More Engagement Photos

All Photos by Akemi Matsubuchi

I'm feeling too lazy to provide an entry with any substantiative comment tonight, so for your amusement I'll post a few more engagement photos of Sylvia and me. Don't forget to Click to Embiggen!

Market Forces Again

Well, I finished Market Forces over lunch today, and I'm very pleased. Not the ending I may have expected, but logical and satisfying nonetheless. Morgan has a way of making you care about even the most despicable characters that's quite unnerving - you find yourself rooting for the guy who regularly cheats on his wife, or the one who just murdered a colleaugue in the most brutal fashion possible.

Here's yet another book in which Canada survives a future crisis, one of the last lights of hope in a decaying world. It really is a theme, or at least a significant bit of background, in plenty of postapocalyptic and distopian literature, and I'm beginning to wonder why so many authors, most of them not Canadian, choose Canada as "the place that made it through." In Market Forces, there are only a couple of references to Canada, but it's implied that Canada is one of the few nations that still tries to participate in humanitarian aid, as well as one of the last with a free and independent fourth estate. Pretty cool - I only hope the author's optimism is warranted.

The Only Logical Choice

Photo by Akemi Matsubuchi

Sylvia and I will be getting married on August 4, 2007! Will our pairing be as classic as Nick and Nora? Green Arrow and Black Canary? Buffy and Angel? The Professor and Mary Ann? Gumby and Pokey? Charlie Brown and the Little Red-Haired Girl? It's impossible to say, but I look forward to finding out what kind of future we build together.

A little over two years ago, before I met Sylvia, I couldn't imagine ever being in this situation, and I suppose I can expect some ribbing for all the skepticism with which I treated romance. But now that the shoe is on the other foot, I'm happy to dine on some humble pie and enjoy my terrific fortune. Sylvia's a great catch, and I'm very glad that I took a risk when I met her and decided to be open to all the possibilities she offered.

Now the planning begins. Sylvia wants a girly wedding, while I want something a little more...eccentric. There's going to be a little give and take, pushing and pulling, and in the end I think we'll come up with something unique. In any event, it's going to be one heck of a party, and I know I'll be checking out Andrea's site more carefully for clues and tips on how to proceed.

Wish us luck!

Market Forces

I'm only a little over a hundred pages into Richard Morgan's Market Forces, but I've already found a lot to like. It's a near-future SF novel in which the corpratist agendas rule the world, with departments like Conflict Investment and Emerging Markets exploiting war and the third world, respectively. Society is more sharply divided than ever into haves and have-nots, with the poor walled into special risk zones. The well-heeled can enter these zones if they like, at their own risk, and they're entitled to use whatever means of self-defence they find necessary. Naturally, this tends to pretty cavalier use of force - modern armaments against crowbars and zip guns, and the law often turns a blind eye to the excesses of the rich.

The book is satirical, which allows for suspension of disbelief when it comes to the author's vision of climbing the corporate ladder: executives must take to the roads in souped-up cars to perform autoduels against rival partners and associates. It's an idea I remember from an old Harlan Ellison story, only taken to even more ridiculous extremes, and so far it works; the matches are often televised, and winning executives can become quite famous.

What's interesting is that the main character, Chris Faulkner, is clearly conflicted over his participation in the system. Like many limosuine liberals, Chris does the job because it's what he's good at, yet he's mocked by his partners because he's too soft - he often merely incapacitates the losers of his duels, rather than killing them.

Here's what Chris' boss has to say about Conflict Investment:

"Conflict Investment is the way forward!

Yes, yes, we've heard it called risky, we've heard it called impractical, and we've heard it called immoral. In short, we've heard the same carping voices that free-market economics has had to drag with it like a ball and chain from its very inception. But we have learnt to ignore those voices. We have learnt, and we have gone on learning, piling lesson upon lesson, vision upon vision, success upon success. And what ever success has taught us, and continues to teach us, again and again, is a very simple truth. Who has the finance...has the power.

