Hinterlands

This blog has been abandoned...for now

2011-03-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

But you pretty much knew that already.
Chock it up to The Facebook Effect on casual blogging — essentially everyone now has a voice and a far superior distribution system for their little cries for help and validation.

My thoughts and interests have been much too banal of late to share, so I've been sparing you the poopy diaper stories, and the 'Eloise did this today' entries in an effort to maintain the sanctity and the spirit in which this project arose — as a selfish, R-rated, danger to my professional advancement.

I'm not saying I'll never blog again — I'm just signing off for while.

KOBO: a review

2011-02-02T07:06:00.000-08:00

For some people who spend a lot of time with books, the idea of an e-reader can make you a little queasy.
It's one more step down this road we're on of converting media objects into intangibles. Movies, music, literature, once demanded entire pieces of furniture to store. Our things are still there, but they're no longer THERE.
I really wasn't sure how I was going to react to reading a book off a six-inch screen, but I think it's safe to say I might be a convert. If my e-reading experience has taught me anything thus far, it's that the 'soul' of a book doesn't need a physical form to be every bit as real to you. It's all in your head. I still love books in print, though I expect the next time I move house I'll be making some decisions about dumping a big chunk of the library.
I had a bit of a rocky start with my Kobo, a Christmas gift. After three days its screen was all jumbled up — they sent me a new one with no hassles and it's worked perfectly ever since.

Pros
-Although it could use a bit more contrast between the base and the text, the screen reads wonderfully and its very easy on the eyes. I can't begin to describe how important it is to me to read from a non-backlit surface like this. For those who care (and they are out there) you can change fonts between two basic serif and sans-serif choices as well as increase font size. Did you know that Colin hates serif fonts so much that he makes his office colleagues email him in a specific sans-serif font. Truefacts.

-Comfort. After wrestling with the last print book I read — an unbalanced 950 page softcover monster with a tiny typeface — the Kobo just seems civilized and effortless. This might sound retarded, but the quilted rubber surface on the back of the Kobo is such a sensory delight on your fingertips, that it's almost distracting. Plainly stated, it's nicer to hold than a book.

-Simplicity and ergonomics. With the exception of the page-flip pad, they've very wisely kept all the buttons off the front and back surfaces of the unit giving you lots of room to hold it comfortably in a variety of positions. This matters more than you might think as you spend hours upon hours with it in your hand. Tiny rubber studs on the page-flip pad allow you to operate the thing almost by braille. You don't have to break off eye contact with the text to flip the page which helps you get a flow going. There's a lot of little things that you come to appreciate in the design.
Where other e-readers like the Kindle have full keyboards, I don't really understand why a keyboard would matter (unless perhaps you were a book editor) If you bought the machine to read with, then it's only going to get in the way.

Cons
-As a bit of an impulsive reader who enjoys two-to-five minute bursts of reading when he's voiding his bowels, during commercial breaks of Jersey Shore, or those rare moments when his mischievous infant isn't doing something dangerous, the Kobo has a bit of an annoyingly slow startup. There's a 35-40 second boot-up before you have to navigate through one menu back to your page. This is a pain as I'm usually half done my business by the time I get readin', dang it!. Perhaps I need to make better use of a 'Sleep Mode' that takes you instantaneously back to your page, though I'd have to charge the unit more often. So far I've only charged the unit once in a month's time — not bad.

-I'm scared as hell to take this thing out of my house. My first Kobo 'shit the bed' after I put it in my pocket and went outside in minus-20 degree celsius weather, an average day in these parts this time of year. Protective cases are quite expensive — around $40.

-While it's a sweet gesture, perusing the 100 preloaded classic works of literature on the Kobo is a ridiculous exercise. I see it as something akin to the clowns who buy all these real books so that they can put them on a shelf with no intentions of reading them, just to impress people looking at their bookshelves. I feel as though I've unwittingly become one of those clowns.
Why just the other day, I read three pages of The Importance of Being Earnest, whilst I shat. It was terrible!
It would come in really handy in the event of a nuclear war, provided I could charge the damn thing.

Quinzee - Day 40

2011-01-13T21:40:00.000-08:00

Further into the depths I go.
The chamber is getting more spacious. I'm considering a second door for airflow/escape/ease of snow removal purposes.
At the moment my primary tool is a lightweight metal avalanche shovel from my ski touring days — very strong, sharp and easy on the arms.
Safety is beginning to become a consideration as I cut deeper into the cavern. The snow is very dense and well-bonded though I'm considering an internal column in the centre of the cavern to bear some of the weight of the ceiling. It could be a cool decorative element as well.

Quinzee - Day 32

2011-01-05T19:20:00.000-08:00

Just as I'm sure you're beginning to doubt my commitment to the quinzee project, I got back at it this evening.
Now the real fun begins. I got about an eighth of it hollowed out tonight. The plan is to keep 'bench' seating around the outside and leave a support column in the centre.
It's tough going — working in tight spaces working above your shoulders in hard chunky snow. I'm also kind of freaked out by the idea of being buried alive.

Quinzee - Day 10

2010-12-16T18:46:00.000-08:00

I love it when a plan comes together...
Thanks to Dave.
It's about as high as I think it's gonna go.
Thus officially ends 'the building up'. Let the hollowing out begin.

Quinzee - Day 8

2010-12-14T22:17:00.000-08:00

After a few days off I'm back at 'er.
A bit of a 'caldera' forming as you can see
Maybe half and hour left on the scoop and we'll see if Davey down the street will help finish the dome with his snowblower.
Then I gotta hollow it out — yikes.

Quinzee - Day 3

2010-12-09T22:07:00.000-08:00

Three nights in now and my upper body is pretty sore, though significant progress has been made.
The tool of choice is a large plastic scoop shovel that can move about three square feet of snow in one shot.
The pile is built up to about 5.5 feet all the way around and I have plenty of remaining snow resources to draw from.
Cold overnight temperatures have helped to harden it.

Quinzee - Day 1

2010-12-09T21:44:00.000-08:00

Inspiration struck me while I was on the can the other night.
In lieu of buying an elliptical trainer or some other bullshit I don't have room for, I would put my body's stored energy to use with an ambitious manual labour project and take advantage of a huge early season snowpack.
It has a circular footprint of around 4 metres. I hope to build the dome up to 2.5 metres (8.2 feet). Hopefully with some help from a certain neighbour with a snowblower (Dave that might be you).
Then imma ice the sonsabitch down with the hose and hollow it out, keeping the walls and ceiling a foot thick.
Then I'm gonna have a party.

Where da nougat at?

2010-12-01T19:32:00.000-08:00

I put one of these in my headhole tonight and it was wrong, wrong, wrong.
International nougat prices must be skyrocketing for things to come to this.

In other news, Being Erica has to be the best mainstream CBC show since The Raccoons. I have to say I immensely enjoy its metaphysical dramas, decent writing and strong acting despite the show's desperate and pathetic commercial whoring.
In these dark days when the lines blur between advertising and 'content', I feel like I'm being subject to a 1930s radio drama every time they work the Ford Fiesta's new bluetooth cell phone crap into a scene, or write a plot thread around self-appointed fashion icon Jay Emmanuel.
If nobody complains when this bullshit begins creeping in like a cancer in otherwise decent programming, it continues, getting worse. So, for what it's worth, I'm complaining.

And now for some quality entertainment...

2010-11-30T14:46:00.001-08:00

Getting ready for Halloween

2010-10-24T09:08:00.000-07:00

A favourite from yesterday's pumpkin photo shoot with Eloise.
At four-and-a-half months, she can't actually stand yet, which is why I especially like this one. She has good enough balance to lean her up against something for a few seconds before she topples over.
The cats are delighted that they are no longer being dressed up in costumes and have been watching poor Eloise struggle with her new role as model.
She's going to be a monkey for Halloween.

Randoms...

2010-10-07T20:50:00.000-07:00

Random image from the past few months.

I'm booked...

2010-09-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

It's not really the baby that's kept me from blogging of late as much as it has been the Neal Stephenson novels.
These 900 to 1,200 page literal monstrosities have kept my impulses at bay.
Since the Spring I've plodded through roughly half of Stephenson's catalog — including Anathem, The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon.
Down in the States last week, I picked up two more 1000-pagers from his three-book Baroque Cycle series — determined to keep this enjoyable spree going before I succumb to reading William Gibson's latest offering 'Zero History'. Maybe I'll wait for the soft cover.

I'm a real fan of the exceptionally long novel, books that impose a sentence on the reader.
And stupidly long books seem to be in vogue these days — a byproduct of the JK Rowling/adolescent fantasy genre that has prevailed in recent years.
Speaking of which — somebody has to make an awesome movie out of Neil Gaiman's 'The Graveyard Book' — or not, I don't know.
I just wish more people knew about it.

On another note, I signed up for the free trial of Canadian Netflix through the PS3 last night and it's pretty cool — It's kind of an on-demand video streaming service. While they're not exactly streaming new release titles, there's an okay selection of fairly recent movies. The TV show selection is lame, but the documentary section alone is worth the $8 bucks a month. Picture quality is great and there's next to no waiting around for things to buffer — works good.

When nerds have babies...

2010-09-08T12:25:00.000-07:00

Does anybody else think the name 'Anomaly' would be a awesome baby name?
At 3 months-old, Eloise is already pushing 15 lbs, which is about the same as her 5 or 6 month-old strictly breast-fed counterparts.
She wears most clothing items only once as she has trouble fitting into the same stuff week to week. She's already wearing 6 month sized stuff (although sizing is rather arbitrary between brands)
But I digress. The interesting part of what I'm getting at is my suspicion that my baby has super-powers.

Well, maybe not super-powers as such — but that perhaps she suckles from a source of supernatural life-giving power.
It is my distinct suspicion that Lindsay's breastmilk is something akin to the ent-draught described by Tolkien in the forests of Fangorn.

