the assistant gives you a wink and you turn bright red

A few things this morning while I sip my coffee:

I can't really disclose any details, but I have two awesome gigs that are entirely agreed to in principle, and are just waiting for the lawyers to do their lawyer-fu on the contracts. For one of them, I had to watch a bunch of movies. It was really weird to sit on the couch and watch movies, and tell myfamily that I was working. It was even harder to convince myself. No, really. Anyway, I can encourage you all to watch Syriana, and V for Vendetta. The film version of V cuts a lot of stuff from the graphic novel, and what I always thought was the fundamental message of the novel is substantially changed, but it's still a good movie. It's certainly not the worst adaptation of Alan Moore's work, an award which will forever be hung around the neck of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Speaking of things called V, remember that mini-series from the 80s? Has anyone watched that recently? I'm interested to know if it holds up. I mean, the regular series sucked balls, but I recall being totally into the mini-series.

I'm nearly done with Good Omens, and looking forward to starting The Android's Dream, in my not-enough free time.

Speaking of my not-enough free time, Guitar Hero 2, Destroy All Humans 2, and GTA: Vice City Stories are all sitting here, mocking my not-enough free time. Awesome.

I got out my 4th edition of GURPS recently, and now the kids are bugging me to do a space / horror campaign for them. (I have the out of print Horror sourcebook, which is just damn fun to read, even if you're not planning on actually playing it.) Before last week, I hadn't picked up GURPS in any meaningful way since I was in high school, and reading through the newest edition was a nostalgia-filled trip back to some happy times. I'm sure I'll incur the wrath of a few geeks with this next statement, but: if I had to pick between d20 and GURPS, I'd take GURPS. It's simpler and easier to learn, with much less complicated combat and character-building rules.I'm done with Lost. It's all about the MacGuffin now, and I've already done Twin Peaks once, thankyouverymuch. I'll probably watch the rest of this season when it comes out on DVD, and if I'm home with nothing else to do, I'll probably tune in, but it's no longer appointment television for me. Luckily, Heroes has taken its place.

I already posted this to Netscape, but it's so damn cool, I thought I'd mention this here, too: Google Earth has these new overlays that let you look at historical maps and see what old cartographers thought the Earth looked like way back in the old days, including an 1814 Lewis and Clark map spanning the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi. Totally. Awesome.

I've been spammed ten times since I started writing this. Dear spammers: please fuck off. (Make that eleven. Please fuck off and die in a fire.)

The poker tournaments were pretty fun last night. I got super bad beat out of the main tourney (I jammed with AK, goaded Q4o into calling . . . and then lost to a flopped four when my flush draw didn't get there) but I finished second in the second place tourney, and even made a good run at first, despite starting heads up play at a 3-1 chip disadvantage. The happy funtimes are recapped at Card Squad.

Finally, a lot of people have asked about the podcast, like if and when there will be another one. The podcasts started out as a fun thing to do, but quickly became way too time consuming and creatively taxing to produce. I'd really like to do it again, and even produce it regularly, but right now, it's just not worth the investment. If I can get some sort of sponsorship thing or figure out some other way to make the time and energy involved help support my family (and my college-bound kid) then I can justify it, and produce a new one every week.

Okay, now I'm off to do one of those cool work things that I can't really talk about. More later . . .