Fanart Friday: A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs)

Iron Man is opening today and I want to see it for sure. But what you might not know is the director, Jon Favreau, was slated to direct A Princess of Mars but then wound up doing Iron Man instead. So in an alternate universe, everyone would be lining up to see John Carter, Dejah Thoris and Tars Tarkas thundering across Barsoom today. But this will have to do instead- Jerry Carr and Ssava give us their versions of said trio:



Then we have a couple by George Sellas:


And my friend zimeta08 is one of the biggest ERB fans I know, here's a pair of her arts:

Happy Miner's Day! What makes it really happy for me is that I'm not mining today. Apparently we're having a Miner's Week later this month, but I have no idea what that entails. Presents and prizes every day as we go out to the pits maybe. Anyways, I created a new Flickr Photoset called Derelicts since I've always found twisted metal, old iron and ghosts of the machines to be fascinating, and beautiful in their own way. Some highlights:

Tonight, if you are one of the 700 or so people who watch CityTV News you might see me and Michelle explain why we waited until the last minute to file our taxes. Uh, doesn't everybody? This year marks the first year in Homie Bear History where I had to pay extra. Which sucks. I had visions of our refunds paying for the garage we want to build this summer. Or at least a 2X4 or 4 for it.
Partly I can blame myself. Not to get too deeply into my finances, I will say I didn't really contribute much to my RRSP, didn't start any home businesses and worst of all, I only gave a miserly 1% of my income to charity. Yeesh. That's gonna change this year, and not for the taxation benefits either.
Anyways, check out Ursula Vernon's Taxman. And if that wasn't cute enough for you, go watch the sleepy sun bear cub video at Zooillogix.

This:


and this:

used to be this:

Chapter 6 (Prologue)

"It was a good thing I saved your life, don't you think? I think so. I think it deserves breakfast in bed." Dart was still relaxing in the cup of the bromeliad when Callie came to rouse him.
Callie rolled her eyes. "I wouldn't be sleeping in if I were you. Your bed is about to become a lake."
"What do you mean?"
It started to rain. It does that fairly often in a rainforest, though to Dart it was something new and surprising. He climbed out of his shelter and gazed up at the sky in wonder, sticking out his long tongue to catch raindrops. He would have been content to do that all day but Callie dragged him into Rana's daytime hideyhole- beneath the roots of a banyan tree. Rana greeted them blearily. He looked tired, but well fed.
"Make yourself comfortable. Plenty of room for a couple of froglets," he said.
Callie was indignant. "I'm not a froglet! And I'm not sure what your definition of 'plenty of room' is, but it seems to be different than mine."
"You're all froglets to me, my dear. But come, we'll just have to get snug. And if we get a little wet, well, a little water never hurt a frog. Or a froglet."
Callie rolled her eyes again. But she and Dart pressed in closer.
Dart spoke up. "What's that smell?"
"It certainly wasn't me," Callie said, "Froglets could never make that much gas. Must've been Grandpa Rana here."
This time it was Rana who rolled his eyes. Dart laughed. What he had actually smelled was the rainforest in all its humid healthy decay. The rain was soaking the leaf litter, contributing to its rot and eventual renewal. He looked outside. Yesterday it had been a splatter of greens, blues, reds and yellows of flower and frog. Today it just seemed kind of grey. But Dart liked it. He liked feeling safe with his friends.
Somewhere in the distance a frog chorped. Rana responded with a surprisingly loud croak of his own. Dart didn't want to be left out so he inflated his little froglet throat sac and let out a mighty . . . squeak. Callie covered her mouth to hide a giggle.
Embarrassed, Dart said, "I guess I'm still too young to join the Frog Chorus, huh?"
"We're all part of the Frog Chorus, Dart," said Rana. "Look at the female frogs, who don't have vocal sacs with which to sing. The Frog Chorus is more than the individual voices and notes. It's more than a song. Did you know that a spider can sense vibrations on her web and know when she's caught prey and when it's just a fallen leaf?"
"No, I never knew that," said Dart." What's a spider web?" But Rana was still talking.
"The Frog Chorus is similar to a spider web in that sense. The voices tell us of the health of the frog community, all our cousins out there in the forest. Individuals come and go, but the cousins persist. And they must be protected. The Frog Chorus can tell us when there is harmony and when there is discord. So as you can see, it is a web, not to entrap, but rather to protect."
"Oh," Dart said. He didn't really understand how the songs and poems he had heard last night could be like spiders at all.
Callie, who had been watching Dart more than listening to Rana, could see that Dart was not exactly enthralled. And who could blame the little guy? Rana was a kindly gentlefrog, a mentor for many who dispensed his wisdom freely, but he had a tendency to ramble. But one thing he was good at was telling stories. A good story was worth a thousand erudite lectures. She cleared her throat and said, "Why don't you tell us a story, Gramps? Something that shows the Frog Chorus in action."
"Hmm, an excellent idea. I know a story that you will like, Dart, it's about two blue poison frogs like yourself."
Dart brightened at this. "Really? What were their names?"
Rana replied, "Roar and Ree. They're friends of mine."
_______________________________________________________________________________

Well, exposition is a necessary evil I guess, at least in this type of story. Hopefully your eyes didn't glaze over like Dart's did. Oh well. I keep having to remind myself that this is just a draft and I can worry about cleaning it up and making it better when (if?) I finish it.
Also, I need to come up with a frogular word for throat sac, because throat sac cracks me up too much and is not the best word ever when you're trying to take it seriously. Any ideas?
Soundtrack: Hmm, how about Lyra, Roger and Billy, track 4 from the Golden Compass soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat. It has a nice playful tone and is about three characters too!
Dedicated to my friend and neighbour (relatively speaking) Travis, soon to be a father, who also likes to explain sundry esoteric subjects at great length to any who will listen!
Next Chapter

The trailer for Clone Wars is out, in leaked, pirated grainyvision, but better than nothing.
And here's a pretty good action figure recreation of the duel between Darth Maul and Qui Gon and Obi Wan. Still my favorite lightsaber duel of all the movies. And this one is pretty funny.

