3D Dinosaur Make Overs

It is a long week... Yippee.

So in addition to the normal weekend stuff I had to do (food shopping mostly... which takes forever in this town for some reason!), I had time for some major 3Ding.

Which is good, as there is a BIG 3D event on the horizon over at The Tyrannosaur Chronicles.

Due to my mega Dino construction project over the "summer" (known in North of America as winter ;P ) I didn't have many new things to build in preparation of next week's excitement, but I had a few other issues.

A big one of these, which can be tedious and annoying, was shading. Colouring a 3D Dinosaur is NOT fun. It can take up to 8 hours if it doesn't jive, and the Dinosaur is kind of useless till it has colour. The good news was I only had one colour scheme to tackle, and thankfully I nailed it on my first test pattern. Love it when that happens (not often!).

So that left me with two remaining issues. Tweaking the older models I was going to be using, and solving my overall posing problems.

As I was reactivating some 3D models made in the immediate post-proto Larry era, they had some problems (as most of my models do somewhere or another). As I'm on a big kick to up my models scientific accuracy (why I set such lofty goals is beyond me!), these 1+ year old constructs needed some major overhauls!

The only sneak preview you're getting is Lance the Lambeosaur. Now back when he was originally built in Jan. 2008 Lance was the most cutting edge of my Dinos. However sadly as time has gone on, and my skills and models have improved, sadly he has fallen into the obsolete pile. Which when you consider that, it tells me something about my 3Ding lately, when a model this nice is considered crap.

Rather than leave Lance behind the times, I spent a good 2 hours reinventing him.

It was all sparked by an urge need to correct his colour scheme. Though his pink underbelly looks good in the total black modelling window, when it is against a real life photograph it looks awful!

So the first thing I did was change it to a light blue. Which looks much better if you ask me.

As a side note this photograph you'll see him popping up in is not a final shot or anything. Rather just a random photo I stuck him in to see how he looks in composites. I have learned I need to background all my shaded Dinosaurs to test how they look. They all tend to look good floating in ambient black modelling space. With a photo background half my texture attempts are exposed to look terrible.

However this reexamination of the model coupled with the Luis Rey illustrations in my new copy of Dr. Thomas R. Holtz's Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-To-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages (a MOST owe book for all you palaeo fans out there... best popular book on the subject!) lead me to launch into a further tear apart of poor Lance...

First thing was first. As a duck billed Dinosaur, Lance was going to need such a bill himself. Though I liked my initial bill for him when I first made it, with my recent practise a proper duck bill wasn't going to be too hard.

So after 20 minutes tweaking I was very happy with his improved mouth.

Peter popping up online for one of our usual Prehistoric Insanity scrum meetings, suddenly alerted me to a whole fleet of other problems with Lance when I sent him this picture. I've grown to count on Peter's unrelenting critiques, and though I may "hate" them at the time, they almost always bear fruit when addressed.

Peter's big qualms were how skinny Lance was, and how not tall his neural spines were. Now I'd actually taken the neural spines into account, and gone with the idea of fatty tissue covering them, but both me and Peter in discussion thought an animal living in a tropical-ish swamp land won't need fatty tissue.

I having got out my skeletal references for this, then also realized it was time to be honest, and admit I was putting a Lambeosaur crest on an Edmontosaurs skull. So I was going to have to raise his eyes, and make the head a U shaped one rather than triangular (the shape I try to make everything... for whatever reason I'm geometrically biased when drawing/creating).

So I bulked him up, and raised the neural spines. Peter was right like usual. My skull modification looked good too.

That left me with the long standing problem I've always had making Dinosaurs. Posing him.

You'll note how I've taken his far left leg and bent the joints, and done so with the arms too. However this is not a precise job. All I've done is remodel those pieces, rather than rotate them like a proper limb should.

Sadly when remodelled, the limbs behave more like play-doh than a fixed joint. It is next to impossible to keep segment lengths (as in shoulder to elbow, elbow to wrist) consistent as I have to bend and move each point in them manually (and there are many points between the proper joints, that act like joints in this type of model). Additionally due to the limitations of bending and flexing this types of model, I've always had to keep the limbs simple. Too much detail and I can't pose the limb anymore.

Slowly but steadily I've been losing my patience with my cartoony simple limbs (apart from Lillian's, hers have always looked good despite the limitations) over the last 2ish years. So this weekend I decided to tackle the problem head on.

I was inspired by Angie's rescent creation of a 3D Corythosaur, and in particular her post about "rigging" her model. Way back when I first got Carrara I tried playing around with rigging, but was overly ambitious and tried it on a full Dinosaur model. Let's just say I bite off more than that Albertosaur model could chew (especially given its lack of molars!).

Now if your wondering what rigging is... Here is a visual that might help. Carrara calls rigging a "skeleton". Which is all I'm essentially doing. Each of those blue points you see is an articulation point I've defined for the computer which in THEORY will behave like a joint in the body.

I say in theory, as the problem that drove me from using this system years ago was that these points don't discriminate what they'll bend, and in a full body rig will bend hips along with their leg, or distort parts of the limb or hide.

