Happy New Year from Homie Bear! I hope 2004 is a good one for you. I'm looking forward to it, even though it means I will turn 30. Ugh. BUt that's only 15 in bear years (I figure since they hibernate you can cut each year in half for bears).

Homie Bear's Top Ten Movies of 2003

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (duh)
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
3. Kill Bill, Volume I
4. X2: X-Men United
5. Matrix Reloaded
6. Once Upon a Time in Mexico
7. Finding Nemo
8. The Last Samurai
9. Matrix Revolutions
10. Bruce Almighty

And here are the worst movies of 2003:

1. Haunted Mansion (duh)
2. The Cat in the Hat (which I never saw, but since I finally saw The Grinch, I can safely assume this should be here)
3. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (could have been sooo much better)
4. Hulk (the parts featuring the Hulk were great, but the parts featuring Bruce Banner (or whatever they renamed him) were just painful)
5. Hmm, I am not sure if I saw any other really bad movies this year. Anger Management is on the line- it had some good moments, so it doesn't quite make the worst, but almost.

Last night was ROTK viewing number three, and it was just as good, if not better, this time around. Gabrielle and I prefaced this one by watching a few select scenes from FOTR and Two Towers (by some strange coincidence, they all seemed to feature Haldir the Elf), and I also listened to some Peter Jackson commentary, which is quite funny. You really hear his respect (as well as Fran Walsh' and Phillippa Boyen's) for the source material come through, and you see that the changes they made were done thoughtfully and not all haphazard. So I don't understand why some people are mad that Saruman was cut from ROTK. His story arc was done. Silly hobbitses.

Homie Bear's Top Ten CD's of 2003

1. Marilyn Manson, The Golden Age of Grotesque
2. Metallica, St. Anger
3. Seven Devil Fix, Lotus
4. KoЯn, Take a Look in the Mirror
5. Return of the King Soundtrack
6. Emmylou Harris, Stumble into Grace
7. Prey for Rock & Roll
8. Once Upon a Time in Mexico Soundtrack.
9. Pink, Try This
10. Sepultura, Roorback
11. The Poos, Volume II

The order is pretty interchangeable, except for Grotesque, since it was the soundtrack of 2003 for me. And I realize there are a lot of actual soundtracks on there, but I left out Kill Bill, Pirates and Underworld, all of which were excellent, so I exercised some restraint. Pink kind of surprised me, but towards the end I was running out of CD's. Sepultura just squeaked in, but hey, Linkin Park and Evanescence didn't even make the list.
And here is a Flash video that relates to one of last year's Top 5, a weird monkey thing set to Johnny Cash's Desperado.

Every now and then a rock star comes by and drops me an email complimenting me on my blog. Yesterday Justus from The Minimum Requirement emailed me. I think their name is pretty cool. They are from Ohio so maybe the Shoks will get a chance to see them play someday. And if they ever swing by the Woods here I will be sure to go to their show. So go check out their site, since they obviously have discerning taste in blogs and are therefore sure to be good musicians.
Speaking of shows and rock stars and the like, I am sad to say I discovered today that Metallica's upcoming show here is already sold out! Though I have seen them a few times before, I would dearly like to see them this time around. St. Anger will certainly be on my Top Ten Albums of 2003 list which I plan to make here before New Year's. Like I did last year. Can anyone guess what my number 1 will be?
Oh yeah, and Jonathan Davis, you don't need to be shy- I know you're lurking. You may email me a compliment if you like. I might even poost a link to your site.

Kids
The other day at work I noticed a young lad of about 10 moving across the floor in a very fluidic manner. He seemed to be floating across the carpet. Curious as to the cause of this phenomenon, I went over and asked to see his shoes. He showed them to me, and I saw that they were equipped with one roller each, so that he could walk or roll as desired. "Cool!" I said, "I wish I had shoes like those!"
Then today I was stocking shelves and some customers came in, and a younger guy, maybe 7 or 8 or so, makes a beeline straight for me and says, "Do you like my shoes?" and he showed me his own pair of roller shoes. "Yeah, those are cool," I said, and he told me that his cousin had a pair just like them. So I surmised that his cousin was the fellow I met the other day, and this little guy couldn't wait to show off his own pair. Kids are cool. Too bad they hate me (or at least, for the sake of poetic licence, I say they do).
Today gabrielle and I were dining in Boston, and playing with our new Frodo, Sam and Gollum action figures, and our waitress came over and started playing along- or at least, she totally wanted to but had to drop Frodo in a hurry when her manager appeared. Frodo comes with Sting-Lights-Up action, so he is doubly cool. Some other guy couldn't stay away either and everyone was playing and talking LOTR.
Kids.

