End Transmission
The Woodsy Crypt has been a fine home- the finest thus far, even. But all good things come to an end and we are leaving this dwelling forever. Don't worry though, blogging will continue, at least intermittently. Even when we are away we will try and keep you all updated. But for now I have an awful lot of packing to do, and moving, and I even have to go to work in a few minutes.
Me=busy.

As my time at the coffee shop where I work draws to a close, I can not help but think about everyone's favorite topic, elephant poo. One time a lady came into the shop and examined our tea. "Is this tea grown in Holland?" she asked. I was forced to admit that I had never really given much thought as to its origins, but suggested she check the box. "Well, it says 'Made in Holland' but I don't think they grow tea there." She went on to explain that she was from Sri Lanka, where they in fact DO grow a lot of tea, and that she suspected this tea was actually grown there, and maybe processed or shipped from Holland.
Anyways that started a whole conversation on Sri Lanka and what she did there and how she came to be here, and it turns out she lives on an elephant ranch, where they rescue and raise orphaned elephants. Sadly, many elephant orphans have to be destroyed because they simply do not have the resources to care for them. So what my new friend was doing was traveling North America trying to raise awareness, as well as interest and possible investment in their ranch's unique line of paper products. They recycle elephant poo and turn it into paper! Cool, eh?
As far as I can tell, this article is about just exactly this very ranch.
Such are the the things you can learn as a barista.

Mayor Bill Smith is lucky he's leaving poolitics (or so I think I read in the paper today, though some other Smith poolitician is also leaving so maybe I am mixed up) because I sure ain't gonna ever vote for him. Not after today. He's always whining about how nobody ever comes to our downtown core, and blah blah blah. I go there all the time, living a short walk away, but today for various reasons I chose to drive and actually pay for parking, something which seems like a particularly silly waste of money to me. So I found a meter and inserted a couple of bucks, buying myself an hour and a bit of time. It turns out I needed slightly more than that so I returned later on to put more quarters in, and was a little surprised to discover that my car was not there. The meter showed 7 more minutes, so I concluded that my car had been stolen, rather than towed. Then I looked closer and saw a small, innocuous white sticker on the side of the meter stating that that particular spot was a tow-away zone between the hours of 3:30 and 6PM, and of course I arrived at 3:30. So them **%^$#*&$#s towed my car.
Cost $96 to get it released from the police impound lot, and then to add insult to injury they gave me a fifty dollar parking ticket on top of it. This is particularly disheartening since I am less than a month away from a RTW trip and am trying hard to save money, rather than just give it away to stupid and inept bureaucracies. And they wonder why no one ever wants to come downtown? But on the plus side Mayor Bill Smith is welcome to come looking for me in the Himalayas if he wants my fifty bucks cause I sure as hell ain't paying the ticket. Apparently he'll have the time (and the momentum) to come looking for me.
Anyways, thanks to my girlfriend and mom for helping me get everything sorted out in record time, and for soothing my addled and angered bear nerves. Or bearves, as we call them.

EDIT: turns out I was mistaken and that other Smith guy is leaving, not Mayor Bill. So don't vote for him! Vote for Homie Bear! At least now he won't be able to come looking for me in Nepal or India or somewhere. Haha! I'll send you 50 rupees in the mail, how's that?

My old room-mate Tom has recently gotten back in touch with me- he really misses me a lot. Heck, I even sort of miss him, or at least, miss making fun of him. He was the subject of one of my favorite poosts ever, and made an appearance in another old favorite. He was saying he often dreams of the golden age of our lives, when he was living in the House of Poo, sitting at my feet and gleaning as much wisdom as he could. He recently emailed me a list of my attributes that I thought I would share with you. Keep in mind Tom's emotional stuntedness which causes him to write seemingly mean things in order to demonstrate his affection:

