Pirate Month: Blackbeard, Buccaneers and Bristol!

This month's National Geographic is, as always, a treasure trove- not only does it have panda bears, it also has an article on Blackbeard's sunken ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge. You can explore the wreck and history online.
Although little is known about Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, it is thought he was originally from Bristol. Since I just read Treasure Island, I know Long John Silver and the crew of the Hispaniola hailed from Bristol also. According to my dA friend Andy Council, a modern day Bristolian buccaneer, the "arrr yarr" pirate lingo is probably derived from the Bristol accent. That may be the case. All I knew about Bristol prior to Pirate Month was that Andy rendered it as a giant animated dinosaur! And also a wee baby one (non-animated)! Arrr rarr!
And it turns out the artist behind the pirate bear you see to your right, Karen Ellis, is from Bristol, too, which makes at least two artistic geniuses and two pirates from one city. Wow. Oh yeah and Bristol also has a giant robot sculpture named WEEE!
Makes me want to move to such a piratical paradise.

One of the best things about our house is the veranda. I've been getting a lot of mileage out of it, or actually non-mileage since I just sit there, immobile. The sun doesn't set till almost 11PM in Edmonton in June, so it's nice to sit outside and read and watch the world go by. That Boilerplate Rhino book is so good at stimulating my thinking that I keep a notebook handy while reading. Which allowed me to take a poetic snapshot of an actual event that happened earlier this evening:

Reading on my veranda
a small girl walks by
pulling her wagon
in which sits a Care Bear
Cute, I think, and also:
They still make Care Bears?
She stops
walks back to the Care Bear
and lays it down snug
Then she walks back
to the front
of the wagon
picks up the handle
and runs like hell
Moments later her dad
zooms past
running even faster
and though he is only concerned
for her safety
I find myself cheering
for the girl
I hope she
and her wagon
and her Care Bear
make their getaway

I hope you enjoyed that- it was very funny to watch. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get back to pirates. For some reason the pirate bear has been intermittently appearing and disappearing today, hopefully that gets resolved soon- the place looks bare without him. I prefer it when it looks bear.

Snails n' Spiders n' Stuff
I'm reading The Boilerplate Rhino, by David Quammen, which is a collection of columns he did for Outside Magazine over the years. It's full of fascinating facts about the natural world. I never knew that a male snail's reproductive organ is a long, flexible tube extending from its head! Try not to think about that as you watch this almost criminally cute and hilarious Flash cartoon called David's New Snail.
Spiders also have strange reproductive organs, but spiders are just too gross to talk about. Spider-Man is not gross, though, and the trailer for Spidey 3 is out! Venomlicious!
If you happened to pick up the National Post today, you will have seen the article that pits Superman against Spider-man and Batman and Wonder Woman. It was illustrated by Andrew Barr, who was kind enough to post the illos on his blog. You'll be happy to know, Selkie, that Wonder Woman comes out ahead in the aricle, though it seems to be by virtue of her sex appeal. Which is admittedly much higher than a snail's.

Being a heavy equipment operator, I occasionally wrestle with the temptation to operate the machines in ways they were never designed to be operated. Whether or not I succumb, and in what ways, I will leave to your imagination, more for my own protection than yours.
It seems the engineers at JCB have had similar thoughts, and so they built the world's only drag-racing, wheel-standing backhoe! We saw it at the IHRA races on Friday. Pretty cool. It was my first time ever to the drag races- Michelle goes every year with her Dad, so I joined them this year. Crazy. And really, really, really loud. Very loud.
This was the weekend for Loud, since Michelle joined me for her first-ever arena rock concert- System of a Down. Kickass! Disorder! Sugar! Aerials! But sadly, no banana banana banana banana banana banana banana banana terracotta pie.
(Speaking of kickass, the greatest metal album of all time, Master Of Puppets, is 20 years old this year! Wow. To celebrate, Metallica recently performed the entire album on a tour in Europe!)

