Renewed shall be Axe that was Broken

A few years ago I went up to the Yukon and Alaska for a holiday. I brought along a young college student of my aquaintance- I was originally going to go alone, but he asked if he could come and I was happy for the company. My friend was quite inexperienced at the outdoors life, so he learned a lot under the careful guidance of the Proto-Homie Bear. But I was a little leary about letting him use my axe. It's a pretty big axe.
One night I was chopping wood and he was bugging me to teach him how. "I dunno," I said, all sceptical. "These are kind of dangerous if you're not careful."
"Aww come on," he said, and many other words to that effect.
So I gave in, and taught him how to chop in such a way so as not to inadvertently amputate his own leg. When I figured he had the hang of it I told him I was just heading to the river to brush my teeth. Not five minutes later I return, and there he is holding my axe, freshly cloven in two.
"What did you do to my axe????!!!!" I exlaimed in horror.
Although he had managed not to hurt himself, he had hit the handle of the axe against the wood (or something), splitting it along the length of it.
And so I made do with a broken axe for a very long time. It could still chop wood, though poorly. And I was very sad, for I loved my axe.
Today, my axe was returned to me, reforged! My friend Sherry has access to a bonfire and an axe handle so she was kind enough to fix it for me. Then she brought it in to the coffee shop where I work to return it. I just happened to be visiting with some old Chilkoot Trail friends who had dropped in unexpectedly (yay! it was great to see your Mom, Erica!), so I propped the axe up against our table, right in front of the till. Many strange stares and comments ensued.
Anyone need any wood chopped?

The Woodless Again shall have Fire!

Punch buggy! More than meets the eye!

Look out India, here comes the Spider-Man! Spider-Man is being reincarnated in India! Not merely ye olde familiar Spider-man translated into Hindi, Spidey will actually get a new, Indian identity. His name is Pavitr Prabhakar, and he will be a reinterpretation of the Spider-Man myth. The Green Goblin will be the nemesis, in the form of Rakshasa, an Indian demon. Which makes him much cooler than Green Goblin in the form of Willem Defoe in a Power Ranger costume.
Oh yeah, and in other Spidey related news I think there is a movie about the webslinger opening tomorrow. I, however, will be watching a movie set very near to India called Two Brothers.

As you've probably heard, the first privately funded spacecraft made it into space today. This is good news for people such as Lance Bass- it gives them one more potential avenue for getting to Mars. Did you know that if Lance were to go to Mars, he would produce roughly a ton of poo? It's true, assuming a trip of 2 years. That's a lot of poo, even if it is catchy, repetitive, appealing-to-the-general-public poo. What to do with all that poo? Don't forget that Lance is likely to have some co-astronauts, who will produce a similar amount of poo, though I think theirs would be less prone to 5-point harmony.
One elegant solution is to harness the intrinsic power of poo (what have I been telling you all this time?), recycling it for drinking water, food, and even, possibly, fuel. There is a bacteria called Geobacter that can pull the double duty of breaking down organic matter and generating electricity.
Read more here.

In non-poo news, here are some beautiful paintings apparently connected to the upcoming Narnia movies.
Speaking of beautiful artwork, here is an artist's blog I recently discovered, I love her stuff.

Even though I'm just in the middle of writing part 2 of the dragon story (not ready yet), I remembered a point I wanted to make about Chronicles of Riddick. Those dead guys with the purple fishbowls who could see living things reminded me of an odd little sci-fi short story I read years ago called Scanners Live in Vain. I can't find a copy online, but here is a good description of it.

EDIT FROM THE FAR FUTURE OF 2020! First of all if you are reading this back in 2004 avoid 2020 at all costs! And secondly please know the rewritten and definitive version of this story now exists in volume 1 of The Ursus Verses. 

Here is part 1 of a story that arose because I was considering the 4th state of matter. Part 2 is a vague notion in my head so I will finish it in the next few days hopefully (umm, I'll get to the pixie story again eventually. . .), but it is getting late so here is the beginning, at least.

