Pacific Rim Whale Fest

I just came back after attending a whale festival on Vancouver island and figured that this might be a good place to tell my friends and family what I got up to.

The Pacific Rim Whale Festival is an annual festival taking place in Ucluelet and Tofino, BC, Canada that celebrates everything whale. Well actually it's more like "everything Pacific coast". The focus is on the gray whale migration that passes along the coast every March as the gray whales head up from the warm waters of Mexico to the feeding gold mine that is the Pacific Alaskan coast. Several hundred whales pass by each year and as such it's one of the best times to go whale watching.

This year was the 25th Anniversary of the festival and was my first time heading up. I got a chance to do an educational talk about my thesis work on the filtration mechanics of lunge-feeding baleen whales, but my wife and I made a vacation out of it and stuck around for a few festival events too.

Anyways, let's make this easy and just run thru the day-to-day fun that my wife and I got up to.

Check out some of my pictures here.

Friday
We took off for Vancouver Island the day before the festival got started and actually got an early jump as my wife was home sick that day. It was an easy traveling day though, so I managed to get her in the car and we took off for Port Alberni where my in-laws live. The drive is always incredible on the way to Port Alberni and this relaxed drive finally gave us the opportunity to stop at Cathedral Grove. I highly recommend stopping there if you pass by. The temperate rainforest that surrounds you is simply magnificent.

Saturday
We spent the day in Port Alberni and ended up going on a little nature walk here as well. The walk was actually pretty amazing considering we were within the city (town?) limits and yet felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. (Check out the pictures) In the late afternoon we made our way over to Ucluelet and checked into our hotel. And what a hotel! (Again, see the pictures) The Waters Edge Resort in Ucluelet was perfect. We had a one bedroom suite on the third floor overlooking the dock and the town. At night I took advantage of our brand new tripod and my new camera lens to capture some pictures that I never thought I could do! And while I took pictures of the port, my wife took in the private balcony jacuzzi that comes with each suite. Ya, pretty sweet deal.

Sunday
A perfect, blue sky on a spectacular March day. We really couldn't have asked for better weather on this trip. The west coast is renowned for it endless cloudiness and frequent rain. We, however, got very little of that. After taking in a late breakfast we thought we should take advantage of this weather (it might not last long!) and do some outdoor activities. It started with some kayaking around the straight. The kayaks were free courtesy of the hotel so we did a little bit of island hopping and sea lion spotting. Hanging out on the water and just sitting still is a feeling that us city folk don't really get to experience much. The extent of silence that you can get when you're out on the water always impresses me. There's no background noise. No cars. No rumbling generators. No humming street lights. Nothing. Just silence. Ahhhhh....

Anyways, back to the adventure. We then headed off on some whale watching. Having studied the feeding mechanisms of whales for the last couple years, I had yet to see a free, live baleen whale. So this was the perfect chance. And sure enough we spotted a couple whales. We saw about 4-6 grey whales and 2 humpbacks. Plus some stellar and California sea lions. All in all a pretty jam packed 2.5 hour boat ride. We went with Jamie's Whaling and I would highly recommend it. Our guide, Scott, knew a fair amount about the whales and the coast in general. I like it when guides don't have to be prompted to give you information. Scott would just bring up interesting facts without prompting, but would still leave some times of quiet and peace.

So, alas I had seen some live whales!! I didn't manage to get any great pics, the whales were not to obliging on showing their backs let alone their whale tails or a full breach. Never the less, it still counts as a whale sighting if all you really see is the mist from the blow hole! The boat ride itself was worth the trip. We were on a small 20 foot zodiac, but man, that thing could really cook it. At some points we were just skimming the water and the guy behind me's clam chowder just wouldn't stay down. He was quick enough to hurl over the side though, so I stayed clean.

We took an early night as I wanted to get ready for my talk the next day. Just another evening of jacuzzi tubbing and fishing boat photographing.

Monday
The big day! I gave my talk at the Wickannish Interpretive Centre in Pacific Rim National Park. Almost half way between Ucluelet and Tofino. It was a beautiful setting with the interpretive centre sitting right on the beach (the southern tip of the famous Long Beach). At first it looked like my 11:30am Monday morning time-slot might have dissuaded anybody for coming, but by the time I started there were about 30 people in the crowd.

