Here is a non-Homie Bear poem in the vein of my Sea Serpent poem from last year. I am subtly bringing that one up again because at Shrek 2 (so good, btw) tonight there was a preview for a new Finding Nemo-like movie, which actually has some seahorse racing in it. Anyways, here is, umm, I never know what to call my poems. Van Helsingalong! No wait, that sucks. How about

The Monster Sutras

Voices whisper my name as I go out for a walk
Ghosts who are lonely and just want to talk
That's fine by me I don't mind to converse
With spirits and monsters who are under a curse
I met a zombie who said "A penny for your thoughts"
I said it costs a loonie cause I have lots and lots
Zombie said "I don't have a buck, but can I pick your brain?"
And he lunged at my head so I hit him with my cane
(That I got when a tiny vampire bit my femoral vein)
So Zombie ran away but my adventure wasn't over
I next saw a werewolf with a dogtag reading Rover
"How am I supposed to howl at the moon
When I have a sore throat and it's going down soon?"
I offered to howl for him at the next moon I saw
Grateful to me he then shook a paw
And went on his way, a genial fellow
For a werewolf he was surprisingly mellow
Not like the mummy who said he would choke
The next person who made a yo' mummy joke
So I said "Yo' mummy's so old that she dated King Tut
And she's fatter and wider than Jabba the Hutt!"
So he came after me with arms stretched out wide
Which made it easy to duck and run and go hide
It was time to go home, it had been a nice stroll
But I preferred to avoid that panhandling troll

I have an Eastern Orthodox friend over at theooze whose screen name is Seraphim after this old Russian monk named Saint Seraphim. Seraphim mentioned that Seraphim met some bears or something so I asked him about it. Turns out St Seraphim must have been a pretty decent guy because he would feed bears by hand.
However, if you feed bears by hand in Jasper or anywhere else, this makes you not a decent person in any way. Bears don't need you to feed them, they are plenty capable of cooking for themselves. So many times driving through the Park you see very foolish people feeding bears from their cars. This is dangerous to you, but more importantly, it is dangerous to the bears. They get accustomed to humans and start invading towns looking for handouts. Sometimes Wildlife officers can shoo them out of town, sometimes they have to be tranquilized and transported far away, and sometimes they wind up being destroyed, which is to say, shot and killed. So don't aid and abet in the killing of my buddies, please. Leave the bears alone. If you must feed a bear, feed me. I'm always hungry. Thank you.

The trouble with blogging is that it is a little like the geological process of subduction. Subduction is a tectonic mechanism that occurs when one plate forces another down into the mantle. Every poost I write sends another, older poost into the netherworld of my archives, to be unearthed only by googlologists searching for the most random, bizarre stuff ("never touch yellow snow morals"- how many more morals do you need? How about never eat yellow snow, either).
This poost will bury the rather important one I did on WildAid a couple of weeks ago. Most of my writing is just for fun, silly, maybe a little informative, but hardly world-shattering. But from time to time I do write more serious stuff, and the WildAid poost was an important one.
So, to keep the conservation fires stoked even a little bit, here is a recent article on rhino poaching. A quote:

"Six rhino carcasses have been found in the last two months, and more rhinos could have been slaughtered. Before the recent killings, the northern white rhino population was estimated to be only 30, despite four baby rhinos having been born in the last year. Unless urgent action is taken to combat the upsurge in poaching, conservationists say, the last wild population of northern white rhinos could be wiped out in six months. "

Once more, little cubs, what do we call poachers?

UPDATE: Just as the Wildaid poost got subducted into the poo mantle, the actual Outside article that inspired it is made available online for all to read. Call it a volcanic venting- flatulence from the mantle of poo.
My geology professors would be so proud to see how I am putting my education to use.
Anyways, here is some really cool line art and animation. The walking robot dog is especially great.

China is rattling sabers again.
I really have an immense fascination for 20th century Chinese history. It's just so bizarre. I sometimes wonder if Mao wasn't just conducting an experiment to see if he could cause 800 million people to lose their minds. In the Hundred Flowers Movement he encouraged China's intellectuals to actively criticize the Communist Party, supposedly to show what a generous and open government they were. But really he just wanted to know who his enemies were so he could send them all to labour camps.
Then there was the Great Leap Forward, in which Chairman Mao ordered the entire nation to melt down all their iron in home-made foundries, so that China could make the leap into the modern age and be on a par technologically with the West. But the scrap metal was pretty much useless, and since everyone was so busy hunting for rusty nails and such, no one was growing food, and the country plunged into a severe famine.
And of course, there was the absolute disaster that was the decade-long Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, in which hordes and hordes of bright-eyed Mao-worshipping teenaged Red Guards basically took over the country and terrorized it in the name of the Great Helmsman. Schools and universities shut down for the duration (1964-1974).

Simon Leys, a brilliant Sinologist who has a gift for wryly describing the complexities and alienness of Maoist China, on navigating the minefield of being a communist cadre in the Mao Dynasty:

Judge for yourself. One should avoid leftism, neither should one fall into rightism (sometimes, as in the case of Lin Biao, leftism is a rightist error), but between these two pitfalls, the cadre will seek in vain for the "middle way"- this being a feudal-Confucian notion. Since the right, the left and the center are equally fraught with danger, the cadre may be tempted to shut his eyes and follow the successive and contradictory instructions of the Great Leader without a murmur. Another error! "To obey blindly" is a poisonous error invented by Liu Shaoqi in pursuit of his unmentionable project of capitalist restoration. In such a situation, the downcast and fearful cadre has his courage renewed by daring new watchwords: one must dare "to swim against the current"; "not be afraid of being in the minority"; "not be afraid of disgrace, even of exclusion from the (Communist) party." However, before jumping in the water to swim against the current, the cadre cannot but recall that "the current of history is irresistable" and the Communist Party that embodies it is "grandiose and infallible." His resolve weakens; then he is reminded that "rebellion is legitimate." Ready to act now, he gets another cold shower: "in all circumstances, strict Party discipline should be maintained." Whom to believe? "Truth is quite often the position of the minority." This helps, but its value is reduced by another basic axiom: "the minority must always submit to the decisions of the majority."

(From Chinese Shadows, by Simon Leys. I love the absurdity of the following quote, the context of which is too convoluted to get into: "In [Lin Biao] is manifested the true nature of an apparently-leftist-deviation-which-is-in-fact-rightist-sabotage.")

"This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, "Dude", that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from." (Sam Elliot in The Big Lebowski)
I called myself "clever" over at Lyddy's blog the other day, and she responded by saying I was one of the few people who could get away with calling myself that. But in truth, I am only going on the testimony of numerous Chinese people. Many times in China I would try out a new Chinese phrase I had just learned (or made up, even) and they would look at me in wonder and say, "You are very clever!"
Now, "Homie Bear", that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from, either. But that's just how it is.

Speaking of monsters and undercover cops, I have been really getting into the Sopranos lately, thanks to gabrielle bringing home recorded episodes on video. I never really got a chance to before, not having HBO (what does that stand for anyway?). It's a little confusing, since I jumped in in season 5, went back and rented season 2 volume 1 DVD (they didn't have season 1) and then accidentally rented volume 2 of season 3, not realizing I had done so. So I have been watching the episodes in this order: seasons 5,2,3,2,5. The nice thing is I know not to get too attached to any characters I don't recognize from the newest episodes.
I think I am starting to get a handle on it now, though- basically, Tony Soprano is a mob boss. And you really don't want to fuck with him.

Some Kind of Monster!
Metallica shows their monstrous human side.
(It's a documentary exploring the rather turbulent period they went through while recording St. Anger, with Jason leaving and James going into rehab and all that).

Do you ever wonder if maybe you are actually an undercover cop, but you got so deep-seated into your fake identity that you just forgot who you really are? I sometimes do. But then I remember that I am a bear, and there is never much need for an undercover bear.
There was a meeting of undercover cops at the coffee shop where I work yesterday. Seriously! My manager pointed them out to me. Some were wearing Secret Service style earpieces. And the uniformed cops who frequent the shop were being all buddy with them. Our policy is that cops in uniform get free coffee, so I asked the manager if that extends to them. It doesn't, because we want to preserve their cover. I'm honestly not making this up.

Today is Jonny Smelter's 30th birthday. I think that deserves a special tributary poost or something. I mean, 30 is a big deal. It kind of alarms me that I have friends I have known since before I could read who are turning 30, and that I am approaching that dread number myself all too soon, and yet my gut reaction to Jon's 30th is one of joy. No moping- I'm happy for him, and I hope he's happy for himself. I hope he's reading this and is having a great day. I will eat a donut in his honor today.
This reminds me of the great Larry Gowan's words, "Here we're living in a golden age!" I hope the 30s are your golden age, selfsoulfriend.

rustyangel has won my coveted last gmail invite, by virtue of the following haikus:

wherever they are--
snow, jungle, mountain river
a bear's gotta poo

would a fish know prose
or match vamps in poetry?
the bear is most wise

A few months ago gabrielle and I were watching the trailers to Van Helsing and exploring the official site, and our findings were somewhat . . . grim. It kind of looked like the movie would be really, really terrible. Still, we had to see it because of David Wenham, the vampire connection, and just for the helluvit. And you know what? It was really terrible! But not really, really terrible, and so I was pleasantly suprised and even able to enjoy myself. Richard Roxburgh as Dracula has some pretty great lines and David Wenham is fantastic as a completely non-Faramirish monk friar. Yeah, they went way overboard on the CGI, much of the movie is incoherent nonsense and I will leave it to my esteemed undead colleague to decide whether it is even worth getting into the whole vampire spawn thing, but it was still better than LXG.
Let's just hope they don't call the sequel VH2.

