On Chilling Out

Over the past month or so, I've been noticing a slight change in my attitude that may or may not prove to be permanent. Since this blog is the closest thing I have to a diary, here seems like the logical place to reflect upon this development.

When Vicki and I joined a bunch of family members in Orillia last month for Beatlefest, it was - by our standards, anyway - a fairly loosely-organized event. I don't mean that in a bad way. It just wasn't what we're usually involved with, where the day is all planned out: be here at this time, then go do that for an hour, then be back here by such-and-such a time. Instead, it was almost entirely open-ended, with the only real commitments being the two sessions when great-nephew Hunter's band was playing. What I noticed, as the day progressed, was that Vicki was the one trying to introduce just a little order into the day. She wasn't doing it in a frantic or concerned manner - like I typically would - but just casually pointing out that we didn't really know where we were going or what we were going to do next. To which I replied, "That's OK. Today I'm just going with the flow." And it felt pretty good.

Since then, I've been trying to do more of that (stop laughing, Susan!!). To say that it doesn't come easily or naturally to me would be a huge understatement. But I'm still giving it a go. It definitely helps that many of the family members I've recently reunited with are wired that way. I think the real trick, though, lies in not caring as much (as I usually do) about things working out perfectly. I've always believed that if you plan carefully enough, you can pull almost anything off. And I still think that's true; but maybe I was applying it to too many aspects of my life. Catching a plane? Yep, that's still important enough to warrant careful consideration and organization. Going for a walk, or making a trip to the comic store, or getting together with someone for a coffee? Probably not worth sweating too much over, beyond the obvious point of not being rude by getting there super-late or standing them up. Even typing that, though, I have to admit, makes me wince a bit. So this is still very much a work in progress at the moment.

So, yeah. That's where I'm at.

Can't wait to hear from the peanut gallery on this particular post.....

Walking Goal: Week 17 Report - Final Edition!

(If you've hated these updates all summer, then today is your lucky day! Or, rather - technically, I guess - every day after today is your lucky day!)

17 weeks ago today, I was on a walk through the woods with Julie and announced to her that I was going to try to walk at least 500 kms over the next four months (Jun through Sep). I estimated how far we walked that day, ordered a pedometer when I got home from that walk, and have been going ever since. Yesterday marked the end of that 17 week sojourn, although ironically Vicki and I were too busy and it was too rainy for me to add to my total at all! Anyway, here's where I finished up:

635 kms (127% of my 500 km goal)

Thanks to everyone who encouraged this latest of my life goals. It was a very positive experience and no doubt helped my health considerably.

Missed Radiohead In NYC Last Week?

Yeah, I did, too. Good thing there's high quality video of it available on one of the main Radiohead fan sites. Awesome!

Resistance 3 'Mastery' Achieved

Thanks to a Double XP Weekend handed out by Insomniac Games over the last two days, I was able to get the last several promotions I needed to max out at level 60 in Resistance 3 multiplayer today. That means it took me less than 4 weeks to do so, which exceeds even my own expectations by quite a bit. I think I've played a little shy of 30 hours over the 26 days since the game was released - a fairly crazy total, I must admit!

I'm now winning nearly half the Deathmatches I play, after a considerably slower start (prior to getting my beloved Turrets!). I think it's time to move back to the campaign, though, as I'm feeling somewhat burned out on TDMs and DMs.

That is all.

And Then There Were Five...

(This is going to sound like I planned it this way, but I swear it's a total coincidence! Or possibly it's just my subconscious at work...)

Today, for no particular reason, I decided to dig back into the precious dill pickles supply that I originally posted about... exactly three years ago today!!! That's right, this just happens to be the third anniversary of that birthday-like day when we discovered the ultra-rare cache of 1.5 L Bicks Dill Pickles with Garlic! Over the three years since, we've had a close call or two, but have yet to find any more of them. Having cracked open a jar minutes ago, there are now just five left...

Dumbest Line In A Comic?

OK, probably not the dumbest ever, but definitely in the running:

In Mister Terrific # 1 (one of the 52 relaunch titles from DC Comics), Michael Holt (aka Mr Terrific) tells a couple bystanders he just saved, "Some people call me the third smartest man in the world." But that's not the dumb part.

Then he gives the reader a bit of flashback-history about the love of his life, his wife, Paula. "I was supposed to meet her for dinner that night at our favorite restaurant. The moment I saw her overturned car I knew it was bad."

See? When you're the third smartest man in the world, you can make incredible leaps of logic like that: all it takes is the sight of your wife's car smashed and resting on its hood for you to instantly intuit what the rest of us would spend days trying to assess! (The first and second smartest men in the world, presumably, would've known better than to say anything nearly that ridiculous!)

Clearly Eric Wallace, the writer of this comic, isn't exactly sure how to write a guy who's supposed to be really, really smart.

Perspective, By Carl Sagan

He says it all, and in less than four minutes, to boot.

Best Finish To An MLB Season Ever?

