In the bright light of morning, my previous entry on Aaron Spelling doesn’t look like one of my better pieces, does it? I have to admit, I was forcing it. The ending especially… as if I could really sit through an episode of T.J. Hooker, even just to ogle one of my youthful lust objects. Right. No, the truth is that, while I’ve watched plenty of Spelling-produced shows over the years and felt like the man’s death warranted some comment, I honestly don’t have any deep fondness for any of his work. To extend that cheeseburger metaphor just a bit more, Spelling’s shows are more like the McDonald’s end of the cheeseburger spectrum than the huge, juicy, home-made, Jimmy Buffett “Cheeseburger in Paradise” end. They fill the hole when you’re hungry, but when you really think about it, they don’t even taste all that good. They were just there. Shows like Charlie’s Angels and 90210 were just there, a familiar and inescapable part of the pop-cultural landscape, enjoyed but not treasured. Televisual Big Macs.

Moving on to other subjects that I actually know how to discuss, I just want to point out that I’ve added a couple of new links over there in the sidebar, both related to that LibraryThing Web site I told you about a couple days ago. Under “Obligatory Narcissism,” you’ll find a link that’ll take you my personal catalog — currently consisting of 102 entries with God-only-knows-how-many to go — while the LibraryThing link under “Miscellaneous Coolness” will take you to the site’s home page so you can set up your own account. If anyone reading this does set up an account and wants to share it here, just let me know and I’ll post the link.

And finally, I noted a few days back that my photo gallery was going to be wonky for a little while in the wake of the server change. If anyone cares, here’s what’s happening: an upgraded version of the gallery software has been installed, which created a whole new directory in which to store my pictures. In other words, I’ve currently got two galleries, the old and the new. I’ve ported over all the stuff from the old gallery and am currently making sure everything ended up in the right folder, that all the captions and descriptions are there, that sort of thing. Also, as long as I’m puttering around, I’ve been uploading several all-new albums, which takes forever over my crappy dial-up connection. Long story short: I should have the new gallery up and running in a few more days. In the meantime, if you have a hankerin’ to see what yours truly looks like, I believe the link over there in the sidebar will still take you to the old gallery.

Back later…