Well, That Was Certainly Something!

As hard as it was to watch Team Canada (men's hockey) blow a 2-0 lead and go into overtime against the U.S. today, in hindsight it made the accomplishment of winning the final gold of the 2010 Olympics just that much more dramatic. Setting a record for golds in a Winter Games (14) is pretty sweet icing on the cake, too.

I'm delighted that 3 golds and 1 silver went to our four teams for curling and hockey. It's a great Winter Olympics when we can take home that much excellent hardware in the two sports that kind of define us at that version of the O's.

Hard to imagine how players from the U.S. are going to get back into league games in just 48 hours, but since at least two of them are headed to Madison Square Garden (Drury and Callahan), they'd better figure out how to pull it off. At least they'll have silver medals as... uh, consolation?

Math Book Print Draft Copy Ordered

I put the finishing touches on No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math (How Parents Can Help) this morning, with Vicki's help. I'm sure I've missed something, in all of the checking and re-checking of the past couple days, but at some point you just have to lob the ball and hope for a touchdown.

If things go as they have in the past with such Lulu projects, I should have this first physical copy in hand sometime in the next couple of weeks. As of right now, I have approximately ten pre-orders for the book (some more firmed up than others) but am planning to do a considerably larger first order than that. Exact numbers are still being debated, but it could go as high as one hundred. That first bulk order should arrive sometime in late March or early April, assuming that nothing is too terribly wrong with the copy I ordered today.

I'll be pricing the book on the Lulu site (and in bookstores, if I can get it there) at $24.95. However, for copies that I sell myself, I expect to provide an "author's discount", bringing the price down to a nice, round $20. If you're interested, and haven't let me know yet, please consider doing so at your convenience. I've gotten pretty strong, positive feedback on it so far, and I honestly think this is a book that every parent (or parent-to-be) should read. But then again, I guess I'm a little biased on the subject...

Can Comic Books Become Any More Mainstream?

Earlier this week, I was watching the latest installment of Totally Lost, the "Doc" Jensen/Dan Snierson feature that recaps and analyzes the most recent episode of Lost. In it, Jensen was shown to be reading an issue of Big Numbers, the aborted 10-inch by 10-inch comic series by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz from the early 90s, only two parts of which ever saw print before the artist bailed on it. (Lost, itself, has of course shown several comics over its lifetime so far, including a Flash/Green Lantern special and a trade paperback of Y: The Last Man, both of them in Spanish, strangely enough!) That shot of Big Numbers reminded me that, in the previous Totally Lost, there had been a hardcover edition of DC Comics' Crisis on Infinite Earths sitting prominently on one of the hosts' bookshelf. OK, so Lost is pretty sick with comic references, but so what?

Well, today I visited CNN's website, and what should I see when I get there but the cover of Detective Comics # 27, the Batman-introducing comic, a nice copy of which recently sold for over a million dollars!

Add in the fact that at least a dozen comic-related movies are in various stages of development right now, and it's pretty clear that the genre has - for the moment, at least - undeniably thrust itself into the popular culture.

Somehow that development has not elevated me to Pop Culture God status, as it should have... but there's still time!

Worldometers

Because I'm now following Roger Ebert on Twitter, I was lucky enough to see a link to this rather fascinating website moments ago. I encourage you to check it out if you haven't already!

Congrats To The Canadian Women's Hockey Team

While the men's team this Olympics has been a little up and down, that other hockey team of ours was just rock solid, game after game. They played a beautiful three periods tonight and delivered a gold medal performance, even while Governor-quitter Sarah Palin bailed on the Health Care Summit coverage in order to fruitlessly cheer the American ladies on. About the only Olympic medal that I was 100% confident of, going into these games, was that the women's hockey team would get gold or silver... it's really nice to see them post their third consecutive championship when it counts the most.

On The Home Stretch Now

I'm halfway done what should be my final read-through of No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math (How Parents Can Help). I'd probably be able to finish it today if I didn't have 3 tutoring sessions ahead of me. As it is, I should be wrapping it up tomorrow, at which time Vicki gets to do one more pass, as well (looking for mistakes this time, not making more suggestions... or else I'll never get this thing finished!).

If all goes well, I'll be ordering a draft (paper) copy from Lulu sometime next week, and might have it in my hands by mid-March. Then I should have copies to sell by the end of March. It's starting to get exciting!

Possibly A Good Sign

I mentioned earlier that I had put in an ISBN application so that I could include one with my Math book in case I can get it into local bookstores. Today, I got a call from a nice woman in that government department who proceeded to ask me several questions, in a very thick French Canadian accent, about my publishing situation (will I be publishing it myself? is the name of the company really "AgileMan Consulting" and so on). Then she said, "There's one final question that I have for you, which I really need to know the answer to: will you be publishing a version of No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math in French??" It turns out that she has a high schooler at home who's falling behind in Math and she can't find a good tutor for him, and even joked that she wished I would move to Ottawa so that I could help him!

