Virtual Buffalo visit

Scorcher of a weekend in Toronto. I did do some walking, however; I'm trying very hard to not let bad weather and temperature interfere. I find that much of it is a mental game. When I'm starting to feel uncomfortable (whether it's in a downpour or a heat wave, etc.), I try to put myself in "outdoors camping mode."

By this, I mean getting myself into a headspace where minor (or sometimes major) discomforts fall by the wayside, and I can therefore focus on and enjoy working toward the bigger goal. It's almost a meditative state, I find, but it's also a good mental exercise that helps build stamina as well as being good for life perspective.



Anyway, I got further on my Virtual Con Walk and reached Buffalo! After browsing Rust Belt Books, Rand, Erin and I went for a virtual dinner at Fat Bob's Smokehouse; I had Fat Bob's Tenderloin Tip Sandwich w/Peppers, Onions & Melted Cheese. Afterward we strolled around Allentown and ended up having drinks at Nietzche's.

Many thanks to Erin and Rand for their help with my virtual visit. :-)



I had mentioned recently that I've been listening to audiobooks on my walks. My current read/listen: French Women For All Seasons by Mireille Guiliano. Though I find some of her ideas a tad impractical, I do like one of her basic messages: make the most of every moment, savour every enjoyable sensation. I agree with her idea that most of us tend to rush through meals and also eat too much, for example.

Yes, the idea is an old one -- eat more slowly and you'll likely eat less. But she expresses this so eloquently and so sensually ... she could spend about ten minutes describing how to eat a BANANA, for example, but it's fascinating throughout. Her book is especially good as an audio experience on a walk because I find myself looking around more, being more aware of physical sensations (sweat running down my back, cool rain on my face, etc.) in a good way.



Inevitably, I get home and immediately want to write a poem, or work on my fiction writing. And then eat a banana, of course. :-)



Above: "Baby" for Illustration Friday last week.




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Pampered

Happy birthday to my birthday sister, Katy Dröege-Macdonald!

My birthday's just beginning, and I already feel incredibly spoiled.

Allison and Jodi threw a mini birthday celebration for me at our last Urban Tapestry practice. Allison gave me a beautiful blue shawl she made herself as well as some puzzlegrams (make-your-own puzzles -- can't wait to use these :-). You can see a full length view of the shawl in Allison's Flickr set.



Jodi gave me a pair of gorgeous earrings, some vanilla spice hand cream and a Hoops & Yoyo CD. My nieces introduced me to Hoops & Yoyo, some cute little Hallmark characters, and I fell in love with them.



On the way home from practice, Jeff and Walter picked me up at the subway station, and Walter gave me a wonderful birthday card made by his daughter as well as a t-shirt with a drawing of a CHOCOLATE molecule on the front. :-D

My friend Cathy sent me the soundtrack to Gosford Park as well as the movie DVD -- she remembered how much I enjoyed the music when I was visiting her in Calgary; I have the soundtrack playing as I write this, in fact.



Yesterday, both Jeff and I took the day off and wandered around the city. We dropped by Futureshop, where I bought some headphones I could use for recording (my current headphones leak noise too much), then to a framing shop to get my Blush cards framed. We went to Saved By Technology to get some recording gear for Urban Tapestry, including another microphone set, a third microphone stand, and some cords.

And we also visited the Sewing Centre (2144 Yonge St., Toronto 416-487-4438) where a very patient man helped me pick out a beginners' sewing machine and taught me how to use it.



Many thanks to Ginny for the birthday gift! I've wanted a sewing machine for years now. Not because I can sew (because I can't, at least not yet) but because there have been so many times when I've wished I could...even just to hem a pair of pants or make a simple fix.



My mom used to sew all the time, and she made many of my clothes as well as clothes for my brother and sister when we were little. She always hoped I'd pick up the sewing bug, but I never did back then -- I loathed Home Economics (those were days when girls weren't allowed to take shop).

She even put together a sewing box for me which I still have and value much more now than I did back then. My mom's not around anymore for sewing advice but I have family and friends who know much more about sewing than I do, so I'm hoping to get tips from them. :-)

Anyway, I'm hoping to eventually learn enough to sew some simple items of clothing for myself, like a summer top and a skirt. And maybe experiment with stitching art (see Bev White's Flickr set for an example of some astounding stitching art) and other crafty projects. If any of you know of good online sewing resources for a beginner, I'd appreciate you posting the URLs.

