ut practice

Hey, my book actually seems to be doing okay at Amazon.com. It's ranked 14,371 in sales, and an average customer ranking of 5 out of 5 stars.

Paul Kwinn has a Consonance Report online. I've added this link to the sidebar with other Consonance report links.

"The Lady" is being featured at MP3.com's World Folk section right now!

I got together with Allison and Jodi last night. We went through the Titanic song we heard Joey do at Consonance (we might do this as a one-shot at FKO, we'll see), and I also taught them a new song I wrote this past week. I hadn't written anything in a looooooong time, so it felt good to be able to get one done. When I write songs, I generally have to set myself an assignment; I don't do well if I just sit there with a guitar, waiting for inspiration. I tend therefore to tell myself, "Okay, you must write a song about XXXXX" and then DO it.

Anyway, we plan to do both new songs at FKO. I'll be staying at the hotel from Thursday through until Monday, by the way.

Jeff and I are taking Sara and Annie to the Art Gallery of Ontario this morning. Apparently there are March break kids' activities there, so it should be fun.

Today's Blatherpics:
Consonance photo. I took this by holding out my camera in front of Allison and Jodi and quickly clicking the picture before they can hide their faces (or knock the camera out of my hands). :-)

snatch

Reid and Luisa came downtown to visit last night. We had dinner at Babur, an Indian restaurant on Queen Street. I love Indian food, especially Naan. We ordered a bunch of dishes, rice, Naan, and then shared everything. Everyone's favourite was the mango chicken. After dinner, we strolled down to Milestones for dessert. I had peppermint tea and a white chocolate caramel brownie thingy. Yummmmmmm....

After dessert, we went next door to the Paramount and saw "Snatch". Wow, really good movie. I'm not usually great with violent movies (and this movie had a lot of violence!), but Snatch managed to pull it off with great style and humour.

It was a good evening, very relaxing and fun. We've known Reid and Luisa for ages. (Pause as Debbie does some idle calculating.) Yikes. It's been twenty years since we all met. TWENTY YEARS. When I was a kid, I remember twenty years being an impossibly huge amount of time. Then again, time was slower back then.

Anyway, there's a certain comfort in knowing someone that long. The awkward polite stage is over with, as is the need for smalltalk (did I tell you how much I -hate- meaningless smalltalk?) and second-guessing. There is also a huge benefit to the fact that all four of us are equally good friends and have similar interests.

Last night reminded me a bit of our old days in university, probably because it wasn't particularly planned out in detail. We only decided on the restaurant after we started walking, and going somewhere else for dessert and then the movie were decisions made during the course of the evening, one flowing naturally into the other. We don't always have the luxury of doing this, of course, but I'm realizing that I haven't been doing enough. I've always tended to try to stuff too many tasks and events into each day, and inevitably feel disappointed by the end at the number of things I haven't checked off on my to do list.



Jeff and I have both been living in a constant "interrupt state" in recent years. It's reached the point where I'm unable to read a book for more than an hour at a time without getting restless and thinking about some worrying task that needs attention. We talked about this last night, and Reid asked whether we thought this state was more of a result of today's society, or more of our chosen lifestyle. I'm sure both are factors, but I suspect the latter is more of the culprit. I hate being like this; I used to love being able to spend the occasional entire day just reading, only getting up for bathroom breaks and to eat.

Which is one of the reasons that Jeff and I are both taking a sabbatical for the next few months, after we each tie up some loose ends. For me, this is finishing reorganizing my office and catching up on my finances. My taxes for last year are going to be hellish (I was a sole entrepreneur, director of a corporation, and an employee, all within one calendar year, plus I sold my business and worked in the U.S. for six months). We'll be spending a lot of time at the cottage, going on canoe trips and hiking trips, spending more time with each other. Maybe it's a mid-life thing, maybe it's because we're both making major work changes right now...but we've both agreed that it's time to slow our lives down somewhat. I'm burned out from my experience with the corporate world, and am mightily looking forward to getting back to my own writing fulltime this fall.

The trickiest part, as I've mentioned before, is resisting the urge to take on new deadline-oriented projects before the fall. You all have permission to yell at me if you notice me forgetting this. And no, my comic and The Dandelion Report and my harp resource site don't count...they're just Fun Hobbies, after all. ;-)

Today's Blatherpics:

Reid and Luisa last night, at Milestone's.

Brian and Jeff.

flatmouse

Many thanks to Jodi for setting up an MP3 site for Urban Tapestry!

Sara and Annie came over yesterday morning to watch the Iron Giant on DVD. Annie asked Jeff to hide our blue wooden dog (see Andrea's photo page) because it scares her. Whilst wandering around our apartment, our nieces also found one of Jeff's childhood toys, Flatmouse. Flatmouse is, well, a flat mouse. Annie asked Uncle Jeff if a truck had run over his mouse, but he told her that the mouse came that way.

And heck, while I'm on the subject of cute, embarrassing stories about Jeff, I might as well tell you about the time he got a pussy willow stuck up his nose as a child, and his mother had to take him to the emergency ward at the hospital to get it removed. She kept the pussy willow, and has considered getting it bronzed for me since I find the story so highly amusing. :-)

Today's Blatherpics:

Jodi and me at the Chicago airport, on the way home from Consonance.

Flatmouse, Jeff's favourite childhood toy.

pda joys

The interview with Jeff Bohnhoff is now online!

