Pallas informed us at supper tonight- "Don't eat ants. Don't eat bugs. Don't eat puppies."
That's right sweetheart.
"Don't eat poo!"

Anyways, PIxies were amazing. What a show. Started with the B Sides, then played all of Doolittle, then played some encores to hit all the classics, Where Is My Mind of course, Gigantic, etc. Nothing from Bossanova though. Sokay. I think some other stuff happened last night too.
Other stuff that happened today was I went and worked on my bike with my dad. We been banging away at it, still not quite ready. Today we got the mounts for the gastank in place and nailed down with nails. Welds I should say. See?

So the Pixies are back in town tomorrow, and I'm going to see them. They're playing Doolittle in its entirety. I know I'm pretty much the only Pixies fan in the world to say this, but Bossanova was the first album of theirs I got and it remains my favourite. Are you looking for the mother lode? No! No my child, this is not my desire. So I hope they play more than just Doolittle. Pretty short set if not. Oh well. System of a Down is coming nextweek, and I didn't get tickets to that, though I did try to win tix form the Journal. And then Sepultura, minus Max, is playing the Starlite and that's sort of tempting, though not quite the same as if it was the actual real classic lineup.
Read some Ultimate Fantastic Four at work this week, I really liked it. Jonny once sent me Ultimates Volume 1 and it was also good, though I had no idea their was a whole line of Ultimate comics. Basically the Ultimate Universe is, um, the classic marvel characters all retold for a modern day? Not made more real, and not intended to be a relaunch or a replacement, but just an alternate version . . . obviously I don't really understand it very well. Regardless, I like it!
Watched the Ed Norton Hulk movie today while I kicked ass on my treadmill (yeah I ran 10 kms in 51:08, including ten minutes at 8 mph and a minute at 10- when Hulk was kicking it up a notch to catch Emil Blonsky I was like, I can do that too) and it's better than I remembered. Too bad Ed got mad at everyone involved and pulled out of any sequels or the Avengers movie. Or has that changed? Maybe he was still in character when all that happened. Well, I'm available. Just paint me green and I'm good to go, not sure who you'll get to play Puny Banner though.

There's finally not as much snow as in that picture! Happy easter. We spent the day over at my folks' house, I worked on my bike a bit with my Dad. It's coming along, but it's surprising how many hours simple little things can eat up. Oh well it will be worth it. Pallas got lots of treats from the Easter Bunny. The easter egg hunt was fun. Yeahp.

MIchelle got me this best shirt ever! We actually bought an Indigo Tribe shirt at Comic Con without really knowing what it is.But I do now! Nek lok! And a Green Lantern onesy for Naia which we totally have to put on her. Too bad Pallas doesn't have one, she definitely has the no fear thing down.

Check out this great photo of some Corpse Bride cosplayers, three altogether.
And these pictures were on a friend's iPhone and I meant to get him to forward them to me but they were easy enough to find. Seriously amazing bodypaint hand art. Just go see them they're hard to describe.

Bad movies with great soundtracks:
Queen of the Damned
A Series of Unfortunate Events (books good movie bad)
Underworld
Last Action Hero

others?

Yup the new iMac is pretty sweet.
Here is a poem based on some of the words from our Scrabble game Michelle and I played earlier this evening. It was the first time I ever got a . . . I forget what Michelle called it. Scrabblocity? I used all my tiles and got a thousand bonus points. Anyways.

He avoided clay his whole life
with urgent thrift
stuck in a blue cage
hiding from the Roman raptor
he said, no more!
and became the golem

Only the first four lines were from the Scrabble game, but I had to end it with some semblance of sense.
There's gotta be an easier way to erase songs from an iPod, no? I don't want every song I own on the computer going over there, but I don't want to go through 2200 songs individually deciding which one makes the cut either. I figured out that other issue easily enough, just change the permissions on the folder in the info window.
Hey I finished Blackest Night! Sweet! The Green Lantern parts were sweet, anyways. Some of the more peripheral DC comics were not so much up my alley. I can happily go without reading another Superboy comic for my whole life I think. Did you see the extendo Green Lantern footage from Wondercon? I liked it. We are the Corps!

First a moment of silence for a dear old friend:



It didn't die, I just hired a replacement. Yup, I went and bought a brand new iMac today. It's so big I can't even look at the whole screen at once! At least not this close. It's so big it doesn't really fit on the computer deskvery well. I used the Migration Assistant uitilty to move the contents of my old hard drive to this one, it worked great for my iTunes library (goddamn but I love Rihanna's version of Love the Way You Lie right now. And Buck 65 of course!) but every other folder won't allow me in, saying Not Allowed! It's an easy enough fix with a memory card I suppose but there's gotta be an easier way. i'm open to suggestions.
I swear I bought a Magic Trackpad with it but it's not here, and it's not in my receipt either so I guess for now the Magic Mouse with no buttons will have to do. I think I prefer the old keyboard, too. I liked how it had a pair of USB ports on it. I might go back to it, we'll see.
Anyways. You shoulda seen Pallas tonight- we taught her how to play hide and seek. First I just took a blanket and hid under it, and she would find me and I would tickle her and she would say "more iding daddy" and then we moved to the actual rules of the game. It was hilarious, she fell for all my decoys and traps. And Mommy was the best hider of all. Pallas' hiding skills still need improvement, when it was her turn she laid down on the carpet in front of us and covered her eyes. Seriously, it was so much fun you can't even imagine.

If you like love you'll love this most likely:

Buck 65 | Part 1 (Gee Whiz) | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

And part 2! Jenn Grant and Buck 65 in Paris.

A weird thing about my RSS reader that's built into my Blogger log-in page is it shows posts that are either queued or just drafts or whatever. So I a mstealing this, I won't name the source in case the reason it was deleted is he felt kind of embarrassed. But I'm not- ElfQuest kicks ass! Here is a fan-made teaser trailer of what a live-action ElfQuest movie could look like. Though I wish Leetah was in it. And Picknose!

Check out this Calvin and Hobbes animation- well, more of a type art font work? I dunno what you would call it but it's cool.

I usually run10 kms twice a week, and today woulda been the day to do it but my feet been really hurting lately (ever since my chiropractor decided they should be adjusted they haven't been doing too good). I even bought new running shoes since you need to do that way more often than you like to do that. Didn't really help. So today I went to the rec center and rode 10 kms on an exercise bike. Took half the time, used a quarter of the calories, and now, well, I can't sit down. I had a point beyond just whining for telling you that. Hmm. It does make you wonder though, I love being in shape and kicking ass but you're always sore or hurt from doing it. Still worth it.
Inheard about this book called BattlenHymn of the zither Mother. Aka Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. (ipad helping me out on my spelling there.) Caused an uproar in the Op-Ed pages and probably the Internet too, though not really the parts I hang out in. Pretty fascinating, I read it in just over a day, going so far as tot ake a break from my comic books. Well, I had all sorts of stuff to say, but my iPad is making it nearly impossible totypw a sentence coherently and, well, I canlt sit at my computer desk today. Exercise bike. But I hope to return to the topic soon! After night shift.

