What the ?! ..... Chickens!

Mr. Tweed Goes to Canada

2011-07-13T23:25:00.005-06:00

The newest episode of Gene Simmons Family Jewels takes place in good ol' Saskatoon where Shannon Tweed hales from. They're naming a street after her! Also you can watch their partnership going through hard times and Shannon revisiting her old stomping grounds.

Here's and interview with Shannon for CBC.

You can watch the episode Family Jewels episode "Mr.Tweed Goes to Canada" on A&E's website here. This is one of the shows that I always watch when I'm in the field! This and "Deadliest Warrior". Good times!

Also, Wade's bro Gavin is in the episode! Well...kinda. Yay him!

p.s. They should also be applauded for making a generous donation to the Saskatoon SPCA.

Mind of Pi (#5)

2011-06-19T08:00:00.000-06:00

Did you know that vehicles can run on spices? Yeah, Mussolini made the trains run on thyme! Ah ha ha ha! Weee! Happy Father's Day!

p.s. comic from the delightful xkcd.

Cultural Moment: The Marriage of Figaro (and more!)

2011-06-18T22:24:00.005-06:00

Well it's time to start dragging Wade to some sweet, sweet cultural moment worthy events! This weekend he saw his first opera, The Marriage of Figaro, at the Remai Arts Centre (aka. The Persephone Theater). A fantastic opera! Live orchestra, great singing and loved everyone's voices and interpretations of the music and roles. Plus lots of leg room! Good stuff! Even Wade liked it!

The Marriage of Figaro is a pretty nice intro to opera I think. It has a funny story, one or two songs that are recognizable from pop culture, and is one of the few operas where no one dies. Although Wade pointed out that that is how you know when an opera is over...when there are no more characters left. Ha!

Officially, "Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata" (The Marriage of Figaro, or the Day of Madness), K. 492, is an opera buffa (comic opera) composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a 1784 stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais ("La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro"). The play itself ended up being banned because of it's satirical view of the aristocracy (a no-no in the pre-French Revolution days) but the opera is considered one of Mozart's most successful works (and that's saying something!).

The opera was written in Italian but takes place in Spain near Seville. Actually, the opera is part 2 in the adventures of Figaro as it continues on two years after the events in "The Barber of Seville" (actually there were three Beaumarchais plays about these same characters, the third being "The Guilty Mother"). The Barber of Seville was also turned into an opera by multiple people (not Mozart) although the most famous version wasn't done until 1816. That's the version used in "The Rabbit of Seville". Love that! But I digress...

The overture from The Marriage of Figaro is probably the most recognizable (often played separately as a concert piece), although the music isn't featured within the opera itself. You may remember the overture from the 1983 Dan Akroyd & Eddie Murphy movie "Trading Places", in which it forms the opening theme music over the intro scenes.

Lovers of the film The Shawshank Redemption may also remember the duetto (a short duet) piece between the Countess and Susanna from Act 3 called "Sull'aria...che soave zeffiretto". In it the Countess (singing first) dictates a fake love letter to her husband, the Count, in a zany plot to expose his intended infidelity with Susanna (the Countess's maid and Figaro's fiance). Not sure if that is "something so beautiful it can't be described in words". More amusing than beautiful and, in fact it is described in words...they're just Italian words.

Anyway, the story for Marriage of Figaro comes of as pretty convoluted (and it is) when you try to explain it but trust me it's easy to follow when you're there (if they have the subtitles that is). But, here goes: Figaro (the Count's valet) and Susanna (the Countess' maid) are engaged. The philandering Count has the hots for Susanna and "wants to get all up in that" (but the Count and Countess still love eachother and everything). The count has a page named Cerubino who keeps getting in trouble because he loves love too much and it incites the Count's enraged jealousy (repeatedly, it's a running gag). Also, Marcellina, an old chick that Figaro owes a significant sum of money, wants to marry Figaro and gets Dr.Bartolo (who hates Figaro from back in "The Barber of Seville") to help her with the legal matters. It seems Figaro can either pay her or marry her. But it turns out that Figaro is Marcellina and Bartolo's bastard love child so that doesn't pan out, which makes the Count mad because he's been trying to thwart Susanna's marriage to Figaro due to his aforementioned desire to tap that. Mayhem ensues, but eventually they trick the Count into thinking that he's meeting Susanna in the garden for a tryst, but really the Countess meets him there. And he's sorry for his alternating adulterous/jealous ways and will never do it again and everyone is happy. Yay!

On the whole I recommend it highly. Especially since it was good enough to get Wade to concede to seeing another opera!

p.s. To Wade: Yes you did!

p.p.p.s. Last summer my annual opera outing with Talina was La Traviata. But last year was a bit of a wash blog-wise as I was super busy with new job and romance and what-not. That in no way reflects on the quality of La Traviata, as it was delightful, but I've decided not to pretend I have a time machine and I'm going to start fresh with new stuff. But for the record, thumbs up on La Traviata! And I reserve the right to pretend I have a time machine in future if I ever come across the program and it reminds me.

p.p.s. I also dragged Wade to the ballet (Swan Lake) in Regina last winter. Which should also have been a cultural moment post (refer to p.s. above about starting fresh). It was pretty cool as Wade had never been to the ballet before, but it was unfortunate because the performance wasn't the best I've seen. Made worse by the lack of live music and the so-so supporting cast of dancers. But still enjoyable, I may just be becoming a snob.

Borden System Words: Ontario

2011-06-01T19:19:00.000-06:00

Well here we are making the figurative trek "out East" to check out what kind of words they got out there. We'll just see how well Ontario stacks up against BC's "fart", Saskatchewan's "dink" (heeheehee), and Manitoba's "hell". In the interest of me not really caring to figure it out, I've included all the edge overlap with Quebec and to South (as shown in the image to the right) and they can just fight amongst themselves as to who owns what (we'll cross that bridge when we get to it). Also, remember that I put the Manitoba overlap with Manitoba. Here are Ontario's 54 words (FYI: CJ, CH, DJ, EJ, FJ, GK, and GH had no words):

AH – agha, ache, aahs
AG – alga
BH – baht
BG – bigs, begs, bags
BF – biff, baff
CI – clip, chit, chis, chip, chin, chid, chic, chia, ceil, cain, caid
CG – cage
DI – djin, deil, dais
DH – dahs, dahl
DG – digs, dags, dago
EI – egis, edit
EH – elhi, echo, eche
EG – eggs, edge
FI – flit, flip, flic, fair, fain, fail
FH - fehs
GI – glim, glib, glia, gait, gain
HI – heir, heil, hair, hail, haik

Well, there's an ethnic slur, but that's not really a swear, just offensive, so no good (that one's actually in Quebec). Oh well, we can learn a few new word meanings anyway. For example "agha" is a title of honour in Turkey and other Muslim countries; a "baht" is a monetary unit in Thailand; "cain" is Scots/Irish English in origin and refers to rent paid in kind (instead of money that is, especially a percentage of a farm crop); a "caid" is a Muslim tribal chief (I'm pretty sure I've used that in Scrabble before); "deil" is Scots for a devil or mischievous person; "egis" is another way of spelling "aegis", which refers to protection, support or sponsorship, or being under the auspices of something; "elhi" is an adjective referring to being of or relating to elementary and high school.

Dang it Ontario! You've failed me! But, on the plus side an excerpt from my series of Borden System posts has ended up in the May issue (Vol 32) of the Saskatchewan Archaeological Society newsletter as the article "The Borden System Defined". The article was trimmed from this post. So much fame! I'll try not to let it go to my head.

p.s. This is my second blog-post related article in the SAS newsletter. The last one being from this post about making and excavation screen.

Free Comic Book Day

2011-05-07T20:15:00.002-06:00

The first Saturday in May every year. The day when nerds everywhere can gorge themselves at the trough of freedom (free-comics-dom?). Here's the official website.

I got a Thor one, a Spider-man, a comic by Mike Mignola (of Hellboy fame), a Green Lantern, and a Dark Crystal one. It appeals to my nerdish leanings AND my love of free things! Good stuff!

p.s. Cap'n McShanty points if you got the Simpson's reference!

Angry Chicken Prank Call

2011-04-23T20:28:00.003-06:00

From the minds who brought us the groundbreaking "You Ain't Bad"* and "Hard Knock Archaeology"* videos comes: Angry Chicken Prank Call! Striking fear in the hearts of innocent lab technicians everywhere!

*Viewable on the Updog&Indy Youtube Channel. Soon to be going viral on a computer near you!

Cultural Moment: Spamalot!

2010-11-30T19:02:00.001-06:00

If it's a musical it counts as a cultural moment! A hilarious cultural moment (up there with Evil Dead but less bloody)! Python nerdy goodness enjoyed by all!
The reviews from the Regina Leader Post are at the bottom of the news page on the official Spamalot webpage (here). It had all the important bits from the Holy Grail movie that everyone was expecting and a mixed up story that was funny and delightful. Yay for culture!

Sorry I'm not writing more, but I'm using my time machine for this post and writing it eight months in the future! Hello future blog readers! Consequently, I'm fuzzy on specifics. But I bought the cast recording (and a fridge magnet for Wade...hi Wade!) and am listening to it...it's good. I already have the evil pointy-teethed bunny because D&T got it for me for my birthday a while back! That's no ordinary rabbit!

The future is here!

2010-08-01T20:16:00.000-06:00

Lisa's wedding invitation from Season 6 Episode 19 ("Lisa's Wedding"), which originally aired March 19, 1995. The future was so far away then!

p.s. thanks to D for the bit of trivia!

Venn Diagrams

2010-06-27T21:11:00.010-06:00

Now with this handy chart that has been circulating the internets, everyone can shout "NERD!" at true nerds with maximum efficiency.It seems Venn diagrams are all the rage these days. I quite like the website Indexed, which is a great source of graph related hilarity/inobtrusive social commentary (although it's not all Venn diagrams) and it even has a nerds vs. geeks comic too. Here's some other good ones, apparently done in honour of Indexed. I especially like the zombie/Jesus/Frankenstein one. Ha!

p.s. I also really like this one about hybrid cutlery. Hee hee...Knork!

Besos y Lagrimas

2010-02-28T13:52:00.002-06:00

The new episode of SNL featured the third installment in the Latin soap opera spoof "Besos y Lagrimas" with JLo (the first was with Antonio and the second was with Christina Aguilera). You can watch it on the Global website here), it's funny because it's true!

Watch "Besos y Lagrimas" con Antonio Banderas in Comedy | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

I had to put it up because little cp is feeling super nostalgic. And now how about a clip from the 1981 Chilean telenovela La Madrasta (click to view), which features a priest and a woman in a silk robe having a discussion with a man with a mustache. By contrast, here is a clip from the recent Chilean telenovela Cuenta Conmigo (please note the disturbing lack of mustaches):

p.s. both of these shows are produced and shown by Canal 13 in Chile
p.p.s. Our hearts and thoughts go out to our Chilean friends during this difficult quake time. We are so thankful that our loved ones are safe and hope for the best for everyone in little cp's adopted country!

Olympics 2010

2010-02-27T15:07:00.003-06:00

Exclusive Winter Olympics news & widgets at NBC Olympics.com!

Superbowl Commercials 2010

2010-02-21T20:46:00.004-06:00

While I watched the Superbowl on Canadian TV and didn't get to see any of the commercials, but there is this thing called the internet. Also, the makers of commercials don't care where you see it as long as you see it so the SB XLIV commercials are easy to find. There were a few pretty hilarious ones but my fave was this one with Alec Balwin for hulu. Other people will tell you it was the Betty White Snickers add that was the funniest (and it was pretty funny) but nope it was this one. Delightful!

But a very close second was of course this one with The Simpsons for Coke:

2010 | Super Bowl Ads | SPIKE.com

p.s. If you're curious, SPIKE has the goods on Superbowl commercials way back to 2002 (and a list of the all time classics, like that Budweiser one with the donkey and the one with the cowboys herding cats. Good times.
p.p.s. Also, it was a feel good story that New Orleans won even though they weren't KWs pick.

Meep in the Wind

2010-02-18T12:30:00.001-06:00

Also a little Habanera (from Car-meep) for little CP:

p.s. Habanera is a form of Cuban dance music (popular in the 19th C) following this basic rhythm, which is considered the simplest and most commonly heard of latin rhythms (Boom...ba-bop-bop):

He's Aware of Us!

2010-02-01T23:08:00.001-06:00

Rick Mercer (yes THE Rick Mercer) came to good old adrenaline loving Rossland for the Rossland Winter Carnival (113 years young!). Watch the episode on the Mercer Report YouTube channel here. He caught the Olympic torch running through town while he was there too! What jolly fun! Word on the street is he had a false start while attempting the bobsled (but they didn't show that on the episode).

How to seed a pomegranate

2010-01-14T20:06:00.000-06:00

This guy is from "food wishes video recipes", he also showed me such techniques as "How debone a chicken wing" but there are a lot of cool recipes on there that I have every intention of trying eventually.

p.s. Little cp LOVES pomegranates! But, what she doesn't love is writing epilogue posts for the blog...

Borden System Words: Manitoba

2010-01-13T23:00:00.003-06:00

Before we continue in our quest for Borden words let's have a quick Borden system refresher since it's been a little while. If you recall from last time (just click on the "BSwords" tag link at the bottom of this post and all of them will pop up), the upper North-South Borden blocks represent 2 degrees of latitude and the lower N-S Borden blocks within these, each represent 10 minutes. Since 2 degrees = 120minutes, the only lower N-S Borden blocks available are “a” through “l”. The upper East-West Borden blocks represent 4 degrees of latitude (south of 62 degrees), while the lower Borden blocks continue to represent 10minutes each. Since 4 degrees = 240 minutes, the only lower E-W Borden blocks available are “a” through “x”. Remember that? Good! Another good thing to remember is that the Borden blocks are in alphabetical order going from the Southeast of Canada to the North and West, so AA is in the water at the US border south of Newfoundland, while KW is in far Northwestern BC.

Now on to Manitoba and its 57 words. Bear in mind that the ‘M’ East-West Borden block only runs from ‘a’ through ‘j’ in Manitoba (the rest are in Sask.), and the ‘D’ North-South block only runs from ‘g’ through ‘l’ (the rest would’ve been in the U.S. were the Borden system used there). OK let’s see what we’ve got (FYI blocks EM, GK, and GJ had none):
IM – iamb
HM – heme, hame
GM – game, gamb, gama
FM – feme, fame
DM – dime
IL – ills, iglu, idle
HL – hilt, hill, hila, help, helo, helm, hell, held, halt, halo, halm, hall, half, hale
GL – gilt, gill, gild, gelt, gels, geld, gals, gall, gale, gala
FL – fils, filo, film, fill, file, fila, felt, fell, falx, fall
EL – ells, eels
DL – dill
IK – ilks
HK – hike, hake
FK – fake
EK - elks
DK – dike
HJ – hajj, haji

Did you know that a falx refers to a sickle-shaped structure, a fils is a middle eastern fractionary unit of currency, and hajj is a pilgrimage to Mecca? Also, hila is the plural of hilum and refers to the mark or scar on a seed produced by separation from its funicle or the nucleus of a granule of starch.

But it looks like Manitoba gave us a real swear! Hell! Ahhahaha! Wee! Plus, we learned a few new words, which is also good. Go Manitoba! Next we'll look at Ontario...

For lovers of Sesame Street and Ricky Gervais

2010-01-12T22:16:00.000-06:00

Cultural evolution in crows?

2010-01-11T22:09:00.001-06:00

Crows give chimps a run for their money. That's some smart damn crows!

p.s. another example of smart animal tool use.

Eh?! Why it's Christmas Day!

