Writing, LOST, Ice and Fire, Christmas Music, etc

The good news: I’m currently 900 words ahead of my desired writing pace for the month. The bad news: I’ve offically reached the end of the outline I’ve been working from for the past few months. Everything between now and the end of the novel is basically a 50,000-word black hole. I literally do not know what happens next. Exciting but scary.

LOST will return in January. Just 70 days to go! I wish I could get excited for it, but I just can’t muster the enthusiasm yet.

This has been a great week for Boston sports, and tomorrow it gets better with Thursday night football at Foxborro! Something to look forward to.

HBO has greenlighted (greenlit?) a pilot for a TV version of George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” fantasy novels. If done right, this could reach Lord of the Rings levels of awesomeness.

It’s ironic that How I Met Your Mother is finally getting good ratings just as its quality seems to be taking a nosedive.

Driving home from work yesterday I discovered that two radio stations in the metro Boston area have already gone all-Christmas. I can’t take two months of “Little Saint Nick.”

Speaking of Christmas, Amazon now has a nifty feature that allows you to add stuff from any other website to your Amazon wish list. Penny came up with that idea like three years ago. If only we knew the right people, we coulda been rich!

I have fallen asleep on the couch watching each of the last four episodes of Fringe. How’s that for a ringing endorsement?

Fox is moving Terminator and Dollhouse to Friday nights this winter. Bye bye, Terminator and Dollhouse. We hardly knew ye.

Fall TV preview (belated)

Returning shows I’ll be watching this fall:

• The Amazing Race. Always entertaining, often exhilerating, it’s head and shoulders better than any other reality TV show.
• Bones. The funniest crime drama on television! (Joss Whedon alumni show # 1)
• Chuck. This one really picked up steam near the end of its strike-shortened freshman season. Season two already has a full 22-episode order, and I’m expecting good things. (Joss Whedon alumni show # 2)
• Dirty Sexy Money. Frivolous rainy day DVR stuff. Love it.
• Eli Stone. One of the quirkiest, character-driven legal dramas I’ve ever seen. An absolute joy.
• How I Met Your Mother. The season opener was a little weaker than past episodes, but I still have faith. (Joss Whedon alumni show # 3)
• The Office. The most perfect, painfully hilarious show on television.
• Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles. Just keeps getting better. (Joss Whedon alumni show # 4)

New shows I’ll give a shot:

• Worst Week. Reviews are good. We’ll see.
• Fringe. Three episodes in, I like it, though it’s the least awesome J.J. Abrams show so far. 
• Crusoe. This show gets exactly one episode to convince me it won’t be terrible.

Mid-season debut/returns:

• Dollhouse. Joss Whedon alumni show # 5!
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Jeff Goldblum on a police procedural. Could be interesting.
• LOST. Will probably DVR the whole season and watch all at once.