Hamilton Fringe Roundup

As promised, here's a bunch of mini-reviews of the dozen shows Vicki and I attended at this week's Hamilton Fringe (still going on through tomorrow). I'm listing them in the order we saw them, but also including two sets of rankings: [Vicki's] and (mine). For rankings, 1 means "most-liked" and 12 means "least-liked" with everything else falling in between those two extremes.

An Inconvenient Truthiness [8] (8) - This was a one-woman monologue by Sharylyn Johnson on the topic of her love for comedy. She grew up obsessed with Jon Stewart even prior to his arrival on The Daily Show, and eventually added his Comedy Central peer Stephen Colbert to the mix. I found her presentation a bit uneven and its conclusion somewhat jarring, given the buildup toward it. Having said that, though, I liked it quite a bit and it obviously would've finished with a higher ranking but for the strong field it was playing among. This show actually represents the end of the "worth recommending" portion of my list and probably should've been included in my previous post on Ham Fringe.

When Harry Met Harry [5] (7) - A very entertaining one-man act starring Allan Girod from Perth, Australia. Girod's pliable face and willingness to behave ridiculously really make this worthwhile, although I found the material a little less compelling. Basically it's a day in the life of a very tightly-wound "Senior Print Specialist" in a company's print department who gets sent to an Interpersonal Development Session with some of his co-workers. Girod plays both the obsessive Harry and the session's gushing and emotive leader (Rodney?), as well as drawing in a few audience members for some good fun.

Writer's Block [7] (6) - I give this one high marks for effort and for the physicality of its actors, moreso than for acutally pulling off its central concept of four characters (A, B, C and D) in a plot-less limbo who have to derive their own purpose for being there. There are definitely some intriguing ideas presented as well as several impressive stunts, but the writer in me was left a little unsatisfied that it didn't go deeper.

Closing the Door [3] (4) - We both really enjoyed this ensemble piece (by Fringe standards!) about a man still devestated, two years later, by a breakup with a woman who really gave him very little reason to love her to begin with. The acting is good and the writing cleverly moves back and forward through time, providing little clues into the nature of the relationship as the play moves along.

Hear Nuclear Lies [12] (12) - The writeup had intrigued me: Albert Einstein returns from the dead in 2011 to warn us of the dangers of nuclear energy. Unfortunately, that description was by far the best part of this train wreck of a Fringe play. The actor in the lead role neither looked like, sounded like, acted like nor seemed to even know much of anything about Albert Einstein. The material he presented was full of errors, including such easily-avoided flaws as spelling J. Robert Oppenheimer's name wrong! "Einstein" screwed up countless lines, which is all the more impressive as he was reading most of them off a PowerPoint presentation! His foil - a woman representing a nuclear power organization - inexplicably changed sides late in the game, I guess because that's what the script called for then. As I mentioned to someone after this painful exercise in frustration was over, this wasn't just the worst play I've ever seen... it was one of the worst presentations I've ever attended, and that's saying something! We should have known something was amiss when we were the only two paying customers at the Thursday show! Sometimes word of mouth really does work, it seems.

Nicholas Wallace: Mind Reader [9] (9) - I'm not the world's biggest fan of magic / mind reading acts, but I had enjoyed the one I attended last month. This time around, I wasn't quite as engaged by Nick, who seemed to be having a bit of trouble himself, at times. Now, this was on the hottest July 21st in Hamilton's history with the air conditioning not working in the theatre, so he can probably be forgiven somewhat. However, I still wasn't impressed, and - based on her ranking - neither was Vicki.

Book Worm [2] (1) - As you can tell by our rankings, this was a highlight of the week. Singer / songwriter Corin Raymond held us spellbound for an hour as he recounted stories of growing up with his father and learning to love books with a passion few of us ever feel toward anything in our lives! Raymond's a fantastic weaver of tales, and the structure of his material was absolutely flawless. He received a well-deserved standing ovation at the end that went on for a couple minutes, and I think we only stopped because all of us wanted to hear what he had to say (the performers typically break character at the end to thank us and recommend other Fringe shows to us).

ShLong Form Improv [10] (11) - This was another poorly-attended performance and it may've suffered for it, as audience participation is obviously a major part of improv. Still, both of us noticed missed opportunities and cheats aplenty by the four performers, and in the end it really didn't live up to what we've come to expect from that particular artform by now.

Interface [6] (5) - I enjoyed this play as much for what thoughts it prompted in my own brain as for what was actually presented on the stage. The story involves a male member of a future dystopian society somehow coming in contact with a nearly-current-day female scientist who's working to perfect the world's first artificial intelligence. The two form a bond even though each is a bodiless voice to the other, although the woman believes the man is actually her suddenly self-aware AI! I was bothered a little by the conclusion's implications - which I don't think the screenwriter had thoroughly thought through - but mostly was just impressed and entertained by Interface.

Roller Derby Saved My Soul [4] (3) - We very nearly didn't go to see this one. It was former co-worker Peter Janes' recommendation - he'd actually been involved in it in some capacity - that made us scramble on the final day to fit it in. And boy, were we glad we did! Nancy Kenny both wrote and performs solo in a whirlwind portrayal of two sisters, one of them a Buffy / comic book fan and the other her younger, more assertive Roller Derbying sister. Kenny is amazing in both roles and was a joy to watch for 50 minutes. I'd make a point to see anything she appears in after this. Thanks to Mr Janes for making sure we didn't skip Roller Derby!

Dirk Darrow: NCISS [11] (10) - I almost feel bad for not liking this more, as it's at least a bold attempt: a combination magic, mind-reading, film noir detective story with audience participation thrown in! There were definitely some good laughs as Darrow stumbled his way toward solving a 1947 murder that he'd been hired to look into, but it just never quite clicked for either of us.

A Different Woman [1] (2) - You've got to love it when you go out to see a dozen performances over three nights and the last one in the bunch ends up being one of the very best! Talk about finishing on a high note! I was a little worried about this show, going in: 90 minutes long (most Fringe performances are 60 mins or less), covering a true life story from Texas in the 1920s. It had huge potential to be boring as hell, and yet it was riveting from almost the opening minute. Veronica Russell adapted the play from Gertrude Beasley's book, My First Thirty Years, in which the early 20th century former teacher lays bare the hair-raising home life she'd had to endure up to that point. Incest, bestiality and parents who hated each other highlighted the woman's upbringing, and Russell channels her in hypnotic fashion. When the lights dimmed for the final time, I was sitting on the edge of my seat, just hoping Ms. Russell would speak to us for a few moments out of character. And sure enough, she did: revealing that she was up here from New Orleans, telling us how impressed she'd been by Hamilton's festival so far, and absolutely gracious in her appraisal of what Miss Beasley had risked in writing her book (for which she would eventually be institutionalized for the remainder of her life). Definitely one of the shows not to miss!

As you can see, we had a great time at Hamilton Fringe. About our only regret was that her schedule didn't allow our buddy Susan to attend along with us, as that would've no doubt elevated it to even greater heights. Maybe next time!

Five Weeks After Opening, Green Lantern Is Gone From Most Theatres

If Vicki and I wanted to go see Green Lantern tonight, a blockbuster production which opened a mere five weekends ago, we'd have to go out of town to do so. I'm not particularly heartbroken by this news, although I had been entertaining the thought of us completing the Big Event Movies of 2011 ticket by doing so. After all, we've already seen Thor, X-Men: First Class, Super 8 and Captain America: The First Avenger (review to follow) over the past couple of months. I don't expect much from Ryan Reynolds and the rest of the GL crew, but I nevertheless toyed with the idea of at least seeing it on the big screen.

Not gonna happen, though. I guess even popcorn-vendors have standards, after all.

Hamilton Fringe Roundup To Come

We're just back from 3 days and nights in Hamilton, attending a dozen Hamilton Fringe shows in record-breaking high temperatures. Yes, we loved this year's Fringe here in town so much that we decided to go on the road and check out another one! And we may even do more of that in the weeks and months to come.

Later in the weekend I'll be posting mini-reviews for each of the performances we attended, but in case anyone reading this is considering going and wants to know which ones we particularly liked:

A Different Woman
Book Worm
Closing the Door
Interface
Roller Derby Saved My Soul
When Harry Met Harry
Writer's Block

That represents more than half of what we saw, and several of the other ones were quite good, as well. In other words: another great Fringe Festival!!

