Back in December, I ordered a little item from your store, an item which is clearly marked in red letters on its packaging as a Klingon Corkscrew. I ordered it for my girlfriend and myself, so that it can help complete the set of nerdish implements we want for our kitchen (the other nerdish implement is an Enterprise bottle-opener).

I was extremely excited when the package arrived, as I’d saved up several corked bottles that would receive a screwin’ of the severest kind: the kind that can only be rendered by something made in the name of the Klingon Empire.

I ripped the box open and was verily tearing apart the package when I noticed the packing slip. Clearly marked there, in some awful fixed-width font, were the words “Romulan Corkscrew.”

“In the name of Kahless, what is this blasphemy?” I thought.

And you call yourselves geeks...

How can an organization which proudly brandishes the moniker of “geek” so utterly fail the most simplest of geek tests? To know the difference between an object that is Klingon in origin from a Romulan one is to embody all things geek. But this? This makes my heart ache for the future of humanity, Vulcanity and even Ferenghinity, to say nothing of Klingonity.

I’m giving the “geeks” at ThinkGeek the opportunity to defend themselves, to tell their side of the story — which will no doubt involve some tale of woe related to some kind of point-of-sale Holodeck malfunction. Pffft, we’ve all heard that one.

Defend yourselves, righteous purveyors of fabulously geeky items, or become the laughing stock of Trek fans everywhere — which would absolutely represent a paradigm shift in the lives of all Trekkies**.

I can already taste the bloodwine!

*In case you couldn’t tell, this is all in good fun.

**I don’t use the word “Trekkers” because it sounds ever dumber than “Trekkies.”

For influencial Edmonton Twitter user @steenyweeny (known to some as Jen), a boring February phone call accompanied by a notepad and pen has gone from random doodles to a bona fide Twitter phenomenon called #selfportraitmondays — that’s “self-portrait Mondays” or SPM for the uninitiated.

“I got to doodling and ended up with a blocky cartoon that I decided was myself and drew a red scarf on it, then made a Twitpic and sent it to the interwebs,” Jen explains. “Within a few minutes, a few other tweeters decided to do the same and lo – #selfportraitmonday was born. I honestly can’t remember who suggested the hashtag first.”

It was enough to catch the attention of @grempel (to to some as Geoff), who immediately created a #selfportraitmonday blog to capture the works of other Twitter users who were playing along.

“The first batch of SPM submissions were too good to get lost in the interwebs so we put them into the SPM blog,” Geoff says. “The blog is still pretty rudimentary. There are a number of features I have in mind that I would like to add — like a ranking system so that visitors can pick their favorite of the week or of all time.”

Geoff is also working on a way for users to submit their own self portraits to the site so that he and Jen don’t have to scour Twitter Search to find all the entries. It would also mean that those users who protect their tweets could still share their self portraits.

And there are plenty of users — both public and private — from all around who play along every week.

“We’ve posted over 200 self portraits over the last couple of months. Some people play every week, some people play now and then, and some people send a solitary self portrait and then disappear into the ether,” Jen says. “Looking back over the posts, I think we’ve had 50 to 60 different people contribute so far.”

Geoff adds: “The SPM thing is mostly played by Canadians but there is a strong following from Mexico that is growing.

“As for visitors to the website we’ve seen traffic from Canada, USA, UK, Mexico, Australia, Romania, Argentina. It’s still pretty small but growing.”

All of this activity stems from something random that Jen did and tweeted, and that Geoff liked enough to help her out with. Self-portrait Mondays even has its own Facebook group.

“I honestly didn’t think it would last past maybe three weeks,” Geoff says, “But since March 29, it’s been pretty consistent with the amount of participants and the amount of people visiting the blog. I guess if I had to pick a goal to achieve it would be pretty awesome to see #selfportraitmonday trend at least once. Maybe that’s not too realistic but it would be pretty cool.”

Twitter recently changed its trending algorithm, so it’s possible you’ll see SPM trend sometime soon. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a self-portrait to work on.

To my mum: I’m what I am today in large part because of you. What I’m really saying is, this is all your fault. I love you, mum!

I think it’s safe to say, after only knowing Jeff on Twitter beforehand, that I liked this guy right away. We chatted for a bit, discussing such things as roadkill and where we could go in the next ten minutes for dessert. It was the start of something wonderful, and it involved cheesecake.

Sadly, I wouldn’t see Jeff again for a long time… Months later, in fact, at a chance encounter at another downtown pub when Mack and I were crashed (it was a good crash, though, and I don’t mean drunk either). This time, Jeff showed up with community pillar Brittney Le Blanc, as well as his awesome wife Sally Poulsen, who I also liked immediately. And not just because she always calls me dude, but because she’s hilarious and smart. If Sally and Jeff weren’t already married to each other, I’d marry them both, then suggest that they also marry each other in a strange union the likes of which probably aren’t legal in Canada, but which would shock the human race into an era of peace and love.

So you can imagine my delight when the two of them agreed to be guests on the Unknown Studio. And not just because they’re awesome people (which they are), but because they’re entrepreneurial community participants not content to sit on the sidelines and whinge about the things that make them sad. They’re down there in the trenches getting shit done.

I think that’s part of the reason why, back in June 2009, they launched TheEdmontonian.com, a hyperlocal news blog featuring content for and by citizens and well-wishers of Edmonton which you should read… after you finish reading this.

The Space Ghost effect

I think it would be fair to say that Jeff and Sally are fans of the Unknown Studio (please, one or both of you, correct me if I’m wrong). And as you’ll hear in the episode we recorded with them, what they’re trying to do with TheEdmontonian and what Scott and I, it turns out, are trying to do with the Unknown Studio is to provide hyperlocal infotainment — a word you’ll learn I also dislike.

But our two squads (can two people be a squad, I ask you?) being of similar minds, I noticed a bit of a Space Ghost effect taking place… You see Space Ghost, himself the host of a talk show, would often ask his guests questions about himself. “What do you think of my show?” “What do you think of me?” “Are you getting enough oxygen?” I’m extremely self-critical, and I don’t want to be the guy who has people on to talk about himself. Myself. Me.

And I don’t think it came across that way, it’s just a little niggling my brain has placed in front of me.

Enough about me

Regardless of limited self-flagellation, I will say this: I read The Edmontonian every day, and have since it was launched. Not every post, but I’m on there checking it out, seeing what my compatriots have discovered from having their fingers on the pulse of the community. And between the morning headlines, the light-hearted stabbing at the reputation of such hallowed concrete and glass monoliths as Commerce Place, and the actual interviews, reviews, and other stories they publish, it’s a great online resource. One of the best hubs the Edmonton community has online.

And they and the other little hubs are all in good company.

Mine.

(Sorry, I just had to get that in there.)

At the time, I hadn’t played Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which was discussed in the final segment of the show. This is a game where all of the UCC guys agreed: the story line is incredibly engaging, and the whole thing basically plays like a movie. This was a major topic of discussion, as most of us agreed that one of the most revolutionary leaps forward in gaming recently is a very deliberate attention to detail on storyline.

If you’re into games, I highly recommend you subscribe to UserCreatedContent — Edmonton’s only video game podcast… And not just because I’m on it either. These guys are the future of citizen-video-game journalism and a great addition to the Edmonton Podcasting Scape.

This was, of course, followed up with a very clear message: I am nothing more than swine.

I love the people I work with!

