Happy new year! It was a great year but I am pretty sure 09 will be the best yet.
Also, I dreamed that Yoda was training on grader at work. He kept using the ripper instead of the blade. And he did wheelies into a cardboard box.

The Best of Pooing in the Woods 2008

If I can be a little self-indulgent (and what else is a blog for?) I would like to present some of the best posts from the past year.

In which I enter a safety Slogan Contest. Who knew the best safety slogan might be to stay away from crazy bus drivers?
Some fine examples of paleoetry.
My favorite installment of Fanart Friday. And some of my Flickr Favorites that I took myself.
But of course the big news was the coming little cub! And all that that implies. PLus the first photo of the protobear!

Homie Bear's Top 10 Books of 2008

I always cheat a little here because I include books from whatever year that I happened to read in the past year. Most of them aren't from 2008. But this time I could almost fill the list with books published this year. Just not quite. In no particular order:

1. The Book of Stanley, Todd Babiak (2007)- gotta start the list off with a local writer. Funny, takes place in Banff, has sasquatches.

2. Schuyler's Monster, Robert Rummel-Hudson (2008)- really just follow the link to meet Schuyler and her monster, and her dad.

3. The As It Happens Files- Radio That May Contain Nuts, Mary Lou Finlay (2008)-perfect for the CBC freaks like me!

4. An Imperfect Offering, Dr. James Orbinski (2008)- this is one of Michelle's books that she bought after hearing Stephen Lewis speak at teacher's conference. Orbinski was the president of Medecins Sans Frontiers when they won the Nobel Peace Prize. Before that he was in Rwanda and pretty much everywhere else in the world where people were suffering. Made me cry.

5. Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (2007)- do you remember when Theo Van Gogh was murdered for a film he made? Ayaan was the subject of that film. This is her life story and it is amazing.

6. Wicked, Gregory Maguire (1996). Okay back to fiction. I can;t remember the last time I liked a book and its writing as much as the story of Elphaba.

7. Nurk, Ursula Vernon (2008)- Ursula is one of my favorite artists, and her first book is a fun little adventure for kids.

8. The Scar, China Mieville (2002)- by a slight margin this is my favorite of Mieville's books, though they are all great. 

9. The Baroque Cycle, Neal Stephenson (2002-04)- cheating a bit here, since this is three books and I have only started the third today. But the first two came to 1600 pages so I get some slack! PLus I could have cheated even more by putting his brand new book Anathem (which I got for Christmas) but it will be a while before I get to it.

10. Evolution- the Triumph of an Idea, Carl Zimmer (2001)- I knew of Carl though his blog where he often featured science tattoos. I didn't know he was such a clear, lucid and interesting writer too. Who knew a book about evolution would be hard to put down?

Homie Bear's Top 8 Musics of 2008

Since I did listen to more than 8 albums this year I have an easier time filling up this list- but not putting it in order. And really who cares if such and such is #5 or #3? What matters is here is 8 great records that I dug from this year:

1. Sheryl Crow- Detours. You might think from reading the track listing (Love is Free, Peace Be Upon Us, God Bless This Mess) that this is a happy hippie album. Part of it is, though it is just as much protest album as  anything else. And actually some of it's darker than Slipknot's- Make It Go Away( Radiation Song) reminds you what she's been through.

2. Metallica- Death Magnetic. Apparently it's a concept album about aging superstars but all I hear is kickass.

3. Slipknot- All Hope Is Gone. Really all three of these CDs could be tied for number 1. Make sure you get the Bonus tracks edition of this one though.

4. Wendy McNeill- A Dreamer's Guide to Hardcore Living. Earlier I compared her to a villainous Red Riding Hood, and Michelle recently remarked she is sort of like Tom Waits. As if that doesn't send you scurrying to your iTunes.

5. Alanis Morissette- Flavors of Entanglement. There are songs on this CD that are as strong as anything she's ever written. Not As We, Incomplete and Citizen of the Planet especially.

6. Raconteurs- Consolers of the Lonely- Anything Jack White puts out is gold. If only he and Jack Black would collaborate!  

7. Cadence Weapon- Afterparty Babies. I don't really follow the hiphop world but Rollie Pemberton is easily Edmonton's best rapper ever, I think.

8. Foxboro Hottubs- Stop Drop and Roll. It will do until Green Day puts out something uncer their own name.

Cheers!

