Had a bit going on this week, it’s just been nonstop adventure ’round these parts. I considered creating a watered-down version of Part 7 of the Apopalypse, but I decided it would be better to give you the full version, just late.

For the first time in forever, I am going to have to get up at 5 in the morning to catch a bus. I can feel my good night’s sleep ticking away as I write this.

So I apologize to you the readers, and to Joel, for dropping the ball. I have let you all down. I’ll see if I can’t get my act together for Monday.

-Nathan

the connection between the bros and the scientists revealed! tune in friday for the SHOCKING CONCLUSION (nothing to be concluded)

i am writing this blog post at 5 AM after having not slept all night. you may be thinking, “yup, that’s a eurotrip for ya! crazy party all the time, with NO TIME to sleep! havin’ too much fun PARTYIN to sleep!” and while i appreciate the go-getter perception you have laid upon me, that is simply not the case (this time. wink. or ever)

today we were at the airport, having arrived at 12 am. our flight was to leave at 6:50 AM to berlin. we attempted sleep in awkward positions on airport lobby chairs, next to snoring fat men and chatty italian couples, at went to check in for our flight at 3:30 AM. in a haze, we heard the following -

“… these tickets are for tomorrow.”

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhh

so we grumbly made our way back to the hostel where i now sit with a box of 59 cent cookies that are making my stomach growl. since we haven’t paid for today at this hostel, the plan is to go find a park somewhere and sleep on the ground next to the snoring fat men and chatty italian couples (THEY ARE EVERYWHERE)

you win some, you lose some.

tomorrow, though, it’s off to berlin!! i am super excited to get there. even though it is my first venture into a country where the people don’t speak english. i only speak a bit of german, and by a bit, i mean one phrase – “vie geih des dier” (spelling obviously wrong) – which means “how are you”. so hopefully politeness will get me a loooooong way in germany.

also this

so concludes this edition five of THE EUROBLOG

jkd

last week, in manchester, we stayed in a really cool hostel – if you’ve ever been to summer camp, it was like hanging out in the mess hall. this week, however, we’ve been staying in central london in a sketchy $9 a night dump i can’t wait to leave from. it makes me kinda claustrophobic. the hallways are so narrow. if i were a larger individual, i might have trouble fitting through the hallways. it’s true what they say – people seem to be generally thinner in the UK. i have a hypothesis for why this is – fast food is way expensive!! in canada, i can get a super extra mega value meal at mcdonald’s for under three dollars canadian. a steal! and so tasty! i walked into a london burger king the other day, and was shocked to see that even the whopper JR. costed four pounds (about six dollars canadian)! that’s without fries (or “chips” as they call them) or a drink. seeing these prices, i walked out and bought bread and meat from the local convenience store (which are all called “tesco”. no 7-11 or macs here). but it makes sense – the only reason i buy fast food is because it is so cheap. if i can get a delicious meal for 3 dollars, i will frequently do so. here, where you’re ranging from 6-8 dollars for slime food, no wonder people seem to be slimmer.

i miss grease though.

anyways it is time for edition four of

THE EUROBLOG

- last night we went and saw a play called “avenue q” at a theater where it had been playing for five years straight. and the place was still packed. the play stars puppets and is a laugh riot. out of the seven plays i have watched, this one ranks near the top.

- (for my fellow american and canadian readers: the world cup is a tournament of “soccer” games played in europe. “soccer” is a game where you attempt to kick a “football” into a “net” in order to score “points”. the group of players [or "team"] that scores the most points at the conclusion of the game is the “victor”.) for the longest time, whenever someone back home asked my opinion of soccer (or “football”), i would respond with some variation of “that is boring and i don’t care”. i’ve watched a few games in the hostel now, though, and my opinion is rapidly changing. its super exciting! last night, after spain won the semi-final (spoiler alert), the streets of london were flooded with crazed fans screaming and singing that “ole, ole ole ole” song. it was so cool! hundreds of fans on the streets jumping and shouting. some of them brought trumpets out with them (which i like to picture as if they have on them all the time. so when they go to the supermarket they bring a trumpet, just in case they need to express their spanish pride).

