a personal autograph... yet not so personal

[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...

drawn in...

[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.]

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

[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.]

yet another action packed day here at the first ever vivus dinosaur convention.

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

[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!

my hatchling hero!

[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

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!!!

boy are our faces pink...

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!!!

ferryness

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!

a new friend?

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...

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!!!

caught between a tyrannosaur and a ceratopsian...

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?