Sugar Cube Citrus Mocktail

An Alberta Legend Passes On

CBC reports that Al Oeming, he of the Alberta Game Farm, died earlier this week. Zoos get a bad rap these days and I'm not well-informed enough to debate their merits, but as I wrote in one of this blog's most popular posts, the Alberta Game Farm left quite an impression on me. It was quite a thrill when just a couple of weeks ago Al's son Todd commented on that post, outlining some of his plans for the site; you can see what the younger Oeming is up to at www.wildsplendor.com. I'm sure Todd will build a legacy his father would be proud of. 

Maul in the Family

I'm not sure what's happening in this photo, but I love Sylvia's shocked expression. 

Sean's Rage Level

My brother Sean created a Rage Meter to express his level of frustration with the world; here it is in animated form. 

Inaction Figures

INT. SUBURBAN KITCHEN. BOBBY RUNS INTO KITCHEN AND TELLS MOM:

BOBBY: "Mom, I'm bored!"

MOM: "Why don't you and Timmy play with your action figures?"

BOB: "We're sick of action figures!"

INT. PAN ACROSS DISCARDED CONVENTIONAL ACTION FIGURES, TOSSED ASIDE CARELESSLY.

NARRATOR: Tired of action figures that have exciting adventures all day? Tired of soldiers, astronauts, superheroines, cowboys, Amazons, cyborgs, SCUBA divers, tennis pros and Navy SEALS?

Try INACTION FIGURES! New from WoodsWorld!

SPFX: PAN ACROSS INACTION FIGURE LINE

NARRATOR: Inaction Figures are the ultimate in toy realism, because they could be YOU! There's the garbage man, with trash can. The accountant, with pocket calculator. The politician, with briefcase stuffed with bribe money. The office worker. The stay-at-home dad. The travelling salesman. The out-of-work actor/waiter. The sherpa. The Bollywood director. The obnoxious audiophile, with real vinyl record player. The ageing hippie. The refugee. The dock worker. The auto mechanic. The poet with inkwell, feather pen and scroll. The teen with pickup truck. The research scientist, with stack of grant applications.

FULLY COMPATIBLE with your child's existing action figure line! Does your child's supervillain need someone to torment? Bring in the Innocent Bystander Inaction Figure! Does your Captain Kirk need to put together an away team? Bring in the exclusive Inaction Figure Redshirt Squad!

SPFX: Swirly lights across INACTION FIGURES logo.

NARRATOR: INACTION FIGURES from WoodsWorld! Don't let these figures go missing in inaction - collect them all - before they continue with their mundane lives! 

hashtag hashtag memecough phlegm war

hashtag hashtag memecough phlegm war

#hashtagmemecoughphlegmwar

hashtag antibiotic resistant bacteria

#antibioticresistantbacteria

clogging up my lungs and making me cough

hashtag hacktag the drugs aren't working

#thedrugsaren'tworking

I'm still stuck here slurping

#nyquiladdict

hashtag barfbag oh oh here comes dinner

#onething'sforsurewe'reallgonnabelotsthinner

hashtag anti-vax crusaders hose me

#sciencedoesn'tmatterjustmyfeelingsOprahtoldme

#ifIhadachoicebetweenrhymeandreasonyouknowwhatI'dpickinthisresurgentmeaslesseason

The Atari 410 Program Recorder

When Mom and Dad bought Sean and I our first computer, the Atari 400, it came with the Atari 410 Program Recorder. We used the Program Recorder to load games like SCRAM or Caverns of Kafka into the computer's memory or to save BASIC software programs of our own making, all using conventional cassette tapes.

To load a program you booted up the computer, plugged the cassette into the 410 and pressed Play. For the next 30 to 45 minutes you'd be entertained by the bleeps, bloops, hisses and buzzes of the software being loaded up. Then, assuming something didn't go wrong at the last minute - which happened more often than not - you'd enjoy your game. Little wonder that cartridges and floppy discs were more popular.

My First Modem

This is the Atari XM 301 300-baud modem, which I connected to my Atari 130 XE 8-bit computer to access local bulletin board systems over the phone lines. This was surfing in the late 1980s to the early 1990s: you dialled a local number (unless of course you were willing to pay long distance charges to access a non-local BBS) and waited for your turn to connect. If one other person was on the BBS you wanted, you'd get a busy signal. Sometimes it took hours to connect, all for a few rooms of text-only ASCII-glory delayed conversation with fellow geeks. Good times.

I could read the text faster than this modem could transmit it through my computer. Upgrading to a 1200 baud modem midway through university made surfing much more pleasant, though still nothing like we enjoy today. 

Science Orb

The Space Centres

Here's the last of the posters I photographed at Mom and Dad's before giving them the reluctant go-ahead to start recycling. I wonder how many of the space launch centres indicated on my map still exist? How many others have sprung up, and where?

The Space Centres was drawn on construction paper with felt marker. The rockets were cut out of construction paper and painted with red model paint, then glued onto the map. 

My Brain Freezeth Over

Tonight I participated in the Corporate Challenge Brain Freeze again, this time with my team from ATCO Electric, the Mutant Masterminds. Sadly, we proved more mutant than mastermind - the questions tonight were far, far tougher than Monday. I'd be surprised if we scored 25 out of 100; I'll find out tomorrow. However, I think we won on style - we were the only team with personalized costumes and our own living brain in a jar. 

Apollo Flight Profile

Things don't always improve with time; young Earl, primitive as his skills may have been, was a more talented freehand artist than old Earl. I believe I drew this poster with pencil crayon and felt marker sometime in grade seven or eight. It was part of a science project. I like the little spaceships separating with little plumes of fire. 

