September 12, 2000

amn Dick Francis anyway! Doesn't he know I need to sleep at night? Had a long night, as you might deduce. First off, after work I drove to a CompUSA which is about 1/2 an hour away from the office, to look at all their DVDs. Apparently, there is a unannounced sale going on, and most single and double DVDs are selling for $15.88. Now, this turns out to be a pretty damn good deal, especially on the double disc sets like "The Abyss, Special Edition", which normally sells for about $30. For that matter, it isn't a terrible thing for discs that sell for $20 (and what is the difference between disc and disk? When should I use one, and not the other?). So, after getting a couple of discs there, I stopped by Borders to pick up a magazine.

Now, I'm not much of a big magazine reader, beyond the obligatory (well, for me they are) Autoweek and Road & Track (need to get a subscription to Fine Homebuilding!). However, on the Digital Bits web page, they mentioned that this new magazine had a DVD in it, which included "Troops". For those of you not familiar with "Troops", it is a spoof of Cops, using people in Star Wars Storm Troopers uniforms. Most funny, and I really wanted to have a copy on disc, rather than an mpeg movie of it taking up space on my hard drive. So, I walk in to Borders to get one, and there, right as I walk in the door, is a display of Dick Francis' new book, Shattered.

I've been a fan of Dick Francis for a long time. He used to be the Queen's jockey (yes, that queen) and after retirment, took up writing. He writes about what he knows about... horse racing, and the environs of horse racing. While early on, most of his protagonists were jockeys of some sort (current, retired, injured, etc), he moved on to people around the sport (artists, weather people, special investigators) but his books retain a common thread around racing. I've seen some reviewers comments indicating they think he's a hack, since he does put out a new book every year, and from far away, lots of his heroes are similar (single man, not many friends, finds love, solves the mystery), but there is just something about his writing that captures me. I've never been sure if it was a reaction to my fascination with things british, or that I really think he's a great writer (well, that's going a bit far... he captures my attention, and I care about his protagonists), but I've always enjoyed a good read of a Francis novel. If you enjoy mysteries, and horse racing of any type, they're a good few hours of diversion.

However, those few hours came at the wrong time (no, I didn't finish the book). So, I finally got home from the store, and sat down at my computer to answer some email, and then put on the football game to be in the background while I made cookies (nope, not enough shortening, it will have to wait till later), so I sat down and watched a bit of the game, and messed around with my mail. Suddenly (gasp!) I realized that Bubba had taped the Champ Car race for me, so I popped that in to watch. About 2 hours later, after a power outage that presaged a coming storm (I always thought the storm was supposed to come before the power outage!), I finally got to bed, and started reading. By now, it's around 2AM...and I'm tired. I got about 1/3 of the way through the book before being defeated, and going to sleep. I've got to finish it tonight (along with hooking my satellite back up, and looking at some of the new DVDs I bought). Too much stuff, not enough time.

Gryph... the phrase you used..."that I dance certain patterns with, who come in and burn brightly for long stretches of time then fade out again, only to return for one reason or another" really strikes home with me. I often reflect on friendships, lasting and passing. It is unfortunate that there are ones that pass, for reasons of "dancing", but I share your opinions.