Less Than 100 Days To Go!

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

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

First Day Of Summer 2011?

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

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

Boneman's Bruins Are Gonna Play For The Cup!

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

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

Does My Novel Need Saving?

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

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

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

2010/11 Tutoring Schedule Winding Down

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

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

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

A Brief Tammy Update

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

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

A Classic Cooper Story

(File photo not directly related to this story.)

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

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

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

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

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

Lost: One Year Later

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

Vicki's Game Over Progress Part 2

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

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

Vicki's Game Over Progress Part 1

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

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

It should be interesting...

Life After The Rapture

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

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

Vicki's Reading Game Over On Her Kindle!

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

First Draft Of Game Over Finished!

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

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

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

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

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

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


You can read just a little more about it here.

Big, Big Book Update

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

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

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

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

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

Game Over

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

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

Best Obama Kills Osama Joke

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

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

Two Starbucks In A Starbucks

[Via Bleeding Cool.]

Signs Of Spring

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

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


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


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

Thoughts On Thor

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

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

Off To See A Man About A God Of Thunder

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

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

Check out the street signs!


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

Book Update

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

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

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

3 Project Managers Walk Into A Bar... Late

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

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

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

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

A Crazy Start To May

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

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

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

Better Late Than Never

It tooks us four months (to the day) to find a suitable day for it, but today Vicki and I finally replaced the broken window in our garage that resulted from the massive icicle falling off the eavestrough on New Year's Eve. It was actually a beautiful day for a project like that, and we had fun working together. I'm better at the destructive aspects - pulling the shards out, clearing out the old putty and making it so the new pane can fit in - while Vicki excels where a lighter touch is required - puttying the new window in place and making it look good.

I'm just glad not to have this chore hanging over my head anymore, for the first time in so long!

My Afternoon With Portal (The Original)

Rather unusually for a Thursday, I found myself with a clear schedule today: no tutoring sessions at all, and a wife who was off to Niagara-on-the-Lake on a bus trip with a girlfriend. In other words, I was gifted a perfect opportunity for some serious gaming! Unfortunately, the Playstation Network continues to be off the air - having been attacked early last week, they're still not back - so I went looking for other options. All the time Vicki, Ryan and I have spent in Portal 2 lately has made me nostalgic for the original gem, nestled in The Orange Box along with 3 other games.

I started a new game around 1:30, and the next time I noticed the time it was a little after 5:00 and I'd just killed GladOS and received my cake (or was the cake a lie?). I found it much easier than the last time I played it, but still a whole lot of fun. And I must say that some of the puzzles in it are still ridiculously difficult, even - as I discovered today - when you've gotten through them all a few years earlier! I appreciate some of the many humourous bits in the sequel more now that I've refamiliarized myself with its predecessor, which just adds to the enjoyment of Portal 2.

That Orange Box package continues to be one of the best values in gaming I've ever experienced!

Latest Sign Of The Apocalypse

Surely the statement that President Obama felt compelled to make this morning on the topic of his birth certificate qualifies as some kind of doomsday warning, right? How else to explain this development at a time when the United States is embroiled in two wars (three, if they're still fighting in Iraq), their economy is floundering, and the planet's climate is going to Hell in a handbasket while a majority of Americans deny the very existence of climate change (not to mention evolution, for good measure)?

No sane country should ever need its leader to take time out of his schedule to say the following:

"But we’re not going to be able to do it if we are distracted. We’re not going to be able to do it if we spend time vilifying each other. We’re not going to be able to do it if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts. We’re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers."

Worse yet, no country that's not absolutely apeshit crazy would possibly continue to waste time on this topic afterward. But you know they will...

(and sorry about calling you "Shirley" off the top there...)

My Latest Toy

The last week and a half or so has been such an amazingly busy time that I completely neglected to blog about getting a new iPod! Between the Agile 101 Workshop that Vicki and I led two Fridays ago, Portal 2 coming out a week ago today, Julie coming home last Wednesday (and stealing my puppy away!!!), Tammy and her (relatively) new boyfriend paying us a long-overdue visit over the weekend, it just completely slipped my mind.

But my oh my, do I love my new iPod Touch! I had to replace my previous, pre-Touch version after a couple of bike rides this Spring during which the newly-recharged device ran out of juice within 20 minutes! I've really enjoyed both iPods I've had since 2003 or 2004, but they always seem to have short life cycles (about 4 years each). I get enough use out of it while biking that it was an easy decision to buy a new one. I had no idea just how much of an upgrade this purchase was going to be, though!

I love the sleek new shape, although I've dropped it a couple times already because there's so little to grab onto now! The presence of a browser and e-mail on it are very welcome, and I love the iPhone-like touch screen with its intuitive resizing and scrolling. I don't think I've discovered nearly everything on it yet, nor have I purchased any apps for it. Even so, I'm in love with this shiny little treasure!

I haven't had much luck getting Internet access when I'm out and about yet. I've already had the experience of being at someone's house who didn't remember their network password, but I'm sure that won't be a typical situation when I'm visiting friends.

This seems like the perfect compromise between owning or not owning an iPhone... I didn't really want the monthly expense of that device, but did covet the music, photos and browsing capabilities. I definitely got much more than I expected when I decided to replace my old wheel-based horse and buggy version!

