Date night! We were planning to go see Eat Pray Love but it didn't work out. So sad right? Instead we had Indian food on Whyte and then bought many books. Many books. Some form the used bookstore some from the new. And then we went to a Second Cup and read books till we got chased away by the Tango dancing. Yes, tango dancing at the SCup.
Some of my bookswag from tonight:
Marvel's adaptation of George RR Martin's Hedge Knight II- Sworn Sword. I just got the first volume from the library and it is kickass. Set in the same world as A Song of Fire and Ice, but 100 years before. Lotsa Targaryens still around.
Shit My Dad Says- I'm late to the party since I never followed him on Twitter but at least I beat the sitcom. Very funny.
A signed Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. When was he here?
Geektastic, Holly Black. We went to SDCC. Obviously we need this book.
Half Brother, Kenneth Oppel. Chimps! From the bat guy!

So one of my Flickr friends, Skipthefrogman, not only takes fantastic photos of his Star Wars and GI Joes, he also even dabbles in casting moulds. Moulding casts? So he made his own mandalorian helmet and made up a figure for me, complete with old-skool card. Sweet!

The irony certainly didn't escape me. I spent all week running shovel, loving every minute I wasn't doing my normal pumpman job. You remember, the job I took because I didn't want to run shovel.
Anyways. What's with all the Russian military aircraft making like they're going to invade Canada lately? Are they bored? Feeling the Cold War Nostalgia Blues? Or getting ready to invade the Arctic to claim all its supposed oil?
Also- sewer diggers discovered bones from an Edmontosaurus and an Albertosaurus right here in Edmonton. Alberta. Not discovered- any Calgarysauruses. Cause there's no such thing sucka!
And look- all of Chewbacca's dialog from Star Wars!

Hey Homie Bear where you been? Oh you know, here and there. Where here is Edmonton and there is Hinton. Haven't been doing too much really, especially with all the end of the world smoke hanging like a toxic wet blanket over the province. Mostly been reading, I guess. I finally read Maus. Michelle got it from the library after hearing so much about it at Comic Con. One of those books everyone should read, especially comic book fans. Dunno what took me so long. I just got another neglected-by-me all-time classic of the graphic arts from the library today- Akira. Now I just have to read The Iliad and The Odyssey and my training will be complete. Maybe there are some good comic book adaptations of those two . . .
Here is a picture of my wise toddler reading Toddler Wise. Upside down.

Star Wars Celebration V is in full swing in Orlando right now. Having just got back from SDCC, I'm not there but I'm there in spirit. Much like the ghost of Obi Wan was with Luke when he blew up the Death Star. Which is easy to do courtesy of Flickr photostreams such as the Official Star Wars one and attendees such as Evil Benius. I also like Club Jade a lot.
In the meantime I just have my own little Star Wars celebrations alla time.

Haha remember this terrifying Triceratops I drew? It was netcromanced (yes- the black art of internet necromancy, thank you very much) back to life today by David Orr over at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs. Seems there's a debate over whether Triceratops is its own species or not. Well, even if he's not there's always Eotriceratops.

Don't you wish you could take photographs of music? And yet songs about photographs mostly suck. Exhibits A and B: Def Lepperd (Leppard? It has been too long since grade 8 and I don't recall how to spell them or if they have umlauts or not) and Nickelback. Exception to the rule: Yawning or Snarling by the Tragically Hip.

I actually bought some comics at Comic-con. Including this compendium of Man-Thing issues from the 70s. Reprinted in black and white but it's big as a phone book. I was scared it might be a little painful to read (after all, whatever knows fear burns at the touch of the Man-Thing) but it was so much fun. Lots of 70s cheese and really weird moments. See, M-T's swamp happens to be the Nexus of All Realities so that he would have something to do every month. One time the realities all sort of got mixed up and so a jar of peanut butter transmogrified into a barbarian warrior. Also Howard the Duck materialized and was killed off a few pages later when he fell of a stairway to heaven (Howard would later get his own series and become a minor 80s icon, they even made a movie which I thought was great when I was 12 but is widely considered to be among the worst movies ever made). Further up the stairway, a wizard gives M-T and buddies wings so they can fly away. The peanut butter barbarian asks the wizard why he didn't give Howard wings and the wizard says, I forgot! Not to mention that Howard, being a duck, should have wings. But doesn't.
In another issue, Man-thing fights ghost pirates in space!