2009-12-25T20:56:00.002-06:00

'Twas the noche before Navidad

2009-12-24T09:00:00.000-06:00

A Spanish/English version of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas from Spanish-Translation-Help.com. They also have some links to traditional villancicos (Spanish Christmas carols) and some English faves sung in Espanol.

‘Twas the night before Christmas y por toda la casa,
Not a creature was stirring-Caramba! Que pasa?

Los niños were tucked away in their camas,
Some in long underwear, some in pijamas,

While hanging the medias with mucho ciudado
In hopes that old Santa would feel obligado

To bring all children, both buenos y malos,
A nice batch of dulces y otros regalos.

Outside in the yard there arose such a grito
That I jumped to my pies like a frightened cabrito.

I ran to the window and looked out afuera,
And who in the world do you think that it era?

Saint Nick in a sleigh and a big red sombrero
Came dashing along like a crazy bombero.

And pulling his sleigh instead of venados
Were eight little burros approaching volados.

I watched as they came and this quaint little hombre
Was shouting and whistling and calling by nombre:

"Ay Pancho, ay Pepe, ay Cuco, ay Berto,
Ay Chato, ay Chopo, Macuco, y Nieto!"

Then standing erect with his hands on his pecho
He flew to the top of our very own techo.

With his round little belly like a bowl of jalea,
He struggled to squeeze down our old chiminea,

Then huffing and puffing at last in our sala,
With soot smeared all over his real suit de gala,

He filled all the medias with lovely regalos-
For none of the niños had been very malos.

Then chuckling aloud, seeming muy contento,
He turned like a flash and was gone como viento.

And I heard him exclaim, and this is verdad,
Merry Christmas to all, y Feliz Navidad!

Chickens! Concert Series (#32): Three Days Gace

2009-12-04T14:37:00.007-06:00

You may not remember Three Days Grace from the time I went to their concert in S'toon when they were touring for One-X (this was pre-blog, I only vaguely remember it myself and most of that is due to KW reminding me). Anyway, the Trews and Default opened for them.

They stared with a cover of Johnny Cash's "God's Gonna Cut You Down" and then some police sirens and spinning red lights. They played some new stuff from their 3rd album called "Life Starts Now" and a bunch of old stuff. I loves me some 3DG! Good times. We missed Default though but quite frankly I'm fine with that. Here's the setlist:
1. Break
2. The Good Life
3. Pain
4. Bitter Taste
5. Wake Up
6. I Hate Everything About You
7. World So Cold
8. Home (they had flames shooting up from the stage in this one, good times)
9. Drum Solo (they
10. I Don't Care (Apocalyptica cover)
11. Last To Know
12. The Chain (Fleetwood Mac cover)
13. Never Too Late
14. Riot
Encore:
15. Lost In You
16. Just Like You
17. Animal I Have Become

Change Blindness

2009-12-02T21:46:00.000-06:00

Also known as "Inattentional Blindness" is the inability to recognize visual changes that occur in your direct field of perception because you are paying attention to something else. An easy example would be something like not noticing that a street light changed colour even though you are looking right at it because you are listening to your friend talking to you. This is related to our ability to block out extraneous information and focus on specific stimuli. Which is advantageous when you are trying to listen to a single conversation in a noisy room, but not so good when you are called on to be a witness to a crime that happened right in front of you while you were busy. Some people have taught themselves to pay attention to specific stimuli above all else because it holds some special fascination for them. These are people who have a "good memory for faces/details/colours/bones/etc". And some people have trained themselves to be more conscious of changes in their surroundings in general, these are people who are "cops/spies/nosy/etc". Anyway, now that you are forewarned that that is what we're doing, here are a few good videos on the issue. Good times being nerdy!

First, here is one discussing an interesting experiment on the subject:

I know most of you have seen that awareness video with the ball passing and the bear (here). I think that it is a bit of cheating in these types of videos because they are it intentionally telling you to focus on something else to trick you. These types of awareness tests are easy if you ignore the "task" you are given and just watch normally:

But try and do the task AND find the change. It's still hard to do even if you know to be looking for something crazy. It's so hard to focus on two things! This one is a good one because it is just distracting you instead of actively telling you to do something else:

Here is a good one done by the same city of London bike safety guys to do the moonwalking bear mentioned above. These series of ads were to raise awareness of people's lack of awareness of cyclists on the road. McShanty points if you find more than 3 changes (the bear turning into a suit of armor doesn't count because it's too obvious, find a harder one dang it!). This one is tough because even though you know to look for the changes, a lot is happening at once and you don't know where the changes will occur so it is hard to know where focus your attention. FYI there are 21 changes during the course of the video.

p.s. Without looking, did you see a red wagon behind the gorilla on the picture at the top of the post? Did you have to look before you knew the answer?

Borden System Words: British Columbia

2009-12-01T23:30:00.000-06:00

BC is a gold mine of good words! Please bare in mind that many of these are probably in the water, especially those with the upper East-West designation (third letter) of V, U, or T. We also still have a few slackers: DQ, EP, EQ, FQ, IV, IU, IT, IS, and IR all have no words and I already used up the words from DP in the Alberta words post. However we still have quite a few:

HU – haut, haul
HT – hits, heth, hats, hath, hate
HS – hiss, hest, hast, hasp, hash
HR – hire, hers, hero, herm, herl, here, herd, herb, hart, harp, harm, harl, hark, hare, hard
GU – glut, glum, glug, glue, geum, gaur, gaud
GT – gits, gets, geta, gats, gate
GS – gist, gest, gast, gasp, gash
GR – girt, giro, girl, gird, germ, gars, garb
FU – flux, flus, flue, flub, feud, faux, faun
FT – fits, fete, feta, fats, fate
FS – fist, fish, fisc, fess, fast
FR – firs, firn, firm, fire, fern, fere, fart, faro, farm, farl, fare, fard
ET – efts, eats
ES – else, east, ease
ER – ecru, ears, earn, earl
DS – diss, disk, dish, disc
DR – dirt, dirk, dire

That's a grand total of 96 potential Borden words! Outstanding! Especially compared to Alberta's abysmal 16 words even after I took out a bunch of the sketchy words that the Scrabble thing churned out and for which I couldn't find any good definitions, like "hets", "hist", "hisn", "hern", "gaun", "fets", and "feus". I also took out a few crazy Scots words like "dirl", "girn", "fash" and "eath"(this is despite certain Diana Gabaldon books that I may or may not have read and from which I learned several of these), and a dialect word or two like "gaum" and "dere". FYI: "heth" is the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, a "herm" is a monument or statue consisting of a four-sided column tapering inward from top to bottom with a bust of Hermes on top, "firn" is granular snow accumulated on high mountains and subsequently compacted into glacial ice (or a field of same). Anyway, BC is good because it has several key dirty (both symbolic and literal) words including "fart" and "germ". Fart is clearly the front runner here so far (much better than Sask/Alberta with "dink". No swears yet though. We'll just see what Manitoba has to say.

Firelight

2009-11-30T15:11:00.000-06:00

In my continued blog-warfare based battle to get little cp to give her last MTC post, here is the recent spoof that SNL did of a certain movie. Take that!

p.s. Taylor Swift's opening monologue was pretty funny too.

Borden System Words: Alberta

2009-11-29T09:08:00.005-06:00

Continuing in our search for filthiness in the Borden System, we move on to Alberta. There's sure to be some bad words in there! What with all the oil rig workers and such. Unfortunately, 1/4 of the upper borden grids have Qs in them! Lousy Qs!

Turns out that Alberta has significantly fewer BSwords than Saskatchewan (IQ, IP, HQ, HO, GQ, FQ, FP, EQ, and EP had no words at all...slackers). Here they are by upper borden block (keep in mind that, as we learned last time, the lower North-South bordens only go up to l and the lower East-West bordens only go up to x, which means we miss out on some good words like "fool" and "grog" and "goon", but no swears though):

IO – ikon, icon
HP – hips, haps
GP – gips, gaps, gape
GO – glow, glop, glom
FO – flow, flop
EO – egos, ebon
DP – dipt, dips
DO – dhow

Bah! I guess glop is good because its literally dirty, but that wasn't what I was going for. Oh well, I'm 0 for 2 so far, but we'll see next time.

p.s. A "dhow" is a traditional Arabic sailing vessel. Learning is fun!

Mind of Pi (#4)

2009-11-28T21:26:00.000-06:00

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar...

...and doesn't.

Chickens! Concert series (#31): Priestess

2009-11-27T23:23:00.007-06:00

You may remember Priestess from previous posts, in which I almost saw them but was trapped in the line that was 1 million kms long. But that injustice was redeemed last night! I must say that I like their first album (Hello Master, 2006) a lot more than the newest album (Prior to the Fire, 2009). I was getting a little worried when they got through almost their entire show without playing any of my favorites songs from Hello Master, but then they did "Lay Down" (some of you may know this song from Guitar Hero 3) and "I am the Night, Colour Me Black" plus "Talk to Her" and I was all happy.

The new songs are much heavier and more "progressive" sounding. That's OK, but I wouldn't have liked the band as much if their new album was the first I had heard of them. Although their new songs are interesting to listen to, often with twists and turns in the music. The openers were pretty decent too. I liked Trigger Effect's music more, but Early Man had a tighter performance.

This is the setlist from the Ontario concert but it seems like it was the same from what I remember (except I'm sure they played Run Home at the beginning somewhere):
-The Gem (this was like a 10 minute song!)
-Raccoon Eyes
-Two Kids
-It Baffles The Mind
-The Firebird
-Trapped In Space & Time
-Lay Down
-Sideways Attack
-Lunar
-I Am The Night, Colour Me Black
-Lady Killer
Encore:
-Everything That You Are
-Talk To Her
-Communicating Via-Eyes (this one is about werewolves...good times)

Borden System Words: Saskatchewan

2009-11-26T21:38:00.002-06:00

The Borden System divides Canada up into chunks based on the lat/long system to provide a handy way of designating unique site names based on the site's location and the order in which it was found (just like the Stonecutters!). It was created by one Charles E. Borden in 1952, while teaching at UBC. Borden is known as the grandfather of BC archaeology. This is despite the mild handicaps of having been employed in the German Department (although he was made a lecturer in archaeology after his first 10 years there) and being an American citizen. See a good bio from the CAA here, also American Antiquity printed an obituary for him. His contributions to BC archaeology (and archaeology in general) were numerous. Among other things, he excavated many important sites, was instrumetal in the pressuring of provincial government to pass the 1960 Archaeological an Historic Sites Protection Act, and of course developed the Borden Grid System which all Canadian archaeologists know and enjoy today.

Let's look at how it works shall we? Say we have the site FfNm-1 (that's South Branch House).

"F" is the Major South-North locator. Each North-South block represents 2 degrees of Latitude going from "A" through "U" (no V through Z). While "f" is the Minor South-North locator (the minor blocks for "F" range from "a" through "l"). For both the North-South and East-West, each minor block within a major block represents 10 minutes of latitude or longitude respectively. from south to north (a-l). "N" is the Major East-West Locator. To the South of 62 degrees, each of these blocks represents 4 degrees of Longitude from east to west (A - W). However, North of 62 degrees each major block represents 8 degrees of longitude. FYI: Because the distance between lines of longitude get smaller with increasing latitude, the Borden System changes at 64 degrees north latitude, from a width of 4 degrees of longitude to a width of 8 degrees in order to keep the area within each designate roughly the same. Lastly, "m" is the Minor East-West Locator, each block represents 10 minutes of Longitude from east to west (a - x). North of 62 degrees each minor block represents 20 minutes of longitude. The full Borden designation, FfNm-1, represents a roughly 16km x 16km area and the 1st site found within that area. Upper Borden grid maps are downloadable at the Canadian Museum of Civilization here.

Now rumour has it that Charles Borden went to great lengths to prevent cussin' via archaeology in his system and hence omitted several key potential Borden designations. That sounded like a challenge to me....

So, Saskatchewan (see the upper Borden grid to the right, click to embiggen) includes these Borden letters:
North/South - D(g-l), E(a-l), F(a-l), G(a-l), H(a-l), I(a-l)
East/West - O(a-l), N(a-x), and M(k-x).

With quick use of a scrabble cheating device (here), I found that the following 51 words can be spelled using the Borden system in Saskatchewan:

dims, dine, ding, dink, dins, dint, diol, elms, fane, fang, fano, fans, fems, fend, fens, feod, find, fine, fink, fino, fins, floc, floe, flog, gamp, gams, gane, gang, gaol, gems, gene, gens, gent, genu, gimp, gink, gins, glob, hams, hand, hang, hank, hant, hemp, hems, hens, hent, hind, hins, hint, idol

I guess "dink" is kinda dirty and "gink" is a slang word for a person or fellow that is often used in a derogatory context. Also, a "gamp" is an umbrella. It's not dirty, I just didn't know that before. Anyway, as it stands Saskatchewan is clean as a bean. You win this round Charles! Nonetheless, I remain undaunted in my task and will continue to scour Canada province by province for giggle worthy words!

p.s. I wonder if french words count if they're in Quebec.

Bohe-muppet Rhapsody

2009-11-25T21:22:00.001-06:00

A (late) BD present for those of you who love muppets:

p.s. Is it me or is animal looking a little funky?

You have the right to remain fluffy...

2009-11-19T21:24:00.002-06:00

p.s. Where's my Chile post?!

If swashbuckling gentlemen thieves had to deal with sports news

2009-11-13T20:47:00.007-06:00

from the Onion (these guys are hilarious!).You may remember the Onion from past posts.

Bad Boy Fencing Star Implicated In Yet Another Daring Jewel Heist

p.s. This reminded me of the Scarlet Pimpernel. I got the 1934 movie for Christmas one year and loved the black and white goodness! It's public domain now so is available for free (legal) viewing or downloading here.
p.p.s. Thinking of the Scarlet Pimpernel reminded me of Daffy Duck as the Scarlet Pumpernickel. One of my faves!

Salsa Dog

2009-11-12T12:38:00.000-06:00

I continue to wait for little cp's Missing the Chile: Epilogue post. Beware for I will be merciless in my postings until my demands are met!

p.s A sighting of the great FSM's visage in Chile, truly it is a blessed country.

Misheard lyrics #3

2009-11-11T10:12:00.000-06:00

Manfred Mann's "Blinded by the Light" (cause we talked about it yesterday). Weee!

What you actually heard:

[Chorus]
Blinded by the light,
revved up like a deuce,
another runner in the night
[repeat 2x more]

Madman drummers bummers,
Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin' kinda older,
I tripped the merry-go-round
With this very unpleasin', sneezin' and wheezin,
the calliope crashed to the ground
The calliope crashed to the ground
But she was...

[Chorus - repeat 4x]

Some silicone sister with a manager mister told me I go what it takes
She said "I'll turn you on sonny to something strong,
play the song with the funky break"
And go-cart Mozart was checkin' out the weather chart to see if it was safe outside
And little Early-Pearly came by in his curly-wurly and asked me if I needed a ride
Asked me if I needed a ride
But she was...

[Chorus]

Blinded by the light
She got down but she never got tired
She's gonna make it through the night
She's gonna make it through the night
But mama, that's where the fun is
But mama, that's where the fun is
Mama always told me not to look into the eye's of the sun
But mama, that's where the fun is
Some brimstone baritone anticyclone rolling stone preacher from the east
Says, "Dethrone the dictaphone, hit it in it's funny bone,
that's where they expect it least"
And some new-mown chaperone was standin' in the corner,
watching the young girls dance
And some fresh-sown moonstone was messin' with his frozen zone, reminding him of romance
The calliope crashed to the ground
But she was...

