Now that we live in a brand new house, it's easy to be mistaken for Sophisticated Citizens. So when the kindly old Jayman guy rang the doorbell and heard this coming from my stereo: "Went down to the cemetery, looking for love; got there and my baby was buried, had to dig her up", he looked at me a little funny. He was there to do some work in our basement. Before he went down there he asked me, "There aren't any animals or . . . anything down there, are there?"
Anyways, today is Headstones Revival Day, and a timely reminder that this weekend is the Junos, hosted by Pamela Anderson. The Headstones of course are not nominated for any Junos since they broke up a while ago, but they are still one of my favourite Canadian bands. I love their aggressive, darkly humorous punkish rock. They were nominated for three Junos in their time, but won none. I also have won no Junos, so don't feel too bad. Here are the
Top Five Six Headstones Tunes, Each of Which Deserves A Juno From Pam Anderson:
1. Unsound
2. Cemetery
3. Smile and Wave
4. Pretty Little Death Song
5. Tweeter and the Monkey Man
6. Son of a Bitch to the Core

Sadly I can't find my Smile and Wave CD. I think the Jayman guy stole it.

The Alberta Ballet is performing Alice in Wonderland this weekend! We got tickets back in October, so we're good to go- I kinda doubt there are any more left, though you could certainly try. It would definitely be worth your while. I meant to tell you all about it earlier but I plum forgot! Been eating too many mome raths lately I guess. I only wish I could have been at Selkie's Mad Hatter Tea Party and Very Merry Unbirthday!

In HUB Mall there is a bookstore where brand new books are supercheap. Excess inventory. Yesterday I found the exact poker book I've been looking for (6 bucks), as well as Watership Down, some travelogues, and the jackpot, Doug Chiang's Robota- ten bucks! There are still two copies left, any of you U of A students that might be interested *cough cough* Gotthammer.
In celebration of this great find, today I present you my Robotic Greatest Hits.
Robot Bear- a poem with a bit of an environmental message. Naturally!
The Robot and the Devil- a robot sells his soul. The sequel, in which he suspects he is being voodooed.
The Brotherhood of Fat Robots- A short short story of stirring eloquence and emotion.
The sort-of-true story of how I proposed to Michelle. A love poem to her, with robots. Robot's Cove, written on our honeymoon.
Cadaverous Cattle- actually about zombie cows, though it also features robot shepherds and robot rocks. What does a robot rock do? Mostly the same as a regular rock- not really anything.

An Interview With Emily Weber
I first noticed deviantART's zimeta08 because of her fun, uniquely stylized pictures of General Grievous and other Star Wars characters, more than one of which has been my desktop background for a while.



I asked her to illustrate a story I wrote so I could present it at G-Arts. She produced a beautiful image of Mr. H Bear riding a whale.



And of course she recently made surely one of the greatest artworks in the galaxy with The Most Dangerous Sith, featured below in Bear Wars.



So, here is an interview with the young artist.
First, the details- who are you, and all that, and what tools and media do you use?

I'm Emily Weber, of course! :giggle:
I'm mostly German, you can tell by my last name, Weber which means weaver in German. So, I can only assume my ancestors were weavers :o
For art, I usually draw with a mechanical pencil, and color in Adobe Photoshop ^^

How did you get into art?

I don't know for sure. I've been drawing since I can remember... it runs in the family ;)

Where do you want to go with it? Any plans or just day at a time, having fun?

I've been thinking of entering "The Rising Star of Manga" contest by making a poem I wrote into a short 20-page comic. If I do do that, I'm hoping that maybe it'll get me somewhere.

What are you studying in university?

Right now I'm studying Fifth-Year-Japanese at ASU. I took a drawing class once, but the teacher sucked all the fun outta it so I never took another one again.

How do you say bear in Japanese:

You say Bear: "Kuma"

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I'm studying Japanese so that I can go to Japan and apply at Nintendo. Hopefully I can be a game designer, or at least a concept artist ^^

So, where did you get your screen name?