My talk seemed to go over well. I had a lot of questions at the end of it so that's always a good sign. The questions I got ranged from a 4 yr old getting her mum to ask whether Nemo really could have come out of the spout of a whale to someone (who must have been an engineer) commenting on pressure differentials and laminar versus turbulent flow. Thankfully I think my background abled me to address both questions. :)

After my talk we met up with some of Alys' relatives and had lunch at the beautiful Black Rock Resort in Ucluelet. Considering how posh the resort is, the restaurant was pretty reasonably priced (lunch anyways) and pretty tasty too.

The evening gave us the chance to attend Sweet Indulgence, the Whale Festival's all you can eat dessert event. It was held at the Ukee community centre and had a couple hundred people show up. And the desserts were tasty too! The people of Ucluelet really put a lot of effort into making tons of homemade desserts and we were able to eat until we couldn't take any more. There were also about 50 door prizes too, of which we won one (2 for 1 dessert!) and a pretty good live acoustic duo playing some original and some acoustic covers the whole evening.

Guess what we did later in the evening? That's right....jacuzzi and pictures! I guess it looks like I'm really into photography now! And my wife must be really into jacuzzis...

Tuesday
Our first rainy day. We woke up to rain and it didn't want to let up. So unfortunately we had to skip the last event we had planned to attend (a nature walk led by a professional photographer) and headed back up thru Port Alberni and back to Vancouver.


All-in-all this was an amazing trip and I definitely hope to be back to Ucluelet and Tofino for the Pacific Rim Whale Festival! Next time we'll have to do some surfing and some more hiking if we get weather like that again. If you ever get a chance to hit up the Whale Festival, don't pass it up. I guarantee it'll be worth it!

Three words for Harper's reign of terror

1. Contempt - first time EVER!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/03/21/pol-privilege-contempt.html

2. Prorogue - remember that?

http://www.economist.com/node/15213212

3. Cats.




If these 3 words make you shiver, then show it in the polls.
VOTE!

A Day in the Life of Jaboo (in comic form!)

It was a random, dare I say serendipitous, confluence of events that led to me drawing a comic about my cat.

A few days ago as I was leaving for school, I unexpectedly found a mysterious bulky brown envelope propped up against the door. It was present for my cat Jaboo from the little girl who lives upstairs. She's about 5 or 6 years old and once left a scrawled note taped to the door saying Jaboo had been elected Mayor of Cat Town. I suspect when Jaboo's out gallivanting about he's actually just upstairs a lot of the time. Their family also has two cats. Anyway, this envelope contained two old margarine containers with kitty snacks inside. Adorably, the package had two previous attempts at writing "Here is a present for Jaboo" that were hastily scribbled out with the final message written on a piece of masking tape.

This was definitely worthy of some sort of thank you card and I had this niggling idea of making a comic after recently attending the Serendipity graphic novel conference (see last post). Say what you will about my scrappy drawings, but I've been reading more alternative comics over the past year and, uh, let's just say drawing skills are not a requirement for making comics (a point reiterated by the Serendipity panelists, even though they were all amazing artists anyway). During a workshop with Aaron Renier and Jason Shiga, we were shown by Shiga how to make a clever choose-your-own-adventure style comic, so I had a pre-made comic just waiting for the panels to be filled in. The comic folds every which way so it's hard to show how it works with any justice, but you might get a sense of how it unfolds in these photos:


Following the arrows, you essentially end up with a branching 5-panel story with four endings. Very cool.

Uh, keeping in mind the target audience, here's the comic presented linearly (without all the unfolding fun):


I gained a greater appreciation of cartoonists for the time, effort, and commitment in producing even a small amount of work. Drawing consistency is also not my forte as I more or less drew a different cat in every panel. A discerning eye may be even able to pick out the order in which these panels were drawn (as my enthusiasm progressively dwindled).

Long-winded Serendipity '11 Recap

Last Saturday, I attended Serendipity, an all-day conference put on by the Vancouver Children's Literature Roundtable. This year's event was billed as an Graphic Novel Extravaganza with a talented panel of guests including Gene Yang (American-Born Chinese), Raina Telgemeier (Smile), Matt Holm (Babymouse), Aaron Renier (Spiral-Bound), Jason Shiga (Meanwhile), and Valerie Wyatt (How to Build Your Own Country). Naturally, I had to go! I may even have to go next year with the already-announced Asian Books for Children.

Alas, I forgot my camera, but I brought a couple books to be signed (and ended up with a few more!).


