Things to Do, Books to Read

Things I intend to do, once I get more free time or figure out a way to somehow double the number of hours in a day:

• take more photographs

• post the photographs I've taken that are currently rotting away in iPhoto

• find a decent photo printer to print said photographs

• get myself a Bluetooth headset and start messing around with Skype

• scan the piles of DVDs and books scattered around my house into Delicious Library

• plow my way through the ever-growing stack of New Yorker and Business 2.0 back issues

• whip this site into at least halfway-presentable shape

• finally, for once and for all, finish Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Foucalt's Pendulum, House of Leaves, and The Fatal Shore

• sleep

Man. Myth. Legend.

I often get asked--

(actually, to be honest, I don't think I've EVER been asked)

--where the name "The Foreign Embassy" comes from. And now, it's confession time: I nicked it. I heard it from a friend, thought it sounded cool, and ended up buying the domain name, lo those many years ago.

And from whose brain did "The Foreign Embassy" spring, you may ask? (Well, you probably won't.)

Why, none other than that dark, twisted mind of Theo "Thunder Bolt" Sena, whose glamorous self-portrait I've posted below, fulfilling a promise made lo those many years (well, a couple of months) ago.

Yes, ladies, he IS available!

And yes, ladies, he does have more than half a face.

Random Bits

Yes, there's a great deal I've been wanting to talk about here. There's a new Harry Potter trailer, and a teaser for THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE. I saw Moby last night at the Wiltern. Been thoroughly sucked in by the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA on SciFi. And I've been very impressed, as of late, with shows such as BATTLESTAR and filmmakers such as Peter Jackson taking full advantage of the Internet to provide such a terrific amount of content on the development and production of their respective enterprises, using what seems to be generally dismissed as a distribution method for movie trailers and taking it to a whole 'nother level, giving us a penetrating view into the process of creation. It's cool stuff. Oh, and I've been spending much of what free time I have watching FIREFLY on DVD, as I'm currently obsessing with the new FIREFLY movie, SERENITY (I upgraded to Quicktime Pro just to get the high-def movie trailer, the lower version of which my top-of-the-line iMac G5 can just barely play). "Objects in Space" is one of the best single episodes of television I've seen; I'm in awe.

I wish I had more time to go into any or all of the above at length. But, there's breakfast to eat, a movie to see, and writing to be done. Maybe later!