A few years ago I walked into a comic shop and asked what was good. The guy handed me the first TPB of Invincible, saying it was easily the best superhero comic being made at the moment. So I bought it, read it, and though it was good I wasn't blown away by it. I decided to give it another chance since my library has 3 huge Ultimate Collections of it. Now I see what the guy was talking about. Turns out I just need to hold out one or two more issues for things to really pick up.
What else. I also read a collection of Alan Moore's DC stories, pretty cool, especially for mid-80s. What was really cool was this one story about Abin Sur, Hal Jordan's predecessor as Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814. In it, Abin goes to the planet Ysmault where the Empire of Tears is banished. He meets Qull of the Five Inversions, crucified with a Green Lantern pin. Qull tells him a prophecy in which "the weaponers of Qward, Ranx the Sentient City, and the unspeakable Children of the White Lobe" rise up against the Green Lantern Corps. Sodam Yat will perish and the planet-form Green Lantern Mogo will be the last to fall when Ranx explodes a blink bomb within his core. Pretty much the outline of the Sinestro Corps War arc that Geoff Johns wrote more than 20 years later. I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaking of which, I'm trying to read the Blackest Night arc but getting it all in order from the library is tricky, though I do own the Green Lantern Blackest Night hardcover. I'm not even sure what order they all go in. On the plus side, that's the worst of my troubles.
Also I read Aliens Omnibus Volume 1. It was kind of . . . hit and miss. Oh well. I put in my Aliens DVD to watch while I run on my treadmill but my iMac's DVD player has been quitting for no reason lately. Plus I need a new mouse. Plus my iTunes is in need of an upgrade so I can upgrade my iPod touch and run my iPad off it. BUt in order to do that I have to upgrade my OS X which costs $130. PLus I need more RAM. And an external hard drive would be nice. So really, rather than spend $100 here and $200 there, might as well just wait a bit and buy a new iMac. Right? Right! If only all my troubles were so easily solved. Like, which friggin Blackest Night edition needs to be read first? It doesn't say! So stressful.

I know it's early in the year but I think Buck 65's new album, 20 Odd Years is the year's best. Zombie Delight (the video for which may or may not appear up above- update, nah it doesn't work so instead here is Paper Airplane) is a fun song but actually the rest of the album is more serious. Well mostly. A Leonard Cohen cover with Jenn Grant kind of vibe.
Also I really like Mother Mother's new one. Kind of a terrible name to have in the Age of Google since their homepage only shows up on page 200,000 or so. Oh here it is.

By sticking to the basics I was actually able to make a decent supper for my family for once in my life. Bacon and egg sandwiches on fresh buns from Cobbs bakery. Pretty good. Only one fire alarm but it wasn't even really my fault, the buns were too thick for the toaster and they were burning on the heating elements. This is the fourth week of a brave new era where I make supper once during a set of days off.
The first time I looked in a recipe book and found one that sounded good, some sort of shrimps-on-a-bun with a sauce and everything. So I made it just like the recipe said, but the shrimps were all cold and clammy and nobody liked it very much at all.
The second week I started flipping through recipe book at 4:30 that afternoon, only to discover that all of the good ones required prep work the night before! Who knew? So Michelle gave me a free pass to go get something from Dairy Queen. Pallas somehow knew what I was going to do because she ran and got her shoes and said "Daddy, Pallas go McDonnos!"
Last week was also quite delicious. It was a sort of ginger beef stirfry. So yummy! It also required some thawing and prep work the night before. I was in Hinton working overtime so I asked Michelle to do that part. You know, get the meat out of the freezer for me please honey. Yeah but you also have to make the marinade sauce the night before. Oh . . . would you mind doing that too? So all I really had to do was boil some rice and dump all the stuff in a frying pan.
That gives me a great idea for a recipe book, all the recipes would go something like this:
Step 1- get your partner to do all the work the night before.
Step 2- take all the credit!

My buddy Jon sent me a link for a fanfilm of Batman vs all the usual suspects, pretty fun.
Which reminded me of this fan-made Superman cartoon:



And then I recently watched the Planet Hulk animated movie on DVD. Did I ever tell you how much I truly loved the Planet Hulk saga in comic book form? The movie necessarily simplifies it a lot, but is still faithful and as a bonus, ends on a happy note so if you like you can just leave it at that or read the comic that continues on to the inevitable tragic ending.

So I been working a bit of overtime lately. Sundays are doubley good because you get doubley pay. Your always a little apprehensive about going for OT. For one thing you'd way rather have the day off. Especially when it's Spring Forward night and you have to get up at what feels like 4AM. Then there's a whole nother crew that you don't really know, that's kind of weird. I just pretend it's a based-on-real-life movie where none of the actors quite look like the people they're playing. And you generally get put on the oldest, decrepitest piece of equipment out there.
But yesterday was pretty much the best shift ever. Yeah, I was on 17 truck, which isn't quite as old as me but it's older by a few years than, hmmm, the fall of the Soviet Union. But I didn't haul a single load before first coffee, through no fault of my own. Shovel 8 was down. Actu8ally I did haul 1 load off of shovel 9 but I got stuck and had to dump it right there and was sent out of that pit. Goal disallowed! After coffee 8 came back up but 10 went down so all the trucks were diverted to 8. I got 4 loads from then until second coffee. Four goals in the second period of a hockey game is not so bad but in mining, not so good. After coffee I got stuck again and so I hauled only two more loads, off of 22 loader which was also having issues. And that was my day thanks for the big bag o' cash!
I got to read quite a few comic books this week, not only yesterday but also when i was on 22 loader on my own crew. You just load three trucks and send them on their way and then sit there for an hour and a half. Got caught up on some old Walter Simonson Thor, that was good stuff. Essex County was really cool, you might remember Sara Quin championed it for Canada Reads. What else. Some Hulk. I love Hulk so much. Usagi Yojimbo.

A new set of Star Wars steampunk mashups is making the rounds. Cool, eh? The artist is Bjorn Hurri. I think he owes a bit to Sillof, though, don't you?


Steam Wars Boba Fett by ~sillof on deviantART

I know this cosplayer as definitely influenced by his designs:

Alla time putting out fires. This one was just a little one, but it was definitely on fire. My friend Tim was taking an ancient 100-ton watertruck down to the shop to get it fitted with a Wenco GPS tattletale system. Why an old sumpsucker like that needs a GPS system is beyond any logic mortal man can fathom but whatever. I was in my Kress zooming down a hill towards him and I saw sparks. So I called him on the radio to say there's sparks, there might be fire but it might be just his gridbox or something(yeah Tim you got sparks, not sure if you're on fire, no, doesn't look like it), as I got closer I saw there was definitely flames coming out of his wheel motor (You have to stop Tim. You're on fire), so I skidded to a stop and then I put the fire out. One and a half extinguishers, pretty piddly really. All in a night's work. On the incident report, on the part where they ask what actions can be taken to prevent this from happening again, I wrote, "Oh I dunno. To be honest it's a lot of fun putting out fires so let's not change anything." My foreman made me cross that part out.
A guy on my crew, buddy of mine, his house burned down earlier this week. No one in his family was hurt but they lost everything. Crazy. Definitely not fun and games anymore. I can't even imagine and don't want to imagine it happening to my family.

