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Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
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4:38 pm - Polaris
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First, what is it with Vancouver and anime cons? First AKA Kon went down in flames a few years back, and now Anime Evolution has just "postponed" their event of Aug 22-24 (their website claims it's under maintenance, click thru to the forums for the gory details). West Coast fandom.
Anyway Polaris was fun the past weekend. Biggest glitch for me was when I arrived and got my panel schedule to find that two of my panels had moved, one to 10 AM Saturday morning, without me being notified. Apparently there had been a serious amount of re-scheduling in the days before the con, and as far as I know no panelist were notified about it. Janet had five panels distributed throughout the weekend, and when she got there she found she had four back-to-back Friday night, which is just nuts. She certainly wasn't happy about it, but she got thru them.
Aside from that, I had fun at my panels, except for the Sarah Jane Adventures panel which I had to carry all alone, because Graeme Burke got stuck at the Constellation Awards accepting all the Doctor Who awards on behalf of people who didn't send any representatives (i.e. all of them). But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Thanks to the wonders of downloading, I saw the Doctor Who finale right before the con, so I could attend the Doctor Who panels without spoiler fear. Which was good, because they were generally great, and very well attended. There was a interesting crop of SF writers at Polaris this year (it's generally more of a media SF con), and the panels on writing were quite interesting. Tanya Huff in particular was "on" all weekend, and anything she did was fun.
Quote of the con: "I'm not reading anything sad till Dean Winchester gets out of Hell" - Tanya Huff on Supernatural
I gave the media guests pretty much a pass this weekend, no one there I was particularly interested in seeing, but the autograph lines seemed to be doing good business. Art Show had some interesting stuff, and a good amount of it. Dealer's Room seemed to be doing OK, I'm personally not interested in collectibles, trading cards, signed pictures, and you still get a lot of that at Polaris.
The con had some bad luck with the hotel. There had been some flooding of the basement business offices in the downpour the week before, and a bunch of lawyers had taken over one of the small function rooms the con was to use. So on Friday the filkers were out in the hall being inflicted on the rest of us (they managed to put them in a more out-of-the-way spot later). The free wireless internet was also down, at least in the function areas.
And the fire alarm went off at 6 AM Sunday morning, and again at about 9 AM and 9:30 AM, apparently due to some wiring problems. So I'm glad now I didn't stay Saturday night. The button guy in the Dealer's Room made up a "I survived the Polaris Inferno!" button, and when I talked to him at 4 PM he said he'd sold about 200 of them.
Attendance seemed OK, I don't think there were any more people than last year, but Polaris doesn't release membership numbers. Everyone just seemed pretty relieved at the Dead Dog Sunday evening. When you run a con the best part is when it's over.
So congrats to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) angrykat, aprilsnark, boywhocantsayno, gurudata, indefatigable42, kaijugal, nexstarman, sarcasm_hime, twiddler, and whitesangria, among others.
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| Friday, July 11th, 2008
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4:07 pm - This week...
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Tuesday my brother and I saw Kurosawa's Stray Dog at Cinematheque. Toshiro Mufune is a young detective who has his gun stolen and is determined to track it down, all the more so when it falls into the hands of a petty criminal who steady becomes less petty. There's a scene involving a phone booth, a crying child, pouring rain, and a misunderstanding that was Hitchcockian in its ability to ratchet up the suspense.
Small spoilers under the cut.
( Read more... )
While we were in the movie the great deluge everyone was talking about the next day happened. When we came out I said "Looks like there's been some rain", and I had no idea anything out of the ordinary had happened till CBC Radio woke me up next morning.
Wednesday I got together with Sandra and Brett for dinner at their place, which is always great. They've been having a problem with feral cats pooping in their back yard, so Brett had just gotten this motion activated water gun you stake in your yard, and it spray anything that walks by. We discussed the feasibility of hooking it up to a propane tank instead and turning it into a flame-thrower.
Yesterday morning I took off work to meet with the Toronto Congress Center, Doubletree Hotel, and Renaissance Hotel to sign contracts for Anime North for the next three years. It's weird signing papers with the date "2011" on them, that number really feels like The Future. After work I got on the bike and headed out east, now that the biking club showed me how to get out there without risking my life too much. From my place is took me about an hour and a half to get out to where the Waterfront Trail officially begins again, and your biking thru quiet leafy neighbourhoods or actually along the lakeshore. It's great to actually see some new sights on my bike. My plan was to go east till about 9 PM and take the GO train back. I got out past the Rouge Hill GO station to get a good view of the Pickering reactor, but decided my timing to go all the way to Pickering was going to be too tight as I wasn't sure how easy it was going to be to actually get into the station (my map seemed to imply I'd have to cross the 401 somehow). So I turned back to Rouge Hill and got the train to Exhibition, which took 40 minutes, rather longer than I thought, especially as I hadn't had my dinner yet. But it was a great ride and I'm now up to 910 kn for the year to date.
