Tires

Dad: Bye. I'm just going out to buy tires.

Grandpa: You know, Billy. When I was your father's age, we we had tires too.

Billy: You had tires? But I thought you used horses.

Grandpa: No, we didn't use horses back then.

Billy: Why not? Did the dinosaurs eat them all?


(Actual Canadian Tire radio add I heard in the car today and loudly laughed out loud! So random! Haha!)

Another Catchy Song from They Might Be Giants

Electric Car


Another great song that has embedded itself in my brain from the upcoming CD/DVD "Here Come Science" from They Might Be Giants! Not paleo-related, but sciency nonetheless - and the animation is fantastic. Check it out!

"Let's take a ride..."

Palaeo-cake

I just had this brainwave about a palaeontology-themed birthday cake!
Dig site cake, complete with "strata"-cake layers, grass icing, and plastic dino bones and palaeontologists. Could be Lego men with a red Lego truck.

Please somebody make this for me!

A Personal Update

Life has been a whirlwind these last few months!

Since returning to Canada, I've been busy setting up my life. My new life here in Vancouver. I have finally achieved the Big Three Things one needs when creating your existence. Job-Car-Apartment. (Now honestly, "Car" is not necessary, but as a substitute teacher, a vehicle is very useful!)

1) Job: I happily returned to teaching as a substitute in my school district, which is the first step towards getting my own classroom. As some know, my teaching focus was in elementary and while I certainly enjoy teaching it (especially rascals in grades 4-7!), I also get to challenge myself teaching science at the high school level!

2.) Car: Yes, I have finally (at 30 years old) purchased my first car - a black 2002 Honda Civic 4-door Sedan. It's beautiful, and useful and fuel-efficient in these tough economic times. As someone who care for the planet, I have tried hard to go as long as possible without a car - using public transportation, borrowing other's, walking, leaving the country... But now that I am staying in Vancouver and my life gets busier and potentially moves towards "settling down," having a car seems like the right thing right now.

3) Apartment: As of March 1st, I am living in my new apartment - renting, unfortunately (I am not in a place to be able to buy into the market, even while it is good right now.) It's great! I'm on the eighth floor of a tower overlooking the east of North Van, Van, Burnaby and, on a clear day, the active volcano Mt. Baker!

Now I can unpack...

5 Things...and my 200th Post

Welcome to my 200th post - a milestone for some, just another day online for others...

I visited Tokyo, Obama was elected president of the US, and I just got back from watching Quantum of Solace (the new James Bond 007 movie - check it out! Review coming soon!) With all this going on, I am going to use my 200th post to answer a "chain-post-meme" that I was tagged by Greg to do.


It's called 5 Things:

5 things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. 1998, eh? Attending Capilano College in North Vancouver. Wasn't sure what I wanted to do, just plugging along on the Science Transfer Program.
2. Was working part-time at Queensdale Market as a bag-boy (soon to graduate to Produce!)
3. Dating my first serious girlfriend (lasted 3 years)
4. Living in my parent's house.
5. Getting very very excited about Star Wars: Episode 1. (Soon to be disappointed.)

5 things on my to do list today:
1. Research shots needed for Thailand (trip in December!)
2. Begin the deconstruction of my house here in Seoul - sell, clean, pack, send...
3. Have a shower and shave.
4. Finish painting the poster for the Delta Patrol film.
5. Finish this 200th post and post it!

5 snacks I love:
1. Snickers - but not those here (from China).
2. Reese Peanut Butter Cups - mmmm....
3. Diget Cookies
4. Peanut-Butter and Jam sandwiches
5. Ramien (noodles)

5 things I would do if I were a millionaire:
1. Buy a house somewhere in Vancouver (getting harder...)
2. Found a kick-ass Palaeontology Museum in Vancouver
3. Travel around America and across Canada by car (a sporty hybrid car!)
4. Through a series of incredible parties in each city around the world I have friends in!
5. Invest, blah blah blah... AND direct and produce films!