In spite of it shifting to a Wednesday this year, the close of the 2011 Major League Baseball season last night had to be one of (if not) the best finales of all time! Here's why I say that:

• While all 6 division winners were known going into play yesterday, two pairs of teams were vying for the Wildcard slots - Boston and Tampa Bay in the American League, and Atlanta and St. Louis in the National
• Both Boston and Atlanta had held huge leads in those races earlier in the month, prior to historic collapses that allowed each of them to be caught by the end of play on the second last day
• Boston was playing in Baltimore, where the cellar-dwelling Orioles hoped to spoil the Eastern Division rival Red Sox's plans for the postseason; Tampa Bay was hosting the division-winning Yankees, the latter of whom had to be at least a little conflicted since their arch-nemeses (Boston) were actually rooting for them to win!
• In the National League, it was a very similar situation: Atlanta was hosting their division winners, the Phillies, while St. Louis was in Houston, playing the major-league-worst team from their Central Division - the Astros; so in both cases, one team was hosting a powerhouse while the other was visiting a theoretically weak team.
• The Cardinals/Astros game was the only one that was over quickly: they jumped out to an early 4-0 lead and went on to win 8-0 before any of the other games were finished (despite being the last one to start, on account of being in Texas!); the Cards now knew they would either get a 1-game playoff today against the Braves, or pass directly into the postseason that starts tomorrow; they had to sit back and watch the other game to see how it would play out (it was either 3-1 Atl or 3-2 around that point)
  
• The Yankees got up 7-0 on the Rays, and took that lead to the bottom of the 8th... at which point Tampa scored 6 runs, making for an exciting 9th inning!
• Meanwhile, Boston was up 3-2 in Baltimore in the 7th, but in a rain delay that lasted quite awhile, and Atlanta blew their lead, allowing the Phillies to tie it 3-3 in the 9th and send it to extra innings
• By that point, Tampa scored the tying run in the 9th inning, and that game also headed to extra innings!
• Somewhere along the line, Boston and Baltimore resumed play after the rain delay, and it got to the 9th inning, still 3-2 Bos
• In fairly quick succession (over the course of only a few minutes), the following happened: the Phillies went ahead 4-3 in the top of the 13th and then shut down the Braves in the bottom of that inning, punching the Cards' ticket into the postseason; Baltimore got down to its last out and last strike, and then tied the game and quickly won the game on back-to-back plays, meaning that the Red Sox could only hope for a Rays loss to force a one-game playoff with them; and Tampa scored the winning run in the bottom of the 12th, setting the scene for the 2011 MLB Postseason at long last!

I was absolutely glued to the set, flipping between the various games - major kudos to Sportsnet for dedicating their different channels to the important matches last night!! - and trying not to miss any key plays! It was an incredible evening for this baseball fan, and I can only hope the playoffs won't be a letdown by comparison!!

Is Nothing Sacred?

I'm not going to get all 'purist' over this, but it's still pretty strange: the Major League Baseball 2011 season ends tonight... on a Wednesday! I can't ever remember the MLB season ending on anything but a Sunday, with the postseason starting two days later, on a Tuesday. This year, however, everything is shifted, such that the playoffs will commence this Friday! I know, eh?! Crazy!

OK, this probably doesn't matter at all to most of you reading this, but it still kind of freaks me out. It's like my whole weekly calendar is going to be off now, especially since I don't have a workweek to help straighten it out.

Walking Goal: Week 16 Report - Penultimate Edition

I added about 30 kms this past week, despite a fair amount of rain (and it's just teeming outside as I type this update) and minimal motivation with my goal reached and the completion of the project looming. The week ended with Julie and I on our first walk in over a month, which we then got to repeat when we got home only to discover that one of us had dropped our keys somewhere along the way (we never did find them). Anyway, my total's now:

612 kms (122.5% of my 500 km goal)

With just one week to go and lots of precipitation in the forecast, I'm shooting for at least 625 kms as that would put me at 125% of the goal. Considering how close I am, that's not exactly stretching... but c'mon, I've done a lot of walking already and my poor knees are starting to feel it!

Radiohead On Tomorrow's Colbert Report

As if seeing them on Saturday Night Live last night wasn't enough of a thrill, my favourite band is apparently appearing on a special hour-long episode of The Colbert Report tomorrow night! As Vicki said, this probably reflects nothing more than Thom Yorke and the boys spending a little time in New York City at the moment and wanting to maximize the publicity potential of their stay. Whatever the reason, I'll take it! When a show that I love features a musical group that I'm crazy for, it's wins all around for this blogger.

Pool Season 2011 Comes To A Close

After a second consecutive frustrating summer (pool liner, pool heater - twice!, pool pump, leak), it almost seems like we haven't had a real pool season since 2009. Oh well, maybe 2012 will finally bring us some water-based joy! And it's not like we didn't have any fun this year:


(I swear there was still Cooper hair in that pool when we closed it this morning...)

Counting Down To Radiohead On Saturday Night Live

In a little less than 90 minutes, the latest season of Saturday Night Live will begin with Alec Baldwin setting a record for most appearances as host. I enjoy Baldwin, here and on 30 Rock, but the real SNL draw for me tonight is the musical guest: Radiohead!!

I've really been getting into their latest CD, The King of Limbs, as well as getting a second wind on the previous one, In Rainbows. Therefore I'm hoping they do a couple numbers from one or both of those releases, but I don't really care: any Radiohead is great Radiohead! And I say: bring it on!!

[Update Sep 26/11: The boys performed "Lotus Flower" and a so-far-unreleased song called "Staircase" that I naturally had never heard before, freaking me out a little as I thought I knew all their music!. You can watch them recording "Staircase" here, if you like!]

DC Comics And "The New 52"

It's a fact that I haven't had much to say so far about DC Comics' bold relaunch of their entire line that began this month. Back in June, once the lineup was revealed, I wrote my predictions for how much interest I expected to have in each of the 52 various series. I'll be re-examining that list once the first month is complete and I've caught up my reading of it.

