I'm off to Fort McMurray. Seeya!

Anyway, enough about yesterday. Let us think of it no more. Remember (way back in the early days of the pooblog) for the Two Towers premiere when me and Cory got all dressed up for the radio poomotion and it was so much fun and everything? Gotthammer Mike took a photo of us and scanned it and changed it up and made it into a movie pooster. He did it for the G-Arts fest, actually, and he just poosted it at his sight, so go check it out. That's Cartoon Cory on the left, and Cartoon Me on the right.

Yesterday when I went to work at 8:00 AM I had no idea that I wouldnt be done until 4:30 the next morning. Wow. What a Day of Poo. Three moves. First one was quick, second one was a little harder, but still not too bad. That took us until 5, and then at the office the boss asked me if I would mind doing another one. Figuring it would be another three hours or so, I said alright. I just wanted to go home, but there was no one else. I asked Boss how big the move was, and I should have known it would be a big one when he evaded the question. Usually clients tell us how much stuff, roughly, and whether there will be any heavy stuff, such as appliances. Our client wanted us to move all four of her appliances, which was news to me. Very heavy, especailly since the fridge and stove were upstairs and the washer and dryer downstairs. So yeah,we finally finished up at 3:30, and then I came home and showered and went to bed. Today I am one big bruise, it even hurts to type. Seriously. I was suppoosed to go in at 7:30 tis morning but I called the Boss and said it woulnt be possible. So sore.

I was once the victim of a hoax. Back in high school me and my buddies went camping and Colin took a bunch of pictures of us. Jason told an amazingly scary ghost story at our campfire one night (its scariness factor augmented by the fact that we were all somewhat . . . augmented ourselves) about a killer dwarf who appeared in all of the pictures some campers took of their trip, even though he wasn't there when they took the pictures. And the person he replaced in each of the photos wound up dying or something. I don't recall all the details- it was 11 years ago. But it was scary.
Afterwards, back at school, Colin showed up with the pictures and they were all very cool- they were mostly of us flexing our muscles on top of the mountains we climbed. Art, in other words. So I asked Colin to take some photocopies (scanners and color printing were still sci-fi back then) and put them up in our community locker, which he was happy to do.
So I come back from class later on and everyone is crowded around our community locker, admiring the pictures. A few days later, Patrick, our perpetually dazed Chinese friend, took one look, and said, "Who's that?" He was pointing to a figure in the background that most definitely was not there when we took the pictures. All the color drained out of my face as I thought of the killer dwarf. I know it sounds silly but I was seriously freaked out. Jason and Colin let me make a fool of myself for a while before finally letting me in on their little joke- they had added the figure (actually it was just a miniaturized copy of me from one of the photos) to the photocopy- low-tech photo-manipulation.
It was a well-done hoax, espcecially for the patience they demonstrated- they didn't arouse supsicion by pointing it out to me when I failed to notice it, and they let several days pass before Pat finally saw. And then they acted just as scared as I really was. The good old days. What a bunch of pooheads.

A Little Paleontology For You
The previous poost on the Metallica Hoax reminded me of another hoax that involved the famous Royal Tyrrell Museum here in Alberta. Having just heard of it through my friend Stevey, I decided to do a little research into the matter, since what I heard is that the curator of the Tyrrell, one of the most respected paleontological institutions in the world, deliberately perpetrated a hoax. But the truth is a little less sinister. What's frustrating is all the dingle-brained creationists are treating it like a major coup for creationism, so wading through all their misguided little "Ah-ha's!" on the web to get to the truth is a little frustrating. (Those of you who know me know I have a vey deep belief in God, but I also have no time for creationists of the type who reverse the scientific method- they take a foregone conclusion and then make their 'evidence' fit.) Anyways, wha happened was a group of paleontoligists bought a fossil in Liaoning from a farmer who found it in his field, and it appeared to be a transitional link fossil between dinosaurs and birds, thus giving more weight to the hypoothesis that birds evolved from dinosaurs (a hypoothesis I am inclined to believe). The fossil was christened Archeoraptor liaoningensis and National Geographic ran all sorts of photos and articles on this major discovery.
But then it was revealed that the specimen was in fact a fusion of two different animals, and was thus a fake.
Enter the creationists, who howled about how once again evolution was dealt a serious defeat, and much finger-pointing at the foolishness of National Geographic and the paleontologists.
But the creationists totally missed the point- it was the paleontologists who pointed out the fraud after they had a chance to study the specimen, and the fraud was not perpetrated by them, but by the Chinese farmer, who was just trying to make a buck.
And as far as I can tell, the curator of the Tyrrell had nothing to do with any of it. It's funny how facts get distorted, just like with the Metallica thing. In fact, this version of the story is bound to have some fallacies in it as all the reports I found were slightly differrent.
It's been a while since I poosted anything geologically related. Now I will take off my Geology Man hat, thank you for your patience.

