Monday, July 30, 2007

Lifehack 60%, and random news.

The Lifehack revision passed the 60% mark. I remember Michelle saysing when she was pregnant... "When I have the baby, I'll be on maternity leave, and I'll be at home. You'll have a lot more time for writing then."

I don't think she believed that any more than I did. It's hard to type with lil Caitlin sucking on a finger. Maybe when she figures out her thumbs, things will accelerate. In the mean time, I gust have to exercise my patience. No biggie. When that's done, I'll print one revision copy, and pass if around to volunteers with a highlighter. Numerous people have stepped up to the plate, more than on the first draft. I think they READ the first draft, and-
  • A) Realized I'm serious about this book thing, and
  • B) Realized how bad it needs people to look it over.
While they do that, I'll be plugging away at Watching Yute. My wife would rather see me work on the children's book, or the nonfiction "Wasn't worth the parking space", but the first draft of Yute is already half done, and waiting patiently. My third sci fi in that world can wait until after all those. Some of the concepts for 'Echoes' are still fermenting anyway...

Want a taste of how Lifehack's going? (Even if the blog kinda fudges up the formatting a bit)

"It could have been a bomb." The zombie said. "You're pretty brave.. or dumb."

"It didn't seem to fit your M.O. to use a bomb." Alisia said, fingering a power switch inside. "So, what's your name?"

"Ha! Nice try. But I guess you have to call me something.. how about... uh.. what's Autar backwards...? Ratua? No, that sucks. Uh.... ooh, this is cool, how about Samhain?"

"Samhain?" Regan asked

"Hmm.. you're right. A bit dorky still, and fact is, he wasn't actually the Celtic god of the dead. Ooh! Egyptian! Anubis! No, no, that’s been done. Charon? I’m not into boats.” The zombie looked off into nowhere while he thought and rambled. “Namtar? Rudra? Dorky, no. Thanatos has been so done. Tartarus? Tartar sauce. No. Hm. Erebus! Yes! Call me Erebus! Son of Chaos, brother of Nyx!”

"What the hell ever! Why are you doing this?" Alisia asked.

"Did you know that Erebus has a volcano named after him? Some people used to think of Erebus and Hades as the same guy, but I think the-"

"Shut the fuck up." Alisia pressed the switch in the mobile server, and he fell limp. The scattering of writhing parts they had made stopped moving, and rest of the zombies in other areas of the mall fell to the ground.

The owner of my HQ bookstore, Heron's books, will probably split the cost with me to mass-mail promotional postcards for the book and her store. Should I do a signing for the 2nd edition? Most of my friends and family already have a copy of the first ed, and probably wouldn't be too interested in 're buying' the book... but with a little 'real advertising' it might be worth it...

In other news, today 'Radar' went back to South Korean for a month. She had teary farewell to a friend who won't be here next year. Le sigh... Ping head back to China for a month tomorrow. Michelle is super happy to be making to drives to the airport in a row, but c'est la vie. It's going to be a little quite around here for a while, for better or worse.

Also yesterday we saw our first potential renters for the suite when it becomes available in Sept. They seemed nice and responsible, so we said OK. They have a dog, too, which will hopefully mean they'll be understanding about our own feral beast. They're engaged, and it will be their first home out form their parents. It's a good suite for first timers... the utils are taken care of and all that, so it's simple to manage. Will these folks be the ones to break the track record the suite has? Out of 3 renters since we moved in, each has left roughly a year after they came, having bought a place.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Cat's eye view, and Lifehack update

Lifehack update- Passed the halfway mark in the revision the other day. whee! There was a section I wanted to paste into the blog, but not I can't remember which section it was... Aw, what the heck, have a neat lil clip that hasn't been changed much...

Just then, Alisia arrived. "Regan?" She sighed, "What are you doing here?"

Regan paused, thinking fast. "I.. just came to give these back." Regan pulled out the dog tags that she had taken days ago. "I'm sorry."

Alisia, still mostly in the hall, took the tags. She happened to look past Regan for a moment and saw her teddy bear out of place. She looked at the tags again. She didn't really mind if Regan had them, but she didn't want Regan to know that. She glanced at the garbage can nearby in the hall.

"I don't need these anymore. These say I'm a Captain. I've been promoted to Major, remember?" Alisia reached the tags over to the garbage, 'accidentally' missing, leaving them on the rim. She moved past Regan into her room and sat down. "I'll be getting new ones soon. Was there anything else?"