Homie Bear was in a mall doing some Christmas shopping
Pretending not to notice how everyone's jaws were dropping
Whenever he left his lair people always stared
His very beariness tended to make them fairly scared
But when he saw Mr. Santa Claus he felt a little jealous
Of all the looks of love he got from the small gals and little fellas
Homie was so happy to see all the beaming smiles
That he started dancing right there in the aisles
But all the children screamed and then the children scattered
And Homie Bear went home alone feeling sad and shattered
So the next day he asked a Salvation Army Santa
Who said "I'd like to help but I'm actually from Atlanta
"I dress up every year to help a worthy cause
"But you'll have to go up North to find the real Claus"
So Homie Bear set off on a trip fraught with many perils
Luckily for him he was wearing his favorite Merrils
He finally arrived at the North Pole feeling kind of freezing
Shivering and snorting and coughing and wheezing
He told his troubles to Santa who offered a solution
To Homie's undesired emitting of scaring-kids pollution
"Ride with me as a reindeer pulling along my sleigh!"
So Homie hitched himself up and off they went away
But Homie felt a little airsick and thought that he would vomit
And he started feeling hungry so he sort of ate some Comet
So I guess dressing as a reindeer was a bit of a mistake
So Santa put him in his workshop and taught him how to make
Toys for all the girls and boys who were "Good" on Santa's list
But Homie felt a little bad for the ones that Santa missed
He made fireworks for the naughty kids who like to play with fire
This made Santa none too pleased and roused up all his ire
"Homie Bear you're a hopeless cause even for Santa Claus
"You make bad toys and then you put my reindeer in your jaws
"So you can go on back to your den and quit making this mess
"And furthermore I hope you have a very unmerry Christmas"
So Homie was sad again and trudged back to his lair
Wishing he was soft and cuddly and not a fearsome bear
But then he thought "I'm not a reindeer and I'm certainly not an elf
"I am a big bad burly bear and I'm proud to be myself!"

(this one goes out to Seraphim, who sent out bribe vibes for me to write this)

Merry Christmas, little orcs! It has been a very good Chirstmas so far and it's not even over. I got the coolest present ever from gabrielle, a Treebeard action figure complete with Hobbit-lifting action! I am just taking a few minutes to attempt to finish my Christmas Homie Bear poem I started the other day- I may not be able to finish but I will try, since today is pretty much the due date. Oh yeah and I should give some props to Gotthammer Mike for making that banner for me, which I stole without his knowledge and put up. A minor change to the template but I like it.

It must be snowing in Australia cause it sure ain't here. Although there is still some snow on the ground, the temperature has been unseasonably warm all week and we can hardly call this a white Christmas. More like a slippery, sludgey Christmas. Oh well. There will be plenty of whiteness and cold yet this winter so we are not complaining. Christmas is almost here and that's all that matters. So Merry Christmas to all you cubs and bears out there!

Last year for a stocking stuffer I got a Legolas bookmark, and it has served me well for a full year of reading. That is, until yesterday when gabrielle saw it and decided it would be much better suited as a decoration than a bookmark. "But," I protested, "it's my bookmark! I use it all the time!" Alas, to no avail. Legolas went up by the computer for the vampirenomad to fawn over. But today when I got home I was presented with a new, ROTK Legolas bookmark, with Gimli on it, too! Yay! Now I am set up for the next year. For a vampire, gabrielle can be awfully sweet sometimes.
Addendum: read gabrielle's version of events here

Here are some Lord of the Rings jokes I made up. I think you will agree that they are really really really really funny:

How long does it take Sauron to answer his phone? One ring.

What happens when Mordor comes knocking? You have a Grondez-vous.