Here’s another installment of Life Over the Last Few Weeks:

• Mike Kendrick and Conal Pierse are engaged in a battle of wits — using illustrations. You should definitely check out their Sketch War.
• Chris LaBossiere wrote a spectacular post last week about Social Media and the Old Boys Club. Read and comment!
• NHL Pre-season is over. Now the real excitement begins! Over at OilersNation, FlamesNation and CanucksArmy, we’re preparing to roll out some new site features. Keep your eyes open for that!
• Also on OilersNation, Jason Gregor wrote a moving piece this week about his father, who passed away nine years go. Now go tell your dad how much you love him.
• Scott and I recorded two podcasts last weekend, since our next two weekends are jam-packed. We released Episode the Eighth on Tuesday of this week. Check out my update post from Tuesday for details, and click here to download direct from our website, or here to subscribe in iTunes.
• Along those lines, the fabulous and beautiful editors of The Edmontonian profiled the Unknown Studio on their site. Thanks for the shout-out guys!
• The 5th Annual Pure Speculation Science Fiction Festival is taking place this weekend in Edmonton at the Shaw Conference Centre. Register online or at any Happy Harbour Comics Store.
• The National Hockey League has been experimenting with social media, doing NHLTweetups during the playoffs and running a contest users can enter to win tickets. The Edmonton Oilers are getting in on it too. I wonder if this means a big about-face from about a year ago…?

SIrna Kolrami is a smarmy Riker-hating prick

Throw a weird finger-wiggling strategy game into the mix, some war games and that insufferable over-achiever Wesley Crusher, and you have yourself some TwitterTrek.

Here’s what Chris and I had to say about the season 2 episode “Peak Performance“:

ChrisHenderson: After an extended hiatus from narcissisim, @bingofuel and I will be live-tweeting #TNG tonight

Bingofuel: are we really watching an episode with Dr Pulaski? She’s like the ugly school marm of the enterpise #tng

CH: she is a much better doctorb than Beverly “The Red Headed Monster Spazz” Crusher. Bite your tongue.

BF: Ooh the Strategema episode… Back when #tng was Data-centric.

CH: @bingofuel Well, you’ve had too much Boone’s.

BF: Pulaski = Bones = #epicfail #tng

BF: Oh yeah this dude is Zakdorn, not to be confused with Michael Dorn

CH: This episode: Picard entertains a hedgehog-like military strategy academic on his ship. No, it’s not Ignatieff. #TNG

BF: Kolrami doesn’t have faith in Riker. Probably because he keeps breathing through his mouth.

CH: Riker is going to “Command the Hathaway.” IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE: http://is.gd/3ts0s #TNG

BF: Riker: “I prefer brains over Braun as well.” Riker, you aren’t in some seedy bar trying to pickup a Zakdorn slutte

CH: Worf is making model ships that he spends a great deal of time on and then lets his temper destroy. Just like his relationships. #lonliness

BF: “acting ensign”. Acting. Bahahahahaha #tng

CH: In this episode, Riker is commanding a ship to play a war game against the enterprise. And he gets to build his own crew. Takes Worf, Geordi

CH: Oh, he also takes Wesley Crusher to be on his crew. Because Riker is enough of an ass that he will lead on a young boy’s innocent crush.#tng

BF: I like how Strategema is played by attached little hair dryers to your fingers #tng

CH: They’re playing, Strategema, a board game now that is somehow less technologically advanced than a Nintendo 64.

BF: Riker, the jock, just got beat by a nerd! Unacceptable. #tng

CH: The Hathaway, the ship playing war games against the Enterprise, is in worse shape than Michael Jackson’s reputation as a babysitter. #tng

BF: Riker and his ragtag crew are on the Hathaway. What a piece of shit.

BF: “Nice job Geordi.” yeah right on genius, you found the ship’s on-switch

BF: Pulaski is Data’s Strategema pimp in this episode, apparently

BF: Geordi: “Wesley! Go and find me the opposite of matter!”

CH: Pulaski is such a middling jerk. She’s making Data play Strategema against the Strategema Hedgehog! #tng MACHINE VS. NERRRRRD!

BF: Data lost… to a NERRRRD #tng

BF: Kolrami has a big hate-on for Riker. I think he’s beardcist

CH: Picard thinks Riker is the best officer he’s ever served with. I guess Starfleet highly regards 1st officers who are unapologetic lotharios.

BF: What’s the #tng equivalent of cigarettes? Because Pulaski sounds like she smoke ten packs of that shit a day

BF: Data: over analyzing Riker’s battle technique; overusing his dippity-do android hair gel

BF: Come to think of it, Kolrami looks like an octogenarian Oompah Loompah

BF: The Riker Lean is prominenty featured in this episode

CH: Picard just not-so-subtlely revealed that he has a massive crush on his first officer. Riker has a good Riker-lean going on.

BF: It’s weird how the Ferengi are the go-to species in he first two seasons of #tng

CH: Holy good god! Quark just showed up! Wearing a massive chain of gold pressed latinum. The Ferengi are so bloody stupid.

BF: “ferengi” sounds like Italian for rotten pasta

BF: That’s right quark… Go back to the promenade and peddle your shitty mojitos #tng

CH: @bingofuel SPACE mojitos.

BF: Now Data is figuratively beating the piss out of Kolrami at Strategema. And that little bitch is a sore loser

BF: Data used the phrase “busted him up” proving that he is actually a lower middle-class urbanite with a penchant for douchebaggery

CH: This episode was so Riker-centric that @bingofuel grew a beard during the course of our tweets: http://twitpic.com/iepud

• Scott and I recorded and launched episode seven of the Unknown Studio last week. This show, we interviewed Dan Tencer, host of Inside Sports on 630 CHED. Dan’s a knowledgeable guy, and it was fun to spend an hour picking his brain. Thanks for being on the show Dan!
• Since Daveberta and I collaborated on the Ed Stelmach poster awhile back, we’ve finally settled on a concept for a Brian Mason poster. However, it’s tough finding decent hi-res, Creative-Commons-licensed pics of Mason. If you know where I can find any, please drop me a line in the comments.
• The NHL pre-season is officially underway, and in typical OilersNation fashion, one of our writers Wanye Gretz has selected his star and his goat for the year. Who will yours be? (I went with Khabibulin as my star and Staios as my goat.)
• On the podcasting front, I’ve been listening to friend Ramin’s podcast User Created Content over the last week (caught up on my most recent episodes!). Give them a listen if you’re into videogames. These boys have a great little show!
• I managed to track down a fantastic bottle of wine last week. It’s Argentinian: Fuzion Shiraz-Malbec. At $11.99 a bottle, you’ll be amazed how good this wine is! The real kick in the nuts, though, is that in Toronto you can usually find this bad boy for only $9. Damned privatized liquor sales!
• On the heels of Kanye West’s VMA outburst, you can now get Kanye to interrupt your own website, using Kanyelicio.us. I don’t care for Taylor Swift’s music, but Kanye’s just such a overbearing douche… Still, I love his music. So much internal conflict!
• And just because he was so well-behaved when I took some pictures of him this week, here’s Vinny the Husky doing what he does best: laying around, panting, and looking cute:

Oh sure, it’s thicker. But it’s a helluva lot thicker. Terrifying, actually, that I can grow hair this quickly. If rapid hair-growth counted as a superpower, I’d be Professor fucking-X… if Professor X had hair. Check it:

Taste the rainbow... and by rainbow, I mean beard.

The question now: How much thicker will it get? I don’t want to ZZ Top this mofo. However, certain key beard areas aren’t quite at the thickness they should be. But compare the above photo to my previous entry:

Who's this handsome devil?

Oh cool! That zit cleared up.

Ahem.

