Toren Atkinson’s Absolute Blog

It’s been a little slow at the shop since first day after hexmas, so I’ve been brushing up on my CorelDraw skills. Check out these new Thickets shirt designs.

What did I get for Hexmas? I’m glad you asked:

• Fenders for my bicycle from Joyce
• Gaming Miniatures from Bev ‘n’ Mike
• A gift certificate for the ComicShop from Joyce which I used to get DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics
• The complete set of Star Trek Animated on DVD from Chris
• VHS cases from Joyce
• Delicious chocolate espresso cake and candied grapefruit peel from Kelly
• Superfriends blank journal from Stewie
• A Green Lantern blank journal from Taytay
• Stripey socks from Joyjoy
• A Very Muppet Christmas DVD from Jaimee
• Lemon-Lime Altoids from Jaimee
• Play-Doh, Party Snaps, and sugar-free candy

and other stuff that I forgot maybe?

plus a whole day of almost uninterrupted lounging with Joy-Joy, including looking (and finding) crabs on the beach. That is not a euphemism.

Killing for peace since 0 B.C.

For years, conservative groups and churches have been roundly criticizing video games for their increasing use of violence…But now the shoe is on the other foot, with the release of a new computer console contest called “Left Behind: Eternal Forces.”It takes place after millions of Christians have been transported to heaven. And it makes players recruit and convert an army of followers to do battle with the antichrist and his followers.

Those opposed to the product claim it promotes religious intolerance and violent behaviour in the name of a faith.

Critics are demanding Wal-Mart – which has previously removed games it claimed were offensive to family values – pull the product from its shelves. So far, the giant retailer has refused those requests, as this bizarre test of faith continues to rage.

That’s it, WalMart! After a few more of these we won’t stand for it!

Click on this to see longer, more raw footage of the recently filmed giant squid. It seems terribly weak, on the verge of death. It’s hardly moving its arms but you can see it jetting water through its siphon (under the mantle).

Did anyone see that two hour special called “Secrets of the Deep” which should have been called “Life of a Sperm Whale” except some executive said “we can’t put the word ’sperm’ in the title of our show because idiots will giggle.” It was kind of neat, despite the blatant CGI, and not only did they talk about giant squid, but also it’s larger cousin, the colossal squid, AKA mesonychoteuthis.

The recording of vocals will take place next month, and mixing in February.

So here’s an explanation of this:

While we were songwriting, I was feeling that the band was getting too caught up in the tropes of the same old grunge rock. Everyone’s solos were technically good, but the pattern I noticed was that they lacked personality. So I gave a little pep talk on such. Using the white erase board we use for writing out song parts, I made a little inspirational/motivationl flow chart that looked a little something like this:  

As I was doing so, Mario grabbed another pen and added the following:

Which expressed exactly what I meant better than I was doing myself. So during the rest of writing and the recording sessions, my mantra became “more giraffe.”

And that explains the printout you can see hanging on the wall next to Jordan and Mario’s spots in the recording studio.

Who cares about Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Alec Baldwin? Not me, but my fave Vancouver cinema, The Rio on Broadway is showing The Good Shepherd on Boxing Day for $2 any time. Sounds like a plan.

After years of fruitless endeavors by various scientists, National Science Museum team leader Tsunemi Kubodera has finally captured the elusive architeuthis dux, AKA the giant squid, on video!

This one is a juvenile female.

Pardon the pre-ad:
video one

If you can get it to work, there’s apparently more here:
Don’t believe any of the figures in feet or meters that news agencies provide regarding squid sizing, they invariably don’t know what they’re talking about. Just look at the photos and video and be in awe.

As my buddy Steve O’Shea would say:
Architeuthis is frequently reported to attain a lotal length of 60 feet. The largest specimen known washed ashore on a New Zealand beach in 1887. It was a female and “in all ways smaller than any of the hitherto-described New Zealand species” (Kirk 1887); it measured 55 feet 2 inches in total length, exaggerated by great lengthening (stretching like rubber bands) of the very slight tentacular arms; its mantle length was 71 inches (1.8 m). A comparable-sized female (ML 1.8 m) measured post mortem and relaxed (by modern standards) would have a total length of ~ 32 feet.

Mantle length (as opposed to total length) is the standard measure in cephalopods. Architeuthis is not known to attain a mantle length in excess of 2.25 m. Standard Length (SL) is the length of a squid excluding the tentacles; in Architeuthis this measure very rarely exceeds 5 m. The rest of the animal’s length, to a total length of 13 m, is made up of the two long tentacles. Of 105 specimens that we have examined, none has exceeded these figures (Fig. 7).

FOCUS!

One of my favourite moments from the sessions was when Warren was recording his bits for one of the songs and he totally missed his mark on one bit. Why? He started reading the Exclaim! newspaper on the control board.

My other favourite part was Mario being dressed down by Andrea, Brodie’s assistant. Yesterday we spent way too long agonizingly trying to direct Mario to alter his guitar solo in “Nyarlathotep” so it didn’t sound the same as the solo in a couple other songs. Finally after too many do-overs to count we got something we were all happy with – or at least Brodie, Andrea and I were. This morning Mario was in the recording room and said “I still need to go back and finish the solo for Nyarlathotep” to which Andrea hit the talkbalk button and stated boldly:

“NO YOU DON’T. IT’S DONE.”

Today, after finishing up Mario’s many flourishes, we laid down some keyboards, all of which I’m sure will be replaced, scrapped or all of the above. Then we did some rough mixdowns with no vocals. Over the next few weeks I’ll make sure I’ve got all the vocals 100% ready to go so that when Brodie comes back from his holidays circa the 15th we can snap to it. We’ll do that over the course of a few weekends, including a trip to Chilliwack for Merrick’s sake and to get Jordan in on some extra percussion, and then we’ll be mixing in early February.

Mario brings his family.

I screw around with keyboards

Brodie does it better

A staple of rock. Speaking of staples, each day’s dinner in the studio was a delicious float in a parade of ethnic cuisine. Today I treated everyone to Uncle Fatih’s pizza. Yesterday I treated everyone to Indonesian. The day before that I treated everyone to Sushi. Day before: Indian (butter chicken!!). We almost went in for Himalayan tonight but we started too late.

And now, we are done at Profile Studios. Say goodbye, Profile Studios. Goodbye.

Warren’s Day!

Here’s a new idea for a Jack Black movie – the Stool of Rock

Jordan came back to pack up his drums.

He came with his lovely wife Tara

Who, while Jordan was packing up his drums, was heard to say “are those our good blankets?”

Mario Loves Chocolate

Brodie tells us how he really feels in the best form of communication available to mankind: t-shirt slogans.

The force is strong with this one.