Just like anything else, I'm sure with practise I'll be able to master this system, but I wanted to use it in a limited capacity now. After all I'd only need a full rig for a moving animation. Right now I was just looking for something to make posing my models quicker and easier, and while I was at it keep their accurate proportional measured limbs.

After some 14 hours of playing with it, I'm proud to say I've achieved rigging level 2! Not Angie's level 10 mind you, but still going from a 0 to 2 over one weekend isn't too bad if you ask me!

My solution was to rig each limb independent of each other and the body, and not connect them. Resulting in very funny action figure style looking models. I leave the head alone as the rigging that goes into them is INSANE (a level 7 at least from my playing with it). Leaving the head unrigged leaves me in control of the eyes, tongue, and most importantly cheeks. Hadrosaur cheeks while I'm sure riggable in theory, are not a beginners friend, and so I'll just manually keep them at my disposal. The limbs were my main concern anyways.

There are still some headaches this causes, but as they say the grass is always greener (especially 3D grass, I can always make it greener ;p ).

If I "attach" my "skeleton" to the model it is stuck in that 3D project forever. Meaning if I want multiple animals in a scene I have to grab them from another project, unattached to THEIR skeleton, and bring them and their rig in and attach their skeletons in this new scene. This means I have to make sure to save a unattached version of each model to copy and paste, and that I have to go through the 5 attachment processes for every Dinosaur I want (which gets time consuming as of Dino #3 onward)

However the results are breath taking.

Though this is not the best example, see if you can spot the beautifully kept limb proportions, glorious proper bending knees, elbows, wrists, and ankles! You may also note that I went in and added a lot more detail to the limbs, as I don't have to worry about bending the model myself (the rig modifies the model for me, in a way I would never be able to!).

Leading to final Lance. Which I let you look again, keeping all these changes in mind, and enjoy this preview half finished final shot. Lance is of course final element in this shot, but there are some other things being added for next week's big event. So watch Traumador for it!

Oops, Fossils Aren't Real

I had a very miserable day at work today. The major incident of the day I won't be talking about in detail here, but I had my first ever disagreeable interaction with a skool.


The second incident as though adding insult to injury was my having to deal with a big C creationist staff member during lunch time.

The encounter was triggered by my use of Traumador in my classroom, and Ms. C (not their name at all, but rather denoting their BS Creationist beliefs) taking exception to that. She was borderline harassing me about my endorsing such "controversial" material as Dinosaurs to children... funny enough afterwards I found 4 skool owned books on the subject in my classroom alone!...

Due to the fact I'm a substitute teacher I play nice no matter where I go and what happens to me. My employment depends on not rocking the boat at all. So I somehow (and could probably claim admirably) kept my mouth shut, and yet pretended I gave a rats @$$ about what she told me. The whole tell the Penguins from Madagascar's quote "Smile and [nod], boys, smile and [nod]" ran through my head.


The reason for the post though, was her statement that "They [Dinosaurs] weren't even real you know."


That has to be my favourite creationist 'fact'. Though I didn't delve into it today with her, for a number of reasons, it dredged up many memories of my past encounters with Big C's at the museum.

There are 2 variants of the creationist denial of fossils. Which in itself I think speaks to the stupidity I've dealt with.

The majority of creationists have had to concede that fossils are real, and incidentally present a big "problem" to their beliefs (in that they are totally WRONG!). Yet emphasising how not connected into reality creationism really is, some in the creationist movement have decided, rather than try to sidestep and blur the issue of fossils, they're just going to deny they exist. Which indicates how "real" their view point on the origin of things really is. When they have to pretend whole aspects of the world around them don't exist simply so that they can keep pretending their ancient fiction is real...

Anyways 2 variant versions of why fossils aren't real...

1. Evil Scientists and the Evolutionary Conspiracy...

This is my favourite of the two, and it is the easiest to show the stupidity behind it.

It goes like this, apparently "scientists" starting with Darwin (even though fossils have been recorded from as far back as the Greeks! but that is besides the point... for some reason) decided to start a clandestine conspiracy and "create" evidence for his new super villianistic scheme called "evolution"... for some reason... Meaning all the fossil evidence from around the world was in fact created by this cabal of evil academics to support the nefarious plot of "evolution"... for some reason... and yet no not single member of this secret society has ever broken ranks to warn the witless public at large of this diabolical ruse... again for some reason.

In other words palaeontologists and geologists make fossils, hide them, and than pretend to find them...

Like I said, this is a terrifically hilarious idea, and worthy of a whole TV franchise. It is also very complementary at the same time, and gives earth science people a LOT of credit.

Afterall we scientists (I'm lumping myself in here as I've worked behind the scenes in one of the fortresses of evil... errr Palaeontology) are able to produce STUPID amounts of fossils every year. Not only that but we do them all custom with an incredibly diverse variety, composition, and geographic distribution. At the same time no one notices or works at our mass production facilities... MAAAAAHAHAHAH

We therefore must be economic geniuses. As we not only acquire all the materials needed to manufacture the fossils, but we also have an incredible logistics system to distribute the fossils to the remote locations we want them to be, and place them through totally undetectable means (the fact fossils are often found far from "witnesses" is proof of this conspiracy you see according to Big C's).

