Bev Vincent

I was propositioned this weekend for a possible gig unlike anything I’ve done before. Still waiting on some of the details, so I can’t say anything at this point.

I’m about 600 words into a new short story, and I wrote reviews of The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg and Hammett Unwritten by Owen Fitzstephen. The latter is a rather clever fictionalization of why Hammett stopped writing after The Thin Man, using the “fact” that The Maltese Falcon was based on one of Hammett’s real cases when he was with the Pinkertons. I thought at first the book was just a gimmick but I ended up really liking it. I especially enjoyed it when the “real life” version of Casper Gutman, the “Fat Man,” enters the story. I could hear Sydney Greenstreet uttering the dialog.

I finally found a way to upgrade my old perl-based message board (YaBB) into something my web hosting service didn’t have problems with (it’s called Vanilla). The problem with YaBB (other than the fact that it periodically stopped working for no obvious reason) is that it has a flat file structure, unlike most others which are database driven, which means converting is a royal pain. I tried various things on my own without success. Then I found a service (gConverter) that would do it for me. They don’t automate the process (if it even could be automated) but work very closely with the raw data to make sure the final product is a full port of the original content. I was very pleased with the results. The new board is here. I haven’t settled on a final theme yet, so I’m using the default at the moment. More concerned about adding all the plugins necessary to keep the spammers at bay. My word, but they’re a pesky and persistent lot.

I’ve watched two hockey games this year, the winter classic and the match between Boston and Chicago yesterday afternoon. Both ended in ties and in shoot-outs that were decided by the last shot. I’ve gotten out of the habit of watching hockey. My wife tells me I should get the CBC’s “Hockey Night in Canada” theme song for my ring tone. Hmmm. Maybe I should. I also watched the two NFL playoff games. It must be frustrating to be a quarterback stuck on the sidelines while the other team runs roughshod over you. Quarterbacks often bear the brunt of the blame for a loss, but if you can’t get onto the field, what can you do? I didn’t have a vested interest in either contest, but I was vaguely rooting for the Patriots and San Francisco. Good thing I’m not a betting man.

I’m about 500 pages into The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. Compelling story. I have no idea where it’s going, even though the prologue puts the protagonist in Amsterdam, hiding out in a hotel while bad stuff (apparently) goes on back in the States.

I finished watching the Campion series from 1990, starring Peter Davison as an amateur sleuth. The series is derived from the Margery Allingham novels, and the stories are set in the 1920s and 1930s. He’s an amateur sleuth, Campion is an alias, and you never really find much about his past. He has a manservant named Lugg who is a former burglar who looks like he’s about to burst out of his livery. I liked The Last Detective better. This is a little like Downton Abbey meets Sherlock Holmes. There are only eight stories (2 one-hour episodes each) in total. Occasionally it feels like Doctor Who, with a new female companion each episode.

We had a quiet Christmas week. I couldn’t even get through to my siblings because they were without power for six days, until the weekend. We cooked some great food (I made a traditional tourtière that turned out really well), watched movies, read books, went out not at all.

One of the books I read was Spirit of Steamboat by Craig Johnson. It’s a novella that takes place on Christmas Eve, and features his series protagonist Walt Longmire who has been brought to the screen in the Longmire TV series. The story is about Walt and his old boss, together with several other people, getting a WWII bomber into the air so they can transport a seriously injured girl to Denver during a blizzard. It’s a harrowing and chilling story. My wife especially appreciated the accuracy in both the aeronautics and the medical descriptions. Apparently this was supposed to be a short story but it kept getting longer. I haven’t read any of his novels. Now I shall have to.

I wrote a few book reviews to get caught up last week: Cockroaches by Jo Nesbø, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Alexander McCall Smith and The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons by Lawrence Block. I’m currently reading Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell. I’ve had it for a while but am just getting around to it now.

I didn’t accomplish much on the writing front. I wanted to finish a story for the next Tesseracts anthology, and I thought I had a great idea, but I just couldn’t get it to go anywhere, and the deadline was today. I still think the idea is good, but it needs to ferment a while longer. I did get my next column for Cemetery Dance finished, though. It was also due today.

Yesterday I received my contributor copy of the PS Publishing 30th Anniversary edition of Pet Sematary. I wrote the afterword and Ramsey Campbell wrote the introduction. Good company to keep. It’s a handsome volume, and I’m pleased to have been a part of this neat project.

