Show Notes - Week of April 1, 2019

April Fool's:
​Luckily I wasn't bombarded by too many April Fool's jokes this year, but there are two items of note from April 1. First, this tweet sounds like a good idea, and likely foretells the future where drones dominate the sky. 

Second, the bear in the Bing wallpaper of the day looked eerily like he was breaking the fourth wall. His smile and the look in his eyes makes me shudder. The rest of the images this week happily were not of sentient bears.

Hey there.

On Writing:
Writing is hard. Steeling oneself against anticipated criticism or rejection is even harder. However, I am confident that however poor my writing abilities are, I won't make most of the egregious errors listed in this article by OnSpec magazine Editor Barb Galler-Smith in any writing I submit to be published. Some of the more egregious mistakes make you wonder:​

• It’s not actually a fictional story.
• It’s boring. Nothing happens.
• The Protagonist does nothing throughout.
• Your characters are dull or one dimensional. They have no motivation to do anything.
• Characters are stereotypical. For a walk-on it might work, but not a main character.
• There is no plot. Nothing happens. Nothing and no one changes.
• Your command of basic rules of sentence structure is weak. Repeatedly.
• You didn’t spell check it.
• It’s incomprehensible. It has to make sense.
• Personally offensive to the editor(s).
• The science is utter shite and the story can’t hold up to scrutiny.
  
• Tomato surprise or deus ex machina endings.
• You forgot to proofread, spell check, etc. One or two will likely be missed on first read, but more than a few on the first page will get you rejected almost every time. Either way—it’s not a finished draft.
• Someone else wrote it and even if don’t know it, it’s still wrong. It’s called plagiarism.
• Missing pages.

Looks more like a cover from a Warren Ellis book than a bluegrass album, but I assure you it is.

New music:
It seems I'm always behind watching any show, so no spoilers on Star Trek: Discovery, Critical Role, or the Chain of Acheron, please and thank you. Acoustic Tuesday is another on that list, but I am closer with AT than for most things I watch. AT is a weekly show about acoustic guitars and acoustic music, and it is something I really enjoy. Each week, Tony and Noah introduce at least one artist, and on AT #83 (from March 26 only! I'm not that far behind), the featured band was Mile Twelve, a five-piece bluegrass band. They have two albums, with their second album dropping just a few days ago. Check them out on a streaming service, or if you are in Calgary in August, they will playing at the Shady Grove Bluegrass Festival.​

---

Also out this week is Gloria, the latest from The Lumineers, a surprisingly upbeat song considering the lyrics. It starts out with:

Gloria, I smell it on your breath
Gloria, booze and peppermint

and then ends with: 

Gloria, there's easier ways to die
Gloria, have you had enough?

Not exactly light stuff. 

Movie:
Hotel Artemis is 94 minutes of cinematic beauty. Just don't try to make sense of the plot. It seemed like a B movie with an A list cast, but I still recommend it. 

Zachary, don't look at me like that. You're freaking me out.

New Beers:
It is fruit beer season apparently, with two new brews this week. If these two are any indication, it will be a good year for fruit beers. First, Wizard's Revenge, a hazy IPA loaded with strawberry from New Level in Calgary (3.75 / 5). Next, two 250 mL glasses at Biera, including an English Ale with smoked peat (3.75 / 5) and an India Pale Lager (is that even a thing?) that was okay but not great. And finally, the latest find from Alley Kat, the Raspbeary Beret, full of bon mots and raspberry with a hearty serving of sour. Good stuff for sure. (4.0 / 5)