It was difficult without the little tools we usually use for the task, but we eventually finished the pumpkins to a degree satisfying Michelle and myself and only slightly disappointing the children:



Good news, though. All the crying tuckered them out so much that they fell to sleep really, really well.

Actually, Kristen borrowed a carving kit from a very nice new friend of hers who lives close by, and braving the freezing cold with her dog (whose belly had been trimmed just two weeks ago...poor Lilly), Kristen trudged the two blocks to get the kit.

We finished the pumpkins, and I will post the pictures later tonight. What are they? You'll have to wait and see like the rest of the class.

It’s my blogtastic birthday, fer crying out loud! I came here to post some drivel that’s probably only important to me and realized that this is my hundredth post. Let’s here it for free time, a wild imagination and a captive audience of maybe one or two people. I kid! According to that stupid little hit-counter I put in on the left there, a lot more people come here than I ever expected. I’m either interesting to others, or some people are attracted to this blog the way onlookers are attracted to destructive and violent vehicle accidents. Now there’s a tired cliché!

Rylee’s looking into a career involving politics. She spent all last week with her class at an event called “City Hall School;” here’s a three year old link that describes what it is in more of a personable way. It basically gave Rylee’s grade 3 class a chance to see how Calgary is run and who’s involved in running it.

Rylee told me about City Hall School several weeks ago, and she even informed me that she and her class would get to meet the mayor, Dave Bronconnier. Thinking I’m clever, I tell Rylee that she should ask the mayor a very tough question to answer. She’d get noticed and put the mayor on the ropes in front of a grade three class. So I suggest to Rylee that she ask the mayor what he’s going to do about all the crime in Calgary. I’m a little two sided about telling her to do this because on one hand I think it would be darn right funny, but on the other hand I don’t want the mayor to find out it was me that put her up to it. I realize the guy has too much to do to worry about coming after me for getting Rylee after him, but, then again, he’s taking time out to entertain a grade 3 class. And everyone knows that my vernacular becomes nonexistent when put under pressure. Heck, what I’m typing right now is probably unintelligible to the educated socialite.

Turns out that I had nothing to worry about. I should have guessed that our mayor would have been prepared for any eventuality. Such is the life of politics! Rylee totally forgot what I had told her to ask him; instead she was given an even more complicated question to ask:

“Many places and businesses are shutting down due to a lack of people to work there; what are you doing about this situation?”

I am intellectually thrashed by my own daughter’s vocabulary. She’s 8, and because of asking that question she was given the honor of wearing the mayor’s chain of office. I guess that made her mayor for a couple of hours, but I’m very glad she didn’t realize the power she held. Could you imagine the chaos that could have occurred in such a short period of time? First, she probably would have made all candy free to every child in Calgary; second, the resulting destruction from the overzealous activities of every child in Calgary on an extreme sugar-high would have ground this city to a halt for months. Not a good thing in winter!

Michelle and I watched The Lake House over the weekend; I really liked it! Not only was the story very heartwarming, and Sandra Bullock flashed her very comely smile a lot, but Keanu Reeves did not say, “Whoa!” once during the entire film. That must be a cinematic first!

I’d probably have a picture of our pumpkins up here, however, our carving kit decided to self-destruct mid-carve. Michelle went out to pick up a new kit last night, but finding a pumpkin carving kit a few days before Halloween is not unlike finding a Tickle-Me-Elmo before the Christmas of 1996. Impossible! So I have to figure something out when I get home today which might involve digging into my, hah, toolbox. Tomorrow may yields some photos of pumpkins with various drill bits sticking out of them. The red stuff will be the blood I spilled trying to carve the complicated things!

And finally, you might want to click my animation challenge link. I have a very rough animation mapped out in one of my last one or two posts. No! Not the old man! If I’m going to finish it by November 1st, I’m not sleeping for the next two nights. Wish me luck!

Funny story! As most of you know, for the interim, Michelle has taken a job as a cashier at a local grocery store. Well, two nights ago at a particular slow point (I’m assuming) during her shift, Michelle’s supervisor asks her to go “face” aisle 9. Michelle agrees to this task and goes and stands in front of her check out line. She stays at that particular spot until her supervisor comes up to her and asks her what she’s doing.

Michelle says, ‘I’m doing what you asked me to do! I’m facing aisle 9!”

Those of us who have worked retail know that facing means to bring everything on a particular shelf or display forward so as to make the overall effect pleasing on the eye. Michelle had never been taught this, and her response to the task was to actually look in the direction of the aisle 9.

No one could say she was facing in a different direction, anyway.

By popular demand, or, actually, by singular demand, I have drawn zombie Shannon:

Shannon has been zombified into history, and now I must concentrate on my animation. Well, as much as Michelle and the girls will let me. Finished the Christopher Moore book, as well, even though I shouldn’t have been reading it. My goal, which changed from my original one of not reading it at all, was to read it as fast as possible so Michelle could start reading it. It was very, very funny. There were points on the C-train where I wanted to laugh out loud but had to contain myself due to not wanting to look insane. I must say I probably looked even more ridiculous when I was trying not to laugh than if I just let it go. I’m pretty sure that holding in laughter is hazardous to your health.

Did I tell you guys that I was the Gak-e-teer of the week? Well, I was! Jason McDonald puts out a weekly e-newsletter updating everyone on the happenings of Courtney and her eating disorder, giving shameless self-promotions for his Cafépress online Gak store, and giving loyal fans who subscribe a chance to become the Gak-e-teer of the week. In order to win this esteemed honor, one has to read a specific quote sent in the newsletter and derive the person who said it and the movie in which it was said.