Wasting My Hate
For a while there my faith was shaken, but luckily I am far too smrt to be pulled in by a joke. A clever and funny joke, to be sure, but just a joke. And maybe a bid for free publicity by a small-time band. What am I talking about? The "Metallica sues band for using E and F chords" business. Blu poosted about it today on his new blog, and we had a brief MSN exchange in which I stated my thoughts that this was obviously a hoax. But I was a little worried when the article included a link to Metallica's homepage with an official press release. A ludicrous one, but if the Official Website says it, it must be true, right? But then I realized (only 6 hours later)- Metallica just totally reworked their site, and this release was still in their old stye. Ha! A fake! I went to their site from my bookmarks, rather than following a link from the article, and there was no mention anywhere of suing a band for using certain chords. Case closed. Blu, I will expect a formal apoology on your blog. Or I'll sue.
Update: I didn't even bother going to Unfaith's website the first time, but I see that they are also confirming the hoax.
And here is a link to a story on Metallica kicking ass, and Fred Durst needing to get his ass kicked. But what else is new?

I'm really too tired to poost anything, but I will say that G-Arts went really well- it was thoroughly enjoyable both as a participant and as an audience member. Umm, you should have been there. It was great. Can't wait till the next one. The End.
Seriously, that's about all I can bring myself to write right now. I'm so tired I forgot to eat supper. So I'm hungry too. And grumpy! And charming! And slightly pensive! But mostly tired.
Ok ok, let's see . . . nope. I got nothing. Sorry. Wait- I just thought of something! Oh no, never mind.
Maybe tomorrow I will be less grumpy and more lucid, erudite and intelligent.

I think I might have gotten mild heatstroke today. And I pulled a muscle in my back. But I finshed the job, dammit, like always. Hot day, hard work. But it was alright- there was a little girl there, about three years old, who was fascinated by me, for some reason. She kept calling me "Man", not like, "Hey man how's it hanging" but just 'Man', since I am a man. So I called her, naturally enough, Little Girl. She would be like "Do you want to play balloons with me, Man?" And I would reply, "I'd love to Little Girl but I can't right now." And then she would turn to her mom and say, "Can't Man play with me mama?" She was adorable.
Oh yeah and then some guys asked to borrow our dolly and when they returned it they gave us 40 little sample bottles of vodka and whiskey, 50 mls each. They were from a liquor store, I think. I hope. Not exactly sure what I'm going to do with 2 liters worth of single serving hard alcohol (my partner didn't want any of it so he let me have it all). I could throw a party I guess . . . umm no. In fact, Homie Bear, the party animal that he is, will now curl up on the futon for the rest of this fine Saturday evening and read some Harry Pootter.
Because I get to get up nice and early tomorrow morning and do it all over!

I was talking to Gotthammer Mike the other day and he says the long-awaited Seven Devil Fix CD, Lotus, will be ready at the end of August, or thereabouts. I was sort of hoping it would be ready NOW- I want my Fix fix!- but what can you do. It will be worth the wait. If any of you want to preorder it, umm, I'm sure you could wander over to his site or the 7DF site and request a copy via email. Not sure how much they will cost. Or if you are shy, you can email me and I will set it up for you. Even if I don't know you!
While I am on the topic of plugging my friend's art and other work, let me recommend you wander over to Beyond Magazine's site and subscribe. I did back in September when they started their drive, and they still have a ways to go to reach 1000 subscribers. Definitely a quality mag. And Jen Leo over at Written Road has been doing an excellent job of poomoting her anthology of women's hilarious travel misadventures, Sand in My Bra. Let's see, a friend of a blogging friend just got his book pooblished by a Calgary pooblishing house, so that is doubly cool (I didn't know about such a close pooblishing house before tonight). Check it out here. That guy's name is Adrian Bedford and he is a friend of River Selkie's.
And uh, if you want to buy MY book, well, you'll just have to wait until I write one. Maybe tomorrow.
But I do poovide some backup vocals for the Seven Devil Fix CD.

The Mother Superior is constantly vigilant
In making sure all of her nuns are all digilant
She doesn't put up with making up words
Her convent is full of grammatical nerds
So imagine the irony when she nailed up a sign
That stated her new Nunnery Rule Number Nine:
"From this point hereforeward I will severiously punish
Any of you nuns who are caught acting unnunnish!"


