Black Guy in George A Romero Films

George A. Romero is a legend to some, and to others he is just some old man, a film maker, but an old man none the less. George A. Romero is essentially the father of the modern day interpretation of the zombie as we know it now in film, games, comics and books. His first film was the black and white The Night of the Living Dead. Then a decade later, Dawn of the Dead, then in the next decade he made Day of the Dead. He is also responsible for Land of the Dead, an Diary of the Dead.

His zombie films are always pieces of there time. Land had the social commentary of consumerism, and class disparity. Diary was about the affects of social media on world altering events. Day was about the mistrust and abusive practices of military in relation to civilians. Dawn was about gross consumerism. And Night unknowingly had a commentary about racism and the emergence of change.

Back in the day, when Mr. Romero was making Night, he freely admits that when they cast his black friend to play the lead it was simply cause of the fact that he was the best actor they knew. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was black at the time. The film however had a group of people holed up in a country house, as the world goes to shit and they are fighting attacking zombies and eachother to survive. In this movie you have a black man portraying a character that is taking charge of the situation, and even slaps a hysterical white women in that time when colored folk were only allowed in the back of the bus. This movie came out at roughly the same time that Martin Luther King Jr. was shot.

George was proud of his horror creation, but what made it take off in select circles was the fact that it had a black individual as a strong equal. This made the movie more significant than it was originally intended to be when it was made, not just to audiences but to George. It seems he understood the significance of having a social commentary in films and from that point proceeded to make films that meant more, using zombies as a devices to share a deeper meaning.

Also he made a common theme in his films from that point on. Dawn, Day, Land, each of them have an African American in them that has a greater grasp on the situation of the world going to hell then all else. Avid fans of the Romero films know this, so when people watched Land of the Dead and realized the irony of the black character in that film fitting the role of having a greater understanding of the world of the dead, is the lead zombie. Also George was so impressed with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's participation in Shaun of the Dead got them a role in the film as zombies.

That is my useless fact of the day. Enjoy

Pumpkin Carving Introductions

Halloween has to be my favorite holiday of that year. It is a chance to worship and appease Sam Hain. It is a chance to dress up as the thing you desire to be, to be scary, sexy or just someone else. It is a chance to give and get candy and scare people. As a kid I loved Halloween, I would hit up as many houses as I could, making multiple runs offloading candy as I got my fill. As I grew and became too old to Trick R Treat, I started to decorate my parent's home with many pumpkins and even set up a chimenia atop the drive way to have a fire and set up seats to hand out candy. One year the fire department swung by to warm themselves on my fire. I would occasionally scare kids but in truth I prefer making Halloween something that is simply a lot of fun for kids, because it pisses me off that kids don't stalk the streets as they once have. More of them now go to malls. MALLS for buddah's sake!!! So I love making my place fun and a bold statement to not only draw in kids, but to make it a place that they tell their friends about.

My big thing is carving Jack'o Lanterns. In carving as many pumpkins as I have, I have learned a great deal through research and practice, and now I wish to share some that knowledge and experience with you, the internet through my Pumpkin Carving series here on my blog. I will cover everything from picking the pumpkin, to the tools, the cleaning the designs, the cutting and the final prep work to make a pumpkin more then it is. If you want to see some of my work from last year, here take a look.

Understanding Engineers

Being an engineer I always enjoy reading these types of things. And with the rivalry with Civies, I especially enjoy point 4!

Understanding Engineers #1

Two engineering students were biking across a university campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?" The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want." The first engineer nodded approvingly and said, "Good choice: The clothes probably wouldn't have fit you anyway."

Understanding Engineers #2

To the optimist, the glass is half-full. To the pessimist, the glass is half-empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Understanding Engineers #3

A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with those guys? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such inept golf!" The priest said, "Here comes the greens-keeper. Let's have a word with him." He said, "Hello George, What's wrong with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?" The greens-keeper replied, "Oh, yes. That's a group of blind firemen. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime." The group fell silent for a moment. The priest said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight." The doctor said, "Good idea. I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist colleague and see if there's anything she can do for them." The engineer said, "Why can't they play at night?"

Understanding Engineers #4

What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers? Mechanical engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.

Understanding Engineers #5

The graduate with a science degree asks, "Why does it work?" The graduate with an engineering degree asks, "How does it work?" The graduate with an accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?" The graduate with an arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

Understanding Engineers #6

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing who must have designed the human body. One said, "It was a mechanical engineer.
Just look at all the joints." Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections." The last one said, "No, actually it had to have been a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

Understanding Engineers #7

Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.

Understanding Engineers #8

An engineer was crossing a road one day, when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog, and put it in his pocket. The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn back into a beautiful princess and stay with you for one week." The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket. The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you for one week and do anything you want."
Again, the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket. Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess and that I'll stay with you for one week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog - now that's cool."

