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I'm writing this on the train to Ottawa - the wifi is a big buggy, but at least it's there. FanExpo is over, and I had a wonderful time.
Today, I divided my time between the trade show and the gaming room -- the crowds weren't as bad as they were yesterday, except in the line to see William Shatner. As much as I would have liked to have seen him, ( Read more... ) -
FanExpo Canada: Day 2
Day 2 at FanExpo: seething crowds; shoulder-to-shoulder crush in the trade show - people with one-day passes who weren't able to get into the show until mid-afternoon because the lineups were so long. Thank god we had Premier passes (and in any event, it's fun walking around with a tag that has VIP on it ( Read more... ) -
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Took a day off work today to go to FanExpo Canada in Toronto with Elizabeth, Marcelle and Patti. While I had been to three Worldcons, I had never gone to FanExpo, which is actually a much larger event. FanExpo is not like an SF con in that the focus is more on the trade show than on the programming, although there are some panels, speakers and ( Read more... ) -
In memoriam: Shirley Thomson
I had originally intended that this blog be exclusively about Scrabble and boardgaming, but a person who had an enormous impact on my life died earlier this week and I wanted to use this space to pay tribute to her.
The first time I met Shirley Thomson was on my first day at work at the Canada Council for the Arts in 1999. I had, of course, seen ( Read more... ) -
Home, briefly...
Back in Ottawa for less than 24 hours. We're doing 3 loads of laundry and re-packing the car in preparation for our journey to Nova Scotia tomorrow. I'll be going into the office to do a bit of work in the morning, while Jim finishes the packing and picks up Foxy. Then we're off.
WBC was an exhausting but gratifying experience. For those who aren ( Read more... ) -
The tyranny of dice
Scrabble players often discuss the extent to which luck is a factor in the game, especially after the kind of game in which your opponent has all the power tiles, and you're stuck trying to swap your multiple Us or Is...more than once. Many that I have spoken to suggest that that among players of approximately equal ability (lets say within 200 ( Read more... ) -
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I have often been asked about the difference between Scrabble tournaments and boardgame tournaments, and given that the World Boardgaming Championships happens during the same week as the National Scrabble Championship -- and I'm attending the former -- I thought it might be interesting to talk about those differences. When I first started playing ( Read more... ) -
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I'm sitting outside the ballroom at the Lancaster Host Hotel, surrounded by my fellow participants in this year's World Boardgaming Champonships. This is my 9th or 10th WBC (I missed two years because I went to Worldcon instead), and it's an amazing event -- the boardgaming equivalent of the Scrabble National Championships. We came down a bit ( Read more... ) -
ACE Institute
Today is the last day of the Association of Association of Cooperative Educators Institute in Cleveland. It has been a fascinating experience, and although it is related to my work, it somehow didn't feel like work. I met fascinating people and learned a lot about Ohio and the economic challenges people in this state and this country. Over the ( Read more... ) -
Cleveland, OH
I'm in Cleveland, Ohio for the Association of Co-operative Educators conference, which is directly related to my job at the Canadian Co-operative Association, It is a fascinating conference and the participants are a good mix of academics and co-op practitioners ( Read more... )