Little Orc
Running through deep, powdery snow is pretty hard work. But it's fun. Yesterday I ran (part of the way) to the grocery store, leaving all the rush hour gridlocked cars stuck in the blizzard in my snowdust. Wearing my trusty old Merrells, and ample winter gear, it was actually quite pleasant. It brought back some good memories for me, in fact.
When I first read Lord of the Rings, way back when I was but a cub, one of the many, many things that stood out to me was the orc-chase in The Two Towers. Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas after the orcs who took Merry and Pippin. "Let's hunt some orc!" Obviously the three heroes were pretty noble and brave, chasing after all those orcs like that. But then again, that's what they do- be noble and brave. For some reason, the thought of those orcs running day and night without stopping really made an impression on me. They weren't motivated by some higher purpose like rescuing loved ones in peril. Rather, they seemed to be running just because they could. Though now Legolas informs us they run "as though the very whips of their masters were upon them", so maybe they were motivated by fear. Still, to my young mind, I thought those orcs had at least one admirable trait- they could run like hell. So whenever I felt like running, especialy through snow when it's so much harder, I would always pretend I was one of those orcs. Not the Elf, not Aragorn, nor even Gimli, but an orc.
I was a little orc, running for no other reason than that I could.

Not to be morbid, but given the choice, I would rather die at the hands of a grizzly than be struck by lightning. Seems more fitting. Yet, according to this National Geographic special on grizzlies that I saw, you are far more likely to be struck by lightning than eaten by a bear.
So I started wondering, just what exactly are my odds of death by Thor vs death by Ursis?
I didn't find any actual Vegas-type numbers, but I found out some interesting things. In BC, for example, between 1969 and 1997, there were 133 people killed by animals, with a nearly 50-50 split between wild and domesticated animals. Horses were responsible for 47 deaths, while bears killed 19. So did moose, actually, though those were all as a result of a car crash. And bugs killed 16 people. Who'da thought bugs were almost as lethal as bears? But by "bugs" I mostly mean bees and hornets. Here you can see a map of BC along with a graphic showing each animal-caused fatality. Just scroll to the bottom.
On more general terms, in the 1990s, bears caused on average about 3 deaths a year in North America. Lightning, on the other hand, killed 1318 people between 1980 and 1995 in the United States, or an average of 82 a year. Wow. I couldn't find any statistics about how many bears were struck by lightning, though I did find some far more disturbing things- between 1971 and 1996, there were 639 documented grizzly deaths, of which 627 were caused by humans.
So what it all boils down to is, a bear is far more likely to be killed by a human than the other way around. No surprise there, unfortunately. So, I guess being both bear and human, I have something like a billion percent chance of dying at the hands of my own kind.

A pyramid of bears! That you can knock down. But don't worry, they are not hurt. Hee hee look at them go! Yay!

Cool, take a look at this:

create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide
I have a lot of work to do, looks like.
And then there's this:

create your own visited States map
or write about it on the open travel guide

They don't have one for the Canadian provinces, but that's fine since mine would be all red anyways, except for Nunavut.

The Story of Scrapefoot the Fox and the Three Bears
Goldilocks evolved from Scrapefoot. The same site where I got this story says that originally the word for fox was mistranslated as old woman, and over the years the old was changed to young. The name Goldilocks was at first Silverhair, then Silver-locks, then Golden-Hair, and finally Goldilocks.
But there were always three bears, and that's what really matters.

Fixed!
Little did you know that I had a bit of an emergency after that last poost- I accidentally deleted my template! But luckily I was able to piece it back together using painstaking CSS Detective Skills. They could make a show about that, called CSS:Miami, or maybe CSS: Homie. I think you can hardly notice a difference, except that the hand-coded archives I have been tediously working on, primarily for my own benefit, are gone. Sigh. But the Poo is still here! So that's a relief. Long live the poo! I was a touch worried after I saw what I had done.

Remember a while back, that guy who was killed by grizzlies? Outside Magazine has a letter written by him shortly before his death. Once more I find myself admiring his idealism, but questioning his rationality. I don't think he was crazy, or stupid, just misguided, in that rose-colored-glasses sort of way.

