CIBC Run For The Cure and Word On The Street

Above: my friend Luisa at Word On The Street.

'Twas a fine weekend. I mentioned on Friday that I decided to pass on watching a DVD so I could read a book instead. I decided to avoid the television screen again on Saturday and finished another book: The Astonishing Life Of Octavian Nothing: Traitor To The Nation by M.T. Anderson. Well-written, but a tad too dark for me; I think I'll probably pass on the sequel.



This morning I participated in the CIBC Run For The Cure with one of my nieces. I didn't actively solicit sponsors for this event because I've already asked people for money earlier this year...but Walter and Jeff sponsored me anyway (thanks, guys!). :-) I opted to take my point-and-shoot instead of my DSLR.



Good exercise, and for a good cause, and the weather was perfect: sunny, breezy, warm but with a hint of impending autumn. Kudos to the organizers, the volunteers, and many thanks to those who stood along the sidelines cheering us on. Also fun to see people dressed up for the event:



Later in the afternoon, we went to Toronto's Word On The Street. I didn't have a chance to spend much time at the event, but was delighted to be able to attend an entertaining presentation by Patricia Storms:



And also by my sister:



Check out filker Jane G. on the left in the photo above! Also fun to run into other friends at the event like Walter and his kids, David B., Craig, Parki, Reid and Luisa.



I love watching Ruth give presentations, and especially enjoyed seeing how captivated the kids all were.



As we were wandering around later, we ran into Leslie (who works for Inanna Publications) and Peter (my biologist friend who often helps me identify mystery flora and fauna):



As I said, it was a fine weekend and a great way to end September: lots of books, sunshine and fresh air. And speaking of books: I've finished outlining my new novel in Scrivener so am going to ACTUALLY START WRITING IT TOMORROW, WOOHOO!






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Yay, I Finally Have A Properly Formatted Head!

Yay, my earrings from Nicholas and Felice arrived today! Now I can finally walk around with a properly formatted head.

I bought them on Etsy a while back. I don't tend to buy jewelry for myself very often, but was unable to resist the HTML geeky humour of this handmade piece.

While corresponding with one of creators, I also discovered The Mechanical Philosopher, a personal blog with the intriguing tagline: "The musings of a dilettante on parenting, mechanics, philosophy and the background noise that is daily life, from beautiful Ruralburbian Philomath, Oregon." Nicholas and I exchanged several e-mails since. And this is one of the things I love about the Internet: how a chance interaction like buying a pair of nerdy earrings can put you in touch with such interesting and cool people.



I've been reading a great deal recently. The photo above includes some recent reads. I liked The Thief Queen's Daughter the best; it's the sequel to The Floating Island by Elizabeth Haydon.

I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I find I have to purposely MAKE time to read, else I get caught up in something else. One advantage of not having cable tv (for over two years now) is that I'm not tempted to turn on the television "just to see what's on."

Willpower still plays a factor, however, because it's still very easy to watch DVDs and recorded television shows. Last night I was torn between renting a movie and reading a book; I opted for the book instead. I ended up reading the entire volume in one sitting: The Last Apprentice: Night of the Soul Stealer by Joseph Delaney (third in the Last Apprentice series). I started the book in my office, then read it in the kitchen as I heated up my Sicilian Seafood Stew (leftovers from the previous night, see picture below), read it over dinner, finished it on the living room couch, curled up beneath a cozy quilt made by Beckett Gladney's family.

A satisfying read, and there's nothing like reading an entire book in one sitting. SURVEY: When's the last time you read in a book in one go? As soon as I finished Night Of The Soul Stealer, of course, I had to start another. My current read: The Astonishing Life Of Octavian Nothing: Traitor To The Nation by M.T. Anderson.



The bits of parsley in the stew above, by the way, were GROWN FROM SEED. I found parsley challenging to grow because of its glacial progress; most of my parsley plants died when we went to the cottage for two weeks (or were dug up by the Evil Neighbourhood Squirrels), but one brave seedling survived. It's finally thriving, just in time to be killed off by the frost soon, so I wanted to cook with it before then.



Speaking of food, I've posted a review of Queen Mother Cafe in blogTO. As I've mentioned in other Blatherings, it's a traditional lunch spot for Parki and me.

I've been very much enjoying listening to my recent CD purchases. Forgot to mention, by the way, that we (Walter, Jodi, Allison and me) listened to some filk CDs most of the way to and from Rochester. These CDs included Mich Sampson's Just Beyond, Courting My Muse, Seanan McGuire's Stars Fall Home (I will do a proper review when I get my actual CD), and Steve Savitsky's CD:



Coffee, Computers and Song!: Steve Savitzky's first album. Technonerdtypes will especially appreciate Steve's clever lyrics and sense of humour. Heck, even his tracks are numbered in hex! (Steve: "What did you expect? 12 hex is a hacker's dozen.") My favourite is The World Inside The Crystal, which won a Pegasus for Best Science Song in 1997.

"You can only see the shadows
Of electrons on a screen
From the world inside the crystal
That no human eye has seen."

The fabulous photos and layout in the CD packaging were done by my friend Beckett Gladney. You can find out more about Steve Savitzky at his homepage.

LINKS O' THE DAY

Pix Plz: I -lovedLOVED- this recent XKCD comic. (Thanks to Ray for the link)

Scenes from Lord of the Rings that might have been used as setups for bad commercials had the filmmakers not respected the material by Cody James, via McSweeney's. (Thanks to BSAG for the link)




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Word On The Street this Sunday

Happy birthday to my friend Reid today!

