Three TIres Out Of A Possible Four
I just got in from taking the flat tire off my car. Actually, it is frozen on, but the bolts have been removed in preparation for when I can go and get it repoored. LAst night Cory came over and we filled it up and half an hour later it was flat again. What a pain. I was trying to remember how many flats I've had over the years, and I could remember at least 5. Including the one last year when my tire got slashed and I had to run around on a long weekend to get it fixed, and it wasn't fixable, so I had to buy a new one, when I had to work nightshift that night. I still get mad when I think of that one.
The good news is, there is only Happy Fun on the horizon. Tomorrow morning me and three friends (Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas and me- can you guess who I would be? Hint he is not in Two Towers) are going to convene for a viewing of the Two Towers on bootleg DVD. This is a critic's advance preview copy that certain Unscrupulous Individuals have procured for our edification. Pirates and Smugglers were involved, I am sure, so I will not give any more details than that. Maybe I am just being Pooranoid, but that's okay. Tomorrow hopefully we'll get some pooker going, then Friday is the Monster Truck Jam and Saturday is Chinese New Year and the very first ever Seven Devil Fix outside-of-the-Gathering gig at the Mudhut. That will be good. You should come.
Also tomorrow, though it looks like I will miss it, is the World Premiere of my First Movie Ever. It is just a small independent pooduction, just a poomotional video, nothing amazing. Not as cool as the news I got from my good friend Jonny Smelter today- he got his first TV role! Here is what he had to say: "I thought you might get a laugh out of seeing me on "one life to live" I play a bass player (what else?) in this band at the end of the episode. It will air on the 27th of Febuary so make sure you haven't used your sick-days up by then. Please be kind. I was made to wear those clothes and my advanced apologies to the Smelters." So a big congratulations to Jonny Smelter. I don't think he checks out the Woods much, but if he is reading, Homie Bear is proud of you!

The Pooet Laureate Speaks

Pain in my belly
Only relief is rolaids
Or a good long dump

A haipoo acrostic! Nicely done!

Best Detective Ever
With but one clue- I was given the location of a secret, indecipherable document- I was able to track down a fugitive Chinese National, by unearthing various hidden clues (and using a chaos pendulum), thereby securing a hitherto unattainable objective. Of course I can't give you any more details than that, but trust me, I was brilliant. SO if you have any cases you need solving, just let me know. I'm pretty good at that sort of thing. Me and Matty once had a Detective Agency at Grant MacEwan, so I am very experienced in these matters.
Not only that, but I also starred in a movie today, and cleaned out Bruce's fish tank, and got my car unstuck and its flat tire fixed, with the help of Cory. In fact, I accomplished all my missions for today. Ooh- except for one- the crowning of the new Pooet Laureate. Well, that is pretty much a foregone conclusion- my Sister Nadine is hereby Appoointed to the status of Pooet Laureate of the Great Nation of Pooing in the Woods. Congratulations and thanks to all the participants, they were all Tremendous and Unprecedented Works of Art.

For more on the Metallica vs Metallica epoosode, read this.
Been listening to the Misfits' 20 Eyes all day today- I love that song. Waaaay back in high school some guy made me a tape of Danzig's Lucifuge and filled the blank stuff with old Misfits songs (Glenn Danzig was the front man, you pooser), who were only familiar to me as a band that Metallica covered. 20 Eyes was my favorite song from that tape. Here's the lyrics- once again I have lived my whole life with the wrong idea of the song- I thought it was about a monster who had 20 eyes in his head. Judge for yourself:

20 Eyes in my head
20 Eyes in my head
20 Eyes in my head
They're all the same, they're all the same

20 Eyes in my head
20 Eyes in my head
They're all the same, they're all the same

When you're seeing 20 things at a time
You just can't slow things down, baby
When you're seeing 20 things in your mind
Just can't slow things down

Then all those eyes
They're just crowding up your human face
Then all those eyes
Take an overload

Repeat

Those were the days- trading tapes with total strangers, just because of a mutual love for music. I wish there was something like that now . . .

This is your last chance to submit a haipoo or other work of pooetry- I will announce the winner tomorrow. So far, it seems to be pretty unanimous that Nadine will win, but if you feel like a challenge, try and outdo her. I have come up with a new innovation myself- the Haipoo Acrostic! Observe:

Putting on my pants
Oops I forgot my undies
Oh no I have none!

