The Tyrannosaur Chronicles

Studio Traumador... going ONLINE!

2011-02-08T18:21:00.003-07:00

well i've been plugging away at this video stuff for the past month, and it is all starting to come together.

you'll have to wait till the end of the week for my flagship (monthly!) show to debut, but in the meantime check out my new studio clip!

new zealand fossils

2011-01-21T09:17:00.002-07:00

regular tyrannosaur chronicles contributor (and my legal guardian) craig dylke just did a talk at the royal tyrrell museum about new zealand palaeontology. you can check it out below thanks to the museum's youtube channel!

fossil of the weekend #90

2011-01-09T12:05:00.003-07:00

the very famous braincase of Troodon, found in what would become the staff parking lot at the tyrrell museum (it was found during final surveys of the museums construction site). it is currently on display as part the royal tyrrell museum's 25th anniversary display "alberta unearthed".

X-Mas Present

2010-12-25T15:44:00.003-07:00

man 2010 has just flew by... and i got so little done.

rather than repeat this unproductive year, i've decided it is time for a change in the new year.

stand by for more details on this direction soon.

one caution for long time chronicle fans, with this new direction there may not be so many posts about my adventures in this new direction for the blog. while i have enough photographs for a couple years worth of posts, i'm not sure if people are enjoying them or not. please let me know your thoughts...

and happy holidays!

fossil of the weekend #89

2010-12-19T22:33:00.003-07:00

a potentially new species of Prognathodon, a mosasaur, on display as part the royal tyrrell museum's 25th anniversary display "alberta unearthed".

a personal autograph... yet not so personal

2010-12-14T20:47:00.001-07:00

[Production Note: The convention depicted in this post is fictitious and never happened. We are using pictures from various other events Traumador has attended this year which we were unable to post at the time.]

the first ever vivus dinosaur convention is wrapping up, but this last day was not without its excitement.

after all the cool people i've met (or re met :P) here in victoria, today saw me running into one of my all time biggest heroes of the palaeo world... dr. scott sampson! that's right the host of TV's dinosaur planet and the new dinosaur train was here for the last day to promote his new book (more on that in a second)...

of course this being my life i couldn't just run into dr. sampson without some sort of incident!

first a tiny bit of back story. about a year before i started this blog (which was a LONG time ago now!), i briefly ran into dr. sampson at the royal tyrrell museum, when it hosted its big dinosaur provincial park synposium... with the key part there being i briefly ran into him... not that i'd have thought running into a living tyrannosaurus rex would that forgettable...

well turns out it was!

dr. sampson was really confused when i came up all friendly and chummy. after explaining where we'd met, he stated. "don't take this personally, uh my friend, but i saw a LOT of dinosaurs at that symposium. even vivus-ones."

just my luck i'd meet dr. sampson in vivus infested drumheller! there would be a lot of other vivus-dinosaurs to keep track of. i just hoped he hadn't met drumheller's most famous resident (of the time) who also happened to be a tyrannosaur, but of course who would he guess i was?!?

"larry?" dr. sampson ventured, but at least wasn't committed to his answer. of course being called my JERK! of a cousin wasn't what i wanted to hear! i'll give the good doctor this, it was the name of a tyrannosaur. one in my family... just not someone i ever wanted to be associated with. even in name!

despite this rocky start, we quickly started up a friendly chat, and he even invited me to join him for lunch!!!

hanging out with dr. sampson for a day, my respect and admiration has sky rocketed to new heights! not only is dr. sampson a big force in palaeontology, but he has branched out into environmental and science outreach + education recently. his biggest push of late is using dinosaurs as a gateway into exploring the overall world of science and nature. something i can totally get on board with!

the other thing i am totally on board with is dr. sampson's book Dinosaur Odyssey Fossil Threads in the Web of Life, and you should be too!

in this one of a kind tome, dr. sampson elegantly gives us a look into the world of the dinosaurs like never before (in popular literature anyways). rather than proceed down the food chain from the biggest most impressive saurians down, dr. sampson builds the world of the dinosaurs up from the smallest of things (bacteria, fungus, and their like) right along the cycle of the energy from the sun through everything plants, small animals, medium animals, until it finally reaches the massive beasts that were the dinosaurs. it is the most comprehensive and relevant examinations of dinosaurs currently in print, and addresses all the key questions about dinosaur palaeontology, while answering what is currently known, but more to the point emphasising what we still don't know!

it is a must have for anyone and everyone who has ever remotely been interested in dinosaurs. for all you dinosaur lovers out there, this is the perfect gift (especially with x-mas around the corner!) for anyone whose ever asked you that ever annoying question "what useful thing have we ever learned from studying dinosaurs anyways?"

i just can't say enough good things about dinosaur odyssey!

as if getting my claws on this book weren't enough, at the end of our meeting dr. sampson grabbed my copy before i could walk off with it, and personally signed it!!!

with this final note (literally), i think i made off from this whole vivus-dinosaur convention like a bandit!

now it was back off to the OH-lympics... or at least that's what we thought...

to be concluded with a surprise twist to the games...

fossil of the weekend #88

2010-12-12T13:10:00.003-07:00

the amazingly complete skeleton of the fresh water skate Myledaphus, part of the royal tyrrell museum's 25th anniversary display "alberta unearthed".

fossil of the weekend #87

2010-12-04T22:35:00.002-07:00

the articulated arm of the small theropod Saurornitholestes langstoni a part of the royal tyrrell museum's 25th anniversary display "alberta unearthed".

drawn in...

2010-11-29T18:00:00.000-07:00

man the the first ever vivus dinosaur convention has been treating me good in regards to meeting cool palaeontology celebrities!

today was no exception, with me running into legendary palaeo-artist william stout!!!

he was a SUPER nice guy. proving it, he let me talk to him for nearly an hour (how many people at the best of times can put up with me and my tiny brain for that long?!?). not only was mr. stout very nice, but he had a ton of cool things to tell me about making palaeo-art and his interests in palaeo as an artist.

mr. stout also gave me an in depth look at his book dinosaur discoveries. the book is a collection of profiles covering over 60 fairly recently discovered dinosaurs. each profile has entire page sized illustration by mr. stout (all of which are ubber awesome!), and all the factoids the average person could want to know.

it is a fantastic book for expert and non-expert alike, as mr. stout's drawings are in a league of their own. it would make a great x-mas gift for that dino-fanatic in your life! hint hint :P

i had to buy my own copy, and mr. stout was nice enough to not only sign my copy...

as if that weren't enough but he also...

drew me my own little picture of a pachyrhinosaur! (i thought it'd be a little vain of me to ask him to draw a picture of me... so why not my favourite snack from alberta)

i can't say enough good things about mr. stout (other than once again appeal to you to buy one or many of his books or pieces of art :P), and it was a real blast/honour to meet him in person!

making my own dinosaur

2010-11-26T15:02:00.000-07:00

today i met legendary palaeo-artist brian cooley, dinosaur sculptor extraordinaire! his works grace the halls of some of the best museums in the world... including my old home the royal tyrrell! so i know his art quite well...

turned out today he was leading a special activity secession called "make-a-saurus", and hearing my interest in his palaeo-art mr. cooley invited me to join in.

so what we were doing at "make-a-saurus" was pretty self explanatory and obvious. making our own dinosaur. the thing was i'd never made one before.

in good news mr. cooley had brought everything one could need to create their own dino sculpture. i just had to follow his instructions.
the first part was easy enough. bend wire into the shape of a dinosaur. this wasn't a challenge for my t-rex arms. while they might be short, a tyrannosaurs arms are incredibly powerful for their size!

so having bent all the pieces together i then had to tape them together into the frame for my dinosaur.

well okay, i tried to do this. it turned out to be a lot easier bending the wire than taping it together.

oh and speaking of tape, don't get me started on the stuff...

let's just say we don't get along!

finally having taped the wire together (and untaping me from the counter top!) it was time to beef up our dinosaur's "skeleton" with some foam.

i should point out at this point, that yes i ended up making a ceratopsian. not out of choice mind you, but due to my late entry they'd run out of t-rex kits. oh well, that was fine. at least this way i'd have a visual reference for butchers to look at when i go shopping for triceratops steaks at the supermarket (the human clerks always look at me funny when i ask for them!).

adding all the foam my little trauma-ceratops was starting to look a little healthier.

taping the outside so we had a surface to plaster of paris...

i now had a mummy-ceratops!

the last thing to do (once it'd all dried, and i'd gotten all the tape off me... AGAIN!) was to paint my creation.

you know not bad for a guy whose never taken a single art lesson before!

if you want to learn how to make dinosaurs as awesome at mr. cooley's (cause mine still doesn't remotely compare!) you should check out his book called, coincidental(?), make-a-saurus. it is filled with great tips and ideas for making your own dinosaur artworks.

it would also make a great x-mas gift this holiday season, especially for young dinosaur fans! be sure to pick up your own copy today!

comical run in

2010-11-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

[Production Note: The convention depicted in this post is fictitious and never happened. We are using pictures from various other events Traumador has attended this year which we were unable to post at the time.]

so more news from the first ever vivus dinosaur convention...

today whilst wandering the convention floor i came across ryan north creator and writer of dinosaur comics. he is a super funny guy, and he keeps good company as you can see in the form of his small saurian friend there (well okay sort of see, sadly my camera didn't like the lighting conditions in the convention area. sorry about the fuzzy pic).

i highly recommend you pop over to his site and check out his webcomic today!

fossil of the weekend #86

2010-11-20T19:52:00.002-07:00

a still unstudied titanoideid from alberta, part of the royal tyrrell museum's 25th anniversary display "alberta unearthed".

this large mammal was part of herbivorous group called the pantodonts which rose to prominence shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs. for reasons unknown they too would eventually become extinct, and leave behind no living relatives today...

my hatchling hero!

2010-11-16T11:36:00.001-07:00

[Production Note: The convention depicted in this post is fictitious and never happened. We are using pictures from various other events Traumador has attended this year which we were unable to post at the time.]

so we kicked off the first ever vivus dinosaur convention this week, and i have to admit it has been a lot more interesting than i thought. my special talent agent peter bond initially made it sound like it would just be us vivus OH-lympians attending (as the attractions). however today we learned my talent agent is a sneaky fellow, and has invited a bunch of other dinosaur/palaeontology guests for the public to meet.

i may not have noticed these other guest if not for a very familiar smell... on account of my somewhat super tyrannosaurid nose. this first (noticed) scent was one i associated with my childhood growing up around the tyrrell...

it was none other than world famous...

palaeontologist phil currie! who i MIGHT have sort of gotten a little over excited to see again, and might have freaked out by running up to him out of the blue.

not that it lasted too long. he is used to being rushed by crowds, whether they be human or saurian, and i hardly constituted the biggest rush he'd ever seen. my being a tyrannosaur was more the problem. while we are one of dr. currie's main research topics, the other vivus tyrannosaurs of the world aren't, shall we say, as nice as me (i'm looking at you in particular larry!).

in good news dr. currie was only momentarily startled, and eventually recognized me from our tyrrell days. we had a nice little quick catch up (okay most of it was me asking dr. currie stuff, but he did nicely ask me what i'd been up to...).

sadly as we were both here to talk to the public it was a brief run in, and we had to head off to talk to our adoring fans (okay dr. currie did, i just kind or wandered around trying to find anyone who wanted to talk to a real live tyrannosaur... sadly with so many other large dinosaurs around it didn't happen so often)

however in good news i did manage to make arrangements with dr. currie for a pretty huge appearance here on the tyrannosaur chronicles in the new year, so stay tuned!!!

next a very "funny" encounter

the first ever vivus convention

2010-11-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

my special talent agent peter bond had gathered all us vivus-dinosaur OH-lympians at the royal british columbia museum for a huge event. peter was calling it a "convention", but what that meant wasn't exactly clear. all we'd been told was this was a chance for us to meet our "public", and that this would help all of our celebrity.

so we all wandering around the museum meeting people, and doing our best to be interesting. how this was any different from living or working at a museum was beyond us. again we modern dinosaurs pretty much spend most of our time in museums...

little did we know that peter had gone all out, and arranged several other guest stars to appear at this convention. stand by this week for my run ins with some really cool palaeo related people!

to be continued with some stars of palaeontology!!!

fossil of the weekend #85

2010-11-14T11:02:00.003-07:00

a clutch of some of alberta's first ever discovered dinosaur eggs from devil's coulee, on display at the royal tyrrell museum's 25th anniversary display "alberta unearthed". these eggs are definitely hadrosaur eggs (as shown by fossil embryos found within) and were mostly likely laid by hypacrosaurus whose adult remains have been found in the same fossil beds.

fossil of the weekend #84

2010-11-06T14:56:00.000-06:00

a double whammy of ceratopsian goodness today, brought to you by the royal tyrrell museum's 25th anniversary display "alberta unearthed".

first we have the holotype material of eotriceratops xerinsularis.

plus the beautiful reconstruction the museum made based on this material. very nice (also huge, which this photo doesn't really show off)!

vlog from the past!

2010-11-01T19:54:00.003-06:00

it's time for a change. huge changes...

specifically i'm looking at some big changes here on the tyrannosaur chronicles. okay, i guess that is not specifically, but rather everything...

working in conjunction with my friends at prehistoric insanity productions we are looking at a huge change in format here. we're still in the early stages of setting this up, but expect big things in the new year!

as a preview of things to come, and because we've meant to put this up for ages, so here is a special treat from my days back at the tyrrell.

we shot this in 2006, and it was cutting edge at its time (we even had dr. currie on as an advisor!)... however there is more info on the subject these days, like anything else. i just say it as i'm posting it now 4 years later. please go easy on the info lag (imagine you are 4 years in the past).

oh and for some reason the camcorder picked up my name all funny...

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

boy are our faces pink...

2010-10-31T16:25:00.000-06:00

as much as i "like" waiting for things to happen, i actually bore quite easy. while we vivus-dinosaurs wait around the royal british columbia museum for the convention my special talent agent peter bond has organized, i decided to put together my own event. especially since we're all just standing around victoria doing nothing at the moment.

over on ART Evolved they're just about to wrap up their pink dinosaurs for cancer research event, and i realized with great embarrassment that none of us vivus-dinosaurs have done anything for it!?!

so i called in every friend and favour i could!

i started off with lillian the albertosaur, as my idea was quite public and there was a chance some celebrity could result from it. this was enough to get her to agree. though i made sure to keep out the other dinosaur involvement. lillian has been quite volatile about being around other dinosaurs lately.

like i thought, apart from her sensitive snout (which i predicted given how my own nose is), lillian didn't mind my paint job.

norman a. centrosaur on the other hand was a lot more skeptical about my motives, not that he minded the paint job.

"are you sure about this?" he demanded multiple times throughout my covering him in paint.

"of course i am," i'd try to assure him.

"i know you think you're sure," norman would retort. "i just want to make sure this isn't one of those times you've convinced yourself of something, only to find out it was your brain making it up, leaving us in the lurch."

