HNT - Three Wishes 2011

This being the final "Three Wishes" themed HNT, I thought I'd do what I normally do during a "structured" HNT post.  I'd break the rules and do my own thing. Why mess with the old Mark Leslie Tradition of doing that.

But speaking of tradition, I love the fact that Osbasso, the founder of HNT, created this themed type of post - it was meant to be a way for HNTers to go visit other members they didn't know, read about them and get to know them through the words and images they posted on their blogs. What a beautiful village-building activity. I applaud Osbasso for creating it and I applaud those who (unlike me every year) have embraced it.

I know I have gotten to know some other HNTers through this and cherish the experience.

Here's a link to my previous "Three Wishes" based posts since 2006

2010 - 3 Wishes 2010

2009 - Three Wishes 2009 (I got pretty creative with the descriptive post names, didn't I?)

2008 - Three Wishes 2008 (fell into a pattern, didn't I? But I modified it slightly for 2010 & 2011)

2007 - Gift of the HNT 2007 (shooting for a Gift of the Magi type name methinks)

2006 - Gifts of the HNTer (again with the Magi thing - I fall back to certain patterns a lot)

This year I simplify in my own way with three simple wishes in the realm of Dicken's A Christmas Carol, looking at Past, Present and Future.

For Those From HNT of Yore (Past)
May you look back on the many years of HNT, on the joy of a community of bloggers from around the world coming together with a fun common purpose, at the friendships and laughs you shared. There are even those whom you might have known from HNT of past who are no longer with us. Either no longer blogging or who have, sadly, passed on. May you relish in the memories of the thoughts, feelings, smiles and tender moments shared. HNT was about community, about sharing, about getting to know one another (and being given a fun and playful way of doing it) May your thoughts and memories of it warm your heart.

For Those From HNT Present
You're involved in HNT at as significant a moment as the days it was first beginning and perhaps even what some refer to as The Golden Era - although Golden might be different depending on a person's perspective, because often the "gold" comes through the discovery of a great new community of like-minded people, through the discovery of the fun of sharing and the wonderful intimacy that can stem from it. Enjoy this moment, enjoy the feeling and soak in the moment. Yes, this is a simple wish for you to properly "Carpe Diem" - but not just in HNT, in all the things that you do that bring you joy. May you absorb the joy and wonder of each moment for everything you do. Those joys will become the memories you one day will cherish and reflect back on.


For Those From HNT Future
If 2011 marks the end of HNT, how can it have a future. Ah, that's the magic. Just like in the letter from a newspaper editor to Virginia, discussing how Christmas lives in your heart, the magic of HNT is in the future carried forth by all past and present participants who go forth and continue to share the love and wonder that made HNT special. You see, HNT isn't merely a weekly ritual, it's an excuse for community, a wonderful weekly reminder to share and connect. May your future bring that same sentiment to many things that you do, not just in blogging, but in your physical day to day life. Pause, take a moment to share something of yourself, to expose something and to look, listen and attend to those who are doing the same around you. That's part of what makes the world a better place. That's part of the ongoing gift you can offer.  Even if you're reading this or other HNT posts from the past many years from now, remember, it wasn't just about risque half-nude pictures, it was about people forging connections, engaged in the spirit of community. Be inspired by that to do the same in your own unique way and you'll enrich the world of those you come into contact with.



And, because it's HNT, I offer up a few pictures of the Christmas ties I've been wearing. I have tried to wear a Christmas tie every day for the past couple of weeks. I like ties. I particularly like novelty ties. But what I like best is how a novelty tie can sometimes inspire a smile in those who see them. Even if I only make one person smile from seeing a fun goofy tie, it makes my day to know that a choice of the way I dress has momentarily lifted someone in some small way.

 

 

This last one is a really fun one - have a closer look at the various snowmen

Happy HNT for all those from HNTs of Past, Present and Future!

Silly Christmas Lyric Meme: Frosty The Snowman

Back in 2006 I started a silly Christmas lyric meme where I take a song we hear countless times during the holiday season and discuss something that confuses me about it or is worth exploring if merely for the humour . . . (feel free to play along and share your own silly thoughts about Christmas lyrics on your own blog)

The Rules: Pick a Christmas lyric that inspires silly thought and discuss it. Then either tag people or simply invite your readers to chime in with their own silliness.

Feel free to use the "Cousin Eddie" image by copying the following code and replacing the '(' and ')' with '<' and '>' :

(a href="http://markleslie.blogspot.com/2006/12/mark-leslies-silly-christmas-lyric.html")(img src="http://static.flickr.com/136/321235351_90abf16624_m.jpg" alt="Mark Leslie's Silly Christmas Lyric meme" /)



The Song: Frosty the Snowman. Written by Walter "Jack" Rollins and Steve Nelson and first recorded by Gene Autry in 1950. (Original title "Frosty the Snow Man")


Lyrics in Question: "He led them down the streets of town right to the traffic cop. He only paused a moment when he heard him holler "Stop!"

