Sunday, October 28, 2007

The Evolution of Hand Gestures

And for all of you hoping this blog is about dirty, obscene hand gestures, keep surfing my friends. No, what I'm talking about is our outdated handsignals for stuff we never do anymore. Like phone.

I like the phone hand gesture. I'll see if I can describe it, but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. One hand, up by your face. Your thumb is the ear piece, your pinky the talky part, and the rest of your hand is presumably, the phone. You can do this hand gesture across a great distance while mouthing "Call me." Although the mouthing part is optional since everyone knows what the gesture means.

But what's the getsure for "Text me?" "Email me?" "Check out my Blog?"

I got nothing that doesn't involve holding both hands in front of yourself typing away on an imaginary keyboard. Not nearly as cool and sleek as the Call Me gesture.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

And We're Off!
It has finally arrived! Ashleigh and I are off to our first writer's conference. I'm flying out to Vancouver to stay with Ashleigh and then it's 3 fun filled days of conference stuff (how to write effective dialogue! How to create suspense! How to get published!) and 1 fun filled day of hanging out with Ash.

Even though Ashleigh and I were separated at birth, we've not actually met in person, so this should be super fun! We work together and email and msn nearly every day, but have never had face time.

And I haven't been back to Vancouver since I was there in 2002 (I think - don't you hate how when you get older you lose track of what year you did what?). I'm looking forward to seeing some stompin grounds! and the IHOP - sorry jenge, if I could bring it back for you, I would!

Saturday, October 13, 2007

A Guy Named Jack

I was talking with Jenge the other day, and I asked her, what is it with the name Jack? It seems to be Hollywood's de riguer response to a character that needs a solid name. A man of action, yet one who may be slightly emotionally tortured and probably carries some emotional baggage. A guys guy. Someone the men in your life wanna be him and wanna hang out with him - have a couple of beers with the guy. The women want to date him - possibly rescue him, depending on the situation. I'm so over JACK! I've decided I'm NEVER using the name in any of my books.

Think I'm nuts? Check out my list:

Jack Ryan - The Hunt for Red October
Jack Sparrow - Pirates of the Carribean
Jack Traven - Keanu Reeves in Speed
Jack Twist - Brokeback Mountain
Jack Bauer - 24
Jack Bristow - Sydney's dad on Alias
Jack O'neill - Richard Dean Anderson on Stargate
Jack Shephard - Matthew Fox on Lost
Jack Tripper - Three's Company
Jack Malone - Without a trace
Jack Dawson - Titanic

It only took me 5 minutes to make that list. imagine if I had really tried....

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Who's makin' all the money?
The Canadian dollar is currently slightly above the US dollar. For weeks, months, it has been slowly on the rise, until finally, it surpassed it.

But I've yet to see any difference in my online shopping sites. Which is why I've jettisoned my .ca sites and am now shopping .com.

Who's making all the money?

If my dollar is currently as good, nay better (!) than it's US counterpart, why on earth would I pay 21.95 for a book at Amazon.ca that will cost me 14.95 at Amazon.com?

Jenge and I have wanted a Dyson vaccuum for a while, and while LnT is offering it for 500.00, online browsing has shown it to me for 350.00. Slap on 50 bux shipping and handling, I'm still coming out with 100 bux extra in my wallet if I buy from the US.