Leaps of Faith and Logic

Sorry that Triscribe was out most of the day Sunday, because I forgot to renew the domain name (whoops). Got it fixed in 10 minutes, and even snagged a coupon code. We’re good for 3 more years….

First snow this season – took P’s sister’s dogs out for a romp while she’s away in Belgium.

RIP Daredevil Evel Knievel, succeeding when actually failing to jump over objects, earning the Guinness World Record for broken bones (40).  In the weeks before his death, he amiably settled a trademark suit against Kanye West’s parody of Knievel’s Snake River rocket shot, and was baptized on the Crystal Cathedral’s Hour of Power show. Definitely did things his way.

Stuck into a monster collage aid bill is a requirement that colleges and universities provide subscription plans for download music and to implement blocking for P2P file sharing, or their students lose all of their federal financial aid. Let’s get this straight — we can’t make sure students have a health insurance plan (many college students lose their health insurance in their senior year soon after because they age out of their parent’s health plans – most law students are completely bare except for what they can get from the institution or the ABA, and that is generally major medical only) but we can mandate that they pay for a music subscription plan. What kind of logic is this?

Brunch: Belleville – P got an omelet, I got the Norwegian eggs Benedict. Both were served with hash potatoes and a green salad. Her omlete was perfectly fluffy; my dish was excellent except a dry muffin (but that could be our fault for showing up at 2 PM). Web reviews seem to be down on them lately, but if they can cook decent eggs, the kitchen deserves a chance.

National Novel Writing Month… comes an end. Aww.

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Yeah! I surpassed the 50,000 words (and hence a NaNoWriMo winner) and came to An Actual End!!! The novel is… well, nothing spectacular, but it’s dark, grim, some parts funny, some parts actually good, and way much dialogue (along the lines of “You’re stupid”/”No, you’re stupid!”). As a murder mystery, it’s not that good (uh, clues weren’t clearly clues – they were more like anvils for being obvious telling rather than showing, I’m still not clear on the motive, etc.). But, character development was kind of there. More importantly, the first draft is done! I win, just for being done!

Man, I didn’t even have a title until 11/29/07; it’s entitled, “Bread and Circuses.” It’s a sort of NYC murder mystery, taking place in 1992; a look-at-the-life of a reporter who gets embroiled in a bunch of murders plus at least two or three subplots going on in his life; a sort-of spy thing, where this ex-spy kind of wishes he was back in the business; hints of mafia; small cameos of characters from my other stories; and the oh-whoa, I made it to an ending, not just surpassed 50,000 words! Yeah!

Will I learn to love to do second drafts? At least I’m out of the creative rut that I was in for weeks previous to this month.

Stuff:

The NY Times: Seth Kugel on these lovely (yet pricey) chocolate places in the city. Mmm, chocolate. But, yeah, pricey.

No new Mark Bittman video on NYTimes.com, but he writes on the concept of the hot pot, shabu shabu, and other aliases. Fascinating stuff.

Slate: Dahlia Lithwick on the transparency (or not really) of the US S. Ct.

Finished reading yet another Billy Collins poetry compilation, “The Art of Drowning.” Good stuff.