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




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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's my pet trilobite:



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



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

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



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

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



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



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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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