It’s all just math

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Bev Vincent

Did some more work on the essay I’m writing for a horror movie magazine. I hope to have a pretty decent first draft done by the end of the weekend.

My buddy Dave from Overlook Connection sent me one of the slipcases they made for King’s Full Dark, No Stars. It’s quite a loud red color, with white drawings all over it, pictograms inspired by the stories. The kicker, though, is that they glow in the dark! I left mine out in the direct sun today so I can get its full effect this evening. Full dark, but there will be stars…and a well, and a tool chest.

My favorite clip from this week’s Survivor is a diary segment that was on the preview. Rob, discussing Phillip’s oddball behavior, says, “Let it be a lesson to ya. Government jobs? Stressful.” Phillips did everything except flagellate himself after contributing to the second loss in a row at the immunity challenge for his tribe. He’s getting progressively weirder, and not in a good way. On the other tribe, Ralph steps out of the background and pulls a Russell, by which I mean he finds an immunity idol without any clue. Of course, the fact that he was hunting for rocks at the time makes him a little quirky. However, he had the wisdom to keep his discovery to himself for the time being, which few other players ever do. And then—and then!—he catches Russell pocketing the clue to the whereabouts of the idol—or, rather, the former whereabouts—and calls him out. If Ralph has a couple of brains to rub together—and the jury is still out on that one—he might be making a savvy move. History tells us that anyone who ruffles Russell’s feathers becomes his next target, regardless of whether it’s a good strategic move or not. If Ralph can get Russell focused on him, and keep his idol secret, he might create a boomerang that will catch Russell unawares. That would be great.

A little disappointed that we didn’t find out what is going to happen on Redemption Island, but the blindside Rob orchestrated more than compensated for that. It’s so cool when a player suddenly realizes that they were the target that week, and not someone else. I’m a little bit leery of Rob’s motivation for getting rid of Matt. He seemed really riled by the fact that Matt showed good sportsmanship and congratulated the other side for winning. Of course, Matt was also forming a very close alliance with one of the women, and Rob knows how dangerous that can be.

I love my new DVR system. I was interrupted 15 minutes into Survivor, so I turned the TV off. Then, 10 minutes later, I turned it back on and watched the recording, fast-forwarding over commercials until I eventually caught up with reality. I’ve never been able to do that before.

I run hot and cold on Criminal Minds, but I really liked this week’s episode. It was a switch from the usual psycho-madman-killer. Instead, the perp this week was a desperate man at his wit’s end making a play to save his family. And it all goes horribly wrong for him. The clue to his identity is locked in the mind of an autistic boy, which is why the BAU is on the case in the first place. Had to laugh at Reid explaining that he’s never played the piano before but “it’s all just math,” and at the new girl’s reaction to him going on a dweebathon about Doctor Who. “I’m sorry,” she says as she walks away mid-rant. “I’m sorry I asked.” For a change, too, this week, they actually made parts of the location look like where the story was supposed to take place. The ongoing subplot regarding Emily’s past with Interpol is intriguing, too.

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First you’ll need to grep the log file

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Bev Vincent

One (more) great thing about being Canadian: First, libraries buy copies of your books and stock them on their shelves. Then the Public Lending Right Commission pays you, every year, based on a sampling of how many libraries stock your books. I think I found out about this a year or two after The Road to the Dark Tower was published, so I missed out on it at first, but now I’m on the regular annual schedule, and the checks come each February like clockwork. The amount you get paid for a specific book diminishes every five years, but it’s still a nice little bonus. Somewhat more per title than I get for the average pro short story sale.

It’s funny—every time I tweet with the hashtag #NCIS some autoresponder tweets back with one of Gibbs’ rules. Finally this week McGee met a woman who was involved in their case who turned out not to be trying to screw with him. And Tony went above and beyond the call of duty by fixing McGee up with the woman. Will wonders never cease? Though the finale was a little bit hokey, it was nonetheless amusing. McGee is talking Gibbs through a booby-trapped landscape much like a video game. When Gibbs reaches the computer at the end, the countdown until all the computers at the Pentagon are wiped clean is almost at zero. “You’re going to have to shut it down using UNIX commands,” McGee says to his boss, the guy who until recently couldn’t retrieve voicemail messages from a cell phone. The world is doomed if Gibbs needs to so much as enter “cd /root” at the keyboard. Instead he pulls out his trusty Glock and performs a system shutdown as only he could. The episode was called “Kill Screen,” and that’s exactly what he did, though I wish TV shows would quit perpetuating the idea that if you shoot out a computer monitor you’re actually harming the CPU.