I did that! Me! And Jason sent me some undead SWAG…Although, since watching The Office I discovered that SWAG stands for stuff we all get, so I guess that isn’t too accurate seeing as I just got it. So that would be stuff I only get and not you, or SIOGNY. That’s pronounce SEE-AHG-NEE, and you all can just writhe in a jealous fit for all I care. Nyah!

To prove my good fortune, here’s a personal card from the undead tween:



That's just awesome because up until just before I opened the card, I was totally wondering, even though they have no control over their vocabulary and bodily functions, if zombies could write.And here I am swimming in all my living dead stuff:



To show my appreciation, I did a little sketch of my upcoming TILAH character as if I was a zombie…or maybe it’s the point at which I just wake up and before I’ve had my first cup o’ Joe. I just penciled this while Rylee was in her karate class, and originally I gave myself eyes not unlike Courtney’s, but I wasn’t happy with the over all effect. So I redid them in the matter below when I got home:



Yup! That’s my living dead self, and I’ve never looked, er, better? If you’re a fan of Courtney’s adventures, I encourage you to hit the link below and vote Jason’s site as one of the World’s Best Zombie Sites:





TopSites



Sheesh! You think this sick fascination I have has anything to do with Halloween coming up? Huh? I think you might be wondering that! All I can say is that the answer is a definite….

Man, I'm weak! I just can't help posting when I'm not supposed too. Maybe I should say I'm not allowed to all the time, eh? Maybe I should put a roll of barbed wire around my computer and post single brain celled infantry men with C-7 machine guns to prevent me from blogging, huh? Then you'd get your posts! Then you'd get your daily dose of Vitamin ME! Yeah, I may be torn to shreds and riddled with bullet holes, but I'd die trying to do what I'm not supposed to do. Cripes, I spend too much time on the internet!

But I love it! And it loves me! And our love shall not be denied…unless Michelle tells me "no," anyway.

At one point I was totally ho hum about Myspace, but just for kicks and giggles I decided to put one up and see what happened. I rigged it so that my gmail account would let me know automatically if someone was requesting to be my friend, and I'd be able to see who or what they were with just the click of a button. Turns out that every up and coming band wanted to be my friend; turns out that every 15 year old girl with a fetish for negligee wanted to be my friend; turns out that everyone with a gender-confusion issue wanted to be my friend. Oh, and Tom wanted to be my friend, too. He still wants to be my friend, and he keeps appearing in my inbox every now and then.

As it turns out, my first impression of Myspace was that it involved a never ending cycle of request and deny: anyone requests to be on your friends list, and you just keep hitting "deny." I didn't understand why I would want any of these people or bands on my friends list. I didn't know them and they didn't know me! I guess there's the advantage for them in getting new listeners and acquaintances, but I really suspect that they were just padding their friends list so that their ranking on Myspace increased so they'd get noticed more...Which I guess is the same thing.

So that's all I did with it for a while: deny, deny, deny.

Then one day I thought to check out one of my favorite bands ever, They Might Be Giants. They had a Myspace page, and I thought I'd request to be one of their 27,000 friends. A day later, I had my first friend on my list. I did the same for Weird Al and even found a Myspace page for Lost. Lost has a Myspace page...No kiddin'.

So now my friends list was starting to look like a fanboy's stalker list, so I kind of just let it sit for a bit. I wasn't doing anything with it, and the only purpose it served was to let me know what TMBG and Weird Al were up to.

Then one day a member of the Animation Forum community asked about everyone else's involvement with Myspace, and it turned out that quite a few of them had Myspace pages. Not only that, but after checking out their Myspace pages I realized that they were using them as networking tools to promote their art, web pages and businesses. They would use their friends list to promote themselves, and I discovered that it was just a matter of simply typing a message and clicking a button and everyone on your list would be informed of upcoming events you were promoting. Here were users with similar interests to myself using Myspace to their advantage, and promoting themselves in a group of people that are willing to accept the promotion and possibly share it with others.

I had to use this to my advantage!

After a quick revamp of the site, a revamp that's still in progress but changed enough to reflect its meaning, my Myspace page has become the official (if Shannon agrees) TILAH Myspace page. At current count, and just starting yesterday, I have 14 friends on my list with similar interests and a willingness to promote mine and Shannon's future webcomic. Awesome! Free advertising! Who could ask for anything more, Toyota!

I'm sure I'll still have to deny certain requests to become friends with some guys who are interested in dating me, but the point is that Myspace seems to be the ultimate networking tool. I'm pretty late getting on board with this thing, but better late than never. And the timing seems right for our upcoming launch.

So the question is: what does this have to do with my Alberta adventure? It's my adventure, and it's occurring partially in Alberta, so there! If we just happen to move back to BC (hint, hint), my Alberta adventure will be over. But for now it happens the way it happens, and I get to share it with you.

Oh! Lost was on last night; it was awesome! If you didn't know that then I suggest you check your pulse. Chances are that you're dead. Just sayin'!

Edit: I just noticed that Dan, Shannon and I are using our avatars for Google Talk...It made my beady eyes well up with joy:

Odd, eh? When I have time to post and have nothing to post about, I usually won’t post. But if I tell myself (and my loyal fan(s)) that I won’t post, and I have some useless crap to post about, I find myself logging into Blogger and typing away. Funny! I guess it goes with the old adage about forbidden fruit and all.

Some of you may notice the new link to the right, there. No, not your right! My right! Fine! Left! The new link to the left, then. It’s to an online webcomic called My Living Dead Girl…Well, of course it’s an ONLINE webcomic. Most webcomics come prepackaged on the internet, and few, very few, are found, say, on a spider’s woven home.