It is late, and I have to work in the morning, but my heart was so warmed by Little Green Jellybean today that I had to poost something in honor of it. It is so cold that warming my heart is quite a feat. LGJ started both times today, despite not being plugged in (for you warm-weather wusses, cars in such cold climates as ours come equipped with plug-in block heaters, so that your engine block and the oil in it is not completely frozen when you need it). I think the temperature was a fairly steady -32C all day today, as repoorted by the U of A, and though it had to struggle a bit, my trusty car (with its new battery) came through yet again. I was proud. I would nominate it for car of the year or something, but those awards don't really exist. Wait, yes they do! I give them out. The Award for Most Best Car Ever Built, as well as Award for Car Most Not Afraid of the Cold Ever goes to . . . Little Green Jellybean!
I will sure be sad when I sell it later in the year.

Very, very sad.

Cecilia Ann was a strange girl who sat next to me in English class. She always listened to really loud Rock Music on her walkman and the teacher just let her do it- he was scared of her I think. Maybe it was because she insisted he call her Velouria. Allison, who sat behind me, didn't like her at all. "Is She Weird, or what?" she would ask me. Ana would always come to her defense, though. "Leave her alone," she would say, "she's been All Over the World."
I didn't get involved, since I was too busy reading our assignment, a short story called "Dig For Fire". It was about this little girl who always Went Down to the Well. One day she came back and never spoke again, though no one knew why, so they just referred to it as The Happening. I was Blown Away by the story, but the truth is, it didn't make much sense to me. I did my class report on it, but I did an "interpretive" presentation where all I did was jump up and down in a toga and Hang Wire from the ceiling. I got an F, so I went outside in the Stormy Weather, feeling sorry for myself. I decided I would run away to Havalina, but I never did.

If anyone has any idea what I'm talking about, you win a prize.

TheLogo had a pretty good poost about one of the most important things in life- taking it easy. Since it happened to guest-star me, it was even more poofound.
I like going barefoot. I also like picking things up with my toes. Bears have fairly good motor skills and can manipulate objects, but of course it's monkeys who are the most adept at using their toes.
Anyways, today as I picked something up from the floor, revelling in my simian abilities, I realized that if I ever should one day attain the position of CEO of a major corporation, one of the first things I would do is send this memorandum:

MEMO
TO ALL STAFF:

It has come to my attention that lower back pain is a major cause of chronic discomfort and fatigue, as well as inducing irritability. Henceforth, I would like you all to limit your need to ever stoop down to pick something up. Further, I would like to institute a policy of going barefoot at all times while here at work. Sort of like Hobbits, or monkeys. That way, you can learn to use your toes to pick things up and save yourself much damage to your dorsal areas. This policy will take effect immediately.
Thank you and good day.
HOMIE BEAR

Actually, probably the FIRST memo I would send would be the one granting extended poo-breaks to all employees. It would probably go something like this:

MEMO
TO ALL STAFF:
I'm sure there was a study done at some point in time that showed that some of our most creative and deep thinking comes while sitting on the toilet. In fact, just the other day I was having a poo and I realized that I should encourage all of our employees to feel free to take extended poo-breaks in order to foster creativity. So it shall be, from this day forward.
Good pooing!
HOMIE BEAR

I thought it was time to write something about Norse Gods. A little more serious than Homie Bear's regular stuff.

Ragnarok

Old gods have known their fate
since they were young gods
To die at the hands of their enemies
at Ragnarok
But they await that day
joyfully
For all that matters to old gods
and young gods
and even their enemies
Is to meet that fate steadfastly
and with valour

When you have recurring dreams is it the same dream exactly, like watching the same movie? Or do the same themes recur, but different scenes and stuff? I don't think I've evr had any identically recurring dreams, but I have noticed some themes that keep popping up. Like, for some reason, every now and then I'll dream that I'm back in school, either high school or university, and there will be one class that I just didn't go to, and didn't do any of the homework, either. I just ignored it. Then the semester ends and I'm kind of screwed.
Or on Thursday night I dreamt that I had already given that talk I did yesterday, and then later I tried to remember what I said and since I couldn't, I thought I had forgotten to go, or something like that. The details are fuzzy, now. I don't know what that says about me.
Oh well, other times I dream about being an X-Man or an Oiler. Maybe an X-Oiler, with the mutant power of being able to score 100 goals in one season. Maybe in one game.

