Bishops, Singers, Venuses And Rabbits

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of social activity for this so-called shut-in.  In late Feb, Vicki and I joined our friend Sue for Billy Bishop Goes to War, a funny, musical look at the life and exploits of our most famous World War I veteran.  I enjoyed it much more than I usually would a musical and learned tons of details about Bishop that I'd failed to pick up previously.

A few days later we headed out to a concert by Bashia Bulat, an extremely talented Canadian singer-songwriter whose latest album is now up for a Juno.  This was arranged by our friend Tim, the same person responsible for my love of Radiohead and Magnolia Electric Company.  The show was great, as Ms. Bulat wowed us with her voice and mastery of several different instruments, most impressively the autoharp.  Plus we got to catch up with Tim who we rarely see any more.

Last weekend, Tammy was in town to help us celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary, and the three of us met up with Sue once again for another play, Venus in Fur.  Sue had read a very glowing review of the show by none other than friend-of-the-blog, Peter J, and thought it was something we might enjoy.  Holy crap, did we ever!  All four of us were blown away by the performances of Justin Peter Quesnelle and Francesca Ranalli as well as the complex and delightful script by David Ives. It's a two-person act that features a play-within-a-play as it examines the give-and-take nature of relationships in a very extreme sense.  Had we not seen it on Closing Night, Vicki and I would almost certainly have paid a return trip later in the run, it was just that impressive.

And last night, to mark Vicki's birthday we headed downtown once again to see that same JP Quesnelle in White Rabbit Red Rabbit.  Not only does WRRR feature the producing debut of Peter J (him again!) but it also is structured such that no performer is ever allowed to do it more than once.  That's right: the dozen shows scheduled here in town this month will each have a different local artist in them!  How crazy is that?  The play, written by Iranian Nassim Soleimanpour as a way to "travel the world when he couldn't," can only ever be performed by someone who's never done it before.  Not only that, the actor or actress only receives the script as he or she walks on stage that night.  No preparation is allowed, as it's designed to be as much an act of discovery for the artist as it is for the audience.  Among the many treats of seeing Justin do White Rabbit Red Rabbit was watching the wheels turn in his head as he encountered each new twist or revelation in the script, page by page, in real-time.  Fortunately for those of us in attendance, he was more than up to the challenge!  There's even a small amount of audience participation involved in WRRR, and I was lucky enough to take part in it near the end.  That was a wonderful experience, and a terrific night overall.  We're already making plans to go see WRRR again, with (naturally) another top-notch artist on stage.

I'd say that our recent spate of live entertainment has felt like the very best Fringe experiences we've had, and that's a huge compliment.  The local arts scene is definitely alive and thriving right now!

# 37 For # 23

Today is our 23rd wedding anniversary, and Vicki surprised me with a Golden Age issue of Batman, issue # 37.  I was a little worried when I saw the cover, as it looked so familiar to me that I was sure I must already own a copy of it.  She was pretty sure I didn't, however, and eventually I solved the mystery by digging into my closet:

Of course the cover image had seemed totally familiar to me: I'd worn it on my chest dozens of times over the years! What a great treat to now own the comic, as well.

23 years and Vicki still knows how to make me happy and test my memory at the same time...

Unveiling Leap Of Faith

It's time to finally release some information about my 4th novel, Leap of Faith, which arrives on Sunday, April 13th at the Book Launch Party to be held in our home.  I've been very close-mouthed about the book up until now but that's about to change.

First of all, here's the cover, produced by Ms. Dana Chapman of Brantford, Ontario:

As for what Leap of Faith is about, here's the back cover blurb:

While waiting for the bill for her lunch, Maggie Stillwell is asked for directions by a stranger who casually mentions that he's a time traveler.  She naturally assumes he's either joking or crazy, and doesn't give it another thought.  Later that day, however, she receives an email from someone calling himself 'TimeTraveler355' despite the fact that Maggie hadn't even given the stranger her name.  The unexpected email predicts five upcoming events including a political scandal, a rigged election and the bombing of a busy American mall.  At the end of the email is an invitation to meet again at the same diner five days later.  Maggie laughs it off as a strange prank of some sort. 

But then the predictions start coming true... and Maggie slowly begins to confront the possibility that the stranger may be exactly what he claims to be.  If so, however, then what is he doing in 2014 and why is he so interested in her?

Leap of Faith, the fourth novel from Matt L. Holmes, takes the reader on an amazing journey of discovery as its female protagonist attempts to come to terms with the bizarre series of events suddenly unfolding in her life.  Prepare to have your mind blown by each new development in this tale of lost love and leaps of faith.

Mr. Holmes, author of Game Over, No Brother of Mine and Old Wounds, has crafted a wild ride that will force readers to challenge their assumptions at every turn. 

And with that, you may now discuss...

Interesting Thoughts About Quantum Mechanics And Parallel Universes

I eat this stuff up with a spoon, personally!

Huge Anti-Trust Case In California

Having spent over 20 years in the software business, this article about Apple, Google and other high tech Silicon Valley companies agreeing not to poach from each other in order to keep employee salaries from ballooning just blows my mind.  Greed really does rule the day whenever money's on the table, doesn't it?  Even obscenely large quantities of money.

Boy, That Was Stupid!

A couple of days ago I received the two print draft copies of Leap of Faith that I'd ordered the Friday before.  I was naturally very excited to see the package arrive, and Vicki and I gathered around the kitchen table while I cut open the box and pulled back the cover sheet to reveal... a pair of AgileMan-sized copies!  Somehow I'd accidentally selected 8.5" x 11" instead of 6" x 9" for the format, though I can't imagine why.  Anyway, the novel looks quite ridiculous in that oversize format, so I've had to place another order to get the right size so we can see what Leap of Faith will actually look like.  The good news is that the initial order took less than a week to complete and we're still six weeks away from publishing.  Or, to put it in project management terms: we've left ourselves some slack in the schedule!  Whew!

But what a stupid thing for me to have done...

Bitcoin: By The Privileged, For The Privileged

This is a good look at the Bitcoin controversy that's been brewing lately, for those who might be interested.

The Changing Face Of The Comic Book Industry

I blogged a few months ago about the fact that my comic reading tastes are changing after more than 40 years in the hobby.  Specifically, I'm enjoying more creator-owned titles and fewer of the big publishing house releases (notably Marvel/Disney and DC/Warners).  I think there's a huge difference in quality between those two camps right now, with the creativity shown by the former group absolutely eclipsing anything coming out of the Big Boys.  There's only so much you can do with corporately-owned figures like Batman, Superman,  Spider-Man and the X-Men, after all, and only so much creative energy that a truly talented writer or artist is likely to spend on stories about them.  Titles like Velvet, Saga, Fatale and Lazarus, on the other hand, are all creator-owned and awash with new ideas and revolutionary stories.  All four of those titles, along with the monstrously-successful Walking Dead series, by the way, are published by Image Comics.

Recently, the head honcho at Image, Eric Stephenson, delivered a speech to a gathering of comic book retailers (i.e. a roomful of Comic Store Guys, in Simpsons-speak) that I think is brilliant and dead-on.  He talks about what it will take to bring new readers to the comics industry, highlighting the importance of being innovative in terms of character and story rather than in packaging and hype.  This sort of thinking, which he's obviously backing up in practice as shown by the incredible quality coming out of Image right now (in sharp contrast to the crap they used to be known for back in the 1990s), has the potential to revolutionize the comic book industry over the next few years if it catches on.

How's That War On Drugs Coming Along, Anyway?

I got into a lengthy debate with a friend of mine a couple years ago on the topic of legalizing marijuana.  I was for it; she was against it.  My argument was basically that weed doesn't seem any worse to me than alcohol (I don't partake of either, personally) and so, if one's legal, the other should be, too.  I also pointed out how many people were ruined for life because of the single crime of possessing grass in relatively small quantities, especially under "War on Drugs" laws such as "3 Strikes."  I'm all for dangerous criminals being locked up, but wanting to get high seems no more deserving of jail time to me than wanting to get drunk (again: I have no wish to do either).  And if downing a few beers was enough to put you behind bars, most of the people I know would have criminal records today.