When I'm on nightshift I'm always a step behind, so those of you who care probably are already all over this, but yesterday was a big day for George RR Martin fans. A full official trailer for the HBO series was released, starts airing next month already!



And then on top of that a release date was finally set for A Dance of Dragons. July 12th. Not that it's actually finished or anything.

Neil Gaiman's so good, hey? Seems I'm always finding books of his I didn't even know he wrote in used bookstores. Last week I picked up a short story collection, possibly his first. Uh, what's it called? Don't recall off the top of my head and it's alla way upstairs . . . I got Michelle reading Fragile Things which is a more recent anthology, and we're both loving it. Not too long ago I bought a Batman comic he wrote, Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? I find Batman comics kind of hard to read, because unlike the movies, in the comics there's like 70 years of history and continuity that you need to know (Robin is dead but Robin 2 is Nightwing and Robin 3 is in the future and she's a girl . . . )but this one was brilliant and accomplishes its purpose- which is to bring to an end both iconic Batman series- Detective Comics and Batman- with a story that would be 'true' now and in twenty years, or seventy. I didn't even know they canceled those titles (naturally they relaunched them with new numbering and all but still). Yeah. Check it out.
In other news, Pallas and I have been busy kicking ass all week. Well, we went on the big water slide a billion times at the rec center and found all our shopping list on our own and made supper all by ourselves (even if it sucked). I taught her to say "kick ass" so when we got home from kicking ass I told her to go tell mom. "Mommy, kickass! Kickass! Daddy Pallas kickass!" but Michelle thought she was saying Princess. Well, in Pallas' case, same thing.

This week started off so good. The first day was an overtime for double pay and it was easy money. The next day was a stat so even though it was my regular shift, it was double time and a half pay. And even easier money. Then the bubble burst yesterday when, rather than be on my truck, I was assigned to pumps. Which was my nightmare job that I hated and was the worst experience of my life. But whatever. We had to put a pump in. Which took all day and it was cold and wet and I even singed half my beard off by poking my face into a fireball. Why was there a fireball and what was I doing poking my face into it? When it's -30 pumps get all frozen for some reason, so we have to use a propane torch, basically a flamethrower, to thaw them out. I guess flames build up into fireballs in enclosed spaces.
Anyways. Today I'm even colder because I had to shave my beard off. And guess what? We have to pull that very pump since they're blasting. Nightshift never did get it working so we didn't pump so much as one gallon out of the pit. Tearing shit down is always easier than setting it up, so at least there was that. But after the blast, guess what? Back goes the pump! They asked me to stay late to get it running and I very flatly refused. Fuck em. That's why they have nightshift guys. And it'll be there tomorrow, just waiting for me to tear it apart I'm sure.

It's coming along. Now that a lot of the custom pieces and parts are arriving from all over the place. You should see the springs we got, not shown here. Thanks to my dad who did a whole mess of work in the last few days. I did a wee bit of chopping. Turned some wrenches. Nodded sagely here and there. You know. Remember what it looked like when we started?

Last week on our drive to Calgary we were listening to the Glee soundtrack, Michelle's favorite music. She asked me who wrote one song, and I said, "I have no idea, I've never heard this song in my life."
"Your musical knowledge has a serious gap in it."
"Yeah, I don't know any of the cheesy songs."
To be fair, I gave Glee a chance at her insistence and I really like it. Not the music as much, but Sue Sylvester kills me. Like, makes me laugh so hard I cry and Michelle has to pause the dvd while I recover. Jane Lynch is gonna be on Q one of these days, actually.
What else. The music I'm really digging on right now is Buck 65's new one, 20 Odd Years. I can't get enough, seriously.
What else. Been working a bit of overtime lately so I have even less time at home than usual. Pallas told me on the phone the other day, "Daddy, come home!" Heartbreaking. At last work is waaaaay better ever since I bid off of pumps. Just drive my truck and read my comics. Marvels was very good. I've also been reading the Star Wars Omnibus series that reprints the old Marvel Star Wars series we all grew up on. Classic. I only had maybe not quite half of them so it's fun to go back and read what all I missed. The original 6 issues were an adaptation of the movie, but it came out before Star Wars was released, and the artist hadn't seen it. I don't know if he went off storyboards or production photos or what, but R2-D2 is drawn as if he walks on his legs rather than rolls. Kind of funny.

The following is an extremely true account of what happened at work the other day. A Wenco is a computerized GPS dispatching thing that knows your every move every minute.

I was hauling off of shovel 9
It's Friday and I was feeling fine
Until my Wenco started going crazy
Telling me "start hauling loads, stop being lazy"
Well, we all know, the Wenco, it's gotta go
I'll be the first to say I told you so
But how to get rid of Big Brother GPS?
I knew I'd have to scheme and be devious
Just then the radio played some Miley Ray Cyrus
And it hit me! I know, I'll make a virus!
So I mashed all the buttons on that little unit
For good measure I thought I'd pull my pants down and moon it
But then something happened that was kinda weird
There on the screen a robot appeared
It laughed and said "Now you've gone and done it
"I've taken over your truck and now I'm gonna run it"
My seat belt, it wrapped around me I'm trapped
and my truck took off like a bat that'd been zapped
Went straight for the dump, passing 145
and if you know Myriame, you know that girl can drive
we came to a stop in front of Craig's dozer
and dumped it right there, not one rock went over
He was so mad he called me snot sausage
But it's not my fault! I'm being held hostage
What the Wenco did next I should have expected
It went on the network, and so it infected
all of the trucks and shovels in PC3 pit
that's when I thought I might be in deep shit
so I used ninja tricks to jump outta my truck
just my luck I landed knee deep in the muck
I pulled myself free and looked up to see
Shovel 9 with its bucket was coming at me
It tried to eat me! I swear it's the truth
Lucky for me it was missing a tooth
I jumped through the clamshell but no time to relax
I still had to dodge shovel 9's tracks
Swinging around it came in for the kill
Time to bust out all my GI Joe skill
I adopted my patented Miyagi stance
Part kungfu with voodoo and hiphop dance
With a jab and a feint and a flying round kick
I separated shovel 9's boom from its stick
My triumph short-lived as the rest of the fleet
was headed my way and I knew I was beat
I was just about to give up in defeat
When I heard on the radio Cito say "Sweeeeet!"
So I dodged and I kicked and I punched until three
That's when I stopped for coffee lunch and a pee
At 3:30 I said "Alright" and "You betcha!
"You're coming for me but I'm gonna getcha!"
I wrecked every last truck, including the Kresses
You shoulda seen Jimmy, you know how he stresses
But anyways, to make a long story short
This is the end of my Incident Report!

