The Real Origin of Batman

Been going through the "fun" process that is applying to teach in a new country... PLEASE smash my head in with a rock or other hard object!!!... When my friend Mike sent me this.

It is too funny!

Source here, be sure to check it out.

Close Encounters of this Year

Glendon over at The Flying Trilobite had a cool piece of art with a character who had the Mars face as its own. As I haven't been in a paranormal mode for almost a year, this picture of course helped trigger this years wander down the unreal road.

Now first off I'm not a true believer. Far from it. At best I could accept some paranormal phenomenon as the product and evidence of a multi dimensional reality as outlined by modern string theory. At the same time I emphasis I'm still a skeptic. The closest to a story I find compelling is the Skinwalker Ranch (warning if you click around this website it has annoying noises if you out click from the Skinwalker story pages), but I'll be blogging about this later in the week.

To me the paranormal is more just really good horror fiction "based on" real life. Normal horror doesn't real grab me, but the idea that these things could be real has hooked me right in since the X-files.

This year I had two quick funny stories that emphasis how 99% of "phenomenon" sightings.
_

The UFO

So me and Andy were hanging out in the senior wing stair well, which is an open windowed room. I noticed these two very bright lights hovering in the sky, and they tracked with our field of depth when we moved around looking at them.

Immediately, I noted that an odd thing was we were seeing these lights through another room's window. Technically the lights were behind the corner of the building, but that corner's room's curtain was open allowing us to see through it to the botanic garden. However the lights moved perfectly in the sky as we moved around our limited vantage point, but they appeared to be legitimate objects in the air.

So trying to confirm this we went outside, but due to our now being at ground level there was too many obstacles to see that area of the sky...

It was enticing to think we were seeing flying saucers.

_

That is till we got back to the stair well and moved the couch. Suddenly one of the lights continued to move from the sky onto the curtain of the room!

Further investigation by looking outside I found two tall bright lights on the other side of the building which would be the perfect distance to mimic our field of depth when reflected by that window.

So much for my UFO sighting. It just goes to show that one needs to REALLY think about and investigate these things looking for rational and ordinary explanations. This UFO held up to 15 minutes of rigorous investigation before we figured it out. So it shows that people can see things that they really believe and doesn't become clear right way, but it still wasn't real!

The Monster

So one night during my student teaching I got up to go to the wash room in the middle of the night. Looking up in my sleep haze I was scared awake by this scene you see here (taken about a minute later). Yes it is just a box with my hat on it, but out of the corner of my eye it looked like Freddie Cougar for a moment.

Garfield without Garfield

A great page was brought to my attention at Laelaps called Garfield without Garfield.

The site describes itself as:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

Here's a sample.

Again here's a link to the site with many more great strips like this one.

A major life update post is coming... just not now.

The trailer for it goes something like this (imagine in a cool full on hollywood preview announcer voice):

A student teacher on the brink of his last placement. A birthday he wasn't too keen on. A present with potential unknown. A girlfriend getting ill very early in the morning.

He is Student Teacher Man!!!

All In One Day!!!

So I knew today would be one of the big key days of my quick return to Canada...

I had NO idea it was going to be this memorable!

So the big event of the 2nd

My job interview with

PARKS ALBERTA...

So it was a Tyrrell style interview workshop (actually to be fair I'm pretty sure the museum borrowed the format from these guys...) in which you interview one on one, but also than have a day long seminar style group interview testing various interpretive qualities.

I had to be at the interview (on the OTHER side of town) by 9 am. So for the first time this trip I went to bed before midnight so I could in theory get some sleep.

5:30am: Things don't go according to plan. Of course being a little stressed about the interview I had a somewhat restless sleep... Making it truly unrestful my dad gets sick waking up mom who than at this early hour decides to do dishes?!?

The loud rattling and clanging wake me up sufficently to allow my mind to worry, and thus I'm effectively awake here on in...

8:30am: I arrive a good half hour early before the interview starts. At the exact same time as the interviewers in fact. So I appear ubber keen which is good.

8:55am: The interview process begins with me being both the first one on one interview of 2008. Hoping that means I cast the shadow others had to surpass.

My goal, though there are many parks to choose from, I REALLY want the job at:


Dinosaur Provincial Park

Overall I'm content with my performance at the workshop. Not happy or estatic, but also not angry or depressed by.

