2011 in review for The Shebeen Club Blog
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Not bad, considering we took half the year off!
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,900 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.
Face Up to Facebook
Face Book
It has begun.
We’ve gotten a notice that our beloved (well, we’re being generous) Facebook Group is scheduled to be Archived. This means basically the four or five pictures we’ve got will stay and pretty much everything else will be gone. Sooper.
And we cannot convert it into a new style group, because there hasn’t been enough recent activity. And that means for our future plans, you will have to either keep checking the blog, buy raincoaster and Ian drinks at the Heather (and we all know how expensive that can be, right?) or wait for a hand-delivered message on parchment, and who has parchment lying around handy anymore, seriously?
You see where we are going with this, right?
Please, please, for the love of the printed (or pixillated) word, go to our Facebook Group and comment, like, or share something.
WE ARE NOT FUSSY: YOUR COMMENT CAN EVEN HAVE TYPOS AND GRAMMATICAL ERRORS OR EVEN BE IN ALL CAPS AND THIS ONCE WE WILL NOT MAKE FUN OF YOU.
VCon Debrief: the Shebeen Club for October 3
VCon Poster
Calling all SciFi fans… just a quick and dirty note to let you know our next Shebeen Club meeting will be this coming Monday, October 3, upstairs at the Revel Room, 238 Abbott Street just off Water in Gastown. Once again, they’re laying a special menu on for us as part of the meeting, for only $20: please pay your proprietor Ian Alexander Martin of Atomic Fez publishing. Dinner and a drink is included with your admission.
VCon, for those of you who live in the 17th Century, is the biggest event of the year for speculative fiction of all kinds. We’re hoping to coax a few special guests to overcome their shyness and share Monday with us. Given that the guests of VCon run the gamut from Larry Niven to, well, the Shebeen Club’s Fearless Leader, it’s guaranteed to be an entertaining and speculative indeed crew.
Please note: the Shebeen Club meeting is NOT officially a cosplay event. But discreet Spock ears are welcome.
6pm-9pm Monday, October 3 2011, Revel Room Upstairs lounge, 238 Abbott Street, Vancouver
$20 cash includes dinner, a drink, the VCon debrief, and our glamorous and scintillating company.
This is short notice, so while RSVPs are welcome, they’re not compulsory. Just show up with your smiling face and try not to wear a red shirt.
Jack Layton was afraid of NOTHING I tell you!
Larry Niven is Now a VCon Guest of Honour!
Larry Niven, author of the “Ringworld” series of books
Yes, that Larry Niven!
Apparently the original writer Guest of Honour (or ‘GoH’) Dr. Gregory Benford is unable to attend VCon 36 due to an unavoidable summons from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (aka: DARPA). As the organizers of the September event put it: “America needs him”. Look for him to be among next year’s Guests at VCon 37 in the autumn of 2012.
If you need to learn more about the specifics about him at the event, head here to the page on the VCon web-site.
VCon is is held from September 30 to October 2, 2011 at the Sheraton Vancouver Airport Hotel, in Richmond, near Westminster Highway and #3 Road. I’ll be there, both as a panel member and in the Dealer’s Room selling books I publish.
VCon is the oldest general-interest science fiction and fantasy convention in Canada and the Pacific Northwest. The convention has promoted the interests of science fiction and fantasy fan culture in Vancouver BC and its environs since 1971, offering events and exhibits focused on a variety of Science Fiction and Fantasy fandom interest areas such as literature, art, media, music, costumes, comics, games, etc.
VCon is organized by a subcommittee of the West Coast Science Fiction Association — a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement and understanding of science fiction and fantasy fan culture in Vancouver BC and its environs. VCon is not, nor will it ever be, owned by a big business or corporation. For now and for as long as efforts continue VCon will be a convention built “For the Fans, By the Fans”.
Pet Peeve (Part of a Series): Mis’-Use of the Apostrophe’
Sweet Mother of God: thank Heavens someone is still willing to take on this topic!
I don’t buy the argument that dialogue won’t sound believably kid-like if it’s actually grammatically correct. Read any book by Natalie Babbitt or E.B. White or Norton Juster, and you’ll be reassured that good grammar wielded well is invisible and takes a back seat to story and character every single time. Whereas I can’t even finish an easy reader in which a talking animal says “I’m taller than her.” No, you’re not!
Head here for the article ‘Apostrophes Don’t Mean, “Here Comes an S.” ‘
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