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Assorted Bits

Here’s some hot news I discovered while trying to find something to eat at the Greyhound depot:

McDonald’s jr chicken burger = 390 calories
Mars Bar = 234 calories

So my character in Call of Cthulhu was horribly horribly killed last Sunday. My history of CoC characters going out in cool ways is pretty good. He didn’t just fall off a cliff or get shot in the chest or something. This guy, and Indian manservant, was stabbed and beaten by cultists, and then flung into a pit with a hideous, wailing abomination against nature which proceeded to take hundreds of tiny bites out of him while simultaneously crushing him. All the while protecting his unconscious master (and saving him from the same gruesome fate). My character from a previous campaign also more or less sacrificed himself to save the world, by forcing his compatriot to shoot him in the head. Yay!

Yesterday we (the Thickets) recorded via a more or less proper computerized electronical recording system a bunch of the new songs so that we can review them before we actually go into the studio in December. We also decided that one of the songs will be left entirely a capella – by me. It wasn’t my decision, I was against it, but they talked me into it and since time is a factor it may actually be a boon to the rest of the songs. Hopefully it won’t stick out like a sore thumb. If it sticks out like a massaged and energized thumb then that’s okay.

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photo by Amanda Seminoff

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In Case You Missed It

Below is the set we played on Saturday. I forgot to mention that the sound was amazing. Johnny did a fantastic job. Damn near perfect from where I stood.

(We’re Gonna) Kill the Chupacabra (Tonight)
Chunk
Shhh…
Shoggoths Away
Burrow Your Way to My Heart
A Marine Biologist
Frogstar
The Math Song
Dies Ist Unverschamtheit
Downtown (In the Cenozoic)
20 Minutes of Oxygen
Sleestak and Yeti
Big Robot Dinosaur
They Come In Threes (Garett’s favourite – and my melodica solo was well received)
The Chosen One
Hall of Doors
Colour Me Green
Truth Hits Everybody

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Went to a Spelling Bee This Morning

Words I got right: demesne, kilojoule, rusticate, flexuous, juvenescence, infusible, subtlety, lackadaisical, keister, judder, colloquy, gherkin, funambulist
Words I got wrong: flibbertygibbet, fricassee, lachrymose, cheechako, kennebecasis (I mean come on).

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There Is Always That Guy Who Shouts "Space Ghosts!" From The Back

I would say that tonight’s show was one of the best. Not for audience participation, which was very good, by the way, and not for the fact that we played well – we did, generally – but for the sheer fact that we really enjoyed playing. Little secret – sometimes we don’t. But the last two shows have been outstanding for that. I’m positive that it has to do with the fact that we’re playing new material – stuff that we just created and are reasonably proud of – we’re playing it well – and best of all is that we are getting very positive feedback on it. We are doing our rock jobs and it is F.U.N.

Tidbits:

There was a trivia contest – name one of the five pelagic zones – which got some nice young woman a cigarette case, a head in a jar, a troll baby, a Stay Puft cap, a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror VHS, and other awesome stuff that was leftover from my birthday auction.

Taylor was there to snap shots – updates on that asap.

I made a fun-fur necktie to go with my outfit, which was flippin’ sweet, as the kids say.

Joyce got to see the full Thickets experience, WITH CTHULHU.

Mario spilled an entire jug of water onstage.

We sold LOTS of merch. New shirt design seems like a winner.
Like I say, fan appreciation was at a maximum. I got comments from two separate people who had never heard of us before, just came into the Backstage Lounge for drinks or whatever, and left shaking my hand and buying CDs or buttons. That makes me feel good.

Jordan was on fire.

Clever things I got to say:

“Isn’t this the most faun you’ve ever had on a satyr-day?”

“You know what I love about those motion activated towel dispensers in the bathroom? They make me feel like a FUCKING WIZARD!” (makes hand gestures)
Merrick: “Except it takes three tries to make them work.”
Me: “That’s consistent with my spellcasting prowess.”
(slightly paraphrased)

“So the bartender lives in my apartment building. I guess my secret’s out” (point to fun fur necktie)

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Judge Mental

I am a judge for the Bloodshots 48 Hour Horror Film Festival. Stephen Lea Sheppart (Freaks and Geeks, Royal Tenenbaums) is another. The viewings are Wednesday night at the ANZA club.

I am going to be the very best judge I can be.

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Just One More Reason…

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — A public relations firm has revealed that it is behind two blogs that previously appeared to be created by independent supporters of Wal-Mart.

The blogs Working Families for Wal-mart and subsidiary site Paid Critics are written by three employees of PR firm Edelman, for whom Wal-Mart is a paid client, according to information posted on the sites Thursday.

Thanks Aaron

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Rocktopus

There’s this crazy steam machine at work which looks like (Doctor Who’s) K-9 with a hose instead of a head. It burns me so bad, and not in a good way. So that’s the bad news from today – the good news is that I got to use the DGP (Digital Garment Printer) to put this image,

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which I whipped up last night at the Do Ink drawing social, and then finished in Photoshop with my newly installed Wacom drawing table, wait…where was I going with this? Oh yeah – I put it on a couple shirts! There was another design I don’t want to spoil the surprise (hint – they’re playing Real Ghostbusters on Teletoon until Hallowe’en), but we didn’t have the right kind of shirt in the shop to do it. Maybe by next Thursday.

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First Day

Today on my very first day at EmbroidMe some old lady came into the shop and talked to the boss for…oh…I would say ten minutes maybe? About nothing. About the neighborhood and the laundromat that used to be in the building. Boss says I can bring something to put on a t-shirt tomorrow on the big machine that is basically a big textile printer, so I’m wracking my brains trying to think of something good. Maybe a StayPuft shirt. I couldn’t find any decent images of Sinistar online. I have a couple ideas lying around but nothing I could put together for tomorrow morning. Maybe, just maybe, I can do up my new Thickets shirt idea all nice-nice. We’ll see. In researching I found some hilarious Christian t-shirts at http://www.sharingjesus.com/, like this one:

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Mystics Or Madmen?

I found out…somehow or other…that Chester Brown would be having a couple of talks as part of the Vancouver International Writer’s Festival. Brown wrote a comic strip biography of Louis Riel. He got a government grant to publish the book. I am interested in grants for comic books, as you might expect. I biked down to the Revue Theatre on Granville Island and there were throngs…THRONGS…of tweens. I didn’t like it, no sir. The thought “these kids better not be here for the same thing I’m here” immediately popped into my head. Turns out they were. Oh they were so. But the good news is that because some kids didn’t show up one of the teacher-ladies had extra tickets, one of which she sold me for $6 instead of the $12 I expected to pay. Yeah! Literary scalpers! So after having to suffer these semi-pubescent fools not gladly but at least quietly, I got into the theater and took a seat.

I saw a girl who works at Raincoast (you’ll recall I worked in the warehouse there for about a year) and, having seen her at the Joe Sacco event at Word on the Street, formulated an idea that she is in the publicity department. I went and introduced myself to her (funny how I don’t do these sorts of things when I’m actually working with people and see them on a daily basis) and it turns out that she knows The Thickets. Small world but I wouldn’t want to paint it. Anyhoo the event was interesting – I learned a lot about both Louis Riel and Don Quixote (the other panelist wrote such books), which is good because I didn’t really know anything about them, and neither did the fool throng.

As a result I am invited to a Raincoast party on Friday night. Coming, Taytay? I get to practice my schmoozing.