[  Mood: Sleepy ]
[  Currently: Listening to CBC Radio One Podcast – Quirks and Quarks ]
This book is the sequel to Gregory Maguire’s hugely succesful Wicked.

This is the tale of Liir, the son of the Wicked Witch of the West. The tale follows Liir from just after Elphaba’s death to his eventual realization that he has powers and must do something to continue his mother’s legacy. Not as solid a book as Wicked, nor as gripping as Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, but still a good read.

[  Mood: Angelic ]
[  Currently: Eating Breakfast ]
Just finished Sandry’s Book, book one in Tamora Pierce’s Circle of Magic series. A very nice genre kids book. This one focuses on four children who posses elemental magic. They are brought to the Winding Circle temple where they begin to learn about their powers and teamwork.

Pierce is a very good author and her books get better as she goes along. Her world building is well crafted and thought out. And her characterization is well developed. Every girl is not petite and blond. The boys aren’t all strapping and handsome.

Neat piece about friendship.

[  Mood: Fed Up WIth Life ]
[  Currently: Reading Sandry’s Book ]
Just finished Twelve Sharp, by Janet Evanovich. (Blew my back out gardening so lying on my side with a book is about all I can do. And no, Harry Potter has not arrived yet.)

This series tells the story of Stephanie Plum, a not so good New Jersey bounty hunter. She tends to go after the lower level skips along with Lula, the former prostitute, turned file clerk, turned bounty hunter, turned back-up singer. Higher level skips are given to Ranger, a mysterious ex-marine who would like to get between the sheets with Stephanie. Her on-again/off-again bed partner is Morelli, a New Jersy cop.

Part Harlequin, part keystone cops this entry sees Stephanie learning more about the mysterious Ranger. There’s a woman who claims to be his wife and his daughter has been kidnapped. On top of it all, Ranger has disappeared and Stephanie is being stalked by a Ranger wanna be. Oh yeah, and with Ranger gone, she gets to go after the bigger fish. And bigger fish tend to be more dangerous.

A pretty good outing for Evanovich this time. We find out more about Ranger, but once again the Range/Morelli issue is not resolved. Which is getting frustrating for me.

She should just dump Morelli and go with the Ranger man. Who cares if he won’t marry you? He has a housekeeper!

A gripping autobiography of Ayan Hirsi Ali, the Somali woman who became a member of the Dutch Parliament. She later went to make on a film called Submission Part 1 with Theo Van Gogh, who was later murdered because of it. She provides a fascinating look at the clan culture of Somalia (where many of my students come from) and the modern Dutch society (my father was born in the Netherlands).

[  Mood: Happy ]
[  Currently: Watching Coronation Street ]
Just finished reading this lovely memoire and although it is not a genre book, I had to mention it here.

A beautifully written book about Marlena’s falling in love with a Venetian man she has just met. Apparently the man, Fernando, had been in love with her since he first saw her a year ago. A whirlwind romance follows and Marlena moves to Venice to live with Fernando and negotiates her way through her new life.

The language is beautiful in this book. There were turns of phrase that had me alternately chuckling and weeping. For example: "I pull an Aereonautica Militaire sweatshirt over one of Victoria’s oldest Secrets, slip into Wellies." And given that she is a food writer, Marlena includes recipes of some of the food she cooked.

Go get this and read it. Very beautiful.

[  Mood: Amused ]
[  Currently: Reading Fistful of Charms ]
So I was relaxing with some reading after I finished a batch of strawberry jam when the phone rang. The woman identified herself as Cami and wanted to speak to the lady of the household. Last time I checked, this was me.

After having identified myself as the lady, she said that she wasn’t selling something, that this was a survey and would take 90 seconds. I like surveys so I said go ahead.

She then launched into a preamble about how many parents feel that the ratings system has become too lenient and that TV shows for children are becoming too violent and many parents feel helpless to respond. Now I went to University and took Poli Sci 100; I know about how you can influence someone’s response to a survey question with the preamble. At this point I engaged in some thought and asked myself, what was the agenda behind the call.

When she finally got to her question, if I agreed or not. I said no.

This surprised her, and she began a rant about how TV for children was getting more violent. At this point I was bored, so I told her the call was over and I hung-up.

I then got up, looked up the phone number on my call display and Googled it. I came up with this page. As you can see from the comments, this kind of stuff is their modus operandi.

I then search the Dove Foundation itself, and came to their website. A Wikipedia page reveals many more goodies.

This organization appears to have an alternate agenda to sell you products under the guise of looking out for the children. Now who really is warping the morals and values of our society?

After lunch Sunday, it was a quick whip back up to the autograph line to get Ron Glass’s autograph. The prices this year had all stabilized to $20 no matter what you were signing. In previous years I have seen it as high as $35. He was very polite and charming. Then back to the art show to help out. Lest you think I spent too much time in the art show, they got me into the con free, so no complaints.

Teardown is an interesting part of a con. Hauling down all the art that has not been sold. It is interesting to see which artists do well and which do not. Sometimes it is all about how you display a piece. Other times it’s about who the guests are.