My friend Luisa took me out for dinner last night; we ate at Penelope's on King, one of my favourite restaurants. She showed me our most recent finished pottery project: a bowl with some of my Little Nightmare creatures on it. I'll take a picture and post it before FKO; I'm hoping to sell this on my art table in the dealer's room.

This morning, I woke up to find that Jeff had posted "Happy Birthday" signs all over the house, including post-it notes on the bathroom mirror!

:-D

It's going to be a good day, I can tell.

Hope you all have a great weekend. And don't forget to turn off your lights between 8 and 9 for Earth Hour!

B5 Virgin Update

SPOILER WARNING: The blog posts below focuses on my reports while watching Babylon Five for the first time. An LJ feed is also available. If you haven't seen B5 yet and don't want spoilers, please DO NOT click the links below.

Season 3, Episode 32: GROPOS



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Cash 'n Guns

Nice to see there are so many other reading addicts out there!

Had fun gaming last night with Jeff and the guys, and ended up playing two games for the first time: Gloria Mundi and Cash 'n Guns.



Above: John ponders during his turn in El Grande.

Gloria Mundi is a game set during the fall of Rome. As the Visigoth moves toward Rome, destroying land along the way (unless you can bribe him), you're fleeing while also attempting to build your career as a Roman statesman at the same time.

Amazing how scary a tiny piece of red plastic (the Goth) can look. I ended up winning the game, woohoo!



My favourite game of the evening, though, was Cash 'n Guns. The premise: you're a gangster about to split your loot with your fellow criminals, and Things Turn Bad.

Each player is given 8 "bullet" cards which consist of five "click click click" cards (e.g. you don't shoot), 2 "BANG!" cards (you shoot someone), and 1 "BANG! BANG! BANG!" card (you start shooting first). Each turn, on the count of three, everyone points their gun at someone else with one of their cards face-down in front of them.

For some reason, my friend Andy and I kept pointing our guns at each other. I guess we both have unresolved issues leftover from our university days. :-)

After the guns are pointed, you have the option to duck (can't be shot at). If you duck, however, you have to take a Shame Card, which is deducted from loot at the end. After players are given the opportunity to duck, everyone turns over their card to indicate whether their guns were firing bullets or not.

Surviving/remaining gangsters divvy up the loot after each round, if the loot can be divvied. If you're shot three times, you're out of the game. The surviving gangster with the most loot wins.



Anyway, I ended up winning this game too! Andy and I had a spectacular final shootout after each having being shot twice before. I won because I started shooting first (using my one "BANG!BANG!BANG!" card while Andy only used a "BANG!" card). Jeff would have won, except I shot him the previous round. Heh.

If you're looking for a quick, fun party game and don't mind the concept, then I recommend this game.




Photo above: Walter and Vartan play Armor while Scott tries out a remote-controlled mini-helicopter.

Any photos with me in them were taken by Walter.



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More board games...and Star Wars according to a 3-year-old

Thanks to everyone who answered my board game survey. You've gotten me curious about wanting to try out some new board games. Also interesting to see the wide range of game types.



Above: Jeff's gaming buddies.

For you board/card game people, here's a more specific survey question: What TYPE of games do you tend to prefer? I like games where winning depends more on your own striving toward a particular positive goal (connecting all your assigned cities with train tracks, or getting the most cards or points, etc.) rather than betraying and destroying your opponents.

Not that I can't enjoy the latter, of course, but I admit I lean more toward more cooperative or at least peaceful games. Unless I'm feeling restless or crabby, that is, in which case all the betrayal and destruction can be enormously satisfying.

I also tend to like games that require some kind of strategy and skill rather than pure luck, and games that rely on a board or cards rather than freeform talking. I hate "social party" icebreaker-type games like Truth or Dare, First Impressions, Icebreaker, etc. I like games which are absorbing, which require focus.



Speaking of board games, only two days left to vote your favourite city (Toronto, of course :-) onto the new Monopoly board! See my Blathering on the topic



Above: Erin and Rand watch Walter, Jeff and Rafael play Geschenkt at GAfilk.

I may be attending the BoardGameGeek convention in Texas with Jeff this year. It sounds a LOT like filk conventions except, of course, it's all game-focused.

Even though I don't tend to join Jeff at his weekly gaming sessions, I actually do like playing board games -- I'm just not a night person. I figure that this way I could play games during the day and crash in the hotel room when I get tired at night while Jeff plays games into the wee hours.

Plus it's a couple trip, sort of! Sure, we'll be spending most of our time playing games with other people, but at least we'll be in the same hotel. :-) I'm also hoping to see my friends Scott and Amanda during the weekend.



