Oct 29, 2006

Life According to Mal: Payment

Here is a new segment on my blog I recon I might do when the spell comes over me. Life wisedom put forward by my hero Malcom Reynolds from the greatest TV show and Movie Firefly/Serenity.

Based on the current events of my life (see previous post RAGE!!!) my getting shafted out of money by Tim Hortons has reminded me of this awesome moment from the pilot episode of Firefly Serenity in which our dear captain Reynolds faces a slightly different (and sadly more cool), but yet thematically identical situation to mine. His response to a local Moon aristocrat who tries to kill him rather then pay him; shot her hired help, nearly crush her with a horse, and walk up to her gun in her face



"I do the job, and I get paid!"
Excellent words to live by. Now in my case I'm doing the best I can. Sadly I'm not in a position where I can put a gun in the Timmies supervisors faces and demand the coin they basically stole from me (today I asked the head manager if my facial hair, which is the same as it is on any day, was "unshaven" to which she replied no. So I am safe in saying it's a clever corporate means of paying me less while they can claim the moral high ground...). I can however live by yet another of Mal's great statements from the movie Serenity.
"I mean to confound these bongers..."

This I can and did do. Power to the prolitariate! I may not have the means to get back the money, but I do control the means of production (and being the bleeding heart pinko I am, I'll use that to the max!). The manager wasn't to happy when I handed in my letter of resignation this morning. Seems they might have some trouble finding a replacment for two weeks. I even gave them a more flexible and reasonable out then Mal's solution. Rather then crush her with a horse I offered the manager that I'd be willing to reconsider if I got my money, and had this incident count as a warning (without any more even). She refused. So I'm off to Miranda... or uh rather a new job.

That's Payment according to Mal. The side moral being don't mess with

Craig Dylke Browncoat

Oct 28, 2006

RAGE!!!

So as I'm sure you've noticed my attitude and tolerance for my job at Timmies has steadily been declining throughout these posts. Well as of today I'm officially done with them... Not just in a casual manner either


Today I just got my second paycheck. I discovered they unilaterally reduced my pay by $1/hr for the whole two weeks due to a single uniform infraction. Not just that it was due to being "unshaven" cause I'm known to walk around with a ton of %#$ing facial hair...

So due to this removal of $105 (I also worked a bunch of overtime, making it that much more infuriating) I'm done at Tim &%$ing Hortons as of this week. I am now on the hunt for any job. I'll even work at Earl's if it comes to that!

New Living Fossil Discovered!!!


So turns out the ever beloved parasitic Lamprey is a living fossil! Who'd have thunk it...

Oct 27, 2006

Arthis in question

Here is a possible direction for the vilians of the new movie... Not sure, and thus looking for opinions



Oct 25, 2006

Dinosaur Parasite Discovered

Fossil trace evidence of parasitic worms were discovered in a well preserved Brachylophosaur. Burrows were found in the duckbills bones resembling ones left by modern worms such as Annelids and Nematodes...

This is an interesting find that sheds light into a little seen aspect of Mesozoic life.


Oct 24, 2006

Delta Patrol: Wyvern Ready for Animation

Tonight was my first weekend I've actually spent not doing homework. An odd thing for me to be sure. Typically in the poli sci era it'd be very unusual for me to be doing my homework at all!

So first thing on the agenda (well probably isn't... just what I ended up doing) was Delta Patrol. Got a new version of the beginning done, and I think this is it's final layout. As of such I figured time to get some effects ready. As of such I was going to need some 3D models to do so...

As our heroes ship the Wyvern was not done, but very critical first thing was first. I'm happy with their final version. Probably even more happy with my new laser effect...

So check them out. Be sure to click on any you like to enlarge them






These were modeled to resemble Star Trek type ships like Bajor Interceptors, and of course my fav Romulan Warbirds







Might have a little trouble incorporating this nebula into actual animation. The 3D models I use to generate them add up to 4 times the render time...









Was very very happy
with this new model for
a laser projectile!







First example of the whole patrol together.
You'll notice that each ship has it's own color.
Allowing for easy identification of whose ship
is whose...



Now the Patrols returns to homebase in Delta System itself
Symbolic I guess. As now I need to return to the whole project
from this one specific task.





Next on the list have to design the villians ships, and finish Delta station itself.

Oct 22, 2006

Blown Out of Proportion!

Man it's getting harder and harder to go back to Timmies everyday, and you'd think with me getting better at it all the time that wouldn't be the case. At least I'm 1/4 done!!!



So starting work tonight I get pulled aside by the evening supervisor, and she was friendly about it. Immediately putting me on alert... Normally the supervisors are jerks!