Anyway, it IS a webcomic, and I advise you not to click the link. DO NOT CLICK IT! Don’t click it if you are not a zombie fan and are squeamish about the walking dead eating the walking living. There! You’ve been warned!

The setting is a world in a sort of Beaver Cleaver era with a working husband, devoted housewife, older sister who is very chatty and very nonchalant about everything, and a younger sister who’s among the walking dead. The wonderful thing is that the fact that she is among the living-challenged doesn’t seem to be odd to anyone. Even when dogs and cats inexplicitly start going missing around the neighborhood, no one seems to point the finger at the zombie.

Anyway, Jason McDonald writes and draws My Living Dead Girl, and if you are a die-hard zombie fan such as myself, you’ll want to give this a read. Just like yesterday’s post about A Dirty Job, the content is intended for an older, immature audience.

You may wonder about my fascination with the dead lately, and I can’t really explain it other than being quite an unusual coincidence. Although, looking back I have to admit that one of the main characters in Terry Pratchett’s (my absolute favourite author in the entire world) Discworld series was, indeed, Death. Go figure! A movie has just finished filming about Pratchett’s Death, and all that’s left to add are the many, many hours of special effects. Hopefully the time will pass in the blink of an eye, and soon I’ll be watching the first ever live action Discworld movie entitled Hogfather. Now that, and any other of the 30+ Discworld novels, I’d recommend to anyone, young or old. Read them! Read them all! Now!

Now, just to set your mind at ease that I am, in fact, among the living and not a card carrying member of those doomed to walk the earth in search for food that I used to be related to, I had to reflect on what my favorite foods were. It was such a hard decision because I like a lot of food since I’ve gotten over that picky period in my life where I actually required ketchup on a t-bone steak. However, if I had to whittle it down to three choices, and those choices were what I’d only be allowed to eat for the rest of my life without worry of the consequences involved with eating them and them alone, I’d have to say that these following three items would be the penultimate of culinary delights:

Pizza – As soon as I wrote that, I felt a disturbance not unlike the one that Obi Wan felt when an entire planet was blown up in the original Star Wars. The only difference being that instead of feeling a planetful of people screaming in agony, I felt their shoulders sag as they said, “Duh!” But why not pizza? Pizza is versatile! Pizza is tasty! Pizza is a gift from God, himself! That’s the only way I can explain it….
Teriyakis – I love me some teriyakis! Mmm mmm! Chicken, beef, sticky rice, veggies and hot sauce. Good; very good!
Nacho chips and salsa – I could almost live off of nachos and salsa if it wasn't for the fact that I’d die if I just ate nachos and salsa. It is the perfect movie watching snack despite what all you popcorn eaters say. Plus, if I felt the urge, I could take some of the cheese of my pizza and put it on my nacho chips. Am I allowed to have sour cream included with this choice?

There you have it! Next time you have me over you’ll know what to serve. Don’t worry, however, if none of the above three items is on your catering table. I’m very polite, so I’ll just take lots of water with whatever you serve or slip it under the table to the dog. Here, boy! Fillet mignon, boy? Gooooooooood!

…Then you’re watching something else. That means I can’t help you! You are beyond help! I now have two shows that are must-see, and the rest of every channel’s line-ups and schedules could just disappear, for all I cared.

It’s been hard on my 10, soon-to-be 11, year old. She’s gone from a school of 25 students to a class that’s almost twice that, and the work load has increased and is coming at her from all sorts of different angles. I was not a good student when I was in her grade, and I was not a good student in the subsequent grades to follow. I’m not sure how I got away with it, but I managed to fit more time in front of the TV and Commodore 64 than I put in school and homework combined when I was in grade six.

Kristen is persevering, though. At first I saw the signs that were similar to the way I felt at that point of my life. When I saw something that I didn’t understand, I would just clam up and try to be as invisible as possible. Kristen, it would seem, even though she is a social butterfly within her age group and gender, would just let things slide by if they were beyond her grasp. But things are changing…

She came home with a POW (problem of the week) that she had handed in the previous Friday. This is a math problem that she has an entire week to solve and needs to be handed in before the end of the last school day. She came home with one that had, in big red numbers, 4.5/10 on it. Less than 50%. And even though she has never even closely hinted that math is her favorite subject, she would usually get very good grades anyway.

This was a quandary. Not only did she have this lowly graded paper, but she had a new one to do and no desire to learn what she had done wrong on the previous one. We had a firm discussion about learning from our mistakes, particularly mine. I told her that I suffered in school because I didn’t ask questions, and I would most definitely not have made it through college and university if I let those fears of being noticed take me over again. I asked a tonne of questions to the point of being annoying. Not as annoying as the guy who would doze off and ask about exactly what the instructor had mentioned seconds previous, but annoying enough. I didn’t care; I was paying to be there!

Kristen asked her teacher the next day how she was supposed to go about answering the previous POW. She even asked about the next POW that wasn’t due for three days. She was ever so proud when I came home and she showed me that the poorly marked POW had now been changed from a 4.5 to an 8.5 because of teacher error. She had, in fact, done most of it right in the first place. Not only that, but she had finished her next POW and gotten confirmation on its correctness with three days to spare. I am a proud dad!

Yesterday, our adventure didn’t take us very far. Besides work, we walked around the block with Lilly. It’s so cool to live in a neighborhood where jack rabbits roam freely. I’m pretty sure Kristen and Rylee have named each and every one of them, and I’m sure that Rylee has named a few of them twice.

