This is what comes when someone who has seen far too many cult movies in his life comes back to playing Lego with his kids.

Who says we have to wait until New Year’s to make resolutions?

This may be foolish of me, and I may not be able to do it, but I’m resolving to write a blog post every day this month.

It may be a foolish resolution because I already have a lot on my hands. I am coming to the end of my real estate project, but I have two non-fiction manuscripts that need doing, another new non-fiction project, and more work to be assigned by the broker. This is over and above whatever time I can borrow to work on my fiction, or on Transit Toronto, or to post to the Kitchener Post (the latest column is now out and can be seen here).

But I’ve been disappointed at the slower pace my blog has taken over the past year or so. I haven’t written as much as I used to, and the motivation to write hasn’t come nearly so easily. I can’t help but feel that the readership has dropped, and when I do write, I’m talking to a bit of a vacuum.

However, I didn’t start this blog to gain an audience. I started this blog because I was curious, and because it was an opportunity to just sit down and write. It was like a diary or a writers’ notebook that I’d opened up to the general public. And I think that it helped make my writing better.

Remember the advice that writers give to others who ask how to get their writing published is to “write, write, write!” While I’ve been doing as much writing as I’ve been doing at any time in my life, I feel that it has gotten pretty focused, and I need something freeform so that I don’t get stuck in a rut. Indeed, exercising my mind so it doesn’t just slip into a particular mode of writing will help those other modes of writing, I think.

I can’t promise that every post I post in February will be as long or as well thought out as the last post of January. I can’t even promise that I’ll be able to keep up the pace, but I aim to try. I need to shake myself up. Consider this my own personal, blog-related, not-necessarily-fiction NaNoWriMo. Except in February.

Which would make this month’s project, what? PerBloWriMo? I’ll get back to you on that.

No. Nope. I didn’t think so.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll remember that soon after Rob Ford became mayor of Toronto, I compared him to former Mayor Larry O’Brien of Ottawa.

To me, the comparisons were obvious: Like Ford in 2010, O’Brien was elected Mayor of Ottawa in 2006 on a wave of “throw the bums out” sentiment. Like Ford, O’Brien received a strong mandate with 47% of the popular vote. Like Ford, O’Brien was a jocular personality with a combative personal style. Like Ford, he seemed likely to confront council rather than consult with them. Like Ford, when O’Brien won his election, commentators suggested that the next few years at his city council were going to be Very Interesting Indeed (tm).

If the parallels between Ford and O’Brien continued, things did not look rosy for Ford. O’Brien went on to cancel an already approved LRT project, earning a stiff lawsuit from the manufacturer Siemens (the LRT was eventually put back on the table and design work is underway). Relations between O’Brien and his council deteriorated sharply, such that the phrase “gridlock” started to be applied. Two years into his mandate, O’Brien had to stand up in front of council and apologize for how fractious the first half of his term had been. Two years later, he would go down to defeat to a moderate former Mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson. O’Brien received just 24% of the vote, compared to Watson’s 48.7%.

A year ago, as the then dismal fiscal numbers of 2012 approached, I was sure Ford would have the same fate: he and council would butt heads, and the public would sour. I predicted that Adam Vaughan would be Toronto’s mayor in 2014.

But two weeks ago, after the 2012 budget vote, I actually thought about revising this prediction. I thought that Ford’s chances of re-election had improved — not because he had won the budget vote, but because, in some ways, he’d lost. After a year of having his own way on council, a majority of councillors had stood up to Ford and had approved a $15 million reduction in the budget’s service cuts, restoring TTC service and preserving library hours and a smattering of other small gains. Council had stood up to the Ford administration once before, taking down its ill-considered and rushed revision to the longstanding Waterfront plan, but this was different. This was a trend.

The thing is, Ford could have played this as a victory. Sure, council had stood up to him, and yes the body language of Ford, his brother Doug, and council ally Giorgio Mammoliti, all suggested that this was a bad loss, but the numbers could be played otherwise. Entering into budget discussions with an anticipated $772 million shortfall, Ford and council had balanced the books, limited the property tax increase to just 2.5%, and shifted a $100 million surplus into overdue capital projects and reserve funds, while at the same time using $15 million to blunt the harshest of the city’s service cuts. And, indeed, on some of Ford’s press releases, this is how he played it.

