If you have been having a difficult time getting into a restaurant in the Y&E area around 6pm, chances are it's because of the popularity of Menopause Out Loud.

But no need to get all hot and bothered, it looks like the gung-ho-for-middle-age females musical production will be moving south on March 18th to the previous home of The Blue Man Group - the Panasonic Theatre for a show opener on March 23rd.

This is just a reminder that today is the last day you can use those old TTC tokens. Token exchange continues until February 28th...but only at 4 locations.

This year's WinterCity 2007 ice gallery wasn't what I expected. Located between a great big plastic cheesy snowglobe and a rammed ice rink at Nathan Phillips Square - I thought this exhibit would have your run-of-the-mill ice sculptures. You know, the ones of the city landscape carved out of ice, or better yet, a snowman or other 'winter' icon.

Not this one. This one really did surprise me.

I am not a graphic novel expert by any stretch. Yes, I have heard of Seth (of course, he is Canadian after all), as well as the famous Herge of Tin-Tin...but Charles Berberian and Philippe Dupuy? Non. I lack a certain, je ne sais quoi, knowledge, of this new media.

Both are here for the first of two sessions on graphic novels. A growing popularity for the festival...hurrah for that!

Conversing with Seth, Berbarian and Dupuy bashfully spoke in their ever-so-charming accents of their work, French comics, the industry as a whole, as well as being seen as a contemporary cartoonists.

It is a little bit strange listening in on a conversation for almost an hour. I kinda feel like I am spying or somewhat deceiving the people I am listening to.

I felt that way during the conversation between Mark Z. Danielewski and Jonathan Safran Foer, two very popular authors who are both enchanting and quite fascinating on their own.

Conversing mainly about Danielewski's latest novel, Only Revolutions, the story of two wayward kids careening across the American mainland - Foer first set the stage of Danieleski's work by conversing with him about his relationship with his father, reading Charlotte's Web as a child, through to his cult-favourite first novel and then to the present.

There is something strangely romantic about sitting in a candlelit room listening to stories about the devil, human trafficking and a near-apocalyptic flood.

Authors James Robertson (U.K.), Simon Ings (U.K.) and Chris Adrian (U.S.A.) each got up in front of a small group of bookies and read from their latest works of fiction at this year's IFOA.

James Robertson, a comfortable speaker read from his book, The Testament of Gideon Mack, a story that concerns a Church of Scotland minister who doesn't believe in God, the Devil or an afterlife.