Here’s how I like to start my workday: Write a couple of pages of new material, then accidentally kick the power strip under my desk so my computer and everything else in my office suddenly turns off. I crawl under there and turn it back on, and return to my work-in-progress to find that everything I’d written has vanished. Yeah, that’s the way I like to start the day. That, or stick my thumbs in my own eyes.
• Weather Report: We’ve got a break in the rain here in Redding, but more is on the way. I like the rain better when the wind’s not blowing it against the windows like pea gravel. But I’ll take wind and rain anytime over the huge snowfalls they’re getting back east. Brrr.
• They Fired All the Copy Editors, Part XV: In a wire story from Los Angeles that’s on page two of the local paper: “the erstwhile 15-year-old’s relentless campaign to clean up people’s language.” Don’t know what the writer thought “erstwhile” means, but it means “former.” Anyone 16 or older is an “erstwhile 15-year-old.”
• Headline of the Day comes from AOL News:
Police Hunt for Kentucky Girl
I didn’t know girls were in season, even in Kentucky.
• What I’m Reading: “The Accident Man” by Tom Cain, an international thriller in which a British hitman realizes that the “accident” he just arranged in Paris resulted in the death of Princess Diana. Gripping so far.
• DVD I Watched on the Treadmill: “Traitor” starring Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce. Pretty good movie about terrorists and the people pursuing them. Cheadle, who’s always terrific, plays an American Muslim who gets caught in the middle.
Tips appreciated: Send news tidbits to steveb.anewscafe@gmail.com.