When this happened, I was struck by the fact that there is one critical difference between Ottawa and Toronto. Ottawa’s council has one mayor and ten (correction: twenty-three) councillors. Toronto’s council has one mayor and forty-four councillors.

In Ottawa’s case, the small size of its council meant that it was easy for two power blocs to form and talk past each other, creating gridlock. In Toronto, the larger council size produced three power blocs. On one side, there was the hardline left wing of around twelve-to-fifteen councillors who could well vote against free ice cream if Ford supported it. Opposite them was the hardline right, again with twelve-to-fifteen councillors who would back Ford even if he had vampire fangs and glittered in the sunlight (damn you Stephanie Meyer!).

Between these two groups, however, sat roughly fifteen councillors, with a diversity of political interests between them, but who are generally categorized as being in the centre. Generally these councillors are quieter, more thoughtful, and have a wider range in their voting records, and they’ve been maligned as being “the mushy middle”. The thing is, these centrists hold the balance of power in what is essentially a minority parliament in Toronto city hall. To them, their job isn’t about standing up to or standing alongside Mayor Ford. At the end of the day, their job is to is to make the city work. The budget has to be balanced, and if cuts have to happen to make that balancing act work, so be it. At the same time, the city operates important services that its citizens need, and if taxes have to be raised so that these services can continue to be offered, well then so be that as well. These councillors were more interested in coming to a consensus that would serve their constituents to the best of their abilities, and it is up to the left and right on council to lobby these centrist councillors for the votes needed in order to make their agenda happen.

It was these centrist councillors who offered a ray of hope to those of us looking for more negotiation and honest debate on Toronto’s City Council. There are merits to aspects of the political viewpoints of both left and right on council, and there is a wider obligation for council to serve all Torontonians, not just that 47% that voted for Rob Ford to be mayor. And had Ford’s administration understood this and accepted this, they could have ramped down the political rhetoric at city hall considerably. They could have had an easier time passing their future agenda.

What they should not have done is dug in their heels. And unfortunately, two weeks after that glimmer of hope for productive discussion at Toronto’s City Hall, this is what the Ford administration has done.

Mind you, this could have simply been a case of bad timing. The issue that has come up appears to be something that Ford has chosen to define his mayoralty around. The problem is, it may be the least sensible and least fiscally conservative policy on his platform.

Recently, a growing number of councillors have openly questioned Ford’s decision to unilaterally cancel Toronto’s Transit City proposal — a plan to create a network of LRT lines stretching across the city northern suburbs, and an eerie parallel to Larry O’Brien’s cancellation of Ottawa’s approved LRT project. On day one, after meeting with TTC General Manager Gary Webster, Ford announced to the world that “Transit City was dead”, and that instead he would pursue a policy of building subways for Toronto. Weeks later, he and Dalton McGuinty issued a Memorandum of Understanding which would route the province’s $8.4 billion — pre-approved for Transit City — into an Eglinton LRT modified to operate fully underground rather than partially on the surface for $2 billion less. In exchange, the City of Toronto would be responsible for extending the Sheppard subway to the Scarborough Town Centre (a $4 billion expense), which Ford claimed would be easily paid for by private interests.

A year later, the man that Ford picked to study the Sheppard subway extension is reporting that full private funding is impossible. The Ford administration has talked about hitting the province up for $650 million (taken from a potential but unrealized surplus in the Eglinton LRT’s budget) to fund an extension to Victoria Park. It is becoming clearer that Ford’s decision to cancel Transit City and shove the Eglinton LRT entirely underground was a foolish one. He is even losing some allies, as principled fiscal-conservatives are noting that by going with the original plan for the Eglinton LRT, $2 billion could be freed up for a more modest Sheppard extension, and bus rapid transit along Finch.