I’m taking the next week to finish two projects before I start spending too much time on TILAH. I have a story to finish and an animation to complete, so if I’m absent for the next week, you’ll know why. I’m also setting up a Myspace page for TILAH since it seems like such a good promotional tool. There’s nothing too important there yet, but I’ll work on it when I can. There’s still over two months until the official launch, but I’m pretty sure that time will fly by before we know it, and I’ll be neck deep in deadlines. If I do post, we’ll consider that a bonus, okay?

Wouldn’t you know it, but the book that I had been waiting over a month for (possibly two) finally came in at the library. Now, I could cancel the request and pay the fine (a whopping two dollars) or I could take it out and try not to read it while I’m so busy. Yeah, right! I took it out on Saturday and started reading it before I fell asleep that night. I immediately new I would love this book. It is called A Dirty Job,



and it is about a Beta Male inadvertently becoming a, well, uh, Death, actually. Not THE Death but a Death. Not only that, but his wife dies after giving birth to their daughter leaving him a single father, he runs a second hand store with a 16 year old emo girl and a nearly 40 ex-cop on disability as employees, and there seems to be a homeless man who goes by the title of The Emperor. Frequent strong language that should be avoided by children, but extreme graphic wonder and explicit writing that is enjoyed by me. I hope someone out there gives it a try. I, however, will only be reading it during my 20 minute C-train rides and hour long visits to the toilet.

Ciao for now!

The kids talked Michelle and I into going swimming; this should come as a big surprise to most of you. Not that we went swimming but that the kids had to talk us into it. The last time we went swimming was with the Porters at West Edmonton Mall, and that was many months ago. For the girls and I, swimming was usually an every weekend thing while Michelle was at work. Occasionally, I would talk Michelle into joining us, but it wouldn’t be too hard to talk her into it.

It’s just that lately we haven’t been doing it at all. I’m pretty sure the time before West Ed was when the girls came to visit me during the Medicine Hat fiasco which means that I’ve only gone swimming with my daughters twice this year….Whoops! I forgot about the two times we went to the outdoor pool in Silver Springs here. I guess that counts as well. But still, four times this year versus 52 plus times the previous years. What’s wrong with us?

Lately, I’ve been feeling like a mushroom. We’ve spent most weekends inside with the exception of shopping (whoopee!) and Rylee’s karate class. We haven’t even signed Kristen up for swimming lessons again. There’s only one explanation: it’s the funk! The weather’s changing, making the indoors more inviting and video games seem like an extracurricular activity.

Well, thankfully the kids talked us into going swimming. I actually put up some resistance to the idea, and Michelle would have been more than happy to stay home as well, but the kid’s persistence won out. We ended up going to the Village Square Leisure Centre in the north east of Calgary. I chose this destination because I had heard that it was the home of the Pepsi Thunder Run waterslide. I’d post a picture, but I couldn’t find any on the internet. Needless to say, claims have been made to it’s awsomeness, so I had to check it out for myself.

We had a blast! The whole facility had a wave pool, diving board, two water slides, jungle gym, hot tub, rope swing with six foot drop, etc. There also seemed to be enough chlorine-salt mixture in the water to burn your eyes right out of your skull but keep you afloat while doing so.

Kristen and I tried the Pepsi Thunder Run waterslide while Michelle and Rylee sat in the hot tub. Something has happened to Rylee where she, the one who used to jump off things just for the sake of falling, is very weary to the point of being scared of trying any form of waterslide. We witnessed this at West Ed and it was apparent here, too. I hope that this is a phase she’ll outgrow because I miss that part of her. However, she still rocks! Kristen and I climbed the four stories to the top where she went first, and I waited the mandatory 10 seconds before following. They actually have a red light/green light system that in no way detects whether or not a person has cleared out at the bottom. Wonderful!

So I went! You enter a tunnel and continue to wind down the outside of the climbing structure, but at some point you enter utter darkness. This was very, very cool! You had no idea where you were going to turn or which way, and I found myself rocking back and forth uncontrollably. At one point there was a small drop that would have been tame if one could have seen it. I found myself closing my eyes just to prevent the water from getting in them. No, not because I was scared! When I finally exited the tunnel, I could hear the screams of families having fun below, and I was impressed by how much fun this slide was. As I rounded the last corner, I saw Kristen was already out of the catch chute at the end, standing off to the side smiling at me. That’s when it happened!

Pain! Intense pain! The catch chute, apparently, isn’t long enough for a person of my size. Instead of gliding to a stop like I would do at, say, any other waterslide in the world that uses a self-contained catch chute system (Commonwealth Pool http://www.gov.saanich.bc.ca/resident/recreation/scp.html in Victoria, comes to mind), this slide uses the very end of the chute to stop its victims of, ahem, size. Not only that, but the end is covered by a gate composed of one inch square iron bars. My feet slammed into the bars but thankfully didn’t slip through the large gaps between them. As I write this I am thinking that not going head first was a capitol idea!

A 16 year old lifeguard came over and asked if I was okay. That’s when I remembered that he had done the same thing to a guy that had gone before me, but I thought the gentleman had hit the end because he was rather, um, on the robust side of large. I now know that this wasn’t the case. I told the 16 year old that maybe foam padding the bars would be of some benefit to preventing any civil cases towards the leisure center, but he just responded like he had heard that many, many times before.

Here’s the rub! The leisure center actually hired someone to stay at the bottom of the slide to ask if every person who hit the end if they were okay. This was done instead of extending the catch chute a few extra feet. I’m no math whiz (ha ha), but I’m sure if I sat down with my trusty TI89 (a wonderful calculator that got me through UVic…I named mine Tiffany) I would calculate that extending the waterslide versus hiring a professional apologizer and paying for medical bills would weigh in the favour of the extension being cheaper. Just a guess, mind you!

