Journal

Friday, March 11, 2005

On Board the USS "Your Product's Name Here"...?

Outside my house the snow falls like something from the kind of film where they just ran out of fake snow and have just gone over to throwing white feathers in front of a wind machine, the wind howls like an asthmatic banshee, and some people just knocked at the door trying to sell me insurance.

On the good side, I just cancelled my DirecWay satellite link and put in a DSL line, so even though it's snowing up a blizzard, I still have the internet. (Previously, the satellite would go out whenever it seriously rained or snowed.)

It's only March, and I'm already trying to figure out where 2005 went. I just got offered a wonderful opportunity to make several cool films, only now I have to work out where the time to do it could possibly come from...

I wish I could Buy Time -- just write a cheque, and a few days later a brown cardboard box would arrive at the door containing three months (along with an extra bonus sunny weekend for being a good customer).

Ah well.

A question on the Anansi Boys cruise ship auction - are you going to be keeping veto power over the name? As in, if someone wins and goes for the "USS Fucko Bazoo" will it be that way forevermore? Not that I'll be doing so, it's already past my meager means. Just curious since the eBay description offered no such restrictions and I thought you might want to spell that out for the benefit of potential bidders before it's over. C. A. Bridges

(Hmm. The auction's only been up for 5 hours and it's already over $1,000. Good lord.)

I think we can burn that bridge when we come to it. I suppose it's remotely possible that there may be some millionaire with Tourette's Syndrome who reads my books and supports the first amendment and desperately wants to call the ship the er, Fucko Bazoo (a phrase that currently has 215 google listings, I was just surprised to learn) enough to outbid all comers, just as it's remotely possible that someone at Miramax or Lamy Pens or TeaDirect Tea may decide that this is a heaven-sent opportunity for cheap product placement, and it'll suddenly become the USS Latest Lindsay Lohan Movie or the SS TIVO RULES. But I sort of doubt it'll happen like that.

We have a week to go until we'll all know, anyway.