Seems like Naia will be fine. So that's good. Yesterday was kind of a crazy day. On the way to the hospital we were involved in a weird quasi-collision because of lane confusion and whatnot, the lanes aren't as wide as they normally are Nd on top of that they're all fooked from the LRT and stuff. Anyways traded some paint with a lady, I kind of had to chase her down to get her to stop, and the initial confrontation was, well, confrontational but I'm pretty good at remaining calm and defusing situations. She had a baby in her car sp of cousre I'm not going to go off on her, and once I explained that we also had a baby in the car, and were actually on the way to the Stollery, she calmed right down. It wasn't too clear who was at fault since neither of us owned the lane we met in. Whatever, after llooking at the very minor damage we agreed to just go on with our days. But I'm pretty sure she hit me! An62-6/
Apparently ipads think anyways should be spelled with way more 6s than normal.
At the University, we parked at the lot we often go to when we are at the hospital. One of those pay with your credit card dealies. At first it didn't really work so i tried again. When it charged me $120 I tried desperately and in vain to cancel the transaction. Geeze. Later I went to Parking Services to clear that up, shouldn't be a problem but it will be a week while they review my case.
Anyways the doctors were great. The Stollery has a really good reputation, we've never had to test it before but we were very impressed.

Pallas is turning two on Saturday. I won't even be here, I have to work. For that matter I'm missing Michelle's birthday which is the day before as well. Worst dad in the world.
Tomorrow we actually have to take Naia to the Stollery because of some concerns with jaundice or whatever. If that sounds like I'm fuzzy on the details, it's because I'm the world's worst dad. But also because the doctors haven't been exactly clear on what they're concerned about. How worried should we be? I dunno. I'm sure she's fine. Right? Please be fine.

World's Worst Dad

You're the world's worst dad she said
not with her words but with her eyes
and I must be because the accusation
doesn't even bother me I just laugh
and say despite what you may think
you are not actually the boss of me
but let me let you in on a secret
when I piss you off and tell you no
it's not to make you mad
but because I love you so much
I'd rather absorb your wrath
then fail you as a father

I'm pretty much the world's best writer over there in my haultruck. Nothing to do all day but read comics and listen to CBC podcasts and think about life. Then I come home and the genius evaporates like so much . . . stuff that evaporates.
Anyways. Can always talk more about comics. read two the last couple of days- Wolverine Origin, which I had really really low expectations for, but since it was library I thought I'd see how bad it was. Considering they (as the movie also showed) made him a little sickly child named James. But you know it wasn't that bad. At least he's still from Alberta! And the way he got the name Logan actually makes sense. So yeah.
And even more better? Planet Hulk. Some of my favorite comics are those ones where the heroes somehow get transported to another planet or dimension and there's always an evil emperor and gladiatorial games and slaves to be freed. Like when Hulk and the Defenders went to Tunnel World and had to overthrow the Unnameable. Still one of my favorite comics ever. And Planet Hulk is just like that but with less Namor. Too bad the ending is so sad. But Hulk can't have happy endings any more than um, like . . . well he just can't have a happy ending. Not allowed!

The library was kind enough to lend me the Marvel Civil War collected edition. Pretty cool. I liked how there was no major villain, but rather an ideological divide between allies, friends and even in some cases, lovers. I bought the first issue back in 2006 I think it was, and remember it as the one where Tony Stark reveals he's Iron Man. I thought that was their inspiration for the end of the movie. Memory's a funny thing since it was actually Spidey who unmasked. Weird.
Also what happened to Thor? In this series he was a clone or a robot or something. And Hercules snmashed his face in good using robot Mjolnir. That was cool.
Which reminds me of one of my favorite comics of all time- an old Thor (I would dig it out of my collection but that would require a lot of digging) where Hercules is out for a stroll in Central Park with the Avengers' butler and they come across a group of youngsters playing frisbee. Unbeknownst to Herc, one of the kids was being bullied by the others for always drawing pictures of his hero Thor. So the kids ask Hercules who would win in a fight, him or Thor. Herc, of course, starts spinning a tall tale about how he totally kicked Thor's ass after Thor bonked him on the head with Mjolnir. At one point he even picked up the entire island of Manhattan to throw at Thor ("I don't remember that," say the kids). Jarvis, the butler, notices what's actually going on and asks for a word with Herc, who then quickly edits his story to show that Thor was faking weakness the whole time and totally beat him up so bad. That was a good one. Oh yeah here it is:

In Brightest Day, in Blackackest Night . . .
wait, how's that go? Blackackest Night. Blackackest? Yeah. Blackackest Night. So cool!
This is how slightly drunk Homie Bear recites the oath of the Green Lantern Corps.
My friend Jasmine drew the totally sweet Green Lantern Bear you see to your right. I tried scanning and photographing him to get him in his best light but I might need to try again, and get the background set to transparent. Which I dunno how.
Ooh ooh do you remember that part in Green Lantern where Green Lantern beat up Sinestro? That was cool.