I had to disable Haloscan, since they seem to be down the last few days, and they were causing some severe delays in page load times. I hope they come back, but if not I guess I will have to figure out how to enable Blogger's commenting system. I don't really like it, though, since you have to have a google account and do the typey typey funny word thing. Commenting should be easy and not a hassle, and Haloscan always seemed fairly painless.
Gabrielle, Whiskey River, sister-in-law, you all might want to do the same.
Update: gabrielle informs me that she has not had any problems at all. Weird! One difference between us is location- we are not on the same hemisphere. So if you are somewhere other than Canada and haloscan works, let me know by leaving a comment . . . oh right. Hmm.

It makes sense when you consider that Yoda and Miss Piggy are voiced by the same guy.
(Source)

Fanart Friday: Hoth!
Crazy blizzard at the mine today- I kept expecting snowtroopers and tauntauns and probe droids to show up. Since none did, here are some wampas and other Hothian fauna instead! Hopefully JimmyMcWicked's wampa doesn't eat Bloodhound-Omega's tauntaun!



And how about these two takes on the classic scene? First by Dantooine, second by RobbVision.



I'll leave you with a beautiful digital painting of the Battle of Hoth by Wicktone and something a little less literal from my pal Shane Cheffins.



I was trying out Safari the other day (meh) and I noticed that it doesn't give pictures a blue hyperlink border, so if you are a Safari user note that all FF thumbs are clickable to much bigger pics at the artists' site. And for that matter most of the pictures there have a fullsize option to click as well.

So I gave away LGJ, to a guy I work with- my buddy Robin's dad. His dad and my dad are coal miners from way back and us 2nd gen miners gotta take care of the forebears, right? He needed a new car badly and I wanted to sorta keep the Jellybean in the family. He fixed it all up and now it's in great shape again- probably got another 100,000 kms in it. I got 300,000 out of it after buying it from that first generation miner dad of mine who already had 50,000 kms on it. So I got my moneys worth and feel good about just giving it away. Plus I get rides home from the bus stop in it.
Anyways, for the two or three of you who are wondering where the latest chapter of Poison Dart is, I didn't get a chance to type up chapter 6. I wrote it a while ago but then went and rewrote it, and now I gotta make sure chapter 7 will be okay and . . . anyways. Next week. First I have to do some mining.
In the meantime you can check out wen-m's balloon froggie.

You can upload video to Flickr now, so I gave it a try. I had to install the latest version of Flash to see it, though, whereas with YouTube I don't think you need to worry about that sort of thing.
And, since we're on the subject, apparently I am not the only bear who knows some kung fu. Which is good since I actually don't know kung fu. But the kung fu Homie Bear over there on your right was made for me by a hitch-hiker I once gave a lift to, named Max. He was cool.
Have you seen the steampunk and WWII Star Wars custom figures on the Star Wars blog lately? I want some! They can teach you to kung fu!

Fanart Friday: Starbuck
Well, after rewatching nearly the entire series so my wife can get caught up, there's not much point in pretending I am interested in anything but BSG right now. So here's 5 0r 6 Starbucks for ya- go buy a vente latte!
First a pair each from Otis Frampton and Grant Gould, respectively:




And the above two are by LexiGeek and AmericanNinjaX.

With a name like Bear McCreary it comes as no surprise that he is a genius. He does the music for Battlestar Galactica. The haunting theme song- actually both of them since they changed it after Season 1. And then he outdid himself arranging Dylan's All Along the Watchtower. No one tell me why they were singing it way out there! I have my theories and they don't involve secret cylon codesongs, but no spoilers!

Chapter 5 (Prologue)

Every night there was a different monster. Ree didn't even pay attention to them anymore. What could be worse than what she'd already seen?
She was still trapped inside the lizard ribcage. There was hardly any flesh remaining over the skeleton, and it would have been an easy matter to escape except her leg was bound by an unfamiliar yellow slimy substance that emerged from the spinal column of the dead lizard, encasing her ankle. It was slightly elastic so Ree had some mobility, but she couldn't stretch it enough to snap it.
Ree thought she would be eaten. She had expected it. Instead the monsters brought her food- mostly ants, and mostly dead. The creatures came and went in silence. For the most part they left her alone, though occasionally they would scrape her back with various appendages. Claws, mandibles or stingers. Anything that was sharp.
Tonight's monster was a snake. Just a snake. No extra legs or missing eyes. No smell of decay. Ree realized it really was a snake rather than one of her captors. She watched as it sidled up to her prison. In the darkness it was hard to see its color, but there was no mistaking its eyes- they were shining red with reflected light. Its forked tongue flicked at the exposed ribs of the dead lizard, tasting and probing. Ree wondered what would happen if the snake ate her. Maybe the snake would die from her poison, but perhaps not before it pulled her to freedom. Probably she would die too, and even though that might not be much worse than her present situation, Ree wasn't ready to give up hope yet.
The snake had definitely picked up her scent now, or more likely sensed her body heat. It stared at her, absolutely still. Ree didn't know why it bothered getting all tense and wary- there was nothing she could do to stop it from doing whatever it wanted. Just for fun she flicked her tongue out at it and said, "Boo!" The snake jerked back in surprise but only increased its concentration on her. There was some consolation in knowing she would be the snake's last meal. And that whatever bizarre purpose her captors had for her would be foiled.
"Come on then, stinky," she said. The snake reared its head back to strike. Ree didn't close her eyes, though she wanted to. Prepared for what was in store, she was determined to face the snake with dignity. With a final breath, she braced herself. And then she saw the snake fall down, dead. She caught a glimpse of a misshapen clawed form dragging the inert corpse away.
The monster things had saved her life. Ree was pretty sure that wasn't a good thing.

