Last night, I proofed the essay I’ve been working on and made only a handful of minor changes. This morning, after I keyed them in, I went through it one last time on-screen and deleted things that didn’t seem necessary, reducing it to 5400 words. Then I submitted it to the editor and now I await his feedback, though he told me I could write whatever I wanted and he wouldn’t change anything.
Now it’s on to the piece for next year’s SK calendar and a short story for an anthology that has a submission deadline in a little over a week. Yikes! I haven’t even started on that one yet. For this particular annual market, I seem to always leave it until just at the wire, and I always manage to get something in on time.
I started watching Mr. Sunshine last night, figuring I’d give it one last chance. It’s got Jorge Garcia, after all, and he was actually on it this week. It was going along okay until Roman put the cue cards in front of the fan. I could see how cringeworthy that was going to become, so I switched off, which meant I didn’t get to see this week’s double date, to see how cringeworthy that would become.
A tense episode of Criminal Minds, but I felt like slapping Prentiss for endangering her friends and complicating the task force’s job by keeping all of her information to herself. Sure, the guy threatened her team if she told them, but he was already threatening them when the guys with the machine guns fired at her and Morgan. How much worse could it get than that? Plus the bodies were starting to pile up. I thought for a moment she would at last redeem herself at the end, during the briefing, when it was clear she was on the verge of taking action. Instead, she bolted. Not her finest hour. Even if she survives the next episode, I think Hotch should fire her.
Okay, so maybe Jeff Probst went a little overboard by comparing last night’s history-making episode of Survivor to the first man landing on the moon, among other moments in recent memory. However, it was high time that Russell learned what it was like to be the target and not have any way to save himself. Ralph got a great chuckle out of the fact that Russell was still looking for the idol, but I’m not sure Russell would have found it anyway. His interpretation of the clue was a little generous. Rob understood the clue’s limitation much more clearly. “It might as well have said, ‘The idol is somewhere.'” I guess Ralph must have known that Julie wasn’t going to vote with Russell, which is why he retained his idol. What’s the record for the number of days someone has one and doesn’t tell anyone else about it? (Yes, Jeff Strand, I’m looking at you.)
Throwing a challenge: not always the best idea, but if there was ever a time to strike against Russell, this was probably it, before he managed to swing a couple of more people over to his side. I would argue that being sent to Redemption Island might play in Russell’s favor. While he’s there, the only people he can annoy are the ones he might defeat in battle. That means there’s less of a chance of him alienating potential jurors, as he’s done in the past. I’m really looking forward to the face-off between him and Matt. Francesca put up a good fight, but it turned out that taking a little extra time with the construction paid off. It was funny but ultimately pointless that his other tribe members lied to him about who won the first rumble in the jungle. How long is that going to throw him off balance?
