Monday, August 16, 2004

One-Man Fellowships and Headless Women
If you haven't been down to the Fringe yet, you better hurry. I think tickets to the amazing One-Man Lord of the Rings Trilogy are as scarce as cute little bunnies in Barad-dur. Luckily, we got ours in advance, and you can go read gabrielle's review, which also includes an account of her death-defying encounter with a big bummy bum.
We saw the same guy (Charles Ross) do the One-Man Star Wars Trilogy last year and are still laughing at the memories- turns out Lucas himself got wind of it and hired him to come down and perform at Skywalker Ranch or something like that- it's a big deal. Yet he manages to outdo himself with his adaptation of LOTR- his Gollum is spot-on. He does the entire trilogy in one hour exactly. Peter Jackson could have saved a lot of money and just hired Ross.
But like I say, if you don't have tickets yet I think you will be out of luck. But there are many other things to do at the Fringe- take in one of the other plays, or see the headless woman (you will regret it for the rest of your life if you don't), or you can even possibly meet Jesus, like my friend and coworker Alissa did.

PS- Blogger has apparently added yet another feature we can't opt out of- that bloggerbar on the top there. At first it was a clashy blue color and it was blocking out my banner, but I fixed that at least. On the plus side, you can now search for the word "poo" in my archives!

10:25 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Friday, August 13, 2004

Last month you read Little Homie Bear's scientific paper on who would win in a fight between a T-Rex and a Saber-toothed tiger. And today you saw Alien Versus Predator, and know the answer to that long-standing theological question. And yet some of you are still not satisfied! This arrived on my doorstep, so to speak, yesterday. Being the Benevolent Bear that I am, I shall attempt an answer.

*ahem*

Homie Bear was hunting and he caught a big fat seal
But a killer whale saw him and said that he did steal
His supper out from under him and that just wouldn't do
Homie said to the whale why don't you eat some poo
So the offended orca turned and hit him with his tail
Homie had never been so blindsided by such a craven whale
He bounced off an iceberg but got back on his paws
He charged the whale full speed ahead to cut him with his claws
But the whale dodged and dove down deep into the sea
Where he soon discovered that even there he wasn't free
From a bear's vengeful wrath since Homie jumped right in
And grabbed the astonished dolphin by his dorsal fin
The ocean thrashed and bubbled from the epic battle
All the way in South America they felt a little rattle
The water churned and ice exploded as the titans clashed
They bit each other hit each other and they slashed and bashed
With a mighty heave Homie threw the whale back onto the land
Where the raging frenzied beasts prepared their final stand
Ursis maritimus and Orcinus orca, fighting to the death
The whole world seemed to pause as if holding in its breath
Then a timely interruption burst the tension like a bubble
The seal broke in and said, "You should have saved yourselves the trouble
"Fighting over me just isn't worth the pain
"Since I'll be leaving now and you will have no gain"
And then the seal swam away and left the hunters there
Neither now had a meal and they couldn't even share
The only thing that they had proved with their big ordeal
Is that in a fight between whale and bear, the winner is a seal!

Labels: poetry, whale

4:15 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Speaking of masked badasses, go Predator!

12:39 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

More Misheard Lyrics!
It's been Slipknot week here at the Woodsy Crypt. Well, when gabrielle is not home it is Slipknot week. Although she did let me listen to Iowa (heaviest album ever) in its entirety once when she was around, and after reading her latest poost I think maybe I should have played some when her parents were here. That would have sent them scurrying ;) Nah, just kidding, they were fine. Anyways.
I was listening to Three Nil off their new CD, Vol. 3 (The Subliminal Verses) and I thought for all the world that I heard #8 sing "Look at me- I'm a qualified architect"! This actually explained a lot to me- I have noticed that Slipknot is all about Malice, Mayhem and Mathematics. So I checked the lyrics booklet, and the actual line is "Look at me- I am the glorified malcontent."
What? They could be qualified architects.

3:37 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

I have some alarming news for you- in exactly one month from now I will turn 30. 30 days till 30. I'll be okay. Mostly. I think I would feel a whole lot better if you all sent me presents.