[Chorus - repeat 9x]

Blinded by the light

Madman drummers bummers, Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat
In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat
With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin' kinda older,
I tripped the merry-go-round
With this very unpleasin', sneezin' and wheezin,
the calliope crashed to the ground
Now Scott with a slingshot finially found a tender spot and throws his lover in the sand
And some bloodshot forget-me-not said daddy's within earshot save the buckshot, turn up the band
Some silicone sister with a manager mister told me I go what it takes
She said "I'll turn you on sonny to something strong"

Misheard lyrics #2

2009-11-10T23:24:00.007-06:00

The Clash's "Rock the Casbah" has always baffled me. In all honesty, I only learned the real lyrics just now.

What they actually said:

Now the king told the boogie men
You have to let that raga drop
The oil down the desert way
Has been shakin' to the top
The sheik he drove his Cadillac
He went a' cruisin' down the ville
The muezzin was a' standing
On the radiator grille

CHORUS
Sharif don't like it
Rockin the casbah
Rock the casbah
Sharif don't like it
Rockin the Casbah
Rock the Casbah

By order of the prophet
We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy Casbah sound
But the Bedouin they brought out
The electric kettle drum
The local guitar picker
Got his guitar picking thumb
As soon as the sherif
Had cleared the square
They began to wail

CHORUS

Now over at the temple
Oh! They really pack 'em in
The in crowd say it's cool
To dig this chanting thing
But as the wind changed direction
The temple band took five
The crowd caught a wiff
Of that crazy Casbah jive

CHORUS

The king called up his jet fighters
He said you better earn your pay
Drop your bombs between the minarets
Down the Casbah way

As soon as Sharif was
Chauffeured outta there
The jet pilots tuned to
The cockpit radio blare

As soon as Sharif was
Outta their hair
The jet pilots wailed

Chorus

Sharif don't like it
Rock the casbah
(He thinks it's not kosher)
Rock the casbah
Sharif don't like it
Rock the Casbah
(Fundamentally he can't take it.)
Rock the Casbah
Sharif don't like it
Rock the Casbah
(You know he really hates it.)
Rock the Casbah

CP sez "increase your wordiness":
Casbah - specifically the citadel of Algiers and the traditional quarter clustered around it. More generally, a kasbah is the walled citadel of many North African cities and towns.
Muezzin - a chosen person at a mosque who leads the call (adhan) to Friday service and the five daily prayers (salat) from one of the mosque's minarets.
Sharif - a traditional Arab tribal title given to those who serve as the protector of the tribe and all tribal assets. Can also refer specifically to a descendant of the prophet Muhammad through his daughter Fatima.
Bedouin - desert dwelling predominantly Arab ethnic group (previously nomadic but presently mostly settled).
sheikh - Arabic honorific term commonly applied to an elder of a tribe
rāga - refers to melodic modes used in Indian classical music

Misheard Lyrics

2009-11-09T19:57:00.010-06:00

Spurred by a recent discussion of the incongruous nature of misheard lyrics, I had to share this video highlighting the hilarious reality of singing along with the often incomprehensible Eddie Vedder. I especially like the "I said I don't want a whale in a box or a bag". Fantastic.

FYI here are the real lyrics to Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter" (curiously, I can't really tell which lyrics make more sense):

Unsealed
On a porch a letter sat
Then you said I wanna leave it again

Once I saw him
On a beach of weathered sand
And on the sand I wanna leave it again

On a weekend wanna wish it all way
And they called and I said and I want what
I said and I call out again

And the reason oughta leave her calm I know
I said I know what I wear that a box or the bag

Oh yeah can you see them?
Out on the porch
Ah, but they don't wave
I see them
Round the front way, yeah
And I know and I know
I don't wanna stay

Make me cry

I see
I don't know there's something else
I wanna drum it all away
And I said
I said I don't know where there's a box or the bag

Oh yeah can you see them?
Out on the porch
Ah, but they don't wave
I see them
Round the front way, yeah
And I know and I know
I don't wanna stay
I don't wanna stay
I don't wanna stay

p.s. You may remember Pearl Jam from this post.

Animal Mummies

2009-10-31T07:22:00.000-06:00

National Geographic has recently published an interactive article about Egyptian animal mummies. Interactive articles...they teach you while you learn! Hurray! Also, it has a lot of interesting tidbits like how the Egyptian Museum of Cairo's artifact ID numbers all begin with the letters CG. Did you know that hundreds of thousands on mummified cats were hauled from a mass grave near the village of Istabl Antar since their discovery in 1888. They were used as fertilizer in England. Much like the innumerable quantities of bison bones from mass kills here...but I digress. Besides that's all behind us now and current research is using these amazing specimens as windows into daily life in ancient Egypt, employing zooarchaeology (of course), experimental archaeology, and advanced imaging techniques to examine what species were present, their uses, and how the mummies were created (among other things). Cool beans!

The Egyptologist and zooarchaeologist featured in the National Geographic article is Dr. Salima Ikram, a professor of Egyptology at the American University at Cairo. In the following video from this article at Heritage Key, she explains some of her work.

Super fun Halloween bonus references (oooo scary!):
-Herodotus explains mummification
-The Apis bull and associated cult explained at the Virtual Egyptian Museum (see image to the right)

The Shock House 2009 (plus Zombie musings)

2009-10-27T22:16:00.021-06:00

Scary fun for everyone. The Shock House is in Regina this year (it was in Melville the last 3 years). It was 8000 square feet of zombie fueled good times.

To go along with this theme, I will also share some zombie-related tidbits I've been saving up.

You know, I recently read "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" (which is funny and also inspired me to finish reading Pride and Prejudice so I could compare and contrast).

As a taste, here is the first line comparison:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession
of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

vs.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."

And so it goes. Anyway I enjoyed it for sure.

It also reminded me of how I promised LP I'd do a post on the Zombie Survival Guide (which he gave me for Christmas last year). Thanks to this book I size up houses I see for potential survivability in a zombie attack. I'm ruined forever now (but I love it). For example, when picking a house to hole up in during a zombie outbreak, remember to find one with a second floor that cannot be accessed from the ground, then you destroy the stairs and voila! Safe zone (but be sure to fill up the upstairs bathtub with water and stash as many tools and provisions upstairs as you can get your mitts on beforehand). For practice, here's a link to a fun flash zombie survival game.

Lastly, here is a link to Jonathan Coulton's song "Re: Your Brains". He did a project where he wrote a song every week for a year. This song is my favorite (careful it gets in your head...much like a zombie... hahaha! Weee.), but he has many other awesome ones. It was featured in How to Succeed in Evil "Cheap Labor" Part 2 (there is also part 1 and 3). How to Suceed in Evil is a podcast/comic book about Edwin Windsor, evil efficiency consultant.

Go Riders Go! (#2)

2009-10-25T18:06:00.001-06:00

You may remember the Riders from past posts in which I watched the Scotiabank West Semifinal game between the Stampeders and the Roughriders (and then they went on to win the 95th Grey Cup in Toronto). Well, after some 5 years in Saskatchewan I finally went to see a Rider game at Mosaic Stadium. Although I had seen them previously playing against the Stamps in Calgary back in the day (like 2003 or '04 or somethin'). Anywho, what a sweet game! Pure awesome sauce I tells ya! As this article tells it, the Riders beat the BC Lions 33 to 30 with a thrilling overtime interception that snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Woohoo! It was super close up until the end there and when the Lions got their last touchdown some people got up to leave but there was still over 2 minutes left! Come on! And then the Riders tied it up and there was a sweet overtime that we were all standing for the entirety of. Good times. See the CFL game recap here.

p.s. Also, KW made me an awesome green and white scarf to wear, which I promptly spilled hot chocolate on, but it was OK because it came out with dish soap. Huzzah!

Früli and Pneumatic Transit (Chickens! Concert Series #30)

2009-10-07T01:40:00.007-06:00

Sweet, sweet Früli (link, link, link). The best pseudo-beer ever. Tasted at Beer Brothers whilst on a mini-pub crawl with the peeps to celebrate my first week in Regina (Update: they now have this on tap!). This was the first stop, then to O'Hanlon's pub for crazy grape-flavoured vodka. Then to the Freehouse, where we had weird ginger beer based drinks and some sweet potato fries and heard a good Canadian band called Pneumatic Transit (accidental concert series entry). And finally to Crave, a martini bar, for fruity martinis. We sat on the patio under a heat lamp. Then we got sleepy and had to drag ourselves home. What a super-fun night! Thanks guys!

Fun things to learn and know:
Pneumatic tubes are systems in which cylindrical containers are propelled through a network of tubes by compressed air or by vacuum such as those used in large plants and office buildings. A pneumatic transit system functions in this way to transport cars full of people. The creation of such a public transit system has been attempted repeatedly but always abandoned as economically unfeasible.

Chickens! Cultural Moment: The Dalai Lama

2009-10-01T01:55:00.011-06:00

A whirlwind trip to Calgary for a delightful afternoon with LP and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama (here's his office's official website). He was in town for the UofC's NOW festival to speak on peace through compassion. CBC news report on Dalai Lama's visit to Calgary here, Calgary Herald here, The Star here, CTV here, etc. What an inspirational speaker! It especially resonated with me when he spoke of secular ethics and how it is important for humanity to embrace morals and ethics separate from religion to be functional. I will do a bio post on His Holiness later (I promised LP) when I have more time.

There were several openers, the childrens sang and did a shadow-based interpretive dance. I especially like the singers who did the national anthem in English, French, and Cree. Also, an amazing cellist, Trevor Fitzpatrick, played for us. Here is the song he did:

Comedy Tour

2009-09-23T23:44:00.008-06:00

Funny times were had at the "Investors Group Comedy Tour" which featured John Wing, David Merry, and Ryan Belleville. I didn't even get suckered into investing anything (The joke's on them I don't have any money! Ha!)

Here 's a bit of John Wing's schtick from the comedy network (most of the jokes in the clips he told in his act for us although he didn't sing any songs). Wing was the MC, I guess, as he opened the show and went after each of the others. He was quite funny, although I knew a few of his jokes already from Comedy Now specials (or something like that, whatever would have had him in it that would have showed on the peasant-vision channels). David Merry was the least funny, he kept prompting us to laugh more. We laughed as much as your jokes were worth dang it! But the magic was cool. Ryan Belleville was absolutely hilarious! I laughed and laughed! Wee!

Chickens! Concert Series: LP edition (#1)

2009-09-02T11:50:00.003-06:00

LP had the good fortune to enjoy the Virgin Festival in Calgary as an early birthday present from his buddies this year. Unfortunately he is worse than his little sister at giving me blog post fodder so I'll wing it. I know he got to see such bands as Pearl Jam, Billy Talent, Mother Mother, and Metric. I believe they were all good. Umm... and they may or may not have played some old or new songs. Also, LP went into the mosh pit, which made the security guys sad because he is big and hard to drag down from up there. Stay tuned for updates if they become available (hint hint).

p.s. Pearl Jam has a new song that I like. Have a look as they performed "The Fixer" at Calgary Virgin Fest 2009 on August 8th.

Educational sidebar: Polaris

2009-09-01T21:56:00.003-06:00

While camping at St.Louis, I learned about how to find the north star using the Big Dipper. It's edu-tainment!

1. Locate the Big Dipper and the two stars that form the outer edge of the cup of the dipper.
2. Draw an imaginary line straight through the two stars of the dipper edge and follow this line to the handle of the Little Dipper.
3. The brightest star in the Little Dipper is at the end of its handle. This is the North Star.

Creepy Gnome

2009-08-31T20:36:00.000-06:00

Sweet zombie Jeebus! Little cp better keep on her toes if she goes back to Argentina! The gnome sightings in Argentina are apparently part of a chupacabra-esque craze that came to its climax in 2007-2008. The story was reported by El Tribuno in Argentina, then The Sun in the UK, and then picked up by Fox News. There is of course the usual he said/she said back and forth that surrounds all urban legends, with skeptics saying reports of the extremely high percentage of locals that belive in or have seen the creature are unverified (which is true) or exaggerated (which is probable) and that the video or photographic evidence is faked (which is easily done). However, locals have apparenlty reported seeing gnomes (or duendes) for several decades already, but reports of sightings vastly increased in 2007 after some railway workers reported seeing one running around the tracks.

Argentinian teens shot this video of the infamous "creepy gnome", whch is the most well known evidence. And it struck again in Clodomira, province of Santiago del Estero, Argentina!

p.s. This post is in lieu of a We're Missing the Chile!:Epilogue post that may never come from little cp (hint hint). Be forewarned! I will continue to post creepy things like this about your beloved South America if my demands are not met!

The Chickens! How to Guide (vol.4): Making an Excavation Screen

2009-08-11T10:12:00.002-06:00

I drew up some plans for some large excavation screens I made. I went uber-low tech and drew them in Paint too (it's easier than you'd think once you figure out your scale lines). The plans are also in the latest issue of the SAS Newsletter so they're even published (kind of). The reason I put these up here is because my first instinct when I was going to build new screens was to look for wood working plans on the interwebs. But to no avail because the best I could do was a plan for a tank-like shaker screen (but I wanted ones to be hung from from a tripod, hammock style from two trees, or what have you). So I thought I would do my social duty and post my plans here for other archaeology types to try (click to embiggen). They also work for geology soil sifters or compost sifters. Hey and if anyone out there downloads/uses the plans please leave a comment, I'd be interested to know if my social work was useful.

p.s. I put metric measurements because I don't care what the lumber industry says dang it (What are we? In the time of Charlemagne!?). But, since board types are named for their imperial height and width measurements (and S4S boards are subsequently finished to slightly less than that), you can check the "Did You Know?" box for S4S board dimension conversions.

Chickens! Cultural Moment: Midsummer Night's Dream

2009-08-09T11:51:00.013-06:00

Part 2 of this year's Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan festivities. One of the most commonly performed comedies of all time is Midsummer Night's Dream. It is not really known when exactly this play was first written but it was probably some time in the mid 1590's. The SotS took a 20s(ish) take on it with colourful suits and jazzy songs and all of the characters were in the military. Delightful.

This play features three interlocking plots sandwiched between opening and closing scenes relating to the celebration of the wedding of Theseus of Athens and the Amazonian queen Hippolyta. Primarily, we have the love quadrangle between Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander are in love but Hermia's father Egeus wants her to marry Demetrius. Demetrius loves Hermia but she doesn't love him and Hermia's best friend Helena loves Demetrius but he doesn't love her. What jolly farce! We also have the story of Oberon and Titania, the fairy king and queen. They are in town for Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding but are estranged because Titania won't give her page-boy to Oberon to be his minion because the boy is the son of one of her peeps who died. Oberon wants to go upside her head for being so feisty so he gets his henchman Puck to get him a love flower so he can make Titania fall in love with something or other and become too distracted to care about her page-boy any more (and also to be used to sort out the four aforementioned fools who are by now chasing each other through the forest at night). This leads us to the third story, that of the "mechanicals" (laborer/peasant folk) who are to put on the play-within-a-play about Pyramus and Thisbe that is to be the entertainment at Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. While rehearsing, one of the mechanicals, Nick Bottom, shows himself to be an ass and Puck decides to transform Nick's outsides to reflect this and points him at Titania (who was hepped up on love flower by this point). And bestiality ensued. Eventually, once Oberon gets what he wants, he gets Puck to put everything back to normal except that Demetrius is now in love with Hermia so all is well and all the couples get married and the mechanicals perform their play (badly) and there is much rejoicing. The end.