Anyway, recent trends in Canada and the U.S. have definitely moved in the direction of legalization of pot.  I see this as a positive development, though I know not everyone feels that way.  However, Vicki brought my attention to a recent article in which the topic is examined in much more detail than anything I could come up with.  One aspect of it particularly struck me, which is how utterly ineffective the "War on Drugs" has been in reducing the addiction rate in the States.  They show a graph (reproduced below) with a blue line indicating the addiction rate and a green line representing how much money has been spent on the effort.  Missing, I suppose, is the incarceration rate, which has skyrocketed in the U.S. thanks to severe laws aimed at deterring drug use but ultimately only serving to make the privatized prison system in America ridiculously profitable.  Anyway, here's the graph:

Like gay marriage, this is another social transformation that I believe is headed in the right direction at long last.

Is 2014 Going To Be The Year Of Godzilla?

Or could we at least finally be getting a good Godzilla flick?  The latest trailer would seem to suggest that possibility.

And considering the caliber of several of the actors in it - Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, David Strathairne and Ken Watanabe -  I think we can reasonably hope this one will be far superior to the Matthew Broderick version from about a decade ago.

I'd personally love to lay some money down to see an awesome Godzilla on the big screen!

The Sum Of All Positive Integers? That's Easy: It's - 1/12

I'll admit I was skeptical about this when I first heard about it, but it turns out to actually be true:

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + ... (to infinity) = - 1/12

While it's a completely counter-intuitive result - how can adding a set of strictly positive values possibly end up in a negative sum? - a relatively simple proof of it shows that it's true.  I'm even more impressed by the fact, referred to in the linked video, that quantum physics appears to point in this same direction.  I love stuff like this!

I have to say this reminds me of an unrelated phenomenon in computer science: because of the way numeric values are stored, a positive value that's constantly increased by 1 will (barring intervention by the operating system to prevent it) eventually go from a very high positive value to a very small negative value because of the high order bit eventually flipping from positive to negative (from 0 to 1).  Who knew that was reflecting, in a bizarre way, a functionality of the real world where infinite values are concerned?

3rd Draft Of Leap of Faith Is Now Done

Today I completed the third draft of Leap of Faith, my fourth novel, and ordered a couple of paper copies so Vicki and I can see what it looks like in printed form.  I'll be unveiling its lovely cover shortly as well as the back cover blurb that will give everyone at least a sense of what the story's about.

This latest version includes all of the edits and feedback that I received from editor Ernesto over the past several weeks as well as changes that Vicki suggested from her second full pass of the manuscript.  Ernesto succinctly summed up his assessment of Leap of Faith as "Great story, great twists, interesting characters."  I can't add much to that!

I'll be sending out my usual pre-order email about the book within the next week or two.  As this story is longer than my usual fare, it's naturally going to be a more expensive book to produce.  Not to worry: I'll be sticking to my usual $20 price tag, as that's just the easiest figure for all concerned.  Which means, of course, that my profit per book will be correspondingly less this time around, making it even more important that people let me know if they want a copy ahead of time.  The initial order is always the largest and therefore my best opportunity to save a little money by upping the quantity ordered and receiving a bigger discount.

Also of interest to some of you out there: the launch party for Leap of Faith is looking likely to happen on Sunday, April 13th, although that date's not 100% just yet.  Once we've firmed that up, I'll let everyone know for sure. A big turnout at the party always starts things off on the right foot, so hopefully we'll get a good crowd this year.

American Version Of Broadchurch Coming

As Bleeding Cool reports, an Americanization of the great British series Broadchurch is being filmed, with David Tennant reprising his dysfunctional cop role while Breaking Bad's Anna Gunn takes over as the female detective.  This version is apparently called Gracepoint, presumably the name of the small community where the murder takes place, as was the case with Broadchurch.  The original UK series was excellent, with only the revelation of the killer's identity and motivation at the very end being a little weak.  Tennant was outstanding in it, and of course I'm a huge fan of Anna Gunn and her years as Skyler White on Breaking Bad.  So this new miniseries looks extremely appealing, and one of the few compelling reasons for me to invest myself in a new Fox show in the fall.

P.S. Thanks to Tammy for encouraging Vicki, Emma and me to give Broadchurch a chance when it showed up on Showcase last year.

I Have A 60-Year-Old Brother (I Feel Old!)

Yes, it's true: my brother Richard is 60 years old today, and that does make me feel old.  The good news, of course, is that he's way older!  So there's that, at least.

Many happy returns to the birthday boy on this, his special day.

An Open Letter To Executives Leading Agile Transformations

Thanks to the Man from Mars, I saw this wonderful open letter written by Brian Irwin.  In it, he lists 10 pieces of advice for executives who are leading the introduction of Agile within their organization.  I think all of his points are excellent (and wish I'd seen them back in 2005 when we were preparing to go Agile at TV Works Canada) but I think two of them are especially important and relevant, based on what I've seen over the past 9 years:

5. Completely drop discussions of "resource allocation" and speak only of "team availability."

In my role as Agile consultant, I've repeatedly seen organizations make the mistake of believing that they can slice resources up into neat little sections, dedicating person A to project X at 30%, project Y at 30% and project Z at 40%, for example.  Despite all kinds of research showing the overwhelming cost to productivity imposed by multitasking, management types continue to behave as if resource allocations like that will somehow prove effective.  And even beyond that issue, there's also problems with team unity and priority-setting that are introduced when individuals are split over multiple fronts in that manner.

7. Give high praise for "complete" features only.

This point really speaks to me.  When I've gone into various organizations to do my Agile 101 training session, one of the course concepts that often meets with at least some resistance from both management and team members is the "done done done" principle that I preach.  This is the idea that there are only two % values that can be assigned to a feature: 0% and 100%.  I really try to drive home the point that saying a feature is "75% complete" is absolutely ludicrous, for the simple reason that you never know how much more work is involved until it's finished.  As an example of why this is true, consider how often the testing phase of a feature extends on and on and on, as more and more bugs are found as more and more fixes are made.  For that reason, at TV Works Canada we hit upon the notion of insisting that features be "done done done" (nothing at all left to do, not even documentation or last little tweaks) in order for that deliverable to be considered complete within the iteration.

Anyway, it's a very good article that I encourage anyone involved with Agile to read.   

AMC May Yet Bring Us A Preacher TV Series

Anyone who's read the comic series by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon knows just how amazing Preacher really is... And yet every attempt to bring it to the big or small screen has seemed cursed up to now.  Nevertheless, AMC is still trying to figure out a way to insert Jesse Custer and friends into its Breaking Bad-less TV lineup, and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed.  For those who think that The Walking Dead was the coolest concept to ever come out of a comic book, Preacher could easily blow that misconception out of the water if it were done right.  It's chock-full of colourful characters and unexpected plot twists that blew my mind when I was reading it in the 90s, and I'd dearly love to see how it works as a TV series.

And The 2nd Draft Is Now Done

February 5, 2014: Leap of Faith Draft 2 is complete!  I can safely say the second version is an improvement over the first, as I tightened things up quite a bit and reduced many of the worst offenders in the "word overuse" category.  As usual at this stage of the project, I spend half my time thinking it's a really good book and the other half convinced it's utter crap.  And so it goes.

Soon I'll have my first feedback from outside of our home, though, as seafaring Ernesto has been sent an electronic copy and will be editing/reviewing it over the next few weeks, hopefully.  That's both exciting and terrifying, for all the obvious reasons.  Oh well: everything's fixable, as Vicki always says.

2nd Draft Of Leap Of Faith Nearly Done

I finished my start-to-finish editing of Leap of Faith today, only about a week after I started it.  Lots of little inconsistencies were found and fixed, which is typical of a second draft pass (for me, anyway).  I still have one more chore to complete before declaring this version complete, though.  That involves me searching for words that I typically overuse, and reducing the number of occurrences of each until they're down to an acceptable level.  I think on one of my earlier novels I started out with several hundred uses of "but" (in a book that was less than 200 pages long) and eventually got it down to something closer to 150 or so.  I've built up a small list of words to do the ol' search-and-replace on, and that's what I'll be up to tomorrow before I'm done.