Ford has chosen to be entirely dogmatic in his approach to the transit file. Any measure that he believes might obstruct the progress of cars is a measure he opposes, this despite the fact that such transit projects would end up serving more people on Toronto’s streets. He turned down an offer of $2 billion from the provincial government to fund his Sheppard subway because doing so would have put the Eglinton LRT in the middle of Eglinton Avenue from the Don Valley Parkway east to Kennedy Avenue — never mind that Eglinton would have been widened so that no traffic lanes were lost. He claims that voters elected him to build subways, even though his transportation plan was one of the least publicized parts of his platform, and he never took the time to explain to the public just how much more such construction would cost. He claims that people have spoken to him about this, and these are the people he’s listening to, but then he ignores the many more people who have shown up at city hall to ask that their services not be cut, so who, really, is he listening to? The answer seems to be his dogma.

The next few months are going to be interesting. Left-leaning councillor Mihevc prodded the issue with a stick by gaining a legal opinion that Ford’s unilateral axing of Transit City was illegal. Key Ford allies like Karen Stintz are noting the foolishness of operating the Eglinton LRT fully underground. The issue appears to be coming to a vote in March. The local media, who salivate over political conflict at city hall, are providing blow-by-blow commentary. The Ford administration itself is enhancing the feel that this vote is to be taken as a confidence motion, which isn’t exactly ramping tensions down. But, then, it simply may not be possible for Ford to ramp tensions down.

It is the height of irony that if Ford had gone to council a year ago to approve his decision to kill Transit City, he likely could have passed such a resolution with a strong majority of councillors. He chose not to, because that’s how Rob Ford rolls. He’s the goddamn mayor, and council answers to him, not the other way around.

Except that it is sort of the other way around. A working majority of councillors can most definitely overrule the mayor when he oversteps his bounds or proposes policies which are unpopular or foolish. Which is what Ford has done.

It’s interesting how things change. Two weeks ago, Ford could have reached out to the middle of council and built the $15 million reduction in his service cuts into a more conciliatory approach to dealing with the items on Toronto’s agenda over the next two years. He might not have gotten everything that he wanted, but he probably would have gotten his way more often than not. But he chose not to do this, and the middle of Toronto’s council has been forced to pick sides in the war between the council’s equally intransigent left and right.

The thing is, nobody likes bullies. And while there are leftist councillors who can match councillors on the right in terms of fervency of dogma, it’s Ford that currently has the power, and the willingness to use that power to spitefully punish those who don’t tow his line. But that power is largely illusionary. The reality is that power on Toronto’s city council goes to those who can reach out the farthest and build enough bridges to gather a majority of councillors. And on a council as diverse as Toronto’s, such a majority is more likely to stay together through conciliation rather than brute force. The Ford Administration has failed to do this, leaving a power vacuum that the middle is starting to fill.

So, today, I do see one thing in Ford’s future that won’t mirror Larry O’Brien’s past: I don’t think Ford will apologize to council at the end of this year for the gridlock he helped cause. Quite simply, I don’t think he has that the humility for it.

I suppose I should be grateful that we now have a decent snow cover out there. For weeks, now, winter has seemed late in coming. We’ve had unusually warm days where I haven’t needed to put on a coat. In January. That can’t be right. And while warm and sunny days are welcome, regardless of the season, I couldn’t help but chuckle wryly as I listened to the Weather Network state their take on this season, while trying to stay upbeat. Across many parts of North America, they said, snow cover which had, only a few years ago, been 150% above normal, was now just 12% of what it should be. This was called a “snow deficit”.

Snow deficit, huh? Is that the fancy phrase you use when you don’t want to say “drought”?

Truth to tell, I would appreciate winter if it were colder, brighter and shorter. I’m not phased if the temperature dips down to old Fahrenheit Zero. I’ve been through Fahrenheit Zero and felt an incredible sense of accomplishment. And the way the sun in a clear sky reflects off of snow makes up somewhat for the lack of light in the rest of the season. What I really hate is yo-yo-ing temperatures and grey skys. If we’re to have winter, give us winter! Make it hard, make it bright but, most importantly, make it end. That way, I can look forward to the change of seasons.

I have been noticing that the sun is setting later these days — it’s now possible to be outside at 6 p.m. and still see light in the sky. That gives me some hope. Though the idea that we have another sixty days to go before spring is basically guaranteed weighs heavily on the shoulders.