Praise For Game Over Draft

One of my second round reviewers sent me the following in an e-mail that was posted at 1:32 a.m. this morning (suggesting, possibly, that he stayed up that late in order to finish reading and critiquing the book):

"I just finished reading Game Over. Wow! Brilliant! Excellent! I absolutely loved it! Great writing and storytelling. Congrats!"

And this was from someone who was wonderfully critical of the book's contents as he went through them, providing me with lots of feedback that I'm continuing to incorporate. So that, as they say, is quite gratifying and encouraging!!

At The Intersection Of Music And Economics

Paul Krugman's blog, this morning. Great song, great video, terrible message to be relevant again in 2011! Just how crazy are American politicians right now that they can't understand what a terrible response austerity is to the current situation? It really is just like the 1930s, all over again.

Brace Yourself For San Diego Comic Con 2011

The biggest genre media event of the year kicks off tomorrow night, as the 5 days of madness known as San Diego Comic Con gets underway. Two years ago this week, at SDCC 2009, Marvel (now Disney) Comics broke the Internet in half by announcing that they'd attained the rights to Miracleman, and were returning him to his original Marvelman name. Two years later, we've yet to see them do anything with the character besides reprint some lame 1950s/60s material that nobody seemed the least bit interested in.

I wonder what non-starters will get dropped on us this year? Obviously "the New 52" relaunch from DC Comics will be a main topic at SDCC, as will the Captain America: The First Avenger film that debuts in the middle of the con. I have more to say on both of those topics but just haven't been able to work up the energy to blog about them just yet. Soon, hopefully.

Walking Goal: Week 6 Report

I had hoped to reach the midway mark of my 500 km goal this past week, but things weren't looking good going into the weekend. Hot hot hot days had kept my walks short, and I think I needed almost 24 km over the final 3 days, meaning an average of nearly 8 km/day! Gulp!

Fortunately, Vicki volunteered for a couple walks with me, and then Julie squeezed me in for a woods-walk on Sunday morning before handing Cooper off to us while she headed out of town. All of that added up, and somehow I did it:

251.4 km (50.3% of the way to my end-of-Sep goal!)

As Vicki says, that means I'm 2 weeks ahead of schedule, and should be able to take it a little easier in the heat. Well, we'll see how well that works out...

Super 8 Is Super Meh

It's not all that often that I can't enjoy a popular science fiction/action flick, so when I saw that Super 8 was sitting at "80% fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes, I expected to like it. And, when Tammy said she'd seen it and thought it was good - she, who's not particularly into Sci Fi - I figured it had to be something special.

Imagine my surprise, then, when Vicki and I went out to see it last Tuesday and neither of us thought much of it. I think she endured it better than I did, but even she said she wouldn't be comfortable recommending it to anyone. I thought the story was horribly contrived, most of the characters were unbelievable and unlikable (a bad combination!), and it evoked all of the worst excesses of the 70s movie extravaganzas without delivering any of their charm. There was no real payoff at the end, and the whole thing was just one dreary trainwreck... including a literal one of those, early in the proceedings! A few scenes made me smile or even chuckle, but mostly I was just bored and/or baffled. How did so many people love this thing?

Oh well, at least both Thor and X-Men: First Class were excellent this summer, and I've got high hopes for Captain America: The First Avenger out later this month. I can't quite bring myself to go see Green Lantern considering how awful its reviews have been, but after sitting through Super 8, maybe I should... GL couldn't be that much worse, could it?

The Right Look For Movie Cap

I've been saying to Vicki, over the past week or so, that the cowl they've come up with for Chris Evans to wear in Captain America: The First Avenger just doesn't work for me. It's admittedly always been a little strange looking, even in the comics, but it really comes across as goofy in live action mode. In the various trailers for the film, there have been three different looks for the character once he's got the rest of his costume on:

1. With cowl on
2. With military helmet on
3. With nothing on his head

I actually think # 2 looks best, but also like # 3.

Today, a new poster arrived, and check out the image:


Good choice! I hope they minimize how much of the movie he spends under that stupid cowl!!

Hell, Yes!

I've loved Ed Brubaker's work on Captain America right from his first issue, back in 2005. He's consistently hit exactly the right note, even when he killed the guy off and replaced him with his former sidekick for a couple of years! As far as I've been concerned, Bru could do no wrong where Cap's concerned.

Well, this month sees the launch of a new Captain America series (the old one continues under the new name of Captain America and Bucky, I believe, and is going to be set in World War II). I just finished reading the first issue, with artwork by Steve McNiven (a taste of which you'll see to the left), and somehow Mr Brubaker and his co-creator have raised the bar even higher! This is a high-octane, beautifully-drawn upgrade of an already impressive product! I loved what I just read so much that I'm going to re-read it again in a few days, which I almost never do anymore. It's a great series for anyone to pick up after seeing the Captain America: The First Avenger movie later this month, which is clearly a wise move by Disney Comics.

This has just shot up to the top of my favourites list!

Speaking Of Trailers

OK, so it's probably going to suck, but I still can't help myself: I'm excited about the prospect of finally seeing the prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing (one of my Top 20 favourite films)! It's due out in October and the first trailer for it can be watched here. There are a suspicious number of "same scenes" between this and its 'sequel', which could either be a sign of an endearing devotion to the original or of a disturbing lack of creativity. Probably the latter, unfortunately.

7 Films From 2011 You May Not Have Heard Of

I found this collection of trailers quite interesting, considering that it features 7 films from this year that I'd not even heard of before now. Not all of them appeal to me - I'd say, about half do - but a couple really seemed quite good. I can't help but think Certified Copy is going to be wonderful, since I'm a sucker for Before Sunset/Before Sunrise types of character pieces, of which this seems to be one. The new Woody Allen flick, thankfully not featuring him in the lead role by the looks of it, also piqued my interest.

Which one(s) turned your crank?

Game Over Inches Ever Closer To Completion

I've been doing lots of tweaks to Game Over lately, thanks to great feedback from Julie (who's now 2/3 of the way through it in Editor Mode) and another generous reviewer. It's extremely gratifying to see it continually improve, whether it be unwieldy sentences getting smoothed out, plot holes being filled in or even just the odd word choice being improved upon. I'm feeling very lucky right now to be receiving so much help in refining this first novel of mine into something I think I'm going to be really proud of.

Vicki managed to pre-sell a copy of the (still not-quite-finished) book yesterday when she showed the current version to someone at the dentist's office! She has it on her Kindle and that made showing it off pretty easy, I guess. Reading the first couple of pages was enough to close the deal, apparently, which is definitely a good sign. I'll be soliciting pre-orders on a wider scale shortly, but it's never too early to let me know you'd like to get your very own copy of Game Over as soon as it comes off the printing press (probably in September or October). I expect the price to be $20, by the way. My plan is to also make it available in Kindle format (via Amazon) at the same time, so you'll have that option open to you, as well, in case it's more appealing.

And I'm still working on the cover blurb for the book, so if you haven't left your comments on that post yet, please consider doing so.

Walking Goal: Week 5 Report

Thanks to a couple of visits by Cooper last week, and in spite of some brutally high temperatures and humidity, I was able to put a good number of kilometres behind me as I started my 2nd month of goal-oriented walking. I'm now up to:

206.3 km (or 41.3% of the way to my goal)

I'd love to make it all the way to 50% by the end of this current week, but we'll see. That would definitely require a pretty impressive 6th week which may just be impractical in the kind of weather we're getting right now.

Pool Doggy

So I've wanted to get Cooper into our pool for a swim since we opened it this May. My one concern about that plan revolved around his claws, which are more than long and sharp enough to do some serious damage to our lovely 1-year-old liner. Several weeks ago, when I was out for a walk, I stopped by the local pet store and asked whether they sold any sort of "doggie boots for swimming", since I assumed the current popularity of both canines and pools meant that someone else had probably already solved this problem. I was shown a package of something called Pawz, which are rubber booties for dogs intended to protect their feet from extreme cold, allergic materials or just general damage while they're healing from a foot injury. The packaging didn't specifically mention swimming as a possible use for them, but I figured what the heck!

Julie was skeptical - to say the least! - when I first mentioned the idea to her last month, but when she was over on Friday I finally showed them to her and she transitioned from dubious to intrigued. Today she and I finally had our chance to put them to the test, and...