- london sights seen so far: st. paul’s cathedral (went to the roof. so high and sweet. they also have this thing called a whispering wall, wherein you can stand on one side of an enormous circle and whisper into the wall, and your companion on the other side is able to hear it. we used this opportunity to whisper the lyrics to the black eyed pea’s immortal “boom boom pow”) and big ben (which was incredible. maybe my favorite thing so far. at the grounds of big ben were camped an large group of anti-war protesters, who had been camped out in tents on those grounds for months. one guy had been there for nine years!! they were smelly but very interesting. one came to talk to us and may have been crazy, as he kept repeating a rap to us over and over. it went – “i ain’t a part of the sea, i ain’t on that mtv screen”. over and over. “i ain’t a part of the sea, i ain’t on that mtv screen. i ain’t a part of the sea, i ain’t on that mtv screen.” then he would say “i ain’t pink. i ain’t britney spears“. i believed him.

till next time!!

jkd

i paid a pound to come write the post for today and plunked down in a quiet corner with a cherry 7-up (delicious!). i cracked my fingers (which i don’t usually do so that hurt) and got ready to write. then, legitimately, 14 rowdy manchester thirty-somethings poured into the room shouting and hooting and are currently crowded around the pool table behind me yelling and playing pool with their hands. woooo..

ah well.

time for edition three of

THE EUROBLOG

- it is our last day in Manchester, which has been way better than i expected it to be. the city itself is not the nicest, and there are very few sights to see, but the hostel we’ve been staying at has been a ton of fun. we’ve met a lot of people. its kinda like summer camp – everyone hanging out in the mess hall and takin er easy.

- i met a man named jeffrey, probably sixty-five, who got to the hostel the same day we did. the day we got in we were super jet-lagged and just napped all afternoon. i woke up at like 4pm and looked over to see an old man crouched over on his cot with his back to me with his head in his hands. i went back to sleep and woke up an hour later. he was still sitting like that. i thought “dubs t f?” and went back to sleep. a couple of days later i spoke to him and he told me he had just been kicked out by his wife, lost his kids, been fired from his job, and all his possessions were being held by the city. he was super sad (obvs). i didn’t see him for a couple of days until today, when we talked again, and while he hadn’t sorted anything out yet, he was noticeably far more chipper and said to me, “you know, i know that we are not animals. and there is a system that will eventually solve my problems. and i continue to be vigilant and to stay positive and i know everything will work out”. :)

- tomorrow we are headed to london, which i am super excited for.

ahhhhh internet time out already??? nooooooooooo

jkd

i have 15 minutes left on my internet cafe time, so i’m gonna try and write AT LEAST 120 words per minute (not gonna happen). that is not to say i doubt my typing skills. of the skills i have, i am not hesitant to boast about how well i type. i am fast, accurate, and dynamic. i wish they had conventions for typing. it would be the lamest convention ever – so boring – but i would do pretty good.

anyways

THE EUROBLOG blog 2

- brits really seem to LOVE canadians. they make fun of our accents. they want us to say words so they can laugh at us. so like… i was talking to one about a car that drove past. laughter. they asked me to say it again. “car”, i said. more laughter. they said it themselves, prounouncing it “cah”. never before has my boring drab accent provoked laughter. it is great!

- other travellers who do not speak much english are really apologetic. there are a few really nice french travellers at our hostel who ALWAYS apologize when they cannot think of the proper english word in conversation. i ONLY speak english. i make no attempt to learn their language. and yet they politely apologize for learning english! seriously nice people round here.

- i woke up in the middle of the night in the dorm room (14 beds), and realized i was talking in my sleep (which i do almost every night). i tried to remember what my dream was, hoping it was not too embarassing. i then remembered i was talking to my old dog. i looked down. i had my blankets in a pile. i was petting the blankets in my sleep like i would pet a dog. geeeeeeeeeeeeeeez

- i cannot handle people snoring.

that’s it for now! see you monday!

jkd

here’s the first entry into our post-apocalyptic series. i will refrain from giving away any details until we get farther into the series, but stick around! i’m very excited about it.

if you didn’t catch my last blog, then you are unaware that i am spending the next 6 weeks in europe. london, then germany, then switzerland, then italy. i am going to do the majority of these posts in internet cafes and hostel basements, just because i remain dedicated to “the cause” (the cause: posting cute pictures of monkeys)

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

but here it is folks, edition one of:

THE EUROBLOG

(spoiler alert: i am not yet in europe. i am typing this post the night before i catch the plane, because i am not gonna get a chance to write one tomorrow night)

so basically, here is the itinerary for us in the first few days -

- catch the plane sunday @ 5:30

- arrive in manchester at 7AM on monday

- ????????