"why are you suddenly so sensitive?" i finally asked him, wondering what his sudden concern about our cause was. "back in the old days you were never this worried about me making a tiny brain mistake."

clearly he was embarrassed by whatever he was worried about, as he awkwardly recomposed himself before saying. "true, but normally you weren't making me change my colouring into something that might be seen as ridiculous by the outside world."

i guess norman did have a point there. normally a pink dinosaur would be cause of ridicule and amusement, but i had it on good authority pink was not just acceptable in october, but really the classy thing to do. norman relented after i explained it to him.

the best of my art subjects had to be dollie the stegosaur my new friend from the OH-lympics. unlike the other two she didn't need to told a reason, other than i needed her help. dollie and me had a lot in common, wanting to help others out seemed to be high up the list.

getting my three master pieces together on the front lawn of the royal british columbia museum, i had the vivus contribution to the pink dinosaur event together!

i think they look pretty sweet, don't you?

just after i'd taken the necessary photos, i was about to wrap up when norman mischievously said "one second, traumador. there is one thing missing from your pink dinosaurs."

"what's that?" i asked starting to turn around.

norman with mouth half full replied. "a pink tyrannosaurus rex," and with that he dumped the last of my pink paint all over me!!!

fossil of the weekend #83

2010-10-18T08:26:00.003-06:00

a skeleton of the cretaceous ichythosaur Platypterygius americanus, from the royal tyrrell museum's 25th anniversary display "alberta unearthed".

royal british columbia museum

2010-10-15T18:27:00.000-06:00

me and norman have arrived in victoria british columbia, after our nice (but slightly sad) ferry ride. our reason for being here was this special dinosaur OH-lympics convention that my special talent agent peter bond has organized.

i wasn't quite sure what to expect from the convention, but i was really excited about the venue!

norman and i earlier this afternoon went to scope out our new "workplace" for the next week. the royal british columbia museum!

now as i'm sure my regular readers know, i LOVE museums! (for you new people out there, i LOVE museums... there now you're up to speed :P). so i'm always pretty stoked when i get to check out a new one!

i have to say this museum is one of the coolest i've ever been to, and as you'll see this is kind of surprising. there isn't a single dinosaur in the place!

no dinosaurs isn't the same as no fossils or palaeontologic displays though, mind you. this is one of two similar cases show casing british columbia's fossil diversity... and that's about all the fossils to be seen in the museum.

i've show cased some individual specimens for my fossil of the weekend feature. you can check these out here, here, here, here, here, here, there, here, over here, and finally there. not exactly a palaeontologic hotspot... though this is WAY better than none at all.

the RBCM does boast on very fine palaeo related display, and that is their fleshed out wholly mammoth sculpture!

what makes this display cool (pun intended as you'll see!) is the amount of detail and attention they put into it (though this is not an exception for the royal BC! just an exception compared to other museums!). they've gone all out to capture the ice age feeling... not only does really cold air blow at you from the exhibit, but the ice covering the terrain around the mammoth is actual ice!!!

from the prehistoric section one wonders into the modern natural history area. here you are treated to some great diorama's of BC's ecology.

one of the highlights was the coast's of BC displays, complete with an actual living specimen tidal pool!

(it was this point in our tour that norman and i ran into some of our fellow dinosaur olympians... team australia's boom and rang decided to tag along with us. so they'll pop up in many of my pics)

one of the most off topic, but awesome, exhibits in this section had to be the underwater display. rather than setup a normal deep sea recreation, the designers at the RBCM opted for a fun "vehicle" to bring you to the ocean (rather than the ocean to you). their choice of a rather jules verne style submarine definitely a big hit with me... i love the nautilus and 20000 leagues under the sea!

it felt a bit like sneaking into captain nemo's personal study, with all his personal specimens and collections scattered about the place.

way too cool!

after the "first" floor (i say first with quotation marks as technically this was all on the 2nd floor, the 1st floor is just the lobby, gift shop, and theatres/auditoriums) on proceeds up to the next floor...

here you encounter the human history of BC. the 19th century victoria area was really cool...

i've been to a few places (example here) with these old skool versions of a city, but the RBCM's is truly a jewel example of one. all the little touches are there. like steam coming off the pots in the kitchen (along with a mouse scurrying along the floor!). a train comes by the train station every 10 minutes (okay its a clever set of lights with sound effects, but it sure feels like a train it is that loud!).

we also ran into all of team australia here. ms. rhonwyn and logan the muttaburrasaurus were busy checking it out too.

next was probably the highlight of the museum. the aboriginal gallery.

i can't go into detail... not because it wasn't amazing. it was... it's just that my magic sense was nearly going off, and you all remembered what happened last time that happened. so i didn't stick around too long.

from what i saw it was unbelievable though... though for some (really ominously magically) reason i have a feeling this isn't the last i've seen of this spot in the museum...

the history of BC stuff was cool. they had a whole bunch on the fishing and forestry heritage of the coast.

its just too bad that my time here was disrupted somewhat by misbehaving hypsilophodons! i have to say i'm glad i don't live or work with boom or rang. they are really nice to visit or goof around with. however they never stop, and are a real hand full. poor logan had to chase them all over the forestry exhibit. in the end the two leaellynasaura stopped more because they'd climbed or jumped on every inch of the display, and got bored being chased.

my favourite display in the whole RBCM was this replica of captain vancouver's ship the hms discovery. which is weird, as it is not palaeo or prehistoric...

i don't know how, the boat doesn't move or anything. yet still when you go on it...

you feel slightly sea sick everytime you go on it! the boat is seriously stationary, and yet it pulls off this illusion!?! incredible...

anyways overall a fantastic museum they have here in BC. my only suggestion: needs more dinosaurs :P

Pink Dinosaur Fundraising

2010-10-12T21:51:00.002-06:00

ART Evolved is running a big cancer fundraiser this month.

be sure to draw, sculpt, make, or create a pink dinosaur for cancer research! the boys at AE are going to donate money for EVER pink dinosaur they receive.

the event page is here.

fossil of the weekend #82

2010-10-10T22:30:00.002-06:00

a lovely skull of edmontonia from the royal tyrrell museum's 25th anniversary display "alberta unearthed".

fun fact, this is the same skull of "edmontosaurus" that was being prepped in john accorn's video on preperation still shown in the museum these days (though they covered up this mistake on the in house version with a re-recording, you can still buy the original version on DVD at the gift shop).

my readers get a choice!... plus fossil of the weekend #81

2010-09-25T16:01:00.005-06:00

today's a big hatching day... only it is not for a person (or a dinosaur... or anything living in fact)!

it was 25 years ago TODAY that the royal tyrrell museum first opened!!!

now as my coverage of the dinosaur winter OH-lympics is dreadfully behind, i'm left with a choice. delay my posts about the 25th anni or pause my OH-lympic posts, and bring you the tyrrell stuff "live" (technically a day or two after they go down...). rather than make the hard call myself, i leave this tricky decision with you, my readers...

do i keep on posting vancouver, and touching on drum after that. or take a week off the OH-lympics and bring you the tyrrell's 25th anni? leave your preference in the comment section.

(i will disclaim as i'm leaving for drumheller as i write this, that i have no idea just how interesting or uninteresting the anni will be from a blogging point of view... just so you're forewarned)

to celebrate, i kick off the several weekends of fossils from the tyrrell's new celebration exhibit "alberta unearthed". this new display consists of 25 of the tyrrell's most impressive and cool fossil discoveries covering the entire range of palaeontology the province has to offer. (it is definitely worth a trip to see!)

the first highlighted fossil is this amazing 3 dimensionally preserved albertosaurus, prepared by tyrannosaur chronicles friend darren tanke!

ferryness

2010-09-21T22:00:00.000-06:00

as if there weren't enough surprises with the dinosaur winter OH-lympics already, my special talent agent peter bond had gone and added one of the biggest this week.

with next to no warning, peter made the rounds of all the vivus-dinosaur OH-lympic teams, and instructed us to board the morning ferry to victoria BC for a special OH-lympic "event"... not really sure of what else to do, all of us confusedly set off this morning on a big boat...

i was kind of excited. i'd never been to vancouver island, that alone the capital of british columbia. from everything i've heard it is a lovely part of canada.

sadly taking away some of my enthusiasm was why we were going... peter's special event at the royal british columbia museum, where we saurian "OH-lympians" would get to meet our loving public. at least that's how peter described it.

it would appear that while the majority of the dinosaur games thus far had been something close to a flop, the dinosaur ice hockey had become a HUGE phenomenon... at least here in canada. suddenly we saurian athletes were national celebrities, and peter intended to cash in on that (and hopefully get back some of my money!).

which meant all of us were going on display for a week. not exactly how i pictured my big break out being once again merely an item on exhibit in a museum. don't get me wrong, i love museums, but i do dislike the attitude that we dinosaurs only belong in a museum! why couldn't our big break out be somewhere that a human would get their recognition? why do we have to fall back on a museum the instant we're having success in the real world?

at least for this trip i had good company on the subject. i was spending the ferry trip with norman the centrosaur, a fellow dinosaur rights advocates. fortunately, me and him had patched things up from our fight the other day. his grudge wasn't with me, but rather lillian albertosaurus (though my crush on her complicated things). lillian herself wasn't talking to either of us. which bummed me out, but norman wasn't losing any sleep over it.

despite the collapse of team canada, it was like old times talking with norman, especially our philosophising about our impending displaydom. i like to think the only reason i amounted to anything approaching smart (with my tiny brain) was norman. our discussions back in our childhoods were a big part of me growing up to be the dinosaur i am today...

sure most people thought it was me hanging out with zendin... oh man, that was a punch in the gut. why did i have to think of zendin right now. especially hanging out with norman! i can't even bear the thought of what i know about zendin's fate. that alone the fact i'd been keeping it from norman this whole time...

anyways, it was nice to talk to norman. i'd realized how much i'd missed him all these years since we both were exiled from drumheller... that and it was fun to have him alone on this new adventure. i hadn't had close friends like him along on my blog-era adventures often. even if i wasn't too keen on the event at our destination, the location was appealing.

the trip was already proving worthwhile, just from the boat ride alone!

many times me and norman's debate would stop as we both gazed around us.

can you blame us though?

victoria lies about an hour and a half from vancouver across georgia's strait on vancouver island. inbetween the two are many smaller islands. many of which our ferry had to pass right by. it was really really pretty!

we saw lots of wildlife. one of my favourite sightings, and should be a backyard dinosaur really, was this log full of cormorants.

the little island villages were really scenic too.

overall it was a nice relaxing trip. even if me and norman were trying to stress out about what my talent agent was about to make us do...

the thing is we were in for some surprises. the funny thing is most of them good!

to be continued with: dino-fest!

backyard dinosaur #7

2010-09-17T07:30:00.000-06:00

a Clark's Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) i saw stealing food from around our mountain OH-lympic venue (cross-country skiing coming soon!)

a new friend?

2010-09-12T20:33:00.000-06:00

after the day i've been having, i'm really just not in the mood to have to deal with anymore dinosaurs... so of course i find my in the middle of the dinosaur winter OH-lympics, where there is no shortage of vivus-dinosaurs for me to run into!

i've already had two fairly draining interactions with fellow saurians today. first of all i got to be in the middle of my two best friends, lillian and norman, try and tear each other apart. as if that weren't horrible enough i was than approached by the pack of gondwana, who wanted me to join them in their evil against my cousin's equally evil pack the primordial feather... fun times.

so that left me wanting to pretty much keep to myself. yet moments after my gondwanan encounter i was approached by yet ANOTHER dinosaur.

this time the american stegosaur dollie. what she could possibly want with me i'm not sure?... i don't know a whole lot about living jurassic dinosaurs, i've only interacted with a few briefly in my tyrrell days. so i don't know what makes them tick, or how they compare to cretaceous dinosaurs i know. added to that she is an ornithischian, which as a general rule tend to distrust and hate me. (plus should i be freaked out by her like her cousins the ankylosaurs?)

adding to my weariness, dollie's 'greeting' was very odd. "oh, so you're what gloria was so interested in." she'd apparently not even been interested in me. she just wanted to see what the giganotosaur that had been bugging me was doing...

"i guess so," i answered a little annoyed by this start to our interaction. not that i planned for it to become a full conversation. "if you'll excuse me though..."

dollie suddenly had a really puzzled look on her face. "excuse yourself for what?" now i was the one who was confused. for a moment i had no idea what she meant, till she started intently sniffing the air. the silly plate back thought i'd farted!?!

"no, no, not that kind of an excuse," i clarified. "i was just trying to say..." i stopped dead in my sentence seeing how dollie twisted her head at me, not following what i was saying. i totally knew that look!

suddenly i took a slight shining to dollie. despite all our differences (me being a theropod, dollie being a ornithischian) me and dollie shared a very similar problem in our lives! the looks dollie was giving right now were the same i give when i'm confused... dollie has a very small brain just like me!

"you weren't saying yes to the gondwanan's offer were you?!?" dollie exclaimed in alarm finishing off my sentence.

"no," i answered out of instinct. then it hit me. "how did you know gloria made me an offer???" how was it every second time i ran into someone new they knew more about me, than i often did.

"lance told me to watch out for the gondwanan's approaching you, before i came out to be in the games," dollie blurted out. well lance explained how dollie knew something about me without us ever meeting. that however didn't answer the obvious question.

"how do you know lance?" i asked.

dollie accidentally answered the question by trying to stonewall it. "i'm not authorityed to tell you... no wait i'm not a big enough authorization to telll you. oh no!" she got all tongue twisted, though i got her point.

so dollie probably was in the employ of professor paradigm if she knew lance, with him telling her stuff, and her not being able to talk about it. which meant something to do with palaeo-central. not that i knew much more about them than i did the packs...

i'm not the biggest fan of paradigm or palaeo-central (some "random" examples of why here, here, and there), but so far i was starting to like dollie. she was just a genuinely nice dinosaur. the sort i wish more of us were.

i wasn't sure if it was her brain size (possibly explaining why we are BOTH over trying to maintain our prehistoric ideals), or the fact she was jurassic dinosaurs (the majority of my saurian acquaintances are cretaceous), or that she is just an awesome individual in spite of it all.

we had a rather nice chat, just the cheer up i needed. she was fascinated to hear all about me, the theropod that didn't really want to be a theropod. i on the other hand wanted to hear all about her.

dollie was my ornithischian counter part, at least in some ways. we both had a tough times in life due to our limited intellectual capacities. dollie really wanted to fit into the human world, but often found keeping up with the pace of the modern world a bit too much for her brain power.

it was neat, but also a little weird i must admit, talking to someone who thinks just like me...

after this pleasant end to an otherwise bad afternoon we bid each other fair well. though we did promise to hang out at least once more before the end of the winter games...

so how about that people of the web wide world? i have a possible friend stegosaurus!

a new offer, from the other side...

2010-09-11T18:15:00.001-06:00

things just have NOT been going my way with these dinosaur winter OH-lympics. so much so that they seem to be taking forever... have you noticed that too?

the latest episode of this whole event is now two of the most important dinosaurs in my life are not getting along. not only with each other, BUT even worse with me too! i couldn't see how much else could go worse with the whole OH-lympics.

why do i always think/wonder things like that? right on cue, in the middle of my pouting over the lillian and norman fallout, yet another unpleasant event occurred.

while angrily pacing around near the OH-lympic site, i was approached by another dinosaur OH-lympian, gloria giganotosaurus . i'd never met gloria before the OH-lympics, and knew very little about her. in fact she was one of the few non-coelurosaurs i'd ever met in person.

fortunately for me i distrust theropods as a general rule, as this was going to turn out to be a very theropod centric discussion...