Isn't his purple footwear simply stunning?! It's what all the cool puppies are swimming in this year, I hear! Much to my surprise, Cooper didn't seem to mind having to put them on all that much but he was very reluctant to jump in, even when both Julie and I were in there, calling him. He eventually needed a little... convincing... but then:


Once he got over his fear of jumping in, he took to it like a trooper! We had to teach him how to go to the ladder so he could rest, as he just wouldn't put his hind legs down in the shallow end. We had him in there with us for the better part of an hour, and all three of us had a great time! It was the perfect way to spend a hot July afternoon, and thanks to Vicki's quick thinking we even have photographic evidence of it!

I like to think of it as just one more reason Cooper loves coming over for a visit...

"Glory Days" Revealed

If you're any kind of a Springsteen fan, then you know the nostalgia-laden song, "Glory Days," and how (as the title suggests) it recalls an earlier, better time in a former baseball player's life. Turns out that song was, in fact, based on someone the Boss had known as a kid, and you can read all about him here.

Fun With Kindle And Facebook

I've got the 2nd draft of Game Over out in a couple of friends' hands, one of whom preferred to review it on Kindle rather than in Word format on his laptop/home computer. No problem, said I, because Vicki is actually on her second pass of it, both of which she's done via Kindle.

However, this friend's plan for providing me feedback from Kindle through Facebook, after setting up a private FB account so that I would be his only friend on it, has run into many problems. When he tries to upload his comments, he apparently gets error messages indicating that the text is too long; also, even if he copy/pastes them to me in an e-mail, it's hard for me to figure out what context they belong in (I get a page and LOC reference but they're not easily translatable by me to any specific location in the book). It sounded like such a great process when he first described it - I'd be seeing his edits virtually as he typed them! - but it's turned out to be somewhat substandard to the traditional 'Track Changes On' in Word approach that I've used in the past. Oh well. Some weeks are just like that!

[Update the next day: I found a Kindle previewing app that shows the line count and now I can line up the comments much more easily. Yay!]

Walking Goal: Week 4 Report

Julie finally ended our walking drought (which very nearly reached 4 weeks!) by inviting me to join her and Cooper on Sunday night, allowing me to add a few extra kilometres to the end of another good week. My total is now up to:

166.2 km (or 33.2%, or 1/3 of the way to the goal!)

With the temperatures on the rise now, it's getting harder to motivate myself to do the long walks by myself. Therefore I'm very glad I got ahead of the curve early on, as that gives me a little bit of slack to play with. Onward!

"Art Is Never Finished, Only Abandoned"

Leonardo Da Vinci said that, of course... talking about Art!

But I've found that, even with my own dubious, lower-case-a 'art' (4 books, and counting), I can never seem to quite finish the writing process. I continue to see things in The Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan (Lesssons Learned in Going Agile), for example, that I'd change if I were still in there, editing it. And it's awfully tempting to do just that when you're self-published, believe you me!

And now Game Over is following the same path. Everytime I open the current draft, I start tinkering with it. I think my changes are always for the better, but I also worry: will I ever feel like it's finished? Right now I'm waiting on edits from Julie for the final 8 chapters, so know it's still going to change in some significant ways (she's quite ruthless, that woman!). And I need to get it out into some other hands for additional proofreading and feedback, as well. But once that's all happened, I think it's going to be even harder than its non-fiction siblings were, when it comes to finally calling it 'done.' Like Leonardo said, I don't think I'll ever be able to completely finish it, but will have to eventually simply abandon it.

And then the rest of you will get to read it, if you're so inclined.

Interesting Psychological Exercise

I enjoyed a recent Psychology Today article (link below) about a contest that was run, open to anyone who wanted to participate. All you had to do to take part was provide a number between 0 and 100 indicating what you thought 2/3 of the average of the rest of the numbers provided would be. In case that's not clear: contestants were challenged to try to figure out what they thought the average of everyone else's numbers would be, take 2/3 of that average and submit that number as their entry. So if you thought the average of what everyone else would submit was going to be 30, for example, you'd submit 20 (2/3 of 30).

Before you read the article, take a moment and decide what strategy you'd use and which number you'd supply, and then follow the link and see how you might've done. Fascinating stuff! Here's the link.

Second Draft Of Game Over Now Complete!

I've been working on it for several weeks now, but this afternoon I finished the second draft of Game Over. This version incorporates Vicki's feedback on Draft # 1, as well as Julie's edits on the first 5 chapters and my own changes as I've been re-reading and re-thinking it.

Sometime soon I'll be sending this draft out to a few second round reviewers, so if that sounds like fun to you, let me know! As always, though, don't volunteer unless you're sure you'll have time for it over the next month or so. As I well know: it's a lot of work, and people have busy lives these days.

My best guess right now is that Game Over will be published sometime in September or October this year. I can hardly wait for it to get out into more hands so I can start hearing what people really think of it. It's definitely turned out much better than I'd ever expected, but we'll see whether that really counts for anything in the Fall.

Should Evolution Be Taught In Schools, American Beauty Pageant Edition

You've probably seen this already, but just in case you haven't:



That 15-minute clip has, among other things, inspired its imitators:



Yeah, both are equally ridiculous questions to be asking in the 21st century, aren't they?

Just How Nice Should Your Castle Be?

I'm currently reading (and thoroughly enjoying) The Big Short by Michael Lewis. It's all about the financial crisis of 2008, including the events leading up to it. Since I'm also reading Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail, on the very same topic, you might say I'm swimming in that particular topic at the moment!

Anyway, something I just encountered in The Big Short involves the ratio of house prices-to-income, for home-owners. Lewis mentions that, historically, the median for such a ratio in the U.S. was always around 3:1, but in the run-up to the Great Recession, it rose to 4:1 (with some areas of the country hitting as high as 10:1!).

That got me thinking about where Vicki and I had been when we bought each of the two houses we've lived in together (so far). In 1990, our combined income would've been around $80K or $90K, and we purchased a house that cost $124K, meaning that the ratio would've been roughly 1.5:1. In 1998, we moved into our current house, by which time we were grossing approximately $130K between us, and the price tag on this lovely property was $222K. The ratio that time was slightly higher, but still well below the 2:1 level. (And I should mention that, personally, I think it makes more sense to consider mortgage principal-to-income, rather than using the house price. After all, if I buy a $500K house but only have to take on a $100K mortgage to do so, what significance does the much higher value have on anything? It's all about the debt load, not the bling factor! In our situation, the 1998 mortgage was only for $160K, meaning that our principal-to-income ratio actually went down!)

At any rate, I've always been fairly convinced that Vicki and I were atypical in our spending when it came to houses... and this would seem to confirm that theory. Since we consistently maintained a price-to-income ratio well below 2:1, whereas the median value (for the States, but I have to think Canada's similar) has been more like 3:1 or even 4:1, we've clearly been living within our means... and then some! Which probably goes a long way toward explaining why we were able to enter semi-retirement as early as we did.

Counting Down To R3

OK, how about you join in this game with me:

1. Hold up all ten of your finger/thumb thingies.
2. Each time a week passes by, starting now, you get to lower one of those digits.
3. As soon as you run out of fingers and thumbs to turn down, you get to start playing Resistance 3!!!! Sweeeeeet....

Another Traveling Tammy Update

With just a week to go on their South American trip, we got an update today (via e-mail) on Tammy and Ryan's impressions of Rio:

"Rio as a city is amazing! Definitely the most stunning city we´ve seen so far in South America, and possibly my favorite stop on our whole trip. Basically the city is in a little valley right on the ocean - so you have gorgeous beaches framed by mountains in the background. It´s the least "3rd world" city we´ve seen here - pretty modern and nice (and more expensive as a result - prices are similar to those at home, maybe a bit less, definitely way more than everywhere else in SA)."

It sounds like things have all been excellent so far, and we can barely wait to see the pictures in July!

Neil Gaiman Isn't Kidding!

Does The Onion deserve a Pulitzer Prize? Neil Gaiman has an opinion on that he'd like to share...