Updating Boyhood

I blogged about Richard Linklater's amazing 12-years-in-the-making Boyhood a while ago, and now that film has debuted at Sundance to rave reviews.  I cannot wait to see this!

22 Days Late But Well Worth The Wait

I finished the first draft of Leap of Faith about ten minutes ago, twenty-two days after my Dec 31st deadline.  I'm really happy with how much I've gotten done this month (the final third of the book) and how it's all come together.

Now the editing process begins, which will likely occupy at least the next six weeks.

30 Years Ago Today

I'll just link to my blog post from 5 years ago for the details, and add how nice it is that on this milestone anniversary I can reminisce about what happened 30 years ago with both my Aunt Dorothy (still hanging in there at almost 88 years of age) and my brother Richard (soon to turn 60).  Life does go on for some of us, at least.

The Conference Championships I Hoped For

Over the next 24 hours, the New England Patriots will visit the Broncos in Denver, and the Seahawks will host the San Francisco 49ers in Seattle, all in the quest to decide which two teams will meet in 15 days in the SuperBowl.

Almost 3 weeks ago, once the playoff teams had been decided in both conferences, I made my picks for who I wanted to see play this weekend: NE vs Den and SF vs Sea.  They weren't the teams I necessarily thought would be on the TV tomorrow, as I would've said New Orleans or Carolina looked like more likely than San Fran in the NFC, for example.  But the matchups I was most interested in seeing were those two, and lo and behold! that's what we've got!

I'm predicting that we'll be treated to a pair of great games, with four outstanding quarterbacks all vying to make it to "the big show" in two weeks.  I know both of us will be glued to the set tomorrow, starting at 2:00.  Let's hope the quality of play lives up to all the hype!

Neil Gaiman On The Importance Of Reading And Public Libraries

Another fantastic speech, transcribed here, by author Neil Gaiman.  This time he's highlighting the vital role that literacy plays in a civilization's development.  A couple highlights:

"I was in China in 2007, at the first party-approved science fiction and fantasy convention in Chinese history. And at one point I took a top official aside and asked him Why? SF had been disapproved of for a long time. What had changed?

It's simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls."

and

"I was once in New York, and I listened to a talk about the building of private prisons – a huge growth industry in America. The prison industry needs to plan its future growth – how many cells are they going to need? How many prisoners are there going to be, 15 years from now? And they found they could predict it very easily, using a pretty simple algorithm, based on asking what percentage of 10 and 11-year-olds couldn't read. And certainly couldn't read for pleasure."

It's a wonderful piece, and I encourage everyone to check it out.

Miracleman Is Here!

The first issue of Disney/Marvel's new Miracleman series debuted this week, nearly five years after the corporate giant declared that they owned him.  It's odd that they also declared, with great fanfare back in 2009, that the character would be returning to his original name of Marvelman and yet now they're publishing the stories under the Miracleman name, but such are the vagaries of the comic world, I suppose.

They've also chosen a God-awful format for the series, if the first issue is any indication.  It's $5.99 for what looks to be about 15 to 20 pages of the Alan Moore story from the British Warrior magazine, with the rest of the 30 or 40 pages given over to text pieces and black-and-white reprints of the Marvelman strips from the 50s and 60s that no one wants to read.  Eclipse did a much better job packaging these stories in the 80s and 90s, but I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Disney would opt to gouge the fans for as much as they possibly can.

The other hilarious aspect of this series is that Alan Moore apparently insisted his name not be used, and so the credit page inside the front cover reads "STORY - THE ORIGINAL WRITER," as if Moore were perhaps a mythical figure from before the dawn of recorded time.

Still, none of that detracts from the fact that this is one of the greatest superhero tales ever put to paper.  I'm genuinely excited that a new generation of comic fans will now get to experience the magic that Moore created thirty years or more ago.

Fascinating Concept For A Film

Just saw this article about Richard Linklater's 12-year project, Boyhood, which is premiering in less than a week at Sundance.  It's a fictional story that was captured by the director over a dozen years, allowing the cast (especially the young boy) to actually age as the events progress.  How cool is that?

The fact that it involves Ethan Hawke makes it even more interesting to me, as Linklater and Hawke (along with the wonderful Julie Delpy) have gotten together three times before to create the incredible Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight series of films.  On the strength of that alone, we'll be all over Boyhood, the first chance we get to see it.  

Still Steaming Along

Today I finished Chapter 15 of Leap of Faith, though I still need to do a quick edit of it before I pass it over to Vicki for her to read.  That 16-page chapter took 2 days, basically.

I also figured out how much is left to go: 4 more chapters, including an epilogue.  I know the titles of each of the 4 sections, as well as what's going to happen in them, to a moderately-detailed level.  I'll still need my brother's help with some of the stuff going on in Chapter 17, but other than that, I'm full-steam ahead at this point.  All that's left now is the actual writing it down/typing it out, which is always the easiest bit.

Shouldn't be long now before I have a finished first draft.

Making Progress On Leap Of Faith

And all it took was me missing a deadline...

As I mentioned in my last post, I've fallen behind on the writing chores for my 4th novel, Leap of Faith.  As of New Year's Eve, I had just started working on Chapter 13 with about 1/3 of the book still to go.  It's now 6 days later, and I'm about to begin on Chapter 15, meaning I've completed 2 chapters in less than a week.  Now that's the kind of progress that's needed on this project!

I also had a very rewarding phone conversation with my brother Rich today about the book which has yielded a new subplot for the last act that I think is going to be terrific.  He's also agreed to help me out with a few aspects of it once I get to that part of the story just as he's done on the last two novels.  Stuff like that always gets my creative juices flowing so I expect to be busy at the keyboard for the next several weeks.

This book is really shaping up wonderfully so far. 

Book News To End The Year With

I'd hoped to have the first draft of Leap of Faith done by now, as the end of the year was my notional deadline for getting past that milestone.  As it turns out, I'm only about 2/3 of the way through the initial draft right now.  I've experienced a few slowdowns along the way, none of which have been the result of writer's block or a lack of interest in the story itself... which is good.  The delays have mainly been due to my poor work ethic - a problem I've suffered from ever since I retired - and numerous disruptions to my routine, the largest of which were the three bathrooms being completely renovated this fall.  Still, I feel bad that I've fallen behind.  My new goal is to complete Draft 1 by no later than the end of February, which would still allow for a release date in May or early June.

For the record, I started Chapter 13 this week.  Normally that would mean I was nearly done, as Game Over, No Brother of Mine and Old Wounds all had 13 chapters plus an epilogue.  Leap of Faith has tended to have shorter chapters, however, such that I've only written 150 pages and covered about 2/3 of the story in getting to Chapter 13.  I expect it to weigh in at 18 or 19 chapters and around 220 pages by the time it's all said and done.

In other book news, I found out today that Vicki and I have been invited to another book club meeting for No Brother of Mine.  My second novel was the November/December book for the club that a longtime friend of mine is in, and now that they've read it they've decided that they'd like to discuss the book with me at their next meeting, in mid-January.  We both had a great time at the previous such experience and so I'm very much looking forward to seeing what this new group thought of it.

And with those updates out of the way, 2013 draws to a close.  Happy 2014 to everyone out there!

Holmes (Finally) Enters The Public Domain In The U.S.

No, not me!  I'm talking about the other Holmes, the one who's - arguably - slightly more famous than I am.

I mentioned this case back in February, and now a decision has come down, freeing all of the pre-1923 stories of Sherlock Holmes for public use.  I'd call this a victory for those of us who favour a reasonable amount of copyright protection, rather than the ridiculous version that corporations seem to be hellbent upon creating.

