GAfilk report (part 2)

In my last Blathering post, I mentioned that one of our Squirrelbuster feeders was busted. Well, the company wrote back right away and said they were going to send me a replacement ring. In fact, turns out that the rings for an older version of the Squirrelbuster feeders was made of METAL, so I'm going to try that out.

Our neighbourhood squirrels are going to be SO frustrated. Heh.

GAfilk report so far: Part 1. Here's Part 2...



The GoHs at the convention were Maya and Jeff Bohnhoff. I first saw the Bohnhoffs perform out on the West coast years ago, and was blown away. Jeff has come to visit; he and my Jeff got along right away...they're both Apple technogeeks and also like similar types of music. As I posted back then, it was pretty clear to me that I could easily walk away from their conversation and neither of them would notice. :-)

I've visited the Bohnhoffs a couple times since, with and without my Jeff, and can say without hesitation that Jeff and Maya are just as nice/cool at home as they seem to be at conventions. We try to get together whenever we can, but unfortunately this isn't nearly as often as I'd like. Geography sucks sometimes.



Here's a cartoon I made to accompany the bio I wrote about the Bohnhoffs in the GAfilk program book:



Anyway, the Bohnhoffs' concert was fantastic. They both put so much energy into their performance, and I could listen to Maya sing forever. As for Jeff's guitar skills -- well, I'm convinced that he must be faking it somehow. There's a tiny machine with loudspeakers inside his guitar(s), and he's just going through the motions. That has to be the case, else his fingers should be falling off during some of those wailing guitar solos.

I'm jealous of those attending the British Filk convention this year because they get the Bohnhoffs as guests! Jeff and Maya are also going to be at Duckon (Naperville, Illinois) in June.

More GAfilk highlights coming soon.

Meanwhile, here are a few more fridge magnets I've posted in my Etsy store recently:



I'll be posting more Valentine-themed paintings in the next day or two, like You Always Seem To Know Exactly What I Need.



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GAfilk (part 1) and a busted Squirrel Buster

Got back from GAfilk late last night. It was truly a relaxacon for me this year...I had zero commitments and spent my time attending some of the concerts, hanging out and chatting, listening to music, sometimes noodling along on my flute.

Many kudos and thanks to the GAfilk concom, who always do a fantastic job at making this convention unique in its atmosphere and programming. I'm going to write more about GAfilk once I've caught up with work and e-mail a bit, but felt compelled to do a mini-rant about (surprise surprise) squirrels first.

The t-shirt pictured at the top of the page was a gift from my friend Mary Crowell, whose band Play It With Moxie is featured every year at GAfilk's Saturday banquet and dance. Here's a photo I took of Mary this past weekend:

Anyway, the t-shirt is especially appropriate because I came home to find our Squirrel Buster feeder was VANDALIZED BY SQUIRRELS WHILE I WAS GONE. The furry little beasts have chewed enough of the plastic ring (which the birds perch on) so that the metal screws won't properly fit anymore, and the ring falls off.

In other words, the squirrels have managed to figure out how to keep the birds out of the seed even though they still can't get at the seed themselves.

Grrrr.

Jeff has used some wire for a temporary fix, but I've also written to Brome, the company that made the Squirrel Buster, and let them know as well ask if those plastic rings are available separately. I've also helpfully pointed out that entering the term "squirrelbuster" in Google turns up my Blathering post as the first result right now.

Speaking of customer service, remember I posted that my copy of Cybele's secret was missing pages? Well, I wrote to Pan Australia and the publisher is going to send me a new copy, yay!

More on GAfilk soon. I'm also gradually uploading some of my photos from the weekend to my Flickr set, for those interested.

By the way, I've added some more Dirty/Clean dishwasher signs to my Etsy shop, if you're interested (see the left-hand sidebar pics on this page).

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Fontnerdgirl

Had a brief panic when I went to check if my Atlanta flight tomorrow was on time on the Air Canada site...my flight didn't exist! I tried using the automated phone flight status service, but got the same result. It was only after I did a bit of digging around that I discovered that Air Canada changed my flight number without telling me.

As you can see from the new Will Write For Chocolate strip above, I've decided to change some of my fonts. My new WWFC font is "Digital Delivery," a font designed by Scott McCloud for his book, Reinventing Comics.

It's normally $129, but I bought it for $20 during Comicraft's amazing New Year's Day sale, where ALL fonts were $20. I actually got my five new fonts for an additional 20% off because I bought at least four (I didn't find out about the extra discount until checkout)! Worshipful thanks to Jeff for alerting me to the sale just in time; I had about two hours.

I am such a nerd -- give me a choice between a nice pair of earrings on sale or a nice font on sale and I'll always go for the latter.

In case you're curious, the new fonts I bought for $20 each are:

Scott McCloud (normally $69)
Digital Delivery (normally $129)
BiffBamBoom International (normally $69)
Treasure Trove (normally $49)
Comicrazy (normally $395)

Must go finish packing, but here are a few new images...

Illo I did for an Inkygirl post:



Trying out my new "Treasure Trove" font in my "Write Like A Pirate" comic:



And I felt like drawing mayflies:



Have a great weekend, everyone!