The Comment:  Before I dive into the lyrics I must confess that the song has always confused me. I've often questioned why Frosty would be a jolly, happy soul. I mean, sure, if the hat had some magic in it and brought Frosty to life, what sort of life would it really be? I explored that in a dark humour story I published a long time ago called "That Old Silk Hat They Found" - the story looks at what "life" might really be like for poor Frosty . . . born to the world with no legs to romp around on and feeble twigs for arms . . . . you can listen to the story for free via a podcast or even read the ebook version in my new ebook Snowman Shivers, which contains two of my snowman horror stories. Available on Amazon and Smashwords.

But enough of the self-promotion . . . on to my "over the top" analysis of the lyrics.

I think that there's evidence Frosty is a delinquent and a bad influence. After all, the moment he is created he goes thumping around over the hills of snow - one might imagine just how wreckless he is being, the kids following him as if he's some sort of Pied Piper figure, likely mimicking him in his wanton destructive behaviour instead of spending time with their family or perhaps even studying quietly, reading, volunteering at a soup kitchen or attending mass.

Frosty even admits that he's here for a good time, not a long time. 

"Let's run and we'll have some fun," he says. "Before I melt away."

In the manner of bad influence rock stars, his melting away is an obvious ode to the concept of it being better to burn out than to rust. It's all about short-term living big.

He obviously won't have to own up to the consequences of his inhibitions and can run wild, leaving the children to clean up the mess he leaves behind as he runs here and there, all around the square laughing as the children try to chase him down.

His biggest indiscretion, of course, is the example he sets for the kids when he disobeys the traffic cop in the song. Instead of following the police officer's orders, Frosty merely pauses a moment, then, obviously, continues his horseplay, showing the kids that it's okay to run wild and carefree, paying no attention to any sort of law and order.

Of course, the clincher is that, at the end of the song, you can imagine him saying, in his best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice, the line made famous in the original Terminator movie:  "I'll be back! (again some day")

I say we should ban this song because of the terrible example it sets for kids.

What about you? Are you with me on just how nasty and terrible an influence Frosty can be on the kids? Perhaps it's another song. Steal this idea for your own blog or share your thoughts in a comment here. Have fun, be goofy. Go ahead, it's okay. Frosty would want you to do so . . .

[To read my previous Silly Christmas Lyric commentary, check out 2010 (Here Comes Santa Claus) 2009 (I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus), 2008 (Silent Night), 2007 (Silver Bells) and the original 2006 (The Christmas Song)]

Good, Good, Good Merchandising

Okay, I couldn't help trying to write the title of this blog post "to the tune" of Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys (as opposed to Good Vibrations by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, which is still a whole lotta fun in its own right)

But I have to say, I'm often impressed when a retailer can take a normally boring item (in this case, cases of soda pop) and turn it into a festive display.

The Metro on Upper James in Hamilton did it again, and I couldn't help but snap a pic of the simple magic of a good display.

Alexander high-fives the diet pepsi snowman at Metro

To the left was a gigantic "fireplace" display made from cases of assorted Pepsi branded pop. The pics I snapped of that were too blurry to use - but it certainly makes an effective display.

Christmas Light Tour 2011

Last night we took another one of our family Christmas light tours. It consists of piling the family into the car, getting a box of donuts from Tim Horton's (ensuring we have the seasonal candy cane ones and that Alexander has his favourite hot chocolate, which is a normally made hot chocolate with a half shot of regular milk added - it cools it down because he can't handle it too hot but also can't wait to start drinking it) and doing a tour of neighbourhoods and houses that go a little Griswold.

Last night we found a new house while on route to ones we already knew about.

It's located at the corner of Dunsmure and Glendale in Hamilton. And it's pretty darn fantastic.

All the pictures below were taken at that same house (and are evidence that I'm an amateur photographer, taking quick shaky shots on my iPhone)

When asked, later in the evening, which of the houses was his favourite, Alexander said, the one with the Santa who had "Ho Ho Ho" on his underwear.  A bit hard to see in the picture immediately above, but Santa did moon us, showing off a neat pair of Christmas undies that I don't yet own (and I own a lot of fun Christmas boxers.....)

HNT - Christmas Tree of Hope

This being the final "Christmas Tree" themed HNT, I thought I'd take a quick retrospective over the various "Christmas Tree" themed HNT posts I've put up here.

Last year, I sort of went off topic, but at least it's a Christmas theme.  2010 - Christmas Vacation at Chateau Leslie.

In 2009, I was riffing on Charlie Brown in 2009 - Markie Brown Christmas Tree.

2008 was a father-son theme, with Alexander and I in front of the "boy's" Christmas tree in our rec room downstairs. Simply titled Christmas Tree 2008.