And completely unrelated to my impending doom birthday, here is an excerpt from Jan Wong's China, just because I find it amusing:

As a reporter, guanxi [China's system of networking and connections that supersedes official channels] was particularly invaluable. I soon learned to rely on the network of friends and contacts I had developed during my earlier years in China. Doing things officially was basically a complete waste of time.
While most foreigners could travel freely through most of China, journalists had to apply for permission to go anywhere. Every Chinese organization, every province, city, county and town had a Foreign Affairs Office. They handled interview requests and, indignity of indignities, sometimes even charged for their "service."
I once requested to go to Canton, mecca of China's open-door economy. Its Foreign Affairs Office telexed me that everyone, all six million residents, were too busy to handle a visit. When I applied to go to Tibet, its Foreign Affairs Office turned me down. Lhasa, it explained, didn't have "enough oxygen."

11:11 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Monday, August 09, 2004

That Darth Maul picture must have really impressed my subconscious because last night I dreamed I was Darth Maul with bionic legs and that I came back and got revenge on Obi-wan. The epic showdown occurred in a motel room, and after the lightning light-saber duel I told the slumped and dying Obi-wan that I really respected him, but that now I had to go dump his body in the same shaft where he cut me in half- it's important to me, even as a black-hearted Sith, to be classy at all times. So I dragged his body out to my car, but then decided to catch a nap in the driver's seat, noticing for the first time the Volkswagen dealership that apparently occupies the block where I live in real life. They had those car dealership banners on all the street lights, and they said "We Fleringinkom" or something, which is German for . . . well, Darth Maul doesn't speak German so I don't know what it means.
Then, just as I was about to doze off, a cop car pulled up and ran my plates. That's when they called over the radio that Darth Maul was back and was plotting to overthrow Darth Vader to be the wicked Sith Lord. One of the cops came up to my window and I had to poke him with my light-saber to get him to go away. I'm pretty sure that would have started a whole big mess but that's about when I woke up.

Labels: star wars

9:32 AM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Saturday, August 07, 2004

Part 2 of this story.

"You were framed? What happened? Who are you?" asked Frank, gesturing for the whale to take a seat.
The whale began speaking in a peculiarly squeaky voice.
"My name is ^~~~/<*>\~~~^ [this is the transliteration of the series of squeaks and whistles that the whale made at this point,]which has no analog in either Squatchee or English, but evokes both the rolling imagery of a sine wave function and the elation one feels when riding such a wave in pursuit of prey. However, you can call me Orrek."
"Can I call you Mr. Whale?" said Frank.
"Call me Orrek. We're not actually whales, us orcas. We are dolphins. And we are not killers either, though we are predators. I should say rather we are not murderers and that is why I seek your help today, Mr. Omah. You have heard of the disappearance of Ray Tanner? It has been all over the news today."
Frank looked at his copy of Weekly World News. He didn't see anything about Ray Tanner in there. "Um, I'm not really familiar with that case." If Frank had been a slightly better detective he would have kept better tabs on the local news.
"Ray Tanner is, or was, a real estate developer here in town, and lately he's been sniffing down by the river where I live, preparing a proposal to develop a new megabox shopping complex, which obviously I strenuously object to- the whole reason I left the oceans to live in the river is to get away from human encroachment. He was last seen two days ago, scouting out more locations at the river. There were signs of a struggle found near the riverbank, and several dead fish, which I believe were left deliberately to frame me. His truck was found nearby. The cops have concluded, even without a body, that he is dead and I did it, since I have both the motive and the means to dispose of him. Being a dolphin, I have no right to a trial or anything- the Department of Fish and Wildlife will either shoot me or just tranquilize me and relocate me to the Alaskan Panhandle. Hence my disguise."
Frank regarded Orrek's bright yellow rain slicker and hat dubiously. "That's a disguise? Maybe we need to get you to a safe house. I'll take your case. Umm, will you pay with cash or credit?"
"I can pay you in salmon, would that be okay?"
"Yeah that's fine, I guess."

10:44 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Friday, August 06, 2004

The Village was such a disappointment that I didn't even want to waste cyberink on it. But today I was reading an old Outside magazine I had lying around, and found a quote which I think explains so perfectly, if indirectly, why The Village left me cold.

"Anything could be out there. Anything at all. The first Europeans on the land didn't have the science to conjure UFOs in the wilderness, but they certainly had the theology to imagine a wilderness of devils, a boundless waste occupied by Satan and his works."

-Ian Frazier, Outside Magazine, Oct 2003

The article was talking about mysteries and the ability the outdoors has to completely strip away our rational 21st century mindset and scare the shit out of us- to make us poo in the woods. Something M Night totally could have exploited but instead he chose to give us something so mundane that it was boring. The last thing I want in going to a movie is to be bored. Oh well.

