Over the weekend we had more nice summery weather which we took full advantage of! More sun, less rain, I say.

On Saturday after I got the car serviced, we went to see The Village. I didn't think it was half as bad as the critics made it out to be. As long as you weren't expecting a hardcore horror movie and you didn't read too many spoilers, you'd be more likely to enjoy it (as we did). As is usual for an M. Night Shyamalan movie, this one contains a twist or three, and there are plenty of surprises in store. The Village is certainly worth a look if you're in the mood for a decent yarn :)

On Sunday we played 18-holes of miniature golf at one of the few such establishments in the vicinity that we hadn't yet been to, followed by hiking in a nearby forest preserve. This time we came equipped with a DEET bug-spray and didn't get eaten alive as we sometimes do in such places. It was nice to catch plenty of sunshine and some fresh air rather than being cooped-up inside the apartment all weekend.

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On Saturday I was all set to order a new 40Gb iPod from Amazon.com, when they decided to list it as unavailable! I was most disappointed, especially since I couldn't take advantage of their $50 gift certificate offer. Lo and behold, I check again tonight and see that they've got the 40Gb for sale again (except the GC offer is no longer in effect). They've dropped the price by $20, making it the cheapest place to buy a new 40Gb iPod. I placed my order, so now I'll just have to wait a month or thereabouts while the orders slowly get fulfilled. It would've been nice if the Audible.com $100 off an iPod offer applied to this particular model, since I'm seriously thinking about signing up for one of their audio book plans. It'd certainly make my 140 mile daily commute more bearable!

On a related note, I finally finished transferring 197 CDs worth of music to the computer in 224kbps (higher quality) AAC format. That still won't even half-fill a 40Gb iPod, so there'd be plenty of space leftover for audio books and more music. Funnily enough I've also been buying more CDs lately. I'd rather have top quality music from CD than the low bitrate DRM-encumbered stuff available at the online music stores ;)

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On the writing front, over the weekend I wrote some more critiques and finally managed to finish off some painful editing on a story I wrote last year. When I wrote it I thought it didn't turn out too badly, but now it looks decidedly less polished. It's still a few thousand words too long, and there's still quite a bit of groan-worthy dialogue and clunky prose to fix, so I'll probably need to do at least one more editing pass (or a total rewrite!) before I'd feel comfortable letting the crit group comment on it. . . But before I do that, I've got to polish up another piece and send it out before a certain anthology submission deadline passes. Such is life...

Oh, and if you happen to see a flock of winged monkeys flying in formation in a northerly direction (set to the strains of Flight of the Valkyries), you'll know that I've somehow managed to conjure a miracle: a new story!