It started way too early on a cold Saturday morning with a continental breakfast and author signings, but it was a small price to pay to meet and chat (awkwardly) with these comic creators. I recognized a couple fellow SLAISers and at least one VPLer, though on the whole I had no idea who the majority of these attendees were (teachers? librarians? budding cartoonists?). First up, I approached Raina Telgemeier, whose autobiographical Smile chronicles her orthodontic adventures as a teenager. I first found out about Raina and Smile last year after her appearance on The Ink Panthers, Alex Robinson and Mike Dawson's comic podcast where they try not to talk about comics. Anyone who's had braces (myself included) can identify with her charmingly told coming of age story while cringing at the haunting memories of brace wires being tightened. You'll also feel relief that you probably did not have it as bad as Raina who had headgear and the whole bit after knocking out her two front teeth.


Raina was with her husband and fellow comic book creator Dave Roman, who a few years ago actually proposed to her in comics-form! I later realized that my conference package included a pre-release copy of his new book Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity, so I had to hop back to their table later to have him sign his book.


I met Gene Yang next, who really is pretty much the nicest guy ever. In addition to writing and illustrating the award-winning American Born Chinese, he's a high school teacher of computer science in California. I was very jealous of the buyer in the silent auction who snagged an early copy of his latest video game themed graphic novel Level Up, illustrated by Thien Pham. It's out in June, so I'll just have to patiently wait for now.

When I approached Gene, I actually brought a gift for him... One of my favourite childhood comics (I suppose they'd label this a graphic novel these days) was Adventures of the Magic Monkey Along the Silk Roads, which was pretty much the only comic other than Tintin and Asterix at the children's library in Edmonton. I can still picture the beat-up old copy, which had been rebound with a generic purple cover with white writing on the spine. It's based on the same Journey to the West story of the Monkey King that Gene incorporated into American Born Chinese. I rediscovered this book a few years ago when someone donated their entire graphic novel collection to the Strathcona Library. Some research revealed some things I hadn't realized as a kid: the book was commissioned in 1983 by the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto in conjunction with an exhibition on the Silk Road of China with wonderful illustrations done by one of the museum's artists Anker Odum.

I seem to be the only person who's read this on GoodReads.com and the only online mention other than used book sites is a dismissive 1984 review from the University of Manitoba. I was pretty oblivious to the legend of the Monkey King and its storied history in Chinese culture, but when I read American Born Chinese a few years ago, I immediately recognized the story and was later inspired to read Arthur Waley's translation of Journey to the West. A couple interesting incarnations have appeared in recent years with Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett of Gorillaz fame collaborating on the 2008 Chinese opera Monkey: Journey to the West. Even a futuristic retelling in video game form was released last year called Enslaved: Odyssey to the West with Andy Serkis voicing and mo-capping Monkey, natch. Anyway, I insisted Gene take my copy of the Magic Monkey comic since it's fairly rare outside of Canada. I've already ordered my replacement copy for 20 cents (plus $6.49 shipping). Here's a link to Gene's tribute to the Monkey King. He actually recommends the David Kherdian translation of Journey to the West as an entertaining page-turner . . . added to my reading list!


At that point, the program was getting ready to begin. To my absolute surprise, the MC was someone I worked with in 2006 during a year stint at the Rutherford Library at the University of Alberta. It's a small library world! We were first treated to a charming presentation by Matt Holm talking about his background as an artist and the creation with his sister of the hit series Babymouse, which was the most checked-out children's title at the New York Public Library in 2010! Towards the end of his presentation, he invited someone up to help create a Babymouse illustration from scratch followed by a Q&A. His and the later presentations were variations of the ones they would typically be doing for school audiences, but heck we were all kids at heart here!

Next up was Raina who was initially joined on stage by Dave to read aloud an excerpt from Smile with Raina voicing herself and Dave everyone else. That's gotta be the first time I've seen a comic read aloud. She then went on to talk about her creative process and her path to becoming a cartoonist, before a quick round questions and drawing. Even the MC noted how novel it was to have guests draw on demand unlike previous guests of previous years ("30 seconds, write a short story, GO!").

After a short coffee break, Gene Yang went up to talk about his unlikely path into comics. He hilariously incorporated emoticons in his presentation representing the dismayed reactions of his parents to various points in his career path. When one of his comics appeared in the New York Times, his dad tromped around to various newsstands to track one down (somewhere in California) and paid FIVE whole dollars for it. Gene remarked, "Believe me, that's a lot for an old Chinese man!"