Oh Christmas Treat was my HNT post from 2007, which included my very first Christmas HNT picture (a bit risque and more of the commonly understood version of "nekkid" in this one) and returns to the themed Christmas CD that I reposted about in 2010.

In 2006, I posted a jokish HNT (yes, because all my other ones are soooo serious) called Francine's Christmas Fantasy. Yes, this one shows a bit of skin in the "traditional" HNT nekkid sort of way.

And, when I was young and foolish and first beginning HNT, I took the "Nekkid" thing seriously and posted Bare Naked for the Holidays, using a strategically placed ornament to cover up the most private of parts.

This year, I really wanted to build a Christmas tree made out of books, part of capturing some of the excitement of the viral Christmas tree picture. I ran out of time, so I thought I'd take that viral Christmas tree made out of book picture and add a fitting star to the top of it (fitting in my "slap Mark's head on something" sort of way I like to do for HNT)

Of course, I thought I'd post some random pictures of Christmas trees that I found online, just to share in the bookish love. You can find a lot more via a quick Google search. It's lots of bookish fun.

So, can you tell that I'm a person who has some books on his Christmas wish list . . . . ?

I Heard That!

From 1999 until the late summer of 2006 I worked in downtown Toronto but lived in Hamilton. I took the GO train to work because it was an easy walk from Union Station in Toronto to the Peter Street office where I worked.  The whole commute was about 3 hours per day.

I filled a good part of my commuting time on the train reading and writing. In fact, in the first year of my commute I composed the first draft of a novel. (Interestingly, as I began to make more and more friends on the GO train, my productivity decreased. Yes, chatting with friends was fun, but it had a negative impact on my writing)

I traded the 3 hour daily commute in shortly after my son turned 2 to work at Titles Bookstore McMaster University. I was barely seeing him, and the 10 minute commute to McMaster was a delightful change. It was good to return to the physical world of bookselling and fascinating to re-learn all the things I'd spent the previous fourteen years learning. Academic bookselling was an entirely different beast with rules I was simply not familiar with.

My time at McMaster was a good one.

But, after five years, it came time for another change.

I decided to leave right after the last Rush period this year. The last day of September 2011 was my last day.

It was difficult to leave a job that I quite enjoyed and was so passionate about. But I was leaving to partake in a incredible new journey, a delightful new role and for a company that I had admired since their very first days.

I started as Director of Self-Publishing & Author Relations at Kobo in October 2011. Having spent the past three years building up a self-publishing business via the Espresso Book Machine at McMaster, it was the right move at the right time for me. I got to expand upon an activity that I was incredibly passionate about and return to a similar role that I enjoyed when I was a data-wrangler before I left for McMaster.

 

The only down-side, it seemed, apart from being able to regularly work on the sales floor and put books directly into customer's hands and all the greatness that comes from that face to face interaction with book lovers, was a return to the commute.

And, given Kobo's location in Toronto, it wouldn't be a simple GO train ride. The passenger train route would likely add an additional half hour to 40 minutes to each way's journey (if I wanted to start as early as I like to start each day). The other option was to drive in.

Admittedly, I was worried about the daily drive in to Toronto.

But I have made the best of it.

With audio books.

Yes, even on the days where the traffic can be nail-biting, steering-wheel poundingly frustrating, I just sit back and listen to either the slew of podcasts that I subscribe to or one of the many audio books I have enjoyed since starting my job. Since the beginning of November (less than a month and a half), I have listened to 9 audio books.

For a person who values reading, and has always wanted to get more reading done but not been so good at reading quicker nor finding time to get as much reading done as possible (you see, whenever I spend a good deal of time that I could be reading writing - another passion that I hold dear), this daily commute has been a blessing.

In less than two months I turned what would have been wasted time into the consumption of books that would normally have taken me 4 or 5 months to read.

Got to love that.

So, three cheers for great audio books.

Three cheers for filling in my time with a useful, worthwhile and delightful activity.

And three cheers for an exciting new job that I adore!

If anyone is counting, that's nine cheers. The same number of audio books I've "read" so far since I've started my new job.

Searching For A Solution

There's been a lot of chatter lately about Amazon's Dec 10th strike on independent retailers.

It has long been known that customers will walk into a bookstore (for example), browse contents, then go home and order the very same merchandise they were looking at from Amazon.

This week, Amazon announced that if customers used their price check app to scan an item in a retail store, it would give them up to $5 off the price of the item purchased on Amazon.

First, I should note that books aren't included in this promo and that it's not even an option in Canada.

But that being said, such as announcement will be booksellers understandable riled up. After all, Amazon has been kicking booksellers in the head for a dozen years. 

ABA put out a statement yesterday, a public letter to Jeff Bezos; a beautifully written post on the Advent Book Blog called Dear Amazon: You Really, Really Suck generated a lot of buzz. And various other articles about it have appeared.