Hulk Vs Wonder Woman

A seriously gorgeous bit of Mike Deodato artwork that went missing while being shipped via US Postal Service.  Someone out there in the big wide world has it, either by accident or by theft, and they need to return it to the artist.  But wow, what a piece!

What Is It With Plagiarism All Of A Sudden?

First we had Rand Paul lifting entire paragraphs of his speeches from Wikipedia and elsewhere (uncredited), and now it's Shia LeBeouf.  As the linked article points out, he not only stole the material for his short film but also lifted the wording of his apology!  Do people really think that they can get away with plagiarism in 2013, when everything is at our virtual fingertips and crowdsourcing happens constantly, whether we want it to or not?  I almost wonder if LeBeouf foolishly believed that Daniel Clowes was some obscure cartoonist that only he had ever heard of, and therefore nobody would be likely to pick up on the fact that his 'creative process' was really just theft.

I find stuff like this truly shocking.

Canada Post Changes Read Like An Onion Article

Judge for yourself, but how do you complain about declining usage of your services in one breath and announce a nearly-60% price increase for those same services in the next?!  Seriously?

I So Wanted To Love Killzone: Shadow Fall But Can't

I really enjoyed Killzone 2 and Killzone 3's single player campaigns, even if the multiplayer of each took a little getting used to.  Therefore I was very much looking forward to seeing what Killzone: Shadow Fall had to offer, especially since it was one of the PS4 launch titles.  Having now spent about 3 or 4 hours in the game, I'm shocked by how much animosity I'm feeling toward it.

This review of the game in the Globe and Mail perfectly sums up my feelings, including the headline: 'more fun to look at than to play.'  I've now had three experiences in the campaign where I've considered giving up on the game entirely.  I made it through the first two but am not sure how much more I'm willing to invest in stumbling through the latest pile of mud I've found myself mired in.  You'd think a game that almost always provides you with a visual cue as to your next objective wouldn't be so damned frustrating in trying to play through, but you'd be wrong.  There are also smaller annoyances like the way pressing the Right arrow on the D-pad often gets interpreted as an Up arrow instead, resulting in the Objectives screen popping up when I really wanted my Echo pulse to go out.  Or the fact that the text on the screen is so small that I can only read it if I sit within a couple feet of our 50-inch TV screen!  Who the hell QA'd this turd?

I was completely prepared to adore this game and yet I find myself on the verge of abandoning it.  What a disappointment.

For Better Or For Worse, Wonder Woman Is On Her Way

Zack Snyder announced today that he's including Diana of Themyscira, better known as Wonder Woman, in the upcoming, still-untitled sequel to Man of Steel.

Why First Person Shooters Are Good For Us

For every nutjob who gets in the news because he went on a shooting spree and it turns out he loved violent video games, there are thousands upon thousands of us who use games like Call of Duty: Black Op II or Killzone Shadow Fall as a non-violent way to work out our frustrations.  That's just one of the interesting points made in this New Yorker article delving into the appeal that first person shooters (like the two games mentioned above) hold for many of us. 

I definitely experience the immersive quality the author talks about, as video games are one of the best examples, for me, of "getting in the zone," as we used to call it at work.  And I can see how the control aspect applies, as well: in a first person shooter, especially a highly-competitive multiplayer match, everything happens so incredibly fast that you're constantly making split second decisions and choices that have the feeling of being life-and-death.  It's an illusion, of course, because 'death' in that environment usually only lasts a few seconds, but somehow it always feels slightly more real than that.

It's a great article that should be of particular interest to those who don't play first person shooters and can't understand why the rest of us do.

Deadly To Pets

Thanks to our friend Sue, I now have a handy visual reminder of what foods to keep away from dogs and cats:

Big Change In U.S. College Football

I'm not a big fan of NCAA football, in general, but during the TV wasteland period that comes at the end of every calendar year, Vicki and I typically enjoy a few bowl games.  What's always bugged me about the format of college football 'playoffs' in the States has been the fact that there's never really been a playoff.  It used to be just a bunch of bowl games and then voting took place afterward to decide who the best team was... no, I'm not kidding!  The introduction of the Bowl Championship Series several years ago improved things incrementally, as at least with that change you'd get the # 1 ranked team playing the # 2 ranked team for the title of champion.  However, the flaw in that structure was the subjective ranking involved.  More than once I've seen an unbeaten school get ranked 3rd or 4th, meaning that they went the entire year without losing and yet didn't get a chance to play for the title.  Whenever that's happened, there's been a lot of controversy, as there should be.

Starting next year, however, the chances of an undefeated team missing out like that are at least going to be reduced significantly.  Starting in 2014, there will be two semi-final games, involving the top four ranked teams, with the two winners meeting in the championship game (presumably a week later).  What this means is that a team would have to be ranked 5th or lower in order to excluded from the chance to contend for the championship, which seems much, much fairer to me.  Even if you're ranked 3rd or 4th and think you should've been put at the top, you'll still have the opportunity to win a pair of playoff games to prove that you deserve the title.  In a league where positions are determined by votes, that's probably the best you could possibly hope for.

I can't wait for this to be implemented, a little over a year from now.  It should make the end of the U.S. college football season a whole lot more interesting, exciting and satisfying than it's ever been before.

Another Biking Season Draws To A Close

I biked downtown to get comics today, and it was a beautiful late-fall day for a ride.  I think the temperature was around 4 or 5 degrees, though the windchill made it feel closer to 0, according to the Weather Network site.  Most importantly, the roads and bike paths were clear and the sun was shining.

Unfortunately, snow is in the forecast and I think today may have been my last ride of the year.  It's certainly one of the final trips I'll be able to make in 2013, as late November is usually as long into the season as I can go before the snow and ice arrives.  My days of long biking streaks or simply saying "Screw it" and biking in the snow are over, I think.  There's something about entering my 50s that's just made that sort of thing seem impractical now.  But even so, I'm proud to have stretched the biking season to (at least) November 20th this year, as that's nothing to sneeze at.

The Other Christmas Connection Yesterday

Not only was yesterday Christmas for gamers, thanks to the long-awaited release of the PS4, but Vicki and I (and Tammy, in absentia) also got to play a small part in some Christmas goodness.  A comic store owner in Windsor, Shawn Cousineau of Rogues Gallery Comics, has made an annual habit of getting comics into the hands of underprivileged kids every Christmas.  It's something he started several years ago, inspired by the fact that he and his single mother had benefited from similar acts of generosity when he was a child.  I heard about his campaign to get 6000 comics donated to the cause and remembered that Tammy had given me several boxes of her old comics, asking me to find a new home for them.  She'd brought them here before leaving for Australia in 2011, but I hadn't gotten around to doing anything with them yet.

The combination of the PS4 arriving and our planned trip to Windsor yesterday got ugly around 10:30 when the street crews began setting up to finish the paving of our crescent that had begun over a month ago.  They'd put one layer down back in September or early October, and then they disappeared for about six to eight weeks, only to pick Nov 15th, of all dates, to complete the job!  As it started to look like they'd be closing the street and my PS4 hadn't yet made an appearance, we gave up on waiting for it.  I figured the mail truck would never be able to get on the street once the paving started anyway, so why bother waiting?  We loaded the car up with the four boxes of comics but had to take the long way around the crescent as the usual exit was blocked by trucks filled with asphalt.  We got halfway around the crescent when I saw a Canada Post truck parked in a driveway, so I stopped the car and jumped out.  I approached the truck, saw that the driver was our regular mailman, and was about to ask him if he happened to have a package for me when he hopped out and handed it to me!  I couldn't believe how lucky I was, or how close I'd come to missing it!

After thanking the postman profusely, we packed the box into the trunk with the other cargo, and headed to Windsor.  Once we got there, we spent about an hour in Rogues Gallery Comics, getting to know Shaun, and discovering just what a nice, friendly guy he is!  He couldn't have been more grateful for the donation, and was just a joy to talk to.  He's one of the nicest comic store guys I've ever met, and I've encountered a lot of them.