I spoke over at the U of A today, just a little talk. I spoke on losing your way, I guess. Gotthammer Mike came along, at my request, in order to play the G-Version of Jesus Loves Me. I think that was my favorite part.
Lots of G-oodness lately, actually, since Gotthammer and I had supper and a smoke last night, and then I met Rustyangel to physically clean the G, which was not as painful as my recurring nightmares had led me to believe, and then, just because, we dropped in on Blu to watch some hockey. Oilers lost, but Rusty and Blu were so pleased to be in my presence that I don't even know if they noticed.
Luckily all my friends have their own webpage.

Special Happy Contest of Joy!!!!!!!!!

I just had a great idea for a great contest. See, I was listening to St. Anger and thinking I wish I had tickets to go to the Metallica concert in March, but it is sold out.
So . . . I thought I would hold a contest. A Special Happy Contest of Joy, in fact.
Win a trip to see Metallica in Edmonton (or Calgary, I suppose) with Homie Bear!!! Yay! The rules are simple - just procure two tickets to the concert, give one to me, and I will declare you the Winner and Supreme Champion of Special Happy Contests of Joy.
Not open to residents of Quebec, though family members are more than welcome to enter.

Another non-rhymey poem for you:

Sasquatch

You prowl in the night
Hidden and unseen
No one knows if you're real
And if you are
are you friendly?
Or mean?
You don't eat bears do you?
I hope not
And I hope you can levitate
and turn invisible
and heal sickness with a glance
But maybe that's only if you're Russian

Here is a poem of the sort I don't usually write, in that it doesn't rhyme, but I had a flash of inspiration as I was walking in my front door for some reason. Don't take it personally if you're one of my IM friends, it's not about anyone real.

LOL

Why do I type LOL
when you don't even make me smile?
I guess I don't want to hurt your feelings
But I thought of you today
at work
When a customer made a stupid joke
And I said "LOL"

I knew it!
Humans are a type of bear! Well, maybe not quite. But according to this book gabrielle got me for Christmas, the reason bears never settled in Africa is because the ecological niche they usually occupy was already taken by humans.
The book is called Bears: Their Life and Behavior , by Art Wolfe (a book about bears by a wolfe- how ironic. That's like if I wrote a book about wolves. A paradox, you might say), and has tons of beautiful pictures of bears. You should really get it, though it has inexplicably gone out of print so you will probably have to go to a used bookstore to get your copy.
Here is what he says about African bears: "By all rights [Africa] should have bears. Where are they?
"There is no confirmed answer to this question, but there are the beginnings of concensus behind a provocative hunch. There are no bears in Africa, most ecologists now believe, because they evolved too late, and when they arrived their niche was already full. The creature that had filled it was a descendant of ancient insectivores that had grown considerably and had lost most of its body hair. It was, in short, us. We are the bears of Africa: large omnivores on plantigrade feet, eaters of the same food, fillers of the same ecological niche. Brothers under the hairy skin. We owe our evolutionary lives to the fact that bears were slow to spread past the Equator. Perhaps this is a debt we should begin at last to find the courtesy to repay."
And here is a nice link that Blu sent me about our generous brothers.

So, David "Faramir" Wenham can play a good badass, as seen in Dust. Never heard of it? Let me describe it for you. It's a cowboy western, only it's set in Macedonia. And present day New York. It's narrated by an old white lady, but then later by a young black guy. Lots of shooting, some corrupt cops who might have been loansharks dressed as cops, and a couple of airplanes. It's kind of weird.
Not like Band of Brothers, which is just quality cinema that everyone should watch at their earliest convenience. Really, I can't say enough about it. Feel free to click on the above link to order me a copy of the DVD set ;) And here is HBO's (what does HBO stand for, anyways? It's a mystery, that's for sure) official page.

Russian sasquatches.
"Some researchers believe that people's hairy neighbors can not only hypnotize, but also levitate, become invisible or cure any diseases with a glance. There are even more fantastic hypotheses saying that yetis are wood-goblins, demons or some beings from the parallel world. Unfortunately, there is not single evidence proving any of the fantastic suggestions. "
It was an interesting and thought-provoking article until the subject moved away from Russian Sasquatches to Invisible Flying Sasquatches from Dimension X!

