Below are the most recent 21 friends' journal entries.

Saturday, November 7th, 2009
bev_vincent	2:44p	A New Home for the Dead Zone The folks over at Cemetery Dance have done some site re-organization. After installing WordPress, my online column has a new URL. Of course, you can still use NewsFromTheDeadZone.com to get there, too. I watched Hanging Gardens, the third episode of the Rebus series. Not as good as the second, not as bad as the first. Some good, realistic twists. I find it interesting how proximate the criminals and the cops are. Without guns to defend themselves, a lot of the exchanges end up like bar room brawniness and high school smackdowns. So, is Wendy going to get to be a "field mouse" on C.S.I.? Hodges is a funny character. So geeky and pompous but he has his moments of redemption, too, as when he told Wendy he just wanted her to be happy. Usually the acting on the show is at least solid, but I thought Nick's reactions in the final scene when the brother was released from jail were forced and obvious. Mice seemed to be a theme on Thursday night, with Jane using one (Mr. Jingles, is that you?) to effect an escape from the lockup. Of course, he psychoanalyzed everyone in jail with him and solved the murder almost without leaving (like Nero Wolfe, solving his crimes from the brownstone). Getting one of the suspects "brought to him" was funny. Still, I find the show teetering on the balance, trying to decide whether to be serious or comedic. NCIS pulls off the comedy. The Mentalist hasn't figured out the right recipe yet. Finishing up revisions on Chapter Two and plan to send it off to my agent tomorrow. I read quite a bit more of Awaiting Your Reply this morning. The title comes from the end of one of those Nigerian scam e-mails, the one that everyone is familiar with. My husband died and I'll give you millions of dollars if you'll help me get his fortune out of the Ivory Coast. The e-mail itself doesn't play a part in the story, which is about identity--what it means, and what it doesn't mean. You have a university kid whose biological father (who he knew as his uncle until the revelation) contacts him. The kid's pissed that the people who raised him never thought it was important enough to tell him who he really was. After he runs away, he's declared dead. He's working with his father (but is he really his father?) on some elaborate scam involving identity theft. The kid travels around the country under different aliases, making transactions, creating lives for these fabricated identities. Then there's the guy whose twin brother is scizophrenic, who likes to tell him made-up stories about things that supposedly happened when they were kids. So the brother has his original memories of childhood and, imprinted on top of them, the wild fantasies his brother has spun. Confusion ensues. The mentally ill brother has been traveling around the country, adopting different pseudonymns, and fooling people into believing he's a professional this or an expert that. And then there's the young woman who's traveling with her former high school history teacher, a man who probably isn't what he claims to be (what history teacher could afford a $70,000 car?). Speaking of identity, we watched The Burning Plain, with Kim Bassinger and Charlize Theron. The movie was a tad confusing at first, because it's told out of sequence and there are characters who are supposed to be older versions of themselves but it takes a while to unravel who's really who. An interesting film about rejection (Bassinger's husband couldn't make love to her after her breast was removed for cancer treatment) and new love, about children disliking the people they love, about love happening between people who were supposed to hate each other, about punishment gone wrong, and about chances to atone. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 6th, 2009
bev_vincent	10:26a	He never saw it coming One of the best blindsides in the history of Survivor last night. You could just see it in his face as the votes came against him one after another after another. Wiped the smug grin off his face. Two immunity idols gone in one fell swoop -- I wonder if they'll be tossed back into play again. Laura's victory in the immunity challenge was the first event that set it all rolling. Brilliant. Good to see Fringe back after its World Series hiatus. I guess I'd call this one a standalone as it didn't seem to play into the Walter/William mythos, and introduced a bit of otherworldly influence. Neat effects when the actors turned to smoke and crumbled, but I didn't fall for the fake-out with the little girl at the end. A lot of new characters and situations to keep up with on Private Practice, as the practices divide like miosis. I'm glad Amy Brenneman's