Since I'm gonna be really busy over the weekend - catching up with one of my west coast cousins, the Small Press Book Fair, the Ottawa SF Society annual general meeting, the big Grey Cup game night party for Saskatchewan Roughrider fans at the Prescott tomorrow, I wanted to give a b-day shout to some of my friends this morning.

ruckawriter, radargrrl and musta_kani? I hope you all have a good one tomorrow, and many more just as good or better in the years to come!

Take care, okay?

I'm told by multiple sources here and elsewhere that this weekend is that of the US Thanksgiving Day long weekend.

Regardless of where you live, though, or even of whether or not any of us - including me -knows you've had any helpful dealings with me or not?

Thank you.

Be well.

Attended my first ever InDesign User Group session tonight. We got some explanation on how to link other programs' files into *.indd projects so that updates in their software-of-origin can be automatically reflected in the InDesign file as one goes. It is basic stuff and while you can do this with other software suites, where CS4's abilities are concerned...learning how to do anything the Adobe way after years of Corel is all still fairly new to me.

I'll be attending the November Comix Jam tomorrow night at the Shanghai Restaurant. Suzanne Marsden's announced that this'll be the last one of 2009, so...

Noticing that CBC's TV arm has improved its Nielsen performance of late. I'm glad to see it, and I'm also fully convinced that the privately-owned TV networks' leaders will never forgive this "sin" by the Crown-owned broadcaster against them. At least no more than they have any of the previous instances.

My favourite retail-bought calendar is getting the go-signal for a 2011 edition: Star Trek: Ships of the Line. Word straight from one of the participating artists, Doug Drexler! *happy dance!*

Sitting down to shut up for a minute...

I'm beginning to think that it might be a good idea to set up an LJ community for people living east of the Greenbelt here in Ottawa. Blackburn Hamlet, Orléans, Navan, old Cumberland Village and so on.

Anyone know if there's already such a thing?

...but wishing all my US friends well nonetheless. I'll be indulging in a similar ritual this afternoon by meeting up with a very local, very unofficial Saskatchewan Roughriders fan club branch down in the Glebe for the Western Division Final of the CFL playoffs. The Riders are one of two or three things I've regretting leaving behind when I moved to Ottawa with the rest of my family, so keeping an eye on what they're up to during the Canadian football season still matters to me.

Hoping to see the Calgary Stampeders properly rounded up at today's game!

For those of you who like a little interstellar cartography with your space opera and superheroics:

Jed Whitten's Starmap site is back online.

Go. Enjoy. Learn. Preferably both of the last two at the same time.

Yep, I'm passing along words and stuff from Denis McGrath again. In this instance, a Writers Guild of Canada video. Probably won't be seen on the TV networks and cable channels anytime soon, given the content...

Word passed on by kradical just now: the Equalizer, Callan, Alwyn...whatever names of fiction you knew him best by? Mr. Woodward has left the worlds we know.

Raising a toast - albeit hot chocolate - in memoriam...

I went down to the Memorial where Elgin meets Rideau and Wellington one more time this morning.

And yet someone else wrote words more fitting to the spirit of that journey than what I heard there, or would have written myself.

Therefore, I refer you once more with respect and humility to Denis McGrath.

"Accomplished" isn't all of it, though. For a while there today, "frustrated" would not have been out of line to describe the mood today either.

( More technobabble for interested parties... )

And tomorrow, it's back to regular job-hunting and other errands, including a writing workshop.

Back to you!

But I've seen it in several different places around Ottawa over the years, the first of which I'm reasonably sure predated the Moore-Eick remake of that venerable space opera, in which this font seemed ubiquitous throughout the rag-tag Colonial Fleet. So, my guess is that someone's licensing it out commercially.

So who is it, and under what name?

Ontario's offering green license plates for anyone living here with a green car. The design looks not too bad. I assume they're sticking with Driver Gothic for the registry alpha-numerics on the actual plates?

John Scalzi pointed out a few things about a certain inevitability that maybe we should finally admit to having achieved as fans and pros and move on to something else from there. What do you think?

Well, I didn't go to today's ByMUG meeting. This, per the doctor's strong suggestion that I try to take things relatively easy for one more week this past Friday. That's okay. I got to see my brother's family this weekend, lively bunch that they are, which was good for the soul in its way.

Seems like the Hallowe'en trick or treat traffic's still doing its slow year-to-year drop-off, further aggravated this year by the ongoing health scares in progress. It does look like the costuming's getting better among those keeping the tradition going. A good thing, that. The kids doing the rounds hereabouts could have done very well - or at least a lot better - without the high winds and the chills.

Maybe next year for that?

Oh, and a bit of Local Hero comics news to close out on: the inkwork for the second issue is done!

Our new inker delivered the last pages to Ian Gould this week, and I am in receipt of a bunch of scans which I need to get a look at via wi-fi download as soon as I feel up to hauling the laptop to the local library branch.

Hey, quietdarkness! Hoping you've had a good one today!

Can I get an "Amen" from the crowd?

Yeah, still dealing with it here. I've been advised to take it relatively easy for at least one more week, although I'm still trying to keep an eye out for work leads in my better moments...

More as it comes.

Thought you might be pleased to see this from the WritersFest bookstore, Steve!

mdg1, congrats on surviving another one to you! Wishing you many more, better in weather and overall tone!

Thanks to daytonward and mary_mayhem for this.

The problem with LJ: We all think we are so close, but really we know nothing about one another. So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away.

Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.

I got this via james_nicoll.

I strongly suggest you hie yourselves over to this item:

http://asknicola.blogspot.com/2009/10/trembling-with-rage.html

It is the tale of Janice Langbehn and Lisa Pond's final days as partners in life and love. It is not an easy one. But then, when bullies insert themselves into these equations, it never is.

Something james_nicoll pointed out to me today in one of his latest: apparently, there's a small plague of cutbacks hitting the world's libraries again. Part of the outbreak hit John Scalzi's backyard, and he's unhappy about it. You can read about that over here.

I don't understand the idea of libraries being obsolete, because the evidence of my own eyes from visits to assorted branches in recent weeks tells me the idea's full of crap, if you'll pardon my Anglo-Saxon. Not even good crap, either.

Now maybe I just live in and visit charmed neighbourhoods. I dunno. But I tend to think from the arguments in progress that I'm not wrong to think there's still a use for bricks and mortar and paper and glue and cardstock.

Ian Gould, Luke Parsons, Mark Richards and I, we're betting at least part of our future on my being right on this one, I think.

How about you?