fun – Musings of a Generic Asian

Can Con 2024 Schedule and “Writer” Pins Fundraiser

This year I have a few panels and a reading session at Can Con, a literary convention in Ottawa that is being held Nov 1-3, 2024. I suspect most of my time will be spent in the dealers room where I will be selling “writer” enamel pins as a fundraiser to pay writers and editors for the next Dark Helix Press anthology.

Looking forward to having some interesting discussions with other writers and editors on these upcoming panels. I always learn something new when meeting people at conventions and it’s great to hear about everyone’s writing/publishing journeys!

Can Con JF Garrard Schedule:

Creature Comforts: Making the Monster Your Friend
Friday November 1, 2024 8:00pm – 8:50pm EDT – Salon F
Maintaining a Sustainable Creative Business
Saturday November 2, 2024 2:30pm – 3:20pm EDT – Salon E
Saturday Reading Soiree
Saturday November 2, 2024 7:00pm – 7:50pm EDT – Penthouse

If you are in Ottawa area please come by the dealers room and say hi!

Below is our fundraising poster which we will put on top of a fake lego typewriter display to attract potential buyers.

Admittedly my husband did not welcome the influx of fantasy jewelry (dragon necklaces, sword bracelets, celestial brooches, etc) which I will sell at Christmas markets in November and pins at Can Con this year. He offered to just pay for the next book, but I told him I am capable of raising funds myself! If I don’t sell all the stock of “writer” pins at Can Con I will look into selling them online or at other conventions. Wish me luck!

Next time we are upset, remember people are people

culture, fun, Uncategorized, Writing

Since starting social media accounts eons ago (remember My Space anyone? MIrc?) I have seen posts from people (who I don’t personally) bullying me. Have also received long emails about how I suck, etc. For a while I was angry, but anger is such a destructive force. I’ve learned to channel this energy into other things, such as writing and making books – basically creating stuff.

The other day I played Depeche Mode’s People are People in the car and this made me think about such past events of cyberbullying. In the end it’s not productive to hold onto the anger or to do revenge stuff. As much as I like watching The Glory or Revenge, let’s be honest, who has time to do this revenge stuff?

People are People selected lyrics:

I can’t understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand

People are people, so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully
People are people, so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully

Although this song was released in 1984, the message still holds true! Have a listen next time you are upset to help let go of the negative emotions!

Ricepaper interview with Liam Ma

actor, art, asian, fun

My interview with Liam Ma was published in Ricepaper Magazine and accompanying it are the Artsy Raven podcast episodes on Spotify and Youtube! I was saving my “second season” Artsy Raven premiere podcast episode to have writer Lindsay Wong; but since there were events associated with Liam’s upcoming series, Streams Flow from a River, I published Liam’s podcast first and will publish his bonus Patreon content at a later date.

Streams Flow from a River is about a dysfunctional Chinese Canadian family, who when trapped by a freak snowstorm in their rural Albertan hometown, are forced to confront the events of a decade prior that tore them all apart. The series will premiere on April 1^st, 2023 on SUPER CHANNEL. The Vancouver Asian Film Festival (VAFF), Racial Equity Screen Office (RESO) and Fae Pictures has a free special presentation on April 1, 2023 which includes the short film NANITIC and the first four (out of six) episodes of Stream Flows from a River, Click here for more info.

Looking forward to watching this streaming series!

The longest video I’ve ever made is about cupcakes!

Artsy Raven, ArtsyRaven, baking, family, food, fun, you tube

Recently I was part of an event where I demonstrated how to decorate cupcakes. I had 5 minutes allocated to doing this. In 5 minutes I can show people how to pipe icing onto the cupcake, but there was no time to discuss how I made the cupcake or icing. So I made a video with details on how to make really nice rose cupcakes with Betty Crocker box mix and icing.

Eventually I’ll get back to writing when I gain more energy, but at the moment I am in the process of getting a short story published in a “happily ever after” fantasy anthology and publishing a feminist Sci-Fi author’s book through Dark Helix Press. Will just stuff my face with cupcakes in the meantime!

Click image below for video link to cupcake decorating video or click here!

Nastasha Alli answers “Why is research important in your “Exploring Filipino Kitchens” podcast?”

Artsy Raven, ArtsyRaven, food, fun, podcast, podcast, ricepaper magazine, Uncategorized, women, Writing, you tube

Nastasha Alli was born and raised in the Philippines and came to Canada in 2007. For her writing at the intersection of food and diaspora communities, she won a Food Sustainability Media Award from the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Her work has been featured on CBC Radio and her recipe published in a “top cookbook of 2018” by the San Francisco Chronicle.

