Kilty

So one of the exciting things that happened during this most recent bout of not-updating-the-blog is that my wife Crystal and I attended the Grande Prairie Highland games on June 14th. We ate meat pies which I'm quite certain were made with lamb (though Crystal denies this). We watched the sheepdog trials (our favourite was a dog named Tank). We watched a few of the games but there was only a handful of athletes so it was kind of unexciting, and only one guy managed to turn the caber. We watched a little bit of the dancing, but that was mainly so I could get photos. It was a good excuse for me to wear my kilt. All in all it was a good time.

Here's a video of the Grande Prairie Pipes and Drums


And you can see some photos here.

And then I got tattoos on the 16th of June. Word of advice: If you're going to get both of your kneecaps tattooed at the same time, make sure you take some time off work.

Vagueries of vagueness

So yeah, I actually have something on the go, just waiting until it gets into full swing before I unveil it to the world, so stay tuned for that.

Also working on something else, so stay tuned for that as well.

Just please don't abandon me.

Flo

Let's start with the sad stuff and then move on to the cool stuff so we can all leave in a good mood.

I feel bad for forgetting to mention in my sad blog post from a few days ago that my wifes cousin was lost in a river last month, and that a 14 year old girl in my hometown was murdered in September. Like I said, a weird, sad year.

Now for the cool.

I'm sure everyone else in the known world has already heard this song, but I never heard of it until my brother sang it at karaoke one night, and then I heard it again today in a CD store. I think it's pretty awesome, and surprisingly deep for how ridiculous the lyrics seem. I am a bit miffed they disallowed embedding, but anyways.

Handlebars - Flobots

ate bit

Two posts in one day? Madness!

Please enjoy the ridiculously-more-talented-than-I-will-ever-be Hexachordal as he covers The Magnetic Fields tune "All My Little Words" with the help of a Gameboy.



Edit: Forgot to mention i found this via b3ta. Oops.

Complete

I figured yesterday's post was too deep so I better flip it 'round with something funny. I've been playing The Force Unleashed for the past few days, and the Emperor's dialogue made me think of a Family Guy clip from way back.




I probably watched this 20 times yesterday and laughed like a bastard every time.

P.S. The game is fun even if the controls are frustrating and the camera sucks. The story is good and it has pretty decent re-playability. I recommend it.

Strange Days, These Days

Sorry for the gap between updates, been busy lately.

I really don't have much interesting to say, I just wanted to comment on the strangeness of the past year or so. I realized yesterday that the year has been rather (depressingly) weird, when I heard David Carradine had died. As of right now his death is still under investigation, but I personally can't imagine him having taken his own life.
A childhood friend of mine fell from his skateboard on Sunday and died in hospital on Monday, surrounded by his loved ones. My clearest memory of Lance is when he taught me the F-word, and I think I'm still in shock from his sudden passing. Is it wrong of me to think his family was lucky to be there when he went?
Dom DeLuise died on May 4th, one day after my brother commented "You don't hear about Dom DeLuise much these days." (Or something like that). Similarly, I was reading the Wikipedia article about Bea Arthur the day before she died on April 25th.
My uncle Robert died of a heart attack on March 9th at the age of 51, with no real previous indications that he may have been ill. We were all struck by the suddenness of it, I myself being quite shaken. I'm not sure if it was because I lived with him for a few months after graduating or if its because I realize my own father, his brother, is 48 this year. Time does go by.
Going back into 2008, Michael Crichton died of throat cancer in November. You might remember a little story he wrote about a park full of freaking awesome dinosaurs. Or ER, whatever.
Even further back, over a year ago, the tragic death of Heath Ledger, my feelings about which I have already expressed.
So has this year (and more) really been that depressing and tragic? Have other years been the same? Am I just noticing more because I'm getting older, and thinking about my own mortality?
Hmm. Strange days indeed.

Anyways, I promise the next post wont be such a downer, and hopefully I'll have some news about my next project for you. Stay tuned.