Brains, Brawn and Bronze

Peter Harris has organized an Intuit trivia team for Corporate Challenge for several years. This year, Dustin couldn't make it and Pete asked me to substitute for Dustin. But today Pete got sick, so Mike's brother Paul was reigned in at the last possible second. Changing things up worked out pretty well; we wound up with 72 out of 100 possible points, enough to earn third place. (The winning teams had 74 and 78 points.)

I'm ashamed that I couldn't remember Major Don West from Lost in Space and that I put Chariots of Fire in 1980 instead of 1981. (To be fair, I did a lot of "ARGH! Was it 1980 or 1981?" Should have second-guessed myself.)

Thanks for inviting me out, guys! 

The Bermuda Triangle

The Bermuda Triangle, Earl J. Woods circa 1981-1982, coloured pencil and construction paper

Sometime in grade six or seven I created this poster of the Bermuda Triangle, complete with locations of ships and plans that supposedly went missing in or around the Triangle. Amusingly, even my then-credulous pre-teen research concluded that even if a bunch of ships and planes had gone missing in the Caribbean and mid-Atlantic, most had been lost outside the boundaries of the phenomenon. I must have spent a lot of time on this, because the coastlines seem pretty accurate and clean to me; it looks as though I marked out gridlines and then drew in the bits in each square. The ships and planes were cut out of black construction paper and glued onto the map. 

O Atari, Where Art Thou?

Today Sean and I visited Mom and Dad to help them carry some drywall downstairs. At the same time, we began the painful process of sorting through the old junk that Mom and Dad want us to get rid of - including our old Atari 8-bit computers. Here I am with the Atari 130 XE that got me halfway through university. I'm afraid it's off the the Eco-Station for you, old friend.

Halfway through university I picked  up a more powerful Atari 520 ST. The infamous screenplay "Toilet Chase" was written on this machine.

When the 520 ST crashed, you had to twist it and drop it to get it working again. This was Atari's real-life, no-kidding solution. As the years went by I had to twist it harder and harder and drop it from greater and greater heights to get it working again. What a great computer, and I say that without a trace of irony. 

S is for Sean

lolrobot #1

House of Cards

Because they're all amusing, you see. 

Khan't Stop the Music

And the Guessing Oscar Goes To...

Typically Sylvia and I tie in our informal Oscar guessing game, but this year I pulled ahead early and kept my lead for most of the night. I cheated myself out of another point by attempting to game the system, though; I had suspected that 12 Years a Slave would win Best Picture, but thought the preferential ballot might result in an upset win for Gravity, in much the same way that Ed Stelmach and Alison Redford crept up the middle in the last two PC leadership races, and look how well that's worked out for them. Argh, how did politics get into my Oscar blogging? I've been so good for the last year and a half...

Our Oscar Picks

If you click to embiggen this image, you'll see our Oscar 2014 picks. Who's more attuned to the Hollywood pulse - pop culture professor (sort of) Earl, or glitterati diva Sylvia? We shall see in a few hours. 

Best Picture 2013

Tomorrow's Oscar night, and the pundits say it's a three-way race for Best Picture between 12 Years a Slave, American Hustle and Gravity. Personally, I think all nine nominees were fine films; this was a good year for movies. Here's how I'd rank them:

9) Captain Phillips. This movie is tense, exciting, and features a great performance by Tom Hanks, especially in the final minutes. Is it better than any of the other action movies of 2013, though, just because it's based on a true story? I think not.
8) The Wolf of Wall Street. It's a very funny movie, but I find it hard to laugh at the evil that's helping destroy our civilization.
7) Nebraska. This film features absolutely stunning black and white cinematography and a great performance from Bruce Dern, an old favourite.
6) Dallas Buyers Club. I really enjoyed this, but I would have liked it even more had the main character been given just a little more backstory. We don't really see him before he's stricken with AIDS; it would have been an interesting contrast.
5) 12 Years a Slave. Given the subject matter, I thought this film played it too safe, which sounds shocking given its scenes of cruelty. And yet I found it just a little sterile.
4) Philomena. I hid it from Sylvia, but this movie made me tear up a bit; the senseless cruelty and loss angered me, which shows the film did its job.
3) Her. Finally, an SF film that explores an important SF concept without resorting to action and explosions. A great script, superb production design, wonderful acting...one of my favourites.
2) American Hustle. Nostalgia and a fantastic ensemble cast really pulled me into this story of con men and women and complicated love and the tragedy of overreaching. Just gawking at the 70s decor and fashions was entertainment enough!
1) Gravity. The story is simple, but seen in theatres and in 3D (which I normally hate), Gravity provided one of the most tense and visceral movie-going experiences I've had in years. 

A Gift That's Always in Vein

For several years now I've admired my friend Mike Totman for giving blood on a regular basis; he's been doing so for years and has some amazingly high number of donations. I've often thought about donating blood, but the thought of having it drained always left me feeling a little nauseated. Corporate Challenge and the convenience of donating with a pack of coworkers provided the boost I needed to finally roll up my sleeves.

Donating was painless, and I was pleased to exclaim "My blood is coming out!" (It's a line in several of the screenplays I'm working on.) Plus Canadian Blood Services provided snacks and a snazzy lapel pin.

It's a little weird, though, seeing your own thick red blood flowing through a tube and steadily filling up what seems like a pretty big bag. 

Love in a Lootcrate

Canada Vignettes: Flin Flon

In 1978 the National Film Board released this short film about Flin Flon, my birthplace. As noted in the film, Flin Flon is "...the only place in Canada named after a science fiction hero." Where else could I have possibly been born?