You should see me. I pretty much kick ten tons of ass. I'm not just saying that because this is the internet and you can say anything. It's true. And now I will only get even more awesome because our new rec center opened with its swimming pools and weight rooms and skating rinks and Dairy Queens. God I love Dairy Queen. Not sure about the wisdom of putting one inside a facility dedicated to physical fitness though. Oh well. Maybe I'll only kick nine tons of ass and have one ton of blizzard on my fat ass.
Also, me and my dad kicked some ass on my motorbike today. Well you should see how much work he did in his garage to set up a shop. We even built a bike stand in about ten seconds today. Then we chopped my frame up a bit. Wrecking shit is so easy! Putting it back together . . .
Know who else kicks ass? The vampirenomad. She doesn't really kick ass at blogging lately. But in the category of moving back to Canada after six years in New Zealand, she wins. Sweet!
Also my eldest daughter kicks ass so much. Srsly. She's awesome. Didja see this picture? Awesome.

The most exciting thing that happened at work last week was I got to read a bunch of comics. I wisht every week could be like that!
I'd heard that Age of Apocalypse was one of the all-time classic X-Men storylines so I got the Complete Epic (four volumes) from the library. Maybe my expectations were too high but I thought it was kind of terrible. Never mind that the way you could tell that the X-Men were all alternate-reality versions of themselves is because they had mullets. I dunno. The basic idea was sound, what if Charles Xavier had died before forming the X-Men? Obviously Magneto would lead the X-Men and Apocalypse would take over the world. But where it went wrong for me is all the focus on space aliens and Blastaar and the Negative Zone. What does that even have to do with Apocalypse? I dunno.
Luckily World War Hulk was better. Not as good as Planet Hulk which I loved. WWH is all about how he comes back to Earth with his Warbound buddies to get revenge for all the bad stuff that happened at the end of Planet Hulk. It had some great moments, though lots of the big things happened off-screen, ie in the tie-in comics that weren't in the WWH collection. Oh well. Hulk still smashed plenty of shit.
Batman R.I.P. was kind of confusing. Didn't really know anyone other than Batman. Even Robin was someone else.
What else. Spider-man and Red Sonja. Got that one for a laugh and it was definitely funny.
I also finished reading Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. I liked it. Makes me want to make a pinhole camera detector. Among other things. Not that I'm worried someone snuck into my house to install a pinhole camera to spy on me. Does make me wonder about the classrooms where Michelle teaches, though. And the washrooms. Eew.

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

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

World's Worst Dad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm on nightshift right now so I doubt I'll get around to my annual best of the year lists. Not that it matters since who cares anyways right? I don't think I even bought a physical CD all year. Rob Zombie and Johnny Cash, if those were this year. And I saw two movies. 2010 was all about the younglings. And Comic-con. Green Lantern! And work. Ha work. What a year for that. Can I retire yet? It's much better now anyways.

Good Christmas? Me too. Back to work tomorrow night but what can you do about that? We converted Pallas's crib to a toddler bed so she can get in and out by herself which will be a huge help to Michelle who Is still severely limited in her movements due to her surgery. Anyways. Did you see Scott Pilgrim? He was a big deal at Comic-con so I was glad to get the DVD for Xmas. Loved it right up there with Big Lebowski and Royal Tenenbaums which is high praise for me. What else? Got more Green Lanterns for Comicmas yay! Rage of the Red Lanterns yo! Of course I got this iPad which I opened early, courtesy of Michelle and her side of the family. She got a pretty sweet gift from me I gotta say. A dust buster. Nothings too good for my sweety!
Update: yup, that thump I heard upstairs was Pallas falling out of bed. She's okay though, I went in and handed her Pink Guy and she didn't even stir.

Ai yi yi . . . Nan!
Usually after supper Pallas and I do some rough-housing to aid our digestion. Yesterday we evolved a game more or less organically wherein she says "Ai yi yi . . . NAN!!!!" and then I say"NAN?!?" and I tickle her unto giggles. So she would go into her room, shut the door, and then call out "Ai yi yi . . .NAN!" and I would burst in to find her hiding on her froggy and I would carry out my part. Now I have to go all the way downstairs and sit on the couch before she utters the magic words. Well, anyways, that's our new game. Hopefully she'll forget her other game, where she finds things to dump in unsuspecting people's coffee mugs. Like Grandma's iPhone. Ai yi yi Pallas!

At Comic-con we went to a Battlestar panel and it was excellent. One thing that they kind of promised but never delivered on was info on the rumored BSG movie. Seemed like the deal for it was being finalized as the panel was going on, they kept checking the or phones to see of they could say anything. So anyways I forgot all about it, but mow some concept ray has surfaced over at Blastr. .
Crazy iPad! "mow some concept Ray" should read now some concept art. No arrow keys or whatever to go fix mistakes and autofill glitches.
What else? Did you hear that Chuggington will be headlining SDCC this year? I didn't either but if it were true we'd have no choice but to return to Sam Diego for Pallas's sake. She loves those little trains. She loves Winnie the pooh too, and doesn't really get it when he,s off camera to let Tigger and Rabbit and Piglet have the spotlight, and she cries and cries until he returns.

So Naia's birth was almost a carbon-copy of Pallas's. We avoided some mistakes from last time, so we never got sent home from the hospital, but ultimately she was born by c-section. Which wasn't nearly as scary as last time but is turning out to be much harder this time around in terms of now Pallas has no idea why mama can't pick her up or do anything like that. Well, that's why I'm on extendo-holidays.
In other news, finished reading The Passage finally. Took me forever! And the very last line . . . if you read it you know what I mean and if not I won't ruin anything.
Playing Zombies vs Plants on my iPad. Craig and Deb mentioned it so I downloaded it and have been planting ever since.
Listening to Wretches and Kings by Linkin Park. That's how I always thought NIN should sound but they never did- they always sounded more Depeche Modey to me. Just sayin.
Almost done Deadwood, much as I've been trying to stretch it out. Lucky for me Ian McShane is in the new Pirates of the Caribbean so that's alright then. You seen the trailer right? Of course you did.

Baby Naia is here! She was born yesterday. 7 lbs 1 ounces. Umm. Everything is good!

I'm pretty excited about Tron Legacy, though I think with the baby it might be a while before I get to see it. I would throw my Tron DVD in but I lent it to some roommate I had in this crazy house where I didn't even know everybody who lived there and it might have been a commune or something upstairs so anyways I never got it back. But I remember how painfully bad it was to rewatch it, not nearly as awesome as it was when I was a kid. The new one looks pretty good. Was Daft Punk at Comic-Con? I dunno but I saw these guys getting their photos taken in some sort of professional whiteroom and then they were wandering the hall and I took their picture.