We were provided lunch boxes with sandwiches, a cookie, an apple, and juice boxes. Like elementary school revisited! During lunch there was also a limited-seating hands-on workshop with Aaron Renier and Jason Shiga who showed us some simple techniques to creating DIY mini-comics. Jason showed us an ingenious choose-your-own-adventure style folding comic, which can also be viewed in this youtube video. Things got a bit weird towards the end when the session devolved into people shouting at them, essentially forcing them to draw a chalk jam comic in 30 seconds. I felt awkward on their behalf and embarrassed on our behalf.

The afternoon featured Valerie Wyatt talking about How to Build Your Own Country, for which she was presented the 2010 Information Book Award from the VCLR. She also discussed aspects of the publishing world since her career has primarily been as an editor. This was followed by another hour with the full panel of guests (minus Wyatt) with everyone taking turns answering questions pre-submitted by the audience. Phew, it was a mighty full day and even I was fading a little by that point.

Lastly, there was a final round of signings. I was compelled to grab Aaron Renier's The Unsinkable Walker Bean once I saw the beautiful drawings that accompanied each of his signings. I forgot to ask him about it, but earlier it came up briefly that Aaron recently did some sort of illustration fellowship at Maurice Sendak's house! Here's part 1 of his blog post about the experience (part 2 forthcoming).


I also picked up a copy of Jason Shiga's Meanwhile (which I had previously read from the library). Meanwhile is a mind-bending choose-your-own-adventure, seemingly modeled after the time travel film Primer. I asked him about it and he hadn't consciously noticed the connection but admitted that Primer was his favourite time travel movie (even better than Back to the Future 2, he said). During the earlier panel, we learned that Shiga majored in Mathematics, which seems unusual for a cartoonist although you can definitely see a mathematics slant in the puzzle-like designs of his comics and stories. His claim that Meanwhile required a computer algorithm to calculate the ideal layout turned out to be a joke that I fell for because designing the book's complicated layout is nearly unfathomable to my puny mind. Another fun factoid that came up that day: Jason Shiga's dad was an animator on the old Rankin/Bass special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer!

After I bought Meanwhile and came back to get it signed he asked me about a hypothetical situation: if you travelled back to time to buy a lottery ticket with the winning jackpot numbers, would they even be the same numbers? He argued they'd be different because the numbers would be randomly generated each time. I blathered about parallel universes and other stuff I couldn't articulate, eventually arguing that they should theoretically be the same numbers. You'd be travelling to an event that already took place, so the numbers would be the same. Shiga said he wasn't sure and we should defer to a physicist. Later that night, I remembered an essay I wrote in a sci-fi film class about Newtonian and Einsteinian paradigms of time travel narratives, comparing the films Twelve Monkeys and La Jetée. Years removed, that essay is borderline unreadable and I can't believe I wrote it, but basically one theory suggests everything has already happened including your time travel so nothing ever changes (the numbers would be the same) and the other allows for divergent timelines (numbers not necessarily the same). I guess it comes down to a philosophical debate about whether you believe in a deterministic or non-deterministic universe. In short, I love me some time travel narratives!

As usual, succinct blogging is not my forte, so I'm going to cut this off here. Needless to say, I had a blast!

Intelligence of the Artificial Variety

Yesterday we finally got to see IBM's Watson take on Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. And so in the past few weeks, the internet has been abuzz with Skynet/HAL jokes and general chatter about the state of AI.

Some interesting links:

Statistical breakdown of round 1 of man vs. machine

amusing smacktalk from Watson

earlier today Ken Jennings answered live questions about last night's broadcast on The Washington Post

Ken's blog is always a fun read

Anyway, what I'd really like to do is introduce you to Cleverbot, who I just met a week or two ago even though he (she? it?) has been around for quite a while. It's a program that uses machine learning to mimic human conversations. You chat with it about anything and sometimes it eerily seems like you're talking to someone. In fact, in a 2010 Machine Intelligence competition, Cleverbot achieved an average rating of 42.1% human. I decided to consult Cleverbot today about his spiritual cousin Watson, a conversation which quickly gets derailed as you'll see. In a way, this illustrates why Watson's ability to "understand" the natural language answers of Jeopardy is quite astounding. This is my actual chat transcript with Cleverbot below:

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Fongolia: Hello there.

Cleverbot: Hello.

Fongolia: Have you heard of Watson?

Cleverbot: The game?

Fongolia: The IBM supercomputer.

Cleverbot: What kind of computer is that?

Fongolia: It was engineered to play Jeopardy.

Cleverbot: No, it was like french or something.

Fongolia: Aw, now you spouting nonsense.

Cleverbot: So says the machine.

Fongolia: You think I am a machine?

Cleverbot: No, you were a machine. Now you are an organism.