Homie Bear's Top 8 Movies of 2008

Umm, I'm not even sure if I saw eight movies this year, let alone eight good ones. The top two are no-brainers. Even the top 3. After that it is pretty much just the ones I saw this year. I really want to see The Wrestler and if I already had I'm sure it would be on the list.

1. The Dark Knight

2. Wall-E

3. Iron Man

4. Clone Wars

5. Son of Rambow- these are actually the kinds of movies I really like- quirky and full of heart

6. Into the Wild

7. Be Kind Rewind

8.Incredible Hulk

Hmmm. Pretty bad, but a least I finally came up with 8. But lots of movies weren't worthy of the list- Indy 4 and Wanted to say the least.

Being the big CBC junkie that I am, Michelle got me Mary Lou Finlay's new book The As It Happens Files- Radio That May Contain Nuts. As It Happens just happens to be celebrating its 40th anniversary. I remember last year listening to it, and they mentioned it was the 30th anniversary of Stephen Biko's murder in a South African jail cell. I listened in fascination as I finally learned the story behind Peter Gabriel's beautiful song Biko (they made a movie too which you should watch- Cry Freedom with Denzel as Biko). Then I was kind of amazed when they dug into their own archives and played an interview that (I believe it was) Barbara Budd did with the apartheidist minister who uttered the famous words, "The death of Stephen Biko leaves me cold." She was scathing. It was awesome. Anyways, go dig around in their archives and read the book- the book is more hilarious than anything, since they don't just interview apartheidists but also have a knack for finding the eccentric element out there in radioland.

I hope your Christmas was as good as ours. We had lots of fun and lots of food. And I have lots of gigabytes on my new iPod Touch that Michelle got me. Sweet!

It's Merry Christmas to me from the internets! Well, sort of. My Wellington friend the great poet Harvey Molloy's book Moonshot arrived today (thanks Harvey!) as well as a CD with some good tunes, including some Maori stuff which I love.
And also a deviantArtist named Dantooine did some sketch cards that I dug so I took them off his hands and he even sent me a bonus one. Sweet! So merry Christmas everyone!

Me and Michelle have been spending our time wisely, trying to unlock as many courses in Mariokart Wii as possible while we still have free time. This is good fun but now I find that when I close my eyes I find myself zooming along a mushroom-or-carnivorous sunflower infested racetrack, throwing bananas behind me. Several cures exist for this condition, including but not limited to Star Wars marathons.
Anyways, here is a guy who takes his Mariokart a little too seriously, with hilarious results.

Babies don't seem very cryey these days. In the last few weeks I have held and otherwise interacted with a number of very young babies and none of them have been cryers. This gives me great hope for the very near future when just such an individual will take up permanent residence at my house. Since the last time I really paid much attention to the world of babies it seems that great technological strides have been made towards minimizing the tears and the tantrums. Oprah discovered this lady who can see sounds, and she in turn discovered that all babies make the same 5 shapes when they cry- in other words, they can communicate their needs and if you just buy her DVD you can figure out what they are saying. And if you know someone who already bought the DVD than you can just borrow it!
Then there's things called swaddlers. Babies apparently really like to be smooshed and trapped inside pieces of cloth that render them immobile. To me it seems like this would only increase the howls but apparently it reminds them of the womb or something so they just magically fall asleep. If, for some reason, imprisoning them in this papoose doesn't work, you can give them a teddy bear that has a device inside it that mimics the sound of a mother's heartbeat, as heard from inside the womb. Works wonders, they say.
And if all that fails, holding them, rocking them and making faces at them also seems to work.

Our friend Erika came over today and took some pregnancy photos of Michelle, a few with me too. They are on Michelle's Facebook so make sure you check them out if you are friends with her. If you are friends with me I tagged the ones with me so then you should be able to find them, if interested. For the rest of you, here is a photo of Mt Doom that I took four years ago now and sorta forgot about. But it's nice, eh? Mt Doom was played by Mt Ngaurahoe in Tongariro National Park. New Zealand, yo! Didn't it erupt recently? One of them did I think. Maybe Ruapehu?

Sometimes you just need to see baby pandas.

