i'm going to the zoo, and you can come to!

though my trip to cowtown has taken a bit of an ominous twist, nothing says i can't enjoy myself till i figure out what exactly is going on!

so i'm hitting one of my childhood favourite spots in calgary, the zoo! home of this rather famous, and influential on my early self image tyrannosaur statue...

so stay tuned for my big zoo post this weekend!

the librarian (information part 5)

so i finally tracked down mike...

now mike and me, we go WAY back... well at least from my point of view... i'm a bit younger then him... by decades in fact...


he's a friend of my legal guardian craig, and he is sort of like an uncle... i used to see him all the time when i was little... i even remember this one time when i was visiting him in calgary when i was a year old, and mike got really scared by a big lizard that must of been behind me, and he kicked me by accident trying to get it...

in the present though i needed his help. though wasn't due to "family" reasons. rather his profession. you see mike is a bookmaster... i mean librarian... i think my titles better... but STUPID society says it knows better!



when we finally managed to meet up it would turn out to be the perfect location. mike's workplace at the university library.

mike was as puzzled by what i needed from him as i just realized all of you out there on the innerweb must be...

it was simple i knew that librarian's are the collectors of information (from both a commercial i saw on TV, and a cool comic book called rex librarius), and as of such would hold the answer to my dinosaur-less land question...

mike said that was a fair enough assessment of how to find out, and he'd be happy to help. we were simply going to head into the library and read some books to find the answer he figured...

there was just one small problem... uh i had never read a book before...

now of course mike wasn't too happy to hear that. however as it was his job to "insure that information was transmitted no matter what!!!" he'd see what he could do about teaching me to read...




getting to the lines of books... not sure why everyone kept calling them stacks... their not on top of one another like in ghostbusters (after all "no human being would ever stack books that way")...

mike proceeded to teach me about books. they were one of the main things (but NOT only he reminded me) he and other librarians work with.

"contained within the covers is all sorts of information that you simple have to release." mike explained to me

release the information... why didn't he say so sooner... my bite is among the MOST powerful on earth... thanks to my superb jaw evolution!!! getting the information out of these covers would be a snap! of the covers that is...



mike said he didn't mean release it that way...

what? i thought it was a good idea... you'd think a guy who controls information would know about my brain impedement!


mike walked me over to a table with a selection of books he thought might help with my search.


however he said he wasn't looking forward to exercising his extreme literacy powers. the last time a member of something called section 241 had tried to teach a none reader in less then a day bad things had happened.

"with great literacy comes great responsibility" mike reminded himself. (i'd never heard of this type of super power before... though i thought i recalled a time superman stopped lex luthor with his literacy... uh breath). he wasn't sure my small mind could handle the awe inspiring burden of his ancient and noble craft...

mike launched into a speech for some reason. it was like he'd rehearsed it or something. it was kinda cool at first. all about the honorable profession of librarians and everything they'd done for mankind. at least it sounded cool at first, but he got sidetracked about some old girlfriend of his named library (kinda sad he was attracted to her just cause of her first name) alexandra. i started to get bored at this point.

i looked over at the pile of books to see if there was a good one to look at till mike finished, and could help teach me to read. a couple of books down was one called tyrannosaurus. well that should be a big help with my task i thought.

mike suddenly stopped when i said the title of the book out loud. "what did you just say?" he asked preplexed.

"tyrannosaurus" i replied. duh!

"traumador i know that! how did you?!?" mike demanded.

"dude it clearly says it right here." i said pointing at it where it said tyrannosaurus on the cover...

"traumador you stupid dinosaur! you CAN read!!!" he yelled... prompting a bunch of shhhhhhhhs from no where. was kinda creepy...

so it turns out i know how to read!!! how was i supposed to know that though? i just figured out what letters and stuff meant from playing so many video games. there's a lot of writing in those things. i had no clue that books and video games were so similar... had i known that sooner i'd have taken up books quicker!

mike wasn't too impressed though. apparently he's whole speech was a infraction of the librarians code, and that he'd divulged too many of their secrets... all for nothing. i'm not sure why he was so concerned though. all i caught was the part about alexandra and her library. mike thanked me for pretended to forget the burden... wasn't a problem. i seriously don't remember him talking about a burden in the first place.