The only area I feel I nailed in the top 10% was the drama portion. Here we had to assume a 3 character's and sing as ourselves. Definately had among the most diverse character voices.

The program scripting went alright though I only got 3/4 done mine in the 30 min provided (I'm the slowest handwriter in the universe!). My 2 minute presentation went alright (over time, but as again I was the FIRST to go the timer didn't notice or warn me, and it so I stretched my talk thinking I'd sped through it too fast...). The only part I bombed was the natural history test, but as it was mostly on Rockie Mountain stuff I wasn't too bummed (that and 75% of us didn't know the stuff).

My big hope is that I managed to get in a few words towards the end with the head man of DPP himself, and I got a good vibe from it.

Basically it's over PHEW! Now I have to play the waiting game... which sucks... I'm going to play Hungry Hungry Hippos instead!

So after this Amber showed up to hang-out, and we decided to goto the Loose Moose Improve Comedy Show.

It was only my third time there, and the first in years since they moved locations. The show had been entertaining in the way improv is. When the second last act comes along, and it's time for ambush someone from the audience...

Now it should be pointed out I've been up for 15-16 hours on 5 hours sleep, and had my nerves shot royal throughout the day...

The hostess actress Rebecca Northan jumps up into the audience in search of a victim. Now you'll note her name has a link here. Earlier in the show she had an improv related punishment of having to tell the audience why she was NOT famous. So despite having some parts in movies and TV including 2 episodes of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, we the audience hadn't done our part she informed us.

Anyways she jumps up onto the steps, and I make the mistake of making eye contact... oops. I can tell instantly I'm the target, though she takes her time to grab me and haul me down on stage...

Oh and she looked more like this. In that she was a French Clown with the nose, and whacky French accent.

The sketch I get plugged into is me and this clown after 5 years of marriage. Now I'm not going to claim I was brilliant, but despite their best efforts they didn't embrass or dumbfound me to the point of looking, well dumb :P

After trying to turn me into a bad husband by ambush I turned it around by acting like one (in a very silly me way) she suddenly left the house leaving with me and our "son"... Who was a puppet! Junior was doomed from the start LOL

I already guessed Jrs. rough routine of being ubber brat so I stepped it up a notch by making me look like the BAD one. Giving it beer when it started crying, and pretending I thought everything it said was a line from TV.

Even when wife returned and found out about the beer, and accused me of previously giving the baby bad things I kept up the not fighting the way they wanted me to by applogizing "again" for these supposed past deeds which surprised the heck out of them.

So in the end how did I get embrassed and take away a weird experience. Well it wasn't too bad. Just really funny and surreal. Especially in my state of mind at the time.

So she'd wanted kisses throughout the sketch, and I only gave her pecks on the check to which she started setting up my downfall with "5 years of marriage and you call that a kiss!". So at the end she ambushed me with the desire for a GOOD kiss. Thank the Lords of Kobal I know how to stage kiss!

So a good fake out of just pressing lips together with a lot of suggestive body and head movements the crowd went estatic as the lights dimmed. A very sincere thank you from Rebecca during the applause (I think more for keeping the sketch moving and not stagnating than anything else), and a bow to the crowd I returned to my chair.

Though I wasn't in top form (I thought of several hilarious things could have done after the fact) I did keep this ambush sketch going for at least 5 mins without losing my cool or rythm. I didn't steal the show apart from once or twice (the baby beer was the audiences fav of my stuff), but I sure did surprise people.

In fact I had 5 people after the show come up congragulate me, and once ask "were you actually a member of the audience?!?".

So I now wrap up this ubber long day (at 20 hours awake now). Been a long long ride.

I hear back from Alb Parks later in the month so keep you posted.

Yet despite the interview being the important event of the day... somehow having to kiss a French Clown takes the moment of the day...

Oh and now I'm probably in trouble... Don't tell Rhonwyn PLEASE ;p

What Darth Vadar Really Wanted

Awesome remix of Episode 4 using James Earl's Jones lines from coming to America. Very funny!

Dromaeosaur Footprints!

Hot off the press from Laelaps (for whole scoop check out his far superior blog) the first ever confirmed footprints of a Dromaeosaurid (aka raptor dinosaur) have been discovered!