Regan stood, stunned. She didn't think she was convincing, but you can't argue with results. She still felt that something odd had happened. "mm, no. That was all. Just, uh.. thank you. For today."

Alisia smiled ever so slightly. "What are friends for?"

Wordlessly, Regan backed out and closed the door. She then spotted the dog tags. She considered not taking them... it's not as if she was digging through the garbage or anything. She picked them up and hugged them in her hand.

Alisia looked at her bear as if to ask what Regan did in her room, but the bear told no secrets.

Tada. Now watch the blog software chew up the formatting... which reminds me- You who comment anonymously... you know who you are... Alright, I can guess who it is by the content, but just cuz ya don't have a blogpot ID, doesn't mean ya cant sign the message... I might not always be so cunning...!

Anyway, as for the Cat's eye view....

This past weekend my wife Michelle packed up lil Ciatlin, and they went camping at Perrygin lake where much of her family camps. Next year I'm told I'm going long too, despite my disability. Grr.. oh well, I guess I have to give it a hack eventually, but this time around I ended up having the house to myself for five days.

Unless you count my mother downstairs, the renters in the suite, oh, and of course Ping and uhh... Hmm... I need a codename for our korean student! Korea.. um.. what do I think of when I think "Korea"... Radar! Alright, alright, Radar O'Riley was an american male in Korea, but she has a similarly helpful attitude, and gentle cheer. Radar it is.

Anyway, yes, aside from them, I was solo.

On the second day or so, my cat Leela wanders by. She had always been my cat more than our cat, ever since the first day we brought her home, and I defended her from the giant, hairy, overexcited, older canine sister she had just gained. Leela was my lil baby. I'm not sure when I became a cat person, but I did.

"Hey, Joe." she said with her eyes as she casually walked into the room.

"Yeah, Leela?"

She sits a few feet in front of me. "We gotta talk."

"Sure." I put my hand out 'cat-height' above my lap, inviting her to jump up. She's a big girl now, just turned three. Not too old to get on daddy's lap. (In actuality, she's still pretty small.) "What's on your mind, lil one?"

She runs her head under my hand to get petted, and wanders back and forth on my lap to garner more attention. "Well, daddy... I'm used to being the baby.."

"Yes, well..."

"And I kinda suspect I'm adopted... but... this new thing. The hairless little one...."

"Caitlin."

"Yeah, whatever. Is she gonna be here long?"

"Oh, leelers. Don't tell me you're jealous?"

"..... no! Not me! I don't get jealous! So when's that hairless thing leaving?"

"She isn't. She lives here now. She's my daughter."

"....!"

I sigh, and calm Leela with a scratch behind the ear. "You're still my lil girl too."

"Is that hairless thing on my side or the dog's side?"

"Right now she's pretty much just on her own side. I guess it'll depend on which of you behaves better."

"PAH! Then I win."

"Alright then. Happy now?"

Leela looks around sulkily, then back up at me. "You still love your leelerz?"

"Of course."

"Kay. Now let me outside, stupid human!"

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Writing slowdown factors

The revision continues, but two main factors are slowing things down.

1- My baby Caitlin. I really can't begrudge this at all... damned lovable lil thing. Having my
concentration shattered by a fuss-up, and/or having to shut down work for her can be frustrating for a moment, but such feelings are quickly dissolved a moment after I get close to her. Right now her and mommy are camping with her side of the family across the border, so that factor isn't slowing me down right now.

A bit before this trip, my wife Michelle went across the border to go shopping. On the way back, they gave her hassle over the baby. "blah blah percent of kidnappings are by a parent." Geez, fine... but who kidnaps a kid, goes into another country, and then comes back? Alright, I guess our family unit could have been traveling to the states, and Michelle kidnapped Caitlin to go back into Canada.. but whatever..

They kinda treated her like an idiot for not knowing they would have liked a NOTARIZED letter from me saying they had permission. This trip she also brought our nephew. His mum got a notarized letter.. We only did a non-notarized letter, and a "call me if you really need to." I haven't heard form anyone, so I'm assuming things went well... at least on the way down...

2- PS3. (yay!)
A little over a week ago, a couple friends came over for pizza before a movie..
Ryan:"Michelle, you have to get Joe a 60 gig PS3 soon."