This is the conclusion to the robot story- scroll down to the previous poost to read the first part.

All kinds of ideas were swirling through my mind as I caught up with the robot. There had to be a way to beat the devil at his own game. Some kind of robot virus that would mutate the soul, so that Satan wouldn't be able to recognize it; or maybe he used nanocyte ink that would disappear or even alter the contract to make it null and void. There had to be a way.
"The devil tricked you! You already have a soul!" I said, without even a greeting.
"How is that possible?" Reading robot expressions was hard, but he didn't seem to be alarmed, just curious.
"Well, I heard a fable once when I was a kid- about a lion who was concerned that he didn't have a soul. So he asked a wise man how he could know whether he had one or not, and the wise man told him, 'The fact that you are concerned that you have a soul is proof of its existence.' Maybe it's something like that. You grew your own soul from wanting one so bad!"
"I still haven't chosen a name. Can you help me?"
"What the hell are you talking about? Who cares about your name? We have to figure out a way to get your soul back from the devil!"
"I think something from Egyptian mythology might be cool. What was the name of the creature who would eat your soul if it weighed less then the golden feather? Ammit, wasn't it? I think I will be named Ammit from now on."
"Dammit Ammit! This is serious! Focus, we have to save your soul here!" I felt like screaming. I did scream. "Gaaaaarrrgghhhhh!!!" But "Ammit" just kept blathering on as if he didn't even hear me.
"Yes, Ammit. The devourer of souls. I like it. It's much better than Robby the Robot. I'm glad you and the devil wouldn't let me be Robby. Of course, I was so sure my name was going to be Robby that I'm afraid I signed Lucifer's little contract under that name."
I was still screaming so it took a second or two for that statement to sink in. "Wha . .? You mean . . ."
"I must confess that I sold Robby the Robot's soul to the devil. I hope he doesn't mind. Since he is an inanimate object collecting dust in a studio warehouse somewhere I think I can safely assume he won't. The devil will probably be angry, but he'll have to take it up with Robby."
I never kissed a robot before, and I wouldn't recommend it since they are cold and metallic, but it was definitely appropriate on this occasion. Then we danced- the Robot, of course.

A robot of my acquaintance sold his soul to the devil. The deal was, Old Nick would provide my robot friend with a soul, and in return the robot would sell that soul back to him. I tried to talk him out of it- I mean, I hardly ever use my soul, so what did he need one for- but he was pretty determined. You know how hard it can be trying to talk a robot out of something once he has made up his mind. All the same, I figured I better go with him to meet the Prince of Darkness.
Satan was a lot like I imagined he would be- a class act, but indescribably evil at the same time. He wasn't actually doing anything evil, exactly, but you could just feel those vibes emanating from his Versace suit. We met in an uppercrust retro-20s jazz club uptown. I introduced myself as the robot's attorney. It was a lie, of course, and the devil knew it, but that just meant I had earned his respect.
The robot wanted to get straight down to business, but I steered the conversation back to small talk. Shooting the breeze with the devil is surprisingly easy. If you ask just the right questions, he will tell you some of the most amazing stories you'll ever hear. Just don't be ingratiating- he hates that. And it probably goes without saying that you shouldn't talk religion with him. Politics, though- he's all over that. Anyways, after a few drinks (I had beer, hellboy drank highballs and the robot is a teetotaller) we were ready to discuss terms.
"My client wishes, against my advice, to obtain a soul from you. In return, he will pledge that soul back to you. Upon his demise the soul shall revert back to your ownership."
"Agreed," said the devil. He produced a contract from his inside pocket, signed it and handed it to the robot to sign. Then I witnessed it and it was official. Done. Robot had a soul and, well, so did the devil.
"Now that I have a soul I can give myself a name!" said the robot. "I think I will be . . . Robby."
"No," I said. Satan agreed.
"Why not? I like the sound of it."
"Trust me, you don't want to be Robby the Robot. Pick another name."
The devil said, "I'll sell you a name." I shushed him. Not everyday you can do that to the Evil One.
"What would you suggest?" he asked me.
"Ah man, I don't know. Choose something that has meaning for you. Maybe you should try and 'find' yourself first, now that you have a soul and all."
So he got up and left without even saying good-bye. Protocol wasn't his primary function, apparently.
I turned back to Satan. "So what's your scam?"
"No scam. I always honor my deals."
"If you could just make souls out of thin air then you could have as many souls as you wanted and wouldn't need to make deals for them."
"I like the challenge of obtaining them this way. I am an afficionado."
"I still don't buy it. I think you're lying."
"I encourage that vice in others, but find little need for it myself."
I raised my eyebrow at him, and stared him in the eye. A dangerous gambit, but I sensed the devil kind of liked me so I risked it.
"Fine," he grinned. "You are correct- I can not manufacture a soul from nothing. But your friend does indeed possess one- I did not lie about that. It is not my fault if he was ignorant of this fact before he came to me. I merely gave him the necessary impetus to be able to believe. Call it the Dumbo Effect, if you will."
"And all you charged for this service was his eternal soul."
"Yes."
I was angry, and I had to get away to think. The wheels in my head were spinning, but not nearly as fast as a robot's would. I needed to find "Robby" or whatever the hell he was calling himself. We needed to figure a way out of this contract. I excused myself.
"Let me get the check," said Lucifer. "It's the least I can do. And here's my card- call me if you ever want to sell your soul."

Anyone want a gmail account? I can invite one more person to join. Digital bribes in the form of love poetry to bears and other artistic expressions can be sent to nwaddell (at) gmail dot com.
And the oneploughwoman is having a bloggiversary contest, if you still have some creative energy left.

Ah, bootleg VCDs. I miss China.
"Pls Take Note that will be only english move Previews and there will be not chinese Previews because of some reason AND Pls do not tell other about this site or forward this site to other."
This is an excuse I encourage you all to use at work tomorrow. "Sorry boss, I will be unable to do what you asked me to because of some reason. Have a nice day!"
And, uh, I'll see what I can do about not telling anyone about the site.

Worng's Story pt. 1
(I put all the previous pixie stuff in one poost over at the Cave, as well.)

Worng emerged from his Faery Circle on a barren, snowswept island. There were mountains and glaciers everywhere. And it was cold- so cold that Worng's feelings of guilt and despair were overshadowed by the more immediate thought of survival. He had to figure out where he was, exactly. He found a sign half-buried in the snow that said that the nearby mountain was Breidablik Peak.
Worng's heartsunk even further. Breidablik was the name of Baldr's castle back in Asgard. Surely it was no coincidence that he had landed here of all places. It was obviously a message from the god of light who must still be mad about that little mistletoe prank worng played on him. All Worng wanted was to steal a kiss from Baldr's beautiful wife Nanna- how was he to know that mistletoe was the only thing Baldr was vulnerable to and that it was prophesied that he would die from it one day?
Worng's practical jokes were getting into the unwelcome habit of coming back to haunt him. Worng had once been haunted by such a bad infestation of Duendes (refugees from Mexico) that he had been forced to move out of his house. Well, no more. Baldr was not about to get the best of him. Nor King Krindr. Time to leave.
Taking to the air, Worng started scanning the sea for a ship or something. Soon he found a medium-sized icefloe, so he flew out to it and landed- only a valkyrie or maybe Thor could have flown all the way to the mainland from wherever he was.
A very large polar bear curiously poked his head up from a nearby seal-hole and decided to come over and investigate. Worng was glad for the company. "So where's this icefloe headed, Sir Bear?" he asked.
The polar bear didn't reply, which Worng thought kind of rude, but he was an uninvited guest after all. Undaunted, Worng continued. "Well, I hope we hit the mainland soon- I have to find my friends Frettnir and Yggir. We've been banished here, and it's sort of my fault. Except, I have no idea how I am ever going to find two lonely pixies who could be anywhere in the world. Do you have any ideas?"
The bear made a sort of grunty snort sound.
"Me neither. I'm really worried about Yggir- she's so naive sometimes. Frettnir can handle himself I'm sure, but Yggir- I just dunno. I should never have gotten her into this."
The bear seemed to decide that Worng was uninteresting as both a conversationalist and as a meal so he wandered back to the seal hole to wait for something more exciting. As it happened, just then a selkie appeared.

In case you miss winter, now that it's nice and summery out there, here's a snowflake maker. Funny thing is, I really don't. Miss winter, I mean. Now, miss Winters, that would be a different story. Luckily I have my BoB DVD's to stave off that.

Happy Birthday to mi hermana Nadine! I bet it's a beautiful day down in Mexico and she is hopefully enjoying her Sunday, maybe at el playa, or la ciudad de Veracruz. Anyways, whatever she's doing I hope she's having a great time. Or as they say in Mexico, rochos los ochos mochos. Something like that, anyways.

I have some bad news to share with you- Bruce my fish is dead. Actually I don't know for sure but I am forced to surmise this due to a number of facts I will share herewith:
a) When I went over to the House of Poo the other day to transport Bruce, he was not in his aquarium.
b) Bruce is unable to survive outside of his aquarium.

