smacky and bucky

When you exit the elevator in my building at work, there is a small seating area. On the table is a selection of our most recent books. Last week I noticed that one of the books I put out, my newest, was gone. Different groups have conferences on our floor, so many people come through. I put out another copy on Friday, and this morning I noticed that the book I set out Friday is the only one gone. (A group used our conference room over the weekend.) I hope sales figures confirm the status of my book as "Most likely to tempt you to steal it."

Why does a Danish artist draw a cartoon and an American embassy get burned? We get blamed for things we don't even do. There's plenty of reasons to be mad at us, but we didn't draw that. Also, a person died in the protests of this cartoon. DIED. If I saw a cartoon of Jesus doing something freaky, I wouldn't die to protest it. (All right, I wouldn't protest it at all. I'd probably mutter "Hmmm, that's gonna piss off some Christians," and turn the page. Actually, I doubt I'd even see it, since I don't read the opinion column in the paper. Or even buy a paper. Shrug.)

Set your Tivo, set your clocks, get to a TV this Friday at 8pm. Yep, it's true. Fox is burning off their remaining episodes of Arrested Development on February 10 with a 2-hour marathon. At least they're showing them. Lots of Fox shows come out on DVD with text on the box saying, "Includes [5, 8, 12] never aired episodes!" Because Fox has an itchy trigger finger. Sad to say that Skating with the Stars probably gets five times the audience of Arrested Development. Sigh. (And yep, I recycled this from a comment in Lauren's blog. So what? "I'm Danny Tanniger, caddy manager. Yeah that rhymes, wanna fight about it?")

I think I forgot to mention this, but it's official: My new DVD player will play anything from anywhere. I ordered the PAL version of Flash Gordon from amazon.co.uk. It's the deluxe version in a tin case, with two commentaries: one from the director, and one from Brian Blessed, who is an absolute hoot to listen to, as he has genuine affection for the movie, the cast, and everything about it. He even says his trademark line from the movie: "Gordon's ALIVE?!?" Cost including overseas shipping was $16. Rock on. Now I can order DVDs from anywhere, with no fear about compatibility issues.