____________________________________________________________________________

Just a short chapter this week. It was almost even shorter because when I opened my Google Documents page I discovered that the last couple of paragraphs had not been saved. Luckily I write a rough draft in longhand before transferring to computer. I call this version that I post the first draft, as I know there will be lots of work to do when I finally finish. Anyways.
This chapter is dedicated to the good people at Amphibians.org, who would never treat a froggy in the manner that Ree has been treated.
The soundtrack is Rusty Cage, either the Soundgarden original or Johnny Cash's amazing cover.
Next Chapter

Look! A new species of frog has been discovered, the first known lungless frog. Cool eh?
And you've probably already heard of the newly discovered flat-faced walking fish, but just in case you haven't.
And though there are no brand new species of cephalopods to tell you about, Mutley James is drawing a ceph-a-day in April. Remember when he did a creature a day? Because he's really cool. I can't figure out livejournal's interface to link to the creatures directly but they're from December 2007.

Well, it won't turn, it won't ramp down, it won't go very fast, but at least it'll go. Sometimes. We were supposed to get a brand new hydraulic shovel but it didn't pan out, and our even older 2100 gave up the ghost a couple of months ago so they decided to resurrect the venerable old 2800 that's been sitting partially dismantled for over a year. Sorta like a 50-year old Battlestar in drydock. That's okay because we're still running a couple of the haultruck equivalent of Viper Mark IIs! The above is an old photo I took about two years ago, back when it was only 28 years old. The other day I was operating it after it had been broken down for a few days, and it seemed to be running good. One of the accountants came up in the cab for the experience. She didn't believe me when I told her my Dad ran this shovel when he was 19.
Don't tell them about this one or they might get some crazy ideas:

You remember that bus crash that many of my coworkers were involved in. The Company for which I work donated 50 grand to the Hinton hospital as a way of saying thanks for helping out. Definitely a classy move, especially since the bus crash was not their fault- the buses are a service the Company provides for us by contracting a bus company. Not so classy was the bus company, which I shall call Boopy, sending letters to the injured passengers informing them they owed Boopy $650 to cover the cost of the ambulance rides they received. Seriously. Seems Boopy was underinsured and expects the people hurt when its bus crashed into a moose to help cover the cost.

Chapter 4 (Prologue)