Anyway, Tammy can be proud of herself, as her former collection (minus a handful of comics that we knew she'd like to hold onto) will brighten Christmas morning for several hundred needy children in the Windsor/Essex County area.  What a great role for a few boxes of comics to play!

Christmas For Gamers

Today marks the launch of the PlayStation4 (PS4), making it the equivalent of Christmas Day for most serious gamers.  One of the first recurring topics introduced on this blog, way back in the fall of 2006, was my pursuit of a PS3, as I struggled to find one amid the hysteria following its launch.  Here we are, seven years later, and I've learned my lesson: I pre-ordered my new toy this time around, and it's on its way to the house right now.  I've tracked it from Mississauga (where it left the Best Buy warehouse late last night) and can see that it's now out for delivery here in London, which means I'll hopefully have it within the next few hours.  I already have my first game to play on it - Killzone: Shadow Fall, which was released ahead of the console, as strange as that seems - and can't wait to check that out, see what the console's UI looks like, discover all of its cool new features as well as whatever else I may find.

Of course, this doesn't mean I'll be completely abandoning Boneman and Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer on the PS3.  I'll continue to slum it when I have to, until that glorious day when he, too, joins me in this magical land of the future...

Poor Man's Meal Planner

For reasons I wrote about almost a year ago, I stopped supporting the various Java/Database applications that I'd written over the past fifteen years or so.  I've found the absence of cataloging each new comic I buy to be liberating, after nearly 40 years of recording every addition to the collection.  Vicki hasn't said much, one way or the other, about losing her book inventory system, so I don't know how much of an impact that's had, if any.  But the one area that finally 'hurt' a little was the loss of the Meal Planner application.

Initially, I wasn't worried about the Meal Planner because Vicki had stopped using it anyway before I even made my decision to abandon the applications.  She said she was just taking a break, but that hiatus has gone on quite a while by that time.  However, several months ago Vicki began asking the old age question again: "What sounds good for supper tonight?"  It was that same daily routine that had prompted me to create the Meal Planner in the first place, so that got me thinking about a simpler solution.

The result was a spreadsheet, the printout of which looks like this:

The idea is that you put this sheet up on the fridge.  On it, you get 3 weeks worth of daily spots into which you can write a dinner, along with 3 pre-filled columns of possible choices.  The first column contains the most frequent/beloved meals, followed by a second column of slightly-less desirable options, and a final column that has the rarest/blech-est of the possibilities.  As you select a dinner choice from Columns A, B, or C, you write it into the slot for that day, and cross it off whichever list you got it from.  Throughout the course of the 3 weeks, the days fill up with meals and then, when you're done, you print off a new copy for the next 3 weeks.  Crossed off items can be picked again in the same period, of course... but by virtue of being crossed off, they're less likely to be selected, which is what you want if you're looking for variety (as we are).

It's not anywhere nearly as sophisticated or automated as the old Java version, but it seems to be working.  We're on our 5th or 6th iteration of it now, and I'm happy to report that Vicki rarely asks me what I want for dinner anymore.  And that's exactly what success tastes like, for me!

Scary Article About The Realities Of Cycling

I mean, the title says it all: Is it OK to kill cyclists?  You should definitely give it a read, whether you're a cyclist or not, but especially if you're a driver who resents cyclists.

Thanks to the Man from Mars for the link.

Neil Gaiman, Class Act

I've made no secret of the fact that I'm a huge Neil Gaiman fan.  The first issue of his new Sandman prequel series, Sandman Overture, which came out last week, absolutely blew me away.  I'm waiting to do a second reading of it before posting anything about it here, but it's... just... amazing.  This is one of those rare cases where someone revisits a masterpiece of theirs from the past and manages to produce new work of the same, if not maybe even better, quality.

Anyway, today I was reading an interview with the artist of that series, J. H. Williams III, and got to the end only to see this quote from Williams about working with Neil:

I wanted to see if [Neil] was open to me approaching it the way I've approached many of my other projects, where I take what's there, and if I see, "Oh, these two pages work in a more interesting way if they're turned into a double-page spread, with some sort of design that encompasses the whole thing." How would he feel about me altering the pace in that way? And he gave me the most perfect, humbling compliment. He said, "It's you. We asked for you. Do what you do, I trust you."

That's Neil Gaiman, in a nutshell.  Total class act.

Money Well Spent

This is the final weekend before Call of Duty: Ghosts arrives, and so that means I'm just about done playing Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the previous CoD title that came out just under a year ago.  I'm pretty confident that I spent more hours playing BOII than any prior CoD release, to the point where I prestiged in it 6 times!  I inched my kill-to-death ratio up to previously-unseen heights, finishing tonight at 1.75.  I doubt I would have believed, last November when the game arrived in my mail slot, that I'd get anywhere nearly that high a KTD or that I'd prestige more than once, let alone do a half dozen of them.

The main driver for all those hundreds of hours online, without a question, was the presence of Boneman right there beside me (virtually speaking) over the last twelve months.  Having someone to partner up with makes a huge difference in terms of not getting bored with the same old maps, and he and I had some amazing adventures playing Team Deathmatch together on Nuketown 2025, Express, Slums, Standoff, Hijacked, Carrier, Aftermath, Meltdown, Turbine, Overflow and, yes, even Yemen. 

Now, though, my attention is ready to turn to Ghosts, where I'll no doubt suffer for at least a week or two with a subpar KTD while I learn the weapons, perks and maps.  I can't imagine I'll end up spending as much time in this game as the last one, but you never know.  You're only a kid once, after all!

Rainy Hallowe'en Nets Us Just 9 Little Beggars

We didn't even hit double digits this year (a first!), thanks to a windy and rainy late afternoon and evening.  Nine is only a few kids less than normal, though it's about 50% below the average if you want to talk percentages.

Updating the tallies from the years I've been blogging:

2013: 9
2012: 14
2011: 15
2010: 18
2009: 19
2008: 19
2007: 18
2006: 12

The New Bathrooms, Part 2

I couldn't convince Vicki to provide the blog post on the upstairs bathroom, so you'll just have to settle for photos and minimal commentary from me.

Here's what it looked like before:

And here's the spiffy new look, once again hard to capture in photos, unfortunately:

Quite the upgrade, I'd say!!  And now we'll be proud to send house guests upstairs to use the facilities, which certainly hasn't been the case for years.

Lou Reed, Neil Gaiman And The Art Of Interviewing

Following the news of Lou Reed's death over the weekend, there's been lots of conversation about the man, as usually happens when a celebrity dies.  My own 'relationship' with the singer is extremely limited, to put it mildly.  I enjoyed a few of his popular songs, including "Sweet Jane" by Reed and The Velvet Underground, which Tammy introduced me to several years ago (and which has been covered quite a few times over the past forty years).

By far the most interesting thing I've read out of this current flurry of Reed-mania is Neil Gaiman's interview with Lou from 1992.  I'm a firm believer that there's an art to conducting a good interview, and it's a skill that seems largely lacking among those who do the most interviews.  I used to love Tom Snyder's Tomorrow Show style back in the 70s and 80s because he not only asked interesting questions of his guests, but he also went to the places that you wanted him to go, even if you didn't know it until it happened.  By the time Snyder was done with his subject, you understood the person (rather than the persona) in ways you never would had anyone else been asking the questions.

Neil's talk with Lou Reed is fascinating in a different way, though.  The article that precedes the interview provides the perfect scene-setting to allow you to understand how big a deal it was for the writer to land that gig, as well as to observe the slow, steady transformation that unfolds in the singer's attitude toward his interviewer.  You can track Reed's growing appreciation for the intelligence and insight behind the questions, and the openness that Gaiman elicits out of him in response is extraordinary for such a short conversation.

It's a weird confluence of coincidences that Neil Gaiman's return to Sandman debuts in two days (Sandman Overture) and I'd just suggested The Velvet Underground as the letters column name for the comic series, Velvet, that came out last Wednesday.  Everything ties together.

Copyright Vs The Public Domain

The Washington Post has a great article detailing the history of copyright term-extension legislation, including the fact that the topic is about to rear its ugly head again over the next several years as properties like Mickey Mouse are once more 'at risk' of falling into the public domain.