Not only that but we are incredibly good actors, able to legitimately pass off our own creations as things we happened to find!

We are the most united organization in the history of the world, making the conspiracies of the X-Files look like mere childs play. In the one and half centuries of the plot, not one member of our circle has defected and told the world of our mass deception. We also have been able to plant our creations around the world unnoticed, not only to be found by ourselves but naive citizens.

Best of all we do it for no reason other than it is something to do... I have yet to see world domination in the grasp of Palaeontology... or have I said to much...

I'm not kidding sadly. I've personally had a young teenage evangelical try to persuade me of this "truth"... mental note to self, she still knows too much...

It came up enough at the museum that the staff rewrote the song Three Blind Mice to go

Make, Hide, Find

Make, Hide, Find

We make the fossils,

We hide the fossils,

We find the fossils

Make, Hide, Find
Make, Hide, Find

So as proof that this isn't true, I'll tell you theory number 2. The proof being if this conspiracy was as capable as the story goes they'd have killed me by now for saying this much!

2. The Devil's Creations

This story goes in an effort to trick us humans off the true path of gOD that sneaky Satan went and planted fossils all around creation.

Now this is about as easy to discuss or debate as the existence of gOD. Is your imaginary friend real or not? Only in this case is your imaginary enemy real or not...

Well here is the reasons I think creationists should avoid this one.

First of all its not in your great touted "one true book". No where in the bible is there mention of Satan making fossils (or mention of fossils at all funny enough...). So immediately your claim that the bible is THE literal truth is looking kinda in trouble, as a very KEY event is missing. What else is maybe missing from the book?

The chapters about evolution before Genesis? That disclaimer at the front warning this book is fictional and resemblances between real people and events inside a merely coincidental?!?

However the kicker of this whole Devil made fossils argument, is it suddenly upgrades Satan from a mere second stringer gOD (oh sorry fallen angel) to a full on powerful gOD like the big G himself. Now Satan has the power to create stuff just like gOD did, a Genesis 2 as it were.

Now correct me if I'm wrong... If Satan can create stuff just like gOD, would that mean there isn't one true god, but in fact 2 of them. Now as Satan's creation of fossils would have to presumably be AFTER gOD created the world, as otherwise Genesis is wrong anyway and Satan is actually the world's creator, would that not make Satan more powerful than gOD? Afterall gOD creating the world is dandy and fine, but kinda easy as there was nothing there. Won't it take the real power in the universe to go and amend that creation after the fact?

So yes Satan would be trying to lead me "astray" from gOD, but isn't he doing me a favour? Afterall gOD only created the world... he has no say on it now (otherwise why not remove the confusing fossils?!?). So Satan is the guy holding all the cosmic cards, and we should really be sucking up to him shouldn't we?

Kinda makes you think doesn't it.

In either case I like these theories as it means I don't have to even pretend creationists have a point. They're just talking out their @$$es. Which in fairness they're only one stepped removed from when they acknowledge fossils exist.

Older and uh... Just Older I Guess!

Work has been coming thick and fast for me in term #1, and I hope it holds up all year. The only set back of nice steady employment is of course not as much spare time. Meaning things like blogging are pushed to the back burner.

Over the weekend another birthday came and went. As I wasn't hitting a remarkable or "milestone" age it wasn't anything to fuss over. Though I am now in scary close range of the big three o!

Even though I wasn't set on fussing (a habit from my uni days when my b-day was smack dab in the middle of midterms) fortunately I have a fantastic partner who was! Lady R not only baked me this ubber cute cake, but also made a gourmet dinner for two. So we enjoyed all that over candles in our new house's "sky loft". To end this romantic evening on a counter conformity note we ended it all off by teaching her how to play Lord of the Rings RISK. You heard right Andy, now she knows how to play!

So I did realize how lucky I am these days.

It was as though Dunedin knew it was my b-day and had a squadron of stunt planes flying cool formations over the harbour to celebrate. I didn't let the reality of them being here for a motor event the whole week, deter my basking in imagined glory. Though they've flown over head the last 3 days, only the first round counted as it was on my B-Day :P

It is also yet another example of "sky loft" paying for itself! As we could see 60% of the squadron's flying space from the roof. Very cool. I'm vastingly enjoying my new house over the hall!

Of course with another b-day ticked off the list, has me thinking about getting older. Watching my x-mas present from the parents (which JUST showed up last week... go postal system!) of Corner Gas season 5, I now jokingly wish to grow up to be Oscar when I'm his age. He grouchy, crazy, and thinks everything should be how he wants it too be, sounds like me already! All I need is his eccentric paranoia and I'm set! Jackass!!!

Soundtracks: Bad Movies

Today I'd like to look at a whole genre of soundtracks that I personally love. These are the scores of awful movies. Sometimes such films will produce some amazing music. My theory is that good composers take their job descriptions very seriously, in that their music is supposed to enhance the film watching experience, but since there's not much of a movie to experience with a bad film the composer goes into overdrive to compensate.

Now at the same time I'll point out that SOME (but by no means all) of these movies are ones I quite enjoy and like. Some are so bad their great, but I'm aware of the fact technically speaking they are stupid films.


