Monthly Naomi Photo
Now that’s what I call playground equipment!
First Day of School!
I can’t believe Ben’s in Grade One! I’m thrilled that he’s reunited with Miss Colette, his excellent classroom shadow.
Way to go, son! Every day is an adventure!
Before the First Shots were Fired
I spent Saturday at Paintball Mirabel with my old comrades from Tribal Nova. This was my first time playing soldier in the woods using firearms that weren’t crafted out of sticks, and, aside from an astonishing array of bruises, I emerged unscathed.
I know everybody on the opposing team was unscathed as well, because I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn – my visor was usually full of paint! (Better that than the mouthguard though…bleccch!)
Monthly Ben Photo
Ben wants to join the Grenadier Guards in Ottawa. He’d love the hat.
Two Days Down – Two to Go!
GenCon has been fantastic so far – I’ve played new games, old games, bought more than I should have, met great designers, and enjoyed the fine city of Indianapolis.
Time for more!
Hugo Winners!
I only had one free day to attend WorldCon on behalf of Wired.com’s GeekDads, but it turns out that I picked a great day – the Hugo Award ceremony was full of fannish charm and enthusiasm.
Plus, I got an autograph from James Morrow after a reading of his Stumbling Towards Hiroshima – w00t!
Catching Up!
I am finally getting some room to breathe and think after the last month or so…but especially the last two week. Here’s a long-ish recap, in bullet points until I become reaccustomed to typing in complete sentences.
- The Blogathon was a runaway success financially (over two grand! w00t!), but a harder-than-usual slog for me since I decided to write my posts in real time instead of writing madly until 3 or 4 and then slowly posting them when the hour struck.
- Saw the second John Cleese gala at the Just for Laughs festival, courtesy of Lysanne (and, I guess, Peter, for being out of town!) It was horrible. Cleese’s bitter divorce is simply not funny, and neither were any of his calls to poverty. Worse, his rant inspired the other middle-aged divorced broke comics to rant about their lives. Not funny either. Caroline Rhea? Hilarious!
- Started a new job. There was too much baggage associated with the old gig (which is unfair and irrational, yet entirely true) so I decided to make a change in one area of my life where a clean break is still possible. I’m now working with old friends at a new company, Ludia, which makes games based on TV game and realitiy shows. Good fun and a great environment, actually.
- Ben spent a week with my parents and Scott in Ottawa. He had an amazing adventure and took lots of pictures during his trips to various museums and farms. He called home every night – and chatted with Naomi longer than with me!
- Saw the latest Harry Potter movie. I’ve officially seen more of the movies than I’ve read the books, and it didn’t bother me. The directing was gorgeous, especially the scrying bowl sequences.
- Lost all my emails and most of my personal files due to the horrible Vista crash of July 25th. What I didn’t lose due to the flawed recovery software provided by HP was occasionally locked to a different set of ownership permissions. Very annoying – and yet, I’m glad I backed up my work files a week earlier. It meant not losing absolutely everything. As for the rest, I choose to see it as a clean slate and a new set of opportunities to do things differently.
- Spent a week and a half re-writing a script for my old job, which I should have delivered the Monday after the computer crash. Ugh.
- Spent the rest of my evenings redoing the errata version of <b>Halls of the Mountain-King</b> which I had shipped the day before the crash. That was tedious, but it was another opportunity to catch things that I had missed earlier. Everything is backed up!
- Ordered some new business cards with my new phone number. Hope they’ll arrive before GenCon.
- Bought an HP netbook to serve as a mobile blogging/Skype box during my trip to GenCon, and also a backup computer should my main laptop go off-kilter again.
- Finished watching Pushing Daisies. Some shows just aren’t meant to survive, and that was one of them. One problem was that, aside from Emerson Cod andLily Charles, none of the characters had any drive. They just apologized for themselves all. the. time.
- Started watching Being Human, which is another terrific British fantasy series about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost sharing a house in Bristol. Naturally, the humans are the real monsters, but I can’t say enough good things about Russell Tovey as the twitchy, guilt-ridden, thoroughly desperate and dweebish werewolf, George. He’s the only actor who survived from the original pilot, and I think the show pretty much hangs on him.
- I found indoor valet parking at a garage near work for about thirty bucks less a month than some of the outdoor lots. However, it turns out that tipping is expected every day, so the savings is only about ten bucks a month. Still…it’s worth it, and it’s always easier to find a buck at the spur of the moment than a twenty at the end of the month.
- For some reason, despite the reformatted and reinstalled hard drive, my web browsing connection via Firefox and IE knocks out after about thirty minutes of browsing, or less if I visit sites with embedded Flash videos. It must be some combination of Vista, Avast and Zone Alarm, because I don’t have similar problems with my netbook’s XP/Avast/ZoneAlarm combo.
- I’m heading to WorldCon on a press pass from Wired.com’s Geek Dads – for whom I haven’t written anything since Father’s Day weekend. It’ll be interesting to check out the site and a few panels from the fan’s perspective.
- Next week, I’m going to my first GenCon, along with Dave, and I’ll be meeting Scott there. This should be great fun. I’m looking forward to meeting gamers in person whom I’ve only known via email.