It was time to do up the front yard for Halloween. I dug out last year's stuff, and set it up and it was a little underwhelming. So a quick trip to the store and now it;s a little better:

Some of my deviantArt acquaintances have been doing zombie Star Wars art for Halloween, the full gallery has been posted at Star Wars' Official Flickr page. My favorite is Grant Gould's, who posts more about it at his own blog.
As for us, we are going on a Halloweenish date tonight, to see Marty Chan's The Bone House.

I had a miserable day last week when I went to work sick. I woke up with a mild cough and thought it was just from coal dust. But by 9:00 I was feeling all kinds of rotten. I even thought about going home but I was just running shovel 6 which doesn't require much more than not falling asleep. Plus it was the last day before days off so I toughed it out. Then I wound up staying in Hinton an extra night and sleeping for 13 hours.
Anyways, I was sick for a few days. Now they say that 99.9% of the people who are getting sick right now are getting H1N1. So the odds are I had it. Therefore I don't need to get the vaccine. The tricky part comes in figuring out what to do with the youngling. I strongly believe the seriousness of the Swine Flu is being exaggerated by the media (quite unusual for them, since they certainly didn't get carried away over the Y2K bug or Michael Jackson's death or little boys and their balloons).
I also am a little leery of believing all the things you here about vaccines. I've noticed that the same people talking about autism and adjuvants tend to be the same people that, when you follow their agendas back, are anti-evolution and anti-science. NOT the people I want informing me about decisions I make regarding my daughter's health. On the other hand, the people saying we should all go get the vaccine early and often aren't exactly agenda-free themselves. Just how much money are the pharmaceutical companies making on the vaccine, anyways? You know those guys would never bias data to cover up side-effects.
So. What to do. Maybe my daughter will get H1N1 and need to be hopsitalized. But maybe she's already fought it off and won, assuming she was exposed to it through me. Maybe if we get the vaccine her immune system will react and she will have to be hospitalized. All these maybes. Might as well roll the dice.
Here's something that's not a maybe or a myth, though- the vaccine contains thimerosol which is a mercury compound. This is used as a preservative to prevent micro-organisms from growing in the vaccine (presumably it works because it is poisonous to microbes). Thimerosol has been discontinued in the US in children's vaccines except in multi-dose flu vaccines such as the H1N1 and the seasonal flu shot. Do I really want to give my 9-month-old daughter a shot of mercury, regardless of how little there might be per dose? It's free!
Ummm . . .

Seven years of Pooing in the Woods!

In the history of cinema, can you believe that there have only ever been two films titled The Crab? The first came out in 1917 and not much is really known about it, at least on IMDB. The other is in post-production and will hopefully come out soon to an arthouse near you. And doubly hopefully to an arthouse near me because my good friend Jonathan Wilde is in it. I can use his whole name because the official Crab movie website does. Jon plays the nice guy, so it will be cool to see him have to actually do some acting!
Congratulations Jon! I hope the movie comes out soon but on the other hand, I hope it takes a while so that a movie theater can be built in Hinton so they can show it in time!

Obviously I loved Slipknot but I was a little worried about how Michelle would react. She's absorbed a lot of knot by osmosis over the course of our marriage but still. Anyways she had a great time. It was cool to kind of watch it through her eyes. Corey Taylor was mesmerizing and full of love for his Edmonton family and Michelle was bouncing it back. (M: he's a class act. And who knew motherf**kers could be such an affectionate term?) Highlight- probably People = Shit for me. Orchestrated chaos. And seeing Chris Fehn and Sid Wilson and the Clown wandering around engaging in mayhem. For Michelle maybe it was when we all went down to our knees and jumped up on Corey's signal? Also the fact that she recognized Before I Forget.
Today I took Pallas for a walk, we went down to the little pond where the Canada geese have been massing. Michelle told me Pallas is mesmerized by them. Sure enough when we got there she was totally wide-eyed and amazed. Other than Hi! and dadadad (and sometimes HiDad) she doesn't really have any words yet so her wonder was expressed in a series of grunty gasps. "Ah!" and "Ooh!" and "Aaaaaaahhhh!" It was amazing to see it through her eyes. And yet geese-on-a-pond is a fairly low entry on the list of Awesome Things in the World. Just wait till I show her all the rest of them!