"greetings young traumador," she greeted me. which to be honest was a weird start, i wasn't THAT young... "i have very much been wishing to meet you since the beginning of these games."

"is that so?" i replied cautiously, and found myself crossing my arms almost defensively.

"oh yes," she replied unphased. "i was very eager to participate in these games when i learned you were the one organizing them."

"why is that?" i asked genuinely curious, yet i suspected i wasn't going to like the answer.

"i wished to meet the only tyrannosaur smart enough to not join the pathetic ranks of the primordial feathers," she said all complementary.

great, i knew exactly where this was going... i said nothing.

with true predatory grace, gloria picked up on my sudden hostility, and started to walk around me whilst keeping her eyes locked on mine. "i speak to you on behalf of the pack of gondwana, a far superior alliance of vivus-theropods. especially when compared to that of your misguided kin."

yup, it was just like i'd guessed.

gloria being a giganotosaurus was a carcharodontosaurid. a long surviving branch of the carnosaur lineage. i'll do a proper palaeo-FACT! on them later, but the basic idea is that the carcharodontosaurs were old guard theropods whose ancestors evolved in the jurassic and survived right up to near the end of the cretaceous. us tyrannosaurs didn't really evolved into huge predators until the late cretaceous, and compared to the carnosaurs were short lived upstarts.

anyways where my coelurosaur relatives alive today formed their pack of the primordial feather, the carcharodontosaurs and a bunch of other southern theropods formed the pack of gondwana. i don't know the details but i think the gondwanan pack was specifically formed to rival the primordials. rival them for what i wasn't sure, and frankly based on what i saw in calgary i don't want to get involved at all!!!

"speak to me about what?" i coldly replied.

"well as i'm sure you know, we gondwanans are in, shall we say conflict with your kin," gloria attempted to be delicate. "for a stable future amongst us theropods, it is vital this conflict be 'resolved', and in our favour."

i waited silent, unimpressed. gloria continued. "we wish to gain your support traumador. having a coelurosaur in our ranks would be a huge asset in ending this destructive strife."

no doubt in the ongoing theropod hostilities, no one had crossed sides directly to the other pack. i wondered if they wanted me to be the first to directly betray my own kind to merely embarrass the primordials, or if the gondwanas had more sinister and direct plans for me. not that my answer was a hard one!

"like i told larry, i am no not interested!" i stated defiantly, very aware my answer was partially tempered by my recent falling out with my two best friends. gloria may not be a tyrannosaurid like i was used too, but she was every bit the killer we are!

gloria for a moment looked as though she was going to get angry, yet she seemed to see something in the distance i couldn't (though i was beginning to smell something approaching). she turned to walk away, yet her eyes never left me.

"if that is your choice," gloria stated venomously. "i just ask you to remember our offer. for i think you will find that your kin are not yet finished with you yet, and will try to bring you into our conflict regardless of your cowardice," ah a typical theropod mindset, trying to appeal to my sense of bravery and fighting blah blah. then unexpectedly she hit me with something that was actually close to home. "afterall we know, they have already struck close to your past with their crate. so remember you have potential allies who have never slighted you before." slighted me yet, i thought.

thankfully that was the end of that. gloria walked off (surprisingly gracefully, considering she'd gotten the opposite of what she'd wanted). so despite my attempts to stay out of the pack war, i was still of intense interest to both sides... boo! i just wanted them to leave me alone!

then i was aware of the reason gloria had withdrawn. another dinosaur was approaching. definitely an ornithischian, but not a type i was used to smelling.

great! today of all days everyone is trying to seek me out. i just want to sit in my misery on my own! now i was about to have another confrontation with a saurian... what could this one possibly want of me?!?

Next: A Dinosaur with a brain as small as mine!!!

fossil of the weekend #80

2010-09-11T13:50:00.000-06:00

rather lovely fossil leaf from vancouver island at the royal british columbia museum.

fossil of the weekend #79

2010-09-06T01:26:00.002-06:00

a rather nice ammonite found on vancouver island british columbia, at the royal britsh columbia museum in victoria (my post about this coming here in the fall... along with the wrap up to the OH-lympics!)

fossil of the weekend #78

2010-08-28T08:48:00.003-06:00

seems the company that mines ammolite donated a big jewelfied ammonite to the royal british columbia museum too (the first museum i encountered one of these at was the royal tyrrell... maybe only royally appellated institutions get them?)

caught between a tyrannosaur and a ceratopsian...

2010-08-26T20:04:00.000-06:00

oh man...

to say that the dinosaur winter games had not been going my way, was becoming THE understatement of the year!

they were potentially bankrupting me, keeping me stuck in canada (i've got things to get back to in new zealand... it feels like i've been away for AGES!), and worst of all were humiliating me in front of the whole world. not once, but twice!

the latest of those was the hockey match. it was not only a bad game, but it was now having some major effects on my life beyond the rink too...

team canada had gotten creamed. we totally lost to team china. the worst part, i was probably the big cause of it all!

well okay, while i'm known to try and take the blame for everything (i am a canadian t-rex after all!), but some of the blame really does deserve to goto my special talent agent peter bond...

despite knowing that i couldn't skate, he fielded me on the ice in the first place. his logic at the time was that if some of his dinosaurs couldn't skate, other teams would have that problem too... so much for that idea. i was the only dinosaur (so far anyway... team gondwana hasn't played yet) who can't skate in the whole OH-lympics!

what a great way to make me the star of the games!?! he even made me buy my own team canada jersey. making me the only dinosaur to wear a uniform... though as a side note i can't figure out why everyone makes fun of the back of it?

you'd think this isolation and humiliation would be the most of my problems. well it does suck, but there was an even bigger problem to team canada's defeat. my team itself!

you see, lillian albertosaurus and norman a. centrosaur hadn't been all that keen about being on the same team in the first place. with the really public (and talked about) defeat of the home team they were REALLY not getting along now!

leaving the stadium after the game, the two weren't keeping their contempt for each other contained...

it got so bad that the police had to keep the public at a safe distance.

not that i want to have to say bad things about the girl of my dreams, but in fairness to norman, it was lillian who was the true instigator. she ripped into him for being a "stupid" "open skulled" ceratopsian (while it is sort of true the norman's frill is in a sense open, in that it hoad two hollows way up to reduce his head's weight... this doesn't mean his skull is substandard and thus making him stupid or something... as lillian was trying to get at).

norman didn't help matters though by insulting lillian back about being conceited and full of herself...

of course the news picked up the whole fight... which is probably only going to make matters worse later on. ugh.

it is times like this i realized why vivus dinosaurs have such a bad spot in the modern world.

at the end of the very public (potentially embarrassing) fight they both stormed off even more furious with the other. peter was still up in the boardcast booth doing our game's post game coverage, and was oblivious to the whole incident. leaving me all by myself to try and clean up the whole mess.

why did i stick my snout into all this? the smart thing to do would have been to stay out frankly. though when have i ever been known for being the smartest guy around?

well we still had more OH-lympic events to go, and team canada needed to stay a team to keep competing or we'd have to drop out (and possibly lose me all my money that peter had invested in these dumb games in the first place). more to the point they were both my friends, and good friends at that...

i'd known norman since i was a hatchling. we went way back. i wanted lillian to be my mate someday. it tore me up that these two really important dinosaurs in my life weren't getting along. there just had to be a way i could get them to like each other, and the various parts of my life would combine into a really happy whole...

why do i always have these impossibly noble intentions?

i ran into lillian first. she was angerily pacing outside the stadium.

i greeted her, and tried to innocently ask her how she was feeling...

this was my first big mistake of the day (after the game anyways). lillian might be a more progressive thinking tyrannosaurid than our relatives in the pack of the primordial pack, but not by that much more (compared to me). her full, albertosaur sized, temper suddenly zoned in on me.

"how am i feeling!?!" she growled. "how else do you think i'd feel after you and that open skull humiliated me in front of the whole world!!!"

"so not good," i answered automatically.

i was answered with a full on angry albertosaur howl... not exactly a settling sound, i must say.

"i'll take the full blame for the game, lillian," i tried to be selfless, and take one for the team. "norman played almost as good as you did." you know that was a good move on my part. complementing lillian with that, while at the same time playing up norman. if only lillian saw it that way...

"yes you were rather pathetic weren't you!" lillian agreed, but in a far more cutting way than i'd thought. "however the fact that i, a former world class attraction, was shamed by a runt like you and a ceratopsian. i can't even put into words how disgusted that makes me feel. of all thing,s a gutless open skull."

her words shouldn't have surprised me. in fact what she said about me slipped right off. i'd been insulted worse, by her and others. more to the point i was chalking this up to her theropod temper (we have slightly uncontrollable boiling points we meat eating dinosaurs). yet it was how she was putting down my friend norman that got me upset. she didn't even know him, that alone take the time to get to know him.

"i'll have you know that 'gutless' centrosaur has stuck his neck out a few times to help me out!" i countered forcefully. the second after i said it, i realized it had been a mistake.

"yes that is right, you are even worse aren't you," she insulted. "you lower yourself to being the equal of a prey animal!" yeah so when i said she wasn't as progressive as me, i'd forgotten by what a margin. lillian may have abandoned all notions of carrying on our ancestors' cretaceous ways, but she still held a fairly typical theropod mindset. especially about non-theropods.

"how does that make me a worse dinosaur?" i challenged. "at least it shows i'm strong enough to adapt to our present situation. those 'prey animals' are some of the few living things that know what we are going through. only someone cowardly and backwards would hold on the the notion we are somehow..." oops i really shouldn't have said cowardly. especially to a female tyrannosaurid!

lillian didn't say anything. she just charged at me with a challenge roar. i knew better than stay in the path of an on coming raging albertosaur. so i high tailed it out of there.

great. now i'd really urked the girl of my dreams. i knew much of what she'd said and done was just her mesozoic instincts taking over. yet in some ways i found lillians attitude really bothered me... i'd set about my life to try and combat the tyrannosaur sterotype. did i really want to spend my life with someone who embodied that very thing?

no i didn't. yet lillian was not beyond saving i decided. she'd said no to the pack, and in essence our ancient ways that they represented. if she could do that, than i was sure i could get her to come around on non-theropods...

though for the timing being i'd really ticked her off. oh man.

i wasn't going to make things any better in a second either!

i managed to track norman down fairly quickly after that. the good news about norman's kind being one of my "prey" in the olden days, was that my nose was pretty attuned to picking up his scent.

"how you holding up?" i asked my childhood friend.

"let's just say i've had better days," norman replied frankly.

"yeah the game was pretty rough," i thankful agreed. phew! he wasn't going to try and divide my loyalties... at least that's what i'd hoped.

"the game could have gone better," norman agree, but than clarified what he'd meant a moment earlier. "no, i meant having to put up with that stuck up albertosaur you think is so pretty."

"she's not that stuck up," i tried to counter. than had clarify myself. "okay she can be when she's angry. that's the only time though. honest. i've seen her nice many times."

"listen to yourself, traum," norman pleaded with me. "you're trying to defend a typical self important tyrant. everything you hate about your own kind! you seriously don't still have that silly crush on her, do you?!?"

"so what if i do?" i answered back definitely. though in my heart i wasn't sure at moment.

"traum, seriously, speaking as a friend, you can do better," norman said as sincerely as he could. the statement hurt for some reason. it really shouldn't have, yet it ran me over almost as bad as lillian's charge would have.

"what do you know? how can you be sure there is a tyrannosaurid who is better?!?" i found myself countering angrily... not that i'd wanted to snap. just with all the stress of lillian and now norman questioning my affection for the other, my own tyrannosaur temper had snapped.

norman just rolled his eyes. "what i do know traumador, is that deep down your better than all of your kind put together," he stated. "but as long as you're hung up on that carnivore throw back, you'll never live up to your potential."

i didn't say anything, i was desperately fighting off my own theropod temper tantrum...

"just look at yourself man," norman instructed me. "you're a step away from pulling a larry on me here. all because of lillian."

i still didn't say anything, i was literally biting my lips to keep from howling in anger myself. though i'm pretty sure i was throwing a pretty good death glare at him.

"seriously traum, she might be the only one of your 'kind' not to be in the pack, but she isn't that much better than them," norman concluded. "if it were me, i'd be glad to be alone, than mated to something that held me back as much as she would you. you are a one of kind tyrannosaur, my old friend. until you realize you deserve a one of a kind mate to match you, you'll never be happy."

norman started to walk off. "please think about it traumador. is she trying to impress you? or is it still like always you trying to impress her... because these days what does she have that you don't?"

once norman was out of sight, i let off my rage. for the next few minutes i was a trembling huffing mess.

than as my nerves calmed and my temper calmed i had a good think about what he'd said. you know he was right...

norman had always been good at analyzing us vivus dinosaurs, and the roles we tried to play in the modern world (despite the fact we were displaced from these roles by tens of millions of years). in some ways he was right. not just about lillian's discriminations, but how i'd always been trying to impress her.

really these days she was as homeless, displaced, and without purpose as me. only i wasn't so lonely. lillian was so busy trying to be a strong independent albertosaur, that she'd driven away all the potential allies she could have now. the only reason lillian was getting anywhere these days was because of me... i was her only friend, but she certainly wasn't my only one these days!

so the question was should i lose my crush on her, like norman suggested? or was she redeemable? could i make her see the error of her ways, and the benefits of not "being" a tyrannosaur? or was she a lost cause, no better than a member of the pack?

what do you think people of the web wide world?

oh man, my hatching day ALREADY!

2010-08-15T23:15:00.000-06:00

as if losing the team canada's first hockey game weren't bad enough, now i've learned another annoying thing. i'm getting older!

i can't believe it is my hatching day again! it seems like just yesterday since my last! (though i'm glad a year has passed since then. that adventure was really stressful!!!)...

it feels like i get less and less done between them. (that can't be though can it?)... come to think of it, i still haven't figured out who gave me that h-day present 2 years ago that landed me here in canada!

anyways today i was reminded of my 7th hatching day by my special talent agent peter bond who had taken me for a dinner to try and stop the hockey defeat from bringing me down. "well there killer, i figured i'd treat you to, well, a treat. so that you won't always associate august the 15th with this game."

"no problem," i rationally replied, not thinking about why he listed the date. "that's my hatching day. i won't over write that with the game."

"wait, today's your hatching day?" peter asked in a panic.

"i guess it is," i realized out loud. "weird, as the game feels like it was a few... hmmm."

peter suddenly had one of his excited idea moments (which happen all the time i've noticed). "well of course i knew that!" he exclaimed. "which is of course the OTHER reason i brought you out for dinner! that and you're present!"

"present?!?" i exclaimed.

"oh yes," he said almost unconvinced. suddenly he grabbed and ripped a wooden panel off the wall. are you allowed to do that? "i just need to make a couple quick fixes..."

next thing i knew peter had a paint brush. which would have been weird from anyone else, but this was peter we were talking about!

next thing i knew he presented me with a picture of me.

i have to say, this may not be a plane ticket home, but it sure is one sweet hatching day present!

cheers peter!

fossil of the weekend #77

2010-08-15T21:56:00.000-06:00

a lovely ammonite at the royal british columbia museum.

i have a blogroll again!