Yes, you get the idea. And that idea is facial hair. The question is, am I even remotely approaching the sexiness of this man? Only time will tell…

They call him Number One for a reason

My genetics endow me with the dubious quality of being able to grow facial hair at an alarming rate. The last time I shaved was August 31, 2009. At that time, I essentially looked like this:

Basically exactly like the image, actually. I think I even had cake in my high-chair that day.

Now, however, not even a week since, I’m more monster than man:

A five-day beard. Eat your heart out, ZZ-Top

Soon, the genesis of the Riker Beard will be complete… That’s part of the reason I’m doing this, see.

I’ll routinely grow back my facial hair maybe once every two years due mostly to laziness and cheapness — those Mach 3s don’t grow on trees. Because if they did, those trees would cut you. This year, however, Rachel and I have decided to really nerd it up for Halloween, and will go as the original Star Fleet power couple: Commander William Riker — whose cro-magnon tendencies routinely cost him the chance to command is own starship (Riker was truly a sap with no business commanding his own vessel, but damn was he ever handsome); and the meddlesome-though-pleasant Deanna Troi.

There, I said it. Now if we don’t dress like this for Halloween, I no longer have an excuse for my continued vagrancy.

Watch this space for more beard updates.

And rightly so.

One of the topics Dave and I discussed over beers was where, exactly, Ed Stelmach had gotten to. No one has heard a peep from the man since the day he promised us that the beers Dave and I were consuming wouldn’t cost more on account of taxes — recession be damned!

We weren’t sure of the premier’s whereabouts, so we decided to put up “Missing” posters, imploring someone — anyone — who has seen Steady Eddie to let us know. Check it:

You can download the print-quality PDF here. Please print these off and post them all over your towns and cities!

I’m sure you’ve seen some of the major offenders yourself, “Indeed, methinks blah blah blah.”

The wonderful thing about the web is that the main method of communication is through writing. The terrible thing about the web is that it allows douchebags to experiment with language, and sound like complete and utter knobs.

Below is a shortlist of some of the words and phrases I’ve come across that are just so egregious that they should be banned from use entirely. And just so you know, I’ve been variously guilty of using all of these words and phrases myself.

1. “Methinks”: This is meant to be a humourous old English phrase. It’s supposed to be ironic. But over the last few weeks I’ve seen a half dozen or so people use this word completely unironically. The phrase you’re actually looking for is “I think,” unless you’re trying to be hilarious and it’s the 14th century.
2. “Indeed”: The definitions for this word are variously amusing. My interpretation of them is this: “indeed is a word used to emphasize that which has already been stated, and unless you’re a total knob, you actually never have to use the word ‘indeed’ unless you’re just trying to sound like a pompous douche.” Indeed, I suspect many of you already knew this. Yes indeed.
3. “The fact is”: This phrase really grinds me. I think nearly every time I’ve heard someone begin a statement with “the fact is,” I’ve discovered later that, in truth, the fact isn’t.
4. “I daresay”: Like human vestigial organs — the appendix or the tail — “daresay” is a word that should have been surgically removed from the English language about two centuries ago. Use of the word “dare” in this compound word hardly adds to the mystique. Instead of “venturing to say” something, just come out and say it. I dare you.
5. “Needless to say”: Really? Needless to say? Then don’t fuckin’ say it.
6. “In my humble opinion” (not to be confused with the infinitely better “in my opinion”): I find often — though not always — those individuals offering up their “humble” opinions aren’t very humble. People use this phrase to soften then blow of something they know people are going to vehemently disagree with. Don’t be so afraid to share your proud or overbearing opinion. You aren’t fooling anyone with this “humble” business.
7. “Just sayin’”: Yeah, clearly. By virtue of the fact that you’re saying it, we can see that you’re “just sayin’.” Still, thanks for pointing it out to us knuckle-dragging word-simians.

Needless to say, this post indeed makes me come across as a curmudgeonly jerk. I daresay many of you will disagree with me, but the fact is these are words and phrases that we should do away with. In my humble opinion, they make the writer sound like a douchebag, and methinks that harms a writer’s credibility.

Just sayin’.

Data the Enabler forces Scotty to imbibe.

Last week, Henderson and I wound up at the same dinner party, and wouldn’t you know it, but our gracious hosts were fans of the Trek. Since Henderson and I are shameless histrionic personalities, we live-tweeted the whole thing for an audience that exists primarily in our own imaginations.

Here’s what happened when we sat down to watch Season Six, Episode Four: “Relics”

ChrisHenderson: I like this episode. Riker has a beard. It makes me feel safe. Yet, extremely vulnerable.

Bingofuel: Riker, how would you know the value of the earth’s orbit around the sun, you mouth-breather?

BF: Ah yes, the Dyson Sphere: also known as solar bubble wrap. also known as Planet Condom.

BF: Like Worf’s going to be able to increase the oxygen level! He’s the security officer. Ask him to shoot something. LIKE THE EMITTER ARRAY!

BF: Geordi: “I’ve never seen a transporter jury-rigged like this before.” Me: “Technically, you haven’t seen anything before.”

CH: So, yet again, the Enterprise found something extremely dangerous and mysterious to beam down 3 of their 5 most senior officers to. SAFETY.

CH: Scotty is in this epi. He was stuck in a transporter. How did he gain all that weight, when he was broken down into his constituent parts?

BF: Scotty just looked at Worf like he had two heads. Or, you know, one really fuckin’ big misshapen one.

BF: I like how Scotty’s regaling Geordi with old engineering tales, and Geordi’s just, like, checking his text messages and shit.

CH: Scotty and Geordi are nerding out over ship engines. If they get stuck in the turbolift, they’ll probably be tempted to touch silly parts.

BF: Scotty, you’re 147 years old. TAKE IT EASY… and drink this bottle of whiskey.

CH: @bingofuel Geordi doesn’t find Scotty’s stories nearly amusing as listening to @souljaboytellem

BF: Geordi’s so 9-5. SCOTTY’S 24-7

CH: Geordi is annoyed and thinking about shipping Scotty to the USS Barack Obama, where old people have their fate decided by DEATH PANELS.

The USS Jenolan, aka the Little Ship That Could For As Long As The Enterprise Needed To Escape™

BF: uh oh, the scotsman just found the Bar of the Future™. Let the 3D drinking games begin!

CH: Apparently being a Lt. Commander also allows you to tend bar at 10-Forward, which, if I do say so, is the stupidest name for a bar ever.

BF: Scotty’s the Original Gangsta. No bloody “A,” “B,” “C,” or “D.”

BF: FUCK YES. Captain Picard is downing Aldebaran whiskey shots with Scotty. I want to go on a starship pubcrawl with them! SPRING BREAK

BF: How come no one ever goes into the holodeck and says, “Load the muthafuckin’ Tron laser-bike program, and disable the safeties, bitch”?

BF: Scotty’s hangover wisdom is first-rate!

BF: The Dyson Sphere conjures images of Miles Dyson, creator of the Terminator. My advice to the crew of the Enterprise: DON’T GO IN THERE.

BF: When has auxiliary power NOT failed, nameless ensign?

BF: Riker will see about getting main power back online. Probably by head-butting a computer terminal.

CH: @bingofuel I think it’s more likely that he’ll seduce it and then use his cold-hearted manliness to leave it yearning for him forevermore.

CH: Scotty laughs at everything Geordi suggests. Scotty is a damn racist.

BF: Scotty: “I never wanted to be anything but and engineer… an Ewan MacGregor’s body double in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.”