Human beings have been fighting wars as long as history recalls. It is in our nature, it is in our genes. In the last half of the last century the peacemakers, the governments of this world, did not end war. They simply managed it, and they managed it badly. They poured money, withouth thought of return, into conflicts and geurilla armies abroad, and then into torturous peace processes that more often than not left the situation no better. They were partisan, dogmatic and inefficient. Billions wasted in poorly assessed wars that no sane investor would have looked at twice. Huge, unwieldy national armies and clumsy international alliances; in short a huge public-sector drain on our economic systems. Hundreds of thousands of young men killed in parts of the world they could not even pronounce properly. Decisions based on political dogma and doctrine alone. Well, this model is no more.

All over the world, men and women still find causes worth killing and dying for. And who are we to argue with them? Have we lived in their circumstances? Have we felt what they feel? No. It is not our place to say if they are right or wrong. It is not for us to pass judgement or to interfere. At Shorn Conflict Investment, we are concerned with only two things. Will they win? And will it pay? As in all other spheres, Shorn will invest the capital it is entrusted with only where we are sure of a good return. We do not judge. We do not moralise. We do not waste. Instead, we assess, we invest. And we prosper. That is what it means to be a part of Shorn Conflict Investment."

The attitudes and methods of the corporation personified, right there.

Another interesting note: on a trip to one of the restricted zones, one of the working poor, a black man, asks Chris if he's related to "William" (Faulkner). Chris doesn't get the reference, which I find very telling - despite his privileged upbringing, Chris is missing something important, something that the black man hasn't forgotten.

In fact, I haven't read any Faulkner yet, though I at least know who he is, and I share Chris' angst over participating in a system that I know is unfair at best, downright evil at worst. And like Chris (thus far), I haven't figured out a way to be true to my convictions without surrendering the lifestyle to which I've grown accustomed.

But then, perhaps no one can. I look forward to finishing the book, to learn the author's take on the problem.

Earl's on Film...Earl's on Film

A work in progress: cover for special edition DVD of Generous Nature


Cover for a DVD Field Guide of Chaos/Order Agents

One of the current frustrations in my life is my DVD burner's inability to, well, burn. It plays DVDs, loads software off DVD-roms, but will it actually do the thing I bought it for - namely, archive my home movies? NO.

So I work off some of my frustration by using Photoshop to fool around with DVD covers. The top cover is, obviously, a work in progress, a cover for the eventual DVD of a film we of the U of A Star Trek club completed back in...ye gods, I guess it must be 1988 or 89. Yikes. Anyway, I chose fonts that I hope evoke a Mob sensibility, and a black background to hint at the darkness of the story. A few stills adorn the back, but I'm going to need to put a blurb of some kind back there, too. The film itself is only five minutes long or so, a simple story in which Roarke Norway, played by the inimitable Jeff Shyluk, has his teeth ripped out at the command of the merciless "Boss," played by the irrepressible Tony Longworth. It's probably most famous for this exchange of timeless dialogue, by Shyluk and his future wife, Susan Neumann:

"Oh, Roarke! I love you so much!"
"And I love you too, my darling!"
"Oh, Roarke! Kiss me!"
"I WILL!"

And he does.

The second cover is for the eventual DVD archive of my completed Chaos/Order project - which is, believe it or not, moving forward, in between speeches, blog entries, and my entry into the Strange New Worlds contest.

If any graphic artists out there have suggestions or critiques, I'd be glad to read them.

Fragility

Yesterday's airplane crash in Toronto reminded me of something I read on a web a few months back: according to some expert or other, five-point harnesses in airplanes wouldn't do much good very often, since many plane crashes occur at such speed that even if the harness decelerates you safely, the inertia acting upon your internal organs could rip your heart, lungs, etc. out of place, ripping your insides loose from their moorings.

What a ghastly thought. I'd never considered it before, but of course it makes sense. Human beings are not solid masses of undifferentiated tissue, but interlocking systems of bone, muscle and other gooey bits.

When I was a teenager, I came up with an idea I thought was really cool: a big rubber ball, solid except for a crawlspace and just enough room for a person to stand up inside, completely engulfed by rubber. (I hadn't considered the problem of how to breathe.) I reasoned that a person inside a solid rubber ball could be rolled off a cliff of any height and be just fine, bouncing off the bottom gleefully, completely safe from harm. But I guess if the impact speed was high enough, you could wind up smashing your heart against your ribcage.

Cheery thoughts.

Canada's Generic Holiday

While in Edmonton, visit...Fort Edmonton.

