at the cash registers stretch back as far as the ey...

I've been following, despite my personal news strike, the Valerie Plame story and I'm puzzled. So far, we've got NY Times reporter Judith Miller in jail, Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper reluctantly agreeing to reveal sources, White House Prince of Darkness Karl Rove decrying he did anything wrong, all because Robert Novak , citing two Bush administration officials, revealed the identity of a CIA agent in his column. Okay, here's what I don't get: Robert Novak, who wrote the column, appears to have remained above the fray. Why the hell doesn't the Justice Department subpoena his ass? Have I missed something here? It makes a body wonder. Meanwhile, Karl Rove is getting ever closer to that dangerous state of being so great a political liability that even a half-wit like his boss can sense it's time to jettison the bastard. Sweet.

At my writers group last night I read the 2nd chapter of The Novel again. This made the third time my fellow writers have had to endure my creativity. Last time they were politely encouraging but I knew the truth: it still sucked. Nothing like reading your own stuff out loud to really appreciate its shortcomings. Alas, my sins as a writer are many, but the worst of them are: too many "information dumps," not enough characterization, and my constant slipping into the passive voice. I've been laboring over rewrites on this chapter for about 2 months...part of the delay can be attributed to the summer doldrums, part of it being that the chapter needed a whole lot of work. Third time is the charm though; good feedback on this version. Some minor stuff (including hand-edits I made before reading) to be added back, but nothing substantial. So now I move on. Thank god!

Dot picked up a book for me at the library I've been thinking of reading: The Plot Against America , by Philip Roth. She's read it through her reading group and it passes her test. Story Synopsis: Lindbergh beats Roosevelt in 1940 election and his lack of concern against Hitler becomes US policy, with the expected awful results. Sounds right up my alley. Updates as I read.

Was going to work on The Novel over the weekend and could not find the flash drive where I've taking to storing it. Looked in all the usual places at home (dresser, bedside table, by the bathroom sink) but to no avail. Finally decided I must have left it at work. Nope. Now I was getting concerned. I usually save a new revision number every few days, but this time it had been several weeks. Plus I, er, hadn't made a backup. So I had this nagging fear I'd lost a couple of weeks of revisions--fairly good revisions too. Got home tonight, looked some more and finally asked Ed, who was lounging around watching TV in the back room, if he'd seen the flash drive. "Oh yeah," he mumbled, pulling it out from under the couch. "I think it went through the washing machine." My mouth is hanging open at this point, and he adds, "It went through the dryer, too." Thinking, oh well, if I wrote this once I can write it again, I put the clean flashdrive into t...