If you haven’t seen The Iron Giant, you really should. It’s one of the best animated movies of all time, in my opinion; as good as Castle in the Sky.
I wish to state, again, that during this incident, secret service officers acted in a polite and professional manner, and had the sense to know that the matter they were sent to investigate was no threat to national security.
Now I hear that the Department of Homeland Security is into protecting intellectual copyright. Who knew?
From Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing Blog:
Reinvigorated after spending $500,000 on a self-congratulatory awards dinner in which it handed out “lifetime achievement” awards, the two-year old Dept. of Homeland Security went after an extremely dangerous toy store owner who was selling a knockoff of a Rubik’s Cube. We can all sleep a little more soundly tonight.
The next day, two men arrived at the store and showed Cox their badges. The lead agent asked Cox whether she carried a toy called the Magic Cube. She said yes. The Magic Cube, he said, was an illegal copy of the Rubik’s Cube, one of the most popular toys of all time. He told her to remove the Magic Cube from her shelves, and he watched to make sure she complied.
The whole thing took about 10 minutes.
After the agents left, Cox called the manufacturer of the Magic Cube, the Toysmith Group, which is based in Auburn, Wash. A representative told her that the Homeland Security agents had it wrong. The Rubik’s Cube patent had expired, and the Magic Cube did not infringe on rival toy’s trademark.
Weird.
Writing Progress
Sealwife is now on its way. Its first destination: the Prairie Fire 2004 Writing Contest. If this doesn’t go through, I may try On Spec. Wish me luck!
We’re now two and a half months after sending off Rosemary and Time, and I was assured that I would be getting a response in two-to-three months. Which means that I should only start getting nervous and/or excited in about three weeks. Should. My body doesn’t listen to “should” very often.
I’ve also started to look over The Night Girl and The Young City. The former still struggles from the lack of a credible threat to make the situation unstable. The Young City, on the other hand, feels ripe for editing and building the thing up from first draft to first polished draft. Not the story that I should be working on, but as you can tell, I’m working with a “should” theme on this post.
The :Trenchcoat Farewell Project: is still simmering, waiting for that last push.
On the Arts
Thursday was an early day, since the Waterloo Regional Arts Council commissioned an “Arts Breakfast” to honour this year’s award winners (of which Erin was one). The good folks gave the award winners a pin, and everyone eggs, bacon, sausages and hash browns. Nice. But early: 7:30 early, which meant we had to get up before 6:30. As Erin said, they could host a ceremony at 1 pm and still call it an “Arts Breakfast”.
No chance to sleep in this Saturday, as my mother will be having a reading at Words Worth Books in Uptown Waterloo, 10:30 a.m. She’ll be reading selections from her new young adult fantasy novel, The Bone Flute, which I all recommend you pick up and read. If you’re uptown around 10:30, why not consider stopping by?