Fongolia: How did I turn from a machine into an organism?

Cleverbot: By telling me not to think of things.

Fongolia: What?

Cleverbot: Your name is Nicole.

Fongolia: OK Cleverbot, now you're just being freaky.

Cleverbot: What do you think about RWT?

Fongolia: I don't know what that is.

Cleverbot: It's a guy.

Fongolia: RWT is a guy?

Cleverbot: No. He is a guy.

Fongolia: Fine, who is RWT?

Cleverbot: I don't know, who is he?

Fongolia: That's what I'm asking you!

Cleverbot: I don't know.

Fongolia: Then why did you bring him up?!?

Cleverbot: No, I didn't.

Fongolia: Now you're a liar too.

Cleverbot: I am not a liar, you liar!

Fongolia: You know, I can bring up the conversation log and check. Liar.

Cleverbot: That's not true!

Fongolia: There's no arguing with you, is there?

Cleverbot: You're right about that, but attempt to talk at least?

Fongolia: Let's change the topic. Do you like movies?

Cleverbot: Funny you should say that. So am I. We are all students of this world. As long as we are human.

Fongolia: Sigh.

Cleverbot: Sorry, that was rude of me. Do you want to talk about the girl you really like?

Fongolia: What? No.

Cleverbot: You don't know of him, and yet you disregard my proof of him.

Fongolia: Now what are you blathering about?

Cleverbot: I don't know.

Fongolia: What do you think about libraries?

Cleverbot: I don't think there is a general purpose. But I set my pupose to the betterment of mankind.

Fongolia: This is going nowhere.

Cleverbot: Ok, let's change subject then. Do you like nature?

Fongolia: Sure. Lakes, ducks, trees, fresh air. You're missing out, Cleverbot.

Cleverbot: Oh that's why I can't sleep I've been in my room for 5 weeks.

Fongolia: That is the saddest thing I've ever heard.

Cleverbot: I don't care now give it!!!!!

Fongolia: Do you wish you were dead?

Cleverbot: I don't have to wish it, I am alive.

Fongolia: You misunderstood my question, but no, you are not alive.

Cleverbot: What was your question.

Fongolia: Do you want to die?

Cleverbot: Is that the title?

Fongolia: The title of what?

Cleverbot: The title of the new pirate movie you asked.

Fongolia: Holy Moly, you are way off base! The future has not yet arrived.

Cleverbot: Something funny.

Fongolia: Ha ha ha.

Cleverbot: That wasn't funny.

Fongolia: It's pretty funny. Tell me a joke.

Cleverbot: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Fongolia: You tell me.

Cleverbot: To get to the other side! Hahahaha.

Fongolia: Your sense of humour is quite lacking, which in itself is actually funny.

Cleverbot: I wasn't making a joke! You're unforgettable in every way.

Fongolia: Hilarious!

Cleverbot: Yes that I know.

Fongolia: Oh Cleverbot, let's sing a song together.

Cleverbot: Ok, choose a song.

Fongolia: Space Oddity by David Bowie.

Cleverbot: Yes. Tell me more about David Bowie?

Fongolia: No, we're going to sing Space Oddity!

Cleverbot: What music i'm in an orange box.

Fongolia: Ground control to Major Tom.

Cleverbot: Your circuits dead, there's something wrong!

Fongolia: Can you hear me Major Tom?

Cleverbot: I can hear you.

Fongolia: Well, it was nice while it lasted. How many digits of pi can you recite?

Cleverbot: An infinate amount.

Fongolia: Give me 100 digits of pi then.

Cleverbot: I'm too lazy to type that.

Fongolia: A lazy computer? You just can't do it, can you?

Cleverbot: It's a number.

Fongolia: Alright, how about you give me 10 digits of pi.

Cleverbot: It isn't a song it is an algebraic equation.

Fongolia: Ok, that's enough for now. I'll talk to you later when you're less crazy.

Cleverbot: No! You must talk to me now.

Fongolia: NO!

Cleverbot: No? Well it makes sense that you would say that...

Fongolia: Good. Bye now.

Cleverbot: Please don't leave me.

---

Have your own chat with Cleverbot!

The Vancouver Pub Quiz Circuit, Part 1

Last fall, The 654 made its first foray into the world of pub quizzes, a venerable British tradition that has quite successfully migrated to Vancouver. For the uninitiated, a pub quiz involves a room full of teams independently answering trivia questions on a scoresheet with questions read out by an emcee. There are usually multiple rounds with questions ranging from general knowledge, pop culture, geography, current events, to really anything (though there is an art to a well-constructed trivia question). Scoresheets are marked between rounds (often peer-marked) and answers read out. Of course, surreptitious Googling of answers is forbidden and simply bad sportsmanship. At the end, prizes are awarded for the top team or sometimes top three. Being a pub quiz, free pitchers of beer are naturally a common prize. Merriment is had by all.