But right now, I wanted to step back and gaze in wonder at what DC has already pulled off. For those who don't follow the comic industry, this will likely be news: all 39 of the first issues released so far have completely sold out, and are getting second, third and in at least one case, fourth printings! Now, sellouts are not unheard of in comic circles, but they're definitely the exception. So having an entire line of comics sell out is mind-blowing! Making this situation even more unbelievable is the fact that most store owners ordered high on these # 1s, as DC offered a special incentive program where unsold copies could be returned for a substantial refund (comics, ever since sometime in the 80s, have been non-returnable and thus stores almost always have to order somewhat conservatively if they don't want to have lots of recent, unsold comics filling up their back issue bins). So the orders were unnaturally high, and still all of the copies were gone, often within the first day of sale! My local comic store owner, for example, told me that all 13 of the first week DCs sold out on the Wednesday, and possibly (I can't remember precisely) all 13 from the second week did, as well. In response to my question, "When was the last time this sort of thing happened?" he said, "Well... never!"

So, while I have some reservations about the quality of the comics themselves - which I'll get into in that later post on the topic - I can't help but be impressed by what DC has accomplished so far with this move. It's got to be making Disney-nee-Marvel Comics at least a little nervous, despite their attempts to pooh-pooh it and all their claims that they'd never follow suit.

For those few intrepid souls actually interested in this, Brian Hibbs, a San Francisco comic store owner, sums up this remarkable success story rather well in his Tilting at Windmills column, along with a few cautionary thoughts about it.

To All Those Resistance 3 Players Suffering Right Now

Yes, it's another "unscheduled PlayStation Network outage", which we can only hope won't turn into a repeat of the April hacker attack that lasted for weeks. As such, there's no Resistance 3 multiplayer to be enjoyed right now. That means that all those players who delighted in killing me just when I thought I had them nailed are likely every bit as frustrated as me at the moment!

And I was just two promotions away from finally getting my Turrets perk, which I've been looking forward to for about a week now!

[Update the next day: Fortunately the outage only lasted several hours. After it ended, I was able to get my beloved Turrets perk, with which I then won 4 of 5 Deathmatches that I played... after having won only 1 or 2 in about a dozen tries before that! Yeah, I love me my Turrets.]

Walking Goal: Week 15 Report

It's finally beginning to feel like autumn lately, which means my summer walking project must just about be done. With two more weeks to go, I'm now up to:

583 kms (116.7% of my 500 km goal)

I had to estimate how much walking we did at Beatlefest on Saturday, as I didn't think to take my pedometer with me as I didn't understand that it was a street festival (live and learn!).

600 kms now seems all-but-inevitable, although 650 may elude me this year. It'll depend on the weather over the next dozen days, and how motivated I can get when I'm already well beyond my original goal.

The Family Beatle

I have a great-nephew named Hunter (eldest son of my niece, Penny) who plays in a Beatles tribute band called Help! I'd missed an opportunity to see them at a local venue a few weeks back, but yesterday he and his bandmates were performing at Beatlefest in Orillia. A month ago, did I even know that Orillia hosted a Beatlefest every September? No I did not! And yet off Vicki and I went in the early hours yesterday, arriving in Orillia around 10:00 a.m. so that we could join the family for the fun.

They did a noon show, featuring hits such as "Day Tripper", "Something", "Back in the U.S.S.R.", "Octopus's Garden" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", among several others. Hunter plays guitar (or possibly bass, I can never remember how you tell the difference!) but also did lead vocals on a trio of songs during that set. It was a total thrill to see how good they are, and how much fun someone in my family actually has showcasing his musical talents (of which I have none). Here he is, playing:


There was another performance at 3:00, down the street (literally: Beatlefest is composed of a set of outdoor stages along the main street of Orillia), and we got to hear another, mostly-similar collection of songs that somehow managed to sound even better!

And here he is, proudly nestled up beside his favourite great-uncle:


The funny look he's giving me could be the result of me telling him that that green toque he's wearing is totally bogus...

It was an amazing day, and Vicki and I were both extremely happy that we'd made the drive to take part in it. I can hardly wait for next year!!

Brief Resistance 3 And Game Over Updates

For the one or two blog regulars who care about such things: I played a fair bit of Resistance 3 Team Deathmatch today (Vicki was in Toronto), and I'm now a level 27 and my kill-to-death is approximately +200. I finished first a couple times today, which is always a thrill considering how many good players there are in the game right now (just ask Boneman, who's still working on finding his groove in R3's online play).

Anyway, it was a good day, as I got about 6 or 7 promotions, which are getting harder with every level I move up. There are some very nice perks coming available in the next 5 levels or so, which I'm looking forward to trying out. I can tell other players are using them and I can hardly wait to get there myself.

In other news, I got 3 more copies of Game Over into new hands today, including one that I gave to the comic store owner in the hopes that he'll read it, love it, and maybe encourage his customers to give it a try. It's a long shot, but 'out there' initiatives like that are probably what it's going to take to really get some word of mouth started on this. At least I'm trying!

Just 4 Weeks Until The Thing Prequel Becomes You

October 14th sees the release of the prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing, the latter of which is one of my all-time favourite movies. The 2011 version is simply entitled, The Thing, which should make the lineage of the franchise somewhat confusing in the future. (I think they could've gone with Things to Come, personally!)

I'm hoping this will be good, but remain very doubtful that it will be. At the very least, I hope it delivers a few cheap thrills to fans of Carpenter's wonderful gore fest. If the early reviews are dreadful, I probably won't go see it at the theatre; otherwise, I'm there!

More Game Over Feedback

Here are a couple bits of reaction I've gotten recently from a pair of folks who had just finished reading Game Over:

"I have to admit, I would finish a chapter yesterday and then put the book down, but found myself being drawn back to it so I could see what happened next!"

and

"I stayed up WAY past my bedtime and I finished the book. Very clever ending! I can imagine it being turned into a movie! Good job and good night!"

If you haven't read Game Over yet, what are you waiting for??

Walking Goal: Week 14 Report

Another fairly light week, as we had a pretty busy few days culminating with Sunday spent en route to Regina, Saskatchewan for some Agile training work. I did manage to put in almost 30 kms, though, bringing me up to:

551 kms (110.3% of my 500 km goal)

With just 3 more weeks to go, I'm thinking I might make it to 650... but we'll see!