Surviving Fort Mac - The Food

Hello fellow internets,

I must apologize for the infrequency and then the sudden stop to the blogs. I was in Germany and then home very briefly and now I am at a work site in Northern Alberta. I am working on a construction site, and living in a camp right. The site is for a huge oil sands project and the camp is a 5 thousand person beast of a place that was soon to become a township due to it's size. It would have been a town made of ATCO trailers on a dirt hill.

Now one of the things you have to deal with at camp, is camp food. That is the thing everyone bitches about while they are up here. The truth is at this camp, Wapasu, we actually have a lot of selection, and the best part is a lot of raw food like veggies and fruits that are good for maintaining health. We have many pastries, premade sandwiches, tubs of hot food choices, all sorts of things. Now this doesn't sound that bad, we even have steak nights once a week. The problem is the monotony of similar food. There are many choices for lunch but it is the same choices every day.

The trick is the same as it is at home, variety. Of course there will be time when you look at dinner and wish for a good curry, or some Vietnamese, but that won't happen so you have to make due. Mix various combinations of foods. Explore the limited sauces that are available, but even then it isn't enough.

What you need is a supplemental pack of things to add spice to the food, literally.
Curry powder - sprinkle on some veg, fish, meats, to change the taste.
Coconut - Great in yogurts, on fish, with rice, and oatmeal
Chipotle - adds a smoky favor to the most of things, meats, fish, eggs, beans, potato salad!
Cinnamon sticks or powder - This is a great option at camp or not to add to coffee
Club Soda - There are many sugary drinks here, club soda is good to water them down and add some texture.
Nuts- Good for protein and not something typically offered up here


With these little things you can add a lot of variety to what you eat which helps stave off the dullness that eventually becomes of the food for the people up here.

Driving In Berlin

Now the first thing that the research will tell you is to not rent a car when traveling in Europe, mostly cause the rail is so good but also because the cities and towns can be confusing, having to deal with traffic and such. However when I travelled there this wasn’t the case.

People travel to places to experience the culture, the food, the drink, language, all sorts of things. One thing that I like to experience is the roads. I love seeing the new and different cars when I travel to somewhere new. I love seeing how traffic moves and responds in different parts of the world. So when I went to Germany of course I wanted to drive on the mighty autobahns. So despite the research saying otherwise, we rented a little car.

It worked out wonderfully, we picked up the Car in Berlin, right beside a train station making it really easy with the bag. It was EuroCar that we used. The plan was to drive it to Munich, park it and in the two other days we had the car, drive to the Ludwig castles and then a trip to Legoland. We could have done this by train but we figured by car would be a lot more convinent and it was.

The driving: Now the thing about Germany is the discipline in all the little details of life. For example at any escalator, people stand to the right to leave a path for people in a hurry to walk by without inconvience. The police rarely check tickets on the city trains because for the most part everyone is very honourable and respects the system and buys tickets.
On the roads this discipline is also there. The traffic flows so well, and on the autobahn it all makes sense. Whether it is a two lane or a three lane, the slower cars are in the right and the faster ones in the left. As soon as a car passes it moves into the slower lane until it is time to pass again. If you are passing a car and the car you are passing moves over to the slow lane, you move to the middle. There is such great flow that you never really have to hit the brakes you never feel hindered. And if you need to pass someone you get to flash your lights and they respect it. And if someone does it to you, you get the fuck out of the way.

In the small towns with the roundabouts you never get the sensation either that you are stopping for very long. You are always sort of in motion. And the lights are the usually green yellow red, but they also go red yellow green, giving you a yellow before you go to let you know to start moving. I like that feature a lot.

The reason to drive on the autobahn though is for that moment when the speed limits disappear, and suddenly you see every car around you start to surge as every foot is reaching deep into the floor pushing the accelerator pedal to the stop. The thing is though, even with the speed on these roads, you don’t feel it. The autobahn is wide, smooth, and well banked. My estimate is that with the population of Germany, and for what the tax, they have a lot of money to maintain these roads. With the density and length of roads in Canada it is understandable that they aren’t as good.

The car I was driving was a 2011 VW Golf TDI. The same car that Nikki drives at home, only two generations newer. I found out on the autobahns that this car goes a max speed of 200km/h, 202 when going down hill. And even at that speed people will pass you. Overall we averaged speeds of 170 when we weren’t faced with construction that reduced speed. The car came equipped with an integrated GPS system. I highly recommend these. Makes it so much easier to navigate around towns as the roads can be confusing if you don’t know them, or even if you do.

Altogether it is a great idea to try the autobahns. Just to see how a roadway and traffic should be. It is a great drive and thrilling to reach those speeds legally and be able to maintain them. I recommend them.

X-Fest Debreif

This past Saturday I went to X-Fest and it was awesome. Here is the low down...