 I'm not saying Wanted was terrible because it had some good entertainment value, but I sometimes wonder what goes on in those meetings where they greenlight films.
"So there's this magic loom, okay? It tells these weavers who to kill."
"What, like guys who make cloth?"
"Yeah, they started out a thousand years ago and they figured out their loom was speaking to them in binary code so they taught themselves how to control bullets."
"The weavers did. A thousand years ago."
"Yeah! So then Angelina Jolie is there and she's driving this car from outside of it on the hood."
"Angelina? Greenlight!"

Anyways today is Friday so I guess that means it's time for some fanart. My favorite Christmas character is the Grinch so check out TraditionalDanimatio's tributes to the green grouch, of which I will only provide one thumbnail, so you can check out the other two yourself:

And there are even more at SketchTavern.

My wife is a great teacher and tomorrow is her last day until next September. Maternity leave. Most people would be jumping up and down cheering and celebrating and possibly rioting and looting to get nine months off. But she will genuinely miss it. She pretty much has it down to a science- or an art, more like. I love when she tells me stories, like how she deals with all the hyper kids who line up at her desk just as class is starting with the urgent need to tell her sob stories:

Student: Mrs. Bear I was doing some of this and some of that and etc etc etc

Mrs Bear: Skip to the moral of the story please.

Student: Wut?

Mrs Bear: Is the moral of the story that you didn't do your homework?

Student: Well, yes.

Mrs Bear: Go sit down. Next!

But I know she really admires the ones that show some spunk, like the kid who, for a fundraiser, purchased the right to teach a Language Arts class. He brought in a bunch of cans of whipped cream and was going to have an eating contest.

Mrs Bear: Hold it, Mr. X- you need to relate this to Language Arts.

Mr. X: Oh- uh, who can give me an adjective for whipped cream?

Anyways they had their eating contest and even got to smoosh some pies into my wife's face as part of the same fundraiser. Good for them!

Anyways, here's to the great teacher Mrs Bear!

As far as I can remember I think this is the first time since the summer of 2004 that I will spend three straight weeks in the city where I live. Crazy. This is what is on the agenda:
1. relax
2. many movie marathons with michelle
3. christmas
4. babyproof the house

Of course item #1 can be expanded to include such diverse activities as Mariokart (thanks Steve&Megan!) and parties and trying to finish Neal Stephenson's excellent and hilarious Baroque Cycle. Who woulda thought a historical novel about calculus and finances could be so funny. That's why he's such a genius.

Done for the year! So that's good. Now I have nearly three weeks off. And then the baby should come sometime soon after* and I will take more time off! And then the market for coal will tank even farther and I should have the rest of my life off! So all good news, basically.
*Because today is 35 weeks. You might think holy smokes- one more week and it will be nine months! The baby will come any day! Any second even! But it turns out that a pregnancy takes 40 weeks. Which if you do the math works out to ten months. So that whole nine month thing is just a fallacy and a lie and a falsehood. Also it just isn't true. I dunno why this misconception is allowed to permeate our entire society but it's possible it has to do with alien overlords. So again, all good news, basically.

Speaking of unpleasantness on the radio, we are not allowed to swear on ours at work. This is not just company policy but a requirement of the CRTC who lease us the airwaves. But of course people forget and slips are common. For the most part I am pretty good, but I let an F bomb go the other day. I think it was justified:
After delivering a space heater to a shovel operator I notice that a haultruck has come in to the stands and made its turn. Worse, it is now backing up towards the pickup I am in. I get on the radio and say, "40 truck are you there?"
No answer. The driver is a rookie, but also very near retirement age and there are concerns about how well he can actually see and hear. And he's driving a 260 ton rock truck! So much fun. Though he doesn't answer my hail he at least stops backing up and takes his truck out of reverse. I wait a few more seconds to be sure and then decide it is safe to get the hell out of there. Just as I am making a turn he starts backing up again, and I am in his path. So I get on the radio with my assertive, I could even go so far as to say scary voice. "40 truck!! DO NOT BACK UP! STOP RIGHT THERE! Oh F#@*!" That last part was no longer Scary Voice, but Scared Voice.
Obviously since I am still here I didn't get squished into a pancake but it is only because I took evasive maneuvers. And I don't think ole 40 truck even knew I was there.
My foreman thought it was justified too.

Then days like today I get the CBC crystal clear all day but nary a Wendy McNeill song to be had. Just Rex Murphy and his best theme music ever.