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Abominable

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Bev Vincent

Received my annual invitation to contribute to the 2012 Stephen King calendar last night. This will be my fourth year participating in this fun little project.

This morning, I made some minor revisions to the story I submitted recently and sent it back in to the editor. Somehow that ended up taking over my entire writing session.

So, we learned last night, in a throw-away line, that Ted and Zoe aren’t destined to last on How I Met Your Mother. Ted met up with some casual acquaintances in the Hong Kong airport in 2021 and told them that his relationship with Zoe ended badly. Too bad.

This was one of the strangest episodes of House I’ve ever seen. His spiraling-out-of-control lies can get him into some of the oddest predicaments. He ended up defending his actions to a couple of pre-teens, including one of the most precocious girls on TV. The patient of the week was almost lost in the camouflage. If he hadn’t literally coughed up a lung, I think I wouldn’t have noticed him at all.

Few things can top a dirty bomb when it comes to creating tension. 24 started off one season with the memorable detonation of one, though that season went quickly downhill after that, if I recall correctly. When Kate’s radiation exposure meter went off on Castle, at first I thought it was a bomb timer, but the reality was even more scary. (The scientist in me wonders, though, whether you could state with any confidence that Cobalt 60 was responsible for the residual radiation.)

The episode’s cold opening was quite effective, and the following shot of the stripped taxi looked positively apocalyptic, which was a nice piece of foreshadowing. Early on, Kate was a bit off her usual game, distracted as she was by phone calls or text messages, presumably from Dr. Motorcycle Boy. She was so off that Ryan started presenting his reports to Castle! Rick has learned quite a bit of police procedure. He was the one to crack the number code and he has become proficient with the use of the police computers, using one to track some wire payments all the way back to Afghanistan.

At the storage locker, Kate flips Rick’s fantasy switch by producing a pair of bolt cutters from her bag (“For reason too disturbing to mention, I find that hot”) and they get to spend some quality time together while in quarantine. Kate bares her soul and Rick spots a moment to capitalize on it, only to be interrupted by the worst-timed “all clear” ever. They’re thrown back together again by being kicked off the task force because of Rick’s idea to meet with the Syrian spy. His information, though, leads them straight to the bomb, and they’re locked up once again, only this time it’s in cold storage with a dead body as the van containing the bomb zooms off. Thanks to the preview for next week’s episode, we know that they live.

Nice moments with Alexis, first when he rescues her from the spa weekend with her grandmother (“for getting in touch with my inner self,” Rick’s mother says. “In your case, is that wise?” he retorts) and then again later when he reverses himself to make sure she’s out of the city, earning her most deadly adolescent glares. And, as Nathan Fillion tweeted during the episode, “Ark of the Covenant, Dr. Jones?”

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Swimming with the fishes

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Bev Vincent

I was pleased to hear back from the editor to whom I sent last week’s new short story this morning. Though the anthology in question is not a definite go yet, he liked the story enough to say that he would use it if it gets the green light. He asked me to clarify a couple of things, but other than that it’s good to go.

It was a productive weekend. Getting that story off the desk frees me up to turn to other matters. Got the taxes finished and filed, too, and made a good start on the essay I agreed to write. On the docket, I have at least one more short story I want to tackle within the next few weeks.

Amazing Race is back with a bunch of losers. They’ve all raced before, but the best any of these teams has managed is second place, and some didn’t make it that far. One team was eliminated because they lost their passports. Others got lost en route to a pit stop or were stymied by a challenge. Things change fast in this game. Eight teams were supposed to have a 90-minute head start over the other three, but their flight from LAX to Sydney, Australia was diverted to Hawaii because another passenger fell ill, which gave the second flight time to catch up and pass them. The underwater challenge was interesting. They made a point of saying that the stingray in the tank with the contestants was as large as a queen-sized bed, and all those sharks…all those teeth. I wonder what the penalty for losing an arm to a shark is. Good to see that Phil is doing one of his personal diaries this time. I always enjoy the behind-the-scenes stuff. He was on the first flight, too, and had to scramble when they landed to get to the pit stop ahead of the first team.