I mentioned a while back that Homie Bear had to go and get himself a job, against his better judgement. Now that it's been a month or so, I can tell you a bit about it- I am working at a video store. It's alright. I don't know how well I'm doing, though. Apparently my customer service is a little shaky, though I can't figure out why. Let me walk you through a typical day.

Customer 1: Hi! Do you have Seabiscuit?
Homie Bear: No, but we do have The Bear, I think you will like it a lot.
Customer 1: Uh, it's just that, my daughter really likes horses . . .
HB: The Bear has bears in it, your daughter loves bears, right?
Customer 1: Yeah . . . no thank you.

Customer 2: Excuse me, do you know when Secondhand Lions is coming out?
HB: No, but Brother Bear is coming March 2nd.
Customer 2: Can't you check your computer to see what it says?
HB: All it says is that Brother Bear is coming March 2nd. Want me to order you a copy?
Customer 2: No, that's alright.

Customer 3: Hi, I called about reserving a copy of Bad Boyz II?
HB: Yes, here you go.
Customer 3: What's this? It's not Bad Boyz II.
HB: It's Bad News Bears. It's not really about bears, but baseball. You might still like it though.
Customer 3: But, I don't want Bad News Bears, I want Bad Boyz II. Do you have it in?
HB: No, not really.
Customer 3: . . . maybe I'll check Blockbuster.

Customer 4 (a sweet old lady): Hello there. I'm wondering if you can recommend to me a good family movie.
HB: Yes I have just the thing- it's over here in our Horror section.
Customer 4: Oh no, not horror, I don't like those movies.
HB: It's not actually a horror at all- that must have been some sort of filing error. It's called Grizzly. Here you go.
Customer 4: It says here that a grizzly is on the loose and killing people one by one.
HB: Yes, it's quite cute.
Customer 4 backs away and leaves.

Now that I have come full-circle on that whole Viking Trail, starting off on vikings, and naturally moving on to talking about Legolas and Gimli and Iceland and glaciers and Norse Mythology and X-Men and Canadian Superheroes and medicine men and hitch-hiking, I am now at a bit of a loss as to what to blog about. I mean, I pretty much covered everything there is.
But then I read this. And these.
I was shocked to discover that my friends think I am some sort of raging maniac ready to snap at the slightest provocation.
Blu says: "he appeared to be getting reasonably frustrated at this idiot beside him who wouldn?t let him in." Now, I was not getting frustrated. If at any time I feel like the dingus next to me is an annoyance I just speed up and pass him. In fact I was in a rather relaxed mood, content to allow the moron next to me to do whatever it is that morons do. Leisurely I glanced over at said dimwit, and look! It was Blu! Yay! I like seeing my friends around town. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, although that is pretty much how a bear always feels anyways.
Oh yeah, and I would also like to retort to gabrielle, who said this:
"I think I might have been close to reaching [Homie's boiling point] last night during the Sasquatch ?discussion?."
Let me explain. She was reading my blog, and said to me, "What's with this fear of sasquatches you have?" at which point I launch into an earnest and revealing look into my deepest fears and vulnerabilities, and after a while I realize gabrielle is making that face that people make when they are trying hard not to laugh. You know, their mouth is curling up into a smile so they force it down into a neutral line, but the effect is more of a crinkling thing and anyways their eyes tell no lies, so you can totally tell.
So I start to cry, not mad at all, but rather wounded to the core of my soul, and then she laughs even harder. Even the cat was laughing. It sill pains me to think about it.
But I have reached deep down into my inner reservoir of strength and charity and have forgiven both cat and gab for their blatant insensivity.