I Think This Is Where Castle Came From

Thanks to Peter J on Twitter, I found out about They Fight Crime, a website that generates random "He's a ________. She's a _______. They fight crime!" 'story ideas' at the click of a button. Here are a few examples to give you a taste:

"He's a bookish guitar-strumming matador whom everyone believes is mad. She's an elegant psychic hooker operating on the wrong side of the law. They fight crime!"

"He's an ungodly dishevelled card sharp from the 'hood. She's a bloodthirsty insomniac single mother prone to fits of savage, blood-crazed rage. They fight crime!"

"He's a superhumanly strong sweet-toothed gentleman spy with a passion for fast cars. She's a time-travelling hypochondriac femme fatale in the witness protection scheme. They fight crime!"

I'm pretty sure something like this is responsible for Nathan Fillon's improbably-popular TV show Castle, which probably began life as a pitch along the lines of:

"He's a ruggedly handsome mystery writer with a sarcastic streak and an ex-wife who holds a grudge. She's a hard-as-nails police detective who's secretly looking for love in all the wrong places. They fight crime!"

If only Fillon's Firefly had gotten even half as many viewers when it was on...

Portal 2 Co-op Fun

Tammy and her boyfriend Ryan visited us for an overnighter this Easter weekend, affording me the opportunity to try out the co-op campaign of Portal 2 with someone who's at least as good at the game as me (probably better, actually). I had thought that this role might end up falling to Tammy, but instead it was Ryan who really rocked at the puzzle solving!

Some of the dilemmas in the game are unbelievably difficult to figure out, thanks to the fact that there's often very little in the way of clues to help you along. I loved starting each new level, talking it over between us as to what we're supposed to do, and then often resorting to just trying random things to see what inspiration might come to us. Ryan's very logical mind got us through some of the toughest spots, along with my occasional burst of insight based on seeing patterns in the game play. I still don't think there's much replayability to this co-op campaign, though. A couple times we ended up having to replay a level, and in each case we found that we could race through it in a fraction of the time since we knew all of its tricks. But the original passage through each head-scratching map is well worth the cost of the game!

By the way, I do recognize that this post is an unfortunate example of "burying the lead." While our time spent together playing Portal 2 was ridiculously enjoyable and worthy of a blog post, it was much more important in the grand scheme of things that I finally got to meet Tammy's wonderful boyfriend. My apologies to him - and her! - for making that aspect of the tale an incidental detail rather than the main story! He's welcome back here anytime... the PS/3 controllers will be charged up and ready!

New Friends All Gone!

The good news yesterday was that Julie survived her trip to Africa (she had an amazing time, actually!); the bad news was that she came to take Cooper and Finley away from us!

Here's a frame from the video I shot of her reunion with her two "babies", which was very moving to see. We had a great dinner together, hearing all about her time in Capetown and Johannesburg as well as on safari in Kruger National Park, and updating her on all of our various bits of news from the past two and a half weeks, but eventually our hearts had to be broken when the three of them departed, leaving an empty-feeling house behind. Lucy eventually wandered down from the upstairs, but it took her most of the evening before she'd really believe that it was safe once again!

Portal 2 Is Awesome!

I've only played about 25 minutes so far, but I could easily have continued for hours! The sequel is every bit as much fun as the original - so far, anyway - and I haven't even tried the co-op campaign yet. This is one game where it pays to listen to the dialogue as you go... it's freaking hilarious!! I laughed out loud so many times in the first few minutes that Vicki - who's supposed to be working - had to come and watch for a bit! I love this game already.

The one thing that seems strange about the idea of a co-op version of Portal is that, unlike shooters, I'm not sure how much replayability a puzzle game will have after you've been through it once. Won't you know how to do everything, making the game kind of boring? That's different from a shooter where the experience is always varied by the style(s) of the other player(s) in the game. Hmmmm. I should probably just trust in Valve that they'll pull it off somehow... after all, this is the Half-Life company we're talking about!

Portal 2 Is In The House!

I made a quick trip up to FutureShop this morning and came home with the eagerly-anticipated Portal 2 for the PS/3! I've been checking out the online reviews on it since I got up, with 8.5/10 being the lowest I've seen so far, and all of the rest are 9/10 or higher! To say I'm excited about this game would be putting it mildly. I have yoga class in 20 minutes but hopefully after that and before my first tutoring session I can give it a test drive and see if it lives up to those mile-high expectations of mine.

As Time With Our Temporary Pets Runs Down: Anything Goes!

We had been doing pretty well at making sure Cooper followed the rules, as set out when he and Finley first got here over 2 weeks ago now. He was limited to the main floor, had to have his paws cleaned whenever he came in from outside, and was only fed twice a day.

Lately, though, we've become just a little bit lax:



Meanwhile, Finley and Lucy continue their rocky relationship, mostly through the gate that separates the upstairs from the main floor. At least once a day, they seranade each other at the top of their lungs when Lucy ventures down to see if the annoying home invaders have left yet or not. We're just appreciative when it happens outside of the midnight-to-08:00 timeslot!

AgileMan Does Good!

Yesterday's Agile 101 session went extremely well, and those interested can read all about it over at the Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan blog.