The Wikipedia Middle Earth List Of Food and Drink describes ent-draught thusly:

...an extremely invigorating drink of the Ents, brewed from the waters of the mountain springs on Methedras. These springs were the source of the river Entwash and the water had special properties. When Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took drank from the Entwash and bathed their feet they felt refreshed and their wounds were healed. When Treebeard brought Merry and Pippin to his home he gave them each a bowl of Ent-draught from a stone jar. The Hobbits found that it was similar to the water they had drunk from the Entwash, but it was even more invigorating. They felt its power coursing through their limbs and it felt like the hair on their heads was curling and growing. There was a taste or scent like a breeze from the woods. The next morning, Treebeard gave the Hobbits an Ent-draught from a different jar. This one was more filling and had an earthier, richer taste. So invigorating was the drink that the Hobbits actually grew taller after drinking it. Their exact height is not recorded, but it is implied that they surpassed Bandobras Took in height, him being the tallest hobbit in record up to that point, being four feet, five inches tall.

I haven't yet built the courage to test the breastmilk myself, as I find the very idea repugnant.
I love that word. Repugnant.
It just sounds so pissy.

Speaking of magical fluids I've been intrigued by the concept of 'sizzurp' since rapper T.I. got busted with the purple drank in his car.
While I would assume that codeine cough syrup, Sprite and Jolly Ranchers would be something that hobos or 13 year-olds would drink to get high, T.I. has given the sizzurp all sorts of cred.
I'm off to the pharmacy!

Judicious use of profanity...

2010-09-02T11:54:00.001-07:00

Love it.

2010-09-01T12:55:00.001-07:00

Wow, two posts in one day, that's procrastination at nearly 2008 levels.
I've also humoured myself with a Facebook exercise listing the 15 albums that 'really stuck' with me and have since spent the day engrossed in Youtube clips of my forgotten favourites.
Like this one.

Ah, they don't make 'em like that anymore.

My callsign is fish_taco...

2010-09-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

I'd just like to say, based on my extensive knowledge of modern fighter aircraft gleaned through hours upon hours of playing HAWX online on my PS3, that the Canadian government should just go ahead and buy those 65 Lockheed Martin F-35s that everyone is bitching about.
Finally something cool for your tax dollars. What's $16 billion? Just play up the arctic sovereignty card a little more, maybe contrive an 'incident'.
Those are some cool-ass, not to mention versatile, planes with their thrust vectoring and vertical take-off ability. Bet they dodge missiles like a mothafucka too with their stealth airframes and supermaneuverability — that's right, I just made up a word.
That's all.

Hi again...

2010-08-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

My my, it's been a great few weeks of not blogging.
The fact is that there's no time for such trivial pursuits (isn't it funny how the board game totally ruined that phrase).
Late July until now has been exceptionally busy with Dryden's Centennial, preparations for various musical performances, parenting and photography.

I was proud to be on stage for Erik Bleich's concert to release his CD Invisible Vehicles. Check him out.

I did have one idea I was hoping to blog about — it came to me on the drive to Thunder Bay as Lindsay, Eloise and I took off on a mini-vacation. It was inspired by the part in Hot Tub Time Machine where Craig Robinson's character gets up on stage and starts singing The Black Eyed Peas song from the future. I guess Marty McFly did it too in Back To The Future.

Which got me thinking about Prince was probably a time traveller, having penned so many hits produced by such a wide variety of people.
Then again, he could only have been a time traveller from the late 90s or so. Recently, he declared that the Internet was 'over' and pulled everything he had off of it — so my confidence in his omniscience is a little shaken.
Anyways that's about all I got for ya there. A good excuse to post this.

In other news, Eloise is just about the cutest baby in the world.

Protect your precious seed...

2010-07-16T21:36:00.000-07:00

This has been kicking around for quite a while — as viral marketing for Gentlemen Broncos, which I finally got around to watching tonite. The critics are full of shit, thumbs up.
Could Sam Rockwell get any cooler?

It appears I haven't had enough of Dr. Ronald Chevalier. Based on Jemaine Clement's awesomeness, I'm seriously considering buying some Flight of the Conchords DVDs.

Playstation 3 now offers rental downloads in standard and HD, which I'm lovin'.
Wow. I whined, and you listened, Sony.
The downloads take about two hours for a movie, or you can watch while they download (haven't tried that yet). Five bucks for a new release in standard definition. You have two weeks to watch em', or 48 hours to finish them once you start it.
Can't say I'm missing the Movie Gallery.

Lame to the very last...

2010-07-14T14:49:00.001-07:00

Today I bid a fond farewell to 'The Hills' — bane of my existence over the past few years. Still, it's funny how you learn to identify with your oppressor.
The Hills series finale ended with all the banal lameness that characterized the series.
I was hoping against hope that a manic, coked-up Spencer Pratt would go on a shooting rampage during the live finale, or light himself on fire and jump out of a window of the Roosevelt Hotel into the pool.
Now that would be a fuckin' ending!

There was no emotional reunion between the augmented cyborg Heidi Montag and former Hills star Lauren Conrad, no sense that anything had come full-circle. Just fake smiles and an urgent need to put it all to an end.
And indeed it should. Cultivating celebrity without talent is a dangerous business — people go crazy before your eyes. While it's entertaining, I wonder how many lives that show screwed up?
Good riddance.

Comedy genius?

2010-07-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

I find these days there's a whole new dimension of entertainment evolving on youtube.
I watch a lot of how-to videos — everything from the elusive double-windsor knot, baby fart aerobics to my favourite, drum lessons.
But for every bit of good advice out there, there is a whole lot of bad advice from people who aren't qualified to give it. Some of it is really quite funny.
I think this new form of life mutated into existence amidst the hundreds of thousands of 'how-to' uploads provided by Expert Village — a web entity that gathers its content from masses of deluded wannabes who are willing to offer free advice on any subject.
You see, I feel like such an insufferable prick when I say that. And I don't want it to be that way because I genuinely enjoy watching this stuff. I like seeing people give something honest and revealing of themselves — it's courageous in a way that I'm not.
Let me give you an example, I consider myself a bad dancer and as a consequence, I don't dance...often. When someone can do sober what takes me an average of 17 ounces of rye whiskey to do, I think it's...well...beautiful in a way.
Naivety is innocence and innocence is like staring at a unicorn or some shit. It never gets old. It's the only thing really worth fighting for.

Take Ryan Larson here for example. I'm not sure if he's a comedy genius, a la Sacha Baron Cohen, or Spike Jonze's Torrance Community Dance Group from Fatboy Slim's Praise You video, or if he's actually developmentally handicapped.
Who says you need to know how to play the drums in order to offer an advanced drum lesson? You can fool 90 per cent of them out there with a few words that make you sound like you know what you're talking about.

What do you think, genius or crackpot?
I say genius.

On news stands now!

2010-07-06T13:22:00.000-07:00

In case you're interested you can check out my (major) magazine debut in the July/August issue of Canadian Geographic — now available.
It's a 500-word (or was) technology piece on smoke-sensing cameras on fire lookout towers. If you're too cheap to pay the $8, you can poach it at the news stand on page 26.
You might even see that jack-ass Colin in it.
A great experience overall from the story pitch to a great final edit — less bat-shit crazy than the newspaper game.
Yay for me! I'm buying a new TV...

Canada Day...

2010-07-01T22:15:00.001-07:00

Inspired by Elliot Erwit...
Straight off the camera, no tweaks yet.
I love speedblurs, I could do them all day. Sitting on the side of the road panning my torso left to right at high rates of speed. This one used a flash, still ain't as sharp as it could be.

Bleich working his magic on the ladies

Go Scotty!

2010-06-25T08:10:00.000-07:00

Scott Bagshaw has always been kind of a controversial character, even in my rural neighbourhood growing up.
More than that, Bagshaw was a straight up suave motherfucker — a sort of Mick Jagger for the sticks where his parents dragged him to live for a brief time to his great frustration. The times you spent around Scott seem a little more vivid and colourful than your other memories for some reason. I've met U.S. senators with less panache than Bagshaw.

It doesn't surprise me at all to hear that the entire staff of Winnipeg's Pizzeria Gusto walked out when Scott got canned for a media interview he did on the grittier side of culinary culture. You can read about it here.

The issue has even gone international somewhat, prompting discussion on The Guardian UK culture pages.
How do you like that? Wabigoon boy makes good.

I'd like to throw my support behind Scott for having enough respect for the truth to tell it.
It could be worse, man. At least you're not General Stanley McChrystal.
Read that if you have 20 minutes, you won't be sorry.

Balancing unbridled sexuality with non-threatening masculinity...

2010-06-23T20:15:00.000-07:00

I wonder if I'm the only one who's detected this interesting new pattern in Canadian television. Probably not.
Pair a fiesty redhead with nerdy horn-rim spectacled hipster male of undetermined sexuality — then let them host a TV show.
It's a formula that works.
It's kind of my Master's thesis that I will someday collect enough insight on to publish a theory. At the moment it seems little more than a coincidence. I've only identified what my basic cable will let me: The MTV After Show's Jessi Cruickshank and Dan Levy (above); and Sarah Richardson and Tommy Smythe from the HGTV design series Sarah's House.
Check out the photos. It's like Jessi and Dan just got older.

Cruickshank/Levy and Richardson/Smythe even interact in sort of similar ways. The complete void of sexual tension leads to some fun conversation, honest interaction and a true respect for each other's talents that I enjoy.
And I don't even want to punch Dan Levy or Tommy Smythe in the face.
Not like those lisping Steven and Chris guys who make me shudder involuntarily and grab wildly for the remote.

Eww....

2010-06-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

Eloise's umbilical cord stub fell off today. Lindsay damn near threw up. I put it in a baggie!
The thing basically dries up into a black piece of human jerky and crusts off giving this bizarre view of the...port.
It's a little bit like The Matrix (or maybe the other way around) — this interface, the plug through which she received everything she needed to grow.
It got us wondering about DNA, where the mother's ends and baby's begins. The internets tell me the placenta is the bridge between the two as cord and placenta originate from the same sperm and egg cells that form the baby.
I don't remember too much about cutting the cord, I was more concerned about whether both my girls were okay.