Um, I'm gonna sit back and see where this goes....

Michelle: "oh yeah? Why's that?"
Ryan: "The 20 gig's already been discontinued, and the 60's just had a $100 price drop. There's a 80 gig coming that will probably be more expensive, but it's arguably an inferior machine, since it won't have the Emotion Engine chip, which is the way the 20 and 60 play ps2 games- with real ps2 chipsets. The 80 is going to emulate that in software, so the compatibility for ps2 will likely be somewhat less. It's expected the 60 will be discontinues too, once they clear them out."

Michelle digests Ryan's babble for a moment, sitting back in her chair... "Well... I am going to the states tomorrow, and the exchange rate is darn near par right now..."

Blink blink. Did I hear that right? Ryan turns to me and puts his hand up for a high five. "Who's your best friend, man?"



So yeah, the time regained by the family being away has been damaged by my new toy a bit...


Mind you, I tend to be productive in bursts. Call me the machine gun. Controlled bursts.

Friday, July 20, 2007

International Ep4: Exit Asuka, Enter Ping

Quick note- Lifehack revision's at 45%-ish. Things go slow with the baby, but the world can be patient for Caitlin's sake.

Anyway, Asuka's stay had a few weeks left when the school board rang us up about a new student.

"From China, you say? She's going to be here the day before Asuka goes home to Germany, you say? How do Chinese girls feel about having the sofa for one night?"

Blissfully ignorant, I went to Rei to tell her the news. "Hey, we're going to get a new student when Asuka goes!"

"You say only short time with another student...!
"Well, it's been OK with Asuka, you two get along fine.."
"But you say..."
"Well, the school board has asked us to, and now it would be rude to say no. Besides, she's Asian too, you'll have a little bit more in common...!"

Rei's eyes became huge, and I understood anime in a whole new way. "What? No asian student! Anyone but asian!" Nerf? I didn't want to put my foot in my mouth here, so correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Rei's own Japan part of Asia?

Well, as further research on the topic taught me, it is, and it isn't. Japan has become very westernized, especially compared to China. This seems to give Japan kind of a 'black sheep' status in certain situations. It's also floating off to the side like that, oh, and there's all that WW2 stuff.... yeah well... yeah...

But we suspect none of that was foremost in Rei's mind. An Asian student would travel in social circles much closer to her own in school, and this could lead to the leaking of sensitive information on Rei's ongoing hunt- to which we had very little idea about at the time.

Later, Rei shows up in the doorway of my office again, looking forlorn as she can. "You lie me."
"Wha?"
"You say only 3 months. You lie me."
"Well, at the time, I thought it WAS going to e only 3 months."
"It better just you, me, michelle."

Oh man. I had heard tales of the powers of the Japanese teenage girl, and it was in the crosshairs of the 'poor little me' mode. She was good at it, no doubt. A big part of me just wanted to make everything OK for her, but my hands were tied at this point. She stood around looking sad for a bit, and I tossed the occasional comment trying to be supportive, and encourage a more openminded outlook. What do I get?

"Maybe I need live other house." Oh good lord Rei, aren't there any nearby cliffs you could threaten to throw yourself off of? Isn't that the traditional climax to this sort of act?

"Well, I'll talk to the school board about it." I did. But I just commented that Rei wasn't taking the idea very well. It wasn't the first time I felt the need to report Rei's displeasure about having another student around to the school board; I thought it was best to keep them abreast of that kind of thing, and they might have advice. They told me I was doing well, and that she was lucky to have a host parent that was this concerned with her happiness. So, we'd muddle through.


The day came when Ping arrived. Due to scheduling, my wife could only take her halfway from the airport to home, my dad and I picked her up from there. "Hi Ping!" (another codename, by the way) She fell asleep in the car on the way. It seemed this power to sleep anywhere was not unique to Japan.. but we could also pull the 'teenager' card.

We're quick to point to cultural differences. but it's often just teenager-ism, or "rich girl" ism. Almost all the the students that come here from abroad are rather well off. More on that in the next post.

That evening, me, Asuka, Rei, and Ping lingered in the hallway, lite only from the lights coming from the surrounding rooms. Polite chatter all around. Rei was mostly quiet. I think she was a bit relieved that Ping's english was a little worse than her own. Asuka had hints at emotional moments- tomorrow was the big day she'd go home.