As a creator of copyrighted material myself (six books and counting!), I'm totally of the opinion that copyrights have to terminate after a reasonable span, such as the creator's lifetime plus fifty years, for example.  That provides plenty of opportunity for money-making off of them, not only for the person who produced the work, but also for the next generation of family members.  Any more than that is ridiculous, if you ask me.  And, as the article points out, the term keeps getting extended to put more money into corporations' pockets, not to help out creative types.  Considering that it's Disney and Time Warner, among others, that we're talking about here, the irony is pretty thick: both companies have comic publishing arms (Marvel and DC, respectively) who've famously screwed over the people actually creating the stories and artwork for their characters.

I'd love to see this trend toward longer and longer extensions reversed sometime soon, but I doubt it'll happen.  Corporate interests, after all, are more zealously safeguarded now than ever.

The New Bathrooms, Part 1

For the past two weeks, Vicki, Emma and I (and even Tammy, during her Thanksgiving weekend visit) were under siege from a father-son pair of contractors who were completely renovating our two main bathrooms, literally from floor to ceiling.  This is the project Vicki worked her last contract for, as we set aside most of the after-tax money she made specifically for this purpose.  All of our bathrooms have been looking tired and dated for years now, and so Vicki took on the challenge of addressing that situation for the two main ones.

I may get her to do a guest blog post (haven't had one of those in ages!) to really do the subject justice, but I thought I'd at least put up some before-and-after pictures to get a certain relentlessly-persistent sister-in-law off my back.

I'm starting with the en suite that's situated off the master bedroom, as it's the one I always use (and this blog is all about me, remember).  It's hard to convey the look and feel of the room in photos, but here's what we got rid of:

Quite boring looking, with ugly vertical striped wallpaper that was peeling off and tile grout that was impossible to get clean (believe me, I tried!).  The tub had long since lost any luster and the toilet had some sort of design flaw in how the water needed to circulate in order to go down, the end result of which was that it clogged very easily and required me to plunge it about twice a week.  No, I'm not kidding!

After Mark and Jordan of Cornerstone Construction worked their magic, though, the room was transformed into this:

Beautiful colours all around, and everything's state of the art now: toilet seat and vanity drawers are all self-closing, the ceiling fan has its own humidistat for automatic on/off functionality, and best of all, there's a rain head at the top of the shower, which I've already fallen in love with and use in place of the actual shower head.  And the toilet flushes reliably and with a lovely whooshing sound!

We do have a slight problem with space, as you might be able to see from the pictures: the longer-than-usual toilet and the fairly wide vanity don't have a lot of room between them near the tub, making the access to the tub a bit tight.  So we may end up swapping one or the other out for smaller pieces if we find that it continues to feel cramped in there.  The plan right now is to get Cornerstone back in over the next several months to do the basement bathroom, and that would be the perfect time to tweak the en suite's layout, if necessary.  As it is, though, I can't believe what a great job Vicki did in all of her choices, as it really does feel like an executive bathroom in some swanky hotel.  And yet it's right off our bedroom!  How awesome is that?

Still to come: the upstairs bathroom, which is equally impressive.

Supporting The Artist

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the way art intersects with commerce.  I guess that's not surprising, as I'm mostly writing and selling my books these days, as compared to earlier periods where I was working full-time or doing Math tutoring.  Now I'm more likely to think of myself as an artist who is - or isn't - making a living off my art.

Anyway, one of the recent trends I've seen in my spending habits is that I'm more inclined to support activities or products that give more of their proceeds back to the artist.  As musicians and writers, in particular, have discovered new and exciting ways to get their output directly into the hands of their fans, I've begun to feel better and better about laying down my hard-earned cash for such work.  Another example would be the Fringe festivals that Vicki and I have started going to, where 100% of the money taken in at the box office goes to the performer(s).  I find that I love the feeling that comes with that kind of a purchase.

Today, a new comic series, Velvet, is coming out from Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting, the creative team responsible for the greatest run on Captain America.  I was sold on Velvet from the day it was announced, purely on the strength of the creative team, and everything I've seen about it since just increased my confidence about its quality.  However, one aspect of its publication appeals to me for reasons more in line with the rest of this post: Velvet is a creator-owned title, published by Image Comics.  I didn't use to think about such things much, but now it's a huge deal that Brubaker and Epting will own the characters and stories of this great female-spy title.  After all, there's never been a better time for comic properties to break into movies or TV than right now, which means those two gents could reap huge financial rewards for their work if they were picked up by Hollywood. One need look no further than Robert Kirkman and The Walking Dead (also an Image title) to see what I'm talking about.  Even if that doesn't happen, though, there's the usual revenue from merchandising in addition to all of the monthly sales profit, the entirety of which will go back to them.

And as I look at my comic buying habits right now, I notice that four of the most exciting titles I'm buying are creator-owned: Fatale, Lazarus, Saga and now Velvet (all published by Image).  All of them are doing well, both commercially and critically, and each one is a joy to read.  They represent about one-quarter of my monthly purchases, with the rest being a mix of DC and Marvel titles.  At this point, I'd actually be quite happy to see that balance swing more to the creator-owned side, as I'm well and truly sick of the corporate greed that's begun to dominate both of those long-established companies (thanks to owners, Warners and Disney, respectively).

In the meantime, though, I'm just excited to have four such entertaining comics to read each month, with the profit going where it belongs.

Getting Onto The Internet Through Your Light Bulb

This crazy invention is another example of just how brilliant we are, as a species, when we're not busy destroying the planet like a bunch of morons, that is.  The idea of using the flicker frequency of light bulbs to transmit data is so out there that, at first, you can't help but think someone's pulling your leg.  It's actually been proven to work, though.  Wow!

As the article points out, there is the one big limitation: the device you want to connect to the Internet would have to be within sight of a data-transmitting bulb, as compared to current routers that transit through walls.  Still, I'd think that would be a small price to pay in order to get speeds ten times faster than what we see now.  And really, if all the lights in your house were acting as routers, then it probably wouldn't be much of an issue unless you like surfing in the dark, or want to head outside.  (It does bring to mind a whole new family of "How many ___________s does it take to change a light bulb?" joke possibilities, though.)

Amusingly, the light in our living room where I'm typing up this post flickered twice in the past several minutes, possibly signaling its approval of this invention.  Or maybe warning against it!

A New Low In Canadian Politics?

Or just more of the same, when it comes to Harper's Conservative government?

You be the judge

Thanks to PJ for the tip on this one. 

Gotta Love Fox News

They're almost as comical a news provider as The Colbert Report, especially when they do stuff like this: interviewing people about how Obamacare has adversely affected them, without even bothering to check to see if any of the stories are real/accurate. Or maybe they knew full well that those tales of woe were complete bullshit and went with them anyway. Either way, that seems about right for Faux News.

Roller Derby Will Save Your Soul Next June

Two years ago, Vicki and I went on the road to take in Hamilton Fringe Festival, and when we came home I wrote about all the plays we'd seen there, even going so far as to provide our personal rankings for each.  Very near the top of both our lists was a wonderful one-woman performance called Roller Derby Saved My Soul, featuring Nancy Kenny.  Ms. Kenny was funny, poignant and totally engaging in RDSMS, and I've hoped ever since that she'd someday be able to bring her wonderful act here to London.

Well, as she blogged about yesterday, it's happening!  She's doing a multi-city tour next summer, and she's kicking it off with a stop here during London Fringe (June 4 - 15).  I'll be sure to promote this great show again closer to the start of the festival itself, but I wanted to get the word out nice and early.  Any fans of humour and pop culture will definitely not want to miss RDSMS in 2014.

A Bit Of Book News, Including The Title!

I've now finished Chapter 9 of the new book, which is feeling like the midway mark, more or less.  There's a lot of story in those first nine chapters, and lots more to come, so it's hard to say exactly where the middle is.  But we're definitely close.  And I think I may still make my notional goal of finishing the first draft by year-end, which would be a worthy achievement indeed.