"Hackworth had made efforts to learn a few Chinese characters, and to aquaint himself with some basics of their intellectual system, but in general, he liked his transcendence out in plain sight where he could keep an eye on it- say, in a nice stained-glass window- not woven through the fabric of life like gold threads through a brocade."
-from The Diamond Age

Neal Stephenson is such a good writer, and reading this book again, this time with considerably more knowledge about Chinese history and culture, is helping me gain that much more of an appoociation for his craft. Here's another one:

"Judge Fang had recently been plagued with doubts as to whether his life made any sense at all within the context of the Coastal Republic, a nation almost completely devoid of virtue.
If the Coastal Republic had believed in the existence of virtue, it could at least have aspired to hypocrisy."

Playing in the Snow
Last night was the most fun ever. I was supposed to go skating at Hawrelak Park with a whole bunch of people, even though it was -25 out. The skate rental shack was closed, though, since there was no one else in Edmonton foolish enough to be out, so me and Jonny were poo out of luck. But instead of succumbing to Depression and Dementia, we decided to build a Poowerful and Impregnable Snow Fort! There was a big pile of snow out by the lake where it had been piled after previous clearings. We started digging a little tunnel with our boots and soon we had to get sticks. Before long (2 ½ hours, actually) this Tunnel was big enough to fit two people comfortably inside! And that’s not all! We built a Great Wall outside to Guard and Protect the entrance to the tunnel. Morna remarked that it looked like Helm’s Deep, showing herself to be a Discriminating and Astute Judge of Architecture. I told her I was hoping some Snow Orcs would come along and try to fight us for it, but sadly none did. Jonny and I figured out that our Fort was worth $700, since he is a Engineer and I am a Geologist, and we worked 5 man-hours on it, at $100/hour, and Emilia and Mindy contributed considerable labor themselves, thus the extra $200.
But eventually we had to go, so we caved in the entrance so no little kids would play in it and die. Drew wanted to rig a Child Trap, but of course it is far too cold to catch any children right now anyways. So then we went and had hot chocolate at someone’s house. A poofect night.

Since it is so cold out today, what else is there to do but blog? I wish I could go toblogganing hahaha. Anyways, I had to go pull out my old Ride the Lightning CD after I quoted that lyic from Trapped Under Ice.

I don´t know how to live through this hell
Woken up, I´m still locked in this shell
Frozen soul, frozen down to the core
Break the ice, I can´t take anymore

Freezing
Can´t move at all
Screaming
Can´t hear my call
I am dying to live
Cry out
I´m trapped under ice

Crystallized, as I lay here and rest
Eyes of glass stare directly at death
From deep sleep I have broken away
No one knows, no one hears what I say

Chorus

Scream from my soul
Fate, mystified
Hell, forever more

No release from my cryonic state
What is this? I´ve been stricken by fate
Wrapped up tight, cannot move, can´t break free
Hand of doom has a tight grip on me

Chorus

Reflecting on these lyrics, I am forced to admit that this song isn't about being Trapped Under Ice at all, at least in the literal sense. I always kind of thought it was, just because Ride the Lightning is such a primitive album, compared to their others. The whole album is about death. Unlike Kill 'em All which was about, umm, leather and headbanging. I mean come on, these albums are both very old- 1983 and 1984 they came out. I have to say, James Hetfield is one of my all time musical heroes. In fact, he is my all time favorite. For lyrics his work is poetry (unfortunatley I can not think of a single instance of the word poo appearing in a Metallica song) and his riffs are the best. Too bad their sheen has been diminshed in recent years with their constant suing people. Most recently they are suing local Edmonton punk band Metallica. Yeah you read that right. I guess I can understand why the real Metallica might be a little upset. But they should take it as a joke instead of getting all corporate on them, you know?
I bought ReLoad on the day it came out in 1997, while in the midst of my Cross-Canada Hitch-Hiking Trip. I was in Winnipeg and the weather was much like it is today. Then I got on a train and went to Churchill to see Poolar Bears. I listened to ReLoad the whole way, and to this day I swear Fixxxer is about the Northern Lights, snow and Hudson's Bay. The cool intro is the aural equivalent of the aurora. It's actually about voodoo though, or poo, or something.