When I got home I checked the Google Maps satellite view, and found it wouldn't have been any problem for me to get into the Pickering GO station, so I'll file that away for next time.
Next week I start a project with MDA again, the people who used to be Spar Aerospace. I didn't some work for them about two years ago on the Space Shuttle Inspection Boom, and I'll be working for 6-8 weeks on the FE model of the Power-Data Grapple Fixture on the space station. Only problem is I'll have to haul my butt all the way up to Brampton at least half the time, which involved riding the TTC to Islington, taking the Mississauga Transit bus to Westwood Mall, and taking a Brampton bus the rest of the way, which is a major pain. But I'll survive.
Off now to Polaris for the weekend!
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| Thursday, July 10th, 2008
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3:30 pm - State of the Internet 2008
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| Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
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4:14 pm - Cycling...
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Put in 145 km on the bike over the weekend, in three trips. Not bad!
Friday went out with the Toronto Bicycling Network to the Scarborough Bluffs, which I've never been to before. They are indeed bluff-like, and I made sure not to get too close to the edge. We tried not to get in the way of a photo shoot going at there involving a very pregnant women in gauze that they were trying without much luck to float in the breeze (the gauze, not the woman).
The bike lanes and trails don't extend out into the east end, so I'm glad I went on this trip, as I know know the quiet streets to take. Next free weekend I'm heading out there again and seeing how far I can get (Pickering?) After the ride Indian food as a good place on Gerrard.
Saturday I went out and bought a few Marvel Essentials (Spider-Man Vol. 3 and X-Men Vol. 1) at BMV, as well as the first big collection of Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, a comic that asked the question "What if Spider-Man was actually a shojo manga with a teenaged Mary Jane as the main character?", the answer being you'd get a pretty damned amazing comic out of it. For bonus points it's drawn by Takeshi Mayizawa, a Toronto native now seeking his fortune in Japan.
Late afternoon rode down to Irwin and Lisa's place for some Doctor Who Confidential, which points out that acting is hard. You've got to look perplexed and scared while people standing just out of camera range are throwing books at you (Silence in the Library), which I think I'd have trouble doing. I rode back at 9:30 PM to meet up with Melanie and Joel at Clinton's for the rest of the night. On my ride back along the Waterfront trail I think about 5% of the cyclists I saw were using lights on their bikes. Lights are CHEAP people, and they help you not to get hit by cars and for you not to hit pedestrians! That last doesn't seem to be a big concern for a lot of cyclists unfortunately.
Sunday I rode down to Oakville (85 km round trip!) for a very nice brunch with marinav and ionelv. Hot but not too hot, with a nice breeze off the lake for most of the trip. Last time I did that I was wasted the next day, but I didn't feel it near so bad this time. I'm getting in shape here.
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| Friday, July 4th, 2008
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4:29 pm - Update
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First, let's welcome slytherin65 to the wonderful world of LiveJournal.
Short but busy week at work, with the promise that it'll get a lot busier. I got a phone call from an old client in Brampton looking for my FEA services for a few months, so he'll have to talk to my boss Monday to start working it out. A big project like this is good, but I'll have to commute to Brampton again at least part of the time, which sucks. Oh well.
Monday Shirley gave me a lift down from Huntsville, as she was picking up her next guest at the bus station in Toronto. Wound up having dinner with her, my brother, Catherine, and the two kids at the Dumpling House on Spadina, which is fast becoming one of my favourite places to eat at. Four adults, two kids, we were all stuffed, and the bill was just $50!
Tuesday did some biking on the islands with some friends. The lineup for the ferry was huge, but Rebecca got there early enough to get a place in it, and anyway it ended up moving pretty fast. Nice afternoon just riding around in the sun.
Yesterday was Arts Night. Made it down to the Music Garden for the first time this year to hear "The Queen's (Quay) Trumpeters + a Timpanist". I wish we could get the island airport shut down for the times the Music Garden is in session, it's really annoying to have the planes and copters droning over the music. After that made my way to The Supermarket for one of the opening events in the Scream Literary Festival, famous(?) poets read the works of up and coming poets, plus Emily Schultz read the winners of the EYE poetry contest. Not a bad night, except if your the host and you specifically state TWICE that you are taking a short break, it shouldn't last 45 minutes! But the last batch of poems of the night concerned Louis Slotkin, a Canadian researcher with the Manhattan Project who was fatally exposed to radiation when an experiment with sub-critical masses of uranium went awry. He died nine days later, but insisted that they constantly monitor and take medical samples from him to chart the progression of his deterioration. Worth staying for, at least in my book.