Notes: Severious is a word I coined when I was hitch-hiking across Canada and needed a new way to describe the excruciating pain I was often in when hiking with my backpack for untold miles, as in "I am in severious pain." You know, both severe and serious.
Digilant is a word I just made up to rhyme with vigilant. Since diligent just didn't really cut it.
And I don't know who made up the word poo but they deserve a Poollitzer.

Mama Momo
When I was in Lhasa my friends discovered an innocuous little shop on some side street that made the best momos ever. Momos are little potato balls, often with a meat center, and they are so good. What first attracted them to the shop was a funny English slogan on the window, though now I can't remember what it said. Sorry. "Flied potatomomos" or something. This shop was run by an elderly Tibetan woman, and a nun who helped her in the afternoons. They were the sweetest ladies ever. We named the elderly woman Grandma Momo, though she preferred Mama Momo, and she was always happy to see us and would often not accept our payment, no matter how hard we tried to give it to her- a few dollars to us can go a long way there. So we visited and did our best at commuicating. I always make it a point to (at least) learn how to count to ten in whatever language the country I'm in uses, so I amused her by counting to ten in Tibetan, a very difficult language. She was always laughing at us and getting us to tell her how to say words in English, then she would repeat them and giggle endlessly. Oh yeah and she was amazed at the presence of hair on my arms and . . . other places. She would rub my arms and laugh, and the nun would come and do the same and it was all quite hilarious to them. The nun even lifted my shirt to see what was underneath, which I'm pretty sure is unnunnish behaviour, but fine by me.
Here is a photo of Mama Momo, I love this picture but I can not take credit for it- my friend took it. And here is a picture of her nun helper making some momos. If the pictures don't open, just hit the refresh button until they do- my photo site has been acting pooey lately.
I bring it up because I finished reading that book I mentioned the other day about Ama Adhe, the Tibetan woman who was imprisoned for 24 years by the Communists. The cover photo on the book reminds me of Mama Momo. Although when I compare the two, I see there is really no resemblance.
I think unnunnish is my new favorite word. Hmmm . . . hold on, I feel a poem coming on . . .

All of these links pertain to goings on here in the Woods the last few days: It's a poorple poolar bear! She looks like she wouldn't mind being freed. And this is for Chogtwer, may he rest in peace: On the care and feeding of your black hole.
And for River Selkie and anyone else interested in very bad writing, the 2003 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest winners for bad opening sentences of imaginary novels.

If I had a dollar for every time . . .
For the last many years I have lived very near to a little IGA that I like to patronize, often going on an almost daily basis to purchase the necessary foodstuffs to sustain me. It's not a full sized grocery megamart, yet still bigger than a convenience store, and it has decent prices. I've been going there for so long that I don't even really pay attention to what the prices are. Today I picked up a 4 liter jug of milk, like I always do, and for some reason decided to compare the prices on the two brands they offer. Turns out the brand I always buy is a full dollar more than the other brand! I can't even begin to guess how much money I have wasted by always buying that brand and not even looking at how much it costs! Probably a few hundred dollars. Poo! Oh well. Now I know.
But, I would like to indulge in a little fantasy spending spree, to see what I might have purchased with those saved dollars. Let's say I would have saved $365. If that seems a little high, I figure I buy a 4 liter jug every three or four days, and I have bought milk at that IGA for 5 years or so. So if anything, I am probably a little low. So let's say it was $400. And now, for no plausible reason that I can think of, let's multiply that sum by 10 to get $4000. Wow! Imagine what I can buy with four grand.
A house, and maybe a little motorcycle, plus some poolar bears I could buy from a zoo and set free to live at my house or otherwise just roam in the wild if they like, a round trip ticket to Antarctica, and a full year's subscription to Rolling Stone magazine.
To think I could have had all that if I had just paid more attention to the price tag on a jug of milk.

I read Mark Salzman's Iron and Silk this week- what an amazing book. I loved it and I was sorry when I finished it. It's a true story about the author's time as a teacher in pre-Tiananmen Massacre China, around 1984 or so. He writes hilarious and touching vignettes of his experiences with his pupils, as well as tales about a family of poor fishermen, and all of the martial arts and other cultural teachers that he meets during his time there. Here is an excerpt:

I enjoyed the time I spent with Pan very much, though I must admit I preferred the time he was teaching me wushu to the time he was teaching me how to teach him English. I remember with special clarity how close to madness I came the day he decided to learn how to tell time. He managed to find a broken clock, set its hands at exactly twelve o'clock, then asked me how to say what time it was. After he had repeated "It's twelve o'clock" to his satisfaction, he moved the minute hand exactly one minute forward to 12:01. "How do you say this?" he asked.