Jeff and I had dinner at his sister's place last night, and I had a chance to hang out with our four-year-old (almost five) niece Brittany. Brittany is always a bundle of energy, joyous and affectionate. We played Barbies (Barbies have certainly improved in joint flexibility and wardrobe since I was a kid) and chase and camping. Jeff and I are going to take her for a canoe trip this summer.

I've begun to snoop around for interesting software for my Palm Vx. I had been sadly neglecting it for a while, using it only for its datebook facility, and occasional memos. Wow, lots of very cool stuff out there! Here are a few of the goodies I've picked up recently:

AvantGo: I first heard about this application from my friend Brian Parkinson. After you register (for free), you can select whatever "channels" you'd like from a growing selection of news, entertainment and other types of information sites. When I hot-synch my Palm every morning, I automatically pick up that day's news and information. I'm trying out different channels right now to see which ones I want to keep. Channels on my Palm at this moment: Asimba, CBC News, Fictionopolis, HandHeldCrime, Jason Pettus online journal, Kim Holzer Leeds online journal, New York Times, Palm Infocenter.com, PalmPower Magazine, Salon, SCI FI Channel, Space.com, Suck.com, the Compleat Bellairs: Pigwidgeon, and Variety.com. I took my Palm to the cottage...it gave me lots of interesting reading material without my having to fit paper books and magazines into my backpack.

PocketRogue: Augh! This is the game I was so obsessed with in university! And now it's available for the Palm!! I just downloaded it and am secretly hoping that it's not nearly as addictive as I remember.

Interactive Fiction: Remember the old text-based adventure games like Infocom and Scott Adams? I always preferred those over graphic-based adventure games because it left more to the imagination, almost like being part of a novel as it was being written. Ok, so I'm a geeky writer at heart. Anyway, you need a Z-machine interpreter (several versions are available for free), but then can choose from many text adventure games available online. More info available in About.com's Interaction Fiction resource.

Today's Blatherpic:
My nephew Garrison and niece Brittany. This photo was taken at the cottage last Canadian Thanksgiving.

we didn't fall through the ice

Post-cottage

Good cottage visit. The ice was perfect, smooth and with only minimal snow cover. We walked across in about 25 minutes. I did a LOT of napping during the weekend, so cannot accurately report on the activities of Jeff and his parents. :-) I did stay conscious long enough to go for a walk around the lake with them, however, and have a picnic lunch of sandwiches, ravioli soup, grape juice, and (of course) chocolate bars. The marten showed up again, but didn't seem to like my mom-in-law's dog, Jamie. Jamie (named after the hero in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series) is a Scottish terrier type of dog, with a coat of fur so thick you can barely distinguish his features. He's a yappy dog, unfortunately, but is pretty affectionate (he tends to fall asleep quickly in people's laps).

I have to wonder what goes through yappy dogs' heads while they're yapping. When Jamie yaps, his message seems to be, "HEY YOU! I SEE YOU THERE! I'M PRETTY FIERCE, SO YOU'D BETTER WATCH OUT! SIZE ISN'T EVERYTHING, YOU KNOW! WAITASEC, UH OH, YOU'RE NOT ACTUALLY COMING OVER HERE TO CONFRONT ME, ARE YOU? OH GOOD! WELL, IN THAT CASE I'M GOING TO KEEP PROTECTING MY OWNER WITH THIS INTIMIDATING RACKET!! UNLESS YOU DECIDE TO RUB MY TUMMY, IN WHICH CASE I'LL ROLL OVER AND DROOL HAPPILY ON YOUR ANKLE UNTIL I FALL ASLEEP!!"

Jamie rode in the front seat with my mom-in-law (the four of us decided to just take one vehicle up north), but I could smell his doggy breath all the way from the back seat. Ick.

Convention reports

Allison's finished up an Ad Astra report as well as one for Consonance. I've links to these as well as other Consonance reports temporarily in the left navigation bar. Do check out reports by Seanan, Carla, Dave W., and Merav! If any of you have other Consonance reports online, please let me know.

By the way, I'm updating the OVFF Web site, finally. Just waiting for approval from the OVFF concom before linking up the Pegasus Award nomination ballots. If you're anxious to nominate sooner, however, Dave Weingart has kindly made a DOC format nomination ballot available online.

Also working on The Dandelion Report (www.filking.net). Coming soon: interviews with Jeff Bonhoff and Carla Ulbrich. I hope to officially launch this in the summer, but will be linking to individual articles and interviews from my Blatherings for now. My goal is to keep this a low-maintenance and fun project on my end, so I'm not committing to any update schedule yet, sorry.


Miscellaneous

The Reuters story on Inkspot came out yesterday, for those interested. Wired covered the same story, but I have to wonder if there's a typo in the headline.

Mini Annie story

Apparently Annie woke up crying in the middle of the night last week. When her dad went to see what was wrong, it turned out she was worried that Sara wouldn't be her older sister anymore when they grew up.

FilKONtario

Only a few more weeks to go! Katy and Ju are going to be crashing at my place after the convention. I must brush up on my extensive knowledge of German! ;-) I'm not sure if I'll be staying at the hotel on the Thursday night before FKO (it's my birthday and Jeff & I might be going out; I have to talk to him). I just found out that it's Katy's birthday on March 29th, too (and she -will- be at the hotel). It sounds like FilKONtario is going to be quite the party...I can't wait! :-)


Today's Blatherpic:

My dad-in-law.

Jamie, my mom-in-law's cute but yappy dog.

The cool beaded badge holder that Kathleen Sloan made for the Interfilk auction.