We looked into saving cord blood, but it is prohibitively expensive, at least for us.
Into Eloise's second week, things are good. There have been both easy and rough nights, breastfeeding challenges. Lindsay's finding out what not to eat if we want to sleep at all.
Here's a nicer picture.

Eloise's story

2010-06-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

There is no shortage of advice when you're headed into a birth, but there really isn't anything anyone can say to truly prepare anyone for this experience.
I've heard many times that this is an experience that will, if you didn't before, make you believe in God.
Personally, I found it to be a profound affirmation of our membership among the mammals, a shocking reminder of one's animal being. Above that, a physical and emotional test of limits to levels never experienced. And I'm mostly a spectator to it all.

What is truly wondrous and beyond comprehension is how it all unfolds, how — despite all the technology that surrounds you — that the body is designed to do this, has done this for thousands of years. You experience this all with an intensity that the mind struggles to reconcile.

Eloise Mae Marchand arrived at 11:14 p.m. after seven hours of labour. Coming out upside down with Lindsay exhausted, the doc was close to calling a C-section. As Lindsay was leaning over a table about to get an epidural, she felt the baby shift and the game was on again for a natural birth. By the time Eloise was born (with no small help from a suction device) any drugs Lindsay had in her had pretty much worn off.

"I've never experienced blinding pain before," she says.

Eight pounds, five ounces — yeouch.

No one can be prepared for rush of love, the transformation that this difficult few hours performs on your soul.
It's a crucible that you emerge from forever changed. I see it in Lindsay, I see it in myself.
All the lame, cliché shit everyone says about having a baby is absolutely true.
Nothing destroys your cynicism like your baby girl asleep on your chest.

Still waiting...

2010-06-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

Hello all, no baby yet.
This waiting is killing me. Lindsay is officially one week overdue, though right now we're starting to doubt the accuracy of the due date. Stay tuned.

On hiatus...

2010-04-20T20:15:00.000-07:00

The fourth anniversary of this blog came and went unobserved earlier this month.
Oh well...
I'm a bit overwhelmed with life right now. I neither have the spare time nor the leftover creativity to maintain this thing at the moment — not even in the sort of half-assed way I've been doing it since last summer when work got crazy.
I used to feel bad about it, but priorities change.

Maybe when the baby comes I'll be post some pics. Thanks all.
Check in from time to time.

Livin' on the edge...

2010-04-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

We have an office pool to guess when Wabigoon Lake will be ice-free — guesses are ranging from April 8 to April 29th. Typically, the ice goes out around the second week of May, but this year has been anything but typical.
There could still be as much as 15 inches of ice on the lake, but it's melting away from shore fast.
Several people have died or gone missing in the region over the past week in association with snowmobiles and open water, including the tragic death of a 17 year old, just north of here at Frog Rapids.
It always amazes me the way life plays out on the edge of the open water every spring. The gulls have returned and make an unholy racket in the dead of night — I wish I knew what they were fussing over. A family of otters is back on the river from what I hear, though they're difficult to spot.

Arc Magazine lives again...

2010-03-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

If I recall correctly there were three or four of us sitting around a table in a Fernie, B.C. basement while Scott laid out plans for a grassroots ski and mountain mag.
It was a beautiful plan. The kind that makes your heart soar with ambition and let you visualize the perfect convergence between lifestyle and work.

But that's about as far as it went for some years. Life, as it so often does, got in the way. I switched newspaper jobs, moved out of Fernie, then back to Fernie, then out of B.C. entirely. Scott moved to New Zealand, married Sophie and got down to business with Lonely Planet.
Not too long ago, while searching through a box of darkroom prints and old portfolio stuff, I found Scott's initial designs for Arc Magazine - complete with the original beer bottle rings smearing the bubble-jet ink.

So it was really cool to discover that the spirit of Arc Magazine has been simmering on a back burner of Scott's mind for all this time, evolving, broadening its scope and taking new shape on the web.
Check it out here.

Right in the ear...

2010-03-23T15:07:00.000-07:00

Ann Coulter's career must really be flagging if she's lowered herself to speaking engagements in Canada. I'd post a highlight reel of her insulting Canadian Muslims to their faces, but that would only feed the hateful beast she is.
Fuck her, right in the ear.
She used to make me angry enough to join a terrorist organization.
Now I just find her kind of pathetic, my dear friend Henry helped me see the light.
I would imagine she's a very lonely person.

First ride of the year...

2010-03-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

Photos by Steve
This post is coming about two months early, a really remarkable thing considering nobody rode their bikes in the bush until the end of May last year.
What a way to bring in the first day of spring.
I bit off a little more than I could chew, but what the hell, why not taste the pain?
Jeff, Steve and I took on what's known as the Triple Threat — a long, technical circuit combining the Ferguson singletrack, Ghost Hollow and Roota-Bega — any one of which is enough to kick most people's ass.
Riding all three trails after a winter of reality TV, 2,500 bowls of chocolate ice cream and 20lbs of sympathetic pregnancy...well let's say the ol' choda, or 'taint', if you will, has seen better days.
While riding gets harder and easier throughout the year, depending on the state your body finds itself in, it never gets old.
It was amazing to be riding with the blinding reflection of a still frozen lake below you. It was just amazing to be outside in the forest, warm sunlight streaming through the trees and my heart pounding.

Wanna rastle?

2010-03-12T20:24:00.000-08:00

Some action from CWE Wrestling, in the Dryden High School gym.
Bushwacker Luke!!!
Badd Ass Billy Gunn!!!
Can you smell the awesomeness?

I can smellz plagiarism?...

2010-03-10T10:05:00.000-08:00

You've all heard the stories about cats living in nursing homes who only crawl up on patients' beds when they're about to kick the bucket.
Well, my cat Sadie has talents of her own — a remarkable ability to detect academic dishonesty.
Along with pre-screening abstinence/sex-ed videos, another fun thing about having a middle school teacher for a wife (besides the incessant bitching) is the odd opportunity to help her bust kids who think adults don't know how to use the Internet.
Somehow, plagiarism is like catnip to Sadie — she paws at offending pages, sniffs out their dubious authenticity as if to say, 'something's fishy'.
It is ever-so-satisfying to type a line of text from a Grade 8's paper into a Google search and watch the rest of their essay or poem appear on your screen. Busted!
I just wish the education system had a strategy to nip this behaviour in the bud in its early stages — before it gets them tossed out of university, ruins their life and cost them thousands of dollars. It's too bad guilt and shame are no longer part of the public education strategy.
Plagiarism just creates shitty people with shitty values and shittier work ethics.
What do you educators out there think about this new 'cut n'paste' culture?

On another note...
Corey Haim is dead everybody.
Didn't see that coming.
I've been looking for an excuse to post this song from the closing credits of David Spade's Dickie Roberts Former Child Star — featuring Mr. Haim and his frequent collaborator Corey Feldman.
While brilliantly written, this thing is painfully awkward at times — especially when they make the white people rap. Make sure you make it to 3:21 for the best part.

Catching up...

2010-03-05T07:55:00.000-08:00

Yeah so, I've been taking a bit of a break in order to reaffirm my personal work ethic, which can't afford much down time.
Creating a novel distraction such as this is can easily become a form of procrastination — a sneaky way to make you feel like you're working, without actually getting anything done.

Several unwritten posts over the past week or two may have included:
- A fun ice-fishing derby which my friends and I hosted at my parents' house;
- The purchase of a new Nikon D700 camera body and the subsequent sale of my D100 body;
- Recanting anything negative thing I'd ever said about the 2010 Olympics;
- The commencement of prenatal classes;
- Placenta recipes;
- Survivor bullshit;

Here's a cool song I heard the other day. Blah, blah.

Ahem....

2010-03-01T18:53:00.000-08:00

Um, I believe I called this shit some weeks back. Against all odds!
Pay up everybody.
I just called Colin to rub it in, and his wife was in Winnipeg — he was watching The Bachelor all by himself.
Now that's hardcore!

In the end I think it came down to Jake's inability to visualize Tenley performing nasty sex acts, pretty much a dealbreaker.
Not the case with Vienna.

Goodbye St. Lucia sun....goodbye

Olympic rascals

2010-02-24T08:20:00.000-08:00

The blog posts have been few and far between this past week, mostly because of Olympic awesomeness.
All the politics aside, the Olympics really come down to all the athletes and the powerful unscripted moments they bring.
I could take or leave all the 'beer commercial patriotism' that surrounds the men's hockey team — it makes me itchy for some reason. Have you ever noticed how overt, undignified, face-painting levels of patriotism never really existed in Canada until Molson turned it into a really successful marketing strategy?
Is it reflecting the culture, or steering the culture? A bit of both perhaps?

And to judge Canada's success by the 20 or so gibronies on the hockey team? It's not right. I think we've kicked some ass for a nation of just 30 million souls.

I've been particularly enjoying the athletes with checkered pasts, or the ones who sign on to represent countries other than their own.
Like the U.S. men's freestyle ski aerialist Jeret Petersen — sent home from the Turin Games in 2006 for getting in a fistfight, later wins $500 grand in Vegas and has to declare bankruptcy three months later. That's one hardcore mofo.

Or "Canadian" ski-cross racer Chris Del Bosco, an American who U.S. Alpine officials have washed their hands of, due to his drug and alcohol problems. Favoured by many to win gold, Del Bosco dominated his heats then choked hard in the final, flying sideways off that huge booter on the homestretch.

Or Japanese snowboarder Kazuhiro Kokubo, whose baggy pants and dreadlocks apparently dishonoured his entire nation. Oops! He was banned from the opening ceremonies. He must now thrust a dagger into his own heart for his unworthiness. I made that last part up.

Last but not least, how about that Johnnie Weir everybody! Just when you thought men's figure skating couldn't get any gayer, along comes Johnnie Weir. Getting screwed by the judges time and again (no pun intended) Weir decided he was gonna do it his way with some truly courageous and uncompromising performances that made everybody squirm uncomfortably and choke on their own hypocrisy.
In just one Games, Weir undid years of work by Elvis Stojko to masculinize the sport. Down the tubes like the men's double luge.

How do I get into this thing?

