Now Would Be A Good Time: I find myself not totally swamped at the moment, which is a strange feeling. I only have two writing projects going - in the short term, my previously mentioned analysis of the Award Winning HBO Original Programming that I will post here, and in the long term, my third novel, tentatively titled Misspent Youth. (And no, it's not an autobiography, thanks for asking.) A Pleasure Doing Business With You is currently out on exclusive, so I'm not even sending any more queries at the moment.

So I'm taking the opportunity to refinance my home and get enough extra moolah out of it to buy a new car. I intend to buy it on the Web. I know full well that I could probably save a few hundred dollars if I allowed myself to actually have contact with an auto salesman, but I don't care. I used to be a car salesman. I worked at a Mazda/VW/Saab dealer for about a week. The absolute worst week of my life. Auto salesmen make Enron execs look absolutely saintly. They lie completely unselfconsciously and often as a matter of policy. If you want to get anything out of these people you gotta cont on at least a full day for haggling and keep your guard up the whole time. Then, even if you come to an agreement, you may as well write off another day when you go in to pick up your car, because your salesman will be with another customer and so what if you wait, they already got your money. In fact, the only thing worse than the way salesman treat their customers is the way the salesman are treated by their managers - which is why it was the worst week of my life.

Anyway, I would like to see auto dealers and auto salesman go the way of discount stockbrokers: put out of business by technology. So I'm going to do my part. I know of AutoByTel, anyone had experience with any others? Let me know.

Of course, I'll pass along a full account of the entire experience.

More Than Books: A few days ago, I had a minor tantrum about Southfield Cable Channel 15 airing their interview with me and failing to tell me about it.

Nancy K. at the Southfield Public Library got wind of it and took it upon herself to see that a tape was sent off to me right away. It arrived yesterday, and I have to say they did a TERRIFFIC job. So much of what comes across on community access cable looks like it was filmed someone's garage, and features some blurry guy droning monotonously about zoning laws and garbage pick-up. But the folks behind More Than Books did a sharp, professional job.

Now, I firmly believe that I have never taken a good picture in my life. Every picture I have ever seen of me has a definite air of dorkiness to it, so I was a bit apprehensive about what I would look like on screen. Well, I must say, I looked pretty good. A pleasant surprise.

The interview segment of the show lasted about 15 minutes or so. I would guess they used about half the material they shot, but they got the good stuff, including a fair number of shots of the book cover (which is important). They managed to dredge up a picture of me from my high school yearbook, which explains why I fear having my picture taken. I think I actually shuddered when I saw it.

They also worked in a fun montage of Ben Stein when I related the anecdote about him reading the screenplay version of Apple Pie.

My delivery is a bit low-key, but at least I didn't mumble and I managed to keep down the number of "uh"s, and I don't think I had any "you know"s or "it's like"s.

All in all, a great job by the More Than Books crew and a big THANK YOU to Nancy K. and everyone at the Southfield Public Library for their hard work.

Now I have to see about getting it digitized.