Off To Save The World Tomorrow

Well, maybe not quite the whole world... but at least a part of it.

I'll be leading an Agile 101 workshop at a local company that's interested in knowing more about Agile. The morning-long session will be split between a presentation (by me) on what Agile is and isn't, and a hands-on exercise where the attendees will be broken into groups that will "go Agile" on an activity for the course of several 20-minute iterations. Vicki and another friend of mine will be helping out with the second part, as we'll need multiple "product owners" for it. It should be interesting to see how this goes. I'll write a little more about it - possibly on the currently-dormant Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan blog - after it's completed. In the meantime, feel free to wish me luck!

1 Week To Portal 2

The original Portal, which arrived via the incredibly economical Orange Box package, was worth the price of admission alone, despite being bundled with 3 other great Valve games (Half-Life 2, HL2: Episode 1 and HL2: Episode 2). I had no expectations for it at all, and yet it ended up being one of the most fun games Vicki and I have ever played together. As such, my hopes are probably too high for its sequel, which is due out next Tuesday.

To understand where I'm coming from, though, you have to appreciate just how great a game Portal really was! For anyone who has never tried it, the concept behind its gameplay is simple enough: you're given a gun that shoots two portals - one orange, and one blue - and forced to find your way out of increasingly difficult predicaments. Each portal is essentially a large, circular opening that will adhere to most surfaces in the game. Together, they form an entry/exit pair: whatever goes into the blue hole will come out of the orange one, and vice versa. To understand the utility of this, imagine you're at one end of a room that has a door out of it at the other end and a chasm filled with burning acid running all the way across the middle of it. You shoot one of the portals into the wall beside you and the other one into the wall at the other end of the room, near the exit. You then step into the (blue or orange) hole near you and immediately come out of the (orange or blue) hole across the room! Problem solved by the application of a tiny bit of spatial physics!

Lest you think the game is just a long series of similarly-trivial challenges, you're soon having to perform maneuvers like jumping off a ledge, shooting a portal below you as well as one in the ceiling above you, so that when you emerge from the upper hole (after falling through the lower one) you've got enough momentum to put to use after forming a portal in a side wall where you'll come out after plummeting through the floor-hole a second time and shooting across the room where you... well, it just goes on from there, in some of the harder puzzles. Vicki and I had a complete hoot trying to figure out how to get through the game, and spent weeks at it.

I don't know whether Portal 2 will live up to its predecessor, but I do know I can't wait to find out! I plan to pick my copy up next Tuesday morning rather than pre-ordering it for home delivery because I figure it'd just end up coming a couple days late, if I did. This one I want to be sure to get on its release day!

Happy 57th Anniversary Of The Most Boring Day In History!

It's true! I just hope no one reading this is celebrating their 57th birthday today...

Stars And 'Canes Defy All Logic And Break Their Fans' Hearts

I did a pretty good job of not following the NHL this season - I didn't even know about the new tie-breaker rule that was implemented this year until Boneman mentioned it to me a couple weeks ago - but that same Bone fellow dragged me back in when he claimed the Rangers were 9 points up on a playoff spot with about 6 or 7 games to go. It turned out they were only 7 up, but even that looked reasonably safe, so late in the season. Then the team chasing them for the 8th spot in the East - Carolina Hurricanes - proceeded to win just about every game they played, and it set up a nail-biting final weekend for the Rangers, for the second season in a row. Last year they lost a shootout to the Flyers on the final day, and missed the postseason by that small of a margin. This year they needed to beat the Devils on Saturday afternoon and then hope the red-hot 'Canes would be unable to win against the Lightning later in the day. Tampa Bay had nothing to play for, as they were already in and couldn't move up or down in the standings.

The Rangers pulled off their part, downing the Devils 5-2 to finish with 93 points. I would've bet a fair amount of money that Carolina would be able to win their game, considering that it was a "win and you're in" scenario. Instead, Rangers coach John Tortorella's old team from Tampa did him a huge favour and pummelled the Hurricanes 6-2, sending the Broadway Blueshirts back into the playoffs after a one-year hiatus.

It boggles my mind that Carolina would come up short in that situation, but then lightning (pardon the pun) struck twice more! First Chicago had a chance to secure a playoff spot by earning at least a point against Detroit this afternoon, but couldn't do it, losing 4-3 in regulation (in a game that featured a fantastic finish). That was surprising but not shocking, as the Wings are an excellent team and probably relished the thought of keeping the Hawks out of the postseason. But this set up the Dallas Stars for their game against Minnesota tonight, knowing that a victory against the golf course-headed Wild would propel them into the postseason at the expense of the defending champion Blackhawks... and they lost 5-3! How crazy is it to have one weekend where three teams choke that badly against opponents that couldn't possibly be playing as hard, or have nearly as much on the line, as they do? I would never have thought to see it. At least Chicago's fans lived to see their team play another day, as it were.

And now back to that tie-breaker rule... the NHL changed the first tie-breaker condition from most wins to most wins in regulation or overtime, thereby nullifying the value of any shootout victories beyond the 2 points that they carry with them. This set up a situation where, had Carolina beat Tampa last night, their 41 wins (and 93 points) would've been considered better than the Rangers 44 wins (and 93 points)! The Rangers had the misfortune to get 9 of those 44 victories in the shootout whereas Carolina was only 5-5 after overtime. I hated that rule change as soon as I heard about it, and I hate it even more now that it almost cost the Rangers a playoff spot. I really hope they get rid of it, even if that means eliminating the shootout and going back to awarding ties (if you get through the O/T without a winner). A double standard, as the rule provides now, just shouldn't be allowed.