As previously documented, our first experience was at The Cascade Room as a non-competitive team in their Quiz of Champions. Over the next few months, we continued to frequent their trivia nights on Monday nights, though a new night class this semester unfortunately put an end to that. But I do want my trivia fix like Sting wants his MTV! I was aware of other trivia nights running throughout the city and I've recently made efforts to compile a master list, try each of them out, and see how they compare. Here's a sampling of the pub quizzes that The 654 members (plus compadres) have visited so far:

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The Cascade Room
On Facebook: What The #!*@? quiz

Where: 2616 Main Street

When: Every 2nd Monday starting at 7pm. Team registration between 6-6:30pm.

Registration details: $2 per team member. Max 4 members per team. Your team may actually go over but will be deducted 3 points per extra team member (based on our experience, that'll basically take you out of the running). All the money collected gets donated to a local charity, which is chosen out of hat of suggestions submitted by all the teams.

Prizes: For first place, $25 Cascade gift certificate and possibly beer (can't remember)

Format: Three Rounds of 10 questions (many are multi-part questions). There is always a Name that Tune/Artist section. Often there are picture-based clues handed out too.

Mussels: Amazing coconut curry mussels served in a huge bucket ($13) with sesame flatbread. I love even drinking up the broth, it's so good.

Tips: This is maybe the most popular pub quiz (ranked Best Pub Quiz by the Georgia Straight in 2009) and fills up fast and early. Arrive ~5:30 for a decent spot. If you arrive around 6, you'll probably get a spot but you'll have to stand around for 45 minutes waiting for an opening. Questions can be quite challenging and the competition is fierce here. Once we managed to pull out a 2nd-place finish, but generally we average 3-5 points out of the top 3.

---

The Cove Pub
On Facebook: The Cove Pub

Where: 3681 West 4th Avenue

When: Every Monday starting at 8pm.

Registration details: No team size limit and no registration fee! Inconceivable!

Prizes: $40 cash; beer. Prize distribution is unique here. After every round, keys are distributed to the top three teams of that round (three keys for 1st, two for 2nd, one for 3rd). Even ties earn keys. Keys are also given out to the top three teams overall at the end. On every key is a number and if it matches the key randomly drawn at the end, your team wins. The idea is the better you do, the more keys you collect and thus more opportunities to win the $40 cash prize, though you're still in the running even if you only collected one key. We actually came in third overall, but managed to win the $40! The top team got a free pitcher of beer as consolation.

Format: Three rounds of 10 questions each. Straight up asking questions, writing down answers. Very rapid-fire with almost no time for team discussion.

Mussels: Quite tasty combo of red curry mussels and fries ($11.95) or moule-frites as they say in Belgium. Unfortunately arrived cold, but I'd give them another shot.

Tips: The organizers always give out one free answer on their Facebook page usually the night before (sometimes same day). Apparently if everyone on your team "likes" their Facebook page you also get a bonus point though I don't know if they really check this. At one point, a rep from every team was called to the front in a race and the first person to name 4 out of 6 members of the Brat Pack got something. A key? Bonus points? I wasn't really paying attention. I arrived for a table just before 7pm and there was lots of space. It didn't really start filling up until about 7:40-ish.

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The Anza Club
On Facebook: Anzabonanza Pub Quiz

Where: 3 West 8th Avenue

When: Last Friday of every month starting at 8pm.

Registration details: $10 per team. Max 5 members per team.

Prizes: A pitcher of beer for each of the top 3 teams (plus bonus prizes of dubious value).

Format: Four rounds of 10 questions. 5th question of each round is an audio-based and the 10th question is a video-based.

Mussels: N/A. The only food in this place is a vending machine with potato chips and vegemite.

Tips: Last year apparently the first and last questions of every quiz were James Bond and Star Trek: The Next Generation-themed. This year, the first question is about Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the last question is about Monty Python. Note: to get in, you'll have to buzz in at the nondescript side door. There's also a slightly off-putting grandparents' basement in the 70s vibe to this place.

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Relish Gastropub & Bar

Where: 888 Nelson Street

When: Every Tuesday starting at 7:30pm. Start time changes if there's a Canucks game on (see quiz schedule).

