Current Status

This one has absolutely no point to it, even moreso than most blog posts, but it will bring you up to speed on what's on my mind. It's a new-reader-friendly jumping on point!

General
I had a pretty productive day today. I got to the post office and mailed Melanie's Helaciously Good Christmas Presents to her, then dropped my car off at Wal-Mart for a set of new tires and an oil change (my moderately helacious Christmas present from my grandmother). While I was waiting, I caught lunch with Billy, which was cool. He's going to help me reinstall Office on Sunday, thus ridding me of my last excuse to slack off on my writing ("I'd like to write, really, but this word processor doesn't even support full-page view!"). I'm sure that being able to spellcheck my scripts will prevent me from wasting my life on internet pornography and Tony Hawk games.

Tires set me back about forty bucks more than I'd planned, so hooray for brown-bagging it next week.

Also, they keep running this Trimspa commercial on TV where Anna Nicole Smith comes out to promote a contest, and also show off that she recently lost weight equivalent to a mature Blue Whale. At one point, the saddest moment in the entire commercial, she looks dead into the camera and says in this allegedly sexy voice: "Like my body?" only it comes out more like: "Laahk mah baaaahdee?" and it's just heartbreaking. Look, Anna... I didn't want to have to be the one to do this, but we've all been talking. And you're never going to be hot again. No matter how much weight you lose or how many endorsement deals you get, it's just not going to happen, and I'm sorry. You had your chance and you blew it, and you invited a camera crew to film your spiral into Lovecraftian horror. You have only yourself to blame.

Books
Currently Reading:

• Elric of Melnibone, by Michael Moorcock. My Christmas present from Chad. I'm enjoying the heck out of it, but I'm not knocking it out as quickly as I'd like to. Should be done by Sunday. I'm also reading the Michael Moorcock/Walt Simonson Elric comic that DC's putting out.

Recently Finished:

• I, the Jury, by Mickey Spillane. The first Mike Hammer novel. Loved it. Hammer's like the antithesis of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. Marlowe's two-fisted all right, but he's also clever and more likely to make a cutting observation than punch someone in the gut. Hammer, though... Man. That guy doesn't eff around.
• The Icewind Dale Trilogy (Crystal Shard, Streams of Silver, the Halfling's Gem), by R.A. Salvatore. Yeah, I don't care what Matt G says. I love these books, and Drizzt Do'Urden is the Wolverine of D&D.
• Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem. Tug turned me on to Lethem, and he hasn't disappointed. I gave this book to Matt G for Christmas last year on the strength of another Lethem book I read (Gun, With Occasional Music, my favorite out of all of them), and just got around to reading it myself last month. A great, fun mystery whose protagonist, Lionel Essrog, is an underachieving orphan with Tourette's.

Coming Up:

• The Legacy of the Drow, by R.A. Salvatore
• A Gentleman's Game, by Greg Rucka (the first Queen and Country novel)
• My Gun is Quick, by Mickey Spillane

Comics
Too many to mention. I STILL haven't touched my run of Ka-Zar or that chunk of Deathstroke I bought at the Dollar Book sale, and I'm only halfway through my JLI/JLE run. I think I've decided, however, not to buy any more trades until I'm through the ones I've got. So here's what I'm working on right now: Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne v.1, Chronicles of Conan v.4, American Elf: The Sketchbook Diaries of James Kochalka, and the Doom Patrol Archives v.1.

The Ladies
They all still want me.