Resistance 3 Update

As of about an hour ago, I reached level 20 in online play for R3. That's as high as I got in the beta, as it was capped at 20 when I was playing it back then. My kill-to-death differential is sitting just a little over +100, which isn't bad for less than a week in. I've finished 1st in three or four Team Deathmatches so far, including one where I went absolutely insane (with a 12-kill streak at one point), finishing with something like 28 kills and 13 deaths. I love all of the loadout options, and can hardly wait to level up enough to try out a bunch more beyond what I've sampled so far.

I've also now played a few chapters of the campaign, some in Single Player mode, and one in Cooperative mode (with Tammy). I'm really impressed with the campaign this time out, after being disappointed by what Resistance 2 offered in that area.

All in all, Resistance 3 is totally living up to my expectations, high though they were!

Re-Stocking Game Over

I'm happy to report that we've almost sold through the extra copies of Game Over from the original print run! (For those who pre-ordered but haven't gotten their copies yet, not to worry: those are set aside for you.) There are, I think, 5 extra copies left now, which is just below my comfort level and so I've ordered 20 more. We were just one sale away from profitability, but now obviously we'll need a few more to cover the latest cost. There have also been three Kindle sales so far, which is a nice start but we really need word of mouth to kick in to drive those numbers up. If you've read Game Over and loved it, please take a minute or two to tell a few friends or family members about it. Lend your copy out, send them to the Kindle store, bug me for another copy, or demand that your local book store carry it!! ;-)

Response to the book continues to be enthusiastically positive, which is just indescribably rewarding! Here's one I received in the last couple of days:

"Done! Great book! Love the ending! I might have to read it again just to continue enjoying it! No disappointments at all!! LOVED IT!!
I'll be waiting for the next book....Hurry!"

Who wouldn't love to receive feedback like that?!

One Bachelor Day, Coming Up!

Tomorrow Vicki heads to Toronto on business, and then will spend the evening and overnight with Tammy. The two of them will then come home on Saturday, meaning that I've got all of tomorrow to my own devices once I drop Vicki at the train station.

So far my plans for the day include the following activities:

Resistance 3

:-)

Loving Resistance 3 So Far!

OK, so maybe I've only had it for about 7 hours right now, but it's still been pretty awesome! I love the new maps that are in the Multiplayer portion, and haven't even tried the single player campaign yet. My Kill-to-Death is sitting at 100-90 or so, which is very good for a first day (obviously the beta practice helped a lot).

I love the fact that the beta only featured a small fraction of the online loadout choices, as it means there's still a heap of perks and weapons to discover as I level up. I predict this is going to keep me busy right up until Battlefield 3 comes out in late October! And if so, that would be a very good thing.

Walking Goal: Week 13 Report - Slack Week!

Due to a combination of being busy, high humidity and having achieved my goal the previous week, this was a pretty pathetic week for walking. In fact, it was the worst week yet, no matter how you measure it! I did fewer walking days than ever before (only 4), accumulated the lowest kms yet (just over 22) and generally didn't put much effort in. However, cooler temperatures have now arrived, and today alone I logged 7 kms toward next week's total, so it should be all good. Anyway, the update is:

523 kms (104.7% of my 500 km goal)

Just 4 more weeks to go now!

Resistance 3: Out Tomorrow!

It's been a long, long wait for this one, but we're now less than 24 hours away from the release of Insomniac Games' Resistance 3! Thanks to participating in the beta for the better part of a month, I have a pretty good idea what to expect from the multiplayer portion of the game. I'm looking forward to being able to level up further than the beta allowed, though, and to playing without the knowledge that the stats would be reset eventually anyway.

But more than that, I'm eagerly anticipating the single player campaign, as it's set in a grim, dystopian version of the Earth where it's been completely conquered by the alien Chimera. Unlike the first two installments, there's little to be optimistic about in this world, which suits me just fine for a video game! Just point me toward the enemy and load me up!

If my blogging output goes down shortly, you'll know why...

Another Sampling Of Game Over Feedback

Here are some more comments I've received via e-mail or Facebook in the past 48 hours from four different people at various stages of reading Game Over:

"Reading an Amazing Book.... Game Over! ... I am on Chapter 4 and stayed up way too late reading....really hard to put down, very well written, awesome! I can't wait for the kids to nap today so I can continue."

"It's making me crazy! I just want to keep reading cause I really don't have any idea how this will all pan out."

"I just finished the book! I spent the afternoon finishing it. I really enjoyed it. I would not have guessed the ending."

"All good. Enjoying!! Author, author!!"

Game Over Almost Turning A Profit Already

Just 10 days after the initial order arrived, I've sold enough copies of Game Over to be within spitting distance of turning a profit on it. That's partly a reflection of not having done too large of an overprint (how many copies I printed beyond what had been pre-ordered) and partly thanks to good word of mouth bringing in some extra sales. As more and more people get their hands on the book, I just hope that latter trend continues! I've had several people finish it already (all part of that "page turner" classification that seems to be sticking to it) and they're all saying good things about it. Even the most negative response so far was actually mostly positive, which is fantastic! But we'll see if that's still true in another week or two!

Speaking of which: if you've finished reading it and haven't passed along your thoughts to me via a comment, e-mail or verbally, please consider doing so! Also, if you loved it, I'd appreciate it if you left a rating and/or review of it here or here. That sort of thing could certainly help drive some "cold sales" online!

Anyway, I hope to soon be able to report that Game Over is in the black!!

