OK. Time for another political rant.

Christmas election. No one wants one, yet it sure looks like we're going to have one.

Well, technically, not at Christmas. With our laws and when a non-confidence motion could be passed, the earliest we'd have an election is January 3. but still, who the hell is going to be reading the papers and actually following an election over Christmas vacation?

This is what really pisses me off. Paul Martin has said that he will call an election when the final Gomery report comes down. The one that came out a few weeks ago was just a preliminary report. The final Gomery report comes down in February. Everyone wants an election in the spring.

So, why can't the opposition parties just keep it in their pants for another two months?

Trust me, if we have an election over Christmas, it won't be the Liberals' fault, like the opposition parties want us to believe. It'll be because the opposition pushed for it.

This whole thing is making me rethink my whole opinion on having fixed election dates. I used to be fairly indifferent, but now it seems to be like a good idea. None of this "We'll bring down the government!" bullshit posturing, which is grinding Parliment to a halt. We know we'll have an election in four years, so just shut up and wait.

But, my question towards fixed election dates has always been, what happens if we have a minority government? Do we have to put up with this bullshit posturing and nothing getting done for a full four years? At least, with our current system, the plug can be pulled, we go to the polls, and hopefully clear things up.

So, my idea: if we do move to a system of fixed election dates, we have to have some kind of safeguard in place that allows for government to continue for the full term in a minority government, rather than having a 4-year long philibuster courtesy the opposition.

I know they're trying the whole "fixed election dates" thing in BC right now. I should look into how they're doing it in BC.

This is the time of day I hate.

I was out working in the oil fields all day with Dad, there's a couple of good looking jobs posted that I should get an application together for, but I just don't feel like it. Instead, I'm just surfing around.

Over at my friend's blog, she's doing this thing right now where she and a bunch of other bloggers living outside of Canada share their tales of culture shock. Today, the common topic is all about food. And, it reminded me of a story about Japan.

Now, I've never told this story to anyone before, so you're in for a treat.

So, there I was, with my American co-worker and a couple of our Japanese co-workers. We were in the mood for sushi, so we went to the best sushi place in Kumagaya. After my friend and I had our fill of what was rolling down the conveyer belt, we wanted something a little different. We went through the menu and ordered some deep fried/tempura looking thing.

We got it. We started eating it. We found it to be quite good. "I've finally got to find out what this is," said the Yankee, so he pulled his pocket-sized English/Japanese dictionary out of his bag.

"Oh my God."

"What?"

"You won't believe what we're eating."

"Let me guess. It's fish testicles!"

"Oh my God."

"What?"

"How did you know?"

"How did I know what?"

"That these are fish testicles?"

"No way. Really?"

"Yup."

"I just said the first disgusting thing that popped into my head!"

"Wow. That's a coincidence."

"These are really fish testicles?"

"Yup."

"You're not just jerking me around?"

"Nope."

"We're eating fish testicles?"

"Yup."
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.
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"Ya know, they're not bad."

"Yeah, there's actually kind of good."

But we didn't order seconds.

Wow! This is a TV show that I...I just have to report on.

Superman has had several TV shows, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Flash have all had TV shows...what DC hero is the next to get a live-action TV show?

Aquaman!

Yes, Aquaman is getting his own TV show. He's being adapted for the small screen by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the same duo responsible for Smallville. (they also wrote Spider-Man 2.) In their new take, Arthur Curry is going to be an early-20s marine biologist working in the Florida keys. He's just discovering his powers and is using them to investigate all kinds of weird goings-on in the nearby Bermuda Triangle. Naturally, he thinks all this has something to do with the mysterious disappearance of his mother.... His father will still be around, but this time, his dad's an officer in the Coast Guard. (In the comics, he's a lighthouse keeper.) And, just like Smallville, he won't be wearing his "superhero uniform."

Now, a 20-something Aquaman did make an appearance on Smallville a couple weeks ago. But, Gough and Millar are quick to point out that they'll pretty much ignore that and go their own way with this Aquaman show.

They're going to film a pilot sometime in the spring and, if the execs like it, look for it to hit TV screens in fall 2006.