The king of overcompensating scores was hands down Jerry Goldsmith, who took pride and pleasure from scoring every project as though it were a worthwhile undertaking. The films themselves often were not, but man the albums are master pieces in some cases! Brian Tyler is seeming to have risen in the post-Goldsmith era to fill in this niche, and many of his projects are in a similar vein.



The Mummy by Jerry Goldsmith. Whatever your opinion of this film (as I know it has many die hard fans) one must admit this is a cheesy movie. A well done one I'll add, but it is cheek and tongue about itself as it goes.


Goldsmiths score lends it an air of legitimacy, and raises the films at parts to feel like a real horror movie. Even if it is a formula romp around ancient ruins.


The Mummy's score is just a really great album. As to not fall into a cliche action score, Goldsmith hints everything with an Egyptian flavour musically, and keeps the music as epic as the scenes will allow him.


First Knight by Jerry Goldsmith. This was just a plain bad movie.


However listening to the music you'd think that it was the definitive telling of the Author legend (has there ever been such a definitive version? apart from Monty Python I mean). Goldsmith pulls out every stop to conjure nobility, majesty, and excitement for a film that was none of the above. I remember when I watched it I was just listening the music most of the time.


The grand pieces for Camelot, and also Author's death, are particular highlights. Most of the battle music is very satisfying as well, but a little generic.


Small Soldiers by Jerry Goldsmith. This film was trying so hard to be so many things it didn't manage to be any of them sadly. Jerry picked up on the quirkiness of the living toys and runs with that. What you get is a high energy score themed to communicate its about amazing small things. To me the music serves well for science, and I tend to imagine scientists and their discoveries to this score.


Star Trek the Motion Picture by Jerry Goldsmith. As a trekkie it pains me that amongst all the good that is contained within the franchise there is an equal amount of utter crap (I'm looking at you Voyager!!!). Though there are many films in the Trek line that were less than awesome (the oddly numbered ones as a safe measure) most have redeeming qualities. Trek 5 for example while having a stupid quest for God, is sooooooo over the top (due probably to Shatner's directing) that it is very funny.

Two of the films though for me are just bad, and I was torn which to insert here. Mike convinced me to leave Insurrection alone, but in my opinion it could easily have been placed here, as it is a bad movie with amazing music (in fact among my favourite of the Trekverse).


So that means we look at the first ever Star Trek movie. It was about as exciting as life on a spaceship would be in real life, and that would be dull as (space is actually a really empty place after all!). The only thing it had going for it was amazing visual effects, but in many senses these were just a slide show as not much would happen on screen even in an effects shot.


To me the film is a 10 minute story spread over an hour and a half! So to lengthen it you often get a line of dialogue cutting to a special effect shot, the responding line cutting to another similar effect! However when I do this parody out loud I hum bits of Goldsmith's score.


It is an amazing score, and much like First Knight desperately tries to combat the failings of the film. Only in this case it is more extreme. I personally think this was Goldsmith's (quite probably anyone's) greatest compensating role in music holding the movie up.

The Motion(less) Picture often feels like a slide show at times, but one with a great soundtrack to tell you what the missing movement would be like! This is the one thing Star Trek 1 had above 2001. Both a similarly dull movies, with special effects shots that amazing for their time were really impressive, but are dull today. Only 2001 has boring ballet music, Star Trek at least has powerful music to listen too.


This is not only where the famous modern theme for Star Trek originated, but the music Goldsmith came up with for the monstrous V'ger is among the most effective "alien" music ever written. My personal favourite was the Klingon theme Jerry came up with for this film, and it is one he'd bring back time and time again in his additions to the Trek universe.

Starship Troopers by Basil Poledouris. I love this movie. I love it because it is sooooooo over the top it is awesome. That and it has Doogie Houser, but he is evil!

Helping sell us a heroic fascist America innnnnn space is the unbelievably patriotic and masculine score by Poledouris. It is an extreme militaristic musical ride, and makes you feel like you should be out conquering the galaxy after listening. If I'm craving snare drums or a good march this is the album I satisfy my jonesing with.

The Mummy Returns by Alan Silverstri. Where the first Mummy had quirky fun dialogue to make it watchable, its sequel has CG action scenes. It was rubbish frankly. The Mummy Returns felt like watching a video game. Only someone else is playing it!

I wonder if it was even too bad for even Goldsmith to score, or was it simply a scheduling conflict? In any case poor Alan Silverstri got the job. So how did he handle it. Like he always does, with an adequate score. Only this time it was above adequate...


This score in many ways is similar to Goldsmith's first Mummy soundtrack. They both have Egyptian flavours, both are built on (due to their films) solid action music bases, and both have a sense of magic and wonder that the events in the film would conjure if real. Yet they are nothing alike in comparison to each other. Goldsmith's is much more dark and ominous in tone, trying to convince you it is a legitimate viewing experience. Silverstri's is much more fast and excitingly paced admitting you're watching drivel, but you might as well have fun doing it.

Yet The Mummy Returns is the better of the two simply because its film is so much worse. Silverstri isn't getting any help from the film, like Goldsmith didn't on Star Trek. So he resorts to composing the highest quality (production value wise anyways) video game score of all time!