character has returned from the abyss, and her patient's solution for an awkward problem was unorthodox, to say the least. Annoying guy in a wheelchair -- hasn't that been done before? Oh, yeah--on Judging Amy! I posted my review of Ian Rankin's The Complaints last night and listed the book for $5 on eBay. It's not available stateside yet, so here's a chance to get it early and cheap! A week from today I'll be heading off to Atlanta to Stephen King's Under the Dome signing. It's been quite a few years since I've been in Atlanta, and this will be a quick trip -- arriving on Friday afternoon and leaving before noon on Saturday. Still reading Dan Chaon's Await Your Reply. Not clear yet who the story is going to ultimately be about. The former schoolgirl who has run off to Nebraska with her former teacher or the guy who's up in the Arctic Circle looking for his paranoid delusional twin brother. Or the boy who had his hand cut off (above or below the wrist?). (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 5th, 2009
bev_vincent	2:47p	Cup of Global Domination When I won the Apex Digest Halloween short story contest in 2006 for “Sufficiently Advanced,” I not only won publication of the story at pro rates and an invitation to their next anthology, I also received a ton of booty. For days afterword I got boxes with prizes donated by various sponsors, including signed books, artwork, etc. One of my favorite items was a ceramic mug that bears the same motto as the one in this post: Nothing like a cup of global domination in the morning,” along with the Apex alien logo. Well, the domination continues. Yesterday (while ego surfing, it must be confessed) I discovered that I won this year’s contest, too, for a story called “The Fingernail Test,” which will be published in Spring 2010 in the anthology Close Encounters of the Urban Kind, edited by Jennifer Brozek. The theme of the anthology and the contest was stories where urban legends were revealed to be alien in origin. Since I’ve been writing a lot of crime fiction lately, I decided that a crime story was in order and it apparently worked for the editor. Speaking of Global Domination, I watched the first episode of V last night. It was o-kay, but not great. Enough to keep me hanging around next week, but barely. I pleased to see Alan Tudyk among the cast–and relieved to see from the previews for next week that he’s not gone from the show. Only four episodes before a lengthy hiatus, so it might fall off my radar in 2010 unless they really pull out all the stops. I received my contributor copies of New Love Stories, which contains my story Bed and Breakfast, a romance story with a twist. I haven’t had time to peruse the rest of the stories, but I like the way they photo illustrate the stories. They use the same models to create several different images that accompany the text. There isn’t a huge market for short romance fiction, so I was pleased to find this magazine and thrilled that they accepted my first submission to them. I was amused to discover that last night’s episode of Criminal Minds had the same title as my essay for the 2010 Stephen King Library desk calendar: The Eyes Have It. A similar concept, too–the removal of eyes. Jay Franco, who edited the calendar this year, wrote a lengthy blog item about it. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
stpete [ pzykomunky ]	3:28p	Thursday Nov. 5th!!! (Comment on this)
bev_vincent	10:24a	Dying is easy; comedy is hard Finished another editing pass through Chapter 2 of the novel in progress, adding in all the things I remembered needed adding when I finished yesterday morning’s session. Then I came up with another three- or four-line exchange, which I dutifully wrote down on a sticky note for tomorrow’s session. I see that Simon & Shuster has decided to go the e-Galley route for some publications. Yay! “To use GalleyGrab, media sources must register–a process required only once–to then access a galley using a link provided to them. The link becomes invalid on the book’s publication date.” They’re not phasing out hardcopy galleys; this is just another option. I like. I hear via the Twitter-vine that the next Doctor Who special airs on Sunday, November 15th. I think that’s the same day that The Prisoner starts up on AMC. Then, via the CBC, I read that David Tennant has been cast in a new NBC comedy. He’s going to play a Chicago lawyer who coaches his clients to represent themselves in court in the new NBC sitcom Rex Is Not Your Lawyer. “The comic role has Tennant playing a lawyer so prone to panic attacks he cannot be relied on in the courtroom.” Hmmm. The writers always come up with interesting scenarios for Dexter. This season, he is on the trail of a highly successful serial killer who he both wants