Back in July or August I went Chilkoot Trailing with Alex. While there I met some fantastic people, and they got to meet me! Lucky them. Just kidding. I was IMing with Erica today and she let me know about Dave's school's page, which features some pics of our trip, including photos of me and by me. They're kind of tough to find though, but if you want to dig around, check out this. Of course, the photos link to the left has some pictures of that trip too. Also, on the trail, we met some guys who were doing a reality show for History Channel where they reenact the Klondike Gold Rush. That show debuts on February 2 and more can be found about that here.
One funny poo story from that trip: on our last day (of a five day hike) we were setting up camp and this guy is at the next site doing the same. He starts talking to us, and gets around to asking if we had any toilet paper. So we lent him some, and he was pretty happy. Then he informed us that he had ran out three days ago and was forced to use his socks.

Yesterday was Chinese History Day at the House of Poo. I finally finished a Brief History of the Boxer Rebellion, and then I watched the Last Empooror. It seemed to be fairly accurate, at least as far as I know. But after reading such heavy stuff I figured it would be appropriate to return to some good ole fiction. I am rereading Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, which is one of my favorite books ever. It is about nanotechnology, Victorian Morals and (You see the connection now) features a Neo-Boxer Rebellion. Stephenson seems to know his Chinese History, though he uses the wrong-but-way-cooler "Fists of Righteous Harmony" translation of I Ho Chuan. Now, my Chinese is laughably far from being anywhere near to be able to translate that on my own, I just know from my own studies that a more correct translation is 'Boxers (or Fists) United in Righteousness".
Basically, they wanted to rid China of Foreigners, especially Christians, so they killed over 200 foreign missionaries, including women and children, and over 30,000 Chinese Christians. The Boxers believed that their particular martial art enabled them to be possessed by gods and rendered invulnerable. They weren't though, and a good many Boxers were killed when the British, Russian, French, German, American and Japanese forces came and kicked their asses. And then sacked and pillaged Beijing.

Trapped Under Ice
I got up early and went outside and plugged in my car, fighting the cold and knee deep snow, risking a ticket from the bylaw officer (I strung the chord across the sidewalk, since it is not long enough to hang from the trees) in order to go tobogganing with Alex. Four hours later, my car wouldn't even think of starting- I guess -30 (low last night was -38, it was -32 when I got up, but it is currently a balmy -23) is just a touch too cold for my faithful friend. It is also too cold for Alex, who didn't want to play outside today anyways. Fine by me, I can't find my longjohns or cold-weather gloves anywhere- that's what happens when you move so much. And besides all that, it is doubtful that my little Green JEllybean would even be able to fight its way out from under the snow it is trapped under. (I am dying to live CRY OUT- I'm trapped under ice! Reward pooints for anyone able to identify that quotation).

Anyways, I still wanted to go out for a walk- I like the cold, and there is something cool about living in a place where exposed flesh can freeze in a matter of minutes. When I was a kid I got frostbite in my fingers and for many years afterwards even a cold glass of water would cause my fingers to turn white and numb. Thankfully that finally went away. But like I was saying, I went down to the used bookstore and bought some books. A book on the Chinese Diaspora called Sons of the Yellow Empooror, a book with a poolar bear on the cover called The Golden Compass, and best of all, a pristine copy of the Two Towers that matches the old set I "inherited" from my Dad- but they are falling apart from many readings as well as from being taken to a coal mine. All three books came to $14.50!

An Epic of Homeric Proportions to add to the Canon today- this one from my Mexican Sister who Teaches English. Her name is Nadine and she lives in Mexico, is fluent in Spanish and yet can write English to make Shakespoore jealous. Obviously Pooetic Talent runs in our family.

There once was a poo named L'il Noodle
Who lived in a tiny toy poodle.
He was cheerful and happy
Til the poodle felt crappy
And ended up taking a doodle.

The streets were cold and quite scary,
For a while things were hairy,
L'il Noodle knew not what to do.
Shadows were dark and looming,
Music from bars was booming,
No one worried for one little poo.

