First, the reading:

I'm reading "The Warded Man" again, and it is every bit as good as the first five times I read it.

This past month I revisited the Dark Tower series (and I think the end of the last book is about as perfect as it gets) and "The Dark Half", "Needful Things", and have started Stephen King's new collection of short stories, "Just After Sunset".

I am happy to say I enjoyed the revisiting of old friends, and I must admit to a small amount of satisfaction in seeing some of King's mistakes this time around in "The Dark Half" and "Needful Things". Of course, it says a lot for his amazing talent with story to say I never saw these mistakes before in several rounds of reading.

The first story in "Just After Sunset" I liked, although the storyline itself has been around and around, King's take on it was enjoyable. It's his characters, you see. He is an absolute master when it comes to characterization, to the point I believe I would recognize any one of his characters on the street should we happen to meet.

It's amazing.

Now, the writing:

I've been hip-deep in a writing project, non-fiction, that has not gone smoothly. A lot more research and material than was first indicated, but I made a commitment and I intend to keep it.

All other writing remains in stasis.

A friend of mine has written a fine piece about an interview with Stewart Copeland, the drummer of the Police. He has just released a memoir, and the interview itself is short but amazingly revealing. It will appear on WordWebbing this week, and I'm very honored and grateful.

As for the tube:

Of course I'm hooked on all the dancing shows, but there are two other shows I particularly like and I think are worth mentioning here.

Castle -- starring my uber-tv crush, Nathan Fillion, it's a crime series about a writer following a detective on whom he's based his best-selling book series. The books actually exist and are written by Richard Castle; recently released is "Heat Wave". This book is next on my wish list. Not only is this a fascinating and brilliant marketing strategy, the show itself is funny, witty, and Fillion manages to interject subtle references to "Firefly", my favorite TV series ever. Such as dressing up as Malcolm Reynolds for Halloween. Hysterical. I've noticed quite a few cast members of "Firefly" have been hired by ABC -- such as Gina Torres who appears on "Flash Forward" (more below) and Morena Baccarin, who will be appearing on the new show, "V". Good call on ABC's part.

Flash Forward: An interesting premise and mysterious much like I understand "Lost" to have been. At exactly the same time, the entire earth's population was rendered unconscious for exactly 137 seconds. Planes fell out of the sky, automobiles crash, there is pandemonium and loss. Most of the people who experienced this phenomenon also experienced "visions" of a future time, featuring the same date. Now, a special unit of the FBI is trying to piece together events to ascertain what caused the event ,what it means, and if it will happen again while everyone tries to cope with the visions they've had of their future, some of which are quite disturbing. Those who had no visions of this date -- well, it could be because they were asleep at the time, or it could be because they die.

So far, I like it. I never did watch "Lost", but I'll admit ABC hooked me with this one.

I'm looking forward to catching "V". I remember the original series, and I'm not sure if this one is based on that or not, but anything with a "Firefly" cast member in it is worth a watch, for me.