What I've Been Doing

This week's flown by, mostly thanks to various activities involving Game Over. However, yesterday was spent doing our 3rd Agile 101 training session at the same locale as the earlier ones in April and early August. This latest one received ratings of 9.0, 9.3 and 9.0 (all out of 10) for the presentation, hands-on activity and facilitation of it, respectively. Collectively, those are the best results I've ever received for a training session, so that was pretty awesome!

Back on the novel, I've been getting lots of updates on progress from some of the folks now in possession of copies of it. The common theme seems to be that once you get a few chapters in, Game Over is very hard to put down! I know that Julie predicted that would be the case, but I'm still (very pleasantly) surprised to hear it. Two of my nieces reported blowing through multiple chapters last night after their kids went to bed, with one of them staying up to 1:00 a.m. and then thinking about the book while lying in bed afterward! In other words: exactly the sort of reaction I'd love people to have! It's gratifying to know that all of that hard work by myself and my supporting players over the past eight or nine months is finally paying off!

If you haven't already got your copy of Game Over, hopefully it's because you pre-ordered it and just haven't had a chance to get it from me yet. Otherwise... what are you doing?! It's turning into the Must Read book of 2011!!

[Update later than same night: I forgot to mention that one of my nieces sent me an e-mail this morning with the Subject: YOUR BOOK IS FREAKIN' AMAZING!! The e-mail ended with her telling me that she couldn't wait for bedtime tonight so that she could get back at it! That pretty much made my day.]

Today's Early Game Over Feedback

Via e-mail from someone who purchased a copy earlier today:

"2 chapters done. Loving it so far"

That's what I like to hear!

Walking Goal: Week 12 Report - GOAL REACHED!

Yup, with 20 kms over the last 2 days alone, I really pushed myself to the limit this week and brought my total up to:

501.1 kms (100.2% of my goal for the summer!!!)

I'll still keep at it through the end of September, as planned, but now at least the pressure's off. It's all gravy from here on in...

Game Over Teases: The Chapter List

Here's the chapter list for my first novel. And yes, Chapter 2 is really called that!

Chapter 1: Flight Risks
Chapter 2: Shit Happens
Chapter 3: Ghosts
Chapter 4: Secrets and Lies
Chapter 5: The Course of True Love
Chapter 6: Friends and Other Strangers
Chapter 7: Mothers and Sons
Chapter 8: Apocalypse Now and Then
Chapter 9: Into the Abyss
Chapter 10: Strange Bedfellows
Chapter 11: Arrivals and Departures
Chapter 12: Teachable Moments
Chapter 13: Flight Risks Redux
Epilogue: Another Story

Like pretty much everything else about Game Over, I'm extremely pleased with the chapter titles and how much they add to the overall package.

First Early Reaction To Game Over In Printed Form

This came to me via e-mail last night, from a rather discerning individual who's reading Game Over for the first time (i.e. not one of the early reviewers):

"I just finished chapter 1, and I have to say I'm very impressed. Two thumbs up so far!"

That sort of thing does wonders for my confidence! Julie, Vicki and I all worried a lot, early on, that Chapter 1 (entitled Flight Risks) wasn't as strong as the rest of the book, although we did work on it quite a bit in subsequent revisions. Sounds like maybe some of that effort paid off. Yay!

Christmas Comes 4 Months Early

OK, so I didn't exactly follow my own game plan, as I decided on Monday to take a risk and order 50 copies of Game Over without first getting a print draft copy of the current version. I know: kind of crazy, eh? (Especially for someone as famously cautious as me!)

Well, those 50 copies took less than 72 hours to print and ship, and they're now sitting on our kitchen table! As far as Vicki and I can tell, they look great! I'm leaning toward distributing them piecemeal, on an adhoc basis rather than doing a big "Book Launch Event", which means that I'll be notifying the pre-order people by e-mail shortly that their book is now ready. Then I'll figure out how to get them handed out.

Should be fun. I can't wait to see how people respond to this, my first ever novel (and yes, I realize it might not be positively.... gulp!)

Game Over Teases: The Front Cover

How's that for awesome???

The Movie Of Roger Ebert's Life

Ebert has a memoir coming out soon, and the first chapter of it is available online right now. As fans of his movie reviews know, he has a uniquely-engaging voice in his writing and that comes across big time in that first chapter. I think I'll greatly enjoy reading Life Itself: A Memoir when I receive a copy of it for Christmas this year (hint, hint).

Complete And Utter Awesomeness

Yes, this is at least seven different types of awesome: an amazing live action Portal short!

Walking Goal: Week 11 Report

I may now be within a week of my target, although I'll need to post a big number this week to make it. As of right now, I'm at:

453 kms (90.7% of the way to my target of 500 km)

If I don't hit the mark by next Sunday (end of Week 12), I should be able to get there by the following Wednesday, which would be the end of August. So either way, I'll be about a month ahead of schedule... if I don't break a leg or get hit by a car in the meantime!

Very Moving Jack Layton Letter

If only every politician could go out with this much class: Jack Layton's last letter to Canadians.

I find it particularly moving that Mr. Layton thought to include the following:

"To other Canadians who are on journeys to defeat cancer and to live their lives, I say this: please don’t be discouraged that my own journey hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope. Treatments and therapies have never been better in the face of this disease. You have every reason to be optimistic, determined, and focused on the future. My only other advice is to cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey, as I have done this summer."

That he was thinking of others in similar situations, even at the end, says a lot about the type of man Jack Layton was.

Another Game Over Update

So the print draft copies (I ordered one each for Vicki, Julie and I) arrived on Tuesday, and I started reviewing it, looking for things that should be fixed. There were relatively few typos or grammar errors that I could see, but lots of things like the same word unintentionally being used several times in quick succession. I made a list of those, which ran to almost 50 items. I've now corrected all of them, and will give Vicki and Julie another couple days to see if they come up with anything else that needs addressing. Then I'll order one copy of the updated version, in order to check it out before placing the big order. My expectation is that we'll have copies available for all the eager readers out there by around the middle of September. I'm still considering whether or not to do a Book Launch event of some sort, but it looks like I've got a few weeks yet before I have to make that decision.