There are multiple sets from the same geologic formation. One of which is very interesting as it shows multiple individuals possibly walking together and in unison... in other words possible pack behaviour.

Interesting to see that their walking as opposed to hopping. Only a bit over a year ago I had a number of Tyrrell Science people flip my world upside down by saying due to an inward angle of the hips that Dromie legs came together at the feet, and thus made them more likely for a Kangaroo type hop.

I guess the paradigm isn't as flipped as I thought. Which is equally flipping as I'd just started to accept bounding raptors... Got to love science!

Turok!

A trailer for a new direct to DVD movie has just come to my attention for Turok. Many know him from the video games, but in those the Dinosaurs he fights are either cyborgs or aliens.

This is based on his original comic book which is more like Last of the Mohicans meets The Lost World.

Looks like it'll be as good as the Hellboy animated movies.

I'm finally in a museum advertisement!

While doing a side none homework web search (helped by the fact New Zealand's Internet is insanely slow! I can get a good 4 minutes of work in while a new page loads...) I discovered the most remarkable thing.

On the official travel Alberta website there is a picture of me delivering Badland's Science Camp infamous Corythosaur skeleton program... Infamous not for it's awesomeness or funness factor. Rather for the frustration felt by kids, and more the point the staff!

Though I love my Corythosaur like my child as I rebuilt it (with help from the guru Marilyn) it was an evil offspring, and never worked properly! Putting it together with the kids was an ordeal as you needed 2 people just to attach a bone, and it could take several minutes to do it right...

the link again is http://www.traveldrumheller.com/royal-tyrrell-exhibits.html

Fun factiod the skull and arm bone you see being discovered at the top of the page is actually the skull and arm of my corythosaur! That is Phil Currie "finding" it, and was taken mere days before I arrived at the lab to claim the Corythosaur for Camp...

Dropping the 4th Wall

One of the key functions I'd planned for on this blog was a means of previewing and updating people on my various movie projects. As I haven't really gotten any movie things specifically on the go (though Delta Patrol will resume production once I get back home... and me and Bond do have another project in the planning stages) there hasn't been much of this to do.

I do have an ongoing creative venture in the form of Traumador's blog (now known as the Tyrannosaur Chronicles). I've just decided to drop the 4th wall on my end, and give people the behind the scenes scoop here.

Lately I've been trying to up the quality and wacky quota of his page. In particular, the recent "visit" by Traum's cousin Larry has been accomplished through my 3D program comboed with Photoshop (which I've effectively taught myself this year while in New Zealand) which have produced some awesome and fun effects.

Due to the moderate success this has caused (an increase of 3 people averagely visting per day) I intend on more CG dinos. Fortunently Dunedin has a famous playground known as "Dinosaur Park" which I've been planning for a while to bring into the Traum mythos. I won't give it all away now.

Hopefully these images will wet your appetite though. Any of you palaeo type people out there can let me know what you think (keeping in mind I've only just started on this model... this is a grand total of 2 hours work... I'm getting much quicker and better with this program)

New Favourite Show

My second go at second posting has been much more successful. As of the end of last week's control I've passed. That said I have my last evaluation tomorrow during what has been at the best of times my gong show unit. I HATE yeast and bread... More on that this weekend with my big summary post of the last month.

Needing to post something, but not take too much time (it's 11pm and I have to get up in 8 hrs) I figured I'd throw something up here on my favourite show of the year. Granted I don't watch any TV anymore, but this is still the coolest thing since sliced bread. Except I hate sliced bread. Okay I'll just get to it (I think even by now you're seeing the wear and tear of the last while on my brain).




So as you can tell from the pic the show is called Primeval. Peter Bond alerted me to its existence early this year. However due to it's being a British show, and New Zealand not getting anything till at least 6 months after everywhere else I had to wait. Fortunately unlike North of America we DO get British shows here at all. I had to wait for the DVD release as I missed this when it popped on TV here due to my funny enough not watching TV.

It was worth the wait!

The shows basic formula is:

Ghostbusters + Dinosaurs x Weekly TV Show = *BEEP*ing Amazing

_

The show goes like this. Holes have opened in space and time back to various points in Earth's past and future (haven't made it to this ep, but I know it's coming) allowing various critters from those eras to wander into ours. They being prehistoric instinctively know they must eat and kill anything remotely human with as much property damage as possible. Now it is up to a team of government scientists to not only deal with the critters, but stop the mysterious time holes.