As you can tell from the fact that I haven’t updated this blog since Monday, it’s been busy here, yet again. I’ve been hard at work on a project for the real-estate broker I worked for back in August. The work is appreciated, not only for the pay, but also for the fact that I’ve been able to put my long-dormant planning skills to work again. The work is also mostly done, though the remaining parts are proving to be frustratingly finicky.

In other news, my latest column for The Kitchener Post is now out. I greatly appreciate being allowed a soapbox upon which to spout my passions about public transportation. Your comments are appreciated.

Other than that, there’s little to report on the blog, though I still hope this will change in the near future. I am, as ever, waiting for news. Keep your fingers crossed for me…

I’m sure we kind of already knew how fast food restaurants tend to exaggerate the quality and size of their offerings on their advertising, but this photo essay by Dario D is still a fascinating read. I especially liked the comment that McDonald’s Third Pounders burgers, as advertised, wouldn’t fit into the boxes they’re actually served in.

Link courtesy Yahoo News.

Food photography in general, though, makes compromises, since what looks good in a picture sometimes isn’t possible with actual food. So a question I have is, could you actually make a hamburger that looks just as it does in the fast food advertising and would it be edible? How many calories would it have versus what is actually served?

I do believe the Internet may have exploded.

Work continues apace for me. The Kitchener Post web site has worked though its problems, and my two latest columns are now online here and here. Enjoy!

It’s a new term here at the community centres, and that means new swimming lessons for the girls. It also means dance lessons, finally, for Nora, and the start of karate lessons for Vivian.

Grandma Rosemarie (and other grandparents, I’m sure) have been looking forward to Nora graduating to dancing lessons. She’d been so excited to see her older sister dancing and she’d wanted so much to do the same, wear the frilly tutu and the slippers and go go go. They’ve especially been wanting photographs of Nora in her dancing dress (see above). Unfortunately, dance lessons filled up too rapidly this past fall for me to get Nora on the list. I lucked out, though, and found a lesson taking place in the early afternoon and signed Nora up, only to find the class cancelled due to low attendance, and Nora moved to the later afternoon. Which turned out to be even more convenient, since Vivian is taking karate lessons at the same time in the same building.

It’s ironic, but Nora’s getting into dancing just as Vivian’s leaving it behind, preferring to concentrate on the “ninja” part of her “ninja princess scientist” title. I signed her up for karate this term, and her karate suit has just arrived (see below).

I think my parents are expecting to discover broken glass and splintered wood at our house any day, now. But I do remember my own karate classes, how they taught respect and discipline as well as the cool moves. In this respect, I think the skill is useful and good for Vivian, and she knows well enough not to do something that will break things at home. Though, yes, the risk is noted.

I should mention that yesterday was the launch of Susan Fish’s Storywell venture, and the launch party was a very successful event held at Whole Lotta Gelatta in uptown Waterloo. It sounds like Susan has generated a lot of interest in her creative venture, which attempts to nurture the creativity of others in her local community with editorial help, workshops, proofreading, et cetera, and I wish her a whole lot of good luck. Erin’s involved, as is my mother, so it’s something rather close to my heart as well. Good luck, all!

The Kitchener Post is having some website issues, which is preventing them from uploading content from their most recent issue, but I am in it. I wrote a column which quoted Terry Prachett’s “Sam Vimes Theory of Economic Injustice”. How much of a geek am I?

Posting is again slow here, so from that you can guess that I’m gainfully employed. My writing work at the apartment brokerage has ramped up again, and should be demanding a fair chunk of my attention over the next week. However, I have taken breaks, and have managed to watch the second season of Sherlock, enjoying A Scandal in Belgravia and The Hounds of Baskerville.

After watching The Hounds of Baskerville, a small fan fiction scene popped into my head, and I decided to write it down. Here it is below, very close to a first draft. Enjoy!

The Absurd Cypher

“Password, John!”

Watson blinked. “Sorry, what?”

“Your password, John.” Holmes snapped his fingers. “How can I be clearer? I’m sitting in front of your laptop, trying to log into your Gmail account. Whose password would I be asking for if not yours?”