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Unstoppable

Posted on February 20, 2011 by Bev Vincent

After a few more review passes, I submitted the newest short story to the editor. It was a little bit presumptuous, but just a little. This is for an invitation-only anthology and one of the other contributors asked me to pass the guidelines along to someone else. At the same time, this contributor said that the anthology was far from full and that I was welcome to send something in. So, not a direct invitation, but an indirect one. The concept appealed to me, so I wrote this story over the course of the past few weeks and I’m very pleased with the way it turned out. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say. Now it’s time to focus on the essay that’s due in less than a month. My research for it is nearly finished so I can now start to work on the piece itself.

We watched Unstoppable this weekend, the runaway train film starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pine (Star Trek) and Rosario Dawson. Reminded me a bit of the remake of The Taking of Pelham 123 without the crime and with more adrenaline. The trailer made more of the children-in-peril angle than is actually the case. The writers spend enough time with the two main characters to give them some depth. Washington’s character has been laid off and Pine’s wife has a restraining order against him, so they’re both in emotional turmoil, but they put their own issues on hold to become the heroes of the story. Inspired by a true story from a decade ago.

This week’s Grey’s Anatomy was one of the best in recent memory, and that was in large part because it returned its focus on two main aspects of the show: Meredith and medicine. She’s taken a back burner for the most part lately, and I think the show has suffered from it. She’s a charming character when given the chance to shine, and the medical components of the episode were interesting and compelling. One of the most fascinating character arcs of all has been the development of Karev into one of the most compassionate and caring (and skilled) doctors of the bunch.

Another strong episode of Fringe. Walter is becoming increasingly afraid that the universe is falling apart and he doesn’t know what to do about it. After considering all the options, the only solution he can come up with on the spot is the one Walternate arrived at: sealing up the ruptures in amber to prevent vortices from forming. It’s making him rethink his attitude toward his counterpart. Last week we saw that Walternate refused to experiment on children, so they both have their strengths and weaknesses. One isn’t better than the other. When he flipped the coin 10 times and came up with the same result, and then postulated that the people had fallen through the balcony, I immediately thought of the infinite improbability concept behind The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That’s impossible! No, it’s just highly unlikely. In quantum mechanics, protons can tunnel through energy barriers instead of going over them. This concept was demonstrated in one book by saying that, in theory, a vehicle could pass through a garage door and materialize on the other side. Highly, highly unlikely but conceptually possible.

All this angst brought out the worst side of Walter. He became grouchy. “I’m sorry if, at this moment, while the universe is collapsing, I forgot the magic word.” A moment later, he recalled being chided for his lack of manners. “Thank you. Please. Hocus pocus. Whatever you want to hear?” And his frustration rang through loud and clear when he snapped, “Is it  ‘second guess everything I do’ day? Because I wasn’t informed.”

New developments in the Olivia-Peter relationship. It was pure irony that they had to convince a woman to break her connection with an alternate version of a loved one from the other universe, since Olivia would like nothing more than to have Peter stop thinking about Faux-livia. But she seems to be breaking through her fears. Good for them. And Broyles got his moment when he said he was going to have to run the amber protocol up the ladder. “Not the way you imagined meeting the President,” Peter said. “I already know him. He doesn’t like me. I beat him at golf.”

While we were discussing Justified earlier this week, my friend (and When the Night Comes Down editor) Bill Breedlove mentioned how Olyphant’s character in Deadwood had become overshadowed by Ian McShane’s Al Swearengen and wondered if he had the same concerns about Walter Goggins as the somewhat villainous Boyd Crowder. I didn’t understand the reference. When I told Bill I’d never seen Deadwood, he said that was a situation that needed to be rectified, so he lent me the three seasons on DVD. We watched the first few episodes the other night and it’s quite good so far. I can see how Olyphant’s character might have been overwhelmed. So far, he hasn’t done much to distinguish himself except for hanging the horse thief before leaving Montana and shooting the man involved in the murder of the “square heads” heading back to Minnesota. Keith Carradine makes a fine Wild Bill, and I recognize at least two actors who went on to Sons of Anarchy Dayton Callie, who plays Bill’s right-hand man, Charlie Utter, who is the Charming sheriff on SoA, and Robin Weigert, Calamity Jane, who plays SAMCRO’s lawyer. It took me longer to figure out why I knew the doctor, who played Grima Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings. The score in the first few episodes reminds me greatly of the Firefly score. Looking forward to working our way through all 36 episodes.

