Book work continues apace. On schedule, but I have to double the output next week. It’s a little different, this one; I have that wild sense of creative freedom one gets when  -

Well, no. Wouldn’t be prudent to explain my reasons. In a year or more, perhaps.

The reading at Gnat’s school went well; the kids were reasonably attentive. I read “Skippyjon Jones,” a Gnat-selected tale of a cat who thinks he’s a dog. A Chihuahua dog, to be specific. He imagines an adventure in Mehico in which he speaks in a Spanish accent, and meets other Mexican dogs who hail him as the great hero who will save them from El Guapo, more or less. I glanced at the book before I drove to the school, and realized it would require many diverse Spanish accents, from Zorro to Cheech Marin to the Frito Bandito. Well, I can fake a good rrrrolled “r,” so  this shouldn’t be a problem. And it wasn’t. Tough room, though: there’s always a few boys in the back dreaming of Batman, a few blank-faces in the front row, and a dozen or so customers enduring your act because they’ve been told to sit down and be nice. Like any other audience, I suppose. Afterwards I read “If You Give A Mouse a Cookie,” which they’d all read before, so we made it an interactive event – the kids shouted out their favorite lines. I think someone in the back shouted “FREEBIRD!” but I may have been mistaken.

Aside from that, work work work. And four calls to DirecTV. The TiVo seized up, and I had to nuke & pave the drive. (Didn’t work.) Eventually I got a high-level technician who gave me a secret code for the phone connection - ,#034 – and that did the trick. Sigh. It’s like going to the doctor: “Doc, I’m coughin’ up blood. Big thick chunky quarts every morning.”

“Well, let’s look at your feet, then.”

In all fairness, they listened carefully to my diagnoses and didn’t waste my time with suggestions like “is the TV turned on, and not facing into the wall?” But it took three calls to get bumped up to a DVR technician, and once I had reached that rarified level it was like landing in America after a year in a country where no one spoke English.

But that’s a very boring subject and I’ve said enough about that over the years. It works now, and I’m almost glad all the shows are gone. It’s a weight off my shoulders.

I missed “Lost,” though. I still like it. Takes a lot to turn me against a show for good. This MSNBC article nails it exactly: relax  and enjoy it, for heaven’s sake. Note the first comment from the requisite griefer. I have a fantasy in which the vast resources of MSNBC are deployed - the griefer's ISP is nailed down, his home location revealed, and a helicopter with a million-candlepower light illuminates his house as the network van screeches up to his door. A reporter thrusts a mike in his face: we just read what you posted, and frankly, we're intrigued? Care to expand?

Even though I’m a bit downhearted about “24” this season, I still greet each episode with anticipation. Could be great! And that would be neat! I also realize that it feels a bit off because I’m not watching it the way I used to, i.e., one or two episodes every night. It really does make a difference. Also, this is the first time the President seems truly unPresidential. David Palmer: Presidential. That one guy who bought it on the plane, but did a lot of manly walking and talking on the phone before it happened: Presidential. Charles Logan: mean, weak, vain, enamored of power and his place in history: muy Presidential. But President Palmer II is completely out of his depth, and there’s nothing in the plot so far to suggest that the story’s built around that sad  & obvious fact. But I’ll still watch every episode, and enjoy. 

Cartoons the world has forgotten, for good reason:

(via Brew.) Superkatt! He’s a cat in a diaper. One of those cartoons I enjoy mostly for the backgrounds – those streamlined 40s kitchen door handles get me right here. (pounding fist on sternum.) And as long as we’re on the subject of animation, say hello to Purple and Brown:

Complete archive here. Dumb, sweet, and charming. I have a low tolerance for high-art deadly-clever short films, but these hit the spot. For me, anyway. It's an Aardman project, and while I’m sure it’s already well known to that privileged slice of the internet that always seems to know things before you do, it hasn’t broken out to the total mass audience yet. (He says, desperately hoping he’s one inch ahead of the Wave of Cool which will inevitably crest and crash and render the link obvious in about 17 hours, probably.) It’s also via Cartoon Brew, and I have to second their remarks: recent Aardman stuff has been labored.  Frankly, I’ve felt that way ever since “A Close Shave,” which strained for effect in a way “The Wrong Trousers” never did. I loved “Chicken Run,”  but the Wallace and Gromit movie fatigued me. Please! Do less! Calm down your clay! Haven’t even seen “Flushed Away” yet, which tells you something. But these shorts? Spot on, at least the ones I’ve seen. It’s the small details that give the Aardman products their charm, not the giant Rube-Goldberg set pieces. One of the DVDs has a set of Christmas-themed station idents for BBC2, and this one always makes me laugh. The Number Two manages to bother Gromit in every episode; he puts up with it, the way you’d put up with a housemate’s new girlfriend. It’s the hands. It’s the way his hands flutter in impotent panic:

In a 6 second spot, it’s the sort of thing that makes you watch the bit over and over again; in a 90 minute feature, it’s lost, or unnoticed, or noted and forgotten. Add the music and the crown and the comfy warm holiday feeling, and there’s more emotion – wry and sincere – in these ten seconds than the entire 90 minute movie. We’ll never chase a were-rabbit. But this? It could happen.

I apologize for leaning on YouTube to fill up a Bleat, but as I noted with regret yesterday, it’s the Book Month. On the bright side: it’s a short month. And tomorrow’s Diner, Bog help me, is almost an hour in length. As for tomorrow’s Bleat?

2,173 words.

I just made that up. Let’s see if I can deliver. Possibly so! I have a lunch with a Magazine Editor. Tales of meat and intrigue to follow. New Quirk, of course. Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.