Have you heard about the Calvin and Hobbes Complete Works Box Set? Pretty fancy, but I think I already have almost every strip ever printed. What would be cool is if the box set had some new or previously unreleased material- then I might consider parting with 140 bucks.
What would be even more cool is if Bill Watterson unretired Calvin and Hobbes. I would give him $140 if he did that. Heck, $142. And fifty cents.

Attack of the Giant Squid!
Thanks to gabrielle for the headsup- we finally have some footage of a living, mature giant squid! Although you can mostly just see tentacle, which is okay because that preserves an aura of mystery about the mighty Architeuthis. Since the link gabby put in the Droppings doesn't seem to work for us Firefox users, I will send you here instead.
I guess that makes my story about giant squids obsolete! Which is a good thing- the whole point was to find one, right? Still no one has yet seen a living Longman's Beaked whale, though. That story has just now disappeared forever into the oceanic depths that are my archives, but you can find it here.
In fact I read that story at G-Arts, and commissioned an illustration for it, done by the very talented Emily Weber.



She specializes in fun pictures of General Grievous so go check out her gallery (by clicking on the picture)! Ninja Ewoks!

Speaking of giant squids, here is a white giraffe. They should form their own tribe and move to the Arctic and be polar giraffes! They could prey on giant squids.

The past few months I've been getting pretty good at running this one:


and this one:



and this one too:



So this last week I was able to get some hours on the brand new one:



It's pretty fun, and once you get the hang of it, not really that difficult. The main thing is not to do this:

I've been reading Monster of God, by David Quammen. It's pretty interesting- he explores the effect that man-eating predators have on culture and the human psyche. In the section on bears (my favorite!) he talks about how the classic heroic literature such as Beowulf, or the Epic of Gilgamesh, though dealing with mythical themes, heroes and monsters, may not have been all that fantastic (in the sense of, just fantasy) for their contemporary audiences:

No one can prove just how much Grendel and Fafnir and Grendel's mother (charging ferociously, enraged by the death of her cub) owe to the real physical presence of the brown bear, and I don't propose to try. But it's interesting to remember that the old dark woods weren't empty of inspiration.

Can you imagine grumpy ole Grendel as a grizzly?

What are you listening to these days? I finally picked up the new White Stripes. Wow. You should really get it. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone Magazine was only exaggerating a little bit when he said, "If you happen to be a rock band, and you don't happen to be either of the White Stripes, it so sucks to be you right now." Every song is perfect- I especially like The Nurse which reminds me of that happy True Romance theme; and the bluegrassy and whimsical Little Ghost.
Bif Naked's Superbeautifulmonster is another disc never too far from my CD player these days. I'm not sure how much exposure she has in places other than Canada, but she kicks muchas ass, and you should check her out. The new album is probably her strongest one yet. Lots of her trademark sweetbadasssassiness,strong melodies and even a few quick little musical jokes (the bass does a double take when she says "I wanna be like Pamela Lee, you go get the camera and I'll say 'cheese'"). Plus she throws in a cover of Nothing Else Matters. What else could you ask for? My favorite song is That's Life With Me- "But if I french kiss you in the broad daylight you'll fall in love oh oh oh."
And speaking of Rolling Stone, I was browsing their movie reviews and saw the unfortunate poster for Everything is Illuminated which seems to be about Kevin from Sin City.

Cadaverous Cattle

I got another
rejection slip
in the mail today
no one wants to publish my article
about the strange place
only I know about
and even then
I’m not entirely sure where it is
I found it by accident
it’s a place where
brains grow out of the ground like
cabbages
and herds of zombie bovines graze on them
unholy cows
shuffling and ambling
chewing their grey matter cuds
heedless of the giant blue
buzzards
that tear off strips of undead flesh
robot herdsmen watch over their deadstock
keeping the scavengers away
by throwing
robot rocks
at them
one of them saw me
and hefted a glowing electronic
stone
I thought he was waving
so I waved back
and was knocked
unconscious
when the little missile
hit me
I woke up back at home
with no idea how I’d gotten there
and worse
no idea how to get back
and now no one wants to publish my article
until I get photos
and an exact location
after some careful research
I think I might be able to find it
so I’m going back
with my camera
a compass
and a catcher’s glove

The idea for this came last week on nightshift, when I had an image of a field of brain plants come into my brain. Almost as if planted. So I thought about it some more and came up with a whole ecosystem.

New KoRn!!! No release date for the new CD yet, but Twisted Transistor is the first single. I'm listening to it right now. Squizz is playing them on XM Radio , and it kicks about ten tons of ass. It's so good they played it twice! Turn it up! Turn it up!

From Ursula Vernon, the creative genius who gives us Digger two times a week, comes The Book of the Gear, a travel journal in blog format delving into her enigmatic Gearworld. It's worth going to the first entry and starting from there, you are not too far behind yet.

Those who know me know I am pretty loosey goosey (or, as I prefer to call it, bearly carely) when it comes to planning. "What, we're embarking on our around-the-world trek next week? Let's go get tickets then. Tomorrow." But my dear wife is wired quite differently. She is much more organized than I. Today she went and got herself one of those daytimer things, do you know what I mean? They are sort of like a calendar and you can write all the things in them that you have to do for a certain day, and carry it around with you so you don't forget. Cool concept. But the one she bought is for 2006! She needs one for 2005. In fact, a new U of A daytimer would be just about perfect. So . . . who has one that doesn't need it? Can we have it?
We could trade you for a never-been-used 2002 daytimer that I got for my birthday a few years ago. Or a cup of coffee.

We went to the Edmonton Tattoo and Arts Festival today. There weren't any gamertags for sale, but there wasn't much else going on, either. I think because we went on the last day, most of the events were already done. There was a decent band playing, the B-movies, and . . . lots of booths. More of a convention than a festival. But that's okay, it was only the first one. Next year we'll make sure to go for some actual events. Maybe they'll have a body painting contest, like in Wellington where I took these pictures.
What was exceptional and amazing, however, was last night's session of the Symphony Under the Sky. Actually it was in the Winspear, due to weather, but that is just as good. Local goddess Bridget Ryan (who we saw earlier in The Breast Show) narrated Peter and the Wolf, which I had never been exposed to really. It's whimsical, fun and enthralling- and gave me some ideas. Also there was Beethoven's Egmont Overture, which I love, and now brings me to 4 out of my 5 favorite Beethoven pieces live. I just need to see his 3rd and I will have no need of heaven. Beethoven bingo!
And though the entire program was exceptional, the other highlight I need to share with you is an amazing, fun, whimsical (again!) piece written by a former ESO composer-in-residence named Allan Gilliland, called Dreaming of the Masters 1. It's all about jazz, man. There was even a jazz drummer on stage, and the centrepiece is the clarinet- it was written specifically for a Leduc-born clarinet master named James Campbell who performed it last night again. It was so cool to see the ESO do full on bebop, swing big band jazz. Those of you from not Edmonton can just lobby your own orchestras to perform it- the Boston Pops has.
DId you ever notice that all the best festivals celebrate the arts somehow?

I have a pretty decent job, and even though it can be hard work sometimes, and really long hours, I enjoy it. No complaints, you know? Today, though, I forgot my lunch. This made me very sad.
Oh yeah and hungry.
And maybe some grumpy.