Joyeux Anniversaire!

Fifty years ago today, on October 29th, 1959, the French comics magazine Pilote published its first issue. Defunct since 1989, Pilote would probably not be much remembered, except that one of its comics turned out to have quite a lot of sticking power, and if you've been over to Google today, you know which one it was.



Yes, today is the 50th birthday of Asterix, Obelix, and the rest of the village of indomitable Gauls, the brainchildren of Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. And anyone who appreciates humour, or ancient history, or any combination thereof, owes those two gentlemen a deep debt of gratitude.

Personally, I think my favourite is Le Tour de Gaulle d'Asterix, mostly because it's the one in which they acquire Idefix, but that's just me...

In Which Chunklets Takes Up New Media

Yes. Yes, I did. And now back to work.

BWAH-HAH-HAH

In which The Onion shoots and scores, yet again:

Man Dies After Secret 4-Year Battle With Gorilla
October 26, 2009 | Issue 45•44

ROANOKE, VA—Local claims adjuster David Seaborne, a devoted husband and father of three, died Tuesday at the age of 37 following a long and painful personal battle with a 512-pound eastern lowland gorilla.

Yes, it's somewhat tasteless, but still... Anyway, real posting soon!

Developing...

Gunman holding hostages in Edmonton building
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 | 4:01 PM CBC News

An armed man is holding hostages in the Workers' Compensation Board building in downtown Edmonton, police say.

Eek. On the plus side, apparently nobody has been hurt, and some of the hostages have been released.

I V vi iii IV I IV V

Hmmm, we haven't had a musical interlude for awhile! So, what to play, what to play... Ok, here's a classic from a few years ago:

Now, even if you're not a Green Day fan, the melody-line of that song may sound just a tad familiar. There is a reason for that, said reason being that Billie-Joe Armstrong borrowed the chord progression from a certain well-known canon:

You fools! Go back and count the "n"s!

Much better. We will overlook for now the fact that the man pictured in the video is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, not Johanne Pachelbel. So yes, there you have it - the strange connection between Baroque chamber music and late-20th-century pop-punk.

All The Best To You, Theo

Some years ago, when Theo Fleury first started getting himself into trouble, I remember having a conversation about it with a friend of mine. We noted Theo's difficulties, and the fact that he'd played for Moose Jaw under Graham James, and we did wonder a bit if those two things weren't connected. Well, we wonder no more.

Oh, and if you're having warm and fuzzy thoughts about humanity today, a saunter through the comments section of the above-linked story should fix that right up for you! Why do I read those things, anyway?

Yet Another Cavalcade Of Randomness!!

Because the first one was such a hit!

• Open House at the U this past Saturday, which is always good for my fitness, since the Department and the Open House booth are in opposite corners of the campus. The most encouraging sign, on a day that went really well anyway, was the number of high-school students who came up to our booth asking not "So what is History & Classics, anyway, and what kind of job can it get me?", but rather things like "this is where I come to learn about the ancient world, right?" Good stuff.
  
  
• On a related note, I had coffee this morning with the husband of the Director for the archaeological site in Tuscany upon which I have worked. We discussed many things, including which bits of the upcoming site publication I should expect to find myself writing, and the general state of the preservation/conservation business. It was extremely productive...
  
  
• On a completely unrelated note, I went, along with brother and nephew, to see the Major Junior team in action on Friday night. The local boys won 3-2, despite a hairy finish, and afterwards we got to and clamber around on the catwalks up above the arena. Fun!
  
  
• Speaking of hairy finishes, that was not how the Oilies wished to commence their season, I believe. Sigh. On the bright side, overall, the team looked pretty decent.
  
  
• I believe that I saw a beaver swimming in the river last week - spotted him, in fact, from the bus as we were crossing a bridge. Alternatively, might have been muskrat, but it was a little big for that, I think.
  
  
• And a neat little piece dealing with light pollution, accompanied by an absolutely stunning video, is located here. Go watch!

And that's it 'til next time!

Opening Night!

And hockey is now back, or at least will be in a couple of hours, and questions and storylines abound! How about that Tavares kid? Who's going to be worse: Phoenix or Colorado? Will the goonification of the Toronto Maple Leafs bear fruit? Will Chicago take the next step, or be undone by bad goaltending and off-season unpleasantness? Who is this season's Great Canadian Hope (it's Vancouver, BTW)? And, most importantly, who's going to be skating around next June waving an enormous silver flowerpot over their heads? And the answer to that last is... wait for it...

The Pittsburgh Penguins.