"We go to the woods, or any place out and away, for the mystery there; sometimes, for a dose of fear right below the level of toxicity. Usually the object is to restrain it. But in benign cicumstances, a case of the yips can be fun. Let the panic stampede, let the unexplained mystery scatter your reason. You know that's what the Unknowable really wants of you. Constantly it undermines the rational stops constructed to keep it back. It wants so much for you to quit trying to figure it out, and just accept the incoherence, and come unglued. Mystery has its own ideas for you."
-ibid

Speaking of mysteries in the woods, I am still going to finish the rest of the bigfoot detective story- I have the ending all worked out it is just the middle expositional stuff that is bogging me down. Stay tuned.

3:30 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

I think Darth Maul is about the coolest looking bad guy ever. Here he is rendered with a bionic lower half, since Obi-wan the big fat jerk cut him in half. Not sure that I like the longer horns- Hellboy has the right idea about filing them suckers down.

(Image stolen from StarWars.com.)

11:31 AM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Last night I had a severe bout of insomnia, which is always bad the next day at work but which can often be a good thing, creatively speaking. I have learned to just let my mind do its thing- it won't shut up until it's ready, and thre will be no peace for either of us until it is. So I wrote a poem (maybe I'll poost it, maybe not) and finally came up with a direction for a story I started while I was writing the Plasma Dragon story- I wrote the first paragraph and then left it until last night. So here is Part 1. Enjoy:


Truth be told, Frank Omah wasn't that good of a private eye. He had solved one major case, and made his rep off that. But even that was kind of cheating, in a way. He had proved definitively, once and for all, that Bigfoots do exist. He had done this by walking out of the woods one day and revealing himself to the world. Frank Omah was a sasquatch.
Frank was sitting in his office reading a newspaper that his last client had given him in lieu of payment. His elbows were on the table, and he was holding his hands to his forehead, looking very much like he had a migraine. And indeed, his head was starting to throb and he was getting more and more alarmed about the lead story. He reread the article for the tenth time that morning:

"Bigfoot Fathered my Child!
54-year old Frances Forsyth of Tennessee, Alabama gave birth on Tuesday to what scientists are calling a genetic marvel- a half-human half-bigfoot baby that she has named FooFoo. She claims she had been camping in Yellowstone National Park when an 8-foot tall bigfoot kidnapped her from her tent, took her for dinner and eventually impregnated her.
'I know the Bahble says it ain't right to make love to no bigfoots, but he was the gentlest lover I ever had, and I love him and I want to marry him,' said the unmarried mother of six other children from her trailer in Alabama. 'I know he will love little FooFoo and will want to spend the rest of his life with us and our family.'
Bigfoot was unavailable for comment.
-Jed Jedderson, Weekly World News Editor-at-Large"

Frank couldn't believe it- who was this woman? He had never met anyone named Frances Forsyth, had not been to Yellowstone anytime in the last nine months and would NEVER have relations with a human- gross! Was Tennessee in Alabama, now? FooFoo? What kind of name is that? Nothing about this article made any sense. That's all he needed right now- a frivolous paternity suit.
He was about to call his lawyer when his secretary buzzed.
"Client here for you, Frank."
"Send her in."
"It's a he, and he's on his way." His door opened and a killer whale wearing a yellow fishing slicker and a sou'wester rain hat walked in.
"You gotta help me," said the whale, "I've been framed."

4:15 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Sunday, August 01, 2004

The Harrison Bergeron Effect is already a reality for the world's whales. The other day I read the following from The Rise of Endymion:

. . . humanity's giant oil tankers and ocean going ships deafened the world's whales by filling their seas with mechanical noise, thus drowning out their Life Songs- destroying a million years of evolving song history before human beings even knew it was being sung. The whales all decided to die out after that; it was not the hunting of them for food and oil that killed them, but the destruction of their songs.

Obviously, like Star Trek IV, this is a fictional forecast of an extinction which hasn't actually occurred. Not yet, anyways. Yesterday, I was reading the Globe and Mail, and came across this small blurb in the science column:

Bang -- you're beached! Researchers in the United States are trying to see if the air guns that ships use to pierce the seabed in their search for oil might create sound waves that confuse whales. The bangs could explain why a pod of whales near where a ship was firing its guns recently became so confused that the animals drove themselves up on the beach.

There was a time when ambient noise levels in the sea were low enough that whale pods could communicate across entire ocean basins. But not anymore. Acoustic pollution from ships, subs, SONAR and more are muddying the waterwaves, so to speak, and we are only beginning to catch on to the detrimental effects this is having on the world's whales. As far as doing anything to reduce noise pollution, we have yet to take the first steps.