2010-02-18T14:39:00.000-08:00

That's me trying to fit into a Tudor jet.
I spent some time today with some members of the Canadian Forces Snowbirds Demo Team today. They were in town talking to the local organizers of a big air show that will happen in May in Dryden. I didn't get to take it out for a spin.
Nice dudes, pretty happy with what they do for a living.

A smile for your Thursday...

2010-02-11T07:43:00.000-08:00

It's been a few years now, but I just can't let it go.
Oh, how I wish the CBC had never canceled Hatching Matching & Dispatching — one of the few watchable shows ever to grace the CBC airwaves.

NWO awesomeness...

2010-02-05T11:34:00.000-08:00

Jordan Burnell and Westfort Productions have done something truly special here. I won't cheapen it with my own jibba-jabba.

Love letter...

2010-02-05T08:56:00.000-08:00

NSFN (not safe for neices)
What would Peanuts creator Charles Schultz say if he were alive right now?
"Somebody help me! I'm trapped in a coffin!"
Sick.
I have to admire how well Linus channels the insidious Frank Booth, perhaps the most frightening character ever brought to life on the screen — David Lynch's Blue Velvet.

Frog Eyes and the return of sweet Joanna

2010-02-03T13:52:00.000-08:00

Here's a little Canadian indie rock for your Wednesday. It's snowing pretty hard here — thinking about some night skiing tonight.
Victoria B.C's Frog Eyes are a band I need to get to know better. Carey Mercer's vocals exist in such a rare spectrum that the David Bowie comparisons are inevitable. His wikipedia page mentions that he's a high school English teacher. Nice.

Oh look, she's back.
Joanna Newsom has a new album ready to drop for that 5 per cent of you kindred spirits out there who dig it.
Instead of Raffi, I plan to raise my baby girl on Joanna Newsom. It's my theory that early exposure to poly-rhythms will generate complex musical pathways in the infant brain resulting in unprecedented musical comprehension. More likely, she'll cry and poop her pants.
Newsom's new album is called Have One On Me and will be out later in the month.

The Bachelor: this is no place for a virgin...

2010-02-01T18:56:00.000-08:00

It's okay... it's okay to fall in love.
But not you Corrie. You're in the back of a limo, tears streaking down your face. Poor thing.

I guess Vienna has Corrie thank for her miraculous survival this week. After doing almost everything wrong, Vienna can thank her lucky stars that Corrie was saving herself for marriage. The kiss of death!
And there's nothing wrong with her values, but I think we found out tonight how useful they are within the context of a televised mating competition.

Lindsay and I were thinking of an even cooler idea for next season — Bachelor: Polygamist. On second thought, that's kind of what it's like anyway.

Ali continues to amaze with the perfection of her game. She scored some major points with me this week for swallowing her indignation over Vienna and clearing the matter up with Jake. Her intelligence is formidable and her booty is fine, but I'm still not sure she can be trusted. And that bizarre sound she makes...

Tenley, meh. I have no opinion on Tenley. She's kind of a douche.
Gia is just plain sexy in a classic, timeless Sophia Loren sort-of-way. Glad she's still around.

Hmmm...

2010-01-29T07:29:00.000-08:00

Are you like me?
Have you spent the last four years losing your hair and eating cheese croissants over your keyboard at 5:30 a.m.
Can canned electronics air dusters only do so much for those tight, hard-to-reach places that you've soiled with your unworthiness?
You could try some Cyber Clean goo...
It's made in Germany and you know the Germans make good stuff.
And from what I've learned about Germans on the internet, it's that they take their goo very seriously.
Whoa, hang on — strike that. It's a Swiss product. Close enough.

After pressing it rather firmly into the deep recesses of my keyboard, I then spent half an hour picking stray chunks of goo out of my keyboard with a paperclip. That's not a complaint though, this stuff is brilliant - a pleasant smelling rubbery substance suspended somewhere between a solid and a liquid state. Buy some today and clean out the vents on your car, stereo buttons or similar nooks and crannies.

Well I'll be...It's Tommy Hunter

2010-01-28T07:45:00.000-08:00

I'm posting this mostly as proof to Jeff that I had a legitimate excuse to skip out of going cross-country skiing in -20 celcius last night.
But hey look! It's Canada's Country Gentleman himself — Mr. Tommy Hunter.
How can you not respect a guy who had the longest running musical TV program in history — 27 years on the CBC.
I'll admit though, as a child stuck out at camp with nothing but CBC on a black and white set, Hunter's show was pretty much torture when you were waiting for The Racoons or Fraggle Rock to come on.

But Hunter is a joy to shoot. Three decades in television have made him a master ham, acutely aware of the presence of cameras. Plus his movements are slow enough that I could get away with 1/15 sec. shutter speed without noticeable blur.

The Bachelor: cleanin' house...

2010-01-26T09:37:00.000-08:00

Hoo-boy, Jake was on a tear last night — axing bitches left and right — showing 'em who's in charge. Unless my count was wrong last night he knocked off an unprecedented four women.
YOU ARE UNWORTHY.
At this point, this show is no better than Tila Tequila. I wouldn't wish any of those catty, status-obsessed manipulators on my worst enemy. Perhaps I'm being too harsh. In fact I should congratulate them for their restraint. Not one of them screwed a member of the film crew this week.
Good luck finding love there, Jake.
The most dangerous of all is probably this one — Ali.
She played the best game so far, orchestrated a house-wide smear campaign on Vienna and managed to keep her hands clean. The key to her success lies in the cuteness, methinks. This kitten has claws though...and sharp little teeth.

The only thing that keeps me tuning in at this point is the Vienna factor.
I feel as though I'm either the victim of some very selective editing in regards to Vienna's conduct amongst the other bitches, or that she's just alright — for a square jawed chihuahua-toting, sex trade worker.
I have yet to see any of the qualities that the other ladies find so abhorrent in their universal vilification of her. Vienna actually seems fun, probably because she's so ostracized from what remains of Ali's little cult of cotillion belles.
Another thing I like about Vienna, she doesn't tilt her head like a German Shepherd in an effort to look cute or endearing. I hate that. Why do women do that?

Prediction: The shit's gonna fly next week. If Vienna goes, I'm not watching anymore.
I'll go read a book or something.

Pregnancy journal...

2010-01-25T18:17:00.000-08:00

23 weeks.

Lindsay:

"I'm NOT being unreasonable.
"Did I ask you to bring me a star from the sky? A moonbeam? A diamond the size of my eyeball?
No.
I just want a little fuckin' cheescake!"

Amateur handwriting analysis...

2010-01-20T09:45:00.000-08:00

Lately I been delving into the art/science of graphology in a effort to determine whether my colleague Sarah is a potential serial killer.
Have you ever seen such a unique approach to written communications?
Nor have I, my friends. That's why I thinking about faxing this off Quantico, STAT.

In the meantime, it appears that this here website, indicates that Sarah may not be the ticking time bomb I imagine — her obsessively vertical slant and medium pressure telling a tale of one whose mind rules their heart, keeps their emotions in check and reserves judgement. Still, there's something not right about it...

My own right-slant and very small writing indicates that I may be at times prone to emotion, enjoy working alone and able to concentrate on tasks for extended periods. It's kind of true, I guess — in that vague and general way that my horoscope always seems to fit.

Apparently, the left slant and light pressure is the mark of a someone who is cold, indifferent, emotionally withdrawn and self-centered.
Be on the lookout.

The Bachelor: you bitches are nasty...

2010-01-18T18:40:00.000-08:00

That quiver of skanks they've rounded up for this season of The Bachelor is really something isn't it?
It's kind of like Survivor was last year — a bizarre mix of sociopaths chosen by a crack team of psychologists for maximum jealously, manipulation, misguided head games and premature ultimatums. It looks worse than working in a bank.
I guess it's kind of entertaining. At least Jake isn't having any of it — he axed the super-hot 'Don't Kiss Me Girl' (see right) because she was tormenting him sexually. That strategy backfired didn't it?
Jake, you're a hero to all men.

Another guilty pleasure about ABC is watching Ty Pennington (Extreme Makover) slowly crumble day by day.
I picture him sleeping in his clothes in a tanning bed that's been mounted inside the Extreme Makover bus in between five-day meth tweak sessions.
I'm concerned that Ty is on a dangerous road of reckless tanning and self-loathing fueled by the perceived failure of his life's ambitions. I bet at one time it was between him and Seacrest. And it all went wrong.
You don't look happy anymore Ty!
Ah well, who am I? Just a bitter, balding little man.

But just look at yourself Ty....look at what you've become.

Hamburgers, Waterless Floods and Autotune redemption...

2010-01-15T12:30:00.000-08:00

Well, things at work are finally calming down a little as we hit mid-January.
I've been sitting on a few nuggets of interestingness to report as I've been otherwise occupied with news gathering and opining on municipal politics.
An ultrasound appointment, Wednesday, revealed to us the probable sex of our baby. Our doctor reports, with about 85 per cent certainty, that our child should be a girl — as evidenced by what she called 'hamburger lines'.
"Pardon me", I said. "Did you say 'hamburger'?"
"Yes," she replied. "You see the labia sort of..."
"I get it, I get it!" I sputtered. "That's my daughter's hoo-ha you're talking about!"
This ultrasound was quite remarkable and revealing — the baby's face, it's spine and ribs, all of the chambers of its heart, fingers and toes.
I could swear she has my long femurs and perfect nose.
Lindsay is growing more comfortable each day with the idea of having a living being growing inside of her. One could almost describe it as 'motherly'.

The Year of The Flood
I've recently finished Margaret Atwood's The Year Of The Flood, which has prompted me to go back re-read her previous book Oryx and Crake — which happens along the same futuristic timeline but from a very different perspective.
The books follow a 25 year span in the lives of various characters leading up to a cataclysmic event that destroys most of humanity.
While in many ways being a book about dangerous scientific directions, it's also a beautiful observation of nature and its processes: the politics of carnivorism and veganism, predator-prey psychology, religion and ecology, gender roles, bees, fungi and poppies.
The book works to undo a bit of the human tendency to regard ourselves as something separate from nature, operating outside of natural processes — when really the instincts within us are still beyond our intellectual understanding.
Thumbs up!

