Toren Atkinson’s Absolute Blog

I am now currently unpacking and setting up my room. At the moment I don’t have a bed (there will be a trip to Ikea on Monday, unless something else {craigslisty} comes up), and I can’t fit both my entertainment section (i.e. TV) and my drawing table in the room with everything else. Problems problems problems that only money can solve.

Kodos seems to be weathering this move much better than the last one. Last time when he arrived at the house he found a dark corner and stayed there for hours and hours, this time he was less whiny and more apt to wander about and sniff things. I am keeping him sequestered in my room (which unfortunately means it already smells like cat litter in here) for an indeterminate transition period - I think at the moment each of the two cats here don’t know the other exists. Stephane helped me take Kodos to the vet which was a traumatizing affair - more so the car ride in a tiny cat carrier than getting poked in the back with a couple of needles.

I am enjoying the options in the new ‘hood; walking distance of Topanga’s Mexican restaurant (good nachos), an Indian restaurant, and the Naam for those times at 3am when nothing but fries with miso gravy and a fruity crumble with ice cream will do. There’s also a ton of places five short blocks up to Broadway. And I’m dangerously close to a Dairy Queen. Gord help me.

I will say that it’s weird being in a place with carpet after 12 years without.

I found out today that I got a very prominent voice acting gig that will be happening some time in the first two weeks of March. So if you have a cold stay away from me.

A woman from Dawson’s Creek came into the showroom today and remarked on how there’s no WalMart here. I had to hold my venom in check as she described how the WalMart is the social nexus for the town. She didn’t use the words ’social nexus,’ mind you.

One good thing about working on my own is that I can listen to the CBC whenever I want, which dovetails nicely into my Get-Your-Head-Out-Of-Your-Ass Initiative. Now I know about the carbon tax and have been keeping apprised on their rather dull coverage of property crimes in Vancouver, which is apparently three times as bad as NY, if statistics are to be trusted (they are not). I was tempted to write in to add:

“One step you can take to avoid property crime is to be very careful about buying used. Never buy from pawn shops and if you buy used from a stranger (like on Craigslist) ask where the item came from and why it’s being sold.”

But after spending 5 minutes trying to figure out how to get it to them through their unnavigable website I gave up. There was a lot of talk about keeping alert and owning a dog and whatnot, and precious little about mitigating the cause of theft, which in my opinion is best done through education, social programs and legalizing drugs. And also plenty of beatings all round.

Have you heard about the “devil frog?” I quote:

Scientists on Monday announced the discovery in northwestern Madagascar of a bulky amphibian dubbed the “devil frog” that lived 65 million to 70 million years ago…larger than any frog living today and may be the biggest frog ever to have existed. Its name, Beelzebufo ampinga, came from Beelzebub, the Greek for devil, and bufo — Latin for toad. Ampinga means “shield,” named for an armor-like part of its anatomy….Beelzebufo was 16 inches long and weighed an estimated 10 pounds.

In the “Gee, No Shit” department, “Major world commercial fish stocks could collapse within decades as global warming compounds damage from pollution and overfishing, U.N. officials said Friday.” SO HURRY UP AND EAT THOSE FISH WHILE YOU CAN!!

For those of you who don’t play D&D on Wednesday nights, enjoy going downtown, and are Guitar Hero rock gods, it may interest you to know about Rock Hero night at the Lamplighter Pub.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8842777193&ref=nf

Not my best work, as I was (and still am) trying to figure out comic book inking, but here’s the cover to…well, you can figure that out. PS - Colouring not by me; I haven’t even opened that can of worms yet.

What If Lovecraft Wrote Comic Books?
Somewhere, somewhen, he did. In this sourcebook, for the first time ever, Kenneth Hite gives H.P. Lovecraft’s comics writing the loving RPG adaptation it deserves.

Adventures Into Darkness includes:

* A complete historical overview of H.P. Lovecraft’s comics career, and How It Came To Be.
* Plus! Full Mutants & Masterminds 2e statistics for seventeen of Lovecraft’s Nedor Comics heroes, from the Fighting Yank to Nodens, and from “Doc” Strange to Randolph Carter, Dream Master!
* Plus! Eleven sinister villains, including the alluring Asenath the Body-Snatcher, the fiendish Nazi sorcerer Baron von Junzt, the eldritch Yellow Lama, and the horrific demi-god Dagon himself!
* Plus! Monster stats for ghouls, nightgaunts, Frog-Men, Outer Ones, Tcho-Tchos, and the terrifying Dark Haunter.
* An up-to-date Price Guide to tell you how much your own rare Lovecraft comics will bring today!
* Full “how-to” treatment for blending the Golden Age of Comics with the madness of H.P. Lovecraft, tuned to chilling horror or wild imagination.
* Super Sanity rules!