Reign of Fire by Edward Shearmur. A colossally stupid biological plot device used to kill the movie's Dragons, and the forced in halfway tried old "America saves the day again" subplot topples what would have been an otherwise watchable post apocalyptic film. The best line of the movie also singles where it becomes terrible. "Great the only thing worse than Dragons, Americans!". The only good things about this movie were the Dragon effects, and it was where I first saw Christian Bale all those years ago.

Reign of Fire is given an edge of reality due to the efforts of the Shearmur score, and it is one the few of his otherwise really dark efforts I can handle. The reason being that nestled in between the otherwise depressing and dismal score (in the emotional sense not music's construction) is given an amazing brooding heroic theme. It is a very luring hero's theme as it is not overstated, but rather one you can imagine a real person having if they were to have a soundtrack for life in a time of true adversity.

This score was my personal music for Batman till Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard 's presented a legitimate offering (I hate, hate, HATE Danny Elfman's music soooooo much!). Amazingly the new The Dark Knight score features a theme for Harvey Dent that is extremely similar (to the point of being identical at times) to the heroic theme of Reign of Fire... Not only validating it as my choice of Batman music, but perhaps showing that Bale inspires this music from film composers...

Water World by James Newton Howard. Howard has always coasted the fine line between borderline movies and truly bad ones. Many of the projects he is attached to I won't say are bad, but I certainly couldn't say they were good either. His taking on a replacement score gig for the 1995 film Waterworld would be a venture into a disaster movie-wise. Not that you would know from the score.

I wasn't able to track down this album till long after I'd seen the film. It is a masterpiece, and doesn't connect with the film I saw. Sure I know what scenes roughly line up with the music, but that's where the association ends. Howard's music is much like the Goldsmith magic I mentioned before, adding emotional elements that the film just didn't have.

The most amazing of this music is the awe music for the underwater scenes, which I actually forgot about the film till looking at the track list. This is among Howard's best awe music, and a prototype for the entire Atlantis score.

The heroic theme from this film is fun too. It is over the top, and frankly a sort of silly hero's theme. I personally like it, as it fits well with imagining Traumador and his over the top adventures. However if you think about who the music is for, this is Howard musically making fun of Kevin Costner if you ask me!

Timeline by Brain Tyler. If there was ever a score that made me think it was a Goldsmith, but yet wasn't a Goldsmith, it was this one. Even more ironically Tyler was brought in to write a replacement for the first rejected soundtrack for this film by Jerry Goldsmith himself (the last thing he wrote before his death).

Built on a series of very functional themes this album is a solid listen. My only complaint is each theme only gets 2-3 treatments on disc. In the movie I'm sure they had a bit more each (though not particularly liking the film as much as Dan I can't remember).

However this movie has the most hauntingly beautiful 45 seconds of music I have ever heard. As in it is actually haunting. It gives me a pleasant shiver up my spine everytime I listen to it. A forlorn heroic theme with an ominous note of the price of courage.

Wing Commander by David Arnold. If there was a video game I liked while growing up, it was Wing Commander. I was as excited by this movie adaptation as I was by Jurassic Park. Apart from some great name splicing into the movies of technical stuff from the games it was a severe let down.

Not only was the actor cast of fighter pilots annoying (though the supporting cast was actually superb... but Freddie Prince and Matt Lillard still managed to trump David Warner, Tchéky Karyo, and Jürgen Prochnow), the ship designs were the WORST I've ever seen (seriously cigars of varying sizes... minus the Kilarthi fighters, which would be stolen by Battlestar a decade later), and the damn movie literally treated spaceships like submarines in space. They could hear each other on sonar!?!

This is my definition bad movie=great music. I loved the title theme for this movie so much I went to see the film a second time in theatre just to hear it again (as the CD for it took forever to come out)! It was everything the film was not.

Granted as an album it is hit and miss, but the Wing Commander march and the action cues that contain it are on par with Starship Troopers any day with space adventure, and triumphant music. Not so much for the dangers of action, mind you. This one is pure optimism with just a hint of victory even during the "suspenseful" moments. Not that the film really had any!

So it begins... again

Well I'm back from Australia (which you'll get to see in the next post), and as the skool year here started while I was away that means it is time to get back to work.

Meaning my first step was to go around town to every single skool and let them know I was back in town. Why you might ask? Well it is one of the quirks of being in a different country.

Relief teaching in New Zealand is a lot different that the institution of substitute teaching in North America that I'm more familiar with. In NA, skools are all part of a unified board, and it is this central agency that deploys substitutes wherever they are needed.

Not here in NZ. Back in the 80's they pseudo privatized their skools, and dissolved all the country's boards. Meaning that though each skool is centrally funded by the federal government, otherwise they are their own self sustaining and administrating entities. Meaning it is up to each skool to acquire their own substitute teachers.

Now there are two ways a relief teacher such as myself can get myself covering gigs. One is through the Dunedin pool. A rather cunning individual in Dunedin saw a entrepeneurial opportunity in this lack of a central substitute organization, and so set themself up as a free market version of what a skool board normally does. We relievers sign up into the pool, and then when a skool contacts the pool we are sent if available. The relieving pool does a great job, and I have nothing but good things to say about it. Afterall it was what got me going in the beginning of my relieving career.