Our Temporary Guests In Action

Cooper had a great afternoon with Vicki and I today, as the three of us went to the woods that Julie, Cooper and I normally walk, and he got to see all kinds of familiar sights... including the river that he can't resist going into! Here he is seconds after one of his dips:


Finley, meanwhile, spent most of the day engaged in his favourite "activity":


In other words, it was another in a series of great days all around!

"It's Funny, But That Bone Almost Looks Like It Could Be Shared..."

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but this is Cooper "in the zone"... the Bone Zone, I guess you'd say! As soon as we gave him the first of two (apparently delicious) bones that Julie had left for him, he became oblivious to everything around him. I even asked him if he wanted to go for a walk and got no response at all (normally he'd jump up and come over if he even thought he might've heard the W word!). Finley decided to go keep him company... not that Cooper even noticed!

Exit Through The Gift Shop Is Definitely Worth A Visit

Netflix has the fascinating documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop available right now, and I encourage anyone at all interested in the art world to check it out. Vicki's more of a fan of Art (with a capital A) than I am - unless we're talking comic book art, of course! - but we both really enjoyed this hour-and-a-half glimpse into the strange habits of a few of the better-known street artists. We now both completely get the whole "Who is Banksy?" meme that's been going around for months, whereas it was just noise before. The title of the film is especially apt, once you've watched it all the way through. I have to say that, to some degree, it validated my long-held belief that a significant portion of the art world is scam-artist-level bullshit, but on the other hand it also presents some amazing artists who are doing work that is absolutely brilliant and inspired. Not so much Mr Brainwash, though...

Five Or Six Walks A Day Is Normal, Right?

Actually, we've only been walking twice a day so far, but that still seems to knock the wind right out of Cooper once we get home again! Not that I'm complaining, mind you!

One Month Until The Hammer Drops

I'm surprisingly excited about the fact that the Thor movie is now only a month away. I think the trailers so far have been great, and the idea of a Shakespearian fellow like Kenneth Branagh directing it fills me with hope and optimism. Of course, it could still stink (as I'm worried Green Lantern will, in June), but at least we'll know in a month's time when the reviews start rolling in.

Cooper, The Timeout Warden!

"I'll just stand here and make sure he doesn't get any ideas..."



(Note: Finley actually put himself into the laundry basket, and then later took himself back out of it. But it sure does look like he'd been plunked down in there for a timeout, doesn't it?)

"I Think There's Been A Clerical Error Of Some Sort"

Before she left, Julie assured me that Cooper only gets fed twice a day: once in the morning, and once at suppertime. However, right around 3:00 p.m. most days, Cooper poignantly expresses his disappointment over that old chestnut that states that "there is no such thing as a free lunch (or any other kind, for dogs)":

Snow Dog!

When Julie and I talked about Vicki and I taking care of Cooper while J traveled to Africa, she said, "Well, at least with me going in April, you won't have to worry about dealing with him in the snow." Obviously, she didn't take Climate Change into consideration, or maybe just the variability of Canadian springtime! Because sure enough, yesterday we got a short-lived fresh coat of snow, out of the blue. And now, less than 24 hours later, it's 16 degrees outside! What crazy weather.

For his part, Cooper didn't seem to mind. Sticks apparently taste just as good when they're snow-covered...

The New Arrivals Have Newly Arrived!

Finley (left, feline) and Cooper (right, canine) arrived last night around dinner time, along with their mistress, Julie. The five of us (sans Lucy, who cowered upstairs the whole time) enjoyed a wonderful supper (lasagna for the humans) before sending Julie home to pack for her flight today to South Africa. I then took Cooper for a walk during which Lucy ventured downstairs, ran into Finley, and the two had a bit of a scene involving a lot of hissing, growling, chasing and even some peeing by Lucy, before Vicki separated them and Lucy escaped back upstairs. She hasn't come back down since, but is set up with food, water and litter box up there so we may not see much of her for awhile.

Finley's favourite toy at our house is the circular contraption shown in the photo, which contains a fake mouse on a 360-degree swivel that "runs" around the interior with the slightest provocation. The two "brothers" decided to share the toy for awhile, as they apparently do with anything that interests one or the other.

Now we just have to hope Lucy's not permanently scarred by our guests!

No Joke: Mad Men To Return!

Thanks to daughter Tammy, I heard this welcome news this morning (it was actually announced last night, ensuring that it's not a cruel April Fool's gag): Mad Men will get at least a fifth and sixth season (with a seventh a possibility, although it would mark the show's finale)! Slightly shorter episode lengths seem to be the biggest compromise that show runner Matthew Weiner had to make, although even that may be reversed for DVD or VOD viewers. The other bad news is that Season Five won't premiere until March of next year, which is a heck of a long time to wait for more Madison Avenue goodness. But at least it's coming back, with all of its key parts intact!