having set me up for my research mike said he needed to vanish from the library for both his divulging section 241's sacred history, and he's loud outburst were frowned upon by his brethren, and he must disappear so they won't find out it was him... have to say for a guy with a lot of information he sure was good at confusing me. oh well. i thanked him for the books. hopefully i'd figure out what i needed from them.

okay time to read... you think they'd have a more obvious name for understanding words... oh well.

so first off i read a book all about me and my fellow tyrannosaurs... why didn't i do this instead of that WHOLE trip to BC?!?!?!?

man i learned all about my heritage and what we t-rexs are about... all in an hour. as opposed to that wasted 2 months!!!

however there was an interesting message in the last chapter...


i certainly hoped this wasn't a omen or something about my new scheme!

though this book was very informative it didn't answer my question as too where there were NO dinosaurs. just where there WERE t-rexs...

i went through books left right and center. looking for one that would tell me where no dinosaurs were to be found...

no luck... not a single book had a list of countries or places without dinosaurs... i was doomed to failure... again...

then suddenly i had an idea. one of the books claimed to have every dinosaur in the world listed. what if i wrote down where each of them was from, and then from that i could look at a map, and see where no dinosaurs were!

that took a little while. that is just the first part. writing down all the places dinosaurs came from. man who knew the world had so many places?

finally i had my first list. now it was time to start checking a map...

the yukon didn't have any

• but it was really cold in the winter


• really dark in the winter


• and it is almost never NOT winter there!

so that ruled the yukon out...

next was new jersey

• uh do i really have to list all the bad stuff here?

okay let's try a bigger picture approach i thought switching to a globe.

hawaii

• too touristy


• i don't owe any hawaiian shirts...

kenya

• it's got lions, elephants, and giraffes


• it's really warm there

wait a second. that's not sounding too bad at all. i could goto kenya!!!

okay next problem how do i get there. well there would be one man with the answer to that one! my talent agent peter bond! calling him up i told him all the exciting discoveries of the last day...

he like my sentiment, and wished he could help me get to kenya. there was just one small problem. i didn't have the money to get there. i didn't have enough money to even pay peter it turns out. the costs of my BC trip (especially building that fake dinotown) had left me kinda broke. fortunately peter was willing to keep me on as his client (though he was garnishing my earnings apparently... not sure what putting food seasoning on my money is going to do, but whatever i need his services!).

i was going to have to find a cheaper place to go...

okay back to the drawing board

kansas

• no dinosaurs, but LOTS of marine reptiles


• very boring place

okay no

southern new zealand

• too far away

nuts

transylvania

• too scary
• vampires, ghosts, and republicans

WAIT A MINUTE!!!

new zealand!!! craig was going there in... oh man! sorry people of the innerweb i HAVE TO GO NOW! uh might be a little while before i speak with you... please don't tell anyone to read this entry (ESPECIALLY craig!!!)...

bye!

the best thing here is a wall!?! (information part 4)

okay i should really goto bed... but after checking around the university more i've discovered a weird niche in the dinosaur overpopulation theory. it seems that though much of canada, and especially alberta is over populated with dinos, the university of calgary is not...

the reason why... this would appear to be a dead zone to all things cool in palaeontology


it began with my wandering into the earth science department. what i found here kinda makes sense as this is the hub of palaeontology studies in calgary...

yet if this were drumheller or edmonton things would have been mighty different...

at first just the usual harmless extinction suspects as you'd expect. a wall full of ammonites. though from my same time era these little squidy guys pose little threat to dinosaurs. whether in the form of trying to eat us, or in the more modern sense put us out of work. these guys have the popularity of well an octopus... if octopuses wore shells that is.

however i was soon going to discover that this was the most impressive fossil display they had in many ways...

later down the hallway was a plesiosaur. these guys though not dinosaurs are often mistaken for them... not sure why... he's got flippers... and since when did swimming ever enter the dinosaur skill list...


anyways this gal was here as the senior mesozoic representative at the university. she was surprised to see me as apparently they hadn't seen a new prehistoric individual down in the heart of the university since the tyrrell opened...