BF: Fact: the USS Jenolan is named after the Jenolan Caves in Australia. Booyah… uh, and prosper.

BF: New fact: the FORMER Jenolan… it was destroyed by the Enterprise. No respect for history.

CH: The Enterprise just shot the gap on the Death Star: “SISTA BE DRIVIN!”

CH: Geordi is the Chief Engineer OF MY HEART. Incidentally, I’m Admiral of my own bathtub.

BF: @ChrisHenderson I wish *I* had a bathtub admiral! SISTA BE BATHIN’!

This is the first it what will “hopefully” become a semi-regular series of posts… as long as @ChrisHenderson and I can find time to sit down and nerd the hell out… Mad thanks to the teams of monks at Memory Alpha, the finest wiki-reference for Trek on the whole planet.

First off, Venting is completely anonymous. And for a fairly credible media organization, I don’t think keeping an anonymous sniping section in their newspaper drives the credibility meter up into the stratosphere.

Second, it’s not quite like Twitter. I’d argue that while most of the people I follow on Twitter make nice (generally), Venting is a place for trolls. If people on Twitter act like dinks, there’s a real-time community there to put them in their place. A lot of people on Twitter also choose to identify who they are (like me), though not all people do this. There’s no mechanism in Venting to say to someone, “Hey, Ted from Fort Saskatchewan, who hates all people less than 5’4″ tall, that’s extremely dumb what you just said,” or “Wow, Steven from Holyrood, the level of qualified ignorance you just conveyed really makes me worry for future generations of the human race.”

In a way, though, having a Venting section is a somewhat democratic thing to do: open up the Journal’s pages to those not eloquent enough to collect their thoughts and write a proper letter to the editor. Give anonymous douchebags too cowardly to share their views and attach their name to them a street-corner soapbox from which to share their asinine vitriolic rants.

I’m sorry, but Venting is a tremendous waste of ink. It adds exactly no value to the Journal, and in fact takes it down a notch when you compare that (albeit small) section to the Journal’s other hallowed pages. Venting reads like the Edmonton Sun’s letters section: nasty, brutish and short.

I’d be happy to see the newspaper do away with Venting. Save that space for more local content, and let the trolls have at ‘er in the online comments section of the newspaper. Who knows, maybe a troll or two will amass enough brain matter (by proxy, of course) to write a proper letter to the editor denouncing local drivers and their inability to use turn signals; or the fact that smokers are, like, totally being marginalized and shit.

But what do I know? I guess I’m just venting.

Hilarious link? Copy, paste and broadcast it to any number of people you know or are merely acquainted with. Find an embarrassing email? A weird image? Share it with the world. Encourage others to copy and paste. That’s how memes develop.

Ah yes, I love the smell of Internet in the morning!

However sometimes people “abuse” copyright and don’t properly credit artists or seek artists’ permission to use their works — a fact caused in part by the extreme lag and lack of ductility inherent in the law. So it goes.

Thankfully, we’ve born witness to the rise of Creative Commons, and many artists, writers — and poorly labeled “content creators” — are rightly jumping onboard. However, this still makes accessing and using older works complicated, and the notion of mashing these older works up with new stuff is typically met with extreme skepticism, if not extreme litigation. Still, [sometimes] anonymous mash-up auteurs soldier on, for their love of music or film (or whatever they’ve managed to mash-up) — of new permutations and potentials for collaborations that never were.

My first exposure to mash-ups was a really good one — exemplary, in fact. It wound up being one of the more popular music mash-ups to date. It caused a stir in the copyrights and copyfights communities. It launched a DJ’s career at least somewhat. It’s even stood the test of time.

It was DJ Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album, a mash-up of Jay-Z’s The Black Album and the Beatles:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vQF2JzpNi0]

After The Grey Album, I was hooked. I managed to stumble upon mash-up master dj BC from Boston, who did an unbelievable mash-up of Dixieland Jazz with the Wu-Tang Clan called Wu Orleans. And once you hear Wu-Tang rappin’ along side to The Dirty Dozen Brass Band you’ll never look at ODB and crew the same again:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhPmfNUOdkQ]

(Admittedly the version above isn’t synced correctly, but you get the scope of radness, I hope.)

Next, dj BC cranked out the second “Beastles” album he’d done, this one called Let It Beast. The Beatles were back, only this time they were benefitting from the outstanding lyricism of my favourites: the Beastie Boys:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJs9MOUNVwU]

Most recently, I’ve come across Jaydiohead and the Hood Internet. My friend Pauly’s even gotten into the mash-up scene and started a site called Paulcasts (and by the way, he’s definitely an unplucked gem. Share and share often). If Pauly’s any indication of the passion mash-up artists have for music, then only good can come from this. And though the frothing foaming mouths of hungry litigators seem, for the moment at least, less pervasive than they did even a few years ago, you can bet your ass the old-man-run record labels still haven’t figured out what to make of all of this.

What they’ve failed to make, also, is money — which they could be doing by the truckload, I suspect, if only they had the brains to collect the very best mash-up artists, pay them handsomely, and earn a tidy sum off their talents. Or, since the landscape of ownership has changed so much and the methods of production and distribution are cheap as free, at least find some way to encourage this and try and earn revenue off royalties — nothing exorbitant and extortionist like the Big Labels’ halcyon days of money-swimming à la Scrooge McDuck (himself a mash-up of Donald Duck and Mr. Lodge from the Archie Comics, I think) — but enough to feed the necessary mouths and turn a princely, if not kingly, profit.

Alas, after all the time since Napster, LimeWire, and Bit Torrent, no one’s figured it out. So people continue to hide and seek and steal. And download and share. And culture propogates across the virtual landscape, onto MP3 players, USB keys and maybe even the radio waves (at least the college ones) into the real landscape. And I think this is a good thing, this building upon of culture, this combination of ideas and sounds.

Besides, I’m dying to hear whose lyrics can be mashed up with the Beatles’ music next…

This is the third in a short series of posts about my family’s history, living in Canada as landed immigrants in the 1950s and 60s. You can read the second tale here, and the third one here. This particular series discusses my mother’s experiences living and working on a southern Alberta farm as a child. This will be the final post of this brief series.

There is a particular curse word in French that is quite vulgar when translated literally into English. However, the French no longer see it as such. It’s as common an insult in French as “idiot” is in English — it’s long taken on lesser connotations. If you aren’t sure what the word is, take a look at the first syllable in the word “connotations.” Maybe now you can imagine its English equivalent.

You’ll also find this word —con (pronounce like “cone” but the a very shortened “n” sound) — in the first syllable of the French word for jam: confiture. Georges, the beloved French farm-hand who worked for my grandfather when my family had its farm in southern Alberta, could not — nay, would not have breakfast without bread. And he would not have bread without his confiture. Mum and her twin brother René knew this. Knew it so well, that one morning, they decided to hide all the confiture.

So when Georges sat down that morning to help himself to breakfast — his bread and confiture — there was none to be found. Thus the question arose, “Où est la confiture?” Georges was asking.

“Oh, tu veux de la CONfiture?” came the response from the twins. “Je ‘n sais pas où est la CONfiture.” This particular emphasis and inflection was, quite sensibly, a great source of consternation for poor Georges. Georges le con. Not kind. And likely no help that my grandparents found that little gag particularly funny.

Georges eventually left Canada and headed back to France, though I think it had more to do with the fact that he really missed France. I don’t think Georges was integrating well in western Canada. I doubt the twins were helping much.

My mother and her brother stuck it out in Canada, though. Matter of fact, all my mum’s family did.