It is unlike me to go so long without an update, 'tis true. Sadly Homie Bear has had to leave his lair and get himself a job, leaving a little less time for play. But there is always time for Return of the King, and a bunch of us went again today. Did I mention yet how perfect that movie is? The second viewing was almost more enjoyable as you could absorb some of the subtleties that you might have missed the first time around what with all the mumakil stomping around. I will say no more, so as to avoid spoilers for the two of you who haven't seen it yet.
But I hope to have a Homie Bear pooem up sometime this week, since it's been a month since the last one, but I guess I shouldn't promise you anything. You can try to bribe me with droppings, though. Maybe that will inspire me.

Way back a few albums ago, KoЯn did a song with Ice Cube called Children of the KoЯn. It was a pretty great song, of course, sort of like pretty much all KoЯn songs. Stephen King once wrote a short story called Children of the Corn and it was a decent short story. The movie entitled Children of the Corn is not in any way a good movie. In fact it is terrible. Full of creepy and ugly kids, and a main character who is a bit of an ass, so you hope he gets corned before the end, but sadly he does not.
KoЯn has ultraheavy seven-string guitars, the immortal Jonathan Davis on vocals, the occasional bagpipe solo, and great hair. Corn has bad acting, bad writing, bad special effects and bad hair, and is completely lacking in either guitars or bagpipes. So, to sum up: Children of the KoЯn = good. Children of the Corn = bad.
Here are some more great KoЯn songs you should listen to: Shoots and Ladders, Blind, Twist, It's On, Somebody Somewhere, Thoughtless, Ya'll Want a Single, and many, many more.

And now to turn my attention away from The Return of the King (best movie ever made, btw) and towards Christmas. Just one week away. I hope you have all bought me my presents! Today I went Christmas shopping and bought all sorts of presents for me so you will look kind of silly if you haven't gotten me anything. Not that I'm one to criticise, *whispers* but it might make you look kind of selfish.

So yeah, the movie was all I hoped it would be and more. I wept, I laughed. Felt fear. Cheered and clapped. And I'm sure you did too, and we'll all be back for more at the earliest possible opportunity.
Even though I didn't get a chance to dress up this year, I'm glad the theater did. The box office was done up as the One Ring, while the concession stand had a Prancing Pony motif, complete with wooden hanging sign. And the parking lot bore an eery resemblance to the pitted plains of Gorgoroth.

Grond was indeed there. And he was fell and mighty, though in the end he could not stand against the strength of the Kings of the West.
And all the orc-hosts of Mordor, and Shelob, and Gollum, and the Nazgul Lord, and finally Sauron himself succumbed also.
Brave were the deeds of Gimli and Legolas, Merry and Pippin, Aragorn and Eomer, Eowyn and Gandalf. And of course, Frodo the Ring-Bearer and Sam his strength, without whom, in the end, the Errand could not have been accomplished.

I have this old (1979) art book in my collection that has a cetain amount of nostalgic value to me. I think it was my Dad's actually, but I 'inherited' it from him. It's called a middle-earth album, and consists of paintings by Joan Wyatt. And now the entire book is reprinted online for your convenience! I know she isn't the most skilled painter ever. She is no John Howe or Alan Lee, that's for sure, but her paintings were some of the first visual references I had as a kid for Tolkien's creation. I was looking throught it just now and I see that she has a depiction of Grond. It's more of an incidental depiction, as the actual painting is of the aborted confrontation between Gandalf and the Lord of the Nazgul. But I think Peter Jackson's Grond, assuming there is one, and I think that's a safe assumption, will be way more Grondy.
In less than 24 hours I will know! Yay!

Very soon now the King will Return. As I am rereading the book in preparation for Wednesday night, I am getting more and more excited- almost unbearably so. Today I came across this passage which I think is amazing. I hope it makes it into the movie. I think it will, but even so, Tolkien's written word conveys something even the mightiest visuals cannot. It's from Chapter IV, The Siege of Gondor:

The drums rolled louder. Fires leaped up. Great engines crawled across the field; and in the midst was a huge ram, great as a forest-tree a hundred feet in length, swinging on mighty chains. Long had it been forging in the dark smithies of Mordor, and its hideous head, founded of black steel, was shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf; on it spells of ruin lay. Grond they named it, in memory of the Hammer of the Underworld of old. Great beasts drew it, orcs surrounded it, and behind walked mountain-trolls to wield it.