We watched a couple of less-than-glowingly reviewed movies on Christmas Day. First there was Elysium, which I thought was not bad. We discussed afterward whether the film would have succeeded without such a big, trustworthy name in the main role. The character was, after all, a criminal, albeit a reformed one. You’re on Damon’s side right away, so that helps you overlook the shadier aspects of his personality. We also wondered how the second ship managed to land on Elysium without challenge. But, on the whole, it was pretty good. Then we watched The Lone Ranger, which was pretty dire. I don’t know who decided that this should be a slapstick comedy, but I hope they got a lump of coal in their stocking this year. The title character is, for the most part, a non-entity, and Tonto is a wisecracking buffoon. Granted, the film had its moments, but it was far too long. I’m not entirely sure it would have worked as a straight dramatic film, either, but as a comedy…meh.

After watching Michael Palin’s Himalaya, we’ve gone on a Palin travel documentary binge. We went back to the beginning to see Around the World in 80 Days, which I saw when it first aired in the late eighties, and then I found the follow-up from 20 years later when he tracked down the crew of the dhow that took him to India. We are now near the end of The New Europe, in which he travels through countries that used to be behind the Iron Curtain. So many places inspire the following reaction in us: I want to go there.

What did people think of Darabont’s Mob City? I watched the whole thing over a two-day period. Not bad. I could see it coming back for another season. They crammed a little too much plot into the Doctor Who Christmas special for my liking, and I didn’t find it nearly as heart-wrenching as the 11th Doctor’s swan song. Was glad there was a surprise cameo by, well, a surprise character, but on the whole I’m looking forward to seeing Clara and the new guy, with his oddly colored kidneys.

So, until next year, be well, and have a safe and exciting eve.

Some rejection letters are harder than others. The one I received this week came after I saw a notice that anyone who hadn’t heard yet was on the short list. That raises expectations considerably. So I was bummed when I found out I didn’t make the final cut. At least that tells me the story is fundamentally solid. However, I’ll have to do some work to it before I can send it anywhere else.

We went grocery shopping yesterday to stock up on supplies for the coming week. We may venture out every now and then but for the most part we plan to stay in, cook food and watch videos and read and veg. When we were putting stuff in the trunk, my wife noticed that my Obama/Biden magnetic bumper sticker was gone. I’m not quite sure when it disappeared, but I wasn’t surprised. Not really. In fact, I was surprised it lasted as long as it did in this conservative community. Disappointed, but not surprised. I had a lady at Wal-Mart curse at me a few months ago when she saw it. I left it on to commemorate the first time I was able to participate in an American presidential election, but I knew I was tempting fate. At least they didn’t key my car.

The rest of yesterday was Hobbit day. We watched the first movie on DVD in the afternoon. I thought it might still be OnDemand but when I checked a couple of days ago, it was no longer available. So on Friday I hazarded a trip to Best Buy just after it opened and was able to zip in and out. My one close encounter with Christmas shoppers. To put a ribbon on top, I had a $10 coupon on my rewards card so I got the DVD for $2.15.

After watching The Five-ish Doctors reboot it was fun picking out Sylvester McCoy, Doctor Who #7, as Radagast the Brown. We again hazarded the region near the shopping mall for supper, but because we were fairly early in the afternoon/evening, we didn’t have to wait to be seated. We finished about 30 minutes before the next showing of The Desolation of Smaug, and the theater was just a short walk across the street. Got our pick of seats. I thought the second film was a great and exciting adventure, although some of the elvish fight scenes were a little over the top. The dwarf troop reminded me of Monty Python at times. It’s an interesting blend of pratfalls and Matrix-style action. I was sure they were going to pull the rug out from under us and end the film in much the same way the first one ended, with the opening of Smaug’s eye, and maybe a little dialog, but they didn’t, much to my relief.

It took me a while to figure out why I recognized Beorn, the shapeshifter. He was played by Swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt, who was Gunvald on the crime series Beck. I didn’t mind the addition of the Tauriel character at all. The show seriously needed a strong female character. And I found it amusing to think that Sherlock and Watson were battling each other beneath the mountain on those heaps of gold. It was a rollicking adventure and some of the scenes, especially those in the wide open, featured the best 3D I’ve experienced. So much 3D is set in confined places, but the scope of the New Zealand vistas was impressive. There were a few over-the-top 3D moments that shook me up, like the bumble bees that fly out of the screen, but for the most part it did its job, that of adding true depth to the experience.

As Neil Finn wrote, the movie’s title was hard to work into a song because of the funky way “Smaug” is pronounced.