Above: Gaming at Tom's and Michelle's place. Jeff, Tom, Bruce, Reid and John. I'm actually playing as well (between Tom and Bruce, far corner), since it's during the daytime. :-)

Unfortunately it doesn't look as if I'm going to be able to attend the SCBWI conference in California this August (mainly scheduling challenges), but I plan to go next year.

Videos O' The Day

Thanks to Ray for pointing me to Jonathan Coulton performs "Still Alive" in Rock Band:


Jonathan Coulton performs "Still Alive" in Rock Band from Joy Stiq on Vimeo.

Thanks to Ray for the link above.

Thanks to Jeff for Trunk Monkey Ads:



And thanks to Jeff again for Star Wars according to a 3-year-old:






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Lutefisk and apple doughnuts

Though I enjoyed the holidays, it was good to get back to my regular work schedule. I plan to finish writing the graphic novel script this month and am also continuing to work on the book proposal for my compilation of writing-related comics and tips.

I also went back to the gym today; the sidewalks around here are too icy to do a proper "power walk," let alone run. All the treadmills at my gym come with small tv screens and since we don't have cable tv at home, I found it interesting to flip through some of the channels to see what I was missing. Which doesn't seem to be much, at least right now.



I have very little patience for television commercials anymore, being so used to DVDs. All the commercials were new to me, and I recognized very few of the "famous people" in the snippets of entertainment gossip I browsed.

I was talking to a friend recently about stuff I had recently done or was doing, and he asked me, "How do you find time for all the things you do?" Then, before I could say anything, he came up with the answer himself: "Oh right. You guys don't have cable tv, do you?"



In my last Blathering, I posted a survey about food rituals. It was fascinating to read all your answers! I especially enjoyed the posts by debmats, whose family cooks traditional Japanese food every year. She just got a mochi maker for Christmas!

Also interesting to discover that there are more of you mochi-fans out there than I thought! :-) Anyway, here are a few of the comment posts:

I envy mdlbear, who works for a Japanese company that makes mochi sometimes. "...We get visitors from Japan every couple of weeks, it shows up from time to time. We had a traditional mochi-making ceremony a couple of years ago to celebrate the opening of a new division -- we all got to swing the hammer a couple of times. Fun!"



d-michiko-f makes her own mochi using the microwave to cook it. She's including the recipe in her Japan book! I've asked her for info about the book and will post here when it's available. Check out her drool-worthy oshogatsu post.

hvideo posted a decadent-sounding recipe for Dutch Waffles. Drool.

bigbumble's Swedish Uncle Vernor (who died a week ago :-( ) used to make lute-fisk, which is codfish treated with lye. "My father, a non scandinavian, said his version was at least edible. I never tasted it. I understand that, like mochi, it is an acquired taste."



lizjonesbooks has a New Year's eve tradition of potstickers and sushi. "New year's day is pork and kraut for my family's history, and black eyed peas for Dan's."

sdorn makes hoppin' John (black-eyed pea stew with tomatoes) to celebrate New Years.



eclecticmum and her roommate started a tradition about four years ago of getting homemade apple doughnuts from a nearby orchard in October and freezing them, then pulling them out enjoying them on New Year's morning. "It serves the dual purpose of eliminating cooking on the morning of the first and a delicious treat to look forward to starting the new year off with. :)"



maruad makes the family Vinatarta, which is a traditional multilayer Icelandic cake. "Every layer of the cake is separated from the next by a layer of boiled ground prunes (with sugar and powdered cardamom). Each cake has about 5 tablespoons of powdered cardamon. It smells and tastes wonderful."

ladymondegreen's family food traditions are "standard Jewish ones, apples and honey at Rosh Hashanna, new fruits, of which my father usually provides a dazzling array, including prickly pears, star fruit and pomegranate."



phillip2637 says his family had abominable food traditions and he's happy to have abandoned all of them. (E.g. "Is that gray stuff spinach?" "No, too stringy, must be asparagus.")

Most of today's photos, by the way, were taken at a New Year's Party that Jeff and I attended earlier this week. Many thanks to Luisa and Reid for hosting a great gathering!

The following photo was taken especially for Joey Shoji.

:-)




Above: my friend Michelle Sagara, who clearly loves to have her photo taken. Heh.



Etsy update:

I've written a mini-story to go with the painting you see above. You can read the mini-story over on the painting's Etsy page.



Above: Order more than 3 of the Screamer fridge magnets above for $10 each! Details here.


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