 Sir Swampy Joe Brody was a cowboy, and he was a dragon slayer. He wasn't really a knight, though, and everyone knew it, but they called him "Sir" anyways out of respect. Sir Swampy Joe also happened to have an honorary PhD from Harvard, but he thought going by the handle of Dr. Sir Swampy Joe Brody was getting a little high falutin'. Sir Swampy Joe had a bit of a problem. There was a new kind of dragon in town, and this dragon didn't breathe regular fire. Sir Swampy had attempted a showdown with the vicious critter but it had melted his shield and very nearly melted his horse, Michael the Archangel. Sir Swampy figured he better skedaddle and go consult his mentor. Sir Swampy's mentor was a Blackfoot medicine man named Maskikiasin, though Sir Swampy called him Smiling Bear- once in Yellowstone they had been hunting a dragon and had come across a grizzly who was fighting for his life against the dragon. Without hesitating Sir Swampy threw himself onto the dragon's back and drove his lance into his vertebrae, dispatching him quickly, while Maskikiasin tended to the bear, applying an herbal poultice to his wounds. The spooked grizzly ran off to lick his wounds, but Sir Swampy swore he saw him turn and smile at them before he disappeared. So from then on Maskikiasin was Smiling Bear. "Have you heard about the new dragon?" asked Sir Swampy. "No, the smoke signal net has been bogged down with spam all day- as if a medicine man would ever need those kind of pills . . . " Sir Swampy wasn't really listening. "I hate to sound yella, Smilie, but this one might be more than I can handle. I never seen anything like it- his fire doesn't just burn things down, it vaporizes them." "Well, let's go take a look." So Sir Swampy Joe and Smiling Bear got on their horses and went in search of the dragon. It was a pretty easy search, as all they had to do was go against the flow of refugees fleeing the devastation. The demoralized citizens cheered Sir Swampy and Smiling Bear as they passed, but Sir Swampy couldn't help but feel that he was going to let them down this time. The dragon, even from a distance, was impressive. It was twice the size of a normal dragon. Its skin was slightly translucent and had a metallic, glistening sheen just beneath the surface that seemed to glow. It had all the typical accoutrements of evil- massive, reptilian wings, classic draconic wedge-shaped head with horns, fangs, scales and piercing, golden slit-eyes. Out of all the dragons Sir Swampy Joe had slain, he had never seen anything so singularly malevolent. "Damn," he said, "that's one mean looking varmint." Smiling Bear took one look at it and said, "It's a Plasma Dragon. Very bad medicine."

All over the continent therapists are sitting in their offices, wondering where the hell all their patients are. "Oh right!" says one, "New Beasties came out today." Beastie Boys is good therapy.
I'm just listening to To The 5 Boroughs for the first time as I type, sounds great so far, pure Beasties but still fresh. This sample or skit or whatever it is just gets them bonus points: "The idea is to keep the green alien landing craft from taking your humans from the ground and changing them into mutants. A mutant is very dangerous to you because he flies faster than you do, and shoots at you."

The mystery of Bigfoot will probably be solved one day with these words:

It turns out that sasquatches were just robots built by bears, possibly with the help of aliens.

gabrielle's personal odyssey of writing the Very Secret Diaries of Troy is finally fulfilled, and though no Cyclopses, sirens or scyllas and charybdises were encountered along the way, much giggling was had, probably way more than Odysseus ever did. It starts here here, and continues upwards.

The day after tomorrow I am going to see The Day After Tomorrow The Chronicles of Riddick! Yay! Some reviewer called it the "largely unasked for sequel to Pitch Black." Maybe cause they weren't asking me- I loved Pitch Black and was pleased when Vin announced he would forego 2Fast2Furious in order to concentrate on the character of Riddick (and probably also because he knew, but was too tactful to say, that 2Fast would 2suck).
Looking forward to :
a) Riddick's eyes. Best eyes ever.
b) Seeing how much they develop Necromonger theology. Could be really cool.
c) Wasn't there someone else in this movie? Some guy? Anyways.
d) Your head a splode!

If they did a prequel to The Day After Tomorrow (about the last ice age, presumably) they could call it The Day Before Yesterday.
Not sure what they'd call a sequel, though.

I took advantage of the fact that I had the day free since I am working tonight to take in a matinee of Harry Potter. I have to admit, the first 20 minutes or so I was really thinking I was going to be disappointed (lots of slapstick for the kids which is fine, just not my thing)but then it settled into a nice, just-tickling-the-edge-of-your-perception foreboding atmosphere. I thought the Dementors were really cool and they managed to avoid being too Ringwraithy. Oh yeah and I liked Buckbeak too. And mostly you have to say that Gary Oldman kicks ass.

I wonder if this happens a lot.

Working at a coffee shop in the summer means I find myself making a surprising number of smoothy-style blender drinks. And dispensing coffee squishees. It can get a little mind-numbing at times so today I fantasized that each concoction I brewed was actually a piece of a giant smoothy golem that would come to life, once joined, and, in an example of poetic (though cliched) justice, consume the very people who had ordered their creation.
But since the golem has so far failed to incorporate, I amuse myself by tricking my coworkers into trying new and disgusting mixtures of smoothies.
"You sick bastard" one of them called me.

