Monday A.M. Musings

• Still haven't seen The Dark Knight or Hellboy II, dammit.

• Picked up the first season of the original Get Smart television series on DVD. This retail version doesn't include the special features of the Time-Life online exclusive edition, but it was cheap (actually, I got it free, after trading in some old discs I no longer wanted). I went through all 30 episodes in about four days. I used to watch the show after school when I was a kid, and it's just as much fun as it was then – maybe more so, since I get all the references and inside jokes now. I also got the 1980 theatrical film, The Nude Bomb, in which Don Adams first reprised the Maxwell Smart role. It's not great – and suffers from the inexplicable absence of Barbara Feldon's Agent 99 – but it has its moments.

Based on the reviews, I'm waiting to check out the new Get Smart movie when it comes out on video. I like Steve Carrell, but a lot of what I've heard about the film and the handling of the characters just sounds wrong to me.

• Also picked up three sci-fi double feature DVDs that were recently released by Warner Brothers as Best Buy exclusives. The were Moon Zero Two and When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, Battle Beneath the Earth and The Ultimate Warrior, and World Without End and Satellite in the Sky. Some of these I had never seen before – and a couple of them I wish I still hadn't – but I'm particularly pleased to finally have When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth on DVD.

I am also glad I finally got to see Moon Zero Two, a "space Western" from England's Hammer Studios. While severely flawed, it was a noble attempt at a scientifically plausible lunar adventure story, and it stars the always-lovely Catherine Schell of Space: 1999. Hell, I even enjoyed the oh-so Sixties "mod" costume designs and lounge music score.

• The third issue of Femme Noir: The Dark City Diaries has been completed and delivered to the publisher, so it should be going to the printers soon. Look for it around the end of the month or the beginning of the next.

• I've been on the Atkin's Diet since sometime in May, and I've lost somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-five pounds so far. Since I ballooned up to over 350 after my surgery a year and a half ago, I still have a long way to go. Still, it's nice to not have to wear sweat pants all the time, and a great many of the persistent aches and pains I had become accustomed to have substantially abated.

The diet is monotonous, I'm impatient with my progress, and I'm suffering from severe carbohydrate cravings – especially for bread and potato chips – but it's working. I just hope I can keep dredging up the willpower to stick with it.