cibc run for the cure

The photos on today's page were taken at the CIBC Run For The Cure yesterday morning. Click on the photo above to see a bigger version.

Jeff and I were both blown away by how many people there were at the event. I'll be curious to hear the numbers for this year's event; last year, over 115,000 people participated across Canada. The weather yesterday was perfect: sunny, clear, cool but not cold.





Our registration kits came with an optional "I'M RUNNING FOR..." sign to pin to our t-shirts. I was moved by how many of these had been filled in with the names of friends and relatives, and nearly started outright bawling when I saw the name tags on one family waiting near us before the race began: a man and his two young daughters. Under "I'm running for...", the father had written "MY WIFE", while his daughters had each written "MOMMY" in their own handwriting. The girls were about Sara's and Annie's age.





After the race officially began, it was about ten minutes before the crowd thinned out enough for Jeff and I to actually start running, and by then it was obvious that more than half the crowd were planning to walk, not run. Some athletic parents were running with jogger-type strollers. One super-mom was pushing a stroller with THREE children in it!

Some of the crowd did the 1k; Jeff and I opted for the 5k route. We were entertained along the way by steel drum bands, fire engines wailing their sirens and flashing lights, the Lady Godiva engineering band (I think that's what they're called) from the University of Toronto, scantily clad cheerleaders, other musical and visual diversions. Actor Jon Voigt cheered on the walkers and runners at the corner of University and Bloor.

I have no idea who won the race or what place Jeff and I came in. Neither of us really cared. It just felt wonderful to be participating, especially on such a gorgeous day and with so many others who were out to support a good cause.

Thanks again to Robin Scanlon, JeffB, Rand, Parki, Ruth and Kaarel, Andy and Christine, my Jeff, Luisa and Reid, and Allison for sponsoring me in this event. And thanks to my pals in Cornucopia for helping calm my pre-run jitters. :-)





Links/News:

Three years ago, I was going through Compuserve hell.

Four years ago, Allison and Jodi took me on an ear-piercing expedition.

Five years ago, I was puzzling over the spelling of "Hallowe'en" vs "Halloween".

chances

Happy anniversary to Ruth and Kaarel! They've been married 11 years.

Jeff and I are both participating in the CIBC Run For the Cure today. THANK YOU so much to Robin Scanlon, JeffB, Rand, Parki, Ruth and Kaarel, Andy and Christine, my Jeff, Luisa and Reid, and Allison for sponsoring me. With your help, I raised $335 for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.





Last night, Jeff and I went out with his dad and a man who had served with the Israeli Army Intelligence for several years. He told us about growing up in Israel, where children were routinely taught not to pick up pens off the ground or drive their bikes across pieces of cardboard on the street in case they contained bombs.

And as I listened, I became aware of how often I take the relative comfort, safety and freedom in my little corner of the world for granted, and how lucky I have been in my life.





Good news re: our recording project. Both Julia Ecklar and Susan Cooper have given their permission to include "The Dark Is Rising" on our CD, yay! Looks like we're going to have 13 tracks, and Beckett Gladney is doing the cover. Our release date is still set for Worldcon 2003 (Labour Day weekend).

Links/News:

Today's the last day of Allison's and Jodi's Virtual Birthday Party!

Three years ago, I was planning to move into the new Inkspot office.

Five years ago, someone used our credit card number to buy $15,000 worth of pizza (ten separate charges of $1500 each). I still think this was unbelieveably stupid of the thieves. Didn't they think the people at Visa would notice this unusual activity?! Before they told us what had happened, Visa called Jeff and asked, among other questions, if we had bought any pizza lately. He said no. They ended up catching and prosecuting the thieves.