Walking Goal: Week 3 Report

It was a pretty productive 3rd week, despite another no-show from my previously-reliable walking pals, Julie and Cooper. Vicki and I did a lot of walking from venue to venue for Fringe Fest on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and I took my pedometer along to capture all of that. Interestingly, this past week also featured my first missed day since I started toward my goal of 500 km, as I got no walking of any significance in on Tuesday, Jun 21st (the start of summer!). In my defense, I had yoga, a fair bit of tutoring, and the X-Men: First Class movie to fit in there, so it's not that surprising. And only skipping one day through the first three weeks is a good sign, too!

Anyway, here's what I'm at now:

125.2 km (bringing me to 25% of my goal!!)

At this rate, I could achieve my goal in about three months! But I don't want to count those unhatched eggs as chickens just yet.

Fringe Fest Thoughts

This weekend has been all about the Fringe Fest... for Vicki and I and our friend Susan, that is.

Last summer, Susan talked us into taking in a couple of performances at Fringe Fest 2010, a cultural phenomenon the likes of which neither Vicki nor I had ever attended. We saw one play that really impressed us (Monster) and another that was entertaining but nothing all that spectacular (which I sadly don't remember the name of). As such, my reaction to Fringe Fest was: It was OK, and maybe next year we'd try it again.

When we were over at Susan's for dinner a few weekends ago, she and I spent an hour or so poring over the online Fringe Fest 2011 schedule, trying to find shows we thought all three of us would like. This exercise came about after I walked in and was greeted by Susan with the words, "Tonight I have an assignment for you!" which I initially assumed would involve her TV, settop box or something similar. Instead, she informed me that the Fringe brochure was now available and so our task for the evening was to map out at least the first foray to the festival. We decided we'd go on the first Friday night and then read some reviews before returning for the second weekend. Which is just what we did.

We've now completed our Fringe Fest 2011 experience, and it was excellent!! I'm already looking forward to next year, which is really sad as it's a long, long way away! Anyway, I thought I'd record a few words on each show we saw, for posterity. Here they are, in the order we saw them:

Earshot - Justin Quesnelle really impressed us last year in Monster but this year's tour de force one-man show was even better! He plays a slightly-deranged apartment dweller with exceptional hearing who carries on one-sided conversations with the occupants of the units above, below and on either side of him. I had one niggling complaint about a small contrivance in the plot but was otherwise mesmerized by Quesnelle's skill and the sharp writing. Despite being the first one we went to, Earshot ended up being my 2nd favourite of the festival!!

Rocky Horror Show - If you've ever seen the film or another live version of this, you know what to expect... and it was all that! I generally despise musicals but I always make an exception for Rocky and gang. This was a fun, fun two hours!

Men Telling Stories - They're two men, telling stories! It doesn't actually get much easier to explain than this! The two young raconteurs - and yes, they even make a joke using that particular term! - entertain well with tales from their pasts and a strange but lovable chemistry between them.

The One - Billed as a 'multimedia' event, this was a very well-done but somewhat strange one-woman show. Through slide shows, video and live performance, 'Jane Love' (possibly not her real name!) recounts how she met and fell in love with her fiance and man of her dreams... who don't happen to be the same guy! I liked this quite a bit but didn't love it, which is probably fine as it was likely more aimed at my two companions for Fringe Fest.

Chaotica - Wow, what an interesting concept: a woman bursts out of a large box on the stage, only to discover that she's trapped in an enclosed area filled with mystery boxes, instruction cards, and a disembodied voice that won't take 'no' for an answer! This was one of my favourites, as the concept was so intriguing and Christel Bartelse's performance so very hypnotic! About the only thing missing, for me anyway, was something to tie it all together at the end. I would've loved a hint as to what was really going on (or why), or even just some revelation about the various characters she embodied. Even without that, though, I loved every minute!

Bursting Into Flames - Martin Dockery delivers a one-man journey through the Afterlife that I'll remember for a long time to come! He paints vivid images of Life After Death that include a girlfriend who hang glides everywhere, a marijuana joint that stretches across North America, and a man on the edge of insanity. I thoroughly enjoyed this from start to finish and absolutely nothing should be made of the fact that Susan fell asleep during it! It was a late show and some people still have day jobs, after all!

Feats of Mystery - As mind-reading/magic acts go, this was pretty damn enjoyable! I can't help but spend most of my time at such events trying to figure out how each trick is done, and FoM was no exception. By the time I raced out of there to get us tickets for the next show on our list, I'd figured out about 1/3 of them. This morning, lying in bed, Vicki and I tackled most of the rest and think we knocked almost all of them off. But of course, we could be completely wrong on all counts! And really, what does it matter, when the show's as captivating as it was?

jem rolls IS PISSED OFF - My first (of only two) 'misses' for Fringe Fest, I just couldn't get into or behind Jem Rolls and his various performance poetry bits. I could see that he had talent but too much of his monologue was spent describing how hard he'd found it to get pissed off (!) after deciding on the title, and that sort of self-referential schtick never really works for me. Still, it was an experience, and I don't begrudge the hour I spent at it.

oz in a clozet - We checked this one out only after changing our minds about a pair of other shows, and I was especially curious to see it because a friend or acquaintance of Julie's was in it. It turned out to be a very clever, very well-acted 3- (or 4-) person play about a man who was about to propose to his 'true love' only to find himself locked in a utility closet with another woman. Both leads were great, and the "other woman" in particular really came across as a unique, well-defined eccentric. There was also a fair bit of physical stuntwork required, and it all came off without a hitch. The fiancee (in a smaller role) and a janitor (in a very minor role) were fine but it really was up to the two leads to carry the show, and they did!

6 Guitars - I didn't really expect to see anything at Fringe Fest that would absolutely blow me away, but our 2nd last show did just that. Chase Padgett, out of Florida, delivered the most incredible 'solo ensemble' piece I've ever seen live! He 'became' six different guitar players, one each from the diverse worlds of Blues, Jazz, Heavy Metal, Folk, Country and Classical, and interwove their backstories and views on music into an hour I'll never forget! While I loved Fringe Fest 2011, this was the only performance that I would've gone back to see again, had we gone to it earlier in the weekend! Padgett did it all: tight writing, excellent acting, improv with the audience, amazing music, insightful themes, and seamless transitions between all of them! This was far and away my favourite act. Interestingly, this was one that Susan and I had talked about on that original weekend, and which I was more interested in than she was, but it didn't make our final list going into this weekend. Therefore we wouldn't have seen it had it not won the "Impressario" award for its venue and thus earned another performance on the final day (today), which is the one we took in. I hate to think that I came that close to not seeing what turned out to be my absolute top pick!!

'33, A Kabaret - Did I mention I loathe musicals? Well, somehow I still let myself be talked into this one, and unfortunately it fell into the usual category for me: difficult to make it through! However, the actor/singer/dancer at the centre of this one-man-show about a Nazi-terrorized cabaret in the 30s was clearly loaded with talent, and for anyone not opposed to musicals, I'm sure there was lots to love! I'm just not that guy.

Wow, that's a lot of stuff we saw! At $10 a show, though, I think we got more than our money's worth. As I mentioned earlier, I'm already excited at the thought of seeing even more of Fringe Fest 2012, a mere twelve months from now...

Dude, Where's My Feedback?

Four days ago, I requested some feedback on our first attempt at a Game Over back cover blurb. I know you already know this, because chances are you're a regular visitor to this blog. So then my question to you is: why have I only heard from two of you so far? Was it really that bad of a cover blurb that you don't want to say anything at all? Three of us are waiting eagerly to hear what you think, and then to potentially come up with something better based on what you say.

Beautiful Miracleman Artwork

Walking Goal: Week 2 Report

My second week of walking wasn't quite as productive as the first, which isn't surprising considering that I had no visits from Cooper nor any invitations to join Julie for a walk all week! But Vicki generously went out with me a couple of times, and I managed to bring my total up to:

87.6 km (good for 17.5% of my goal)

I'm still on a good pace which should see me hit or exceed my goal of 500 km by Sep 30.

Comic Books In The Mainstream

Loved this article about a House of Representative member in the U.S. government using Green Lantern to make a point about the way the conservatives have driven that country into the ground!