I spent the rest of the time in the pool because I didn’t feel like hurting myself again. I’m sure that if I sat up and allowed my trunks to grab the surface of the slide, the friction would have slowed me down enough so that I would have stopped before the end, but let’s face it! That just takes away from the whole experience, and a waterslide enthusiast, such as myself, wouldn’t want to take away from the experience.

We enjoyed the rest of our visit to the leisure center as it was completely devoid of pain. Oh, and I think I’m shorter as a result of my little bump.

Here’s a wonderful new breakfast product for the kid who’s on the go:



Eventually, it’ll probably stop them with massive heart attacks but the resulting short term energy will guarantee that they’ll be first to puke after the 400 metre relay.

News on the animation: what news! I’m busy! Very busy! I’m trying to finish it, but the deadline is looming…

News on the short story: see news on the animation.

...but you have to watch this commercial. You need Quicktime 7 to watch it, but it's worth it!

Oh, and don't neglect the new post below...my sister made me do it!

I’ve been a little lacks in my updating duties (according to some sister of mine who will remain nameless, Wendy), and the only excuse is that I’ve been busy with things. Oh, and none of it really seems to be worth writing about. I’m sure my loyal fan base doesn’t want to hear of my daily trips on the C-train with all of the other faceless masses in some sort of weird tribute to the opening credits of Joe Versus the Volcano... Seriously! How many movies has Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan starred in together? Why don’t they just get a room or something? It would be cheaper than wasting millions of dollars on another movie that my wife’ll force me to watch because of the obligatory tears and sappiness and getting in touch with my feminine side? Does she really want a feminine husband? Because I gotta tell you, most feminine husbands aren’t married to women!

Ever since I learned the meaning of digression I seam to get caught in it quite a bit. Actually, that’s not entirely true. If it was, then I learned the meaning of digression in grade two.

Last week I took a little trip up to a little place in our big province. The little place was called Redwater, and it’s located just to the North East of Edmonton. The most exciting part of the trip was the fact that it was around 3 and a half to 4 hours of driving one way, and I had to do it without falling asleep. Those of us behind the wheel like not dying; it’s just one of those things. However, it started to snow on the way up, the roads got pretty slick and the rest of the traffic still maintained a steady 140 km/hr in the thick fog that rolled its way in. Yeesh! Talk about hairy! We passed an accident going up there on the other side of the highway. Traffic was backed up for miles, whoops, I mean kilometers (Canadian, remember?) with seven emergency vehicles on scene and three more passing us on the way by. Not pretty! I didn’t read about it the next day so I don’t know what happened. It was gone when we came back.

Redwater is rather small, as I’ve made mention above. I’d really like to tell you what I did up there, but I’m concerned for your well being and if I can avoid making you fall asleep and smashing your face into your keyboard (unless your reading this on a handheld which is even more dangerous) then gosh darnit, I’m going to hold that story in for bedtime. I did, however, see a rather tidy facility up there, and I was treated to some really terrible Chinese food. It stayed with me for a long, long time, but thankfully my stomach endured a little bit of culinary redemption with a visit to Joey Tomatoes for supper. My project manager took me there once we got back into Calgary, and, since I wasn’t paying (my company was) I thought I’d try something a little different. I tried the Bombay butter chicken which came in some sort of curry sauce, basmati rice and something called garlic naan. A quick search on Google tells me that garlic naan is the bread I was eating. Mmmmm! Garlic!

Thankfully I didn’t actually drive back to Calgary because my eyes were fighting a losing battle with my eyelids to stay open. One thing dad taught me when I was growing up is that if two people are in a vehicle for what appears to be a long trip, it is rude to sleep or read if you aren’t the driver. It is the passengers responsibility to keep the driver awake, in other words. I was doing a poor job about halfway to Calgary, and at one point my eyes closed. I was vaguely aware that my project manager, who was driving, had just asked me a question. Fearing what he’d think of me if he knew I had nodded off, I just stuttered, “Th, that sounds good to me!” Apparently I had agreed to go to dinner with him, so it didn’t turn out too bad. He took me to Joey Tomatoes, I got some really good food and he got to ogle all the waitresses. Seriously! If there was any place that had questionable hiring practices that wasn’t a Hooters, Joey Tomatoes would be it.

Michelle worked the weekend, and Rylee got me all excited about making pancakes. I found pancake mix but no eggs and a serious lack of milk, so I did what any normal parent would do. What? Go to the corner store and pick up some eggs and milk? Nope! I took them to Denny’s. Apparently everyone else in Calgary had the same problem because there seemed to be standing room only at that particular fine dining establishment. Seriously, the Denny’s in Victoria is known for its debatable cleanliness, but the one in our area of Calgary actually seems to be on the brighter side of “okay.”

Long story short: got a table, Rylee spilled her hot chocolate in my lap.

Yup! I got to sit in a very busy restaurant with a seeping brown stain on the front of my jeans. I cleaned up as much as I could, but it was very apparent that the huge wet spot wouldn’t dry before it was time to go, and ravenous customers were growling for any available table. I saw one guy who was just sitting down for coffee ejected from a window by a family of four. Rough place! They served the girls hot chocolate in medium size plastic glasses. What’s the deal there? Denny’s hot chocolate doesn’t belong in a coffee cup? That’s very dubious. I’m actually convinced that if the hot chocolate had come in a coffee cup that my lap would have been saved a searing. Leaving the restaurant was very fun as standing revealed all.

Shameless plug time: I would like to point your way to the TILAH page where you will find a little bit of almost-finished art work that will hold our website till its launch on January 1st, 2007. I will send warm fuzzy thoughts to anyone who tells me which character is whom and what the symbol is on the only ball cap in the picture. I still have some shading and detailing to do, but besides that, I’m pretty happy with the way it’s turning out.

