Snow? Seriously? In Texas in late February? A cold front is arriving today and it could bring significant snow to within a few dozen miles of here. Two to four inches in some places. Though we may only get cold rain here, if a few snowflakes do happen to materialize it will mark the latest in the winter that Houston has seen snow. We also had the earliest snowfall in a winter in late 2009. It has indeed been a strange, strange winter–I was in shorts doing yard work on Saturday.
I received two bits of good news about The Stephen King Illustrated Companion today. Barnes and Noble has ordered a second printing of the book, only slightly smaller in size than the first print run. This means that bn.com will be restocked sometime this year, making the book available especially to people outside the US, who will be able to order it online with affordable shipping. Also, my editor told me that an Italian publisher has acquired translation rights to the book. They plan to bring out their version (Il Compagno Illustrato dello Stephen King?) later on this year.
No big surprises on The Amazing Race last night. Most people expected the 71-year-old player to drop off soon. The undercover cops aren’t impressing, though. I hope they do a better job of finding clues in real life than they do in following directions in the game. Twice now they’ve come in at the back of the pack and they weren’t that far ahead of grandma. My favorites, Jordan and Jeff, dropped back a bit, but their miscue at the bus station didn’t hurt them as badly as it might have.
Cold Case was very good this week. For one thing, I’m glad to see the Lily Rush side plot wrapped up. Almost all of the cops have something extracurricular going on, and it was getting a little much. Good to see the little dancing man from Twin Peaks, too. At least he wasn’t speaking backwards. And the resolution of the murder case was a genuine surprise.
I didn’t track down the Canada/U.S. hockey game until late in the second period. C’est dommage. The curling teams are playing very well.
I received the contract for my first published poem in today’s mail. The contract is about four or five times longer than the poem itself!
Started a new short story this morning for the first time in a while. I didn’t get that far into it and had to start over again after a rare Word crash (I was multitasking and not paying attention). Still feeling my way around in the story, but I know the protagonist pretty well and I have a rough understanding of how things might play out.