5 places I’ve lived:
1. North Vancouver, BC
2. Drumheller, Alberta
3. Birmingham, England
4. Seoul, Korea
5. Edmonton, Alberta

5 jobs I’ve had:
1. Teacher (Elementary and High School, as well as English)
2. Tour Guide
3. Museum Gallery Interpreter and Camp Counselor
4. Movie and TV Extra
5. Grocery Shop bag-boy

5 people I tag:
1. Craig
2. Glendon
3. Traumador
4. Robin
5. Leslie

Bush vs Zombies

In honor of today's Zombie Walk Seoul 2008!

Are You a Cheater?

Have you ever cheated on your wife or girlfriend?

Have you ever thought, "Man, I want to cheat, but I don't want to feel guilty?" We don't want to feel guilty, do we?

Well, now we don't have to! Welcome to CheatNeutral - a new initiative where you pay money when YOU cheat and the company will pay others to NOT cheat! Thus keeping the total amout of pain and suffering at ZERO!

No longer will you have to feel guilty about cheating!

Don't believe me? Check out this promotional video for CheatNeutral!


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Did I get your attention? Good. My good friend Marianne, a scientist in sustainable development, sent me this site. I have to agree with their position on carbon offseting.

It just doesn't make any sense. And you can't offset common-sense, can you?

Bugs of Korea!

A freekin BIG Korean bug flew into our TV room and had to be captured and released out the window! It is about 10cm long, head to wing tip.

And it makes the loudest noise - shi-shi-shi-shi-sheeeeeer...

The locals here call it a Meme. Any idea what kind of insect it is?

Either way, it was so cool!

Life as a Bachelor

What about Bob?

BOB

Some of you may not know this, but I have another roommate besides Steve here in Korea.

Meet Bob.

Bob is our friend who, amazingly, only visits when the lamp is on. He only lives on our living room ceiling, but pays a third of the rent (a good deal for us, not for him!) He's a bit fat and has very unique hair...

Go on, say "hi" to our roommate - Bob!

The Blue Whale Project

There will be a new museum in the University of British Columbia. And it's got a Blue Whale!

The new Beaty Biodiversity Museum is currently being built at UBC - right on Main Mall, opposite the Geology Building (where the old Engineering Annex used to be). It is slated to be finished sometime .... in the near future...

A 26-meter-long blue whale is being dug up in Prince Edward Island right now, and when it is stripped and cleaned and mounted, it will be displayed in all it's gigantic mammal-ness!

The story goes that in 1987, a blue whale washed up on a beach in Prince Edwards Island and died. The Canadian Government couldn't figure out what to do with a whale corpse the size of two city buses, so they decided to bury it in PEI's red sand until a plan could be devised.

Two decades later, The Plan is to dig up the whale and ship it the 6000 km to UBC, and display it in a glass atrium at The Beaty Biodiversity Museum!

Check out this video about the Blue Whale dig.

I can't wait to head back to my old Alma Mater and visit the new museum. And then after, I'd check out my old stomping grounds at the UBC Geology Department - the Pacific Museum of the Earth.

150th Post and Award!

150 POSTS !!!

I am in loving Korea, my leg is almost healed, and my blog has reached 150 posts! Life is good!

Bond's Blog is about a year and a half old now and has been a outlet for my voice throughout my time working at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, teaching kids in Birmingham, and living halfway around the world in Korea. It has become part of my life and I feel blessed to be part of a thriving and rewarding cybercommunity.

Speaking of which, Bond's Blog was nominated for the E for Excellent Blog Award by my good friend Traumador the Tyrannosaur! I am honored and surprised, and by accepting the nomination, I must also nominate 10 people to also receive the Excellent Blog Award...


I nominate the Canadian Surfer, the Weapon of Mass Imagination, Wanderlusting, the Flying Trilobite, Leslie's Blog, Jennifer Echols' Photography, Mutant Reviewer Movie News, Palaeoblog, Laleaps, and Tetrapod Zoology!

If I could send the award right back to Traum, then I would too. His site -The Tyrannosaur Chronicles - is a great read (In fact, I make a special guest appearance on this week's post!)