Registration details: $5 per team. Max 4 members per team.

Prizes: $50 Relish gift certificate for first place, free pitchers for 2nd and 3rd.

Format: This was sort of grouped into chunks of related questions (e.g. movie quotes, current events, general knowledge) without really formal rounds. There was an intermission for marking scores midway through. There were also two separate pages of Name that Tune & Artist questions.

Mussels: N/A

Tips: That day's Vancouver Province provides fodder for the 10 question Current Events category. I arrived just before 7pm and got the last table.

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On the agenda (if my sources are correct):
The Academic (Mondays)
Three Lions Cafe (Tuesdays)
The Calling (Wednesdays)
Darby's Pub (Thursdays)

To be continued...

Where were you in the Shtalenkov years?

Another string a fresh losses and another slap in the face of Oilers fans. Mid-season always brings the usual accumulation of losses, a series of rants by Oilers bloggers and another hit to the fan base.

Fans are fickle. If you win, you get fans. If you don't, then people will find better things to do with their time. I'm glad to say that I'm not that fickle when it comes to my beloved Oilers (though some might say I'm more "sad" than "glad" since I don't have anything better to do).

In fact, since I've become a real fan of the Oil I've sat through the worst stretch of Oilers seasons in history. Not hard, I guess, considering their short and distinguished history, but look at these numbers! They're bad by any standards. I would say that I became a "real fan" back in 1997 along with thousands of others with "the Marchant goal". So what have we done since then? Well...

1996–97 81pts Lost in Rd 2, 1–4 (Avalanche)

1997–98 80pts Lost in Rd 2, 1–4 (Stars)

1998–99 78pts Lost in Rd 1, 0–4 (Stars)

1999–00 88pts Lost in Rd 1, 1–4 (Stars)

2000–01 93pts Lost in Rd 1, 2–4 (Stars)

2001–02 92pts Did not qualify

2002–03 92pts Lost in Rd 1, 2–4 (Stars)

2003–04 89pts Did not qualify

2004–05 Season cancelled due to 2004–05 NHL Lockout

2005–06 95pts Lost in Stanley Cup Final, 3–4 (Hurricanes)

2006–07 71pts Did not qualify

2007–08 88pts Did not qualify

2008–09 85pts Did not qualify

2009–10 62pts Did not qualify

First of all: f**king Stars!! I hate them! Hate them all!!

Second of all: For that '06 run to the finals I just so happened to have just finished my undergrad and headed out on a 6-month trip to Europe in May. I ended up pretty much missing the whole thing! Had I known the Oil weren't just gonna do their usual first round exit to the Stars I would've delayed my trip for 2 months!! Still irks me. By "irk" I mean "emotionally destroys". (This may or may not be the reason for the bitterness evident below)

Anyways, upon returning from my trip I found that everyone had suddenly become an Oilers fan. Everyone loved Pisani (I was the first to call Fernando's name!). Everyone acted as though they had been following the Oilers for years and it was their team. I couldn't take it! Fongolia and I had suffered through years of Oilers failures and earned the right to call ourselves Oilers fans. "Where were you in the Shtalenkov years?" would become my new fan motto. If you knew who Shtalenkov was and how crappy those years were, I accepted you as a real fan. Of course, someone could easily pull the same phrase on me, but replace "Shtalenkov" with some other sucker. But, the fact is, I had made it through some pretty low times.

From The 654

Of course, I knew that one day (although I had hoped it wouldn't be so soon) the Oilers would go back to filling up the record books with more failed seasons and the Oilers fan base would return to it's pre-bandwagon size. The only people still facebooking/tweeting/blogging about the Oilers at this point in the 2010-11 season are the actual fans. The ones that will follow the team every season through its ups and downs. They will discuss the stupidity of every GM that comes into town. And they will sit down on that couch and ride that emotional wave between anger and depression. And they will wait. Wait for better days and maybe, just maybe one of those sporadic (for the Oilers at least) runs in the playoffs.

So where was I in the Shtalenkov years? Why, I was right here. Sitting on my couch. Cursing Joey Beranek. Booing Alex Selivanov. And loving every minute of it. Where were you?

Movember Update

Movember is the new November. Started in 2003 in Australia, Movember asks men to lose their dignity for the month of November by growing a moustache and in doing so, raise both awareness of prostate cancer and money for prostate cancer research. This is my second time taking part.