to bring to justice (his own particular kind of justice) and study. It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. I watched another of the Rebus shows, Dead Souls. I remember the novel much better than I did Black and Blue, so it was fun to play along. Still don’t think this is the best actor to play Rebus, and the dream sequences were both annoying and irrelevant, but it was a stronger show than the first one. Good episode of NCIS last night, too. Whenever Gibbs’ old boss comes back on the scene, things always pick up, and seeing the guy in the room with his son’s mother-in-law and then later on the beach: funny stuff. I recorded V to watch this evening. I caught a little bit of the original series on SyFy to refresh my memory of it. Boy–I haven’t seen Faye Grant in forever. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
bev_vincent	1:10p	Getting Away With Murder I received my contributor copy of the 2010 SK Library desk calendar yesterday. The image here doesn’t capture the cover’s beauty. It is a hologram with amazing depth. The maze looks like it goes all the way through the book. My contribution is an essay called “The Eyes Have It,” which can be found on the July 5-11 pages. I’m editing and revising Chapter 2 of the novel, tightening it up and dabbling in all the little details that I need to pursue from Chapter 1 and set up for the subsequent chapters. I’ll probably send it off to my agent next week. As you may have noticed, a bunch of us killed Brian Keene yesterday. Brian has assembled all the suspects on his blog. Some of them are laugh out loud hilarious. I was sad to see the poker girls get ousted from The Amazing Race, and even more surprised to hear how much they were despised by the other players already at Elimination Station. Mostly because they lied in the early stages about their profession. Tiffany almost got the bell to ring, but they were, in the end, defeated by their lack of physical strength. I thought they had a wonderful attitude. It was also neat to see how well everyone was getting along at the Dubai airport when the two brothers “came out.” I had to laugh at the dad from Montana who quipped, “I guess now would be the time to tell my son he’s adopted.” One more episode of Mad Men left. It was so funny to see the guy who’s supposed to be monitoring the TV ads get distracted when one of the most momentous events of the 20th century was playing out on the screen right beside him. Looks like it’s down to the wire for Don and Betty — will they reconcile or go their separate ways to their respective paramours? And will the firm be sold yet again? I’ve decided that I would pick John Hamm as my choice for Roland Deschain. I watched Black & Blue, the first episode of the British series based on the Rebus novels of Ian Rankin, last weekend. It wasn’t a terribly strong adaptation, partly because the guy who plays Rebus isn’t quite right for the part. I understand that he was replaced after a few episodes, though I don’t know if it was voluntary or not. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
calvinandhobbes [ eonparabol ]	10:00a	calvin & hobbes emotions Ive just recently lost my calvin and hobbes mood theme and was wondering if there are any recent ones anyone may know about? Thanks a bunch Current Mood: annoyed (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
stpete [ djtomgold ]	8:19p	Click to Listen (Comment on this)
absinthetic	1:22p	The traveler has come! Hi gang. The new batch of my Gozerian Society t-shirts are available for purchase. They come in Men's M, L, X-Large, or XX-Large. Get 'em while they're hot! :) (3 Comments |Comment on this)
bev_vincent	5:17a	The Keg of Knob Creek He delivered the insult casually, as if it were a matter of little import. “I’m writing a story with someone else first,” he wrote in a brief e-mail message. “I think I can slot you in some time in 2011. Surely no later than 2012.” People know me as a calm, placid man, slow to anger, uneager for confrontation, but this . . . this was the final straw. Of course, I gave no sign of my rage at being so casually dismissed by the great Brian Keene. He who had collaborated with so many others in the past. Just about everyone on the planet, in fact, except me. My idea was a good one, a strong one, with real potential, unlike the drivel he had slapped together with those other hacks. I would have my vengeance upon this man, but in a manner in which no one would ever be the wiser. As Montresor pointed out, “A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser.” We continued to exchange friendly e-mails. I kept up my end of our exchange with good humor and a sharp wit. The smilies I embedded in my messages would seem to him like I was in good spirits at our friendly banter. Little