There we are! Latest column's up! This week, it's The Fastest Man Alive:

" The year was 1990. Hollywood was expecting that there’d be this explosion of comic book movies, with Batman having been the big hit the year before. But, it didn’t quite explode…it just kind of fizzled. It was enough, though, to produce the TV show I was sitting down to watch. At the end of the 2-hour pilot, I was completely in love. The show lasted only one year, but I was able to catch every episode of The Flash."

Read it all here!

Let me explain something a little odd about how I've been doing the column lately. About a month ago, I was hit with a real brainstorm, and I managed to sit down and write 3 columns in one day. Even though that was 3 weeks ago, I still spend a couple hours on the weekend writing a new one. The goal is try and forever remain 3 weeks ahead. The eventual goal is to have some time to revise, and thus make the column better. The truth is, once I get comfortable with this set-up, I'll be able to do some kind of "In Next Week's Issue" gag at the end of each one.

I had dinner with two women at the same time...cuz I'm a stud. - The Flash attempting to save face, after his attempt at reconciling Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl goes kerblooey.

Hermes>> I've got something for you here...it's pretty important...Zeus paid for overnight service.... (Removes a scroll from his bag) Here it is!
Wonder Woman>> (Reading scroll) 'For a good time, call Podeminus'.
Hermes>> Woah, hey! Wrong scroll. (snatches back the scroll) I think I got a shot...it's her cell number.

That's right! I'm an angel! You can mess with me if you want to, but I don't think you want to mess with the boss! - Hawkgirl, bluffing her way past an army of demons on the way to Hell.

(Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman materialize in a winter landscape)
Hawkgirl>> Aren't you cold in that outfit?
Wonder Woman>> Not really.
Hawkgirl>> Of course not. The "Princess" doesn't get cold. The "Princess" doesn't even sweat in the fire pits of Tardaris.
Wonder Woman>> I do to sweat!
Hawkgirl>> Please. You glow. I wouldn't be surprised if you never have to....
(Their conversation is cut off.)

God, I love my Justice League Unlimited.

So, I'm just doing some mindless surfing tonight and I came across this article at the Hollywood Reporter. It essentially goes on to say that the race for Best Animated Film at the Oscars has begun, and already tries to predict the winner. Let me give you the Coles Notes:

According to the article, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is the clear frontrunner. Nick Park is an Oscar darling, with 3 of his animated shorts having won Best Animated Short Film Oscars (Creature Comforts, Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave, Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers). In fact, it's even been theorized that the Best Animated Film Oscar was created primarily because Park's Y2K film Chicken Run was deserving of something, but not really eligible for anything. Kinda have to agree with this.

They also say that Tim Burton's Corpse Bride may be a contender, if only for the novelty of stop-motion animation. Now, I kind of have to disagree with this one. As much as I loved it, I have my doubts over its Oscar worthiness.

Madagascar will probably score a nomination because it made so darn much.

Hayao Miyazaki's latest, Howl's Moving Castle, is actually considered to be a bit of a longshot, mainly because a) It didn't make much money b) the critics didn't like it as much as Spirited Away c) Miyazaki already got the gold with Spirited Away.

Some say Robots deserves to be nominated if only because of its striking and imaginative design, but because it hit theatres way back in March, it may have been forgotten.

And Chicken Little just might get a nomination too, because (at the time this article was written), it was getting "positive advance buzz."

I don't know. In my perfect world, I'd love the three nominations to be Wallace and Gromit, Corpse Bride and Howl's Moving Castle. Let's shut out the CGI films in an effort to prove that CGI hasn't killed all other forms of animaiton.

After having a look at my friend's blog, I'm just kind of thinking that maybe I should say something, or at least acknowledge, that today is Rememberance Day. I have a few things to say abou it...many things, actually:

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If there's one thing that I do like about Rememberance Day, it's that it's the only holiday that has yet to "go commercial." You don't see the greeting card stores selling Rememberance Day cards, store shelves aren't cluttered with "poppy candies" or anything like that. It is still a solemn and sacred day. And, given it's purpose, that's very much a good thing.