2010-08-09T22:24:00.002-06:00

i finally got a blogroll again!

check it out here. it is desperately in need of updating.

so please bear with me as i head through my current reading list and add all the modern palaeo-blogs that have evolved since last i was compiling this list.

fossil of the weekend #76

2010-08-09T21:56:00.003-06:00

a fossil salmon, THE modern fish of british columbia (well their not fossils these days :P). like the peanut brained fool i am, i forgot to write down the exact identity of this (or any of the other fossils i saw at the royal british columiba museum)... so that's all i can tell you.

the post on the royal british columbia museum coming soon (for real this time!)

hockey night in canada...

2010-08-07T21:27:00.000-06:00

despite all the build up and commotion my special talent agent peter bond has been placing on the the dinosaur winter games they hadn't been a huge success thus far...

that was till today... wholly smokes!

today's event, the first round of a whole tournament, has become an instant hit. we sold out every round!

the event, canada's single obsession... ice hockey!

the event i feared more than anything has just begun here in vancouver...

Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen to this special by demand recap of today's Channel 299 point 5's previous coverage of the Ice Hockey tournament here in Vancouver...

I'm Peter Bond, good evening Canada!

and I'm Gus Richards welcoming the rest of the world, that Peter just rudely neglected!

Oh right. Sorry about that!

Due to the flood of calls from people who missed our original broadcast of the event, Channel 299.5 proudly brings you this recap of today's ice hockey games!

Brought to you by Meaties, breakfast of Canines!

Breakfast of Canines? That doesn't even remotely sound like champions!

Don't question the sponsors on the air...

Today saw the beginning of the round robin tournament that will determine which prehistoric country or super-continent can claim dominance in the hockey rink.

That's right after a five game circuit only the top 4 teams will make it to the championships.

Peter there are only 5 teams, its hardly suspenseful!

Uhuh think of how devastating it will be for the one eliminated team!

Face it Peter, as the organizer, you couldn't think of anything else to do with such a small team pool.

Maybe...

Anyways today saw two very interesting games, with very unexpected outcomes!

Yes with that in mind let's take a look at everything that happened today...

The first match of the day was between the two overall leaders in these Dinosaur Winter Games so far, Australia and the USA.

Anyone watching the Olympics so far will know that both these teams have dominated the overall competition.

Australia in particular entered today undefeated.

Yeah stupid cheating convicts! Who knew that in the Cretaceous they were a polar continent?!?

Peter!!!

Oh right, sorry to all our Aussie viewers. I meant to say NON cheating convicts...

*Sigh* How did I let him talk me into commentating with him again?!?

The United States have been on the Aussie's tail in every event, just narrowly coming in second at the end everytime. The question today was would this trend continue, or would the States finally find a way to come out on top?

Indeed Peter, today's initial match could have been a preview of the potential final gold medal game...

While team Australia entered seeking its third straight victory, the Americans were ready to give them a fight. Literally.

Indeed today's opening games was an interesting clash of strategies. Australia fielded a fast agile team, with Boom and Rang Leaellynasaura as their forwards. opting for their larger heavy weight Hogan the Muttaburrasaur to be goalie. The Americans on the other hand went for a much more powerful and physical offense with Dollie the Stegosaur and Bronko the Stygimoloch on the frontline, leaving Elinor Einiosaurus in net.

At first we thought that perhaps speed could be a deciding factor, as the Leaellynasaura skated circles around the Americans. However no amount of puck ballet could save Australia.

The combination of Bronko's physical play, and Dollie's offense eventually knocked the Leaellynsaura not only off the puck but their game as well.

Not to mention their feet Gus.

I think I kind of covered that Peter.

However, despite Broncho's hard headed checks, team America's greatest weapon has turned out to be Dollie's thagomizer slap shot!

Thaga-what?!? You just made that word up!

No. I looked it up in this book. That is the technical name for a Stegosaurs spiked tail. See...

*Mumble mumble* Oh so it is...

Despite Hogan Muttaburrasaur's valiant efforts, I doubt there are many goalie's who'd be able to stop a puck going 150 mph! That is a good 30 miles faster than the hardest ever recorded human shot!!!

By the beginning of the third period the score was 4-1 for the Americans. Despite overall control of the puck by the Australians for most of the game, their lack of physicality kept them from scoring. Where as every time Dollie got the puck in the Australian zone the US was guaranteed a point! Hogan was only able to stop 3 of her shots, and these were taken essentially directly at him. They looked like very painful stops too...

It was at the mid point of the third period that the game took a very unexpected turn. Stealing the puck from Dollie, the Australians looked poised for a break away, which in the second period was the source of their only goal. However Broncho surprised Rang with a particularly aggressive check to the side.

That's right we barely could believe the brutality of the hit. Here is our response at the time...

Oh boy oh boy!

Rang is down, and looks pretty injured! The ref has called a halt to play. There must be a penalty coming up to team USA...

There go the medics... Now I'm wishing I'd hired proper vets and not just some guys from my first aid course...

What the ref is signalling that was a legal hit?

BOO!

Peter we're supposed to impartial.

How can that be considered a legal check though?!?

Let's watch the instant replay *watches replay* Well I guess I can see it. The hit occurred while Rang had the puck, and it was below the shoulders. Technically that was a legitimate hit by the rules of the game.

Those rules weren't meant for a boneheaded battering ram!

Than a certain event organizer should have changed the rules before letting Dinosaurs play the game...

Oops.

Rang's injuries are clearly pretty bad, here as he skates off the ice.

Tell me about it, he is wearing a cone of shame!

Looks like he is not just out of this hockey match, but we're getting word he is likely out for the rest of the Winter Games.

Oh man, and he had been the big star of the games so far!

Team Australia's coach is calling for the Americans' to default this game, as her team is effectively out of the Ice Hockey Tournament.

What?!? America is refusing to forfeit the game, citing the check as perfectly legal!?!

I guess that is within their rights, but seriously?

*End Replay*

That was the unexpected end to the first match of the Ice Hockey. We see Team Australia dropping out of the Ice Hockey tournament altogether.

This injury also puts Australia's current overall lead in the Olympics in jeopardy.

America in the meantime moves on with a victory point, not that they really matter now. Every team will now be making it to the playoffs as a result.

If you'd been watching our broadcast earlier today you'd have had a big unplanned 20 minute break between games due to this outcome. In good news I was able to provide some filler entertainment! Which went something a bit like...

NO!!! I will walk out right now if I subjected to another second of you country yodelling the hits of U2 whilst trying to, unsuccessfully, juggle goslings!

What you didn't like it?

I'm not alone either, I have over two thousand emails from our new large audience demanding you never do that on air again!!!

Oh, and I just went through my ipod looking for more songs to cover...

Anyways with the first game over, there was still a second one this afternoon. This being the match between China and Canada.

Yes the long awaited debut of my team!

Peter we're on the air... why do I have to keep saying that... you can't go on about "your" team.

Right. Well then, Team Canada's coach in a moment of brilliance...

*Sigh*

Decked out his star player in a lovely Team Canada jersey!

Here was Team Canada as they skated out on the ice for the first time!

Well I have to say that jersey is rather smart isn't it. Why isn't the rest of the team in them?

Have you seen how much a Tyrannosaur sized jersey costs?!?

I thought that was your Tyrannosaur in the jersey...

Errr, well yes, but you know what I mean! A full grown Tyrannosaur, Albertosaur, which is a Tyrannosaur but not AGHH!...

Well led by their captain Staff...

How many times have I told you today that is Tyrannosaur. Traumador THE Tyrannosaur!

That's not what his jersey says!

I tell Traum to go get his jersey embroidered with his name, and he comes back with Staff written on the back...

Why?

He said it was the only thing he could imagine ever being on the back of any of his shirts.

Huh?

It's a long story...

And the number zero?

*Sadly admits* He thought it would be cheaper than a bigger number...

Well with both teams on the ice it was game on.

The game was exciting from the get go!

As of the puck dropping, Lillian Albertosaur looked to be this match's star.

That is till she was continually foiled by Lao-Gui Meng the Pinacosaur.

Quite right, Peter. The armoured Dinosaur kept the Chinese net as protected as her hard hide.

Nothing Lillian did could beat Lao-Gui either.

Leading to the natural question, where was Team Canada's other forward Staff?

Traumador THE Tyrannosaur!

Well Traumador the Staff was unable to skate in any real capacity throughout the whole match, and though occasionally getting the puck and passing it to Lillian, he had no real impact on the game. Which would lead one to ask what Team Canada's coach was thinking putting him on the ice?

Hahahahaha I imagine if you "could" ask him, he'd say he'd hoped the pressure of the game would get Traumador to grow his ice legs.

Clearly this "common" coaching strategy didn't pay off, for some reason...

Despite Lillian's valiant efforts to score, and her overwhelming control of the puck for most of the match, the Chinese naturally had breaks in the Canadian onslaught. Especially given their effective one Dinosaur advantage.

It was in one of these breaks that Norman A. Centrosaur found himself beat by Hua Yingwu the Psittacosaurus.

It should be pointed out that poor Norman actually put up a good game himself. However with the ongoing Chinese power play he just couldn't stop all the cross ice plays.

Hopefully Team Canada performs better next game.

I would certainly hope so. A three to nothing defeat is not a great start. Even if Lao-Gui Meng is by far the best Saurian goalie we've seen thus far.

So your thoughts after the day Gus?

I think Team America and China will be battling for the gold. We'll have to see if the physical play of the American's can beat the armoured defenses of Lao-Gui Meng's goal tending.

How do you think Team Gondwana will effect things as they enter the tournament next round?

While it is true that we haven't seen Gondwana due to their bye in this round, but I can't help but think that the domination we saw on both the parts of the US and China today will carry on. Though who knows, maybe the giants of the South may topple our first round expectations.

Finally Team Canada's chances?

Unless Staff...

Tyrannosaur!

Unless, Traumador, somehow miraculously learns to skate in the next couple days i think they're dead in the water. No matter how good Lillian or Norman play.

Oh man...

Peter don't even start!

So stay tuned hockey fans, as this is but only the first round of the 2010 Dinosaur Winter Games Hockey Tournament... uh that's copyrighted by the way.

*Sigh* Peter that comes up in the credits, you don't need to tell people that!

I just wanted to make sure...

I am SO done for the night!

backyard dinosaur #6 a quick tale...

2010-08-07T05:34:00.002-06:00

today's backyard dinosaurs started off as a random bird snap shoot, and turned into an epic tale of life and death and more life...

i spotted a mother mallard duck and her cute little chicks, and was trying to snap some nice shots of them. however mommy duckie did not want me anywhere near her babies. fair enough i guess, but this would lead to the upcoming drama... for despite all the other stuff around us, momma duck decided i was the scariest thing around even though i was just taking pictures from a distance (i love my new 20x zoom camera!), so she missed the greatest threat to her ducklings...

a minute or two after i started following the ducks, a magpie showed up, and started hovering VERY close by mamma duck and her ducklings. the magpie (i think a female as well... my reasoning for this will be clear at the end) was acting very predatory. i would know too... if you don't believe me just look at its stance in my picture here, not too hard to imagine a raptor looking the same way before a kill!

moments after i took this picture (seriously a second at most!) the magpie pounced one of the ducklings, grabbed it by the neck and flew off with it. mamma sort of tried to defend it, but because she'd been so busy worrying about me, she was in the wrong spot and couldn't really do anything.

my first reaction was shock. then i felt sorry for the poor duckling, and by extension its mother who was now clearly very stressed and confused.

i quickly came to see the magpies as evil, and watching around me the villains were everywhere. the commotion caused by the ducknapping had empowered every magpie in the area, and half a dozen of them were now making plays to try and grab their own baby birds.

less than a minute after the duckling incident i snapped this picture of a canadian goose warding off a probing magpie (the gooslings can be seen just behind the goose). the blighters were everywhere.

i was beginning to really side with all the poor water fowl, when wandering around the bend of the pond i encountered the cause of the magpies actions...

the magpies had their own chicks. they to were mammas and their offspring themselves needed food. despite the ducklings and gooslings not being nicest source, they were providing for these baby magpies...

i suddenly had a new respect for the event i had witnessed. there was no good guys or bad guys. the duck wasn't necessarily a victim. both sides had needs and wants, and though these may infringe on the others, they were both entitled to try and meet them.

so despite the poor duckling giving up its life, its death had allowed the next generation of magpies to carry on (at least for now...).

the cycle of life, i think one might call this.

another of my friends famous!

2010-08-03T08:38:00.003-06:00

the royal tyrrell museum just put up on their youtube channel a video all about my friend tony!

it's all about a day in his life at the museum, though i don't think it really conveys his job well (having done a similar one myself for a time), but it does really bring tony across!

i think they should have done a video about an untypical day in his life... like this one or this one... in those cases he really was a superhero of sorts!

oh well. it is good to see the museum recognizing some of its top talent, and awesome to see tony doing what he does best (well at least sort of see it)...

[also i'm back... so comments will be immediately moderated and i can talk to people]

fossil of the weekend #75

2010-08-01T23:36:00.001-06:00

yes much like everything else on this blog, i've been negligent on my fossils of the weekend (again).

as a sort of reboot, i offer a different take on my first ever fossil of the weekend...

a much better lite picture of my aunt black beauty, who prowls the "lords of the land" hall at the royal tyrrell museum.

back on track in august

2010-07-30T00:03:00.002-06:00

as already stated last post, i've fallen way far behind on my posts!

i promise to get back on track after this weekend. however in the meantime i will not be able to use my puter for the next few days, so any comments that get made right now will be unmoderated till tuesday canada time... sorry.

speaking of comment moderation i had meant to properly announce that this month. like the rest of the Prehistoric Insanity family of blogs, i've been forced to adapt major spam filtering procedures, the number of spam and junk comments i was getting was becoming ridiculous!

in good news since i put it up some 70ish spams have been stopped (with ease). that's just in the first month! in bad news people now have to wait a little while for their comments to make it up publicly (though hopefully not too long most of the time... i do check at least 3 times a day!)

backyard dinosaur #5

2010-07-28T22:59:00.002-06:00

man oh man... i've fallen way behind on my posts!

all i can say is when you see the results of the first round of the OH-lympic ice hockey and the aftermath, you'll understand why i haven't been able to post as much as i'd been hoping too... stay tuned!

getting myself back on track here is july's installment of backyard dinosaurs (yes i know its supposed to be weekly, but we've run out of those)...

a steller's jay (Cyanocitta stelleri) i saw hanging the mountains of vancouver.

fossil of the weekend #74

2010-06-29T09:40:00.002-06:00

a nice plesiosaur tooth from vancouver island, at the royal british columbia museum in victoria.

fossil of the weekend #73

2010-06-20T08:48:00.003-06:00

a really nice mastodon tooth at the royal british columbia museum (my visit to the museum coming up soon during my OH-lympic coverage).

[thanks to Bruce Mohn for correcting me. i called this a mammoth. as bruce pointed out the large cusps are a mastodon trait not a mammoth... i knew there was a difference, but couldn't remember it off the top of my head, and frankly mammals just aren't my thing. give me a saurian anyday!]

skating lessons...