Thus, I must conclude that he has passed away. Sigh- I use this detached clinical language to hide my sadness, which is profound. Anyways, I gave the tank and other gear to my friend Sherry, who will hopefully have better luck with fish than I have had.

Ode to Bruce

You were an electric blue cichlid
You had a mini-castle where you hid
You ate all the suckerfish that cleaned up your tank
So I stopped buying them and your home got all rank
You had sharp little teeth and were very vicious
You didn't play very nice with the other fishes
I named you Bruce like Lee and Wayne
I hope your death didn't cause you pain
But maybe you didn't die you escaped
A fish vigilante like Batman, caped
Fighting some crime living in a cave
Bad guys don't scare you since you are so brave
Yeah, it's good to know that you're still out there
Watching out for innocents everywhere
So here's to you, my old friend Bruce
Have fun living your life on the loose

Another book I've just read is Lemony Snicket's The Bad Beginning, Book 1 of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Anyone ever read it? Or even hear of it? It's an easy read- took me one day. I liked it because it had that slightly twisted feel that all good children's literature ought to have. I was at the Wee Book Inn last week with my friend Erica, so that she could get the copy of The Amber Spyglass I had reserved (I have one already) and I decided to get something for myself. I picked up the Snicket book, not knowing anything about them, and read the back cover, and was immediately sold. It's a note from the author, and it says "Dear Reader, I'm sorry to say that the book you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale about three very unlucky children . . . "
It reminds me of Lord Alexander Chung-sik Finkle-McGraw's belief that children should be exposed to dark, subversive material at an early age so that they can grow up right.
To illustrate this concept to the nanotech engineer John Hackworth, the Equity Lord sends him Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Raven (not to be confused with Poe's poem of the same name, also good) and encloses this note:
Mr. Hackworth,
I hope the above poem illuminates the ideas I only touched on during our meeting of Tuesday last, and that it may contribute to your paroemiological studies.
Coleridge wrote it in reaction to contemporary children's literature, which was didactic, much like the stuff they feed our children in the "best" schools. As you can see, his concept of a children's poem is refreshingly nihilistic . . .
Finkle-McGraw
(excerpted from one of my all-time favorite books, Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age)

So, what would you recommend along these lines?

From Sliced Iguana, by Isabella Tree:

Every artefact seemed charged with fear and foreboding and ritual purpose. This was as far from the art of the Mediterranean civilizations as anything I had ever seen. Nothing was created for beauty's sake alone, for the sheer joy of existence, to sing the praises of man and god, to lift the earthly experience heavenward. Aztec art wasn't elevating so much as crushing.

There's a conceit on the Mexican side of my family that we are descended from the Aztecs and Mayans. I will have to leave it to my sister to determine the veracity of this claim, though I'm pretty sure we aren't both. And the Veracruz region my family comes from was the seat of the older Olmec society, and not really Mayan or Aztec at all. I think we're mainly just the hodgepodge mix that most Mexicans are.
I remember in Grade 6 we did a unit on the Aztecs for Social Studies class, and my Grandma came and gave a short presentation on growing up in Mexico. But of course all anybody cared about were the human sacrifices. I might have played up my tenuous link to the Aztecs after that in order to vicariously bask in their badassness, but who knows? I kind of doubt it, and I don't think it even really matters. What I do know is that I'm half-Mexican, and that's something to be proud of.

Here is another link courtesy of an oozer, my friend Sarah the Pixie (or at least, pixie story helper- still working on it, btw) : What is your Goth name? Mine is Beautiful Disgrace. Which fits in very nicely with my Chinese name Mei de, Beautiful Moral (or Virtuous).

The Nine Billion Names of God
I read this story about ten years ago or so, and it made an impression on me. But I forgot what it was called and which of the early sci-fi kings wrote it, making it fairly difficult to track down. Luckily an oozer knew what I was talking about and found me that link. Rereading it now I can't help but see a few patronizing traces- much as I respect Arthur C Clarke, this is a little disappointing- different times back then, though, I guess. And I can imagine worse fates than being "stuck" in the Himalayas for your job. But oh well, the concept is still cool, and the last line is killer.

In an admittedly bizarre synthesis of my last two poosts, here is a poem about conservation. And robots.

The robot bear roams way up there
Up in the north where there's no more air
Where the ozone hole has burnt the pole
And turned all the animals into coal
His primary mission is not salmon fishin'
But scanning for signs of life-force emission
Since all life is dead he'll just read code-red
Green gone to sleep in her fossil bed
So there he'll remain, searching in vain
Slowly rusting from the acid rain

I was a few weeks late picking up this month's issue of Outside (the May issue), but I'm glad I finally got it today. There's an excellent article on Steve Galster and his organization WildAid. You may have seen their new print ads in recent issues of your favorite magazines- they feature a dehorned rhino in Grand Central Station, and a bleeding tiger at the New York Public Library. These ads, which I think are excellent, made a big splash in Asia recently.
But WildAid is about more than advertising. They do most of their work in the field, actively seeking out poachers and animal-parts dealers, doing what they can to prevent the harvesting of animals- they estimate that the illegal trade in animals is a $5 or 6 billion a year industry. From the Outside article: " 'I [Galster] went with 50 investigators to a slaughterhouse in Sai Noi [a town north of Bangkok], where we found live and dead animals, tame bears, tigers in cages ready to be slaughtered and sent as meat to exotic restaurants, and tiger cubs that looked wild.' Police netted a gruesome haul: 100 pounds of tiger bones, 46 pounds of newly slaughtered tiger meat, three tiger skins, and 20 black bear paws, still bloody."
As the above excerpt implies, they work closely with the governments of developing countries in order to help them protect the wildlife within their borders. This includes setting up ranger programs and establishing alternative-income ventures in villages that previously derived income from poaching.
From their site: "Our frontline programs address the entire trade cycle, from poaching to smuggling to consumption, rather than carrying out yet more research. We classify our program work accordingly into three categories: Protecting the Wild, Stopping the Illegal Trade, and Raising Awareness/Reducing Demand."

Here's a very cool looking site about a little robot named Rustboy. I don't know if he is a union member or not -he doesn't really look fat. Can't wait till the movie is finished. Doug Chiang, a designer at ILM, or Lucasfilm or somewhere, also has a cool robot world.
Speaking of rustbuckets, my friend blu designed an insectine tri-axle heavyhauler based on one of the trucks I used to drive at the mine. The HB stands for Homie Bear. Then he made a shirt out of it and gave it to me! What a blunevolent fellow he is. So I proudly wore it out to the 7DF show last night, since blu is their drummer. Great show, too- loud and heavy, just as it should be. Check out his professional design site here .

Nerdular Nerdence
A few weeks ago I was at the university and I ran into an old aquaintance- a beautiful young woman who could be a model. "What brings you to campus?" she asked.
"I'm just going to Cameron (the Science and Tech library) to catch up on some of the scientific journals."
"Oh- are you studying?"
"No, I just like to keep up with the literature."
"Oh."
"Yeah, I'm a nerd."

More Pixiestuff:
The relief Worng felt at not being condemned to death almost caused him to cheer when Krindr pronounced banishment instead. That wasn't so bad, he thought. He watched Yggir's face change from horror to thoughfulness to her default excited look- apparently she had already absorbed the news and was looking forward to it. Frettnir, however, had that unreadable pinched expression he always wore, but Worng knew he would be angry and worried- he pretty much always was.
"Your Majesty, you are wise and merciful. We shall carry out our sentence with dignity, and strive to bring honor to your kingdom."
"Can we come visit?" asked Yggir.
Frettnir rolled his eyes, but kept silent. King Krindr gave Yggir a kindly smile, the type you give to people who have just said something dumb. "I'm afraid that is out of the question. But after a suitable time has passed we might let you come home some day."
"Oh," said Yggir, "well, at least we will be together."
The kindly smile again.
The pixies were each led to a different Faery Ring, which are the portals between worlds. On Krindr's command, they stepped through and emerged in a very strange and alien world, alone.
And now our story begins.