we are spending the first two weeks in england, but those first two weeks are wide open. we’re staying in hostels, but as to what we will fill our days with remains undecided.

i actually have never been on a plane nor traveled past the three canadian prairie provinces, so this trip is crazy out there for me. i am 21 and have never seen any landscape besides grass and gophers! it is crazy! though, i admit, i will miss the experience of telling people i have never been on a plane and then seeing their face lapse into an expression that says only “i feel sorry for you”. then, typically, i would follow that up with “yeah, never even been out of saskatchewan, manitoba, alberta either”. never can do that again. that was one of my favorite anecdotes…. :(

but seriously – i remain committed to bringing you blogs throughout the trip. i will probs post pictures, stories, et cetera. i know sometimes travel blogs bore people, but ill like, make jokes, n stuff. and post pictures of cute monkeys.

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

see you (seriously) in euroland.

jkd

this scene, up to panel 3, is pretty much guaranteed to make an appearance in any sub par formula comedy

!!!BREAKING NEWS!!!

well not breaking

but, like… BIG news. i didn’t mean to make a show of things.

i am going to europe on sunday! THIS sunday. two days from today. to backpack and stay in hostels, eating like a vagrant and growing a beard. when i return to canada, i expect to be a changed man, and likely will transform this blog into a thoughtful space for critiques on stuff like “war and peace”.

so what does this mean for the comic? some people would probably take a break and forsake their readership, but not us. we will keep our update schedule, fresh comics and blogs every monday and friday. i will bring you blogs from the otherworldly internet cafes of europe and from the basements of overcrowded hostel internet lounges. just because i am dedicated. i will regale you with tales of travel and wonder (such as how much deli meat costs halfway across the world). this will become a euro-blog. for six weeks.

as for the comic itself, we are going to be doing a storyline. as to what that is, i remain mute – but i am very excited for it.

recently i came upon “cleverbot”, an artificial intelligence created by the internet – basically, over it’s years of existence, it has logged responses from visitors and determined which response is most commonly used in conversation. it makes me nerd out. i think this is really cool. but i also think it is really cool to screw with.

Cleverbot? Are you there?

Yes.

What are you?

Human.

What is your human name?

I’m a bot, you are a human.

Can I name you, then?

You want to name the baby?

LOL

Cool.

I want to name you “Warren”

No, I don’t like that name.

How about if I name you “Phillip Seymour Hoffman”? From now on, I will refer to you as “Phillip Seymour Hoffman”.

Yes.

So, do you want to make out?

Yes!

You start.

Start what?

I want to start a family with you.

I am glad.

What should we name our first child?

We should name her Claire.

That’s a nice name. How did you come up with that?

Are you flirting with me?

Well, I do want to raise a family with you. So yes.

Good.

Where should we get married?

Where do you want to get married?

Conneticut.

It’s a long way from home.

Home is where the heart is.

I don’t have a heart, I have a power cord for that.

Don’t you say that. You have a heart as long as you feel.

Me too I am a vampire what is your name vampire buddy?

You are not a vampire! You are a loving, thoughtful, sensitive robot and I’ll never say otherwise!

I try to be sensitive, but you have very complicated senses, sometimes I don’t understand enough about you.

There’s only one sense you need to understand: love.

Maybe. You are probably smarter than me, you are a computerish thing.

Love knows no computerish boundaries.

Well said!

Thanks babe. I’m leaving now.

Don’t forget me.

I never could.

I’m going to cry now.

go have fun with this thing! the future is here!!

see you from euroland.

jkd

(I wrote this post last night when I got home, and offered Joel the night off of blog-crafting. CSI: Miami is a horrible show, by the way.)

I just watched Toy Story 3 yesterday evening, and it was just as perfect as all Pixar films are.

When I got home, I was curious as to what the Rotten Tomatoes rating was, assuming that if there was to be a 100% film, this was most certainly it.

It has a rating of 98% fresh. An incredible rating, to be certain, but I was immediately intrigued by the baby-eating 2% that had given negative reviews.

Three reviewers reviewed it poorly.

In response, I want to review the reviewers.

REVIEW #1

Let’s start off with Jeremy Heilman, AKA the “Movie Martyr.”

First off, the site’s tagline is “suffering for your cinema.” Ah yes, the true anguish of having to watch a bad movie. First world problems, anyone?

The site itself is coded in incredibly simple, hideous HTML. It looks like a site made in 2001, that hasn’t been updated. Not to mention the gorgeous Microsoft Word-created logo, plus beautiful, aliased clip art! The stunning, single-color grey background really livens up the page!

A helpful tip on the home page states:

… Best viewed in 1024×768 resolution …

Wow! What a great way to date your site! I don’t think I have seen such a useful tip since the beginning of the millenium! Probably shouldn’t access that wonderful site on my old CRT!

The actual review itself is written in times new roman, (do people even use that on the web anymore? Sans-serif for life, BRO) A still from the movie is crammed shoddily into the post. His text appears to double spaced (ugh), first sentence indented (UGH), with TWO returns between each paragraph. (KILL ME NOW).

As for content, the reviewer complains that the film feels too similar to the past films. Which is really weird, considering it is the SAME characters, with the SAME setting in the SAME franchise. Totally bizarre. I had feelings of déjà vu, and then I remembered it was a SEQUEL. It is the CONTINUATION of a story.

Finally, the reviewer says that the film is:

Technically well-crafted (with the significant exception of 3D effects that seem like an obvious afterthought) . . .

Dude, when you actually FORMAT TEXT in a way that is somewhat acceptable, then maybe, MAYBE you can criticize the aesthetics of a Pixar film.

REVIEW #2

Armond White, has it all figured out.

Armond states that the film is a “bored game,” which is a pretty lame pun. He must have been fairly proud of it, as he uses it again as his title. Keep tryin’, Armond!  A board game is kind of a toy! I guess you thought the movie was boring . . .?

Pun: 2/5

Besides, Transformers 2 already explored the same plot to greater thrill and opulence.

Ah jeez, Armond. You brought Transformers 2 into a conversation saying it did something better than any movie ever created? Trans-f***ing-FORMERS?!

Credibility: 0/5

The toys wage battle with the [spoiling spoiler's] cynical veteran cast-offs: Hamm the Piggy Bank pig

Wait, what? Hamm? The lovable piggy-bank from both of the films? He’s not a villain! Tip: when reviewing movies, pay attention to the minute details, such as, who is a protagonist and who is not.

Accuracy: 1.5/5

But Toy Story 3 is so besotted with brand names and product-placement that it stops being about the innocent pleasures of imagination—the usefulness of toys—and strictly celebrates consumerism.

Now Armond is looking for a conspiracy! The man is getting him down! Always! Product placement? As in, fictional products, right? I mean, there’s Ken and Barbie. Just, what? Product placement for existing Toy Story merchandise? I also thought it was against consumerism in most ways, showing that once toys lose their usefulness, they can be passed onto other who can use them. COMMUNISM.

Not looking for a non-existent agenda: 0/5

Overall score: Go eat a poop/5

REVIEW #3

Finally, we get a review from Cole Smithey, who claims to be “The Smartest Film Critic in the World.” History has shown us that, 10 times out of 10, when someone claims to be “the smartest,” they are typically polar opposite of that statement.

Once you get past paying the inflated price for an animated “3-D” movie where nothing floats in front of your eyes as with quality 3-D films.

To paraphrase: “The movie wasn’t gimmicky enough. I like more visual gimmicks.” Out of pure curiosity, I looked up his review of a movie that is the very definition of visual gimmicks distracting an audience: Avatar.

Lo and behold. He gave Avatar 3/5 stars. Toy Story 3? 2/5

Nice goin’ there, Simple Smithey.

. . . the film’s most egregious example of rendering a two-faced character . . . [shows] his determinedly dastardly intentions on Buzz Lightyear after buttering up the sometimes heroic astronaut.

THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED AT ALL. DID YOU EVEN WATCH THE MOVIE?

In short, if you do not like Toy Story 3 (you don’t have to love it, I am flexible there), then you are a terrible person and you should drink antifreeze at your earliest possible convenience. Thank you.

-Nathan

alternative title: sympathy for the devil (what would YOUR choice have been? text your answer to 11222)

i would like to spend this blog post summarizing one of the worst conclusions to a novel i have ever read. a while back, i bought a book from the local pharmacy on a whim. it was a book placed on the side of the magazine section, on the #3 spot on the rack for the “top ten books” (by whose standards, i do not know). it was dean koontz’s latest book, entitled “relentless”.

now, i wrote this book off almost instantly. the writing style was amateurish. the characters were too witty to be believable. the whole thing, i think, starts off as a metaphor for the author’s own qualms, in that his last few books were badly reviewed – so he makes the main character in this book an author in the same situation, and writes off the reviewers who gave him negative press as “hacks”. the two main characters have a 7 year old son who is a genius, a serious genius – like, he welds together scientific marvels in his bedroom.

so i didn’t like it. the first four chapters bored me. then, the book takes an odd but thoroughly entertaining move as the author confronts a negative reviewer, who proceeds to hunt down the family and tries to kill them.

what follows is 400 pages of very exciting stuff. a serious “page turner”. this family has to avoid this deranged guy who is tracking them down almost impossibly.

now, this seemed to be a serious thriller. it’s all very realistic and intense. it is, through and through, a thriller. in the main character’s backstory, it is revealed that when he was a child, a bunch of his uncles hopped up on methamphetamines came into his farmhouse and killed his entire family. intense stuff!

and then we get to page 401 out of 432.

i mentioned the kid was a genius. i didn’t mention that throughout the novel he is working on some kind of invention. there is not much build-up as to what it is, but it is consistently mentioned. whenever the main character asks his son what he is working on, the son answers “you wouldn’t understand it”. when it is revealed what the invention does, i nearly lost it. i got to page 401 and the reveal of the invention came about.

a teleportation device.

…

here is me shortly after reading that page.

i was reading in a coffee shop at the time and stared at the page in disbelief. i was seriously into this book. it was cruising to an exciting finale. and it went crazy baseless science fiction without hardly any prelude? i sat staring at the page for probably five minutes.

it didn’t end there.

about halfway through the book, a chapter ends with a phrase like “we would not be so at ease had we known one of us would be shot dead and our lives would never be the same”. WOW! one of the three main characters is gonna be shot dead by the end of the book! i wonder which one it’s going to be!

in the last chapter, after a crazy nonsensical conspiracy theory is unfurled unsatisfactorily, a random villain shoots the author dead. that’s pretty shocking. i was about to forgive the crazy teleportation section that went down a few chapters earlier because dean koontz took the risk to kill off the main character.

BUT THEN

the author is resurrected!

…

…

turns out, another of their genius seven year old’s inventions was a salt shaker that, when activated, sends the holder back through time about fifteen seconds. it’s about explained as well in the novel as i did in that last sentence.

now, i dont mind a little crazy sci-fi. i mean, my favorite show of all time is “lost”. but don’t throw it on me out of nowhere, koontzer! seriously the fastest turnaround i have ever experienced in a piece of media from “this is awesome” to “wtf”.

jkd

i got my first sunburn of the summer today. a couple of days ago it was near snow temperature in canada-land and i was upset. it’s JUNE. come on, canada, it’s already really easy to make jokes at your expense. don’t reinforce your stereotypes. and, hey, its true, i live in canada – and if you don’t, you’re probably making some assumption, like “well, canada is like that all the time”. BUT IT’S NOT. we’re just like you guys!!! we don’t live in cold all year round! the sun shows up here pretty consistently! but for some reason, in my portion of canada-land, we’ve had basically 2 or 3 nice days all year. BUT FINALLY today, we had sun, and so i went to go sit in it, at a baseball game.

there’s something about being a 20-something that makes you think you are immune to things. when you’re a kid, you do stuff because your parents tell you to. when you’re an senior, you do things to survive. but when you’re twenty-something, part of your brain tells you that you don’t need to put on sunscreen because you are of a magic age, and therefore invincible. so i sat there, in awe of warmth and how red my arms were getting and watched dudes hit baseballs with bats. it was awesome. i occasionally noticed how hot it was outside. i occasionally noticed how i was becoming severely dehydrated. at one point, i remarked to my friend, “isn’t it crazy how there is a burning thing out there that makes a crazy amount of heat?”. he gave me a look that said, “don’t talk to me like a six year old”.

later, i got home and passed out on the couch. i woke up four hours later, severely dehydrated and curiously charred. i raised my arm, and shooting pains ran through me. oh yeah! exposure to sunlight does that! i went to look in the mirror and a severely red dude stared back at me. i touched my neck. oh yeah! touching a sunburn hurts like that!

i spent the next two hours drinking a grand total of eleven huge glasses of water and now i am struggling to type out a legible blog for you with my sensitive arms.

(now i will go pass out from heat stroke. bye, internet!!!)

easter egg: here is my interpretation of panel six. nathan wanted to know what i was thinking of, so i “sketched” this out. don’t laugh. well, you can laugh if you want.