Wouldn't it be great if Nutrigrain Bars made you feel this good? I mean, GREAT!!!



Anyway, I have to get along little doggies. Apparently I have work to do, people to save, and subway trains to stop from launching off of incomplete bridges. Wait! That’s spiderman, actually. I just have to work!

TILAH, or Take It Like A Husband, is forging ahead with some very humorous material that'll have me sleeping on the couch for a very, very long time. Shannon and I have decided on a January 1st launch date so we could start the year anew and have a backload of comics to put out.

Shannon's got a bit of work to do on the website (what you see there will be gone shortly, thank goodness). And I've got to tweak all my characters and such to fit my drawing style. I've changed almost everything now that I've figured out how to draw again and have learned some really awesome software to boot. By learn I really mean "barely scratched the surface."

Speaking of changing the style, you may have noticed a smiling new face in the left-hand margin. He'll be staying there for a while until I get tired of him, but for a slightly larger look, here are the two tweaked characters from your first encounter with TILAH:

Oh, what happy avatars we are. I'm making a whole host of these things to reflect the feelings behind certain posts on the website. Ooh, there's going to be a grumpy one I bet!


Seeing as I'm tired and should probably get more than 5 hours sleep tonight, I'm going to cut this one short. But I will say something about a few comments I've heard lately...Or should I say the lack of comments. I've heard that some of you don't comment because you don't know how to. Is this true? Dan's figured it out, so I naturally thought everyone could...Dan, I apologize! That sounded really mean.

All you have to do is hit the word "comment" that is located after every post and before the previous blog title and date. You'll be taken to another page to leave a comment, and you don't have to be registered with Blogger to do so. Just sign in anonymously. Heck, some guy was trying to get me to join his MLM by posting in my comments section. I'm now three tiers away from the top of the pyramid, and all I have to do is sign up all of my friends and family so I can get that trip to Ecuador. Good times, good times!

So, yeah, short! I'm going to bed, and it's only 10pm. Hopefully I'll have some Alberta Adventure appropriate material to post in the next day or so. I could tell you of my trip to Redwater yesterday, but I'll save that for the next post. Until then, check out these studs:

How did you spend your Thanksgiving? I spent mine driving the 5 to 6 hours to Calgary from Creston, but I'm not bitter! I got to spend faux Thanksgiving with my mom, grandma, and sister, Michelle, Kristen, Rylee and Kyle. Also, my sister's French-Canadian hockey billet joined us, as well. Wait, I'm forgetting someone, aren't I? Who could it be? Oh, yeah!



Don't you just want to get angry with him? He just screams trouble, doesn't he? No, really! He would scream, "Trouble!" if you just hinted at it. But getting mad at him? It's very, very hard to do, so I just take it out on my kids.

Speaking of my kids, here's an interesting sport they've come to enjoy:





You see how carefree I am with their safety? After this I encouraged them to go play in traffic on Highway 3. Of course, it wouldn't be an event without a Rylee diva pose:



My mother fed me so much on Sunday I honestly though something ripped inside me. All the food made me wonder why I didn't eat like this more often...then we cleaned up and I remembered why I appreciate fish sticks and fries. Still, my mom can cook!

My sister invited me to a Creston Thundercats game on the Saturday we were there. Unfortunately, they lost to the Spokane Braves 3 to 1, but man did they put on a show. Looking at those two websites you can sure tell who's not a hockey team from a very small town.

Michelle and the girls joined us, and while Michelle enjoyed the game with even more enthusiasm exhibited than myself, Kristen did not seem to be all that into the game. During the intermission between the second and third period a conversation took place between Kristen and my sister:

Wendy: So are you having a good time?
Kristen: Yup!
Wendy: Really?
Kristen: No, not really!

Honestly, if Wendy hadn't of pushed the issue Kristen would have let her believe she had a very good time. Kristen had the facial expression to make it believable, too. I'm so proud that my ability to lie with a straight face is being passed on to yet another generation.

Okay! So I’m not blowing off this animation challenge thingy…Well, not just yet, anyway. I just have a lot to do and little time to do it. I’ve had a bit of an issue with my graphics tablet lately, and I am totally not willing to draw anything with a mouse. It just doesn’t work out well and is tedious times tedious to the power of tedious. Add a dash of mundane and let sit for five minutes before serving.

I resolved those issues last night, but unfortunately my most favourite show in the whole entire universe premiered its third season opener and just about blew my socks off. For those of you who don’t own TVs, that show is Lost, and if you didn’t know that, I would seriously get your head checked out because it’s most likely that you’ve suffered a critical whack to it recently. Also, just on before that was rival network CBS’s apocalyptic thriller, Jericho. Definitely not as good as Lost, but it has me a bit intrigued, so I’ll watch it every once in a while till I’ve decided it’s not worthy of my time. Heroes, from NBC, is another one I’ve got my eye on. What can I say? With this new season of television, it’s a good time to be a geek.

My point is that I wasn’t able to spend too much time in front of my computer to animate because I was spending too much time in front of my TV. Geek, remember? Oh, and I was helping Kristen with her homework, too. You know, I can (probably with a little refresher) do complex calculus, linear algebra and have experience with differential equations, but I was having a little trouble with what Kristen had to work on last night. It just seemed that the question was so vague and had to do with setting up tables to provide you with an answer. No real instruction on how to do it…Just go!

Anyway, between Kristen and the TV I managed to pump out this quick little animation of a dancing potatoe man. Not really a potatoe, but I just wanted to see if I could do some entertaining movements that were both fluid and entertaining.