And people are still fighting to keep it from going commercial, too. I remember working at Extra Foods, I saw one of our cashiers have an all-out screaming match with the store manager about whether or not to have a 2-minutes silence at 11AM on Rememberance Day. Cashier was for it, store manager was against it. The cashier one, but we still grumbled under our breaths that Rememberance Day is one of the few holidays where everything should shut down.

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Of course, had to watch the CBC's coverage of the ceremonies in Ottawa. I'd sure like to go to Ottawa someday, and see all those monuments and memorials for myself. I'm sure that we all know that the brand-new Canadian War Museum opened up this year. The old one was in dire need of replacement. While the old War Museum was a grand old building, it had grown ridiculously small...the museum was only able to display 2% of their collection. So, the new one was built. The final cost was $100 million and it took 2.5 years to build. But it's worth it to remember the sacrafices.

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Here's a small part of today's Rememberance Day ceremonies that will probably be glossed over, but shouldn't be.

Today, the government dedicated the seventh Book of Rememberance.

For those who don't know, the Books of Rememberance are a series of hand-bound books commissioned by the government. They list the names of every Canadian soldier who's died in service. One of the books sits on display in the Peace Tower in Ottawa, and, every day (yes, EVERY DAY), there's a solemn ceremony in the House of Commons where the page is turned in the book.

This seventh book lists every Canadian soldier that's died from 1947 to the present.

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My grandmother fought in World War II.

She was a corporal in the Royal Canadian Air Force. She was over in England for most of the war. I do know that a point of family pride has always been a photo of my Grandma being inspected by the Queen. You know, we've all seen it in the movies...all the troops line up in their dress uniforms, the Queen marches down the line looking over the uniforms, and, if you're lucky, you get to share a few words with the Queen:

Queen>> What's your name, soldier?
Soldier>> Private Mike Johnson.
Queen> Where you from?
Soldier>> A small town you never heard of.

My Grandma was one of those ones that the Queen spoke to.

I never got the whole story of my grandma's war service. When I was a kid, at her house one Rememberance Day, she took out her medals and wore them. She had at least 4 or 5. I asked about them, but she didn't want to say much. "I earned each and every one, and this is the only day I wear them," was all she'd tell me.

I do know the story of why she joined the military. Her family urged her to do it to get her away from "that good for nothing Cappis boy." Of course, she came back from the war, and settle down with that Cappis boy. Well, except these days, I call him Grandpa.

I don't feel right asking questions about my grandmother's military service. She passed away 10 years ago, but the issue of who gets her war memorabilia is still a very heated argument between my aunts and uncles. That, and my grandfather has a real mean-on for veterans. Why is a long and rather dull story that I won't get into here. So, asking about Grandma in the war always creates incredibly awkward moments.

But she fought so I could be free to sit down and write this today.

And that, I'll always remember.

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And, with my mother's side of the family being German, they've got their war stories too. They were the civilians we were fighting to liberate, after all.

Not too long ago, my mother told me about my Great Opa. He died when I was 8 years old, I barely knew him. But a few months ago, my mother told me an interesting fact about him.

His birthday was May 6. But, he always celebrate his birthday on May 8 - more commonly known as VE Day, the day that World War II officially ended. He changed his birthday to May 8 on the original VE Day: May 8, 1945.

I asked my mother why he changed his birthday like that. "Because," she told me, "Like everyone else in the world, he was glad that the war was finally over."

YES YES, oh God, YES!! It's finally official!

The very first teaser for Superman Returns will be running in front of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire next Friday!

The teaser clocks in at 1:33. (One minute, 33 seconds.) Oh, I hope Bryan Singer handles the Man of Steel as well as he handled the X-Men. The film itself is still slated for June 30, 2006.

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Here's some news about an upcoming computer animated film. This upcoming outing from DreamWorks seems...mildly interesting.

Kung Fu Panda follows the tale of Po the Panda, a fat, lazy slob of a panda. But when is home, the Valley of Peace, is threatened by invaders, he does nothing. The citizens of the valley have a martial arts competition to choose a champion, and they all drop the jaws when they notice that Po bears the mark of "The One." So, they've got to whip Po into shape to take on the invaders. The voice cast was announced today:

Jack Black will be voicing Po.
Dustin Hoffman will be voicing Shifu, the kung fu master charged with whipping Po into shape.
Jackie Chan will be voicing Master Monkey, Po's rival.
Ian MacShane will be voicing Tai Lung, a snow leapord who leads the bad guys.