René steadily made his way eastward, stopping in Saskatchewan to join the RCMP, where he developed a deep-seated aversion to Shepherd’s Pie. He eventually found his way to Montréal, got married, had two children who are now in their 30s and worked as an RCMP member in charge of protecting federal politicians when they came over from Ottawa. He was front-and-centre during the FLQ Crisis.

René is a nationalist who guarded Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien, among others. Both of them, he says, were very nice, very cool people. Some other federal leaders — I’m sure you can imagine which ones — he doesn’t speak so fondly of. René (and his wife) is retired now and spends most of his time cycling and cross-country skiing in and around Montréal.

Mum stayed in Western Canada, in Alberta. She made her way up to St Albert, a bit of a haven for the French among the blue-collar anglophones in the centre of the province. She worked at a law firm, and eventually met my father, somehow convincing him not to become a priest. (I learned this fact about three days ago. Needless to say, a series on my father is in order.) Mum married dad in 1969, got pregnant in her first year of University and spent the next 25 or so years raising three boys, including myself.

I think she did all right.

Mum speaks with a clear fondness for the farm, but is happy to be a city girl now, where she has access to creature comforts she’s become accustom to. And all the confiture she would ever need.

This is the third in a short series of posts about my family’s history, living in Canada as landed immigrants in the 1950s and 60s. You can read the second tale here. This particular series discusses my mother’s experiences living and working on a southern Alberta farm as a child.

I wish I could say that my Mum and René left Georges be. But if they had, I wouldn’t have such tragic and funny stories to tell. So we plod on, and discuss some of Georges’ evening habits… and his fears (aside from the twin spawn of my grandparents).

When I last spoke with Mum and René, they told me and my brothers that Georges had a bizarre aversion to gophers. He didn’t dislike them as some people do magpies or mice. He was afraid of them. Evil vicious little things, he thought.

Naturally, the twins wanted to leverage this little-known fact. And since the last story I told you dealt with Georges’ morning routine, I’ll tell you a little bit about his evening routine.

It would seem, through some clandestine reconnaissance, René had discovered Georges’ method of getting into bed. The man liked to climb under the sheets, and jam his feet toward the foot of the bed underneath the covers. René’s mischievous brain conceived of putting a bunch of brushes into the foot of Georges’ bed just underneath the covers. Combine Georges’ foot-shoving behaviour with a fear of gophers, and you have a truly nightmarish way of falling asleep.

René found some brushes and did just that. These would be the gopher stand-ins and would help Georges’ learn the true meaning of terror. But what’s terror without pain? Nothing, according to my uncle. So he found a detached sledgehammer head.

He found it because on the farm, these things are always lying around somewhere. He also found it because he went out looking for it thinking to himself (en Français), “I’m going to find something very very hard — the head of a sledgehammer — and place it in Georges’ pillowcase.”

And that’s what he did.

And then it was bedtime. It actually never occurred to me to ask my mum if they went to bed early or late. I think it really depended on the time of the season. Sometimes you had to stay up late working and always you had to get up early. Georges was no doubt settling down for a good night’s sleep after a long day of back-breaking farm work and avoiding the twins. My mum and her brother were no doubt barely containing themselves in their own beds as they waited and listened for Georges to discover the gift they’d left for him.

From Georges’ perspective, and in my imagination, it went down a little something like this:

Position self on bed. Slide feet quickly into the foot of the bed under the covers. Feel something unusual brushing against feet, triggering thoughts of evil gophers. React by stiffening and slamming body very hard into the mattress… and pillowcase. Bash head on sledgehammer head that used to be a very soft pillow. Experience a combination of terror and extreme pain simultaneously. Nearly wet self. Hear laughter of irritating bugger children. Become enraged. Curse loudly in French.

Knowing what little I do know about Georges, I would imagine the poor man had a very awful sleep that night. Nightmares of some kind of terrible reverse Whack-a-Mole dancing over his brain. Désolé, Georges!

In my next post, I’ll tell you about how the twins were able to ruin Georges’ breakfast. And I’ll cap off this short series with some words on the kinds of things my uncle and mum have accomplished since their childhood.

I guess life on the farm is extremely routine and regimented. It has to be. Mum lived on a dairy farm in southern Alberta, near Lethbridge, for most of her childhood. I remember hearing stories about how awful the children in her school were to her and her twin brother René. You don’t speak the language, you’re different, and so you’re the object of extreme prejudice by the other — more Canadian, more normal — children. I count myself lucky I never had to experience anything like that. But whatever happened at school, Mum was lucky enough to have René, a built-in best friend. I can’t imagine what it’s like having a twin sibling…

In any event, school was soon forgotten when René and Mum got home, or when they had to wake up first thing in the early morning to milk the cows. Ever present, though, was their desire to bug poor Georges, the wayward Frenchman who never stood a chance.

Georges was a man of particular habits; he liked his toast his certain way and he liked his daily schedule his certain way. What he didn’t like were children, due in large part to my grandparents’ kids and their constant interference with his routine. This was a time before even television or the web. Kids had to occupy themselves somehow. René and Mum occupied themselves with disrupting Georges’ life.

Georges had a pair of slippers he always kept on the porch. In the morning, when he’d wake up, and before he had breakfast, Georges would go upstairs, open the door to the porch, step outside, slide into his slippers and keep right on walking, as though the slippers magically found themselves on his feet. Without a misstep, Georges was on his way.

Until the morning René nailed Georges’ slippers to the deck, my mother watching on, complicit in the whole scheme.

I imagine it a morning like any other, only this particular morning saw Mum and René on the edge of their seats at the breakfast table. And so it went: Georges hauled himself up the stairs, through the kitchen, out the door, onto the porch and into his slippers. However, on this particular morning, his full stride was stopped completely short. I imagine his thoughts of confusion as he tumbled face-first into the floor of the porch; an immediate sense of panic, turned to confusion, then realization at what was going on, then rage and some concept of whole was responsible — all before he experienced a great deal of pain.

Mum never mentioned Georges swearing, not with curse words, anyway. He’d say things like “Espèses de cons!” and “Mais qu’ils sont fous!” Nothing terribly earth shattering. But this time, the curses came fast and they came furious as Mum and René giggled until they were disciplined by their parents.

A single, solitary example of the life Georges led in Canada.

In my next post, I’ll tell you a little bit about my Mum’s discovery of Georges’ bedtime routine… and his fear of gophers.

And I know my parents have conducted themselves both wonderfully and questionably throughout their lives. That’s human nature. But my mother and her twin brother were always up to no good, particularly when they were children; particularly when they were new immigrants (moved here from France when they were just kids); particularly when they were living and working on my grandparents’ farm in southern Alberta.

Mum and René were, more often than not, up to no good. By their own admission, they reveled in scaring the living shit out of their nieces and nephews playing late-night hide-and-seek — my Mum’s eldest sister, herself a mother of ten, is about 15 years older than mum, which means Mum was an aunt at a very young age.

But Mum and René took particular pleasure in tormenting a Frenchman named Georges, who came to Canada one summer looking to work as a farm hand. The Canadian government hooked Georges up with my grandpa, himself a recent immigrant who spoke both official languages (Truly, I think he understood some English, and relied on his children to help him with the rest). I think the government figured on this being a simpler transition for Georges than sticking him with a bunch of English farmers, language barrier and all. What they didn’t figure on was a pair of mischievous French kids.