2010-06-18T23:29:00.000-06:00

so the dinosaur winter games were finally into full swing (they seem to be taking forever!).

we were on a day off from the events, but yet i was still at a rink... for a practise. which i wasn't too keen on. i'd kind of been hoping to hang out with lillian for the day.

the thing was team canada had not been doing so hot in the games so far. people had expected us to be doing rather well, as in the human version of the games canada is about as good as they come...

however the climate here in north america has changed an awful lot in the past 65 million years! we canadian dinosaurs would have had to put up with a temperate climate as worst, but it was way warmer back than globally, and canada wasn't quite as close to the arctic circle!!!

meaning we just aren't adapted for winter... where our australian rivals are somewhat evolved for it!

the thing is for the next event, canada has a lot more at stake. not only is it canada's favourite sport, but my special talent agent peter bond has been building out team up. both publicly and among the saurian teams. meaning team canada's reputation is now on the line, and if we mess up we'll look really stupid (not too mention i would probably never see my money again).

as if that all wasn't enough, but much to our surprise, and peter's horror, we discovered i can't skate. sure i can stand up (perfectly) on skates, but i can't move to save my life! for the next event though, skating is very much a requirement!!!

as it is ice hockey...

which i had been really excited about, till i found out i couldn't do the most important part of the sport. i'd hoped to be our goalie, and just stand in one spot. however apparently we were using "dinosaur" sized nets, so i'd be way to small to cover it effectively.

so i was going to have to do some hockey training... which meant i was here at a public skating time to try and join the humans skating around the rink. at moment i was just standing in the way...

despite dreading my lack of momentum in the game, i was really primed about my new threads! peter had bought me a really awesome team canada hockey jersey just for the hockey matches. he couldn't find anyone to make giant sized ones for lillian or norman, but told me it didn't matter. he was trying to make me the star...

which sounded great on paper, but man i wasn't too confident i'd be able to get off the rink now, that alone cruise along with a puck in a game... i fell over just posing with my new jersey!

well in typical bond fashion, my agent showed up incredibly chipper and enthusiastic. the only thing is that it turns out peter's not the greatest skater either...

not that i mean him any disrespect or an insult. he CAN skate which is a whole lot better than me!

after two hours the best i could do was control fall into peter... which i figured was a kind of useless skill for a hockey match, as peter wasn't going to be there to catch or pad me...

peter trying to put an up beat spin on this (like he does for everything else) and assured me i'd gotten all the mistakes out of my system. tomorrow at game time i'd be ready to rock the house. after all i was a canadian dinosaur, and "to be canadian is to be hockey, and to be hockey is to be canadian." whatever that meant.

i don't know people of the webwide world... i think team canada's debut in dinosaur hockey is going to be a slight disaster... all because of me... oh man!

to be continued...

backyard dinosaurs #4

2010-06-16T12:13:00.001-06:00

today's backyard dinosaurs focuses on diversity...

while looking out at the bird feeder today i saw a whole bunch of different types of birds. from left to right was a house sparrow (Passer domesticus), ruby-crowned kinglet (Regulus calendula), and purple finch (Carpodacus purpureus).

this got me thinking to how many different birds live together in just the yard! you'd think in such a small space they won't have enough different things to eat or roles to play. yet even just in my bird feeder they were all able to find different seeds to eat, and each went about eating them their own way! (the kinglet wouldn't have been able to eat if not for the sparrow kicking lots of seed out of the feeder for example... where the finch was able to do its own thing regradless of the other two).

so next time your out and about look at all the different birds that live in the same area, and thing about how they all coexist and interact with one another!

backyard dinosaur #3

2010-06-11T16:53:00.004-06:00

a cute little mountain chickadee (Poecile gambeli) (or at least i think that is what it is), i saw flittering around the figure skating venue.

fossil of the weekend! #72

2010-06-06T12:58:00.000-06:00

a rather nice fossil crab, at the royal british columbia museum.

stay tuned for my (mis)adventure there coming soon!

pairs figuring skating...

2010-06-04T14:40:00.001-06:00

today i found myself high above vancouver, on one of the mountains that lines it's northern side. it was a very pretty, but also a cold place. the reason i was up here nearly freezing? well i was finally about to directly participate in my special talent agent peter bond's crazy dinosaur winter OH-lympics.

here over vancouver was a beautiful outdoor rink peter had selected for the figure skating event. why he couldn't have picked one of the many nice comfortable indoor rinks is beyond me! peter claims the visual backdrop will make the event a big hit on TV... i'm just glad i wore my hoodie today!

so i was here to figure skate. peter claimed it was a sport... though based on his description it sounds more like trying to do as much crazy of stuff while skating without falling! the last one standing wins...

i was getting quite nervous about the event, as we discovered today (much to peter's complete horror) i can't skate! not that i haven't been trying to learn for the last couple hours. all i can manage to do is stand up on my skates, and i mean perfectly stand.

seriously you can't knock me over or get me to fall, at least so long as you don't expect me to propel myself. the instant i try to to move on the ice i fall right over on my belly or tail (i'm very good at slight movement of my legs to keep standing though. even when peter tried to make me skate... he was the one who fell over!).

oh well, if figure skating would get me back all the money i spent to "host" these games, i'd do it! besides there was some good news to this figure skating event. it was a pairs sport. so i'd have someone else to push and pull me around the ice. even better it was mixed pair of a male and female. meaning on team canada if i was skating, i had no choice but to skate with the girl of my dreams lillian the albertosaur.

so despite the cold and my lack of talent, i was really excited about figuring skating!

as the event was about to begin, much like at the ski jump, all us dinosaur athletes gathered around the TV. not only was it nice to see ourselves on screen (in highlights... obviously we can't watch ourselves live :P), but as we didn't know what we were doing half the time the commention sometimes helped us figure out what we were doing (i can't emphasis the sometimes enough though!)...

yet again epic music blared at the dinosaur winter games logo came on the screen.

Welcome again, ladies and gentlemen to this special public access cable, channel 299 and a half, presentation. Tonight we bring you the next sporting event that time forgot! The Pairs Figuring Skating here at the Dinosaur Winter Games!!!

Hello I'm Peter Bond.

And I'm Gus Richards. Coming at you live from Cypress Mountain, towering above Vancouver.

Not so much towering, as rolling above Gus.

I was trying to be poetic as opposed to descriptive, Peter. It's a trick I picked up from the "How to Commentate for Dummies" book I read last night.

Well there is nothing dumb about the Pairs Figure Skating we're about to see here in Cypress.

gus than murmured under his breath.

There was nothing dumb about my metaphor either.

What was that Gus?

Nothing!

Now in addition to finding out how to improve my commentation skills, unlike some other people around here, I've also done some research on figuring skating. Based on this, I think we might be in for an interesting event here today!

Why don't you share your thoughts Gus?

Well Peter, figuring skating is of course more of an art form that pure athletic competition. With human skaters judging their degree of success and difficulty is easier, as they all have the same rough body size and build. With our Dinosaurian athletes today, we are looking at skaters that are both bipedal and quadrupedal, and weight anywhere as little as 15 kilograms to as heavy as 8 tons! This is going to cause all sorts of problems!

Not to worry Gus. I went to great pains this week to find custom skates for all our competitors!

i knew Peter was right. i'd just received the bill for them this morning... i was really doubting i'd see my money again at the rate these OH-lympics costs were sky rocketing!

That's not what I meant Peter. No, it'll be difficult for everyone involved to tell how our skaters are doing in relation to one another. I understand the judges will be taking into account the various handicaps our different Dinosaurs will be facing, but this will make it interesting to see how they all do against one another.

Indeed, and with that in mind, we are about to get our first taste of this dynamic sport.

Up first is Team Gondwana.

After their humiliating defeat at the ski jump, rumour has it, among the coaches anyways, that the team is somewhat fired up for today's event.

Though I hear that there is some division in the Gondana locker room, so to speak.

We couldn't find any locker rooms big enough for any of the large Dinosaurs Gus.

Another figure of speech Peter...

Ah... I see. Well, it is true that there is some tension among the Gondwanians. The two large theropods, among the largest carnivorous land dwelling animals ever... remember that kids when the official Dinosaur Winter Game action figures hit stands this week. You could owe two of the biggest meat eaters ever! Only $10.99 each!...

Peter!

Oh sorry, as I was saying the two large theropods Samson the Spinosaurus and Gloria Giganotosaurus have never gotten along. I don't know the full history behind this rivalry, but I know it has something to do with Samson starring in Jurassic Park 3.

I also understand Aina the Heterodontosaurus is quite afraid of her teammates.

That is true, Gus, but as the small Ornithopod is remaining off the ice today, I don't think it'll be an issue at the moment.

And Samson and Gloria kick off our first program of the day.

You know for Dinosaurs who hate each other, they're staying nice and close to each other.

Yes Peter, in pairs figure skating the objective is to work not so much as a team, but more like a single individual.

Split over two bodies? That's just silly Gus.

Do you even know what a metaphor is Peter?

How do you think our Southern Continental competitors are doing?

Well due to their extreme size, we'll be seeing a very grounded routine here. With both our skaters here weighing over 6 tons each, they won't be able to survive any jumps, especially if they didn't land them properly!

That's certainly going to cost them than!

It actually shouldn't Peter. Again the judges today are taking into account the fact these two physically can not jump. As of such they'll have their score worked out on how well they do a completely on ice routine. Which at moment they appear to be doing quite well.

Oh and they are now spinning together!

Yes, this is a synchronized... uh, spin of some sort. Just give me a moment to look it up in my book.

So far Gondwana's timing has been perfect. They are working together as one, I believe you would say Gus.

gus only half acknowledged as he frantically flipped through a book on his desk.

Sure. Spins on page 8...

Oh and Gondwana's skate comes to an end. A nearly flawless performance by Team Gondwana.

I missed the end?

Let's see how the judges score this first skate.

The scores will be out of 10 today Peter, and as of such we'll be immediately be able to see what manner of competition we're in for here today.

Okay and here they come...

A 8.5, 9.0, 9.0, 9.0, and a 9.5 making for a final score of 9.0. A very good show from Team Gondwana.

Definitely indeed Gus. Especially after that "crushing" defeat they suffered at ski jumping.

Peter you probably shouldn't joke about the crushing part.

Oh right, sorry about that folks... especially those debating the class action lawsuit...

Next up we have Team China.

Yes, going in reverse order of the Ski Jumping results, we have another team who desperately wants to reverse their fortunes here today.

Immediately Hua Yingwu the Psittacosaurus and Hou Mingyan Tsintaosaurus have started off with a strong beginning.

I can't help but notice the Chinese are not both staying on the ice...

Despite Hou Mingyan's tremendous 4 ton weight, we have her paired with her minuscule partner's 20 kilo's today. Meaning the Chinese have a lot more skating options.

Wow like picking up the Psittacosaur and spinning him in circles!

Yes. Though despite the increased spectacle of this routine, it is important to note how much easier it is for China to put such tricks into their skate. The Gondwanas both weighed nearly double Hou Mingyan each. Here she is skating with Hua Yingwu who weighs less than her own tongue!

Great flying parrots... er beaked lizards! Hua Yingwu has just been thrown into the air!

Can he land it though? This will be what their score comes down too!

Oh and he has landed it perfectly!!!

Indeed Peter, let's see how the judges like that.

peter didn't really pay attention to what gus said.

That was amazing. Oh man we have to change our routine to match that!

What Peter?

If you'll excuse me for a moment Gus. I have something I need to do... and Team Canada's up coming set is going to blow all our socks off!

with that peter ran out of the studio, leaving poor gus confused.

Uh, what is he doing?... I mean, I guess when you have to go, you have to go ladies and gentlemen.

a few moments of silenced followed, as gus tried to figure out what to do in peter's absence. then finally something came up for him to talk about.

Oh thank you! The scores are coming up. Wow, and unlike the Gondwanian ones these are all over the board for Team China. They receive a 7.0, 9.7, 8.5, 8.0, and a 8.7. Giving Team China a 8.4 final score, and currently second place.

I wonder what Team Canada has up its sleeve to match what we've seen so far?

we in team canada thought we had a pretty good idea of what we had in store. than suddenly the mystery of where peter had run off to was answered.

just as me and lillian were about to hit the ice peter was ice side.

"aren't you supposed to be commentating right now?!?" i nervously asked my talent agent.

"yeah, in a second," peter dismissed me. "i just had a coaching thought, and it couldn't wait!"

"i want you two to all sorts of spins, carries, and throws just like the chinese did!" peter instructed.

lillian just looked at peter like he was insane, and i tried to point out. "but we didn't practise any of that, and it looked kinda hard."

"nonsense!" peter countered. "we'll get our first gold for sure," with that he launched into a crazed plan about our new routine. his arms flailed as he acted out roughly what he wanted us to.

now in theory what peter suggested probably wouldn't have been too bad. the problem was it sounded like it needed some practise. our routine, as per what peter had instructed us to do before, was much more like the gondwanian set all on the ice. now peter wanted us to go crazy, without so much as a warm up .

"did you get all that?" he insisted.

before we could answer no (it was very last minute of him!), one of the judges approached very impatiently. "team canada you're up!" (again talk about last minute).

as we skated out onto the ice, peter ran back to commentate.

Where were you?
`

Just double checking something. Oh look, and here comes Team Canada. I wonder what their going to follow China up with? hehehehe
`

Hopefully something a little more challenging, or they'll simply be competing with China's second place.
`

Second place?!?

`
Here goes Canada's skaters!

`
well the beginning of the routine was nice and simple. at least for me. i just had to make sure some part of me was in contact with lillian so she'd move me along the ice with her. i also made sure to smoothly wave my arms around. i'm not sure why, but peter said it looks arty and graceful on the ice...
`

How are they looking, Gus?

`
You almost sound panicked Peter. So far they not doing to bad. Though if they want to catch up in points their going to need more than the Albertosaur pushing around the T-Rex.
`

than came the new part that peter had just told us to do. lillian swiftly scooped me up into her mouth. honestly, despite the fact i was crazy about lillian, this terrified me! albertosaur jaws were among the most dangerous to have ever evolved, and here i was sitting right in the middle of a set!
`
Here we go with Canada's throw...

you know the way peter has said it, the throw sounded easy. as lillian lunged her head into the toss, i was amazed at the fact peter might turn out to be right. maybe we didn't need to practise this... however as of lillian snapping her neck and launching me out of her mouth, suddenly it became (sadly) very obvious i'd been right!

lillian throw me clear of the rink. if it hadn't been for the soft fabric tent and the big pile of snow behind it (when i ripped through the tents canvas) i could have been seriously hurt! as it stood i wasn't doing so good. it took them a good 2 or 3 minutes to dig me out of the snow bank.

Oh no!

That is unfortunate. Team Canada appears to have failed their paired throw. It is almost as if someone decided to change their program on them at the last minute... Doesn't it Peter?!?

This is so not good...

I think the judges agree with you Peter. Having not properly completed their routine, Canada recieves some really low scores. 1.0, 1.5, oh a 2.5 from a very generous judge, 1.0, and 1.7. For a final score of 1.5. Oh I think unless anyone else messes up that bad, Canada has just clinched last place!

Ah Hel... Help, yes help. That's what Team Canada needs in the future! hahahaha stupid theropods not making that simple throw!

Next up we have the Americans, who have choosen to field Bronko the Stygimoloch again and paired him with Elinor Einiosaurus. Which is similar to both China and Canada in pairing a multi ton skater with a small skater, but in this case Bronko is much heavier, closer in weight to a human. Let's see how this effects their routine.

Very sleek so far.

Yes, and not all that different from Team Canada's beginning with some nice synchronized skating. Though I can't help but notice Bronko is doing some much more pronounced skating than Traumador.

