Adjustment Team

Last night was pretty uneventful. I read a Philip K. Dick short story called "Paycheck" about a man who has just finished a two year contract with a company. However the contract has a strange clause in which the man has to agree to having the previous two years wiped from his memory. Also, instead of a paycheck, he discovers that he has sent himself a bizarre collection of random objects such as ticket stubs, a length of wire, a bit of cloth and half a poker chip. All of which turn out to be unexpectedly useful when he finds himself hounded by the police who are investigating the company. It was a good story, which was turned into a film in 2003 directed by John Woo and starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman. Dick stated that the story was about how there are times when small and seemingly unimportant objects can sometimes be worth far more than might be apparent.

This morning I read another short story from Philip K. Dick called "Adjustment Team" which was about a normal man who, due to a mistake, finds himself arriving at his office at the same time that it is being operated on by a sinister organisation who re-write reality itself. It's being made into an upcoming film called The Adjustment Bureau starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt.

One thing you could never accuse Philip K. Dick of was laziness, in his 53 years he wrote approximately 121 short stories and published 44 novels. Nine of his works have already been adapted as films and there are about five more on the way.

Today has been fairly quiet. I've not been out at all. I was getting a DVD down from the top of my shelves and about twenty of them fell down on the floor, so that was kind of an emergency, but despite some minor damage to the packaging of one or two, they seemed to be okay. I had an "American platter" for lunch which I got yesterday, it consists of potato skins filled with cheese and bacon, sticky barbecue chicken pieces, pork ribs, mushrooms in breadcrumbs and a pot of garlic and mayonnaise sauce, so that was really nice.