Working On Work

There are a number of reasons why I haven't posted much here lately - the biggest single contributing factor, honestly, is that I haven't had all that much to say of late - but one of the more interesting causes is: I'm busy making up slides for an Agile 101 workshop that I'm being contracted for by a local company. Nothing's been signed yet, as far as I can tell, but the session does appear to have been approved internally. So now I've begun putting together what I hope to be about two hours of introductory material, to be followed by another couple hours spent on a hands-on activity that I'll be designing to give the attendees some sense of what working in an Agile manner feels like.

Anyway, more details later but in the meantime blogging will likely continue to be light... for a myriad of reasons!

Temporary Dog Ownership

Beginning on Sunday (six days from now), and running for about two and a half weeks, Vicki and I will be playing the part of dog owners. Julie's golden retriever, Cooper, along with her ragdoll cat, Finley, will be staying with us while their mistress makes her first ever journey to Africa.

Finley's arrival would be enough to throw our cat, Lucy, off her game (although she eventually adjusted to Charlie, the beautiful Siamese who we looked after for two weeks earlier this month)... but what Cooper's presence in the house is going to do to her, we can't even imagine! We're expecting that she may become an upstairs-dwelling cat for the duration, and so we're planning to have water, food and litter box up there for her use. Cooper's well-trained enough that we'll be able to keep him on the main floor, allowing Lucy to stay away from him if she so chooses. Finley, of course, will no doubt invade her space just as he did the first time he came over for a visit, back in February!

For whatever reason, this Spring has seen us taking in animals for vacationing friends of ours. If nothing else, it's forcing Lucy out of the comfortable and lazy rut she's been in since Rascal left us last year!

One Year Later (Vicki Sells A Book!)

I just realized that today is the one year anniversary of the Launch Day for No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math (How Parents Can Help), and Vicki just happened to sell a copy of the book this afternoon! This was the first sale of 2011, unfortunately (unless we count the 2 Kindle sales I've had so far), which makes it all the more coincidental that it came today, of all dates! Go figure, eh?

Way To Go, Canada!

Things like this make me proud!

According to the chart at that link, 58% of Canadians believe that humankind evolved through the unguided process called natural selection (compared to 16% of Americans), and another 19% of Canadians believe in Evolution but give God some credit for it (compared to 38% of Americans). So that means a total of 77%, or just over three quarters, of my countryfolk understand that Evolution is real, with more than half of the country needing to find no divine intervention in the process. It's still a little saddening to see that 14% of Canadians (compared to 40% of Americans) actually distrust or are simply ignorant of all of the mountains of scientific evidence that disprove the Biblical claim that the Earth is only 10,000 years old, though!

As I continue to burn through Richard Dawkins' most recent (and amazing!) book I can at least take some solace in the fact that here, in the Great White North, a strong majority of us have the necessary perspective to appreciate what Mr Dawkins calls, quite appropriately, The Greatest Show on Earth.

Birthday Report 2011 (Part 4)

For the final installment of our 2011 Birthday Extravaganza, we traveled a few kilometres to Julie's house last weekend for a delicious dinner (chicken wraps... my current favourite!) and...


... presents!!

Vicki got a fire pot, some smelly stuff, and a lovely bag, while I picked up a new T-shirt (slogan: "Vegetables are what food eats!"), 2 books and a DVD called Earth: The Biography. Here we are, after being treated so royally, with a yummy ice cream cake awaiting us:


And for those who worry about such things: my drink, for the evening, was a non-alcoholic sparkling grape juice which was quite delightful.

And now, at long last, the birthday season is over... with just 9 months to go until Christmas!

You Never Forget Your First Avenger

As longtime readers of this blog know, my very first comic book featured one Steve Rogers, better known as Captain America. More than that, it just happened to re-tell his origin story, which is pretty much exactly what you'd hope for when encountering a new character for the first time! Keeping that in mind, try to imagine just how much I love this latest trailer for Captain America: The First America:

Needle Drops Explained

When I come across something like this, I can't help but want to share:

"In theatrical and television production, a ‘needle drop’ is industry jargon for the insertion of licensed music into a scene on a specific cue."

[Via a Newsarama article.]

Do Not Try This At Home (Especially Not At My Home!)

Almost too painful for me to look at!

Definitely One Of The Strangest Videos About Nuclear Fears

The Hottest Rock In The System

NASA's reporting tonight that the Messenger spacecraft has achieved Mercury-orbit, a first for an object launched from Earth. I can't wait to see what kind of photos and data comes back from our overheated neighbour (and I'm not talking about "ugly naked guy"!).

This Disposable Society's Gonna Kill Us All

Right now I'm typing on the 3rd laptop I've purchased in the last 2.5 years. My first one - an Acer piece of crap - was just a poor choice on my part, as I tried running Windows Vista on a machine with only 1 GB of RAM (hey, they were selling them that way!). (And thanks to a bizarre new keyboard, I just somehow managed to Publish this blog entry right in the middle of writing it. Sigh.)

Anyway, that misstep led me to buy a Toshiba laptop less than a year after getting the Acer, and I was very happy with that machine... until its motherboard died suddenly on Wednesday! Since I hadn't bought an extended warranty, and the replacement board was going to be almost as much as a new device, I opted to buy my 3rd one since August of 2008. While I'd planned to pick up an extended warranty this time around, the price ($100 for 1 extra year, $200 for 2 extra years) just didn't seem worth it. We'll see if I once again end up regretting that decision. If nothing else, I've got to get this whole 'moving to a new laptop' thing down to a science, including automating my backups.

