Muse's song Supermassive Black Hole has been at the top of my playlist on my MP3 player and my PC's media library since I first heard it. And yes, I bought the CD. Today is the first time I had ever seen the video:


This video either stinks or I just don't get it. Artistic and creepy though. Two things I usually like, but it doesn't work for me somehow. Perhaps they were going for that mid-80's look. They do kind of sound like that. Maybe the video takes away from what I already imagined about the song.

I still love their music and hope to see Muse live this summer at the Virgin Festival at Thunderbird Stadium on May 20 and 21, 2007.

%++Table(digg2)++%
Watch the video at pitchpage.com

I laughed really hard at this. Probably because it's true! Zack is 100% correct.

Just an aside. Roz McNulty, the President and founder of pitchpage.com (a place for film industry professionals to showcase their demo reels via streaming video) helped me to get my very first paying gig in the movies. Thanks Roz! You rock.

ALERT!: There are some extreme NSFW lyrics in this song. Cover the kids' ears too. Biatch!

Canadian crooner Michael Bublé is nominated for a Grammy Award for best traditional pop vocal album, but plans to stay home and watch the Vancouver Canucks play on the night of the awards ceremony.

The Vancouver artist, competing for the award with fellow Canadian Sarah McLachlan, said he's boycotting the Feb. 11 event in Los Angeles because his category will not be presented live on TV...

More at CBC.ca Arts - Bublé plans to give up Grammys for hockey game

Good for you Michael Bublé: 'Gimme the award live or I'm staying home to watch the Canucks.' In fact you can come over here to watch if you like.

Nice!

I wonder how long it took the rednecks to notice?

Windows Vista is to released to "39,000" stores on January 30, 2007 (35 minutes from this writing) so Bill Gates was on The Daily Show being harassed by Jon Stewart to promote it. They kept him on longer than they do most guests. I guess when you have the richest man in the world cornered you want as much of his time as you can get. I can't afford Windows Vista right now anyway. I'm not really sure I really want it right away regardless. I'll wait until the bugs are worked out a bit.

Unless... Hey Bill can I have $479 for a copy of Vista Ultimate DVD edition like you gave Jon Stewart?

More proof that Luongo rocks! He seems to be a modest hard working guy who loves his job. Nice!

Tonight's score 3-1 Canucks over the Sharks. All due to Roberto's play during the 1st and 2nd periods when the rest of the team was still at home. He gave them the chance to win it and they did. Nice to have a goalie who can steal a game or two. Unlike he who shall not be named, not because he's evil, just because he stinks.

Feed your head!

On my first try. No cheating by googling:

"You scored 10 / 10
... which is the pop equivalent of ...
69 Weeks at Number 1 and a kiss from Beyonce and Usher (one on each cheek)"

Name the Band Quiz

Dad, a retired veterinarian, sent me the video as a wmv file. So I found a version of it on YouTube for you all to enjoy right here:


This kitty sure loves the flushing toilet. I wonder what he's looking at? Perhaps he's likes to watch the water spin around the bowl. Cats are silly, especially that one.

Poor old dog. She needs a bit of help to move a little quicker so it's Photoshop to the rescue.

She's bounced back from her episode quite well. Now all she has is a slight head tilt and walks like she's either been on a boat for a few days or been imbibing a bit too much brew. She has a bit of trouble getting up onto furniture and the kitchen floor freaks her out a bit, but stairs are becoming much less of an issue, with help of course.

I love our dog. She's a nice old gal. We're glad she's such a fighter.

Wanna know pretty much everything about your birthday? If you're as self-centered as I am you do.

Thank goodness for the birthday calculator. Here's what it said about my birthday:

5 August 1969

Your date of conception was on or about 12 November 1968 which was a Tuesday.

You were born on a Tuesday
under the astrological sign Leo.
Your Life path number is 11.

Life Path Compatibility:

You are most compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 2, 4, 8, 11 & 22.

You should get along well with those with the Life Path numbers 3 & 6.
You may or may not get along well with those with the Life Path number 9.
You are least compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 1, 5 & 7.

The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2440438.5.
The golden number for 1969 is 13.
The epact number for 1969 is 11.
The year 1969 was not a leap year.

Your birthday falls into the Chinese year beginning 2/17/1969 and ending 2/5/1970.
You were born in the Chinese year of the Rooster.



Your Native American Zodiac sign is Salmon; your plant is Raspberry.

You were born in the Egyptian month of Paopy, the second month of the season of Poret (Emergence - Fertile soil).