"That was kind of stupid," Callie said. They had descended to the forest floor in thoughtful silence but now Callie had to release some tension.
"It worked, didn't it? And anyways you said he'd think I was poisonous."
"Yeah, but, now that I think about it, spiders might be immune to frog poison."
If Jumper was capable of turning green, he would have. He stared at Callie with a stunned look on his face. "Really?"
Callie relented. "Nah, I'm just joking. But you're not invulnerable and you'll live a lot longer if you remember that. Seriously."
Now Jumper looked crestfallen. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"Aw, don't feel bad. You did it. Maybe even saved my life- if you hadn't been there, that spider might have snuck up on me and had Callie-cargot for supper. Maybe I should write a poem, an epic, Jumper Versus the Spider!"
"Yeah? You mean it?" Already Jumper was feeling better.
"Sure! Except you need a better name than Jumper. That's like calling you Frog."
"How about Spider Slayer?"
"Um, no. No verbs. Verbs don't make the best names."
"What's a verb?"
Callie ignored him as she pondered names. The best ones were simple and easy to remember. She had once met a pinkbelly toad named Atelopus Flavescens. It didn't exactly roll off the tongue, even an extra-long, poetry-spouting dexterous tongue like hers.
A deep voice interrupted her reverie. "How about Dart? It has the advantage of being a verb and a noun."
They whirled in the direction of the speaker and saw an enormous reddish frog with strange horn-like projections over its eyes. By reflex, Jumper made to spring at it, but Callie casually squished him to the ground with her hand.
Ignoring the struggling froglet pinned beneath her arm, she spoke to the newcomer. "Hello Rana."
"Callie. You can let your friend go- I think I am quite safe from him." Although the big frog's mouth was stuck in a permanent frown, giving him a grumpy-looking expression, there was a clear note of amusement in his gravelly voice.
"I was more worried about him, but you're right, of course." Callie released Jumper who did his best to brush himself off with dignity. A chunk of leaf stuck to his chin eluded him. Callie brushed it off with a wink. "Well, Jumper? What do you say? How does Dart sound to you?"
"Dart. I like it! I can be Dart," said the froglet.
The newcomer chorped his vocal sac. "Then it's settled. Pleased to meet you, Dart. My name is Rana."
Dart looked more closely at Rana. Aside from the immediacy of his size, and the odd horns above his eyes, Dart noticed the intricate pattern of his reddish skin- green and black stripes wound around his body in a curious arrangement. And he had a whole bunch of small warty bumps all over his back. The overall impression was that Rana was very, very old. But it was apparent Rana was waiting for Dart to say something. So he did.
'What are those horns over your eyes? And what about all those bumps on your back? How old are you? You're not going to eat us are you?"
"He might eat you if you keep asking so many question," Callie said. Rana just laughed- a deep, rumbly, relaxed sort of laugh that suggested wisdom and patience. His eyes blinked very slowly, as if he were sleepy. But Dart sensed he was far from sleepy.
"I will answer your questions, little froglet, if you answer mine- how did a blue poison frog come to have a red-eyed tree frog for a mother?"
Dart and Callie were momentarily speechless and then they were both laughing and getting in each others' way to explain how they had met. Less excitable frogs would probably have been able to tell from Rana's chortling that he already knew Callie was not Dart's mother.
"Callie's not my mom! Uh, the truth is, I've never met my mom. Either of my parents, actually. I don't know where they are."
"They weren't waiting for you when you Landed?"
"No, sir."
Rana exchanged a glance with Callie. "I see," he said. "Well, it's getting dark- I suggest we get ready for dark. You and Callie should get some rest. Myself, I'm only just starting my day, or night I should say. See that bromeliad behind you? Ideal for two young frogs like yourself to hide in overnight. I'll just be back here awaiting my breakfast."
Callie appraised the suggested plant- a vase-like leafy green hiding place with a small pool of water collected at the base. Perfect. "This will do nicely."
"Perhaps some poetry before you retire, Callie?"
"Of course." Callie turned to Dart and said, "Rana is one of the leaders of the Frog Chorus."
"Oh," said Dart. Before he could ask what that meant, Callie was already singing.
"Night comes to the rain forest
Time for us to sleep
We give the watch over to the Frog Chorus
Help us to dream deep
Sing your song throughout the night
And wake us at the dawn
We'll take over at first light
So the Frog Chorus carries on."
Dart climbed into the cup of the bromeliad. He fell asleep instantly, and dreamed of music and harmonies.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Dedicated to Emily Weber, zimeta08 who made me that lovely Poison Dart banner!
Soundtrack: Frogs' Lullaby, Blue Rodeo. I have to admit I've never heard this song but a google of frog and lullaby tells me it exists!
Director's Commentary: Rana is an Amazonian horned frog, Ceratophrys cornuta. I tried to derive his name from the latin name, like Callie's, but Corny or whatever didn't cut it. So I chose Rana since Rana is a common genus name for frogs- though unrelated to C. cornuta. In real life Rana would be quite happy to eat Callie, though Dart would likely be safe since he's poisonous.
Next Chapter

The best fossils I ever found at the coal mine were some small bivalves, probably clams not too genetically dissimilar to present-day species. Coal of course is made of fossil plant matter, but actual fossil specimens are fairly rare. You do see the odd leaf imprint but that's about it. Not that we really have time to go snooping for fossils. My dad described something he saw to me once and my guess is it was a crinoid. And even though the coal comes from a Cretaceous formation, we have never found anything even close to dinosaurian, like this incredibly well-preserved plesiosaur they found in a different Albertan mine.

Nothing exciting ever happens at work
A wee bit of fun would be a great perk
When my boss sees me starting to get bored
He gives me a five-year safety award
But a better idea of what I deserved:
Finding a fossil, perfectly preserved
Something with plenty of claws and sharp teeth
A T-rex with maybe a club underneath
Something to prove that dinos were smart
that they liked to use tools and even make art
this kind of find would break the routine
of endlessly running the exact same machine

Fanart Friday: Cylons!

My wife has decided, completely of her own accord, to get into Battlestar Galactica. She watched a couple of episodes of Season 3 last week and got intrigued so now we are starting from the beginning all over again! And with Season 4 starting next week (though I will be working and anyways I am not caught up on Season 3) what better time to celebrate those genocidal god-fearing gogobots than now! First the classic Cylon Centurion, rendered by Ripplin. Love the Cyclopean Cylonian eye!

Then we have a beautiful pencil drawing of the new Centurion by Chickenno.

But of course, everyone's favorite Cylon is Number 6, Caprica, Alberta's own Tricia Helfer. Painting by Valerhon.

Make sure you check out JasonPal's gallery for tons of BSG fanart, as well as fanart from nearly every other great fandom around- including more Amidalas than you can shake a gungan at. I like this one of 6 and Gaius Baltar. Why yes he does look exactly like my friend Crogdor.


Did you know they are holding a design-your-own Cylon contest?
And this just in! Breaking news! Grantgoboom shows us what would happen if BSG and SW had a baby. Or more accurately, he shows us Fett and Leia as Cylons which is ten times cooler.

One nice thing about night shift is you can sleep all day long and not feel the slightest bit guilty. But it sucks if you miss Sheryl Crow on Q. Good thing for podcasts right? If it isn't up today it will be tomorrow I think- and you can always browse around and listen to some other Qs- Jian always has really good guests. I bought Detours a couple of months ago and haven't really stopped listening to it since. Actually I think it's the only CD I've bought all year. Well, gotta go work all night.

Did you see this guy's fleshilated version of Homer Simpson?

