A Hodge Podge of Nuthin Much at All

I read today that Sean Combs aka Puff Daddy aka Puffy aka P. Diddy now wants to be called Diddy. The "P" is too confusing and takes too long to say. Thanks imdb.com. You keep me so up to date on the stuff that matters most.

But what I really wanted to gripe about computers, blasted computers.

I listen to all my music through the computer. We don't even have a stereo in the house.

If I want baseball scores and league standings at midnight, I don't have to wait for the morning paper. And so on and so on. They're great, but I hate them.

The other morning, Melissa informed me our eight month old computer crashed. The only message on the screen was one telling us to put the start-up disc in and reformat everything.

I wasn't too concerned at first. I can restore my music easily enough. I didn't have a lot of documents saved on the computer anyway. But, I woke up at 5 o'clock this morning and realized I lost all of my Brown Derby caricatures.

Last summer when Melissa and I first started talking about ditching apartment life for a mortgage, I had a grand vision of a dining room based on the old Brown Derby restaurants. I scanned old caricatures of the Hollywood stars that graced the Brown Derby's walls in the 40's and 50's. I mentally envisioned how I would place them on the wall, just like at the Derby.

Melissa vetoed that idea so fast it made my head spin. So on the computer they stayed.

Until yesterday.

Good news. I just found out that Scott Turow has a new book coming out later this year.

Turow is probably my favorite fiction writer of all time. When I was in high school, I spent a lot of time at the Paperback Swap Shop. I'd take my mom's old paperbacks and swap them for hardbacks I still have in my collection. I normally don't read fiction. To this day, it takes a really good fiction writer to keep me interested; although I do read a lot of historical fiction. Anyway, I came across Turow's Presumed Innocent and took a chance on it.

That book had me spellbound. It was just more than a suspenseful plot chalk full of legalisms, court room drama, and good dialogue; it was his mastery of words, of descriptions so clear the image just jumped off the pages.

Plus, I thought I was so cool when the book later became a movie starring Harrison Ford. I like the arrogant but non-chalant response, "Yeah, I already read the book" when asked if you've seen a particular movie.