Life lessons remembered this morning:

• English breakfast tea is no substitute for a good cup o' joe (note to self: buy coffee).
  
  
• The time you set aside to answer reader e-mail is always exactly the same time Hotmail will decide not to let you in.
  
  
• Don't stress too much over writer's block, because the ideas will come back to you eventually, and will often bring friends. And then surprise you by throwing parties in your head at early hours in the morning, waking you and assuring that you can't go back to sleep until you've written them down somewhere.
  
  
• A cat in heat is quite possibly the most annoying thing that there is, period (note to self: call vet tomorrow re: spaying).
  

I enjoyed Red Dragon more than I thought I would. I was pleasantly surprised at how closely it followed the book. Ed Norton was a nice surprise. I never would have pictured him as Wil Graham, but he convinced me. Ralph Feinnes was spot on as the Tooth Fairy. Harvey Keitell's (sp?) Jack Crawford bugged me, though. Too bad they couldn't have gotten Scott Glenn back for that role. But they did have the same actors playing Chilton and Barney, which made for good continuity. I actually think that, for this turn, I like Brian Cox's Lecter a wee bit better than Anthony Hopkins's. I'm sure somewhere that's considered blasphemy, but there you have it. Not that watching Sir Hopkins wasn't a good time. At any rate, not as good as Silence of the Lambs, but much, MUCH better than Hannibal. And preferable to Manhunter if you're a stickler for staying as faithful as possible to the source material.