All the snow has kind of sucked some of the lifeblood out of the Halloween season, but that only gives it the chance to rise from the dead and be a vampire! So really, twice the hallogoodness.
Speaknig of which, MIchelle asked me how my day went and I said it was alright, but I was stuck running shovel 6 all day, the beast that refuses to die. Every time you think it's dead it comes back to life. Then I realized it was the zombie shovel! It even lurches when it walks. Only it eats rocks instead of brains. So that makes it better. A bit. Sort of.
Anyways, check out the Dedmonton site!

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving. What I'm really thankful for is my family.

Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful that two of my favorite things are together at last: Wes Anderson and Roald Dahl. Fantastic Mr. Fox!

Stay away from my M&Ms!
Also, you'd think you wouldn't have to be told, but stay out of the tiger enclosure!

Well I am off to work nights again, and I often have to remind myself why I do it. remember that Simpsons episode where Homer explains why there aren't any pictures of Maggie anywhere? "Don't forget you're here forever!"

By now you (if you care) have heard of Star Wars Uncut, a fan project to remake Star Wars scene for scene. Not quite done yet but the trailer is up.
Clone Wars Season 2 started up this weekend, but I am still a little behind on season 1 and so I won't be watching just yet. But Bossk is set to make an appearance this season which makes me all giddy.
And today we went to Chapters to take advantage of Teacher Appreciation Day and got a bunch of books. Too bad the Star Wars Legacy graphic album was one I already have!

Hopefully the new movie Whip It will usher in a new era of Roller Derby Enlightenment, paving the way for world peace. Or at the very least get a few more people out to Edmonton's own roller derby crew, E-Ville. You can even join if you want, they're recruiting! They were at WEM today doing some scrimmages and stuff, and since our good friend BB Sting is an E-Ville stalwart we had to go and check it out. Pallas was sporting her E-Ville onesie. And making her growling cheer noises.

Alright well here are a few lessons I've learned from coal mining, hopefully you will find this completely unedifying and inapplicable to your own lives. These are some things I learned the hard way:

-don't hide your hardhat in a contractor's truck so you can sneak home early for Christmas, otherwise you leave yourself open to being framed for stealing gas
-potheads are really big and heavy, so it's a good idea not to get snmashed in the face with one
-they also carry 7200 volts, so try not to disconnectode them till you get the "safe to work on the line" call
-even when they are disconnectoded, they can still carry a discharge so be careful about sticking your fingers in them. 7200 volts of static shock can clench all your muscles and render them sore for a few hours.
-no matter how many times they say they fixed shovel 6, they didn't fix shovel 6. Shovel 6 can not be fixed.
-you wouldn't think bananas can explode, but they can, and they make an awful mess of the rest of your lunch

When I got back from New Zealand and started up again at the mine after a 2 1/2 year layoff, I found an old counter in one of the trucks and took it home to count the number of four-shift rotations I did. This past week was the 200th. Pretty crazy. 800 (give or take, since sometimes I work less than the four shifts and very very occasionally I work more) 12 hour shifts and who knows how many loads of rock hauled or dug. I feel like I should write a list of Things I Learned From Coal Mining but like when Hobbes asked Calvin what he learned from the killer snowgoon fiasco, I prefer to learn lessons that have as little application to real life as possible. "Snow goons are bad news!"

We went for a picnic in the park today and I brought along the new camera. Pretty happy with the camera, not so much with my photography skills. Oh well, the first 1000 shots are the worst they say, usually meaning your first thousand ever but I take it to mean with any new camera, especially for me using a dSLR for the first time. And anyways all the shots of Pallas just turn out great cause she's the cuteling!

Happy Expatriation Day!
Five years ago today gabrielle and I left on an excursion that would take us to Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand. Although I came home after two and a half months or so, gabrielle never did. She's still there and that deserves a hearty congratulations! Crazy. What a great trip that was. Remember these? We were pretty much the third (4th? 8th? 999th?) unit for the LOTR trilogy back then. Sadly all our scenes were deleted, even the one where Elrond wins the Stanley Cup in beach hockey.