My wife and I wanted to take Asuka to the airport ourselves, but because of the large group of Germans headed out, they insisted we just take them to the school board office. From there, they'd all bus to the airport. That morning was emotionally charged. By the time we got to the school board, with those buses staring at us, Asuka was crying, and so was Michelle if I recall correctly.

There was some waiting to be done, and some random socializing happened with other students. Asuka and my wife's crying got steadily heavier, and I joined in a little.

Asuka's friend was pretty sad too... "I fell bad because my host family didn't stay. They just dropped me off and left." This was baffling to me. Asuka had become family despite the shortness of her stay. How can you not treat these brave young students with every hospitality you can? They're far from home, and a lot of them can barely communicate when they get here. (Germans can, but that's beside the point. Every German student I've met are worried we won't be able to understand them.. well, they worry about that until they hear one of the Asian students talking english...)

Mercifully, the time to load the buses up came. Sobbing, hugs, blah blah blah. Michelle and I went back to the car and waited there until the buses left. Our first time sending a student back home.

Next post: I dunno, should I do "Ping VS Canada" or something about the baby for a change?

Monday, July 9, 2007

International students, ep3: Enter Asuka

"A Geman, huh?"

Asuka's (yes, another codename) 'docket' arrived shortly after the conversation with the school board. Her picture looked a bit on a punk side. Just a little. Cool.

I had a pal in highschool who was a German exchange student, and he was a neat bloke. We made a bit of fun with his accent now and then, ("We watched wiolent wideos in wancouver.") and he got his revenge by stealing my girlfriend. Well, not really.. he actually asked permission rather formally, since he knew she and I had some kinda something going on, but that's a whole other story.

Anyway, Asuka. Before she arrived, we has to let Rei know there'd be another girl in the house. We told her over dinner. Her response? Emo silence for a while, followed by "I think just 3 is better." (Me, my wife, and Rei)

I figured she'd adjust to the idea, and that she just wanted to be the only student in the house beacuse she wanted to be special. Little did I know- she probably just didn't want someone in the house that she went to school with... that could pose a threat to Rei's cunning plan.

Asuka arrived, looking notably less punk-ish than her picture, but with all the spunk and energy you might expect. In many ways Asuka was Rei's opposite. Outgoing, open, chatty. (A contrast that coincidentally mimics the namesakes of thier codenames.) Rei was also mortified that Asuka's english obliterated her own. The Germans study english a good degree more seriously than they do in Japan.

Japanese highschools seem to study english almost as a novelty. The Germans study it to communicate with their neighbors. Asuka, much like my buddy from highschool, was almost entirely fluent, with only the occasional unknown word, which was easily explained without the use the little notepad that Rei and I had been using a lot.

It occurred to me briefly that we now had descendants of the WW2 axis living here. History is odd. If you could have sent a picture of our dinner table with everyone joking and talking back to 1950, what would people think? In 2050, will my daughter be hosting students from Iraq?


Asuka's level of energy brought a bit of much-needed volume to the house. Remember I said in the last post that I was trying hard to be quiet and un-rude for Rei's sake? That went out the window, and I realized that I might have been giving Rei the impression that I didn't like her much. (Which is kinda silly, given how much unrequired time I spent with her on homework and such.)

Asuka didn't need much help with homework, but we had lost to talk about.. like chocolate. We would have an hour long chat at the drop of a hat about chocolate, and related items. How this kind was good, that kind was not, and the stuff at the corner store was mostly shameful shadows of true chocolate.

Then a week later, something would set one of us off, and we'd have nearly the same conversation again, with just as much enthusiasm.



In 3 short months, this spunky girl had become part of the family.



Next post: Exit Asuka, Enter Ping.



Book update: Lifehack revision 33% done. Evenings don't get much done, I have to try t make better use of the mornings. Lil Caitlin's an angel in the mornings.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

International Ep2: Rei. Also- new book covers

I cranked out new covers for Lifehack and Yute. Show first, then talk:

Ok, I lied, the covers aren't QUITE like that. The covers will have slightly different aspect ratios, and the only text on the front will be the title and my name. These are designs for oversized promo postcards.

