happy van

The euros get all the cool toys.

what? a post?

yeah, even recycling content.

i'm original.

and i don't know what's up with the header pic.
why is it small?
no clue.

my bro sent me this.
i like it.

THE MAN WHO LIVED ON HIS BIKE from Guillaume Blanchet on Vimeo.

Happy Winter Solstice!

Sven is dressed as a Druid in celebration of the winter solstice. Or not, it’s hard to be sure of authenticity. On the one hand, it is said by some that the Druid winter holiday was on February 1 celebrating the return of the light, rather than on the winter solstice itself. On the other hand, a lot of what's “known” about the Druids is a combination of 18th Century and New Age claptrap, so there's perhaps no harm in making up some claptrap of our own. (Ceasar's De Bello Gallico is the origin of the bulk of what was recorded, and since he was shooting at them at the time, he was not necessarily privy to the details of their holidays. Other writers like Pliny the Elder may also have been mixing fact and fiction in their descriptions.)



Next to Sven is a model of Stonehenge (Svenhenge!) made from dominoes covered with textured spray paint and glued to a pie plate. Not too awful a copy of the original, don’t you think?

The association of the Druids with Stonehenge is a bit dubious – they came along a couple thousand years later, but like many other peoples in the region were surely aware of the megaliths and perhaps incorporated structures like Stonehenge into their ceremonies. Anyhow, the interest of modern “Druids” in the ruins of Stonehenge is pretty strong. So here it is.

Please do not attempt to use Svenhenge for celestial timekeeping! It is calibrated only for wood(-land) creatures like Sven, not for bipedal mortals. And only Sven knows the deep numerology secrets embedded in the spatial arrangement of the dominoes.

Sven is wearing a wreath of real mistletoe, sacred to the Druids. Oak groves were also sacred to the Druids, which is appropriate to our location in the Michaux State Forest. Check out the Wikipeida entry on the “Ritual of Oak and Mistletoe.”

Mistletoe is also relevant to Norse mythology: “Baldr was a god of vegetation. His mother, Frigga, had a prophetic dream and made every plant, animal, and inanimate object promise not to harm Baldr. Frigga overlooked the mistletoe, and the mischievous god Loki took advantage of Frigga's oversight by tricking the blind god Hod into killing Baldr with a spear fashioned from mistletoe. Baldr's death brought winter into the world. When the gods restored Baldr to life, Frigga declared the mistletoe sacred, ordering that it should bring love rather than death into the world. Happily complying with Frigga's wishes, any two people passing under the plant from now on would celebrate Baldr's resurrection by kissing under the mistletoe.”

So, everyone give Sven a big kiss in celebration of Winter!

(Thank you, Diane and Andre!)

Remember, Remember the Fifth of November

Who is Guy Fawkes?

Brett went outside this morning hoping to foil our neighbors and pull the costume out of the box and dress our little boy ourselves and lo and behold they beat us to it!!

Go check your gunpowder...

Halloween Trick or Treat

Think it was some of both! 15 inches of snow on October 29th? A trick and a treat!

The Adventures of Dr. McSvenja

Dr. McNinja: Could this boy's youthful innocence and exuberance be what I need to keep my dark and troubled soul in check? 
Dr. McNinja's Inner Voice: (You're not a dark and troubled soul. You're a doctor who wants to be Batman.)

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja an action-comedy webcomic by Chris Hastings and Anthony "Nedroid" Clark* , and the love child of the Rule Of Cool and the Rule of Funny. It is the most awesomely epic / epically awesome webcomic ever.

The story unofficially * begins with the eponymous omnidisciplinary doctor who is also a ninja discovering that the McDonald's restaurant chain has created a burger bearing his name. Naturally, he solves this copyright infringement by battling Ronald McDonald himself.

The next arc, "Meet The Doctor And His Friendly Staff" introduces Dr. McNinja's gorilla receptionist, as the two of them race against time to save a patient with Paul Bunyan's Disease (an illness which turns children into giant lumberjacks).

"So What IS A McNinja?'' introduces the Doctor's family, who are very disappointed with him for not becoming a professional ninja. The McNinjas' origins are revealed, and of course there are pirates.

The next morning, the Doctor finds a raptor in his office ("There is a Raptor in My Office"). This turns out to be the tip of the iceberg, said iceberg being a conspiracy involving paleontologists-turned-banditos, organic jetpacks, MySpace and NewsCorp. At least the Doctor gets a sidekick out of the deal: a gunslinging, mustachioed 12-year-old named Gordito.

"D.A.R.E. To Resist Ninja Drugs and Ninja Violence" begins with McNinja facing a hard choice: Will he help his father defeat 80's action movie star Frans Rayner and his army of drug-enhanced ninja mooks? Or will he help the clone of Benjamin Franklin create a medicine to cure death?

...And everything after that point simply must be seen to be believed.

What's interesting about the comic is Hastings' sheer commitment to the utter weirdness. Every bizarre twist gets a completely straight reaction from the cast, and can have repercussions that stretch over multiple chapters. The overall effect is like a geodesic dome of absurdity, where every time the authors throw in a killer weatherman or cyborg bears or zombie Ben Franklin re-enacting the "Thriller" music video with situationally-appropriate lyrics, the plot becomes that much more believable. In the words of Chris Hastings, "Dr. McNinja lives in a world that operates like a Mortal Kombat stage." (but Cumberland, Maryland is a real place), so if you're a stickler for scientific and historical plausibility and blow a gasket whenever you see Hollywood Physics, please stay far away from this webcomic.

And just to prove the series hasn't hit the peak of absurdly awesome yet, in Summer of 2010, Doctor McNinja took part in a crossover with Axe Cop.

Sventopher Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean Sea

Sven is wearing the family crest of Cristoforo Colombo (1451-1506) with the added phrase "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" -- the title the endlessly arrogant explorer requested from Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand.

Sven's hat is inspired by the Ridolfo Ghirlandaio portrait (Google it!) -- but we don't know what C.C. actually looked like, much less what hats he wore. Since no contemporary portraits exist, I say Sven is as good a model for C.C. as anyone!

At his elbow is a copy of the 1490 map possibly created by C.C. and his brother in Lisbon -- the point being that there was nothing better to guide him on his voyage a couple years later (www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/LMwebpages/257.html). There's also a translation of his journal entry for the day he and his crew landed in the New World, though they didn't know where they actually were...

Yes, the little globe in a ball-and-chain in front of Sven is a political statement. Deal with it. See www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-kasum/columbus-day-a-bad-idea_b_742708.html or if you have the stomach for it, read more horrific detail at the bottom portion of www.thirdworldtraveler.com/History/Hero-making_LMTTM.html.

"Columbus's claim to fame isn't that he got there first, it's that he stayed." --historian Martin Dugard

   --Andre