And I was going through the archives from this very blog- they start here, go here and here and then here.

So my whole family chipped in and got me this sweet new camera for my birthday. A DSLR! How sweet is that? Thanks to everyone who contributed!
Here's a picture I took with it:


Here's some pics of Edmonton's main square I took from my Mom's 23rd floor office today- with my old camera and through a slightly dirty window.

Slipknot is coming to town, and Michelle and I are going! Sweet! It's only a couple of weeks before Halloween too, so that will be cool. Maybe we should go wearing masks too- I bet I could find a really cute polar bear mask!
Also, just now we registered for San Diego Comic Con 2010! We talked about going this past summer but by the time we looked it was long since sold out so we decided to go next year come hell or H1N1.

It's like a puzzle! Except I had to cheat a little.

So even though I had to work today it wasn't a bad birthday. First dayshifts are always busy and I was doing all sorts of stuff but nothing really hard. Took a staff pickup down to the other end to retire it and get a new one. Ran shovel 10 for an hour. Then Robin called me down because we had to take two wrecked haultrucks down to the other end to get fixed. "Since it's your birthday you can choose which truck you want to bring down- do you want 18 or 37?"
"18."
"But you haven't heard what's wrong with 37 yet. Turns out you have to drive it super slow so that you won't hit any bumps and knock the back tires off."
"Oh! Is it too late to change my mind? Because I still choose 18."
Anyways after that we had time to find a few adventures, the details of which it would be wiser for me not to write down on the internet. Although with all the cameras we have all over the site . . . well, we can always say "You never told us we couldn't _____ ____ ______."

Anyways, my little daughter is in Calgary for the weekend so I will just have to make do with this:

As my 35th birthday rapidly approaches I am thinking about mortality. I mean, I'm halfway to 70 right? And only five years away from 40. I don't feel old. This morning I was sitting on the couch reading a Star Wars comic book, so really nothing has changed in 30 years. And yet. The grey hairs. The sore muscles alla time. The constant tiredness. I guess ole Father Time hasn't forgotten me after all. Well, what can you do?
Plan your epitaph, that's what.
I remember in junior high or sometime, maybe grade 8, we did a little unit on graveyards and epitaphs. You know, the funny ones like "Here lies Les Moore- no Les, no more." So our assignment was to think of what we wanted on our headstone. I still remember mine and am kind of tempted to use it- "I might be dead but the joke's on you- someday soon you're gonna die too!" Sepultura says something similar but with much more death metally-coolness:
Who are you to criticize, to judge and burn the tribes? Your world will go extinct, and your flesh will rot with mine!
That would be the coolest tombstone ever. Though now I wonder if that's the right message to leave my daughter, grand-daughter, widow and all those great-grand-children I'm sure to have someday. Maybe Royal Tenenbaum had the right idea:

We went downtown today to check out the Library's book sale. We didn't buy any books, because really, do we need more books? But since we were there we decided we would also go to City Hall and spend some time in the wading pool. Yay fun! And do you like the housecoat I bought Pallas? Completely frivolous and useless, but it was on sale and just so darn cute!

Speaking of books, like I mentioned I am rereading A Game of Thrones, the first part of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. (Robin asked me what I was reading, and I said, "Um, the book I brought to lend you. You can't have it now." "Son of a bitch," he replied.) The first time around you don't really realize how almost all of the characters he introduces will reappear later, likely with brothers, cousins and bastards in tow. So it's good to go back and put it all together. And also I like piking up on details I missed. Is Jon Snow's mother related to the Targaryens? I can't even remember if he answers that later on. And the Doom of Valyria was only 300 years ago, so what was that about anyways? Dragons? What's up with the Others anyways? And and . . .