did he know that I was grinning at the thought of his demise. I knew his weakness, though, and I would use it to my advantage. I put my expertise in search engine research to good use and soon had all the intelligence I needed to put my plan into effect. It was late one evening at the convention. Keene had been regaling the others—most of them his former and current collaborators—with tales of his prowess as an auteur of some renown. He was even friendly to me and proclaimed that one day he and I, too, would work together on a piece, though his statement sounded patronizing and his smile ungenuine. I returned the smile, equally as artificial, and drew him aside from his circle of fawning acolytes at the earliest convenience. “You’ll never guess what was just delivered to my room,” I said, circling my arm around his shoulder. “A keg of what passes for Knob Creek.” “A keg? Surely not?  Does such a thing even exist?” “So the seller on eBay proclaimed. But I am unsure.” “Impossible,” he said. “I have my doubts, too. I thought I would ask Steve Shrewsbury to confirm it.” “Shrews? No way.” I shrugged. “The crowd in the bar said this his taste for bourbon is a match for yours.” “Never. Knob Creek? I must see this at once,” he said. “Where is your room?” “In the basement,” I said. “The better rooms were reserved for your collaborators.” “We worked together once. Remember Looking Glass? I kept my smile fixed and nodded. A round-robin novella hardly qualified as a collaboration. “Lead the way,” he said, so I guided him to the elevator, which descended slowly into the bowels of the hotel. Keene staggered and lurched beside me as we traversed the long, dank corridor to the very end, toward a room adjacent to the furnace. At one point he seemed on the verge of retching. “Come, let us return to the lobby,” I said. “You look ill. I’ll get Shrews to come in your place.” “Enough,” he said. “A little too much drink will not kill me.” “True,” I replied. “And if this is indeed a keg of barrel proof bourbon, it will cure what ails you.” He withdrew a flask from an inner pocket and took a quick sip to gird him on the way. He did not offer to share it with me. Just as he had not offered seriously a collaboration. Once more I took note of his unsteady bearing and encouraged him to turn back. He laughed and drained the flask. When he finished, he performed a crude gesture. I did not react. He peered at me. “Are you not of the brotherhood of Keene collaborators?” “Ah, yes, of course.” I withdrew a copy of Looking Glass from my pocket. “Our collaboration.” “Indeed,” he said and steadied himself upon his feet. “The keg. Let us proceed.” The basement walls were of bare brick and the floor of cement. The owners of the building had not even deigned to run a rude carpet along its length. As we approached the room, I readied the key. The chamber was dark, dank and spare, without even a window to provide faint illumination. I switched on a lamp. Its weak bulb threw off feeble rays, barely strong enough to push aside the shadows. The room resembled a jail cell. On the floor: the oaken keg, charred and stamped with dates from the twentieth century. I had a tumbler at hand, a cheap plastic object that had once been wrapped in plastic and formerly occupied a place of ignominy, next to my bathroom sink. I held it beneath the tap and twisted. Dark, reddish-amber fluid glistened in the feeble light. I held it up to my nose to savor the aroma, and made as if to drink. “No, pass it here,” he said, greed burning in his eyes. Without even pausing to appreciate the nectar’s essence, he threw back the entire glass in a single draught and then commenced to cough. “Smooth,” he croaked once he regained the power of speech. Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes. It took only a few moments for the tetrodotoxin to kick in. Extracted from the internal organs of numerous puffer fish, the potent neurotoxin had the desired effect. Though lethal in larger doses, a clever chemist such as myself knew the proper proportions to administer. From that point onward, Brian Keene was conscious but completely under my control. His will became subjugated to mine. We would, at last, be true collaborators. I flipped open the cover of my laptop computer, launched Word, and typed in the title of the story that he and I had discussed but which he would never commit to writing. “Zombies on a Plane.” It was a brilliant idea. I guided Keene to the chair. He followed without complaint or struggle. It was poetic justice—the zombie master was my zombie. “Write,” I said, and his hands groped for the keys and began to punch out words. As he worked, I drew a second glass of poisoned bourbon from the keg. In fact, it was nothing more than Old Crow, the cheapest rotgut I could