However I've found that if I got my name out beyond the pool, I got more work. Skool's will book you for planned teacher absences, and they will even sometimes call you directly if they like you, when a teacher is absent.

Meaning to get myself rolling this year, I spent yesterday doing that tour of Dunedin's skools. Man there is a lot of them! The cool/weird thing is I've worked in 90% of them these days!!!

It is kind of fun getting your name out there, and having to market yourself. I much prefer it to the central organization system in the sense of gauging my performance, as more and more skools contact me directly (meaning they must have liked how I was doing things).

I'm sure there are benefits to a centralized system, but given the rough year the ministry of education gave me last year on my pay I'm not to keen on centralized bureaucracy at moment (as it was the government's fault I was in trouble... the local independent skools were nothing but supportive!)

I guess my only complaint with this job is "phone anticipation" in the morning. If I don't have prebooked days I never know if I'll get THE call or not. So often I'll wake up about 7am regardless if I have work or not, waiting for the phone to ring... even if it never does.

Oh well, it's not that big a worry. I'm stronger than ever in the local skool scene, and had a ton of prebooked days by the time I got home yesterday. Based on the trends of late last year I'm more likely to have to have too many offers rather than worry about a lot of jobless time.

So don't be expecting to much posting out of me, as I'm more busy than ever with work. Which is a nice change of pace...

Australia Exploration

Well the biggest event of the new year so far has been my 2 week trip to Australia.

Lady R's family was nice enough to bring me along for a big family gathering they had this month. If you're reading family oh R, again THANK YOU!!!

Given the current natural disasters that are ravaging through that country right now, it was a very epic and memorable time to be there. There was a lot of loss and hardship, but at the same time it was amazing to see the whole country rally to the aid of the bushfire and flood victims!

Fortunately I was in the one part of the country that didn't seem to be falling apart...

We arrived in Sydney right at the conclusion of the massive heatwave it was having. For us it was cloudy and rainy in Aussie the whole time though. Honestly a good thing. They really needed the rain! At the same time a day or two of sun to enjoy the beaches or pools I had available would have been nice...

I gained a new nickname though. The rainmaker. Which is funny, as the rain followed me back here. In Dunedin the last few days we've had a "practise winter" with constant rain and temperatures under 10 degrees (remember that our summers and winters are the opposite of the North).

However being the trooper I am, I didn't let a little thing like rain and bad weather get me down!

I spent as much time as I could out hunting for wildlife!

Boy was I successful! Australia ranks very very high in my list of wild places. I saw way more stuff in two weeks there than my 2 years in New Zealand (granted most of NZ's coolest stuff was wiped out years ago sadly).

Sadly the I was under strict orders from Lady R to avoid any:

1. Snakes


2. Sharks


3. or Spiders

In other words all the fun critters I could find (minus crocodiles, but they just don't live that far South in Australia...).

Sadly I managed to not see any of the listed critters (at least till later in the trip!). However I was not one to let that damper my danger seeking spirit, and within my first day I found one of the most venomous critters on Earth! Fortunately not on Lady R's list. So no trouble for me!

Unlike New Zealand, Australia has proper tidal pools for me to explore. Unlike North American tidal pools though, it turns out these ones have deadly critters!

Such as this one... I stumbled across it 10 minutes after launching my pool exploration.

A Blue Ringed Octopus!!! Well, okay it was probably a not very dangerous Southern Rock Octopus after further research, but at the time I was primed to have just found and photographed a cephalopod in the wild! It was cooler as there was a chance it could have been a blue ringed!!!



Here he is in moving action. The moment he figured out I was there based on his actions you'll see.

Out doing me in spectacle Lady R 3-5 minutes later found this much larger wounded Octopus in a much easier and small pool. As much as this poor hurt guy wanted to hide, he couldn't. There was nothing in his "pool" for him to duck under. The white marks are heavy damage to his tentacles and body.

Speaking of doomed individuals. The weirdest and coolest discovery I made was of this baby moray eel. It was definitely a Moray, but just really tiny at 20-25cm long. The poor guy could barely move, that alone defend itself (I got it to finally bite my exploration stick only after putting it RIGHT in front of the head).

The reason for all the in rough shape wildlife? There'd be a HUGE storm the night before, and my theory is it damaged a lot of stuff offshore, and washed the hurt ones into the pools (note my first octopus was fine, and I think he was supposed to live there, unlike Lady R's giant).

Lucky for me Australia has tons of poisonous critters. Far too many for Lady R to ban me from seeing. Including this little "blue bottle"... a Man-o-war!!! Which Lady R and Mama R almost walked on with bare feet (I always wear footwear just in case... you never know what you might step on!). In their defense it was an otherwise beautiful sandy beach.

For the first couple days I was taunted by Pelicans such as these flying over head. All I'd manage were distant blurry digital zoomed photographs like these.

Till on the third day, during a brief break from the weather (among the three times it could have passed for almost nice weather), I discovered where the Pelicans were gathering and flocking too.

The outlet for a river into the ocean. It was teaming with bait fish, which the Pelicans naturally were trying to eat.