Now, let's talk historical references shall we:

This play draws on both Greek (Theseus and Hippolyta) and Roman (Pyramus and Thisbe) mythology. He was fathered by the Athenian king Aegeus (as in Aegean Sea, see: Minotaur myth re: throwing himself into the ocean) and Poseidon. Interestingly, this idea reflects the Greek understanding of reproduction at the time as they believed the mixture of semen from the two fathers would give rise to a son with characteristics of both. Theseus is also featured in the lesser known Shakespearean play "The Two Noble Kinsmen". In mythology, Theseus does marry Hippolyta, the Amazonian queen he meets and kidnaps in while traveling with Hercules. However, in some stories it is not Hippolyta, but her daughter Antiope that he abducts and marries. Being an Amazonian gave Shakespeare licence to have Hippolyta talk back to Theseus so forcefully during the play (actually Midsummer Night's Dream is touted as having very strong willed female characters throughout). Anyway, of course this caused a big ol' war between the Amazons and the Athenians. The Amazonians lost because they failed to reckon with the fact the Athenians had two demigods on their side (Duh!). He later ditched Hippolyta (or she may have died) once he became King, for Phaedra who was the daughter of King Minos. Theseus is most famous for defeating King Minos' minotaur in Crete (with Phaedra's older sister Ariadne's assistance) when he was a princely whipper-snapper. But, Phaedra falls in love with her son-in-law Hippolytus, Theseus' son by Hippolyta. In Euripides' play "Phaedra", Phaedra sends her slave to tell Hippolytus how she feels, but he is shocked and appalled by the news (he's chaste don't you know). Phaedra then accuses Hippolytus of rape, Theseus has Hippolytus killed, and Phaedra kills herself not necessarily in that order, and in some versions of the story she doesn't commit suicide at all).

The story of the star-crossed lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe, is from the Roman poet Ovid's epic narrative poem Metamorphoses (the 15 books of this collection of relatively unrelated tales of love, seduction, and history were completed in 8 AD). Among other things, this story explains why mulberries are red. Shakespeare liked this story so much he based Romeo and Juliet on it (which he is thought to have written around the same time as Midsummer Night's Dream). Shakespeare also took the name "Titania" from Metamorphoses, as it was the name given to the daughters of titans. Before this, traditional folklore held that the fairy queen remained nameless. Oberon, however, dates back to 13th century french literature as a fairy dwarf in the "chanson de geste" (transl. Old French - songs of heroic deeds) "Les Prouesses et faits du noble Huon de Bordeaux". As in many fairy tales, this one finds our hero charged with completing various impossible tasks for whatever reason (usually princess related), which he is only able to accomplish because early on in the story he was nice to a magical thing of some sort, in this case a magic dwarf. Other likely candidates for helpful things to befriend in such scenarios include: old people (especially crones), talking animals (also preternaturally smart but mute animals), things that are trapped inside of other things, water creatures that like music (only to be attempted if you have some sort of musical instrument handy), and deceptive earthly incarnations of deities. So keep an eye out for those.

Chickens! Cultural Moment: Antony & Cleopatra

2009-08-03T16:39:00.000-06:00

You may remember Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan from past posts (Twelfth Night, The Tempest). The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra was first published in the "First Folio" in 1623 (see right, click to embiggen). It is set in Rome/Egypt in 40–30 B.C. and follows the love affair and downfall of Mark Antony, one of the triumvirs of Rome, and Cleopatra VII, the last pharaoh of Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty.

According to the S on the S website:

"Mark Antony is Rome’s most honored soldier; Cleopatra is Egypt’s most beautiful queen who captures his love. Their passion blazes with infinite fire but makes Antony compromise his responsibilities to Octavius Caesar and Rome. To solidify political relations Antony must marry Octavius’s sister; but when he is lured back by Cleopatra’s mesmerizing charm, battles rage; Antony must choose between passion and honour. Antony and Cleopatra is a heart wrenching tragedy that will conquer our stage and your heart this summer."

Personally, I appreciate the more mature tragic romance of this story than of something like Romeo&Juliet (whom I always felt were idiots). Both the main characters are big (and often flawed) personalities and they have burdens and responsibilities and life experience behind their decisions and influencing the courses they take. Good times.

And now for some fun things to learn and know about Cleopatra VII and her whole deal:

-The degree of inbreeding in the royalty of Ptolemaic dynasty was so great that Cleopatra VII only had four great-grandparents and just six great-great-grandparents (four of which were descended from the other two). Click here for a Ptolemaic genealogy.
-Although Cleopatra is rumored to be the only pharaoh of this dynasty to speak Egyptian, her time was during the Hellenistic period in Egypt and so her main language would have been Greek (the Ptolemies ruled for about 300 years from 305 BC to 30 BC when Cleopatra committed suicide).
-Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy XII, died in March 51 BC leaving 18-year-old Cleopatra and her brother, the 12-year-old Ptolemy XIII as joint monarchs. Due to economic and political strife and Cleopatra's ambition, trouble a-brewed until she was ousted and sent into exile in 48BC. Later, Ptolemy screwed himself over by having Pompey assassinated in a misguided attempt to gain favour with Julius Caesar (with whom Pompey was embroiled in a losing military conflict) when he sought refuge in Alexandria. Cleopatra was quick to take advantage of Caesar's bilious humours regarding Ptolemy, so she had herself rolled up in a carpet and delivered to the Caesar. She had to do this because Caesar's palace was on lock down and she wouldn't have been able to walk in the front door. Anyway, apparently Caesar thought that was pretty cool and nine months later Cleopatra gave birth to their son Caesarian in 47 BC (Caesar was 52 and Cleo was only 21 when the two met). This also led Caesar to abandon his plans to annex Egypt and instead he backed Cleopatra in her attempt to recapture the pharaoh-ship (which she succeeded in doing after 6 months of war and the subsequent drowning of Ptolemy XIII in the Nile). Although this time she had to share with another younger brother, Ptolemy XIV.
-Once Julius was assassinated in 44BC, Cleopatra returned to Egypt with her son and brother where Ptolemy XIV came down with an unfortunate bout of poisoning. She then aligned herself with Mark Antony in opposition to Octavian (who was Julius Caesar's legal heir which made Cleo mad because she had hoped that Caesarion would be heir, being Julius's actual son, if illegitimate). She also had Mark behead her sister.
-Mark and Cleo spend the winter of 41BC together in Alexandria, then she gave birth to their twin children Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene II. Four years later, Antony returned to Alexandria while en route to slaughter the Parthians. He got Egyptian married to Cleo around this time (which made a lot of Romans mad because he was married to Octavian's sister Octavia too) and they had another baby, Ptolemy Philadelphus.
-Then some other stuff happened (i.e. war with Octavian, Cleo turning tail and running during battle, Mark Antony following her, etc.) and she committed suicide soon after Mark added some speed holes to his own torso. Famously, she did this by inducing an asp to bite her on the arm (although Shakespeare says it bit her on the breast, probably for shock value...or artistic license whatever). While this seems melodramatic of both of them (and it was), they were probably going to be executed by Octavian for all of their tomfoolery anyway so it's not like the pulled a Romeo & Juliet or anything.

The future is an adventure...

2009-08-02T20:46:00.005-06:00

"Nihilism" courtesy of xkcd.com comics by Randall Munroe.

p.s. If you're curious about the fine print at the bottom of the xkcd page, here's what it says (I don't get it):

We did not invent the algorithm. The algorithm consistently finds Jesus. The algorithm killed Jeeves. The algorithm is banned in China. The algorithm is from Jersey. The algorithm constantly finds Jesus. This is not the algorithm. This is close.

Little known facts...

2009-08-01T10:23:00.003-06:00

European pizza species are identifiable by their enlarged tubercles on the axial bones.

p.s. from the comic "Unstrange Phenomena" by Ed Allison

Blackfly

2009-07-29T23:29:00.005-06:00

The 1991 NFB of Canada animated film based on the song of the same title, written and sung by Canadian folk singer Wade Hemsworth about his personal experience surveying in Northern Ontario, with back-up vocals by Kate and Anna McGarrigle. Recently recounted to the field school peeps camping at St.Louis last week.

p.s. Turns out St.Louis has a pretty sweet free camp ground with water, power, and flushing toilets. They also have a giant statue of Bison antiquus (of questionable scale, but still cool).

Baldy Lake

2009-07-20T01:10:00.006-06:00

Super fun camping times at Baldy Lake. Located in Narrow Hills Provincial Park, a lovely little lake with a very low smeatness ratio. Also, went on the challenging version of the Gem Lakes hike (apparently). Some nice lakes that were pretty (although not as trippy as advertised).

South Branch open house

2009-07-17T15:35:00.001-06:00

Sunday, July 25, 2009 is the South Branch House open house day. All are welcome. Be there or be square! The summer excavations at the late 17oos fur trade post site of SBH are run by the SAS and go from June through July (volunteers welcome! Hint hint!) with the SBH Fieldschool to be held from July 23rd through 26th. Come and view the twisted archaeological riddles that dwell within! Marvel at the meandering southern excavation trench and the stockade wall to nowhere! And two, count 'em TWO, sets of cellar depression/chimney mounds! Amazing!

View south branch house in a larger map

p.s. There is also a SBH geocache (for the non-muggles among you).

We're Missing the Chile #17: Brasil Edition

2009-07-15T13:58:00.002-06:00

Now for more Brasilian doings straight from the little Cp's brain to your eyes.

Sites seen and purchases purchased:
- Capoeira - in the streets. It was cool. The instruments are played in a row called the bateria. The rhythm of the bateria is set by the berimbaus (stringed percussion instruments that look like muscial bows). Other instruments in the bateria are: two pandeiros (tambourines), a reco-reco (rasp), and an agogô (double gong bell). The atabaque (conga-like drum), a common feature in most capoeira baterias, is considered an optional instrument, and is not required for a full bateria in some groups.
-Cuíca - "you know in the samba music that goes squicky-squickey-squickey, it is the instrument that does that"
- bought bikini at Bumbum (hahaha), a fancy bikini boutique.

Fruits tried:
-obvious ones include manga (mango), abacaxi (pineapple), passionfruit ("maracuja" is passionfruit), and guava ("goiba" is really good and it is a common pop flavour)
-dragon fruit (maybe) and possibly guanabana while in Bolivia (check this post for notes on guanabana)
-acai, it's a berry. ya i ate that. it is ok, not great but meh
-acerola, ya i ate that too, but i do not remember what it is, but i remember i liked it
-caju I haven't tried yet (it's where brazil nuts come from), but i have seen them (see photo) and they are cute
- caja is good
- mangaba
-pinha is one of my favouites...it reminds me of an alligator

The Art of Patrick Douglass Cox

2009-07-14T18:41:00.007-06:00

Some of you may recognize the archaeologist depicted in this painting. I think we can all agree that MP has embiggened our culture with her cromulent archaeology modeling. The piece is called "The Archaeologist", (2008, egg tempera, 21x29in, $15,800). It is available through the Masters Gallery Ltd in Calgary, which specializes in historic and contemporary Canadian art. More of Patrick Douglass Cox's work can be seen on his website here (the interesting writeup about him/his family's history on the Masters Gallery site comes from his biography page).

Increase your wordiness:
Tempera (aka. egg tempera) refers to a type of paint (or paintings done using this type of paint) made from coloured pigment mixed with egg yolk (or maybe some other glutinous water soluble binder like glue, which is used to make the tempera called poster paint). Egg tempera is very resilient and was a primary method of painting until the 15thC, when oil paints were invented.

p.s. Click here for past posts defining "embiggen" and "cromulent".

Red Harvest

2009-07-12T14:14:00.015-06:00

2009 is the 80th anniversary year of the first publishing of the book "Red Harvest". This was author Dashiell Hammett's first novel and arguably one of the most influential works of American literature of the 20th century. Hammett was also the author of such books as "The Maltese Falcon", which gave rise to the character of Sam Spade the hard-boiled private eye - sometimes confused with his contemporary Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe character, which is understandable because they were both played by Humphrey Bogart ("The Big Sleep" is also considered a seminal work of American 20th century fiction). Anyway, Red Harvest started the gangster novel genre and blurred the lines of mystery and detective/crime fiction. While employing Western elements, he painted his characters in shades of grey, which contrasted sharply with the stereotypical white hat/black hat western mentality. And it was the originator of the pervasive "man with no name" antihero archetype and the plot device of the hero playing both sides to achieve his ends (and coming out victorious, but a little the worse for wear). This book gave rise to many influential movies including Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo", Sergio' Leone's "Fistful of Dollars", and the 1996 Prohibition era period film "Last Man Standing" (to which Kurosawa contributed his writing talents).

Name related ramblin's:
Red Harvest is also a decent Norwegian heavy/industrial metal band. And it's the title of the second album by the alternative metal band Bloodsimple (who clearly read the book because "blood simple" is a quote from the last line). I like them, they're vaguely Metallica-y and Godsmack-ish. "Blood Simple" is also the title of the neo-noir crime thriller that was the Coen brothers' directorial debut. The term describes the addled mindset in which people find themselves after periods of prolonged immersion in violent situations. The film is lesser known but it did make Bravo's list of film's 100 scariest moments.

Six degrees of Bruce Campbell:
Did you know Joel Coen also worked as an editor on Evil Dead? It's true. He also worked on Spies Like Us (1985) with James Daughton who was in Animal House with Kevin Bacon! Hahaha! Bacon number of 2! Click here for the Bacon Oracle, which can be used to connect anyone to anyone in the movies. It's default setting is Kevin Bacon but I think I'm going to start connecting people to Bruce Campbell just because mentioning Evil Dead just now reminded me of him (in fact I may make this into a sub-section called Six degrees of Bruce Campbell...there I did it). Let's see... Dashiell Hammett wrote The Maltese Falcon, which was made into a movie starring Humphrey Bogart who was in Deadline - U.S.A. (1952) with Dabbs Greer who was in Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat (1990) with Bruce Campbell! Booyah!

Wake Up and Smile

2009-07-09T20:10:00.005-06:00

Nostalgic hilarity courtesy of LP. The Order of the Hand will rule!

p.s. This sketch first aired in 1995 and appears on the SNL DVD "Best of Will Ferrell, Vol.2"

Meep meep meep

2009-07-08T09:45:00.000-06:00

Bok bok bok

2009-07-08T09:44:00.000-06:00

What's the Worst that Could Happen?

2009-07-07T19:15:00.003-06:00

A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate.

p.s. See past posts about Greg Craven's "The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See" and "How it All Ends" videos.

Mind of Pi (#3)

2009-07-06T11:33:00.003-06:00

Hey did you hear the one about the nudist colony? They used Windex to prevent streaking! Ahhhahahaha...ha...ha...weeee. Classic Dad.

We're Missing the Chile #16: Brasil Edition

2009-07-05T10:12:00.006-06:00

Saludos from Brasil to all the "Chicken!" readers out there!

So this will be the first "Missing the Chile" post written by little CP herself! I am constantly reminded by big CP that the fans need their Chile, and all the spicy details (ha ha ha...chili joke... moving on). So, I am sorry for the lack of Chile postings... but i am here for the Brasil edition.

My latest adventure has been to Salvador de Bahia also known as the Capital of happiness! Salvador is the Capital of the Northeast state of Bahia. Also, an interesting little tidbit, Salvador is the third most populated Brasilian city (after Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro).

Salvador is very mountainous and whatever is not mountain is deep blue coastline. So beautiful! I loved it so much! One of my favorite things about the city was how it was built; how the houses and buildings were built in the mountains. It is an interesting mix of old and new, and when we drove down some of the narrow streets I could imagine the history and the start of this beautiful city.

The architecture is so beautiful! There are many sculptures, statues, and the really big elevator ! The fountain statue in the picture to the right is the "Fonte da Rampa do Mercado" ("Fountain of the Market Ramp"), which occupies the site of the old Mercado Modelo. The elevator in the left picture below is called Elevador Lacerda . It is like an elevator for a mountain that overlooked the ocean. It was huge and so interesting and it just goes top to bottom, it does not stop in the middle (and where would you go if it did?). The elevator is the first to ever be installed in Brazil (in 1873). It links the upper (Cidade Alta) and the lower (Cidade Baixa) parts of the city, which are divided by a huge escarpment some 85m high (with the cathedral and most of the buildings on the high ground and the Northwest region of the city on the lower ground near the shore). It was really, really huge!
tagzaniapaste

That's all for now. Thank you Chicken! readers.

