Doomsday

Caitlin and I went and say Doomsday today on account of me being a sucker for anything post-apocalypse… a pretty good mix of Escape From NY exile, tattooed Mad Max-style rat-bike riding bad guys, evil Republican-types, lots of gore, and my favorite — plague. The tattoos were fairly poorly done technically (they looked more like body paint), but were great stylistically (including a girl that reminded me a lot of Insectavora from Coney Island Sideshow), and the scarification was nicely done.

There were some very strange people seated around us in the theatre. There was a couple in front of us that had a big fight before the movie, and the guy had also bought a $8 tray of nachos, seemingly just for the cheese. Thoroughout the movie he laughed madly every time someone swore, and the people on either side of us cheered for every bit of gore, and another guy in front of us was wearing a wig and hid under a blanket the whole time… Then afterwards we went to the bookstore to look at magazines, but a Chinese guy that was camped out in the corner reading erupted a huge loud fart so we left.

The tattoos in the movie made me think more about an idea that I've had lately — in part from the “skullboy” interview — that tattooing is the ultimate nihilist movement. General feedback both on ModBlog and around the net seemed to often centre around the idea that he “gives tattooed people a bad name”, but I think that on some level, his “NO FUTURE” attitude is potentially on target. I see an aweful lot of people — arguably tens of thousands — of people getting body modifications from which there's no going back, that with only a slight shift in the permissiveness of society make life extremely difficult…

That said, if I'm to trust the movies, a slight shift in the viral landscape, and people with tattooed faces become the norm. Fingers crossed!

Ocean Storm – Finished

I finished “Ocean Storm”, drawn by Nefarious and painted by me. It’s a very wavy ocean, and in the sky is a band of stars and the sun and moon. A rocket is blasting off, en route to the space station. In the sky is also a “princess angel” as well as a singing bird, and a butterfly carrying two flowers. In the ocean is a sailboat with a star on the sail being captained by the world’s tallest snowman, with evil Ursula and the Little Mermaid swimming nearby as a shark jumps over them. Anyway, you can click it to zoom in.

ocean-storm-small.jpg

Spam Galore

ModBlog passed a million spam post attempts today…

Thanks Akismet!

Crash!!!

So as I mentioned on ModBlog, I was in a minor car accident today… Before I tell that story, you should check out the interview that Veronika did with Zombie/Skullboy — it's quite amusing watching people posting who obviously don't understand that his goal is to be a Montreal punk… what, did you think he was going to be a doctor???

I had an early appointment with Nefarious, so we're driving along Wilson Ave and stop at a stoplight… And then… CRASH! A transport truck smashes into the back of us! After making sure that both Ari and I were alright, and that traffic around us was stopped, I got out to assess the damage. Thank god for giant off-road bumpers (1/4″ steel)! There's a tiny dent in the tip of my muffler, and a minuscule bit of paint is scratched on the bottom of my bumper, but no true damage whatsoever.

The driver of the truck made an excuse about how the pedals were too small for her feet, and the passenger nervously laughed, “we couldn't have picked a better vehicle to crash into!”, and we were all on our way. It definitely could have gone far worse than it did.

The appointment messed up school (field trip to Reptilia missed unfortunately), but we had fun doing lots of other things today, including finishing off the “Ocean Storm” painting (click that link for a better picture).

Nefarious also built a house out of cardboard — I was pretty impressed because I left the room for a minute, and when I got back, it was built. She told me it was based on our gingerbread house. We also played a reading game — as long as there are no special “rules”, she can sound out most three or four letter words. Amusingly, she got “fart” the fastest, although she initially read it “fartee” and laughed maniacally… Hey, before you call me a bad influence, the best way to keep a kid learning it to make it fun! While I cooked supper, she got out her paper and kept writing words (mostly the ones we'd done on the list, but new ones too) and reading them.

I have to decide what book(s) to bring to her school to read, because I'm scheduled to go in and be the reader of the day soon, which I'm immensely looking forward to. Little kids are super hilarious, so Caitlin and I go in and help at the school whenever we have the opportunity to.

Well, time to find some other funny things to post on ModBlog

I've never gotten into flamenco

c/o bb