Oh what's this that the Americans are doing now?!?

A carry, without the throw. This is much more technically complicated than what both China and Canada were going for.

They are making it look so easy.

Yes Peter. Let's see how the judges like it.

A 9.9, 9.5, 9.8, 9.8, and a 9.5. Holy blades of glory I think we have a new first place holder!

Yes we do Peter. The American's final score of 9.7 is going to be very tough to beat.

Let's see how Team Australia finishes off the event here today, with our last skate...

This is absolutely stunning to see. boom and rang leaellynasaura are skating to together absolutely perfectly.

I thought you were being silly before Gus, but now I see what you mean by skating as though one body.

This goes beyond that Peter. It is almost as if one of our down under skaters is just skating in front of a mirror. Their actions are so perfectly synchronized.

the two aussie dinosaurs' performance wasn't flooring me as much as everyone else. i'd seen the other day just how physically capable they two could be!

Now we're getting to the technically challenging part of their program. Where the Americans lifts and carries were impressive, the Australians' will be even more impressive considering they are the same size!

Oh and I think they are going to pull it off Gus!

I can't believe my eyes Peter. I think we're witnessing an absolute perfect routine!

Let's see what the judges thought of that!

So Australia gets a 9.9, 9.9, 9.9...

Perfect scores so far!!!

9.9, and oh what is this. A slight upset to what we were expecting. A 9.8!

BOO!

Peter, obviously that judge thought just the slightest thing was missing from that routine. Probably the lack throws from these two very clearly qualified figure skaters.

Like I said BOO!

*Sigh* So that still gives Australia a 9.9 overall score!

Meaning they've won their second gold medal in a row... Wow, that wasn't supposed to happen.

With America getting its second silver, again by but a mere margin, we're see our two clear favourites for these Dinosaur Winter Games emerge. Team Gondwana getting its first medal in the form of a Bronze, leaving just Team China without a medal. Yet I don't think we've heard the last of them.

Indeed these games are heating up so early on. Who will rise to dominance? The United States or Australia?

Or could we see one of the strangling teams somehow rise up and overcome these two titans?

Tune in for our next event and find out!

to be continued...

fossil of the weekend! #71

2010-05-30T10:58:00.000-06:00

as part of peter's new promotion of both the dinosaur winter games, and us dinosaurs in it, he took us across george's straight to victoria for a special appearance at the royal british columbia museum. the post on this, dare i say, misadventure is coming up soon, but thought i could start previewing the museum through its fossils here on the weekends...

you're first sneak peek of the RBCM is this rather lovely belemnite. belemnites were very similar to squid (which they were closely related too) but had much harder "guards", aka inner shells, which is what you see here. due to these harder shells belemnites fossilize quite easily (at least this particular part of them).

the belemnites evolved during the devonian period, and finally went extinct in the cretaceous. they reached the height of their success in the jurassic and cretaceous.

backyard dinosaur #2 (delayed)

2010-05-28T11:03:00.003-06:00

okay, enough is enough traumador! this is the second time this year i've let my weekly dose of birds fall behind. the OH-lympics have been tying me up a lot more than i thought they would!

so again on with my revamped bird segment. all focusing on scott sampson's concept of "backyard dinosaurs".

this time around i spotted this rather pretty great blue heron (Ardea herodias) while wandering around vancouver harbour.

today's backyard dinosaur challenge is try to spot a bird everywhere you go... i think you'll be pleasantly surprised to find our avian friends are ever present (unless your a deep sea driver or an astronaut :P)

down under the mail delievery

2010-05-24T14:52:00.000-06:00

well the dinosaur winter OH-lympics had started with something of a bang! literally.

our first event, the ski jump, had ended rather dramatically. with the gondwannan athlete, sansom the spinosaur, crashing into the crowd rather than land his jump properly. in good news no one was seriously hurt. in bad news a few people were somewhat hurt.

i was letting my special talent agent peter bond deal with all the consequences of this, but a few people were already starting to complain about the possible dangers of our other upcoming sporting events.

it was all starting to give me a headache. especially since my future was so tied into these OH-lympics (in the form of ALL my money!!!).

i needed to get away from it all for a bit and get some fresh air. i decided to mail some stuff back to my people in new zealand (at least those that weren't here at the OH-lympics already!).

as i made my way to the post office though, i ran into some old acquaintances. the australian leaellynasauras boom and rang. knowing the two of them, their team had sent them out to get fresh air, unlike my choosing to go! not that i minded run into them. it was nice to see a familiar face. especially ones who didn't dislike me or one another!

"g'day traumador," boom enthusiastically greeted me.

"hello traumador!" rang followed up with.

"hi guys," i greeted back, but didn't stop walking. i really wanted to get my stuff in the mail.

"mind if we join you?" rang asked. "yeah we're pretty bored," boom explained.

"sure," i said. the company would be nice. as we walked i realized i needed to be polite. "congratulations on your win at ski jumping rang."

"oh it was nothing at all really," he pretended to be modest. i recall these two little hypsilophodonts weren't all that self contained. answering my suspicion boom added. "apart from being better than all the other dinosaurs of the world!"

it was true. the tiny leaellynasaura had trounced every other saurian ski jumper (apart from america's bronko the stygimoloch), even the girl of my dreams lillian the albertosaur. yet this wasn't in the "spirit" of the games that peter had told us about (not that i get what a ghost had to do with winter, sports, or when you combine the two together!?!). peter told us the games were about friendly competition.

telling boom and rang this, they both chuckled. "man you really will believe anything people tell you," rang told me. "though not to worry, mate. it's one of the reasons we like you!"

they thought the point of the games was to beat everyone else, period! which i didn't think was all that nice. i tried to rain on their parade a bit. "well you know that canada is the favourite at these games right?"

"oh," boom started, finished by rang. "yeah?"

"that's what my coach peter said!" i stated proudly.

both looked at me a moment expecting me to crack a punchline or something. when i didn't both started to laugh, again! "traumador," rang laughed. "traumador," boom said, finishing the classic line of "traumador, traumador" i was used to getting when wrong. "that coach of yours needs to do a bit of reading, mate," rang stated.

"why?" i asked cautiously, suspecting i was about to walk into some sort of mental trap.

boom answered. "cause he's thinking about the human winter games." rang jumped in to finish the thought. "if he'd looked up where australia was back in the cretaceous compared to canada, he'd know aussie would be the fav." boom looking at me challenged. "but i reckon you already know what we mean."

"oh man," i thought out loud realizing what they meant. peter had been so busy planning the games, he had just grabbed what he knew about the human winter games and applied them to our dinosaur competition.

the leaellynasauras were right. back in their native time period of the cretaceous 106 million years ago their homeland of australia was one step short of the antarctic circle. meaning they were among the closest to winter dinosaurs we know of. canada during my time 65 million years while about as north as it is now (though a bit further west globally speaking), i wasn't from the north end of it. meaning i was not from as cold a place, and that these two would far better adapted to these winter conditions.

that was going to make the games a bit more interesting. peter was acting like team canada was a shoe in to win. now we had at least one major competitor. which was fine by me, except i got the feeling that canada needed to win a bit for me to get all my money back from these OH-lympics!

not that my money would be the issue today.

no, today's problem was a lot bigger, at least in person...

it seems like everything is bigger at the OH-lympics, and the post office didn't want to get left out of that. their new OH-lypmic edition mail box was huge!

which was cool to look at. however it was impossible for me to put my mail into!

boom and rang taking at look at it were very excited. "crikey!" rang said. boom finished. "that's what i call a post box!"

"a 'post box'?" i exclaimed. "its more like a giant uh,... box... box. how do i get my mail in there?"

"it is simple," boom boasted. i looked at the two of them like they were nuts. "watch and learn my theropod friend," rang informed me. "this is how you drop off the mail."

grabbing my letters from me, the two tiny ornithopods suddenly starting bouncing up the mail box. before i knew it my letters were up at the top and in the box. boom and rang made it look easy... if you were a tiny reptilian ninja gymnasts!

returning to the ground rang complained. "you don't have anymore mail for us?" boom added. "yeah that was fun!"

this was the last time i was listening to peter. team canada was in SO much trouble! team australia's dynamic duo alone just conquered a mail box none of the rest of us could have touched (well the top of of... except maybe the spinosaur, but he'd have had to be on tip toes).

despite all that, it was fun hanging out with boom and rang. i just wasn't looking forward to competing against them. which was coming up soon!

to be continued...

fossil of the weekend! #70

2010-05-21T11:35:00.002-06:00

a wall mounted cast of gryposaurus at the royal tyrrell museum. there are a few bits of skin impressions around this skeleton, can you spot them all?

fossil of the weekend! #69

2010-05-15T18:02:00.002-06:00

a cast skeleton of Euoplocephalus and a (crazy!) pursuing Albertosaurus, at the royal tyrrell museum.

fossil of the weekend! #68

2010-05-09T10:00:00.001-06:00

a rather nice (though slightly crushed) skull of albertosaurus, on display at the royal tyrrell museum.

leaping lizards... the ski jump!

2010-05-07T16:20:00.001-06:00

[Production Note: Our apologies to a number of people of flickr. We have "borrowed" all the pictures with a ski jump in this post from various people on flickr. However due to the installation of some new software on our PIP computer, the bookmarks for these were all lost. If you are one of the photographers who took these shots we will take down any of these shots if you wish, but please take the spirit of fun we've used them for in mind (and we are making no money off of any of them)]

it was finally the beginning of my special talent agent peter bond's grand scheme... the dinosaur winter OH-lympics.

i wish i could say i was excited about the games, as games are supposed to be fun aren't they? instead i was looking at the prospective of losing all my money if the games "failed".

even worse the first "game" didn't look all that fun to me. not one bit, and i'm looking at it right now!!!

lillian was a bit more than nervous about this ski jumping of peter's. so like any good (wannabe) boyfriend i accompanied her up to the top of the tower to look down the ramp she'd be zooming down in under an hour...

to say it was scary would be understating it, people of the innerweb. it was downright terrifying, and i wasn't even the one having to go down it.

lillian in proper tyrannosaurian fashion acted like she wasn't afraid. "this isn't much higher than a coulee in the badlands." she weakly dismissed. only i could see through her lie, being a tyrannosaur myself. her mouth was slightly a gap, a tell tale signs all was not well with her.

i decided to leave it though. in my experience most tyrannosaurids (apart from me) can get very testy when you question their bravery and other such nonsense. in my experience if you're scared, its best to just let it out. otherwise you'll do silly things later anyway (at least if you're me again).

i wished lillian good luck as the other competitors started to show up. it was time for me to head to the back of the tower as a non-jumper. lillian didn't respond to me, and just kept starring down the ramp before us. i didn't blame her for the rudeness this time. i'd be pretty wrapped up in the moment if i was in her claws.

however i was about head up to the observation deck, lillian turned and called after me. "thank you for coming up with me traumador. the company was very nice before... well you know."

as much as i stood to lose from these OH-lympics, one bright side of the whole affair was starting to emerge. i was starting to make considerable gains with the girl of my dreams...

taking my seat waiting for the event to start, suddenly a number of TVs set up on the ski jump turned on. a rather catchy jingle starting playing as a very familiar voice began to speak.

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to a special public access cable, channel 299.5, presentation. Tonight we bring you the debut of a sporting event of geologic proportions... the first ever Dinosaur Winter Games!!!

As the music cranked to epic levels the screen cut to two broadcasters... well people pretending to broadcasters... and i could see why the voice was familiar.

I am Peter Bond...

my talent agent introduced himself, but than paused. silence followed.

Ahem!

Oh right sorry, and I am Gus Richards.

Peter's co host finally introduced himself.

You didn't say how stressful this would be when we went to live. Just look at that little "on the air" light blinking...

Not NOW Gus!

Oh right sorry ladies and gentlemen. This is my first gig on TV, and I'm a little nervous.

Nothing the good folks at home *cough* need to know about Gus!

So here we are coming at you live from beautiful Vancouver, where the conditions are perfect today for our first Olympic event, the Saurian ski jump.

Another pause.

Ahem ahem!

Ah, yes Peter... where, uh. Five teams from around the worm... no sorry world are about to compete for... hmmm the gory. Oh, glory of being the best Dinosaurs of all time... in winner sport.

That's winter sport!

Sorry man, its hard to read your hand writing! Couldn't you have typed that up or something before hand!

gus suddenly realized yet again he'd embarrassed himself on TV and looked blankly at the camera. peter clearly muddled himself by his co anchor's nerves pressed on in typical chipper bond fashion.

The first team to take to the air today is team Australia.

That's right Peter. Today Australia will be represented by Rang the Leaellynasauras.

Indeed, as today all our Prehistoric teams are only allowed to field only one athlete to compete in the Ski Jump. Though rest assured folks, we have plenty of team sports coming up later in the games!

We now go live to the ski jump, where Rang is about to make the first jump of the day...

we all held our breath, as the little aussie dinosaur confidently, and frankly bravely pushed himself down the ramp. if i had to guess i'd say he was completely unphased by the prospect of shooting down the giant tower at break neck speeds, flying off high in the air, and soaring across hundreds of meters!

What a beautiful jump!

You sound surprised Gus.

I am actually. I figured this would just be a joke that played out as a horror show.

Ahem!

I mean I was expecting more... suspense than this.

HAHAHA yes. Back to our Australian jumper.

Based on all the ski jumping I've ever seen I'd say Rang is doing quite well. Won't you agree???

Absolutely. He is showing excellent flying position.

I believe in ski jumping they call it form.

Exactly what fantastic form our little friend from down under is showing!

What would you place Australia's chances at Peter?

We're not expecting the Aussie's to be the strongest contender in many of these events. With the ski jump in particular I believe the Australian coach has made the mistake of picking one of her lightest team members. A number of the coaches opted for their biggest and heaviest Dinosaurs, as they should be propelled faster and further.

The grace and agility we're seeing in the air won't be a factor then you don't think?

Of course n...

Rang finally came to the ground, way near the bottom of the hill...

One hundred metres?!? As I was saying before Gus, I totally believed that Rang's grace and ability...

Agility!

Yes agility were going to be key factors in a successful jump!

Right...

Anyways what was your expert opinion on that jump Gus?

Expert? Well having watched the odd round of ski jumping in the past, I'd say for a first jump, 100 metres is pretty good! It sets the bar high, and shows that Australia may just be a contender in these winter games after all!

That remains to be seen, Gus. As several teams coming up have fielded their true heavy weights into the competition. If Rang weighing in at a mere 10 kilograms can jump 100 metres, let's see how far a multi ton beast can go!!!

Next up we have your very own team Canada's Lillian about to make the jump.

You mean all of Canada's don't you.

No I mean it is your team. Isn't it.

HAHAHAHAHA *whispered* I was going to try to keep a lid on my coaching status. We're supposed to impartial right *resuming normal volume* So team Canada's coach looks like he was wisely chosen his largest biped for the jump. Let's she how she does.

the moment of truth came, as lillian braced herself for launch. i could barely watch as she pushed off and propelled down the ramp!

within a matter of seconds lillian was sky bound! you know for a mutant multi ton relative of a bird, lillian was doing pretty good at showing her lineage to avians... you know without the feathers, or flapping, or properly flying.

There can not possibly have been a more intimidating... errr I mean spectacular sight ever seen coming down a ski jump hill. A Tyrannosaurus Rex...