Auto-Tune redeemed!
I've been a vicious mock and taunter all things 'Auto-Tune' ever since Cher scalded first scalded my tympanic membranes with 'Do You Believe in Life After Love'. Of course she couldn't have known then that the novelty vocal processor would soon become the standard for bad music everywhere.
But I've softened in recent days, come to a realization that Auto Tune, much like Photoshop, is merely a tool. In the wrong hands it can lead to disastrous mediocrity. In the hands of the very talented Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), it has the power to soothe my soul.

No You Don't

2010-01-08T13:35:00.000-08:00

Where the hell did they find Michael Cera a Winnipeg Shrine jacket? Awesome. That's Freemasonry in the mainstream, baby!
Montreal's Islands with 'No You Don't'.

Cold colours...

2010-01-03T16:12:00.000-08:00

Some photos from the Wabigoon River rapids at -30 degrees. Viciously cold. I was being extra careful not to fall into the water.

Holiday reflections

2009-12-30T06:57:00.000-08:00

Well, looks like Christmas is done.
I got to do some cool stuff. Yesterday we got to hear the baby's heartbeat again. It sort of sounded like our dishwasher - 'shoosh shoosh shoosh'. It's slowed down to 130 beats per minute now.
On Monday, we had a pretty amazing day out on the ice in cold, brilliant sunshine. Brother Moe was able to round up some pretty serious snowmachines — one of which was recently purchased used from a sno-cross rider with all the power and suspension you might expect in a racing machine. Pardon my lack of specific technical knowledge on said machine. Someone said it was a 680.
I won't pretend to well-versed in the lingo.
It was yellow, plastered in energy drink decals and it went about a 100 freakin' miles an hour, no joke. I had 'er pinned for about three seconds until fear for my life and a rapidly looming island loosened my grip on the throttle. Retardedly fast.
Yeah buddy!
On the non-motorized tip, I broke in a new pair of classic skis that Lindsay got me for Christmas. This reintroduces me to the fine art of waxing which I've always found somewhat fascinating — how the physical properties of different wax compounds work in relation to snow temperature to provide grip and glide. It's old knowledge and in competitive circles, very protected knowledge — as the perfect wax job can mean the difference between a gold medal and 10th place. Of course blood-doping and EPO don't hurt either!

I figure classic skis might help with the frustration of trying to skate-ski in temperatures below -15 celcius, which I find to be slow and inefficient.
While no wax can really help you beyond -20 degrees, classic skis seem to conserve a bit of energy and at the very least, keep me in a good mood. Also, I can get off the track and break trail anywhere I want.

Here's a kick ass song that I had totally forgotten about.

Crazy Forts!

2009-12-18T08:57:00.000-08:00

Crazy Forts! What a fabulous idea.
It has all the hallmarks of an awesome toy — imagination, secrecy, simplicity.
I wish I had these when I was a kid. Well, I guess I did. They were called Tinker Toys but they operated on a much smaller scale. In my day, we mostly used couch cushions and blankets, perhaps a billiards table ('member that Cliffy?)
If only we could have harnessed the power of angles, the pythagorean theorum, cantilevered design, not to mention the mysticism of the Bedouin nomads.
Oh, the engineering/architectural prowess you could nurture in your child. Who am I kidding? It's me that wants to play Crazy Forts!
I suppose the only problem would be keeping Chris junior away from the $300, 800 thread count bed sheets.
I wanted to buy these so bad at Wal Mart the other day, but my nieces are probably too old to really dig Crazy Forts.
They like texting and vampires...at least I think I they do.

2009-12-17T08:58:00.000-08:00

I'm going to break from the usual jaded, sarcastic tone in order to provide you with some holiday schmaltz.

An opportunity of the spirit
I don’t think I’d be too out-of-line by saying that the few weeks preceding Christmas can easily become the most stressful time of the year for many of us.
The heightened demands of the workplace at year-end, not to mention the obligations we owe to family and friends at this time of year make it difficult to strike a healthy balance.
And still, there are some among our neighbours, unemployed or supporting their families from faraway places, that would gladly trade their situation for ours.
I’m one of those people who find it easy to lose perspective on why we do this every year — break from our established routines that make our life easier when we have a lot on our plate.
Christmas isn’t easy. It’s one of the most emotionally complicated times of the year.
Embracing the spirit of the holidays, at least for me, requires a lowering of emotional defenses — to think about the people in my life, how well I know them and how important they are to me. Too often in this process, I’m reminded of what I take for granted, the opportunities I’ve missed to deepen my relationships with family, friends and co-workers throughout the year.
Charles Dickens’ story, A Christmas Carol, has endured throughout the centuries for a good reason — because it recognizes spiritual failings that we can all find in ourselves — those things that we’ve pushed to the periphery.
Where our guilt for such failings begin, holiday consumerism stands ready to soothe these uncomfortable feelings, if only to ourselves.
Last week I interviewed Joanne Wearne (neé Perry), an Australian school teacher who had stayed with my family for a few months in 1980 as Rotary exchange student. I was five years old at the time.
In the space of 30 years, Wearne has twice left a hot Australian summer behind to fly across the world and renew ties with local people that sheltered her during her stay in Dryden.
Where most would allow those bonds to fade over a matter of sheer distance, Wearne does not. She wants her kids to meet those people who have sent letters and Christmas cards for years from a mysterious land called Canada. She wants these relationships to continue in the most meaningful way they can for her family.
Are you and I capable of cultivating such spirit?
Regardless of your particular religious stripe, I think Christmas stands for everyone as an opportunity of the spirit. It’s a precious chance to regain what we’ve lost between ourselves, a time where money doesn’t matter half as much as we’re pressured to believe.
As one young Christmas essay contest writer put it, ‘Embrace the cheesiness’.
Well said.

Do they CARE it's Christmas time?

2009-12-14T04:22:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting holiday fundraiser from Toronto band Fucked Up, who earlier in the year snagged the 2009 Polaris Prize.
Pitchfork reviewer Joe Colly makes some interesting points about how incredibly patronizing this song was in its original 1980s context — asking the question whether starving people in Africa knew it was Christmas? Why would most of them care?

I like how this collaboration of indie-rock who's-who pretty much plays it straight, but adds the volatile element of David Cross who can be heard wailing, 'Thank God it's them instead of Jews!'

The deep freeze...

2009-12-11T07:56:00.000-08:00

Man, this blog is going to hell.
Infrequent posts, seething negativity, not a photo to be seen for weeks...

Blah, blah busy. Blah blah holidays.
I'm feeling quite enchanted lately by the onset of really deep cold again.
There's really no reason why I should like it, it makes life more expensive and difficult.
But there's just something about the atmosphere in -30 celcius that is so different.
It bites at your skin and chokes your breaths. It's inhospitable and beautiful. The air holds suspended ice crystals that refract the light. There can be silence so absolute that it scares you.

We're a little light on the snow cover at this point — about three inches — which is ideal for producing thick, stable lake ice instead of the slushy mess we've had in recent years where deep snow cover has insulated the ice surface.
Unfortunately, I could give two shits about the lake and I'm waiting on the snow to get the winter sports season going.

Haven't yet busted out the skate skis. Even the snow shoes aren't quite in order yet.
I'm considering picking up some classic nordic skis over the holidays and breaking trail around the island archipelago near my parents place in Wabigoon.
I'm also thinking about playing some squash.

In other news, I've recently been declared the victor in a long-running marital dispute over the procurement of a dishwashing appliance with some of our remaining wedding money.
I think I will write a book about the strategy I used to achieve this, a little something I call 'domestic disobedience' — a twist on the great traditions of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King.
I just stopped doing dishes. And it worked! And it can work for you too!

Do you want to save time and energy as well as increase the value of your home?
You too can learn the secret powers of persuasion and spousal desperation that will make you the king of your castle!

Lard 'tunderin Jesus, here's an album that's definitely on my Christmas list. What a killer band, and from 'The Rock' no less.
I think I like this song even better than their first single 'New Goodbye'.
Check it out — Hey Rosetta! with 'Red Heart' from the album Into Your Lungs (and around your heart and through your blood)

I hate you Movie Gallery

2009-12-04T14:15:00.000-08:00

I hate my local video store. There's only one.
The lack of competition has really resulted in escalating fees and other insane bullshit.
So, lately I've been terribly interested by the idea of streaming movies online off Netflix, through my Playstation 3.

The whole idea of getting DVDs in the mail, the core business of Netflix, doesn't appeal to me that much. Mailing things back has never been my strong suit. In fact if it weren't for online banking, my credit rating would be quite scary.

After looking into the streaming thing a little, it appears that Canadians can't be Netflix members, kind of like Hulu. Comparable Canadian businesses don't have an online streaming option, even if they did, I'm not sure it would work through my game console.

So there, Mr. Interweb — if someone out there would like to create a Canadian-based movies-on-demand high quality web streaming service that's compatible with a PS3, I will gladly pay you $15 a month to avoid dealing with our local 'Movie Gallery' outlet.

Man, I hate Movie Gallery.
$6 to rent a new release?
$9 for a game?

A run of late fees and a new releases can end up costing you $30, which is simply retarded.
Of course you can knock $2 off those rental prices if you buy a POWERPLAY pass for $30 extra per month, which they enthusiastically claim will save me money. Hunh?
I feel sorry for your employees who have to try to convince people of these insane concepts.

Song of the Day

2009-12-03T10:32:00.000-08:00

A little music for you. This song's been around for a while, even on a commercial at one point.
Passion Pit, with 'Sleepy Head'.

Nuff' said...

2009-11-30T13:04:00.000-08:00

"GACK"
Epic FAIL, Saskatchewan.

Not so warm and fuzzy...

2009-11-27T08:13:00.000-08:00

I hope to be proven wrong, but I'm just not feeling the same kind of excitement and anticipation over the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.
I'm a huge fan of the Winter Olympic Games. My cat even demands to be called by her traditional Greek name, Cleocrites (Klee-aw-krit-tees, during the Olympics.
But VANOC and the government seem so overzealous in their efforts to suppress any dissent — from calling protestors 'terrorists' to hassling American journalist Amy Goodman at the border.
Maybe it's because I'm involved in the news game, but the level of secrecy surrounding even the most mundane of details is oppressive. It's like Beijing wrote the playbook and frankly, I'm losing interest.

