Been a busy few days. I had magazine articles due (still have two to do), then a human resources newsletter yesterday. Here in a minute I have to send a press release about my upcoming signing (see below), and I’m sure there’s some HWA or Horror World something or other I need to do. Actually, I know I have a couple of Horror World interviews to work on. My point being that I haven’t worked on any fiction since finishing Little Graveyard on the Prairie.

Jacob has pretty much completely recovered from his touch of pneumonia. The cough is mostly gone; all that’s left is a runny nose and an intense desire not to return to pre-kindergarter or daycare.

I finally got another box from Scrybe Press the other day. It had the rest of the copies of Murdered by Human Wolves I asked for. So, I’ll have plenty of copies at my Dec. 16 (3 p.m.) signing at Full Circle Books (50 Penn Place, OKC).

We watched Superman Returns last night. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz  I never did like Superman. There’s no suspense there. No dark side. I’m much more of a Batman person, I guess. Although I’ve never cared too much for superheroes at all. Anyhoo, this movie blew chunks. BORing! And predictable. And the resolution to the problem. Oh, hell, SPOILER ALERT ************ One minute just touching the new island made him weak as a kitten. Then he’s ripping the island off the sea bed and carrying it into space? WTF? Plus, him being able to save so many people in different areas as the earthquake was shaking Metropolis … sure, that’d happen. The scene where he’s been blasted with that huge Gatling gun … that’s why Superman has always been a bore. You’d think the impact of the bullets would at least impede his forward progress. And what? He has steel eyes? Puh-leeze!  At least Lois Lane was hot.

Here’s where I admit that the only Christopher Reeve Superman movie I watched all the way through was No. 3, and that was only for Richard Pryor. I have no idea what the plot of the movie was. I only remember Pryor’s character figuring out the fraction of a penny scam. The first Reeve Superman bored me so much I could never finish it.

I finished a great book the other day. Kim Paffenroth’s Gospel of the Living Dead. It’s a study of George A. Romero’s zombie movies, looking at the theology of the films, and comparing them to Dante’s The Divine Comedy. It was a fascinating read, even if he did include that crappy Dawn of the Dead remake. If the book ever goes into a second printing, I’ve earned a mention in the footnotes for pointing out a piece of symbolism that was overlooked. That’s kinda cool. Anyway, if you like Romero’s zombie movies, the book is well worth your time. Kim told me he’s just sold his first zombie novel to Permuted Press, so that’s something else to watch for.

Speaking of books, my efforts to make Christmas shopping easy on my parents went haywire yet again this year. I told them I wanted the books of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstoking Tales, except The Last of the Mohicans, which I already have. I figured, Cooper is one of the great American authors, his books are available in various editons from different publishers at different prices … no problem. Ha! My parents live in Enid. The nimrod at the mall bookstore told Mom to go to Hasting’s. At Hasting’s Mom encountered a lazy bitch who said all Cooper’s books were out of print. Yeah. Mark Twain and John Steinbeck are probably out of print, too. The mall store (I think it’s a Waldenbooks) and Hasting’s are the only options in Enid. And that’s two more options than the town had when I was growing up; when I was a kid my parents would have to go to the town’s only office supply store and have them special order books for me. And this was Wilson Rawls, Ursula K. LeGuin and even J.R.R. Tolkien. Pathetic!