Here's the trailer with the kind of narration that every trailer should have:



Also, did you see that sweet ten minute video of Game of Thrones? Looks pretty great, though of course none of the characters look how I imagined them. When I imagine the good guys they all look like me, and the bad guys all look like you. Oops sorry, looks like it was deYoutubed.

Here's my first post from my new iPad, works pretty great. Now I just need to load it up with some apps. I got marvel and dc comics but am a little surprised how much the digital co,ics cost- I think they would sell way more if they were 99 cents instead of 1.99. Oh well. Still cheaper than a hardcopy. What else? I got some great acoustic guitar tracks and am looking for more, if you know some good ones. Also I took some time at work to exercise my brain and memorized Ozymandias. It was easy. Now I'm Looking for more, preferably contemporary and definitely cool. You know what I like.

Two weeks till little Naia's due date! Today was also the agreed-upon deadline for me to vacate my office to make way for her nursery. Since I am blogging from my office I guess I fail. But not by too much, I think by tomorrow I should be all done moving. My dad came over and did some wiring in the basement for me so that was good. Just have some heavy lifting to do and it's all good.
Everyone says the transition from one child to two is almost crazier than none to one. I dunno. I do know poor Naia hasn't gotten nearly as much attention in the womb as Pallas did. Some of you might not even know we're having another girl! Who's Naia you're saying. With Pallas we were always reading about her development and congratulating her for all her milestones (Yay you're the size of a pear! Way to go!! Woohoo! and so forth) whereas Naia, well, at least she gets a lot more coffee than Pallas ever did.

Sad news- Irvin Kershner passed away today. He was a movie director, most famous obviously for Empire Strikes Back but he made others as well.

Did you catch this year's Canada Reads panel? Georges Laraque! Sweet! One of my favorite of all Oilers alumni, up there with Gretz and Mess. He was great in Battle of the Blades in the sense of he had lots of fun. As if that wasn't cool enough, Sara Quin too! Sweeeet! Plus she's defending a graphic novel. Definitely have to read that one. Of all the Quin twins, Sara is definitely one of my favorite top two ever, right up there with Tegan.
Anyways, Homie Bear Reads has been pretty slow lately. I got Justin Cronin's The Passage from the library and only made it about halfway through before I had to give it back. Good book, he was at a SDCC panel we went to.
If you can believe it, I have been working on a Green Lantern collection (The Sinestro Corps War Volume 1) for almost four weeks! Not sure why six or eight comic books collected together is giving me such troubles. I really like it, even showed Michelle a cool part that I thought was well written and drawn (many power rings in search of new recruits all of a sudden . . . )
Doesn't help that at work during my breaks I'm trying to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Which so far doesn't seem to be much about zen OR motorcycles.
My own motorcycle is getting raked right now! Which gives me a very zen feeling deep inside.
Also, squid worm! Finally! I've only been waiting for one of those for like, my whole life.

This one's for Jon.
Waaay back in the day we were in an Astronomy course together. First year university. It was an interesting class, not only because of the subject matter but also because we spent most of our time drawing X-Men and Star Wars guys and writing sonnets to various planets. I've been cleaning out the basement of junk and I came across our masterpiece, written during the lecture on the solar system's 4th planet, which I present, unedited, to you now:

Mars- The Sonnet

The funny thing about Mars
is that it's the same size as Earth only smaller
Not many people have cars
So to visit people they have to holler
you can jump real high over there
But one thing that's different is the air
If you attempt to breathe it you will die
So let me warn you to not even try
They have a big big volcano
Olympus Mons is its name-o
It has three moons, Phobos, Deimos
and Manhattan Island. But that is not THE most
amazing thing about Mars, Mars, Mars
That's where they make those candy bars

Fourteen lines, just like all other sonnets. That's about all it has in common with that fine artistic form though. Manhattan Island?
On the same page there is a poem about Saturn. The word "Saturn" is written out and around it are the words "Its rings circle it always" as if those words were the rings. Get it? Artistic!
But those were good times.

So now that all I have to do at work is take five or six loads of coal, I am sleeping so much better and I have so much more time for things like listening to podcasts. I find one episode of DNTO is good for a round trip. But it's bad when I'm writing down interesting things to remember for later while 300 tons of coal and metal are careening down the snowy haulroad. Just kidding! Right! I would never do such a silly thing would I? Or if I did I certainly wouldn't blog about it. Or if I did I would make sure to make it sound like I would never do such a thing on the blog so I wouldn't get fired. Umm. Confused yet? Anyways, check this out: Takeaseat.org is the site for Dominic Gill's documentary about how he tandem biked all the way across the Americas, getting total strangers to ride tandem with him. As soon as I get home I want to check out the film, and the book too.
The Green Lantern trailer came out, at least in the Spanish speaking world. Even though I am a GL rookie, it was still kind of cool to see Kilowog and stuff. Not sure if I buy Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan though. He's a great guy and I like how self-deprecating he is in interviews. So . . . yeah actually that should be fine. Anyways, here it is, Linterna Verde:

I got a speeding ticket today, d'oh!!! Except, no I didn't! Sweet! Cop pulled me over on the way to Hinton, it's snowing but the roads are in good condition, so I may have been doing 125 or so. I suspect that I was doing 120 by my speedometer but my snow tires add about 10% in actual speed. Anyways. So cop pulls me over, asks where I'm going.
Hinton
Business or pleasure?
It's where I work.
What do you do?
Coalminer.
So you live in Edmonton but work in Hinton?
Yes sir.
Been drinking?
No sir.
Okay hang on while I write this up.
So he comes back and says, how long you been driving back and forth like this?
I dunno, most of my life I guess. I haven't gotten that many tickets considering.
And I'm not going to give you one now. But drive safe okay? The roads are in rough shape.
Yes sir. Thank you sir.

Then later a caribou of all things crosses the road right in front of me. I gave him a ticket for jaywalking.

Bobber update: it's right down to the frame now, and ready to be taken in to get raked by a professional welder. Although we now have a welder and I was able to spend an hour or so at work learning the basics of welding, raking the front end is kind of like the neurosurgery of welding, and I will never be much more than a field medic type welder at best.
Totally unrelated other stuffs: Anyone have extra tickets to see Ayaan Hirsi Ali next Sunday? It's sold out. The only other person I can think of that we were stymied from going to see is Lady Gaga. Gaga and Hirsi, probably the first time they were ever mentioned in the same sentence. Well, maybe not. Let's ask Google. Hmm, inconclusive.
And what is Apple cooking up over there anyways?
Update: Well, of all the things it could have been, announcing that The Beatles are on iTunes is about the absolute least exciting. Ever. Lame.