Yes, we're going with the repeat winner. They've got top-drawer talent, obviously, and now they've got the experience to match it. The WKS brigade foresees them knocking off the San Jose Sharks in the final, simply on the grounds that one of these years the Sharks are going to have stop sucking in the playoffs, and it might as well be this one. However, any of Detroit, Vancouver, Washington, Chicago, Boston, or even Philadelphia could decide to have their say as well.

As for the Oilers, who get things underway on Saturday night, well, expectations are a bit subdued, despite the arrival of highly experienced coaching.* The general consensus out there is that the Oilers had a pretty good draft, and then spent too much of the summer swooning around after Dany Heatley, resulting in them going into training camp with too many big holes in the lineup. Although the defence is world-class, especially when attacking, there are questions about the size of the forward corps. The return of Mike Comrie, and his solid play, have been positives, but the Oilers are going to need it continue, and then some, if they're going to go anywhere this season. In net, the Oil acquired Mr. Khabibulin, and that's excellent just as long as he doesn't go off form or get hurt. In short, it's going to be a tough, tough year, especially with a deadly schedule right out of the gate.

The following four numbers, however, give some slight cause for optimism, however: 21, 23, 31, 27. Those are the numbers of points by which Quinn-coached teams have improved in his first full season in charge. Now, it is probably a stretch to expect that sort of thing from this year's Oiler team, but those are still very impressive figures, and can't all be due to roster changes. So maybe, just maybe, and with some additions somewhere along the line, the boys can find their way into the second season. And if they can't, well, at least we've got Jordan Eberle and Magnus Pääjärvi-Svensson to look forward to.

Goil!

*The official De Koboldorum Rebus opinion on the hirings of Pat Quinn and Tom Renney is as follows: it was a very very very very good thing to do. There are enormous hockey brains in those two men, and I am very much looking forward to what they do with the team. Furthermore, adherents (and there is a distressingly large number of them) to the "Pat Quinn has won nothing in his career" school of thought need to be slapped upsides the head and reminded that, for a coach, an Olympic gold medal, World Cup, U18 World Championship, World Junior Championship, and 657 FLIPPIN' NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE GAMES pretty much amount to "something." To put it another way, the only men who've won more as NHL coaches are named Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour, Dick Irvin, and Mike Keenan, and Quinn will catch Keenan this season, having coached five fewer seasons than Keenan to boot. There's a solid possibility that he'll catch Irvin this year as well, in seven fewer seasons. In short, I think it was a good hire.

A Bookstore Anecdote

As promised below, here we have the first in what will probably become a short series! And this one deals with the Comparative Literature section of the Bookstore. Unfortunately, the signage in said section employed a perhaps unfortunate and anatomical abbreviation, one which I'll let you bright sparks figure out on your own. Thus it was that a couple of days into rush, the floor manager tasked me with removing all of the offending signs, and replacing them with something a little less controversial. I assumed that there had been complaints; however, it actually turned that somebody had taken a picture of one of the old signs and posted it on a widely read internet site. The only real shock was that it took as long as it did for this to happen, since the old signs had been up for years.

The funny bit occurred a few days after the signs were replaced, when a young fellow, accompanied by his girlfriend, stopped me and asked for directions to the Comparative Literature section. "Follow me!" I said, and they did. However, when we hove in sight of the section and its new signs, both their faces fell, and they stopped. I must have looked at them quizzically, because the male half of the couple muttered something about it being "far too complicated to explain," and then they scurried off, out of the store.

So yeah, we actually had tourists making trips to the Bookstore expressly and only to look at the funny Comparative Literature signs.

A Return, And A Departure

* Blows dust off blog, again *

I'm back! And where have I been for the last month? Well, toiling in the University Bookstore through the September textbook rush, for the most part. The scene below is a reasonable facsimile of the sort of job it was:

Trust me, there will be anecotes, oh my yes!

However, it is not the goings-on at the University Bookstore that concerns us today, but rather a somewhat odd news story that cropped up last week. Here it is:

Thousands of hyphens perish as English marches on
Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:54pm EDT By Simon Rabinovitch

LONDON (Reuters) - About 16,000 words have succumbed to pressures of the Internet age and lost their hyphens in a new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

Bumble-bee is now bumblebee, ice-cream is ice cream and pot-belly is pot belly.

And so, farewell, noble hyphen! Well, not entirely "farewell," as the article goes on to point out that hyphens will be hanging around in situations where confusion would result otherwise (the word "twenty-odd" is cited as an example). Furðermore, one must recall ðat ðere are æt least a handful of letters which have been þrown out of þe English language, so perhaps þe partial removal of a piece of punctuation is not such a big deal (For the record, the three obsolete letters used in that sentence are, in order, eth, ash, and thorn. We've also lost yogh and wynn). Still and all, I think I'm going to miss the ice-cream.