-Little CP

p.s. Archaeology nerd note (by big CP):

The Historic Centre of Salvador da Bahia was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1985. It was the city's centre during the Portuguese Colonial Period, and was named for the pillory (Pelourinho) that stood in the marketplace for almost 30 years in the early 1800s. According to UNESCO: "As the first capital of Brazil, from 1549 to 1763, Salvador de Bahia witnessed the blending of European, African and Amerindian cultures. It was also, from 1558, the first slave market in the New World, with slaves arriving to work on the sugar plantations. The city has managed to preserve many outstanding Renaissance buildings. A special feature of the old town are the brightly coloured houses, often decorated with fine stucco-work" (as shown in little CP's picture).

This blog for adults only? What the?!

2009-07-04T18:42:00.012-06:00

Go figure! Apparently I'm harder core than I thought. The rating works by searching for random key words like "dead", "sex", etc. and must compare it to total word count or something. I assume it's something like this because if I just rate the recent posts, the blog is rated R (the Evil Dead post puts me over the edge there I think) and flags "sexy" as a bad word and if I rate the entire blog it doesn't. Anyway, click the image to rate your own blog (just change the address in the box). It's set to my blog now and will update every time you click it (because I used the method below) so my bad word counts are only going to go up. Woohoo!

Here's a compiled bad word list (from the few searches I did to see if the results would differ). Ironically this post upped my bad word counts so this list is invalid now (there's at least 4 bad words in the first paragraph alone!). In my defense all of those cocks were referring to roosters (oh wait there's another one):

* dead (33x)
* death (25x)
* zombie (14x)
* hurt (12x)
* kill (9x)
* sex (8x)
* hell (6x)
* corpse (4x)
* shit (3x)
* cock (3x)
* murder (2x)
* pain (2x)
* shoot (1x)
* dangerous (1x)

A Chickens! How to: display all blog posts

Like I said, I set it up so it would rate the entire blog including archives (not just the recent displayed posts). To display all of your posts (for Blogger) just type in your http address followed by:
/search?max-results=N
where "N" is the number of posts you want displayed. So mine might look like:
http://chickensinsaskatoon.blogspot.com/search?max-results=1000
This works for backing up your blog too, just type that in and save the webpage (this might take a while if your blog is big). You can find out how many posts you have from the Dashboard (F.Y.I. I have 339 as of today).

p.s. Hell! Damn! Fart!

Oh Canada!

2009-07-01T10:57:00.005-06:00

The British North America Act of 1867 was proclaimed on July 1, now celebrated as Canada Day. It stated that the new Dominion of Canada would include the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia at it's outset (and that others could join later...One of us! One of us!). It established the provincial (each province would have its own seat of government, lawmaking body, and lieutenant governor) and the federal (stationed in Ottawa, composed of an elected House of Commons, an appointed Senate, and a governor-general) governing bodies. This act remained in force until the Constitution Act of 1982). Canada's first federal election was held in September of 1867 with 73% voter turn out (of course eligible voters comprised only 11% of the population, being white property owning men). Sir John A. McDonald's conservatives won 101 of the 181 seats. Also on July 1st: Oh Canada was proclaimed our national anthem in 1980, 100 years after the tune was first written by Canada's national musician Calixa Lavallée (although the lyrics went through several drafts during that century).

Some Canadian History links to help with learn-ding:
- The Canadian Encyclopedia from Histor!ca
- Canada Info Link
- Map from Canadian Geographic's Historical maps section.
- Play the Canadian History Game and nerd it up hard core! Woohoo! (unfortunately you must have Civ3 or Conquests 1.22)

Simpsons Spoofs: Old Art

2009-06-30T21:09:00.010-06:00

Since the last Simpsons art spoof was so popular, let's take a look at some pre-20th Century Simpsons art. This time we'll have a peep at some Italian Renaissance painters (turtle power!) and some influential Dutch artists. Learning is fun! Hurray!

Here we have Bart in the most well known panel "The Creation of Adam" from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling created for Pope Julius II. FYI That isn't the only Simpsonized version of that Sistine Chapel panel, in fact check the end of the Simpsons episode in this post for Homer's Sistine chapel ceiling. Anyway, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni painted the Sistine chapel for 4 years between 1508 and 1512. The ceiling is in the large Papal chapel in the Vatican in which Papal conclaves and other important ceremonies take place. The Sistine Chapel also features the work of other important Italian Renaissance painters including several large tapestries by Raphael.

Which brings us to our second feature. Here are two Simpsons takes on the detail of the cherubs at the bottom of Raphael's painting "Sistine Madonna" (c.1514). Raphaello Sanzio (1483-1520), like Michaelangelo, was an Italian artist during the High Renaissance. He lends his name to one of the 3 High Renaissance ninja turtles (Donatello was the odd man out because he was in the early Renaissance). This detail image has become much more recognizable than the complete original due to it's widespread use in pop culture, greeting cards, coffee mugs, etc.

And now, just to make our High Renaissance ninja turtle triumvirate complete we have Homer as Leonardo Da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man". This famous sketch was named after the Roman writer, architect, and engineer Marcus Vitruvius Pollio. Da Vinci illustrated his Vitruvian Man from Vitruvius' writings on geometry and human proportions in Book III of De Architectura. The sketch is probably the most recognizable Renaissance image as it has been used for many different kinds of symbols for logos, medical professional, etc. and it's even on the Euro. It is the embodiment of the Renaissance idea of the marriage of art and science. Da Vinci's notebooks are available at Project Gutenberg. Also from Da Vinci we have Homer painting the "Mona Lisa" (Simpson). The painting itself is smaller than you might think (only 77cm x 53cm)and is a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo. The Mona Lisa is owned by the Louvre in France but has actually been stolen twice. In probably the most famous art theft ever, the painting was removed by a museum employee Vincenzo Peruggia who was an Italian patriot who believed the art should be back in Italy. After hiding it for 2 years he tried to sell it to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and was caught. Italians in general agreed with his motives however so he only did a few months in jail for it. The painting was taken again in WWII and moved around. It has also survived several vandalisms as well as aggressive preservation techniques to continue to smile enigmatically at us today.

And last we have three drawings imitating some famous works by Dutch painters from www.limpfish.com (the artist has some pretty neat and funny art, mostly politically and/or socially relevant mash-ups, cool beans):

First, here is Homer as Rembrandt's "Self-portrait". Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn is generally considered one of the most important painters in European art history. He painted during the period known as the "Dutch Golden Age". So many brilliant paintings! I love his landscapes like "Mill", "Stone Bridge" and "Stormy Sea". I generally don't prefer his portraits but I like "Monk Reading". I also love "Philosopher in Meditation" and "Artist in His Studio", the way he uses light and shadow in the indoor scenes is beautiful! It has been suggested the Rembrandt may have had stereo blindness, which would have played havoc with his depth perception but would have allowed him to better adapt the 3D world to a 2D canvas.

Here is a Simpsonized version of Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring"(and here's a version with Lisa instead of Marge). Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) was a Dutch Baroque painter, famous for his vivid and detailed paintings often featuring individuals or scenes from every day domestic life. Baroque art was characterized by dramatic, vivid images using rich colours, intense light and dark shadows. The painting is undated but is considered a Vermeer masterpiece and is often called the Dutch Mona Lisa.

And finally, our most recent feature is Willie Van Gogh, a re-imagining of Dutch painter Vincent Willhem Van Gogh's September 1889 self-portrait (and here's a version with Homer instead of Willie). Van Gogh is was a highly influential Post-Impressionist painter and was the pioneer of the Expressionist style. This painting was one of several famous self-portraits Van Gogh created while in Saint-Rémy de Provence at Monastery Saint-Paul de Mausole sanitarium. He went there after "the unpleasantness" which included stalking Gauguin with a razor, chopping off his own earlobe (probably) and giving it to a prostitute, and all in all going pretty cuckoo although no one knows exactly why. All of the self-portraits from this period show the artist's head from the left (i.e. the side with ear not mutilated) and one of them, "Self-Portrait without beard", was one of the most expensive paintings ever sold, going for $71.5 million in 1998. Some of his most well known works date to this year in his life including what is widely considered to be his magnum opus "Starry Night", painted in 1889 and depicting the view outside his sanitarium window at night using swirls and densely painted impasto. The next year Van Gogh, in a deep depression, walked into a field and shot himself with a revolver, dying 2 days later, with the final words "La tristesse durera toujours" (French: "the sadness will last forever"). Despite the popularity and melodrama associated with his later works, one of my personal favorites is his early work "Skull of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette" (painted in 1885). I guess I'm just a sucker for comedic yet anatomically correct skeleton art.

We're Missing the Chile #15: Brasil Edition

2009-06-25T19:23:00.019-06:00

New fave food: Mugunza - a dessert made with hominy. Hominy is nixtamalized maize kernals (see pic below).

CP sez "increase your wordiness":
Nixtamalization is a process by which the hull and germ (pericarp) of a grain is removed by soaking and cooking the kernel in an alkaline solution (e.g. lime water or ash solution). The process was first developed in Mesoamerica (the word actually derives from Aztec and Spanish words) some 3500 years ago for the preparation of maize and the term usually refers specifically to this activity.

FYI: While unprocessed corn is an insufficient dietary stable, a combo of nixtamalized corn and beans does a body good because the corn picks up free niacin from the processing and the beans provide amino acids and protein. Mugunza has peanuts in it (which is a legume fruit like beans) so this dessert is actually a full meal deal. Except that little cp doesn't like the version with peanuts. So basically she likes corn with coconut milk.

Fave activities: continues to be Forró. So much forró...so very tired...zzzzzzzzz...

Places visited:
-Forró Caju (2009) - a huge place for partying (Badalando). Here's a map with a bunch of crazy things attached to it.
-Fazenda Boa Luz (a resort/farm) for dancing, drinks, and carrying on. Got flowers from a weirdo. Here's another crazy map.
-"Vila do Forró" - a traditional place where we have typical food and songs.
-Went to "Fazenda Mercedes" - the uncle's farm. Good sentimental times. Lorena was mushy.
-Colégio Master and Colégio Ideal - checking out various schools with the sisters, just being proactive with the edumacation and all.

p.s. Did you know the June 12th is the Brazilian version of Valentine's day? It's called Dia dos Namorados and it occurs on the eve of the feast day for St. Anthony of Padua, one of the 3 saints celebrated during Festa Junina. Also celebrated are St.Peter and Saint John the Baptist, hence the more common name for the festival, São João (Saint John).

Chickens! Cultural Moment: Evil Dead The Musical

2009-06-21T21:40:00.041-06:00

Weee! So much belated birthday fun thanks to my awesome bro LP (all it took was a whirlwind weekend drive to Calgary. FYI Drumheller had the cheapest gas by far). The story of Evil Dead: The Musical was actually a combo of the 3 Evil Dead movies with some poetic license. For example, many of the characters from "Evil Dead II" are missing and "Army of Darkness" was relegated to a few quotes (like the "boom stick" monologue) and a statement at the end. Also, Ash's hand gets bitten by the demon moose head instead of evil Linda and that's why it turns evil. Anyway, especially amusing in the play were all the inside jokes making reference to Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi, or horror movie standard plot devices. The show is put on by Ground Zero Theatre and Hit & Myth Productions at the Playhouse at Vertigo Theatre Centre in Calgary (which I had never been to before) and it is the first Canadian EDtM show outside of Toronto.

The fist half of the show basically covers the first movie (Evil Dead) in which our main characters Ash (sole survivor who, as such, loses all loved ones and his own hand to evil forces and is covered in blood repeatedly), Scotty (Ash's friend, man slut, coward), Linda (Ash's love interest and fellow S-Mart employee come evil demon), Shelly (ho that Scotty picked up in a bar), and Cheryl (Ash's sister, accosted by trees while following mother's advice to always investigate scary nigh-time forest noises alone with out waking the others) head to a cabin in the woods for some romance and relaxation (1 - Cabin in the Woods, Housewares Employee). They find a recording in the basement which turns out to be translations of the "Necronomicon" by the ill-fated Professor Knowby. [Side note: This was actually called the "Naturon Demonto" in the first movie and renamed "Necronomicon Ex-Mortis" in the sequels. Both are translated to mean "book of the Dead".] They then inadvertently bring on their own personal zombie laden gore-fest by playing the recording and all of the main characters proceed to by horribly killed except for Ash (2 - Look Who's Evil Now, What the F^%# Was That?, Join Us). Now the first movie ends around here with Ash destroying the book but with a cliffhanger of a demon coming out of the forest to get him.

Fun facts about Evil Dead:
The film was shot over a period of 1.5 years with an operating budget of $375,000 (even though it went on to be one of the highest grossing horror movies of all time). Not surprising then that the inconsistencies within the film are both rampant and glaring (imdb has a big list of them), but I think that adds to the humour. It was non-union so a lot of the actors used stage names to avoid penalties from the screen actors guild. Bruce Campbell was basically the only actor who stuck with the project to the end and was available for re-shoots so Sam Raimi resorted to using "Fake Shemps" for replacements. Although it featured a lot of slapstick, the movie was before its time in gore level (and also featured an infamous "tree rape" scene that garnered it wide disapproval), which got it banned in several countries including the UK (and an X rating before that). Although Quebec rated it 13+, go figure.

In the second half of the play we got mostly Evil Dead II plot stuff but they basically culled the characters down to Annie and Ed (archaeologists) and Jake (reliable). Features a lot of people running out of the cabin and coming back dead and Ash gets his chainsaw hand (3 - I'm Not A Killer, Bit Part Demon, All the Men in My Life Get Killed by Candarian Demons). Annie explains how to summon/kill all the demons then gets demonized herself (4 - Ode to an Accidental Stabbing, Do the Necronomicon, It's Time). Finally Ash kills everyone and all the demons spray blood on the people in the "splatter zone" and we find Ash back a S-Mart telling of his adventures (5 - Blew That B@#%* Away). The review "play enjoyed by all" speaks for itself.

Fun Facts about Evil Dead 2:
Goofs continue to be rampantly hilarious. Did you know that you can see the clawed Freddy Krueger glove at various points during the movie? They did that because the Nancy character in Wes Craven's "A Nightmare on Elm Street" can be seen watching Evil Dead while trying to stay awake near the end of the movie. Which was in reference to the torn 1977 "The Hills Have Eyes" (also by Wes Craven) poster visible in the cellar in Evil Dead. Oh movie types and their inside references.

History of the Necronomicon:
Made up by horror writer H.P.Lovecraft and included in several of his short stories. Lovecraft also wrote a fictional "History of the Necronomicon" story. Pop culture references include "Evil Dead" (duh!) and the Simpsons (of course) in which Bob Dole reads a snippet at the Republican party meeting in the first 2 minutes of Season13Episode7 (Brawl in the Family). Also the crux of a low budget movie called Necronomicon (1993).

1307

I love the spoof advertisements of posters for the Broadway mainstays Les Miserables, Hairspray, and Mama Mia! that were done up for the Toronto incarnation of the musical (click to embiggen):

Original "Evil Dead" (1981) Movie Trailer

Original "Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn" (1987) Movie Trailer

Original "Army of Darkness" (1992) Movie Trailer

p.s. I don't know how many of you watched the cartoon Reboot but they did an homage to Evil Dead 2 and the Evil Dead series of games (and there's also a Michael Jackson reference in there - RIP). The various games actually added significantly to the storyline. And speaking of games did you know that Bruce Campbell does the voice over instructions for the Spider Man movie games? Funny times.
p.p.s. FYI a movie version of the musical is in negotiations. Also, an Evil Dead 4 movie is in the works with Sam Raimi in the process of writing the script.