The Pixie Papers

Frettnir's Story

Febr 26
I hate it here. I know that's how I have started every journal entry since I got here, but it's true. But I had an epiphany today- I have determined the course of action I need to take. The humans all have jobs, and in order to fit in, I have to get one too. I don't really know how to get one, however. I think you just put on one of those odd garments they wear and go to the gigantic towers.
Febr 28
I hate it here. There are humans who behave exactly like frost giants in each one of those towers, and they will not let me get past them. One oaf even forcibly removed me from his pitiful little castle today. I wish Hrungir had stomped on him.
March 2
I hate it here. I have discovered that in the human world, everything rests on the concept of "Prior Experience". Am looking into spells to see if I can conjure some.
March 5
I really hate it here. Today I was in the park looking for a Faery Ring when I saw a human girl wearing a tunic-type thing, and it said "Death to the Pixies!" I was shocked, and a little frightened for my life.
March 17
I hate it here, but today at least I caught my first glimpse of other faeryfolk- leprechauns! They were a little drunk but they gave me some valuable information. I am apparently living in a city called Boston, and there is an established, though well-hidden, community of faeryfolk here.
March 24
I still hate it here, but have resigned myself to this fate. Life has settled into a routine of sorts. King Krindr gave us the ability to hide our wings from the humans, and to change size as necessary. So I live in a tree, like our ancestors, and in the morning I awake and head over to a nearby tavern sort of place that sells a bitter, non-alcoholic beverage called coffee. They don't sell mead. I purchase my coffee with money I receive from the caretaker of the park where I live. He pays me to tend his trees and plants and cook the odd meal for him. My pixie skills in both respects are superior to anything he has ever seen.
April 1
Today is the Day of the Fool, and I have been keeping my eyes open for any mischievous imps and spirits that might be about. I've come to realize that I can't spend the rest of my life here-I need to find my insufferable cousins. Even though it's their fault that I'm here in the first place. We need each other. Well, I need them at least . . . I hope they're alright.
April 3
I met some nice spirits today. I think they are sylphs, though I can't really tell, and I do not wish to appear ignorant by asking. Ever since our colony of Pixies migrated form Ireland to Asgard we have been pretty cut off from the other non-Norse faeryfolk. Anyways, they may be able to help me find Worng and Yggir- they told me to meet them tomorrow.
May 2
Those treacherous sylphs are actually sluagh! Sluagh! Cursed cretinous carrion-feeding crypt-defilers! How could I have been so stupid? They have kidnapped me and are keeping me in an iron bird-cage in the back of one of their wagons. I do not know what they have planned for me. I don't think they want to eat me, though- thay have had me for a month now and would have done so already if that was their plan. They have even given me back my journal, fiends though they are.

More Pixietrix forthcoming tomorrow or some other time. Today I am tuckered out from helping my friend with some spring cleaning (the exact same situation as this, actually, only this year I was a little more prepared). So for now I have but two interesting facts to share with you:

1. Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos derives his name (an alias, his real name is Rafael Sebastien Guillen) by making an acronym of Chiapas' most important and strategic towns and cities: Margaritas, Altamirano, Rancho Nuevo, Comitan, Ocosingo, and San Cristobal. ( I learned this from Sliced Iguana, by Isabella Tree, an excellent book about Mexico.)

2. Pakistan is also an acronym. The new country created by the Partition of India and Afghanistan needed a name, so they came up with Pakistan, after the peoples of the Punjab, Afghanistan, Kashmir and Sindu regions who made up its population. Though the book where I first learned this said it was the Pamirs, Afghans, Kyrgyz and Sikhs, so one of them is way off. Here's the Wikipedia link, which backs up the first acronym.

Okay, and a special bonus not-exactly-fact: this guy is way too desperate. Just on principle I think he should be banned forever. Did I mention that I have a gmail account? It's nice, but it's not that big of a deal, and soon enough everyone will have one. Except, google-gods willing, bruce.

Part 2.II.ii of the Norse Pixie Epic by HB and ST (I combined yesterday's segments into one):

Hrungir's combustion was not as spontaneous as it might have appeared. Worng had snuck around behind the giant's chair and lit his lighter in the vicinity of Hrungir's bummal area. Finally Hrungir could contain himself no longer, and the entrapped gaseous cloud within him escaped with a roar like a blizzard. Thus was Hrungir introduced simultaneously to the concept of Blue Angels and to actual angels. Not to imply that Hrungir became an angel, it merely means that he met some on his ballistic flight into the lower atmosphere.
When he landed, he was one furious frost giant. He roared and raged, then grabbed his iciclub and started smashing Pixie-pads and bashing Mome Rath-mushrooms. Worng, Yggir and Frettnir watched in dismay as all the faeryfolk fled from the havoc they had caused. The Valkyrie were called in and they quickly assessed the situation. They decided that the best way to subdue Hrungir would be to conjure an apparition of a floating frosty snow cone, and have him chase after it all the way to the Vatnajökull Glacier. When Hrungir saw the tantalizing intangible treat he immediately took off after it and was not heard from again until Ragnarok.

Stepping their way delicately through the carnage, the Pixie Police came and arrested the three pixies (allegedly) responsible for the disaster. They went without fuss to the palace of the Pixie King, there to be punished.
King Krindr was a typical pixie in that he was mostly a decent sort of person, given to mischief and the pursuit of fun, and for that reason he was a good ruler- laid-back and easygoing. He didn't particularly want to punish Worng and the others, but he had no choice. What they had done was serious- even the courtyard they were in had been a courtroom prior to Hrungir's rampage. First he had to get their side of the story. "So . . . would you care to explain what happened?"
Worng said, "Your Majesty sir, it's all my fault and I ask that Frettnir and Yggir be released."
"Yeah!" said Frettnir.
"No!" cried Yggir, "We're just as much to blame as Worng. I will share in whatever punishment he gets!"
Krindr ignored them, for the moment. He had an admission of guilt, and so he needed to pronounce judgement. "Worng," he said, "for the part you played in the devastation of Pixieland, I have no choice but to punish you to death!"
Everyone in the throneroom gasped- capital punishment was unheard of in Krindr's court.
"Death!!?? Your Highness, I . . . I . . . " Worng had no words.
"Yeah, I was just kidding. Now you know how Hrungir felt when you tricked him. Not very nice, is it? Your real sentence, however, is banishment. You and your sister, and Frettnir too, are hereby exiled to Midgard. You're going to go live with the humans."

A tale by Homie Bear and his friend Sarah (part 1, anyways):

This story isn't about Hrungir but it starts with him- Hrungir was a fierce and fearsome frost giant that everyone was scared of. Everyone except for Worng the Pixie. Worng knew that Hrungir had a weakness- Hrungir, it seems, was always hungry. So Worng invited him over for dinner. Worng’s sister Yggir thought it was a great idea, but their older, wiser and more mature cousin Fretnir disagreed.
"Ahh come on, Fretty, we need you to cook for us!" pleaded Worng.
"Yeah yeah yeah!" clapped Yggir, "You're the best cook ever!"
"The very best," Worng added.
Fretnir had something of a weakness of his own, and that was vanity. Already his Pixie-sized head was getting bigger. Still, he was suspicious. "What do you want me to cook?"
"Oh you know, nothing fancy, maybe some Pixie beans."
"Pixie beans. You want to invite a frost giant to our house, and then render him flatulent? I don't think so."
"Oh come on, Fretnir, please please please?" Yggir was practically jumping up and down, giving her best doe-eyed look. But Fretnir still wouldn't budge, so Worng had to resort to bribery- four baggies of his best Pixie dust. Fretnir used it to get high- he magically grew himself, his cousins and their house large enough to host Hrungir.
When Hrungir knocked on the door, it was kind of cute, insofar as a frost giant could ever be called "cute". He brought the pixies some flowers (trollius, of course), and was all dressed up in his very best Viking suit. Worng almost felt a little guilty for what he had planned. Almost.
Dinner was pleasant, overall, though of course there were some uncomfortable silences as pixie and giant strained to think of something to say to the other. Hrungir complimented Frettnir's cooking, which relieved some of the strain. Yggir asked Hrungir what he did for fun, and Hrungir launched into a passionate monologue on the pleasures of eating faeryfolk, detailing how he liked to pull the wings off and save them for last, since they were such a delicacy. Frettnir turned a strange purplish shade on hearing this, and Worng was quick to change the subject, steering the conversation towards something a little more neutral- religion. Hrungir started talking about how much he was looking forward to Ragnarok, while Yggir listened intently, elbows on table, head on her hands. Worng, meanwhile, had quietly slipped away, unnoticed by Hrungir and Frettnir.
Hrungir was beginning to realize that, over the course of the evening, he was developing a pretty serious case of gas. It might come as a suprise that Frost giants, as rude and unrefined as they are, actually hate to fart. That is the domain of their cursed cousins the Fire Giants- Surtur and his ilk, and the Frosts were happy to leave them to it. So Hrungir was getting increasingly more agitated, and trying to hide it from the pixies. Luckily Frettnir was talking incessantly about himself and so they weren't paying too much attention to him.
That all changed rather dramatically when Hrungir blew up.

The Pixies were fantastic, of course. They're one of those bands that sound better live than on record, not that there's anything wrong with their studio recordings. Feeling the bite of the music at your throat while your ears threaten to burst and people shoving and jumping all over you is an experience your home stereo can't really duplicate. Seeing the radiant Kim Deal, perpetually grinning and looking simultaneously thrilled and bashful is an experience not soon forgotten. Her voice has always been the ultimate expression of sexiness to me. And Frank Black, looking admittedly not very Pixie-like, demonstrated why he is seen as such a rock god. That man can scream- and his Spanish is not bad, either. It was a ball.

Now you can relive the immortal line over and over: Khaaannn!!! Such pathos!

"It's a show about an actress who used to play a pro bono lawyer on TV, but was so inspired by the storylines that she decided to give up acting and actually go to law school."
"So, you'll need an actress to play an actress who played a lawyer, and then decided to become a lawyer."
"Yeah, but rather than an actual actress, I thought it would be cool to get a real-life law student!"
"You want to find a law student willing to quit school so she can play an actress who quit acting to go to law school?"
"Ironic, isn't it?"
"Mostly just stupid."

The images that stay with you from Kill Bill Volume 1 are bright and beautiful- Uma in her yellow motorcycle leathers busting up the House of Blue Leaves, and her showdown with O-Ren Ishii in the Zen garden. Volume 2 is quieter, dustier, and more wrenching. The Pussy Wagon, The 5,6,7,8's, and the gushing fountains of blood are gone, in favour of Texas Trailer Trash, an ancient Chinese sifu, and Daryl Hannah's eyepatch. And Bill.
The Face to Face between Bill and the Bride is more about passion than action. It might seem almost anti-climactic to some, but for me, at least, I got bloody satisfaction.