"The landing craft drove onto the shore at 6.30 in the morning, within a minute of the time of H-Hour. I jumped off into four feet of water. Never before in my life had I wanted so badly to run, but I could only wade slowly forward. It was approximately 100 yards to the edge of the shore and it took me two minutes to reach the shallow water. Those two minutes were extremely long. Even on the beach I couldn't run as my uniform was sodden and heavy and my legs were numb and cramped.
Heavy shells commenced exploding on the beach, as well as sporadic mortar fire from a short distance inland. A soldier just ahead of me was blown to pieces by direct hit. The instant it happened, something small hit me in the stomach- it was the man's thumb. About then, General Theodore Roosevelt Junior came striding along the beach. He was waving his cane and bellowing at everybody to get moving across the dunes. We kept moving as fast as possible. Some enemy riflemen began firing at me, so I picked myself up and began to run forward over the top of the dunes. Facing me were five of the enemy. I shot the one with his hand raised to hurl a grenade, the rest threw down their rifles and put up their hands. I handed them over to a wounded corporal and went forward again."
Captain George Mayberry, aged 24

From Nothing Less Than Victory, by Russell Miller

Here is a CBC page on Canada's role in D-Day.

"Your Majesties and gentlemen and ladies and all," said Rynelf, "there's just one thing I want to say. There's not one of us chaps as was pressed on this journey. We're volunteers. And there's some here that are looking very hard at that table and thinking about king's feasts who were talking very loud about adventures on the day we sailed from Cair Paravel, and swearing they wouldn't come home till we'd found the end of the world. And there were some standing on the quay who would have given all they had to come with us. It was thought a finer thing then to have a cabinboy's berth on the Dawn Treader than to wear a knight's belt. I don't now if you get the hang of what I'm saying. But what I mean is that I think chaps who set out like us will look as silly as- as those Dufflepuds- if we come home and say we got to the beginning of the World's End and hadn't the heart to go further."

From CS Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Shok left me a very cool link in the droppings, and in case you didn't see it, here it is: snow sculptures in China. I especially like the bear and cub.

Getting back to the children's literature, I am reading CS Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader right now, and really loving it. I'm not finished yet, so I don't have too much to say but I will mention that I loved the thing with Eustace and the dragon (I won't delve into details in case you haven't read it). That's exactly the sort of whimsical thing I try to capture, not always successfully, in my poetry and stories.
And, I am getting more excited for the Prisoner of Azkaban movie every day. To be honest, the first two Harry Potter movies didn't really grab me that much- I liked the books fine, I just found the adaptations to be kind of lifeless, somehow. But the fact that Alfonso Cuaron is directing this one has me paying a little more attention. And Gary Oldman as Sirius Black- yeah. Dracula/Zorg/Rosencrantz/corruptcopfromtheProfessional- the guy is a genius.
Oh yeah, I found JK Rowling's personal official site, and it's pretty cool. Flash intensive, so if you don't have Flash don't even bother.
Rounding off this week's survey of children's lit, let me just say that I got the new Slipknot disc and I really like it so far. Not as brutally heavy and violent as their other stuff, though more melodic and still compelling.

Update: I wrote this last night pretty much immediately after the encounter with FAN. Thus it is not exactly my best work, but it's good enough. However, the vampirenomad has rendered it in her own imitable style, and it is definitely worth a read.

The Woodsy Crypt is a pretty great place to live, due entirely to the vampiric/feline company. The actual neighbourhood is a little on the sketchy side. I walk to work, and have to run a gauntlet of ladies of the night midafternoon. Anyways, I can live with that. I can live with a lot, actually. Our next door neighbours are seriously the loudest people on the planet. I'm not kidding. Mostly they yell at each other, though sometimes they talk really loud and laugh. Usually starting at around 1 AM. Most nights I drown it out, but one time they were pulling down furniture and slamming it to the floor in their fury, and it was around 3 in the morning. So I got up and put some clothes on, left my hair down (I can look a little threatening in this mode if I want to) and went over and knocked on their door. And they were so loud they didn't even hear me. I knocked a couple more times and finally I hear this loud clomping sound coming to the door- I though he was going to be mad at me so I braced myself for whatever confrontation I was about to face. Instead, though, I was face to face with a very sheepish guy in his underwear who had just been kicked out by the lady. We stood there looking at each other awkwardly for a second and then I said, "It's really late."
"I know, sorry," he says. Then he went to the stairwell to spend the night and I went back to bed, where at least it was finally quiet.
Tonight WE received a knock on the door, at 10:30. gabrielle was working out to her Nsync DVD, at a not overloud volume. So I went to answer the door and their was Fat Angry Neighbour from downstairs. "Can you turn your music down please?" he said, not in a friendly tone of voice.
"We will at 11," I said, "when it's quiet time."
"Well, it's kind of loud now."
"Yeah, well, your coughing* keeps us awake all the time and there's nothing we can do about that, so . . . "
This kind of shocked him, I think, as he looked quite taken aback, and didn't reply for a couple of seconds. "Coughing can't be helped," he said, finally.
Anyways, we didn't turn down the music, though in ten minutes, we certainly will.

*He coughs so loud it sounds like he is about to die. All the time, but especially late at night (or early in the morning, as the case may be).