Text copyright JRR Tolkien. Used without permission.

It's Here!
It's Christmas all month here at the Woods! Tonight at the G was the Christmas Concert, and it was amazing. Seriously. All the musically inclined gatheringites (so, everyone but me, basically) contributed, with all sorts of mixing and matching of musical styles. There may be some mp3's poosted soon over at the G's website. Until then, this is what you missed:
A cacophony of percussion for Little Drummer Boy. A pennywhistle and acoustic guitar for Silent Night. A rousing instrumental rendition of Carol of the Bells. Deb and Jen sang a really cool song I have never heard before about little bitty babies. East coast drinking music version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.
And the newly reconstituted Seven Devil Fix played their two Christmas songs, Midnight Clear and umm, the other one. I forget what it called. Great songs, though. Fittingly, on the first night that 7DF played in public again, their CD Lotus finally arrived! Yay! I am listening to it right now and it pretty kicks ass. Not sorta kicks ass, pretty kicks ass. No- even better that that- hella kicks ass! I like the part where I sing yell on it. But it is all really great, and it sounds excellent, very professional.
I was also very happy to see my dear friends Robb and Christa out at the G, back in town for a Christmas visit. I love Christmas.

Made another trip out to Hinton today, for my Uncle's funeral. I don't think I'll say much about that.
Driving home I was without any CD's in my Mom's car, so I put the radio on the good old CBC to see what's been going on the last little while. We don't have TV or newspapers here in the Woodsy Crypt, so I've been a little out of touch with the wide world.
So imagine my surprise when they started talking about Prime Minister Paul Martin. "What the . . ? What happened to Jean Chretien? When did we have an election? Has there been a coup d'etat? Who's Paul Martin?" All these thoughts and more poured through my brain as I pondered this sudden change in the Headship of our State, after a decade of government stability. But then I remembered Jean was slated to retire in February and he just decided to retire early. So now we have a new Right Honorable Prime Minister. PM PM. At least now I know what he sounds like, if not what he looks like.

I was just kidding about that yesterday- I am looking forward to Christmas this year a lot. I like Christmas. Last year I had a few Christmas songs that I would play to get me in the festive mood. Especially Holly Cole's 2000 Miles, which I asked Deb to sing at the G that week I had to go away. Gabrielle has a Holly Cole Christmas CD, and it is fantastic. I owe a debt of gratitude to my Classy Room-mate for many things, and sitting near the top of the list is the fact that she has exposed me to so much excellent jazz. Harry Connick, Jr, some of the old greats such as Ella and Frank. You know- people who have last names but using them is superfluous.

You know, you might as well just enjoy this week. Savour it. In six days we will all go see Return of the King and it will be a great day, but after that there will be no more sweet anticipation. Nothing to look forward to. Just dreary, monotonous routine day after day with no new LOTR movies to brighten our day.
Well, I guess Christmas is coming up, too. That's cool.

Saw Snow White: A Tale of Terror tonight. Never heard of it? Me neither, until gabrielle told me about it, and we rented it tonight. It stars Sigourney Weaver so right away you know it kicks ass, and it is a somewhat darker version than the Disney tale we are all familiar with. But most fairy tales and children's literature are darker than we often realize. One of my favorite books, The Diamond Age touches on this a lot. Neal Stephenson believes children need to be taught a certain amount of subversiveness in order to grow up right (ie not dull and insipid), and this subversivenes can be taught through dark children's lit. It's a little more complicated than that, but you'll have to read the book yourself if you want to know more. Anyways, I agree with him.

I saw The Last Samurai yesterday with my friend Morna. It was good- a very beautiful film cinematographically speaking. And I have an affinity for Asian culture, as you know. Tom Cruise was good, and Ken Watanabe (the real last samurai, as it were- or second-to-last samurai- remember that old Far Side?) was exceptionally classy. So if you need some big epic battle scenes to whet your appetite for ROTK, by all means go see it. But if you have limited dollars to spend on cinema this Christmas season, save Samurai for Last. Haha.

He gets it too.

Outside magazine sends me emails every week, since I like it Outside. I felt a little left out today, though, when they sent me one with this subject line: "Sport and Adventure Goddesses, Should You Spend $400 on a Ski Jacket?"
Maybe next month they will send one that reads "Bears that live in the woods, would you like $400?"