I’m a first-generation Canadian. Both of my parents are European immigrants who jumped on boats in the 1950s with their families (my father’s family with five children, my mother’s with ten!) and made their ways here to start new lives. My dad led a distinctly urban life, even when he lived in Holland. My mother was raised on a farm both in France and in Canada, though you wouldn’t know it now for her love of all things urban. I take a great deal of pride in my origins (and having spoken French my whole life, identify with that particular part of my heritage), and seeing my mother and her “beau frère” recount their childhood memories last weekend was nothing short of beautiful and inspirational.

Over the next few posts, I’m going to share with you some of Mum and René’s stories, providing context about their upbringing as it relates to their present dispositions. I recognize fully that my parents, my wonderful aunts and uncles, will not be around forever — another sad fact of human nature. I’ve always told myself I’d write a book about my family, since so many of my aunts, uncles, and cousins have such a diversity of experience and I tend to manage to drill down to the interesting bits of their life-stories. I hope you’ll join me over the next little while, as I discuss the poor Frenchman Georges, who didn’t stand a chance in my Home and Native Land.

It’s pretty unreal when you can put out an ad on a service like Craigslist or Kijiji and wind up meeting someone who isn’t a terrifying sociopath. When Scott and I needed a third person to move in — after our previous roommate Julie moved out to go travelling — we knew several things: our roommate had to be a girl, she had to be very patient, she had to like staying up late, and she had to be able to dish out the sarcasm and snide remarks that so constantly get floated about in this house. Turns out she was the perfect choice.

The whole adventure started when Scott and I were trying to determine precisely what we wanted in a roommate. We wanted someone who wasn’t afraid to converse with us and be more than just a person who shared our space. We wanted someone we could be friends with. We also wanted someone who liked to have fun every now and then, like go out on weekends drinking, or stay home chillin’ till late at night watching hilarious movies. So we put out an ad stating those things. We got several responses, but Clara was the first one to respond. We invited her over to view the house.

It was the end of August, and the sun was setting over the building downtown, casting an orange glow into the living room. Clara Moon Song (for that is her name) came to the door, dressed in a black halter top and mini-skirt — a deliberate strategy, we later found out, to win us over. We showed her her room, introduced her to the cat, took her through the house and then spent the next hour on the couch drinking wine and chatting. She had lived in Edmonton off and on for four years, and was in town taking car of her brother, who’d been injured awhile back (an injury which caused some brain damage). She wanted to live in the same neighbourhood as him, and our place was ideal.

We liked Clara immediately. Smart, confident, funny. The perfect roommate. We told her we had a few other people interested in the house and we’d let her know if she got it. This was, of course, a lie. But not an altogether evil thing to tell her, as Scott and I needed to discuss whether or not we agreed she should live with us.

It wasn’t much of a discussion. More like vigorous nodding.

I phoned her the next day and told her she could move in whenever she wanted.

Over the past year, Clara became a dear friend, confidante, and drinkin’ buddy. I got endless joy bugging her, making fun of her and annoying her. And boy, could she dish it out better than I could. She was so much fun to have around. Her last day at the house in Riverdale was Canada Day. I cried when she left. In front of about 20 people. But who cares? Our dear friend was leaving us.

I got an email from Clara earlier this week, telling us how much she missed us. I responded thusly:

The house isn’t the same without you, Moon Song. In fact, I’ve closed your bedroom door and there seems to be an unspoken understanding between Scott and I that no one is to enter that room. Meanwhile, the dishes keep piling up, and the backyard’s a mess. We’re waiting for you to come back in August and clean it all up.

I’m kidding. We’ll make Vinny the Husky do it.

Farewell to my Moon Song, who was always kind and equally mean when I needed it. I’ll miss you. I already do.

A few of my dub5 colleagues and I regularly give Mack the gears for the way he signs off from Twitter every night. “Sleeping,” he says, and we’re meant to believe that this is actually what he’s doing. Mack’s a pretty neat dude, and I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know him a bit better over the last six months. That’s why I’m fairly confident in saying that he’s probably a cyborg (not to be confused with a Cylon).

In light of this, the notion that the man actually technically sleeps is amusing to me. So I decided to create a poll here so the rest of you could chime in. Rather than have “Sleeping” be Mack’s last tweet of the night, I think it should be changed to something else. Let’s see if we can get a ton of people to vote in this poll…

[polldaddy poll=1582276]

The Power Trio with Gord Steinke

Over a year ago, my business partner and I went to an Oilers game, as we sometimes do. It was there, after several crack-powered Rexall beers, that we happened upon Lynda Steele from Edmonton’s Global News. Lynda was selling copies of her book the Laptop Diaries. Having just launched OilersNation.com, we were looking for prizes to give away, and since the proceeds from Lynda’s book went to charity, we thought we’d buy a few and have her autograph them. A few means, like, seven, by the way. I had three left over, and being the random idiot that I am, I decided to give them away today by asking my Twitter followers trivia questions.

This was a truly random endeavour — as most of my Twitter wheelings and dealings are — but I was amazed at the response I got!

The first question I asked was spawned by a YouTube video of an acoustic version of Outkast’s “Hey ya.” I just asked everyone, “What’s cooler than being cool?” and received about 15 responses with “ice cold!”

I decided at that moment that I would give away all three copies of Lynda’s book today.

My next question was formulated with some help. Lynda told me she used to play hockey for the Hinton Jets, and I really wanted to stump people. So for the second book give-away, when I asked which hockey team she used to play for, no one got it. I posted a new question: “Where did Lynda grow up?” This one got lots of fast responses, most of them correct. Lynda was born in Edmonton, and grew up in Hinton. I had a lot of people suggest she grew up in Vancouver as well…

The final question was about Lynda’s co-anchor, Gord Steinke. I’ve always known Gord was a rock ‘n roller, but I haven’t kept up too much with that side of his career. As a final question, I needed Lynda’s help again: “What’s the name of Global News co-anchor Gord Steinke’s band?” This one stumped tweeps as well, so I had to go with a different question: “What US city did Gord work as a reporter/anchor in before coming to ITV in Edmonton?” The answer is: KSTP Minneapolis, which tweeps were able to figure out almost immediately.

Congrats to @seanhealy, @britl and @angelzilla for winning signed copies of Lynda Steele’s “Laptop Diaries” — and by the way, they’re all made out to “OilersNation” Ha! — I’ll arrange to get you your prizes as soon as possible. Thanks for playing! If I happen upon more swag, via beer-fueled NHL games or otherwise, I promise to hold more random contests.

Oh, and I will definitely be treating @adampatterson and @frostedbetty to drinks one of these days…

Just to bring you a bit of jesus-egg-day cheer, after tweeting about how much I hate Tim Hortons coffee (which I do) I failed to pour said coffee into my mouth, instead looking down in horror as drips of the horrible brew smashed down upon my desk in what seemed like slow motion.

To be fair, it wasn’t entirely my fault. It was one of the designers. He came past my desk and threatened to sneeze on me. This resulted in the cessation of all functioning in my lower lip. For some reason.

Anyway, gloat all you want. At least that’s several more drops of this shite coffee I won’t have to drink.

The very excellent Shauna of @out_inc fame is blaming me for her own coffee inadequacy. To wit: “BAHH! Coffee FAIL @bingofuel keep your Coffee bad juju on your end of the city please, thank you ”

Now, I’m not going to pretend what “juju” means, but I know I don’t like being blamed for Coffee FAILs that are not mine. So, Shauna, you can take that coffee and LOVE IT.

Also, I spilled coffee today as well. It just hasn’t been a great week for me. But this time, I blame the Tim Hortons cup manufacturing process. Glue came unstuck. And I didn’t even win a free coffee.

I promise I’ll write an actual blog of consequence sometime this weekend. In the meantime, go scald yourselves.