Although publication remains several months away, I'm very confident now about the title of this book.  It was something else originally, before I actually started writing it, and then I thought of the new one and immediately liked it a lot more.  I figure now that I'm well into it, I might as well reveal the title so I can start referring to it by name, from here on out.  In a while I'll provide a description of the story (aka "the back cover blurb"), but in the meantime, feel free to speculate away as to what it's about!

And so, without further ado, the title of my fourth novel is:

Leap of Faith

How's that hit you?

Miracleman Is Coming!

This news has been several years in the making, but at New York Comic Con this weekend, Marvel/Disney finally made the announcement we've all been waiting for:

Miracleman is coming in January 2014!

As you'll see at that link, there's going to be a reprinting of all the modern Miracleman stories (written by Alan Moore, initially, and then Neil Gaiman, for the final several issues published back in the 90s) after which Gaiman is planning to write the concluding chapters that he always wanted to do.  This is amazing news for fans of the character, and I just hope that Marvel/Disney does it up right.  The press release says all the correct things, but I'll only believe it when I have the final product in my own two hands.

7 Years Of Blogging

In less than 2 hours, it'll be October 1st, the 7th anniversary of when I started this blog.

To show how much less I have to say here than I used to, consider this: in December of 2006 alone, my 3rd month of blogging, I put out a whopping total of 175 posts.  Nine months into 2013, I've posted just 137 times (counting this one).

Oh well.  I have to say it's hard to be enthusiastic about blogging when it seems as though almost no one's reading it any more.  But such is life.

A Final Collection Of Breaking Bad Reviews

I've split my day so far between working on novel # 4 and reading Breaking Bad finale reviews.  I can't share anything with you yet about the former, but here's a roundup of some of the latter:

From the Onion's A/V Club, by Donna Bowman

From Slate, by Willa Paskin

From Badass Digest, by Devin Faraci

From the Onion's A/V Club (again), by Todd VanDerWerff (I really loved this one!)

From BoingBoing, by Kevin McFarland

I'm still reading, so I may add more later!

Baking Bad

For those who, like me, remember the old Hostess Twinkies ads that used to run in Marvel and DC comics, featuring the likes of Spider-Man and Batman, I give you this.

Breaking Bad Ending Big

Well, I don't actually know how Breaking Bad is going to end... the finale is still more than two hours away.  But we're going to have our own little BB mini-party tonight, as a friend and his teenage son are coming over to send off the series with us! 

As far as predictions are concerned, I'm pretty bad at them when it comes to TV shows (I had no idea where Lost was going as it wound down).  I will say that I hope Jesse gets revenge on Todd before it's all over, and that Walt doesn't survive the finale.  I've definitely gone from being a Walter White-booster to rooting against the man, although I admire the hell out of the job the writing staff has done in developing that character over six years of television.  His progress from mild mannered chemistry teacher to meth-empire-building Heisenberg is one for the ages, and I'll be sad to see it all end tonight.

Interesting Overview Of The RIM Story To Date

Definitely worth a read.  I found it telling, anecdotally-speaking, when my own brother gave up his long-beloved 'blueberry' for an iPhone within the last year.  He had been a diehard fan of the technology going back to his days on the police force, but he became frustrated with the complicated update process and finally just gave up on it.  I haven't heard too many complaints from him about his new phone, I must say.

Shout Out For Civic-Minded People

When it comes to getting involved with local concerns, I wish I was more like friend of the blog, Mike Marsman.   Here he is, advocating for a cycle committee for this city, a cause that definitely deserves some support and energy.

Good on ya, Man from Mars!

Summer's Over

We closed the pool this weekend. 

Last week, we spent almost $3000 getting 3 leaks fixed in the underground lines near the skimmer and both return jets.  A few weeks before that, we spent $6000 to replace the retaining wall around the deck after carpenter ants ate through the old one.  Over the course of the summer, both of our pool cleaning devices stopped working - one because of the leaks degrading the water pressure, the other because of a defective piece of equipment.  For the first time since we moved into the house in 1998, we were actually vacuuming the pool manually for several weeks of 2013.  Ugh.

In other words, it's been an expensive summer and one that's been hard to enjoy.  Here's hoping next summer is the exact opposite!

A Small Collection Of Great Breaking Bad Articles

Watching this week's third last Breaking Bad episode (entitled "Ozymandias") on Sunday night, both Vicki and I were grimacing and shaking our heads.  But in a good way, as you'll understand fully if you're into the series right now.  It was perhaps the roughest chapter in the lives of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman yet, and that's saying a lot.  This has become our favourite show on TV, and we're going to be very sad to see it end on September 29th.

Anyway, if you're a fan, too, here are a handful of interesting articles about "Ozymandias" in particular and endings in general:

From Boing Boing, Entertainment Weekly and Vulture.

First Act Of The New Book Is Now Written

Unlike my previous novels, I've had the structure of the fourth one in my head since before I began writing it.  I could clearly see the three acts that would make up the story, and I knew what would propel each act along.  For comparison's sake, I was well into No Brother of Mine before I came up with the idea of one of the detectives looking into the twenty year old death of the father.  That ended up being a major catalyst for the action in the second half of the book and yet it was a relatively late addition.

This time around, it's such a different experience from the earlier books that I almost can't believe it.  And so far, through six chapters, very little has changed between what I'd originally envisioned and what's actually going down on the virtual page.  Maybe this is the way I'll always write, from now on?  Or possibly I've just gotten lucky and it'll never happen again.

Anyway, I'm having a good time and my work is now about a third of the way complete.

This Video Will Make Your Day

Our First TIFF

No, this post isn't about the first time Vicki and I had a big disagreement... Instead, it's about our trip to Toronto earlier this week to take in our first ever Toronto International Film Festival with Tammy!

Tammy and I had picked out three relatively obscure movies to buy advance tickets for, after discovering that all of the films we'd actually heard of were already sold out.  The ones we selected ended up all being interesting, in one way or another, and here's a brief description of each:

South is Nothing - We started off with an Italian story about a father and daughter trying to come to terms with the death of a family member.  The teenage daughter is interestingly presented as a boy throughout the early parts of the film, and it only gradually becomes apparent that she's actually a young girl.  Dressing and acting like a male are just her way of resisting the pressures to outgrow her tomboy adolescence in the wake of her brother's mysterious and sudden death.  For the Q&A session after the film, both the director and the actress who played the daughter fielded questions from us, and I asked a couple.  First, I wondered if the story had been inspired by anything in the director's background (he said 'yes' but was vague as to exactly what).  I also asked if the slow reveal of the character's gender had been done to allow each audience member to come to the realization at their own pace, and he confirmed that was exactly his intent.  I thought this was a very good film, though not quite nosing into great territory because of a few aspects of the story that could've been presented more clearly.

Canopy - This was the film I was most looking forward to, and perhaps my high expectations worked against it.  The premise sounded fascinating to me: an Australian paratrooper in World War II is stranded in a Singapore jungle and meets a Chinese soldier there while both try to evade capture by the Japanese army who've invaded the island.  I could imagine all kinds of ways to make that interesting, but the actual product was paced too slowly and spent much too much time on the scenery.  I liked the film but only just.  As with each of the shows we went to, the director (from Australia) and the lead actor (also an Aussie) took part in a Q&A afterwards, though it wasn't all that illuminating.

A Place in Heaven -  The highlight of the festival, for me anyway, was our final film on Monday night.  This Israeli tale about a father and son relationship against the backdrop of the hostility between the Jews and the Palestinians, stretching back several decades, was riveting from start to finish.  I found myself trying to guess what would happen next and failing nearly every time, which is a wonderful feeling when the developments on the screen exceed your expectations!  The lead actor Alon Aboutboul (playing the father) was present for the Q&A along with the director, and I discovered from Tammy that he'd had a small part in the opening Bane sequence of The Dark Knight Rises.  That may constitute the closest I've come yet to Batman!  At any rate, I loved A Place in Heaven and wouldn't be surprised to see it get Oscar consideration for Best Foreign Film.