Feedback Desired

Last night, Vicki and I headed over to Julie's for dinner (spaghetti! yum!!) and an evening of brainstorming on Game Over, my hitherto-undescribed first novel. Specifically, I wanted the three of us to come up with a brief-but-compelling "blurb" for the book - something suitable for the back cover that would serve as enticement for a typical reader who might be browsing. We spent a good three or four hours at this, throwing around ideas, looking at other examples, and attempting to hit just the right notes. I'm not sure we've quite got it yet, but I figured it was probably time to seek some feedback from the blogosphere. Therefore, I'm going to share what we have right now and ask you to add a Comment indicating what sort of effect - if any - the current blurb had on you. Did it intrigue you at all? Did it make you more - or less - interested in getting your hands on Game Over once it's published? In general, do you think it's effective as a 'hook', and why (or why not)?

So, without further ado, here's your very first taste of Game Over (keep in mind the wording is likely to change between now and publication):

Malcolm Greene has always considered himself somewhat of a flight risk – the kind of guy who runs at the first sign of trouble. And trouble has definitely found Malcolm and his colleagues at Great White North Games, as the company’s new hit video game, Knight of the Living Dead, seems to be wreaking havoc. Unexplained slowdowns are plaguing systems even after players exit the game, leaving the company’s reputation hanging in the balance. As Malcolm and friends race to uncover the source of the problem in the software, strange occurrences in the real world begin to distract them. The son of Malcolm’s co-worker is pushed in front of a bus, a dead body turns up in a freezer, and a mysterious computer program seems to be influencing reality. Will Malcolm put his exit strategy into effect or will he stick around long enough to unravel the puzzle before it’s Game Over?

A Quarter Century Of Goodness

It's hard to nail down exactly when Vicki and I first met, because it was kind of incidental, at the time. She and I were both working for the bank and ended up on the same development team not long after I started, but we both had a period prior to that during which we were in training together. The two of us, and several other employees, were co-located in a temporary "training area" for a few weeks, as I recall, and it was while situated there that we first made each other's acquaintance. If I had to put money on the actual date, I'd put it around the end of June, but couldn't really get much more precise than that.

However, the day I started work there was June 16, 1986, which is 25 years ago today. Since I know that we met sometime shortly after that, I'm celebrating our "silver anniversary" as of now, just to be on the safe side! What a great quarter century it's been having her in my life (and hopefully vice versa), and who knows? Maybe we'll get another 25 in together before the comet destroys us all!!

Fame Of A Limited Sort!

Last night, while watching the Bruins win the Cup, I did a little analysis of the upcoming DC Comics Relaunch survey that Comic Book Resources published yesterday, and then sent my results along to Rich Johnston, of Bleeding Cool fame. Rich was then kind enough to publish those results! Very bleeding cool!

In the Comments section for that article, people are pointing out that I possibly shouldn't have counted disinterest in a title as a negative (minus value) against it, which has some merit to it. But I tend to think that, in a fan-centric industry like comic books, lack of interest in a big, highly-publicized event is a failure, and thus should count against the overall success of the relaunched series in question.

Boston Bruins: 2011 Stanley Cup Champions!!

Congratulations, Boneman!!! There's nothing in sports sweeter than finally seeing your team win the greatest trophy of all! And now you've experienced it! Enjoy it to the fullest!!!

Tonight's The Night!

It's always particularly exciting when the Stanley Cup Finals go to a Game 7, and that's exactly what's on the docket for this evening: Boston Bruins @ Vancouver Canucks, and one of them will hoist Lord Stanley's trophy before the night is done.

For Boneman, I'm rooting for the B's. But I won't be heartbroken if Canada finally recaptures the silver chalice after an 18 year absence, either. In other words: it's all good! Let's just have a close, exciting game, and may the best team win!

A Brief Tammy Update (2011)

Tammy and boyfriend Ryan have been in South America for more than 3 weeks now, and we've had a few Skype calls with them. I haven't been posting much about it so far for a variety of reasons, but here's a little bit from her latest e-mail to us:

"We are still alive, just got back to Cuzco after our Inca Trail hike. Sorry didn't get to talk to you guys after Puno, we've been internet-less - so sad. Anywho all is well - the trek was extremely grueling (42km total, mostly uphill - irregular, uneven, narrow, steep stone steps nonetheless) but well worth it. Two of the inca sites in particular were so huge of scale that it can't even come across in photos."

Sounds like they're having a great time!

Walking Goal: Week 1 Report

I'm off to a good start with my goal of walking 500 km this summer. Thanks to Cooper being over for three days last week, I managed to get a whole lot of trips in quite easily and as a result am well ahead of my required pace to hit the target. As of end of day yesterday, I was at:

46.2 km (or just over 9% of the way to my goal)

I don't imagine every week will be as productive as this first one was, but it's still nice to get some wind under my sails early!

Four-Legged Visitors Return!

What better way to spend a lazy Sunday than hanging out with Cooper & Finley? Julie was 'dragged' out of town for a soccer tournament all day and asked if we'd like to have her babies over while she was gone. Naturally we did, and so it was April all over again for a day (even the weather cooperated, as it was much cooler than normal for mid June!). Julie stayed for dinner when she got back and the three (five) of us enjoyed a lovely evening together, gabbing about Game Over and life in general.

When EA Battles Activision, Fans Win!

The contest for online gamers' hearts, dollars and time toward the end of this year looks like it's going to be waged within the virtual confines of Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The companies that own those two franchises are already busy sniping at each other - with words, not bullets! - and it certainly appears that a major pissing match is brewing between them.

Personally, I hope both games are amazing, as I'd love to have a several month-long stretch over the winter where I have two games that I can't wait to play online each day! I already know my fall will be dominated by Resistance 3 - due out Sep 6th, and almost guaranteed to hold me in thrall for a few months. So if, by the time I'm starting to tire of R3, there are a pair of top-notch First Person Shooters available to take its place, I'll be thrilled. What I've heard and seen of both games has been impressive so far, and they're still almost half a year away. So I can't wait to find out if they live up to the hype!

It definitely looks like the back end of 2011 will be dominated by 3's!

The DC Universe Relaunch At-A-Glance

DC Comics has nicely assembled a gallery of 49 of the 52 first issue covers for the titles that are relaunching in September (missing are three Green Lantern-related series, for some strange reason). They're in alphabetical order, and hovering your mouse over each reveals whatever bits of info the publisher has released so far. Quite a handy little site for comic geeks like me.

My current plan, which certainly may change between now and September, is to buy the first issue of each of the 52 series, although I may possibly omit a few that I'm fairly confident I'll have no interest in (e.g. Voodoo, Grifter, Hawk and Dove). However, any title that doesn't grab me right away probably won't get a subsequent $2.99 out of me in October or beyond. Based on the characters and creative teams involved, I'm inclined to break the 52 titles into the following groups:

No-Brainers / A-List

• Action Comics
• Aquaman
• Batwoman
• Green Lantern
• Justice League
• Superman

Likely Candidates / B-List

• Batgirl
• Batman
• Savage Hawkman
• Legion Lost
• Legion of Super-Heroes
• The Flash
• Wonder Woman
  

Possibles / C-List

• Animal Man
• Birds of Prey
• Resurrection Man
• Stormwatch
• Supergirl
• Swamp Thing

The Rest / D-List

• 33 other titles

So it should be interesting to see how my expectations match up with reality, once the comics start coming out and I get to read the actual product. I'm still considerably ambivalent about this direction, as I think it's an "all-in" gesture by a publisher that wasn't - in my opinion, anyway - in a position where it needed to take such a huge risk. I have a sinking feeling this will be considered a historically significant move on their part for all the wrong reasons, once the dust settles and we can look back on it with the advantage of hindsight and contextual perspective. But I hope DC prove me wrong.

[Update later that same day: Bleeding Cool has somehow gotten their hands on the September soliciations for DC - 3 days ahead of their release - and they certainly provide some interesting reading!]

[Update Jun 15/11: Comic Book Resources did a survey - which I took part in - asking fans to rate the 52 titles, based on what we know so far. The results are now posted!]

Guess Who's Back?

I haven't had a chance yet to download the photos I took today, so you'll just have to take my word that good old Cooper's back for a short visit! Julie was kind enough to let him have a "sleepover" at his April home-away-from-home, starting this morning around 10:30 and lasting until she comes to get him after work tomorrow. Cooper and I did 3 walks today, totalling almost 10 km, the first two of which were in the oppressive heat that's finally left us in the last several hours. He and Lucy have been in the same room a couple of times today but mostly she's been staying upstairs.