find. After a while I took my turn at the keyboard while Keene stared into space. He mumbled a few words at one point that sounded like “Knob Creek,” but I could not be sure. For the next few hours, we went back and forth in that manner, the words falling into place on the screen like bricks in a wall. At the stroke of midnight I typed, “The End.” “I must go now,” I told him. “Back to the bar. They will be wondering where I went.” I passed him the plastic glass and urged him to empty it, which he did without hesitation. This time he did not even choke or retch. He gasped one final breath before collapsing to the floor. I pushed his slack body under the bed, barely more than a prison cot, and gathered my belongings. It was the work of another hour to return all of the boxes, crates and decrepit furnishings to the storage closet that I had claimed as my guest room. Many of the items had not seen the light of day in years, and I figured it would be many more years before anyone else excavated the room to discover what lay beneath. After I finished, I locked the door and disposed of the key in the furnace. Then I returned to the lobby, carrying beneath my arm the laptop computer that bore the fruits of our labors. Brian Keene’s last collaboration. THE END Notes: With apologies to Edgar Allan Poe. Every time I read “The Cask of Amontillado,” I am awestruck by the story’s impact and power, as well as its brevity. “Brian Keene Must Die” day was inspired by a similar event last year in which Jack Haringa was dispatched all over the internet. We even published a book, the benefits from which went to benefit the Shirley Jackson award. While there probably won’t be a similar book this time around, if you feel like contributing a little to support the award, visit this link. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
words_spoken	12:44p	Out and About Photos I had a lot of errands to run on Friday, and Steve was with me, so we decided to take some of the back roads on our travels so I could take some photos. It was a lovely blue-sky winter day. ( read more and see photos ) (31 Comments |Comment on this)
bev_vincent	12:07p	Tomorrow there will be fiction Halloween seemd to get off to a late start around here. It was well past 6:30 when the first munchkins showed up at the door. Or was it 7:30. I got confused because, industrious soul that I am, I reset all the clocks late in the afternoon and then spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what time it really was. We had a respectable turn out, probably as many as 30 or 35. We group of three made a return visit and I think it was by accident. After I mentioned the fact to them, I heard one call out “Mom” in that three-to-five syllable rendition that teenagers employ when their parents have done something to embarrass them. Another youngster, perhaps three or four years old, was prompted by his mother to say “Thank you.” Hearing the familiar phrase, he immediately looked up and said, “You’re welcome!” The community had held a Halloween extravaganza at one of the local malls the previous night, and the costumes were very impressive. We went to dinner at the Mexican restaurant and sat facing the window as the diorama unfolded before us. There were jugglers and other entertainers working the packed crowd. The juggler was standing atop a 3′ diameter ball as he did his tricks. At one point we saw a youngster take a stab at the ball with his light saber, which was fortunately too blunt to do any damage and he was corralled by his mother before he could dislodge the juggler. We watched The Proposal with Sandra Bullock. It was goofy, light entertainment of the sort we tend to enjoy. Not zany or madcap goofy, just mildly goofy. I thought there were going to be a lot more Canadian jokes, but Bullock’s character’s nationality was only mentioned a couple of times and was never the object of humor. I was disappointed. Despite that lapse in judgment, we enjoyed the film, which had fun performances from Betty White, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson and a guy who played the stripper in the local club, the operator of the electronics shop and the minister for the wedding. I watched the first four or five innings of the ball game last night. Actually, I flipped back and forth between that and Oceans Eleven, but I gave up on both. I was also reading at the same time while handling the trick-or-treaters at the door. Malcolm Fox is the protagonist of Ian Rankin’s new novel, The Complaints. Rankin made several conscious decisions to distance Fox from Inspector Rebus. Fox works for Internal Affairs, which Rebus would never have done. Fox doesn’t drink (any more). He isn’t a music aficionado. He’s younger than Rankin’s other series character. And yet, after a point, it becomes hard not to project Rebus onto Fox. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I suspect it’s not what Rankin was striving for. Yesterday I finished the first pass at Chapter Two of the novel in progress but I plan to expand upon it today. One of the advantages of the end of daylight savings time is that we got up early and have some extra time to work today. I’ve already written the first draft of a 1000-1500 word story that will be posted here tomorrow as part of a LJ-community “event.” So, stay tuned for a number of works of short fiction throughout our corner of the blogosphere. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 30th, 2009