The Lack of Knowledge of Local History! It Burns!

There are days when I don't know why I read the "Venting" column in the Journal. Generally, it serves as a forum for the city's knuckle-draggers to display their ignorance, passive-aggressive tendencies, and horror at the existence of people with interests different from theirs. And every so often the dumbassery gets taken to new and impressive lows.

Last weekend saw the annual dragon boat races on the river here in town. In the wake (hah!) of that, one Venter revealed its displeasure at the entire concept:

Instead of dragon boat races, why don't Edmontonians celebrate our own history and culture and use voyageur canoes?*

To be fair, the Venter has, like the proverbial blind pig, found a truffle; a voyageur canoe race on the river is an awesome idea. That said...



For those of you who do not know this, in the late 19th century something like 17,000 Chinese labourers came to Canada to work on the Western expansion of the railway. Sir John A. MacDonald is reported to have said that without them there would have been no railway, and as the writer of that link notes, without the railway there might not have been a country. Early Chinese Canadians were not treated well (just google "head tax"), especially in economically tough times.

The first Chinese Edmontonian seems to have been a fellow named Chung Gee, who arrived in 1892, the very year that Edmonton officially became a town. His reasons for coming here are not known for certain, but there had been anti-Chinese rioting in Calgary, and it is possibly that he was fleeing from that. Whatever, the case, the Chinese population of Edmonton increased steadily from that beginning. The city's Chinatown, in roughly its current location, was firmly established by 1911, when the Chinese population of the city numbered in the hundreds.

So, just in case anyone is still missing the point, the dragon boat races in Edmonton do in fact have a very strong historical and cultural basis. And some people need to do a little bit of research before beaking off to the newspaper.

*The link will probably die in a couple of days, since the Journal does not seem to archive the Vents. Here is the hard-copy citation:

Anonymous. "Venting." Edmonton Journal. August 25, 2009, p. A14.

In Which Chunklets Previews A Sporting Event Before It Actually Begins...

Ah yes, on to Serie A, which gets going this weekend! Here are some questions to ponder for the upcoming season, along with possibly true answers:

So, who's going to win it?

Inter Milan

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Um, you need to say a little bit more, I think.

Oh. Well, as the offseason transfer market got going, I not only had Inter down as champions, but thought they would probably have the title in the bag by about Christmas. Unlike, well, every other team in Serie A, they had actually succeeded in bringing in some major talent, in the person of Barcelona's Samuel Eto'o. Now... I still think they'll win it, but they may find themselves pushed by Juventus, who've very quietly made some good acquisitions this summer.

Ok, what about the other Champions' League spots?

This is where it gets exciting! Much though I don't want to, I've got to put AC Milan down for third place. Yes, they've lost their best player, as Kaka betook himself off to Real Madrid. Yes, Philippe Senderos went back to Arsenal. Yes, their owner is a lunatic who's prone to public criticism of his coaches. However, they've got too much talent, and too much money for reinforcements.

After that, though, things get really interesting, as a large handful of clubs will have their eyes on the last Champions' spot. Fiorentina, Roma, and Napoli probably have the best shot at it, but if those three stumble then Udinese, Sampdoria, Lazio, and maybe even Genoa and Palermo will all be looking to take advantage. I think, in the end, that it could be Roma's turn this season. They're still relying too much on Francesco Totti, but Fiorentina didn't do much in the transfer market, and Napoli, who did make some useful pickups, are involved in acrimonious wrangling with their top striker.

Passing lightly over the middle of the table then, who's going down?

Bari, for starters. The newly-promoted Puglians did nothing to strengthen their side, and just plain look over-matched. As for the other two... well, it saddens me, but I'm once again looking at Siena as relegation fodder (Note that I was wrong about them last time, though). And I've got a bad feeling about Bologna, who are experiencing some chaos behind the scenes, and who's centenary season may turn out to be memorable for all the wrong reasons.

And here's the prospective final table:

1	Inter Milan
2	Juventus
3	AC Milan
4	Roma
5	Fiorentina
6	Napoli
7	Sampdoria
8	Udinese
9	Genoa
10	Lazio
11	Palermo
12	Parma
13	Catania
14	Cagliari
15	Atalanta
16	Livorno
17	Chievo Verona
18	Bologna
19	Siena
20	Bari

Disturbing...

I am rather glad at this moment that Nefertiti is an indoor cat.

