living in Toronto

Sara fishing off the dock early yesterday morning,
while the mist was still on the lake.


Got back from the cottage this morning.

It's always a bit of a shock getting back to the city; the traffic and commotion, the crowds, all the metal and cement. And now's my cue for going on about how much I hate the city, how I wish Jeff and I could live in the wilderness in a little cabin, growing our own herbs and living off the land blablabla. I guess I do feel like that sometimes.

But I love the city of Toronto, in a way different from the way I love the cottage. I love the bookstores, the coffee shops, the hot dog vendors, the guy playing the guitar on our street corner with a paper bag over his head, the fact that I can buy weird-looking vegetables in Chinatown from someone who doesn't know how to speak English.

I love seeing the crowds of tourists in our area during the summer as they gawk at the CN tower and go on sightseeing buses. Some days I feel like going out and being one of them, seeing my city with a newcomer's eyes. Some days I try.

Yes, I know Toronto has problems. But I do so love this city.

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cottage sunrise

Sunrise this morning.


Thanks so much to Allison for alerting me (through her LJ) to the fact that Sara's story was in the Toronto Star today! You can read it online, but apparently the print version also has a professional illustration as well as Sara's photo & bio. If anyone out there has copies of the Toronto Star, pleaseplease save copies for me? If I was home right now, I'd be picking up a big pile. I would be happy to pay you for the copies. Thanks SO MUCH! Update: many thanks to Allison, Reid & Luisa, John & Kristen, Ray for getting/saving copies for us! I'm bursting with pride, of course...this is my niece's FIRST PUBLISHED (and paid!!) STORY. Sara was one of the winners in the Toronto Star short story contest, which drew over 2,304 entries (her story won in the 9 and younger age category).

I took the photo above this morning from our cottage dock. I've had the occasional person ask me what I do to my cottage sunrise photos to make them look so dramatic re: Photoshop doctoring-up, and my answer is: NOTHING. The sky is simply just that gorgeous. Or rather, more so...I find that photos can't do the real thing justice.

Hope you all had a good weekend! More cottage photos/details soon. Right now, I'd rather go outside and enjoy than write about it. :-)

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chocolate-covered grasshoppers

Got together with Allison and Jodi last night, and Allison gave us a chipotle chocolate bar, a gift from Lyanne. YUM. Something irresistable about the combination of chocolate and chili pepper. Then again, it's hard to think of a chocolate combination that doesn't work.

Wait, I just thought of one: chocolate and meat. Chocolate-covered steak just doesn't turn my crank, really. Though a quick Google search did turn up a rather disturbing chocolate marinade for steak.

My mom used to tell me about eating chocolate-covered grasshoppers as a delicacy in Japan. Holy cow. I just checked out the other recipes on that link I found through Google, which was to page by an entomology department page at Iowa State University. Recipes include:

Rootworm Beetle Dip

Chocolate Chirpie Chip Cookies

Mealworm Fried Rice

Crackers and Cheese Dip with Candied Crickets


Egads.

A poll question: Would YOU try a chocolate-covered grasshopper if you were offered one?

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miss lonelynotes

Jeff is served dinner in a Kyoto ryokan during our Japan trip
a few years ago.


For those interested, I've uploaded a few of my favourite Japan trip photos to my Flickr Photo Album. I've also uploaded some favourite photos viewable to those on my friends/family list. You can always find a link to my photo album in the text navigation bar to the left, by the way, under "Photos."

I'm also enjoying experimenting with Miss Lonelynotes, a just-released project outlining tool for writers, from Mindola Software. For a first release, it's not bad, and I've been e-mailing back and forth with the company with suggestions/feedback. I find most outlining software tools a little bit over-the-top for my tastes. I like the simplicity and elegance of Miss Lonelynotes. Looking forward to the next release, which is supposed to include a character development feature and get rid of some of the small bugs. I'll be posting a more detailed review in Inkygirl.

To you filkers out there: I've added two new questions to the Dandelion Report FilkFAQ, if you'd like to take a look:

What makes a good Filk Guest of Honor?
How does a good concom work with a guest?

The new version of Movable Type makes administration of this sort of thing pretty easy now. Whenever I post to the FilkFAQ page, for example, it automatically triggers a rebuild in the the main Dandelion Report page (see left column of that page). I haven't experimented with dynamic pages yet, but plan to.

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good-bye Mailblocks!

This purple guy was walking around yesterday when
Craig and I were having coffee recovering from Real Life.


I recently grew suspicious that some e-mails weren't getting through to my Mailblocks.com account, so sent myself test e-mails from various other addresses. Not only did none get through, but I also never got a bounce or error message indicating anything was amiss. Upon sending a query to their customer service, I received the following response:

---

Hello there,

Thank you for your questions regarding SR-my mailblocks address does not seem to be receiving mail.

We have identified the issue and are in the process of adding additional new email servers. This should help resolve the issue you are experiencing .These issues will be resolved soon, so please try logging in again in a little while. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

We appreciate your patience and understanding during this temporary issue.

Thank you for using Mailblocks. If we can be of further assistance, please let us know.

---

I did log on the next day and find some e-mail, but had no idea if any was missing.

The main problem with the message from Mailblocks is that they didn't get to the heart of my main concern: How long had I NOT been receiving e-mail? What does "these issues will be solved soon" mean, exactly? What happened to the missing e-mail? Will I ever receive it? And most importantly, why did the company not tell me what was going on until I asked? Would they have let me know what happened, that I might have lost e-mail? Or would they have just said nothing, hoping I wouldn't notice?

I wrote again to ask these questions as well as to express my concern about the lack of communication and information. I also told them that I was not planning on renewing my account.

Their response:

---

"Hello Debbie,
Thank you for your questions regarding Re: SR-my Mailblocks address does not seem to be receiving mail [#38871]. We appreciate your feedback and suggestions. I've taken note and will pass your feedback on to our product engineering team.

Thank you for using Mailblocks. If we can be of further assistance, please let us know."

---

That was several days ago; haven't heard from them since.

Good customer service doesn't mean you have to be perfect, but it does mean good communication.

Mailblocks.com has recently been undergoing some problems, possibly as a result of their acquisition by AOL, but I would have thought that this would make it all that more important to keep their customers up-to-date with what was going on. If I were them, I would have given more detailed information right away, promise they would do what they could to not let it happen again, perhaps even offer a discount on my next renewal fee. Anything would have been more helpful than "Thanks, I'll pass on the message."

Who knows how many other customers have lost e-mail and don't know?

I've decided to switch to Gmail for my public e-mail. So far it seems to be doing a great job filtering spam, and I don't give out my personal address anymore. And it's FREE.

And good-bye Mailblocks.com!

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