Let's face it. Even though the $5 offer isn't really all that good (just part of many different "sleight of hand" and "smoke and mirrors" effects that Amazon likes to play, it has been long known by booksellers, and now documented in a survey that 39% of people who bought books from Amazon said they first looked at the book in a local bookstore.

Let's face it. Amazon does one thing amazingly well. They have a world class search engine.

Even as a bookseller, I'll use Amazon to find the book I knew the customer is looking for so that I could drop the ISBN into my own inventory system (which has, no matter where I've been a bookseller, has ever been so robust)

So why not turn things around, make a preemptive strike and offer customers a discount off any book that they first found on Amazon, but end up buying from your store's stock?  I'd suggest perhaps 20% as a good starting place, and adjust up or down to your comfort level. All they have to do is bring in a printed screen shot of the book on Amazon to your cash with the book from your store's inventory, and they get the discount, no questions asked.

The reality is (assuming most books have a 40% margin for booksellers), that if you don't sell this book by the end of December 2011, you'll be returning it to the publisher anyway. And taking a 20% hit off the margin at the retailer's most lucrative time of the year is, in my calculations, a much better prospect than the costs of returning the book during the year's most lowest volume month for book sales.

In any case, on Saturday Dec 10th I plan on doing an Amazon search and then printing off the screen shot, then bringing it to a local bookstore.  As I purchase the book, I'm going to make sure I inform the cashier or bookseller that I used Amazon to find the book, but then came to buy it locally in my own community from a retailer who pays local taxes, hires local people and supports my local economy.

I'm not expecting a discount for doing this - but it'll sure feel good making the gesture.

HNT - Getting Into Christmas Spirit

This week's HNT features a couple shots of the new Meaghan Smith CD that Francine and I got signed at her Hamilton show the other night.

In a beautiful story-tale way, it snowed in Hamilton the night before Meaghan came to town on her "It Snowed" tour. Beautiful giant flakes of the white stuff, sending a wonderful thrill through our son's heart (he already has grand visions of snow forts and sleds and shoveling).

No, the snow didn't stay, but it was still fantastic to see Meaghan perform "It Snowed" the next day, and the magic of seeing her perform certainly still lingers.

For those who don't know, the song (written by Smith) opens like this . . .

It snowed, it snowed, it snowed last night
Everything is sparkling with diamond light
The road is buried four feet high
Honey, let's play hookey 'cause it snowed last night

Francine, Alexander and I fell in love with the song a few years ago when we heard it on the radio while driving around looking at Christmas lights.

It Snowed is the title track off her new Christmas CD, a delightful addition to our Christmas music collection. I am, in particular, a fan of how she has modified some of the Christmas songs adding her own unique flair and style.

Getting to she Meaghan and her husband (Jason Mingo) perform was a special treat.  It was a small, intimate tour, not one for the whole band -- but perfectly suited for the intimate space The Pearl Company and the wonderful performance by the couple. Fran and I sat with a couple of friends I used to work with at McMaster, Laura and Matt - so it was fun to see them (Matt, knowing we were fans, poked me on Facebook to let me know about the forthcoming show - thanks, Matt!)

Meaghan has such a beautiful voice, a wonderful style and it was a real treat to see her and Jason perform and interact with the audience. We lined up to get our new CD signed and chat with the personable artist who stayed to see every single person who wanted to chat with her.

So, this week's HNT features my big giant thumb showing off the signed CD.

Good times - a fun memory of a great show, and now a great new holiday CD to add into our annual mix.

I Lost My Virginity at 16

I lost my virginity at 16. My Tesseracts virginity, that is.

Tesseracts is a long-running, award winning speculative fiction anthology series. Although I have submitted fiction to this highly competitive series (edited by a continually rotating assignment of editors) I haven't yet made it in. Thus I have thought of myself as a Tesseracts virgin.

A Tesseract is the four-dimensional analog of the cube

I suppose if I was going to lose my Tesseracts virginity, this is a delightful way to do it. So this time I get to wear my editorial hat and be involved in selecting the stories that will appear in the next incarnation. Tesseracts 16 guidelines were announced this week on Edge Publishing/Tesseract Books website.

I am tremendously proud and honoured that I am going to be the editor for this next round.

The theme for Tesseracts Sixteen is "Parnassus Unbound." The anthology will focus on art, music, literature and cultural elements which are integral to the story.  And yes, Parnassus refers to the Greek mythology of the fountain Castalia (at the base of Mount Parnassus) whose waters could inspire poetic brilliance.

Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound will be published in the Fall of 2012.