Right now I am reading a more serious book about a Tibetan woman who spent 27 years in prison when the Chinese took over Tibet. She was tortured and raped during that time, but eventually managed to escape to India. I'm only about half way through so I don't know all the details yet. It's called Ama Adhe: The Voice That Remembers. It was weird when I was in Tibet, because I have a huge love for the Chinese people and culture, and an equal love and respect for the Tibetans. In fact, the Tibetan way of life is even more admirable. So it almost bred a certain amount of cognitive dissonance, knowing what I do about the way the Chinese have treated the Tibetans. But of course, the individual people of both nations are hardly responsible for the actions of their governments and armies and such. Anyways, if you are interested in knowing more about Tibet's history regarding the Chinese occupation and the Dalai Lama's exile to Dharamsala, I recommend In Exile from the Land of Snows, by John Avedon.

It was far too hot to be lugging 5000 pounds worth of other peoples' stuff up a very long flight of stairs today. Far too hot. But work is work. Me and my coworker carried, pulled, threw and dragged all those tons in the sweltering heat for five and a half straight hours, with but one respite when we took the truck to the weigh scales to find out just how much there was. The smaller load was 2750 pounds, so I figure at least 5000 in all. More than enough. Brutal day. And I am wiped. After work we went to my coworker's favorite pub for beer and wings. Lately I have actually foresworn alcohol for the most part, but after a day like today I do not mind indulging a little bit. Some guy we didn't know decided to join us and talked incessantly to us for a while but it was okay because he brought an album of all his artwork, the native style that I love, and there were some pictures of bears that I totally dug. I might have to get a tattoo of something like it.

And I got permission to poost the compooter pixie story (anonymously), so scroll down to the original entry about my magically healed keyboard if you care to read it. And my new iamnext column is up now, too.
So Lydia, when can I expect YOUR story? ;)
Now I am going to play pooker outside on the deck with my evil room mate.

Yay! I won! I won! I won in the Worst Novel Ending category in River Selkies Bloggiversary contest. I am the worst writer of novels! Actually, I dont have to feel too bad because I think mine was the only entry in the category. Anyways, it;s nice to win, even a bad writing contest. So thank you to River Selkie. At the Woods bloggiversary poohaps I will have a contest too. Remember the haipoo contest? That was fun. Feel free to submit a haipoo at any time, by the way.

So here's the thing: the first ever Gathering Arts festival, G-Arts, is this coming Sunday, and I still have no idea what I am going to do for it. A while ago I even dreamt that it was the day and I still had nothing and I had to make something up on the spot and it was awful and terrible and everybody cried including me. I am not very artistic, especially when compared to some of the amazing folks at the Gathering, so I am thinking on defaulting to poetry. Not pooetry, since I don't know how well that would go over, but not Poetry, either, you know, like what Alfred Lord Tennyson does. Just funny little rhymes like I like to write about Homie Bear and stuff. But I want to write something new, not just rehash oldness. The trouble, of course, is that creativity is not a genie at your beck and call. You can't just sit down and say, "Now I will create something that will make people laugh and cheer!" Usually ideas just come to me and then I have to ride the wave or else whatever seedling of an idea that was there will be lost forever, flushed down the toilet into the black hole of Chogtwer, whoever Chogtwer is, probably an anti-muse of some sort. See? I have created a sentence to be proud of, by mixing no less than 5 metaphors. But you can't just say "Now I will write a sentence that will mix 5 metaphors, and will introduce some new beast into Classical Mythology." It just sort of happens.
So, now I await my muse.