This time, it was like I was drinking more than the capacity my mouth-hole would allow. Coffee spilled over the sides of my mouth and onto my desk, thankfully not ruining the very fabulous nerd shirt I’m wearing today. I blame the lid on this cup of coffee for this most recent fail. Also: my own ineptitude.

Today, the spillage took place at approximately 10:30am. I soiled my green hoodie and my “I’ll be Bach” T-shirt. I was made fun of by @britl, @hules, and several others.

Incidentally, for me the image showcases the crowdsourcing power of Twitter. @Foomanizer created this because he read my tweet and was bored. I got a response to my call for a CoffeeFAIL Whale image within an hour. Unreal!

If there’s anyone out there who thinks they can improve on the design, please have a go. CoffeeFAIL must not persist, but it will, so let’s at least make it amusing.

The Startrek.com Web site describes the Klingon weapon as crescent-shaped and about a yard long. It has points on both ends, two points in between and a handle on the outside.

Klingons were warlike enemies of the good-guy United Federation of Planets in the original “Star Trek” series but were allies in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

But it gets better when one of the designers at work sent around this image to go with the story. Priceless:

• There’s a place in BC called Hudson’s Hope which, for me, evokes images of Hadley’s Hope Terraforming Colony on LV-426 from the Aliens movie. I imagine a town of more-or-less happy British Columbians who occasionally suffer the effects of monsters busting open their rib cages.
• This Lil John mashup is awesome; this recommended video I received at the end is not.
• I don’t know what peanut butter and jelly sandwiches have to do with SEO, but PBJ is defined on this SEO terms page for some reason. So is sausage link — cute.
• I absolutely love TweetStats. @missmarsh introduced me to it. Wordle is also rad… Creates some really excellent artwork!
• You know those road signs that tell you the bridge it out? Yeah, here’s how to access them to change their messages (via BoingBoing).
• Uh, what the hell?

Cullite Creek wasn’t a particularly nice spot. It was a beautiful location, but we arrived at the end of Day 6 with the wind sweeping through the cove and up and creek making it less than ideal. We immediately erected our giant tarp as a wind shelter, but we also weren’t located in the best camping spot. When we arrived on Day 6, we were so hungry that we ate two meals for dinner—having already planned to exit the trail on Day 8 instead of Day 10.

We broke camp rather quickly in the morning, knowing full well that the ground we had to cover to get to Thrasher Creek would all be overland. In order to make it around Owen Point—which was the beach route—we would have had to beat the tide and hop larger-than-life boulders as well. Julia had done this part of the trail before. This time we were going to skip it. It’s supposed to be an amazing part of the hike, but very challenging. We figured the overland trail would be less technical. You’d think after seven days on the trail we’d not have been so naïve.

At this point in our trip, we were taking on the most challenging portion of the West Coast Trail, a full 13 km worth. We were tired, we were hungry, and the weather wasn’t particularly nice—overcast and always with the threat of rain. I would say that Day 7 and the beginning of Day 8 marked the lowest point of our trip, in terms of emotion and exhaustion. We were reaching our limits and most of our discussion (what little of it there was) during the walking parts of our days turned to nachos and beer.

(Me, after hauling ass across Camper Creek in a cable car)

Day 7 was challenging, frustrating, and de-motivating. Already tired, we were forced to hoist ourselves and our packs over massive fallen trees, balance on those same trees, move around uprooted plants… This was some of the slowest going on the trail. And by the time we arrived at the 70 km point, which marked the fork in the road to continue to the end of the trail (at the 75 km mark) or head down to the beach at Thrasher Creek, we still had a minimum of one km to hike.

We stopped briefly at the 70 km sign and applied a lot of bug spray. The air was still, the sun blocked by the forest canopy, and the mosquitoes were plentiful. At this fork in the trail we met a trio of hikers—a elderly guy, probably in his 60s, hiking with his grown sons. As we applied our spray and watered our dry mouths, they proceeded up the one km switchback trail to Thrasher, a trail soaked by tiny streams of water, flat, slippery stones, and hidden roots.

We followed and pass the two sons soon enough, crested the trail and began our descent toward the ladders that would eventually take us down to the beach. As we approached the ladders, we watch the elderly guy take a spill, which seemed like not such a big deal. As we approached to assist him, he was breathing through his teeth and rubbing his left knee.

“I’m OK,” he told us, though the expression on his face belied his words.

“Are you sure you don’t need a hand,” we asked him.

“No, no, I just need to catch my breath, stretch out my knee and walk it off,” he said. He wished him luck, mentioned that we saw his sons not too far behind us, and started our descent.

I wish there was something we could have done to help the man, but he seemed fine. He’d just need to tread lightly the next few days so he did exacerbate this injury. He climbed down (more bloody) ladders, and found our friends Sandy and Kat again. They warned us that the tide liked to creep right up to the camp site here at Thrasher, and Kat then showed us their second-choice campsite right next to the creek just off the beach. We appreciated that our few-days-old friends were so eager to help us. We setup, ate, and crashed. We were exhausted and eager to exit the trail. After Night 7, only 5 km to go.

Day 8 – The Final Haul

Sunlight, and a strong desire to leave the trail grip us in the morning. I get up first, and make for the composting toilet, picking up our food from the bear locker after I’m done. Who do I see limping down the beach but the elderly guy who took the fall the previous day. In that condition it’s doubtful he’ll be able to continue the hike. He’s not just limping a little, he’s limping A LOT.

We ate a quick breakfast, both agreed it was time to leave, and out to hike the last six km of the trip, and some of the toughest as well. This portion of the trail was a CONSTANTLY up and down. Consequently there was no fast-moving, easy walk. This was a HIKE and the kilometre markers seems much further than 1 km apart.

I don’t recall talking very much at this point except to snap at each other. A bit. We took very few pictures, as the goal was just to get ‘er done.

Around the 73 km mark, we started seeing fresh, new, clean hikers arriving on the trail. They were very encouraging to us. Lots of “You guys are almost done,” and “Great job!” was heard. I being the grouchy dude I was (am?) thought about how funny it would be to tackle each of those people, sit on them, and then shout at them about how hard the trail is while I force them to sniff my armpits.

But I didn’t do that. Because I’m BETTER than that.

By the time we reached the end of the 6 km, we were bagged. We photographed our dirty boots, called the ferry driver, and checked in at the trailhead office. There, we discovered the elderly dude who was limping around actually had to be EVACed from the trail. He and his sons were fetched from Thrasher by a zodiac, and they were being brought back to the office. The man’s wife and presumably one of his daughters was on-hand and we had a chance to tell them about how we witnessed his little fall.

Apparently, they were going to keep going, slowly, and hike the trail anyhow. But the guy aggravated the injury when he went to fetch water from the creek. It was pretty sad, actually. He became, I think, the 22nd person at that point in the season to be taken off the trail. It definitely made me feel fortunate that I didn’t take a bad step. I probably fell over a few times because I was tired and carrying a heavy pack, but nothing serious. It made the triumphant end of the hike a little more somber. At least he was going to be OK.

And who has time for somber anyway, when there’s a pub in Port Renfrew waiting for us. A pub with hamburgers and, you know, food that isn’t freeze-dried.

The warden in the Parks office called us a cab. And by cab, I mean a dude with a pick-up truck who apparently shuttles hikers back and forth between the town and the trailhead office. He kindly dropped us right in front of the pub, where we spent the next four hours drinking and waiting for the bus back to Victoria. Kat and Sandy were in the same spot as us, so we said our goodbyes.

