Had another set of anthology guidelines added to my to-do list. This one doesn’t have a set deadline, which means I better not mess around or else it might fill up. However, I need to do some reading and research before I attempt a story. Oh, yeah, and I have to come up with a story. Fortunately the characters are already taken care of.
A mild, misty day today. We’ll be in the sixties until Thursday, when the high temp will be 67° and the low 31°. Can you say “cold front”? One time we were having breakfast at an IHOP. From where I was sitting, I could look out the window and see the digital temperature display on the bank next door. While we were eating, it started falling, visibly. I said to my wife: that must be a glitch. When we went outside, though, we discovered that the temperature really had fallen by about 15°.
I found out in the newspaper today that we have a new crime lab on the same street as my office. Just opened. I’m hoping they’ll let me tour their facility to get some insight into the way such a facility really works. TV forensics has painted a colorful but mostly fantastic version of what the job is like. As a chemist, I’m interested in the science, but as a writer I’m interested in the procedure.
I finally finished Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island yesterday. It took me the better part of a year to read it. I had the eBook on my iPod Touch and would read whenever I was stuck in line somewhere, or in a waiting room. The book would have been pruned by about 60% in today’s world, as it goes into excruciating detail about everything. However, it would make a handy book to have with you if you were ever stranded on a remote Pacific island. Too much coincidence for modern readers, especially the rescue at the end, but I couldn’t help thinking that Lost was influenced by this book more than people might realize. Next up on my long-term reading list: The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. Another one of those books that I’ve always wanted to read but never got around to.
It’s been fun watching Candice Bergen mature over the years. I knew her first as the daughter of Edgar Bergen, and then as Murphy Brown, of course. Then she showed up as one of Denny Crane’s exes on Boston Legal and then, last night, on House as Cuddy’s mother. Her characters have always had this acerbic, biting way about them, and it was never more true than on her House appearance. In one of the funniest scenes in the show’s recent memory, she got so bad that House doped her drinks during dinner with Cuddy and Wilson to knock her out. And then, coup de grace, he did the same thing to Wilson because he’s been whining of late. The patient-of-the-week almost got lost in all of the drama with Taub, but that’s okay. The patient is usually just a metaphor anyway.
Two and a Half Men was funnier than usual. Ironic turn-around in Charlie and Rose’s relationship and the dumb-ass secondary plot was stupid enough to be hilarious. How I Met Your Mother (also known as It’ll Be a Miracle if He Ever Meets Your Mother) was serio-comic. Robin’s bottomless purse reminded me of Felix the Cat. I didn’t exactly connect with the “last words my father said to me” idea. It never occurred to me at the time to wonder what those words might have been, and too much time has passed now, but I liked the way it worked out for Marshall. Really good last words, followed by more potty humor.