All the Great Operas in 10 minutes

2009-06-19T00:55:00.001-06:00

Recent cultural moments reminded me of a hilarious short film that I saw when I was younger (it was hard to find because I couldn't remember the title). This short film was made as a final year project in 1992 when Toronto animator Kim Thompson was studying at Ryerson University. It is made with cut-out animation and has a delightfully Terry Gilliam Monty Python-esque style. With dead pan narration (and no music) the film goes through a brief plot synopsis of 8 (well actually 11) operas and gives a death count and list of crazy stuff that happens.

The operas included are Verdi's La Traviata and Aida, Puccini's Tosca and Madame Butterfly, Bizet's Carmen, Mozart's Don Giovanni, and Wagner's Tristan and Isolde and The Ring of the Nibelung (The original Lord of the Rings, actually 4 whole operas, often called The Ring Cycle). While mostly good choices I would definitely argue whether these are actually the greatest operas. What about the Barber of Seville or the Marriage of Figaro? And why did she put both Tosca and Madame Butterfly on there but not La Boheme? Oh well. The total death count is 38. Silly operas.

We're Missing the Chile #14: Brasil edition

2009-06-16T10:47:00.002-06:00

Travel log: Aracaju
Home base while in Brasil. Capital and largest city in the state of Sergipe (the Brasilian Federation's smallest state).

Monkey work:
Monkeys are known as macaco in Portuguese (but remember that "macaques" don't live in South America). Little cp met some monkeys that frequent the trees where she is living. I'm told the monkey we want goes by the name of "mico" which generally refers to certain species of Marmosets and Tamarins. Specifically, Goeldi's Marmoset (Callimico goeldii) is called Mico-de-Goeldi and the Common Marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) as well as the Black-tufted Marmoset Callithrix penicillata) are called Mico-Estrela. The Lion Tamarins (Leontopithecus sp.) are called Mico-Leão with another descriptor depending on the species (e.g. the Golden Lion Tamarin (L.rosalia) is Mico-Leão-Dourado). We also know from Saskwatch-esque photos of the creature that it is brown with white head tufties and about squirrel-sized. My bet is the Common Marmoset (see the picture), which is found on the Brazilian northeast coast but has only recently (as in the last couple of decades) been introduced to the state of Sergipe.

Bugs:
Giant green caterpillar probably from the Saturniidae family (it's a moth larva). Sorry, can't do any better than that without putting more time into it than I am willing. So many different species of caterpillar in Brasil! The monkey identification was much easier, there was less than 20 likely species for that!

Foods tried:
-Ate some crabs. Mmmmm...Cancer pagurus.

Drinky poos:
Caiparinha the national cocktail of Brasil! Made with cachaça, sugar, and lime. Note that you can substitute another fruit for lime and still call it caiparinha, but if you use vodka or white rum for cachaça it is called caipiroska or caipiríssima, respectively.
Recipe: 1 lime, 2 ounces of cachaça, sugar to taste, ice cubes

Dances danced:
Forró - a Northeastern Brasilian dance/type of music. It's THE dance to do/music to listen to there apparently, especially during Festa Junina. There is a whole pile of variations and styles within the three major rhythms of xote (slowest), baião (the original forró), and arrasta-pé (fastest).

The Brazil episode (Simpsons, "Blame it on Lisa", season 13 episode 15). Apparently this episode got a very negative response from the Rio Tourist Board. They were mad at the depictions/mentionings of crime, rats, flesh-eating monkeys, the invention of the macarena, etc. The Simpsons people apologized but the controversy became a running gag none the less.

From Crackle: Blame it on Lisa

Cute With Chickens! #5

2009-06-15T08:00:00.000-06:00

Ahhh Christmas memories. Good times :)

Buddy, the snow dog.
Snow dogs Cameo and Buddy. Très Chic.

For some reason that reminds me of a comic I saw recently. Look the poodle has shifty eyes!

Chickens! Cultural Moment: La Bohème

2009-06-11T00:56:00.010-06:00

The latest offering by the Saskatoon Opera is Puccini's La Bohème. Puccini's best known work (except maybe for Madame Butterfly) and considered one of the most romantic love stories in opera. It is arguably the most commonly performed Italian opera and has inspired several popular movies, plays, etc. including Rent and Moulin Rouge (actually a cross between La Boheme and La Traviata). Pop culture references that I know off the top of my head include The Simpsons (of course) and Kate and Leopold (who doesn't love Hugh Jackman?).

The story is actually based on the novel "Scènes de la Vie de Bohème" by Henri Murger. Murger's work enjoyed little initial popularity but a subsequent play based on the collection of stories increased exposure and demand. It inspired another opera called La Bohème by Ruggero Leoncavallo, which descended into relative obscurity while Puccini's work became one of the most popular operas of all time. The story is set in Paris in the 1840's and follows several struggling artists, particularly Rudolfo and to a lesser extent his friend Marcello and their respective loves Mimì and Musetta.

Unfortunately, my musical knowledge doesn't really extend to the intricacies of operatic performance (yet) so you'll all just have to be satisfied with my juvenile "them thar singy peoples made my eardy boneses happy" impressions as opposed to an intelligent critique of their prowess. That said, I think it was a delightful opera and I enjoyed it thoroughly on the whole. You know, while "the man" says this is in the running for most popular opera ever, I can't say I recognized any of the songs offhand. The "Sì, mi chiamano Mimì" song stands out in my memory because I thought it was funny (what's wrong with the name Lucia?). Similarly the story has a few parts along these lines that are nonsensical prattling on, playing, or running around, but it's funny and adds to the charm and feel of the thing I think. Anyway, the tenor that played Rudolfo (Christopher Bengochea) was also in Rigoletto as the Duke. I actually liked him much more in this role, it suited him better than the playboy Duke character and I enjoyed his singing more because of it. While I generally don't prefer sopranos, the one that played Mimì (Marianne Fiset) was excellent and Musetta (Karen Charlton) was good too (she was a hussy but Marcello deserved it) and the better actress of the two. There wasn't too much in the way of lower registers in this one, but the part of Marcello is a baritone (played by Alexander Dobson) and was enjoyable and fun to watch, he played his character well I thought. And remember, if you get to go to the performance, keep your eyes peeled for JT as a hilarious Parpignol (and doubling as one of the background guys too). Yay JT!

Now, since I haven't had a non-english Simpsons in a while, here is El Homer de Sevilla (The Homer of Seville - Simpsons season 19 episode 2). The reference to La Boheme happens about 8 minutes in):

It's no ordinary rabbit!

2009-06-08T11:03:00.001-06:00

The monster that guards the entrance to the cave of Kyre Banorg (wherein, carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, the last words of Ulfin Bedweer of Regett proclaim the last resting place of the Holy Grail). A creature so foul, so cruel that no man yet has fought with it and lived!

"So, brave knights, if you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no further, for death awaits you all with nasty big pointy teeth." - Tim the Enchanter

We're Missing the Chile #13

2009-06-07T00:05:00.002-06:00

Drinkies tried:
-"Somo" a type of corn juice.

Activities participated in:
-Went to Blanca Elena estilista (with sexy results). It shall go down in history as that time when little cp was a model. Remember that time?
-Got Brasilian Visa (with sexy results)
-Hopped on a plane from Santa Cruz to Sao Paolo to Salvador to Aracaju. Whew!

Then it was "Goodbye Bolivia" and "Hello Brasil".

Ramblings about Brasil:
-Brazil is English, Brasil is Portuguese.
-Portuguese is the language of Brasil because it became a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until its independence in 1822.
-When Cabral first landed on the Brasilian coast at Porto Seguro, he thought it was an island and called it the Ilha de Vera Cruz (Portuguese for Island of the True Cross).
-In the 16th C, they realized it wasn't an island and renamed the collection of colonies Terra de Santa Cruz.
-Cabral appears on the bronze-plated second series centavo coin that began circulation in 1998 (but they stopped making them in 2003 and most retailers now round their prices to the nearest 5 or 10 centavos. 1 Real (R$) = 100 centavos. Bolivia also has their own centavos, 100 of which are worth 1 Boliviano (Bs), only they have stopped making coins worth less than 10 centavos. 1 Real is worth about 3 and 1/2 Bolivianos (actually 3.64297) or 1/2 of a Canadian dollar (0.580592).

Music to Archaeology by (Part II)

2009-06-06T03:01:00.000-06:00

It seems an Indiana Jones inspired song list is warranted (by popular demand). So, here are 10 more songs about Indy (remember we already have the movie theme song (by John Williams) and the L.B. Rayne 80s spoof mentioned in the previous "Music to Archaeology by" post):

Aqua - Dr.Jones (Here you go D):

Clouxcover - Indiana Jones (a metal cover of the theme song)
Guwumpkis - The Indiana Jones Boogie (a punk version of the theme song with some hollering in it)
International Superheroes of Hardcore - Just Like Dr.Jones
The Crystal Skulls - Dr.Jones (a spoof of counting Crows' Mr.Jones)
Lemon Demon - The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (just for fun, because Indy gets sacked by Chuck Norris)
Venom - The Ark (this one's for Tam! An Indiana Jones song from the seminal Black Metal band, the song is from the "Tear Your Soul Apart" album)

And some Spanish songs for the little cp (I'm pretty sure they're mostly about Indiana Jones, but she'll have to double check):
PAMELA JONES - Indiana Jones
Csi - Celluloide
Hombres G - Indiana

p.s. There are a pile of songs that mention Indy in passing as a pop culture reference too (e.g. Oi to the World by No Doubt, You Dreamer by Big Country, Regional Girl by The Monkees, etc.) but I didn't count them. Also, FYI you get 177 hits on myspace if you search for Indiana Jones as a song/band title. Most appear to be techno instrumentals or offensive rap. If we filter out the junk, there are a few that are decent songs from little groups like small city (doesn't actually mention Indy until the very last line), Echoe (they're from the Poland and they're fung-kay), Vermont, or Matthew Ridenour. Note: Holy cow there are a LOT of techno songs that are called "Indiana Jones". Although most are for no discernible reason some use the theme song somehow, like Speaker Chemicals.

We're Missing the Chile #12

2009-06-01T21:21:00.001-06:00

Travel log: Cochabamba

Fun Facts:
-The city’s name is derived from the Quechua words khocha pampa (meaning "swampy plain").

Drinky-poos:
-Famous for it's chicha (fermented maize drink).
Nerd Notes: Chicha is archaeologically widespread and has been identified using stable isotope studies (among other things) on account of corn being a C4 plant as opposed to C3 grains etc that have different stable carbon isotope ratios.

Unfortunately little cp didn't get to see a lot her first time there since she was only there for one day. But she saw the Cristo. It's like he's on the dashboard of the entire country! As well as the town square and went to the market. She got some great picks of the city too. Fun times! She intends her next visit to be more thorough.

Checklist of sites to see in Cochabamba:
1. El Cristo de la Concordia - Giant Christ statue that is situated even bigger than the Cristo del Corcovado in Rio.
2. La Coronilla: Hill with monument dedicated to the women who defended the city from Spanish forces in 1812.
3. various former residences and holdings of Simón I. Patiño (e.g. Palacio Portales and Pairumani aka. Villa Albina)
4. ubiquitous churches (most famous include the Catedral and the church at Plaza 14 de Septiembre, etc.).
5. archaeological curiosities (e.g. the Museo Arqueológico and the Casa de la Cultura).

p.s. This post was originally supposed to be up in May but was held back in case little cp went back before she headed to Brasil (so I could combine here two visits into a crazy super-post). Ah well next time.

Music to archaeology by

2009-05-31T23:19:00.048-06:00

Archaeology inspires a diverse playlist! Here's 50 songs related to archaeology. McShanty points if you find the bogus link to an old-timey learn and know video (Ahhh the ubiquitous flute music - I remember it from Hinterland Who's Who).

Alice in Chains-Them Bones (from the album "Dirt", note that the song "Dirt" isn't really about dirt)
Arrogant Worms - History is Made by Stupid People (FYI the Arrogant Worms actually have an album called Dirt! but none of the songs are archaeology-related)
B52s - Mesopotamia (I also like "Rock Lobster")
Bangles - Walk Like an Egyptian
Bauhaus - Hollow Hills (also the song "In the Flat Field")
Because - Archaeology
Billy Talent - Rusted by the Rain (because, you know, shovels rust if you leave them out in the rain. Also, I wanted a new song on here)
Boz Scaggs - King of El Paso (from the album Dig)
Cannibal Corpse - Buried in the Back Yard (This is about zombies and cannibalism, I just figured I had too much indy stuff on the list)
Chris Rosser - Archaeology (the album is also named "Archaeology")
Clutch - Bottoms up, Socrates
D-Tent Boys - Dig it (Holes)
Don Henley - If Dirt Were Dollars
Downchild Blues Band - Dig Myself a Hole
Godsmack - Voodoo
Greenella - Archaeology With Dynamite
Gruff Rhys - The Court of King Arthur
Harvey Dent - Archaeology Today
Honkey Dorey - Archaeology
I Mother Earth - Levitate (Album: Dig)
Jack Johnson - Traffic in the Sky
Jars of Clay - Dig
JayZ - Dig a Hole
Johnny Cash - Hurt
John Williams-Indian Jones Soundtrack (of course)
Killswitch Engage - Holy Diver (Think about it! You may remember this song from previous posts)
L.B. Rayne - Indiana Jones (Ha Ha Ha! 80's theme song. Weee!)

Mediocre Folk - Archaeology
Millennium Falcons - Archaeology
Misfits - Dig up Her Bones
Modest Mouse - So Much Beauty in Dirt (this isn't about actual dirt but I think the feeling behind it is appropriate)
Mystery School - Archaeology
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Dig! Lazarus! Dig! (crazy song, mostly not at all about digging, but I like it anyway)
NOFX - Dig
Paper Lions - Bones
Peter Gabriel - Digging in the Dirt
Popacatepetl - Archaeology
Randy Travis - Diggin' Up Bones (Ha! Just like at the track!)
Red Hot Chili Peppers - I Like Dirt (We want Chilly Willy!)
Skinny Puppy - Dig It (weird song with an incomprehensible video, but it repeatedly commands you to dig so it's OK)
Spinal Tap – Stonehenge (In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history...)
Steve Cruickshank - Archaeology
Steve Earle - Way Down in the Hole (I love this song so I put it on, even though it is more about putting Satan into holes rather than digging/taking things out of said holes)
The Hidden - Archaeology
The Mock Turtles - Can You Dig It?
The Problems - Archaeology
Thunder Lords - I Like Dirt (Unlike the Chili Peppers song, this one is actually about liking dirt)
Wintersleep - Archaeologist

I Want to Marry an Archaeologist from the old computer game Laura Bow II:

p.s. There are artists out there who have engaged in archaeology and then wrote songs about it (like this guy).
p.p.s. Also, here's some bands, albums, and/or songs named archaeology (but actually have nothing to do with archaeology): Archaeology (album: Archaeology), Archeology (album: Change of Address), Pop Archeology Transmission (album: It Is What It Is), Archaeology (album: Booming Fiction), Mike Gibbons (album: Archeology), The Rutles (album: Archaeology), Thinking Machines (album: A Complete Record of Urban Archaeology). Also, the song named "Archaeology" by artists Salt Shaker, Dj Spooty, Lennie Buck, Mike Shorthouse Experience, Abortive Gasp, or Grumblefish. Further, I omitted an abundance of instrumental jazz, classical, experimental, electronica, etc. songs that have no lyrics, so I wasn't sure how they related to archaeology per se other than having an appropriate title like "Archaeology" or variations thereon (e.g. by National Boulevard, Charlie Reinertsen, the Rob Brown Trio, Roberto Anselmi, Chinese Puzzle, Lafayette, Wilgira, Shitmat, Indoor Life, People Of Water, etc.) Forbidden Archaeology's self-titled album. Also, curiously quite a few electronica bands have albums named "Artifacts".