11:03 AM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Friday, July 30, 2004

Have you ever read Harrison Bergeron? It's about a guy who is smarter than average in a society where being equal is the most important thing, so he has a thing implanted in his brain that blares an excruciatingly loud noise every few seconds, to prevent him from developing any sort of train of thought.
My work is a lot like that- it is next to impossible to carry on a decent conversation with coworkers as you are constantly being interrupted by customers. Damn customers! Today I had the kernel of a poem in my brain, and started to compose it a bit but of course it was immediately blown away like so many leaves on a windy day by the voracious hordes. So I will try and reconstruct it sometime soon, and get the gist anyways, but it just won't be the same. Oh well.

6:32 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Thursday, July 29, 2004

Time for Some Introductions
Yesterday I mentioned my coworker Erika. She's really cool. She grew up all over the world and knows all kinds of interesting things. I was asking her about some Chinese stuff for my Plasma Dragon story and when I told her where she could read it, if she was interested, she said, "Oh do you have a blog?" She thus became the first person I had ever met outside the blogosphere that knew what a blog was. (This, from the Dawn of Time, is the more normal reaction.) She knew because she also has one, and it's a good read.
In fact if you go there, you will be introduced to another coworker of mine, the indomitable Cass, who has fired each one of us innumerable times, and is full of spunk and sass. Plus she could kick your ass. You want your coffee in a glass?
Anyways, I have many other great coworkers but these two you can go and meet for yourself.
Oh yeah, and speaking of people named Erika, I have a question for my friend Erica the chemist: Is titanium dioxide poisonous? I'm guessing not, since it is listed as an ingredient in one of the powders we use at work, but I have to admit I am a little concerned about drinking the stuff now.

10:44 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Meant To Live
Last night at work I was singing a song with reckless abandon, but it seems I had the words wrong. The song was Switchfoot's "Meant To Live", which I had heard before but never really noticed, but it finally clicked for me yesterday.
"We were meant to live with someone else!" I was singing, and this made my coworker Erika laugh. Since she had just gone to a Switchfoot concert, she knew whereof she spoke when she said, "That's not how it goes! It goes like this, 'We were meant to live for so much more.'"
Which, when I thought about it, made much more sense than my version, which seemed to be about a guy who is unhappy with his room-mate situation- something I certainly don't identify with, that's for sure.
But yesterday was one of those "living for so much more" kind of days for me- unforeseen adventure, my favorite kind. The day started with my morning routine of stopping in at my place of work for a coffee and to read the paper. I didn't have to work until 5PM, so I had the whole day in front of me to relax. Then another coworker/friend showed up, who was on her way to Calgary en route to overseas for a few weeks. Next thing you know I was going with her, as far as Red Deer, anyways- and we listened to Switchfoot the whole way, hence my newfound appreciation for those guys. I decided I could go with her halfway and hitch-hike back and still have plenty of time before work.
And indeed, 25 minutes is plenty of time.

6:23 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Monday, July 26, 2004

I so called it.
And while we're on the subject of movies, I highly recommend The Bourne Supremacy, and I am really looking forward to The Village this week. And I would like to be the first to say that I think Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow could easily be an unintended sequel to the Iron Giant. At least, that is how I choose to look at it. Probably won't have an "I'm Superman" moment, but that's alright. There will be plenty of "I'm Angelina Jolie" moments to make up for it.

10:12 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Saturday, July 24, 2004

My Oozian friend Addai is a font of esoteric Middle-Eastern religious knowledge. Recently he poosted a thread about a fascinating people group I had never heard of, called the Yezidi. They are unique in that they worship an angel they call Melek Taus. We would call him Lucifer, but in Yezidi lore he is the Peacock King, and he has been either rehabilitated by God or is still evil and revels in that evilness, depending on which source you read. Anyways, the Yezidi don't eat lettuce or wear the color blue, among other things.
I told Addai that was the most fascinating thing I had learned all week, and there has certainly been some competition as far as that goes- this is the week where I learned about the mother Pope and the oldest surviving family-run business in the world.
So, what is the most fascinating thing you have learned this week?

