The Field and the Great Walnut Tree in Winter

I taped Criminal Minds on Wednesday evening, but when I went to watch it last night I discovered it was a rerun, in spite of what the TV guide said. Liars! One of my pleasures in watching that show is reading Elizabeth Bear’s running commentary afterward.

Guess I’m going to have to start watching the Season 3 set of LOST I treated myself to since there seems to be nothing else on the tube.

I updated News From the Dead Zone on CD’s web page today (with the help of webmaster Brian Freeman). One item of news is that The Dead Zone is no more—USA has cancelled the series, leaving the Armageddon plot unresolved and the Johnny/Sarah romance up in the air. Sigh. It was a decent show, but I guess the strong loonie has made it a more expensive show to produce over the past year.

My long-time pal Dave Hinchberger sent me samples of the slipcases he had produced for The Gunslinger Born and Blaze. The one I received was for the individual installments, which is great because my copies are scattered willy nilly around the house, including the copy of #1 that Jae Lee signed for me, so it will be great to get ’em all in one place, under protective custody as it were.

I found a new Camille Pissarro painting to install as a background for my new work computer: The Field and the Great Walnut Tree in Winter. I’ve used a different one for each PC. He’s been my favorite artist for a long time. It’s a mild winter scene—no snow—but a nice, moody work of bleak late autumn.

Received my paycheck yesterday for an upcoming short story appearance that I’ll write more about next week. The story is called “In a Country Churchyard” (that was the title of an early Chris de Burgh song) and was originally written a long time ago. It has been extensively rewritten and is something of an EC-esque horror story that I’m quite fond of.

I finished the 2000-piece Times Square jigsaw puzzle last night. Puzzles are great pastimes for family vacations. We can all sit around the table and either work at it or at something else or nothing at all as we visit with each other. I think I’ll have to get another one for next week.