“You want the password to my Gmail account?” Watson echoed. “My private Gmail account?”

“Come on, John!” Holmes snapped. “The hacker is attacking your accounts, not mine. So I need access to your e-mail.”

Watson glowered. “Well, why don’t you just guess what my password is? Everybody else seems to be doing so, these days.”

Holmes smacked the desk. “John, I don’t have time for this! If my brother were here, he would say that the fate of the England rests on this. I don’t have his flair for the overdramatic, but it is safe to say that there are lives depending on this information, and we are wasting precious seconds. So if you would please stop sulking and tell me what your password is.”

“All right.” Watson coughed and looked away. “It’s… bananapants.”

Holmes froze. He leaned back and looked up at Watson, eyebrows up.

“Bananapants, just what it sounds like,” Watson continued. “Lower case. All one word.”

Holmes’ eyebrows edged higher.

“Well, how long would it have taken you to figure that out?” asked Watson.

“Quite a while,” Holmes replied. He nodded. “Impressive, John.”

Watson shrugged. “Well, I had to do something. After you figured out that general’s password was ‘maggie’ after one minute looking around his office?”

“So, you picked something that was completely random — absurd, even,” said Holmes. “So I would have nothing on which to grab a clue. Brilliant, John. Brilliant.”

“Well.” Watson smiled. “Thanks. I’m… glad you think so.”

Holmes turned back to the laptop and typed in the password. “Of course, I’ve now guessed what your next three passwords will be.”

“No you haven’t!”

“Yes I have!”

“Prove it!”

“Poopyhead.”

Watson paused. “Lucky guess.”

“Stinkleberry.”

“Okay, now you’re just showing off.”

“Badoozlebutt.”

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

Further Reading

• Sherlock Holmes’ Personal Website
• John Watson’s Blog

I spotted a variant of the above poster during an afternoon visit to my local Tim Horton’s. Instead of “So long little one” and an “X” through the cup on the left, the writing above the cup on the left says “extra small”. Beneath the cups was the following announcement:

We’re changing the names of our hot cup sizes.

Starting next Monday, the names of our hot cup sizes will shift to accommodate our brand new 24oz Extra Large cup. For example, a large Double-Double will become a medium Double-Double. There isn’t a change in the price or the amount of beverage — it’s only the name of the size that’s changing.

Except that, had I not known about this change (which had no other advertising copy in the outlet), I would probably have ordered “an extra large, triple cream”, expecting a 20 oz cup at $1.71, and received a 24 oz cup at a higher price.

What’s a little bit disturbing is that I probably will still order “an extra large, triple cream”, and pay what the cashier asks for. Indeed, I expect the overwhelming majority of Tim Horton’s customers to do the same.

I’ll give the local franchisees credit for not dropping the smallest cup size entirely, as has been the case in a number of test markets across Canada, renaming it “extra small” instead. But Tim Hortons is fooling no-one if it suggests that changing the names of the cup sizes won’t result in most customers choosing to order the larger sizes and paying the correspondingly higher amount — something which profits Tim Hortons considerably, I expect, due to the economies of scale.

Yes, a person who wants a 20oz cup of coffee that used to be an “extra large” and is now a “large” can change their order from “extra large” to “large”, but they won’t. Because we’re creatures of habit. Worse, most of us are trying to deal with the fact that it’s morning and we haven’t had our first cup of coffee yet. Does Tim Hortons’ seriously expect the majority of us to be able to wrap our heads around new menu choices that early in the morning?

No, I don’t think they expect that of us. In fact, I kind of think they’re counting on us not doing so.

“I’m so tired, I’m seeing five different sizes instead of my usual four!” / “There, there, poor customer, have an extra dose of coffee to perk you up and figure this out!” / “Gee, thanks, Tim Hortons! — Wait a minute…”

I think we have seen the future of Tim Horton’s, and it is downright scary. See below:

[Picture source here)

My latest post at the Kitchener Post is now up, and can be accessed here. We’re actually just back from the vacation described within, having spent two nights at the Great Wolf Lodge in Sandusky, Ohio.