seems that once the tyrrell opened up north in drumheller all the dinosaurs and other extinct critters started to migrate up there as there was a better chance for jobs and even fame up there. the university cut its funding to palaeontology and fossils, and as of such only a few senior prehistoric critters were kept on.

besides this one marine reptile the only other mesozoic representative was a bit of a shocking disappointment...

a dinosaur... but one even i won't have to fear being out performed by... it was a poor inarticulate struthiomimus. this old fellow had been at the university for over 30 years, and he was in a bad zone...

he remembered when he was first given the position of key dinosaur display that he was promised that the collection would only grow from here, and that he'd soon have other dinosaur co-workers. however all too soon the tyrrell would end that dream. one by one all the other dinosaurs left the university... then the pay cuts came in. this poor guy barely makes enough to survive day by day that alone do anything fun...

the situation was so bad for the once proud ostrich mimic he was sneaking into devil dinosaurs classes to try and find a solution to his problems...

okay so i know i've said this many times on my blog people of the web wide world, but this just PROVES i need to get out of here!!! when the only display a university is willing to put up is an ammonite wall you know we dinosaurs have it off bad!!!

well i'm going to sleep, and tomorrow mike should show up, and i can leave this nightmare behind... wait is it a good idea to goto sleep then if i'm in a nightmare???

celebrity encounter! (information part 3)

well i finally made it too the university! a new problem has popped up though. i got here a little bit late. okay a lot bit late. the guy i'm looking for has been off work for hours...

so i'm going to have to wait till tomorrow to see him. that means i'll be camping out at the university of calgary for the night. it's not a very fun looking place, but then skool was never really my thing...

with lots of time to kill though i figured i'd check the place out for a bit, as i wasn't very tired...

you're never going to guess who i ran into!

coming out of one of the lecture halls was none other then devil dinosaur himself!!!

now he probably would have just kept on going if i hadn't gotten really excited and asked for his autograph... devil dinosaur was one of my heroes growing up... though i have to say he looks a lot smaller in person then in his comic book appearances...

turns out that these days he teaches a class here in calgary that is supposed to help struggling dinosaurs in this post extinction world... i was shocked to learn that even devil dinosaur himself has been hit hard by the dinosaur draught...

ever since jurassic park (and my cousin larry's performance... JERK!) the entertainment industry has demanded nothing but the largest and most impressive of dinosaur specimens. meaning that even the most mean and kick butt devil was out of steady employment. No one wanted to see a fantastic portrayal of a t-rex, they wanted ubber real...

but devil didn't take that sitting down... oh no... he used his former fame, and his small size and bright red hide to speak out to the less empowered of dinosaurs to help them make something of themselves.

devil said based simply on my size that i must have been experiencing trouble in life... how'd he know? he offered to let me enroll in his class, but i declined. i already had my plan... that and i'm kinda broke after all the travelling around i've been doing lately...

he said it was nice to have met me, but as it was late he needed to be on his way.

well that was a cool distraction. now i just have to kill a bit more time, get some sleep, and then mike will get back here to the library where he can help me find out the key information that i need...

resistence is futile?!? (information part 2)

well after my forgetfulness induced misadventure of yesterday i've had another slight problem occur in my attempts to get to the university library...

calgary has been a growing little city. i should really see if i can find out what its eating to achieve such a large pace of growth. my problems would instantly go away if i grew like calgary is... wow i'd be like bigger then godzilla!!!

anyways due to it's fast growth the roads aren't big enough for all the traffic that wants to get around. so rather then get stuck in a jam i figured i'd use a c-train... which as far as i can tell is the same as a normal train... though i always thought that my buddy caleb from the tyrrell was the c-train. oh well

problem is when i asked someone if the c-train went to the university they said it yes. what they didn't say was that wasn't the ONLY place it went... long story short somehow i've ended up at a chinook... which for those of you who don't know is a warm weather system that hits alberta in the winter that makes it nice and not snowy... though i didn't know what they looked like before... i can now tell you with certainty they look like a mall!

now again the number of dinosaurs in alberta has been kinda freaky lately. the dinosaur i met in the chinook mall though is the most scary thing i've ever seen...

it was a borgasaurus!!! i totally freaked out, and maybe even screamed a little... though i certainly didn't cry like a little girl or anything...

