I saw the Grey Cup Game with about a hundred other Saskatchewan fans in exile per the Facebook invite of the alumni association of my Dad's alma mater at the Prescott last night. I think Stuart Immonen speaks for me very effectively indeed over the "Charlie Brown moment" of the last five seconds of the game.

The Ottawa Small Press Book Fair was lively and busy. I hope to post photos to Flickr later in the week.

Good to see duncanmac at the OSFS AGM before I went to the Grey Cup party mentioned above!

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?

Been toying with a number of things in between job searching, research, keeping up with friends and family and housechores.

One of those is a bit of spacecraft design based on material from Christopher L. Bennett. Seemed like a cool idea at the time, based on a discussion of favourite starships in novels over at TrekBBS.com. Still does. I should really be doing something like this in CorelDraw, Illustrator or SketchUp, I suppose, but a real pen on real paper ends up most mentally efficient for me right now. None of it's officially sanctioned in any real sense, but it's a fun exercise that I can learn from.

Also, I've been toying with Manga Studio.



Not quite where I want to be with it yet, but then perfectionism holds sway in just about everything to do with illustration for me. Especially after visiting Montréal the previous weekend and seeing several Big Names working away in Artists' Alley again.

Practice, practice, practice...

Some damn good music from Galactica as composed by Bear McCreary performed live and videotaped by accident, thanks be for that to your god(s) or ideals of choice, here.

Unlike Michael Okuda and many others around the world, I was still too young to remember anything I might have seen that day, somewhere in upper Alberta, two or three time zones away from all the excitement. What I do remember is reading through the Collier's Encyclopedia entry on Space Exploration in the years that followed.

The edition my parents had bought was published at a point where the Apollo program had not yet run the course laid out for it by the Nixon administration in spite of the hopes of many across the world. In fact, the end of it had not yet been written officially when Collier's went to press. The projected mission schedule's forecast still maintained that Apollo flights would number into the 20's before they stopped in favour of the preferred form of space shuttle then expected to succeed Apollo.

I remember the fascination - obsession? - that began with the photography and technical illustrations in that book. It was fed by the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program that ended up being the true last gasp of the first space age. By Space: 1999, by Star Wars, the original Galactica, and eventually Star Trek itself to keep me going until the first of the shuttle launches.

We've been through a lot of flights, good and bad, since then.

And now on this anniversary, we have another first: two Canadians together with eleven others from four nations: the United States, Russia, Belgium, and Japan. One of those is the 500th human to go Up There Into the Black.

From Yuri Gagarin to Christopher Cassidy: only 500 so far.

There should have been much more than this by now. We ought to have done much more than this.

That we've managed this much despite our best and worst instincts is still a miracle when you look at it carefully.

To everyone involved, whether you recognize that involvement for what it is or not: thank you.

Thank you.

I'll be at the Ottawa SF Society meeting as one of the speakers instead of part of the audience.

Theme is "science fiction and the arts". I'll revise this post with the rest of the speaker list ASAP.

Same time and place as per usual: 2 PM, Dalhousie Community Centre on Somerset and Empress.


Further details here at Facebook for anyone who's got or getting an account!

Uploading some new photos taken this afternoon to Flickr tonight after having watched "The Next Doctor" on Space.

A confession: I'm of mixed feelings about the change of venue for Doctor Who tonight. On the first hand, it's genre-appropriate. On the second, considering that the whole franchise in question was begun by a public broadcaster - the BBC - the last four years' worth of participation in and broadcast of the revival by the CBC - our own public broadcaster - was also very fitting in my mind. I would prefer that the relationship continue, but given the sense of fiscal siege "Mothercorp" finds itself under these days, I'm saddened and not entirely surprised to see that relationship imperilled if not at an outright end. I'll be keeping a watchful eye on CBC-related blogs as well as dwin.org for further developments.

More on other subjects to come...

Okay, something's started bugging me since "No Exit" aired last week...

( Read more... )

One: Saw "Sometimes a Great Notion" on Galactica tonight. It worked. Not quite what I expected in places...but that's how it should be.

Two: Page One of Local Hero # 3 is tentatively tagged as done.

More to follow...

I've seen him on other shows, particular his semi-regular sparring matches with Peter Falk's Columbo, but I know his work best via The Prisoner.

And now there will be no more.

Thank you, Mr. McGoohan.

Truly a free man now. May you find peace and joy in that freedom.

One of the things that our current transit strike hasn't kept me from was the Ottawa SF Society Christmas party.

Herein are Joel Polowin, Lyn Saunders and one other noble soul at the Scrabble table.

Some things are just unmovable images in the mind.

The first night was interesting enough, although I'm a little ticked at missing the "how to" on fanfilms.

Meanwhile, I'm hearing from various sources including Facebook and words_of_prey that Manhunter got the chop. Again.

I am displeased.