It was at Fort Calgary, on a lovely summer's day. The bands that were there in opposite the order of appearance.
Jane's Addiction
Weezer
Social Distortion
Awolnation
House of Pain
The Dudes
Rural Alberta Advantage
Black Symphony Orchestra
Micheal Bernard Fitzgerald

All in all it was an amazing show. I was underwhelmed by the act put on by Jane's Addiction, so much so I actually walked out. Truth be told it was leaving a bad after taste in my ears after Weezer's killer performance. The one shocking thing I want to talk about with that show was the curtain drops and they start playing and there are these women in underwear suspended from the stage swinging back and forth. As I got closer I asked the question. Where were there harnesses. All I could see was bra, panties and stockings. Upon further examination I realized that they weren't harnessed. They were hooked. Literally they were jirating back and forth on cables attached into hooks pierced in their back flesh. After that I had images of them ripping out a hook and then the other and falling into the audience with essentially their backs ripped out. I was glad when they were lowered down after one song.

When Weezer takes the stage, they just go right into the music playing. And they play what they know will excite the crowd. With the encores they nail most of their singles, and they did two amazing covers. They covered Pumped up Kicks by Foster the People and they nailed...literally nailed it with coffin spikes, Paranoid Android by Radiohead. Which is amazing to hear because now when Radiohead tours they are all about the new stuff and wouldn't even touch that song. Also they did it so well, what was disappointing though was how many people weren't amazed by this song. Some people literally had no idea to appreciate what was happening And the personality the band has is awesome. They are just being there goofy selves which is great to see. The sound was amazing and made the whole show worth the price of admission, which I got at a discounted rate.

House of Pain and Social Distortion were among some of my other favorites, and on an unrelated topic both covered Johnny Cash. HoP did Folsom Prison Blues, and Social D did Ring of fire. I like the idea Everlast put forth of the JC being the original White Rapper, singing about prison, drugs, and popping folk. And despite trying to get there in time for the Rural Alberta Advantage, I missed there whole set which was disappointing because I heard they were really good. And I really enjoy their folky sound.

The festival experience isn't just about the music it is about the people too. Other include seeing several people from the drinking and hot sun get really sick. A girl's vag. Nic and I were sitting in the shade between sets and by the fence this obnixous girl came around saying she really had to pee. The line for the portapotties were long, but they went by pretty quick. She couldn't wait, she got a person or two to cover for her and then her short shorts were down and she was squating and spraying everywhere.

There was a lot of variety to the people there. Punks, families, and a lot of the alternative folks. With it being a hot day there were a lot of shirts off, revealing a lot of tattoos. From this I have come to the conclusion that there are a lot of truly terrible tattoos out there. In fact Nic was making a game of capturing in photographs people's terrible ink. I think with everyone wanting to be unique they put up a lot of real terrible art on themselves.

The food there was great. Pretty reasonable. It was all those food wagons that travel Calgary, but can't park on 17th cause shop owners are all in a huff about there presence. So they parked on the grounds. Great food and for reasonable prices too. The beer however was not reasonable. $7 a can and they fucking ran out.

At X-fest they offered VIP tickets for a 50% more and this was thought to be a good idea, but then, while we were there we realized that the VIP area was essentially at capacity. This was lame for those that paid more to get very little.

All in all a good long day in the hot sun. I highly recommend Weezer though.

I will have to post some pictures later, I am in Berlin right now, and forgot the appropriate cord to offload the pics from my phone.

Profit Motives and Police

Now a while back I was bull shitting with a buddy of mine and he went on to explain to me how law enforcement works in the United States. Now of course most of what he told me was likely bull shit, but the problem is that it is such a reasonable argument that it could be true. I want to say this isn't confirmed fact, it is likely bullshit, but it is definitely something to think about.

Now a lot of the world is motivated by profit. Policies on environment, social programs. Business, politics, wars. So why would law enforcement as a whole be any different. So the three ways that U.S. police enforcement is lead by profit motives is through department funding, seizures and prisons.

Now the concept that was explained to me is that the police want to not eliminate crime altogether, but keep it at a certain sustainable level because it is profitable to. For example if you arrest a bunch of small time crooks and prosecute them that is no big deal. However if you allow those crooks to learn the drug trade, get some weapons, maybe hurt a few people or be in possession of narcotics, then when they are arrested and prosecuted it will look better for the department. The better the department looks, the more funding they get from the city and state.

Now the other reason to allow crims to go from small time to proper bad asses is because of the possessions. A small time crook is doing crime to survive. Someone who is a bit bigger in the criminal world may have a car, electronics, and other possessions that can be seized. These seized items can be auctioned and sold, and that funds the departments.

The last part is the prisons. Now prisons state side are government funded but privately run. Now they get funding based on the number of people, but more importantly based on the profiles of their prisoners. People convicted of more severe crimes with longer sentences get the prison more money. This is all fine and dandy but how does this affect police departments? Well what I was told was prisons will give kick backs to departments for larger profile criminals, either under the table or through contributions.

Like I said this may be total bullshit but it does sound reasonable enough, especially the first two points that it could be true. Something to think about.