It's so nice to have Coops here again, even if it's only for a couple days. I see him once or twice a week nowadays (for our walks with Julie) but that's just not the same as having him asleep at the foot of my couch while Vicki and I watch TV. (But no, I'm still not ready to get my own dog just yet!)

A New Goal

I've decided this week that I need some sort of a fitness-related goal for the summer, along the lines of my "bike 100 times to work" project in 2003. I like having a target to work toward, as motivation (or lack thereof) is usually my biggest problem to overcome where regular exercise is concerned.

So I'm planning to walk 500 km by the end of September, starting this week. Julie and I did a short walk yesterday morning (I'm estimating it to be around 5 km) but I didn't have my new pedometer in time to get an accurate gauge of it. Today the device arrived (having ordered it yesterday from Amazon!) and so I logged 5.4 km between 2 neighbourhood walks this afternoon and this evening. In other words, I'm already about 2% of the way to my goal after just 2 days! Which is good, as I only have a little over 100 days before the end of September, and I'm sure some of them won't be suitable for walking.

Anyway, I'll provide occasional updates here, as time goes by. I'm hoping that I crush my target, like I did that first year of biking (120 rides, or 20% over my goal), but we'll see how it goes. Encouragement from the Peanut Gallery is always appreciated!

1000 Words About This Weekend

The Life Of The Writer

Today, I decided to focus my attention on the opening sentence of my novel, Game Over. I've finished reading 179 Ways to Save a Novel, and it spends several of those 179 ways talking about the first sentence. So I tried to apply what I've learned.

I came up with what I considered to be a good alternative to what was in the first draft, and sent it - via e-mail - to my two muses/editors, Vicki and Julie, both of whom were at work. I should've known what would happen: one liked the new sentence I'd come up with better, while the other preferred the original. Well, that wasn't terribly helpful...

Death To Airplane Recliners!

One of my pet peeves is possibly a great test of a person's altruism. I'd pass the test with flying colours, as I never recline my seat since I know how much it bothers me when the person in front of me does it! My usual response, when their seat hits my already crowded kneecaps, is to bounce my legs frantically as if I'm listening to music. More often than not, they un-recline their seat, at least a little...

Just What We Needed: Another Reboot!

It seems like it was just 25 years ago that the DC Universe was being rebooted as a result of the 12-part miniseries, Crisis on Infinite Earths. Apparently a quarter century's long enough to warrant yet another do-over, as today we got this news: come September, it's happening again! I have to give DC credit for the ballsiness of their approach, as they're rebooting their entire line (52 titles) and starting every series over at # 1. On the other hand, the fact that two of their most venerable titles, both of which stretch back to the 1930's - Action Comics (birthplace of Superman) and Detective Comics (whence Batman) - were within several years of reaching # 1000 and now, apparently never will, doesn't sit well with me. I'm more than a little skeptical of this bold new direction, but will ponder it (and await further details) before commenting further.

[For the rare soul who's really interested, there's some interesting speculation about this huge news here.]

A Much Better Swimming Day This Year

One year ago today, as I know thanks to the remote memory that this blog serves as, we were waiting for our new pool liner to be completed so that we could begin filling it, then warming it up, and then eventually (days later) swimming in it.

Today, on the other hand, the water was in place and a balmy 82 F (28 C), which meant that I was easily able to cool off from the summer-like mugginess after a morning walk with Julie and Cooper by just jumping in. Since I'd biked to their place and back (about 4 km each way), I was particularly appreciative of the fact that, unlike this time last year, we were in good shape, pool-wise!

We did have to replace our pool heater this year, but that's another story for another day!

Less Than 100 Days To Go!

With a release date of Sep 6th, Resistance 3 is now - finally! - less than 100 days away!

While the single player campaign of Resistance 2 didn't live up to my expectations, the coop and competitive offerings totally made up for it. I ended up playing nearly as many hours of R2 online as I had its predecessor, Resistance: Fall of Man. Hence my excitement that I now have only 99 days (counting today) to make it through before getting my hands on the 3rd installment of this amazing franchise from Insomniac Games.

First Day Of Summer 2011?

Officially, summer doesn't start for another three weeks and a bit, but today was the first time this year that it's felt like summer to me: I mowed both lawns, had my first swim in a pool that was finally crystal clear after various opening-related issues over the past couple of weeks, and we had both a nice day today and a weeklong forecast of warm to hot temperatures.

In other words: summer has arrived at last! Or, at least, I hope it has.

Boneman's Bruins Are Gonna Play For The Cup!

In a very exciting Game 7 tonight, the Boston Bruins claimed the 2011 Eastern Conference Championship by edging Tampa Bay 1-0! They'll begin what should be an epic Stanley Cup Final against the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday night, marking the first time Boston's been there since 1990, I believe. As for the Canucks...

Well, if my memory serves, it was 1994 the last time Vancouver vied for the Cup, and they came very, very close to winning it that year. I seem to recall a Game 7 then, as well... Fortune smiled on us long-suffering Rangers fans on that historic Tuesday evening, indeed, and we got a Game 7 for the Ages! Maybe Boneman will be equally blessed by the time the dust settles on 2011's big matchup.

Does My Novel Need Saving?

Today I started reading a book that Julie gave me for my birthday back in March: 179 Ways to Save a Novel by Peter Selgin. She'd skimmed parts of it before buying it for me, and said that she thought I'd find at least some of it helpful. For a combination of reasons - and somewhat to Julie's disgust, I imagine - I didn't start looking at it until I'd finished the first draft of Game Over. For one thing, I didn't want to get distracted by a book on the craft itself while I was in the middle of writing, for fear that the result would be a mishmash of styles. I could've seen reading it before starting Game Over, but that would've required getting it for Christmas, I suppose. I was also a little skeptical about its usefulness to me, as I've taken university-level writing courses and been actively paying attention to what goes into creating fiction for several decades now. Plus I already had several other books on the go.

But today my curiousity got the better of me, and I cracked the book for the first time. It's - as the title suggests - 179 tips on how to create effective and entertaining fiction. I'm about 15% of the way in already, and am enjoying Mr Selgin's approach so far. I wouldn't say I'm having many revelations as of yet, though. It's more a case of reading an item, thinking, "Nope, I didn't fall into that trap" or "Yeah, I definitely had that in mind as I was writing," and feeling at least a little bit validated. Having said that, there have been a couple of places where I recognized something that I could've done better, and am now at least considering whether to fix them or not. So it could end up being time well spent.

Mostly, though, it's just fun seeing some of the examples of really bad writing that the author chose to include to illustrate various points!

2010/11 Tutoring Schedule Winding Down

With only about a month left in the school year, my tutoring workload is finally starting to ease up. As of today, three of my seven regulars will be done until September or later. They're all primary schoolers who don't have final exams to worry about, meaning that their academic year is very nearly done. The other four, plus one other student who's more sporadic (almost all of whom are in high school), will probably continue for several more weeks before wrapping up.

I've decided that I'm going to try very hard not to have any tutoring sessions over most of the summer, with the only exceptions being students who are in serious distress for the upcoming year. For those who simply want to get a leg up on the next year or who need a little "jogging" of their Math memories before classes start, I'll do tutoring in the last week or two before the school year starts (late Aug/early Sep). That way I get almost the entire summer off (kinda like a real teacher!), which I haven't had since I was a student myself! 2008 saw me working in July (last day of work was Aug 2nd); in 2009 I had a couple of students through the summer; and last year I had several, as well. So I'm looking forward to some down time which I expect to spend on revisions to my novel, Game Over. Vicki and I also hope to take a week in July or August and drive somewhere for our first real vacation in several years, which would be great!

So now all we need is for the weather to smarten up (enough with the rain already!) and Summer 2011 can officially get underway!

A Brief Tammy Update

Our world-traveling daughter has now started her six-week South American trip (Continent Number Five for her, leaving only Oceania/Australia and Antarctica to go), this time in the company of her wonderful boyfriend, Ryan. We had gotten a couple of e-mails from her already, but last night had a much better treat: a Skype conversation with the pair of them! Their Internet connection in the Mendoza (Argentina) hostel was seriously suboptimal, meaning that both the video and audio were pretty sketchy, but it was still terrific to see and hear them even under those conditions! And we're hoping that the next video call, in about a week or so, will be better quality (it'll be hard-pressed to be any worse!).