On hands and knees I crept up to photograph them here. It may look like the Zoo, but I assure you that concrete in the background was just a left over of a long abandoned dock or something.

This for a day was my best photo. Digital Zoom grainy yes, but passable for an okay photo.

Thinking myself quite the sneaky nature photographer I was very happy with this till...

On a drive through a small fishing town we spotted a harbour that was lined to the brim with Pelicans. All of whom were unbelievably tame.

So much so that at one point I jokingly tried to encourage one to fly by flapping my arms. It just looked at me like I was insane (probably justified really).

So I was able to leisurely walk right up to them and take pictures like this... No zoom or anything!

Awesome, but diminished my earlier crawling.

Than in the middle of my trip I met my newest obsession, and bane to photograph. The Kookaburra, king of the kingfishers.

As you can see from this early attempted photo they had me at a total disadvantage. Not only would they keep their distance, but they only hung out around the house at dawn. The worst lighting imaginable for photograph...

For several days I tried futilely to capture a single okay photo.

Than on the early morning I got up before they showed up, I made a key discovery. The Kookaburras were coming to our house because of frogs who were getting trapped in the pool!

Cool (which you'll note rhymes with the just mentioned pool)! Not only I was I doing some hardcore urban zoology, but I now had some bait with which the Kookaburras might come into range for!

My plan worked. Only sadly the darn birds were fast, and backed up with dawn lighting I was doomed. Sure I took photos of cool moments of Kookys grabbing frogs from the pool (this was the best of those photos), but you can't tell that's what their doing.

By the tail end of the trip I was despairing. I hadn't managed to see on at close range at all.

Finally Mama R showed me a trick with ground beef to lure them in close. The first time

produced several okay (but still blurry on account of it being now dusk) photos.

However on my last day towards the last minute I was able to lure a single brave Kooky down in broad day light and snapped about 30 awesome photos!!!

I totally fell in love with these birds on this trip. Probably a bit more about that soon.

It also turns out the ants are hardcore down under. This guy is about 3 times the size of the average Alberta ants I'm used to. His pincers alone were about 1/3 the length of one of those small ants. Glad I didn't tangle with these guys!

We had an interesting nighttime visitor one night. A little treefrog squeezed through a tiny crack in our bathroom, and was found by lady R in the middle of the night.

I launched a locate and rescue operation, made all the more difficult by his escaping from the bathroom (you'll note all the carpet lint all over him in this photo). I was successful in about 3 minutes and released him back outside (though he made a sprint for the still open door after I let him out... cheeky little thing!).

Remember how I wasn't supposed to go find spiders. Well I didn't, they found me!

This was a fairly dangerous trapdoor spider walking across the pool.

Lurking in the shed were massive huntmans. Note the power plug in for scale. This was one BIG spider!

At the very end of our trip me and Lady R explored Sydney for 2 days. Saw lots of cool stuff, like the local zoo, aquarium, and of course museum.

Here is a teaser, but that's all you're going to get out of me.

You'll have to wait till Traumador takes his trip to Sydney to see the rest!

Funny enough on this last day we actually got some nice weather.

Sadly it was on this note we had to bid Sydney farewell, and return to crap weather here in Dunedin.

Oh well had a fun time. Saw some amazing things, and got to hang with my special girl.

Thanks once again to Mama R for letting me come along (and ruin the trip ;P )

Soundtracks: Best Albums

Based on how popular my last soundtrack post was, I thought I'd do another one.

Today I thought I'd fire up a list of my favourite albums. Now when I talk about an album I mean listening to a soundtrack CD from start to finish in its entirety and judge the the overall listening experience.

In other words this doesn't take into account amazing singular tracks or mean these are my favourite soundtracks. Rather these are CDs that I feel have a high quality no matter what track you happen to listen to from them.

With this criteria it was a little difficult to come up with the list. I eliminated about 6 scores from this list when I realized I was subconsciously picking them for their highlight tracks, and not thinking about the other tracks I don't normally listen to.

So here they are in no particular order (other than by composer):


Lady in the Water by James Newton Howard.

Though I said these were in no order, if I had to pick the most consistent album for delivering great music it'd be this one. Though the movie it comes from is not necessarily to everyone's taste (I personal really enjoyed the first time I saw it, but it has since left me cold) it seems to have filled Howard with the magic it so desperately wanted to have.

This album perfectly catches the organic flow of water to the point that the tracks blend together seamlessly, like water being effected by the weather. This emotion flow of the music leads to a truly enjoyable listen start to finish. Myself and Peter listened to this one frequently in 2006 in the car when it came out, and we seldom swapped discs when it ended.


Atlantis by James Newton Howard.

The first album I ever bought on a whim, and it turned out to be a brilliant choice. This score actually fissures down the middle into almost two distinct sounds, which may throw off a few people.

The first half is one of cartoonish adventure and hardship as the explorers in the film search out Atlantis. The second half is one of the most amazing runs of "awe" music depicting the fantastic realm of Atlantis and its people. There is a single track that mixes the two rather well, but otherwise they do standoff against each other sound wise. I just happen to love both halves, so I consider it a very successful album overall.


Dinosaur by James Newton Howard.