As much as we enjoy how much computer prices have come down, I'm kind of nostalgic for the days when I'd replace one not because it suddenly stopped working when I least expected it but rather because its technology had gotten obsolete... you know, after 4 or 5 years!

Off The Air

My (less than 2 year old) laptop has decided it doesn't know how to boot up any more, and so my online activity has been relegated to my basement PC for now, while the repair shop takes its best shot at fixing that hunk of junk. In the meantime, there probably won't be much blogging or tweeting.

Birthday Report 2011 (Part 3)

Vicki's now received her birthday presents from me, which included a Traveling Wilburys CD, some Lush cream, a couple of mystery books, and...

... a Kindle!

That's right, the same handheld eReader that I've been porting my books over to is also the latest toy in Vicki's ensemble! She was genuinely surprised by the choice, but in a good way. I gave her a carrying case and a $30 gift card for it, as well, and she's already ordered her first eBook: Wake, by Robert J. Sawyer! It should be interesting to see what this does to her reading habits, now that so many possibilities are just a few clicks (rather than klicks) away!

Meanwhile, I'm working on the Kindle-izing of my More Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan (Year 2: Easier Said Than Done). I've had 2 Kindle sales so far, one each from the U.S. and U.K. stores, both for my Math book. It still remains to be seen whether there's any market for AgileMan in this eBook landscape.

Birthday Report 2011 (Part 2)

Tammy's now safely arrived for her visit, a mere 10 weeks after the last time we saw her! It was fun trying to think of all the things to update her on - "Hey, check out the cool coasters we got for Christmas after you left in December!" and "Oh, that's right, you haven't seen the new car yet!" - but seriously: that's too long between visits!!

And Tammy didn't come empty-handed: Vicki got a rice cooker for her birthday (a couple days early) and I received a book and 2 DVDs for mine (2 days after the fact). I got Naomi Klein's No Logo, which I can't wait to read, considering how much I loved The Shock Doctrine, as well as The Social Network and Inside Job, both of which I've heard good things about. Tammy always has such great taste in movies for me, and these two seem like no exception.

Now if only I could convince her to play some Killzone 3 co-op campaign with me...

That's Snow Fun!

I wasn't crazy about the big dumping of snow that we got yesterday, especially when I tried to shovel the driveway and felt my back go out on me!

On the other hand, when Julie, Cooper and I went for a walk in the woods last night, it was all worth it:



The trees were all bent over - or in some cases, knocked down! - by the weight of the snow, making for the most difficult passage that Julie's ever seen in 5 or 6 years of walking those woods. We were about two hours covering a distance that normally takes about 45 minutes, but saw some amazing sights... including this impromptu natural shelter that certain members of our party couldn't resist trying on for size!



If my back hadn't been so sore, I would've enjoyed the experience even more. But it was still a pretty amazing trek that neither of us will soon forget!

Birthday Report 2011 (Part 1)

Vicki made my birthday special today by bestowing upon me quite simply the largest book I've ever seen. The image to the left does not convey the enormity of Paul Levitz's 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking. I'd heard it was large; I hadn't realized that small children could be trapped under it! The thing actually comes in its own carrying case; that's how big it is!

I also received People First Economics, a book with many different contributors, including one of my current faves - Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine), as well as a couple of beautiful Thor comics from the Silver Age of Comics (the Thunder God has a movie coming out in a couple months, I hear).

Julie was kind enough to take me out to lunch today, and Vicki did the honours for dinner... meaning that I'm very well stuffed right now! Woof!

Tammy is supposed to visit this weekend, making her first return home since the day after Christmas! Assuming she makes it here, that may be the best birthday present of all! And the following weekend, Julie has invited Vicki and I over for a joint birthday/anniversary party at her place, meaning that the fun just keeps on coming.

AgileMan Headed To Kindleland

In a mere 4 hours tonight, I produced a Kindle-friendly version of The Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan (Lessons Learned in Going Agile), otherwise known as the first AgileMan book. I'm not sure there's really much of a market for reading that particular treasure on a handheld device, but at least now (or within about 2 days, following the Amazon review process), folks will have that option.

I'll almost certainly tackle the sequel soon, as well. I'm just not sure whether I'll bother with the Complete edition, though, as it seems a bit overkill. On the other hand, maybe I should, just because most of the work will have been done already. Whatever! I'll figure it out.

[Update Mar 11/11: And we're live!]

Rather Shocking: The Bechdel Test

If you've never heard of the Bechdel Test before, the following video will probably shock you (as it did me):



[Via Sheril @ The Intersection blog.]

Help Me Pick A Font

One of the more interesting criticisms I received about my last book was that my choice of font was rather underwhelming. I think it was Times New Roman that I'd used, which was admittedly not a very exciting selection. It was, in fact, more of a default choice, as I rarely think about such cosmetic matters as much as I should.