Homie and His Muse

Homie was feeling sad one day because he couldn't think
Of anything that he could write that didn't really stink
He tried to write an epic poem full of gods and giants
But instead he wrote a treatise on geologic science
"Graargh" he growled in frustration and ripped up his pad of paper
He decided he had had enough and would go off on a caper
So he went down to the lake and there he saw ol' Chogtwer
Homie asked "Have you seen my muse? I think I need to talk to 'er."
And Chogtwer said, "I hate the muses! I put them in my dungeon."
This made Homie very mad so off he went a lungin'
But Chogtwer was a giant god from an ancient eon
And so he stomped on Homie Bear as though he were a peon
But Homie has titanic strength and wasn't even hurt
He picked up the very startled god and slammed him in the dirt
And looked him in the eye while he summarily dispatched 'im
Pausing just to lick his paw where Chogtwer's toe had scratched 'im
Then he went down to the dungeon and freed all the captive muses
While there he saw the power was out so he replaced a couple fuses
Calliope and the other muses were so happy to be freed
That they said to Homie Bear "We'll give you anything you need"
Homie said "If it pleases you I'd like some inspiration
To write a poem about gods and giants and their mighty conflagration"
Melpomene said "Why Homie dear it seems that you have written
An epic tale of a fight wherein a god gets bitten
All you have to do right now is go on home and write it
For poetry is a gentle thing, you never want to fight it."
And Homie laughed and smiled at this for he knew that they were right
He just had to write a poem about his Chogtwer bite
And so they all went away pleased with a job well done
A poem had been written and everyone had fun!

Well, except for Chogtwer

I know most of you probably check Metallica.com daily, so you know they have just launched a complete site redesign, but just in case you forgot to check today, I'm letting you know. I especially like how the site is skinnable. The Justice skin is my favorite- it really brings me back. Such technological advances likely won't be forthcoming here at Pooing in the Woods anytime soon, as it took all of my html knowledge to change the color of the skin from blue to green, and add that little bear sign to the left. And don't even talk to me about xml and css. I have no idea.

Good news!
This morning when I checked my email there was a story awaiting me, written bya friend, about how my compooter was magically fixed by a pixie. And somehow, by amazing coincidence or actual pixie poower, it was! If she lets me, I will poost her story for all to read, but for now, let me exult in all the Glorious and Harmonious g's and h's (not to mention 's and "s) that i can make now! GhHgghhgGHHG! I feel so free! Not only that, I have up arrow capabilities again, as well as all my function keys.
But Lydia, I still await your guest poost!

Update: Permission was granted to print the Pixie story, all rights reserved and so forth. Keep in mind that all references to evil room mates should probably be taken as allegorical.

There once was a boy named Nathan. Nathan was an
extraordinary boy for many reasons but not least among
them was because he possessed a magic computer that a
pixie had given to him for safekeeping. This computer
could turn thoughts into brilliant essays and send
messages instantly around the world. It was a
marvelous thing. But Nathan's evil roommate was
jealous of his special gift and one night stole into
Nathan's room while Nathan was away on a mission of
mercy (or maybe just away) and used the magic computer
in a savage and uncaring manner. The roommate broke
the computer's spirit (not to mention it's power cord)
and when Nathan returned from his wonderful adventure,
the computer was not the same. The computer felt so
betrayed by Nathan leaving it at the mercy of the evil
roommate that it shut down. But only partially. In
the cruelest sense imaginable, the computer exacted
revenge on Nathan by allowing him to access all the
marvels of the computer's magic but with the essential
"h" and "g" keys dead to Nathan's touch. Now suddenly
Nathan could only speak garbled nonsense - or rather,
arbled nonsense. The computer felt secretly
vindicated for the abuse it had suffered at the hands
of the evil roommate. Though the abuse had not been
Nathan's fault, the computer had TRUSTED Nathan to
protect it and had been allowed to be mistreated in
Nathan's absence.

Thus Nathan was cursed to communicate in half-measures
with garish incomplete thoughts - or rather, wit aris
incomplete touts. But what the computer hadn't
counted on in exacting it's revenge was the sheer
capacity for goodwill that existed in Nathan's heart.
Truly his heart was bigger than any the computer had
yet encountered. For Nathan felt the guilt of the
evil roommate's incursion as acutely as though he
himself had committed the deed. And because the
computer was so dear to him and because the computer
had entrusted itself to Nathan's care, Nathan sought
to beseech the pixie to have mercy and repair the
computer's broken soul. The pixie relented because
Nathan was such a greatly classy guy (one might even
say he was shifty) and she blessed the computer and
made it whole once again.

Now the computer's keys work magic for Nathan as
before and the bond of trust is restored. And thus
the tale ends happily ever after...

The End

Today (Sunday) is the 30th anniversary of Bruce Lee's untimely death. It's because of Bruce that movies such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon have been made. I am not a martial artist by any means, but of course you dont have to be to appreciate martial arts movies. So, in light of this inauspicious date, may I suggest you rent Enter the Dragon, and maybe Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.
And while you're at it, check out his son Brandon Lee;s The Crow. As you may know, Brandon also died very young and very tragically, having been killed on set by a real bullet fired from a prop gun while filming The Crow back in 1992.
Here is a link to an article on Bruce Lee in yesterday's Sun.