I know we are very far behind in movies, but slowly we are catching up. We went and saw Harry Potter the other day. I was pleased with it but I haven't read Half Blood Prince in four years, whereas Michelle reread the whole series this summer and didn't like some of the changes. One of these days I will reread them all too. Just no time. Says the guy who started rereading the 800-page A Game of Thrones today. Not my fault! I brought it to work to lend to my friend who requested some good fantasy and then I was stuck in shovel 10 all day with nothing to do in between trucks. Anyways.
Other movies we have seen lately, courtesy of the library's DVD collection:
Kung Fu Panda- surprisingly good. I had zero expectations though and those are not hard to surpass.
Darjeeling Limited- I know, how can I admit I don't own it? But Michelle does not share my love for Wes Anderson. My favorite scene- when the brothers are walking along being their normal screw up selves and then they see the raft in the river and Peter (Adrian Brody) yells "Go!" and they do. Though I've never saved, or failed to save, someone from drowning I kind of know what that feels like.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off- stands up surprisingly well. The caricature characters were silly and dumb even to my 20-years younger self.
The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford- I thought Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck and Fort Edmonton Park all turned in great performances!
From my own DVD collection I rewatched The Royal Tenenbaums (an annual event) and that scene where Chaz tells Royal he's had a rough year gets me every time. And I finally finished Avatar! The real Avatar, not the James Cameron thing. Or the M NIght Shyamalan thing which I am frightened of, but also hopeful for. I had just the last episode to watch for eons and ages and I finally got around to it. Good ending- unlike all the deviantArt fangirls I was never a Zutara fan.

Occasionally I like to share an amusing anecdote or two about work, but this week was just quiet and uneventful. Well, I was running water truck for three nights and that always involves getting soaked in various undignified ways that YOU might find amusing. Me, not so much. You know it's time to buy new rubber boots when you have to wear plastic bags for liners and you STILL get wet feet.
Anyways, the mood was a little subdued since over the shutdown another coworker passed away, the fourth this year.

Happy fun time is over and now I gotta go back to work. Night shift, no less. On the plus side, I get four more days off starting Saturday. And then I gotta work four. And then I get four off. And then I gotta work four. And then I get four off. And then I gotta work four. And then I get four off. And so on and so forth.

For 12 years now, Neal Stephenson has been my favorite writer. But for some reason I don't think I've ever looked forward to reading one of his books. I first read The Diamond Age as a class requirement in university. I still remember being skeptical about the cover and blurb, but then everything about it completely drew me in- the nanotech, the Chinese setting, the neo-Victorians and even the way it was written with the Victorian chapter headings ("Bud is prosecuted; noteworthy features of the Confucian judicial system; he receives an invitation to take a long walk on a short pier"). I loved it and read it several times. Then a room-mate had Snow Crash and I read it, even though it didn't sound anywhere near as good as The Diamond Age. But of course it kicked ass, right from the first scene with the Deliverator.
Then Crytponomicon came out and I was a little worried that the emphasis on code-breaking would be a little uninteresting to me. And no science fictional elements at all! Even then-roomie gabrielle was convinced I should just give up on it after watching me work on it for a month. But it was great. Imagine my dismay when I found out his next project was going to be a gigantic three volume historical epic entitled The Baroque Cycle! But but . . . I want more nanotech!
So I bought the books, all three of them as they came out. And they sat there on my shelf for several years staring balefully down at me with their weighty historical fictionness. I read one of his earlier works instead- Zodiac. I was sure that book wasn't going to be very good but of course it was great. It even features a two umlaut fictional 80s hair metal band! So I finally decided to tackle The Baroque Cycle, if only to clear them off my pile of books I needed to read. And was there ever a more genius and hilarious and interesting book about calculus and economics ever written? The answer is no, my friends. No.
So you would think I'd have learned my lesson when Anathem came out. I sort of did- I asked for and received the book for Christmas last year. But the premise didn't totally excite me- I vaguely knew it was about monks who did math instead of theology and weren't allowed to have cellphones. On some other planet or something? It's a huge book so I wanted to leave it till I had some time- for example, this 28 day vacation I am currently on.
Well, you see where this is going. I read it this past week, and loved it times a million. It's a shame it didn't win the Hugo, even Neil Gaiman who won it thought so, but oh well.
I can't wait till his next book comes out! I might even read it without complaining.