Does The Scream always run in competition to The Fringe?
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| Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
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2:30 pm - Happy Birthday Natural Selection! (And Canada)
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From Pharyngula, it was 150 years ago from yesterday (July 1) that the idea of natural selection was first presented to the public in a joint reading of Darwin's and Wallace's papers at the Linnean Society of London.
The Beagle Project has an excellent post about this event.
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| Sunday, June 29th, 2008
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9:45 am - In Huntsville
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Up in Huntsville for a few days visiting with Shirley. I borrowed her bike this afternoon despite the occasionally thunderstorm blowing thru (just like in Toronto), and had a great ride, getting only a few drops on me. Apparently it poured rain while i was gone, and the skies opened up literally seconds after I got back. For once, someone up there likes me.
In other news, had the wrap-up meeting for this years Anime North. Saw <i>Wall-E</i> Friday, which completely rocked. It looks amazing, and had great characters and solid story. Whole chucks of the film have no dialogue at all, something Disney would never let them get away with. Only thing was some idiot in the theatre fell asleep during the show and started snoring till someone wake him up.
Also saw <i>Mongol</i> with Catherine and enjoyed it as well. It was shot in Kazackstan and was filled with incredible wide sweeping shots of the steppe. The character were all pretty stoic at all times, which threw my brother off a bit when he saw it, but I didn't mind that much (Sarah: They all live in Outer Mongolia!). It's going to be the first part of a trilogy. And the music is great as well (Catherine called it Mongolian Metal).
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| Friday, June 27th, 2008
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1:59 pm - Engineering in Action
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| Monday, June 23rd, 2008
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10:28 am - Four Day Weekend!!!
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I just found out I get the Monday AND the Tuesday next week as paid vacation days! It seems that the Americans working for MSC get a four day weekend when the 4th of July falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, so when we got taken over by MSC this was grandfathered in for Canada Day for us!
Enjoy your lousy three-day weekend, losers!
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| Friday, June 20th, 2008
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4:13 pm - Biking, Ditko, Guy Madden
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Wednesday evening I meant to go on a ride with the bike club, but through a combination of the meet-up point being further away then I thought and a sudden downpour on the way there delaying me an addition 10 minutes, I got there 20 minutes later and everyone was gone. Oh well, I might do the ride Sunday morning if I can get out of bed in time.
My fallback for Wednesday was to go over to the Merril Collection where there a presentation on a new book about Steve Ditko, also attended by my brother, green_trilobite, moon_custafer, and gurudata (who was surprised to find anyone at all he knew there), among others. The presentation on the book itself was pretty good, I'm apparently the only person in the world who didn't already know that Steve Ditko was an Objectivist. The Q&A was cut short so they could try to show a documentry on SD that has so far only aired in England, In Search of Steve Ditko, but both copies of the DVD they had crapped out at about the 13 minute mark (they need to get an LG DVD player like I have, it'll play anything). So they did some more Q&A to make up for it. Apparently Steve wasn't talking to Stan Lee for over a year while they worked on Spider-Man, which lead to drawing and lettering mix-ups in some issues.
They are going to try and show the documentary again at the upcoming Paradise Comic-Con at the Holiday Inn on King, which unfortunately is the same weekend as Polaris.
Speaking of, I've got my panel schedule for Polaris, and it's not bad this year. I have one morning panel out of four, and it's at 11 AM.
Thursday I was heading home along College and encounter line-ups at the Royal Theatre. They were showing My Winnipeg at 8 PM, and Guy Madden would be there. I got in the rush line, but it was no joy, hardly anyone else got in. I consoled myself with some Sailor Moon later.
I was out for my lunch-time stroll this afternoon when I ran into Anne Ostrum, who used to come to the Space-Time Continuum meetings a few years back, but who I hardly ever see now. It turns out she works just a few building down from me, and has for five years (!). We'll have to have lunch soon.
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| Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
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2:28 pm - Anime Update
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Recently watched: Planetes, Angelic Layer, Strawberry Eggs.
Currently watching: Sailor Moon R (season season).
Yes, I have been overdosing on the cute lately. But there is angst and violence coming up.
In the Queue: His and Her Circumstances, Gunslinger Guns, Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex (First Gig).