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Gaming dice. I took this photo on Friday night when Jeff and I were at Vartan's and Hrach's place. Jeff gamed, and I updated my online comic strips and Cafe Press store.
	A pretty disturbing mannequin display in The Bay department store downtown. Yes, this mannequin is missing the top half of its body.
	I was looking out my office window early yesterday morning and saw this scene, figured it was some kind of memorial to a policeman who had been killed. When Jeff woke up, I told him about it. He peered out the window (the memorial had been going on for a couple hours) and he commented that the police cars weren't Toronto police. Duh! Someone was shooting a movie. :-)

ronnie hawkins day

So yesterday was Ronnie Hawkins Day in Toronto. I didn't realize this until I wandered down to the Royal Alex at lunchtime to check out what was going on (I could see the crowd from my home office window). Turns out Ronnie Hawkins was being inducted into the Walk of Fame, which is basically Toronto's imitation of Graumann's Chinese Theater.

Here's the Toronto Star story about the event, and here's one from Canoe.

Lots of media were out, including CBC:





And various people made speeches and presentations in honour of Ronnie Hawkins, like The Tragically Hip:





Kris Kristofferson (sure, he makes bad movies, but did you know he used to hang out with Janis Joplin?):





Andy Donato (Toronto newspaper editorial cartoonist) did a caricature of Hawkins:





The deputy mayor of Toronto gave him the keys to our city:





And he got crooned to by Amy Sky ("Love Me Tender"):





and Michael Burgess ("It's A Wonderful World"):





Links/News:

I've updated both Waiting For Frodo and My Life In A Nutshell.

Only two days left of Allison's and Jodi's Virtual Birthday Party!

One year ago, I received a fan letter from Weta Digital about my Waiting For Frodo comic strip.

Three years ago, Annie told me she had bones and skin.

Four years ago, I dropped my marketing company.

Five years ago, I was invited to attend Infinet's Cool Site Of The Year awards ceremony in San Francisco.

spirited away

Jeff and I went to see "Spirited Away" last night. I won't be giving away any major spoilers, but I will be discussing the movie later on in this Blathering, just to warn those who don't like hearing anything about movies they're looking forward to seeing.

Yesterday I went to local Running Room and picked up my run kit for this weekend's Run For The Cure. Since I've never been part of an event like this, I didn't know what a "run kit" was supposed to be. My run kit contained the follow: a Run For The Cure t-shirt, two paper signs, two safety pins. Both signs have the name of the event and the sponsors around the border. One sign has my participant number with a form on the back where I have to write my next, phone number, next of kin (it actually says "NEXT OF KIN"), other basic info to be assumedly used if I collapse in the middle of the event. The other sign has "I'M RUNNING FOR" across the top, and I've filled this in with "MY AUNT AGNES".

Jeff has registered and picked up his run kit, too! He's going to be walking fast with his long legs and I'll be running slowly with my short legs; ideally we'll be able to stick together the entire 5k route. Yes, I know 5k is nothing for you experienced runners out there, but is plenty for me. :-)

So Jeff and I went to see Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away (or Sen to Chihiro) last night, and both of us enjoyed it, though we weren't blown away. I liked it more than Princess Mononoke, which I wasn't that crazy about. Spirited Away is more obviously geared toward children and left out much of the "preachiness" and dark violence I disliked in Mononoke.

The animation in Spirited Away was amazing, better than (IMHO) Mononoke or Totoro. The entire film was wonderful to watch. At times, though, I felt that as gorgeous as the animation was, some scenes tended to drag on a bit long, as if Miyazaki wanted to make sure everyone appreciated them fully. Or maybe I'm too used to Western animated films, where the plot moves fairly quickly.

I really liked the main character, Chihiro, the 10-year-old little girl. Miyazaki has always been great at animating human gestures and emotional subtleties, especially those of children. I got teary-eyed several times during the film, mainly because of how her character was reacting in certain scenes.

Though I enjoyed the movie, I still have to say that I enjoyed Totoro more, mainly because I found Totoro more consistent and integrated throughout. Neither Totoro nor Spirited away have complicated plotlines, but I thought Totoro pulled it off way better. I also found Totoro much more emotionally resonant, with characters I could really care about. Of course I sympathized with Chihiro, but there was something about the characters in Totoro that struck me as much more honest. I also didn't like some of the heavy-handed "this is an emotionally triumphant scene" music.