Running on my treadmill, listening to the iPod. Good recipe for coming up with the crazy shite! Remember this one?
A line from Unforgiven II inspired this little snippet (Unforgiven III is my current favorite Metallica song though, this line is so wrenching to me- How can I blame you when it's me I can't forgive). Anyways.

She traced the outlines of his tattoos with her fingers. They always asked about the tattoos.
"What does this one say?" She pointed to the script on his chest.
"Black heart scarring darker still."
"Jesus."
"Fuck."
"What?"
"You say Jesus, I say fuck. It's like a blessing. The muslims do it, whenever someone mentions their prophet they always say 'Peace be upon him.' It's like that."
"Huh. Sounds more like a curse to me."
"Yeah. Exactly."
"Jesus."
"Fuck."
She giggled. He didn't. After a while she went on with her line of thought.
"So this tattoo around your heart . . . you have a black heart?"
"It's from a song. This guy sleeps with a girl and then kills her and leaves."
He felt her tense.
"It's just a song. A tattoo. I'm not gonna hurt you. Jesus."
"Fuck."
"Exactly."
She went on to explore his other tattoos.

I'm trying to get out of the habit of saving good stuff for special occasions. Because you know when the perfect special occasion for almost anything is? Right now! Michelle got me Seasons 2 and 3 of Deadwood for Christmas last year and I only just finished season 2. It was worth the wait but No waiting 11 months till I watch Season 3.
Some highlights sans spoilers:
“Pain or damage don’t end the world, or despair or f*cking beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man — and give some back.”- Al Swearengen. How can you not love good ole Swedgin?
Of all the great songs that play as the end credits roll, the best from this season is The Fox by Bill Staines. I didn't mind the quack quack quack!
Anyways, how's this for a sweet move I gotta practice? Maybe I'll try it out on you!

The easy part is done, now I have a bunch of boxes that used to be a motorbike. In the space of an afternoon we stripped it down to its frame, more or less, though the wheels are still on it. The engine is sitting on the floor of my dad's garage. We'll have to see what parts that will need, and we can look at getting the front end raked. The back we might be able to do ourselves. Maybe. So now over the long cold winter this is where I go for inspiration to keep at it.



Oh yeah Pallas helped too.

You know what the saddest song in the world is? A Dream That Can Last by Neil Young and Crazy Horse.
One of the more uplifting songs in the world is The Cave by Mumford and Sons. And don't forget Just Breathe by Pearl Jam. Don't Give Up by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush too. I think you need at least three uplifting songs to cheer you up from the saddest song in the world. Though listening to the saddest song in the world can actually make you feel better, too, in a weird way.

Vampires were sexy and monstrously fine
but now that they sparkle, glitter and shine
their lustre is lost, and worse they're benign

Zombies are always disgustingly cool
but they're awfully damn dumb, and also they drool
if you get eaten by one then you're kind of a fool

Werewolves are angry, vicious and mean
but you need a full moon on Hallowe'en
for any of them to even be seen

The only monster that scares me the most
is any kind of spider, or maybe a ghost
if a spider ghost showed, I know I'd be toast

About a month ago I didn't even know what a bobber was. Now I'm going to build one. I agreed to buy this one off my dad and we'll chop it all up and hopefully make something pretty cool out of it.
A few minor obstacles that I'm sure I can overcome:
1. I'm not the most mechanically inclined guy ever.
2. I haven't ridden a motorbike since I was 14. Never rode a street bike.
3. Because we are on opposite shifts, I can see my dad only about 3 hours or so a week.
But I'm super excited. I'll post some pics and progress reports as we go. The goal is to have it running by the spring, which in Alberta usually comes in June. Late May if we're lucky.

I did indeed win my bid at work. No surprise there, since this is roughly equivalent to going back to the mail room in a normal job, the only concern was how long it was taking to be posted. And now my pump bid is posted and we have to see who wins it and whether they need training or not. I already trained up a couple of Padawans, either of which would make a fine Jedi pump master, but I doubt they have enough seniority to win the bid.
So I'm a truck driver again! Been almost 6 years since that was my actual job description. I'll be the third-most senior truck driver so I will get my pick of the fleet, my choice is between one of these, which are getting up there in miles but you only haul 5 or 6 loads a shift:



Or one of these (actually an 830 E AC but I don't have any photos), which are newer but you haul way more loads in high traffic areas:



Either way, I'll no longer have to keep the minesite running with just a toolbox half full of rusty wrenches and three bolts. Sweeeeet!

It turns out I forgot all about my bloggiversary, which I think was yesterday. Just been busy I guess. Pooing in the Woods is 8 years old. It'll be driving in no time.
So today was a full day and a little more diverse than usual. Started off with a science fiction convention. Pure Speculation was this weekend so I thought I would check it out, a friend of mine did a discussion but my schedule didn't allow me to see it. Anyways it's a bit of a small con, especially after San Diego, but I'm glad I went. Met some interesting people who do some amazing stuff. I'm glad Edmonton has a few things in the year like this.
After that I went to a funeral of a friend who I used to work with at the mine. Younger than me. That's three funerals I been to this year, and one more I was supposed to go to but was kept back at work for a special job. I think it's time for a moratorium on going to funerals for a while.
And after that was a birthday party for one of Pallas's little friends, at Gymboree. She had a blast and I did too just watching her play and jump around and stuff. When Michelle first told me about it I was like, why would I want to go to that? It's not like the little girl is MY friend. But I'm glad I went.
We had to race home to have supper before our book club friends came over. We were kind of dreading it a little since Michelle only skimmed the book and I didn't really bother with it. Hey, I been busy, remember! Luckily the one who picked the book had the flu and couldn't come so we just talked about other books and watched the Oilers lose.
Anyways, my Flickr page has a small number of photos of cosplayers from Pure Spec, and many photos of Pallas at the birthday party. Here's the birthday girl, Bloodrayne:

At Comic-Con we went to a panel that had all these great writers, some of whom we knew and some of whom were new. Scott Westerfeld, Justin Cronin and more! China Mievielle was the reason we went, but we were also impressed by Naomi Novik so Michelle bought her book, or actually three books in one hardcover volume called In His Majesty's Service. It's about dragons and the British Navy circa . . . uh, when Napoleon was conquerizing it up.
I just finished the second one tonight, Throne of Jade. The first one was great fun, His Majesty's Dragon. It introduced us to Temeraire the dragon and his Royal Navy captain. One of those books that pulls you in and makes you want to live in its world. The Jade one was also very good, lots of very authentic Chinese culture which I love. There was a seven month sea voyage in it, and it felt a little like it was recounted in real time, but otherwise it was pretty good. Though I think I will take a small break before diving into the third book.
I also just read The Child Thief, by Brom. Twas a birthday gift from a friend. Also very good. Not one of those books that makes you want to live in its world, since it's kind of violent and scary. It's a reimagining of Peter Pan. If you like dark fantasy you should check it out.
Now to choose from among many Star Wars and Green Lantern comic books.

