We have been invited to dine with friends we haven’t seen for a couple years tomorrow. I told them we’d bring homemade salsa for the occassion, which excited them greatly. But when I go out to the Internet to find my favorite recipes, they’ve vanished! AAAARGH! There ought to be a law. So, I’m off to search for new recipes, and to save a copy on my hard drive this time.

Last night Kathy and I went to see Fools in Love at the park here in San Marcos. One of the local houses for people who weren’t able to function fully on their own was there for an outing. There was one of their number, a moderately overweight man wearing shorts, an unmatched shirt, and a brightly colored ball cap, who went and stood in front of the stage and danced by himself for the full 90 minutes we watched the concert. His movements were awkward and had little to do with the beat of the music, but his face exuded such churubic joy that it was impossible not to smile along with him, reveling in his childlike immersion in the moment. He was simply having fun, regardless of what others might think, and was completely engaging to watch.

Back when computer games were still pretty much for the geeky set, there was a nifty game called (I think) Robot Wars. The premise was that you could outfit a robot with various weapons and drop it into an arena to do battle with other people’s bots. The catch was that you had to program the robot’s logic yourself, and couldn’t control it directly during the match — it would just run the program you created. I’ve had the idea of doing an updated version of this game for modern game players, with realistic 3D environments, more flexible robot design, etc. But these guys apparently are in the process of beating me to it, more power to them. Now if they’ll just commit to a Mac version, I’ll be the happiest of campers.

My friend Mark Morgan has been after me for a while to publish a bit of my writing on his website. Yesterday I finally got around to it, and the response to the story on his site has been most gratifying. Thanks to all you readers for the kind words.

Our little Emily heads off to New York today to spend a month with Kathy’s
parents. They live in Grand Island, a little island community just outside
of Buffalo on the Niagra river. Emily has grandiose plans to camp, go to the
falls, play with Socrates (Martha’s rabbit), visit lots of family, and buy a
number of Beanie Babies. She’s under strict orders to have a load of fun to
make us missing her worth it. Take care, kiddo!

Kathy and I have been trying to catch up with Netflix over the weekend and
last night. Here they are, from least to most enjoyable. The World Is Not Enough: lousy.
Sometime between the last Bond and this one, Brosnin got really old looking.
The classic Bond wit here evinces itself only as a series of execrable puns,
several of which are only possible because one of the Bond girls is named
“Christmas,” an unlikely designation that’s never explained. Add that to a
pretty uninspired plot, and you’ve got a recipe for a real stinker. Six String Samuri: this film has more
style than you can shake a stick at. Sword-wielding guitar players trek
across a post-apocolyptic landscape to compete for Elvis’ throne after he
dies. (No, not the throne he died on, silly…) I wanted to like this
film more than I was actually able to, however. It’s filled to the gills
with eye candy, but lacks much in the way of plot. Watching Jeffery Falcon
do his stuff is lots of fun, though. The Green Mile: This is director
Frank Darabont’s second film adaptation of a Stephen King story, and it’s a
toss-up for me whether this or The
Shawshank Redemption was better. This one focuses on the guards on death
row and the prisoners in their care. To say too much more is to spoil the
surprises a bit, but suffice it to say that there are elements of what
Stephen King is known for at work. Don’t miss it.

It’s a relatively rare thing that I pick up a book I’ve never heard of by an author I’ve never heard of and enjoy it immensely, but Cold Sassy Tree fits that description. (Well, strictly speaking, it doesn’t, since it was a tape of someone reading the book, and I saw that the Austin Lyric Opera is doing a production of the story on their website, but it’s close.) The book tells the story of Will Tweety, a resident of Cold Sassy, Georgia, and his family’s travails as Will’s grandmother dies and his grandfather marries a much younger woman. A beautifully told tale, chock-full of humor, drama, and pathos. Great stuff.

Or not. Having a hard time getting in that secret, special writing mood this
week, hence the sporadic, infrequent, inconsistent, and otherwise irregular
updates. In happy prayer-answered news, my techconsulting.com domain sold
for enough money that we’ll likely be able to close on the new house
shortly. Wish I had 10 more just like it! Emily’s gearing up for a month in
New York. Kathy’s still pregnant, and the good doctor says she’s doing
swell. And I got stabbed in my balding head by a yucca outside of a mexican
food restaurant last night. Ouch.

I’ve not posted much this week. I’m trying to get into the habit of swimming
enough to do my health some good, which means that my little remaining free
time is eroded further. Add that to the fact that I’m already drowning in
activity, and I’m having a hard time keeping up. Plus, Deus Ex is coming out soon, so things will
get worse before they get better…

We spent the last of the Blockbuster coupons that came with our DVD player
last night on Girl,
Interrupted. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it too much, but was pleasantly
surprised; it was an excellent film. A sort of more-hopeful girl-cast One
Flew Over The Cukoo’s Nest featuring an Audrey Hepburn-looking Winona
Ryder, it mixes pathos, humor, madness, and hope. Amusingly, the description
on the back of the Blockbuster box starts out with this sentence: “A young
woman is put into a mental institution after she commits suicide.”