Full submission guidelines appear here: Tesseracts Sixteen Guidelines

Submissions close: Feb 29, 2012 (yes, a whole extra day)

HNT - Author Pic for Haunted Hamilton

In late September, my buddy Peter Rainford and I spent a few hours one evening touring around Hamilton and getting some night-time shots of various locations that I covered in my forthcoming book Haunted Hamilton: The Ghosts of Dundurn Castle and Other Steeltown Shivers, which is due out from Dundurn in August 2012.

We visited several spots and when we were at McMaster Pete took a few shots of me under the McMaster Tower archway. (McMaster being significant for me given that I worked there at the bookstore from 2006 until the end of Sept 2011 -- and yes, there's a chapter in the book about the campus I love so much)

In any case, here's the author photo that Dundurn is planning on using for the back cover of the book.

I thought I should share it now - and what better time to share than on HNT.

Photo © 2011 - Peter Rainford

And yes, I'm trying to look all serious and "authorly" in the photo. (But it does work much better than the terrified look on my face when I was doing the research for the book - man, some nights while I was compiling information I scared myself silly)

Not sure if they'll use a cropped version - one of the things I like are the shadows cast from the metal frame housing the light under the archway - adds a nice eerie feeling (or at least, I felt a little eerie when posing for the picture - but then again, I just at shadows - Pete had to calm me down a few times)

Speaking of forthcoming books, the reason I'm up so late and blogging is that I just read through, signed and sent back a contract for an anthology that I'm going to be editing. Details forthcoming.

2012 is going to be a busy year filled with two books coming out and at least one more being worked on. No rest for wicked writers I suppose . . .

Happy Half-Nekkid Thursday!

NaNoNoWri

I love the concept of NaNoWriMo (for those who don't know what it is, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. It was started in 1999 by Chris Baty and meant to be a socialization of a personal and "sole" activity. With the goal of writing 50,000 words in a single month (November), registrants post and share how they are doing towards that goal.

More than a quarter of a million people participate each year, and the number continues to grow.

I have participated in the past. I'll likely participate in the future again.

But right now, I'm just happy when I can get ANY writing done.

Which was why, Saturday morning, I got frustrated when my writing got cut short by an activity that frequently occurs when I'm in the middle of something.

I was "in the Zone" and composing what I thought was an important moment in a novel. I came to a part where one of the characters was going to say something about a subject where he was supposed to be knowledgeable and authoritative.

I, of course, was nowhere near authoritative or knowledgeable about the subject -- that's my cue to doing a bit of research.

And therein lies the mistake I made.

I took a quick moment to check a fact, do an internet search about a topic so as to ensure my character was speaking with the correct degree of knowledge. That "quick moment" of research turned into fifteen minutes of reading about the topic and about a related topic, getting drawn in and interested in learning more.

The next thing I knew, the writing flow had been broken. I was no longer in the Zone.

In that same fifteen minutes, I could have likely written another 500 to 1000 words. But alas, those words remain unwritten.

quill writing from wpclipart.com

This is a mistake I regularly make - the trick is catching myself in the midst of it so as to prevent the "full stop" that occurs. A strategy I have employed in the past (which tends to work) is inserting a note for myself to pay attention to during the re-write. So, instead of breaking the narrative flow by more than a few words, I insert a line in the middle of the sentence [just like this - just a few words] and then, satisfied I have recognized a moment that needs to be addresses when I have the time, I continue writing.

During the re-write phase, or when I'm about to quit for that session, I do the research and substitute in the appropriate word or detail.

Example.

Robert turned toward the instrument panel and noticed that [the proper technical name of the radial dial] was glowing [alert colour]. He immediately sounded the alarm and called Steve on his cell phone.

In the example above, once I do a bit of research to determine the proper technical name of the radial dial on the monitoring device Robert is looking at and whether the alert colour is red or orange, I return to them and insert the details.  Note that the research doesn't have to be into real stuff. This could be a piece of speculative fiction in which the instrument panel system Robert is observing is entirely fictitious but I need to look back to my own notes or where this detail was previously mentioned in the novel and merely fill in the info there.

It's a useful device. One I should remember to use so I don't get all carried away with the enjoyment of the research.

Black Friday OR "Occu-buy" Chaos?

One wonders about the whole "Occupy" movement. Despite the "we are the 99%" slogan being used in wonderfully, creative ways, the movement consists of a relatively small percentage of the population dedicating an incredible degree of time and effort into bringing a serious issue to our attention.

It all started just a few months ago and was gaining some traction world-wide.

Interesting though, that there are issues with a bunch of people wanting to stand up and make people pay attention to social and economic inequalities that exist throughout the world by camping and planting themselves in public places.

I suppose there isn't as big a deal made over the fact that, for Black Friday, a slightly larger group of people in many more parts of North America, were setting up tents and sleeping bags so they could "camp" outside retail spaces to be there when the doors began to open.

Cartoon 11/22 from Wesley's Cartoons - Dec 3, 2009

On one side, a bunch of disruptive people with a desperate message are looked down upon. On the other, those perpetuating capitalistic culture are just part of the norm.