Pirate Month: Rhyming and Stealing
A poem about pirates! The seeds for this poem were originally planted three years ago when PotC first came out, and I just never got around to writing it till yesterday- it was surprisingly hard to figure out the best way to write it. Not sure if I hit the nail on the head but I'm happy with it.

The Pyrite Pirates
Arrr! Cap’n o’ the Midas’ Revenge be I
Doomed to sail the seven seas till I die
Which might be this day if I don’t get my say
N’ if my bilge-sucking mates instead get their way
Aye, bucko, ‘tis true, that I, Fearsome Stu
Must now contend with a mutinous crew
“By thunder!” they cry, “We can’t help but wonder
“If not for your blunder would we still have some plunder?
“ ‘Twas you that pilfered that mermaid’s purse
“Bringing upon us the mermaid’s curse!
“So now walk the plank, n’ join Davey Jones
“Where the fishes n’ squids can chew on your bones!”
“Me hearties!” say I, “Pray let me reply
“Before you condemn your poor Captain to die
“Aye I admit, that down in our hold
“All of our booty has been turned to Fool’s Gold
“But my dear pigeon Pauly don’t care about carats
“He only wants to be changed back to a parrot
“That mermaid’s magic turned everything fake
“But we’re men n’ we’re pirates! We steal n’ we take!
“I mean, shiver me timbers! It could ha’ been worse
“We could ha’ been hexed with a Dead Man’s Curse
“So come, buccaneers, let’s put bygones aside
“Weigh anchor n’ hoist Jolly Rodney with pride!”
I could see that me words had stirred their black hearts
I would escape with me life and all o’ me parts
“Arrr!” roared me mates, “You’re still Fearsome Stu
“N’ we be your crew n’ we’ll always stay true!”
I stepped off o' the plank on to the poop deck
I thanked me smooth tongue for saving me neck
“Now scurvy dogs, ahoy and avast
“Sing me our shanty while we sail real fast-
“Yo ho ho and a bottle of juice
“The Pyrite Pirates are on the loose!”


Bonus booty to anyone who gets the joke embedded in the Captain's name. And mermaid's purses really exist!

Blog Tips #3: Favicons
I've dried my tears, shaved my playoff beard, and I'm ready to move on, after just one more thing:

Thank You Oilers! You kick ass!

Alright. I have another easy tip for sprucing up your template today (June 12 for previous tips). See how Homie Bear's head shows up in your address bar? And if you were so kind as to bookmark Pooing in the Woods, you would get the same icon in your bookmark menu (they're called "favicons", which is a dumb word, but Decepticon was already taken). All you need to achieve this effect is one line of code, as well as an appropriately sized icon which you can make pretty easily- make sure it's 16X16 pixels. Upload the icon to your image host, and then insert this line into your template after the title tag:
{link rel="shortcut icon" href="URL of your icon here" }
where the squiggly brackets are replaced with < >'s.
Easy, eh? It's actually a little more complicated, since IE wants an .ico file rather than a .jpg or .gif, but as long as you're using Firefox or anything other than Explorer (and you really should be!) you'll be alright.
Give it a try and let me know if it worked or if you need help.

Third Period- Last Game of the Playoffs, Too
I hereby appoint Stompin' Tom Connors an honorary pirate! What a great day- I have the next 13 days off. The only downside is that my first day back to work is also my and Michelle's first anniversary. D'oh! So the timing is a little wonky, but at least I have today off for the ultimate in hockey. Game 6 was beyond beautiful- it was perfection. Tonight will be more of the same and Oil will once more fill the Stanley Cup.
I always feel a little wonky myself after a stint at the ol' coal mine, so today is all about relaxing, listening to my new CDs* and reading Treasure Island out on the veranda. Oh yeah and hockey!
Anyway, here's a funny bear story Michelle sent me.
*Have you gotten the Angels and Airwaves CD yet? Do yourself a favour, seriously. When I heard blink-182 was on indefinite hiatus (ie breaking up), I was really sad because their last album was amazing, showing a lot of growth and evolution as artists (their self-titled disc, not the greatest hits). But now I suspect it was Tom DeLonge doing the growing since We Don't Need To Whisper is another step in the direction of the last blink disc.
And the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs is great. Karen O kicks yo' ass! They get honorary pirate status too for writing a song called Honeybear.

