Weekend Update

Honey I Shrunk the Grey Lady. You know how your grandmother seems to get about an inch shorter with every passing year? Well, the New York Times is doing it all at once: less than a month after increasing its price, the Times reduces its size, resulting in “somewhat fewer words per page.” In a related story, as of Monday the New York Times website will only open in a minimized window.

Finally, a third movie in a trilogy that’s worth seeing. I caught the 10 AM Saturday morning show of Bourne Ultimatum at the AMC Lincoln Square and it was so good I didn’t even mind the fact that Julia Stiles was in it. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more crowded theatre for a 10 AM show. (That includes the opening Saturday 9:30 AM Harry Potter show in the same theatre.)

Take that, stupid Roman mystery novel. I spent most of the last two weeks rewriting the second chapter of Three Dead Slaves, until finally on Friday night I took all the printouts of all the various drafts and tore them up into tiny confetti-like pieces. Then I started writing Chapter 3 as if it was Chapter 2, which went like a dream. The new Chapter 3 still needs a little work, Chapter 4 is pretty much done, and if I can finish a draft of Chapter 5 this week, then Book One will pretty much be complete.

Plays too smart for Broadway. I’m slowly working on getting my MySpace page up and running; when I do, I’m going to investigate ways of linking to scripts and such. Look for a link on the blog (and vice versa).