Pfizered!

2021-04-29T03:55:00

  days

  hours  minutes  seconds

until

Partial Immunity Fully Achieved

…which is a confusing way of putting it, but I’m sure you follow, given all the helpful explanations in the news.

This means that I can also start this countdown.

2021-08-15T08:00:00

  days

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until

Allowed to Get 2nd Dose

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
26 April 27 April 28 April 29 April	A story best thought of as carb cleaner for my writing engine. A probably over-ambitious edit on “Legion of Candles”.	Nine pages! Needs to be under 5000 by month end, currently… 6008. *gulp*	PenBBS 500 Pelikan 140 Pilot Vanishing Point OMAS Arte Italiana	TWSBI Blue Monteverde Malibu Blue Namiki Black† Diamine Honey Burst

Yes, indeed; production! I won’t tempt fate by proclaiming myself cured, especially with a story I don’t expect to ever see the light of day, but there’s a glimmer of optimism to be seen.

†You won’t actually find this on the linked page (yet) but… I mean, it’s black ink. One is very like another.

Onions Making Me Cry

This is overstating the matter (CLICKBAIT!), but I am definitely inclining lachrymose because of onions. Well… onionskin, which has nothing to do with actual onions.

If Alexander the Great can weep because he has run out of world to conquer, I’m allowed to get misty for lack of an item of stationery.

I can cure my sadness more easily than the Macedonian wanderer, and I probably will order one before too much time goes past.

I won’t urge you to also get one, but if you haven’t experienced onionskin… you’re missing a treat. Among my early memories is finding a small supply of onionskin in my father’s home office supplies, and being amazed at it. It’s neat stuff.

Today’s pen: Pelikan 140
Today’s ink: Monteverde Malibu Blue†

† I’ve had this ink so long that I forgot I hadn’t done a sample of it while I was doing samples last week. Yet more work!

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
26 April 27 April 28 April 29 April	A very little work on the website	Most of the stuff I’ve been saying I’d update.	OMAS Arte Italiana Sheaffer Balance Craftsman PenBBS 500 Sailor Pocket Pen	Diamine Honey Burst Diamine Writer’s Blood TWSBI Blue Jentle blue-black

Baby’s First Media!

For this week’s Friday Film, I’m presenting some stuff I made myself!

Relax. They’re short.

The first is, as it says on the tin, just me messing around in the Vimeo toybox. I have my son’s permission to use his image, by the way. I cannot say the same for J.G. Diefenbaker, but as he’s a public figure and dead, I don’t care. For all I know, the thing he’s signing is the cancellation of the Avro Arrow, one of several things I don’t like him for.

The other thing is a Public Service piece, showing how to work the mechanism on the Wing Sung 618, and it will appear soon (ideally by next Monday, if I don’t get dazzled by other things that want attention) on a page for that pen on my site, along with some extra explanatory text.

Once you know the trick, it’s very nearly a really good filler. If I can figure a good way of fixing the ring in place, it will be a really good filler.

Today’s pen: Sailor Pocket Pen
Today’s ink: Jentle blue-black

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
26 April 27 April 28 April 29 April	“Willful Murder” (working title). Something I’ll present tomorrow	4 manuscript pages (again?!). Simultaneously more and less effort that you’d think.	PenBBS 500† Pelikan 140 OMAS Arte Italiana Sheaffer Balance Craftsman	TWSBI Blue Monteverde Malibu Blue† Diamine Honey Burst† Diamine Writer’s Blood†

† So, clearly I didn’t get any updates on the site on the weekend. I got distracted by the possibilities of…

OK, it’s a little circuitous. My wife acts, and since the provincial government chased film production out of the province a few years ago, she’s been concentrating on the stage. This outlet to her creativity was somewhat stifled by the current plague, since live theatre is exactly the sort of thing the phrase “super-spreader” was invented for.

The theatre has decided to push on with the new season, though, and my wife has been cast in a leading role. How this? They’re presenting Sorry, Wrong Number in its original format– a radio play. I will, of course, offer a link when the play goes public; the “no public gatherings” command has been turned into a disadvantage, as local theatre goes online and global.

I’ve been on the fence about getting a (somewhat) decent microphone, and this has pushed me over the edge. Our Yeti Snowball arrived this week… but that’s just the catalyst. Since I’m having trouble wringing words out of my head, I’m spreading out into other media.

…and I’ll roll some of that out tomorrow.

Who Needs a Hug?

No big messages today. Just something to assist in relaxing* at the end of a trying week.

*Experience may improve with beer, liquor or some surprisingly (yet not shockingly) expensive chocolate which is perfectly legal in Canada.

Today’s pen: Parker 65
Today’s ink: Herbin Poussière de Lune

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
19 April 20 April 21 April 22 April	“Willful Murder” (working title)	4 manuscript pages (like pulling teeth, it is!).	Sailor Pocket Pen PenBBS 500† Pelikan 140 Sheaffer Balance Craftsman	Jentle blue-black TWSBI Blue Monteverde Malibu Blue† Diamine Writer’s Blood†

† I am going to try to get a load of updates to the site complete this weekend, because this is getting silly and I really want everyone to see what Writer’s Blood looks like– it’s an amazing dark burgundy. I say “try” because a large chunk of my Saturday is taken up with a meeting of the Sask Writers Guild board meeting.

Life as a Terrifying Chimera

I am told, by very silly people, that the mRNA vaccines against the current plague will REWRITE MY GENETIC CODE, TURNING ME INTO AN INHUMAN MONSTER!!1!

I guess it’s a good thing I’m done making children, then, because mRNA was stuffed into my left arm yesterday. Now I are monster, blarg, gr.

No, wait. That’s not how this stuff works. Here’s how this stuff works:

None of this addresses the MIND-CONTROLLING MICROCHIPS!!!1!1 which are also a concern of extremely silly people, but that’s because it’s an extremely silly concern. I’m honestly more concerned that the phrase “about fifty years ago” applies to events within my lifetime rather than the setting of Back to The Future.

Today’s pen: PenBBS 500 (in lieu of a page, a picture of the item resting on a beloved item of outerwear)
Today’s ink: TWSBI Blue

Day	What	How Much	Pen	Ink
12 April 13 April 14 April 15 April	“Willful Murder” (working title) More of that faffing I mentioned last week.	4 manuscript pages. See below.	Pelikan 140 Retro 51 Tornado Parker 65 Sailor Pocket Pen	Monteverde Malibu Blue Krishna Pakeezah Herbin Poussière de Lune Jentle blue-black

When vanity-googling some year back, I discovered that I had an entry in the Internet Speculative Fiction Data Base. After being momentarily surprised that there was such a creature, I allowed myself a warm glow of imagined immortality– evidence of my presence which offered to outlast me (modern post-humanist thinking in the utopian spectrum notwithstanding).

Later, I found it had been updated to show my appearance on Pseudopod.

Later still… nothing. No updates. Because it relies on public effort, and is (or was) a little mysterious in how to do entries.

Last week, the ISFDB came up in online conversation, and I decided it was time to take the bull by the figurative horns (unless you are an agile Minoan, avoid doing this literally), and discovered that either it has become easier to add entries since I last looked at it, or I’m substantially more smartlier. Now not quite all of my published work is documented there. Along with a bunch of other folks, because it’s magazines and anthologies. Have a look, if you like, but be warned– there’s a picture of some kind of skunk-ape on the page. Very alarming.