Sure, it's a dick move to try and use the Games as a platform for your agenda, but you'll always have those people in a free society. Some of them even have a point.
I don't know how much time any of you have spent in Pigeon Park on East Hastings, but there is a compelling idea that if just a tiny fraction of what's being spent on the Games was put back into mental health services in B.C., Vancouver wouldn't have such a shameful thing to hide from the world.
Anyways, my prediction for the Vancouver Games — It's gonna rain.
Along those lines, here's a song from a warm and fuzzy band. The Thermals with Here's Your Future.

Pygmy book brain me hurt...

2009-11-25T08:45:00.000-08:00

I'm halfway through the strangest book at the moment.
That thought is not an uncommon one when whenever you pick up any of Chuck Palahniuk's written works. Yet this one continues to push into ever more bizarre territories.
Pygmy, is the first-person narrative of 13 year-old from a totalitarian regime, one of a group of terrorist operatives who have disguised themselves as foreign exchange students living with typical American families somewhere in the midwest.
The most distinctive thing about this novel is the manner in which it is written — a sort of distinct dialect not unlike 'Chinglish'. Imagine taking a sentence in English, feeding it through one of those online language translators, converting it to Chinese, then converting it back to English. The result bears little resemblance to the original, though it remains vaguely understandable.
Like Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, Pygmy is a challenging read because your mind can't fill the blanks, can't anticipate the flow of the prose. But Palahniuk isn't creating a new language like Burgess did, instead he's disassembling the underlying concepts behind English words that we take for granted. The reader must decode the character's every description of events, gestures and people. In a sense the writing is something akin to how a fascist space alien would describe our daily lives. That process has a certain magic to it that can show us things about our own culture for what seems like the first time.

"Corrupt degenerate American media process image operative me, voice word of this agent preserve as product able reproduce indefinite, utilize to pace insidious marketing memes compelling persons purchase automobile and soda.”

Ughh, right? Actually you get used to it. And Palahniuk is so funny and caustic that you can't give up on the book, no matter how frustrating it is to read. Underlying it all is Operation Havoc, a unknown plan to kill millions of people, all the while Pygmy plots the best way to impregnate his host sister and commits other unspeakable acts.

Back from The 'Peg...

2009-11-22T19:53:00.000-08:00

Ughh, back from The 'Peg and an expensive weekend.
Matt Good was alright, but our seats sucked and I've vowed never to endure another show from the upper balcony of the Walker Theatre. Absolute shit sound. Thirty feet away, where I managed to loiter for a while during the encore it was a much better experience.

I'll blame Ticketmaster. They're a suitable scapegoat. I bought those tickets one day after they went on sale and they were 'best available'. Bullshit. After all the radio station pre-sales and ebay scalpers buying up blocks, I guess that's all that was left. I'm going to write a strongly-worded letter to my Member of Parliament or something. I mean if you're going to allow a monopoly on something, you'd should at least nationalize the industry.
The Ministry of Ticket Sales.

Opening act Mother Mother were kind of fun and keyboardist Molly Guldemond is certainly deserving of her CBC Radio 3 Bucky Award nomination for 'sexiest musician'.

Also in Winnipeg, I bought Explosions In the Sky's All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone (CD), Assassin's Creed 2 and a plethora of doo-dads to supe up the ol' drum kit.

Does this offend you?

2009-11-15T20:51:00.000-08:00

Watch the first 20 seconds of this video...you might not last much longer than that.
Rather than fall into the rather obvious trap that the douches at Infinity Ward have set for the parents of the world, I'd rather stand aloof and wait for the debate that's sure to come to the fore on CNN, Fox News or some bullshit.
Like nearly 5 million other people this past week, I picked up a copy of Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and promptly found myself firing automatic weapons at entire crowds of screaming innocent unarmed people in an airport terminal.
My initial shock has given way to cynicism, the questionable politics behind this explosive bit of gaming are undeniable. It exists as a deliberate and carefully crafted middle finger to everyone who has ever blamed violent video games for school shootings and other massacres. Or worse, a plan to jack sales via controversy, not that they'd need it.
Whatever their reasons, this game's designers have gone out of their way to incite outrage, it would be ridiculous to deny it.
To be fair, the level does warn the player of its disturbing nature and offers the ability to to skip it without penalty.
But, of course I'm going to play the damn level! That's like a catholic school board banning a book, or a parental advisory sticker on a CD, it only serves to entice.
The pervading argument on the gamers' side is that people who take exception to this are presenting it outside of the context of the game's storyline, which to me, is a terrible argument. Context does very little to justify the fact that I'm walking through what looks like a shopping mall and killing people as they beg me for mercy, or try to drag their wounded friends or family to safety.

As a long-time fan of the 1st person shooter format, I've never been supportive of the argument that violent video games make youth more violent. As a former youth, it is my observation that youth are inherently violent, as well as manually dexterous. It might just happen that violent youth are attracted by violent games just as I, a mild-mannered 30-something with a mortgage, am attracted by them.

Still, I question the line of thinking behind testing that theory to its utmost — making the sick, darkest fantasy of every suicidal, hormonally-imbalanced middle school kid just a little bit more accessible, so accurately rendered and participatory.
I don't know about you but I was enough of an emotional mess in those fragile days of my adolescence without crap like this affecting my tenuous grip on reality.
So go ahead Modern Warfare 2, show the parents and whiny old fuddy-duddies of the world how wrong they are and maybe they'll shut up.
Maybe you didn't go far enough? Next time add some children to the crowds of innocents (conspicuously absent). Is my sarcasm making it through the limitations of the written word?

I think this is the last Call of Duty game I'll buy. Mostly because it seems more like a recruiting tool for impressionable sociopaths these days, straying from its roots in historical WWII battles which I was actually interested in.
Ah, who am I fooling? Of course I'm going to keep buying them!

Meh.

2009-11-12T07:27:00.000-08:00

Not much to report, folks. Editorial writing at work has pretty much taken the piss out of this blog. The process of researching and forming an opinion piece on a new subject each week helps scratch the creative/journal writing irritations that gave birth to this thing.
Otherwise, I've been playing a lot of video games and I sure you don't want to hear a grown man gush about how freakin' awesome Uncharted 2 is.
It's awesome by the way. And I can play it with Lindsay in the room.
Lindsay, Jaro and I are going to see Matt Good play at the Walker Theatre next weekend. It will be my fetus' first concert experience.
We have nosebleed seats in the rickety rafters of that classic old theatre. I guess I'm making up for all those times I could've gone to see Good play at my campus pub in university. I wasn't much into his stuff then.
Anyways, here's a very strong video for a semi-lame song from the Flaming Lips.
Followed by some Matt Good rehearsals for the Vancouver tour.

There goes my productivity...

2009-11-04T14:18:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Vern who informed me that the local radio station's defunct discussion board has been resurrected at a new site — no longer associated with CKDR.
CKDR rightly shut it down because certain frequent posters were getting downright stupid, vicious and deliberately provocative, all the hallmarks of a successful discussion board.
I've added it to the links sidebar under 'Dryden Rumours, Libel and Slander'.
It appears as though many of the die-hards are back to their old tricks again, using the luxury of anonymity to verbally abuse each other in some twisted sadistic game they find mutually satisfying.
Of course, no useful discussion has ever emerged from Sound Off in my experience, only the erosion of faith in my fellow citizen.
Still, I like to go on there from time to time to flame some conspiracy theorist — it's a Sunday afternoon thing.

I'd like to propose a local event that would recreate Sound Off in the physical realm — we'll rent the high school gym and turn off all the lights and everyone can just swing their fists wildly at each other. It'll be cathartic I think. Like a pinata.

On account of my narrow urethra...

2009-11-03T09:12:00.000-08:00

Oooh, my arm is sore today. Damn you adjuvent component!
Got stuck with the swine-flu vaccine yesterday — all-in-all a fairly easy and reasonably chill process.
I waited for ten minutes for my appointment, read me a little 'Chatelaine', made some funny faces at a toddler. Didn't wait in line for six hours, or be turned away because I'm low-risk for complications. That seems to be the more common tale out there at the moment, perhaps in the larger towns or cities. Even here, I think they're being a little more discerning towards taking only the high-risk people now.
I guess I was just in the right place at the right time last week when they were making appointments. Perhaps I got in on account of my narrow urethra.
I read somewhere that the shot is supposed to make me more artistic. I dunno if I believe it, whoever wrote it was an atrocious speller. I happen to judge people's intelligence on spelling, semi-colon usage, their use of 'LOL' and their ability to distinguish between the words 'then' and 'than'.
Wait...saamthig's hapunnig....

Maaeeeeeeh!
Meeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh!
87 TOOTHPICKS! DEFINITELY!
WAPNER'S ON AT FOUR!
RRRRRR! SOAP DISH! ROADMAP! STEEL-BELTED!
Meeeaaaahhhhh!

Whew. What the hell was that?

So, I picked up the Volcano Choir's 'Unmap' last weekend in Winnipeg, s'alright.
My interest in it was definitely piqued by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver's involvement in it. While it most certainly does not resemble Bon Iver in any way, I find just about any application of Justin Vernon's voice to be most intriguing. I hope you do too.

oooohhh Spooky!

2009-10-30T08:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a strange week, my friends.
I can't say I've been immune to H1N1 hysteria that is pervading our culture at the moment. I've visited the front lines myself and it's madness, pure madness.
I seen the ladies manning the phones over at the public health unit fielding an overwhelming barrage of calls. I've seen the masked hospital staff and the signs urging flu patients not to set foot in the hospital at all. I've had extensive interviews with the Medical Officer of Health and the hospital CEO. My hands are dry and chapped from incessant washing/sanitizing. Local pharmacies have already run out of Tamiflu. It all seems to be happening a little sooner than anyone anticipated. I want to stay in my office and hide.

