Hello, Viking.

There's a woman in Trent's office, Arlene, and Trent talks about her all the time. Arlene is one of those women who seems to know something about everything. She and her husband are snowbirds, and while spending Christmas in Florida, they learned to deep-fry a turkey. Her husband used to be a Nascar mechanic, and so they told Trent how to install some sort of fuel-saving... gizmo in Grillface. And last week, Arlene discovered that, this fall, they are filming a movie about aliens that arrive on Earth in 500 A.D. and have to fight the Vikings. Don't dwell too much on the plot. The thing that you need to know is that they are casting Vikings. Fair-haired, red-bearded, enormous, klobberbonking Vikings. Here in Halifax.

So Trent and I set up a backdrop and some lights in the basement and take a hundred or so photos of ourselves. A couple of them turn out pretty good, so we photoshop them into headshots, and I fenangle us both some performance resumes (Performance History: Ghouly Doctor, Spooktacular 2001, ...). Then we take them to the film office downtown. Trent has just come out of a big meeting at the waterfront, and is looking particularly hot in his borwn Tristan & America suit. We find the film office, which is on the ground floor (i.e. half-basement) of one of those old Victorian houses at the end of Barrington Street. The ceilings are, of course, about three inches above his head. I walk in first and hand my envelope to a guy at the desk.

"This is for Outlander," I say. "We hear you're looking for Vikings. I know I'm a bit of a long shot, but he looks like a Viking."

"I should," Trent says. "It's in my genes."

It must have been Christmas and Natal Day (Halifax August holiday, folks) all in one in that film office. The two other staff members instantly stop their phone conversations and start firing questions at Trent. Will you be around in October? Will you be available? Is your phone number on your resume? The guy to whom we've handed our envelopes tries to collect himself and shuffles through Trent's resume. "Yes, everything seems to be here. Nothing left out." Boy, am I glad I remembered to include Spooktacular on his performance history. "We can't guarantee you a part in the film," he says, putting Trent's resume on the top of the pile.

"But can you please start growing your beard now?" the other woman adds quickly before we leave the office.

Of course, nothing is set. I know that. But I can't help but feel that things went very differently from the Brad Pitt Jesse James film that Trent and our old neighbours Greg, Nadine and Garry went to audition for in Edmonton. For one thing, we didn't end up drinking mimosas at 9 in the morning instead of auditioning. That's promising, isn't it?