LOTR, slightly condensed. And in stick figure form.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Jason casually mentions to me that he has tickets to the Pixies concert in April. Astonished, I said, "Wait- The Pixies are back together?"
"Yeah."
" Really? The Pixies? Original lineup?"
"Yeah."
"Wow. The Pixies. They're coming here?"
"Yeah."
"And you have tickets?"
"Yeah. Actually, I'm seeing them twice- in Calgary too."
And then I screamed and tore all my hair out because I was unaware of this momentous occasion, and the concert sold out in about five minutes, so I was out of luck. But Jay, proving himself to be some sort of Benevolent and Beautiful Bear Patron, emailed me yesterday and offered me an extra ticket. So I am going to see the Pixies this Sunday night! Yay!!! Hooray for Jay!
Here's a Rolling Stone article on the tour, another one about the live CDs of each show that they will make available immediately afterwards, and the Vue Weekly cover story. Plus a pair of Pixies-related poosts from right here at the Pooing Woods.
Wow. The Pixies.

So this fat robot came up to me and he was trying to get me to join his union, and I was like, "What union?" and he says "The Brotherhood of Fat Robots" and I was like "But I'm not fat! And I'm not a robot!" It was hard to tell, but I think this made him a little sad. Of course I couldn't help but ask him what if a fat female robot wanted to join the Brotherhood, what then? He looked at me like I was stupid and says "Robots are genderless."

Somehow I neglected to mention anything about the mighty 7DF being up for an award, jeopardizing my status as one of their biggest fans. Luckily gabrielle was not so thoughtless, so go read her Seven Devil Fix poost and vote for the boys (she has all the requisite links).
Truly I am a poohead and a bad friend.

Here's a sicko game for you: Divine Intervention. I can't get past the big pink fat winged guy, even on cheater mode. And now I don't really care anymore.
I generally find that demons from hell need a little personality to keep them interesting, otherwise they are not much better than zombies. Like Hellboy- that was a good movie because Hellboy had personality. Though he wasn't really evil, like most demons.

Look! Abandoned Bicycles of New York!
Once I was telling my friend Sherry how I hadn't owned a bike for years, and she said there was an abandoned bike at her place that I could have- it might need some work but I was welcome to it. I was pretty excited about this, so I went over and picked it up. It was a little . . . underwhelming. For one thing, it was a lady's bike. Must have been at least 15 years old. Both tires were flat, one of the rims was bent and the chain was all rusty. I said thanks and rode it home. Then I propped it against the back wall of the House of Poo and forgot about it.
Then one day I looked out the window and saw that the bike was missing. I was actually excited about this- someone had stolen my bike! It wasn't my responsibility anymore. Yay! But then I saw that actually it was still there and I was disappointed. In fact, I dropped by the other day to see if I could clean Bruce's fishtank (coincidentally enough, so I could give it to Sherry. I wonder if I could add two flat tires and a rusty chain to the tank somehow- serve her right.), and the bike was still there. Abandoned. Anyone need a bike? I'll throw in a fish.

Does anyone out there have a background in paleontology? I took a course as part of my geology degree, and seriously it was my favorite class. I could soooo be a paleontologist. When I was a kid I knew everything there was to know about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals (actually the early mammals were always my favorite- titanotherium and the like). Although in reality a lot of paleo is just studying diatoms. The glamourous stuff is much harder to get into, just like marine biology and pretty much everything else in the world.
Anyways, the reason I ask is because my paleo professor once showed us a slide of an alternate theory for a Triceratops body plan. Rather than having its shield outside the body, floating, so to speak, this theory had the shield being part of the endoskeleton, giving Triceratops a big hump. The picture was kind of cool, but in the intervening ten years I have never come across anything more on the subject. I typed in "alternate morphology triceratops" and didn't come up with anything (though somehow a page promising pictures of Britney's boobs came up- that would be quite the alternate morphology) and after that I'm stumped. I imagine the theory was quickly rejected, but I still would like to track that down. For old time's sake.

There is a tradition in medieval Christianity (Catholicism, I suppose) that depicts Christ as a unicorn. Mostly in terms of the Annunciation, where the Arch-angel Gabriel embarks on a Holy Hunt for the unicorn, bringing four hounds with him. In a way Gabriel is chasing Jesus out of Heaven. It's kind of strange by today's cultural standards, and maybe that's why I find it so fascinating.
Then there is an allegorical parable/fable thing I came across that has animals (tigers and bears, most likely) gathering at a watering hole, only to find that the pool has been poisoned by a serpent. So the unicorn comes and dips his horn into the pool, cleansing it. The redemptive symbolism here is much more identifiable in our cultural zeitgeist.
Ha, I said zeitgeist. I don't really know what that means but I have heard it used in similar contexts. Figured I better come clean lest you think ole Homie Bear was getting pretentious.

For some reason, I like apocryphal stories. I mean, when you get right down to it, my whole faith might be based on an apocryphal story (the faith comes in choosing to believe anyways), so I don't see the harm in entertaining stories that don't even claim to be based on "truth". (And if you add one little "o" to apocryphal, you get apoocryphal!) Since this is Holy Week, I thought I would share with you this one that I discovered earlier this year.
The legend says that the cross of Christ was made from Dogwood. God decided that from that point on, the dogwood tree would never again be used for making crosses, so He stunted its growth, making it too small to be used for crucifixes. Crucifi?
The dogwood flower has four petals that represent a cross, and the notch at the end of each petal echoes the wounds of Chist. The center of the flower is said to resemble a crown of thorns, and the bright red "fruit" is said to represent the blood of Christ. And it blooms in April, connecting it to Easter in that way, as well.
There is no such legend associated with the Bearwood tree. Possibly because there is no such tree as the Bearwood tree.

No playoffs for the Oilers. Sniff sniff. Adam Oates' final game in the NHL. Raffi Torres might be eating some goat cheese for the next little while, fairly or unfairly. Though it is hard for me to see a bright side to this state of affairs, you readers at least can rest easy knowing there won't be 1800 billion hockey poosts over the next two months of playoff hockey. In fact, with the impending lockout/strike or both over the CBA, this might be my last hockey-related poost ever. So indulge me while I weep. (and for those of you who will follow the playoffs even sans Oilers, keep an eye on Colby Cosh's hockey page. He is kind of the Dennis Miller of hockey- only he could work in the impact Alexander the Great has had on Western Civilization in a poost about the Maple Leafs). What was I saying? Oh yeah.
No. Playoffs. For. Oilers.
sigh

Wow. I can't believe it's been ten years since Kurt Cobain passed away. His body was found on April 8th, 1994, though he hadn't been seen in 6 days. Ten years??? How did that happen? Well, I'm certainly not going to complain about getting old in the same paragraph that laments untimely deaths caused by suicide.
Can anyone add to this list?

Here's to Kurt.

I was on campus yesterday, and I drove by the new Nanotechnology Research Center they're building. It's a lot bigger than I imagined it would be.

Out of Business

So the store where I work(ed) closed its doors forever today. And life goes on. I'm a little sore from carrying and dollying many many many boxes onto pallets. There were three other guys there- my manager, another store manager and a district manager. They watched as I loaded each and every box onto the pallets myself. Oh well. I don't mind working. And my very cool manager gave me ten extra hours on my paystub as a sort of severance package, which was right decent of him.
A little boy about four years old was riding by on his bicycle and stopped to watch. (He was accompanied by his mother, not out wandering the streets by himself. This isn't Ohio, you know.)
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"I'm shutting this store down. Want to help? Go grab a dolly and some boxes and start loading."
"Uh uh." He shook his head no.
"Aww, come on. I'll pay you a dollar!"
"Well, I'm going to go look at books now so I can't."
"Oh yeah? You're going to the library? Make sure you get some Dr. Seuss, I love him."
"I love Dr. Seuss too!!!! I have a book and a video of Dr. Seuss."
"Nice!" I said, "And don't forget to get some books on bears."
"Yeah I like bears."
"Good boy."

Oh yeah- happy birthday to River Selkie! She turns an undisclosed number of years old today!