YOU HAVE TO CLICK HERE

Don’t watch too long because it’s mesmerizing. Oh, and that’s it! Nothing else happens in it! Just go about your lives people!

Thanksgiving weekend is here, and we’re Creston bound! Hope everyone has a great weekend! Eat lots of turkey! Unless you live in the States…you guys have to wait until your Thanksgiving!

You know, sometimes I just peruse an old post or re-read my recently published entry and I cringe just a little. I think, “did I really find that funny” or “how many people were offended by that?”

But what’s worse is when I read what I had thought to be a sentence in the first place, and what it turns out to be is pure unadulterated trouser smear. Thank goodness there’s an edit function because, even though you guys have already read it, I just couldn’t live with myself if that crap was permanent.

Here’s some advice: do not read the first two months of this blog! It’s like I was just learning to write, and I was using Dr. Seuss as reference material. Without the witty banter, however.

Michelle had a really good day at work yesterday, but had to come back to my home cooked meal. I’m usually pretty handy in the kitchen, and I’m not saying that last night’s meal was inedible, but I had made an assumption that rendered my mashed potatoes eye-watering.

Before I go down that road, I’ll tell you that Michelle is enjoying her job at, uh, the grocery store. I’m not sure if I should mention the name in the blog because I’ve heard of these things coming back to bite people in the fleshy part of their glutes. Anyway, as Michelle waits for her call from her preferred line of work, she has taken a cashiers position. On top of that, she’s working in her spare time on a typing tutor I set up for her and trying to learn as much about Microsoft Office as possible.

I talked to Michelle about her work after I fed her supper. Supper? Oh, yeah! I grilled some chicken breasts, but before I threw them in the oven, I was at a loss about what to do with them spice-wise. I did a quick check on the internet but most of the ideas there would have taken a little more time than I was willing to spend. Then I remembered a friend of mine pan frying some potatoes in Italian dressing, and a light bulb went on in my head. Now, 20 Watts isn’t that strong, but I put it into practice anyway. We didn’t have any Italian dressing, but we had some Kraft Sweet Onion Vinaigrette. So, after the oven had pre-heated…

Okay! Tangent time! How can you pre-heat something? Isn’t the definition of pre-heated actually heating something before you heat it? I understand the context, but that’s what it literally translates too. Yes, I understand that it means allowing the temperature in the oven to stabilize at a certain point before cooking with it, but wouldn’t it be just as easy to “heat” the oven? Isn’t that like the word “reiterate?” Reiterate actually means to say or do again repeatedly. Iterate, however, means to utter again or repeatedly or do something again or repeatedly. So wouldn’t reiterate actually mean to say or do again repeatedly, again? Like you iterated once, had a break, then iterated again? That sounds a little dirty. I think I’ll learn French!

Digression…

After the oven had, uh, achieved its ideal temperature for cooking chicken, I put a light glaze of the salad dressing on the chicken's skinless surface and sprinkled about a teaspoon of rosemary on top of each breast (teh heh). I did the same when I turned the chicken over 10 minutes later, and once more 10 minutes after that for a total cooking time of about 25 minutes at 400°F. But the chicken wasn’t the problem! It was actually very, very good.

And the problem wasn’t the steamed carrots, either. It is possible to over steam vegetables, but I like a little bit of crispness left in them so my teeth don’t get soft and I loose that hunter’s instinct that was passed down from my forefathers and their forefathers before them. Carrot hunting used to be a very hazardous undertaking, I've been told. Today's carrots are very tame by yesteryear standards.

The problem was assuming that an electric hand mixer would mince up the six cloves of garlic that I had thrown in the mashed potatoes. I originally wanted to mash them with a mortar and pestle, but Michelle had cleverly hidden them in plane sight. Actually, the mortar was hidden right in front of me; Michelle had deemed the pestle cupboard worthy. So I threw barely chopped garlic into the pot of mashed potatoes and hoped it would mash along with the rest of the pot’s contents. It didn’t, and it was very fresh garlic. Kristen did not enjoy the chunks of garlic in her mashed potatoes, but Rylee and I would enjoy a good wince when chewing on half a clove. I love garlic, and this was no exception. However, I had learned that Kristen and Rylee had decided to partake in a cookie (or two, is my assumption) at a friend’s house before coming home for supper which made making them finish their meal all that more difficult.

All in all, it was a good meal, but lacking in the green department.

After dinner, I finally got a chance to relax a little and asked Michelle about her day. She said it just flew by which seemed to make her very happy. She was able to converse with a few of her fellow employees and said that her supervisor, some gentleman a few years her senior, gave up trying to teach her anything because she was picking it up so fast. I asked if he was hitting on her, but she just looked at me funny. I can only assume that meant yes and that I would have to make a stop at her work very soon.

She made reference to a new female acquaintance who started work at the same time as her but had actually worked there several years ago. She would give Michelle all sorts of hints about the benefits her company would provide her if she just knew where to look and what to ask. I asked Michelle if this girl was hitting on her, but she just punched me playfully, but rather hard, on the shoulder. I decided that I would have to set Michelle’s new friend up with her supervisor.

One thing that Michelle is great at is putting up with me and my whack sense of humor. I’ve made it no secret that I like to write and enjoy a good joke every now and then. However, some of my humor may venture off into the world of untested waters, and I’m afraid that I may offend someone. So every now and then I write something down on a pad that I keep beside the bed. Just as Michelle is about to drift off to sleep, I give her a little shake and ask her to read what I’ve just jotted down. If, after reading, she turns onto her side facing away from me, holding her breath so as not to laugh too loudly and wake the kid, then I know what I’ve written is funny. However, if, after reading, she glares at me with ocular daggers, grabs her pillow and the top comforter and heads to the couch, I know what I’ve written is down right hilarious.