Zim= My alter ego, Zim the toad
Meta= Metal, because I love robots
08= My favorite number

What do you do to get into the creative groove?

Usually watch TV, or play video games. Because, certain games or cartoon shows have really interesting visuals, or character designs.

What do you do to get out of a creative funk?

I usually just keep drawing until it turns out good. There's really not else I can do!

Any words of wisdom you live by?

Watch for falling rocks. :nod: It could save your life someday. [Editor's note: Especially in my line of work!]

Who do you think would win in a fight between General Grievous and the Sith Bear?

Well, I really like them both ... but I think I'd rather see the Sith Bear win because it's such an interesting idea. (And, I really like warrior bears. Ever since reading The Golden Compass.)

Thanks Zimmy!

Bear Wars Epoosode 1

Homie Bear examined his hybrid time machine/spaceship with satisfaction. The Horribilis was mostly made out of logs, though its electronics, tires and wheel motors were all parts he had stolen from a nearby coal mine. It didn't look like much, but Homie thought it would make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. Well, maybe thirteen, but since parsecs were units of distance rather than time, it didn't really matter, as long as it sounded good.
Climbing into the cockpit, Homie donned his crash helmet and set the navicomputer for "a long time ago and a galaxy far, far away". Before long he was looking out at the gigantic grey sphere of the Death Star. He landed in Parking Lot 22A and ventured into the bowels of the gargantuan battle station. Soon he had plastered the walls with the poster he had made after that little robot had come up to him and played a strange hologram message the other day while he was fishing:

Missing
One Alderaanian Princess
Last Seen on Death Star
Reward: Your share of More Than You Can Imagine
Contact homiebear@pooinginthewoods.com

His job done, Homie headed back to the Horribilis, stopping only long enough to poo in the tractor beam room, which had conveniently deep plumbing. His parking paid for, he blasted off. There seemed to be an unusual amount of traffic around the Death Star, and Homie was surprised by how vehement some of the space rage seemed to be. One ship, a funny looking round pod with two wings bent into three panels each, was spinning wildly out of control and came within inches of hitting the Horribilis. Homie flipped his middle claw at the stupid sithhead and hustled out of there. Just as he was about to go to hyperspace, he looked in his rearview mirror and saw the Death Star blow up. "Awww!" Homie said out loud. "So much for my posters."
But just then his computer chimed- he had mail.

From: stoopytroopy08@empirenet.net
Subject: Alderaani@n Princess
Cc: bfett@slave1.org
The princess has been seen on Hoth. Watch out for wampas! xorz!!!! If you find her I want my share of the reward. Oops gotta go, there's a red alert. Probably more mynocks on the superlaser power cables again. LOL! ^.^

Homie Bear set a course for the Hoth System.


Tune in tomorrow for Epoosode 2!