If they didn't make this show I was going to... With the effects people of the Walking with Dinosaurs series on this though it is the best it is ever going to be!


Even more amazing despite the premise formula I gave you technically not a SINGLE Dinosaur appeared in the first season! Many animals from the same time frame, but none were true Dinosaurs. Creatively I find this very brave of the producers, and very telling of the shows quality that it can make it without Dinos in its opening.

All I can say is it makes my top 3 TV shows of all time, and making this even better. The show has been renewed for a second season! This time around with confirmed Dinosaur appearances in at least one episode (Velociraptors!).

More Than Meets The Eye

Alright so in a weird twist of fate New Zealand somehow got a movie released in it before North America.

We got Transformers several days early, and I went to go see it.

Going into the movie I was expecting some cool visuals and perhaps a moment or two of legitimate nostalgia coolness, but just a lame attempt at cashing in on the us aging 80's kids.

Man was I blown away. Despite the fact it was from the director of Armageddon and The Island this movie was AMAZING. Easily the years best!

I haven't seen a movie that left me as satisfied since the new Bond. I liken it's brilliance to Batman Begins in genre redefining.

I've already gone to see it twice (as a morale increaser), and it holds up easily to multi viewing.

GO SEE TRANSFORMERS!

Sighting

I REALLY shouldn't be taking anytime from my planning for placement (which I'm on now by the way) as I'm way behind at moment.

However I need yet another brain retuning break and this won't take too long.

For a while now I've heard rumours and "legends" of unidentified birds that live in the botanic garden beside Salmond. There were said to be unmistakable from the local birds (which is saying something we have a LOT of different bird types here in Dunedin alone). They are VERY colourful parrot looking, and just look like they belong somewhere tropical.

Yesterday while walking through the park with my camera, an odd coincidence caused solely by a skool project I was scrambling to finish, I saw the fabled garden birds... two of them in fact.

_

More amazing was the fact that one of them flew away and landed on a "close" by tree and remained their while its companion disappeared from view. Knowing that if these were like other rare sightings such as Bigfoot or loch ness I needed to fire off my blurry photos THEN!

As you can "see" I got two of any use.

Sadly I won't be making a million dollars from globe weekly news. The birds it turns out aren't as mysterious as student fables would led one to think. Asking Scott he promptly told me these are some escaped Australian parrots from the Aviary. Which is funny enough located in the Garden. Despite this they are now on their 2nd or 3rd generation none the less which is kind of impressive.

An odd anomaly in my otherwise work intensive life at moment so I thought I'd share it. Speaking of work need to get back to it...

Internet Stuff

Well the battle of life goes on. My primary big bad as of late is still skool, and the trails and tribulations that it brings.

Tomorrow I teach my first major lesson in my placement classroom. It is on how the Moon's face changes due to it's orbiting the Earth. Keep you posted on how that goes.

Other then that not too much to report. So instead I'm combining a bunch of stuff into something resembling a post (problem with sticking to the books and assignments, not much worthy of blogging comes up).

First off for all you facebook users out there I am now it. HOWEVER due to my busy schedule, and my minor none conformity tendencies I am not an active user. I will not be searching out or requesting any friends. Rather I'm enjoying using the site on a passive filter feeding basis. Meaning that I'll accept ppl and talk to them only if I get tagged. It's a little experiment I've been doing for the last 3 weeks, and it's been quite successful.

The end of this post is just some fun videos I found on youtube, and are funny enough I think to warrant posting them. What in lue of my having anything funny going on in my actual life!




Been having a superhero withdrawal lately, and this video hit the spot. That and I have loved this song for a long time



An inspiring little animation clip that is all too appropriate being down here (even though I still haven't seen a Kiwi). Reminds me that we all must make our own lot in life, and build our dreams.



Lastly as the summer season just started in Drum and the Museum is going it without me I'm missing that whole scene. In particular the crew. So as Peter's the only with a video on youtube that I know of I've posted it cause it's funny too...

Hopefully I'll have something noteworthy of posting soon.

Think On Happy Thoughts

So here I sit trying to get into a paper that I really don't want to have to do. It is my only one of the whole program, but I still don't want to do it of course. Now fret not. This will be a quick sweet blog distraction. I do actually need to warm up writing wise anyway...