Hopefully I find out tomorrow but next week at the latest if I got my truck bid or not. I'm pretty confident since my seniority is getting fairly uh, mature. But I'm gonna miss days like today!
All I had to do today was weld pipe. An extra pumpman came in on overtime (Sunday is double time for overtime guys so even though we didn't need an extra pumpman the extra pumpman decided he would come in anyways) so we let him do the rounds while me and Mike welded the pipe. Nightshift pumpman set it up for us, sort of. So the first thing we went and set it up more right, moving the lightplant which was our generator, and moving the welder into place. Looks like we'll need a chain to pull the pipe. Let's go get one! Hmm, no chains in my pumpshack. I know where there's one- only five kms away or so. Alright now we have our chain. Hey what if we move the welder over there? That would work better. We'll just need an extension cord. So we go get one. Of course there aren't any in the warehouse but we find one eventually. But now that we're looking at it, maybe the hot plate should be over here, too. Now we need another extension cord! Off we go!
Now we're set! So we grab some pipe and get it all in place. The ends are a little jagged so I grab my chainsaw to cut it better, but guess what? Chainsaw is frozen solid. It will need to sit in the service bay for a few hours to thaw out. Okay well, let's find some pipes with nicer ends and weld those while we wait. Cause we might as well do something before coffee right?
Suitable pipe is found and emplacened, only now the hydraulic control for the welder is frozen solid too. Anyways more rigmaroles ensue to get that working. And now we have welded our first join of the day, woohoo!
Hey, why is the generator kicking out? Reset the breaker there. Try it again. Again. One more time. Now it's smoking so we better not do it any more. Call the electrician!
Well, here's your problem, says the electrician. This generator only has a 20 amp fuse and your welder and hotplate are 30. Oh right. Amps. I know they make guitars loud but what they have to do with electricity has always been a bit of a mystery to me.
Anyways, what we wind up doing after exhausting a bunch of other ideas that all involve driving around the minesite is, we grab another lightplant. So now we have two lightplants to power our little pipe-welding operation, when normally a tiny little Honda generator is more than ample for the job. But whatever cause now we're good to go. Wait, god . . . dammit! I left my wrenches up at the dump where we found the lightplant! I never lost a wrench yet and I'm not gonna start now.
Anyways I think that was our final little wrinkle for the day and after that things went quite smoothly. Luckily our foreman left us alone all day because I didn't want to have to answer the question at 4:00 in the afternoon, "Nathan how's the pipe coming along?" Well, we're about ready to get started. Soonishly. We hope.

Since Facebook stati go away forever after a while but blog archives are forever, I am retweeting, uh, reFacing my status since it's about my daughter and she's just so darn cute!
Pallas helped me put up the Halloween skulls and stuff*. Then she gave them all kisses and milk after!
Then she helped me make pancakes, I had to explain that the recipe actually didn't call for napkins, Pink Guy, egg shells or paperclips which is why it was important to fish all that stuff out. And she can crack an egg like nobody's business! her aim is not so good though.
* all this stuff basically. I need to get some new stuff since decay is making them a worse for the wear.

So much for the perfect season right? I was so sure they were going to pull it off this year, 82-0. They say it can't be done. And they're right!
Okay enough with the terrible comedy. Leave that to the professionals. Michelle and I went to a taping of CBC's Irrelevant Show tonight. It was good! You can hear it on the radio in December and see it on TV at a later date. Reminded me of back in the day when me and Jonny used to go to Rapid Fire Improv. More than just a little since Neil Grahn was a big part of both. Speaking of my old friend Jon, if you're in New York you should go see the show he's in called Balm of Gilead, written by Lanford Wilson. He didn't say he was the star or anything but I see he's in the center of the maelstrom.
Oh yeah and speaking of the CBC did you hear Steve Martin on Q? Who knew he could play banjo so good? And write songs? He won a Grammy even. Check out this YouTubeo.
Oilers, Dead Trolls, Broadishway and Banjos. You know what this post needs more of? Motorbikes. Here are three of my Dad's bikes, Yamaha XS 650's. They're so cool I think I will get one too! Why don't you?
Here is a café racer style, modified for speed and handling:


Here is an unfinished bobber, the kind I want to try and build, which are like choppers but more different (usually more stripped down and with a "bobbed" rear fender, among other things):



And here is a stock machine, modified into the less popular "wreck" style:



Anyways all of these bikes were bought as is, to be worked on or not as needed or possible.

So on Wednesdays I take Pallas to the library for this Fun for Ones program, it's singing and picture books and stuff. Pretty cute because all the little children just pretty much do their own thing. Since she's 20 months Pallas is one of the oldest, I think maybe even the oldest. Three weeks ago the librarian brought out the bubbles, and Pallas was the only one who insisted on blowing her own bubbles. Anyways the next week all she wanted to do was "bubbub" and she'd walk up to the librarian in the middle of a song or a book and say "Bubbub!" so the librarian felt bad that she didn't bring them. So this week there were bubbles.
What else. I accidentally bought grapefruits instead of oranges today. They're in the exact same mesh bag! How was I to know? Michelle: Well, was there a sign? Me: Signs? Who reads signs? Anyways at first this was traumatic for Pallas but she adjusted quickly. Which is good because I can't stand pamplemousses. I also accidentally bought a motorcycle magazine which I thought covered all the motorbikes but is only about Harley Davidsons. Pretty interesting anyways. My dad biased me against Harleys from a young age but really are they so bad? Not as bad as grapefruits that's fer sure.
What else. Sure glad those Chilean miners all got out. Sure glad I don't work in an underground mine. Speaking of which, I put in a bid to go back on trucks at work, so hopefully I'll get it and my pumpman days will be behind me. Winter is coming. Winter and pumps means ice and frostbite. No thanks.
What else. Did you see the sweet Lego Spaceman shirt a Flickr friend made me?

My Grandpa passed away last week. His funeral was Sunday and we laid his remains to rest today.

I know I have been hardly ever blogging much lately any at all. It's cause I like to mangle english so much! Why not?
But really, I dunno why not. Not much to say in this phase of my life I guess. Here are some pictures of work from lately abouts:

One time, I'm thinking well over ten years ago, I saw a documentary on sasquatches. You know, one of those ones that TLC or the Discovery Channel makes every so often with "stunning new footage" and "shocking new evidence"of Bigfoot's existence. Anyways, I forget what this particular one was called, but it played an audio clip of a sasquatch howl. Supposedly, anyways. It was pretty chilling. So anyways if you saw that one too and remember what it was called, please let me know. I would love to listen to that again. Even if it's just a howler monkey.
Also, if you remember what the name of that book about Norse mythology I read in grade 8 with all those amazing paintings, please tell me what it is. I can't find it anywhere, even in the Age of Google.
And another thing. There was a movie that came out in the 80s, it was 3-D and probably a cheap Raiders of the Lost Ark knockoff. Do you know what it was called? Cause I can't remember.
Plus, did you ever read a short story about some aliens who come to Earth looking for Walt Disney? It had some interesting commentary on why all the great protagonists are orphans. And something about how all the Disney cartoons had father figures. Anyways if you wrote that one drop me a line cause I'd like to read it again but I can't remember what it was called.
Finally, if you can help me with one more. A movie came out, probably 30 years ago or so, it started off on this snow planet and had all these walking tanks and a little green man and stuff. It was crazy, really mind-blowing. Can't think what it was called now.