The picture above is my quickie Daily Doodle, inspired by the colours and theme of The Word On The Street site. Since I started illustrating for money, I've found it even more important to keep drawing for fun. I've tried to do a quickie "Daily Doodle" and sometimes post these in Blatherings.

I did today's Daily Doodle in Corel Painter using the Pen (Flat Color, Croquil, Smooth Round variants) and Airbrush brushes. Font: Gills Sans Bold.

Speaking of Word On The Street, Toronto's WOTS takes place this Sunday at Queen's Park from 11 am to 6 pm, and is packed with tons of exhibits and events for bibliophiles and writers.

My sister is going to be doing a presentation at the Children's tent at 3:30 pm, with a focus on her newest book, Me And My Brother. She'll also be doing a book signing at the Mable's Fables booth from 2-3 pm.



And also don't miss the presentation just before Ruth's, in the Children's Tent. At 3:15: Patricia Storms of Booklust. Patricia recently illustrated 13 Ghosts Of Halloween, a picture book written by Robin Muller. I interviewed Patricia Storms for blogTO back in July.



A while back I also interviewed Farzana Doctor for blogTO, and she'll be doing a reading at the Diaspora Dialogues Pen Canada tent at 12:45 (the panel she's on starts at 12:15). The publisher of her recent book, Stealing Nasreen, also has a booth: Inanna Publications.



If you've never been to Word On The Street, do check it out. All activities are FREE and there's a ton of things to see and do. The Word On The Street is a one-day celebration of reading and writing that promotes Canadian authors, books and magazines, and highlights the importance of literacy in the lives of all Canadians. The Toronto WOTS focuses on promoting Toronto and Ontario authors and literacy organizations.

You can find more info about Toronto's Word On The Street online. There's info about WOTS events across the country at the main WOTS site.







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Inkspot, Inklings, Inkspot.com and linking

Let me tell you a story.

Years ago, in the early days of the Web, I used to have a site called Inkspot. It was one of the first sites for writers and was highlighted in the FIRST edition of John December's HTML & CGI UNleashed in 1995. The original URL: http://interlog.com/~ohi/dmo-pages/writers.html. Around the same time, Glenn Davis picked it as Cool Site of the Day ... and this was back in the time when there was only ONE Cool Site of the Day.







The flurry of media attention prompted me to expand Inkspot and register Inkspot.com. I also hosted some author sites, like those of Charles Ghigna and Hazel Hutchins.

As many of you already know I no longer own Inkspot. The company that bought Inkspot shut the site down and sold or gave the domain to Writing.com, and the latter is now funneling all Inkspot traffic to its own site.

While I have nothing against Writing.com, I'm not happy about the idea of people looking for Inkspot (especially young writers who are trying to find the old Young Writers' section) and assuming that Writing.com is the new incarnation of Inkspot.



Charles Ghigna recently wrote me and said that people looking for his site sometimes end up at Writing.com and get confused because there's no indication that they've been rerouted, and no message on Writing.com about Inkspot.

What I theorize: that enough people still link to the old Inkspot URL (inkspot.com) that Google thinks it still deserves a high ranking in search results, so people tend to come across Inkspot URLs more often than they should. And anyone clicking on an old Inkspot URL now gets Writing.com instead, and many people don't realize that they've been rerouted.

The Inkspot.com domain switch was made quietly several years ago, as was the traffic funneling; I only found out accidentally.

So here's my plea:

If you have a link to Inkspot (any URL at inkspot.com), PLEASE DELETE IT. Inkspot no longer exists.

If you notice someone linking to the old Inkspot site, PLEASE LET THEM KNOW IT NO LONGER EXISTS and that the URL is actually being re-routed to another site, or point them to this post. I've been gradually contacting sites myself, but there are still so many.

And do check out the NEW sites of Charles Ghigna and Hazel Hutchins. They're both wonderful authors and very nice people. I'm back in touch with Charles, and my sister has illustrated a number of Hazel's books in the past.



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Darth Tater and Little Miss No-Name

I took the photo above at the the Strong National Museum of Play. I like Dave Huth's comment in Flickr: "Ah, the sinister Darth Tater. How he threatens our souls!"

As we browsed the National Toy Hall of Fame (which is inside the Strong museum), I tried to remember if I still had any toys from my childhood and was horrified to realize that I didn't. Even Jeff has his Flatmouse.



I remember a teddy bear I named John, whose limbs started disintegrating. I bandaged him up and gave him a crutch, but then what happened? I loved John dearly; why can't I remember? Were my childhood affections that fickle?

I wasn't really into Barbies, though I did have a Casey (Barbie's tomboy friend). My sister and I had a fight when we were little, and I was furious when she drew on Casey's legs with permanent magic marker. That's the ONLY bad thing that I remember Ruth ever doing to me in childhood, however, whereas I did all kinds of horrible things to her and her belongings, so I figure I probably deserved that Casey mutilation.



Some of the toys in the museum struck me as pretty creepy, but I suppose kids can get attached to pretty much anything. Like a doll called "Little Miss No-Name: The Doll With The Tear", dressed in a patched burlap dress and barefoot:



When her right arm was extended, it looks like she is begging for money. The doll was designed by Deet D'Andrade.

Apparently Hasbro launched Little Miss No-Name in 1965 but discontinued it soon after (I guess sad burlap-clad dolls couldn't compete with glamour Barbies). Out of curiosity, I did a search on eBay and was surprised to find lots of Little Miss No-Names available for relatively cheap, though many with their tears missing...probably removed by children hoping to cheer her up.

What about the rest of you? Do you still have any toys from your childhood? Which was your favourite? (or least favourite)



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