Hard as it is to admit, even bears have a sketchy side to them, shameful stuff they would prefer remain hidden. Bears have an unfortunate tendency to root through dumpsters and other garbage receptacles. They scavenge. It embarrasses me that my bear brothers do this, but what can you do? You have to take the good with the bad. Having said that, this poost will be something of a "Homie Bear roots through the topic dumpster" sort of poost, wherein I will discuss almost everything.
Speaking of which, have you ever seen a large medievil sword going through the x-ray machine laughing out loud? That would be a bizarre sight. A bizarre site. I sure hope if such a thing ever were to happen, that an ammeter photographer would be nearby to capture it on film.
Secondly, I was shocked and appalled to discover the existence of the word ursicide. I mean, it's a pretty cool word, sort of reminds me of some of the death metal bands of my youth, but do you know what it means??? Bear-killer. Also, an agent that kills bears (like an insecticide). If you ever killed me (please refrain from this course of action, however) you would be simultaneously guilty of ursicide, homicide and Homiecide.
Next topic: Band of Brothers. gabrielle and I are rewatching the series (on DVD this time) and are just as riveted by it, if not more, the second time through. I read the book not too long ago, and that also enhances the experience. The first time we watched it, gabrielle would always wonder if the episode we were about to watch would have Tom Hardy in it or not. Now she knows that he is only in the last two episodes. So, she summarized the entire series as follows: "There's a bunch of episodes without Tom Hardy and then he's in one and then he dies and it's over."
Furthermore, I was reading an old school book from Grade 2 that had some of my earliest attempts at writing, accompanied by schematic diagrams and such. One of my stories was about me and my friend Peter (back then I hadn't yet adopted the Homie Bear alias and went by the name Nathan Woolly Mammoth. Peter was Peter Woolly Mammoth) and how we were painting Easter eggs and I broke the egg and the Easter fairy (or something) appeared and granted me three wishes. I wrote, "I wished for I forget the end." And there was a big check mark by the assignment. Anyways, I forget what else I was going to write about in this dumpster-dive the end.

Oozey poos.
A while back Tammy asked me if she could repooblish on theooze one of the poems I wrote here originally, so I said yes and she did so. And Tammy's daughter Lydia conducted an interview with me and that is up on theooze now, as well. It's about university and life and stuff like that, and all my answers are super-wise so you should go read it.

I met up with Papa Bear for a bit tonight- not for very long since he had prior plans with Mama Bear, but long enough for him to hand me the keys to his brand new 2003 Mustang GT. Wow. It=superfast. You know your Dad trusts you when he lets you drive his new muscle car. This makes me think our relationship has come a long way since the days when I was 14 and had just gotten my learner's permit. Dad took me out a few times in his old pickup, but always afterwards there would be a noticeable dampness on his shirt by his armpits. I remember one time I almost ran into the wall of the carwashbay for no particular reason. It wasn't long after that that he passed the teach-me-to-drive torch over to Mom.
Believe it or not, this is the best picture I could find of a car like his. This one was different in a way that I couldn't quite put my finger on. And THIS one is way off.

I missed the Metallica concert last night (since no one won (or even entered) my Metallica contest;). The newspaper said it was good, which is hardly news at all, but at least I got to read about it. Apparently you can buy CD-quality recordings of all their concerts online a few days later, kind of an iTunes thing, I guess. I will have to look into that. Or I suppose I could watch or listen to one of the umpteen hundreds of concert recordings and videos I already have of theirs.
Nothing like vicarious concert-going!
And vicarious hockey-game watching. Blu and Crogdor went to the game tonight and Blu told me a bit about it- sounds like it was a good one. Actually, gabrielle was kind enough to give me up-to-the-minute reports (brought to me by various sponsors) from NHL.com , while she was browsing, so I was sort of listening to the game. Mostly I was listening to her mercilessly lie to me about the score- "What? Oilers are losing a billion to 2? How can that be? They were winning just a few minutes ago . . .". And then she didn't need to fool me anymore, since the Oilers wound up losing in overtime. Oh well, still good for a point.
Maybe you can find the Metallica concerts here. Nope! Turns out they're here.

Today is Papa Bear's birthday! I thought a special shout-out here at the Woods would be in order, especially since I didn't get him a gift or anything ;) He came by here the other day for the first time, actually, so he might even read this.
Also it is Gotthammer Mike's birthday, so happy birthdays all around.
And happy unbirthday to the rest of you.

My sister, or rather, mi hermana, was chastising me tonight for not ever poosting about the Oilers. She doesn't get much news of the Mighty Oil down in Mexico, so she relies on my boundless wisdom and expertise. Well not really, she is just as capable of reading the newspaper and checking the standings online as I am. I just needed a reasonable excuse to do a little boasting on the Oilers, who are on fire lately! Ethan Moreau is playing like a pissed-off bear who just smelled some over-ripe sasquatch poo (trying to avoid all the tired old sports cliches, such as "like a man possessed", "in the zone", "with his game face on" and "really well"). With their win tonight over LA, they climb to within a point of a playoff spot. And they are 7-0-2-1 (I think) in their last ten. Not too shabby pooey.
And now I sing one of my favorite songs, a Cookie Monster Classic (slightly modified): "Hockey hockey hockey starts with 'C'!"

Ever notice how often war movies focus on an infantryman's feet? Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump says, "It's pretty basic here. One item of G.I. gear that can mean the difference between a live grunt and a dead grunt- socks. Try and keep your feet dry. When you're out humping I want you boys to remember to change your socks whenever we stop. The Mekong will eat a grunt's feet right off his legs. . . . Take care of your feet."
I'm not a soldier, but I do see wisdom in these words. More in terms of boots then socks. One time when I was hitch-hiking I was forced to spend the night in a truckstop diner nursing a root beer, waiting for first light so I could get out on the highway again (I had tried to set up my tent but there was only mosquito-infested bog where I was at). Much later in the day, when it was quite warm out, I decided to change out of my boots and put on my sandals (also Merrells ;). My feet had been locked in my boots for over 24 hours, and I was startled to find that the skin on their undersides were all white and loosey-goosey, sort of like a big blister covering my entire foot, but not. They were fine, they just needed some air, but it was a powerful visual lesson on the importance of taking care of your feet.
Sadly, my Merrells, after nine years, are no longer fit for service. I got new hiking boots yesterday, and retired (sniff) my trusty old clompers. My new boots are beautiful, however, and I am sure they will treat my feet just fine.
I took my old boots for one last farewell tour last night. Not really a true hike, though I spent the time in a nostalgic revery (why are you laughing at me?) And I decided to pretend that the familiar city sights I was walking past were in fact something more fantastic. Grant MacEwan College became the impregnable fortress of a mighty sorceror. The skating rink on 104th ave, with all its hoodoo-like snow piles outside, became the icy realm of frost-giants. The gothic cathedral just off Jasper was actually a Temple to that formidable God, the Ancient of Days. I came across a glowering dwarf who eyed me suspiciously, but I had no quarrel with him, though by no means did that make us friends. And I saw actual orcs! Others might have mistaken them for drunken frat boys, but I saw through their disguise.
It was a fitting last journey for my worthy old boots.

"You know that old kids' joke that goes 'what kind of grizzly has no teeth? A gummy bear'? Ha ha ha I don't think it's very funny. My teeth are worn down to knubs. My claws are weak and brittle. I can't catch a salmon to save my life. And when you're an old grizzly like me, that really is a matter of life and death. I see the young cubs eyeing me. Punks. They still show a little respect, though. For now. I can tell they're just waiting for a chance to bash my brains out and take my territory. Was a time when I'd kill them just for thinking of it, but now I'm too tired. Nah, I've been thinking about it. Came up with an idea. I think I'll check myself into one of them old folks' homes they have in the human cities. There's a real nice one in the town not far from here- big picture window looks out onto the Rockies. I'll sit there in a rocking chair and look out the window. Maybe I'll meet the guy who tried to shoot me once for taking a short cut through his land. We'll laugh about it and order more iced tea, talking about old times. I'll show the nurses the scar from where an elk kicked me and broke two of my ribs. I'll be just another old bear.
Yeah I think that's what I'll do. Take a break. Time for a permanent hibernation."

(Inspired by Faith No More's RV)

Interestingly enough, I just happened to be at MEC yesterday where I picked up a poostcard-sized pamphlet encouraging people to phone our premier to request a halt to the hunting of grizzlies. Alberta Sustainable Resources will issue up to 73 hunting permits for grizzlies this season (which is a lot, yet is less than last season- they are patting themselves on the back for reducing the number this year). Since yesterday's poost has had me chewing over my thoughts and stances on environmentalism and bear-rights and mineral rights, I came upon what I think is a pretty good solution that doesn't make me out to be a hypocrite or anything like that. I called the Premier's office today and said two things to the very polite lady who took my call. First, I asked that the Premier cancel the grizzly bear hunt, and then I also asked that he do whatever he could to expedite the go-ahead of Cheviot. You can do the same, by calling his hotline at 780-427-2251 (or toll-free by dialing 310-0000 first). You don't have to say what I said- tell him to halt the Cheviot mine if you want, that's your perogative and right as a citizen of a democracy. This is mainly for Albertans, but I am sure non-Albertans could still call, though as non-voters your opinion might not be as important to Mr. Klein. But anything you say on behalf of bearkind is appreciated.
(Poost-Script- I found this press release from the company that owns the coal mine where I used to work, regarding the coal mine where I hope to work in the near future.)

Colby Cosh has some wise things to say about two subjects very near and dear to my heart: grizzly bears and the very coal mine where I would be working right now if it weren't for the environmentalists. A highlight: "As always, we have the amusing idea put forward that grizzlies, who can run upwards of 30 miles an hour, cannot possibly cross a road through the bush."
Fingers crossed, it looks like I might be mining again soon. We'll see, though.
Did I ever mention the grizzly sow that used to make her home in and around Cardinal River (the current, nearly-depleted precursor to the Cheviot mine, where I used to work)? She often had a pair of cubs with her, and she was thoroughly unconcerned about us miners. In fact she seemed to like us, or at least the protected habitat we offered (it is just as illegal to hunt on mine property as in a National Park). Sadly she wandered off the minesite one day and was shot by some bastard motherfuckers for her gall bladder.
Honestly, coal mines and bears can coexist. If it weren't true I wouldn't say it.