Cute With Chickens! #4

2009-05-30T10:21:00.000-06:00

By popular demand...gratuitous chinchilla photos! Now people are going to think that Chickens! espouses some sort of pro-chinchilla agenda! D'oh! Thanks to Lurker for the pics (keep 'em coming people!).

Quipu chewing on her volcanic block (mmmm, tasty pumice)
Quipu playing tug-of-war with her leash. Aww she thinks she's people.

Simpsons Spoofs: 20th Century Art

2009-05-27T17:19:00.003-06:00

It's time once again for The Simpsons spoofs. Today we're going to learn about famous 20th Century (mostly) art/artists. Woohoo! There have been quite a few art parodies produced officially by the Simpsons people over the years, mostly for posters.

To start with the most recent we have the ubiquitous "L'Enfant" poster of a photograph of a male model holding a baby. Taken by photographer Spencer Rowell in 1987, the poster has sold over 5 million copies since it was first published. Hmmm... I wonder who it's target audience is?

Inching our way back in time we have Lisa as Roy Lichtenstein's "Hopeless" image painted in 1963. Lichtenstein is most famous for his 1950's/60's comic book inspired pop art images. Though the images are painted in oil and Magna paints they will often depict Benday Dots to mimic the appearance of printing.

Continuing in the pop art vein we have a homer painting in the style of Andy Warhol. This most closely resembles Warhol's celebrity paintings made during the 1960's when he was focusing on iconic American symbols, excepting that Warhol's portraits would typically depict 4 (or more) identical poses with altered colour schemes.

Next is a spoof of Edvard Munch's The Scream (Norwegian: Skrik). This was actually a series of images that Munch made featuring this theme (and variations thereon) in different media starting in 1893 and continuing into the early 1900s (so it's still 20th century). It is painted in the expressionist style in which the artist will tend to distort reality to achieve a truer image of the emotional reality (usually angst-ridden). The painting depicts a happy little character expressing himself, bystanders in the background, and a landscape in Oslo at sunset.
Next we have a spoof of Georges Seurat's painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte). Painted in 1884 it is one of the most famous examples of the style of pontillism, in which a mosaic of distinct dots (using a reduced colour palette) forms the image. OK fine this painting isn't 20th century... and Seurat died in 1891 so I can't even say he still painted in the 20th century. Oh well.

Finally, just to bring us back into the 20th century, we have "Nighthogs". A spoof of Edward Hopper's most famous painting "Nighthawks" which was painted in 1942 (oil on canvas) and depicts a diner that used be on Greenwich Ave. in New York. Edward Hopper's art is some of the most recognizable of all of America's 20th Century realist painters. Meaning his paintings look like the things they look like - mostly scenes and people from 50's America, which makes sense.

A Bit of Fry and Laurie

2009-05-26T08:37:00.001-06:00

What's all this then? Delightful British humour with young versions K's homies Stephen and Hugh. A Bit of Fry and Laurie was a BBC sketch comedy show that aired for four seasons between 1989 and 1995. Some of the comedy is Monty Python-esque in its approach, there's a lot of dead pan humour, random misunderstanding-based jokes thrown into the broader story lines of the short sketches (for cheap laughs), sparkling wordplay and dry British wit. The sketches are interspersed with parody "vox pops" and the sketches often "break the fourth wall" by making asides, interacting with the audience, or breaking character (sometimes to discuss the sketch itself). There is also some hilarious musical parodies by Hugh. Embedding is disabled on the BBC YouTUBE channel but here's a link to the "light metal sketch" - it's like heavy metal but without the weight. And here's Hugh's Bob Dylan impersonation - all we gotta do is mnghffmnnn.

Learn the lingo (I learned 2 things!):
"Breaking the fourth wall" - in which actors (in a movie, play, etc.) cross the imaginary boundary between the audience/reality and the fictional setting of the story. Makes reference to the invisible wall that separates the audience from the action and through which the audience watches.
"Vox pops" - refers to "man on the street" interviews, usually featuring unrehearsed opinions and answers to questions in a public format. From the latin vox populi meaning "voice of the people" (also a song by Sepultura form the 2001 CD "Nation").

Cute with Chickens! #3

2009-05-25T08:00:00.004-06:00

Some people may or may not have suggested that we espouse some sort of pro-kitten/dog agenda. Well that's just plain not true and said unnamed individuals should pass on the chinchilla photos they promised! Although the argument could be made that I am pandering to the small but important little cp demographic by posting gratuitous photos of her cat. That said, how about some older cat photos:

Thea the cat. Dignified.

Thea the cat. Undignified.Fuzzy the cat. Chillaxin'.

Simpsons References for Moms #8

2009-05-24T08:00:00.000-06:00

"Yoink"
Usage: 1) Onomatopoeia referencing a common cartoon sound effect played to enhance the action of an object being quickly taken (esp. if being stolen).
2) Exclamation uttered when taking or stealing an object (esp. if in front of the original owner).

Reference to: first appearance in Season 4 Episode 16 ("Duffless"), but is a recurring Simpsons-ism). Click here for a Yoink list.

Other Simpsons-isms first seen in this episode:
"Pretty lame, Milhouse"
Usage: Whenever something is lame.

Other other references in this episode:
-parody of Sinatra's "It was a very good year"

Also,

Marge: Do you ever drink alone?
Homer: Does the Lord count as a person?
Marge: No.
Homer: Then yes.

Educational Sidebar: The Tilt-A-Whirl

2009-05-23T11:12:00.004-06:00

aka. "tilted world" (according to Mom) is my Mom's favorite fair ride (also, a song by the Insane Clown Posse). The Tilt-A-Whirl was invented in 1926 by the Sellner Manufacturing Company, which continues to be the only source of new rides. A new Tilt-A-Whirl ride costs about $300,000 (depending on the options you get) and takes 4 people about 3 hours to set up (assuming they know what they're doing). It features seven cars that can seat 4-6 people per car meaning it can give rides to as many as 500 people in an hour.

The ride follows a chaotic orbit-like motion. The seven cars are each fixed to a pivot pin on a circular platform. These platforms follow a circuitous track with 3 hills and 3 valleys at a set speed of 6.5 rpm. This orbit causes variable centrifugal and gravitational forces to affect each car, which will rotate clockwise or counterclockwise on it's set pivot point at different speeds depending on multiple variables (e.g. where on the track the car was when the ride began, where it is on the track at a given moment, how much weight is in the car and where it is situated, the friction of the various contact points between the car and the track, etc.). Good times!

It has been calculated that when the platforms travel at very low speeds each car will complete one backward revolution as its platform goes over each hill. Whereas at high speeds each car will be stranded at its outer edge (like swinging a bucket of water around). But at intermediate speeds (say 6rpm?) the movement of the cars is so unpredictable it has even been used by mathematicians in chaos theory! However, as any Tilt-A-Whirl veteran knows the ride can be manipulated by strategic leaning or if the ride's operator decides to mess with you.

Simpsons Spoofs: Album Covers

2009-05-22T08:00:00.001-06:00

It's time for super-fun Simpsons spoofs! Album cover edition. Hurray!
First, here is the spoof of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album that was done for the cover of the Simpsons' "Yellow Album" (which featured the "Hail to Thee Kamp Krusty" song and a bunch of stuff not from the show). Besides this there are quite a few album cover spoofs kicking around that were done up as alternative magazine covers for the Rolling Stone. These included three of the most influential albums of all time: The Beatles' "Alley Road", Nirvana's "Nevermind", and Springstein's "Born in the USA".

There was also the rejected Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" spoof

and David Bowie's "Aladdin S ane".

Educational Sidebar: Origins of the word 'spoof' from Dictionary.com
Dates back to the British comedian Arthur Roberts (1852-1933) who invented a game called Spoof, which involved trickery and nonsense. Later, the word spoof took on the general sense meaning of nonsense or trickery (first recorded in 1889). The verb spoof is first recorded in 1889 as well, in the sense "to deceive." These meanings have fallen out of use in favour of the noun form meaning "a light parody or satirical imitation," first recorded in 1958, and the verb sense "to satirize gently," first recorded in 1927.

Cute with Chickens! #2

2009-05-21T08:02:00.000-06:00

Some people may or may not have suggested that Chickens! espouses some sort of pro-kitten agenda. Well, that's just plain not true! We are heartily in favor of all kinds of cute animals! How about some interspecies friendship photos:

Thea the kitten with Cameo the dog. Sure it's cute, but they were only friends because the other cats hated Thea while Cameo was relatively indifferent.

And here we have Cameo, poodle of the wild!

p.s. You may remember these other past posts that featured cute animals. Please note that not all of these were kittens.

Chickens! Concert Series - little cp Edition (#1 - #3): Musica en la Bolivia

2009-05-20T07:58:00.002-06:00

Little cp has taken to attending various concerts at the Estadio Ramon Tahuichi Aguilera in Santa Cruz. It's an open air stadium, suitable for football matches and other things. Turns out she's been able to witness some of the who's who of well-known and influential South American artists. Lets have a look...

April 30: Los Fabulosos Cadillacs
-part of the Satanico Pop Tour 2009, El Tour del Regreso (comeback tour)
-one of the most influential bands of the Latin rock world. They've been around since 1985 and released some 15 albums until 2001 when they took a break. They got back together in 2008 and are currently promoting their most recent album, La Luz del Ritmo ("The Light of Rhythm").
-little cp's impressions: good times, danced it up all night long
-also, had a crazy beer called Paceña (brewed with pure Andean mountain water)

April 24: Bruno & Marrone
-They are some of the most popular Brazilian artists of modern sertaneja (a genre of Brazilian country music). They produced their debut albumin 1995 and have been producing at least one record a year until 2006.
-little cp's impressions: had fun, slower music but danced it up all the same

May 13: Franco de Vita
-the Simplemente La Verdad album tour 2009
-Latin pop artist. Born in Venezuela to Italian immigrant parents in 1954. Released his first album in 1984 and has since released many Spanish albums and has also recorded in Italian and Portuguese.
-super awesome concert...that's all I got
Update: -crowd was hilarious! Everyone was screaming like little girls...even the Moms :)

Simpsons references for Moms#7: made up words edition

2009-05-19T13:44:00.003-06:00

Embiggen: (verb.) 1. To make physically bigger, larger or increase in size.
2. specifically, with regards to computers, to maximize a window or image (e.g. click to embiggen)
3. metaphorically, to enrich, empower or to make more admirable or great.

Cromulant (also, cromulent):
(adj.) 1. specifically, as a direct reference, to assign validity to or question the validity of any word (e.g. is that word cromulant?)
2. generally, and assuming knowledge of the inherent reference for the purpose of amusement, to refer to anything that is legitimate, helpful, useful, or applicable to a situation. (e.g. Thank you for your cromulant assistance).
3. ironically or sarcastically (depending on intent), used to mean legitimate, but is in reality, spurious and not at all legitimate.
4. used to describe a dubious or made up word, term, or phrase that sounds plausible because it makes logical sense within existing language conventions (e.g. meese as the plural of moose). Usage of the word cromulant in this sense is ironic as the word itself is incromulant (and arguing the cromulance of the word incromulant is doubly ironic).

(Ant.) Incromulant: (adj.) used to describe a dubious or made up word, term, or phrase that does not makes logical sense within existing language conventions, but may make sense in a cultural context (e.g. "Meh" - 1. an interjection meaning mediocre, lackluster, unexceptional, or uninspiring or 2. used to express feelings of general malaise, indifference, or blandness).
Note: The word "incromulent", while it modifies the word cromulant in a cromulant way, it is not a cromulant word as the word base itself is not cromulant. Although, arguably, making a cromulant word out of an incromulant one may encromulate the new word to some extent.

Reference to: Season 7 Episode 16 ("Lisa the Iconoclast")

Jebidiah Springfield [on film]: "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man."
Ms.Krabapple: Embiggens? I never heard that word before I moved to Springfield.
Ms.Hoover: I don't know why. It's a perfectly cromulent word.

p.s. Note that there was in fact a memorial service for Adlai Stevenson in Springfield, Ill. right after he died, but he is not actually buried there. Although it is a temporally appropriate homage considering all of the JFK references in the episode (including the parody of the infamous JFK "wanted for treason" poster).

We're Missing the Chile #11

2009-05-18T07:28:00.003-06:00

Little cp's adventures now take us to Bolivia for a stay from April 13 through to early June with the home base in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. FYI Bolivia is divided into 9 departamentos and Santa Cruz de la Sierra (commonly called Santa Cruz) is the capital city of the Santa Cruz department. Each department is further divided into provices (provincias) and then into municipalities (municipios). Bolivia is pretty awesome (check eTravelPhotos for some good images). It is home to such treasures as the colonial cities of Sucre (the legal capital of Boliva and a UN designated World Cultural Heritage Site) and La Paz (the governmental/working capital of Bolivia, Bolivia’s largest city and the main international hub), the Altiplano region containing Salar de Uyuni (the world's largest salt flat - come for the salt, stay for the famous Salt Hotel, it's made of salt...SALT!) and the Potosí silver mines (Potosí claims to be the highest city in the world), and of course there is Lake Titicaca (the highest navigable lake in the world, birthplace of civilization, home of the Uro people and their floating reed islands). Cool beans!

Home base log: Santa Cruz

Personal musings: Santa Cruz is different than anywhere else in Bolivia. It's a working town and most of the money is there. More different kinds of people.

Activities participated in:
-went to a dance class
-enrolled in Spanish class
-10 massages for $70!? Outrageous!
-have nails again, got nails done
-new found love of going to concerts (more on this as it develops)

View bolivia in a larger map

p.s. I recognize that "Missing the Chile" is kind of a misnomer post title now that little cp has spread her South American wings...but what'er ya gonna do.

Cute with Chickens! #1

2009-05-17T08:00:00.001-06:00

Please forgive the unabashed rip-off of a certain other cute-related website that little cp and I have frequented in the past. We were discouraged because it apparently takes a lot more badgering than I am willing to do to get our cute pictures on it. But, then I remembered that I have my own blog...Ha!

Thea the kitten. Brand new. Awww look the little cutey is doing something cute.

Thea the kitten. It's a demon! You may remember a similar Thea the kitten picture from this post.

Thea the kitten. Food goes in here.

p.s. If anyone else feels their cute animal pictures must be shared with the Chickens! community at large send them over and I'll put them up. I'll even award Captain McShanty points to all participants! Redeemable wherever pirates are selling Captain McShanty brand topically relevant merchandise.

Fish Bones

2009-05-16T21:43:00.000-06:00

Ha Ha Ha! It's funny because it's true! Every zooarchaeologist has at least one moment like that. Watch this nerdtastically hilarious short film loosely based on events that led to this article:
Porcasi, J. F. and S. L. Andrews. 2001. Evidence for a prehistoric Mola mola fishery on the southern California coast. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 23:51–66.

We're Missing the Chile #10

2009-05-15T08:00:00.004-06:00

In which we continue our recounting of little cp's adventures in Argentina. Sites seen in Buenos Aires:
1. La Boca - Little cp's favorite part! Colourful buildings, restaurants with live tango dancers, musicians playing sambas in the streets...What's not to like? Some musicians just walked into the restaurant little cp was eating at and started playing! Then some customers started dancing! Good times! Also, saw some street dancers doing national dances and walked along the Calle Caminito.

