/ 
Whew. Here’s the deal: school keeps me busy as it is. To really stay on top of everything it takes a lot of time. Add to this my commute, domestic responsibilities, and my non-school Spanish program, I’m a busy beaver.
In order to have “free” time, I need to pretty much work around the clock. My social calendar is really one of weighing the fun with balancing the workload. With World Fantasy coming up this weekend, that wipes out all of next Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, meaning this weekend’s highlight was ordering in pizza and watching about an hour of “100 Scariest Moments in Movie History” on Bravo. The good news is that I’ve been productive enough to feel comfortable leaving town.
“Miss Pavlichenko” has grown to 12K words and is easily the longest single story I’ve ever written. I thought that one of my earliest stories (entitled “The Buffalo Skinner” featuring the same basic plot as the Woodie Guthrie song) was 11K words, but I was wrong—it was only 8K. “Miss Pavlichenko” isn’t even done yet; she’s got at least another 800-1K words.
In the end, the story will break into two roughly equal parts: Lyudmila’s experiences during the war, and her experiences afterwards. As I mentioned earlier, this story needs a lot of work, but what first draft doesn’t?
Go Pack Go! They’re certainly showing that they can consistently beat the worst teams in the NFL, which means they’re not on the absolute bottom rung. Good news.
Go Badgers! I’m glad I sold the tickets for this one and listened to it as I studied, as it would have probably given me a heart attack. The upside is that the Badgers survived a very serious gut check after spotting Illinois three touchdowns in the first half. They roared back in the second and eeked out the win. 8-1? For this team? Never thought it would happen, even with the cush schedule.
I watched parts of Liverpool’s dismantling of Aston Villa and three top notch goals, including the beautiful movement and passing of the third one. Why can’t ‘Pool play like that every week? I saw Rooney’s treble on a highlights show and he’s as good as he is ugly. If Man Ure can paste a stingy side like Bolton, maybe they are legit title contenders. Happily, the Ars* drew with Everton and that keeps them out of the upper echelon. Spurs contrived to draw 0-0 with Watford in a game they could have easily won—or just as easily lost.
The Chicago Fire capitulated to the New England Revolution on Saturday night, bowing out of the play-offs at the first hurdle. When the Fire plays well, they’re quite good. However, in the few times I’ve watched them this season, when they go off the boil they’re frustratingly average. They didn’t deserve to win against New England even though they probably should have held on.
And finally, Robinho scored a beaut for Real Madrid in their comeback win on Saturday. La Liga looks like it will be positively tasty this season. Too bad I don’t have more time to watch…
Current Mood: Tired | 
5 Comments
I couldn’t believe that Wisconsin was at risk to lose to Illinois at Camp Randall Stadium — the badgers finally sucked it up and took charge. Not surprised that my alma mater, Northwestern, got beat up by Michigan — especially after setting a new NCAA Division I record for futility by blowing something like a 35 point lead against MSU the week before. Geesh. Wasn’t surprised with MSU turning around losing this week.
But what’s with the Chicago Bears? Who is Coach Lovey Smith and what has he done with my Bears? 41-0 against SF in the first half? 7-0 on the season? I guess the Colts are 7-0, too, but Payton Manning nonchalantly brings them back for a last minute win week after week — not quite the same performance.
Very odd this game of football.
Dr. Phil
“100 Scariest Moments in Movie History� on Bravo.
I was watching that the other night too. I consider myself fairly knowledgable about horror movies, but hadn’t heard of like half those titles. It made me want to go on a renting/buying spree of horror flicks.
But then I remembered I don’t have long periods of time to waste on watching horror movies or to do whatever like I did in undergrad. Not to mention the selection in the local blockbuster up here is pitiful.
Eric — that’s why Netflix is good, as long as you aren’t into instant gratification, i.e. the slight mail delay.
They certainly reran the 100 Horror Films a lot this weekend, and I watched more bits than I thought I would. Interesting mix of ones I knew — and as Eric said, a bunch that flew in out of the blue.
American Movie Classics, which isn’t exactly showing classics so much anymore (grin), was running Hellraiser in their rotation. It is interesting to note how much of the gore factor is now routinely shown on TV, whereas Hellraiser would never have been broadcast “in the old days.”
Happy Halloween to you too until next year…
Dr. Phil
It was a pretty good show, though I balked at “Saw” and “Hostel” being in the top three. C’mon. But yes, lots of movies that I’d never heard of, which is a good thing.
And we don’t talk about certain teams on this blog, Phil…
Having spent 7-1/2 years in the U.P. where the “local” NFL team was the Green Bay Packers, I’ll happily watch the Pack if they can play football. Otherwise, if the Bears shit in Lake Forest…
Dr. Phil