My column gives you all the reason we eventually decided against spending time in Florida or Cuba or the Dominican Republic. What we got instead was an experience the children should remember for a long, long time.

Sandusky, Ohio, was a six hour drive from Kitchener, and the border crossing was easy. The Great Wolf Lodge itself was located on your basic suburban arterial road, right next to a Steak ‘n’ Shake drive-in and a Mayer-anchored power centre. On the outside, the only way to tell that it’s more than your typical hotel is the presence of waterslide tubes poking out of part of the building, looping around a while before diving back in — and that in itself isn’t too atypical; we’ve seen that on larger chain hotels during our trips to Des Moines.

The Great Wolf Lodge itself puts on a Canadian northwest air, despite the fact that it’s probably as far from the Canadian Klondike as Sandusky itself is. There are totem poles holding up the roof by the front door, and a mechanical clock in the library with anamatronic furry animals and a native American figure that I later learned was named “Yellowfeather”. There were snowshoes hanging on the wall beside our hotel room bed.

Erin and I were not entirely sure how we felt about this, but the kids didn’t notice. How could they, when their attention was dragged to a four-storey tall indoor waterpark located behind the front lobby?

The waterpark itself is worth the price of admission alone (and we got a good deal of about $150 per night). There are almost a dozen waterslides ranging in speed and complexity from those made for little kids, to things that were definitely not for the faint-of-heart. There was a huge jungle-gym of water that kids could scramble all over.

The centrepiece of the whole arrangement was found at the top of this jungle-gym: a big (and I do mean big) bucket perched about four storeys in the air, gradually filling with water. As the bucket filled up, a bell would start to ring, and the whole thing would start to tip forward. Kids and adults alike would have about twenty seconds to rush to the splash area, where they would be dumped on by about a hundred gallons of water or more. The splash actually produced a visible shockwave of mist, and delivered a gust of wind to those who were outside the splash zone.

Well, let me tell you that Vivian was in heaven. Nora enjoyed herself too, although she tended to stick to the toddler’s splash pool. The food was overpriced — as is usual for hotel fare — but of good quality. The girls were sad to leave when we did (we checked out at eleven, but were allowed to stay in the waterpark until midafternoon on the day of our departure), but two nights is probably the best length of time to stay at this sort of place, before you wear out your own welcome.

We intend to go back again, but may check out the Great Wolf Lodge location in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The only reason we chose Sandusky over Niagara Falls was because the Great Wolf Lodge there had rooms that were $250/night cheaper than the hotel in Niagara Falls, which surprised me. Given the competition of Niagara Falls’ many attractions, I wouldn’t have thought that the lodge there would have priced itself so high. Sandusky is surrounded by some beautiful scenery around the shores of Lake Erie, but at first glance there seemed to be so much less to do around there (except go to the Thomas Edison museum).

So, if you have kids, especially young kids in the 5-10 range, a vacation at the Great Wolf Lodge might be a good investment if you want to get to some place wet and wild, but can’t afford the airfare to Florida.

One of the neater gifts we received this past Christmas came from grandpa Wendell and grandma Judy. Vivian is now old enough to appreciate Lego and, more importantly, Nora is old enough not to take the Lego pieces for candy and make necessary a visit to the emergency room. And with Daddy never quite outgrowing his affection for the modular bricks (because, really, what self-respecting geek would?), parents and grandparents alike have been more than happy to ply the little tykes with the stuff.

An off-hand joke on the comedy series Community asked, “when did Lego get so complicated?” It used to be just about the bricks. Then the bricks became buildings and the buildings became trains. Suddenly there was Death Star Lego, and Harry Potter Lego. Lord of the Rings Lego is set to debut this summer. The gifted set from Wendell and Judy, labelled the Harry Potter Hogwarts LEGO game is yet another step up in complexity. Not only do you have a game to play, you actually have to put the game board together.

Which, if you are a Lego fan, is a heck of a lot of fun.

The set comes with instructions to build a game-board version of Hogwarts castle, the school of wizardry and witchcraft which is the centrepiece of J.K. Rowling’s literary empire. The design mimics Hogwarts admirably, while functioning quite well as a game board. One addition I made after the fact, however, was the use of a large baseplate (which the board was perfectly sized for). Without it, the game was less than stable on the carpet, and tended to crack.