Here's my pet trilobite:



What should I name it? It's a member of the species Elrathia kingii, one of the more common trilobites in North America. Basically they're ancient water bugs. One of the coolest things about trilobites, as far as I'm concerned, is they had eyes made out of little prisms of calcite. Some species had one little calcite lens, some had thousands. I can't really tell how many my little guy had.
Speaking of cool eyes, though, my favorite all-time eyeball has to go to this guy, Dunkleosteus:



Armoured eyeballs! How cool is that?? Well, she pretty much had armour everywhere. Even her teeth were just big sharp shards of bone sticking out of her jaws.

Our trip to Drumheller was good fun! Many dinosaurs. Some friends from way down south were able to meet us and they have two girls aged 4 and 6 who were totally into the museum. Last time we went we bought them some little stuffed dinos that they still love and so they bought one for Pallas. So cute! Pallas is still a bit too young but good to get them started early right? She makes noises like dinosaurs anyways. Dinosaurs who do kung fu. "Aiyaaaaa rarrhhhh!"



Oh yeah and I finally found a good trilobite fossil. Well, more like I purchased it in one of the rock shops.

Yesterday we headed out to Heritage Days to check out the dancing and the food. It was fun. The trick is to let Michelle stand in the lines while I look after Pallas in the shade.



A nice young boy gave Pallas a Canada flag on the bus. She waved it around some to show that she is a proud Canadian and then she chomped on it.



But the crowds tuckered her out. Not shown is her mom and dad taking a little snooze too.



Tomorrow we are going to Drumheller to check out the dinosaurs. Pallas might learn some chomping tricks and tips from the T-Rexes and utahraptors!

Scotty Shoemaker is this fantastic artist who recently caught my eye with this killer painting of Wolverine demolishing a Sentinel. Then he started doing this thing called the Randomness Sketch Card Commission Project. For $4, yep, four dollas, you give him a name of some random character you just make up and he draws it. And then sends it to you! Postage may be a bit extra. Here's the one he did for me, Brother Saturn the Space Monk:

So the old Roxy Theatre in Hinton burned down. Or I should say, sustained heavy damages due to fire- I don't know if it's salvageable or not. I kind of hope so, and kind of hope not. At 50 years old or so, it represents one of the most historic buildings in Hinton. On the other hand, a little two or four screen multiplex would be nice there. Preferably in that little area of the Valley- in recent years it has slummified to an alarming degree. On weekend nights the RCMP pretty much just park there by the bar to try and keep a lid on the chaos.
I saw so many movies at that old theatre- Star Wars! Return of the Jedi! (Empire I saw for the first time at the Paramount here in Edmonton- my parents took me without saying what movie we were going to see, and since I was only 5 I had no idea there was another Star Wars film! I think my mind is still recovering from the mind-blowing explosion of holycow!). Tron. The Dark Crystal. Batman! Oh yeah, Batman with Jon, how could I ever forget that? Jon likes to remind me of the time I went and saw Karate Kid rather than make mythical creatures puppets for our class presentation the next day. His were amazing creations with three-dimensional wings and bodies while mine were not as impressive. Apparently Mr. Miyagi's lessons on discipline were lost on me.

Anyways. Have you seen the handmade Star Wars Mighty Muggs LucasArts commissioned for charity? Amazing works of art in the same vein as Jon's Pegasus puppets. The Empire Muggs Back auction starts today- lots of deviantArtists I follow are involved. Pretty cool. Grant Gould is one, and he also celebrates the launch of his Wolves of Odin webcomic today- a sequel to his graphic novel that you all should get. I did!

