frank picked me!

Hey, some guy named Frank chose Inkspot to be his pick of the week. :-)
Check out Frank Severa's URLs. Like other awards that I've been notified about, I've been invited to link to his site as well as proudly display the award graphic.

How do folks out there feel about net awards these days, by the way? I'm curious. When I first got on the net (oooo, I feel so old), the only award site out there was Cool Site of the Day, when Glenn Davis was still around. Now there seem to be zillions of folks handing out Internet awards. Which online net awards do you consider the most valuable?

It's been a couple months, but I've finally forced myself to start reading the copy of Canadian Home Business Guide To Taxes that I picked up at Chapters ages ago. :\ Not terribly thrilling reading, but essential. I went to a neighbourhood Starbucks and sat down with my book and my juice (mango-banana-strawberry, do I know how to party, or what?) for an hour. I very nearly caved just before leaving the apartment when I saw BAG OF BONES sitting invitingly nearby.

I remember the days when I used to be be able to read a fat book at one sitting...that seems like such an incredible luxury now. Where did all my time go??

I'm up to 20 minutes on the rowing machine, by the way, and my back muscles don't scream for mercy anymore. :-)

Today's photo is of Annie and me, taken on Sunday by my dad.

re: blatherchat topic of media men...YES! I'm all for Patrick Stewart and Sean Connery. In fact, Allison (she's my pal) saved a clipping from a recent Toronto Star which showed a very hunky and bicep-y Patrick Stewart from the new Star Trek movie. Be still, my heart...

Officemusic: Adrien Belew (yes, I'm back to that again).

ben & jerry's in toronto!

Found Ben & Jerry's in my local supermarket, woohoo! After much agonized hemming and hawing, I finally decided on "Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz" and "Cherry Garcia" as my first flavours. Yummmmmmmmmmmm...

Hey, I've been invited to be a speaker at the Surrey Writer's Conference in British Columbia next October (weekend before OVFF)!

casa loma with sara & annie

Went to Casa Loma (it's a real castle, eh?) with Sara and Annie and
Ruth yesterday. In spite of it being a major Toronto architectural landmark,
I've never seen it before. Lots of interesting rooms and staircases and
towers and roped-off rooms with period furniture. The whole place had
been decorated for Christmas already. I took Sara to see one of the plays,
Sleeping Beauty. She found the Scary Fairy too scary and asked to leave after ten minutes ("They were singing far too much, Auntie Debbie. I just had enough."). I wasn't thrilled with the play, either...the songs were sung very fast, making it difficult to understand the words, and it was obviously aimed at an older audience. The dozen or so children in the audience were very young and sat with expressions varying from vague fear to boredom. We joined up with Annie and Ruth, and went to check out the Santa Claus room. Santa was looking a little thin but jolly, and lured Sara closer with a candy cane. Talk about Christmas being a weird time for kids...when else do we encourage them to accept candy from total strangers?

At lunchtime today, I went to First Canadian Place for a free 20-minute concert by the cast of Fame. The music was so-so, but the cast seemed to have a good rapport, and there were some really talented young singers. Cathy and I have tickets to see this musical next month. Bought two more biz-oriented books: MAKE IT LEGAL (What Every Canadian Entrepreneur Needs To Know About The Law) by Margaret Kerr & Joann Kurtz, and THE HOME OFFICE SOLUTION (How to Balance Your Professional and Personal Lives While Working At Home) by Alice Bredin. I read 50 pages of the latter while waiting for the mini-concert to start; interesting book so far.

Officemusic: STUNT, Barenaked Ladies.

jeff bdy again

Ack...Drowning in work. Nevertheless, Jeff and I are both swearing off all work from 4:30 pm on so we can celebrate his birthday today. Jeff has been putting in a LOT of hours for Inkspot lately, the sweetie. We both need a bit of a holiday. Anyway, if any of you have a spare minute, could you please send him a surprise birthday message? His real birthday's not until Friday, but he won't be around that day. Thanks!!!

Allison is also drowning in work this week, doing report cards. I volunteered to help her write them, but she turned me down (can't imagine why). Anyway, I'm SURE she'd appreciate helpful suggestions on useful "report card phrases"...please post them in the blatherchat (where, incidentally, I've noticed a pineapple-on-one's-pizza war beginning, woohoo! I'm definitely a Pro-Pineapple person, as is Jodi, Scott & Amanda Snyder, & Randy Hoffman. Anne Walker, Lissa Allcock, Rand & Allison seem to be in the Anti-Pineapple camp --- they have no idea what they're missing!)

Here's a song for you all (I spent hours on it, as you can tell):

PRO-PINEAPPLE CALL TO ARMS

Pizza needs pineapple

It adds sweet crunch

To you anti-P types...

You're out to lunch!




THE END (evil laughter fading into the distance)

Jeff put the Ariel doll on his computer in his office at work. He's already received a lot of interesting comments.

beads

Had fun with Allison yesterday, who was downtown and came to visit. Went to Beads On Bloor yesterday and bought some beads and other earring-making materials. It was fun to just wander around the store with our little bead containers, picking out which beads we wanted. Beads ranged from about 2 cents up to a dollar, and came every size, colour, and texture imaginable.

Trip back to my place was a bit hairy. Because of a power outage on the Bloor subway line, we were herded into shuttle buses instead. Lots of shuffling, pushing, waiting, being wedged into crowds. Amazing how quickly a crowd can turn hostile, too, when they have to wait a few extra minutes. Allison and I fled the scene as soon as possible, finding refuge in a coffee shop until the crowds died down.

In the evening, we decided to see "A Bug's Life". Allison's husband John joined us. 'Twas an okay movie, but I like Antz and Toy Story way better. If you see it, though, make sure you stay until the end of the credits.

Hey, Inkspot was listed in PC Novice magazine's "Best of the Web" issue. See
my press clipping here.

Worked all day today, except for an hour-long afternoon break when I went to Chapters (to get the magazine listed in the paragraph above after a subscriber told me about it :)). Bought the following thrilling titles:

Start Your Own Zine - by Veronica Kalmer

Business Plans For Dummies - by Paul Tiffany and Steven Peterson

Guerilla Marketing - by Jay Conrad Levinson

How To Run Seminars and Workshops - by Robert Jolles

By the way, it looks like Jodi and I are going to Confusion, but Allison won't be able to make it. :-( Hopefully people will still talk to us even if she's not there! The next convention that Urban Tapestry will be attending is FilKONtario
next March.