Hitch-hiking has always held a fascination for me. Maybe because one time when I was five years old, my Dad and I were driving out to BC so he could help his friend build a house, and our car broke down, so we had to hitch-hike the rest of the way.
So when I got my own car (LGJ) I made sure to pick up hitch-hikers all the time.
I liked the guys who were talkers, who had stories. The ones who just sat and stared, or slept, were disappointing. Same when I was a hitch-hiker, I liked the rides who talked. But I always cued into my ride, talking if they were into it, keeping quiet if that's what they preferred.
Once I was driving out to Saskatoon, and I picked up this guy, and we just clicked. He was a middle-aged native fellow from a BC reservation. So demographically we weren't that similar, but once I put in the Creedence (the universal hitchers' soundtrack) and we were singing at the top of our lungs, we bonded. I even took a picture of him by the big plaster bull in Radville.
I think my favorite experience on the passenger side of things was in Newfoundland. I was leaving St. John's headed for the Viking Trail (Yay vikings! See? Full circle. I wonder how Legolas and Gimli are doing?) and this guy picked me up. We drove together for six hours, with hardly a pause in our conversation. His name was Sean. He was heading to Port-Aux-Basques to attend a funeral. So he had the entire length of Newfoundland to go. As we got near to Cornerbrook, it was dark and there were many moose on the road. In fact we came across some devastation as two moose, a cow and her calf, had been hit and killed, and the people in the car were in bad shape too. Sean turned to me and said, "The roads are getting dangerous, want to stop in Cornerbrook for the night?"
I agreed, and I got to watch Newfoundland hospitality in action. Sean came unannounced to his brother's girlfriend's cousin's house and explained who he was and how he was connected, and next thing we knew we were long-lost family welcome for all time. Sean and I went out to a pub and had a beer and shot some pool, and continued our conversation.
"How you like Newfoundland?" he asked me, deep into our third or fourth beer. I told him the honest truth, I absolutely loved it. Loved it. Then, he pulls out his Zippo and shows it to me. It had the Newfoundland Coat-of-Arms on it.
"Here," he says, "I want you to have this. To remember Newfoundland by, and me."
Next morning he dropped me off on the Viking Trail, and went on his way. A few days later when I was in Port-Aux-Basques I called him up and he came and got me and showed some more of the famous Newfoundland hospitality. Later, at Christmas, when I was back home, he called me up to make sure I made it home alright. He was a good guy. I always wanted to keep in touch with him, but you know how that goes.
I still have the Zippo, though. It's been everywhere with me- China, Tibet, Alaska, New York, Mexico. I have quite a few souvenirs from all my trips (gastrointestinal organisms included), but that Zippo is my very favorite.

I brought all kinds of interesting stuff home from China the first time I went, back in 2000: three little kitchen gods that were a present from a family I met; bamboo bookmarks; some bootleg CD's; a Mandarin Manson suit, and some sort of intestinal troubles. If I had had this blog back then it could have been called "Pooing All The Time".
Shortly after I got back, I drove out to Hinton. On the way I spotted a hitch-hiker. He had long, grey hair, a buckskin jacket with frills and he was carrying some sort of pouch- not a backpack, exactly, and it had plants sticking out of it. So of course I stopped and picked him up.
He was the medicine man I mentioned yesterday. As we talked he explained that he had studied medicine under the guidance of some elderly First Nations fellows, and he was one of the few practicing white medicine men around. Turns out he knew my grandparents, who ran a health food store out in Hinton, there being some overlap in the realms of health food and native medicine.
I decided I would mention my tummy troubles, to see what he had to say. Turns out he had just the thing- he had picked some plants the week before out near Rocky Mountain House that were good for that sort of thing. So when I dropped him off at his house, he invited me in and got me some of the plant. He gave it to me uncut, and explained that my Grandpa would be able to grind it up so that I could make tea out of it. In payment he just said next time I was around I could bring him a pouch of tobacco.
The stuff seemed to help, though I wasn't quite the same all year, until, ironically, I returned to China and it cleared up a bit. The tea tasted pretty good, too. I never did get him his pouch of tobacco, though. Seems like bad medicine. Maybe I'll bring him something else, some day. A Chinese remedy or something.