So... with a new book in the process of being written, I thought I'd put it out there: what's a good font to use for a novel? I'm certainly open to try something more exotic than TNR, although I may ultimately be limited by what's supported for whatever publishing option I choose. (Currently, I'd say I'll be using Lulu for that, but co-plotter Julie's already raised the question of whether I should try to find an actual publisher this time around. That sounds pretty daunting, and potentially quite depressing, but... we'll see.)

At any rate, now's your chance to try to sell me on your favourite font!

20 Years And Counting!

Today is our 20th wedding anniversary, and as Vicki said to me over dinner at The Keg: "Who'd have ever guessed we'd last 20 years?"

Now, before you judge that a particularly fatalistic comment for her to make, consider all of the people you know who were married to each other 20 years ago but aren't now. We ran through a quick, off the tops-of-our-heads list, and it was substantial. In this day and age, staying together that long may not necessarily be the exception, but it's also certainly not a given.

Anyway, I think I can safely say that we're both pleased and proud to still be together, and happy, two decades after we tied the knot at the Justice of the Peace's office in 1991.

And with that pronouncement out of the way, we begin our 21st year of wedded bliss. Bring it on!

Now It Can Be Told: My Next Writing Project

I've resisted the urge to mention this particular news before now, because... well, read on.

More than two years ago, I had an idea for a novel-length story and blogged vaguely about it at the time (Dec 2008). I then made an earnest attempt to write it, got about three chapters in, and completely stalled. Dead. I thought it was just a block, at first. But when months passed, and I didn't get back to it, I decided that it wasn't just pining for the fjords. No, this bird was deceased.

Flashforward two years later, to December of last year. My friend Julie and I had been throwing around the idea of writing a book together in the fall, but it eventually became apparent that, while she had the interest, she just simply didn't have the time to commit to such a project. (Working full-time, I guess, will do that to you!) Once I realized that our collaboration wasn't going to happen, I started looking for something to write on my own. It had been nearly a year since I'd finished No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math (How Parents Can Help) and I was getting that 'writing itch' once again. I didn't see any material for a 3rd AgileMan book, nor any reason to put together another Math book. Instead, I figured it was time to finally tackle the challenge of writing a novel.

Remembering my two year old idea, I started thinking about it once again. I realized that I didn't have as much of an outline as I'd originally thought - the ending, for one thing, was very unsatisfying. And I'd tried it once already, only to run aground. So how could I have any better luck the second time around?

At that point, I started talking to Julie about it. She didn't have the time to co-author a book with me, but thanks to our frequent long walks together, we realized that we had a golden opportunity to plot one together! And so we began to do just that.

Over the course of several weeks, the idea that I'd had in late 2008 blossomed into a full story, with an actual beginning, middle and ending. Julie suggested I try switching from the third person, omniscient narrator style that I'd employed the first time around, and try first person, instead. At first I resisted, because I wasn't sure how I could possibly tell that particular tale from a single character's point-of-view. But the more we discussed it, the more I could see options becoming available. As a result, I set aside what I'd written in 2008 and early 2009, and started from scratch.

Earlier today, I finished the fifth chapter of my still-untitled first novel. I'd estimate that I'm about 40% of the way complete on the first draft, more than 80 pages in. Vicki's heard a tiny excerpt from chapter one, way back when I first wrote it in January of this year, but otherwise only Julie and I know anything about this book. As I've finished the first draft of each chapter, my walking buddy has gotten to read it and provide high-level feedback. To date, that's been in the form of enthusiastic praise and a demand that I write faster, as she can't seem to wait for the next installment. She's almost certainly a little biased, not the least of which because she's actually contributed to the contents, but it's still a good sign.

I couldn't be happier with the way this project's progressing, thanks in no small part to the help and encouragement this good friend of mine has provided. That, along with an amazing wife who gives me the time and space I need in order to write every week as well as a belief that whatever I'm creating will actually be worth reading, has allowed me to get at least this far down the path toward producing a piece of fiction that I now expect to finish, sometime later this year. It's also felt, in the last few weeks in particular, as though I've gotten a bit of momentum behind me. Whereas I was struggling to write a chapter in a few weeks, at the start, I produced most of chapter five today. As in, like, the last 12 hours! Not that I expect to repeat that feat anytime soon, but it's - dare I say? - another good sign.

More details to come when things are further along.

Getting On The Kindle Gravy Train Bandwagon

Between about 4:00 p.m. on Thursday and 8:30 last night, I was very much a man on a mission. I was working fairly obsessively at producing a Kindle-friendly version of my Math book after a friend pointed me to some information about how easy it is to sell books for that device via Amazon. In fact, he was right: it's a pretty straight-forward and well-documented process, which is always a pleasant surprise to run into.

The complication, once I got into it, is of course in making the book look even half-decent on that eReader. While I imagine it's technically possible to just "port" it over as is, assuming that the Kindle customer will forgive the fact that the book looks like crap on the device, that's not anything I'd be comfortable having my name on. So I spent what probably amounted to 12 to 15 hours creating a Kindle version of my book in Word, iteratively making changes and then seeing what they looked like via a piece of software called the KindlePreviewer. Once I started, it became an all-consuming task (much like programming used to, at times). This was a tedious process, but also a rewarding one: I could watch as my book progressed ever so gradually from God-awful ugly on the Kindle to something I'm at least a little proud of.

