2 Questions

When 15 members of the University of Alberta Star Trek Club and the University of Alberta Scuba Club crammed ourselves into a 15-person van for a road trip from Edmonton to Los Angeles, we had to find ways to amuse ourselves during the 27-hour drive. Some suggested 20 Questions, and when my turn came to ask the questions, sometime during deepest midnight, I started with the obvious:

"Is it bigger than a breadbox?" I asked Allan, who harboured the answer in his mind.

"Yes," he said.

A sudden flash of intuition hit me.

"Is if the pyramids?"

Allan's eyes bulged in shock, and he reared back in his seat.

"WHAT..how...but...yes. It's the pyramids."

Of course I'm not suggesting a paranormal explanation; it was just a moment of whimsy on my part that, against all odds, happened to be correct. But the look on Allan's face was spectacular. 

The Best Pictures Update

I have about 100 more films to go before accomplishing my goal of seeing every movie nominated for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) Best Picture Oscar. I discovered recently that two films on the list, East Lynne and The White Parade, can only be seen in one place: at the University of California at Los Angeles. In order to see these films, I'll have to travel to UCLA and make an appointment with the Powell Library Instructional Media Lab. Sounds like a good excuse for a long weekend trip to California...

Mystery of the Missing Miscellany

When you have a lot of books and movies, it's easy for one or two titles to slip through the cracks and disappear. I know for sure that I'm missing my copy of John M. Ford's hilarious Star Trek novel, How Much for Just the Planet?, and both volumes of The Outer Limits on DVD.

I only noticed the absence of the Ford title because recently Sean asked me if I could loan him some classic Trek books, and How Much is certainly one of the best. I discovered The Outer Limits set was missing when I had a hankering to watch "The Forms of Things Unknown"a couple of months ago.

These items, of course, are easy to replace, so their loss is no great tragedy. But I've misplaced at least three things in my life that I really do miss:

1) The Realm, a movie I made in high school with Keith Gylander and Mark Lede. I had the only VHS copy, and in a moment of foolish desperation I used it as part of a video resume while job-seeking in those desperate summer months of 1991, just after I graduated from the University of Alberta. Unfortunately the place where I dropped off my resume and video package was in an area of the city I wasn't familiar with, and to top it off I lost the newspaper ad I'd used to find it (and the prospective job) in the first place. The employer never called me back, so I had no way to get my stuff back. Pure idiocy on my part.

2) "Ozone" soda pop commercial, another short film I made for a communications class during high school. Besides the commercial itself, the tape had a whole bunch of footage of my friends at the school, footage I'd dearly love to have today. If my memory serves, I accidentally taped over this with an SCTV special, then threw the tape away in disgust when I realized what I'd done.

3) One of two notepads full of story ideas from the early 90s. The notepad I lost included a very detailed and funny as-it-happened record of "Scuba Trek," describing the time when the University of Alberta Star Trek and Scuba clubs travelled to Los Angeles in February 1992. I have no idea where this might have gone, and what a shame; I could have turned it into a couple of memorable blog posts.

I suppose it's possible that VHS tape with The Realm is still sitting somewhere in that office, and the notebook might still be kicking around somewhere. So if by some miracle someone spots this stuff, please let me know...

Domain of Earl, May 2012

I've always loved maps, particularly political maps. I also love exploring our world. I thought it might be fun to combine these two geographic obsessions into one amusement: what if I carved an imaginary empire by drawing straight lines between the farthest-flung cities and towns I've visited thus far?

Thus I present the Domain of Earl, a benevolent but unrecognized empire composed of borders drawn between Fairbanks, Alaska; Dawson City, Yukon; Lynn Lake, Manitoba; Timmins, Ontario; Hull, Quebec; London, Ontario; Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona; Los Angeles, California; Honolulu, Hawaii; Singapore; Seoul, South Korea; and Tokyo, Japan.

The nice thing about an empire of this nature is that I can vastly increase its size with a simple trip to the Mayan Riviera or the UK. Also, I have no pesky subjects to worry about or wars of conquest to manage. Eat your heart out, Napoleon.

My Life as a Klingon

When I travelled to Los Angeles with the University of Alberta Star Trek Club in 1992, I made sure to visit Universal Studios, then home to The Star Trek Adventure. I arrived at a production too late to play a Starfleet role, but I climbed onto the stage to audition for the role of Klingon commander. I didn't growl quite loudly enough to earn that part, but I did well enough to land a spot on the landing party, where I fought tentacles. It was pretty cool - before the cameras rolled, I was costumed backstage, given marks and lines from the director, and had my Klingon forehead appliance tacked on. When the cameras rolled, I gave it my all, thrashing around with the tentacles like a madman and suffering the indignity of being rescued by a six-year-old in a Starfleet uniform. I loved it, of course.

Stuck in the Mojave

In August 2000, I helped Allan move down to California. He rented the biggest U-Haul available, with a trailer for his car. Halfway between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, the U-Haul stopped working, and we were trapped in the Mojave desert.

The heat was blistering. I pointed north, for I knew that if we walked in that direction, it would get cooler eventually.

Fortunately, the truck started up again after we waited an hour or so for the engine to cool off. Before long, we were in Los Angeles. A couple of days later, after unpacking Allan's metric whammoload of stuff, we dropped off the U-Haul.