Scenes from La Boca:

2. La Recoleta Cemetery - Interesting and large cemetery in upscale district. Click here for a walk through. Some of the tombs had been broken into. One had a cat living in it! Mostly famous for being the final resting place of Eva Peron.

Historical Note: The life of the much loved, much popularized Eva Peron is interesting and fraught with political and personal strife, but I'm not going to talk about that because we're talking about the cemetery (focus people!). More appropriate to the topic at hand is the crazy story of what happened to her after she died. After her death in 1952, the corpse was embalmed and put on display at the headquarters of the General Confederation of Labor (many thousands of admirers would come from far and wide to see her, light candles, hold vigils, and other fun Catholic things). It was due to the meticulousnes of her embalmer, Pedro Ara, that the body managed to stay in such pristine condition, potentially forever (he even preserved the body with all its internal organs, which are normally removed). Apparently he was going for Lenin-quality preservation...it took him a year to accomplish. Anyway in 1955, the military leaders who overthrew Juan Peron confiscated Eva Peron's corpse because they were afraid that the opposition would use the body to rally the populace. Since the body was such a powerful symbol (for the nation's poor especially) they couldn't just destroy it or they would risk massive repercussions. So they tried to hide it, but they were never able to keep it totally hidden/secret from locals, who would bring flowers and other offerings. This was in spite of trying to trick people by employing multiple wax replicas of the body that Pedro Ara had made. One story goes that, after many stays in various and sundry military installations in Buenos Aires, the body was taken to the house of an army major who stored it in his attic. But (and this goes to the legend of Eva's haunting of Argentina/her corpse/her resting place), the major mysteriously shot his wife and so the body had to be moved again. The military decided to send the body to a secret site in Italy where it was buried under the name "Maggi"(this was in '57). Juan, who had been exiled to Spain, managed to recover it in 1971 in exchange for granting his blessing to the new Argentinian regime of the day. He stored it in an open casket in his house! Far from being weirded out by this, his then wife Isabel performed daily devotions and even combed it's hair. Peron was re-elected in 1974 but promptly died and Isabel went back to Argentina to succeed him as president and brought Eva with her (persumably to lend support to her presidency). The body stayed at the presidential estate until 1976 (when Mrs. Peron was overthrown) when it was finally buried in the Duarte (Eva's maiden name) family tomb in the Recoleta Cemetery. She lies in a glass case 6 metres underground, surrounded by bank vault-esque steel plates. Whew!

3. Casa Rosada - President's house. Pink-coloured because mixed white and red (the conservative and liberal colours).

4. Obelisco - The Obelisk of Buenos Aires, built in 1936 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the city's founding.
Fun things to do with your Obelisk:
-acrobatic highwire acts
-hang signs geared at silencing the masses
-celebrate football wins
-put a giant pink condom on it
-dress it up like a pencil in remembrance of la Noche de los Lápices.

5. Floralis Generica - giant metal sculpture of a flower made by architect Eduardo Catalano in 2002. It is 23 metres tall and has a mechanism inside that opens the 6 petals in the morning and closes them at night. Cool! It is located in the Plaza Naciones Unidas (behind El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes).

6. El Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes - The National Fine Arts Museum houses some of the most important art pieces in South America. Showcases important pre-20th Century works from all over the world (and the occasional contemporary artist). I don't know much about art but they have a Monet that I recognize from that Monet coffee table book my parents have. I dunno, you could spend days there looking! Also the building has an interesting history...

7. Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo - Spitting distance from #5 and #6. Cool museum with a grab bag of fancy pants decorative art from furniture to porcelain housed in what was once one of the country’s grandest single-family homes in the early 20th century.

Personal observations:
-So many plazas! San Martin (of course), Chile, Uruguay, Francia, Republica, etc. Also there are so many museums in Buenos Aires! Too many things to see in a day! Sensory overload!
-Saw a local dance troupe doing capoeira. Neat.
-Buenos Aires has amazing ice cream!
-The wealth disparity in the city is clearly evident in it's slums with hole-ridden buildings and people begging for change to live. Upsetting and makes you appreciate how much we have in Canada.

FYI: Italian connections:
Did you know that Argentina has a significant Italian/Italian ancestry population? It's true! Italians formed a significant portion of the immigrant population to Argentina since the late 1870s (although the flow has stemmed in since the 1960s). Many features of Italian culture have permeated Argentinian culture such as customs and food (resulting in the many many Italian inspired, Argentinian fusion restaurants). If Wikipedia is to be believed, Argentina has 1.5 million Italian speakers and 60% of Argentinians have some sort of Italian ancestry. Hmmm...coincidence that little cp like this place so much?

p.s. Check the detailed map below and see if you can find the places mentioned (click to embiggen).

Chickens! Concert Series #0.5: The posts that never were

2009-05-14T08:10:00.007-06:00

Ahh the pre-blog concerts, what I can remember anyway (please feel free to help my faulty memory out anybody). In roughly chronological order:

pre 1999:
various Lionel Hampton Jazz Fests - Diana Krall/Brian Bromberg/Lionel Hampton/etc.

1999-2005:
Gob/Matthew Good/Moist - Dec. 4 at the Max Bell Centre. My first rock concert. I brought LP. He was sick. He's such a little trooper :)
Default/Nickelback - Fine! I admit it! I saw Nickelback! There! Are you all happy now! Bah! I don't care what you all say, I like Default.
54-40 - at the Stampede, it was raining. Shocked at how many songs I knew but hadn't realized were by them.
Finger Eleven - 1st time at the Stampede 2nd time here.
Sparta-Like 2 days before I left Calgary to go to S'toon.

post 2005:
Stabilo-at Louis', I was a little tipsy...
Theory of a Deadman - at the Ex with D. Fun times! Went on rides (but then I got a little sick and I had to sit down...But then I rode them again!) and showed D how to play skeeball.
The Tragically Hip-heard in the park with K (didn't shell out to actually get into the Bess courtyard to see them though).
various past Sask Jazz Fests - I've previously mentioned seeing Buddy Guy during the Sask Jazz Fest but also spotted there: Hurricane Cletus, Big Dave McLean, DJ Champion, Joshua Redman, Ndidi Onukwulu - these are just the ones I can remember, and they weren't all at the same Jazz Fest.

p.s. Gob circa 1999. "I Hear You Calling" from the album "The World According to Gob".

We're Missing the Chile #9

2009-05-13T13:28:00.001-06:00

Stardate: March 10-ish
(Note that this comes a week or two after Pichelemu in the WMtC timeline. Sorry, I've been dropping the ball on the posts here. -CP)

Travel log: Argentina

Took the bus to Mendoza:
- road was bumpy, zig-zaggy, & crazy (as mountain roads are wont to do).
- went through the Paso Libertadores (aka. Cristo Redentor), the main route through the Andes from Santiago (Chile) to Mendoza

Mendoza:
- small and pretty city
- plazas abound (e.g. San Martin, Independencia, etc.)
- lots of plazas to San Martin everywhere
- Historical Note: José de San Martín (aka. José Francisco de San Martín Matorras), the national hero of Argentina, general in chief of many and varied armies, instrumental in the liberation of the majority of Spanish-speaking South America from Spain by the 1820s. Not to be confused with Andrés San Martín the Argentinian footballer.

Buenos Aires:
-traveled from Mendoza to Buenos Aires.
-Stats: Capital of and largest city in Argentina. Home to some 3 million people just in the city proper. Highly dedicated to music, art, historic, and cultural pursuits on both a grand and small scales it features one of the world's greatest opera houses Teatro Colón as well as spontaneous dancing in the streets. Needless to say, little cp loves her some Buenos Aires.
-bought a tourist-y map and went to all the places (to be discussed).

View Argentina in a larger map

p.s. How Argentinians make popcorn:

Chickens! Concert Series #29: Easter Metal

2009-04-12T10:49:00.001-06:00

Wow haven't been to a concert in a while! But what better way to ring in Easter Sunday than a lovely Easter lunch/supper at Debbie's (Mm-mmm that's good eatin'!) followed by a steaming pile of blasphemous heavy metal? Plus I got in free thanks to Tam's buddy (thanks!), making it all the sweeter. However I did manage to forget my ID and met with staunch resistance when I tried to weasel my way into the beer area (apparently I look 19! unlike last time we went to Prairieland and I also forgot ID but talked my way into the beer gardens anyway, and I was younger then too. Oh well.)

Anyway, the bands included:
God Forbid - who I don't know and they only played like 3 songs apparently, so whatevs.

Municipal Waste - a hilarious caricature of themselves that made me giggle. Craptacular and only good for ironic reasons, not musical ones.

As I Lay Dying - were good and energetic. A NWOAHM band like Lamb of God, I swear I've heard them before, but apparently I haven't. They must have one of those sounds I guess.

Children of Bodom - A Finnish band that I've seen before at Gigantour. They were the highlight of the show for me because I like them and my energy fizzled out after four bands without any sugar. But one or two of them may or may not have been drunk/high. Alexi got hit with a shoe! Ha! They played such songs as: Silent Night Bodom Night, Hate Me, Hellhounds On My Trail, Living Dead Beat, Angels Dont Kill, Bodom Beach Terror, In Your Face, Blooddrunk, (I'm mostly just familiar with their latest album so I was happy they played Blooddrunk), and Downfall.
Fun facts about CoB: Formed in 1994 in a town called Espoo. They took their name from the infamous Lake Bodom murders that occured there in the 60's and play out like a hackneyed horror movie plot (OK let's all go to that deserted lake where the sexy teenagers were killed 100 years ago tonight).

Lamb Of God - I've also seen LoG before when they opened for Metallica. I must say I enjoyed them much more last time. But in their defence, like I said I had fizzled out by this time so the energy wasn't there. They were pretty good, I can't complain, but there is no way anything will top the Metallica concert so any further LoG shows will pale in comparison anyway (that's just the way it is! Deal with it!). Randy looked like he almost fell down and I think he hurt himself near the end but kept going. He's such a trooper. They are pedaling their new album called "Wrath", which I haven't had a chance to listen to yet (we'll see if I remember to get it for the collection).

We're Missing the Chile #8

2009-03-18T22:21:00.002-06:00

Travel log: Pichelemu
-Meant to go surfing but didn't end up getting to. Shopping ensued.

New Discoveries:
-They had these 1/2 monies called 1/2 escudos! The escudo (Eº) was the currency of Chile between 1960 and 1975. This came between old pesos (1000 pesos = 1 escudo) and new pesos (1000 escudos = 1 peso). Ahh inflation...

Dr.Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

2009-03-15T23:00:00.000-06:00

A brilliant online mini-series by Joss Whedon about the musical misadventures of Dr.Horrible (played by Neil Patrick Harris) and his dreams to be inducted into the Evil League of Evil, thwart his nemesis the egomaniacal superhero Captain Hammer (played by Nathan Fillion), and find love at the laundromat. Hi-larious! Here's the official website. There is also a related promo comic book about Captain Hammer from Dark Horse Comics called Be Like Me! (it's free). The show was conceived and produced by Joss during the heat of the writer's strike and released briefly on the internet in July. Here's an excerpt from Joss' Master Plan letter of explanation:

A LETTER FROM JOSS WHEDON

Dear Friends,

At last the time has come to reveal to you our Master Plan. BEWARE! Those with weak hearts should log off lest they be terrified by the twisted genius of our schemes! Also pregnant women and the elderly should consider reading only certain sentences. Do not mix with other blogs. Do not operate heavy machinery while reading this blog. You must be this tall to read. ‘Kay?

It is time for us to change the face of Show Business as we know it. You know the old adage, “It’s Show Business – not Show Friends”? Well now it’s Show Friends. We did that. To Show Business. To show Show Business we mean business. (Also, there are now other businesses like it.)

And from the FAQ in the aforementioned letter:

1) Why, Joss? Why? Why now, why free, why us?

Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.

Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first.

Here's Act 1 Part 1:

Pi and Comedy

2009-03-14T09:43:00.006-06:00

Fun times catching Dan Quinn (and openers Amanda Perrin and Brendan Clark) at the Laugh Shop at the Parktown Hotel.

Also, a shout out to my cousin Daniel for "Pi Day". The comic is from Savage Chickens.

Fun facts about pie:
Pies date back to Egyptian times (around 2000BC) and then spread to the Greeks then the Romans (there is archaeological evidence of Roman pie dishes from sites in Kent). These were probably only meat pies and fruit pies were invented later. They say Queen Elizabeth I made the first cherry pie (yeah I bet she did a lot of baking...nothing but ruling England and baking). Other great moments in pie history include, Oliver Cromwell's banning of mincemeat pies in 1657 (he also canceled Christmas but Charles II brought it back). They say the law was never repealed so mincemeat pies are still illegal (mmmm...forbidden pie). But Cromwell was really only against for gluttonous Christmas-celebrating pagans in England so most of us are off the hook I think.

We're missing the Chile #7

2009-03-01T23:39:00.001-06:00

Travel log: Isla de Chiloé (continued) and Southern Chile
-Checked out Ancud, Castro (already mentioned), and Quellon.
-In Southern Chile saw Colbun and Puerto Varas

Puerto Varas:
-Stayed 2 days in a mansion-y hotel with the best shower encountered so far in Chile. Good times.
-Went swimming in the lake
-Thumbs up to this beautiful little city.
Check out this virtual 360degree tour of Puerto Varas.

Then a short detour to Valdivia to meet a buddy.

Colbun/Lago Colbun
-Hot and humid!
-Man-made lake was super muddy and gross (turns out that was a good thing - FYI bikinis are not for diving in).

View Larger Map

Happy Birthday Dad!

2009-02-02T08:00:00.001-06:00

I especially like the lollipop in his fur (from OffTheMark comics). Also a big HBD to my Uncle Luigi!

For Dads who like the math:
Did you know that in a group of 57 people the odds are 99% that at least two will have the same birthday? It's true! It's a math thingy called the birthday paradox.

p.s. You may remember Dad/Groundhog Day from previous posts.

Happy Birthday Mom (and Robbie Burns)!

2009-01-25T09:00:00.003-06:00

Robert Burns was born on this day in 1759 in Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland and died the 21st of July, 1796. Today (Robbie Burns Day) is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scotland's favorite poet and bard. A handy time line of his life can be found here. Among other things he is author of the oh so famous song "Auld Lang Syne" (FYI translated from Scots auld lang-syne literally means "old long since" or "old long ago". I like to think it's use in the song is like "for old times sake" but that's just me). Did you know Auld Lang Syne was fitted to music after his death? It's true, it was a poem until then. He actually wrote almost no original music, preferring instead to adapt his poems to folk songs and music he found lying around. His poems were lyrical, heartfelt, sometimes bawdy, sometimes unabashedly romantic, sometimes thrilling, always in Scots dialect, and always with an essence of championing Scottish culture (in one form or another). Other less well known poems that I've heard of include "A Red, Red Rose", "Coming Thro' the Rye", and "A Man's a Man for A' That". Good times.

A Red, Red Rose (Mom warning! Although this is a happy love song, please note that this version is pretty sad sounding so you'll probably snivel):

A Man's a Man for A' That (this video is part of a series of similar animations of the famous Robbie Burns portrait saying some of his poems):

p.s. You know who does a good version of Auld Lang Syne? A new Scottish singer named Paolo Nutini. He also does a cover of Bang Bang that I like.

p.p.s. Robbie Burns night also means that Mom has had haggis on her birthday every year since little cp started highland dancing. Although this year she had Mexican at Mazatlan, her new fave restaurant. Happy Birthday Mom! xxxxxxoooooo

Update: Props to D for pointing out that I never actually mentioned that I was talking about Robbie Burns anywhere in the main body of the post. Silly me.