Poison Dart
Chapter 3

"But first, let's eat," Callie said. "You hungry?"
"I'm always hungry," said Jumper. It was true- ever since he had Landed, as Callie called it, he had been starving. "So what do we eat?"
"Bugs. Some plants. Pretty much anything that will fit into our mouths," Callie answered. "But you have to be careful because we fit into the mouths of lots and lots of other creatures. We can eat all kinds of things-and all kinds of things can eat us. Like in my poem."
"Like your poem. I was almost eaten once when I was Swimmer. And I saw other Swimmers get eaten all the time," said Jumper.
Callie nodded. "Yeah. That's life. But you have a big advantage- you're poisonous. Or at least, you will be when you get a little older. That's why you're bright blue. Poison frogs are always really bright as a warning- birds and things know not to mess with you."
"But what about you? You're really bright too, does that make you poisonous?"
"No. My only defense is speed and camouflage." Callie came to a stop and let Jumper jump down to the ground. "Turn around, I'll show you. No peeking!"
Jumper turned around, tempted despite Callie's instructions to watch what she was doing. But he was able to resist and Callie scampered into the fronds of a nearby fern. When she was ready she flicked her tongue out and swatted Jumper on the shoulder with it. Startled, Jumper spun around, but he saw nothing. Callie had disappeared! Feeling a little scared, he hopped first one way then the other, calling her name.
With a laugh Callie's bright red eyes suddenly appeared right in front of him. She sprang down practically on top of him, shouting "Boo!" and holding her orange hands out in front of her.
"Wow that was amazing!" Jumper said.
"Yup, even with all these bright colors on my underside I can still hide really good. And I can climb trees too. Since I'm a tree frog. And actually you can climb too. See your fingertips- the suction pads on them? They're for climbing. Wanna try?"
Naturally he did. So Callie and the froglet played a game of tree tag, Callie hopping and skipping just ahead of the laughing Jumper. "Now you have to call me Climber!" he shouted.
Callie called a halt to the game when she came across an ant trail. Hundreds of little red ants were marching in an unbroken line up the tree trunk. Each one was carrying a little piece of vegetable matter. "Lunch time," she said. "It doesn't get much easier than this- an ant buffet!" Her tongue flicked out three times, and three ants suddenly disappeared from the line. The rest paid no attention and marched stolidly onwards. "Yum! You try."
Jumper sampled the ants and found them to his liking. Maybe not delicious but for a free meal he couldn't complain. He and Callie leisurely plucked ants from the line, clinging sideways to the tree. "It's like they don't even mind that we're eating them," he said.
"Ants are funny that way- there's so many of them that they never seem to notice when you steal a few hundred. But don't get too comfortable- their warriors will be along shortly to investigate. We don't have to worry about them too much either, but they sting a bit when they bite. And sometimes they can swarm in such huge numbers that they can strip you of flesh in a few minutes. But mostly they leave you alone so long as you don't get greedy and disturb their nest."
Jumper examined the tiny little things and had a hard time imagining them stripping him of his flesh. Then one managed to nip his tongue before making the plunge down his gullet. "Ow!" he yelped. "I think I'm full."
They retired to a higher branch to digest their meal. Clinging contentedly, Callie had a hard time fighting the impulse to nod off. Furthermore, she couldn't think of a good reason why she shouldn't do just that. Her transparent eyelids closed and she dozed. It would have been a good nap if Jumper didn't abruptly break the silence by letting out a tremendous belch.
"Buuuurrrrrrppp!" For a second it was hard to tell who was the more surprised, as Callie awoke with a start and Jumper blinked in amazement that such an odious gas cloud could come from him. Eyes wide he covered his mouth with his fingers in embarrassment, but Callie was laughing.
"You call that a burp? Pitiful. Watch this." She closed her mouth and Jumper was astonished as her entire throat seemed to bulge outwards. Just when he thought it would burst she released the pressure by opening her mouth wide. "Blaaaaaaaaaaaghghghghghgh!"
Before long Callie had taught Jumper the trick of using his throat sac to enhance his gastrological ventings. The Frog Chorus had never sounded so gross. It wasn't long before their giggles and burps attracted the curiosity of other tree-dwellers.
"Shh!" Callie put a finger to her lips. She rotated one brilliant red eye significantly towards the tree trunk. Jumper followed her gaze and saw an enormous brown hairy monster with too many legs and eyes looking right back at them.
Jumper screamed.
"It's okay," Callie whispered. "It's a Bird Eater, a spider. It'll eat us if it gets the chance, but right now it's just sizing us up. It probably knows you wouldn't make good eating but it'll gladly take me if it gets the chance."
Motionless, the three creatures warily regarded each other. A mosquito flying towards them sensed the tension and veered away. Jumper knew that he wasn't yet poisonous, but did the spider know it? Slowly, even though his heart was beating so fast he was shaking, he advanced on the spider.
"Jumper, no!' Callie shouted, but he ignored her. Still slowly, but with more confidence, he crept forward. The spider retreated, rotating its body to keep its huge fangs between it and the frog. But it was plainly confused at such unpreylike behavior. Emboldened, Jumper sped up, then suddenly inflated his throat sac and belched a terrifying warning.
The spider turned and fled, to seek easier and less crazy prey elsewhere.