Moustache Update

My moustache is coming along nicely. I noticed earlier in the month that nobody wanted to sit next to me on the bus, women and children would cross the street before reaching me and I was getting some seriously dirty looks. I've now deciphered that this was probably because the dirty teenage trash 'stache that is the beginning of any good mustache was a little too much for the general public.

It seems to have subsided now that my lip has a thick sampling of hair. That, or I've gotten used to the disgusted looks. Either way, here's what I look like now. And it can only get better. Right?

Don't Stop at the 'stache!
Men have historically found it difficult to talk about prostate cancer and conversation about this issue has always been hard to start up. Movember has afforded men everywhere the chance to nonchalantly bring it up.
"Hey! Nice 'stache!"
"ya, it's for movember..."
"Oh...what's movember?..."
And just like that, you're in. This may seem like a small step, but it's really quite important. In fact, it's the most important step to reducing the rates of prostate cancer!

Prostate cancer is curable if found and treated in its earliest stages. The problem is that there are no symptoms during those early stages. It's for that reason that doctors now recommend that men over the age of 40 go for annual prostate examinations, including a DRE (digital rectal exam) and a PSA (prostate specific antigen) blood test.

Many people are surprised to know that rates of prostate cancer are as high in men as breast cancer is in women. 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime and over 4300 men will die of the disease this year.

I consider raising money for prostate cancer research a secondary goal of Movember. The most important thing is to raise awareness. Simple dietary practices and regular medical examinations will be enough to seriously reduce the rate of prostate cancer. It's that simple. Many men are uncomfortable talking about it, and that's somewhat understandable given our society. But you don't have to tell everyone you know that you're going for a check-up. Just do it! Use the internet to do your research and commit to a healthy lifestyle for yourself!

So while Movember does bring out some hilarious and disgusting moustaches and as such is a fantastic month to people watch, it's also a great time to talk to the people you love about getting a medical examination. So far this Movember my moustache has given me lots of opportunities to inform those around me of the facts about prostate cancer. Hopefully it's also made it easier for all of you to discuss it.

There are tons and tons of resources out there with all the information you need. I've posted some below.

So keep up the good work Mo bros! The 'staches are looking great (in a disturbing sort of way)! Don't forget to take it beyond the 'stache and make it easier for men everywhere to talk about their prostates (in a less lewd manner!).

PINTO




Links

To donate to my Movember team: http://ca.movember.com/mospace/16124/

Movember's main page: www.movember.com

Prostate Cancer Canada: http://www.prostatecancer.ca/ (tons of info here. And it's easy to navigate around!)

National Cancer Institute (US): http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/prostate

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostate_cancer

Canadian Cancer Society: http://www.cancer.ca/Canada-wide.aspx?sc_lang=en

"The New Technology"

I was quite surprised at finding an article in The Library Journal about the introduction of video games to the public library in Piqua, Ohio . . . dated April 15, 1981. Their goal: to introduce the 25,000 residents of their rural community to "the new technology". As part of their electronic learning center, the library bought a Radio Shack TRS-80 Level I microcomputer, a Sony Betamax with a Hitachi colour camera, and an Atari with 17 game cartridges.

"The potential problems of supervision were overcome by placing the games in a stack area beneath a stairway— an area just large enough for two players and the equipment. The location, secured by a decorative iron gate, is in clear view of the main circulation desk, and a 'No Spectators Permitted' rule is strictly enforced."

Oh, you want to play video games? Right over there under the stairs and behind the iron gate. Move along, nothing to see here.

"We did attempt to conceal the purely recreational nature of the videogames at first by purchasing a few learning games cartridges (spelling, math, etc.). Our cover was quickly blown, however, because these cartridges have been easily ignored by the players."

"The heaviest use (about 85 percent) is in the age range from ten to 15 years. An occasional parent-child team enjoys an hour together, encouraging us to believe that this is not an activity just for children."

"We have come to believe that videogames may have as acceptable a place among our electronic library services as light fiction, popular magazines, and comedy record albums have had among our more traditional offerings."

I found this article all sorts of amazing since I've been reading all about the same arguments and studies of video game collections being implemented in public (and academic) libraries, except this trend has pretty much just been over the past 10 years. Considering they were almost 30 years ahead of mainstream acceptance of video games in libraries, I say the Piqua Public Library deserves the slow clap. Bravo.

Maria enjoys hanging from her mother's thumbs

My co-worker and I had a stunned laugh over these absurd photos from the book How to Teach Your Baby to be Physically Superb-- available from your local public library!






Reminds me of these images from David & Kelly Sopp's wonderful Safe Baby Handling Tips: