My Copious Free Time: A new movie? Like in the theater? Razor, I'm sure, can attest to the effects of children on one's currency with the cinema. In fact, while on vacation I purchased Jarmusch's Night on Earth for my wife (that's Mrs. Enobarbus). We'd seen it, but it's a favorite that we've wanted to watch again, and the videotape was going for the price of a rental. Anyhow, it's still sealed in plastic a week later. I did, of course, get to see Monsters, Inc. (The other thing about having kids -- you watch their movies.) It was cute, and my son has taken to imitating the nasally, sneering Roz.

On the literary front, I'm coming to the end of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman and the Mountain of Light, which I started weeks ago (my lips move when I read -- sue me). It is, as Razor indicated, bawdy good fun, full of accurately told 19th century history from the viewpoint of the eponymous British junior officer Harry Flashman, whose cowardice appears to be matched only by his libido.

Not so long ago, the Razor and I collaborated on a rather, er, stream-of-consciousness short story (of sorts) detailing the adventures of a variety of drunken ex-intel types doing their best to cut a quick fortune out of their shady contacts in drugs, gun-running, and the fig market. If I may be so bold, I think I see, in retrospect, a certain amount of Fraser in Razor's style.