___________________________________________________________________

This chapter is dedicated to the heroic naturalist Sir David Attenborough, whose newest series Life in Cold Blood will hopefully make its way to DVD on these shores soon!
Soundtrack: Jump Around, House of Pain. Had to have that one one of these times right?
Director's Commentary: The spider is a goliath bird eating spider, a native of South America (as are all species in Poison Dart) and the biggest spider in the world. But plainly no match for a tiny poison dart froglet!
Next Chapter

So I'm a pirate captain now. Or at least, I can pretend I am in my new car, which I have dubbed the Black Pearl. It used to be my brother-in-law's, and he called it Jack but plainly I can not call it that since we plan to name our future son Jack. And this way I can be Captain Jack. I didn't feel very piratey when I drove to Hinton in the crazy unscheduled blizzard. I thought for sure I would snmash her up on the first day. Ole LGJ was pretty good in blizzards since it had winter tires, but the Pearl only has all-seasons which any pirate captain will tell you really means only good for maybe three of the seven seas on which you sail.
Anyways, I kind of felt like I'd sunk a ship full of puppies when I read my sister-in-law's blog where she gives a heartfelt farewell to the car formerly known as Jack.
And don't forget that picture of me as a pirate captain was done for me by the amazing Karen Ellis of Planet Karen, who just celebrated the second anniversary of her webcomic diary. In a world where anyone can make a comic- see BitStrips, she is a truly great artist.
Speaking of great artists, check out this brilliant piece that evolved from a fuzzy photo of traffic lights, by Jake Rueth, aka Cube.

Poison Dart

Chapter 2

Callie the tree frog hung precariously from a leaf. Normally a much better jumper, she had literally landed in this predicament by thinking of a perfect line for her poem-in-progress just as she sprang from her tree branch perch. She swiveled her striking red eyes to see if anyone had seen her. Seeing no one she then thought to survey her surroundings for the best way out of her position. Luck! She was suspended about half a meter directly above a small pond. Flexing her fingerdiscs that kept her attached to the leaf, she dropped and entered the water with a soft glomp.
As she swam to shore she tried to remember the brilliant line that had led to her unscheduled morning swim. What was it? Something about the sweet taste of bug guts. She couldn't quite recall. And it was such a perfect line, too, one worth falling into a chilly pool for. Provided she could actually remember it afterwards. Why did this always happen to her?
"Okay I can do this," she said. "Think. Maybe if I start from the beginning it might come back to me." For the thousandth time she wished she had a big stretchy vocal sac like male frogs. So much better to sing poetry with. But since she didn't have an audience- what else was new? - it didn't really matter. She cleared her throat and began.

"Ode to the Monarch
On wings of orange and black
You migrate to the moon and back
You fly through the jungle so gracefully
I hunt you down so chasefully . . . is chasefully even a word? Well, no matter, it rhymes. Where was I? Oh yeah.
From tree to tree I climb and climb
Patiently I bide my time
Hanging from a branchy rung
You fly by and I shoot my tongue
Your wings taste silky sweet
And butterfly guts - such a treat!"

Yes! She did it! Another masterpiece from the frog genius Callie.
A tiny blue spotted froglet hopped into view in front of her. "That was great!" he said. Callie screamed in terror.
"Don't touch me! I'm warning you! Get away, or I'll use my, my, I have a very dangerous weapon hidden away somewhere and I'll use it on you! And it's close. Very close. Just don't touch me" Callie was backing away, scanning for overhead branches to leap to.
The froglet looked like he was about to cry. "I'm not going to hurt you! Sheesh, what do you think I am?"
"I know what you are- you're a poison dart frog. One touch from you and it's 'Funeral Dirge for Callie the Tree Frog' time. Run along to your mommy now, little froglet."
"But I don't feel poisonous. I'm just a friendly froglet. And, uh, alone. You're the first person I've met. Ever." The little guy looked so sad and lost that Callie's heart went out to him.
"Your mom didn't meet you when you Landed? Weird. You're probably named Jumper, aren't you?"
Jumper started. "How did you know?"
Callie chuckled. "We're all named Jumper when we Land. And Swimmer before that, and Egg before that. Usually your mom gives you a new name right away to distinguish between your siblings. But apparently you don't have a mom, or any siblings."
"Maybe you're my mom," Jumper said hopefully.
"Um, sorry kid. Tree frogs generally only make tree froglets, not poison dart froglets. Besides, I'm not old enough to be a mother yet, I'm barely a full-grown frog myself. Maybe I can help you find your mom, she's probably not far away. Unless . . . " Callie's voice trailed off.
"Unless what?" Jumper prodded.
"Okay, listen kid, usually your mom teaches you cosmology and all that. Tells you what's what and how things work. But one of the first things all froglets need to learn is that life is harsh. Harsh and . . . " "And?"
"Short. Us frogs gotta make the most of our time, because you never know when some tree crab or tarantula is going to eat you. I'm a tree frog so my only defense is speed and using my green skin as camouflage. And making sure my eyes are closed and that my blue and red and yellow belly is hidden away. Not always so easy."
Jumper mulled this over. Callie continued, "I wrote a poem to explain it to my own froglets some day. Wanna hear it?"
"Yeah!"
"Okay it goes like this:
Little froglet have some fun
Learn to hunt and jump and run
Laugh a lot and sing a lot
Remember all the good times you got
Because sooner or later
You'll be ate by a gator"
Callie beamed. That was one of her first poems and she was mighty proud of it. But the froglet's brilliant blue skin looked sort of pale. "I think I liked the first one better," he said. "What's that got to do with my mom?"
"Uh, nothing kid. Poetry doesn't mean anything, it's just silliness. Come on, I'll help you find your mom. You're freshly Landed so you're probably not poisonous yet. Otherwise I guess I won't need to worry about that gator. Jump aboard."
"Woohoo!" Jumper hopped onto Callie's back, just as if she were his mom. "Let's go!"
With a bright blue froglet piggybacking on a green, red, yellow and blue tree frog, Callie imagined she didn't really have either speed or camouflage on her side. Oh well, it will make a great poem some day. Which reminded her. "Say kid, you don't happen to remember the last line of that first poem I recited, do you?"