I went with a friend to a teahouse in Chengdu one day. At one time it had been a Buddhist monastery, so perhaps its transition to teahouse was a step in the wrong direction, but at least it had survived the Cultural Revolution.
There was a beautiful, wizened old woman selling gorgeous paintings from a tent cubicle thing. One in particular caught my eye- goldfish swimming near lilies, on a magnificent scroll. The vivid oranges and greens and even the white space really appealed to me. With my friend interpreting for me, I discovered that the woman's husband painted and she sold. I asked her how much she wanted for the goldfish one, and she told me to make her an offer. I figured I would start low, let her highball me, and meet her in the middle, so I offered the modest sum of 60 renminbi, (around 12 or 15 dollars), thinking she would be aghast and counteroffer 120, and I would purchase it for 90. To my surprise and dismay, she agreed to the 60. No haggling. I felt bad. Then, she reached for her cane, and slowly and proudly got up off her stool and shuffled over to the painting, grabbed it off the wall and rolled it up, then turned and shuffled back to her seat. She was tiny, and bent over almost double. She reminded me of a less-green Yoda, more than anything else. So I carried that painting with me to Tibet and back to Beijing, and almost lost it when I left it in the care of my friend Corey. He left it on our bus while I was away dealing with luggage, and I made him run out and get it when I found out what he had done.
Anyways, Poe apparently can't tell the difference between painted goldfish and real ones, and she clawed the painting. It's not totally ruined, though there are now little gashes, tears really, that the artist never intended. That was a while ago. Then last week she knocked over one of our fancy lamps, tearing the paper lampshade around it. And I am not sure, but I also think she chewed the cord on my PS2 controller, rendering it more or less inoperative. She is a little maelstrom of havoc.
Oh well, I don't hold it against her. She is just being a cat. I am a bear, and thus I have been known to cause a little havoc of my own, and gabrielle is quite tolerant of me. Just today I spilled soy milk all over the place, narrowly missing her computer and mouse.

I have found yet another song that I have misinterpreted for years (you might recall I thought Trapped Under Ice was about being trapped under ice and 20 Eyes in My Head was about a monster with 20 eyes. Both reasonable assumptions to make, but both wrong, turns out). I always took Faith No More's The Morning After to be about the morning after a worldwide apocalypse- a nuclear war or some such. This song and that album have been a part of my life for so long I don't really remember what made me draw this conclusion, though I am sure it is partly the guttural heaviness of the music, full of glottal stops and bottom-end chunk, and the visual imagery it conjures up in my head. "Is this my blood dried upon my face? Or is it the love of someone else?"
But this week as I have been listening to The Real Thing, I have finally realized that The Morning After is a breakup song. Always has been.
However there just happens to be another song getting heavy rotation at the Woodsy Crypt (and the environs surrounding wherever Lola is located) that is about the precise thing I am talking about. It's called Post-Nuclear Celebration Party Song, from the Prey For Rock and Roll soundtrack.
"I'm having a party
all by myself
I invited the world
but everyone's dead!"

Balance is restored. However, I am afraid to delve too much further into these lyrics as I might find out the song is actually a metaphorical examination of a hangover or something.

So what did you have for supper last night? I had rancid sausage! Mmmm. I thought it had a particularly tangy, tart taste, and on my second bite I noticed all this goo at the bottom of the package. gabrielle just laughed when I asked her if she thought it was still good or not. I have learned a valuable lesson for the future: Christmas sausage (it was a present from Shannie) that is stored in my room is not good to eat come mid-March, regardless of whether it is sealed in plastic or not.
In other news, an old English professor of mine delivered a couple of lectures on Oprah Winfrey. She's writing a book on her, actually. I used to meet Dr. Read for coffee now and then though I eventually lost touch with her. She introduced me to one of my favorite books ever, Beloved. That was before Oprah played Sethe in the movie adaptation. I wonder if there is a connection? Maybe that is what sparked her interest in Oprah.
And, um, smooth segues notwithstanding, Rustyangel sent me a question today regarding ursine taxonomy. Is this a true bear, or not? he asks. Though I think true bearness largely depends on state of mind, I inquired of my trusty bear book (a Christmas present that has not gone rancid) and it does include pandas in the bear family. It says, "Biologists currently believe that pandas represent a surviving early branch of the bear line. The theory that they are more closely related to raccoons has been largely discounted." (from Bears: Their Life and Behavior by Art Wolfe).
UPDATE: Here is a factsheet on the red panda, courtesy of the BBC.

It had been far, far too long, so I met two of my best friends in the whole world for donuts today. As always, it was a good time. Donuts+friends=yay!
I feel bad that I missed Rowan's birthday, though. I didn't actually forget it, I just thought he wasn't around for me to call him. Which maybe is a worse error, I don't know.
Rowan's birthday is kind of how we came to be friends, in fact, many years ago now. When I was in grade 10 we were in the same Chemisty class, though he was on the other side of the class from me, which might as well have been the other side of the ocean, so I never actually met him. But our teacher would always call out his full name, first and last, in a very distinctive way. So he had a sort of notoriety to me in my mind. The next semester we wound up sitting next to each other in our Math class. I had been wandering the halls a little earlier (I forget why, exactly, though I do recall it was for the purposes of being up to no good) and came across a bulletin board that listed everyone who had a birthday for that month in our school. I'm sure this would constitute a grievous violation of privacy laws today, but those were simpler times. Anyways the enigmatic Rowan was on that list, so when I saw him in Math class I said "Hi Rowan, happy birthday."
And he said, "My birthday's not for a few weeks." But I greeted him every day like that, and he reminded me everyday that it wasn't his birthday. Turns out the actual anniversary of his birth took place on a weekend so I missed it. But we have been friends ever since, even though I think I kind of weirded him out at first. It was good to see him again.
I don't recall the day I actually met Jason, we just sort of fell into being friends. But that was the same year, grade 10. In fact, we were in the same chemistry class as well, only we actually knew each other. One day he was sick and missed class. That happened to be the day we learned how to do stoichiometry. We had a small assignment that we had to do every day and hand in for points. Jay was entitled to get an exemption since he was sick that day, but I told him how easy stoich was and that I would show him how to do it and that way he could get extra marks and save his miss-an-assigment card for later.
I wound up getting 1 out of 10 on the assignment, and Jay got zero. Oops. I still don't really know how to do stoichiometry- it seemd so simple- just switch the little numbers around, but turns out there was more to it than that. I wound up failing Chem 104 in university, too. And Jason doesn't let me teach him how to do things anymore. But you know something? It's been fourteen years since then, and I have yet to have occasion to stoichiometrize something, so really, who cares?

Yesterday I worked from 9:30 till 5. Actually just a little after 5:00, since I finally had my first customer of the day at that point and I decided to put in a few extra minutes so that I could actually ring in a transaction before going home. That's how slow my days can be, sometimes. Yet all our customers are shocked and dismayed when I tell them we're closing down in two weeks. Today was a little busier as I got the go-ahead to start selling off our inventory of tapes, and we are selling them super-cheap, so people are scooping them up. DVDs and games go later. Now I am trying to catch up on my allottment of free movies and games before the well runs dry. How do you spell allottment? Allotment? I don't really know. A lot meant? Meant a lot? What did? Who ?
Some movies and games I recommend to you (some old, some new):
The Others. Somehow I totally never even noticed Nicole Kidman before finally seeing Moulin Rouge, so I have been catching up on her back-catalog. Birthday Girl and Malice are both really good, too.
Wrath Unleashed is a fun game. It's just a fighting game mixed with some rudimentary strategy stuff. Cool monsters, and some ludicrously dressed women. Although I suppose since they are magical goddess/witches, they can probably cast a spell to keep those in place.
Umm, what else? I watched Under the Tuscan Sun, but the star of that movie was the Italian coastline. The rest of it was decent enough but hardly exceptional. A Perfect Murder was quite enjoyable, good to see Viggo in a less-Aragornishly noble role. My favorite movie of his is still The Witness, though. He was magnetic as Amish Helper #3.

Yeah, so we watched another Western-with-a-twist tonight, one of my second (third?)-tier favorites, Shanghai Noon. Gabrielle wasn't completely enamoured of it, ironic as it was her choice to watch it, but that is quite alright. It doesn't have the same history for her as it does me.
I first saw Shanghai Noon in China, on a bootleg VCD. Kind of fitting. It just happened that two of the students on my team were extras in it, as it was shot in and around Calgary. The casting call went out for all the people of Chinese descent in Calgary to come be extras in the slave-labour camp. So my two friends had brief cameos.
This made it interesting as we screened the movie with some Chinese friends. And also quite confusing for them. Our Canadian-born-Chinese friends were playing Chinese-born-Chinese people living in America, though the movie was shot in Canada and they were now here in China studying Chinese. My Chinese-born-Chinese friends had a bit of a hard time keeping all this straight.
Although China's educational system is at least equal to ours, if not far superior in some ways, they seem to have a bit of a hard time with basic genetics. They were invariably mystified that our Canadian-born-Chinese folk were, in fact, Canadian, and yet genetically Chinese at the same time.
"Are you Chinese?" they would ask.
"Yes, though I was born in Canada and am Canadian," they would reply.
"But you look so Chinese!"
"Well, yes, that's because my parents are Chinese."
"But you were born in Canada."
"Yes."
"Why you don't look like them?" (pointing at me or one of the other Canadian-born-non-Chinese.)
"Because I'm Chinese."
"Can you speak Chinese?"
"No."
"But you're Chinese!"
And on it would go. Every time. I found it all quite amusing but it got a little old for my friends.

