One week and a day until NECON

Can you tell I’m looking forward to it? I fly out at the crack of dawn on Thursday morning to arrive in Rhode Island that afternoon. Then it’s three days of aaaaaaah.

This morning, I finished and posted my Storytellers Unplugged essay to the dashboard so it will magically appear at around the time I’m at the airport next Thursday. I also made another editing pass on a short story that I’ve ignored for the past week or so. I made only a few changes hear and there, mostly cosmetic. Another reading pass or two and it will be ready to submit.

I watched the first half of the tribute to Warren Beatty last night, not so much because of Beatty but because of those who paid tribute. Dustin Hoffman was very funny, especially with his references to the apparently absent Jack Nicholson, who was reportedly at a Lakers game and was going to try to squeeze both the game and the tribute in. (Preview clips show Nicholson, so he must have made it.)

I finished The Instant Enemy by Ross MacDonald last night. His books tend to get very convoluted at the end. Even once Archer has everything figured out, he has to go through the ordeal of extracting confirmation from everyone involved. He seems to be a big fan of the misidentified body. Any time a character is missing a head, or was injured so badly that he can’t be identified, you can be pretty sure the body doesn’t belong to who it’s supposed to.

Not sure what I’m going to pick up next. I have no lack of options in the TBR room (once it was a pile, then a shelf, then a bookcase, now it’s more or less my entire office!).

We watched Sweeney Todd last weekend. We’d seen the Broadway play a couple of summers ago, the version where the actors are also the orchestra, which was brilliant. The movie was okay. The singing was serviceable but didn’t compare at all to the stage play. I especially missed the spiciness of Mischief! Mischief! from the Broadway version. Helena Bonham Carter looked phantastic, as usual. Depp seemed to be bearing the remnants of Jack Sparrow. I totally didn’t recognize Sacha Baron Cohen, even though I saw his name in the credits.