She answers the question “Why is research important in your “Exploring Filipino Kitchens” podcast?” on the Artsy Raven podcast, Episode 12. This clip is an excerpt from the episode.

Nastasha’s website is https://www.nastasha.ca/

The Artsy Raven podcast about writing & publishing episodes are on Spotify & Youtube: https://jfgarrard.com/arpodcast/

FoodSanity – #BettyCrocker #RedVelvet #cake mix with icing #review. #COVIDbaking

children, family, food, fun, kids, Uncategorized

Recently I saw a Betty Crocker Red Velvet cupcake mix selling on Amazon (couldn’t find at supermarket though) which came with icing, all in one box. I thought I would give this a try since it sounded so convenient.

It surprised me that the box made less cake than the usual box mixes. Instead of 24 cupcakes, you get 12. There are two bags of icing in the box for frosting. To make the cake mix taste better, I made some adjustments – 1) added one more egg, 2) used unsalted butter versus oil, 3) used milk versus water and 4) added a teaspoon of vanilla.

With the cake mix I made 6 Elmo cupcakes (used gel coloring to dye one bag of icing red) and 3 fancy tiered adult cakes. I lost some icing because of the piping process and would have liked more icing. I only took a picture of 4 Elmo cupcakes because 2 of them didn’t turn out as nice. Since I made this around Easter, I added m & m chocolate eggs and fruit to decorate the adult cakes. I think the cakes turned out well and made great Instagram pics!

Food score:

Sight (20/20): A little frosting and color makes all cakes pretty!

Availability (10/20): You can only order from Amazon, I couldn’t find this set at my supermarket. It was also hard to find the red velvet Betty Crocker mix or the cream cheese frosting in the supermarket as well, though there are other brands available. The common flavors of vanilla or chocolate cake mix and frosting are easier to find.

Smell (20/20): Smells like cake while baking!

Taste (18/20): The cake itself wasn’t very sweet, but the icing was, so the flavors balance. This is cake mix so it’s not going to be as good as the cakes from fancy pastry stores!

Touch (20/20): The cakes were springy when done, baked perfectly! Icing was sticky, which is normal.

Overall score: 88/100

Would I order again? Yes! Recently I have been making smaller batches when baking since I can’t share with office folks because of COVID. Making an equivalent of 24 cupcakes would have been a lot, while 12 was just enough to share with a few other people.

Price point note – this box was around $4 Cdn for 12 cupcakes and frosting, or about $0.33/cupcake. For normal size box and frosting, it would have cost around $3.50 for red velvet cake mix, $3.50 for frosting or about $0.29/cupcake for 24 cupcakes. The normal box is cheaper overall, but for some reason it is difficult to find the red velvet box mix and cream cheese frosting in Canada. I really miss crossing the border to visit the US to buy things at their grocery stores!

Let’s have a happy Friday and avoid digital violence in the imperial palace! #asian #chinese #gaming

asian, fun, Geek stuff, Uncategorized

In the historical imperial palace game I play there are dual competitions once in a while. As a concubine you build up a team of confidants who are princes, eunuchs, maids, friends and foreign diplomats. Over time you gather potions and collect items to increase their tactics, glamour, wisdom and vigour.

When the duals open, for a week you slaughter other people’s teams by beating the butterflies out of them. Yes, you read right, butterflies instead of blood because this is a civilized girly palace game after all! There are random battles and you can choose to challenge players. To win, some players challenge the same person over and over again until they are negative in scoring.

I died quite quickly since opposition had better stats! You can see me beat some butterflies out of her in this picture…

On the server I am playing on, the top player or winner believes that using any strategy to win is fair, so during duals week, they pretty much kill everyone since they have such a strong team. The winner runs a “palace” (to be a member you must convert your name to include a swastika Buddhist symbol and listen to the winner who is the “Master”) and they send orders to other girls to go after certain players to ensure only their palace members will make the top ten. There is one particular player the winner will send orders to be destroyed every time. The person they bullied went onto the chat board and said quite a few horrible things such as the winner’s mom being a street prostitute and hoping that the winner gets COVID.

While a lot of us were sympathetic originally to the person being bullied, we then felt lines were being crossed on both sides. The winner shouldn’t be bullying others so much but the game rules allow this and the person being bullied shouldn’t be saying such horrible things. After a few days of endless chat messages, a lot of us just gave up being peacekeepers and ignored the drama.