And yet I look at incidents like the one recently reported in the Los Angeles Times in which a woman used pepper spray on her fellow shoppers in order to get to the deals first at a Wal-Mart and I just shake my head.

Cartoon: The Spirit of the Season from The Boiling Point by Mikhaela B. Reid

Google "Black Friday Violence" and you'll see this is a trend that has been growing.

Sigh . . .

HNT - Seeing Santa

This past weekend Santa arrived at Limeridge Mall.

We headed over to the mall to see the incoming mini parade which included Sir Topham Hatt (from Thomas the Tank Engine), a couple of ponies from My Little Pony, as well as a few other characters, bagpipe musicians and mall staff dressed as Santa's helpers handing out fun activity/colouring books for the kids.

I hoisted Alexander on my shoulders so he could get a good view through the crowd.  Then I readied my iPhone to take a few pictures and remembered that there was a front facing cam on my new iPhone. So I snapped a couple of quick pictures to test it out.

Then, as things begin to start, it was cute how he was yelling out: "I see Sir Topham Hatt!" at the top of his lungs as the characters began their march far far down the hall.

At that point we knew it was a good idea to take him to this. (We'd debated on attending the Parade in Toronto which was the same day, but the concept of the drive plus the possible 5 hour wait just to get a good spot just wasn't feasible given our schedule of activities and chores for the weekend. This little event was enough to kindle the fun excitement of Christmas without overpowering it with long waits and being stuck in a huge crowd far from the comforts of home)

I took a few pictures of the characters and Santa, but I'd been more eager to see the look of joy that I knew must be plastered on my son's face.

So I switched to the front facing camera and took a few shots.

Ahh - got to love this smile as the various characters are marching by.

And this one, waving at Santa as he passes in front of us.

Got to love Christmas, and, in particular, the excitement and joy my son gets in the various little traditions that we do together which make it that much more special.

An 80's Geek's Bookgasm

I think the best way that I can describe Ernest Cline's Ready Player One is as an 80's Geek's Bookgasm.

I'd leave it at that, but I feel I should at least discuss how I came to discover and enjoy the book.

First, let me blame Mark and Jon of The Enthusiasticast. It was in Episode 72 that Jon starting talking about this novel by Cline. Before he was even half-way done, I was practically salivating and knew I wanted to read it.

No, I didn't want to read it.

I wanted to listen to the audio version read by Wil Wheaton. (I'd previously enjoyed listened to Wheaton read a few of his own books and knew he was an excellent narrator. Having Wheaton as the voice for this 80's "nerdgasm" was the perfect fit.

Throughout the listening (most of which was done via my 1.5 hour commute from Hamilton to Toronto), there were times when I just sat in the car and kept listening to the novel. And half the time, when traffic was so bad that I was stuck on the highway for up to 2 hours or more it didn't bother me in the slightest - because it meant I had more time to listen to the book. It was the perfect thing to soothe this commuter's soul . . .

In a nutshell, Ready Player One is set in a dystopian future in which a huge cross between social media and online gaming exists in a virtual world called The Oasis. The Oasis was created by billionaire James Halliday -- (think of him as a cross between Steve Jobs and Howard Hughes - hmm, maybe more of a John Hughes, given his love for that film-maker`s popular movies from the 80`s)

When Halliday dies, there is an announcement that his entire fortune will go to the person who can succeed in finding the 3 hidden Easter eggs that he planted somewhere in The Oasis. An entire culture of people dedicate their lives to finding these eggs - and it is, the way online gaming can become for some, an overwhelming obsession that takes over their lives.

A good deal of the Gunters (the "Egg Hunters") role is studying and leaning about Halliday - about the things he wrote, the things he said, the things he loved. Because Halliday was a product of and a huge fan of the 80`s (he was a teen in the 1980's) a good deal of understanding of where he might have hidden the eggs comes from understanding and knowing 80's pop culture.

This element of the book makes it an incredibly wonderful trip down memory lane for anyone who enjoyed the John Hughes teen movies of the time, playing Dungeons & Dragons, the very first text-based adventure games, the hype of Pac-Man and the video game arcade frenzy, and a slew of other pop culture music and movie references from the time.

Combine that with an intriguing set of characters (who are often extreme in their dedication to this virtual world and the hunt), a beautiful mirror held up to our current fascinating with online and mobile connectedness via social media, and an easy to approach style of writing made this a fantastic novel that I simply couldn't get enough of.

To top it off, the Canadian rock trio Rush ends up playing a significant role in the novel -- as a huge Rush nerd that completely blew my mind.

Being a fan of sci-fi, a fan of dystopian fiction, a lover of the 80's, a lover of Rush and a fan of Wil Wheaton it seems as if this novel was written for me -- or at least that I was one of the intended audience for this book.