Many posts ago, I referred to my occasional habit of grabbing on-the-bus coffee at the local Quik-E-Mart, and I have in fact been doing that this week. Now, it is not at all unusual to find the odd "Missing Cat" poster taped up at the bus-stop outside the little convenience store, but I was a bit depressed to discover two of them yesterday. And then there was a third one up this morning.

There are, of course, all kinds of possible explanations for this sudden eruption of MIA cats. It could be simply coincidence. All three of the missing cats are young toms, so another possibility is that they simply chose the same week to head off on their travels. Or, on a grimmer note, it's possible that somebody in the neighbourhood is up to no good; they are out there, after all. However, I have my own suspicions, and they revolve around this fellow:

Canis Latrans

Apparently there several hundred of the critters dwelling in the city, which is one of very cool results (and I do mean that sincerely) of having an undeveloped river valley which serves as a wildlife corridor all the way to the Rocky Mountains, not to mention a significant rabbit population. Furthermore, the neighbourhood wherein these cats have gone missing is very close to the river valley, as well as to several wooded ravines. So I do rather wonder if there isn't a new den somewhere down there.

In any case, if I were the owner of an outdoors cat, I would think very hard about keeping it under supervision while it was out there!

Premiership!

Yes, it is that time again! Or rather, it was that time again last weekend, when the 2009-2010 Premiership season actually began. However, it's not too late to take a look at what's likely to happen over the coming months!

The top of the Premiership table is likely to look a lot like it did last year. In fact, I think it's probably Manchester United's title to lose again, despite the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo et al. They're too well-managed, and none of Liverpool, Chelsea, or Arsenal significantly strengthened their teams over the summer.

As always, one big question revolves around whether anybody is going to be able to catch one of the big four, and this year's prime candidate is Manchester City, who are now the richest soccer team on the planet (yes, seriously) and have been throwing the money around in a meaningful sort of way. I have heard some speculation that Arsenal are vulnerable, but I just don't think that Manchester City are quite ready to make the jump just yet. It's pretty much a given that they will qualify for the Champions' League one of these seasons, but it's probably not going to be this one. Other teams with European aspirations will, as always, include Aston Villa, Everton, and Tottenham.

At the other end of the table, the general consensus is that Hull City and Portsmouth are dooooomed, and I tend to concur. Hull City were dismal towards the end of last year, and Portsmouth are in deep financial trouble. The third relegation spot is far less certain. It's always tempting here to include one of the newly promoted sides, and I'm afraid that this time the finger of Fate points at Burnley. It's their first season in the top flight since 1976, and it's likely that they'll need a couple of tries to establish themselves among the big teams. The other two teams who came up, Birmingham City and Wolves, have recently experienced Premiership soccer, and should be better prepared.

And what of Millwall this year? Well, it's going to be very tough. There are about five clubs in League 1 this season who really should not be there on the basis of their resources and fanbase, and it's tough to see Millwall getting by enough of them to earn promotion. That said, nobody thought we'd come within 20 minutes of going up last season, either...

Anyway, here's your predicted Premiership table:

1	Manchester United
2	Chelsea
3	Liverpool
4	Arsenal
5	Manchester City
6	Aston Villa
7	Everton
8	Tottenham Hotspur
9	Sunderland
10	West Ham United
11	Fulham
12	Birmingham City
13	Bolton Wanderers
14	Wigan Athletic
15	Blackburn Rovers
16	Stoke City
17	Wolverhampton Wanderers
18	Hull City
19	Portsmouth
20	Burnley

Newses & Noteses

I have been reacquainting myself with the Benny cat this week, and I am pleased to say that he is in fine form, despite the presence of workers doing renovations on the house. Benny's general comfort level is steeply and inversely proportional to the number of people around him at any given moment. And, as we discovered the other night while cooking dinner, he's not a huge fan of the smoke detector; its triggering resulted in him betaking himself to the back of the closet for a couple of hours.

I also managed to get together for dinner last night with some old friends, some of whom I had not seen for a decade or more (Facebook is a nifty thing!). Cue much reminiscing about archaeology-related adventures abroad! One of the people at the gathering is involved in museum work, so, in light of recent decisions, I was happy to be able to bend her ear a little bit about the field. To make a long story short, it appears that I am on the right track at least in identifying which programs are worthwhile! I'm trying to find programs that concentrate on the conservation/preservation side of things (I'm particularly interested in doing that sort of work on-site, basically as soon as the artifacts come out of the ground), rather than those whose emphasis is on museum management and the like. Anyway, the food and company were both excellent, and I imagine that there will be more get-togethers like last night's when we can manage it!

Pitch Invasion

In which a last season's tense Ligue 1 match between Bordeaux and Nancy is watched, and participated in, with apparent enjoyment: