Nyawk antics, the second

Dance with tanuki. (Good name for a slow, black and white film)

He's a stoker!  No, he's a thatcher!

The infamous 'wall-slam'.

A classic pose, missing only Hamish.

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E-dog, in fine E-dog form.

We spotted some neat critter-sign dealies in Japan-town, and on closer inspection, I think the first one is a tanuki, a mythical Japanese badger with big balls that goes around impregnating peasant girls.  I'm actually reading a book about tanukis right now.  I love bugging E-dog about his wacky hairdon'ts, at least he didn't  have the front and back all gelled down, like last time.  Yikes.  We found some Triple X and played charades one night in the Safari Room, a la 19th century.  "I say, he's a chimney sweep!"  Why is the text all centred like this?  I don't really care.

Ah ouai les boys!

Et le but!

Peeeeeee Kaaaaay!

Ca-reee!  Ca-reee!

  I went to a Habs game a few weeks ago with some good folks, two of which I met on Jeju - Zims, and The Neevstress.  The Habs killed Carolina 4-0, and I predicted PK would get a goal, and he did, his first.  Fuckin' rights, boys!  Here's a little vid of PK and Price doing the ol triple-low-five dealy.

Hobbit House, West Jeju

 And there is a small tribe of hobbits that lives on Jeju, I've seen them around, usually from the corner of my eye.  Should I go back?  Not sure.  Right on the fence.
 I saw Drive yesterday, and I was a bit let down.  I was hoping for a bit more substance.  It's all style, silence, no dialogue, and Ryan Gosling acting like he's so cool he can punch out God.  It's nuts though, the positive reviews for this movie online seethe about how people that don't get like it are common simpletons who should stick to Fast & Furious type movies.  Fucking movie snobs.  The director was also responsible for Valhalla Rising, a supremely flaccid viking flic, which again was notable for 40 minute stretches of silence, and the main character being all cool and moody.  Geez, I guess I just 'don't get it'.
  Anyways, Drive was a wet squib.  I followed it up with a re-watching of Bad Santa.  Yaaay!   Yaaay!  "Why don't you wish in one hand, and shit in the other. See which one fills up first."  Speaking of Fast & Furious, I hate to say it, but...Tokyo Drift?  C'mon, Tokyo Drift!

Said snow

Sweet pecker holes!

Slide it while you still can

Ouch

Slushhh

Needly crystals

Frosty NDG

  It felt good to trudge around in the snow.  It sure did.  I'm no environmental determinist, but I think real winters help imbue a people with some grit to their character, how can they not?  Wow, I must have a fever or some shit, to be rambling suchly.  I ended up in King George Park yesterday, and I shoulda brought my sled, because 'they' hadn't put up the ridiculous fences that slice up the hill yet, preventing sledders from going more than 20 feet at a time.  When I was a kid, you could go from the tennis courts all the way down to Cote St Antoine, I tells ya.  Who's with me?  Occupy King George Park!
  I've got tons more Nyawk stuff to put up, but I can't be arsed.

Seasons, innit!

  We got a nice sheet of snow yesterday.  It'll be gone in a day or two, cuz that's how it goes.  I have a cold.  Chicken noodle soup time.  Here's the view across the street, since August.

Jeppuh, of the Hill People!

3...2...1...

It's an ass-towel fight!

And I got owned.

Charming and hungover at the pheasant place.

One of numerous epic Jeju City nights.

"See how I cheat at NHL '05?", he's saying.

I wish I knew.

Cake mates.

  Just got off the horn with Jeppuh, who recently got back from two weeks of living with Kenyan hill people in elephant-shit huts.  Sounds like he had an awesome time.  He saw kids drinking milk from the teat of a goat!  That's pretty wicked.  We made plans to meet up to pop bottles for Auld Lang Syne, and beyond.  Here are a few more of our Jeju antics.  Antics!  Antics!  Get it brah!

The fat man's pillow

'Uhnm!  Unhm unhnm!', said the fat man at the theatre.

  After a hard day's birding, we ate at a classy joint in Chambly called 'P'tit Quebec'.  Dance got the biggest and heaviest mufucken' poutine ever.  I dubbed it...THE FAT MAN'S PILLOW.  Dance tried gamefully, but could only eat the first five pounds of it before meekly requesting a doggy lid.

The stupendous hunt for the fabulous Fulvous Whistling Duck

Chambly Basin

Geese

The plane!  The plane!

Welcome to birding in Canada.

Birding in Korea was juuust like this.

Fulvous Whistling Duck

Fulvous and friends

Canada Goose

Snow Goose (one with a broken wing?)

Mallard

Hooded Merganser (2 males, with varying degrees of crest erection, tee hee)

  Dun-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh, the HUNT!  So Dance and I headed out east to search for some rare birds that were recently spotted in a reservoir there.  A European Greylag Goose, clearly lost or attention-starved, was bringing in twitchy birders from all around Canada and Merica to the Chambly Basin for the better part of a week, but it was nowhere to be found today.  We did spot a distant Great Cormorant (my old friend from Korea), rare this far inland.

  The real money bird was the Fulvous Whistling Duck, extreeeemely rare this far north.  We found it northeast of Chambly, in Otterburn Park.  Here’s where it got surreal.  We trudged into a frozen swamp to get a better view, and spotted it on a log, its head down, napping.  I was staring through the viewfinder of The Beast for about 15 minutes, waiting for it raise its selfish beak, arms quivering.  A rumbling train got its little fulvous head to pop up for a couple of seconds, and I got the picture.  When I looked around, I was fairly shocked to find that we were no longer alone in the swamp.  We were surrounded by a phalanx of about 15 birders crouched behind an imposing array of optics and fancy shoulder harnesses.  What the?  I kind of wondered why they didn’t have anything better to do on a Tuesday afternoon, but then I realized that they were me, sort of.  That kind of bird paparazzi crew feels strange to me – I pretty much had an entire sub-tropical Korean island to myself for 2.5 years, scooting around on old-school Tintin birdventures, all fancy-free and alone. 

  After we got a good look, we headed back to the parking lot, and as soon as we got there, the noisy mob flushed the Fulvous and Mallards it was rolling with, and they flew a few hundred feet over, right in front of where we were standing.  Click.  We watched the mob shoulder their tripods and slog back towards us, and The Duck.  Wacky.  Oh, we saw a Bald Eagle, and I kept calling it a ‘Wild Eagle, 100%’, in a manic Sopranos voice, and it was funny to us.

  On other fronts, the plot(ting) thickens.