To help me with this back home a one off favour has paid off in morale dividends like gold!


So Mike, here he is the lovable scamp, as you should know has been working for Marvel comics the last few years. Well the ultimate (not the comic series mind you) convention hit Cowtown a couple weeks back, and of course naturally I wasn't there. It had everyone from actresses from my fav show (firefly), to the creators of my second fav show (the DC animated series), and lastly my fav comic writer of all time Gail Simone.

Now Mike was invited by the convention to be a GUEST. Yeah that's right I'm friends with someone famous! Anyways in between manning a table of his own he managed to sneak around and talk to some of the celebs kicking around.

Including Gail. Now he grabbed her autograph on a few notable books, but they were all his copies (mine are all in storage back home). He did send me this pic though. Now you'll note the small thing she's holding in front of her face. I recognized it immediately as a figurine of my favorite lame super-villain Rhino from the battle game me and Mike play.

Making my day, and causing a slight scream of delight (sadly not kidding about that), Mike informed me that is MY Rhino Gail is pretend kissing. Oh yeah in your face losers! My Rhino!

So thanks to mike for making my otherwise blah day a bit better!

Now onto the paper. Shudder

Al Franken for Senate!

Well it's about time!

Al Franken of Saturday Night Live fame has finally announced his official intentions to enter American politics. Now if you're unfamiliar with his career this may sound far fetched.

Yes American politics are a joke at moment, but why send a comedian? you might ask.

Well Mr. Franken in the last several years has been an outspoken critic of the rightwing in a period of time where that has not normally been allowed. He has done a great deal of academic research that shows Neo-Conservatism to be the shame that it is.

In essence Al Franken is a sharp contradiction to the norms of modern American (and the world as a whole) politics by having clear and well defined views, and the intellectual knowledge to BACK them up!

Let's just hope after his tour in the Senate (as a Democratic representative from Minnesota) he'll think about the big job at the top...

Beach Week!!!

It's been a little while since my last post.

So here's the low down on Craig's life:

School is in full swing. For the first few weeks it was a nice leisurely pace of classes from 10am till 3pm. As of this week we completed our Maths (Kiwis pluralize Math when saying it) and English compentency tests. We now enter a slightly busier routine of 9am to 4pm. Nothing we Prime Dips (our shortened version of Post Graduate Primary Diplomaers) can't handle.

The kitchen here at Salmond FINALLY opened this week too. Thus freeing up much time from food acquisition (I shouldn't complain. The grocery store is only twice the distance from my room then the kitchen I've been using) and more importantly food preperation. Where's that time going. Well into such productive things as my blog!

Lastly hit the town on the eve of this past weekend in preperation of any and all future beach/ocean outings.

This is the main acquisition from that outing. My new 7mm wetsuit. Only set me back a couple hundred. I also supplemented her with a new set of fins, and a mask and snorkel set (my only complaint. As I brought my mask from Canada, but it was the ONLY thing damaged during my flights to NZ a month ago).

With all this gear I was ready for the beach. Fortuently I didn't have all that long to wait.

On the weekend I had a day out with the boys (which is something of a novelity since there are only 8 of us in the program). My main dudes Jason and Andrew (same order in the pic as typed). We headed out all Sunday in search of Sun, Surf, and Swim. In total we hit 2 different beaches which was sweet.

Also accompanying us was Kia, Jason's dog. He was every bit the beacher that we were. He followed us out in for swims whenever we went (impressive as at one point we were in 2 meter high waves where Kia couldn't standup). More importantly Kia was a critical factor in my learning to play Cricket. Sadly not the most positive, as whenever we hit the ball Kia would try and intercept it, and thus set the game back a few minutes each time he succeeded.

I put this picture up simply cause I don't have one of us playing Cricket sadly.

Of course what outing to the beach won't be complete without swimming. Here I am at Long Beach, New Zealand, entering the water without my wetsuit for protection from the "cold" water. It was very nice considering the 25 degree weather.

I also got to use my snorkelling and wetsuit at a different beach this day to check out a rocky cove, and check out the local kelps and spounges. Sadly no fish, but the tide was coming in and kicking up a lot of sand. Still was good to see that the gear all worked.

