Driving across Canada can be extremely boring. If yoy want something to do while touring you can always check out these Big Things.

Our favourite big things included are the Dinosaur in Drumheller (Close to Jim and Jennifer's house) and the Hockey Stick in Duncan. Thanks to Bill G for the link.

David Lynch...who else?

It's The Walking Dead, Volume 1: Days Gone Bye by Robert Kirkman - a graphic novel about zombies. Not just gore for gore's sake. Great stuff. Kirkman's intro does well to justify this study in zombies and people's behaviour in a very bizarre. More on Kirkman at Studio Funkotron. I can't wait to read the rest in the series. The zombie story that continues on. Nice!

They're talking about you here: Prince Marty | MetaFilter

Quotes from PROPHET YAHWEH: "UFOs and spaceships appear on my signal." and "Be advised! Yahweh and His Angels are superhuman beings, on other plantes who fly in spaceships!"

Alrighty then. Call me crazy but perhaps the "prophet" (who to me looks like a cross between the infamous Suge Knight of Death Row Records and Hadji from Jonny Quest who also had mystical powers) ought to look into either detox from whatever the hell it is he's smoking or perhaps go back on those meds that the nice doctor in the hospital prescribed the last time he was picked up by the guys with the butterfly net. The $7.95 per month to see this cuckoo pants summon spaceships just might be worth it. I must give him one thing though, at least he's sane enough to be using gmail rather than Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail. However, I do sense a hint of paranoia on the News/Media Sign-up page: "After I receive your email, I will contact you back, very briefly, to make sure that you are who you say you are, and after verifying who you are, I will sign you up and send you your complete login information." The noise you hear whilst reading his website are thousands of cuckoo clocks all sounding at once.

CBC News: Officials keep close eye on water levels along N.S. south shore

Mom and Dad are fine. The picture in the above article is kind of funny though.

I got an email from Brian Liu of Global Television National News with Kevin Newman regarding the Willy Pickton trial's publication ban and bloggers. I guess I come up pretty high in Google for Pickton and Blog. I got the message too late in the afternoon to do anything about it but I sent him a note anyway. Here's what I said:

Hi Brian,
Darn I missed your email. I hope you got what you needed from someone else. I would be happy to speak to you about blogging whenever you'd like. If another opportunity comes up I do have some opinions about this particular issue. Mainly, I do understand the need for a publication ban to ensure a free trial for someone during preliminary proceedings. However, once a jury has been chosen the details should be public regardless of the issue. If jury swaying via media is a concern then sequestering is always an option. It's a tough question in this case as it is generating much public interest and there are the feelings of the victims' families to contend with, but people want to know what happened. Gomery is a different animal altogether where the population of the entire country are the victims, and it seems a little shady that the federal government would want to prevent that information from coming to light seeing as they are the preceived perpetrators of the crime.

Anyway, there's my rant. Thanks for thinking of me. Sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner.
Mike Browne

CBC Nova Scotia - Flooding prompts state of emergency
I'm going to give Mom and Dad a call to see that all's well. Doesn't look good. Here's some more pictures from Tallships.ca, some from the fire department, the story in the Chronicle Herald and a story in MacLeans magazine.

I got another letter from the Nova Scotia Community Service's Adoption Reunion branch yesterday. After some 'preliminary inquiries' they believe they may have located my birth mother. I am now finishing my biographical letter and mailing it off along with a photo of myself (the one I used in the about me section on this blog). They want to have it available prior to approaching her. To say I'm afraid is a slight understatement. Being a creative person the limitless possible outcomes of this are beating the hell out of me. Any information at all will help answer some of the questions that have haunted me for my entire life. Here's hoping... Wish me luck.

Also on the adoption front, Marty Johnson, adopted person, fellow blogger and reader of this pathetic excuse of a blog, has his story and interview in GQ magazine coming to newsstands on Thursday. Marty is the guy who found he is a Nigerian Prince and traveled to Nigeria to meet his natural family. Now I don't know if there's any royalty in my blood nor do I think it worthy of GQ, however, I'm sure my story is interesting in it's own way. I'm excited to find out what it is. You never know.

UPDATE (2:57pm): Letter sent.

Phil Spector, as seen in this article, also has shitty taste in personal hairdos. Looks to me like he's having some kind of ultra-strange Supah-fly slash Tim Burton style collision. I'll bet there's birds and a family of voles living in there. No doubt Jimmy Hoffa is somewhere in that tangled mess as well. Is there possibly an 'insanity plea' in the works? If there's not there should be. Obviously this man is in no way capable of understanding the charges against him. This has to be an accident. An no it's not a Photoshop job, sad to say. Why on Earth someone would set foot outside the hair salon with a do like that truly has me stumped. OMG, he's whacked.

Choose the enlarge option under the photo on the article. It will make your day. Thanks to Carol for the link.

Motreal born Henry Corden a.k.a. Fred Flinstone is dead at 85 and Thurl Ravenscroft, the voice of Tony the Tiger, is dead at age 91. Yabba Dabba Do! They were grrrrreat!

The Complete List - ALL-TIME 100 Movies - TIME Magazine

I'm glad they didn't put them in any kind of order. Those kind of debates are rather boring. I'm not sure if I agree with this list yet or not. I have a lot of films to watch before I can render a real opinion. Perhaps I'll put some thought into my own top 100 films list.

Quoted as he sent it:

The famous Olympic skier Picabo Street (pronounced "Peek-A-Boo") is not just an athlete....she is a nurse currently working at the Intensive Care Unit of a large metropolitan hospital.

She is not permitted to answer the telephone,though. It caused too much confusion when she would answer the phone and say: "Picabo, ICU."

* (A good clean joke is hard to find these days)

Hello from Calgary! Yeehaw! We're here visiting Carol's family and bringing our little friend Kiera birthday presents for her sixth, consisting of a Walter the Farting Dog book (who happens to be headed for Hollywood) and a couple of pictures of Moosh, one of her most favourite dogs ever.

You can now change that boring old search only Google homepage to a more customizable portal like look. That's pretty cool.

Holy shit! After stressing out like mad we found a place to live. We rented a huge, beautiful one bedroom loft downtown from a very nice ESL teacher who's moving back to Nanaimo. It's an award winning heritage loft conversion at the L'atalier. The building is over 100 years old, the floors are hardwood (maple) laid down in 1908 and the celings are 16 feet high! A very creative work/live space and winner of 1995 Silver Georgie Award for excellence in design. The L'Atelier offers original timbers, glass blocks & maple flooring in the hallways & fabulous common roof top deck with 2 barbecues and 360 view. Un-freaking believable this place! The photo at left is just the hallway outside the suite. Wait until you see photos of the suite itself once we move in. We couldn't have asked for anything more suitable for us. Thanks again for all the good vibes you folks have been sending us.

Who passed away today? 'The Riddler' Frank Gorshin Dies at 72 - Yahoo! News

Thanks to Bill for the tip.

Patently Silly - The Invention of Humor - presented by Daniel Wright
A solo operable see-saw? How pathetic is that? If a kid is so lonely that he or she can't find a see saw partner they should look into a bath.

A Hamburger Today: Special. Saucy. Since May 2005
burgers with ketchup, mustard - and opinion

A hamburger blog? Thank you... my life just got better. I love Hamburgers!

I'm going to hell...woohoo

Blogs are advertising: Elections B.C.

Mike Browne to Elections B.C. ... um ... Register this ... *puts up middle digit*

Argh! (note anything else I would have to say today would sound as though it were coming from from someone afflicted with a severe case of Tourettes Syndrome) We'll just stick with ARGH!

*** Worry not. I'm OK ***

It is Friday the 13th after all. Why shouldn't it be a shitty day. A hockey masked Jason is probably waiting until dark to pop out the space under the stairs and fillet me like a halibut...

PETA Kills Animals | PetaKillsAnimals.com

I'm not sure what the facts are but if what this website purports is true PETA's got a lot of 'splainin' to do.

Here's another reason why I haven't been blogging as much as I used to:


Yep. I've gone and started my own production company. Why the hell not?

Here's the post I promised about my set visit to the Masters of Horror (not a lot in the IMDb post) project being shot here in Vancouver. I can't think of a more inspirational way to start a week than a visit to the set of legendary horror film director Dario Argento who just happens to be one of my heroes in the horror genre. He is the second director of thirteen to be filming his episode of MOH, called Jenifer written by and starring Steven Weber of Wings sitcom fame. What a day! Watching this great director do his thing was nothing short of amazing. I kept grinning to myself with this weird sense of glee even though there was a hideously disfigured woman about to be cleavered by a madman just feet away. I think even Mr Argento noticed my enthusiasm for the proceedings. We were only feet apart while I was on set. I even had a headset to listen to the dialogue while viewing the monitor. I couldn't have been more in the thick of things had I tried.

Here's another picture taken with my ultra shitty camera phone showing Mr Argento at work:


The woman standing directly behind him was his translator as Mr Argento speaks very limited English and, of course, needs to be understood. She shadowed him where ever he went.

The scenes I watched being shot were underneath the Port Mann Bridge so it was a short drive. One of the shots was a high wide shot of a cop car and some of the action from a 'cherry picker' style crane. Here's another shitty picture:


The focus puller on the crane was terrified of heights and secretly (until now) crapping his pants.

The friend I have on set gave me two scripts to read so I could see what a one hour horror TV episode reads like. I was also told that if I were to write something it would be given to Mick Garris, the producer and one of the writer/directors on the show to read. Apparently there are no firm scripts yet for a few directors namely Brad Anderson, Rob Zombie and my ultimate hero, George A Romero! I'm not going to get my hopes up, but I'm going to write one for fun. Each epsiode is going to take ten days to shoot so they're here until November 9th according to the script progress report I was given. You never know what might happen. As I'm beginning to see, if I'm open to it absolutely anything is possible.

I'm also going to see if I can swing a few more visits for the various other directors. Including the ones I've already mentioned I'm hoping to either meet or watch in action Don Coscarelli (Phantasm), Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator), John Carpenter (Halloween), Larry Cohen (writer of Phone Booth), Joe Dante (Gremlins and Rock and Roll High School), Roger Corman (Little Shop of Horrors and many more films) and Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre).

What a cool life I'm having.

Some words of wisdom from Treasure Island writer Robert Louis Stevenson kick things off:

"To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive."

and this bit of positivity from Shakti Gawain:

"What I'm actually saying is that we need to be willing to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. It's more for me than it is for you but sharing it makes me feel a little less like a hermit. No, I haven't started peeing in milk boxes or wearing kleenex boxes on my feet - yet.

To all the spamming type scumbags,
As someone who used to work in an industry known for it's spam and underhanded tactics (I've felt their vile sting) it's probably karma that my site would be thus targeted by dirtbags looking to peddle their penis enlarging pills, casinos and swampland real estate. So until I can come up with an alternative to the stupid assed Nucleus system's way of handling spam there won't be a way to comment. However, if you feel strongly about making a comment on a particular post just use the contact me link on the left. Thanks and sorry to all those honest folks who want to post and who's comments may have gone the way of the dodo bird in my mass deletion ragefest, but I've just spent an hour deleting spam and I can't do this every day.

UPDATE: Back already. Now when commenting you need to enter the numbers and letters on a radomly generated image. It works for me so far. Anyone who needs the plugin for their Nucleus CMS can get it right here.

I got a letter in February about my search for my birth parents from the Adoption Disclosure Services Program in NS. The are ''ready to begin the search" for my birth mother. They requested I send a letter for my birth mother describing myself and my family - like a non-identifying biography. They also want a snapshot of me to have ready for my birth mother if the are "fortunate enough to find her".