bev_vincent	2:32p	Fall Forward / Spring Back I know, I’m messing with you with the title. Screwing with the mnemonic. I’d forgotten that this was time change weekend here in the U.S. An extra hour to do with whatever you want this weekend. Spend it wisely. We received two automated phone calls from the local emergency measures organization, one warning about possible tornados and the other advising of flash flooding. It rained really hard most of the evening, but we’re not in a flood prone area. One of my coworkers lost two massive trees (and electric power when one of the trees took out a line) and another coworker’s house was struck by lightning and lost some electronics. If the rain had been snow, we’d be in the same situation as the folks in Colorado. At least it’s starting to cool off a little, getting back to more temperate and Halloween-like temps. The networks had fun with Halloween this year, and they spread the love around for all the various tropes. My favorite was Castle, with the vampire theme, but props to C.S.I. for having a murder that created a zombie. The victim was hit so hard on the head that he got up a few hours later, brushed his teeth, made a bowl of cereal, poured himself a cup of coffee and went out into the driveway for the newspaper before he realized he was (all but) dead. The Mentalist went the haunted house route. For the most part, they’ve discarded the Red Jack subplot, with only the occasional concession to Jane’s obsession, but it looks like there might be something about it again next week when Jane follows Charlie’s Angels and just about every other crime show with the “put him in jail” gimmick. Once Survivor gets to the point where one team has been obliterated, it’s almost painful to watch. Hopefully the merge is coming soon, which will revitalize the competition and pit everyone against everyone else. I really thought they were going to get rid of Jason. It might have been a smart move with the merge pending, because this is the point where you want to start picking off the people who are physically strong–or at least should be. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
stpete [ ruslanka_fl ]	12:48p	You are invited to our AUTUMNFEST! (Comment on this)
bev_vincent	11:25a	Cool as a cucumber It’s unseasonably warm today. It was in the high seventies when we went to breakfast this morning and it’s over eighty, now, although it’s also raining. The snow that fell in Colorado is headed our way in the form of heavy rain, adding to our already soggy October. I watched Law & Order: SVU last night, the only original program running against the World Series. One of the better episodes of the season, although that’s faint praise. They always have to degenerate to this stunned look of disbelief among the primaries in the closing moments. I liked Elliot’s “No, I’m fine” response to the FBI agent who asked “Do you need a drive home,” aiming the question at Olivia. Didn’t get any new writing done this morning as I was bogged down in research for the next scene. I felt like I didn’t really get anywhere because of a zero word count, but it’s all work toward the final goal. I also wrote up a little article about the Companion for the company newsletter. I did watch a little bit of the World Series game last night. I got a huge kick out of Cliff Lee’s nonchalant catch of Johnny Damon’s popup. Shrug. No big deal. It was a priceless moment. Vaguely happy that the Phillies won the game, too, though I don’t really have any investment in either team. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