Being an online game, we don’t know each other’s true identities and it’s just ok to walk away sometimes because not all fights are worth fighting! And so, once a month, drama fills the game…

Ricepaper Interview with Moulann and Mr. Will Wong

articles, asian, fun, interviews, Uncategorized, Writing

I recently represented Ricepaper Magazine to interview the Cantonese and Mandarin talents of Kruger Products’ (manufacturer Cashmere toilet paper and Sponge Towels) Unapologetically Human ad campaign, featuring real people dealing with real messes – spills, tears, blood, runny noses, messy crafts, and more. The campaign featured songs in English, French, Hindi/Urdu, Mandarin and Cantonese. Really cool that a company created a diverse ad campaign! The situations captured in the videos are touching as well, it’s worth checking out the beautiful imagery.

The Cantonese soundtrack is sung by Mr. Will Wong and the Mandarin song by Moulann.

Click here for full interview.

Youtube videos of the songs below, enjoy!

https://youtu.be/T4wiRUDWJNQ

https://youtu.be/utF9om-jyG0

Food Sanity – Pizza Pizza Superfood Crust Pizza review

food, fun, Uncategorized

Since I am stuck at home during the pandemic, I have been cooking and buying more junk food. Let’s be honest here, comfort food isn’t the healthy stuff most of the time. I’ve been trying new snacks and other random foods so I thought I would share my opinions about them. I’ll compile the reviews onto my “Food Sanity” page since eating is what’s keeping me sane during the pandemic!

The first item I’m posting about is Pizza Pizza’s Superfood Pizza Crust. This was introduced to me by my food conscious sister who said that pizza was an easy way to get vegetables into a kid’s diet. I have yet to have my child successfully eat this, but that’s the theory anyways.

Pizza Pizza’s website states that the curst is “made with antioxidant rich vegetables such as purple cauliflower, purple sweet potato, and butternut squash. It’s vegan, gluten free and contains no artificial flavors or colors, starting at 12.99.”

Pizza 73 - Home | Facebook — Product photo reference: https://www.facebook.com/Pizza73dotcom/

Ordering the pizza was easy, I did this via the website and paid the delivery man when they showed up. The food was luke-warm but it was a cold snowy day. The pizza cost about $18 Cdn (pre-tax) after selecting medium size, superfood crust, tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, pineapples, ham and mushrooms.

Food score:

Sight (10/20): The pizza I received looked like a pizza but I was super disappointed the crust wasn’t purple and it was slightly burnt.

Availability (20/20): For Canadians it’s easy to buy online and to have it delivered, if a store is in the neighborhood

Smell (10/20): I didn’t smell much of anything.

Taste (10/20): I really wanted to like the pizza but the crust didn’t taste very good. It felt like I was chewing tough fibre even though the toppings were alright.

Touch (10/20): It felt like a pizza slice with melted gooey cheese and pizza sauce, but the crust was quite tough. A few slices weren’t cut properly and I had to yank hard to get them to separate.

Overall score: 60/100

Would I order again? Sorry, no. I tried this pizza crust twice already because I really wanted to like it but was sadly disappointed each time! Maybe in the near future someone will invent a tastier crust that’s made from veggies.

Capricon 41 Panels

conventions, diversity, fun, Geek stuff, marketing, publishing, science fiction, self-publishing, Supernatural, Writing

This year I’m doing a few talks at Capricon 41 (Feb 4-7, 2021), a spec fic convention based in Chicago. I’ve been sent their panelist invites a few times, but this is the first time I’m attending.

To my surprise after receiving the schedule, I saw that I’ve been paired up with a few people I know from Toronto and someone I met at Detcon1 years ago! Looking forward to meeting these friends virtually again!

The con features many panels on writing, science and fandom – so if you’re looking for people to chat passionately with about geek topics, come hang out!

To get a pass to events (free/donation), visit http://capricon.org/

My schedule and panels:

Diversity, Inclusion, and Safety in Our Creative Spaces, Willow room – Fri 6:00 PM CT / 7:00 PM EST

Publicizing Your Book: Tips, Tricks, and No-Nos, Willow room – Sat 1:00 PM CT / 2:00 PM EST

Horror and Dark Fantasy Writing, Ravinia room – Sat 2:00 PM CT / 3:00 PM EST

Future of Publishing, Willow room – Sun 1:00 PM CT / 2:00 PM EST

Hope to see you there!