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Gold in them thar hills

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Bev Vincent

Another editing pass through the work in progress. Trimmed by an additional 200 words. I’ll probably send it out tomorrow.

For a long time I’ve had a story on the short list for consideration for inclusion in Thrillers 3, the next ITW anthology. Found out today that I didn’t make the cut. Oh, well.

The new configuration of Survivor could be interesting. Rob and Russell obviously have big targets on their backs, but they’re also strong, savvy players, so you’d think the other contestants might want to make use of some of their strengths before giving them the heave-ho. Especially since they might come back later to haunt them. Phillip is a real trip. I noticed that the producers put a question mark after his stated profession (former government agent?) as if to say they don’t believe him, either. He made for a lively tribal council, that’s for sure. I thought Kristina made a gutsy move in holding back the immunity idol. It would have been funny if one more vote had gone her way. Next week we get to see how the Redemption Island part of the contest will play out. Will be interesting to see how much of the hour that facet takes up.

I watched the new Criminal Minds spinoff, Suspect Behavior, last night. It wasn’t wretched. However, it also did nothing to distinguish itself from any other procedural, so I don’t know what the point in having it on the air is. Forest Whitaker is always interesting to watch, but even so. The case they handled didn’t seem to require a force any more elite than the normal BAU.

Okay, who cheered when Justin Bieber when down in a hail of gunfire at the end of CSI? It was a strong episode, especially the part with the booby-trapped bomb in the warehouse. A good call-back to the previous Bieber episode, but you’d think the CSIs would have learned about pressure switches and dead bodies when dealing with this guy and his family. The chess match between Ray and Haskell was gripping, though Haskell was overplaying his hand at times. “Who’s the victim, I ask you?” he pleads. Ray’s revelation that he also had the “monster” gene took him by surprise, but he was prepared for any eventuality and no doubt we’ll see him again.

Absolutely no mention of Van Pelt’s engagement on this week’s The Mentalist, which put Lisbon on the disabled list so we could learn more about Hightower (of whom Patrick said, “I didn’t even know you had legs”). Patrick knew she was upset about something and had the water-cooler rumors to reinforce his suspicions, but he should have known better than to tell her to get mad and let it all out because you just knew that was going to come at the most inopportune time and that he’d bear the brunt of it. The old “I was aiming for his head” line felt a little trite. Heard that one before. Truth was, we really didn’t learn much more about her. And, geez, weren’t those the grouchiest prospectors you’ve ever seen? The couple by the stream getting the pitch, they were ornery. And the woman in the store, too. Patrick Jane’s words of wisdom for this week: “You can tell a lot about a place by the quality of the eggs.”

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Heights, snakes and red-headed women

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Bev Vincent

The new short story is at the upper limit in length of what I can review in a normal morning editing/writing session. I made it through the whole thing again today, whittling away about 200 words in the process, so it’s now down to 5400 words/18 pages. Still holding together, so it’s just about ready to send off.

This month’s Storytellers Unplugged essay is a revamped version of one I wrote five years ago: A Taxing Situation. I revised it a fair bit, but the most notable fact that changed between now and 2006 is the price of a postage stamp, which has increased by 5¢.

Ken Jennings wrote a fascinating essay about his experiences competing against Watson on Jeopardy. It has one particularly nice phrase (“This was to be an away game for humanity”) and one hilarious observation: “Watson has lots in common with a top-ranked human Jeopardy! player: It’s very smart, very fast, speaks in an uneven monotone, and has never known the touch of a woman.” Jennings made it a stronger contest in the final day of competition. It was interesting to read about his strategy, essentially mining the board for the daily doubles, knowing that there is some logic to where they are located. As someone who played the game over 70 times, if anyone would get a chance to learn that, he’s the one.

The second episode of Mr. Sunshine wasn’t quite as strong as the first. Allison Janney’s quirkiness is quickly becoming arbitrary. I liked the gag with the guy in the animal suit. I was certain both times that he was going to find someone dead inside it, but they played two different tricks with the same setup. Line of the night: “Larry King is so old he had to retire from sitting in a chair.” Nick Jonas’s character was pretty funny: the rock star (not pop star, mind you) who’s a spoiled brat and knows it, even apologizes for it, but takes no action to change. “I’m a nightmare. I’m sorry it has to be this way.” The bit with Ben reading the set list off the wall was good, too.