On the Monday afternoon, while Tammy was working, Vicki and I went to see another film, more or less on a lark:

The Green Inferno - This is the latest from Eli Roth, known for horror films (like Hostel and Hostel II) although he more famously played Sgt. Donny Donovitz in Tarrentino's Inglourious Basterds, which Tammy claims to have seen 10 times (making her quite jealous that she missed seeing him live and in person at this show).  Anyway, this was billed as a homage to the Italian cannibal movies of the 70s, and it certainly delivered on that promise.  The story was completely predictable and appropriately gory, but otherwise fairly forgettable.  Vicki stuck it out like a trooper, though, reminding me once again that I did, indeed, win the wife lottery all those years ago!  In the Q&A afterwards, we learned that most of the natives (i.e. the "cannibals") shown in the film were from an actual tribe in the Amazon who'd had limited contact with civilization before Roth and the crew found them.  They'd never seen a movie before, and so they were shown Cannibal Holocaust, from 1980 (billed as "The Most Controversial Film Ever Made"), which they found to be hilariously funny!  They loved what they perceived as the comedic aspects of it, laughing from start to finish, and this experience completely sold them on the idea of appearing in the film and hamming it up as cannibals.  That, I have to admit, is strangely awesome all on its own.  The movie crew did their best to upgrade the tribe's little village before they left, including installing metal roofs and providing some cash that could be used in trade with the boats that travel up and down the Amazon selling supplies.  The Q&A was definitely the most interesting part of this, but I suppose I've also earned a tiny bit of street cred from being able to say I've been in the same room as Eli Roth!  That puts me one degree of separation from Tarrentino, for whatever that's worth (much less than being one degree from Batman, if you ask me!).

And that was our TIFF 2013 experience.  We all loved it, and hope to be able to repeat it next year.

Some Hope For Those Of Us With Failing Memories

Although the benefits from this exciting discovery may still be years or even decades away, it still gives us old folks some reason to hope.

Blast From The Past

I don't know where this George Perez illustration came from, as it wasn't part of the classic 4-issue JLA/Avengers series that came out in the early 2000s (and for which I own several pieces of original artwork). But regardless of the origin of the piece, it's a beauty!

The Fringe Experience

One of the best shows we saw at Hamilton Fringe a couple years ago was Roller Derby Saved My Soul, a one-woman (on skates!) extravaganza featuring Nancy Kenny.  We subsequently bumped into Nancy at London Fringe through her friendship with PeterJ and got a chance to chat with her for a bit, and then I started following her on Twitter.  She just finished doing her show at Edmonton Fringe, and blogged about what it was like.  I found her description of the festival fascinating, and really wished Vicki and I could've gone to another Fringe festival this summer. Hopefully Nancy will bring RDSMS to London one of these years and I can promote the Hell out of it to all of you out there.

The Latest Addition

It's been awhile since I added a really key comic book to my collection, as I filled out most of the series runs that I was interested in years ago.  The first appearances of the Flash, Green Lantern, Justice League of America, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four (all from the Silver Age) were all very cool acquisitions, no doubt about it.  This weekend, however, Vicki and I purchased a comic that I never really expected to own a copy of: All Star Comics # 3, from 1940, featuring the first appearance of the Justice Society of America, the Golden Age precursor to the JLA!

This copy was 'slabbed,' meaning it had been professionally graded and then sealed inside a hard plastic case (similar to what's done to expensive trading cards, which is where the practice started, I believe).  I took it out of the case, just as I always do with slabbed comics I buy, as I like to read these things, not seal them away.  The grading information at the side of the photo indicates that there had been some restoration done to this copy, bringing it up to "an apparent 6.0" which means it looks like a 6.0 (out of 10) but is actually lower since it's been restored.  It sure is pretty, though!

Let's Celebrate The Heroes, Instead

I don't mean 'heroes' like athletes who set records or movie stars who only pretend to be heroic on film.  I mean heroes like Antoinette Tuff, who prevented another American school shooting from being added to the already way, way too long list.

It seems like many of the deranged gunmen - it's never women - do what they do to become famous, regardless of who they have to kill to get there.  But it's the heroes in those situations whose names we should remember, not the villains: the first responders, the teachers who've died trying to shield their students with their bodies and the parents who've somehow managed to keep going through the motions after enduring the unthinkable.  So let's add Antoinette Tuff's name to our short- and long-term memories today.  She talked a would-be mass murderer down, not by leveling a gun at him but by relating to him as a human being.  She's worth remembering, and the courage and compassion she demonstrated is certainly worth celebrating.

5 Terrifying Statements In The Upcoming IPCC Climate Report

Read it and weep, especially for your children and their children and their children...

Ben Affleck As Batman? That Was... Unexpected

I absolutely loved Affleck in Argo, so I'm not a Ben-hater by any means.  He's just not who I would've imagined in the role of an older Batman going up against Henry Cavill's rookie Man of Steel in 2015.  I think I might be happier if he were directing (or even co-directing) this Superman Vs Batman fanboy-wetdream-on-film, but that's not looking likely.

I've got to hand it to Warner Brothers: it's definitely an interesting choice, and may be responsible for breaking the internet in half over the next day or two.

Novel Progress

Today I finished the fourth chapter of my fourth novel, and feel as if I'm getting some steam up on this project for the first time.  It's been a tough summer so far for writing, as I've suffered from a shortage of motivation and an abundance of distractions.  However, with the first act of the story now more-than-half done, I'm finally getting to the stuff that I've wanted to write since before I began putting it all into Word.

I think this is going to be my longest novel yet in terms of number of chapters, though I'm not sure how the word count will measure up.  The structure is all worked out in my head already and has been for months, so it's really just been all the many little details that have been percolating around up there lately.  As a lot more of the pieces have come together lately, I expect the pace to begin to pick up anytime now.

Vicki's given me feedback on each of the four chapters so far, and it's all been very positive.  We both think this is going to be quite the exciting story but of course it'll be many months yet before I'll know whether we're both smoking weed on that front or not.

The Day The Clown Cried

I love movie lore, so when I recently read a random reference to a never-released Jerry Lewis film from the 70s that I'd never heard of called The Day The Clown Cried, I was intrigued.  If you've seen the 1997, Oscar-winning Life Is Beautiful, then aspects of Lewis' stillborn project will sound familiar: set during the Holocaust, a clown has to entertain children in a concentration camp while they unknowingly wait to be executed.  Lewis has generally refused to talk about the film, but today I came across an Entertainment Week article about one time he didn't.  It's a fascinating read and really leaves you wondering just how achingly-bad the film probably is, though it sounds like we'll probably never know.  Not while the comedian is still alive, anyway.  (He's exactly five days older than my sole surviving aunt, interestingly enough.)

Some Small Amount Of Justice On The Henrietta Lacks Story

It's not much, but it's something: the gene mapping of Henrietta Lacks' DNA, which had previously been treated as essentially public domain data, despite the loss of privacy that conferred upon her descendents, will now be supervised by a six-member committee, two of whom are Lacks family members.

Dr Emma Who

Yes, that's a sonic screwdriver in her hand, which she just received on this, her 19th birthday!  Some kids dream of being given a 40 ouncer or case of beer on their 19th, but our girl was absolutely giddy at the sight of Doctor Who's second-favourite device (after the TARDIS).

The Perfect Teaser

This clip of Bryan Cranston reciting Percy Shelley's poem, "Ozymandias," as a teaser for the final season of Breaking Bad, is simply brilliant (much like the show itself):



If you've been watching the slow, fascinating progression of Walter White, like we have, then you'll fully appreciate just how appropriate a choice that was.

From The Desk Of Bill Murray

Or rather, his Twitterfeed...

"If you don'’t come home and immediately either take off your pants, or change into pajamas, then I’'m sorry but you’'re living life wrong."

The man speaks truth!

Solar Windows? I Like The Sound Of That!

A new breakthrough in solar technology may make it a reality in the near future, too!