holy smokes i was really worried running away from the chinook. was it close contact with such a weather phenomenon that had transformed that poor dinosaur into a cybernetic creature... or was this some out landish scheme on its part to get attention and fame to possibly secure a job. I mean the Saurian job market might be awful, but to resort to replacing yourself with a machine... only someone as sick as dark vadar would resort to that!!!

i've been watching myself for symptoms of cyborgification, but fortunately none have shown up... yet!

hopefully i can get to the university to find my friend, and figure out a place with out dinosaurs. cause man my encounters with them are getting scarier and scarier...

towering calgary (information part 1)

i left drumheller on the 25th. everyone suddenly disappeared on that day for some reason... i was a little creeped out by it, but as i'd already caught up with all of them anyways, and i had a new lead for a possible future i HAD to get moving on... i hit the road

my destination calgary... the fastest growing city in alberta. also the closest big city to drumheller too.

i'd been here a few times in my childhood. craig was born here, and he'd came back into town often to see his family. back when he was still taking care of me he'd bring me along.

i can say this... calgary is a very different kind of city then those i visited in BC...

why did i come here to calgary you might ask... good question!

for a minute this morning i forgot myself... one of the draw back of my peanut sized brain and all...

as a result i was attracted to the coolest thing i could see... and what is cooler in calgary then the calgary tower? to be honest not much...

though this wasn't my actual goal it was definitely cool checking it out!

i just should have stuck to exploring outside. cause when i ventured inside things got a little more interesting then i cared for!

walking in the lobby of the calgary tower i came face to face with an albertosaurus... not just any albertosaurus either. a tyrrell museum employed one!

he was here to prompt the museum to tourists in calgary, since drumheller is only an hour and a half away from the city...

the problems began when he spotted me... i was a dinosaur intruding on his turf. worse i was a "big" meat eater like himself (i say big in the classification sense... as we t-rexs being related to albertosaurus are big too... bigger then him in fact... just if your a t-rex other then me!!!). making the whole situation boil over though was the fact i was in a tyrrell uniform... mental note to self need to get a new uniform!

instantly the albertosaur entered into an all too familiar territoriality stance... just like EVERY other dinosaur i'd encountered these past 4 months!

it was the usual type stuff he started roaring at me...

why are you here? i was told i'd get to keep this gig for sure! back off get your own job! i'm five times your size tiny, the museum won't replace me with you. you're not even a raptor!

now i've given up on trying to make dinosaurs like me at this point in my travels. it's not their fault i'm realizing.

1. i'm a t-rex. theoretically the king of all dinosaurs. nobody likes the "man". especially since we have some real jerks in our ranks... like my cousin larry! he really doesn't help make us rexs look all that great. well okay except in king kong. that was a really sympathizable performance he gave, but that's it! well and at the end of jurassic park. oh and in all the BBC stuff he's done. okay okay in the movies larry is pretty good... just take my word for it. in real life he's a JERK!

B. i'm SO small that being the aforementioned t-rex is made worse. everyone hates us to begin with. when you don't have the terror or menace that's part of your sterotype people take advantage of the situation. especially other theropods (meat eating dino for you none science people out there)... i just wish they'd see me for the nice little guy i am...

4. it's a tough world for us dinosaurs. added to the fact it's an eat or be eaten existence for us at the best of times this whole being extinct thing has added to our competitive nature. jobs are scarce. museums and theme parks are only looking for the best of the best. due to our bad public image and reputation from various portrayals in the movies and in the media (again see my cousin larry... what a JERK!) humans are reluctant to give us jobs or places in societies removed from a locked away environment such as again museum or theme park. which means that any other dinosaur that shows up is trouble. cause their inevitably going to be after your job...

so that's why when i returned to drum this month i'd realized i needed to make a clean break, and find a place without dinosaurs. which it would turn out is NOT the calgary tower.

i had a very very upset albertosaur. i didn't want to upset him anymore. also i didn't want him to call the museum as he was threatening to do. last thing i needed was to get in more trouble there.

so i just left the tower. which is kinda sad. i did kinda want to go up and look out over the town.

i did remember just then why i was in town though, and where i should really heading. not the calgary tower, but the university library... there i was going to find the ONE man who could help me find the answers i seek!