So that's where we stand on Game Over right now. I'll be providing another tease for it sometime this week, if all goes as planned.

A Corner Has Been Turned On The R3 Beta

With Vicki out of town visiting Tammy, and Julie too busy for any walks at the moment, I've had unfettered access to the Resistance 3 beta over the past 24 hours. I think I probably logged about 5 hours on it yesterday, and went from generally sucking to actually finishing 1st in one Team Deathmatch! I was usually in the top 5 or 6 players at the end of the game (out of 16 total), which is about as high as I can get in most games. It's gone from being a frustrating experience to a fun one, making me even more excited about the official release that's now only 18 days away! I'm maxed out at level 20 (that's the limit in the beta) and am looking forward to finding out just how many more promotions I can get in the full game, as well as what loadout options are still to come. I've also pushed my KTD ratio well above 1.0 for the first time, which longtime followers of this blog know to be my favourite metric for how I'm doing in online game play!

In other words: fun!

Game Over Teases: The First Line

The very first thing I wrote for my then-untitled first novel back in January of this year, once I resumed work on it after a year and a half hiatus and with a completely different take on it in mind (in large part thanks to Julie), was the opening line. I'd discarded everything I'd written before, and started over from scratch. I remember telling Julie the line, just a few short hours after I'd come up with it, and I also recall trying to change it long after the first draft was complete and how she talked me out of it.

I just now compared what made it onto the printed page with what opened the first chapter that I sent Julie on Jan 19/11, and they're identical. Not even a single character changed between then and now, despite some fairly extensive revisions of the book in general over those intervening months.

Here, then, is a very brief taste of Game Over in the form of its opening line:

I’m haunted by a recurring image from a moment in my mother’s childhood that I’m pretty sure never actually happened.

How's that grab you?

Copy Of Game Over Now In Hand

Lulu was even faster than usual this time, as I placed the order on Thursday of last week (in the afternoon!) and had my print draft copy of Game Over in hand by noon today! Wow, that's quick!

We'll be checking it over for a bit and then placing the big order, possibly within a few days (assuming we don't find anything wrong that's drastic enough to require another print draft copy first). It's always a big thrill getting that first copy in the mail, but this was particularly exciting because I'm probably prouder of this book than I've been of any of the previous ones (and that's saying something). This is one great story, I think, and now I get to look at it wrapped up in a sweet little package! Fun!

Walking Goal: Week 10 Report

I don't know what was in her drinking water last week, but for some reason Julie invited me to join her for 5 - count 'em, 5! - walks, which was a very nice development indeed. I didn't actually have to do many solo treks, as a result, and yet still posted almost 40 kms for the week. I'm on the home stretch now for sure:

411 kms (82.2% of the way to the goal of 500 kms)

I expect I'll hit my target by the end of August at this pace, leaving me the entire month of September to pile on the gravy. It's been a lot of walking in hot temperatures but at least the worst of that should be behind me now (I hope).

And Now Some More Thoughts On The Resistance 3 Beta

This weekend, for the first time since I got access to the R3 multiplayer beta, the servers actually worked well! I had no disconnects, no trouble getting into games, and no problems with my stats. This was a very smooth experience in terms of the online infrastructure, so that bodes well for the Sep 6th launch, I guess.

As for the game itself, it's taking me a long time to get any good at it, as is often the case with a new title. Almost every match I've played in has seemed to include a few players on the other side who've really figured it out, and have levelled up enough to have access to the most powerful abilities. I'm now at level 12 and can use the Marksman, which was one of my favourite guns from Resistance 2. I'm still not killing more than I'm dying, but I suppose I'll get there eventually. I find the controls a bit 'sticky', especially when you're trying to keep your sight on an enemy while firing... either I'm doing something wrong, they've intentionally made that difficult, or there's a bug of some sort. It's really frustrating, and I swear it seems like some of the players are already 'glitching', as their avatars are moving too quickly and too erratically for me to be able to hit very well. Or maybe I just suck.

I also have the typical problem of pressing down too hard on the right thumbstick whenever I'm trying to spin and track an enemy. I've currently got that button press mapped to Crouch, which isn't bad most of the time, except when I'm standing behind a low wall trying to shoot snipe someone... inevitably, as I try to hit them, I crouch and can't see over the wall anymore! Of all the issues I have with controllers, this one is by far the most maddening... why we can't either dial down the sensitivity of the downward pressing or disable that button altogether, is beyond me. I swear I'd be at least a 5% better player without having to deal with that annoyance every frigging game!

Anyway, it's nice to be able to actually play it now, but I hope they can make the online experience a little smoother in terms of movement and graphics. As it is, it's a fun game but not an amazing one. And with no 8-person coop mode of the style R2 had, it's hard to imagine that I'll end up spending the same hundreds of hours playing this one.

Game Over Update

After a flurry of activity this week, I've finally put in my initial print draft copy order with Lulu. I should have something in hand to check over within the next week or two, after which I'll be able to place the larger order. Pre-orders are right now sitting at about 2/3 of what I'd hoped for, which means I'll be doing a smaller print run than I'd planned unless a few more come in over the next week or so. I'm trying to decide the best way to get copies into the hands of people who pre-ordered, as 'meeting for lunch' a dozen or more times isn't going to work for a number of reasons (not the least of which is, I usually eat out about once a week at most!). I'm tempted to do a 'launch event' of some sort, either from a restaurant or out of our home, but I'm not sure the numbers really warrant that big a deal. So we'll see.

