This the first of eight posts this afternoon.
1) INTRODUCTION
Welcome to MonSFFA’s first gathering of the New Year; this is our January 2023 e-Meeting!
Mid-winter. -Sigh-
With shovelling snow and scraping ice in the near-future for many of us, post-pandemic anxieties plaguing society, the lingering COVID-19 virus still in the air, and a looming recession… Well, we need a break from all that, if only for a few hours!
So sit yourself down in your most comfortable chair, shake out some potato chips, beer nuts, chocolates, cookies or other such snacks into a bowl, pour yourself a cup of coffee or hot chocolate, tune in the fireplace channel on your TV, and join us for an afternoon of SF/F fun and conversation!
Today, we’ll be examining the means by which humans have recorded and kept information over the centuries. We’ll also have a look at more of those cool cameos in science fiction and fantasy film and TV. And, we’ll hold our annual election—by necessity, online again!—to select MonSFFA’s Executive Committee for 2023, plus a lot more!
Today’s agenda is a busy one, so let’s fire the starter’s pistol!
2) JOIN THIS AFTERNOON’S VIDEO-CHAT ON ZOOM!
To join our ZOOM video-chat, which will run throughout the next few hours, simply click here and follow the prompts: This Afternoon’s MonSFFA e-Meeting on ZOOM
If you’re not fully equipped to ZOOM, you can also take part by phone (voice only); in the Montreal area, the toll-free number to call is: 1-438-809-7799. From out of town? No problem; find your ZOOM call-in number here: Call-In Numbers
Also, have this information on hand as you may be asked to enter it:
Meeting ID: 860 4368 3500
Passcode: 626294
3) MEETING AGENDA
Here is the agenda for this afternoon’s get-together:
As always, all scheduled programming is subject to change.
4)
MonSFFAdamus Reveals His Amazing Prognostications for 2023!
1) Dubbed Kraken, 2022’s latest and, to date, most virulent COVID-19 variant will dominate in the early months of 2023, only to be supplanted mid-year by Dragon, an even more contagious form, one so infectious that a person may well catch it during one of their past lives! By the end of 2023, Medusa will rise and quickly become the prevailing strain, turning everyone who contracts it to stone!
2) The federal government will inaugurate a cross-country road race to turbo-charge public interest in EVs. The electric vehicles participating will dash, east to west, along the Trans-Canada Highway, symbolically speeding right past gas stations all along the route! Long stretches of the highway in Saskatchewan and Alberta will be lined with angry protesters. Some provincial governments will seize upon the opportunity to reduce overcrowding in hospitals by moving patients out to the middle of the highway!
3) The world’s population reached 8 billion in 2022, and astoundingly, will balloon by another billion or so in 2023, bringing the global population to a near-untenable, “Mark of Gideon”-level of some 9 billion by the end of the year! And Quebec premiere Francois Legault will refuse entry into Quebec to any who don’t speak French!
4) As global climate change intensifies, Montreal will, in late September, experience an alarming EF5 tornado! Not built to survive winds of such force, city landmarks like Place Ville Marie and St. Joseph’s Oratory will be devastated. Office and hotel towers will sustain severe damage, and the cross atop Mount Royal will collapse into twisted wreckage. Thousands will be injured or lose their lives after seeking shelter in the Olympic Stadium when howling winds rip away the retractable roof. In the aftermath, Mayor Valerie Plante will announce that clean-up operations are to begin immediately, starting with the city’s bike paths.
5) On the international front, mounting losses of personnel, equipment, and military prestige in Ukraine will at last prompt Russian army leaders to rebel against leader Vladimir Putin and overthrow him in a successful coup. But Putin will evade capture and retreat into a fortified underground bunker just outside of Moscow. The military will blast through the thick walls of the bunker, only to find a slightly smaller bunker nestled within. Blasting through that bunker as well will reveal a still smaller bunker tucked inside. By year’s end, Putin will not yet have been apprehended.
6) Having called a federal election in 2023, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will invoke emergency measures when a zombie apocalypse suddenly manifests just as the campaign is getting underway. The prime minister will find himself facing not only new Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, but the risen corpse of his own father, who garners enough support to run! Meanwhile, the Freedom Convoy will roll again in opposition to the emergency measures, but this time face two Trudeaus!
7) South of the border, meanwhile, while visiting grade schools, both President Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris will, tragically, suffer permanent incapacitation in two separate shooting incidents. Next in line to accede to the Oval Office is newly-elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy! What could possibly go wrong?
8) Here in Quebec, in an effort to assuage concerns over Bill 96—now law—the CAQ government will enact legislation specifically guaranteeing the language rights of English-speaking Quebecers, but will define “English-speaking” as limited to mother-tongue-English citizens who are fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs. English Quebecers are to be issued identity cards clipped to a lanyard and imprinted with a large scarlet-coloured letter “A,” for “anglais”—the “maudit” is implied!—so that government workers, shop owners, and others may recognize them as someone with whom it is legal to communicate in English, though only if absolutely necessary. Detractors will dub this legislation the “Scarlet Letter Act,” and the Anglophone population will take to the streets in droves to protest, understandably angry and exasperated. The Leafs! Really?
9) Inflation, fueled by rising interest rates and continuing supply-chain issues will trigger a recession in 2023, pushing the cost of groceries to unprecedented heights for many citizens! A jar of strawberries will cost $150!
10) After a frustratingly futile search in 2022, MonSFFA will finally secure a surprisingly inexpensive function space in which to hold its monthly meetings! Club members will be instructed to gather at the appointed time in front of the Villa-Maria Metro/Bus station in NDG, then, as a group, board the Number 24 Bus and secure seats in the back half of the vehicle. The meeting will unfold as the 24 travels east on its route, arriving some 60-90 minutes later at the Montgomery/Sherbrooke bus station in the city’s center-east Sainte-Marie neighbourhood. Our group will disembark for the mid-meeting break, then catch a west-bound 24 for the ride back to Villa-Maria, during which time the second half of the meeting will take place. Post-meeting dinner at a restaurant in the Monkland Village, or along Decarie Boulevard, and voilà!
11) Montreal’s new REM elevated commuter train, after a delayed launch in 2022, will finally begin operation in 2023. During a heavy snowfall mixed with freezing rain, however, the REM trains will stall when too much ice accumulates on the tracks. Engineers will explain that this breakdown was the result of a chance occurrence, a once-in-365-day weather event! The REM, they are confident, should be able to operate normally in the winter, provided Montreal does not again receive a copious measure of snow and freezing rain!
12) As war rages, prejudices flourish, the climate crisis worsens, the middle-class withers, and democracy falters, and MonSFFA searches desperately for a viable meeting hall, scientists in 2023 will confirm that there is, in the end, no intelligent life to be found anywhere in the universe, this planet included!