For example, I had to figure out what to do with all of the page # references in the original version, as they were completely meaningless on the hand-held device. I discovered that I could replace each with an internal hyperlink, which then opened up all kinds of possibilities for dynamic linkages that I couldn't do with a physical book. In the end, I didn't follow down that path quite as far as I could have, as there were subtle references in the text that, had I taken the time to find each one, could all have been modified to include hyperlinks. To be honest, though, after that amount of time, I was getting fairly burned out and just wanted it published. So I settled for replacing all page and chapter #s with links, along with a few of the less obvious references that I stumbled across.

I also had to reconfigure all of the tables in the Word document, of which there were many! The table borders were not showing up at all on the KindlePreviewer (and therefore, I assume, wouldn't appear on the device itself). Worse yet, the contents of the columns were being squished together with no space between them. Knowing that I had to change them anyway, I took the opportunity to completely change the layout of those tables to something that would look better on the Kindle. The results are great; the amount of work involved, however, was substantial.

Along the same lines, I shifted all bulleted lists all the way to the left margin, since real estate is so limited on that sort of device. Even after doing so, the bullet points still show up indented, but not as dramatically. A handful of other similar modifications were required as I'd see what something looked like via the preview application.

Last night I submitted the book for review. It appears to have passed that stage as it now shows up as "Publishing" on my Kindle dashboard within Amazon, which is supposed to only take another 24 hours. Once it's actually out there, I'll post a link to it if it's accessible via the website (for all I know, you may only be able to see it via a Kindle itself).

Now I just have to decide if I want to go through that all over again for my AgileMan books! For the moment, at least, I'm taking a break. I'm still not convinced that I'll make (m)any sales out of this, but I'd love to be proven wrong!!

[Update the next day: Looks like it's live!]

And Another Thing...

Sure enough, I ended up spending my evening in a completely different way than I'd expected! After a friend pointed me to some information about how to get my book(s) onto Amazon.com in electronic form for Kindle-reading, I started looking into it... and have now spent about 7 hours reformatting my Math book so that it'll look half-decent on that device! I figure I've probably still got another 4 or 5 hours of work left, so maybe by the end of the weekend I can put that chore to bed.

Here's hoping it's all worth it, although I can't help worrying that I'll see as few sales there as I've seen on Lulu in the past year.

A Day In The Life

Today has just been one of those days. I thought I had a handle on it when I got up this morning, but I was completely off the mark.

I had planned to spend the morning playing a little Killzone 3 - which I've barely touched since the weekend - only to receive an e-mail shortly after I got up inquiring after my AgileMan services and wondering if I had a 1-page bio that I could provide. Just like that, my morning was re-purposed toward that hopeful goal.

I thought I had one Math tutoring session for the day at 4:00 this afternoon, but it ended up not happening because the student was sick. (I had to phone about his whereabouts 5 minutes into the session to find this out, though.)

So naturally at this point, I can't help but wonder just how the rest of the day is going to compare with my expectations. We're supposed to be receiving the family cat of friends of ours, in order to look after him while they're away on vacation. Will that still happen? Who can say! I hope it does, though, as it'll be nice to have an actual friendly cat in the house for a change, since Lucy certainly doesn't qualify (and Rascal's been gone for months). Of course, we're expecting fireworks once she discovers that she's got company in the pet department, but it's hard to feel sorry for her.

(The current plan right now calls for our four-legged guest tonight to stay for just over two weeks, followed by a couple weeks of "normalcy" before we get yet another feline visitor for about 17 days. Yes, it feels like we might just be turning into a Cat Hotel around here!)

Vicki's supposed to be tutoring her student tonight, in a session re-scheduled from last night when that pupil was sick! It seems like there's a bug going around, or maybe it's just National Change of Plans week and nobody told us!

Honest Mistake Or Clever Manipulation?

On The Colbert Report last week, host Stephen Colbert showed a clip from Fox News in which one of the anchors presented the results of a poll asking the public whether they favoured or opposed taking away unions' collective bargaining rights (as is being attempted in Wisconsin right now). In the initial segment, the on-screen results incorrectly portrayed a majority of the respondents (approx 60%) favouring the removal of those rights and a minority (33%) opposing them. The host then railed on at length about the evils of unions, how those in unions had become greedy and detached from reality, and so on... the usual conservative talking points that Ronald Reagan epitomized when he made up, out of whole cloth, his story about the "welfare queen driving her Cadillac" (who never existed).

Then, 20 minutes later, the host "corrected" those earlier results, saying that he'd accidentally reversed them. It was actually 60% who opposed taking away collective bargaining rights for union members, while only 33% were in favour of it. And then moved on to other news!

So... was this an honest - though staggeringly unprofessional and stupid - mistake, or is this something new in the conservative media's bag of tricks? When you don't like the poll numbers, just misstate them, launch into a lengthy rant using the fake results as your justification, and then quietly correct the error later... after the damage has been done. It's unlikely that your retraction will undo much of the effect of the original diatribe, after all.

[Update the next day: Today's Fox News example of media abuse involves them showing supposed footage of union violence in Wisconsin, the only problem being the palm trees in the background and short-sleeved shirts on the protestors not quite fitting what one would expect to find in late February in Madison, WI! So I'd say there isn't exactly a benefit of the doubt being earned there.]