The thing that bothers me most about my job is not the long hours, the cold, the grease, the pulled muscles, the night shifts- what bothers me most about work is the radio. Being way out in the boonies we have to pipe in music from elsewhere so we get two classic rock stations and one country. So three flavors of suck. I know I've whined about this before so I won't belabor the point. But every now and then I can sort of get a staticy CBC which is almost worse than nothing since it just tantalizes but doesn't satisfy. Like today, on the Key of A, a show that plays live concerts from Alberta artists, they had Wendy McNeill and I couldn't really make it out that well, and anyways I was in and out of the truck doing work so I was aware of it but didn't get to hear much of it. But what I did hear just strengthened my resolve that she would be fantastic as the female singer in an Alberta Ballet production of Nightmare Before Christmas. Can we make this happen yet? Wendy is kind of like Red Riding Hood if RRH was the villain in the story and the wolf the victim. And didn't wear red. Need proof? Watch this video, which is kinda balletic itself in that it is all one shot:

Ask Me No Questions

Fanart Friday: Random Fandom

A mishmash of cool stuff I've seen in the world of fan art lately:


Grumpygoat draws a great Wonder Woman for charity. And TimKelly reminds us that Skeletor is way cool. Cowkitty accidentally re-envisions Maleficent. And joewight sketches a sweet walker.

We just got back from the Alberta Ballet's brand new Nutcracker. 'Twas good. Michelle asked what the Nutcracker has to do with Christmas and I have to admit I'm stumped. Oh well, good music and some fine dancing.
But you know what ballet I would like to see at Christmas time? The Nightmare Before Christmas! How sweet would that be? Get the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (who were fantastic as always tonight) to do the music, lots of interesting people could do the singing. Holly Cole anyone? Or maybe Wendy McNeill to keep it local. Cadence Weapon doing the men's songs! Yeah!

Dear MEC- Good on ya for sorting out that error on my order with no hassle at all. I was worried when I realized that I had received a 250 ml Nalgene bottle (worth $1.75) rather than the $275 water purifier I had ordered. And thanks for letting me keep the Nalgene bottle! I will be sure to filter 250 mls of water when I get my purifier.
Cheers,
Homie Bear

Dear Darkhorse- Please do an adaptation of the original star wars trilogy using all concept art. You know, Luke Starkiller and stormtroopers with lightsabers, white Boba Fett, all that. Because that would be cool.
Thanks,
Homie Bear

Dear Firefox- Seriously, version 3.0 sucks. Why do 'upgrades' actually mean making something that was perfectly fine already much worse?
CC- Facebook, Blogger
Sincerely,
Safari Bear

Dear Santa Claus,
Please bring me one of these.
Thanks!
Homie Bear

I picked up this Marvel Zombies comic for my friend Craig and of course I read it before I gave it to him. What a great idea right? Take the Hulk and Wolvie and Spidey and all those guys and turn 'em into zombies!
But, I thought it was kinda silly. They weren't really zombies in the mindless sense- they kept talking about how awful it was that they had to feast on human flesh now but at least human flesh is so delicious! It had a funny ending though, much more satisfying than the ending to Fantastic Four 2, which was a movie that could have used waaaay more zombies.
All the cover homages were cool, though, like the one above which gives tribute to this classic McFarlane cover one of my favorites of all time.

Last night shift of the year tonight! This week has been pretty good too- mostly training on the new hydraulic shovel. It's fun. Tricksy. But I am ready to go home in the morning that's for sure. So long as my car will start. The Black Pearl has demonstrated a roguish reluctance to start n the cold. It seems to prefer Caribbean climes. Well you're in the wrong country for that you scurvy scoundrel!

I fixed my Flickr! I am the Flickr fixr!

My Flickr Pro account is about to expire- if I don't remember to renew by tomorrow almost 2000 photos will be unavailable to me. Why not just do it right now? Because I have no idea what my Yahoo account that gets me into my Flickr is. And just now as I was trying to figure it out I got signed out and can't get back in. But I should be able to remember by tomorrow never fear! Otherwise some of my favorite shots will be gone forever. Or actually until I renew:

Fanart Friday: The Big Lebowski

A couple of weeks ago Jian Ghomeshi had Jeff Dowd on, the real-life inspiration for The Dude, and reminded us all that The Big Lebowski is ten years old. That's excuse enough for me!





All this Lebowski goodness is produced by the following Little Lebowski Urban Achievers:

Grantgoboom, WonderDookie, Oswald Cobblepot, Boatwright, XAV Drawordie, and amavizca. The Dude abides.