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Dedicated to that world-renowned kiwi poet, Harvey Molloy!
And you know the soundtrack to this chapter has to be Poets by The Tragically Hip.
Director's Commentary: Callie is a red-eyed tree frog, Agalychnis callidryas, the beautiful tree-nymph. We saw some today at the Calgary Zoo but they were busy sleeping and weren't reciting any poetry at all! When I first wrote this I spelled it poetree just to be funny but I realized frogs only have an oral tradition and have no written language so they wouldn't spell it any way at all.
Next Chapter

Friday Fanart: Maleficent
J. Scott Campbell joined deviantArt this week and posted a bunch of arts but my favorite was his Maleficent, so today is devoted to Her Malicious Majesty.
Following artwork done by, respectively, Mashi, Naomiful, 14-bis, Belldandies, Araniel and rinoatilmitt.

Perdido Street Station was such a good book that I needed a break from China Miéville after reading it. How's that? New Crobuzon in all its putrescent glory was so real and jarring that I almost felt I needed to let its thaumaturgical pollution work its way out of my system before tackling him again. Plus he uses a lot of big words. I had no idea he'd written a children's novel. Lucky I found Un Lun Dun at Greenwood's big sale a few weeks back. What a fantastic book, in all senses of the word. UnLondon is just as strange as New Crobuzon but considerably more whimsical and fun. If New Crobuzon is System of a Down- brilliant, frenetic, political and twisted, then UnLondon is . . . um . . . I'm sure I can complete this analogy just give me a sec . . . Beck. Yeah! Beck. Only it makes slightly more sense.
Another book we bought at Greenwood's that day was Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker. Actually Michelle picked this one out on a recommendation from Laurie Greenwood. From what Laurie said we got the impression it was also a whimsical fun tale, but it's not, really. It's more or less straight horror, but with lots of demonic angst I guess. To be honest I didn't really care for it, though there was nothing really wrong with it. Just not what I expected, I guess. Strangely, CTV has the best website for it.

Remember that bus crash caused by the two moose that should have resulted in many many deaths but instead no one was killed? Well they fired the driver. But not because of the crash but rather because he ran the red light on our haul road. At shift change there's never any traffic and generally we yell at the drivers to pin 'er and get us home. But one of the other crews didn't like him so they reported him, and the bus company (so I'm told, this is very hearsayey) was happy to have the excuse to fire him so he could bear the brunt of the liability for the bus crash. I'm not sure how all that works but anyways. This is after they fired another driver at OUR insistence after he very nearly plowed us straight into the back of a parked haul truck. Another driver was fired, or quit (depending on who's telling the story), because he refused to remove his ball cap while driving. He was actually an old coworker of ours who is best not allowed back on heavy equipment. He liked to discuss his guns and ordnance while driving us to work. And once he sped right past a major bus stop so he could run into the IGA and have a poo. He assured us that this was the right decision given the circumstances and actually we all agreed.
So anyways, that leaves us with our current bus driver. Who was fired three times previously for various things, most notably his repeated attempts to commit suicide in his garage via carbon monoxide poisoning. We try to be extra friendly to him and often remind him of bunnies and babies and other things that make life worth living.

Poison Dart

Chapter 1- (don't forget the Prologue)