Also along Long Beach we checked out a rather impressive cave. It's perhaps a "good" thing I don't have a Camcorder as a million movie ideas jumped in my head walking into this thing. Its a pretty deep cave. Sadly this is the only picture that turned out okay (it's been hard taking pics in NZ as the sun is usually so bright I can't see the LCD display on the back of my camera).

Wow Gollum! Oh never mind it's just me. A wannabe Gollum rather. Well that was the weekend, and after this outing had to return to skool.

However this week we'd all get a bonus day off.

In the form of Waitangi Day, a national holiday "celebrating" the signing of the Treaty between the Maori and the British back in the colonial days. Sadly in modern times it has become a heated time of the year, and up on the Northren Island there were some dodgey (NZ slang) demonstrations and clashes. Fortunently (but the rest of the time unfortunently) there isn't a significant population of Maori around Dunedin so it was a nice calm day. Meaning you guessed it, more time for the beach!!!

Here is half the gang we got together for this outing heading out to a place called Doctor's Point. Where the intention was to get up to nothing but fun.

Here's a good view of our chunk of beach. In the middle of the channel you'll see a little black dot in the water. That's a Craig, who over the course of the day swam across there 3 times in total. Was a bit daunting as the water got pretty deep in the middle. I'm desperately trying to overcome my slight phobea of unseen bottom water.

Now sadly as I'd stayed up late the night before watching the Superbowl I got up way too close to our departure time, and didn't pack properly. Leaving my snorkeling gear behind. Oh well there will be plenty more times after this.

It also worked out cause there was a nice rocky out crop down the beach from our spot. Of course you know what that means...

Critters will be abound under them there rocks. Where you find critters you'll find a Craig. Was an okay selection. I give you only the two prime finds of the day. Not cause the others weren't cool. Just my camera didn't take very good close up pics of these guys. I'll have to try the Macro function next time.

This is a signficant find in a way. A spider crab. I'd only ever caught one of these once before in BC. It was an adult, and very impressive at about 5cm in body and 20cm in leg width. Here in NZ turns out you can catch TONS of them as babies. Took some of the crazy coolness out of the first one I caught to find out their everywhere (I caught the first 20 min into my hunt. So it seemed like a rare find. Turns out I just wasn't looking in the right spot. Other crabs are stuck on the ground when you flip the rock over. The spiders cling to the sides of them!)

This is my other exciting discovery. A new species of Crab I've never seen before with HUGE claws. Despite their impressive makeup these guys are the MOST docile crabs I've ever caught. They just chill out in your hand once picked up.

A fitting conclusion with the relative of a Lobster, as it turns out after all this time in the sun I now look like a Lobster myself. The Oozone hole is at its worst here in NZ out of the habatiated world, and as of such all that swimming in the water added up to a really nice BODY burn. Today during the tests I was in a LOT of pain.

Oh well it was worth it!

Don't expect this to be a lone entry on the Beach. I highly suspect I'll be heading there a LOT more yet.

Comic Weirdness

After decades of the same style, formula, and overall content Archie comics is under going a major revamp. Now I personally am not a fan of Archie at all (in fact I hadn't read one till we did an Archie theme at Kiwanis in 02... didn't care for it) this change however even blows my socks off!

This is seriously NOT a joke! I totally thought it was, but I've had it confirmed by several reliable sources! Freaks me out too...

Toy of the Century!

Well just this week Lego was titled toy of the century. I couldn't agree more! Lego was THE staple toy of my childhood that no matter what I would always play with in the end. Well and up till present.

I'm reminded of one of my favorite corner gas moments where Hank wanting to do something to celebrate Dog Rivers Centenial decides to build a replica of the town made of lego. He needs enough lego to do this though, and starts asking people to borrow their lego. Brent of course refuses, but a scene later we see Brent's mother hand it over to Hank.

"Mom who said you could give away my toys?!?" Brent

"Oh come now Brent you haven't played with them for months" Mom

Not that I've been able to dig into mine since the move this summer. Stupid going to New Zealand!

Well hearing this news of Lego's achievment I figured I'd take a look back at some of my favorite Lego milestones...


This Castle set the Forestmen's River Fortress was among my first independantly purchased sets ever. At the age of 9 I saved up my allowance for months to get this one. My dad impressed came with me, and helped me buy an additional set to supplement this one. I however bought the fortress on my own...