But perhaps you might see how this novel was a kind of bookgasm for this particular 80's book nerd.

Thanks, Mr. Cline. Escaping into Ready Player One the way that many of the characters of the novel escape into The Oasis was a glorious treat that I fully enjoyed. Having the book read by Wil Wheaton was the perfect icing on that cake.

Needless to say I highly recommend this novel - but only if you're serious about 80's geek culture. If you are, chances are you'll have similar strong feelings. If you're not, you'll likely still enjoy the storyline, the twists and turns and the tension, along with the various plot strings that Cline sets up, but it's hard to say how you'll react to the strong 80's presence in the book.

HNT - CSC2011

Yesterday I spent the day networking with the great folks from Campus Stores Canada.

It was an odd sort of reunion, because for the past few years I had been a CSC member and attending as a campus bookseller.

This year, though I was there to do a presentation about the POD success I had at McMaster University with the bookstore's Espresso Book Machine, my name tag was showing my role as: Director, Self-Publishing & Author Relations for Kobo, the company I now work for.

It was fantastic to see so many great folks from the campus side, and share great POD information with them, but, of course, also chat about Kobo, talk with them about getting content from them (particularly those campus stores who are already offering self-publish POD services. When I was at McMaster I had set up an account with Kobo so that any self-pub clients who wanted global ebook distribution could get it through that Kobo relationship - and I was encouraging folks using EBM's to do the same thing and thus expand their business through mutually beneficial partnerships. By the end of the day, I had a handful of new folks who will be setting up an account with us, giving their authors a new sales channel and great presence.

It was also fun showing many of them the Kobo Vox.

I didn't take any pictures while there -- so busy that I neglected to whip out the camera to take any pictures . . . . so I thought I'd share a photo from way back. A shot taken of Paul Wilde (from U of Alberta bookstore) and me in front of the EBM at their store - the first in Canada and the third location in the world to embrace the POD technology back in 2007.

Good times!

Just The Boys Writing Scary Stories Together

Francine flew off to Banff on Saturday. (Okay, in the interest of accuracy, she flew to Calgary then took land transportation to Banff).

Fran's trip left Alexander and I to our own devices this weekend.

The original thought was that, without Francine's calm head, and clear guidance, and proper influence, Alexander and I would be running wild all weekend, having nothing but pizza parties (okay, we did have one, but ate a healthy, well balanced home made meal Saturday night and a nice hearty breakfast on Sunday), playing video games (well, yes, we did that too, but just for a couple of hours at the neighbour's house), and making huge messes (okay, we did make a few little ones, but we also did some cleaning)

But here was the funny thing.

We spent a lot of time writing.

All week, Alexander has been talking about wanting to write a story on his computer. I told him we'd have a chance to do that on the weekend.

So, Saturday morning, after he woke up he joined me down in the den. I was working on a revision to a novel and across from me, he was beginning his first experience at typing up a story.

I helped him figure out some of the basics such as how to open Word and save a new document, how to BOLD a selection of text and how to delete and replace a word.

Here is his first attempt at a story he was itching to tell . . .

Immediately after writing, then printing this first draft of his story, he took out some pencil crayons and added some illustrations to it. I love it. I think I'm going to have it framed.

Then, this morning, during the Sunday morning father and son writing session, he expressed the fact that the story wasn't over and he had more to tell. I was delighted to hear this. I then explained to him the importance of re-reading the previous day's work and working on a second draft. As part of this exercise, I asked him to explain a few things to me.

When I told him that the first sentence didn't make sense because it wasn't a proper sentence, he explained that it was an overview/summary of the story. So we talked about it and he modified it slightly and I suggested that he add an indicator that it wasn't part of the story.

Then we had a quick chat about POV. I gently explained that he couldn't write "Alex" using a third person narrator, then revert to "we" and "me" -- but that he had to keep the point of view the story was being told from consistent.

He immediately caught on and said: "I should change Alex to I." I nodded vigorously.

Then I explained a bit about past and present tense. I wasn't even half-way through my intended explanation when he said: "I need to change it from see to saw."

"Exactly!" I said.

"And change run to ran."

"Precisely!"

So he made the changes and then began working on the next "chapter" of his his story.

At a certain point, because he kept asking me how to spell words, I took him up to his room and we pulled out two difference dictionaries he had there and brought them downstairs. I showed him he could look up words he wanted to know how to spell in either his The Cat in the Hat Beginning Book Dictionary or his Macmillan First Dictionary. (The latter was a bit more sophisticated and had a lot more words and more descriptive meanings).

He was rather pleased with the exercise of looking up words he didn't know how to spell, but then he asked why he would use more than one dictionary and I showed him Daddio's four different dictionaries, and told him that writers often use these types of writers tools to help them, depending on what was important at the time.

We didn't get into the hundred or so other writer guides and other reference books on the shelf to the immediate left of my writing space. Those lessons will come at a future day.