Here are some pirate games, like this one- Puzzle Pirates. Or Dogs of the Sea. I think you need an account to play them.
Did you know there isn't a pirate-themed Munchkin? That seems like an oversight. Rectify it, Munchy makers! Or walk the plank!
My favorite pirate game is where I pretend I'm a pirate all day at work. My foreman loves it when I load some coal on a truck and get on the radio and say, "Arr matey, the treasure map was true! Black gold by the ton! Quickly now, take yer booty and flee to the high seas- we shall slit these scurvy soundrels' throats and keep all the coal for ourselves!! Avast!"
What does avast mean?
Oh yeah and check out Planet Karen's June 6 entry, where she chronicles the creation of the mighty pirate bear.
Game 6 tomorrow! Go Oilers Go!

Pirate Month: Pirate Hall of Fame
So who be your favorite pirate, matey? Captain Jack Sparrow gets my vote, no surprise there. But there are some other greats out there in pirate lore. How about Captain Hook? I finally saw the movie Hook last night, my interest in all things Peter Pan piqued by the great play Michelle and I went to last week. (Interesting Hook trivia: Band of Brothers' James Madio plays the Lost Boy known as Too Small. He's just wee!) Captain Hook is suitably vile and despicable, worthy of the name pirate.
Then there's the real-life buccaneer, Blackbeard. Arrrr!
Roberto Clemente was truly a great Pirate and humanitarian who died too young.
Oh yeah and then there were the X-Men's space pirate buddies, the Starjammers!
Cap'n Crunch is a pirate too, isn't he?
Did I miss anyone?

Pirate Month!
Arrrr! It be Pirate Month here at Pooing in the Woods! But I promise not to talk like a pirate for the whole month. Maybe just part of it, matey! Of all the movies coming out this year the one I'm most excited about is The Lake House Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. So for the next month there will be a decidedly piratey feel here, starting with the excellent pirate bear you see to your right. It was drawn for me by Karen Ellis of Planet Karen. Now, it just so happens that she is available for commissions, so if you read my tutorial yesterday and were looking for an artist to make you some great art, Karen can definitely hook you up like Captain Hook. You can contact her via her blog, which is a superb diary in comic form. Even if you don't want to commission her, you should go to her blog, bookmark it, and vote for her. Seriously. May 20th's entry finds her on a pirate ship. Arrrr!
Come back often for whole treasure chests full of piratey goodness- lotsa lootin' and plunderin' and rhymin' and stealin'!

Since my Do's and Do Not Do's of Blogging were so popular, I'll continue the series, and share more bloggy wisdom. Remember, these aren't laws, just advice.

Today let's focus on your template. There are millions of blogs, but only about six templates. And four of them are ugly. Personalize yours! While a fancy template won't make your content any better, it will help set you apart from other bloggers. There are easy ways to tweak it that don't require much html or CSS skills.
The first is color. Go into your template, and you will find a bunch of instructions for the colors of your text and background like this: color: #xxxxxx. The six digit code is called the hexadecimal value, and can be changed to anything you like. Here is a hex chart. Experiment, but try not to damage your eyes! Dark text on a light background is best. Make it easy on your readers- if it hurts, we won't read it.
You can also add a banner like Gotthammer's, or a picture, like my bears (made for me by Sarah How). So make something, or commission if you lack artistic talent. Don't steal. That's rude and illegal, even if no one will throw you in jail. Next, upload to an image hosting site. Although I like Flickr, their terms of use don't allow their bandwidth used for webpage elements. But Photobucket allows it.
Alright, now grab its URL (right click and choose "Copy image location") and insert it into this html tag: (img src="URL of image here") where the "( )" are replaced with "< >". Usually. In CSS you use round brackets . . . and getting it to appear where you want is tricky, too. Uh, rather than try to explain it, since every case is different, I recommend this CSS tutorial, or this one. Troubles? If you're nice I'll help you.
Or you can browse the free templates offered at BlogSkins, but this doesn't really personalize your template, just makes it slightly less common than the blogger stock.
Alright, that's all for today! Have fun!