Not a dream! Not a hoax! Not an imaginary story!* Join H.P. Lovecraft and the timeless Nedor superheroes for …
Adventures Into Darkness!
* May in fact be both a hoax and an imaginary story.

I guess you’d better go buy it! http://www.roninarts.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=508

I went to a special preview screening of Vantage Point last night and was disappointed. Although it’s definitely a thrill a minute, it’s too over-the-top, confused, and–surprisingly, given the cast–poorly acted. It seemed hurriedly slapped together. It had some interesting bits but the ending was, as Jesus would say, laughable.

If anyone has seen Charlie Wilson’s War or Atonement or Michael Clayton I’d be interested to hear reports. I still need to see There Will Be Blood.

PS - every time I go downtown, I wish I hadn’t. I have to stop going.

This week the day job boss is on leave which means I am in charge of the shop for six days. This means no sleeping in five days a week as per normal. I know, I know - poor Toren has to work like the rest of us schmucks, cry me a tsunami. Well it’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to. I don’t think you appreciate just how much I abhor dealing with the public. Overall it’s been pretty decent for these past couple days and I don’t mind shooting the feces with good-humoured customers generally (especially when Thor shows up to get hockey shirts made up), but when the customer is unhappy, that makes Toren unhappy. Toren smash. Right after Toren dig spiked pit trap just inside front door.

Furthermore I can’t just stroll out of the shop to get a snack, though bossman anticipated that by laying out six 2L bottles of Coke Zero for me before he left. What a character!

Super special thanks to Mr Joe, who cut all my scenes together. At the end of the scene where I’m all nervous and beard-stroky, the wraith comes at me and drains my life-force with his handgina. Many prosthetic nails were broken during take after take so it’s a little disappointing that it got cut, but I choose to believe that my portrayal of death was so realistic that it was too disturbing for network TV.

PS - clearly being drained of life-force causes beard defoliation.

People who have been reading this blog for a while know that there was a time when I would post interesting news tidbits gleaned from Harper’s Weekly and often I would add some editorializing. I haven’t done that for a while, for several reasons.

Firstly, I take a tiny bit of pride in my blog content being more or less unique - if you want to read the news there are better places to go.

Secondly, those posts become dated very fast.

Thirdly, I get frustrated with news. I get frustrated with how the media perceives what they report on and I get frustrated on how they report on it and I get frustrated with the confines set upon news reporting in general - i.e. how much space and attention is given to one subject verses another (you know, Paris Hilton vs the dangers of alternative medicine, for example), how news is sponsored and how that censors the facts — all that boring old shit that everyone knows. That frustration builds until I get news burnout, which is very similar to how I get people burnout, but it lasts a lot longer.

The specifics of news stories will change from day to day but the underlying message is always the same: people are ignorant, intolerant, dangerous pricks. I learned that years ago, and then later I came to accept it. I don’t let it rule my personal philosophy and behaviour, obviously. I mean I’m a bit antisocial but I don’t feel like I’ve retreated from the world like a hermit because X number of innocent people were murdered today. And I don’t dress up in a bat costume and mete out street justice because among other things, I’m a pacifist and a coward. But I do what I can to not be one of those people.

Still, my reaction lately has simply been to ignore current events and distract myself with more pleasant things (or more rarely, work) which I’m actually somewhat embarrassed about, because I don’t think that’s a responsible (or healthy) outlook for a man of my age and my era, either. Best’s comparatively intense involvement in human rights issues and activism in general has shone a rather glaring light on my previously unspoken shame.* For the time being at least (pending burnout) I pledge to the Nine Gods of Slack that I will muster up some kind of wan crack at keeping up.

In summation, I am going to make a little more effort to stay on top of “the news” (besides what new cartoons are coming out) so I invite any and all to talk to me about current events so that I can showcase for all to see my vast ignorance of social, political, historical and geographical issues.

Additionally/as a result, I may bring back some of the news editorializing, but will try to keep it upbeat and cool. For example, did you know that Tom Jones insured his chest hair for $7 mil, or that they’re giving backpacks to flying lemurs, or that the BBC discovered that a female worm-like amphibian allows her young to peel off and eat her skin?

*Don’t think for a moment she has pressured me in any way into doing anything. On the contrary, I have found her ethos and work inspiring, just by being around her and hearing about her day to day a-doin’s. This falls exactly in line with my own philosophy of activism - leading by example.

Tonight on SciFi if you have access. I hope I don’t get cut!