Now you might think I picked this one up because it was a Dinosaur film. You'd be wrong. I hadn't seen the movie when I bought this. I boycotted Disney's Dinosaur when it came out, due to the high quality Dinosaurs talking. A decision I sort of regret. Anyways after buying Atlantis I read that this soundtrack had a great deal in common with Atlantis in quality. Picking it up I was very pleased to find this the case.

Unlike Atlantis it was not a dual identity score. Rather Dinosaur is a very continuous African flavoured musical experience. The middle of this album includes some of my favourite music ever, but the rest of the album holds up without it. If I were ever to do a prehistoric themed film I'd pick this score over Jurassic Park any day!

The 13th Warrior by Jerry Goldsmith.

This album reminds me I need to do a post shortly on bad movie soundtracks, and how often they can have the best music of them all!

The first half of this score develops dual thematic material for the vikings and arabs of the film. The second half is a collision of these two ethnic styles into some really fun action music. In fact if there is one word for this score is action. Start to finish it is fast paced and something musically is always happening. So if you like your music paced with slow and fast, this is NOT the album for you, but I love it personally on extreme fast forward!

There were many other Goldsmith contenders for best album, but I'm holding back as their slightly less consistent than this album. That and they will make up the bulk of my bad movie music post. Goldsmith was the master at amazing music for crap movies!

Star Wars: A New Hope by John Williams.

If there was ever a classic of classic soundtracks this would be it. Now I'm not going to be dumb enough (like many William's acolytes) to claim that ALL other soundtracks of the modern era owe their existence to this one. Though it is true A New Hope has had a very big impact on how movie music is put together. However in the 2000's I can personally construct an argument of how we have progressed beyond this, and into something of a post-Williams era.

Regardless this is a singularly amazing gem of movie music. Whether it be in the commercial version or the complete entire score versions, this is a solid listen. Especially if your a Star Wars fan. It has held up really well over 30 years!

Antz by John Powell and Harry Gregson Williams.

The first collaboration of these two favourites of mine (which would set the stage for Chicken Run... a break through soundtrack for me). Antz despite its seemingly jazzy style has a brilliant mix of fun, magic, and extreme epicness throughout its whole run. It is an infectious disc that if I even start a random track on it today (10 years after I bought it... man I'm getting old!) I tend to listen through the rest of it.

Despite not having brilliant singular tracks like Chicken Run, Antz the album as a whole is much stronger and coherent. Meaning it runs for my money on top animated soundtrack.

Sinbad Legend of the Seven Seas by Harry Gregson Williams.

Another example of bad films leading to great music. This score is pirate and swashbuckling through and through. It has all the themes and motifs one could need to sail the seven seas. Exploration, long montage travel, sinister threats and obstacles, and of course woven between and hold these all together a strong heroic theme.

If not for the rest, which is brilliant on its own, the heroes theme is my favourite part of this album. Most heroes themes in a film I have to make due with 1-3 presentations of it. This score I get spoiled with 7! Almost half the tracks have it in there somewhere. Brilliant!

Evolution by John Powell.

This was John Powell's first solo effort I ever purchased (before seeing the film), and I was pleasantly surprised to find it an excellent continuation of the sound of chicken run, though sadly not quite as strong as the two highlight Run tracks. This album is in my opinion the music of a scientific epic, and lends itself to when I'm doing homework.

It has an optimistic upbeat spin on what would otherwise be a fairly cardboard stereotypical action movie of the monster variety. I think that is why it has endured me so much. It is aware of the fact it is fluff, and has a fun time being it. A great feel good album this one (with just a hint of menace).

Kung Fu Panda by John Powell and Hans Zimmer.

My most recent strong album from last year was an absolute delight. This particular time I ended up seeing the film first, and was blown away by the music. However buying the album I was once again enamoured by the music, that in the film sometimes is overbeared by the noise on screen.

Much the way that the film captured all the awesome of martial arts movies and made them fun and friendly, the score captures the divine and delicate nature of Chinese music and merges it seamlessly with a western orchestra. This score is not only intoxicating with the ethnic flavour, but packs a punch with some major epic battle tracks, and than goes to the fun silly. This is one of the best multi vector assault soundtrack albums I can think of, successful intertwining all these competing sounds.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by Howard Shore. Much like how the first LOTR film was the strongest (in my opinion anyway) the first score was as well. I think the two owe each other for their success. The second film suffered in both script and score, and I can't help but feel they are linked (much like the Dark Lord and the Ring). I suspect if I ever managed to track down the complete score for the third film it'll have a strong soundtrack, but the commercial album leaves a lot to be desired (it is the weakest of three initial CDs, despite the film having some amazing amazing).

The first films music, whether on the shorter commercial album or the extensive complete score has the majesty and magic to convey everything and anything middle earth. Every piece and theme is an essential thread that together gives us a musical scape of the LOTR universe. Even the hobbit music, which I'm not keen on, have impact later in the score when it is used. This is as important an album in soundtrack history as Star Wars, and I'd argue the beginning marker of the post-Williams era.

So that just about does it. These are my top 10 albums. Next I'll give you my top 10 tracks, and than sometime after that the top 10 bad movie=great music scores.