Last night some of the guys on the crew were busy making a helipad. Apparently someone is landing, well, already landed, this morning at 10 AM. Who could it be? The only conceivable possibility I can think of is James Cameron and Ed Stelmach, popping over from their tour of the oilsands to see firsthand Alberta's coal mining industry. Our very own brand of Unobtainium. Sadly there are no Na'vi anywhere around because I would be the first to volunteer to drive an avatar.
Well, I don't see anything in the news about Cameron touring Cardinal. In fact, it appears he isn't even here yet. So who on earth could be flying in for a visit? Lady Gaga. Has to be.

So the first Green Lantern I read was a collection called Secret Origin, which was a good entry for a newbie like me who spurned DC Comics all his life and didn't know anything about him. This writer Geoff Johns has taken an old superhero and reinvigorated him, to huge critical acclaim within the comics world, and even mainstream media. I learned about the green power rings and the lanterns that charge them, and all the funhokey things that were part of the 70 years of Green Lantern mythology, like their oath. How Hal Jordan became the Green Lantern. All about the Green Lantern Corps. Atrocitus is a cool name, right? Sinestro, not so much.
Anyways, turns out the actual reboot started earlier, with a miniseries collected as Rebirth. Poor Geoff Johns, he inherited quite a mess. And there I am, thinking I know all about Green Lantern now and reading about how Hal Jordan is dead because he reignited the sun but his soul is currently possessed by Parallax and also the Spirit of Vengeance. And Batman is really mad at him, and Batman and Superman and Mister Terrific and Dr. Mid-Nite all live on the moon together. Anyways, it was fairly confusing but in the end Hal Jordan is reborn and not evil. Yay!

Michelle got me Season 6 of The Office! Sweet! I just finished watching Season 2 of Big Bang Theory. My Mom actually got me that (and Season 1) for Christmas, and I would just watch an episode or two while doing a workout over the past year. Pretty great show, if you have any leanings towards the geek side. In fact they did a panel at Comic Con, but I was stuck in line so I missed it. Michelle saw it though, and her big highlight was seeing the Barenaked Ladies come out and do the theme song. She was kind enough to call my cell so I could listen in while I was stadning in line. Why was I in line while she was inside? Long story, but basically, it's Galactus's fault.

Happy birthday to me! I'm trying to think if I've ever spent a birthday at home since I got married. I know one year I was out hiking with Robin, and all the other years I think I was at work. Umm, yeah. Fascinating I'm sure.
You know what's cool? Green Lantern! I never really knew anything about him but the relaunch has been getting good reviews so I checked him out. He's a space cop! If I ever gave him any thought at all I just thought he was another superhero. And he is. But in space! With all his space buddies.
Here he is, actually as a Red Lantern, with his girlfriend Star Sapphire at SDCC:

For a while when we said she had mischief in her eyes she would point at her nose. Thanks to grampa now she knows that that's where boogers come from.
What else do you know?

One of the many minor annoyances you learn to deal with at work is trying to get stuff from the warehouse. Although I've never thought about it in these terms before, I suppose you could make a list of rules of how to deal with warehousemen:
1. Never go to the warehouse at their coffee time as, though they will eventually help you, you will have to wade through about 50 tons of whinging and moaning first.
2. Be prepared to either kiss some ass or sling some bullshit before you get what you want.
3. They love to fuck with you.
So. I went down there at my foreman's behest to get three items. A drill bit for 25 drill, some coffee, and some creamer. I wrote the list down on my hand so I wouldn't forget. The drill bit was no problem. But coffee is on the list of banned subtsances, apparently. Along with pens. Last year or so there was a problem with coffee and pens going missing so now there are extra procedures and precautions in place to make sure no one steals them.
"Can I have some coffee and creamer?"
"No. Your foreman has to get that."
"Well, he sent me to get some. See?" I showed him my hand with the grocery list written on it. Since I forgot to get my hand notarized he wasn't impressed.
"Your foreman has to talk to my foreman."
I didn't even know they had a foreman and pretty much thought he was fucking with me. But whatever, that coffee is so disgusting I wasn't heartbroken to not get any. Anyways he loads me up with the drillbit and then he tells me to go ask his foreman for some coffee. I even get to go inside the warehouse to do this. He points to a closed door. "Just go in there," he says. I know better than that, so I knock. I can clearly hear someone talking on the phone inside so I know someone's there. I wait. Now the whole warehouse crew is watching me, which is kind of weird.
"Just walk in, we always do," they say. Mindful of rule #3 I knock again. Still no answer. Eventually I give in to peer pressure and open the door.
"I didn't answer the door for a reason," some guy who I've never seen before barks at me. He is young, probably younger than me, seated at a desk and dressed in a t-shirt and sweats. Since I am a pumpman out in the pit, I have to wear full safety paraphernalia, vest, coveralls, steel toed rubber boots (which are always wet on the inside), hardhat, and I always have a few layers of mud as extra protection.
"Uh yeah, sorry. Um, can I get some coffee?"
"No you can't get some coffee, there are procedures in place and even though I didn't write them I have to follow them. Your foreman has to come see me directly."
"Well, technically he's not supposed to leave the pit."
"Not my problem- speak to Gary about it. His policy, I just have to follow them."
He is so over the top anal about this that now I have a mission to get some coffee out of this guy or die trying. I show him my hand. "See, he sent me to get some coffee, I wrote it down right here."
Now he loses it. He jumps out of his chair and starts raving, I can't even remember all he said but he finally mentioned how it's a good thing it was month-end since, even though he was up to his ass in alligators (a favorite expression of harried foremen out at the mine, though in his spotless office I could see no evidence of alligators or even gecko lizards) he could bend the rules this one time. "You tell your foreman this is his One. Got it?"
He takes me back to a locked cabinet and grudgingly gives me two bags of coffee and way more creamer than I need.
"I'm not usually such a dick but it's month-end you know?"
"Yeah," I say. What the hell does that mean, I wonder. Long ago I learned that the absolutely best way to deal with people who have tantrums is to remain completely calm and serene. This job has made me so dirty, and scarred, and jaded, and tough even, that all I can do is laugh at this clean, soft, petty little child freaking out about some coffee.
As he stomps back to his office I can't resist. "I suppose it would be too much to ask for some pens, eh?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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