And negotiations are still underway to have Lucy Liu voice Master Viper, another kung fu master who teaches Po.

May 2008 for this one.

But let's be honest! You don't come by my blog to read my half-assed ramblings about politics. No! You want the latest DVD news!

On January 31, you'll be able to run on out to the store and buy Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. It has a slew of behind-the-scenes documentaries and featurettes, an isolated music track (sweet!), galleries of pre-production artwork, "and more!" I hope the "more" includes a Tim Burton running commentary.

As for DVDs that came out today, you can head on out and get Jay and Silent Bob do Degrassi. This was Kevin Smith's 3-episode guest-starring-arc on Degrassi: The Next Generation. You can get the regular broadcast version, or an "uncensored extended edition." That uncensored one boasts a few extra featurettes and a running commentary with Smith and the creators and stars of Degrassi.

This is also a great day for DVDs if you're a Tim Burton fan. Burton's big summer hit, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory comes out today. It's available in a "movie only" version and a 2-disc "deluxe edition." Burton's last film, Big Fish, gets re-released today. They essentially took the old edition and added a collectable book. Oh, and, there's also an Edward Scissorhands: 15th Anniversary Edition. This is EXACTLY THE SAME as the 10th anniversary edition that came out 5 years ago, only now it's in a fancy tin.

Oh, and another of my favourite failed TV shows comes out today: Space: Above and Beyond - The Complete Series.

OK, I wanna knuckled down and get some job applications out, but first, I want to get all politico on you.

Firstly, here we all are, encompased in the grip of the possibility of having a Christmas election. Quick re-cap: the preliminary Gomery report came out a couple of weeks ago. While Paul Martin was exonerated, the people ain't buying it, so the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecios are threating to bring down the government at the first possible opportunity.

Yesterday, the NDP came forward and said, "You know, we don't like the Liberals and their health care reforms. We can no longer support the Liberals. When the Conservatives bring forth their non-confidence motion, we're going to vote the Liverals out of office."

Immediatly, the Conservatives dismissed this as an NDP negotiating tactic in their negotiations with the Liberals. The Conservatives essentially said, "What? WE never said anything about bringing down the government! If there's going to be a non-confidence motion, it'll have to tabled by the NPD."

Bottom line: odds are very good that we'll be having an election over Christmas holidays. And I'm sure we can all agree, a Christmas election is VERY STUPID!! Who the hell is going to get out there and vote when they're having turkey with the family, or have taken off to Mexico to get away from the snow?

Now, let's get to the current stupidity of Ralph Klein and the Alberta Conservatives.

Back in the spring, Klein finally unveiled plans for his much-ballyhooed healthcare "thrid way." The Third Way is shaping up to be two parallel healthcare systems: one public, the other private. But, in pure Klein fashion, they don't have a plan in place yet.

No, in order to get a plan in place, they put out a contract to private consulting firms. The contract was won a few weeks ago by Aon Consulting, a healthcare consulting firm that specializes in setting up health plans for companies.

As soon as it was announced that Aon Consulting had gotten the contract, the Alberta opposition parties struck. See, in the States, Aon Consulting recently paid out $190 MILLION in an out of court settlement when health fraud charges were brought against them.

The opposition called for the contract to be revoked. How DARE the Tories put Alberta healthcare in the hands of crooks! The Tories refused, however. Klein pointed out that the charges were brought against the American parent company, and the American parent company and the Canadian branch are really two seperate companies. Health Minister Iris Evans said that maybe, probably, the government would think about reviewing their screening process.

The opposition struck again. Turns out the Canadian branch of Aon Consulting is currrently paying out over $1 MILLION in fines for health care violations...in Ontario. Again, the opposition called for the contract to be revoked.

This time, Klein said, "FUCKING LET IT GO!! ALBERTANS DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS!!" I'm paraphrasing, of course.

And, you know what? The media is now silent on the subject.

And that's why the Alberta Conservatives keep getting re-elected.