raynewright	6:33p	Recipe for Dinner: Ingredients 1 pound whole-wheat or whole-grain rigatoni or other short cut pasta 1 loaf crusty bread, bakery sliced (baguette or ciabatta) 1 pound crimini mushrooms, wiped clean 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 5 to 6 cloves garlic, peeled 1/4 pound pancetta, a couple thick slices, finely diced 1 1/2 pound chicken thighs, chopped into small bite-sized pieces 1 medium to large onion, chopped 1 carrot, peeled 2 to 3 sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves stripped and finely chopped 1 bay leaf Salt and pepper 1/2 cup Marsala, a couple glugs 1 (28-ounce) can tomatoes (recommended: San Marzano) Couple handfuls fresh baby spinach Few grates nutmeg or a pinch of ground 1/4 cup aged balsamic vinegar Splash heavy cream Grated Parmigiano-Reggiano Handful basil leaves, torn Directions Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add the pasta and cook to al dente, drain and keep warm. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Scatter sliced bread on baking sheet, toast until crisp but not too dry, 6 to 8 minutes. Quarter mushrooms. Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil, 3 turns of the pan, over medium-high heat. Once the mushrooms have started to brown add 3 to 4 large cloves garlic, grated or finely chopped While mushrooms cook, begin chicken ragu. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 turns of the pan, over medium-high heat. Brown the pancetta 3 to 4 minutes then add chicken and brown evenly 5 to 6 minutes. Add the onions to the chicken. Grate the carrot and stir in with the rosemary, bay and a couple of cloves of garlic, grated or finely chopped. Season with salt and pepper and cook until vegetables are soft. Add the Marsala to chicken and vegetables, stir and reduce a minute then add tomatoes and crush with wooden spoon. Simmer a few minutes to thicken and combine flavors. When the mushrooms are tender, season with salt and pepper. Chop the spinach coarsely then stir in to wilt. Add in a few grates of nutmeg, stir in vinegar then a splash of cream. Transfer the mushrooms to a small bowl and serve with toasted bread for topping. Toss the pasta with the chicken ragu and cheese. Garnish with some torn basil and serve immediately. Current Mood: creative (Comment on this)
bev_vincent	3:06p	Repeats Wrote nearly 700 words of the beginning of Chapter 2 this morning. Progress is a little slow at the moment as I attempt to figure out how to dovetail this new beginning into the existing first draft. I’m coming at it from a different direction but I ultimately sort of have to end up at the same place, after a fashion. In essence, I’m going to take the first draft apart and reassemble it in a new way, so that means picking and borrowing text from that old draft from time to time. It’s an interesting process. Received an e-mail rejection letter this morning with an apology for how long it had taken the editor to respond. Seven whole days–imagine that! When you have stories that have been dangling in the wind for nearly seven months, a week seems like ultra-speedy response time. I turned the story around and found it a new potential home. What’s with all the repeats on CBS this week? Monday night comedies: all reruns. NCIS — the #1 rated program on television: reruns. Tonight: ditto. I can see tonight, with the World Series starting up, but what was the deal with the other nights? At least tomorrow is back to original material for CSI and other shows. Not having a great deal of time to read, but I’m working further into The Complaints by Ian Rankin. I reached the point where Fox realizes that the cop he’s investigating as a potential pedophile is investigating him for potential involvement in his sister’s boyfriend’s homicide. Awkward? I posted my review of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson. If you haven’t read the first two books, and especially if you haven’t read the second book, you should probably avoid the review for the time being. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)
absinthetic	9:34a	Quick Robin, to the DaFoemobile! - ABC was going to skyright large "V"s over national landmarks such as Fenway Park, Statue of Liberty, and the Santa Monica pier. Yeah, because you know what people in large cities LOVE these days? Seeing planes release colored gas over national landmarks. They SAY they scrapped the plan because a Washington Post reported estimated the amount of pollution that it would cause, and Disney had apparently promised to cut its fuel emissions in half by 2012. - Willem DaFoe could've played Bruce Wayne in Tim Burton's Batman?! That would've been awesome and awful. "Oh look, it's millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne!" "Hello, ladies." "AHH, OH GOD! WHAT'S WRONG WITH HIS MOUTH?!" (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
words_spoken	10:08p	Wildlife in my yard! I was doing dishes and watching the birds at the feeder, when Sedona went nutso at the back door. I thought it was the neighbor's dog at first (he's an escape artist), and then saw what caused her to freak out: ( back here ) (29 Comments |Comment on this)