The ultimate set ever! This was my all time favorite the Ice Planet Deep Freeze Defender. I bought this when I was 12 with my lawn mowing profits. This was the last set I got from Consumers distrubitors before they went out of business. They were my hook up with cheaper sets then major toy stores... This marked the height of my lego golden age. I STILL had this ship together before the move this summer



Ah the Lego Dragon the apex of the Lego critters. Getting such figs is a story in and of itself (if I ever do an autobiography Lego will be a whole chapter LOL). I loved to get all the cool specialized and weird mini figures I could. It was always a challenge for me and dad to find the cheapest sets and means of getting these figures. Among them were the lego Shark (first critter I HAD to have!), monkey, parrot, ghost, and then DRAGON! That was the longest month ever. We in Canada didn't get them till several weeks after the offical release date. Man was it worth it!


Now this was a late entry in my Lego history. At 20 yrs old I learned of THE Lego item I'd always wanted as a child. Lego Dinosaurs! Now as a kid I'd always pictured a new Caveman theme to do them, but the guys at Lego outsmarted me (granted I still think Lego Cavemen would be COOL). They comboed the Dinos with their new Indiana Jones theme from the year previous. I could only resist getting them till I had a job. My second year at kamp kiwanis become the year of Virus' Lego... Three Dino sets were the start of this kiwanis collection which grew as I purchased more staffers Lego collections.

Now sadly this is not mine... However it is one of the cool Lego discoverys I've made on the internet that just shows why this stuff is toy of the century!

So here's to Lego and a glorious future! Now I just have to stay away from Batman Lego...

Aquariums I HAVE to visit!

So was poking around on wikipedia, and like usuaul I made a really amazing factual discovery.

Would you believe that there are at present 3 aquariums in the world that hold Whale Sharks as part of their displays! This just blows my mind with its immensity and coolness!

Four live at the "World's Largest Aquarium" in Atlanta, three in Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, and a singleton at Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan. So I now have a real reason to visit Japan!

Anyways moral of the story if you have time to waste don't watch TV (well except maybe Report on Business TV so that I get a raise :P ), check out Wikipedia instead! You're bound to find something immensely cool AND educational in about 5 min tops...

Pulp Craving

Well my creative efforts on legitimate projects like Delta Patrol or getting Dan's sisters wedding fully edited (so close on this one) keep getting intreupted either by homework or my parents. Today my first weekend day free of internet course work, and my parents get me to sort boxes of my stuff... grrrrrrrrr


Though I wish I could claim some sort of Indiana Jones type discovery whilst going through the 5 boxes of my crap I did make a cool find today. Sadly during the internet break I snuck in. It was this picture of a pulp era heroine and here crew at the center of the earth hunting trilobites!

Now I'm sure some of you know my weakness for this particular genre. I've read the majority of the all the prominent such series and stories throughout my childhood. This picture captured all the cool elements from these childhood memories and impressions. The exotic prehistoric ecosystem, alien inner core environment (in this case complete with cavernous roof of the Earth itself), and of course hot babes!

Just makes me want to go film a pulp style center of the earth story. I've even got the components in the works for such a project...

Trilobite for a nice any lass whose brave enough to hunt them (and star in one of my movies :P )

Pterosaur which would of course not only have to attack the heroes in the core,

but if I can manage it be ridden by an evil barbarian at some point too

Ceratopsian (Centrosaurus in this pic, but I can rearrange horns and such) that must have the dynamic herd shot, and at some critically inconvient point have a massive stampede

Of course the Tyrant King Lizard King himself ready to rule over and plague the inner world kingdom he so rightfully deserves!

I also have my own threads should I manage to get cast.

Also might be fun to sepia the film for added effect...

Oh well this is all sadly conjecture. I just needed to get some creative energy of a Center of the Earth variety out of my system, and this was as good a venue as any. Too bad this is the best I'm able to do at moment.

Today it was -5 outside, and there is snow on the ground. Added to this Alberta isn't the most suitable prehistoric looking filming location. If only I were moving somewhere in oh I don't know let's say 2 months that was not only warmer, like say summer, and had ferns and crazy greenery. If only. It might give me something to look forward to.

That and a new camcorder LOL