Alas there's no happy ending
To this tale, it's heartrending
For the poo surely was not to blame.
Collected by vagrants
Unbothered by fragrance,
He was burned up in one big poo flame.

She gets extra points for using poodle, by the way.

OK now they're rolling in- two from Alex in the comment link there, and this Enigmatic and Grande Haipoo submission by Tay, aka Blu.

flatulence unseen
this verdant and potent sit
my beautiful muck

Here, I even decided to write another Haipoo.

Snow is soft and white
And it hides the poos of dogs
Don't eat yellow snow!

No one else has submitted any pooetry yet, but I eagerly look forward to receiving some- the good thing about pooetry is it is automatically High Art Worthy of the Ages. So send your haipoo or whatever today!

Snow and snow and snow and snow
According to the news today, we have received more snow in the past three days than in the last three months. This is pretty much a very good thing, since we have been in such a bad drought the last year or so. Too bad it's also so cold right now. Click on this link to see the current temperature at the U of A, which is just ten blocks away or so. You'll note the green goodness they have going on, plus my cousin GUBA Bear lives there too. Anyways, a little cold can't deter Homie Bear, who is a Poolar Bear after all, so Alex and I are going tobogganing on Wednesday afternoon. If anyone else wants to come feel free to join us at Connors Hill around oneish.

How Long To SIng This Song
Tonight at the Gathering we had a Thin Place service- a service dedicated to prayer, meditation and contemplation. Since I can occasionally be a PooBrain, I forgot that we start at 6 now so I almost missed it- I was watching the AFCchampionship game and thought I had another hour before church but luckily I remembered before it got too late and I didn't miss anything. Anyways, Deb, Scottie and Craig from Sanctuary, and Mike and Tay from 7DF, jammed on U2's 40 for an hour and a half and it was frickin amazing. It doesn't sound like it could be done, but they did it- I counted no less than 14 instruments, so the musicians would trade off which leant to an incredible musical variety. It was a pleasure to listen to these very talented folks improvise and experiment, while contemplatng on Psalm 40. The music would alternate between a very light and melodic, mellow sound, then build and crescendo into a loud, exuberant shout- just like being brought up out of a pit. Finally, the night ended with an explosion of percussion- everyone using some form of drum (and Deb used that shaky metal-bead-thing that sounds cool) to pound out a failry heavy, even menacing beat. Which I thought was appropriate since I think a proper view of God recognizes His menace. Anyways, I can't do justice to the night by writing about it, but I had to say something.

Psalm 40
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lfited me up out of the pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song of praise in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the Lord.

The Haipoos have been quite well received, and I decided to let you all in on the action- Announcing the Very First Pooing in the Woods Pooetry Contest! Submit to me via email your haipoo, limerick, sonnet or whatever you want and I will pick a winner sometime next week to be the new Pooet Laureate and maybe I will try and find an actual physical prize too (I just had a brainstorm idea but I think I will try harder than that- and you know what I thought of cause you thought of it too!). I will poost all submissions unless you tell me otherwise, or unless they are beneath my standards of decency (you should be safe). Anyone is welcome to submit. Submit to Homie Bear

Mike's got some cool things to say about Eminem and Poophets (Ezekiel and Jeremiah) over at Gotthammer today- go click on the link to the left to read it.

I'm having a bit of a pooetry writers' block right now, so I thought I would throw a few Haipoos out there.

When a bear goes poo
In the woods by himself
Can anyone smell it?

So you don't like poo
But you poo to stay alive
Make peace with the poo

Brown and round and fun
That's why footballs are so great
You thought I meant poo?

I am the Pooet Laureate

When was the last time someone wore a monocle? I think that will be the next big Hip hop fashion trend- Nelly will forego his bandaid-on-the-cheek for a monocle. "It's hot in herre, chap." "Jolly good show, what-what?" Maybe I should start a new style of music- not urban, not rock, but woods. It wil be called Poo Plop.

Shampoo
Heehee

Use the commenting function to poost your old school favorites- there's no condemnation here.