At any rate, my best guess right now is that Game Over should be available for purchase around the start of September. Then the fun can really start!

Oh, Those Crazy French!

I knew there was another reason why I've hated the Habs all my life...

I've got Game Over pretty much ready to go, except that we can't seem to nail down the handful of French translations I need for two of the later chapters! Wouldn't you know it that the 99.95% of the book that's in English is ready to go, while the 0.05% that's in French is holding everything up.

Argggh!

Last Call For Game Over Pre-Orders

Progress has been so good on Game Over lately that I may actually be able to get copies printed later this month, instead of having to wait until September! Which is good news, but the pre-orders so far have been less than I was hoping for, making me think that maybe some potential readers haven't gotten around to letting me know just yet. If you're one of them, please get in touch with me sooner, rather than later.

Having just completed a final pass on the novel, I can tell you it's going to be quite the interesting read! It's now looking quite polished, I believe. All it needs is more readers!

Walking Goal: Week 9 Report

Progress continues to be made, and Week 9 was particularly successful. Julie helped out with two walks, one at either end of the week, and so I logged just shy of 40 km over the 7 days, bringing my total up to:

374 kms (74.8% of the way toward my 500 km total)

In other words, I'm now 3/4 of the way there, about 1/2 way through my 4 months. Yay!

Oh, And I've Played Resistance 3, By The Way...

If you want a measure of how crazy the last couple weeks have been for me, consider this:

Last Tuesday, I was invited to join the Resistance 3 Beta that was starting up. And yet, this post, almost a week later, is the first time I've thought to even blog about it! I've tried to play about 5 times so far, making it into games twice; the other times I was thwarted by a widespread matchmaking issue that Insomniac Games is currently looking into. In fact, they've now shut down matchmaking entirely and you can only play in private games, which means you need to know someone else in the Beta. There are forums set up to facilitate finding such people, but I've been too busy to devote any time to that.

My total playing time was maybe 20 minutes, so my impressions of the multiplayer component (the only thing in the Beta) are limited. I think the graphics are good but not great; I found the controls a bit clunky but that may just be an adjustment rather than a shortcoming. There seem to be a ton of perks available as you level up, meaning that it's going to be tough not to blow completely early on. I'm bracing myself for that when the game actually comes out in 29 days!

I'll post more once I've had a chance to get some significant playing time in. I'd say what I've seen so far has neither increased nor decreased my anticipation of Resistance 3.

Nearly There On Game Over

Julie sent me her edits on the final chapter of Game Over yesterday, leaving her only the (relatively short) Epilogue to work on now. Assuming I get those from her by tomorrow (which she thinks she can do), then I'll start my final pass on the book right afterward. That means I could be requesting a print draft copy from Lulu in as little as a week or two, which would be even earlier than planned! I've been playing around with the formatting this week, which is something I always leave until the final days of the editing stage, as prior to that it really doesn't matter what the book looks like. With my first three 'masterpieces', that was also when I introduced the comic strips at the start of each chapter. Just to set expectations: there are no comics in Game Over! Sorry if that's a disappointment to anyone out there... but shit happens!

And just one more note on my Editor Extraordinaire. While each of the people who've read early versions of the book have provided outstanding feedback to me in their own unique ways, no one else has managed to both go over it with a fine-toothed comb looking for mistakes and offer helpful suggestions for it quite like Julie. Her work on it over the past several months is going to make me look like a much better writer than I actually am, but let's just keep that to ourselves, shall we?

The Call Has Gone Out

I sent the e-mail last night, asking folks who'd like to get a copy of Game Over from me to please pre-order now. Chances are good that, if you're reading this now, you've already received that e-mail. However, if you didn't, there's still lots of time to let me know that you want one! I'm hoping to get at least 30 pre-orders for this, my first novel, but we're off to a bit of a slow start. That could reflect summer vacations, of course, which is always a risk this time of year. But we'll see how things go next week. And a very big THANK YOU to everyone who's reserved a copy so far... it's much appreciated!

I've come up with what I believe is a better back cover blurb for the book, which I included in the e-mail. For posterity, as well as for the benefit of anyone not receiving that message, here's the latest version:

"A teenager pushed in front of a bus; a dead body in a freezer; a sudden wave of suicides. These are just a few of the inexplicable events Malcolm Greene has to contend with as he struggles to solve a mystery that’s threatening to consume him. The closer he gets to the answer, though, the higher the stakes become and the more Malcolm begins to fear for his own safety… and possibly his sanity, too! Does this self-described flight risk really have what it takes to get to the bottom of this increasingly-dangerous puzzle, or will he decide to get out while the getting’s good?"

That seems a catchier description than what I posted last time.

I've also got a friend working on the front cover for Game Over, and I may show it here prior to the release of the book. Haven't made a firm decision on that front yet. I can say that his early mock ups have elicited a lot of oooh's and ahhh's out of Julie, Vicki and I! So that bodes well for having an eye-catching visual as the face of Game Over.

As of right now, I'm hoping to have copies in hand by the middle of September. Fingers crossed!

AgileMan Rides Again (But Is Pooped Right Now)

I did another Agile 101 Workshop today, with my lovely helper Vicki alongside me once more, at the same local company that we'd been at in April. This was for another group there, and there's already talk about possibly going back toward the end of the month for yet another collection of folks. It's really hard to convey just how tired I am after a full day workshop like that, but suffice to say I've done almost nothing since getting home around 5:00 p.m. My brain's too fried to make changes to Game Over, for example, or to even watch anything on TV. In fact, I'll probably be in bed by 10:00 tonight, which is about 2 hrs earlier than normal.

But it was a good session, and so worth a little mental exhaustion afterwards. The Effectiveness Survey results weren't quite as impressive this time out - 8.3 / 10 for the presentation portion and 8.4 / 10 for the hands-on activity - but still very respectable, all things considered.

Tomorrow, however, I have to get back to work on Game Over. I'm still hoping to start the self-publishing process in a couple of weeks. Julie has kindly provided her edits for all but the final chapter and the epilogue, and once I have those and the final few chapters from one other reviewer, I should be on the home stretch. I'll do one more pass at that point, and then get it ready for printing. So exciting... I can hardly wait for more people to read this thing!

Walking Goal: Week 8 Report

I had a rather impressive 8th week, as I somehow managed to walk almost 50 km despite another wave of high temperatures and debilitating humidity. Vicki generously accompanied me for several walks in the heat, and Julie and Cooper helped out, too. I'm now right around the halfway mark for my 4 month sojourn, and am well ahead of schedule:

335.5 kms (67.1% of the way to my target)

I don't think I could've picked a hotter summer to try this in, but I guess the results to date just mean that I'm really committed to hitting my goal!

Happy Anniversary To Us

I'm a little late posting this, but "today" (August 1st, so technically yesterday now) was the 1-year anniversary of the first time Julie came over to hang out with Vicki and I. As regular readers of this blog probably realize, that was the start of a friendship that's blossomed pretty impressively over the past 12 months.

I can't imagine writing Game Over without Julie's help, for example, nor would I have wanted to miss the two and a half weeks in April during which we had Cooper and Finley staying with us while Julie vacationed in South Africa. And, of course, I probably wouldn't be in the shape I'm in - such as it is! - were it not for all those dozens of walks Julie, Cooper and I have gone on since last Fall.

In other words, we're lucky to have found such a good friend... and we know it!

Good Time To Join The Resistance

If you own a PS3 and have always wondered why Boneman and I rave about Resistance: Fall of Man and Resistance 2, now is the perfect time to find out. Not only is Resistance 3 only 38 days away, but a very affordable Dual Pack, containing both R:FoM and R2, has just been released for $39.99! Highly recommended, as I've played through each of those games twice already, and probably will again at some point in the future.

A Crazy Week

So far, this week has featured a walk during which Julie and I encountered a very strange bit of 'landscaping' that was put in place so quickly that my walking partner only half-jokingly theorized it must have involved time travel or alien technology; two deaths in my family (one of which happened last month but no one thought to tell us about at the time); a request for two Agile workshops to be delivered over the next two weeks; and a whole slew of feedback for Game Over that will have me making edits to it for days and days and days. In other words, I've been busier, and more distracted, than at any point since I stopped working full-time 3 years ago!

At The Fringe

We couldn't take any photos within the shows of Hamilton Fringe itself, but we did remember to snap a couple as we moved between venues. Here's Vicki posing by a poster for Dirk Darrow:


And here I am, outside the Aquarius Theatre, one of the two venues the Fringe Festival took place in:


You can't really get a sense of how hot it was there, but trust me: it was brutal! Still, we had a fantastic time there and were so glad we went!

Walking Goal: Week 7 Report

I was expecting a poor total for this week, what with the heat and Hamilton Fringe to contend with. However, I fortunately remembered to take my pedometer to Steel City so that I could record all of our jaunts back and forth between the two venues. That, along with a little Cooper time at the start of the week and a Julie walk at the end, allowed me to post some reasonably good progress in Week 7:

287.4 kms (57.5% of the way to the total)

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm ready for a break from this ridiculously high humidity any time now!

Calling All Frenchies!

I have a favour to ask if you happen to speak French fluently: there are a few pieces of dialogue in Game Over that are in French. Julie (who went to a French school until Grade 8) has been kind enough to translate them from English. However she isn't 100% confident about the results as she hasn't had to speak French in a very long time. So if you happen to be fluent in French and would be willing to double check them, please contact me. Any assistance here would be greatly appreciated!

Captain America: My First Avenger

As regular followers of this blog already know, my first ever comic book featured Captain America. As such, we can draw a straight line from that moment in 1970 right through to me sitting in a theatre in Hamilton yesterday afternoon. I was watching so many scenes from that 40-year-old comic that it was absolutely eerie to think about: my first comic, my first Avenger, my first hobby, all symbolized by Chris Evans on the gigantic screen in front of us.

I'm sure most people won't have quite the visceral reaction to Captain America: The First Avenger that I did, but I imagine most will still enjoy it. This is a solid, satisfying silver screen introduction of yet another Marvel/Disney Comics character. Not only do you get Cap's origin, but significantly you get considerable time with the pre-Cap Steve Rogers. This is important because you get to see just what kind of man he is, despite standing about 5-foot-2 and weighing maybe 90 pounds (done with great effects, I must say!). They captured the essence of Rogers perfectly, and perhaps summed it up best with his one statement: "I hate bullies."

Most of the film takes place during World War II, which of course is where the character originated. Anyone bothered by the anachronistic technology on display during those scenes should remember that this is the Marvel Universe, not the real world. The Fantastic Four, after all, got to the moon in 1961! So it's not surprising that their Second World War featured weaponry somewhat more advanced than what actually existed in our version. I loved the war plotline, and was really glad to see that they dedicated almost the entire movie to it. Steve Rogers was the classic fish out of water when he was brought back in the 60s, and the ending of this movie strongly hinted that we'll see more of that in both The Avengers (next summer) and the inevitable Cap sequel.

I have to admit I loved this movie, perhaps more than I should have. But since Vicki said she thoroughly enjoyed it as well, maybe it's simply a good film, period. I know I'll be picking it up on DVD as soon as it comes out, because I'm already eager to watch it a second time!

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.