Make sure you go visit Crazy White Girl With a Keyboard today, as she is featuring "Badly Photographed Real Estate Agents from Minnesota" as her soup of the day.

Last week due to the family situation that came up, I had to miss out on the G. No big deal, really, except that I was slated to speak. But Craig filled in for me, with a reading from the vampire nomad herself, and from all acounts it was excellent- and in fact there is an mp3 up so you can hear for yourself if you are so inclined.
So tonight was my first chance to see the new colors. Very nice! Once a refuge of purple walls and green ceiling (which I actually was quite fond of), it is now reddish and brownish. Except I am sure the colors have some sort of fancy name like tope and brun. And there's a cool squiggly line to ease the transition. Anyways, those of you who don't know the G from a V probably don't care. But if you had been there tonight to take in the improv, you would have had a pretty great time.
In fact I have to say that this weekend pretty much made up for last weekend, what with the KoЯn goodness (have I told you how much it kicks ass?) and Pirates viewing on Friday, the Gotthammer Christmas Extravaganza last night (we are all sore from the dancing and jumping. Very sore) and then lunch with the folks today and of course the G tonight.

And now heaven
Okay so it's been a shitty week all around, and even today running errands around Edmonton was a minor trial with all the bad vibes out there. But all is well now because I am finally listening to the new KoЯn disc now. And it KICKS ASS! It is seriously heavy and exactly what I need to listen to right now. Plus they bust out the bagpipes again, after giving them a rest for Untouchables. Ahhh. For some musical therapy just Take a Look In The Mirror.

A Small Rant
Alright. Wednesday was a shitty day. The weather was shitty in Calgary. The 550 km drive to Hinton was shitty. There was an overturned van in the left lane of the highway at one point. Overturned as in upside down. But I am good at ice driving. And I made good time, though I had just over an hour to get the 100 kms from Entwhistle to Edson in order to drop off my uncle's cremated remains at the funeral home there. So I sped a little bit. Not too much because the roads were bad and it was my Grandma's car, but I was speeding. In fact I passed a cop car. Normally I would never do something so blatantly stupid as that, but my mind was in a billion other places. And the cop I passed happened to be the infamous Asshole Cop of Edson. As you know, many cops are assholes. As much as I can hate them for that, I also recognize that it is a defence mechanism. But this guy is overthetop assholey. Anyone who has driven through Edson knows who I'm talking about. Anyways, he gives me a $142 ticket, harrasses my Grandma a bit for having a licence plate that was three days expired (the exact length of time since we had gone to Calgary to deal with the passing of her son) and then, after all that, he refused to do me the simple favour of taking my uncle's remains into Edson for me, since he had delayed me past their closing time. "I'm not working tomorrow" he said. Asshole.
And then when I got to Hinton I discovered that one of my Grandma's cats had pooed on my bed. Contrary to what you might think, Homie Bear is not actually a big fan of poo. Especially when it is ON MY BED!!!
Alright, I think I have vented enough. At some point I think I should probably pray- haven't really done too much of that. Good day.

She gets it.
When Homie Bear isn't in the room, all the other bloggers should be saying, "Where's Homie Bear?"
Or at least talking about him ;)

I have returned to my home, which I love best. Right now I don't feel like going into much detail about the past few days. Maybe I will later, or maybe I will just leave it. I'm just really glad to be back.
With some Christmas music in the background, we decorated our apartment for the Season tonight- it looks very festive and woodsy, appropriately enough. We have TWO mini Christmas trees up, and Ted (the plant) is sporting a couple of ornaments as well. Candles, angels, snowflakes, holly and ribbon round out the decor. Oh yeah, a decorative Starship Enterprise and a Shuttlecraft help complete the transition to Merry Christmas time! Yay!

A quick update:
Hi everyone. I'm in Hinton borrowing my Grandparents' computer real quick. There has been a death in the family, it was rather sudden and unexpected, so I had to rush out to Hinton to get my Grandma and take her to Calgary. We took care of business yesterday and came back to Hinton today- the weather wasn't really great but we made it. I got to drive my Granmda's brand new Acura and it is a good car to drive in icy weather.
Anyways, I'll be back tomorrow. Thanks gabrielle for looking after things here. Talk to you tomorrow.