Went to a book launch last night...

...and got to say "hi" to Julie Czerneda, Derek Kunsken and Mark Shainblum again. Turns out that, last night at Perfect Books on Elgin Street, this was the actual "book birthdate" for Julie's new volume, The Gossamer Mage. I don't go in for fantasy work - unless we're talking urban fantasy in general and, arguably, super-heroes in particular depending on whether you consider super-heroes to be either SF or F - but Julie's a good wordsmith, so you might want to give The Gossamer Mage a look.

I do think the weather yesterday afternoon with its thunderstorming had a negative effect upon attendance, but then I arrived later than I planned. I left for the first bus I needed to catch twelve minutes before it was supposed to arrive. The bus failed to arrive as scheduled, though, so I had another half-hour's waiting. Oh well. At least, I got there, right?

NEWSPAPERS: Changing the Guard at the Centretown Buzz

I don't live in Centretown, but I've been reading the Centretown Buzz off and on over the last decade, in large part because of the editor-in-charge for most of that span, one Kathryn Hunt. She's been a fellow contributor to Spacing Ottawa alongside yours truly, and there's been the SF&F community here in Ottawa-Gatineau which has provided other connections. Those connections will continue, I expect.

But...she's done with newspapers. At least for the time being.

I hope that we maintain - nay, improve upon! - our respect for non-daily newspapers. They're covering ground that the dailies are increasingly prevented from, and the CBC can still only do so much despite all their well-performed budget-stretching tactics. And there are so many 'blogs out there, even now.

FYI: If you want to see her commentaries about being a dedicated year-round bicyclist, here's that blog.

More on other stuff later...

CRIME: Weird Phone Scams

I may or may not have mentioned getting odd phone calls where the speaker at the other end was speaking in one of the Chinese dialects. A friendly acquaintance at National Capital FreeNet pointed out this article:

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/10/609117134/chinese-robocalls-bombarding-the-u-s-are-part-of-an-international-phone-scam

POLITICS/CANADA: Media Ownership and Elections, Revisited

I'd call this one more very real risk re: the Canadian federal election in October. One enabled by concentration of media ownership.

https://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-new-worry-about-the-next-election-your-daily-news/