I don't know what is sadder. Me, sitting here blogging at 1 am from lack of a job to hunt for this summer, or Jorgh, who is sitting next to me reading AD&D forums and responding to sad, sad, posts about how a bunch of loser weirdos can't accept documented scientific facts about how the brain actually uses more than the 10% that "common wisdom" tends to dictate.

Actually, Jorgh has a stats masters to write, hence something to do... So I'm the sadder one.

I content myself in the definite trend of the "baby-boomer" teachers retiring now, and that I am a science teacher-in-training, hence I won't have a difficult time looking for a job after I hopefully graduate by December 2003. Ahh, the joy of finishing... But then $20K of student loans doesn't really comfort me much.

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I was productive today. I made sushi maki, chocolate chip cookies, and started my review of the foundations of physics to ground myself before I attempt a modern physics class in french at Université de Montréal in the fall. That reminds me, I must register for that one.

And I found out that Montreal actually has an annual sci-fi/fantasy convention. Man, you'd think they would advertise more in such a large city of Klingon cosplayers, but what I heard is that last year there was an attendance of 340 regulars, plus some "friends of...". It seemed at first like a small enough event to ignore, but then I looked at the guest list...

DAVE DUNCAN

of A Man of His Word and A Handful of Men series fame is going to be an author guest of honour! *gasp!*
Okay, no one understands how incredibly hard it is to find his old series ("old" in that it was published in '90-91, and then no longer published in print) anywhere in Canada, where it is not 40 odd bucks for a hardcover copy that you can only get through the internet. I do not have a credit card, nor am I interested in getting one anytime soon (sorry, spammers), due to not having an actual non-loans income. Hence, the only option I have is to rummage the second-hand bookstores in Montreal, and that is a bit of several weeks of rummaging I don't think would be particularly rewarding for me, simply because I am not interested in getting any other fantasy series.

I got the first one of A Man of His Word, Magic Casements, from my church's rummage sale in 1994, where they were selling these books for 25 cents a piece. It was probably well that my mum bought it, because I certainly would not have bothered even going through these books. I'm not much of a reader, you see. I'm more of a creater. Of crap, yes, but still a creator.

Then I read it. And I wanted MORE. Well, mostly because it was the first book of a four-part series, and the author left it at a cliffhanger, of course.
Then I tried to find others, but there were none where I was at (Quebec City). Sometime between 95 and 96, I managed to procure the second book, Perilous Seas, from the really big book store ("The Biggest Book Store In The World"(???)) in downtown Toronto. I read that, and then I forgot about looking for the last two.

And then in university, around a few years ago, I tried to look for the books again, but to no avail. Jorgh was told it was no longer in publication nor in supply. Nope.

Mr Duncan has his books in e-book format, but I do not trust the internet with any sort of money transfers at all. I would rather walk thirty miles to the store that I would buy my computer box, carry it all the way home, and make another trip to get the huge monitor box with monitor inside, carry it all the way home, and then sleep off the exhaustion for a few years, before I get a credit card to order it online and have the company make the delivery to my appartment. All this to say that I don't trust the internet at all. Sure, muggers on the street moreso, perhaps, but at least I'm getting robbed in person, and not by some faceless moron.

I hope now I might have the opportunity to tell Mr Duncan that I wish I could find the rest of his books so I can find out how it ends... *weep* I've been waiting 10 years to find out... *sob*

Then again, I'll live.

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After browsing so many (incomplete) sites about anime in Montreal and Quebec, in general, I think I wanted to make a site about anime resources etc. in Montreal. All I found so far was a couple of links to various things