Although technically I'm not supposed to, our store is so dead on Monday nights that I like to put a movie in to while away the hours. And besides- I did something last week that to me was pretty common-sensical , but it got my manager accolades from corporate headquarters all the way in Alabama, so he was pretty happy with me (I started getting donations a few days early to a charity we're promoting , the only store in North America to "take such initiative".) And since Hidalgo was so much fun, I thought I might enjoy another western from a LOTR alumni, so I watched The Missing. Cate Blanchett is really great and I like her other work a lot. Same with Tommy Lee Jones, to a lesser extent, and though they were both good enough, the movie itself was just . . . weak. Pretty cinematography, good acting, but not much plot and no character development at all. And since this isn't really a shoot 'em up western, character development is kind of a must. So I was disappointed. Oh well- I was paid to watch it, sort of, so no complaints. I can get you a poster of it if you disagree with me and liked it ;) For that matter, I can get you posters from a wide variety of current movies-available-on-video, just let me know if you want any (and are local to me).

Like gabrielle, I also really liked Hidalgo. Though where she occasionally found herself thinking of Aragorn and Brego, I marvelled at the fact that, over short distances, a bear can run as fast as Hidalgo, maybe even slightly faster. (Not to imply that this movie causes your attention to wander, because it doesn't.) Of course, a bear could never ever hope to beat Hopkins and Hidalgo in a long-distance race, which was their specialty.

Life in Hostile Environs part IV
There are limits to what life can endure, of course. High-altitude mountaineers know that above 7500 meters, your body begins to break down, to die. They call this the Death Zone. Yet even then, the human body can survive for limited amounts of time. Jon Krakauer says, in his astonishing book Into Thin Air, "Above the South Col, up in the Death Zone, survival is to no small degree a race against the clock. . . Depending on each person's acclimatization and physiological makeup, we would still be able to function above the South Col- but not well, and not for long. We would instantly become more vulnerable to HAPE [High Altitude Pulmonary Edema], HACE [High Altitude Cerebral Edema], hypothermia, impaired judgment, and frostbite. The risk of dying would skyrocket." As you probably know, eight of Krakauer's fellow climbers perished on that night.
For a long time, it was thought it was not possible to survive unaided at such heights. That's why all ascents of Everest were done with supplemental oxygen. But in 1978 Reinhold Messner reached the top without bottled O2, the mountaineering equivalent of the four-minute mile.
So it's possible, but there's a pretty steep (pardon the pun) price to pay.

(More on HAPE and HACE here.)

Why I'm just not a very good gamer
Since the ROTK video game is way fun, I decided that I should take advantage of some of the other games we have at work, so I brought home some other ones last night and tonight. I couldn't get into either one. The one yesterday was just poorly done- it was called Legion: Legend of King Arthur. Could've been cool, but wasn't. Then tonight I brought home Castlevania. I tried playing it for a while, and got stuck in an empty room in the tutorial stage. Oh well. I much prefer blogging to gaming. Not that there isn't room for both. I just need to find more fun games, like ROTK, that I can actually play, and can hold my interest.

Life in Hostile Environs part III
I discovered, about an hour after my arrival in Tibet, that high altitude is a hostile environment to me. This was quite a blow to my self-esteem since I grew up not twenty minutes away from the front ranges of the Rocky Mountains, and I like to keep in relatively good shape. But the Tibetan Plateau, at an average altitude of 12,000 feet, is higher than all but the highest of the Rockies, and physical fitness is not a factor. Plus I flew there from sea level or so, which is not really a good idea- you need to acclimatize. So after about an hour I started feeling funny and then I just fell over, unconscious, knocking my head on the cement, much to the alarm of a watching lama. I was okay- though I was apparently twitching and turning blue. I was a victim of altitude sickness. It was very unpleasant- puking and headache and even a touch of narcosis (? or whatever you call symptoms similar to intoxication). I would wake up in the middle of the night, my heart beating at lightspeed, hardly able to breathe. It was worse than any hangover. But after a few days I adapted to it and I thrived. And when I went back down to more normal, more mortal altitudes I was in supershape. I zoomed up the Great Wall of China. Not so much anymore, but it's good to know that life can adapt. Life is pretty resilient. I am pretty resilient. (You are, too ;)

Life in Hostile Environs part II
I found this interesting sci-fi book a few years ago in a bin of free books at Grant Mac. Called Dragon's Egg, it is a story about what life would look like on a neutron star. The author, Dr. Robert L. Forward, is a gravitational astronomer, so he knows what he's talking about as far as the physics go, and still writes a readable story.
Here is a quick primer on neutron stars, and an artist's rendering. In a nutshell, they are stars in a nutshell (heehee). When a star goes supernova, a neutron star is what is left behind- a massively dense object only a few tens of kilometers in diameter. And not really on fire any more- they have super-smooth surfaces. Dr. Forward's fictional neutron star, Dragon's Egg, is about 20 kms across but has half the mass of the sun. Its surface gravity is 67 billion times that of the Earth's.
The cool thing about the tiny little critters living on Dragon's Egg is that they live at a much faster rate than we do- an hour of our time would be almost two generations of theirs. A typical lifespan is 33 minutes. In the book, our civilizations interacted for 1.2 seconds.

NASA is saying that Mars was once wet enough to have sustained life. Maybe even still does. Cool. Martians. I like Martians- I imagine they are large, bear-like creatures full of intelligence and benevolence.
When I was little I had the same fascination for the possiblity of life elsewhere as every other little kid, and I read everything I could find on the subject. Back in 1980 or so, scientists were pretty pessimistic about any life elsewhere in our own solar system (and they still didn't know if there were any other systems with planets, which of course we now have confirmation of), though they said maybe Europa, one of Jupiter's larger moons, could support life. By life they meant "life as we know it." In the intervening quarter century, our definition of "life as we know it" has expanded considerably even just right here on Earth. There are organisms that live in habitats once thought to be hostile to life- hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean, or beneath Antarctic ice. When you think about it, the bacteria that live inside our stomach, swimming happily in hydrochloric acid, are hardly living in a friendly environment, at least the way we consider it.
So anyways, it's cool that water once flowed freely on Mars, and maybe that means that it is more likely that Mars once did or still does support life. But as we are seeing more and more, life is pretty capable of getting by in habitats once thought anathema to it. Maybe there really are giant gas whalerays flying around in the atmospheres of Jupiter or Saturn.
On the other hand, there are an awful lot of other things needed to get life going- how about protection from ultraviolet rays and other solar radiation?
Maybe one day we'll know one way or the other. Until then it's fun to imagine, and wonder, and dream.

The following is a guest poost by gabrielle of the Crypt.

Since I am currently in the midst of a Completely Rightfully Owed CounterChallenge of Vengeance (a.k.a. The Samurai Sword of Poetry) over at the Crypt, Homie has graciously allowed me his Woods in which to guest post.

I found the following news item on yahoo today: Video Games Make Kids Fat, Violent, Swedish Experts Say
The big question I have in response to this is "What do we really have to fear from fat violent kids?" Granted, violence is never a good thing but the study does directly link obesity and violence to video games. As kind of a virtual pas de deux, if you'll forgive the ballet term. What I'm thinking is that I could outrun a fat kid. Even a violent fat kid. I'm sure of it. So... where's the danger?

In a separate but related note, I have recently become a gamer myself. Granted, I haven't invested a childhood into becoming as adept as, say, Fat Albert but I do play one mean Legolas if I do say so myself. Thirty-five orcs in a row. Single-handed. BOOM BABY! I even have a "gaming thumb blister" to prove it. And I have not gained a single pound that I can tell. Nor are my tendencies of late any more violent than they usually are. In fact I daresay phone calls to my pod from irate sales reps during my workday make me, on a whole, far more violent than slaying orcs. Or the dishonored dead. Therefore I am calling into question this Swedish research. I have no personal anecdotal evidence to support their theory.

Of course this doesn't change the fact that I'm just not scared of fat violent kids. What are they going to do - throw a Twinkie at me? Outplay me in Osgiliath? Like that's hard to do... you can't be Leggy there. You have to be Sam. Who is himself a fat and, in this game version of ROTK, violent short person who has never in his life played a video game.

What's next? Marilyn Manson causes teens to be dysfunctional? The earth is flat? *scoffs*

**** end guest poost ****

Bastards! I was actually over at Outside Magazine's site to see if they had yet poosted their story about Hidalgo. They hadn't but then I found that news item on those sumnabish poachers. Rrrgh they piss me off. I think the penalty should be a gallbladder for a gallbladder.
Anyways, with Hidalgo opening this weekend I thought you might be interested in reading about what historians and the Long Riders Guild have to say about it. There is some question as to whether Frank T. Hopkins (Viggo's character) was telling the unvarnished truth when he wrote about his exploits. For my part, I think it will be a fun movie, whether it actually happened or not.
You want historically accurate film-making? Band of Brothers. Best mini-series ever. Crazy sandstorms, running leopards and angry Arabs need not be so true-to-life, at least if you ask me.