Flickr friend 8 Skeins of Danger tagged me, and showed me how to do it too thanks to bighugelabs. Gotta show the:
1. Most Viewed- seriously an out of focus pic of aayla secura is the most viewed? Sigh.
2. Most favorited- and soon to pass most viewed too, Adrianne is still getting 10 or 20 views a day.
3. Most commented- I drive those for a living you know. Mine is #43.
4. Personal Favorite- I've always been partial to this one from a Wellington tattoo and body art festival.
1. Poor Aayla, 2. Adrianne Curry- Officer of the Empire!, 3. the badger, 4. ethereal

A minor Facebook skirmish broke out over who came up with the exceedingly clever joke of comparing the current winter conditions to living on Hoth. Umm, all us school kids 30 years ago? It's not Hoth if there aren't any wampas. Anyways. I would like to know who first came up with that whole "Did you know the Chinese character for crisis is made up of the words danger and opportunity" thing. And punch him in the face.
Seriously. I first heard it in 1992, which I remember because it was a pastor speaking in a church in the Ukraine which I've only ever visited in 92. Even wide-eyed naive ole me wasn't impressed- it seemed that, even if that were true, it was more likely because crisis could be translated as an "opportunity FOR danger". And then hearing it umpteen billion times since, well, it doesn't speak highly of your originality if you pull that one outta your ass. David Suzuki I'm looking at you. Even Robert McKee sullies his otherwise excellent Story by trotting it out.
Well a quick googleglot reveals that my suspicions are correct- it's bullshit. With just enough truth to persist in the minds of politicians and preachers everywhere.
In other news, I briefly reached the 2000 song plateau on my iTunes today before trimming some fat. Any suggestions for what should be my real 2000th song?

Back from another round of work. Good week- first day was a little lame since I was on shovel 9 and it was on another makework project- skim a meter off a ramp to even out a hump in the road. Which we don't use. Course the ramp wasn't drilled and it's all frost lumps anyways. Beat up the shovel and beat up the operator with that kind of nonsense. Day 2 I was back on shovel9 but it was in a better spot (somewhat anyways) for digging and plus I got to retrain a good guy who's been off for four months with cancer. Fuckin cancer.
Day 3, my truck was still down and with all the new hires and overtimers they had nowhere to put me. So they gave me a choice of hanging out with either the pump crew (my old job) or the utility crew (my old old job). I gave them option 3 and bumped a green guy off a redbox and spent the day hauling coal. Much better. Yesterday was more of the same.
but really the worst part of the whole week was driving home in the crazy blizzard. I waited till today to drive though rather than risk it last night. I've driven that highway in whiteout conditions enough to know it's doable but not very fun and to give it all due respect. The worst part, of course, was trying to get into my garage, I got stuck and had to dig myself out.
Well with all the snow there's just no choice but to hunker down and watch DVDs. You know what kicks ass? Clone Wars Season 2. Season 1 was great but season 2 is pretty much eclipsing the movies. I think Dave Filoni is borrowing a few pages from the BSG playbook, which is fine since all those shows owe a lot to Star Wars and thus the circle is complete.

Before Christmas a friend lent me this cool coffee table sorta book about the history of Marvel Comics. It had a page or four for each year from 1939 or something right up to when it was published, maybe 2009? I read every page though apparently my non-detail oriented mind didn't pick up too much dates-wise. Doesn't matter because it was so cool! Filled me in on a lot of stuff I sorta knew about, and all the stuff in the 90s and oeys that I missed out on. Also she lent me a Wizard magazine which filled in some of the stuff the official versions left out- like did you know Steve Ditko pretty much fell off the face of the planet? And Bill Mantlo, who wrote ROM Spaceknight which I loved back in the 80s, he was hit-and-runned quite a while ago now and suffered permanent brain damage of the worst sort. Sad.
Anyways, I bring this up because the last few days at work I been reading Batman- The Dark Knight Returns (which of course is DC but it all relates). That and Watchmen are pretty much the most famous (superhero oriented anyways) graphic novels ever. With good reason. Frank Miller of course started out at Marvel with his brilliant Daredevil run and then revitalized Batman with DKR, published in the mid-80s sometime (details, man, I no good at them) and now he's most famous for Sin City and 300. Um, I was going somewhere with all this. I really was. And now not only the details escape me but the whole general idea. Well, the general idea is that comics are awesome.

I'm a downloading fool, though I do it all legally. Robin got me an iTunes gift card for Christmas which I have put to good use by procuring some Avenged Sevenfold, Asphyx (yeah old skool metal! I put a Pestilence song on a mix CD for my cousin last week so I remembered how much more crushing Asphyx was) and finishing off the Mumford and Sons album.
Then my brother-in-law Steve told me about FreeAppReport which compiles a daily list of free apps on the AppStore. Most of which are whatever and mostly for iPhone rather than iPad but still. Got a simple and fun racing game and stuff. I also got a Chuggington app for Pallas, it's designed for 4yos but she caught on pretty quick. And thus ends the era of it being my iPad. And through the Journal (and probably your hometown paper as well) I got a free download of the movie One Week, a Canadian road movie about cancer and motorbikes which I wanted to see back when Jian Ghomeshi had the director on Q. Cool!
Oh yeah and the App of the Year, also free, is something called Flipboard which is kind of cool, it makes your Facebook, Flickr and such feeds into a magazine style design. you have to see it, I like it. Maybe not enough to replace my browser but I don't think that's the point.
Green Lantern says download responsibly kids! Or face the rage of Atrocitus.

I'm such a party animal you can't even believe it. I was in bed last night by 9:00. Nightshift did me in once again. Make any resolutions? I find I don't really ever need to. I'm pretty much perfect already. Don't smoke. In good shape. Super brilliant. An obscure cult of neo-pagan Trappists in San Juan de Fuca Town wants to canonize me but I turned them down, as I do all such requests. Maybe I'll work on my harmonica skills this year.