On the other hand I've seen the bullshit flying on Facebook — a concerted campaign against vaccination spreading just as fast as the flu itself. A steady flow of phrases beginning with 'I read somewhere that...', or 'Apparently...' designed to tip people's decisions towards reinforcing the easier choice of inaction.
Screw you clowns, I'm getting a shot.
My date with the hypodermic has to wait until Monday.
For my pregnant wife who spends her days in a public school germ factory, the decision is a very difficult one. While she could opt for the non-adjuvent vaccine as early as next week, she's seriously considering not getting it at all. It's a very tough position to be in.

And what's this? A young musician attacked and killed by coyotes? Wha Wha Whaaaa? This sucks.

In other spookiness...
I watched Donnie Darko for the first time the other night. I can't believe I've never watched this movie before. Hidden in the special features is this truly bizarre, kind of hilarious commentary on the Patrick Swayze character's self-improvement infomercial.
The coolest thing that I realized halfway through the movie, was that I was watching it on precisely the same date that the demon rabbit tells Donnie that the world will end. Oct. 28...
Holy shit right?
Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep that night for fear of a jet engine crashing through my ceiling.

2009-10-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

I apologize to my dear friend Scott whose post I'm blatantly ripping.
But having shared a very common youthful obsession with ski media — magazines and movies that portrayed our adolescent heroes in a beautiful and dangerous realm we aspired to be a part of. I'm sure he'll understand.
It doesn't take long to realize that those who burn the brightest in the mountains, don't burn for long. Trevor Peterson was one of those athletes whose 1996 avalanche death left behind a wife and two kids and a legion of people like myself who followed his exploits and modeled their lives after his own.
What happens in the aftermath of such a tragedy?
I wish this film was a part of the upcoming Banff Film Fest tour.

Photo of the Day: Sheep

2009-10-28T14:37:00.000-07:00

I've been sitting on this one for a while now.
It's sort of HDR'ed in that the levels in the foreground were selectively boosted way beyond what those foreboding skies could handle. Then I was a little heavy-handed with the ol' burn tool on the skies. Whatevs

If you don't speak photoshop, you suck.

Quite a rumpus indeed...

2009-10-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

I could imagine, there was probably more than one ten year-old, who after kicking the back of my seat for two hours, left the theatre feeling like they'd been tricked.
I, on the other hand, was trying to put on a brave face, squelch the emotions that Spike Jonze's adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are hammered down upon me.
As I was getting up, I did see one little girl who was absolutely overcome, her father consoling her as we shuffled by. Was she one of the lucky ones to have had the ability to decode such powerful, often painful themes while her peers just saw funny fluffy monsters running around? Or were the clueless brats the lucky ones?
Part Catcher in The Rye, part utopian dream gone awry, Where the Wild Things Are reminds you how lonely it is to be a kid — especially when your life is tangled up with others who aren't happy.
There's so much more discussion to be had, but I won't be a spoiler (the book isn't much of a guide).
Go see it for yourself, but I wouldn't take your seven-year old, maybe a 12 year-old? Hell, what do I know?
It's both visually and psychologically startling, as well as wondrous and cathartic. For the right kid, I think this movie could be a profound experience.

Samba Time Baby!

2009-10-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

Another amazingly entertaining Bernard Purdie clip.
Starting at about the 2 minute mark, my man Bernard starts making love to that kit, grunting and squealing like a he's a making a baby ova there.
Unnnggh!

Jumble...

2009-10-21T10:09:00.000-07:00

I don't have much in the way of a coherent train of thought today, just a jumbled potpourri of ideas. The days have been occupied with all consuming deadline drudgery that takes its toll on my ability to be thoughtful and post thoughtful things.

Why is it that as I grow older I tend to re-read the same books over and over again. I'm making a second pass at Frank Herbert's Dune Heretics. I think mostly because I'm in awe of the writer's mind — the savage social, political and ecological insights and the remarkable care and complexity he took in delivering them.
I distinctly remember being about seven years old and seeing Kyle Maclachlan in a still-suit on the back of a Shreddies box — marketing for David Lynch's film adaptation of Dune. It seems like such a travesty to me now — such an important work advertised alongside likes of Krull and Conan the Barbarian.

Heading to Winnipeg this weekend for a trip to the ballet. No, not 'the peelers' as most Northwesterners call 'the ballet'. An actual ballet. It's Moulin Rouge or some shit, I bought Lindsay the tickets for her birthday and am most definitely 'taking one for the team'. I am neither dreading it, nor am I eager anticipating. I just sort of 'am'.
But Winnipeg will be nice to visit for an afternoon screening of Where The Wild Things Are and a chance to pick up The Most Serene Republic's new CD And The Ever Expanding Universe... I might even bite the bullet and grab the new Maggie Atwood novel The Year of The Flood, still in hardcover. Atwood reminds of a cool aunt that you can get drunk with on red wine.
Here's some new MSR whom I promote until my dying day.

Smarketing...

2009-10-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

In my work everyday I'm assaulted by an unrelenting email barrage of messaging that is dressed up to appear as though it is something truthful, interesting, or entertaining.
Ninety-nine percent of it is shyte, churned out by unimaginative PR hacks, lobbyists or politicians pushing agendas.
But ever so rarely, someone actually puts out something so strange and awesome that you can't help but admire it.
The Weak Shop, which appears to be an initiative of the British Columbia Dairy Farmers is right up there with GEICO's The Caveman's Crib (now offline)
'Chair Pants' and 'Food Lift'are enough to forgive this country's outrageous cheese prices, just for a day.
Thank you dairy farmers, give your marketing team a raise.

Food Lift from The Weakshop on Vimeo.

Summer's over I guess...

2009-10-12T18:51:00.000-07:00

I took this on Saturday a little ways down Lyle Rd. Situations like this offer really uncommon colour palettes for photographs. Light works in certain predictable ways with snow, just as it does with colourful foliage. You rarely get to see how it reacts to both at the same time.
Had I really given a shit, I'd have spent more time trying to get an interesting image. But I was ill-prepared for adventure and Bob McDonald was rocking the Quirks and Quarks on the ol' CBC, so this half-hearted attempt is all you get.

By Monday morning we had half a foot of snow on the ground.
I was talking to a friend last week who was still lake swimming in Atikokan. Might be time to shut'er down.

They've struck again!

2009-10-12T10:30:00.000-07:00

Many thanks to Dave for sending this pic.
Yes folks, it appears they've struck again. Municipal terrorists 'The Dink Bandits' (Maybe you could think of a better name) have once again targeted the same downtown business for their hi-jinx.
Although not as clever as their first effort — DINK IN ASS $1 — you do have to take into account the limitations of working with stolen letters. It's not like they had the whole alphabet to choose from.
Still, it appeals to me as a sort of protest against those ugly, soul sucking rent-a-signs that clutter up the landscape with fluorescent messaging.

Just because I feel like it...

2009-10-09T07:50:00.000-07:00

This song is eternal, universal.
I expect by the end of this week, I'm going to need to party hard. The beauty of having a pregnant wife is that you always have a designated driver...I'm going to pay for that one.
I'm glad to see Andrew WK back in action. I was always a fan of his whole aesthetic, a life devoted to fun and molten rock — which he continues to express in still stranger ways. Now he's touring with a string quartet, go figure.

Wishing you a Crappy Thanksgiving....

2009-10-08T09:25:00.000-07:00

This is really quite good.
I love Ellen Page — "So I was like, No no no no...fuck YOU Celine Dion!"

Photos of the Day...

2009-10-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

Kind of a tough act to follow, that last post.
Here's some weekend pics.
Woodcarver Brock Blosser, from Kenora.
Colin and I spent Sunday afternoon in search of the noble pheasant. Stymied by significant leaf cover and the elusive nature of our quarry, we opted to shoot his 12 gauge at various things in a gravel pit. We got to be, if only for a moment, those scary assholes that everyone fears — stupid people with guns. Ears still ringin', shoulder hurts.

My seed has found purchase...

2009-09-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

There is a beautiful moment for every man, regardless of the circumstances, that happens when he discovers he's sired another life form.
Thank God my junk works!
It seems to be a fundamental male insecurity, one that men will only discuss once their seed has found purchase in fertile female soil.
It's a credit to the effectiveness of birth control that someone can go nearly 20 years without a pregnancy scare. As helpful as that is in allowing one to get in a good position to be a parent, it leaves unanswered questions that haunt the soul.
Of course all this is a rather superficial aspect to a radically life-changing process Lindsay and I are about to experience. We're somewhat still in denial about that, though we're in a pretty solid position to do this right, I think.
She gave the green light to post this last night as we're growing weary of lying to friends, or dodging questions while the dramatic irony swirls around our poor fetus, imbuing HIM with cynical qualities. I don't want that for my child.
So, as previously posted, I'm not really telepathic. That was a lie.
I'm just going to be a daddy.

Public service annoucement...

2009-09-28T04:58:00.000-07:00

For years I never heeded the warnings.
It could never happen to me, I thought.
Until this morning. Determined to avoid another 10 minute swirly colour-ball situation (that's Macspeak for the hourglass, or whatever PC's do when they shit the bed) I yanked my camera's compact flash card out of my USB card reader and promptly lost about 30 files.
Gone...without a trace.
That's never happened in dozens of improper hardware removals.
Thankfully, they were pictures of nuns singing in some Sister Act revival. No big whoop. I'm not even sure if they were real nuns. Some of them were dudes.
However the thought has occurred to me that perhaps...God did this?

Anyways.
This post was just an excuse to whet your appetite for a monumental announcement that will happen later this evening, exclusively here on Hinterlands. Stay tuned. It'll blow your mind.
***Update*** I've decided not to come forward with it quite yet, for various reasons involving non-disclosure legalities. It's not really that exciting, being on TV and all to showcase one's abilities to communicate with cats telepathically. Sometimes my gifts are a real curse. Sorry if I got you excited.

Photo of the Day: Byron

2009-09-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

This is my friend Byron.
He's a remarkable musician who I've had privilege to share the stage with on a few occasions. We've also shared endless conversations about music and what we love about it.
This is the space that Byron inhabits, a tiny one-room apartment/music studio above the Queen St. Station. We took a lot of other ones but these ones, done in his natural environment, speak the most to me. Click on them to enlarge.