She wants to talk to me about my incident three nights ago. Which there was one, but I didn't think it was that big a deal... She starts off by saying how I was very brave, and that I dealt with it fine. Uh okay sure... Suddenly she asks why I didn't call 9-1-1... ?????

Okay so picture Wednesday night, a fairly busy one though. Lots of cars coming in, and ordering sandwiches and food (this takes a lot longer to make then a coffee of course). Our front end is closed by this time but people are still there finishing their orders from before closure. At some point they snuck out in the middle of our sandwich blitz, and thus prevented our locking the door after them.

Well this middle age East Indian guy comes into the store, and comes up to the front counter... Me and my coworker are WAY to busy to even pretend to deal with this guy... Suddenly he rudely yells at me "Hey I'm waiting for some service!". I tell him the situation. He'll have to come through the drive through as we're closed. "NO I'm not leaving this spot till I get service!". Okay i think to myself, have fun then. So for 10 minutes I completely ignore this guy, frantically keeping up with sandwich orders.

Trouble starts when my coworker Ren, who is just too nice for his own good tries to tell this guy the same thing. Suddenly out of no where he goes off the handle, swearing, pounding the counter, yelling... All at my coworker, who was only being stupid nice, and defiantely wasn't the one brushing this guy off.

At this I got pissed. Had it been me sure, but Ren didn't do anything to this ass. I intervened and basically told this guy to get out of the store as we're closed to him. It was statisfying see him quite literally have a temper tantrum out of the store. Slamming the door oh so scarily...

So at worst I figured we'd get a complaint. He threatened to phone my manager about my refusing to serve him at that time. Oh no. I didn't serve him after closing hours. I'm going to get fired.

Well suddenly here's my supervisor talking to me about it... Call 9-1-1 though. He was a dick, but not dangerous.

She tells me of how Alan, a british tourist who is ALWAYS in the store till like 2am just reading, relayed to her the following story. The same build up to his getting angry and screamy. Suddenly in this version he picks up some of our merchandise and throws at us behind the counter, and on his way out throws a chair at a window...

Man I am brave. Got to remember next time not to play the lone hero, and call the police... you know for backup at least.

Thought that might amuse you. It sure made me laugh. We on the graveyard shift in spirit of this new elaborate tale (not sure why my brit friend built it up that much... he was right there for a bunch of it) invented a few of our own. My favirite is the one where the dude has a bomb strapped to his chest, and I not only have to tell him we're closed, but pin him down and defuse the bomb while he's trying to blow us all up till he gets service!

Oct 20, 2006

Cloaking Device


Finally I might be able to have that Warbird I've always wanted... Scientists have built the first primitive cloaking device

Palaeontology News

This week's been kinda a busy one in the world of palaeo...




Scientists in China discovered a microscopic fossil of a embyro. Pretty cool stuff.

In Austrilia an new fish was found with profoundly amphibian like traits, but much earlier in the Devonian then would be expected. It was described by my main man John Long (author of such great books as The Dinosaur Dealers, and Dinosaurs of Austrilia and New Zealand)

Oct 16, 2006

Reunion... Boldy Going Where We'd Gone Before

Wow the year 2006 is proving to be a milestone for so many reasons.

This weekend yet another came to the surface, and was thus celebrated. It was nearly nine years ago (technically in Dec) that the Star Trek Card gaming community was born. Reminiscing on these times gone by Dave, our intrepid once upon a time tournament director (which means basically referee), decided to organize a reunion…

What an interesting experience it was. All kinds of nostalgia to go around...

It was a good turnout. Mostly us “kids” though who showed up. Half of whom I hadn’t seen since the 90’s (our gaming group collapsed just short of the 2000 mark. Man have we all grown up since then… well sort of LOL

(I can't get the group photo to upload... but image such a photo here)


The Trek game as we knew it has been dead for a good 5 years. The company that once sold it has been on the verge of bankruptcy for a nice chunk of that time, and as of such you can find the cards themselves for stupid cheap. Dave picked up what back in the day would have amounted to a treasure trove of cards for just over $100. In prime of the game this would have been worth well over $400.

We decided to play a sealed deck (which means you get a bunch of packs filled with 15 random cards and have to play with just those… where as in constructed you can grab whatever cards you want from your collections). The price was $12. In the long ago land of yester tournament that might have got you a started deck (a bigger pack filled with 60ish cards). Today that amounted to 6 packs, a starter, a special tourney kit filled with 5 more packs. A teenage me would have fainted…

The tourney itself went three rounds, and would have gone more except I hadn’t slept since before work the day before (again my graveyard shift… got up at 6pm worked till 7am, got to the reunion at around 10:45am played till 5pm… it was a LONG day!). As of such I sadly forced an end to the tournament. The good news is I won… Out of all three rounds I not only went undefeated, but I also had full wins in all my games (as in they didn’t time out… but I always seemed to win right on the last minute warnings)


Funny part is I wasn’t that into the competitive side of the day, and hardly noticed the victory… More the flashback effect that was enjoyable.