At around 4pm on July 3, 2008, we left Port Renfrew, and bid the West Coast Trail farewell. We were stuffed (from the pub), buzzed (from the pub), and exhausted (from everything else). We slept the entire ride back to Vic, and would spend the next three days reintegrating with society at or near the Inner Harbour. As the days from the end of our hike increased in number, the vow we shared to not return for a long time seemed more and more ridiculous. Personally, I will be back on the WCT inside of five years. This trail, this section of VanIsle is probably some of the most beautiful, powerful scenery in all of Canada. If you’re thinking about hiking the WCT, stop thinking and start planning.

And yes, the nachos taste so much sweeter when you’ve had to haul ass through 75 km of beach and forest wilderness with your home and all your belongings on your back.

-fin-

>> the rest of the trip:

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Part IV
• Part V (you’re here already)

Stone on meeting then governor Bush at a Republican breakfast: ”I wanted to prove that even though people thought I was a leftist I wanted to hear what they had to say. The minute I walked in the room the sound of the silverware kind of died. People were like, ‘What’s he doing here? Satan has walked in.’ But I met George Bush and I remember thinking that this man was going to be president.”

Does this mean we’ll get to see all the Bluths do their chicken impressions on the big screen? I can only hope!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl7YHXHC7us]

Post a sign-up sheet offering your services for free lunchtime chair massages.

The confusion arises over whether or not anyone’s office chair really needs a massage. So my colleague Michael drafted the following advertisement for chair massages:

Is your chair feeling a little run down? Does it seem to have a week-long case of the Mondays? Well bring your chair to Cubicle 37 today! At Cubicle 37 we specialize in chair massages and other relaxation techniques to soothe and comfort your work chair.

And these services are not just for work chairs! Bring in your kitchen chairs, bar stools or even foot stools. Remember footstools are people too!

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I wish to appeal my $5.00 late charge at the Sci Tech library. I don’t have any excuse for this charge; rather, I am appealing because maintaining this fine is costing you too much.

I apparently incurred this fine in 2003, which is also the last year that I attended the U of A.  In the 4 and a half years since, I have been receiving a quarterly statement in the mail reminding me of this grim financial burden. Each time you mail me this notice, it costs the University 52 cents. By now, the U of A has spent $9.36 of some poor student’s tuition money on my $5.00 fine. And this is solely on postage. What about the cost of the printing, the envelope, and the lost time required to administer your relentless collections juggernaut? Surely you are now pushing the $15.22 mark, depending on how well you negotiate your bulk paper discounts.

And all of this is to say nothing of the toll that your oversized envelopes and reminder slips take on the environment. For shame, Library Services. Your actions speak louder than the students in Rutherford South.

I think you can clearly see where they got their inspiration from:

]]> http://theunknownstudio.ca/2008/02/a-bsc-with-a-major-in-warp-theory/feed/ 1 http://theunknownstudio.ca/2008/02/filed-under-wtf/ http://theunknownstudio.ca/2008/02/filed-under-wtf/#comments Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:19:54 +0000 Adam Rozenhart http://scientyst.wordpress.com/?p=94

The mayor of a small town in Texas has resigned after secretly keeping her neighbour’s Shih Tzu while pretending it had died. Neighbours had asked Alice Mayor Grace Saenz-Lopez to look after the dog, Puddles, during a holiday. She called them to say it was dead. But the dog, which Ms Saenz-Lopez had renamed Panchito, was later seen at a dog groomer’s and at her sister’s home.

This article puzzles me for two reasons:

1. I don’t know what the hell Saenz-Lopez was thinking by stealing her neighbour’s dog and then lying about its death; and,
2. I don’t know why the hell the reporter wouldn’t address this question in the article.

This is one of the problems with journalism nowadays. The focus on balance or impartiality or whatever has completely stiffled any sort of true exploration of the issues reported on in the news. Why didn’t anyone think to ask the mayor of Alice: “Seriously, your honour, what the fuck? The citizens of this town voted for you, and they have a right to know why you thought you could steal your neighbour’s dog.”

Seriously, just ask her! What’s she going to say, “I’m too shit-fucking crazy to answer that, so, uh, no comment.”

We’re leaving this criticism up to the likes of Michael Moore, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert. And I’m glad they do what they do; despite the humour these guys use to present their ideas, they’re hitting the nail on the head where “real” news shows aren’t.

Here’s the problem, though: I could totally replace it myself. Except I don’t have a garage, and the prospect of working on my car outside in this weather is less than ideal, especially because I’d have to drain the coolant before doing anything. Drive it to a garage? Tried it on Tuesday. This is how it went:

Adam gets into car, starts it up fine because it was plugged in. Adam scrapes off windows, making it almost possible to see out the windshield. Adam climbs into car and scrapes inside of windshield as well. Adam begins driving, hunching over with chin almost resting on steering wheel so he can see through the narrow gap on the windshield that isn’t completely frozen. After about 600 metres of 20 kph through the neighbourhood, Adam realizes there’s no way he can get his car the 13km to the west end to have it serviced. Sadness abounds. Adam turns back, parks car, and spends rest of the day in his pyjamas.

I might have my brother pull the car to his house with his truck, put it in his garage (which is about -10°C rather than -27°C) and work on it there on the weekend. Or I’ll have her towed to the dealership sometime in the next few days. I haven’t decided yet. Either way, my car—dear, sweet Chloe—is parked. I need to go out there later to see if she’ll even start. I’m not hopeful.

Thank gods the bus service is superior in my neighbourhood, or else I’d be right fucked. Also, I need to buy cat food.

But bacon is that good. I bet if you put bits of bacon on a strip of bacon, you could travel back in time. It’s like a tasty vortex.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVKJpkq-wNo&rel=1]

• The USA: “The United States was founded in 1776 on the principles of life, liberty, and the reckless pursuit of happiness at any cost—even life and liberty.”
• Japan: “In 1945, two atomic bombs were dropped on the nation of Japan, destroying entire cities and instantly killing millions of citizens. However, some survived, and from the radioactive ash rose a mutant race of super-submissive, ultra-vulnerable people able to feel 100 times the shame of any ordinary human.”
• India: “Mired by rising poverty levels, polluted groundwater that threatens the lives of millions, and a rapidly crumbling infrastructure, the nation of India has every intention of addressing these problems just as soon as it finishes telling Midwesterners how to install Windows XP on their home computer.”
• England: “For nearly 200 years, England ruled over 500 million people on six continents—a time in which it was commonly said that the sun never set on the British Empire. Today, however, the sun sets on the British Empire at precisely 5:47pm GMT.”
• Italy: “Italy is known as one of the most racially intolerant nations in the world, where citizens base their opinions of other ethnicities on appearance and stereotypes alone. But then, what more do you expect from a bunch of greasy, filthy womanizers?”

More here.

Read:

Who can be affected by Toilet Phobia?

Toilet Phobia can affect anyone at any time and ranges from a mild disruption through to a significant disruption of daily life.

Causes of Toilet Phobia

Toilet Phobia can be caused by a variety of factors including anxiety, fear, specific experience or trauma and learnt behaviour from someone close. Causes of Toilet Phobia can often be a combination of these factors or none of the above.

Treatment of Toilet Phobia

It is generally accepted that CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) is the recommended treatment for Toilet Phobia due to the fact that it is an evidence based therapy, however, many individuals cited Clinical Hypnotherapy, Counselling, guided self help and other lifestyle changes as being helpful in providing benefit to managing the condition.

From Crackle: Mr. Deity and the Evil – Season 1, Ep 1