I was initially pleased at how productive this past weekend was for my own writing. But I'm tickled pink, and as proud as can be to see my son enjoying the simple yet powerful act of pouring his creative spirit into words on a page.

HNT - Down With The Old, Up With The New

As I began to write this I took at quick look back at the last few posts. The previous four were about Halloween, and I noticed I have not been blogging regularly. I suppose that's because I used to blog early in the morning before getting ready for work as part of my daily morning writing routine. (I began blogging as a warm-up to actual writing)

But the new job and 1.5 hour morning commute takes that time away. Sure, I could get up at 4 AM rather than 5 AM, but I'm needing between 5 and 6 hours of sleep a night, and that would cut into that in a bad way.

Still need to figure out optimum writing times. (Hmm, maybe actually taking a lunch break at work might do the trick - a difficult task when I enjoy my job so much that it doesn't feel like work.)

In any case, today's post is another HNT one - at least I have the HNT ritual to ensure that I blog at least once per week.  Today's post also refers to -- one last time for a while at least -- Halloween.

On Saturday, Alexander and I spent a couple of hours taking down the massive Halloween setup from our front yard. And on Sunday, with the weather being so absolutely gorgeous (particularly for November), Francine suggested that we put up the Christmas lights. She's a smart gal, that Fran - often reminding me of the challenges of climbing across the roof and slipping and sliding on a cold, icy surface when I wait too long to get those lights up (Of course, when Fran suggested it mid week after hearing the weather forecast, Alexander was itching to get started every day when I got home from work last week)

This week's HNT pics are of Alexander and I on the roof preparing to complete our task. (Yes, he has been involved in helping get the decorations up since he could walk - although it's only in the past few years he has been coming out onto the roof with me - when he was two he used to pass me the decorations through his bedroom window then point out where to place things.)

And I just couldn't bare to take pictures of the putting away of the Halloween decorations. It's still too painful to think about . . .

HNT - Halloween 2011

Francine and I have always loved Halloween. It's thus natural that our son Alexander would love it, too. Usually, once August ends and the first days of school begin, Alexander starts to talk about setting up the Halloween decorations in our front yard (yes, we tend to go "all out" on this) as well as what costume he'll want to wear.

This year, being mad about everything Star Wars, he dressed as Captain Rex one of the lead clone troopers from The Clone Wars (an animated series which takes place in the time between the 2nd and 3rd installment of the prequel series - a war eluded to by Obi-Wan back in the very 1st Star Wars movie when Obi-Wan and Anakin fought side-by-side before Anakin turned entirely to the dark side)

Since Alexander was Captain Rex, I was going to dress up as Obi-Wan, only I didn't decide in time to grow a beard. So perhaps I'm Anakin (the black I'm wearing might suggest that), or maybe just some miscellaneous Jedi "guest-star" for a single episode . . . you know, like the disposable ensigns on Star Trek that get killed off . . .

In any case, it was another fun Halloween.

How many days is it until Halloween 2012?

Music With Halloween Spirit

Alexander & Francine's Jack-o-Lantern for Halloween 2011

I always feel the post-Halloween blues kick in at about the same time I go to blow the candle out in the Jack-o-Lantern for the night on the evening of October 31st. A strong part of me wants to keep that candle lit for a few moments more as I peer down the street hoping for just one last trick or treater to come calling.


That's usually when my mind starts trying to conjure ways to bring back that beautiful Halloween spirit that the rest of the world shares but which I seem to hold in my heart for most of the year.

This time, I began composing a list of songs I'd love to mix together to celebrate Halloween. Sort of a virtual "mixed tape" like the ones we used to make when we were younger.

Here's the list I came up with:

Don't Fear the Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
Running with the Devil - Van Halen
Time Warp - Rocky Horror Picture Show
Witchy Woman - Eagles
Clap for the Wolfman - The Guess Who
Ghostbusters - Ray Parker Jr.
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Boris the Spider - The Who
Devil with a Blue Dress - Mitch Ryder & Detroit Wheels
Welcome to my Nightmare - Alice Cooper
Crazy Train - Ozzy Osborne
People Are Strange - The Doors
Thriller - Michael Jackson
Tubular Bells (Exorcist Theme) - Mike Oldfield
Let's Go Crazy - Prince
Witch Doctor - David Seville
Werewolves of London - Warren Zevon
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Iron Man - Black Sabbath
Black Magic Woman - Santana
Witch Hunt - Rush
Highway to Hell - ACDC
Sympathy for the Devil - Rolling Stones
Monster Mash - Bobby "Boris" Picket

Maybe if I put together a playlist like this I could bring back just a bit of the Halloween spirit. Or at least, when I hear some of these songs throughout the next 364 days, it'll help rekindle the dying embers of that wonderful feeling of Halloween.

What songs would you add?