Recently: I've been meaning to respond to Eno's "Lately" post. So here goes.

With regard to the Open Francais, there really haven't been any surprises, except for maybe Davenport willing herself into the Quarters. Quite a show by the "mademoiselle grande". Otherwise things have kept to form, including last year's finalists bowing out relatively early, giving a new no-name European a shot. Too bad Federer and Nadal won't meet in the finals. While past performance is no guarantee of future events, I have to go with the odds and vote for Nadal to be the upstart winner, as the French seems impossible to win twice in a row nowadays. Oh, I was a bit surprised to see Safin get out of the first round even, so his progress up a few rounds was impressive.

"Empire Falls" was a tremendous book, although I did not watch the HBO movie. Despite its excellent cast, movies of books, even when done by HBO, almost always let me down. My memory of the characters is more important than seeing them on a screen. One exception to that rule was "Master and Commander" with Crowe and Bellamy. While the movie was not better than the book(s) on which it was based, it perfectly grabbed the spirit of the books and was jolly well done.

Moving sucks and is enough to drive anyone to drink and smokes. I really, really hate it and hence, do not plan on doing it ever again...until they come to take me away and put me in a nice home where I can drool over my bingo cards. And those lovely sellers who seem sweet as pie when you're walking through their house, as soon as the closing table is in their sights, they become pigs. Uggh. I think squatting is the way to go.