Happy Saint Barbara day!
Who is Saint Barbara? Turns out she is the patron saint of miners, artillerymen and sundry other saps who work with explosives. According to legend she died on December 4th, 306. Until yesterday I had never heard of her but Neal Stephenson makes mention of her in Quicksilver and I had to go find out more about my patron saint! Are you allowed to claim her as your patron saint if you aren't Catholic or Orthodox? Who cares! If she can keep me from getting blown up I am all for her.

I didn't hear the whole thing because I was in and out of my car but on Wild Rose they had some little girls on who had apparently found a wounded Golden eagle that had been shot and were nursing it back to health, or at least raising money for a local institute that rehabilitates raptors. Like I say I missed the whole thing so the details are a little unclear. The girls were very well-spoken and I would guess their ages to be around 9 and 7 or 10 and 8 or so. Anyways the host asked the younger girl how much they had raised so far and she said, "About a million dollars."
Then the dad or whoever brought them in said, "Yeah, well, actually they raised $87 from their class and another $1800 from other fundraisers so far."
As far as I'm concerned, that little girl should be our next Finance Minister.

Your Guide to the Bloodless Coup

Since many of my friends are currently expatriating in far-flung places such as New York, New Zealand, Vietnam and Oxford (who knew my old roomie Tom was smrt enufft to get a full skolership to that skool?) they might not be aware of the current political saga going on here at home.
You may recall that six weeks ago we had an election, in which Stephen Harper's Conservatives won a minority. Stephane Dion's Liberals did so poorly that his Party demanded his resignation which he sort of gave but sort of didn't.
In the meantime, the new government was looking for ways to cut costs, and knew that political parties received $1.95 of tax dollars for every vote they won in the election. Axing this perk would be a great way to save money! This would cost the Conservatives about ten million dollars, and the other parties anywhere from just under 2 mill to almost 8 million for the Liberals. So all the other parties started howling and then things started getting crazy. Now the Liberals, NDP and the treasonous Bloc Quebecois have agreed to form a coalition to topple the Conservatives and form the new government. If the Governor General will allow it.
So anyways all the MPs are busy with those shenanigans and our country is watching with baited breath. I find it quite interesting but I try to be non-partisan inasmuch as that's possible. Basically I think they're all bums, but having the separatist BQ in power, even shared power, can not be good for Canada.
Of course, this might make more sense with a Star Wars metaphor:


Now you might think Stephane Dion corresponds to Darth Sidious, the mastermind behind the formation of the Galactic Empire. But to me he is more the dangerously inept comedic relief, so he gets to be Jarjar Binks. Although Jack Layton bears a physical resemblance to Count Dooku, really it is Gilles Duceppe who best corresponds to the Separatist Leader. I guess that means Layton is Palpatine. But who does Stephen Harper correspond to? He is often referred to as a cardigan-wearing automaton, so I guess that would be C3PO.

So our new hydraulic shovel has been put to work. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet but I imagine it will be fun for the first little while. Seems kinda small, but the big advantage is it doesn't have cables and it doesn't have ropes. Cables are the power cords of the electric shovel and one of my major responsibilities as a shovel oiler. They're heavy and awkward and I am always pulling a back muscle manhandling them. One time I got snmashed in the face with a pothead (connectode) and that wasn't fun. Another time I got a small electric shock when I picked a disconnected one up- when connected they have 7700 volts. And sometimes they just blow up randomly so you have to watch out for them. So I am all for shovels that don't have miles of extension cord behind them.
Ropes are the steel cables that electric shovels have for hoisting and lowering the bucket. We call them ropes but actually they are incredibly strong steel cables capable of bearing 150 tons of metal and rock. You can see them in this picture, attached to the bucket. They then go up over the point sheaves and into the house where they are wound around the hoist drum:

The other day we had to change these ropes, another oiler responsibility, though this is more of a mechanic's job and I just assist. We were within ten minutes of finishing the job in a very respectable two hours when we lost them. Well, one of the mechanics unchained them to shift them around just as we were about to put them on the drum. Ever so slowly they started taking off, back over the point sheaves and then crash! Fall onna ground! Luckily no one was standing underneath or they would have been squished dead. As it was, the brand new ropes, a set of which probably costs $30,000 or more, was ruined. The ends looked like a sprung spring. And of course we had to do the whole operation all over again. All in a day's work.