Then it was back to Katie Sackhoff‘s autograph line. She was a Sunday only guest. As I was sitting in line, one of the ConCom walked through the line announcing that Katie would not sign a certain photography. It was an artsy shot of Katie in bed wearing nothing but a sheet. There was rampant speculation in line that it was a Photoshop effort. Husband unit was at her talk where she was asked about the photo. Apparently, she was convinced to do that photoshoot when she was much younger and now regrets it. Hense why she is refusing to sign.

While waiting in line, Marina Sirtis came by to have a chat with a woman next to me about Coronation Street. It seems she is a huge fan of this British Soap. So am I, so we had a pingfest, as they are known.

I made it to the back half of Ron’s talk, and it looks like today the questions focused on Firefly. Ron was okay as a guest, but it was clear that he didn’t quite understand the whole con thing. I wonder if this was his first appearance. The Toronto Browncoats gave Ron a birthday card.

After that it was off to the Con Bitch panel. One of the things I love about Polaris is that they actually care what you think. Unlike the previously mentioned profit based con. The Con Bitch panel is where people like me go to tell them what they did right and what they did wrong. And they actually listen, engage in a dialogue and write things down. What an idea.

Then it was back to the hotel room to do the update, but the computer died. This also means the couple of pieces I was working on for Rev SF will be delayed. Sorry Joe.

So that was Polaris – a great con. They have already signed Rachel Luttrell from Stargate Atlantis for next year, and my membership has been bought. So tune in same bat time, same bat channel.

[  Mood: Sleepy ]
[ Currently: Drinking White Tea ]
Hey all!

Back from the con. You may be wondering why I have not finished my con reports. Or maybe you are not and I am only talking to myself here.

My laptop suddenly died Sunday night as I was working on the update. So I will try and reconstitute the subtle humour and genius of that post ASAP.

Kisses!

[  Mood: Happy ]
[ Currently: Drinking Tea ]
Continuing with last night’s narrative

At 6:00 pm, I returned to the Art Show to help with the last hour before bidding closed on the art show. This meant I ran the Print Shop for awhile. A pattern has emerged. As soon as I sit down, the Print Shop gets busy. By 6:30, I was at the front door, acting as gate keeper and announcer. I got to warn people of the impending closure of the art show. Then at 7:00 pm, we shut down, kicked everyone out.

The Husband Unit, the Artisan and I went for a yummy dinner with crappy service at Milestones across the street.

We made it back to the hotel with enough time to change and get back downstairs for the art auction. I wore a dress! Dear god.

As we were heading down, the Artisan wondered if the masquerade had started. The Masquerade is the costume contest at Polaris and it is famous for starting late. We later found out that the masquerade had still not started at 9:30, the time the art auction started.

Initially at the auction I was to be a listener. Then I got promoted to auctioneer. And let me tell you, those are huge shoes to fill. People come to the Art Auction to watch the regular auctioneers banter at each other and try to convince you to go higher with your bids. Except those guys were at another con, so people had to put up with Husband Unit and I. I got a few laughs from the crowd and compliments after the show.

After dealing with some of the post-auction sales and pick-up, it was too bed.

This morning it was back to the art show to help with Sunday Sales.

Very busy day – and I am off to my Sunday PM activities.

Talk to you later.

[  Mood: Cool ]
[  Currently: Eating Grapes ]
Morning again.

I didn’t get a change to do a blog last night as I was exhausted after a very full afternoon and evening and collapsed into bed.

After lunch yesterday I returned to the autograph line to get Tori Higginson, Marina Siritis and Eric Avari’s autographs. I mentioned before that this con has special needs accommodations. I have very flat feet and the hotel ballroom floors either never had under padding or the under padding has been worn away to nothing. This means that after about 30 minutes of standing, I am done for several hours. Luckily, the con will put me in a special line with chairs. This doesn’t mean I get through any faster as they do a great job balancing the needs of the all, but it does mean I can enjoy the con with much less pain.

Autographs were fine. Marina chuckled at my real name, and I had to explain to her that it really was my name and that I had been in possession of it for 36 years. It made the personalization very special. Eric Avari was also lovely, commenting that he had a niece with my name. We chatted briefly, it is an autograph line after all.

I got out of the autograph room halfway through Ron Glass‘s presentation, so I decided to return to the art show to help out. I ran into Husband Unit there, and he told me that Ron had been a wee bit boring as he had talked only about Barney Miller.

At 3:00 pm I attended the screening of the television adaptation of Tanya Huff’s Blood Ties. Tanya is one of my all time favourite authors. She writes well and has a sense of humour. She is also a geek. Now the first thirteen episodes of this series have already aired in the US and the rest of the freaking world. Here in Canada, they will not start until August. It was good, very good. I plan to do a review for RevSF once I return to Ottawa.

5:00 pm saw me at a Heroes panel, that was packed. The panelists were very good, as were the audience. The most exciting part of the panel occurred when one of the panelists dared to suggest that Peter didn’t need Nathan to save him and New York at the end of the season, that he could have done it himself, given that he could fly. A group of women that I like to call the Peter Patrol did not like that at all and went on the attack. Some of it was a little shrill and emotional. It was like putting a Klingon into a room full of Tribbles. Even without that excitement, we could have gone on all day. An hour was not enough time.

Well I must away. I will blog what I did from 6:00 pm on at a later time.