Not terribly impressed by this week’s episode of Criminal Minds. The show is getting close to my chopping block. If there was something else on against it, it would be gone for sure. I have the spin-off episode on DVR, but I didn’t hear anything very flattering about it, with the possible exception of a decent performance by Janeane Garofalo.

Another stellar episode of Justified. Smart shows let the secondary characters get in some cracks of their own. It would have been so easy for Raylan to pick the apricot, but why not hand that pleasure off to his colleague? Raylan isn’t the only crack shot in the U.S. Marshals. He may be a fast draw, but Tim already had his weapon out, so that wasn’t an issue. Raylan had already deferred to Tim by telling the prison guard that his partner would hit him in the face if he didn’t shut up. And it was a mutual admiration society: Tim gave Raylan credit for getting the perp to leave his fingerprint on the handcuffs.

I also liked it that we didn’t delve straight back into something with the Bennetts. They kept their toes in the water, and we got a hint that there’s some serious history between them and the Givens clan, but it doesn’t seem to be straight animosity. Raylan’s father seemed defensive of them. A little bit of Mags goes a long way. Added to the list of things a wise person would never want to hear her say: “Do you want some cider?” and “I never had a girl.” And you just know that watch is going to come to light at some point in the future.

Lots of honor and dishonor among crooks. The scene where Raylan and Tim confront the prison guard in front of his wife was excellent. Nice shout out to Elmore Leonard when the pregnant inmate (“Don’t knock foster care. Look where it got me”) says, “My baby shouldn’t have to ride my rap.” More tension between Raylan and Gary (“That’s not a real safe way to approach an armed man”) and some mysterious belly rubbing involving Winona. My favorite line came early on, when Raylan met up with Boyd outside the mine. “I’m not afraid of heights, snakes or red-headed women.”

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Elementary

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Bev Vincent

Acceptance letters make me smile. I received one last night from a relatively new Canadian pro market for a story called “Matthias Comes Home From the War.” More details once all the paperwork is finished.

I also received the page proofs for A Sea of Alone, the poetry collection that contains my first-ever published poem, “24 Hour Psycho.” The book should be out in a couple of months. Did you know that the theme music from Alfred Hitchcock Presents is from a piece called Funeral March for a Marionette? That’s a Jeopardy question that would have stumped me.

Speaking of Jeopardy, I finally got to see the first two episodes of the big Champions vs. Watson contest. The first thing that amused me was the apparent randomness by which Watson selected questions. Most people pick a category and work down the column, jumping over to another category when the questions get too hard. Watson just picks whatever comes into his silicon mind. Trebek’s reaction to his wager on the first Daily Double question ($6435) was funny, too. “I won’t ask.” There was probably a reason for it, but it wasn’t immediately obvious. Seeing Watson’s thought processes was interesting (I had a chance to play around with him on the NY Times web site several weeks ago), and his wrong answers were more instructive than the right ones. The biggest gaffe of all was a total blowout in the category U.S. Cities, where Watson guessed Toronto (with a bunch of question marks thereafter). He was clearly so baffled by the syntax of the question that he plumb forgot the category. I’ll bet there were a bunch of wonks in the audience taking copious notes on that one.

Jennings looked like he was going to blow a gasket, and, to be honest, I don’t blame him. I suspect he knew the answers to a lot of those questions, but he couldn’t ring in. Even though Watson is manually activating a buzzer just like everyone else, his response time has to be much faster than a person’s. Do I know the answer? Yes. Buzz. I’m not sure what the solution to this would have been. Perhaps having a person behind the podium who received a little jolt when Watson wanted to ring in?

This week’s Castle was good but not great. It was a switch to see Castle and Beckett actually fighting and disagrees as opposed to simply bickering. The murder weapon was good for some shock effect, but didn’t play into the storyline at all. It was good to see Alexis contributing to the case by pulling a crucial piece of evidence from the cold case file. The actual culprit of the contemporary killer was a tad arbitrary, but I’m sure life’s like that. There was a nice multiple change with regards to Rick’s old friend, though. And good on Beckett for seeing that Rick was upset and calling his BS when he said he was fine.

