Although it's been around for a while, I saw the Star Wars version of Da Vinci's Last Supper today via Digg.

It's a neat piece, and I think the artist did a great job of capturing the style of the poses in the shot, but the positioning of characters is really, really weak. He does, however, note that he wanted Anakin to be in the Christ position, but that the magazine editors kiboshed it. Way to know your stories, knobs -- how could you possibly do this picture and *not* put Anakin/Vader in the middle? And, who the hell is supposed to be Judas? Han? I can't see any justification for that; I can't fathom using the Last Supper imagery and not at least trying to match the characters to approximate equivalents.

Two minutes of research dug up the About.com Art History page on Da Vinci's painting, with a chart of who's who, as well as Bibleinfo's descriptions of each of the disciples.

Here's how I would have positioned characters (left to right), assuming that you wanted to try and incorporate characters from both trilogies:

Bartholomew: Leia (The Sincere Disciple, of royal birth)
James the Elder: Darth Maul (The Unknown Disciple)
Andrew: Qui-Gon Jinn (The First Called Disciple)
Judas: Palpatine (The Betrayer)
Peter: Luke (The Primary Disciple)
John: Amidala/Padme (The Youngest Disciple; the Beloved)
Christ: Vader
Thomas: Mace Windu (The Doubter, right?)
James Major: R2D2 (The Quiet Disciple)
Philip: C3P0 (The Analytical Disciple)
Matthew: Boba Fett (The Tax Collector)
Thaddeus: Han (The Misunderstood Disciple)
Simon: Chewbacca (The Zealous Disciple)

Some of my choices do actually match with the artist's choices, but I think many, if not most, of the positions were really more about aesthetics than representational. What do you think?

(I've noticed that I start a lot of entries with So...)
So, I'm playing the solo dad game this week, as Frances is off at General Council of the United Church of Canada, which is supposedly a big deal for all involved. The level of big-dealishness for those not involved is debatable, but I digress...

Anyways, yesterday, Gareth came charging upstairs, uttering those six words that strike fear into the lives of any parent:

"Dad, Naomi's cutting her own hair!"

I charge downstairs, and this is what I find:

Mother...of....God....

Could single parenting get any worse?

Here are the results:

Before:

During:

After:

It'll be an interesting test to see if Frances finds out about this first from me personally, or from this site. Pray for me, dear readers, pray for me...

UPDATE: She knows. She laughed. I'm safe.

A dearth of blogging (partially because of a dearth of internet access, partially because of a dearth of time) means a large summary today and/or of the salient points in several blog entries in a row.

In Biblical style, the last will be first – and man, was the last a doozy.

We left Sunday morning from a great couple of days in Edmonton, visiting sis and brother Susan and Andrew and their kids. All had a good time, and Andrew sent me home with about a pound of frozen hops for beermaking, of four different varieties. In this picture right, you’ll see why, with these on board, we decided that taking the usual, slightly-faster route across the U.S. border and back into Canada would be ill-advised:

Frances was humored enough herself, just by opening the cooler. I’d hear a snigger every time we needed anything out of the cooler. “Do you have any rolling papers?” was the standing joke of the evening.

The terrible part of the day, however, happened about 15 minutes after Frances uttered the deadly phrase, “We’re making really good time today!”

Observe the picture below:

This picture was taken, somewhat lightheartedly, when we noticed the dog had climbed up from her perch in the back of the van, on top of the camping gear and the suitcases in the back.

“Indy, get down!” everybody yelled at her, mostly in fun.

Seconds later, she did. And seconds after that, a horrendous smell emanated from the back of the van. A smell of the “What foul depths of fecal hell unleashed that stench, and where can we drop the napalm to eliminate it?” variety.

Indy had, if you’ll pardon the foul language, shit everywhere.

Apparently, the bison rib we gave her the night before had cataclysmic repercussions.
We stopped as quickly as we could, and, with both children sitting in their seats, holding their noses, we opened the back of the van.

Oh. My. God.

Now, anyone who knows Frances and I, knows that we complement each other well. Frances handles bodily waste issues well, and I’m a pro at dealing with blood and guts. Both of us shun the other’s respective, uh, ability, however. For the first time, I can honestly say that my gorge rose as I was visually assaulted by the scene before us.

Without going into more detail than anyone can possibly need, Indy had somehow managed to hit, in no particular order, three suitcases, one cardboard wine box, thankfully sealed, two plastic containers of camping gear, one seatbelt, two pieces of carpet, one package of marshmallows, one beach towel, and an appalling amount of the van interior plastic.

One hour, six garbage bags, two dishtowels, one beach towel, half a package of diaper wipes and a $9 bottle of Febreze later, we were back on the road – and no longer making good time.