I love Canada for many reasons, but chief among them is the fact that we have a holiday called "Civic Holiday." There's no religious or historic occasion, no dead white male to celebrate, no rhyme nor reason for a national day off. It's just a long weekend, a time to goof off.

So Sylvia and I made the most of it. On Saturday, we visited Mom and Dad and my brother Sean at Fort Edmonton. Mom and Dad were staying overnight in the Hotel Selkirk for their 40th anniversary (albeit a week late, I didn't book in time), so we thought we'd meet them for lunch. And then we had adventures.


A sweaty salesman peddles furs to a skeptical customer.

Father Earl, Preacher of the Damned, with his glowing eyes straight from the fiery pits of Hell itself!

Naturally I had to ham it up at every opportunity.


Sean hijacks a caboose.
As did my brother.


Sylvia smiles, Sean skulks.

Sylvia, always a good sport, puts up with the family eccentricities no matter what the occasion.


I just like this picture.

It's no SLR, but my little Pentax is capable of some pretty nice shots.


"But I, sir, am no gentleman. As you shall soon discover."

Fortunately, I had no hat. Anyone remember "Harriet's Magic Hats?" Hey, how come Ladies didn't have to remove THEIR hats?


Look out for J. Lauder!

What is the shocking secret of the Mad Butcher's superb sausages?


What Sean Woods would look like if he came from the planet Carggg. 50 geek points to the first person to get the reference.

All in all, it's just another Sean on the wall.


Earl contemplates past, present and future.

I.E., "Why didn't I wear sunscrean? Will this self-portrait turn out? When do we get ice cream?"


Sylvia points the way.

You'd think that after all the excitement of Fort Edmonton, we'd relax. But no! For on Monday, we attended Heritage Days, Edmonton's wonderful multicultural festival, where Albertans come together in the spirit of international solidarity and our common cause: to scarf down ethnic food and marvel at the throngs of other people.


Scott Friel brought his charming new daughter to Heritage Days. Note, however, that he wears the symbol of the dread Empire upon his breast.

My friend Scott Friel is a new dad. Gawk in wonder at his spawn!


This happy fellow handed out balloons all day, making people smile. By the way, I hear Western Union is the best way to send money fast.

Ah, the late 20th and early 21st centuries, when every man, woman and child became a billboard, working cheap to sell goods and services we don't really need.


Jump for the Balloon God!

But on the other hand...hey, free balloons.

C.H.A.O.S. Agent Profile: Shin Barker

Alias: Shin Barker
Affiliation: Minion of CHAOS
Real Name: Jack Shemp
Height: 170 cm
Weight: 65 kg
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Distinguishing Features: 1950s crewcut; caucasian; prominent Adam's apple and chin dimple
Costume: Casual clothes; wears shirt with slogan "Shin-Bark-A-Delic"
Birthplace: Etobicoke, Canada
Birthdate: June 17, 1974
Powers: Causes others to bark their shins
Skills: Good at math
Weaknesses: Barks own shin frequently
Equipment: None
Secret Origin: Mutant
Notes: Friends with Toe Stubber; jilted lover of Paladin of ORDER Sabrina Virtue
Quotes: "My shin!", "Shin-Bark-A-Delic!"

Jack Shemp, AKA "Shin Barker," is one of the more recent recruits of the Minions of CHAOS. Interred into the ranks by new Head Minion Dr. Cerebellum, Evil Brain in a Jar, Shin Barker has proved his usefulness on several CHAOS missions, including the destruction of a Paladin aircraft (pilot Whiskey Ripper barked his shin on the controls, sending the plane careening into the indestructible form of Paramount Importance).

Shin Barker was seen as a neutral force in the CHAOS/ORDER conflict until Paladin agent Sabrina Virtue turned down his marriage proposal. Enraged, Shin Barker was heard to yell, "I'll show you! I'll show you all!" before storming off in a huff, spoiling the effect by barking his shin on a park bench. Nevertheless, Shin Barker contacted Dr. Cerebellum just a few days later, and now his turn to CHAOS seems irreversible.

If you encounter Shin Barker, contact an agent of ORDER immediately. Do not attempt to apprehend him yourself - you could suffer a badly barked shin, or worse.

Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft

The UFO Mystery Ship docks at Port Earl


Frank Henriquez, the very kind fellow who runs the Lief Erickson tribute page I mentioned a few days back, has very kindly shipped me an assembled resin replica of the scout vessel that came with the UFO Mystery Ship. It's all primed and ready for painting - all I need to do is pick up some glow-in-the-dark paint, and it'll be just like I'm 8 years old again. What a treat, to get something like this in the mail! It's a beautiful gesture, and I'm very touched. Thanks a bunch, Frank!

New Links

I've added a few new links to my sidebar, and you should check them out. Liam Johnstone's relatively new blog, In the Now, is very entertaining and insightful, my friend Allan Sampson's Myspace page features some really stunning photography of Disneyland at the moment, the Perry Bible Fellowship really is the world's greatest comic strip (and so is Spamusement), and you should visit Susan Shyluk's new blog for photos of her hamster and a look at life on the coast. Follow the links to the right for hours of fun and joy!

Too Good to be the Worst

Well, the results of the Tyee's Teen Angst Poetry contest are in - and the verdict is...

"We really enjoyed the poem and the backstory. But I'm afraid your poem was too good to be the worst."

Well, there you have it - my shot at poetic fame, gone down in fiery flames. Or should that read...

My shot
At poetic fame
Gone down in flames

However, just because the good people of British Columbia won't get to read my poetry doesn't mean that I can deprive my faithful cadre of demented devotees. Here's my entry:

“And My Eyes See the Darkness” was written sometime during the first semester of the 1984-85 school year, which for me was the first half of grade ten; I would have been 14. I was attending Leduc Composite High School in Alberta, and like many a so-called gifted child, I felt alone all the time and wrote vile poetry about my loneliness. This particular poem was written in the wake of an editorial I’d written for the school newspaper; I lambasted “leather jacket-wearing hooligans” for disrupting a school dance. At the time, I was awash in self-righteousness, but it didn’t take long for a certain young lady I had my eye on to teach me a pointed lesson about tolerance; who was I to insult an entire clique because of the actions of one or two bad apples?

Of course, even after realizing in my heart that I was wrong, I was still stubborn enough to refuse to write a retraction. So I was pretty unpopular for a few weeks. Didn’t get the girl, either; after setting me straight, she was content to ignore me for the rest of our time in high school.

Here’s the poem:


And my Eyes See the Darkness

What does a young man do
When exiled by friends, enemies
And neutrals alike?
When I try to explain or even
Offer a greeting,
I find
I am talking to statues,
Cold and merciless.
They can talk amongst themselves,
But I am an alien; an outcast
They pretend they do not know my language.
I am cast out of every public and
Private Place;
Forced, finally, to a remote set of stairs
Where no one will
See Me
Hear Me
Or
Talk to me.

And my eyes see the darkness.

* * *
Well, there you have it. Frankly, I can't believe I lost - how much worse can it get? Go visit The Tyee to find out.

What Happened at Pete's Place

Mike sticks his finger in his mouth as Pete looks on in horror.

On Saturday, I went over to Pete's place to help our friend Colin playtest his new Traveller module. Mike and Jeff were there, too.

Any roleplayer will tell you that a typical session consists of 90% idle chat, and 10% gaming - if you're lucky. So it was this Saturday eve.


Would you eat this?

First, we taste-tested a mind-bending new potato chip: Old Dutch's "Szechuan Beef" flavour. Not since the halcyon days of Hostess' "French Fries with Gravy" and "Cheeseburger (fully loaded)" have I seen a more ominous-looking bag of chips, so naturally I had to give them a try.


Ack! (Photo courtesy of Mike Totman)

While my friends gave the chips a passing grade, I found them as revolting as I'd anticipated, even though I went in with an open mind. But as far as I'm concerned, Szechuan Beef chips taste like someone left some plain chips in the deep fryer overnight - granted, a deep fryer that had been used to make Szechuan beef, but still...


These Eyes...do do dee do do...


Midway through the evening, Jeff asked Mike, "Have your eyes always been different colours?" Mike said yes, and I was a little taken aback. I asked for a closer look (not that close, you perverts) and lo and behold, Mike, like Jane Seymour (mmmm...Jane Seymour) does indeed posess one brown eye, and one green. At least, that's how they look to me. Funny the things you can miss even after you've known someone for a few years, but then, I don't make a habit of staring deeply into Mike's eyes, whatever Sylvia may claim.


