It hurts to type! I trimmed the finger nail on my right index finger too close and then I worked in the garden without gloves and it got infected and now it hurts every time I touch it! No really! I do 93% of my typing with my right index finger!

Okay, I admit it. I've been avoiding this blog. I'm not sure why, really. I mean, it's not for a lack of subject matter. I think I've just got my hands full with too many projects right now, and sitting down and concentrating on one thing for ten minutes is damn near impossible above all the screaming.

Okay, there's not that much screaming, but if I asked everyone in my immediate family to let loose about whatever it is that's bothering them right now, we would blow the roof off this place and send the chimney into orbit. Mrs. Ditchman and I were sitting next to each other on the couch last night, which is what we routinely do from 9-9:30, and it occurred to us that it was the first time we'd done that in a week or so. We fell out of the routine! That's the way things go around this time of year. I'd let off some steam and tell you about all the March/April events we have in our household, but again: I want to save the chimney.

Apple released a new iPod today, for those of you that get pumped up about such things. It's very, very small, and has nearly the same capacity as the first iPod I got back in 2002, which was the size of your full wallet before you emptied the cash out to buy it. Now they're the size of the earbuds themselves, which makes one wonder why we need all that dangling wire anyway. I'm sure it's on the horizon. They're already putting video cameras in prosthetic eyes, you know.

Speaking of filmmakers, Mystery Man On Film had a sweet post the other day, if you caught it. This will bore everyone tremendously -so click on something else now- but evidently patient Hollywood spies have uncovered the transcripts of the story meetings between Lucas, Spielberg, and Kasdan as they were putting together the original Raiders of the Lost Ark and its resulting franchise. Intense scrutiny of the documents reveal that Lucas is actually a creative genius, Spielberg is the one with the mind on the shot list, and Kasdan systematically put all the wild ideas together and made the thing work brilliantly, just as I had always hoped and supposed. I downloaded the PDF of the whole thing and am looking forward to reading it when I get the time (retirement).

It's significant because Spielberg is notorious for not doing director commentaries on his DVDs and Lucas has a mean penchant for marketing. So the big question: were they stolen or were they leaked? Answer: LEAKED. Everyone and his mother-in-law would be getting legal C&D notices if the thing was stolen, and Lucas has always done something shrewd to keep his products alive in the marketplace every nine months or so, even though his movies are 25-30 years old. So I'm a cynic, but I still think it's cool.

Mystery Man On Film has a great write-up on it, though. Couldn't have said it better myself. And no, Mystery Man On Film is not me, unfortunately.



~