The game itself admirably and ingeniously reflected the spirit of Harry Potter, in my opinion. It’s a simple premise: there are four classrooms at the centre of the classroom, each accessed by “staircases” that ring the sides of the game board. Your goal is, moving one square at a time, enter each of the four classrooms to collect four tokens (divination glasses, scrolls, magical creatures (spiders or frogs), and potions) and then return to your assigned commonroom (there are four pieces in the game, representing the four houses of Hogwarts — Gryffindor is red, Slytherin is green, Ravenclaw is blue and Hufflepuff is yellow). The player that gets all four pieces and makes it back first is the winner.

Complicating the process is that squares in the game — like the stairwells at Hogwarts — move. By rolling a dice (which you make yourself out of Lego), you have a 50-50 chance of getting to remove an empty staircase, and then sliding the pieces this way and that 1, 2 or 3 times. You also have a chance to roll to rotate a square, to make your task of entering the classrooms easier for you, or more difficult for your opponents. A helpful Marauders Map square on the dice allows you to access a “secret passage” that allows you to move into an adjacent square on the game board, whether the two squares are officially connected or not.

Vivian, Erin and I have played this game a few times, and have found it to be quite fun. The three of us are pretty evenly matched, too. Gameplay typically takes around 20 minutes, which is just enough time to be enjoyable without being overlong.

Even better, with this gameboard being made of Lego, possibilities abound for you to customize the game as you like, and the manufacturers explicitly encourage this. There are alternate pieces — a Dumbledore figure which, the rules state, can be added to the game to move one square at a time with a certain roll of the die. If you land on his square, he can point you to a secret passage that can lead you to an adjacent square that might not otherwise have been available to you. If you want to make the game more complicated, the cat Mrs. Norris can be brought into play, blocking access to a square. Players who land on the same square can have a wizarding duel for the right to stay on that square, but we haven’t tried that sanctioned rule adjustment yet.

The game set also comes with Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy figures, but with no instructions on how you can incorporate them into the game. That, the instructions say, is entirely up to you.

The Harry Potter Hogwarts Lego game set is good enough to make me a fan of the concept of Lego game boards. A lot of thought has been put into the design and playability of the game itself, and that bodes well for other games in the series.

And, of course, if a particular game doesn’t prove to be fun, you can always cannibalize your pieces for your own Lego Death Star.

Years ago, when we were a lot more ambitious or (more likely) availed with more time between our exuberant children, we sent out Christmas cards and letters to our friends and family. We haven’t been able to do that the last couple of years, but we do have our blogs, and we know our friends and family are paying attention to them. So perhaps this will serve?

Overall, I think it’s been a good year. Our children continue to grow and prosper. This past September, Vivian entered grade one of the French immersion program at J.F. Carmichael, and Nora entered preschool at the Early Childhood Education Centre. Both are progressing rapidly. I’m now holding conversations with Nora, and Vivian not only knows more French than either Erin or I, she’s entered the world of reading to herself.

Watching your child read is truly a magical experience, and Vivian is progressing really fast, it’s amazing to see. She can sound words out, or guess at them based on their context. She’s also learning to write and has even started writing stories for her little sister. Nora herself can spell her own name and write it out. She also likes to write out her sister’s name.

Financially, we’re holding our own. Erin and I continue to live the dream of making a living off of our writing, and we’ve been fortunate to find work in the field which supports our fiction work. Back in July, Erin found herself enthusiastically received by the Perimeter Institute as a writer, helping to translate physics into English for the general public. She works half-time doing work that she loves, which provides us with a steady income while she spends the other half of her time at her bordello red office working on a new draft of Sorrow’s Knot, and pursuing Swan Riders, her sequel to Children of Peace.

Of course, the highlight of Erin’s year has been her being nominated for and winning the TD Canadian Children’s Book Award in October for Plain Kate. The prize was greatly appreciated, as was the validation of Erin’s work. The nomination helped to send us to Vancouver to see a great city and she’s done a lot of work publicizing the novel. This has started to wind down, now, though we’ll be moving back up again once we head towards publication day for her second book, Sorrow’s Knot.