Fiendish evildoer Pete enjoys his ill-gotten gains.

Finally, Pete's bookshelves have at last been completed, and green with envy, I took a couple of photos of his magnificent library. These are gorgeous shelves, extending floor to ceiling, with beautiful brass grommets and even a ladder. I could spend hours in there, but I'm sure Pete and his girlfriend would eventually grow tired of me, so for now I'll just have to dream of a day when I might possess such peerless shelving. Here's another photo, taken with my little Pentax's panoramic feature.


Click to embiggen!



Colin attempts to get the session back on track. Ha ha, good luck.

As for the game, we managed to land on a planet made of poisonous fungus, and Jeff ran over a guy with a hoverjeep, shattering both shins. Not Jeff's shins, the other guy's shins. (Though if you know Jeff, you know that the odds that he's shattered his shins at one point in his life or another are actually pretty high.) He also shot a couple of people. And I bought a weapon called a "puke stick."


This...is my Puke Stick. (Say it in a Bruce Campbell voice.)

You poke, they puke.

You know, come to think of it, these games we play sure contain a lot of senseless violence. I'm not sure if our actions were useful for Colin's playtest, but he knew what he was getting into when he recruited us, I guess.

Tales of Time & Terror #5: Family Food Feud

Yesterday, July 10th, was Mom's birthday. So Sean and Sylvia and I went to Leduc to celebrate. Presented in pictures, here is the tale of that fateful day.

At first, things seemed peaceful enough.

But unbeknownst to the Woods offspring, Robert and Elizabeth Woods were preparing a fiendish feast indeed for their guests - not merely delicious chicken skewers, as they claimed, but delicious chicken skewers LACED WITH GLASS CLEANER!



Glass cleaner - WITH AMMONIA!



Suddenly, the world grew hazy for the three hapless youths.


All grew paranoid!










Brother lashed out against brother....




With frightful consequences!




Blood was spilled - into hapless laps!







Girlfriend attacked boyfriend!




Mother attacked son!




And in the end, some were driven mad by the draconian plot!


Recovering their senses, the intrepid trio fled to Ikea.


Only to be attacked by the merchandise!


Earl called for help.


Sean, too, offered big bucks to survive.


And was put on sale for $269 as "Woobsgoold."

Ride, Captain, Ride, Upon Your UFO Mystery Ship

If click on this post's title, you'll be taken to a webpage devoted to the AMT/Ertl Leif Ericson Galactic Cruiser model, later reissued in a glow-in-the-dark version known as the UFO Mystery Ship.

I had the UFO Mystery Ship. I received it as a Christmas present in the early to mid 70s, and I remember how thrilled I was; the spaceship had beautiful, futuristic lines, and it even had a hangar bay within which was a small mini-model of a bug-eyed scout ship. In fact, I interpreted this smaller vessel as the "UFO Mystery Ship." I imagined that the larger craft had come across the smaller, found it deserted, and hauled it into the hangar bay for examination. I used to concoct all sorts of weird reasons that the Mystery Ship's crew had vanished: they'd been eaten by a monster, they got locked out of the spaceship while on a spacewalk, they ran out of food, starved to death and decomposed, they were kidnapped by some more powerful alien, or most tantalizingly, they were still aboard the ship, only undetectable to the human astronauts. Sometimes the little scout ship would spring to life, shoot its way out of the hangar bay, and zip around the human ship, firing potshots at it. Usually, the aliens won, because they had the "UFO Mystery Ship." The name was so badass, so scary, that they just had to be more cooly competent and merciless than the humans.

It was a terrific model, and so a few days ago I did a blind web search hoping to learn a little more about it. I found out that the original Leif Erickson model was designed by none other than Matt Jeffries, the man who designed the USS Enterprise for Star Trek, and that the model came close to appearing in the animated followup to that show. Not only that, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle loved the original Leif Ericson model so much that they used it as the basis for the INSS McArthur from their novel The Mote in God's Eye. Looks like I wasn't the only one whose imagination was fired by that little box of plastic parts!