The lifehack cover is just a little different from the one I posted before, with a new logo for the changed title. The Yute cover has the girl removed, (no more anime implications) and a new photo for the background. That's the sahara, courtesy Adam K. Wait nonono, that's the Yute desert. Yes. I plunked a nanite down there.. more of a symbloic thing, since of course a nanite wouldn't be that huge by any means.. anyway, onto the international student thing-

ENTER: REI

So the school board rep calls us up to see if we'd like to take a Japanese student. Cool! I'm more versed in Japanese culture than most north americans, (even counting the typical rabid anime fanbase) so it would be fun.
We sent out letter/picture package to her, and she sent a similar one back. This is our house, here's one of the rooms you can pick, here's our pets, blah blah.
"Hide the octopus." a couple friends joked. "Things with tentacles and Japanese schoolgirls have a rough track-record."

When we went to go pick up Rei (This is a codename by the way, lazily ripped from Neon Genesis Evangelion) we waited and waited at the airport. The plane arrived, and it took an hour for passengers to start coming out. Yay for customs. After another 20 minutes of "is that her? No, she said she's have a pink suitcase" finally she came down the passage. I'm easier to recognize in my wheelchair than she was in a mob of other japanese people.
I don't wanna say "they all look the same to me", cuz that's stupid- but if you're not dealing with japanese people often, it's trickier at first to tell similar looking people apart. And no one looks exactly like their photo.
Rei stood before us with her case. We greeted her cheerfully, and she responded quietly and politely. My wife asked how the flight was. "Good."
Alrighty then, I see we're going to be chatty. We led her to the car as she meekly followed behind (refusing help with her baggage), and we almost felt like we were abducting her.

No sooner than we have felt the parkade, than she was asleep in the back seat.
"Well, the time difference and jet lag..." you might begin to think, but nay! I have heard that Japanese people (and I later found out this partially applies to China and Korea) can fall asleep anywhere. Cars, trains, wherever. Apparently they also have the magical ability to wake when needed, to catch their train stop or whatever.

On the first day of school, my wife walked Rei the 2 or three blocks to the highschool, and took her into the office, to make sure she got to the right places.
On her way out, my wife saw many other international students, looking quite lost. Many other host families had dropped their new students off on the curb, and just left. My wife corralled them all towards the office before coming home.

I was very self-conscious about being the 'loud american', so I did my best to speak quietly, and keep humble. I helped her with homework sometimes, and to help her pronunciation, we would take turns reading a newspaper article every night.
Her engilsh was very spotty, as you could imagine. I kept a notepad handy so we could sketch things she didn't know the words for, and we have lengthy discussions about words, and other random topics.
She would also hear something at school, and due to people talking fast, she couldn't understand them. She'd ask me what "tewer" meant, for example. "Can you tell me where you heard it?" "Teacher say to write on a tewer three page." "um.. maybe it was 'write two or three pages'?"
She'd think a moment, eyes staring into the galaxy of her memory, then POP! A cute nod, and "YES!" One I couldnt figure out for the life of me was "Festival".
"Like a carnival? A Fair?"
Eyes narrowed.... "No... just she say 'Festival, ra ra ra ra ra...'" (ra ra ra is seemingly Japanese for 'blah blah blah'.) This one was a puzzlement for a long time.

Every evening after homework, she'd end with "sankyou!" Cute. I could correct her, but she had other english issues to deal with. Eventually, on teacher recommendation, she started watching TV. We set the subtitles on for the hearing impaired, and that helped a lot. One day, months later, she yelps in gleeful discovery.
"FESTIVAL! IS 'FIRST-OF-ALL'!!"
That night, I brought up 'sankyou'. "TH- ankyou. TH is difficult for many asians."
"Ohh... THankyou.." we went on with the homework, and when she left, she was almost aroudn the corner, and she said "Sankyou!" I gave her a jokingly stern look. She gasped. "I mean thankyou!"
"Good good!"

It wasn't all giggles though. Some things pointed to trouble on the horizon. To make conversation, I asked if she had a boyfriend back home.
She gave me the strangest angry look. "You don't ask this."
"I was just trying to make conversation....!"
"Just do not ask that things." And she left the room.
Ohhhhhhhkaaaaay.....?

Another happened on garbage day. We all take our grabage to the back. She took hers, and I was along shortly after with my little bag. She heard the bag rustle, and popped up form nowhere. (Also with the sleep-thing, Japanese people have the ability vanish and appear out of nowhere.)
"You look in garbage?"
"Huh?"
"You look- inspect garbage?"
(blink blink).... "I was just putting more in...." I partially pulled my little bag out again to show her. She looked relieved, but still ill at ease. At this point, should I worry that she's got bad stuff, or just respect her paranoia, based on tales from the east of bizarre pervs who would not mind stopping to garbage searching to satiate their fancies? Bah, I'm lazy. Let sleeping dogs lie.