Bear Wars Epoosode 2

Ambush! As Homie Bear came out of hyperspace a scarred and battleworn ship immediately started firing lasers at him.
"Hey!" yelled Homie on his two-way radio. "Stop that!"
"This is the Slave 1. You must exit this star system immediately or be destroyed."
Homie Bear had no intention of running away, so he dropped some firewood as chaff. But it didn't fool whoever was behind the controls of the funny-looking ship. So he tried a different strategy. Clearing his throat, he keyed his mic once again.
"Slave 1, this is the, uh, Emperor. Um, we need your help to, you know, hunt some bounties and stuff, so . . . could you rendezvous with us over in that asteroid field over there please?"
The Slave 1 changed course almost immediately. It delayed just long enough to fire a seismic charge at the Horribilis. Homie took evasive maneuvers but just then he lost propel ("Damn electricians," he muttered) and the charge's blast grazed his ship. The explosion sent him plummeting to the icy planet below.
Staggering away from his burning ship, Homie soon succumbed to the cold and his injuries. He collapsed on a snow bank, resisting the urge to go into a state of perfect hibernation, deliriously calling out to his old friend the vampirenomad who would surely fetch him a medic. "Been!" he called. "Been!"
A blue apparition appeared, and said, "Luke! You must go to the Dagobah system!"
"Been?" Homie called.
"Ben, Luke. It's pronounced Ben. You must go to the Dagobah system, Luke, and seek out Yoda."
"But I'm not Luke, I'm Homie Bear. And I'm not seeking Yoda, I'm seeking the Alderaanian princess."
"Oh, my bad. She's over there, at the secret rebel base." The apparition pointed to the horizon and faded away. After a while Homie smelled an odd, distasteful lizardy odor. He tracked the scent and came across a dead four-nostrilled, bipedal, bighorn ram thing whose guts had fallen out of it for no apparent reason. Desperate, he scavenged the remains and regained a measure of strength. "Eww. I thought they smelled bad on the outside, but they taste even worse on the inside." Homie made sure to keep his eyes out for yellow snow and other surprises- he certainly didn't want to step into any poo made by that foul creature!
The beleaguered grizzly headed off in the direction of the secret rebel base. But before he could get there, a gigantic white creature, resembling an albino Sully from Monsters Inc, reared up from the snow with a mighty bellow. Homie sighed, reared up on his hind legs, and engaged the creature in paw-to-paw combat. They grappled. They wrestled. Claws slashed and teeth bit, and they both roared and snarled, but Homie's heart wasn't really in it. It had been a long day. He settled for biting off one of the creature's arms, sending it whimpering away to its cave. For a moment Homie thought he was seeing double, since it looked like there were two one-armed wampas, but he shook his head and turned away. He growled at the insectoid robot with all the bulbous eyelenses that had watched the fight, and it retracted an antenna and floated away.
"Bloody National Geographic photographers. Bet I never get any royalties. Wonder if I'll make the cover again?"




Start camping out now for the staggering conclusion to this epic poology, coming soon to this blog! Bigger budget, better special effects (seriously- way better)! Two-for-one admission if you preorder your tickets now!