Tammy's dedication to this particular goal of hers (seeing all seven continents by the age of 25) is quite awe-inspiring and well beyond anything that most of us would have ever aspired to at that early stage of our life. Nice to see her 5/7 of the way along now!

A Classic Cooper Story

(File photo not directly related to this story.)

I should have posted this a month ago, but I've been kind of busy finishing my first ever novel. Better late than never, I always say.

Anyway, while Cooper (and Finley) spent two and a half weeks with us in April, lots of funny little stories occurred. However, no other one is quite as heart-wrenching and yet hilarious as this one. Julie had left a couple of store-bought bones for us to give Cooper, each of which has a hard outside and some sort of chewy treat in the middle. A few days after he arrived, I gave Cooper the first of the bones, and he immediately went to town on it. He would chew it and chew it and really seemed to love the thing! But after a couple of hours, he appeared to tire of it, as he brought the bone over to where I was sitting and gave it to me. I thought, "That's kind of strange," but put it away.

A couple nights later, I thought of the bone again, and got it out for him. He once again started working on it, but this time it was only half an hour or so before he'd had enough, and presented it to me once again.

Repeat the pattern a few more times, and then eventually Julie comes home from Africa. She's over to pick up her babies and have supper with us, and at one point she spies the two bones, one of which hasn't even been unwrapped yet. Picking up the other one, she says, "How come you didn't push the chewy stuff in the centre out for him so he could get at it more easily?" I say, "First of all, you didn't tell me about that, and secondly, how would I know when to do that?" And she says, "Well, usually he'll bring the bone to you so that you can push it out for him...." I could barely bring myself to tell her the rest of the story.

I still get teased about that little comedy of errors now, a month later. I feel like, in that one instance at least, I was probably the worst dog owner ever. The poor guy kept faithfully giving me his bone to fix, and I kept "rewarding" his misplaced trust in me by putting it up out of his reach! It's a wonder he didn't attack me in my sleep one of those nights!

Lost: One Year Later

Our old friend Jeff "Doc" Jensen, of Entertainment Weekly fame, returns today, on the one-year anniversary of Lost's series finale, to post the first of a two-part retrospective on the show's concluding episode. Reading it just now brought back a slew of great memories from the good old days when Lost was still on the air and occupying a lot of cycles in my brain!

Vicki's Game Over Progress Part 2

Vicki's just a little more than halfway through the novel now, and today presented me (and Julie, over the phone) with her first real conjecture as to what's going on. I won't share her theory here, nor confirm or deny its veracity (just as we didn't to her, after she unveiled it) but I will say that it shows that she's really paying attention to and thinking about what she's reading. And that's as high a compliment as any author can get!

I can hardly wait for her to finish it so that we can finally talk about it "in the clear!" But for now, all that Julie or I can say to her is, "Very interesting!"

Vicki's Game Over Progress Part 1

Vicki's now read the first four chapters of Game Over. I'm realizing just how different an experience this is for me from any of my previous books - where Vicki knew the gist of the material before she ever read the first word - as well as from having Julie reading the chapters as I produced them. In that latter situation, we had discussed the plot and characters at length and so, for Julie, it was more a matter of seeing what we'd talked about transformed into words, along with the occasional surprise when I'd go in a direction that had occurred to me in the process of writing a chapter. I knew that she'd be comfortable with the plot on account of having helped create a fair chunk of it!

In all of those cases, then, I was almost exclusively focused on what my early reviewer thought of the writing style, since the actual material was well-known to her. With Vicki and Game Over right now, however, she has no idea at all where this book is going, what it's about, how it'll end, etc. It's entirely possible she won't even like the story in it, although she's usually pretty easy-going in that regard (much more so than me!). So I'm actually a little more anxious about this than I'd expected to be, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. This will be the first real test for my first novel: how does it play to someone coming into it cold?

It should be interesting...

Life After The Rapture

If you believe some of the articles published in the last week, there were millions of human beings on this planet who earnestly believed not that "the Rapture" is real, but that it was actually happening today! Not dozens, or hundreds, or even thousands... millions! I'm not sure how they'll square their expectations with the disappointment that must've fallen over them as the minutes ticked off the clock and the world kept turning as usual, but I'm sure they'll find a way. That's the saddest part, of course... their "faith" is so strong that nothing can undermine it, not even reality, facts or a complete absence of any evidence to support their beliefs. Might as well try reasoning with a turtle, if you ask me.

At least it provided lots of fodder for humour lately, I guess.

Vicki's Reading Game Over On Her Kindle!

After Vicki joked that it's too bad she can't read the First Draft of my novel on her Kindle like she does most books these days, I did a quick bit of research and discovered just how easy it would be for me to get it there for her! Sure enough, it took me about 5 to 10 minutes to get her all set up, and now she's eReading away! Obviously this doesn't facilitate her making notes on it, but she wanted to do an initial read-through first anyway, which I think is a good idea for this particular work. Julie had wistfully talked about the same scenario, so I've also made the same offer to her as she's now a total Kindle snob who acts like she's never seen a paper book before!

First Draft Of Game Over Finished!

About an hour ago, I completed the initial draft of Game Over, my first ever novel. That version is now with Julie (who's already read an earlier version that wasn't too terribly different) and Vicki (who's seen nothing of this book yet except for a few early pages that I read to her back in January to see what she thought of them). And now I wait...

Last night, I spent several hours with Julie, getting her take on what she'd read and brainstorming ideas for the book's Epilogue. Of most interest to me was her reaction to the final (pre-Epilogue) chapter, which I feel is perhaps the best writing I've ever done. I was hoping that Julie concurred, and was pleased to find that she agreed with that assessment. There are a lot of plot threads in Game Over, most of which had to be paid off in its final fifteen or so pages. I found that a very challenging task, but was extremely happy with the results after much editing and refining.

As for the Epilogue, it's potentially still a work in progress. I have one version in place now, and I'm reasonably happy with it. Julie believes that we can still make it better so I've left it with her to think about it some more now that she has the updated version, and we'll see what - if anything - comes of that. I warned Vicki that it was the portion of the book most likely to change while she was reading Draft 1, and that it shouldn't be much of a problem for her if it does.

Both ladies are pushing me to try to get this book published (rather than self publishing) but I'm on the fence there. Not only am I skeptical that any publisher would take it on, but I'm also reluctant to give up much in the way of control. Self-publishing three books already has probably spoiled me in terms of getting used to having the finished product be exactly what I want it to be. Compromise isn't a word I've had to get used to with my writing so far, and so I'm not sure how I'd do with that. But the jury's still out on this front at the moment.

Yes, I'd Like One Of Those, Please!

Just a little more than 100 days to go now!!!


You can read just a little more about it here.

Big, Big Book Update

This past weekend was the perfect opportunity for me to work on my novel, since Vicki was going to Toronto to spend some time with Tammy and the crappy weather meant no walks with Julie. And for once, things actually worked out as you'd expect: I got a ton of work done on the book, to the point where the first draft is essentially done!! (I still have an epilogue chapter to produce that I'm hoping to get some help from Julie with.)

I'll say that again: this sucker is very nearly complete in first draft form!

I can barely believe how much I got done over the weekend. I think it was either 4 or 5 chapters that I wrote... they blur together because I was at it for so long! I probably spent more than 30 hours writing and editing, between Friday morning and this afternoon. Over 30 hours! That's probably not much less than the total number of hours I'd put into it up to that point, to put things in perspective!

I had my second major brainstorm for this book on Sunday morning, just in time to incorporate what I'd come up with into it at the perfect spot. As I said to Julie on the phone today, it'll be hard for some readers to believe I didn't have this particular development planned from the beginning, but I really didn't... and yet it just fit like a glove!

The book has had a working title for awhile, but now that it's almost done, I'm making it semi-official. My novel will almost certainly be called:

Game Over

I'll be posting more info and teasers for Game Over as things progress. I'm actually much happier with how it's turned out than I ever expected to be, especially considering that it's my first attempt at a novel (as opposed to non-fiction). I'm so close to completion now that I'm confident, for the first time, that it's going to see the light of day. No date in mind yet, but presumably sometime in the second half of the year.

Still lots of work to do, but May 13 - 16 will now always be a hugely important period in the development of this book. I don't know when I've ever written so much in such a short time, but it was all worth it when I look at the results.