By day, I take care of the kids, helped out a lot by contributions of time by resident and visiting grandparents (my parents Eric and Pat, and Erin’s mother Rosemarie and her husband Michael). The fact that Nora goes to school half-days and Vivian goes to school all day has given me mornings of solitude, which is something of a new experience for me. I’ve tried to make use of this time as best I can, and have found work (thanks to a tip from an old school friend) at an up-and-coming apartment brokerage firm.

The bulk of the last half of 2011 was spent helping to produce the ROCK Apartment Report, a document detailing the opportunities in the apartment industry throughout Ontario (the economic picture in this sector is a lot better than you might think!). This has been a godsend, as not only am I writing, but I am working in a field that I thought I’d abandoned due to various circumstances. I spent my time in University learning to become an urban planner, and it was a wrench for me to realize that I simply did not have the experience and time to make a go of it in this field (what with the provincial industry being in dire straits in 1996). Even though I see myself as a writer, now, and not an urban planner, being able to call upon my skills as a planner has awakened a part of me that has been asleep for years.

In terms of my fiction, I continue to search for an agent who will help me break into the American market with Icarus Down. I’ve made progress on this front, and have the hope of news in the near future, but nothing that I can write about right now. The highlight of my year was winning a $12,000 grant from the Ontario Arts Council for Icarus Down. It’s similar to the grant I won two years earlier for The Dream King’s Daughter. I am hopeful that both books will see print sometime soon, though we still have some time to wait, first.

In terms of my non-fiction, I’ve had another three book commissions from Crabtree, including a history of Aston Martin and high-interest low-vocabulary books on the Battle of Gettysburg and Navy SEALs. I’ve also been blessed with a weekly column in the Kitchener Post (the latest column of which can be found here.

All of this has kept us busy, and has kept me away from my blog more often than not. We’ve a lot to be thankful for: the company of friends and family, the happiness of our children, and the fact that we’ve kept our head above water.

We also have a lot to cross our fingers over. Hopefully, I’ll have good news to report about Icarus Down soon. Hopefully, you’ll be hearing more about Sorrow’s Knot. Compared to 2010, 2011 was a quiet year, but a lot of work went into it, and I’m hopeful we’ll see that work pay off in 2012.

It’s hard to wait. Anybody who is a parent to a six-year-old knows that. But it does show that not only do we have things to be thankful for, we have things to look forward to. And that’s one more thing to be thankful for.

I’d like to thank all our friends and family for your love and support and encouragement this past year, and I’d like to wish everyone the best possible days in the year to come.

The kids are off school for the next two weeks, and Erin is off work as well. Ironically, this may mean that we’ll be busier than ever. I still have work to do, Erin still needs to write, and the kids will need some activity. Still, I’m looking forward to this time. 2011 was a good year, and I’m looking forward to what 2012 has to offer. So I hope the same is true with you.

In other news, my latest column for the Kitchener Post is now up over here. As you may have guessed, the first GO Train to Toronto dominated this week’s news cycle.

And now for that (six-year running) Christmas tradition: reviewing the Doctor Who Christmas special. With the exception of The End of Time two years ago, the Christmas special is a time for fans to kick back, enjoy a stand-alone script, and not worry too much about how the story fits into the ongoing canon. The stories tend to be lighter and fluffier, and their contributions tend to be the beginning of things rather than a culmination (again, The End of Time provides an exception to that rule).

Until last year, the task of writing the Christmas special had fallen to show runner Russell T. Davies. Steven Moffat took over the job when he became producer and he arguably took the special back to its Christmas roots with A Christmas Carol (it had been slipping away from those roots with Voyage of the Damned). The current story, The Doctor, the Witch and the Wardrobe, clearly alluded to a Narnia-inspired story. But did it deliver?

Well, I think it did, though not quite in the way I was expecting.

A spoiler-full review continues after the break.

Take 2

Take 3

Take 4

Take 5

Take 6

Take 7

Take 8

Another Take, This Time with Grandparents