Bear Wars Epoosode 3: Return of the Homie

Everywhere he looked it was chaos. Giant walking machines were shooting down little flying speeders, who were in turn doing their best to try and trip up the walkers. Ground troops were being shot and smushed, their laser artillery ineffective against the onslaught. A smaller, two-legged walker came into view. Homie Bear seized his chance, grabbed a conveniently passing snowspeeder's dangling tow-cable and swung onto the funny looking walker. He couldn't resist doing a Tarzan yell, thinking how clever he was and that he doubted anyone would ever do that again.
In less than a parsec he had burst through into the cockpit and disabled the crew. Then he walked it over to the now-overrun rebel base. "Hmm," he thought. "Now what?" He shook the walker pilot awake. "Hey! Wake up! Tell me where the Alderaanian princess is."
The crewman answered with a distinctly kiwi accent, "Nah. Lord Polar'd have a stink."
"Lord Polar can eat my poo. Where is the Princess?" Homie bared his fangs for extra emphasis.
"Right, then. Sweet as. She's in the Wop Wops, eh? Right over there in that cell."
"Thank you. One more thing- I'll need your uniform."
"Meh. I shoulda stayed home and had some fush and chups." But the trooper handed over his armour. It didn't fit Homie that well but at least the cloth face his his muzzle a bit. Homie was mighty pleased with himself. He headed over to the cell, glad that this little misadventure was finally coming to an end.
"Dum dum de dum, dum de dum, dum de dum," he hummed to himself. The cell was unguarded amidst all the confusion of the battle. So he walked right in, without even needing to cause a diversion, which was lucky, since diversions nearly always escalated into big trouble. Huddled on the icy floor was a beautiful princess, wearing a parka. She looked at Homie and said, "Aren't you a little hairy for a snowtrooper?"
"What . . ? Oh, the uniform. I'm Homie Bear, I'm here to rescue you."
"Who?"
"Homie Bear! You know, from Pooing in the Woods? Anyways, let's get you out of here. Are you all right? Did they mistreat you?"
"Yeah, I'm okay. They even gave me this parka, rather than making me wear some bikini or something, so that was nice of them."
"That reminds me, I brought you my old crash helmet for a disguise so we can sneak out of here. It's designed for a bear, but that's okay. I don't need it anymore, so you can keep it. Maybe it'll come in handy someday." The Princess took the brown two-toned helmet and they skedaddled.
Waiting for them outside in the Hothian twilight was a monstrous cyborg polar bear holding a red laser sword of some sort.
"Cool!" said Homie. He wished he had a red laser sword like that.
"Darth Polar. Only you could be so cold. I don't know how you can stand this weather." The Princess said in an accusing tone of voice.
"Don't play games with me, Your Highness. You know polar bears are ideally adapted for extreme cold. We have very thick fur and insulating layers of fat. But I'm glad we ran into you- it seems there's been a mistake. We were looking for someone who has the same DNA as you. You don't have any siblings, do you?"
"Not that I know of."
"Ah well. You may go. But I would have a word with your Ursine companion."
The Princess waved good-bye and ran to catch up with a Corellian freighter that was just then escaping the Imperials. Homie stayed behind, bewildered and a little irked that this had all been a wild gundark chase.
"Do you know what this is, Homie Bear?" asked Darth Polar, gesturing at his weapon. "It is a lightsaber, the weapon of a Sith Lord. If you sign up with the Sith today, one of these can be yours as a free gift."
"Yeah?" Homie was tempted- the lightsaber was awfully cool. "What do I have to do?"
"Not much really, just learn the ways of the Dark Side of the Force, and join me in ruling the galaxy. But you have to be evil, that's the only catch."
"Oh. No thanks. I'm not much for evil."
"What if I told you I was your father?"
"No, that's impossible! My pa lives in Edmonton. I just saw him the other day."
"Darn, that usually works. Fine then, you must die." And the Dark Lord of the Sith raised his glowing sabre to strike Homie down.
But Homie ducked and rolled, and prepared a secret weapon of his own while Polar advanced menacingly. "It is useless to resist," Polar said. Homie ignored him. Just as Darth Polar hoisted his weapon to cut Homie in two, Homie went on the offensive, launching a flurry of tightly packed snowballs. Darth Polar had never faced such a furious wallop. Stunned, he dropped his saber. Homie was on him in an instant. The magnificent bears were at each others' throats, but Polar's cybernetic parts had the advantage of never tiring out.
Homie was close to succumbing. Desperate, he reached for the lightsaber, forgotten in the melee. It was too far. He couldn't reach. "Homie! Use the Force!" a disembodied voice said. Good idea! The lightsaber flew into his hands just as he squirmed free of Darth Polar's killing bite. With the red beam at the Sith's throat, Homie said, "Now I have a deal for you, Darth. Come back with me to the Woods, and you can fish and hunt and eat as many berries as you can stand. You can hibernate all winter, or all summer if you prefer, and poo anywhere you want! It's a perfect life for a bear. No more evil! What do bears know about ruling galaxies, anyways?"
"Hmmm. A tempting offer. There aren't any gungans in these Woods, are there?"
"Gungans? What are those?"
"Deal!"
The bears shook a paw and then Darth Polar took Homie to his spaceship, the Ursith.
"Nice ship!" said Homie. "Mine was made out of wood. But it crashed."
"Thanks! It belonged to some other guy who was cut in half, so the Emperor let me have it." They climbed aboard and blasted off for the Woods, where they pooed in the woods, brought balance to the Force, and had lots and lots of fush and chups.



The End! Yay!

Written by Homie Bear
Directed by Homie Bear
Starring Homie Bear
Visual Sith Effects by Emily Weber
Please don't show George Lucas, he will just want to do yet another Special Edition to incorporate these startling revelations.