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Kit Kats, painting and Scrivener

Remembering a Blathering I posted a while back, my friend Merav mailed these to me after she came across them in a Japanese food store. I was VERY excited when I opened the package. Kit Kat is one of my favourite chocolate bars, and I've been wistful that relatively few of the other 149 or so flavours seem to be available in Toronto.

But back to my happypackage...so far I've tried the Banana mini Kit Kats and they are FANTASTIC. Thank you, Merav!

Speaking of Kit Kats, nelladarren created the highly amusing image below after reading my post about Kit Kats and squirrels. :-)




And here's a lovely cartoon created by hsifyppah a while ago:




Ironic, really, considering my current situation.

Yesterday I discovered that the Dirty/Clean acrylics sign I had created for our washing machine was a dismal failure. Though the wire went nicely over the handle, I discovered it fell off every time I opened the dishwasher.



Here's the other side of the sign:



I posted in Livejournal, asking if anyone wanted it for free, and I was delighted when Debbi Michiko Florence posted. Debbie's a children's book author who is currently working on a book about China. She also posted about oshogatsu celebrations with many drool-worthy photos in her LJ recently.

Anyway, after useful advice from Melissa and help from Jeff, I created some more:

The acrylics and ink drawings were fun to do, but the taping part was far too finicky and time-intensive for me to want to do this very often. I'm keeping the one on the left, donating the one of the right to the Interfilk auction at GAfilk, and will probably put the middle two in my Etsy shop next week.


I posted about Scrivener in Inkygirl yesterday, for those interested. I've been using Scrivener for a while, for outlining my fiction and nonfiction projects, and now for my daily admin and To Do lists. Scrivener was written by Keith Blount, techno-writer-guy who lives in London, and he's the only "employee" of Literature & Latte.

From his About page: "Literature & Latte is one guy with lofty writerly ambitions, who has written a piece of software designed to aid in the process of writing (I know that makes me a geek, but that's something I have to live with)."

Unlike many bigger companies, Keith is constantly working to improve his product, listens to user feedback, and is involved with his online community of users. I hope he makes a bundle off Scrivener; he certainly deserves it.

Just a few days left until GAfilk! I've decided not to take my laptop. I'm at a stage in my graphic novel script that I can just as easily work on it offline ... yes, with (*gasp) paper and (*gasp) pen! The lack of a delete key is a frightening hurdle, to be sure, but I will endure the hardship for my art...



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Squirrel in my walls

I forgot to post my WWFC update last week. You can see a bigger version at Will Write For Chocolate.

There's a squirrel living in my office walls. I can hear it gnawing and digging and scrabbling around; the sound drives me NUTS sometimes, especially when it sounds as if it's right beside my head. I've been trying to figure out what it's doing. Storing food? Building squirrel condos? Preparing for world domination?


Fridge magnet in my Etsy shop.

Jeff had checked around the outside of the house for holes and blocked any he could find, before this new squirrel arrived. In the past couple of years, squirrels have gotten trapped in our air ducts (happy ending) as well as having offspring inside our house (sad ending). I have a bad feeling that the current situation isn't going to end well for the squirrel. :-(



I've been enjoying reading Cybele's Secret by Juliet Marillier, a sequel to the author's Wildwood Dancing. The book isn't yet available in North America, so I'm very grateful to Shane for sending it to me; he sent it in thanks for my sending him a signed Jasper Fforde book a while back.

As I was reading it, however, I discovered a pretty major printer's error: pages 171-182 are missing from my Australian edition! They haven't been torn out; they're just not there. I sent e-mail to the author and publisher to let them know; Ms. Marillier responded within a couple of hours, asking for more detailed info. I resisted the urge to lapse into fangirl mode ("WOW YOU ACTUALLY WROTE TO ME AND OMG I LOVED *LOVED* WILDWOOD DANCING!!!!!!!!!"), but just barely. :-)

There was a bit of plot missing but I figured out what was going on in the context afterward, and I'm still thoroughly enjoying the story.

I've been pretty busy, especially since I'm trying to get a bunch of extra work done before I leave for Atlanta (for GAfilk) this Thursday. Speaking of GAfilk, I'm donating my "Perchance To Dream" painting to the Interfilk auction at the convention:





Very excited about the convention! My friends Maya and Jeff Bohnhoff are the Guests of Honor, and I'm SO looking forward to their concert. Maya, by the way, is awaiting the release of the second two books in her Mer Cycle trilogy.

On the topic of talented friends...

I've posted an interview with Moira Allen on Inkygirl recently. For those that don't know, Moira Allen was my second-in-command at Inkspot and was hugely helpful and inspirational. She also helped keep me sane through the crazy Web site sale phase when I was constantly stressed and freaking out.

After years of working with her online, I was delighted to finally MEET HER IN PERSON in 2001. She lives in the UK now. Moira recently released an updated version of her book, Coping With Sorrow on the Loss Of Your Pet. Anyway, please do check out my interview with Moira Allen.

Back to work...



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