Perhaps seeing the cards and their packaging was the most interesting part of the whole day. I hadn’t seen a wrapped pack of Trek for at least 5ish years. Man what a flood of emotion and memory just at the sight of the packs in the boxes

It also ran home how long I've known some of my better friends...

Dave and me go back the whole 9 years. We're both founders (funny reference for a trekkie as the head of one of the badguy races are called founders...). This as a sidenote is a unique instance of a photo being taken of Dave... I only have 3 others...

Alex emerged on the gaming scene about 6-7 months into the gaming crowd existence just after the release of the Deep Space Nine expansion...

Putting him at just under the 9 year mark.

A sidenote about this picture used this is indeed Alex trying to eat

cards... He somehow over those years built up a mythos of eating cards in games. Granted he did it twice, once in fact was game with me, but it somehow blow out of propotion. It was always for comedy. Not rage as the legend tells...

Mike showed up also around the Deep Space Nine era. Thus meaning I've known him for just under 8 years. However unfortunently unlike Alex or Dave I didn't hangout with him a lot till just before the death of the Trek game...

Fortunently we've made up for that lost time since then.

So there's that. The origins of "modern" Craig are celebrated just in time for my departure into possibly a whole new life again. The Trek Game really marked my exiting the public school system, and my uptill then friendless existence.

Oct 14, 2006

Worst Day at Timmies Yet...

BEEP (insert nasty word here of your choice)

Had the worst day at work yet! Friday nights suck as everyone coming and going to the bars hits our drive through. Meaning busy orders, and drunken %ucknuts!

The shift before us didn't do their tasks adding them to our immense list. We have to clean 75% of the place from top to bottom, and of course this added the other 25%, but yet we also don't have the time cause of the busy bar traffic.

Then for the first hour of the morning rush it was just the three of us graveyarders manning both the even busier morning drivethrough rush, and the now open front end of the resturant. AHHHHHHHHHHHH

Just to top it off in the last 20 min I got assigned to garbage duty (normally a nice relaxer). Problem is again the evening shift didn't empty the outside garbages so I had to, and someone didn't bag one of the cans. In the complex effort to get the contents of this out, nearly half of which is liquid, the weight in it shift and I ended up getting covered in sludge...

I "love" work. Now please shot me

Oct 11, 2006

Jet Pack

This is way too cool. Somebody has FINALLY invented a jet pack that works!

Now I want one LOL

Delta Patrol Begins

Well the title of the post might be a little misleading. My new movie project Delta Patrol is well underway... Hopefully with a post production time that is under 2 years.

Just thought I'd wet ppls appetites with some of the early preview 3D effects...


Here is the Delta System the setting of the story


A Wyvern Interceptor the good guys main ship type

The start of the Trident Space Station model; a main locality in our story

A big ship where the first big fight of our movie occurs

Hopefully I'll figure out how to post videoes on here soon, and we'll get clips going from the movie itself

New Zealand Falling Into Place

So this weekend I attended a meeting with my New Zealand agent and a professor from the skool.

Alot of stuff was resolved, and the final steps toward my making it over there were hammered out.


First of those is where I'm going to be living. I applied to a student residence called Salmond Hall right after the meeting. There was a risk of it being full for the 2007 skool year already. Fortunetly they had 3 rooms left! Phew

My loans also look like their good to go. So all that remains is getting the info from the College on where and how to pay tuition, then my student visa, and flight.

New Job

So here I am 3 months before the trip to New Zealand, and no job. Which is of course kinda bad as my tuition and living expenses will be about $20 000.

After taking a vaccation for the first two weeks of September and the remainder of that month searching for a job I finally got one at Tim Hortons.

So after vowing never to work in the food service industry I'm back so soon LOL

Working the graveyard shift. It of course isn't an ideal shift, but at +$2 an hour, and the fact it gives me several hours of no one else in their right mind being awake I should be able to get my homework for New Zealand done (I'm currently in 2 required prereq courses).

Thus far work is "tolerable". Not my ideal setting of course, but it could be worse. It is definenitly better then Earl's in any case. Weird stress levels. Shift starts insane right away then it dies for the middle and for the last 2 hours it is hell... weird.

However the good news I'm 1/12 done my tour as of this post. As I'm only working here till the end of Decemeber week one of October is done! Only 11 more to go...

My life goes online

Well here we go,

I've finally broken down and started a blog. A real blog anyway.This is going to probably end up being random ramblings about everything from my movie projects to my upcoming move to New Zealand. Probably everything else inbetween.

Enjoy. Eh if that's possible. LOL