In the last week we've watched more movies than in the first 6 months of Pallas' life. Since we only watched two movies in that time I guess it wasn't that hard to surpass.
Watchmen: I really liked it. Never read the graphic novel so I dunno how it compares. Michelle and I drove home from our friends' place doing our best Rorschach imitation. "Rorschach's Journal, October 12th 1985." Cough cough.
Slumdog Millionaire: I really liked it a lot. My brother-in-law told me what the last question was and I still got it wrong. At least the slumdog didn't.
Gran Torino: I really really liked it a lot. Clint Eastwood at nearly 80 is still way more badass than you or me.
Coraline: I loved this movie. Just beautiful and scary and creepy and funny. Pure Neil Gaiman, even though they changed the book somewhat. Not that much, really. Coraline was the first book I ever read aloud to Michelle, so we really wanted them to get this one right. Our expectations were a little low since there has been a long string of book-to-movie adaptations of books we love that have been terrible. Actually, not terrible, just boring. And really, isn't that worse? Golden Compass- boring. Spiderwick Chronicles- boring. A Series of Unfortunate Events was pretty bad, come to think of it, though the soundtrack is one of the best ever. Don't even get me started on most of the CG movies the past few years (Pixar excepted though I didn't like Cars at all). Most of them we shut off halfway through they were so unwatchable.
So why did Coraline succeed? And why did it fail at the box office? Coraline only made $75 million domestically, and another 40 internationally. So it recouped just a little under double its cost. Not too bad I guess. But Madagascar, a movie that was (to me) so terrible I couldn't even sit through it made a half billion dollars worldwide, not to mention its sequels and DVD sales. Sales ain't everything, of course, but they determine what kind of movies keep getting made. Banal and insanely profitable wins over whimsical and mildly profitable in the eyes of most Hollywood executives.
Thank god for Pixar and Tim Burton, who is doing his part as always- 9 is coming out in a couple of months and then Alice in Wonderland. Who knows, maybe he'll make a movie of The Graveyard Book.

Today is Star Wars day at SDCC. Obviously I am not there but I have been following along at home. I knew it was time to turn the page when I heard R2-D2 beep like this. Star Wars Blog, Clubjade and Rebelscum have all been great sources of info. Flickr too for that matter, just search SDCC.
This is what I want to know more about- is it a coffeetable book of concept art?

So I'm on a huge holiday right now! Sweet! In an alternate timeline the three of us would be in San Diego right now for the Comic Con but in this timeline we couldn't get tickets. So we took a little daytrip to Jasper instead. Try doing that while wearing a wookie costume!

Go see the Lion King because it's fantastic! Even if you live in Calgary this mission can be accomplished since they are headed that way soon. And I think you know who I'm talking to!
The only thing that sucked about it- Pallas is too young to go.

This one time I was hitch-hiking home from BC. Somewhere on the Yellowhead. Anyways this guy picks me up and we're driving. Right away he shows me a picture of his daughter that he's going to visit and we talk about her for a while. After a while he asks me where I'm headed.
"To Edmonton."
"You're going the wrong way!"
For a second, just a split second my heart kind of skipped but of course I wasn't going the wrong way. "No man, this is the way to Edmonton."
"No, because I'm headed to Williams Lake and that's this way."
We argued about this for a few minutes and finally I pull out a map and show him. "Look, here's where you picked me up, this is the highway we're on, here's Edmonton, and Williams Lake is the other way. See?"
"Ah shit! I'm going the wrong way! I gotta let you off, sorry man."
He pulls over, lets me out, does a u-turn and screeches away.
It was lucky for him that I came along, so that he wasted minimal gas and time going the wrong way. Not so lucky for me as I was now stuck in the middle of nowhere and spent the next 8 hours waiting for my next ride. Which only got me a few clicks down the road where there were already other hitch-hikers going nowhere. I wound up tenting in the bush that night, and was woken up by the silhouette of one of the other hitchers breaking a branch off a tree just outside the tent. That was kind of freaky.
Anyways.
I remembered this story because yesterday I picked up this kid whose car had broken down, just outside of Edson. He was headed for Saskatchewan. But he had started in Edmonton. So he drove 2 hours the wrong way.

So we have a tornado watch going on right now. Nothing too serious, it's hardly even windy and it definitely isn't very hot, so anything that does develop is likely to be very mild. Still, here are some photos of the ominous looking clouds we were looking at a few hours ago.

This month's National Geographic has an article on Tongariro National Park in New Zealand. If your Mother-in-law doesn't supply you with a subscription (membership in NG parlance) like mine does you can check it out here. Just a short text and then the photos are pretty great. Almost as great as mine!