And back to the cute.
Counting the Days till it's Released: Maria Watches Over Us (first season)
Manga-wise, I need to get caught up on Nana and Ah My Goddess, there will soon be a new volume of Fruits Basket out, but I have to wait till October for the third volume of Strawberry Panic!
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1:40 pm - 25 years of Krull!
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| Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
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6:14 pm - Weekend Update
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Pretty busy weekend. Got in a nice long bike ride Friday evening (and got home just in time for the final-till-2009-the-SciFi-Channel-sucks episode of Battlestar, which rocked).
Saturday planned to have brunch with Paul, but his bike team kept going and going that morning so I dropped into Boom! near my place myself, and caught up with Paul later in the afternoon. Ran into a friend of his who works for the CBC who saw my Anime North staff shirt I was wearing. Turns out he and some friends were at the con this year and had nothing but praise for it, which is always nice to hear. In the evening I made my way out to Oakville via the GO train to meet up with marinav and ionelv for Board Game night at the Williams Coffee Pub out there. Played two games I haven't played before, a German boardgame called Elfenland (you have to circle the board trying to pass thru as many towns as possible while ending up in your home city) and a D&D parody card game called Munchkin.
Sunday morning was brunch with Hayden and Charlene and little Wesley at Saving Grace on Dundas, a place we hadn't been to before but which was quite good. The patio out back was about five feet wide, but we had a breeze and an umbrella so it was no problem, the odd wasp aside. I did some more biking in the afternoon and made it over to the Toronto Islands to try to see the Biker Courier races that were being held there, but they were so delayed, maybe due to the weather, that I finally gave up and came home. I twice during the day had to stop and hide when the skies opened up, and I haven't biked into work either yesterday or today for the same reason, you never know if it's going to rain 20 minutes from now or not, even if the sun is currently out.
Sunday evening Dave came over and we watched the two-part Stephen Moffat Doctor Who story, which was quite good if not as good as last year's Blink (but then, what could be?), and the second episode of the new season of the Venture Brothers, which actually featured the titled characters (not that I'm complaining about the previous week's premiere featuring the Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend, it was great. ). It was only at the end of the evening when Dave was leaving that I realized that we were identically dressed (AN staff shirt and blue jeans). Thank Gnu we hadn't been seen in public.
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| Monday, June 9th, 2008
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5:53 pm - Weekend update
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Saturday was the Small Press Fair at its new location, the JCC (not to be confused with the JCCC). Caught up with kelpqueen, handful_ofdust, moon_custafer, and green_trilobite. It's a much better location than the Trinity-St. Paul center where it was held for some years, not least which because it's air-conditioned. There's also room for more tables, and there's still enough space for people to move around freely, which encourages them to stay longer. Nice going Myna!
Sunday I went for a major bike ride along the Lakeshore (so I could get some breeze) and ended up going just over 100 km for the day. I'm not sore or anything, but I have been a bit tired all day, so I'm looking forward to turning in early tonight. After the ride yesterday I headed down to visit davemerrill and dwinghy at their place. davemerrill puts together Anime Hell for the con. I usually try to see it at Anime North, but the room was packed to capacity this year so it was good to catch it at his place. My brother also bought along the Sonny Chibi Golgo 13 movie so we watched that as well. It's quite insane. dwinghy pointed out that the Hong Kong cop in it looked like a Chinese version of Lyle Waggoner, which he totally does!
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| Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
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12:31 pm - A Man, a Plan ...
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| Monday, May 26th, 2008
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8:39 pm - Survived another one
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Anime North 2008 has come and gone, Thank Gnu. I think we had a really good year. Paid attendance was 13,300, about a thousand higher than last year, the weather really co-operated with us, and more major events started just about on-time than at any AN before. And our Japanese guest, Halko Momoi, had a really good time. She donated one of her dresses to the charity auction, and it went for $750, which was more than they got for one of her dresses in Japan.
I'm still pretty tired, but another good nights sleep should take care of that. And now I've got my summer back.
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| Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
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10:35 pm - Anime North ... almost here
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Off to the hotel tomorrow morning for Anime North set-up. Tomorrow night we have our pre-reg events, Friday things kick off. Wish me luck.
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| Sunday, May 18th, 2008
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8:07 pm - Counting Down...
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In a week from now Anime North will be essentially over, I've just got to keep telling myself that.
Right now, everything is going well. I've scarcely gotten any emails in the past couple of days that I could deal with right away, and this weekend has actually been pretty quiet con-wise. We've got the final big meeting tomorrow, got a few issues to settle but it's looking good right now. What we need to have happen is for everyone to show up and do their jobs and we're going to have an excellent con this year.
Had meetings in the last two weeks with both hotels and the TCC, and got all the set-up matters settled. Program books are printed, guests are all confirmed. All we really need is decent weather next weekend.
I had some final modifications to make to my current project at work this week, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to finish them in time (I'm taking all of next week off), but everything got done on Friday and the clients are happy with it. It's a big load off my mind.
Had a nice long bike ride yesterday, which was great aside from the small wipe-up in the Don Valley. There's a place where the bike trail sometimes has water running over it. You're suppose to walk your bike around it, but I've never had a problem going thru it, only it was a lot deeper than normal this time, my bike slipped out from under me, and I landed in several centimeters of water. I most just got wet, so after resting for a few minutes I got back on. I was certainly luckier than a guy I saw a half-hour later. He was sitting on the side of the trail with three of his friends, with the whole lower part of his face bloody, looks like he landed on it.
It was also Don Hutton's 50th birthday yesterday, and I stopped by his party for a while. Today was brunch with Paul and Susan at Mitzi's (jealous owlfish?). All fun.
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| Thursday, May 8th, 2008
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3:05 pm - Dumplings and your computer
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Had dinner with Catherine last night (which I haven't done in far too long). Went to the Dumpling House on Spadina, which I had never been to before. As the name suggests, the big draw is dumplings, which they make in the window. We had a dozen mixed steamed dumplings, a dozen fried lamb dumplings, a plate of really good vegetables, and some rice. I was starving when I went in, and left more full than I had been in a long time. Definitely going back.
From ComputerWorld, 30 Tech Myths Debunked. Here's one we all need to get straight:
Repeated on-off cycles reduce the useful life of the PC: While it is true that certain components of your PC have a fixed number of start-stop cycles, those numbers are high enough not to cause worry. Microchips (including the CPU and those on the motherboard), CR Tmonitors and hard disks especially, have a rated number of times they can be turned on and off. Shutting the PC down when its use is not required for an hour or more will save power and even reduce component wear and tear. For example, for hard disks, this number is 50,000 or more. So, even if you switch the hard disk off and on ten times a day,after three years you would be close to 10,000 cycles, five times lesser than the rated number.
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| Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
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11:43 pm - Past few days...
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The con approaches, but matters seem well in hand. Much to do, but I've scheduled evenings off over the next two weeks so I keep on an even kneel.
Iron Man rocked! He was my favourite superhero as a kid, because he was a guy in a suit, and in theory I could build a suit. He was a superhero because he was smarter than everyone else.
The movie worked because the performances were so spot on. Robert Downey Jr. completely nailed the role, he can do more with a look then most actors can do with an entire scene. Palthrow was great, and Jeff Bridges was almost unrecognisable with his huge beard and bald head (as commented by others, he was essentially playing the anti-Dude). My favourite scenes were Tony tinkering the suit together (both times), testing it out, and hanging with his robot pals. Finally, a film where the engineer is the hero. Even if he doesn't (quite) get the girl.
Oh, and the new AMC showed it at 9 PM, which is a very civilized time to see a movie! I'm sick of films either starting at 7 PM (so it's tough to have dinner beforehand) or 10 PM, so it's past midnight when you get out and there's very liited hanging out time available. Not only that, but they showed no commercials, and the trailers actually started at 8:50 PM, so the film itself started just past 9PM! I may never go to the Paramount again.
Most of the weekend went on Anime North meetings, but plenty got done. Pre-reg has set another record, we'll see how many people show up this year.
Last week Cory Doctorow was at the Merril for his new young adult novel Little Brother, which he describes as "1984 fanfic". Big crowd to see him, for once the familiar faces at a Merril event were the minority. Cory's a great speaker, and Bakka sold a pile of books
Don't think I've mentioned my new icon. It's Reika and Renamon, from the third season of Digimon, which I recently downloaded and watched again (first aired in 2002). I'd buy this on DVD in a second if it was available, because it is the freaking War and Peace of the kids-with-fighting-creature shows (a la Pokemon). The guy who wrote that season also wrote Serial Experiments Lain, one of the touchstones of existential anime angst. Anyway that season of Digimon was smart, funny, and filled with great characters, Reika and Renamon being particularly awesome. I'd forgotten just how relentlessly grim the final dozen episodes are. Half of Tokyo ends up wrecked, there's symbolic suicide attempt by one of the main characters, and there are way more tentacles then you'd expect to find on a kids show. And it aired on the Family Channel!
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