Last week I saw my first bear of the season coming home from work- a black bear, I'd say three years old. And this morning driving home to Edmonton Dad and I saw a younger black bear hanging around the Yellowhead (east of Hinton- a first in my experience) with a little more curiosity than was healthy, so I pulled up to her and then honked my horn, sending her scurrying into the bushes. Not because I am mean, you guys know me better than that. Rather I was hoping to encourage a negative association with highways, cars and people. Better to frighten her a bit than have her end up run over or shot.
Anyways, it's been a good weekend for bears in the news. First we have the bear who was scared into a tree by a kitty cat. *What?* Cats can be scary. Sort of. Watch this video of housecats on the prowl and you'll see.
Then we have this photo of an orphaned polar bear cub in Siberia.
And, uh, somewhere out there in that world wide web, there's a new webcam for Pandas in Wolong sanctuary. But I can't find it just now.

6/6/6
With Roli the Goalie out for the series, it certainly feels like the end of the world. But the Oilers will still win the Cup- in 6 or 7 rather than 4. Thus saith the Messianic Cult Leader Who Promotes Violence, who has survived one Apoocalypse already.
If for some reason you can't bear to watch Game 2 tomorrow night, and if you're not working nightshift like I will be, you can go the new incarnation of the Sidetrack and watch the suitably apoocalyptic Seven Devil Fix open up for Jets To Theory. Did you know 7DF just recorded their second CD? Should be out by fall.
And if today really was the Apoocalypse, I would expect to see a lot more 5-foot long scorpions walking around, like they had back in the Carboniferous Period.
June 6, of course, has a more serious significance, being the anniversary of D-Day.

I'm not sure that I've ever seen Disney's Peter Pan. Maybe once, when I was little. And I never saw Finding Neverland, or Hook. Just a weird little oversight more than an intentional boycott. So when the Citadel's production of Peter Pan got rave reviews, and a casual mention by Michelle, it didn't really register. At first, anyways. Luckily my subconscious brain is a little quicker on the uptake and it sent me the message that casual mentions by Michelle=good advice. So we went to Peter Pan last night and it was astonishing. All of you who live here in Edmonton, you have until June 11th to go see it, so waste no time! Make haste! Arduously strive to secure tickets to this play! You won't regret it, even though it's expensive. This play has everything- amazing sets, special effects, good acting, pirates, a crocodile, a fairy, and little children who fly. Yeah, and pirates! Captain Hook was killer.
For those of you not in Edmonton, well, you can watch the Pirates of the Caribbean trailer. Pirates are good! Arrrr!

Do you remember when kd lang threatened to sue the Rolling Stones for having a song that sounded too much like Constant Craving? The Stones gave her a songwriting credit on Anybody Seen By Baby to avoid the hassles and embarrassment. Anybody Heard That Song?
Now it is Tom Petty who is (supposedly) threatening to sue the Chilli Peppers for Dani California. Apparently it is too similar to Mary Jane's Last Dance. Which I don't really hear at all, musically. If anything, the Chillis are ripping off themselves, since the lyrics are sorta similar to Around The World. And whatever- their new double album Stadium Arcadium is my favorite disc of the year so far- two CDs of kickassage.
Hasn't Petty been on the other side of this coin before? I like his music, or lots of it anyways, but . . . maybe he should just leave this one alone.

From Mary Jane's Last Dance:

She grew up in an Indiana town,
Had a good-lookin' mama who never was around.
But she grew up tall and she grew up right
With them Indiana boys on them Indiana nights

From Dani California:

Black bandana, sweet Louisiana
Robbin'a bank in the state of Indiana
She's a runner, rebel and a stunner
On her merry way saying baby what you gonna

See, Mary Jane grew up right. Dani, on the other hand, was a bank robber.