My favourite characters in Spirited Away:

-- the four-armed guy

-- "No-Face"

-- the Radish guy

-- the Stinky guy (before he got a bath)

-- the little sootball guys that reminded me a lot of the little sootball guys in Totoro

-- the mouse baby and the bird

This is not a movie for those who are looking for singing teapots or who don't particularly care about animation quality (there was a trailer for a new Pokemon movie whose animation looked incredibly crude when contrasted with Miyazaki's film). I think I'll go see this film again just for the atmosphere and animation as well as Miyazaki's incredible imagination. And then order the new Totoro DVD that is being released in December, woohoo!

Links/News:

Please consider sponsoring me for the CIBC Run For The Cure this Sunday, thanks.

One year ago, I talked about being interviewed by Canoe Jam!Showbiz. The article is still online, if you're curious.

Two years ago, I found out that my book was going to the printer's.

Three years ago, Patrick Stewart was filming "X-Men" across the street from our condo building.

Five years ago, I had breakfast with Andrea and Rand.

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Today's Blatherpic:

The Unknown Guitarist. This guy is a standard feature around here during warm summer evenings, and plays lounge lizard type music on a badly amplified electric guitar. It wouldn't be the same around here without him. Here he is last November (it looks like he's even wearing the same shoes). I took this photo as he was straightening his tie after he saw my camera. :-)

POLL: birthdays?

Happy Birthday, Allison!

Last night, Allison and Jodi and I went to Swiss Chalet for dinner. We had planned to go see The Banger Sisters, but I was later than I expected, so rather than rush dinner, we decided to skip the movie.

Our waitress discovered that we were celebrating Allison's and Jodi's birthday, and told A&J they could have free pie for dessert. In fact, all the waitstaff gathered around the table and sang Happy Birthday while A&J's pie pieces were delivered to them, decorated with lit candles. Allison and Jodi were embarrassed, and I was highly amused.

In case some of you wish you could have been there to witness the event, you're in luck! You can still come to Allison's and Jodi's Virtual Birthday Party, which runs until the end of this weekend.

Poll: How do you like celebrating your birthday?

Do you like a fuss being made over your birthday? Do you prefer ignoring the event? Going out to a movie with friends? Spending it quietly at home with your partner? Have you ever had a surprise party? What was your favourite birthday ever and why?

Answer in Blatherchat





Had a fairly full aunt day yesterday. Picked Annie up from school, had lunch, played with her until it was time to pick up Sara from school. Annie had a bit of a cold, so wasn't up for outdoor adventuring. She played the piano for me, we read, we drew pictures.

Annie was obviously delighted to have my undivided attention for so long; usually she shares it with Sara, or with the rest of the family at dinnertime on Sundays. Sometimes she'd still test to see if she had my attention by going through her "guess what" ritual, in which she'd say, "Guess what, Auntie Debbie?" and then quickly try to think of something to tell me or show me.

Example from yesterday, while we were walking home from buying some groceries:

ANNIE: "Guess what, Auntie Debbie?"

ME: "What, Annie?"

ANNIE: "I know out how the world got started."

ME: "And how did it get started?"

ANNIE: "God got married, and then he had kids!"





Links/News:

Dialtones is a large-scale concert performance whose sounds are wholly produced through the carefully choreographed dialing and ringing of the audienceís own mobile phones. Photos and audio samples available on the site.

Please consider sponsoring me for the CIBC Run For The Cure this Sunday, thanks. Jeff says he might come run with me!

One year ago, I rediscovered the library.

Two years ago, Puzzlebox was invited to be GoHs at FilkContinental.

Three years ago, Jeff quit his job to come work for Inkspot.

Four years ago, my mother-in-law's restaurant (Oasis) opened.

Five years ago, I pleaded for people to send Allison obnoxious birthday messages.





Today's Blatherpics:

The top and bottom photos are of Allison, of course.

The middle two were taken at Swiss Chalet last night.