Has the NCIS team ever been put in charge of guarding someone and have it go well? Has McGee ever met a woman during a case who wasn’t trying to use him for evil purposes? Has Gibbs ever obeyed a direct order from Vance? I wonder what they have in store for us. For the past few weeks they’ve been rattling swords in a way that implies there might be some big change coming up regarding the team’s composition. This week we had Ziva and McGee’s conversation. McGee would like to have his own team someday. Tony was once offered a team of his own and turned it down (much like Ryker on Star Trek: The Next Generation) but he won’t get to do that a second time.

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Spoilers (not really)

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Bev Vincent

I did my first full editing pass/read-through of the work in progress. As suspected, I introduced a few glitches by time-shifting the story a couple of times. I caught four or five of them on this pass. However, I think the story stands up well, and it is much less wishy washy in this new time frame. I only reduced the word count by 100 on this pass, which is unusual, as I would have expected something more on the order of 500-700 words. Maybe I’m getting better about not putting unnecessary words in the first draft. Or maybe it’s because I’d already revised the first 2/3 of the story a few times while trying to work out the ending. Another few read-throughs and it should be ready to send out.

What a difference a week makes. At 72°, it’s 50 degrees warmer today than it was this time last Wednesday. Fifty. Five zero.

I’m trying hard to avoid Jeopardy spoilers. The program runs at 11:35 p.m. here. Yes, really. After the late, late news. So I haven’t had a chance to watch the experts take on Watson, the IBM computer. I see news headlines about it almost everywhere I look, but I let my eyes glaze over when I see them.

I realized this morning that my total cholesterol level is almost exactly the same as my weight. I’m happy with both of those pieces of data.

A tweet by Olivia Wilde (you know, House, Tron II) led me to the Glitch Mob’s website. They have a two-CD set of remixes of their work that is available for download for a $10 contribution to Haiti reconstruction. I’d never heard them before, but from what I’ve listened to so far, it is ideal (for me at least) writing music.

Segueing from Ms Wilde to last night’s episode of House…the patient of the week had the same “skill” that was featured in a recent segment of 60 Minutes: total recall of every incident in her life. Only a handful of people who have this are known. Among them: Marilu Henner, who used to be on Taxi. As shown on House, it is a form of OCD, and the people interviewed for the news segment admitted to other obsessive behaviors (Henner’s had to do with the way she arranged her shoes). There was a random Lost reference, too, and a Twilight Zone nod as well. (referring to a diabetic cat, House says, “It’s like having your own button on Lost.”)

Things are advancing nicely on How I Met Your Mother with Jennifer Morrison’s Zoe and Ted taking things to the next level. (I’m sensing an overall House theme today.) Could she be the kids’ mother? And will Barney’s new laser-tag date become a regular?

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Where were the awards?

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Bev Vincent

I finally, finally finished the first draft of the WiP yesterday afternoon. It came in at about 5700 words, but that was after a total renovation of the first 2/3 of the story. For the second time I had to play with the chronology because I found myself having to make up excuses for why things were happening the way they were, and that’s never good. I shifted one event back a day and made all the rest happen on a single afternoon, and now it works perfectly. Or so I believe. Sent it off to my first reader and got back a very favorable report. Now I just have to edit it to death, especially looking for inconsistencies that I may have introduced by mucking around with the timeline. Twice.

It was a productive weekend. I finished our taxes. One more review pass and they’ll be ready to go. Got two short stories back into circulation. Renovated a proposal for my agent and got it back to him. Wrote my Storytellers Unplugged essay for Thursday. Now I can concentrate on the essay I need to write.

Had my cholesterol tested last week: down to 164 from 202 this time last year.

I caught up on the first few episodes of season 2 of Law & Order: UK, too. I didn’t realize it was back on, but thanks to OnDemand, I was able to see all but the first one. The older partner, Ronnie, reminds me a lot of my Ph. D. advisor.

Tuned in to the first couple of hours of the Grammy Awards last night. I was misled by the word “awards” into thinking it was supposed to be an award show. During the first eighty minutes, I saw only two statues given out. Got a hearty chuckle out of Cee Lo Green’s performance. The second I saw him, I knew exactly what he was doing: channeling Elton John’s Muppet Show appearance. Kudos to Gwyneth Paltrow for climbing on the piano in those heels, too. Some good performances. Mumford & Sons were a blast to watch, and Muse rocked their song, too. Missed Arcade Fire, but saw an article in the morning paper that Suburbia was inspired by the Houston suburb where I live. Win Butler apparently grew up here.

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