The above blogs are fantastic and are well deserving of the Excellent title! I hope they enjoy their awards as much as I enjoy and cherish mine!

The Wilhelm Scream

This is going to a be a bit of a random post, focusing on an obscure quirk of movie-making. The Wilhelm Scream.

I first discovered a mention of this strange sound in a movie review on the wonderful movie review site Mutant Reviewers From Hell(which I read religiously!) I was sitting at home reading a review of Peter Jackson's King Kong when I read the line, "One of the sailors does the Wilhelm scream when he’s knocked off the cliff by a brontosaurus."

What in the world is the Wilhelm Scream?

This looked like a job for Wikipedia, so I searched for "the Wilhelm scream" and discovered that it is a specific recording of a famous scream (first used in 1951's Distant Drums) reused over and over again in films such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Lethal Weapon.

It is a remarkably funny scream, used mostly when flying off cliffs, getting shot, and generally dying. Below, I have linked a video which compiles Wilhelm screams from many Hollywood movies. Check it out for a good laugh:





In my hours of browsing YouTube, I also found a compilation of scenes from movies that SHOULD have the Wilhelm scream! The laughs never stop...

Call it an Ode to Wilhelm:

Yaaahaaaoooow!!!

Life Size Blue Whale!

Just a quick post about an amazing website called Life Size Blue Whale.
Click on the link and you will be taken to a life size picture of a Blue Whale complete with sound and water particles. You can chose to look at any part of the whale, she is HUGE! The site was made by WDCS (Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society) and the level of detail is amazing. I truly recommend checking it out.

Darth Vader's Bad Day

Just for a laugh at the Sith Lord's expense, watch this!



Silly Vader. He's no Godzilla!

MySpace and Facebook

FACT: It is a fact that almost everyone and their dog have MySpace websites, and now I have found out that their cats have Facebook websites, too. So many sites on the web advertising how cool you are and how many friends you have. Who has time to update all these websites?! Being a sensible blogger, I planned to stay away from all this self-publicizing...

...But I changed my mind and have delved into them wholeheartedly! Whoo hoo!!!


This is my MySpace site.



and this is my Facebook site.


Come see how cool I am and add yourself to my friend list!
Caving in rocks!

Are you on MySpace or Facebook?

Celebrity Look-Alike

Ready for a laugh? This is interesting...

He he! Man, you have to try this...

Ghostbusters news

Some of you may remember when I posted an idea of making a video game out of the Ghostbusters. Well, someone has seen the light and gone and done just that!

Click on the picture to enlarge it!
Ray, Peter, Egon, and Winston are all there...and check out the updated Ecto-1!

Not only was this picture created, but also a prototype of the actual gameplay was released onto YouTube. Check it out below:



It is certainly not what I was expecting, but any Ghostbusters game will make me happy! Now don't get your hopes up too high. It seems the company making this game has hit a snag with obtaining the intellectual property rights to the Ghostbusters, so who know when it will be released.

And that's not all! A recent article states that there will be a third Ghostbuster movie!!! That's right! Dan Aykroyd has stated that Ghostbusters 3 will happen as a computer animated movie, with Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray doing their voices.
These are two great pieces of Ghostbusters news!!

Inspiration from U2

This amazing video from U2 makes me happier every time I play it.
Either it is the unusual but highly addictive song or the technically amazing splicing together of musicians! I don't know...but I love it.



I've seen Frank Sinatra, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Louis Armstrong, The Who, Elton John, Elvis, Elvis Costello, Jimmy Hendrix, Chili Peppers, Beck, The White Stripes, Jimmy Page, Victor Borg, Ray Charles, Simon & Garfunkel, Bijork, Bob Marley, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Cash, The Ramones, Nat King Cole, and David Bowie!

Who have I missed?

Thank goodness for long arms.

I found this on the National Geographic News website:

WORLD'S TALLEST MAN SAVES DOLPHIN

Apparently the dolphins have swallowed some plastic bits and only the World's Tallest Man could reach into their stomachs and retrieve the bits. Check out the full story here!