Wha wha wha?

2009-09-22T15:49:00.000-07:00

I was sniffing around over at The Urban Dictionary, looking to update the much neglected 'Newspeak' section when I came across this rather interesting phrase and it's attendant youtoob link. It's come to mean 'keep up the good work' in the popular lexicon.
A classic Ron Burgundy moment.
Go fuck yourselves San Diego...

This is a perfectly good piece of bread!

2009-09-21T19:35:00.000-07:00

I have a new favourite show.
Hoarders is a bizarre trip into the lives of high functioning, but seriously mentally ill people. Right now I'm watching a woman who's had her kids taken away because her house is a garbage dump, refuse to part with a old Slurpee cup. In effect choosing a Slurpee cup over her own children. And if someone goes and throws out that Slurpee Cup, they completely lose their shit.
What a bizarre and terrifying affliction.
The show has helped me understand a lot about by own Grama, God rest her soul, who exhibited a sort of low-grade form of this obsession. It's helped to illustrate just how difficult it must have been, in her later years, to be separated from her home and her stuff.

My Dad figures Grama's attic, filled floor to ceiling with things bought and forgotten about still in their bags, was by-product of living through the Great Depression in dust-bowl Saskatchewan. But Dad's shed full of vinyl records and hyper-organized cassette tape collection indicates he's just gotten better at managing and enjoying the same compulsion.
Strangely, he's shown an aversion to iTunes.
Me, I'm a digital hoarder. I have years of newspaper Quark pages, from three offices ago, burned to CD or reams of photo files reaching back to university.

Photo of the Day...

2009-09-21T15:31:00.001-07:00

Jamie Cran riding the Ferguson singletrack.

Photo of the Day...

2009-09-19T11:24:00.000-07:00

A monochrome landscape from Montana's Beartooth Pass I've had laying around since July.
They were playing Bubble Boy on the TV this morning, so I thought I post this classic clip.

Prayers sound bite

Bacon is good for me...

2009-09-18T10:05:00.000-07:00

I'd like to dedicate this to my brother J.B.
We share this dream to one day get enough money together to start a bacon restaurant, where everything has bacon in it. We would even have live pigs in a sealed glass enclosure where we would feed them nothing but pure maple syrup for their entire lives.
Thanks to Jeff for the link.

Sweet soundbite heaven...

2009-09-16T12:56:00.000-07:00

I found this site that lets me post fun little soundbites — my favourite being the Frank Booth collection from David Lynch's Blue Velvet.
Not safe for work, or young NIECES. You hear me Ali? This shit'll give you nightmares.

Love Letter sound bite

I'm in auto-tune hell...

2009-09-14T20:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, so maybe it's a little to late to start complaining about auto-tune, the revolutionary recording process that has spawned more shitty music in such a short span of history than any other musical fad.
I tend to avoid commercial radio, but I've been unwillingly exposed to a steady stream of repetitive shyte at work by co-workers who insist on it. Lately I've been raiding the stash of ear plugs down at the printing presses.
I'm pretty much convinced that this is the worst it has ever been for popular music. And I'm very sure that this is not a reflection of me as a person, how old I am, or my tastes, which are admittedly a little strange.
I mean, Right Said Fred's I'm Too Sexy looks like Fleetwood Mac compared to the Black Eyed Peas' Boom Boom Pow. I want to hurt someone badly whenever I hear it.
Thank God for Jaro, who popped into my office the other day with a ripped copy of Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago — a brilliant CD. It makes me wonder how real artists can muster the strength to express themselves while surrounded by so much awful, uncreative, uninspired derivative shit.
Jaro also gifted me the amazing Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack which I enjoy reading while I go poop. I dunno what I did to be such a lucky boy. I'm trying to get Colin to read it but he thinks I'm insulting his cartoons by suggesting he read somebody else's.
Above: some whimiscal auto-tune from They Might Be Giants.
Below: Some awesome Bon Iver.

Life in general...

2009-09-14T04:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a smattering of random lifestyle shots I've had kicking around. No real common thread to them except perhaps that they were all taken on a weekend.
I liked the pastel tones in this one (above).

Another Yurt 3 leftover, Michael Roussin bouldering in Minaki.
Dave Darling putting the finishing touches on my shed's roof — a weekend project from the start of the month. I thought this wold be a unique opportunity to shame Dave for not updating his blog for over four months. He should write a new entry about shingling roofs, or the many cool reno projects he's got going on at his house.
A summer favourite, only to be attempted with garden tomatoes. Insalata Caprese — tomato, mozzarella, olive oil, fresh basil leaf, salt and pepper. Served with cold, leftover breaded whitefish.
Another local favourite. I ate this every night for two weeks and gained about 10 lbs — equal parts of local wild blueberries and chocolate ice cream. Just fattening up for hibernation like a bear.

I can see my house from here...

2009-09-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

I spent four hours flying around in a helicopter shooting photos this morning with the MNR. Wicked awesome.
Above is a friend from back in the high school days, Reagan Breeze, scouting a puff of smoke (far right) on Lake of the Woods near Sioux Narrows — a tree that had been hit by lightning during Thursday night's storm. Some boaters were bucketing water on it as we arrived.
Here's some other stuff.

Epic Weekend

2009-09-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

Awww damn, what a way to say goodbye to summer. Back to the Yurts!
Three days of great mountain biking under the hot sun in a classic Canadian Shield environment.
Day one was spent exploring the well developed Club Minaki trails.
On, Sunday I had the pleasure of joining a large group ride to check out Kenora's Tunnel Island Trail system.
Then the next day, a trip to some spectacular trails built by Manitoba-based riders at Eagle Head Lake, sweeping domes of colourful exposed granite and wide open panoramic views. Northwestern Ontario has never felt so awesome.
Just the stress reliever I needed after a tumultuous couple weeks.
Legs hurt.

I'm also happy to announce that Meghan did not see an emergency room all weekend, despite some very technical terrain.
Can she have broken the cycle of horrific injuries that have plagued her out-of-town biking adventures?

In other news, please pardon my absence as of late.
I'm just extremely busy and will continue to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Forest relic...

2009-08-26T10:25:00.000-07:00

Last week Colin and I and some cohorts made an expedition to a remote area north of Ignace to search out this very old fire lookout tower that they spotted from the air during a MNR detection flight.
Little is known about it, only that the ladder was sawn off about 30 years ago. Given the height of the surrounding trees and the history of lookout tower building practices in Ontario, we estimate it was built between 1920 and 1940.
Nifty, huh?

*Update*
I had to add this bit of awesomeness. I think this CBC series was before my time as I don't recall ever watching it before I started researching fire towers.

Bear with me...

2009-08-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

Woooo-wee, what a week. And it's only Tuesday.
Apocalyptic even.
As the last man standing in my editorial department, my life has become a lot busier all of a sudden. I expect the blogging will take a major hit.
The good news is, I'm going to be out shooting more, so expect more photos.
Sadly, you can also expect less celebrity gossip.

Nerd boner!

2009-08-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

I've been following the development of Avatar for about a year now. James Cameron has been working on this thing for 10 years and had to develop a lot of the 3D filming technology to shoot it. Movie theatres need to install special 3D projectors just to show the damn thing.
I have a love/hate relationship with Cameron's movies — in that I mostly hate the plots and scripts but love the settings and basic premise. And he's got a lot to make up for since Titanic.
At the very least, this should be a very unique experience, especially in IMAX 3D.

Groundhog Year...

2009-08-21T11:41:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the lack of posts, or at least quality posts, in the past two weeks.
There's been a shake-up at work and I've had to sharpen my game — devote a higher degree of my mental resources in the 'meat' realm working to ensure a future where I can write stories and take pictures for money.
Lord knows, entertaining you clowns was never a profitable venture.
In all honesty, it's invigorating to feel a little pressure.
If you let it, the life of a small-town media person can lapse into a 'Groundhog Year' type existence, where you end up doing the same drudgery over and over on the same week, or same day every year. Thank the gods for interns, who eat up the flag raisings, grip and grins (giant cheque donation photos), cross-Canada for a causers, and weeks devoted to 'enter name of disease' awareness.
It is my belief that these things are partly responsible for the impending demise of the newspaper industry. The other half of the responsibility falls on us — we keep saying yes to lame shit because we're not coming up with more interesting ways to fill the space.
Content is only one part of the puzzle though. Web advertising is still very much evolving and its effectiveness is still too questionable to warrant a switch away from the grievously wounded print medium.
It's not easy to monetize the Internet at a local level, when web advertising's strength seems to be massive, global exposure to very specific interest groups.
Still, the demand for local, unique content will always be there, I think. The question is: what form will it take?

So there, my two cents.
Anyone else?

Song of The Day

2009-08-19T12:23:00.000-07:00

'I Can Feel It' has to be my favourite Sloan song, and possibly one of my favourite songs of the 90s. The vid is crappy, but the sound is strangely good.

Full of compelling unrelated one-liners:
Don't ignore me, cuz you know I can always make it louder...
Happy birthday to the best brother in the world...at least I 'm still cool to one bro.

An ode to The Central...

2009-08-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

The Central Hotel is a flawed masterpiece.
A enduring symbol of Dryden's frontier heritage, it is as authentic and reflective of its community as anything here. A struggle between darkness and light, between the best beef dip you ever ate and the diarrhea that is sure to result from it.
Its wood smells of age, of wet tunnels under our streets. The ancient berber, now more soil than carpet, off-gasses the smell of better days.
There's ghosts in the gravy.

Yay!

2009-08-17T13:38:00.000-07:00

Yay!
Someone over at DMTS must have got it all worked out, because my YouTube works again.
And not a moment too soon, my work-day productivity had gone through the roof.
You might of noticed a 75 per cent decrease in the frequency of blog postings in the past week — the trickle-down effect of my inability to stream web video.

So to celebrate, I'll post some pointless drivel, which is what YouTube does best.
It's funny because it's sad.