More to come...

I'm in Montréal tonight. It's a bit of looking for work, a bit of networking, a bit of vacation all rolled into one trip this weekend, with Con*Cept now underway. A whole bunch of good and entertaining people are either here in the neighbourhood or will be shortly. Only some will be officially listed on the convention's website.

It is ever thus, is it not?

Passed along by fellow OSFS member Alex Binkley:

Friday October 24 at 6p in Room A of the National Library on Wellington a talk from science journalist Dan Falk on Understanding Time which supposedly includes time travel same day at 7p same room Stephen Brockwell on Quantum Mechanics and Black Holes.

Sunday noon (just before the OSFA meeting) Reinventing Gravity with John Moffat a revision of the theory of relatiivity. Moffat doesn't believe in dark matter.

The rest of it seems to be the usual literary palaver.

For more on what else the Writers Festival has to offer, check this site out.

My first attempt at professional fiction writing in some time...finally done and submitted tonight.

Now I wait for the verdict...and move on to other stuff while I wait.

Here's hoping.

Talk about an attention-getter of a title, huh?

Anyway. Went to the OSFS meeting, had fun as we discussed the science of finding extrasolar planets. I was mildly surprised by the relative lack of attendance, but it's the first meeting of the fall and the room was smaller than we've gotten used to. Our old space at the Dalhousie Community Centre has been modified with hardwood floors for dance classes to be held. Not good for moving folding tables and stackable chairs.

Feels like the home stretch on the short story SF project, but I'm still trying to nail down a few details here and there. Some of it's trying to listen to the characters, one or two things are research issues.

My camera. My good and loyal Canon A70, after six years...is starting to get cranky about battery pack issues. I know I charged up and loaded a fresh batch not 48 hours ago, and it keeps the auto-shutdown dance. Most recently, just minutes ago in mid-upload to my iBook. Not convenient, and I may have lost all the pictures of the last 2 days in the process. I may just decide to buy one of those discontinued but still being sold models at Henry's tomorrow.

If the day job leads that sprung up on Wednesday and Thursday don't deliver tomorrow, that is.

Whirlwind of sorts.

Finished putting my latest APAzine for Legends together. It's being printed as I type this, although there's some weird and interesting font glitches occurring in the hardcopy. Random characters that should be bold printing as italic, unexpected font substitutions, and whatnot. Not quite sure why this is happening, but at least the actual text is still there, as are the photos and the map. Must've happened when I saved from Pages to PDF.

Rain's coming down here at the moment. Not too heavy, but just enough to make you go for the umbrella. Gentle film noir rain, if there's such a thing.

OSFS meeting tomorrow at the Dalhousie Community Centre on Somerset West and Empress. Details at ottawa_sf for anyone interested, and the topic is extrasolar planets. Given the current count is a little over 300 such objects...ought to be fun for anyone who shows up!

Short story's past 5,500 and closing fast on 6,000. Here's hoping it's coherent when it's done...

Back to you.

Always a good combination in the tail end of January in my neighbourhood. Just enough snow and just cold enough for winter to really be here, and just enough daylight for a human to keep feeling human in most cases. If that blasted Expedia TV ad were really on the money on Canadians' reactions to the weather at this time of year, then the US could claim our real estate under eminent domain law alone, as most of us would've suicided from clinical depression with Seasonal Affectedness Disorder on the side for real and for keeps by now.

No. We're mostly okay here, or getting there again shortly.

Some other news:

I'm 2/3-done on the pencils for # 2 of Local Hero as of yesterday. Looking forward to seeing how the inkwork looks, and I'll share excerpts of the results of that whenever I can in the months ahead. Sales are slow and steady so far on the first issue, which is good news as well.

For light reading recently, I've finished re-reading kradical's Star Trek: Articles of the Federation. I'll say it again: it's a damn good book, and if you like either Trek in its varied forms, The West Wing, or both, you should give it a look yourself if you haven't already. Test-drive your local library's copy first if need be, but do it soon.

My next light reading project? The Last Spike by Pierre Berton. I'm only a dozen pages in, and already I'm kicking myself for not looking into this one sooner. I can only plead the stupidity of youth on this tome on the last years of the process of building the original main line of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, Canada's first truly transcontinental line.

I'll be attending the OSFS Annual General Meeting this afternoon. We have a financial statement, previous AGMs' minutes, and a new board to approve, elect, acclaim, or whatever it is we need to do as a chartered non-profit under Ontario law. And entertainment to watch afterwards, too. Should be lively, whatever happens.

More to come...and over to you now.

Some of you will have gotten the news from canfandom, others from Rob Sawyer's blog, still others from sources I don't know of or have forgotten for the moment: Montreal will be hosting a WorldCon in 2009.

I know that it's two years down the road, but I'd like to - nay, hope - to attend at least one of these things before I pass on.

Opinions?