Category: General

Well, it was a crazy, crazy, crazy year. “The Year of the Thicket” to some, the year of no free time for me. Which made this Christmas break all the more sweet since I’ve done nothing but relax since Dec 24. Actually that’s not true I’ve been doing a lot of writing. But no phone calls, no paperwork, no meetings. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Here’s what happened in my life over the past 12 months. Anything in italics required a lot of planning. Anything in bold and italics required a ridiculous amount of planning that consumed my time and energy and I never want to do again. May also have involved hated paperwork.

JANUARY: Started dating Deanna; filmed “Hello/Goodbye”

FEBRUARY: Moved out of gassy Shaughnessy and into Kits with Mike et al.

MARCH: Voiceover for Toyota commercial; Saturday Morning Cartoon Party; Vacation in Victoria;

APRIL: Got art studio; Toe surgery

MAY: A Thickets Show in town

JUNE: Vacation to Carol Lake

JULY: Filmed “The Summoning”; Hearing with Residential Tenancy Branch for resolution to get damage deposit back from ex-landlady.

AUGUST: voice work for “Sword of the Stars”; Prepared  comic for anthology “Comix & Stories” but it was rejected – still sold stuff at a table at the associated convention @ VAG; PENNY ARCADE EXPO with release of “Shhh….” on Rock Band 2

SEPTEMBER: Thickets show in Seattle; Comic stuff at Word Under the Street

OCTOBER: H.P. LOVECRAFT FILM FESTIVAL with Mike Mignola & Thickets Show in Portland; Vacation in Saskatoon; Moved in with Deanna to East Van;

NOVEMBER: Cloudscape/Historyonics anthology published with Rhinosferatu comic

DECEMBER: CTHULHUPALOOZA show in Vancouver; Thickets track “Kill the Chupacabra” released on Childsplay Compilation CD.

But he prefers the carpet. Anyone have any small to medium-size rugs they want to get rid of?

The extinct glyptodon

with the alive but rare pink fairy armadillo

See also ARMADILLO ROLLING INTO BALL

Under intense magnification, a long-fin squid’s suckers–each no wider than a human hair–resemble the leafy star of Little Shop of Horrors.

DECEMBER:

This one’s for Deanna:

Able to shoot cyanide, this millipede is tough enough to wear pink.  First documented in 2007, the shocking pink dragon millipede–yes, that’s its real name–is among more than a thousand new species found in the Greater Mekong region in the last ten years, WWF announced on December 15, 2008.

The bioluminescent species Taningia danae [squid] use their beaks and sharp claws to slice two-inch-deep (five-centimeter-deep) wounds into their partners. Sperm packets, or spermatophores, are then inserted into the female’s cuts using a penis-like appendage, according to Hoving.

Meanwhile, males of the species Moroteuthis ingens were found to have sperm packets that, once deposited onto a female, burrow into the body.

FEBRUARY: A massive prehistoric sea reptile that was longer than a humpback whale and had teeth the size of cucumbers has been found by fossil hunters on a remote Arctic island. (See pictures of the “sea monster.”) Measuring some 50 feet (15 meters) in length, the bone-crunching predator represents one of the largest marine reptiles ever known

NOVEMBER:  A mile and a half (two and a half kilometers) underwater, a remote control submersible’s camera has captured an eerie surprise: an alien-like, long-armed, and—strangest of all—”elbowed” Magnapinna squid

Homosexual behavior has been seen in many animals, including insects, penguins, and primates.  From an evolutionary perspective, why homosexuality exists at all is a mystery. In theory, males should focus their energies on reproducing with females. “We noticed that these male beetles spent quite a lot of time in this seemingly counterproductive behavior and wondered what was going on, so we set up some experiments to find out,”

MAY: “uncontacted” Amazon tribe fire arrows at an airplane above the rain forest

Captured in National Geographic News’s most viewed individual photo of 2008, Chile’s Chaiten volcano erupts on May 3 after 9,000 years of silence.

Another WWFJ character came to me today:

Coldcock.

But I think I’ll leave that for the R-rated parody to follow the wild success of the series.

I’ve been learning interesting things about wildlife!

For some reason – because I could, I guess – I put my list of Movies to See up on the internet for all to see. You can sort it by date, or imdb rating, or genre and all that sort of rot.

Now that we have our X-Box 360 hooked up we can, in theory, watch movies that have been downloaded from the interweb. A bold new era.

I came up with some more WWFJ character names last night, and I will list them all below. Do me a favour and tell me which are your favourites, your least favourites, and what the name conjures up in your mind (thinking of superhero and villains).

Scarebear

Metalligator

Bird of Parasite

Quailien

Invincibull

Intangibull

Invisibull

Indestructibull

Irresistibull

Terribull

Impossibull

Tarmadillo

Karmadillo

Psibis

Psibex

Psyrax

Psylark

Astronomicow

Astronomicat

Thundercroc

Thundercrake

Thundercroak

Enormouse

Behemouse

Shockatiel

Shockodile

Magnopie

The Impossum

Supremu

Stalwarthog

Whopperwill

Gerbilious

Sledgehog

Hackrabbit

As some of you know The Thickets are holding a music video contest. The news is that Steve F has started his production blog and you can read it at http://thekinginyellow.ca/

He adds:

I would also like to offer a free wordpress blog to the other people making videos. If they want one, it would be at http://thekinginyellow.ca/whatever-their-name-is — if any of the other video-makers are interested they can contact me at steve [at) thekinginyellow (dot] ca
-Steve-