This sort of response to the premise of the book seems to be quite common. I saw it when Vicki was appearing on the local current events TV program and the other guests wanted to talk to me about the book when they were in the green room with me. It's quite the change from my AgileMan book experiences, where most peoples' eyes glaze over when I describe what those ones are about. I can only hope this means that bigger and better things await this latest book of mine.

Aliens vs Predator Selling Very Well In UK?!

That's what Sega claims, which is kind of surprising to me. Granted, it's early in the year so maybe their statements ("fastest selling game of the year") don't really mean all that much. But I still expected that its retro look and feel would have killed any momentum that the brand recognition might have started. Hmmm.

Having said all that, as I've been playing through the Marine campaign there have been two results that speak well for the game:

1. I don't know if I've ever moved as slowly through a map as I'm constantly doing in this game (it's really tense!); and
2. I've already replayed the first mission (on a higher difficulty setting) because I wanted to go through it again now that I'm more familiar with the game!

Most games I try out these days don't qualify for either of those treatments! So that's something!

What A Great Birthday Gift This Would Make

No, really!

Never Underestimate Our Ability To Choke

I've been keeping an eye on the daily Olympic Medal Count Projections over at FiveThirtyEight, in which they pool/average various predictions about how each country will do in this year's Winter Olympics and compare those numbers to the actual results. For several days early on, Canada, the U.S. and Germany were all forecast to be in a very tight race for the most medals of the games (around 32 each). As the actual competitions have unfolded, though, the U.S. has pulled out in front and Canada has started to fade. Today's projection (the first link, above) has Canada and Germany battling it out for the 2nd spot (getting 28 to 29 medals), with the Americans expected to take home 4 or 5 more trinkets.

When I first saw that Canada was expected to be at or near the top, I was shocked. I said to Vicki how surprised I was to hear that. But I should've realized that the people doing the prognosticating probably weren't aware of just how likely Canadian athletes are to disappoint, when it really matters. So far in this year's games I've heard of one athlete of ours who failed to show up at the "check-in" point for his event on time and was disqualified; one of our favoured bob sled teams rolled their vehicle completely over during a run yesterday; and two brothers were in a speed skating final with three other men last night, meaning that the only way neither of them would get a medal was if the pair of them managed to finish dead last... which they proceeded to do!

Canada currently has the largest variance deficit (-3.9, tied with Germany) against the projections, for medals that have already been awarded. The U.S., conversely, has the biggest positive variance (+3.4). That right there says a lot about the differences between the two countries, when it comes to competing on the world stage. No wonder so many American athletes are arrogant, insufferable jerks!

Math Book Update II

Today turned out to be a fairly significant day in the life of my upcoming book, No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math (How Parents Can Help). I'm still awaiting feedback from some of the early reviewers (due by Sunday, if you happen to be reading this!), but I decided to do a trial run of the publishing cycle at Lulu. I know from past experiences (AgileMan books, anyone?) that this part of the process can often be time-consuming and reveal some obstacles that have to be overcome along the way. So I thought it might be prudent to start in on it nice and early this time around.

Sure enough, I discovered that the page layout that I was using for the Word document was not consistent with the printing format that I want for the book. I thought I'd lined things up in that regard before I started, but apparently... not so much. So a good chunk of the afternoon was spent switching over to the new parameters, which significantly changed my page count (adding about 40 pages to the book) and involved some non-trivial re-formatting along the way. That was all necessary work, though, and I'm glad I tackled it sooner rather than later.

I also wanted to get my front cover sorted out, which chewed up another part of my day. I've now got that all squared away, though, and I think it's going to look very nice indeed. There's still the back cover blurb to take care of, but that's usually the easiest part of the process, as it just requires me to write the text and make sure that it fits into and fills up the allotted area.

In a bid to really get ahead of the curve, I also researched how to get an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) for this latest work of mine. Since I have some vague notion that I might be able to get copies of it into actual brick and mortar book stores, having an ISBN for No Kid is a must. From what I've learned so far, we Canadian authors (hey, stop laughing) can get free ISBNs via the Canadian ISBN Service System (CISS, or "kiss" as they pronounce it). I've submitted my application for that online, and now we'll see how that goes.

As I said to Vicki this afternoon, there seem to be about a million little details involved with writing and publishing your own book. At times, the minutiae can start to get me down, but in general it's quite a thrilling experience, every time. I love working on projects where - for the most part anyway - everything is dependent upon me, and only me. Too many years of dealing with other people who over-committed, under-delivered or just generally didn't know how to get things done, I suppose. It's nice to have all that behind me.

Great Moments In Gaming

After dipping my toe into the blood-soaked Aliens vs Predator pond today, I got "called back to duty" for some Modern Warfare 2 action tonight. McChicken wanted to play some Special Ops to start, and I was more than happy to accommodate that request. The two of us earned a couple of stars in the Wardriving mission, and used sentry guns and Claymores more strategically than I think we ever have before!

Then it was time for some Team Deathmatch fun, for which we invited Boneman to join us. The three of us did very well, but one slice of teamwork in particular stood out for me. On the Estate map, McChicken and I were both at the basement entrance to the chalet. He very wisely and considerately told me, "Kimota, there's two guys right at the top of these stairs!" Those would be the stairs I had been just about to run up! I could see enemies on my heartbeat monitor, but the three-story layout of that house makes it very hard to figure out where the bad guys really are (they could be on any one of the levels). With his warning, though, I reconsidered my plan and instead fired a flash band grenade up to the landing above our heads. As the two suckers up there staggered around blindly, I was able to pick both of them off with no problem. It was two easy kills with very little risk to my own life and limb (the best way to ratchet up your kill-to-death ratio!). And I owe it all to McChicken! What a pal!

Despite not playing for over a week, I found it extremely easy to get back into that game. That says something right there, I think.

JMS Dishes On Disney Comics

J Michael Straczynski is doing some very nice work at DC Comics these days, with standalone issues of Brave and the Bold every month that I'm quite enjoying. Today a very brief interview with him appeared on one of the comic sites, though, during which the writer finally revealed some tidbits about his relationship with his previous publisher, Disney Comics (formerly Marvel Comics). The quote that really jumped out at me was:

"Though Joe Q. has not spoken a word to me since I offered a critical opinion about Spider-Man: One More Day, the rest of the staff at Marvel could not be more welcoming or professional or friendly, especially [Marvel Publisher] Dan Buckley (who had to move into the position of my liaison once Joe put me in the cone of silence)."

Apparently Joey Q doesn't like having his boneheaded decisions questioned in public, even when it's coming from an award-winning author.

Aliens Vs Predator: First Impressions

Now that I have the (PS/3 version of the) game in hand, I spent about an hour this morning playing a bit of the Marine single player campaign. As I expected after trying out the multiplayer demo, it's an uneven experience that still offered some thrills.

The graphics are OK, but not really up to the standards of the current generation of console games. This game would've looked amazing six or seven years ago, but unfortunately has a somewhat dated feel to it coming out today. It's not so bad as to make the game un-enjoyable, however, and I imagine I'll just get used to it as I play it more. Then I'll switch back to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for an evening and remember what really good graphics look like.

I have to admit that I miss the so-called "iron sight" (the ability to aim down your sight with the press of a button) more than I thought I would. In fact, on more than one occasion already, I've pressed the secondary fire button (which is the iron sight in MW2) and inadvertantly launched a grenade when all I really wanted to do was line up an alien a little better before pumping some pulse rifle ammo into him. This, again, is something that I'll adjust to after spending more time with the game, I'm sure. After all those hours of MW2, though, it almost requires a leap of faith to begin firing "from the hip" as you have to in this game, especially when the Aliens are still several yards away and you know that letting them get any closer is a very, very bad idea. (While Newt may have claimed that "they mostly come out at night... mostly", I haven't personally noticed any hesitancy on their part to come out to play pretty much 24/7!)

The game play is very linear, as you'd have expected from almost any first person shooter ten years ago. What saves it, though, at least in the Marine campaign, is the ever-present tension created by the dark environments and potential of Alien attacks that you operate within. I can honesty say that I felt stress at times, moving through those tight corridors and sewer ducts with my motion sensor pinging like crazy at me. Strangely, the developers chose to completely ruin the mood once already by blaring loud music during one siege level. Call me crazy, but that part of the game would've been way better if the only sounds I could hear were coming from my motion tracker and the claws of my attackers skittering against the walls and ceiling. For the most part, though, the suspense is pretty impressive. I challenge anyone to play this campaign and not have their pulse speed up at least a little.

One noteworthy attribute of the previous Aliens vs Predator (PC) game was the random placement of enemies, which meant that replaying a section was never quite the same experience twice. Although I'm not very far into the game yet, it doesn't seem like the development team at Rebellion kept that aspect. If that's the case, it's a really unfortunate choice on their part as it was one of the best things about the old game. You couldn't simply die, re-spawn and then breeze through that part a second time, as you can with so many games, because the Aliens and Predators just wouldn't tend to be where you expected them to be. [Update Feb 20: I played another hour of the Marine single player campaign last night and did, in fact, spot one place where it looked like some randomness was built in. After dying and having to replay a particularly tense section, I was braced for an Alien at one specific spot because he had scared the crap out of me the first time through, only to find myself tip-toeing around with no xenomorph to be found. So that's encouraging.]

Overall, the game so far is about what I expected once I saw the demo: a good treat for fans of the previous version, but nothing that's going to steal people away from Modern Warfare 2 or any of the other big games coming out soon. I expect that I'll play through all 3 single player campaigns at least once and probably even spend some time online with it. It could have been an amazing game, though, if Rebellion had paid attention to what recent fare like Dead Space and the F.E.A.R. games have added to the genre. Instead, I'll just have to dream about the ultimate AvP game, as it still doesn't exist yet.

Bummer

Checking a few sites online this morning (before yoga class), it looks like our Canadian retail outlets won't be getting Aliens Vs Predator until Thursday this week. Don't they know Tuesday is the day of the week when games and movies come out? So much for my Tuesday Morning Fever plans!

Canadian Foxes So Confusing To Americans

If you're Canadian and have a last name of "Fox" then you're all just a blur to our neighbours to the south...

Tuesday Morning Fever

In approximately 36 hours, I'll be attending our regular Tuesday morning yoga class with Vicki, and then we'll head home by way of Future Shop. The reasons for the unusual detour are twofold: Aliens vs Predator (the game) should be out by then, or well as Peter Gabriel's latest CD, Scratch My Back. As I blogged about recently, the latter features Mr G covering a variety of his personal favourites by Neil Young, Radiohead, Paul Simon and others. As much as I wish it were new material instead, I'm still looking forward to hearing his interpretations of each.

As for AvP, about which I've written extensively hereabouts over the past several months, I'm still pumped about its arrival despite the underwhelming demo that came out a week ago. The prospect of playing through three different campaigns, one each as Marine, Alien and Predator, just brings back such good memories from the earlier incarnation of AvP. I still haven't decided which console to buy it for, however, and so that could end up being a "game-time decision", as they say in the sports biz. If it's any fun at all, then you can expect me to inflict my enjoyment upon you right here. And isn't that what blogs are for, anyway?

Spread The Love

Happy Valentine's Day, readers far and wide!

I posted a tweet last night that seems appropriate to repeat here and now:

"This is what makes a marriage work: Vicki watched "Predator" with me (on Blu-Ray) and then I watched women's moguls at Olympics with her..."

On the flip side of the coin is the dark side of today, about which I tweeted the following this morning:

"Today is the anniversary of all those days in my youth when I'd feel like a loser for not having anyone to celebrate V-Day with."

Hopefully your day has been more like the former than the latter.

Someone Hears From Harlan

Thanks to Neil Gaiman's tweet-ish nature, I learned about this amusing development today. If you're a fan of Harlan Ellison's, or just very interested in how "fair use" is being interpreted these days, you should check it out. (And this is the part of the program where I always remind people that I've actually met Harlan, and he was as sweet a guy as you could imagine. That's not to say that I don't believe him to be a curmudgeon if you cross him, but he was a prince to Vicki, Tammy and I when we briefly encountered him at ChicagoCon all those years ago. And I'll always think of him first and foremost in that light.)

One Last Question

To make up for skipping a month in the publication of the Blackest Night miniseries (in order to allow the artists time to catch up), DC Comics came up with the somewhat clever idea of "resurrecting" eight past series of theirs, for one issue each. (Blackest Night, you see, is all about dead villains and heroes being brought back to life - sort of - in the form of evil Black Lantern Corps members.) Therefore DC picked titles from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and - hmmm - 00s? and published "the next issue" of each, but in the form of a Blackest Night crossover, tying into the current events of the miniseries. I was intrigued when I first heard about it, but as they actually appeared through January most left me cold. None of them really seemed to capture the feel of the old series they were representing, and so they seemed like gimmicks.

Until I read The Question # 37. Maybe it's the fact that original creator Dennis O'Neil was brought back in to co-write it (along with current star Greg Rucka), or that they went all out and got original Question artists Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz involved, but this little number really did sing! It perfectly matched the vibe of what we used to get every month from those folks, and yet advanced the Blackest Night storyline in the process. It had some kung-fu action, as we'd expect from The Question, as well as lots of philosophical twists and turns. This was exactly what I was hoping for when this "skip month stunt" was announced.

It's really too bad the other offerings couldn't have been up to this standard, but at least we got one really good one in the bunch. (And a disclosure: I haven't read The Atom and Hawkman # 46 yet, despite it coming out 2 weeks ago, because my local comic store didn't receive any of their ordered copies and has been a bit slow in re-ordering it. Maybe next week!)