So I found those comics I was talking about yesterday. And the story arc was actually started in a two-issue series called X-Men and Alpha Flight. Including them, I have all four still. Yay!
Now, you might be saying, "X-Men? I remember them from such movies as X-Men and X2. But Alpha Flight? What's that? Is it like Alpha Bits?"
Nope, Alpha Flight were Canada's very own team of superheroes. Not being totally up on current comics culture, I have no idea if they still exist or not, but they were never exactly popular, so I would be surprised if they do.
Keep in mind that the coolest of all superheroes is Canadian. Wolverine hails from here- where he fights in cage matches in the rough-and-tumble bars of Northern Alberta, according to the first movie. Hugh Jackman is actually Australian, but that's ok. At least he is still a Commonwealther.
The other Canucks aren't quite so kickass. Let's see, we have:
Guardian, and later his wife, Vindicator: They had a special suit that looked like the Canadian flag, sort of, and it enabled them to fly and be strong.
Aurora and Northstar, twins from Quebec. They say things like "Sacre-mere!" and can fly. Not really sure what else they can do, or if they are seperatists or not.
Puck. An acrobatic dwarf, but not really like Gimli, though he may be from Gimli, Manitoba. The only thing stereotypically Canadian about him is his name, which doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything.
Sasquatch: Long time readers of the Woods will know of the lingering fascination/ fear I have of sasquatches. But Walter Langkowski is not scary at all- he is a scientist, but when he needs to he can transform into some sort of orangey colored monster. A sasquatch, apparently.
Shaman, and his daughter Snowbird. Shaman is a medicine man, and I don't really know what Snowbird can do, since she spends all of the X-Men/Alpha Flight series sick and withering away because of something Loki was doing. The only medicine man I've ever met in real life was white, but they do still exist. But still, it seems kind of predictable. Oh well, at least they didn't all wear toques and live in igloos, and say things like "It's up to us to save the world, eh! So let's get oot and aboot and kick some hoser arse!"

Did you know the X-Men went to Asgard once? Probably more than once, actually, but I remember one time particularly. It was the first X-Men comic I had ever read, but it didn't make any sense to me since it was part 2 of a story, so all these unfamilair people were wandering around getting themselves out of the messes they had got into the issue before. But once I tracked down part 1, it became my favorite comic story ever- though a lot of that has to do with nostalgia, and the fact it had to do with Norse gods, even if it was the Marvelized version. I think I still have the issues in my collection, somewhere.
Here is a link that explains the story and has a picture. It's a Geocities page so if you don't have a popup blocker there might be havoc. But no dogs of war, or Garms, or Gronds, hopefully.

Ragnarok
After the ice storm yesterday, I was thinking Ragnarok was nigh. But today it is more like Ragnamuck out there. Very muddy.
Actually, Ragnarok will be preceded by a super-long winter called Fimbulvetr, which will last for three years. At the end of Fimbulvetr, the great wolf Skoll will devour the sun while his brother Hati eats the moon. Once that happens, chaos breaks out.
Now let me back up a bit. Skoll might be a big bad star-eating wolf, but the baddest of the wolves is Fenris, the son of Loki and the giantess Angrboda. It was prophesied that Fenris would destroy the world, so the gods decided to lock him up. Only Fenris didn't really want to be locked up, so the gods had to use trickery and deceit. Fenris could break any chains that held him, so the gods commisioned the dwarves to forge a magical chain, which was woven of six seperate threads: the footsteps of a cat, the roots of a mountain, the sinews of a bear (hey!), a woman's beard, a fishies' breath, and a bird's spittle. This chain was called Gleipnir.
The gods were talking smack to Fenris, saying he was too weak to break free from Gleipnir. Fenris accepted the challenge, but since he was no dummy, he demanded that the gods give him a token of goodwill- he wanted one of them to put a hand in his jaw. If there was any trickery he would chomp off the hand. So Tyr, the god of war and the only god who really liked Fenris, agreed. And when Fenris couldn't break free of Gleipnir, he bit off Tyr's hand.
So all of that is to say, that when the earth started shaking after the destruction of the sun and moon, Gleipnir was finally broken and a very-pissed Fenris started fulfilling his destiny. Not only that, but Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent, sworn enemy of Thor, starts to make his slow and slimy way to shore, poisoning land and sky with his foul breath as he goes.
The boiling sea frees the ship Naglfar, commanded by the giant Hymir and full of angrygiants. A second ship under the command of Loki sets sail from the underworld, carrying the inhabitants of hell. As if that wasn't bad enough, Surt and the fire giants leave Muspelheim to join the battle. Surt's sword is made of flame and scorches the earth as he walks.
Heimdall sounds his great horn, calling the Aesir to battle. Odin engages Fenris, Thor takes on Jormungand and a hundred other battles all take place. Fenris devours Odin, and Vidar his son kills Fenris, while Thor is victorious against the Midgard Serpent, but suffers a mortal wound which poisons him slowly to death.
Poor old one-handed Tyr fights Garm, the Norse equivalent of Cerebus ( instead of three heads he has four eyes), and they both die.
Then Surt starts flinging fire everywhere from his sword, and everyone dies. Well, two humans live and rebuild afterwards, but who really cares about them?
All this is foretold and the gods each know their fate, yet they eagerly await the day when they can engage the forces of chaos in the final battle.

I hope Elijah Wood isn't in town today- ice storms tend to be bad for his health. And there is a monstrous ice storm going on right now here in Edmonton. Probably caused by Frost Giants. Damn Frost Giants. I went to work at 9 this morning and it the freezing rain had already started, and it didn't stop all day. When I went to start my car at 5, I first had to scrape off a goodly layer of ice (1 cm or so) that was coated all over my car. And the roads are bad too. All slippy-slidey. It's the kind of night when you should really stay at home and read Fantastic Four comics or watch movies starring various LOTR cast members, such as The Ice Storm or The Gift, which I rented today and stars Cate Blanchett. Unfortunately it also has Keanu Reeves so we will see how it is.
But it is pretty out there- a good night for photography if you are good at that. So if you do decide to venture out today, just make sure you don't go sit on any guard rails.

Here is a 3D rendering of a small portion of Vatnajökull Glacier. Pretty cool.
You can see why those vikings came up with the best mythology ever. Frost giants? Totally believable when you're looking at the Vatnajökull.
Frost giants were the sworn enemy of the Norse gods, among whom were Odin, Thor and Loki. They were said to live in Jotunheim, a freezing, icy wasteland full of mountains near the sea. Iceland, in other words. Jotunheim.
There were fire giants, too, led by Surt (or Surtr), who will destroy the world some day. The volcanos of Iceland undoubtedly helped the Norse to picture the fiery realm of Muspelheim.

Like Legolas and Gimli, I too have a desire to explore Iceland. Though perhaps less so now that I have just learned that there aren't ANY bears there! I'm not really sure how that happened- I thought it would be prime polar bear territory. Maybe King Snowfrost ate his real estate agent last time out and never learned about Iceland. Maybe I will have to go and claim it in the name of Bear-kind.
Iceland's main industry seems to be ethereal music, as in Björk and Sigur Ros, but there is some beatiful scenery there. I would love to check out Reykjavik, the capital, as well as Myvatn Lake, the Vatnajökull Glacier, Skutastadir, and Skaftafell National Park. They have the coolest place names in Iceland. Grímsvötn Volcano. I love that one. I think Gimli must have named it.
Here's a very cool satellite photo of Vatnajökull Glacier, which is a monster.

In Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings, there is a timeline called the Tale of Years, which details the chronology of the Westlands, especially of the War of the Ring. The very last entry is in 1541 Shire Reckoning, or 122 years after Aragorn's coronation. Here is the entry in full:

"In this year on March 1st came at last the Passing of King Elessar. It is said that the beds of Meriadoc and Peregrin were set beside the bed of the great king. Then Legolas built a grey ship in Ithilien, and sailed down Anduin and so over Sea; and with him, it is said, went Gimli the Dwarf. And when that ship passed an end was come in Middle-earth of the Fellowship of the Ring."

What happens after that is a bit of a mystery, but I think I can fill in a few blanks.
Gimli and Legolas must have landed in Iceland at some point, and become vikings. Then they sailed over to Newfoundland and settled in L'Anse aux Meadows for a while, and then they hitch-hiked east to the Prairies, settling at last on the shores of Lake Winnipeg and founding a village which they named after Gimli. Maybe Legolas was too humble or perhaps Gimli too proud, but either way it is the Dwarf's name, and not Leggy's, which adorns the town to this day.
And then they put up a little mini-Argonath, perhaps in memory of King Elessar. Or maybe they watched Ralph Bakshi's version of LOTR and decided to commemorate Boromir.

Selkie has a new page design, and it looks great. It has a viking theme, which automatically bumps her into the upper echelon of cool bloggers. I am at the top of that list, of course.
Then Adrian mentioned in her comments that he thought he had heard that the vikings had once settled parts of North America. Since he is from New Zealand, he was understandably a little unclear on his facts. Actually, though I once hitch-hiked a small part of the Viking Trail in Newfoundland, I am also a little fuzzy on the particulars. So I decided I would do some research, since that is the Viking Way. To the library! Pillage! Burn! Rarrrggghhh!
Actually I just googled it, and this is what I found: a quiz, apparently! It seemed like exactly what I was looking for, what with all the questions it asked, such as "Who were they? When did they come to Newfoundland? Where did they live in Newfoundland?" But it turns out that there are no answers.
But this page turned out to be a little more helpful. The vikings came about 1000 years ago and settled briefly on the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, which may also be called St. Anthony's Peninsula, I think. And that's about it, really.
Damn vikings.