A month or two, the school board calls- "Can you take another student?"

Next international student post- "Enter:Asuka"

Thursday, July 5, 2007

International Students Ep1: Mexico

Time for me to yak about being a host in the 'homestay' program. Basically, me and my wife make a room (in out case, 2 rooms) available for the school board to post a highschool student in each one.
We make some money on it, but blow most of it taking the girls to Victoria, or other stuff. We get assigned girls for two reasons. 1) the rooms were judged by the inspector to be 'too pretty' to waste on boys, and 2) My with Michelle would probably being doing more activities with them, due to my disability.

Michelle's aunt had hosted a girl from mexico some years ago, and they're still friends. My aunt-in-law (or is it just 'aunt'?) introduced us to the mother of that student, who happened to be the official running the mexican end of the operation. Nice lady. She came over to check out our home, and said yeah, she could send us a couple girls in the coming school year. This was to be... um... sept 2005?

Everything was lined up, and we were getting excited, when suddenly it all fell through. The parent heard that another school was better, and although it was a very short bus ride away, they wouldn't allow it. The students were re-assigned to another home closer to this 'better school'.

Who told them one school is better than another? Over the last few years I've heard all kinds of opinions about which school in the area is best, and which sucks.. and eveyrone's opinion comes out different. They're public schools in the same district, folks- the education's gonna be pretty much the same from one to the next.

And lord knows the bus is a dangerous place to have students at 8am and 3pm. To be fair, in mexico it could be. These kids are from well of families. A rich girl on a bus in mexico sounds like th beginning of many an unpleasant movie.

At any rate, we were now lacking for a student, but lo, the school board always has more lined up. The schools make a lot form international students. One person in the field said that without them, your education system would collapse from lack of funds. Mr. Campbell, how we love thee. But it's just as well, since the program has led to meeting a lot of really neat young ladies.

Next I-student post: Enter Rei.

(No significant updates on the lifehack revision- chippin away, chippin away..)

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Lifehack progress continued. Chapter 16

Still not far from past 25% done, done some other random formatting housekeeping got done.

The removal of the infodumps has been a pretty positive experience. I now look at the infodumps as laziness.

I found another incredibly stupid chapter-separation error. Half way through a chapter, there's a line that just declares
chapter #: blah blah.
And then continues on with the story.

No page break, no graphical bar separator, no nuthin. Two chapters had been combined into one at some point because they were very short, and the text declaring the next chapter was just never removed. I'm really starting to wonder how four sets of eyes could have missed some of these errors. Yeep. I'm so glad I'm doing a revision.


My inability to justify finding a few hundred dollars for a pro edit has led me to collect a handful of ideas for cheap/free editing when I'm done with the revision.
  • Have a copy printed, and pass it around to friends with a highlighter. (a similar method didn't work so well with the original version...)
  • The free e-book/contest in the last post
  • Find an SFU lit student who will do it cheap
  • Hire a pro for a few hundred
Did I miss anything? Spending on it doesn't seem to make sense when I don't have the time, experience, or additional funding to make a really market the result. (le sigh..)

Monday, July 2, 2007

Facebook, Lifehack, Baby

I'm laying here with a laptop on my chest, and baby Cailtin napping peacefully beside me. Today she's 5 weeks and one day.

I discovered yesterday that the first quarter of AZU-1:Lifehack doesn't have a chapter 8.
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,9, etc. Aside from my own stupidity, it just reinforces that with volunteer proofreaders, you get what you pay for. Heehee.

In other news, I've been suckered into joining Facebook. Wanna add me? Well, look to the right, there's my name. Hook it up

Oh! I came to a new conclusion about the proofreading of the new Lifehack revision. I don't know if posting a flyer in SFU is my style... therefore, I'm considering a contest...

When the time comes, I think I'll be give out the E-book for free, before the hardcopy. Partly for promo. Then the contest will be that whoever writes to me with the most typos found (that I USE.. some are intentional) will get a free copy of the hardcopy. Maybe the top 3 or something.

Sound like a good idea?