bev_vincent	11:31a	There are no cows in space I’m getting back to the novel after being distracted by other things. I did another intensive pass through Chapter 1 this morning, taking my agent’s comments into consideration, and now I’m ready to charge forward with Chapter 2. At this rate, I should be done in a year! I hope to pick up the pace considerably. I finalized a grant application  last night. A big crap shoot, only slightly more probable than winning the lottery, but nothing ventured, nothing granted. We’re within 2″ of getting back on track for our annual rainfall. Statistics — love ‘em! Currently reading: The Complaints by Ian Rankin. It’s his new crime novel, the one that doesn’t feature Inspector Rebus. The title refers to the name of the police division that is the British analog to Internal Affairs. The cops who police the cops. Okay, geeky moment on Castle this week in the opening moments when Nathan Fillion appears in his Captain Mal gear, complete with guitar allusions to Firefly in the soundtrack. His daughter shoots him down. After he says he’s dressed like a space cowboy she responds: “First, there are no cows in space. And second: didn’t you wear that five years ago?” Though filled with the usual tropes of a Halloween episode of a crime show (vampires and werewolves, oh my), the mystery was as satisfying as always. This show has legs, in my opinion. “I’m giving you the bird,” Castle says have he gets punk’d by Beckett, handing over his Edgar Allan Poe raven prop. When Deb reached for the bottle of pain killers on Dexter this week I thought: oh, no. Another show about a character getting addicted to Vicodin. I should have known better. Instead, they went in exactly the opposite direction with it. Is it just me, or does the guy who plays the Captain (??) look an awful lot like the guy who plays Harry Morgan? I liked Dexter’s “confession” to Deb. The ending was quite a surprise, too. Strong season thus far. Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, October 26th, 2009
bev_vincent	11:17a	Who are you supposed to be? Spent the weekend in Galveston attending my wife’s 30th high school reunion. I tagged along and enjoyed the wonderful weather. Went to a couple of the events, but I knew no one so I was able to duck out and let her enjoy catching up again with her old school friends. We stayed on the harborfront, near the cruise terminal and the Strand. The weather was terrific. I had lunch on a patio on Saturday afternoon and enjoyed some live music playing in the square, which was part of the Galveston gay pride event. The band was quite good. I think they were the backup for American Idol’s Kady Malloy, who was also scheduled to be there, along with pop star Tiffany. I didn’t stick around for that. Today, by contrast, we are getting torrential rain, with amounts of 1-5″ likely. I think we’ve already had at least an inch or two come down. It got very, very dark around 8:00 and then it poured. We could actually catch up with our annual rainfall if all goes according to schedule. It’s been a wet October after a droughtlike 2009. It was Halloween on Mad Men this week, and Don Draper had his mask ripped off. Betty finally confronted him with her knowledge of the contents of his drawer and, surprise of surprises, she actually had most of the pieces put together already. However, she made him spill the beans, and it was a gut-wrenching scene, the tension of which was heightened by the viewer’s knowledge that his current paramour was sitting outside in the car and could show up at the door at any moment to really mess things up. Nicely done, all around. It’s hard to say how this is going to play out. The subject line today was uttered by a man giving out treats to the Draper children. He correctly identified their disguises, then looked up at Don and said this. Nice. Keeping with the Halloween theme, this is an amusing essay on how the “holiday” plays in France, written by Peter (A Year in Provence) Mayle. I finished Heat Wave by Richard Castle this weekend. It’s the tie-in novel to the ABC series Castle starring Nathan Fillion. Light and breezy, with about as much substance as a Robert B. Parker novel. Not a bad book, and perhaps better than I anticipated. Here’s my review. Look for Fillion in a familiar disguise on tonight’s episode. The Harlem Globetrotter contestants showed a mean streak on The Amazing Race last night. Facing elimination, they tormented and taunted poor Mika, who was already terrified about going down the six story water slide, to the point where she had to step aside and let them go ahead. The poker players made their best showing yet, coming in second. I was impressed with Tiffany’s rowing skills. She handled that dinghy better than most of the men, some of whom propelled the boat doing the backstroke! Originally published at Bev Vincent. You can comment here or there. (Comment on this)