Egg felt funny. For a long time- forever, in fact- Egg had been content. Happy. He had been unaware there were any other states of being. But now he had new feelings, experiences, and thoughts. Each one puzzling and alien, a surprise. Egg realized that he would not be happy forever. This thought itself was the opposite of happy. It was also something else, one of the new things- it was exciting.
Egg felt like he was going to burst. And so he did. The little sphere that had been his whole world split open and Egg was free. He discovered another new thing and found it was as natural as taking his first breath had been. He swam. Egg realized,as he swam away into his new world, that he was no longer Egg. He was Swimmer.
Swimmer swam. He liked swimming. He explored his new environment and leaned about his new universe. Before, when he was Egg, he was the universe. He liked it infinitely more being a small part of a much larger universe. He soon discovered other eggs, and realized he had been but one of many.
This concept amazed him, but so did everything else. It amazed him even more when one of the eggs burst open and disgorged a funny little wriggling thing.
Before Swimmer could investigate the little wriggler, a more urgent urge intruded on his consciousness. Hunger. Swimmer decided he didn't like this new feeling and went to do something about it. Just as with swimming, he discovered he already knew what to do. He swam away in search of food.
Swimmer was delighted to discover that eating was as pleasant as being hungry had been unpleasant. He loved to eat. So he ate and he ate and he ate. He already seemed to know what was good to eat and what was not, and before long he had discovered which things he liked best. His favorite was the green sludgy goo that floated at the top of the universe. Swimmer ate as much as that as he could handle.
One day while Swimmer was eating the little squiggly wriggly thing from the egg swam up and started eating as well. Swimmer examined the swimmer. The astonishment he felt when he realized the swimmer was just like him was matched in intensity by the exhilarating rush of discovery. Swimmer approached the other swimmer, but it swam away. That was okay- it obviously hadn't yet made the same brilliant discovery Swimmer had. He went back to eating.
After a while Swimmer sensed the other one coming back. He turned towards it. The other stayed a safe distance away, seeming to study Swimmer. Undoubtedly it was realizing the same thing Swimmer had. Swimmer decided to go closer, but before he could a monstrous swimming thing swallowed Other One whole and swam away. Swimmer blinked. For the second time that day he came to an astonishing realization, only this was not accompanied by exhilaration. Swimmer learned he could be eaten.
Armed with this new knowledge, Swimmer passed his time exploring, eating, and avoiding being eaten. He mostly succeeded, too. One time he was practising his newfound ability to poke his head out of the universe when he saw below him another Other One in trouble. It was eating the green goo, unaware that behind it, an Eater was approaching. Swimmer dove down and knocked the Other One away, but the Eater chomped off his tail. It hurt. luckily Swimmer was still able to swim, since over the past few days strange appendages had grown out of his body. Swimmer found he could use these to swim.
Swimmer felt funny. He looked funny, too, missing his tail and sprouting those limbs all over the place. He found himself constantly thinking about the Place Above the Universe. He would go there as often as he could and poke his head into it and look around. It even seemed as though he needed to go there to breathe now. Weird. After a while, Swimmer decided it would just be better if he went and lived there.
Swimmer had a plan. It was brilliant and innovative. he would swim as fast as he could to the Top of the Universe and keep right on going to the other side. Once there he would continue swimming upwards until he was free. Such a daring plan would require a lot of speed, so Swimmer dove to the bottom of the universe and launched himself upwards. Without a tail he wasn't able to gain as much speed as he would have liked, but his rear set of appendages provided some good thrusting power anyway.
With a mighty plop Swimmer broke the surface. To his surprise he wasn't able to simply keep swimming upwards, since this new universe was a completely alien world with different rules altogether. But he found he could maintain a sort of half and half existence where his head was above and his bottom below. Soon he found he could propel himself quite easily in this state, it was just a different way of swimming.
While he was practicing this new skill a funny looking buzzing thing swam overhead. How it swam there when Swimmer could not was puzzling, but before he could devote any time to this new mystery Swimmer's tongue flicked out and ate the Buzzer before Swimmer even realized what he was doing. It was delicious! He saw another one just beyond tongue-reach and went after it. He still couldn't figure out how it was swimming where he could not but that didn't matter- what did was catching it before it got away. The chase led him to an area of the universe where the Bottom and the Top were not very far apart at all.
With a surge of his hind legs, Swimmer burst clear of his old universe, flicked his tongue out, and was rewarded with another tasty Buzzer. Only after he landed did he realize he had accidentally achieved his goal of leaving his old world behind. He blinked. He looked around. What a strange place! But it felt right,, like he was meant to be here. Swimmer jumped, overcome with excitement. As he did he realized he was Swimmer no longer. He was Jumper.

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This chapter is dedicated to Gotthammer Mike, who wrote his own online novel last year and showed me it could be done. Plus his two little tadpoles, Gunnar and Dacy.
Soundtrack: The Egg and I, by Kanno Youko, from the Cowboy Bebop soundtrack.
Director's Commentary- For the sake of the story I had to let "Egg" be born in a pond like the frog ponds I grew up with. But in actuality poison dart frogs have a waaaay cooler way of raising tadpoles- they hatch them on the forest floor in the leaf-litter, and then the tadpoles climb onto the mom or dad's back and they get transported to small pockets of water in trees to grow under the watchful care of the parents. Cool, hey?
Anyways, what's not so cool is this. At first I thought it was a newly dscovered species of black frog, but instead it is an oilspill. And on leap frog day, too.
Next Chapter

Fanart Friday: Random Star Wars Stuff

Here are some fairly recent SW fan arts that have caught my eye. First, an All Terrain Battle Transport, sort of a Super Walker from Radojavor. Probably transporting some leftover Clone Troopers, like these by MattMoylan.



Steampunk Star Wars has been big lately and here are a steam R2 and Grievous, by amoebabloke and node-of-ranvier respectively.



And a trifecta of character sketches, starting with an Ewok by my good buddy the rebel-penguin. Then a Tusken Raider by rm73. And Greedo by RobbVision.

So I decided to go see the froggies at the Valley Zoo today. In all honesty I was a little disappointed, because I had imagined a whole building, or at the very least, a wing, dedicated to the Anurans, with hundreds, nay thousands of specimens to admire. But it was not so. Just one wall, with about 7 species. Two of which were sleeping invisibly. No poison darts, though they had a few Mantellas, which are a Madagascarian pseudoequivalent. So tiny! But it was very cool of the curator to let me in for free, and I'm glad I went. Hard to get good pics through the layers of glass, but I got a bit of video. Here are some African Clawed frogs, who, through no fault of their own, seem to be the ones responsible for the devastating spread of the chytrid fungus:

I got my hypertext colors back to normal, using a somewhat inelegant solution. At least it worked, and I have no idea why it all went black in the first place. Oh well.
What's with all the bogus autobiographies lately? I guess it's not a new phenomenon (see Mike Warnke; does Milli Vanilli count? They were more in the bogus people category) but you'd hope publishers would upgrade their bullshit detectors. Oh you were adopted by wolves after you escaped from the Nazi death squads? So was my Grandma! Here have a book contract!
Anyways, here is a great blog I discovered today- a ScienceBlog I somehow never encountered before called Bioephemera. Browsing there I followed a link to Garfield minus Garfield, a brilliant idea if ever there was one.