I've been waffling on this, mostly because I don't know if a) I can handle being 'rejected' (all perceived) by this person again b) I'm afraid of what I might find out and c) What will become of me once I have this information that I've never had before?

I have in recent weeks received a number of emails regarding my being adopted and my search. One email I got from Karin in the US who happened to be born on exactly the same day in the same year as me sharing her positive experience with an adoption reunion from only the day before.

"Hello Mike. This is the universe calling. It's time you did something with this."

On the upside it's not taking three years as I shared on my blog for them to get to my case. Even though it took more than a year I'm still amazed. Along those lines I recieved a note from Lori, a community services researcher for the NDP in Nova Scotia. She said she wants my case to be raised in the Nova Scotia legislature highlighting the understaffing at the Adoption Disclosure Services Program in NS and perhaps have me speak to the press about it as well.

Wow! Who knew that people would find something on my blog to further a cause. I just thought I was spewing junk.

I'm not sure that the press would be the right idea as I don't want to publicly humiliate my birth family and jeopardize the possiblity of a happy and private reunion. I don't know their situation and am not prepared to hurt them in anyway just to find out what I desire to know. Who knows if the people in my birth family's lives even know I exist. It's not up to me to expose something that might be a deep dark family secret. That just doesn't sit well with me.

So yes, I'll write the bio and send the picture, but I don't think I need the hooplah. I will share it here if I can. That might be enough for now.

Check out De-Animator at Kontraband. It's a cool flash game that allows you you practice your zombie hunting skills. Thanks to everyone who has sent me links to this.

Check out ols-master. It's a rather long flash movie about the evolving information construct. But is worth the download and the time. I feel like George Orwell. Get out the tinfoil for God's sake.

Thanks to Etrigan for the link.

I've been invited to the set of Masters of Horror, a series of 13 one hour films buy legendary horror film directors, now filming here in Vancouver. Seems some of the networking I've been doing is paying off well. A visit to Masters of Horror is like a dream come true for a horror movie film buff and writer/producer like me. These are the big guns in the genre. I know John Landis' shoot is done but the rest of the directors are just as cool to me. It could be a fun day. I'll share more later.

Here's a picture I found of two farmers 'helping' a goat blow out the candles on your birthday cake. Thanks for being a loyal blog reader. Gracias. (Shit I missed Cinco de Mayo)

How to fold a fitted sheet
Finally, there's a method to folding a fitted sheet rather than just balling it up and cramming it into the closet. The internet is good for something other than pr0n.

What are the words to Louie Louie anyway? It looks like a school in Michigan isn't taking a chance on it's being obscene. They've banned the school band from playing it.

Time for all those bikers and rockers to change their tattoos. The number of the beast has been devalued from 666 to 616 after scholars got through reading some crappy old papyrus (aka King Tut's dinner napkin). Personally I think 666 is way cooler. The Iron Maiden song would still sound okay with 616 as the number, but it doesn't seem as strong or symmetrical somehow. Uh oh... Mike's overthinking things again. Another uh oh... Mike's talking to himself again. Must be the new and improved number of the beast burrowing it's way into my soul. Yargh! It burns!

Check out Steve's Home Theater. Holy shit! That's one amazing room. Honestly this is a little too ornate for me, but I appreciate the time and effort that went into it. I can also relate on the level of being a movie buff. Oh how one would dig having a funky theatre of one's own to watch one's own films in. Wouldn't one? WTF? I sound like a crazy person.

Yes they are real and for sale: Bacon Strips Bandages
Only $4.95 USD for 15 'strips' in the neato tin seen above.

Director Kevin Smith has seen Star Wars episode III, Revenge of the Sith, and he loves it. He's written a review on his website, but be forewarned it's full of spoilers. If you don't care about spoilers but want to know read on: Kevin Smith geeks out on Sith

Thanks to Jackson for the link.