Nathan's Top Ten Worst Attributes:
10. His last name was obviously 'borrowed' from the word waddle. As in, "look at that duck waddle!" However, Nathan DOES NOT waddle, nor is he even slightly related to our honourable animal friend The Duck, which invented the walk, and thus the word waddle; which Nathan blatantly stole and misused for his own last name purposes!!!!
9. Nathan temps Dairy Fate by drinking from his milk jug directly - even when his more righteous roommate happens to buy the same type of milk jug, which could obviously be mistaken for his own!
8. Nathan calls certain roommates 'beerwench' while playing poker, demanding that the roommate get him a beer from the fridge.
7. Nathan has a degree in 'Rocks.'
6. Nathan's name backwards is: Nahtan. This rhymes with Satan!...as it...sort of does... when spelt forwards too!!!!!!
5. Nathan secretly wishes that he was as good looking as his former roommate.
4. Nathan is quite poor with languages and is unable to read the following lines: Du bist eine stupid monkey anus!
3. NATHAN IS THE BIG LEBOWSKI!!!!!!!!
2. Some of the stuff in his blog really really happened! I can't tell you what...but it's the bad stuff...not the nice stuff...THE BAD STUFF!!!

And the number one Worst Attribute is:

1. He sniffs glue!!!!

I may Pulp Fiction him later (as in, Allow me to retort.)

A while back I was teasing gabrielle about something, and I said, "I should write down all the funny things you say and do in a little logbook."
"You don't, do you?" she asked.
"No, are you kidding? I wouldn't have any spare time to do anything else if I did!"
But today she said something that I think is worthy to be preseved for the ages. On our morning commute she turned to me and in all earnestness said, "Star Trek is just like reality television."

I was a pretty smart little cub. When I was about ten years old I knew all sorts of things about all kinds of stuff. I could tell you the scientific latin name of many major animal species- Orcinus orca, Felis tigris, Ursis horribilus. I even knew this one, which I herewith spell from memory: Haliaeetus leucocephalus. Not bad eh? I admit I may not have spelled it exactly right, but I know I'm close. Know who that is? I'll give you a hint- he's America's national symbol.
Yup, the bald eagle.
Well, today is an auspicious day for taxonomists because I have discovered a brand new species of bear. Actually, I personally have evolved into a brand new species of bear, and I propose the name Ursis leucocephalus.
Homie Bear is now bald.
But I'm STILL 29.

Edurne Pasabán became just the 6th woman to summit K2, making her ascent on July 26th. Of those six, Edurne is the only one alive today.

Personally, I prefer Canadian beer, but in a pinch I guess most bears will settle for Rainier.
Thanks to gabrielle for the link, which is easily the funniest thing I have read in ages.
See? I'm not the only bear who passes out. Vindicated in record time.

It's not widely known, and in fact I can't find a single instance of it in the literature, but I happen to know that bears are occasionally prone to passing out (or fainting, though we don't like that term as much). Sometimes. Rarely. Hardly at all, really. I think it's some sort of false alarm hibernation thing. Bear biologists call it vasovagal syncope. Anyways, armed with this knowledge you will not be so surprised to learn that Homie Bear has, once or twice in his life, slipped into unintended unconsciousness. This in no way makes him any less of a bear. The first time it happened I was in the middle of an epic cross-Canada hitch-hiking trip, worn down and tired, getting a tattoo- I think my body's defenses were just stretched a little thin- you know how it is. Another time while giving blood and a third time I just keeled over in Tibet due to the altitude. The monks thought I was dead. Luckily I recovered before they sent me up to the sky burial site.
So I warned my tattoo artist yesterday that I may take a sudden and unexpected nap while she was working on me, and not to be alarmed if that should happen. But I am proud to say that I did not pass out! From this I believe it is therefore completely reasonable to conclude that I am cured and will not now have to worry about altitude sickness ever again. This sets my mind at ease.

BTW, if any of you Edmontonians are looking for a good tattoo parlour, Urge 2 on Jasper is the way to go.

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!

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!

Speaking of masked badasses, go Predator!

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.

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."

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.

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."

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.

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.)

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."

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.