I guess I’ve been lax in relating or concluding stories that began months ago, but there is a conclusion. Or at least a current conclusion to an ongoing story since we’re going to continue to patronize Moxie’s. In fact, we were going to anyway, but we were just going to avoid the one at Market Mall over here in our fair city of Calgary.

Redeem themselves, they did. The general manager, Al, of that particular franchise had gotten a hold of me a few months ago and proceeded to shove a $50 gift certificate down my throat. Actually, that makes him seem kind of rough and tumble, but he was actually a very courteous guy who seemed to be genuinely distraught that the usual level of customer service that Moxie’s is known for wasn’t maintained for our particular visit. He actually wanted to know who our waiter was, and there were hints of job action to be taken. I’m sort of glad that I didn’t remember the waiter’s name because, even though our dining experience was made memorable in a bad way because of him, I wasn’t sure his attitude was bad enough to get him fired. He might’ve just been having an off day as I’m sure we’ve all had. We were just the unfortunate recipients.

I didn’t want it to seem as if we were just fishing for a free meal; we would all like one and I’ve heard of people complaining about service or quality of food just to avoid a cheque, but I believe in paying for quality, and Moxie’s has always provided me with a great place to hang out with my friends while being entertained by the staff. One of my biggest disappointments with Moxie’s is that with keeping up with the times and maintaining a positive image they managed to do away with the birthday run around the restaurant. That was always good for a humiliating laugh, wasn’t it?

But we did end up receiving a gift certificate in the mail, and we finally decided to put it to good use this last Friday. We went to Market Mall on what was perhaps the most busiest evening of the week. Michelle and I are somewhat known for our good timing, aren’t we? So when we put our name and number of our party down with the hostess, she asked if we were aware that there were about 20 parties ahead of us. I said that I wasn’t but now was thanks to her informative skills…actually, I did really say that minus the “informative skills” comment. Looking at that sentence now, I’m very glad I didn’t because it seems rather rude. So the hostess gave us a coaster and told us that we could walk around the mall and when our table was ready the coaster would let us know. Did I forget to mention that is was a coaster with a built in pager that would light up and buzz when paged? No I didn’t; I did that on purpose!

We tooled around the mall for about 40 minutes with an extra long stop at the Toy’s R Us. I got to play with a PSP for the very first time, and Rylee managed to seriously kick my butt at some sort of Sonic the Hedgehog racing game. My pride was shattered! Michelle managed to tear me, I mean, the girls away from the videogames so we could go check on the status of our table. Apparently, we had wandered out of range, and Moxie’s had been trying to page us. Thankfully, they said the next available table was ours.

A host came up and offered us wine; there were two glasses of red and one of white. Not one to pass up free alcohol even though I was under the assumption that people who drank wine were born with a silver spoon up their butt (I don’t really think this, but I love the thought of all the wine lover’s reading this and reacting in fashion), I decided to try the red while Michelle stuck with her favorite, white. I was pleasantly surprised! This was the first wine that I had ever tasted that didn’t remind me of really bad grape juice and vinegar. It had had a fruity aftertaste, and I found myself actually finishing a whole glass. A small “whole” glass, but a whole glass, never-the-less.

We were seated not too long after the wine and a quick game of I-Spy with Rylee. As soon as we sat, I asked our waitress if Al was working that evening. Al had asked that I inform him I was in the restaurant so he could attend to us personally. Seriously! That’s what he said! So he came over and introduced himself, and asked if I was Derek Monaghan. I said no, told him my real name and said that it wasn’t the first time that someone had called me that. He apologized and said that he must have had that guy from Lost on his mind - Dominic Monaghan. Well, Al just scored a huge amount of points in his favour for mentioning my favourite TV show, that was for sure!

Our server was awesome! A girl named Amanda who just got along famously with the kids. She entertained us, attended to us when needed and even catered to Rylee’s request to make her kids’ hamburger, and I quote, “Like a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger from Wendy’s.” They actually did it! Michelle and I decided that, since $50 of the meal was already paid for, we would order from the lucrative section of the menu. She ordered a piece of salmon that had been stolen from the only albino grizzly free roaming today, and I ordered a steak that had been painstakingly separated from a golden cow attended by 100 fair-haired virgins and was smothered with prawns and scallops raised by King Neptune himself. Even my baked potato which had been stuffed with cream cheese and seasonings stolen from the king of dreams accentuated my entire dinner. I’m trying to say that it was awesome! Awesome, I tell you! Just Awesome!

In the end, we had a fabulous meal, witty banter with our waitress and my favorite restaurant became a favorite again. The only thing missing from it were my friends from Victoria, but I tried not to think about them because it would have looked bad if I was crying while I ate.

To top off the evening, Michelle and I rented Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and totally fell in love with this movie. We liked it so much, in fact, that we watched it the next evening, as well. Now, there is excessive use of colorful language, but if you can see past that, you are going to be mightily entertained.

Alright, I owe you a picture or two, don’t I? Heading home yesterday I saw that the entrance to the path that leads to the nature preserve area looked so beautiful with all the yellowing leaves. I just had to go back with the girls to take a few pics. Here they are:





That last one? I just wanted to play with the B&W setting on my phenomenal camera. It turned out quite nice, I think.

Anyway, I've got things to do and people to see. Actually, I just have things to do. Also, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is on tonight, and I'm digging it so far. Probably one of the best new shows this season. Yeah, I know! I watch too much TV