Best Obama Kills Osama Joke

From last week's Weekend Update segment on Saturday Night Live, Seth Myers killed with:

"In the wake of President Obama's decision to not release pictures of Osama Bin Laden's body, a number of new conspiracy theories are surfacing, claiming that Bin Laden is not really dead... which means Barack Obama will go down in history as the first black person ever to have to prove he killed someone."

Two Starbucks In A Starbucks

[Via Bleeding Cool.]

Signs Of Spring

Last Sunday, Vicki and I opened the pool. It was a perfect day for it: clear, warm but not hot, with a slight breeze. We loved how easily our new winter cover came off - probably about 1/10th the effort of the old one, where we had to drain water and scoop wet leaves off of it and then struggle to get the still-quite-heavy sheet off the pool without dumping the remains of the dirty water into the pool. The one unpleasant surprise this year, at least for me, was discovering that the pool was absolutely green with algae! Apparently this style of cover, which is designed to be porous enough to allow the snow melt to seep back into the pool, also lets in enough sunlight in the spring to promote a ton of unwanted growth under there! As a result, I've been spending time this week vacuuming all of that out, which is worse than the pool-opening cleaning that was required in previous years. But we still came out well ahead of the game with the new cover.

On Monday, Julie, Cooper and I did our first big woods walk of the year in which the signs of the season were impossible to miss. This is my last season to see there for the first time, as we started walking last year in early September, when summer was still hanging on. Here I am strangling - I mean, restraining! - Cooper who desperately wants to get back into the river for another swim!


And here are my walking partners, in all their seasonal glory, against a backdrop that's absolutely bursting with life at long last:


I, for one, am utterly sick of winter, despite the many great walks and amazing sights we took in over the five or six months it seemed to last this year!

Thoughts On Thor

No big review for this one, as I had a very busy day today and just don't have the energy for it right now. But... I will say that I loved Thor, perhaps even more than I did the first Iron Man (but not quite in the same ballpark as Batman Begins, The Dark Knight or Spider-Man 2, all of which have so far set the high water marks for superhero films). I thought the pace was excellent, the balance of action between Asgard and Midgard (Earth) was perfect, and loved both Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman as Thor and Jane Foster, respectively. The humour was very well done, the action was awesome, and about the only thing that didn't work for me was the 3D. I think I'd actually have enjoyed it more seeing it in 2D, as I found the 3D distracting.

For those who go to see it and stick around through the end credits to see the bonus scene (as we did): the object revealed within the briefcase looked to me to be the Cosmic Cube. That should be showing up in Captain America: The First Avenger in July, from what I've heard. It's something that allows its holder to warp reality to match his or her thoughts, and will likely show up in the hands of the Red Skull during World War II in CATFA, and possibly reappear in next year's Avengers movie.

Off To See A Man About A God Of Thunder

Tonight, Vicki and I are joining a pair of friends for a premiere weekend viewing of Thor. I have to admit that, a year ago, I was less excited about this film than either of Green Lantern (out next month) or Captain America: The First Avenger (debuting in July). More recently, though, as trailers for the three superhero flicks have been released, I've found that it's the Thunder God's big screen debut that looks the most promising. Well, shortly I'll have taken its measure, finally, and I imagine there's at least a chance that I might post some thoughts here either tonight or tomorrow. Unless I'm totally bummed out by the whole experience, of course!

What's Kid Flash Doing In The Toronto Of The Future?

Check out the street signs!


(The answer is that the artist for that cover, Frances Manapul, hails from the Big Smoke.)

Book Update

It's been two months (almost to the day) since I unveiled the existence of my novel-in-progress. For most of those two months, there wasn't a whole lot going on with it as I'd gotten mildly stalled again. The combination of all those March birthdays and anniversaries along with the excitement around taking on Julie's "kids" for 18 days in April put some pretty impressive brakes on my writing, for awhile. In the last week and a half, though, I've gotten back in gear and progress is once again the order of the day.

Today I finished chapter 8. I'm anticipating either 13 or 14 chapters, meaning that I'm firmly past the halfway mark now. A week ago, as I was working on chapter 7, I decided that I needed a "plot chart" to help me keep track of details as well as to see the overall shape of the book's framework. It took me most of last Friday to construct this fairly large hardcopy sheet and fill it in for the first 6 chapters, but ever since then it's been invaluable! I showed it to Julie when she was over on Saturday night and it was pretty obvious that she was impressed. Using it, I was able to sketch out the upcoming chapters at an extremely high level, giving me my first real feeling of confidence as far as how much work was still outstanding.

I'm in a bit of a feedback vacuum at the moment, though, as Julie has chapters 6 & 7 but hasn't read them yet (what's up with people letting jobs interfere with their home lives, anyway??). I don't know whether to give her chapter 8 now or wait until she's gotten through the other two before handing it over. Worryingly, since the last 3 chapters represent more than 40% of the book so far, it's entirely possible I've gone completely off the rails and just don't know it yet because Julie's almost 60 pages behind in her reading! Hopefully that's not the case, but it's definitely a concern...

3 Project Managers Walk Into A Bar... Late

Tonight I was out with Vicki, our friend Susan, and another acquaintance of ours from our days at the bank. All three of them are, to one degree or another, project managers. (I've played the part of a PM at various points in the past but don't really consider myself one.)

So the plan drawn up by them was to meet at the acquaintance's newly renovated house near downtown for dinner around 5:30, and then head out to a performance of The Hobbit for 7:30. Things got off to a flying start when Susan was more than a half hour late thanks to... wait for it... locking herself in her car! How does one lock oneself inside a vehicle? Well, you'd have to ask Sue as I couldn't possibly do the story justice! She did manage to make several calls from inside the vehicle, though, so at least there was no danger of her dying there.

Dinner was wonderful but way too much for the time available. I can't remember ever being late for a play in my life (and I've gone to dozens), but of course this evening my wife and her two PM buddies could not seem to fathom that an elaborate dinner notionally kicking off at 5:30, involving three busy women (and me), was never going to be compatible with getting to a play by 7:30. Sure enough, by the time I'd dropped them off at the theatre, found a place to park, and gotten back to the theatre, it was 7:40 and I'd missed the first 15 minutes of Tolkien's classic by the time I got seated.

My advice: never socialize with project managers when hitting a deadline is important to you! :-)

A Crazy Start To May

In the past 48 hours, two events not directly related to my own personal life have preoccupied my thoughts. One, I received with great joy and just a little trepidation; the other, pretty much the opposite! I guess maybe that means the universe is still in balance?

First came the welcome news Sunday night that U.S. forces had finally located and put down the mad dog responsible for the Sept 11th attacks. I can't deny that at least some of my growing intolerance for religious fundamentalism over the past decade stemmed from the actions of Bin Laden and his ilk, who seek to force their own centuries-out-of-date view of the universe onto the rest of the world. I personally couldn't care less what anyone believes... but as soon as they start inflicting their anti-Science superstitions onto others, I take exception. The Christian fundamentalists in the U.S. are not quite as bad, in that they're not planning mass murder as far as I know, but it's all of a piece to my way of thinking. I therefore rejoiced upon hearing that Bin Laden had been executed, and only worried a little about the inevitable backlash that will likely follow. Neverthelss, major kudos to Pres Obama for doing, in just over 2 years, what George W Bush couldn't manage - despite promising it repeatedly - in more than 7 years in office. Good riddance to bad rubbish, who's at least apparently finally doing some good by feeding the fishies now.

Last night, I watched as the Harper Conservative government finally got the majority they've craved for several years, in an election they didn't even want... though one wonders now why they resisted it so vigourously! Were they really worried about losing? The NDP were the other big winners, with the Bloq and Liberals playing the part of Charlie Brown this time around, in historic proportion. While I can't quite imagine that Harper and his cronies will really do as much damage here as the Bush administration did south of the border between 2001 and 2009, it's still a pretty big concern. Our government's head-in-the-oil-sands attitude toward Climate Change is both shocking and embarrassing, leaving me to wonder if many of us will soon appreciate what liberals in the U.S. went through in the previous decade. On the other hand, maybe if Harper's politics turn out to be extreme enough, the Canadian people will revolt against it 4 years from now and the pendulum will begin to swing back the other way. Are we really a country that wants to screw over the poor and do favours for the wealthy? I can't believe we are, despite last night's results.