Albertosaurus Gus. An Albertosaurus. *whispering* Trust me she gets a little grumpy if you mix it up, and a you won't know the difference between an Albertosaur and Tyrannosaur when their grumpy if you follow me!

Sorry an Albertosaurus, majestically flying through the air.

Oh and she is about to make her landing! How far will team Canada make it with Lillian's 2 ton bulk propelling her.

What an upset! Despite her considerable weight advantage, Lillian comes in at only 67 metres! Putting Team Canada in second on only jump number 2!

That can't be...

What's that Peter?

I could have sworn she'd be a clincher being so heavy, and... Oh I'm sorry. Like I was saying Gus, that can't be the start that Team Canada was looking for here in the first game.

We next come to Team China, who are clearly going to want to get ahead of at least Team Canada with Lillian's considerably shorter jump than Team Australia's Rang.

Indeed Gus. Now the Chinese coach has opted for a different tactic of ski jumper than the other big weight teams such as Canada and Gondwana. Despite having the choice of two potentially large jumpers, China has opted for their most compact big Dinosaur Lao-Gui Meng the Pinacosaur. The theory being that a more condensed heavy animal will be propelled that much further.

An interesting strategy. Well it won't take too much, apart from a good jump, to probably out do Canada's 67 metres. Though to catch up to current front runner Australia's 100 might prove a bit more difficult.

Well we're about to find out, as Lao-Gui takes to the air!

An excellent start to the jump too...

You know I was wrong about Lillian's jump. What we are now watching now has to be the most unique ski jump EVER!

Indeed who would have guessed something so bulky as an armoured Dinosaur would look so graceful in the air?

For those who were wondering Lao-Gui name in Chinese means Ancient Turtle.

I wasn't Gus, but I guess after today no one will be able to say Loud Gway is an old fart after today.

Actually Peter, in her native China the turtle is seen a being of great wisdom and patience. So I don't think the name would carry the same demeaning nature it does here in North America. That and you said her name wro...

So like I said I don't think anyone will make fun of our flying turtle again.

Oh no! but what a short lived time in the air! Landing at the mere 1 metre mark!

It would appear China's plan on using its most compact heavy weight has completely backfired! As Lao-Gui lands within a moment of taking off. What a shame for Team China, who now take third.

Sadly a very easy to out do third though Peter.

Indeed Gus, and I think the Americans are keen to seize it too! Team America has opted for a light weight jumper much like Australia.

Yes only this one has a heavy something or other. Starting with a k?

That would be head, Gus. It says head.

Look dude, you're hand writing isn't that good.

The American jumper, Bronko the Stygimoloch, weighing in at about twice the weight of Rang may present Australia with their real first challenge to their first place jump. Only unlike the truly light weight Leaellynasauras, Bronko's head is made of dense armoured bone. Possibly giving him a little more propolution, and the edge to victory.

Or we might see a combination of both Rang and Lao-Gui's jumps.

How would that work? The best and the worst jumps put together, what we'd get the medium jump?

Hey don't look at me. This commentator thing is hard. I just said it is it seemed a natural connection.

Well we'll find out if this is the unlikely combination Gus predicts, or if the Americans are about to make Dinosaur Olympic history!

I didn't predict...

Shhhhh Bronko is taking off!

And a good take off so far.

Bronko is making this look easy. Even more so than Rang from Australia did.

Indeed, perfect form up there. However I can't help but notice Bronko is holding his head very oddly.

I see what you mean Gus. It would appear our Pachycephalosaur is using his very heavy head to steer to a greater degree than our previous jumpers.

Oh and it looks like it is going to pay off for our hard headed American jumper!

Bronko still hasn't touched down as he passes the 70 metre mark... now the 80!... Oh my the 90... and Bronko will come down on the 96 metre mark! A mere 4 metres from first place!!!

That must be real frustrating to Team American.

Yet to jump into second place, that isn't too bad.

Indeed, putting our standings currently at Australia in first, America in second, Canada in third, and China in fourth. However our last jumper of the day from Team Gondwana could very well change all this.

That's right Gus, as Team Gondwana is taking heavy weight ski jumping to its extreme! Both Team China and Team Canada fielded Dinosaur jumpers who weighed a "mere" 2 tons. Gondwana's Sansom the Spinosaur comes in at a whopping 8 tons! Meaning we'll really get to see if there is anything in sending such huge jumpers down our hill today!

Indeed Peter. So far we've seen that the lighter and more agile jumpers have had the most like in gliding down the hill. Our heavy weights however have both had different problems. In the case of China it was too much weight and their jumper simply fell out of the air right away. Canada on the other hand had a descent jump, but that weight just didn't propell their jumper enough to beat the light weights from gliding past.

However if a 2 ton Albertosaur can shot 67 metres, will a 8 ton Spinosaur go that much further?

We are about to find out, as here goes Sansom!

Nice form in the initial take off. I don't know, Gus, based on the speed and air this massive theropod has so far, I'm thinking Australia and America could be in trouble.

I'm agreeing Peter. Though Sansom isn't gliding gracefully, his weight is carrying him like a cannon ball. I think his target is gold too!

Oh but what is this?!?

We're seeing Sansom experience some trouble midair!

What's happening?

I think the wind is catching the giant sail on Sansom's back! Oh no and it is blowing Gondwana's jumper off course...

Sansom is coming down the finally stage of the hill, but he is looking really out of control ladies and gentlemen!

This is going to be close folks! Currently he has just passed the 90 metre mark, meaning if he can land this Sansom will clinch victory for Team Gondwana...

OH NO!
OH NO!

Sansom has landed in the audience... Thank goodness I required those release forms with ever ticket!

Oh this is terrible. Not only does Team Gondwana come in last for not landing, but now its jumper and many spectaters could be seriously hurt...

We're getting reports that Sansom, apart from a hurt ego, has managed to pick himself up and is okay.

Hows that Peter?

It appears uh... several patrons broke his fall.

Yuck!

Indeed Gus.

Well there you have it. Team Australia wins the event, the United States comes in second, and Canada comes in third.

So be sure to tune in later this week as our coverage of the first ever Dinosaur Winter games continues! In the meantime I have some free tickets to give out to some mad squished people!

wait are those people going to be mad at me for funding the OH-lympics?

peter has now repeatedly assured me no one was permenantly squished from having the full grown bull spinosaur land on them. does that mean they were temporarily squished then? how can you be temporarliy squished?...

To be Continued:

With more events. So like the commentators said stay tuned!

fossil of the weekend! #67

2010-05-04T10:14:00.002-06:00

a rather lovely original skull of a champsosaur, the "crocodile lizard" which is the perfect name for this critter. despite its crocodilian appearance, champsosaurs were a type of lizard like reptile that independantly reentered the water and evolved very similar characteristics to crocs. a perfect example of convergent evolution, where two animals living the same life style tend to evolve similar (but yet subtley different) means of living that same life.

looming doom... the OH-lympics are on!!!

2010-04-29T17:40:00.000-06:00

i won't lie. i'm kind of angry people of the web wide world...

angry at the one guy i thought i could trust... my special talent agent peter bond.

i'd given him money to take lillian the albertosaur around the world and try to reclaim her lost fame... i didn't give it to him to fund these dinosaur OH-lympics of his! i currently have nothing left. meaning i'm stranded here in canada!

peter assures me that if these OH-lympics are a success i'll not only make my money back, but a lot more... which is fine and dandy, assuming he is right... but how often do things work out in my life?!?

meaning my only hope of getting back to new zealand is to go ahead with these crazy games of peter's... otherwise i'm doomed.

although speaking of doom, i have to say the start to these games are turning out to be very scary!!!

peter took aside the whole of team canada, which consisted of myself, norman a. centrosaurus, and lillian to tell us about the first event. immediately we dinosaurs could all tell something epic was about to go down. literally go down too! as looming behind peter was the first venue of the dinosaur winter OH-lympics...

this first game was something called ski jumping... which no, unlike its name does not mean you're trying to train a ski to leap or something (uh not that that's what i thought it was at first or anything...).

no apparently, in this human sport, the skis are strapped onto you and you jump off of a giant tower which only serves the purpose of being there for people with skis strapped on them to jump off of! how crazy is that?!? to my human readers, seriously what is going through your heads when you come up with these crazy "sports"?

(i guess i should mention that the giant tower has a ramp attached to it... making the jump a bit more interesting than a straight down plunge... i guess)

than came the tense moment, when we were going to decide who was going to jump off the big tower... there was good news in this, only one of us would have to do it. the bad news was that one of us would have to do it...

there was no way i was going jump off that tower!!! sadly for me my other two teammates had the same stance on the topic as i did...

"come on now team canada!" peter tried to rally us. "we need to show the world who the best is, and we can't do that if you're all too afraid to even step forward to the challenge."

"he thinks the jumping is the challenging part," norman muttered aloud for us all to hear.

"i'm more worried about the landing myself," i pointed out.

lillian rather than focus on the choosing issue, asked peter a very pointed, and frankly good question. "why are you telling us all this and selecting one of us now? can't this wait till we're up on the tower at least? when we can see exactly what we are doing."

"YEAH!!!" me and norman piped in together. it was a good point, why weren't we at the top of the tower?

"well my canuck-osauruses," peter cautioned. "the price we pay as the host team, is that unfortunately during events i won't be able to be your acting coach."

this didn't phase us as much as i think peter wanted it too. he'd been expecting a big gushing or something. however the lot of us just looked at each other unsure why this was a big deal... of course, none of us had ever participated in any sports before. we were going to find out all too soon why having a coach is a good thing.

with our lack of concern about his absence, peter pushed things back to selecting our ski jumper.

"i only have two skis," peter outlined. "so i need a biped to jump."

norman let out a sigh of relief. me and lillian nervously looked at each other. though i just knew that peter was going to select me. between me and lillian (norman to come to think of it) i was the most adaptive and human like out of the lot of us. if one of us was going to stand a chance of making this jump alive it was me.

which is why i was completely thrown for a loop when peter said. "now as the point of this sport is to travel the furthest, i'm reckoning weight will be the most important factor of the skier. so lillian as coach i'm picking you."

phew! i thought for a moment. then it hit me... i may not have been plunging to my doom, but the girl of my dreams about about to!!!

before i could speak up in protest, peter started to take off away from the ski jump. "okay gang, break a leg... oh right, don't do that! make canada proud and bring us home a gold instead!"

bring back some metal ore? what did that have do with speeding off a tower on two planks of wood?

before he was out of sight peter added. "oh and while the events going on, tune into channel 299 and let me know how i do."

what?!?

so while lillian is potentially learning why tyrannosaurs weren't the direct relatives of birds, peter would be doing what exactly?

to be continued: with leaping lizards!

fossil of the weekend! #66

2010-04-25T09:51:00.000-06:00

stupid innerweb! i had this post all set to go up for this weekend... as i was going to be busy with the first OH-lympic event (working on the post as we speak!). here was what you should have gotten this weekend...

a cast of the cool transitional Tiktaalik, not a fish but not quite an amphibian. a "missing link" if you will, not that that term is used anymore... as this guy probably isn't directly related to amphibians but rather an off shot from the lineage. yet he still gives us an insight into what this transitionary form sort of looked like!

Backyard Dinosaur #1

2010-04-23T15:10:00.003-06:00

i've been a bad little dinosaur. i haven't been keeping up with my cousin of the week feature. not just for a little while. for a whole four months!
`

so rather than be dishonest about keeping up with that project, i'm going to reboot it into a new format. after hearing a talk by Dr. Scott Sampson, i've been really enamoured with his concept of birds being "backyard dinosaurs". so that's what i'm going to call my bird feature of the week from now. (as for my encounter with dr. sampson, stay tuned it's coming up in the olympics!)
`

our first backyard dinosaur is this little downy woodpecker (Picoides pubescens). i found it due to the rhythmic taps its beak made on the telephone pole , as it tried to bore through the dead wood to get at some insect or insect larva borrowing inside.

(as a big part of dr. sampson's message about backyard dinosaurs is for people to try and discover lessons from nature in our own lives... i'm going to include a small backyard challenge for you each week. if you have a great backyard discovery tell us about it in the comment section!)

backyard challenge:

take 5 minutes one day and watch what sorts of birds come into your backyard and which parts and things in your yard they make use of.

i bet you'll be amazed at how adaptive all those birds are, and just how things in your backyard they make use of. human made or natural! my woodpecker was making heavy use of that phone pole, something we usually take for granted everyday as a people thing, not used by nature at all...

fossil of the weekend! #65

2010-04-19T11:45:00.001-06:00

a cast skull of carnotaurus on display at the royal tyrrell museum.

the re-launch of ask a biologist!

2010-04-18T08:22:00.000-06:00

who says you can't make a good thing better? (not me anyway :P)

the awesome science folks over on ask a biologist have just revamped their site to better handle and answer your biologic and palaeontologic questions!!!

so be sure to pop over and ask them a question today on their re-debut!

the price i pay...

2010-04-16T13:41:00.000-06:00

i forgot how much i liked vancouver.

as far as human cities go this one has to be among my favourites. especially at night...

can you blame me really? it is just so pretty at night.

as much as i would have liked to just linger and enjoy the coloured darkness of vancouver i had business to attend to.

that business being the dinosaur OH-lympics organized by my special talent agent peter bond. he'd summoned a bunch of other dinosaur from around the world and wanted us all to compete against each other in some winter sports...
`

the problem is i had no idea how or why.

`
peter organized a meeting to discuss just that. funny enough he picked the same place where we first met, and i signed him on as my special talent agent...
`

i immediately complained how peter hadn't given me any notice before committing me to these "OH-lympics" of his. "traum, baby when you're dealing in the world of talent and fame you have to be ready to react to opportunities in an instant," he tried to assure me.

`
"what about the opportunities in new york?" i demanded.
`

"ah yes, new york," peter paused, as he seems to a lot, and after moment. "though new york was defiantly chance for lillian to regain her status as a museum attraction. it would have been just that, regaining. she'd have been nothing more than she was before. lillian would be just another dinosaur in a museum. these olympics could very well catapult her to a whole new level of stardom and fame. besides you were getting nothing out of our being in new york."
`

i was getting lots i thought! i was giving the girl of my dreams happiness and a chance at the life she'd always wanted. through that i was hoping i'd gain a lot more. her heart namely! not that these OH-lympics were hurting that plan, i had to hand it too peter. if anything this put me in position to collect on my winnings if they were to be had!
`

that and it would be nice if things were to go my way too!
`

good now that i had that rant out of my system time to get to these OH-lympics.
`

peter outlined how he was hoping to run several events for us dinosaurs. some of them i'd heard of like ice hockey and uh... okay ice hockey was the only one i'd heard of. i am a canadian dinosaur afterall :P
`

some of these other ones though... figure skating, whats that? the skinniest on the ice wins? cross-country skiing, man why couldn't he have organized that in a nice small country like new zealand? canada is way to big to ski across! ski jumping sounds silly. even i know that skis aren't alive or have legs capable of jumping! curling just sounds like we're all going to get sick tummies! bob-sled takes the cake as the sport that sounds the most ridiculous! none of us dinosaurs are even named bob, why not dino sled or saurus sled... oh wait sledosaurus!
`
peter then grabbed my glass and clanged his own into mine... i'm not sure why. he called it a toast, but i KNOW that happens to be a breakfast with bread (something i would never have! it would make my carnivorous tummy upset). "here's to the olympics!"

still not sure what this had to do with breakfast toast, i asked. "where's to them?"