"Where did y'all come down from?" asked the U-Haul guy.

"Edmonton," Allan said.

"That shore is a lawgn draave," drawled the U-Haul guy.

Long drive or not, I'm glad we made it through the desert. For a while there, I was imagining us as skeletons, sprawled out in the scrub, reaching for salvation, bones bleached the colour of iPod boxes.

Up the Academy!

Members of the University of Alberta Star Trek Club at Universal Studios Hollywood, February 27, 1992.

Yesterday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that the field of Best Picture nominees would double in size from five to ten nominees each year.

While this looks like a decision founded more on business needs than artistic ones, I'm thrilled nonetheless. As a movie fan, I've long used Best Picture/Screenplay/Director lists to seek out worthwhile new films, and this will widen the pool of recommendations.

From the early 1930s to the early 1940s, the Academy nominated between eight to ten films for the Best Picture award each year, so this isn't exactly something new. Had this policy been in place last year, surely The Dark Knight would have been one of the extra five pictures nominated, and who knows which films could be added to the expanded list this year? Transformers 2 may get a nod...oh, sorry, the list will only be ten films long, not one hundred.

1939 was a pretty amazing year for movies. Look at the list of Best Picture nominees:

Gone with the Wind (winner)
Dark Victory
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Love Affair
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Ninotchka
Of Mice and Men
Stagecoach
The Wizard of Oz
Wuthering Heights

I've seen each of these but for Love Affair, which of course is on my list. Had the Academy not nominated these films, I may have missed out on some great movies. (Naturally, the Academy isn't my only source for recommendations, but it's a great one for mainstream, non-genre, studio films.)

2009 probably won't be another 1939 as far as quality movies go, but the Academy's decision to recognize more films as Oscar-worthy at least opens the door for more great movies to get some deserved recognition and exposure. I hope they stick with this decision for many years to come.

Behold...The Barf Thing!

It was February, 1992, and fifteen members of the University of Alberta Star Trek and Scuba clubs packed into a van and drove from Edmonton to Los Angeles in seventy-two sleepless, sweaty hours. We left behind the snows of Alberta and beheld the beaches of California; Disneyland and Universal Studios beckoned! The men were eager to ogle California Girls; the women were eager to ogle California Boys.

But all that is incidental to the tale of the Barf Thing. Februrary 25, 1992, was my twenty-third birthday, and Ron Briscoe, that loveable rogue, found the Barf Thing in a souvenier shop. I was agog with delight when Ron presented me with the gift, for not only did it sport a ghastly colour scheme, with the word "BARF" emblazoned across its ichor-pink surface - in uppercase, emetic green letters, no less, complete with quotation marks - when you pushed the big button (as you must) the delightful device spoke!

Or, one should say, ejaculated: "UH-uh-HUH-ah-HOOO-AHH!" A wretched song of retching! My glee was unparalled, and I pressed the infernal button over and over, until all and sundry regretted Ron's ill-fated choice.

In an effort to appease my fellow travellers, I secured the Barf Thing in my bag for the return trip. But alas, the road was rocky, and with each and every bump, the Barf Thing would offer its sole comment on the nature of existence.

The Barf Thing is with me still, a dozen years on, and still it croaks out its unholy song (thanks to a much-appreciated repair job, about five years ago, by my friends Allan and Chris).

The Barf Thing! IT BARFS!

Peanut Pranks

I like mischief. I can't remember when I first came up with the notion of inserting peanuts into the unsuspecting ears of my friends, but the idea soon took irresistable hold of me. I believe the first to fall victim was my brother; I snuck up behind him and with one fluid motion, stuck the unshelled peanut into his ear. His reaction was quite satisfying, and later on I tried it out on my friend Ron Briscoe. It was my first visit to California, that long road trip down to LA, fifteen members of the U of A Star Trek and Scuba clubs crammed into one van. We stayed at a hostel near the famous Korean Bell, and when Ron went to bed, I waited patienty for him to fall asleep and crept out of my bunk with a peanut in each hand. I leaned over Ron, and just as I was about to drive the peanuts home, his eyes snapped open.

"Earl," he said dangerously, "Do not...stick...those PEANUTS...in my EARS!"

Foiled, I retreated. But my greatest peanut victory was yet to come.

A couple of years later, several Star Trek Club alumni attended the Namao International Air Show. Ron was there, and so was Steven Neumann, his sister Susan, and her boyfriend Jeff Shyluk. Naturally peanuts were served, and as we reclined on picnic blankets and watched the ballet of the jets overhead, I couldn't resist casually tossing a peanut in Jeff's direction.

Much to my surprise, the peanut sailed in a graceful arc, closed the two-metre gap between Jeff and I, and landed directly in Jeff's ear. Jeff immediately clapped a hand over his ear and his eyes goggled in disbelief.

"MY EAR!" he wailed, "A PEANUT!"

It was glorious.

More recently, I managed to sneak a peanut into Sylvia's ear, catching her completely by surprise on the couch. Her reaction was almost as satisfying as Jeff's. However, the aftermath has convinced me that perhaps now would be a good time to put away childish things...i.e., silly pranks.