Wow. I'm doing some reading on techno-stuff, and I can't believe this.

the Japanese television network NHK is currently testing what they call "Super Hi-Vision." The goal is to create a TV picture so clear and so detailed that it's comperable to looking out the window. How high is the resolution? Here's the scale:

Regular TV: 704x480
Average computer monitor: 1024x768
HDTV: 1920x1080

Super Hi-Vision: 7680x4320

Now THAT'S hi-definition.

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Oh, and here's the latest Disney animated classic that's getting the 2-disc special edition treatment. Coming out on February 28 is...

Lady and the Tramp: Special Edition

Besides the expected beautifully digitally restored picture and an all new surround sound mix, you also get:

- two long-lost cut scenes
- a documentary called "Finding Lady: The Art of the Storyboard."
- another documentary called "Lady's Pedigree: The Making of Lady and the Tramp."
- a newly discovered alternative storyboard concept (I have no idea what this is)
- and, as always promised, more!

Latest column's up! I give you a CGI Scorecard:

" I think I’ve made it abundantly clear that I love animation. I have a particular fondness for computer animation. Think about it: this is probably the newest moviemaking medium. This is a medium that we’ve been able to watch grow and evolve over the past few years. And then, I saw that Disney was releasing a special 10th anniversary edition of Toy Story. Wow! It was 10 years ago that Toy Story hit theatres and it was marveled as a technical achievement. That means this medium is 10 years old. So, I just wanted to sit down, note how far we’ve come, point out certain developments that have been made, and try to ponder where it’s going."

Gotta say, I'm actually kind of proud of this one. I did some actual research, some genuine revising and rewriting...I actaully put some work into it.

Check it out.

OK, so this has been on my mind a lot lately. I'm not sure I've got enough for a full column yet, so for now, I'm dumping it here. Here are my...

Most Wasted Concepts in Star Trek

Sadly, this happened a lot in Star Trek. Someone comes along with a great concept, but it usually gets forgotten and/or abandoned, never to be fully explored. Now, I'm not going to get catty and say "Enterprise as a whole" or "this particular character," I'm going to try to limit myself to specific concepts.

1) Space Boomers (Enterprise) - So, in Enterprise's first season, we were introduced to the concept of the "space boomer." It went like this. Even though warp speed had been invented, it still took many months, even years, for ships to reach other solar systems. (We're talking speeds of warp 1 and 2 and the like.) Because of this, whole generations of humans were being born and raised on cargo ships. I mean, hey, you're on a trip that could take a year and a few months, what else are you gonna do? This generation was dubbed "the space boomers." In fact, the character of Travis Mayweather was a space boomer. Had they developed Mayweather a little more, we may have seen a little more of "space boomer" culture.

2) MACOs (Enterprise) - OK, so Gene Roddenberry always maintained that Starfleet's primary purprose was exploration. That's fine and dandy, but then how the hell did the Federation defend itself? Many a fan has specualted that maybe there's a "Starfleet Marine Corp" that handles most of the Federation's military operations. The closest we ever got to seeing something like this were the MACOs: Military Action Command Operations. As far as we know, they were Earth's army in the 22nd Century. A platoon of them were assigned to the Enterprise to help out with Xindi war at the start of season 3. Sadly, they were not the colonial marines of Aliens. They turned out to be little more than over-glorified redshirts. What a waste. (And yeah, I said I wasn't going to do this, but what would have really helped was if we got to see more of Major Hayes, the commander of Enterprise's MACO platoon. The man didn't even get a first name, for cripes sake!)

3) The Female Caretaker (Voyager) - The Caretaker bring Voyager to the Delta Quadrant. The Caretaker mentions that he had a mate who abandoned him. The Caretaker dies. Captain Janeway cryptically mentions that there's a "female Caretaker" out there, with the power to get them home. That's all in the pilot. We ran into the female Caretaker ONCE, in which she took off and it was hinted that she would return. SHE NEVER DID!! And I always hoped she'd be the Q of Voyager.

4) Voyager's mixed crew - In the first season, they made a big deal of the fact that half the crew was Starfleet and the other half Maquis. By season 2, everyone was buddy-buddy. WHAT THE HELL??

