My interview, my first 3D movie, plus new chocolate!

Thanks to Shai Coggins for interviewing me on her site ShaiCoggins.com today as part of her Inspiration Café series. I've wanted to meet Shai for a long time; she's one of those multi-talented types, always full of creative energy. She lives in Australia but hopefully she'll come visit Toronto one of these days.

Other news:

I've updated Will Write For Chocolate.

And last night, Jeff and I went to see Bolt with our nieces. It was my first 3D movie ever. I knew 3D movies were around, but always figured they were the kind where you donned red and blue paper goggles -- the effect is interesting but not enough to draw me to a movie.

Bolt, on the other hand, was a wonderful movie on its own (I got all weepy at the end, I confess), and the 3D effects were MUCH more impressive than I expected. Whoa. You have to wear special glasses to get the 3D effect; I was worried about how I'd do this over my regular glasses, but it was no problem.

My favourite character in the movie was the hamster. :-)

Nate the Great vs Emily Strange update

For those who have been reading my Rosamunde/Emily Strange posts, apparently the author and illustrator did NOT know about the uncanny overlap between Emily Strange and Nate The Great text and illustration.

Marc Simont writes:

“Thank you for your interest in the Emily the Strange caper, which I just learned about a few days ago. Marjorie Sharmat, the author, and I have referred it to the legal department of the publisher. We have not had any contact with Cosmic Debris. Marjorie has the rights to the text and I have the rights to the illustrations. The illustrations are copyrighted in my name.”

Kudos to Chelsea of You Thought We Wouldn't Notice for writing to Mr. Simont and letting him know.

Whatever comes of this, hopefully sales of the Nate The Great series (which I loved as a child, by the way) will get a boost from all this publicity.

Win a free book! (and learn about memoir writing)

I'm giving away a free copy of Linda C. Wisniewski's Off Kilter: A Woman’s Journey to Peace with Scoliosis, Her Mother, & Her Polish Heritage over in Inkygirl. Just post a comment at the bottom of my interview with the author; one commenter will be randomly chosen. A well-written, inspiring book!

In the interview, Linda also offers tips for those thinking about writing a memoir.

Neal Stephenson in Toronto, Halloween candy survey

I had no idea that Neal Stephenson writes out his books by hand using a fountain pen. I think my hand would fall off after just a few paragraphs. Anyway, I have a post about the event up on Inkygirl, for those interested.

I'm excited about tonight. It's the first time I'll be handing out candy at Halloween at my own house since I moved to Toronto over 20 years ago. I've put up some Halloween decorations, and I'm stressing out about running out of Halloween candy before the end of the night. Sure, my neighbors said we don't tend to get many trick-or-treaters because of our location, but what if there's a sudden surge of trick-or-treaters this year?



What if some little toddler dressed up in an oversized Winnie the Pooh costume ends up on my doorstep after I've handed out the last chocolate bar?!? I've been looking over my Halloween stash and doing calculations in my head, trying to figure out how many chocolate bars I should hand out to each child to minimize the chances that I'll be left with a pile of candy at the end of the night but also avoid running out too early.



And that brings me to my Halloween survey. What are you planning to hand out tonight? How much candy do you give to each child? Or are you planning to turn off the lights and just pretend you're not home? Will you be at a Halloween party instead? Or just ignoring the event altogether?

I'll resume my OVFF report soon.

Babylon Five Virgin

SPOILER WARNING: The blog below focuses on my reports while watching Babylon Five for the first time. An LJ feed is also available. If you haven't seen B5 yet and don't want spoilers, please DO NOT click below.

For those interested, I've been gradually updating my blog again. Jeff and I are on the last season!