Listening to some old-school stuff these days- Anthrax, Poosistence of Time. Laugh if you want, I don't care, it's good stuff. They do a cover of Joe Jackson's Got the Time which is still one of my favorite songs ever, even after 12 (!! We're getting old, Rowan!) years. And the instrumental Intro to Reality- beautiful. I love the bottom end on this disc.
But I also have a couple of other older CD's up by the stereo, and Mike was looking at the jacket for Nevermind, and says, "This is almost child porn." And I was like, "No it's not!" And he says, "You can see everything! It's child porn!" So then I tried to explain to him that nudity is not necessarily porn, but he wasn't buying it. And then, triumphantly, he says "What's this?" and he shows me the OTHER old CD I've been listening to lately, the Pixies' Surfer Rosa. As you know, the cover features a topless ballerina. "See? Porn." So Mike won the argument.
He wins a lot of arguments.

As you can see on the sidelines there, I added a link to the Hockey Pundits. It is a good sight, and you should visit it. But first, I would like to add my two cents as a Hockey Poondit. I think you will agree I am qualified since I am currently winnning my Hockey Poo with 41 points between me and second place (held by my Lovely and Generous Neighbour/Landlady Mandy) and 174 points seperating me from Mike my Room-mate. Super Poopers First Class Cal and Alex are doing alright for themselves, but they are still losing to ME. Haha.
Anyways, I just wanted to discuss Todd Marchant for a moment. At the beginning of the year everyone was saying how he should be traded away, since he is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year anyway. But I said then, and it is even more true now, that he is the Most Valuable Oiler, and in my opinion, he should be the Captain, not to take anything away from Jason Smith. But it is Toddy who is always there talking to the media, facing the heat after an Embarrassing Loss or deflecting the praise after a Glorious Win. He is the Longest Serving Oiler, one of the Hardest Working, and now, he is even among the Highest Producing (4 points last night, 12 in the last 7 games) , which has never been his job. Him and his wife are very involved in the community. Oh yeah and he scored one of the Most Exciting Playoff Goals in the Storied History of the Oilers. So please Kevin Lowe (and I know you are reading this) do whatever it takes to keep this Class Act an Edmonton Oiler. I will make you a Super Pooper Extraodinaire if you do. Thank you.

I did a Google search of "Pooing in the Woods" to see what else is out there pertaining to life as we know it. Turns out this blog doesn't even show up, which doesn't really bother me all that much since I kind of doubt that anyone else in the world will type in that same search. But anyways, I was quite interested in what I did find:

Oh, it's that stupid job of hers," he said. "She works fourteen-hour days, then comes home like a bear.". "What, pooing in the woods?". "Grizzly.". "Oh. ...

Interesting, eh? Especially if we look for the hidden, subliminal message, as follows:

Oh, it's that stupid job of hers," he said. "She works fourteen-hour days, then comes home like a bear.". "What, pooing in the woods?". "Grizzly.". "Oh. ...

Pooing in the Woods is going for a more Woodsy look- what do you think? It took a lot of fiddling around just to get the greens sort of right, since I am not a poogrammer it was trial and error. The font colors don't really match up, but hopefully it doesn't hurt your eyes at least. The world could always use more green, and today I partook in the elimination of some- we painted over our Beautiful Green Ceiling at the Gathering. I felt kind of guilty about that so I changed the layout here. Eventually it would be cool to have an actual Woodsy background, complete with trees and creeks and such. But I have no idea how to go about doing that. It's kind of funny- I pooruse other people's blogs to see what else is out there and I find all these 14 year olds' blogs whose layout kicks ass, and they did it themselves when they were bored. Of course, their content is a little lacking- consisting mainly of teenygossip- who's mad at who and for how long and why and such. And they never seem to talk about Poo.

Trevor came over and we watched xXx. As much as I like Vin Diesel (The Iron Giant is one of my favorite movies ever) I am forced to give this movie 3 and a half Poos out of 5. The reason it doesn't get more is because it was kind of fun to watch, so definitely some entertainment value. As with any movie, it could have been improved greatly by the inclusion of a cartoon bear or at LEAST a few mentions of the word Poo.
It also encouraged me a bit, since I figure I could write a better screenplay than that.

All these bears and tigers everywhere- ever notice how many cartoon versions of each there are? Winnie the Pooh is a Bear of Little Brain, while Yogi Bear is Smarter Than Your Average Bear (and Homie Bear is the Smartest Bear of All). Then there's Baloo the Poo and Smokey the Bear, the Care Bears and the Bears that ate Goldilocks, and Brer Bear.
In the realm of the genus Felicity Tigris there is Tigger, Shere Khan, Hobbes and even the Esso Tiger. And probably more that I can't think of.
An obvious thought that comes to mind when poondering these lists is what would happen if these cartoon animals were all assembled into two Mighty Armies and fought each other, who would win?
But though I have been called a Messianic Cult Leader Who Promotes Violence, I do not endorse such an endeavour. In fact, Homie Bear wishes to live in peace with all the cartoon animals , and warmly embraces all fellow bear kindred, even Pandas, which are not actually bears but Ungulates or Protobronts or something, and Koalas, which are actually Rodents. Furthermore, Homie Bear wishes to express his Highest Admiration for the Panda that can accomplish this.

In honor of the Tao of Pooh and just Poo in general, I finally watched The Tigger Movie today. I got this DVD free from Disney quite a while ago and never bothered to watch it till now- it was really good. I laughed. In fact, I declare it my new favorite movie until Thursday. I have to say, for being such a Big and Soulless Corpooration, that Disney has treated me well over the years. They sent me a new disc for the Empooror's New Groove when mine wouldn't work in my PooS2, and now that Mike has one I have discovered that the fault is with my PlayStation and not with Disney.
Speaking of DVD's I own and have never watched, I also have the Last Empooror. I just started reading A Brief History of the Boxer Rebellion today so when I finsh that, I will watch the movie, which has nothing to do with the Boxers, but the last empooror's (who happens to be named Pu Yi) mom was the Empress Dowager and she had a lot to do with the Boxers.
So there you go- Peerless Movie Reviews, Linguistics Lessons and Chinese History all in the last few days of Pooing in the Woods- truly the most important blog in blogdom.

Well, I finished reading the Tao of Pooh, and it turns out it wasn't about Poo at all, but about Winnie the Pooh! Do I ever fell sheepish! Winnie the Pooh is pretty cool though. He's a bear, he lives in the woods, he's originally from Canada, he says Poo(h) a lot. He's just like Homie Bear, in fact.

Pooing in the Woods presents A Lesson in Linguistics

In an attempt to boost the Educational Content of Pooing in the Woods, I give to you this language primer, good in at least 28 and a half countries of the world.
Poo in French is Le Poo
And in Spanish it is almost the same, just reverse the letters in the first word. El Poo. Easy, no?
Russian is a bit tricky cause you say it the same, just in a Russian accent (Pooink), but you got to use Cyrillic letters, where a P is spelled with a upside-down U, which I can't really make on my keyboard, but it looks a little like this:
__
l l OO
And Germans of course like to use many syllables, so it is Der Poopiesprecken.
Okay, now onto some non-Europooin languages. I can't show you the Chinese character, again due to keyboard limitations, but the Pinyin is remarkably easy: Poo, fourth tone. If you need to say, "Excuse me, I have to Poo" you just say the following (just make sure you get the tones right, or you might wind up saying something inoffensive:) : "Lao jia, ni yao zou poo".
Alright, so that about covers the major languages in the world. Then you have the made-up languages, like pig latin. That's easy enough, ooplay. The Star Wars language is very similar to English in this regard: Poodoo. And in Elvish, it is rendered thusly: Poogolas.
Well, that's about all the languages I know.

Mike gave me a book yesterday called The Tao of Poo. I look forward to reading it. I think there are some good lessons to be learned from Poo. For example, think about being flushed- you just have to go with the flow. You might wind up being surrounded by Poo, but that's okay- you are a Poo too!! And for those Poos lucky enough to be deposited in the woods- they get to be fertilizer and contribute to the Great Circle of Life.

Today is 01/02/03. According to my newly made-up theology as a Messianic Cult Leader Who Promotes Violence (I take my responsibilities seriously), today is the long-ago-prophesied Apoocalypse. And you know something? It kind of has been, for me. The parasites that I hooked up with in China seem to have returned today. Not a fun day.
As far as the Cataclysmic Apoocalypse prophesied by the great Poophet Raspootin, it doesn't appear to be happening. Maybe tomorrow- the third day of the third year of the third millenium!