Help me Obi-wan Kenobi Homie Bear, you're my only hope.

Just like I said! The other day when I was paying tribute to crustaceans, and speculating as to what undiscovered species may still be out there, the scientific world announced the discovery of a bizarre white, 'furry' lobster. They found it ~1500 kms south of Easter Island, at a depth of around 2300 meters. No word on whether it has any telepathic powers. But still.
They call it the yeti crab. Not to be confused with the mighty and elusive crab yeti, that subspecies of abominable snowmen who have big chitinous claws instead of hands. And telepathic powers.

Crazy about Crustaceans!
Crustaceans are cool, don't you think? Cool in that gross, clawed alien facehugger spidery creepiness sense. When we were on our honeymoon in the Maritimes, Michelle and I had the obligatory lobster dinner. Normally I'm a big fan of seafood- my policy is, if it comes from the sea, it goes into me! But staring at a lobster that had just been boiled alive mere moments ago for your culinary pleasure is a little unnerving. Gabrielle always points out that lobsters mate for life. And, really, they weren't all that tasty when all was said and done. A lot of work for not a lot of reward. I think bears prefer salmon. Anyways, here are some crucial crustacean facts for you.
Leafing through an old National Geographic, I discovered that coconut crabs are the world's largest land crustacean. They're big. Well, about 4 kgs, so pretty big. Especially if you were out climbing a tree and came across this guy staring you in the face! Yeesh!
But ole cocy is not so big compared to the mighty Japanese Spider Crab, the biggest of all living crustaceans. Well, that we know of. These crabs grow to almost 4 meters claw to claw, and can be around 20 kilos. I'm not sure if Godzilla ever fought one, but he would probably lose if he did.
Still, I would rather come across a spider crab than one of these extinct sea scorpions!
And are they truly extinct? I doubt it. Who knows what dire clawed terrors dwell in the unexplored depths of the oceanic trenches? Bioluminescent paleolobsters of feral cunning who eat megalodons and giant squids? Probably. They are likely even telepathic.
The best story I ever read about lobsters is Homefaring, by Robert Silverberg. You should check it out. I think it won a Nebula Award. Or maybe it was the Crab Nebula Award!

Leave your guns at home when you come visit, okay? The Province of Alberta has suspended the grizzly hunt until further notice. No more shooting at me.

It's pretty pristine here in the Woods. No highrises, no houses, not even any outhouses, hence the need to do our "business" outside. So there certainly isn't anything like a Hall of Fame for the many Valorous Bruins and Notorious Ursids out there. But there is a place where the trees have been scratched and, uh, marked, in honor of those worthy individuals who have done the most to uphold the Bear Necessities. Naturally, the singer of that song should be the first to receive such a tree.
Phil Harris was a modestly famous singer and radio performer back in the 30s, but he is best remembered as the voice of Baloo in Disney's adaptation of The Jungle Book. He also played another Disney bear, Little John from Robin Hood. As if that wasn't enough, he had a song called The Preacher and the Bear, about a preacher who skips church to go fishing and gets himself chased up a tree.

"Oh, Lord, didn't you deliver
Daniel from the lion's den?
Also deliver Jonah
From the belly of the whale and then,
Three little children from the fiery furnace,
So the Good Books do declare.
Now Lord, if you can't help me,
For goodness' sake, don't you help that bear!"

He also performed one of my favorite old-timey tunes, a hilarious song called The Thing, about a thing in a box. Seriously. Of course, The Bear Necessities is one of the greatest tunes of all time, and Baloo the epitome of bearhip.

"Wherever I wander, wherever I roam
I couldn't be fonder of my big home
The bees are buzzin' in the tree
To make some honey just for me
When you look under the rocks and plants
And take a glance at the fancy ants
Then maybe try a few"

Phil Harris passed away in 1995.