5) The Reconstruction of Bajor (DS9) - It was clearly established that Sisko's primary mission was to oversee the reconstruction of Bajor, with the final goal being Bajor's entrance into the Federation. That was prelevant in season 1. But then, in season 2, exploration of the Gamma Quadrant came to the fore, and then, in season 3, the Dominion War started and all bets were off! Isn't Bajor EVER going to get into the Federation?

6) The Defiant's Cloaking Device (DS9) - The Defiant is the only Federation starship with a cloaking device. It was obtained in a special treaty with the Romulans. The Federation could only use it against the Dominion and the Dominion only, on the condition that the Federation shares all tactical knowledge of the Dominion with the Romulans. The Romulan Empire even went so far as to assign a Romulan officer to the Defiant to monitor the cloaking device. WE ONLY SAW THAT ROMULAN OFFICER ONCE!! This whole treaty was moot after the the cloaking device was introduced.

And that's the start....

There you go! I've got my review of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit up. You can go read it at the main site.

And, as I'm sure you know, I've been wasting a lot of time watching my brand-new Episode III DVD. I just love watching all the behind-the-scenes stuff for Star Wars. I havne't watched the huge-ass documentary Within a Minute: The Making of Episode III yet, but I have watched a huge pile of the featurettes and web documentaries, and you know what I'm getting from all this?

George Lucas reminds me a lot of Thomas Edison.

Let me explain. When the average person thinks of Thomas Edison, they think of this lone genius, sitting alone in a lab, working effortlessly to invent the light bulb. Well, that's not true. The truth is Thomas Edison had this massive, massive team of engineers working under him, and they did the core of the inventing. In fact, Thomas Edison was often chided for not sharing the credit with his team.

And that's how Lucas reminds me of Edison. I'm sure that, the average guy on the street, thinks of Star Wars and thinks that George Lucas is this lone genius, and that all of it sprung from his mind. Well, that's not true. Lucas has this massive team of artists working under, designing General Greivous, building the lightsabers, and animating the FX.

Unlike Edision, though, Lucas gives his team their due credit. And that due credit comes from the behind-the-scenes stuff.

And, all this stuff reminds me of how, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I watched the featurette all about designing General Greivous, and how all the artists would work tirelessly on their designs, and then Lucas would come in, look over the drawings and go, "That one!" And thus Greivous was born.

Well, I remember being six years old and watching a little TV special called The Making of Return of the Jedi. And you know what? In that special, I saw Lucas and his team of artists doing THE EXACT SAME THING for Jabba the Hutt.

Well, in case you haven't heard yet, the brand-new trailer for King Kong is online. There's some nifty computer animation going on there.

But you know...hmm. I hope I don't have to turn in my "geek membership" for admitting this but....

I'm just not getting psyched about King Kong.

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure it'll be a very good movie. I'm sure it'll make a buttload of money. But, I look at the trailers and all that, and I can't help but think, "Meh."

Weird, isn't it? This is supposed to be the kind of movie that's right up my alley: spectacular special effects, helmed by a master of the genre (Peter Jackson), some really sweet action, but all I'm thinking is "Meh."

I just can't get excited about it.

This isn't the first time this has happened. The first time it happened was about two years ago with Pirates of the Carribean: the Curse of the Black Pearl. Again, it seemed like the kind of special effects filled geek-fest that would be right up my alley, but all the trailers just had me going, "Meh." And, when I finally did see it on DVD, to tell the truth, I thought it was just simply "OK," unlike most of the world, which thought, "OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD! MY WORLD IS FOREVER CHANGED BECAUSE JOHNNY DEPP PLAYED A PIRATE!"

So, yeah. I just can't get excited about Kong. I'm still gonna see it. But, right now, as of this moment, I'm just not getting swept up in the hype.

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And while I'm at it, I'd like to say that I'm already sick of Disney's Chicken Little.

See, here's the story: Chicken Little was originally supposed to come out back in the summer, with Pixar's Cars coming out this month. But, Cars got pushed back to Summer 2006, meaning Chicken Little got pushed back to November 2005 to fill the gap.

Now, as it was originally supposed to be in theatres six months ago, Disney got their hype machine way back in September of 2004. The film got pushed back, and the hype machine went into extra innings.