"what?" peter asked me back.

"you said 'here's to the OH-lympics', but that doesn't make sense. they're not here now, and you didn't give me proper directions to where they're going to be," i pointed out, not sure why this was confusing peter... though i guess if he always gives bad directions like that he might not understand my problem.

peter just laughed. "good one, traum," i just blinked. "okay never mind," peter dismissed the whole conversation. "moving on then."

i saw a good point to bring up something i'd wanted to say in relation to the OH-lympics. "it sure was nice of the city to let us host the games here," i complimented our large host. "you must have asked them really nice."

peter chuckled confidently. "nothing says please like several thousand dollars."

i paused thinking about that for a second. "where did you get that much money?"

"from you of course," peter pointed out.

"WHAT?!?" i yelled.

people from all over the restaurant started to look at us really funny. "finish your drink, and calm down!" peter instructed me as he looked frantically around worried about all the probing eyes.

as i angrily chugged on my vanilla cola, peter anxiously sipped on his drink, a metro something or other. i'd given peter permission to fund a world tour for him and lillian. i hadn't given him permission to use my money for funding big sporting events!

i didn't have that much money to begin with... just a museum security guard's meager savings.

peter finally finished, and more to the point was comfortable that no one was watching us argue anymore. "look big guy, i know it sounds like a lot of money, but you can't make money if you don't spend money."

"i wasn't wanting to make money!" i stated. "i just wanted you to make lillian famous again!"

`
"not want to make..." peter couldn't believe his ears.
`
"what have i been paying for?" i wondered outloud.

"nothing much," peter started. "just the application of a event to the city, renting the venues, insuring the venues, the flights for all the competitors and their coaches, renting a TV studio and equipment, oh speaking of which i'm going to need to buy a suit for when i am doing the play by plays, hiring an artist to make the games logo, and..." he looked up to my glare. "well you get the idea traum."

"how much do i have left? " i demanded.

peter looked sort of sheepish. "not much."

"how am i supposed to get back to new zealand and my job?!?"

"ah now there you have nothing to worry about," peter tried to calm me down. "see with all the marketing tie ins i'm hoping this will generate we'll see you getting double your investment back out of this little venture," i didn't look convinced. "come on traum, with all big name museums i'm drawn into the games how can we not make a mint?"

i just looked away overwhelmed. a tiny part of my tiny brain had wondered if it was a good idea to give peter total access to my money... now i knew!

noting my concerns peter tried to summarize. "look traum, i know this looks like it was a waste of your money, but i assure you i've only spent money where it was absolutely needed! from here on in we won't spend anymore unless it is absolutely necessary!"

i'd paid for the whole thing to happen, but for what reason? simply to make back what i'd spent on it in the first place! there was no guarantee with all these other dinosaurs around me and lillian would come out as the stars of the whole thing. more to the point, what did peter consider absolutely necessary spending?

as if to answer my question fireworks broke out on the harbour! oh man, i better not be paying for those too!!!

`
peter noticing my anxiety. "oh yeah, i forgot about those."

what am i going to do people of the innerweb?... especially now that we were in the thick of it all. i couldn't pull the plug now can i?

next: preparation for the first event!

fossil of the weekend! #64

2010-04-11T22:23:00.002-06:00

a large ammonite on display at the royal tyrrell museum. this particular specimen exhibits the rather unique preservation known as ammolite. this is only known to occur in ammonites fossilized near the northern rocky mountains.

the photo doesn't do it credit, this shell actually refracts the whole light spectrum rather like a CD or DVD. very pretty and cool! these particular shells (coming from a common and well understood species) are mined for use in jewelry. due to its beauty and abundance in the province, ammolite is alberta's official gemstone.

the final team... or is it?

2010-04-07T12:42:00.000-06:00

well today certainly wasn't panning out how i'd envisioned it...

i'd actually nearly had a real romantic date with lillian! of course right at the last minute everything had gone weird... not wrong mind you (i was this close to a nose nuzzle!) just weird.

for you see, our special talent agent peter bond had finally organized his big plan for us finding fame here at the OH-lympics. he'd called in a bunch of other vivus-dinosaurs from various museums from around the world, and wanted us all to compete against each other. the problem is that all those other dinosaurs showed up right in the middle of my date!!!

as all the other dinosaurs were in teams of 3 representing different parts of the world (china, the united states of america, gondwana, and australia) this left me and lillian with the obvious questions of what team were we on, and with who else?

so the two of us went hunting for our talent agent in hopes of tracking down some answers to these open questions...

as we walked lillian told me the best thing i'd heard since i'd arrived here in vancouver. "i had a lovely afternoon traumador."

"really?" i responded in anticipation. lillian nodded (a human trait she'd picked up from her years as a museum attraction... theropods don't naturally nod in agreements). i had to ask. "would you like to do it again when we get a chance?"

"yes," she definitely stated. though added a moment later. "if peter gives us a chance."

though it wasn't the best joke ever we both chuckled...

then it dawned on me, just like that i had another date with lillian! were we "going out" now? i had no clue... partially as i had no clue what that meant, i'd just heard it on TV a lot when the people on it were dating a lot. which doesn't make sense! i'd already gone out with lillian. didn't that mean we were just going out again?

we were quickly getting closer to where peter told us to meet him, and a strange but familiar smell built in the air. unlike during our date, both me and lillian could tell you the source of this smell, as our instincts started our mouths watering a bit...

there was a ceratopsian nearby!... and a human too, but our tyrannosaurian instincts picked up the horned dinosaur first. on the beach earlier we hadn't recognized the other dinosaurs smells immediately as most of them were completely foreign to our prehistoric albertan instincts.

as we came around the corner the question of who our teammate was got answered. standing with peter was my childhood friend norman a. centrosaurus!!!

this was a welcome sight, for in all the craziness that was my trip to calgary, i hadn't managed to properly say good bye to norman as i'd promised i would. cool, with him on my team i'd get to visit with him a whole bunch more!

norman honked a greeting at us (or just me, i'm not sure), which i did my best to return (my tyrannosaurid throat is just not designed for the noise. i have enough trouble with english!). this caused lillian to look at me really funny though...

peter not noticing lillian's sudden hostile stance happily greeted us. "ah good, the rest of team canada has arrived!"

well that ended all the wondering, and it all made sense. ignoring that me and lillian had effectively been exiled from the country, the three of us were all canadian dinosaurs originally. better yet we'd all grown up in the same town!

not that we'd all gotten along back in those days... which was appearing to be a problem now!

peter started blabbing on about our "game plan" for the dinosaur OH-lympics... which if i caught it all right (i was heavily distracted as you'll see) entailed us winning, and not much else in line of a plan...

however had he been paying attention behind him, our team was not off to a very good start. lillian started growling at norman rather aggressively. norman being a ceratopsian instinctively responded with threatening snorts.

oh crud! i'd totally forgotten this facet of lillian. despite not wanting to join the pack of the primordial feather, she was still a pretty pure tyrannosaurid when it came down to it. like most other vivus-theropods, lillian has a real disdain for "prey" animals, and ceratopsians and hadrosaurs are at the top of her dislike list. meaning she was viewing norman as a dinner on legs, and not an equal worthy of being on a team with her!

as for norman he is pretty impartial about the whole theropod vs. none theropod issue, having hung out with me and zendin throughout his childhood. in fact me and him owe a lot of our outcast status to our tolerance of each other. however if you are hostile to norman than his stubborn ceratopsian tendencies boil to the surface, and he'll quickly take a disliking to you. which was just what had happened between him and lillian!

peter ended his little peep talk on the most ironic line he could have picked! "so here's to a united team canada. let's smoke the rest of the world!"

a united team... man, peter couldn't have been further from the reality of our members right now. even if he'd tried. sure i could get along with either one of them perfectly fine. lillian and norman on the other hand were already close to mortal enemies!

go canada go? oh man...

next: the costs of OH-lympics!

let the games begin...

2010-04-03T17:04:00.000-06:00

my special talent agent peter bond has been up to a lot for these OH-lympics of his!

there i was minding my own business (and trying to woe lillian) on the beach of west vancouver, when suddenly (exactly) a dozen other dinosaurs showed up here in vancouver?!?

the progress i'd been making with lillian instantly came to a halt, and the two of us were suddenly confronted with the mystery of all these other vivus-dinosaurs. they clearly hadn't been here in town the whole time unknown to us, as vancouver doesn't really have anywhere with dinosaurs, such as a museum. so they'd clearly all just arrived, but why?

pretty quickly we both learned all these dinosaurs had specifically been summoned by peter, and been told to find us here at the beach. all so the "winter games" could begin in the next couple of days.

this sounded really stupid to me (and i'm the saurian with a brain the size of a peanut!), what winter games? peter had brought me and lillian here for the OH-lympics, why were all these dinosaurs here to play some silly games.

i very quickly got the answer to this question. it turns out the OH-lympics are just a fancy word for playing games... why no one had bothered to tell me it that way is beyond me. its not that complicated!...

apparently the human OH-lympics had just ended, and as of such peter had organized his dinosaur winter games to start right now when everyone would be starting suffering "OH-lympic withdrawal" (whatever that means?).

i was informed that in addition to all of us dinosaurs be expected to play a bunch of games, we were also expected to do so on teams. normally humans apparently competed on behalf of their country of origin... however peter had some slight troubles getting dinosaurs from the same modern countries for his games...

part of this was that peter had been contacting museums that were known to have a lot of vivus-dinosaurs under their care. as most museums in the world don't have many of us living dinosaurs in their collections, this left peter with a pretty limited list. of those museums that did have a few vivuses kicking around, peter quickly found that many had collected their dinosaurs from different countries than where the museum itself was based. meaning that he had trouble putting together proper OH-lympic teams from some institutions...

the a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vdMpbAB0DRI/S7NeNxeSENI/AAAAAAAANZQ/JxstGXlap2c/s1600/team+gondwanna+intro+pip.jpg" though not all of them. for example direct from the beijing institute of vertebrate paleontology and paleoanthropology (IVPP) came...

TEAM CHINA

china we learned had been the only country in the world with a single institution with a big enough collection of vivus-dinosaurs to field a team from a single country! apparently they had been spoiled for choice, but had decided to send their team of 3 (all the teams were 3 saurians we learned) of a pinacosaurus, psittacosaurus, and a tsintaosaurus. the whole lot struck me as a little gruff, but they were plant eaters confronted with two of their ancestral predators... relatives of their prehistoric nemesis tarbosaurus no less!

their human coach seemed a nice enough fellow though (all the teams of dinosaurs were accompanied by a human). he friendly tried to explain parts of peter's plans... at least those parts he knew. it was becoming clear bond was the only one with full knowledge of what was going on.

besides the IVPP the only other museum that had been able to field its own singular team was the chicago field museum... however there was a slight catch with this team. unlike the american museum that had sent them, the dinosaurs on this team were from all over the modern globe. however in prehistory they could all gave been said to be from the same general region...

TEAM GONDWANA

chicago's team was representing the long split up southren super continent of gondwana. this had once been made up of antarctica, south america, africa, australia, india, and new zealand. of course the three chicago dinosaurs couldn't possibly be from all six of these modern continents, but it turned out they were all from africa or south america.

this team didn't seem to get along very well. despite their human coaches rather chipper example. the giganotosaurus openly (if you read theropod body language like me and lillian instinctively do) viewed her teammates with disdain, and the small heterodontosaurus clearly was uneasy being forced in such close proximity to two drastically bigger theropods. only the spinosaurus seemed to be enjoying the situation, but i think he was more looking forward to the games than being with his teammates...

if there was a team that looked like a truly organized and together team it had to be...

TEAM AMERICA

the only problem with this real professional attitude on the part of both the dinosaurs and coach, was that they were looking at all the rest of us kind of hostilely.

peter hadn't found any one museum in the united states able (or willing) to send all 3 dinosaurs needed for an american team. he did find however that several museums of the mid west were willing to each send a single dinosaur to the games.
`

so we ended up with a montanan einiosaurus, a wyoming stygimoloch, and a coloradoan stegosaurus. despite their geographic separation (and geologic too come to think of it!), the lot of them all seemed to know each other quite well. i guess their museums are all on good terms with each other or something.

team america was certainly seeming quite the united front for when we got the games underway. i just hope they were here to have fun...

which brought us to the last obvious team, which if america was super team-like, than this team certainly was not!

TEAM AUSTRALIA

at first we didn't notice the team from down under, as they were behind all the others scattered. at least at first. you see, the two smallest members had run off from their larger more serious team mate. as the two of them chased each other around the large muttaburrasaurus trailed behind trying to discipline the two of them.

it wasn't till they started wrestling and the mutta caught up and yelled at them, that me and lillian really notice them. (muttaburrasaurus have a very loud call on account of that big chamber on their nose... it is hard to miss one "yelling")
`

of all the dinosaurs so far gathered the two small australian team members were the only ones i'd previously met. these were of course rang and boom the leaellynasauras who i'd met in australia a couple years ago. despite the deafening bellows of their large muttaburrasaur team mate the two obviously kept horsing around with each other... good to see somethings don't change, uh i guess.

i didn't dislike the leaellynausauras, but i wasn't overly excited at seeing them again. however i suddenly was rather happy when i saw who the australian coach was!

it was my boss ms. rhonwyn! before she knew it i'd launched a mega hug on her.

"calm down there big guy!" ms. rhonwyn pleaded, somewhat out of breath due to my strong hug around her wind pipe. despite my tiny arms, they are quite powerful. i need to remember that next time i hug someone! oops.

i was very excited to see her, as it had been a long time since i'd be to work (for some reason :P). though before i could catch up with her it suddenly dawned on me. "you're not a sports coach!"

"no," ms. rhonwyn replied back somewhat confused as to why i'd made the link with her and a coach.

"all the other teams have coaches for these games," i answered urgently.

"are you kidding," ms. rhonwyn dismissed. "we're all just representatives from our museum or institution who've tagged along to make sure your friend mr. bond doesn't put any of our vivus fossils into harms way with these games of his."

on that note, ms. rhonwyn clearly knew some of the other "coaches", as the chinese tender eagerly waved and called a greeting in chinese. ms. rhonwyn responded back in the same language, i have to keep remembering her speciality is in chinese culture not dinosaurs! she'd been to china several times, and i'd wager she knew the chinese coach from one of these trips.

than something occurred to me. "what team are me and lillian on?" i more thought aloud than ask of ms. rhonwyn.

"you'll have to take that up with your 'coach'," ms. rhonwyn answered much to my surprise. "mr. bond assured us that he was fielding a team. you were on the roster last i checked."

i blinked. peter had mentioned nothing about this to either me or lillian, and the games by all accounts started tomorrow! if me and lillian were going to be part of them and become famous (as part of peter's plan) we were going to need a third team member!

who could peter have contacted? more to the point what country could me and lillian represent? we were two exiled tyrannosaurids... there weren't too many more of those kicking around...

next: the home team!

fossil of the weekend! #63

2010-04-03T14:58:00.002-06:00

the mounted cast skeleton of my aunt black beauty (a tyrannosaurus rex, of course) at the royal tyrrell museum. in anticipation of their upcoming 25th anniversary display!