Ow! My Mighty Claw of Sharpness!
Homie Bear has been quite lucky in that he has never broken a bone, and never bothered to go get stitches for anything. No major diseases or comas or anything like that. But today I stubbed my big toe and broke the nail and made a bunch of blood and purpley stuff appear underneath it. It's okay though- I can still walk, and I don't think I will need to ampootate. But if you feel like sending sympathy cards and presents, by all means feel free. Send to:
Homie Bear
c/o The Woods
Canada, P0O 0P0

Gabrielle is currently doing a survey of LOTR cast members' past and future lives. Not in a reincarnation-wheel-of-life way, but just poosting on movies, before and after, that some of the cast have made. If you're looking for some good "sorta lotra" stuff to watch then you can go read the results of her research.
Here is my own little variation of the game, which is "What actors have acted with two or more LOTR actors in different movies?" Sort of a six degrees of seperation thing.
So far the list is a short one, and not necessarily exhaustive since I am going off the top of my head:
Johnny Depp: With Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean, and Cate Blanchett in The Man Who Cried.
Ewan McGregor: With Christopher Lee in Attack of the Clones, and Orlando Bloom in Blackhawk Down.
Famke Janssen: With Elijah Wood in The Faculty, and Ian McKellen in X-Men and X2.
Josh Hartnett: With Elijah Wood in The Faculty, and Orlando Bloom in Blackhawk Down.
Harrison Ford: With Viggo Mortenson in The Witness, and John Rhys-Davies in Raiders of the Lost Ark/ Last Crusade.

Can you imagine if you were snorkelling in some exotic paradise, azure sea, white beaches and green palms all about, and then five hours later you find yourself in a sub-arctic deep-freeze? No blues or greens anywhere, but a whole lot of white. Wouldn't that be terrible? And yet I know someone who is in this very situation as I write, and for some reason, rather than feel bad for him, I am laughing heartily. "Hahaha," I say.
Papa Bear comes back from Mexico today. When he left Edmonton two weeks ago it was a very mild winter, but now it is a whole 'nother story. C-O-L-D.
I hope he brought me something cool.

Commentary
Last week I finally got around to watching Adaptation. I really liked it. But I think it's only a matter of time before some screenwriter pens a movie called Commentary. It will be about a director doing the commentary track on his Special Edition DVD, and of course there will be this subtext of commentary on the world situation as a whole. That may be going too far.
For the most part I don't really care about director or cast and crew commentary. But over the last few days gabrielle and I have been watching bits and pieces of the cast commentary of the Lord Of The Rings Extended Edition Digital Video Discs (LOTREEDVD's for short) and they are pretty funny. For a variety of reasons. Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan are truly funny guys. Ian McKellen is a stately craftsman. Brad Dourif has an entirely over-inflated sense of Wormtongue's value to the movies. And Sean Astin is . . . knowledgeable might be the most charitable way of putting it. But anyways, if you own the DVD's, and haven't really bothered with the commentary before now, they are definitely worth a watch. Or listen, I guess. And Peter Jackson is quite entertaining as well, very wry. If they ever do make a movie called Commentary, I'd want him to direct it.

Homie Bear doesn't really make New Year's Resolutions, and besides, what kind of resolutions does a bear need to make? I resolve to eat less people; I resolve to poo more; I resolve to spend more time in the Woods. There's not much there. Bears are basically perfect to begin with. But maybe I should resolve to blog less.

1974 was a good year because Homie Bear was born. It may even go down in history as one of the greatest years for that very reason.
1984 was a good year because the Oilers won their first Stanley Cup; it reminded everyone of George Orwell's 1984; and probably some other good stuff, too.
1994 was a good year because that was the year I bought Little Green Jellybean; it was my second summer at the coal mine, when I really came into my own as a miner.
2004 will be a good year, too, I think.
2014, not so sure about. I'm a little suspicious of that one, frankly. I think it's up to no good.