The Disney hype machine has been going flat-out hyping up Chicken Little for about 16 months now, and it's pretty much killed all interest I have in seeing the film. When I saw the first TV spots about two months ago, i was already thinking, "Isn't it out yet?"

It finally comes out tomorrow. Let's see what the reviews will say.

I had one of those impossibly good days that seem to be few and far between these days. Many good things happened to me:

- After two years of searching, I finally got my hands on one of the J-Pop songs I absolutly loved when I was in Japan. I love it when I get one of those songs...it kinda cements the fact that teaching in Japan was something I really did, and not some crazy dream.

- Went to see Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. My God, that is one funny movie. I'm still deciding whether it was 3 nibs or 3.5. There's this one bit involving a coin-operated biplane...you have to see it to believe it.

- Bought Episode III on DVD!!

- Stopped by NAIT and did some fiddling with the equipment and whipped up a new announcing demo. I like this one a lot more than the last one I made about three weeks ago.

- And, to top it all off, I got paid to do all this, because in between, I swung by the lab to drop off some soil samples!

It was a good day. A lot of good things happened, and at the end I felt as though I'd accomplished something. That feeling's gotten so rare....

About the only thing that would have made it better was if Dax welcomed me home wearing nothing but a smile and her spots.

(Been watching a lot of DS9 reruns as of late.)

Well, I've got some sad news to report from the world of Star Trek.

Michael Piller has passed away.

Piller was one of those responsible for the golden years of The Next Generation. Hell, the man wrote "The Best of Both Worlds" and "Unification" (aka the Spock episode).

He went on to co-create Deep Space Nine (with Rick Berman) and Voyager (with Berman and Jeri Taylor). He wrote tons of episodes of the inagural seasons of both those shows. He even wrote one of the films: Star Trek Insurrection.

Piller left the Star Trek fold and struck out on his own. He was currently riding high as the creator of two hit made-for-cable TV shows: The Dead Zone and Wildfire.

Piller died of neck cancer. He was 57.

I love this story. It was plastered on the front page of today's Edmonton Journal.

They think they found moose in New Zealand!

Here's the whole story: way back in 1910, a group of Canadian immigrants in New Zealand got in their head to try to introduce moose to New Zealand. 10 moose from Saskatchewan were shipped to New Zealand and released into the wild!

Now, the moose never really took off in New Zealand. The last one died in 1952. But, that was just enough for New Zealand moose to become like Bigfoot. Kiwis would come back from their camping trips, telling tales of moose that they saw in the wild after a few beers.

So, flash forward to the present day, when some Kiwi campers came across a mysterious tuft of hair in the bush. They sent it off for analysis, and you know what?

Genetic tests say it's moose hair!

Once again, the New Zealand population is all a twitter at the prospect of a long-lost moose herd, hiding somewhere deep in the rain forest. Trippy, eh?

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Oh, and got a little bit of DVD news for you.

Serenity has just been cleared for a December 20 release. Sadly, it won't be a huge-ass, 2-disc, mega-super-special edition. You'll get 3 featurettes, some deleted scenes, bloopers, and an intro and running commentary by writer/director Joss Whedon.

Serenity will be available in full screen, widescreen, and UMD.

Episode III on DVD!!

That's the only DVD release you should be caring about today.

Oh, well, that and Star Trek Enterprise: Season 4 is also out. Hands down, this is the best season of the Star Trek prequel series, but I'm still trying to figure out if it's so good because of improved writing, a strengthening of the characters, and finally giving the rest of the crew something to do...or just the extensive, extensive continuity whoring.

Trust me, Episode III does that all of that...and better.

YES!! A day late, and by no fault of my own, the latest column is finally up!

This week it's The Dark Knight Strikes:

" He’s been one of the most enduring superheroes of the past 60 years. He’s been a dark avenger of the night, a bright, cheerful hero of the Silver Age, and a gross parody of the genre. He is vengeance. He is the night. He is the Batman. And he is perhaps the one superhero I love the most. But how did I reach this point? How did I arrive at the place where, at the ripe old age of 28, I still collect the trade paperbacks and read them cover to cover? I suppose it all started way back in the summer of 1989…."

Read it all!