Prove You're NOT a Robot

Cyber bots have found Jamie Tremain.

Bloggers want comments – it gives vindication to our existence and reassures us that our posts are being read.  Desiring comments, we’ve tried to make this blog as user friendly as possible.  We turned off the word verification thing – often you can’t decipher what code is being requested anyway – deciding instead to moderate posts, which are attended to as quickly as possible.  I get its purpose, but really sometimes its ridiculous, and have personally given up in frustration on other sites because of it.   A quick google search on the subject finds no fans.  Seems to have become a necessary evil of the internet.  Perhaps eye scans will be next.    However, a similar idea to prevent telemarketers from getting through on the phone would have a lot of appeal for yours truly!

Pam has had a busy week in the writing world and she’ll soon be posting on her activities of last night – The Arthur Ellis Short List.   Can I bemoan the fact that I’m missing out?  Working to pay the bills, just like word verification, is a necessary evil. Although I enjoy my work and the colleagues I spend each day with, I wish I could be in two places at the same time!  And even more I’d love to have my day structured around the writing life instead of trying to fit it around my working life!  

But I digress – back to the trouble with spam. This week’s spam offerings were quickly dispatched to where they belong – the trash.  However, one struck me as humorous enough to share.  English as a first language is obviously not a strong point of the cyber-bot, but I can see the connections.

A tooth (plural teeth) is a cheap, calcified, whitish order initiate in the jaws (or mouths) of many vertebrates and used to defeat down food. Some animals, surprisingly carnivores, also exercise teeth repayment for hunting or for defensive purposes. The roots of teeth are covered nearby gums. Teeth are not made of bone, but to a certain extent of multiple tissues of varying density and hardness. The general systematize of teeth is nearly the same across the vertebrates, although there is of distinction modulation in their shape and position. The teeth of mammals be struck by deep roots, and this design is also initiate in some fish, and in crocodilians. In most teleost fish, manner, the teeth are partial to to the outer outside of the bone, while in lizards they are fixed devoted to to the inner come up of the jaw by way of a man side. In cartilaginous fish, such as sharks, the teeth are seconded around cold ligaments to the hoops of cartilage that accumulate the jaw.

And now its time for me to go and defeat down some food.

Have a good weekend – and hey, if you enjoyed the blog, why not sign up for email alerts.  We’ve made that easy too.  Just up and over to the right above our photo.   Easy peasy.

Cheers!

Liz

The Hangman

I have finished re-reading Body Perfect and now I am ready to start the revisions. It was exciting to read the story again after about six months hiatus as we finished Madelaine. From the beginning Liz has said that this could be a series. The characters are strong and could just as well move on to the their next case with no problem at all. I did not find much I wanted to change in the story and not much grammar and typo errors. We will see what my partner says and start work on the conclusion with a natural move to the next in the series.

What a learning curve this has been for both of us. I subscribe to oodles of magazines on writing and search the internet. Of course my library is full of help from different authors and editors but I find I learn the most from the books that I enjoy and now try to emulate.

The nominations for the Arthur Ellis Award. (Arthur Ellis is the nom de travail of Canada's former official hangman.) These awards are for the best crime novel in Canada and I am excited about three of them as I have met them personally at one time or another.

Louise Penny who we hope to chat with at the conference. She is nominated for her latest book " The Murder Stone". Wonderful book in the Armande Gamache series.

Linwood Barclay is a former Toronto Star humorist. He has been nominated for his second stand alone thriller called "To close to Home". His previous work was called "No time for Goodbye"and was the best selling novel in Britain in 2008. I will try and read his latest book before the conference. He was a speaker at the Elora Festival where I first met Louise Penny.

The other author is Maureen Jennings. I met Maureen at "Word on the Street". A super festival that they hold at Queens Park every summer where you can listen, meet and greet all your favourite authors and find all things literary. Maureen was manning a table with a slew of books all with her name on them. I bought one that looked interesting and asked some inane questions like, "How long have you been writing". Well it should have been obvious as she was very prolific. I was not familiar with her work. When I was at home that evening settling down to watch some television a series came on I had not seen before. It was the "Murdoch Mysteries".
Maureen is their creator.
Good luck to all of them.

Talk soon,
Pam