I’m Channelling Larry King Dept.

Never register a domain with networksolutions.com. Twice as expensive as everyone and very frustrating to deal with . . . I now route all of my incoming email through Spamcop.net for $30/year. They do a great job of stripping out spam with automated filters. Been using it for about a month and it’s working wonderfully. Consider this an unsolicited and enthusiastic testimonial. . . . Greg and I have written far too much material for UA2 and aren’t done yet. Either the page count & cover price go up or we have to cut a lot of stuff. Dunno which yet. Publishing is a tough business . . . Went to a semi-formal roast last night for a friend, and it was excellent, raunchy and full of potshots at everyone present, the way roasts oughta be. The crowd was mostly comedy actors, and they were charmingly savage to each other . . . Had dinner with Aaron Vanek, director of The Yellow Sign (which I scripted), who was in town briefly. Still not done with the final cut of the film, owing to computer-graphic effects and sound mixing. It’s a volunteer project, so he can’t really crack the whip that effectively–the people working on it have other responsibilities and so forth. But they’re in the home stretch. Hard to believe he shot this two years ago. What a never-ending story . . . I was hoping to get Dispatches switched to the new software this weekend but it didn’t happen, so still no comments . . . So frazzled from work and social commitments that I hid in a restaurant this morning for a couple hours just reading a book and avoiding everyone. It’s The Street of Crocodiles, one of two books by Bruno Schulz I received for my birthday (thanks Pete and Thom!). Read the first three chapters and they’re just beautiful, stunning and poetical in their imagery. I could see the scenes so clearly. I haven’t read writing like this in a while and I’d forgotten what it’s like . . . Feeling weary and beaten-up these days, at the same time that I’m nonetheless having fun. It’s just my schedule that’s been so punishing lately. I need to do a better job of saying no to invites from friends, hard as that is, because I just feel like I’m running up walls all the time . . . Off to watch a film for review, and another tomorrow morning–I’m seeing Panic Room, the new David Fincher film, which I’ve been looking forward to . . . Worry not, I promise not to write like Larry King again.