11:43 AM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Tyrannosaurus Rex vs Smilodon the Saber Toothed Tiger
By Little Homie Bear

Tyrannosaurus Rex was the king of the dinosaurs! He was the most fiercest predator to walk this earth. Rarrgh!! he would roar before taking a chomp of Triceratops. His teeth were so sharp that it would probably take a lion and a shark and a bear together to equal the sharpness of his teeth. Tyrannosaurus lived in the Mesozoic Era, the Age of the Dinosaurs.
Smilodon is what scientists call the Saber Toothed Tiger. He wasn't as big as Tyrannosaurus, but he had teeth that were pretty much as sharp. And he could run fast and he liked to eat mammoths and cavemen. So he was pretty tough too.
I think in a fight you would think that Tyrannosaurus Rex would win, but really if you think about it, I think actually Smilodon would win. Here's why. Because even though T Rex is so big and mean he actually has these most eensy arms you've ever seen. They are pretty much only good for picking bloods and guts out of his teeth after a meal. So when Smilodon the Saber Toothed Tiger attacked first he would dodge T Rex's dagger teeth and then he would climb on and chomp his big saber teeth into T Rex's flesh there would not be much that King of the Dinosaurs could do, except maybe roar some more. Rarrgh!! Get off me!! He would say.
No way I am eating you Tyrannosuarus Rex king of the dinosaurs!!! is what smilodon the saber toothed tiger would say. Because most scientist think that the tigers were more smarter than the dinosaurs.
So that is who would win in a fight between the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex and the uncanny Smilodon Saber toothed Tiger.

2:11 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

I think I learned the value of research from a report I had to do in Grade 4. The unit subject was birds, boring birds like sparrows and swallows and stuff. It was killing me- I would way rather do another report on who would win in a fight between T Rex and Smilodon, or a science project on my findings on whether I had any inherent Jedi abilities or not (sadly, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't levitate objects with the Force), but my teacher was forcing us to learn about birds. Back then no one had considered the possibility that birds might be descended from dinosaurs, so I didn't even have that intriguing datum to spur me on.
I was assigned some strange bird I had never even heard of. It was called a shrike. Trudging to the library to look up 'shrike' in the Encyclopedia, I discovered that the shrike is probably the most kickass little bird ever invented. For one thing, they're predators, eating not only worms and insects but other birds and small mammals. But the kicker is what they do with their prey- they impale it on thorns and then peck away at their leisure. Vicious.
So, even though I've never seen a shrike, I've always felt an affinity for them, not because I'm some sadist little Vlad wannabe, but for helping me realize that the world is full of fascinating things you would never have known about if you just stayed inside your own little shell.
Anyways, I bring it up because an entity called the Shrike figures prominently in the Hyperion Cantos, and here are some cool pictures of it.

1:52 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Not coming from a Catholic background, I was always a little naive about catholicism. I thought the Papacy was a hereditary position, like being a king. It only made sense to me that John Paul II was John Paul Senior's son. Turns out, of course, that the Popes don't tend to sire offspring, and new popes are actually elected, as discussed previously.
There is some fascinating history surrounding the office of the Vicar of Christ- it seems that a few popes actually did reproduce. Pope Innocent VIII was not that innocent and fathered several illegitimate children. Pope Julius II had a couple of somewhat notorious children- Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, whose various lovers, spouses and rivals had a tendency to die unnatural, untimely and violent deaths.
Perhaps most intriguing, if not 100% historically certain, is the story of Pope John VIII, who ruled from 853-855 A.D. John's abbreviated reign was due to the birth of a child. What makes this one so notable is that it was John who gave birth. "John" was actually a woman, and is sometimes called Pope Joan.

2:17 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Did you know that when a new pope is elected, that event is signalled to the faithful by the burning of the vote cards? The resulting white smoke which can be seen in St. Peter's Square is called the sfumata.  This is just one of the many interesting things about the Catholic Church I have learned by rereading the hyper-brilliant Endymion half of Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos.  I love these books.  I just started reading Rise of Endymion today.  I once wrote a paper on the Hyperion half of the Cantos, and got the only perfect mark I ever received in university- I wrote it from the point of view of a private eye, like Brawne Lamia in the books.  In fact I poosted the essay over at the Cave a few months ago.
Anyways, the reference to the sfumata was just a throwaway thing, but I wanted to learn more so I googled it, found a german page and got google to translate it for me.  The result:
 
"Sfumata is called the black or white smoke, which ascends after a Papal election of the burned voting cards from the Konklavesaal and which spectator at the Peter place in Rome of the respective conditions of the tunings informs."

11:06 PM link Poosted by Homie Bear

www.flickr.com All material, unless otherwise noted, is © 2002-2009 Nathan Waddell. nwaddell at gmail (dot) com to contact me. The Origin of Homie Bear. Bear art by Sarah How, © 2005. Unless it's the pirate bear, which was drawn for me by Karen Ellis. Robot bear created by Shane Cheffins