Your date of birth on the Hebrew calendar is 21 Av 5729.
Or if you were born after sundown then the date is 22 Av 5729.

The Mayan Calendar long count date of your birthday is 12.17.15.17.14 which is
12 baktun 17 katun 15 tun 17 uinal 14 kin

The Hijra (Islamic Calendar) date of your birth is Tuesday, 21 Jumadiyu'l-Avval 1389 (1389-5-21).

The date of Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 6 April 1969.
The date of Orthodox Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 13 April 1969.
The date of Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent) on your birth year was Wednesday 19 February 1969.
The date of Whitsun (Pentecost Sunday) in the year of your birth was Sunday 25 May 1969.
The date of Whisuntide in the year of your birth was Sunday 1 June 1969.
The date of Rosh Hashanah in the year of your birth was Saturday, 13 September 1969.
The date of Passover in the year of your birth was Thursday, 3 April 1969.
The date of Mardi Gras on your birth year was Tuesday 18 February 1969.

As of 1/28/2007 2:53:37 AM EST
You are 37 years old.
You are 449 months old.
You are 1,956 weeks old.
You are 13,690 days old.
You are 328,562 hours old.
You are 19,713,773 minutes old.
You are 1,182,826,417 seconds old.

Celebrities who share your birthday:

Kajol (1975)
Adam Yauch (1964)
Patrick Ewing (1962)
Maureen McCormick (1956)
Loni Anderson (1946)
Neil Armstrong (1930)
John Huston (1906)

Top songs of 1969

Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In by Fifth Dimension
In the Year 2525 by Zager & Evans
Get Back by Beatles (with Billy Preston)
Sugar, Sugar by Archies
Honky Tonk Women by Rolling Stones
Everyday People by Sly & the Family Stone
Dizzy by Tommy Roe
Wedding Bell Blues by Fifth Dimension
I Can't Get Next to You by Temptations
Crimson & Clover by Tommy James & the Shondells

Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 5.35812133072407 years old. (You're still chasing cats!)

There are 189 days till your next birthday
on which your cake will have 38 candles.

Those 38 candles produce 38 BTUs,
or 9,576 calories of heat (that's only 9.5760 food Calories!) .
You can boil 4.34 US ounces of water with that many candles.

In 1969 there were approximately 3.7 million births in the US.
In 1969 the US population was approximately 179,323,175 people, 50.6 persons per square mile.
In 1969 in the US there were approximately 1,800,000 marriages (9.3%) and 479,000 divorces (2.5%)
In 1969 in the US there were approximately 1,712,000 deaths (9.5 per 1000)
In the US a new person is born approximately every 8 seconds.
In the US one person dies approximately every 12 seconds.

In 1969 the population of Australia was approximately 12,407,217.
In 1969 there were approximately 250,175 births in Australia.
In 1969 in Australia there were approximately 112,470 marriages and 10,930 divorces.
In 1969 in Australia there were approximately 106,496 deaths.

Your birthstone is Peridot

The Mystical properties of Peridot:

Peridot is used to help dreams become a reality.

Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewelers, Tibet, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources)

Sardonyx, Diamond, Jade

Your birth tree is

Poplar, the Uncertainty

Looks very decorative, no self-confident behaviour, only courageous if necessary, needs goodwill and pleasant surroundings, very choosy, often lonely, great animosity, artistic nature, good organiser, tends to philosophy, reliable in any situation, takes partnership serious.

There are 331 days till Christmas 2007!
There are 344 days till Orthodox Christmas!

The moon's phase on the day you were
born was waning gibbous.

After a difficult day a struggling actor returns to his neighborhood and is shocked to find a cadre of police and fire trucks surrounding the smoldering remains of his house.

Explaining who he was he asks "What happened?"

"Well," one of the officer's says, "It seems that your agent came by your house earlier today and while he was here he attacked your wife, assaulted your children, beat your dog and burned your house to the ground."

The actor is struck speechless, his jaw hanging open in disbelief... "My agent came to my house?"

Thanks to Gregrrr, 1st A.D. extraordinaire for this little film industry giggle. I needed that.

Now back to some humour:


That's what you get when a bunch of bored 12 year olds in 1978 have nothing but time on their hands, cardboard, shitty costumes, a love of the film Jaws, a Super8 camera and tons of imagination. The music and effects were very recently added and no doubt it has been recut as well, but overall a great online video experience. Well done!

I'm a sucker for the shark movie so anything Jaws related immediately gets my thumbs up. It is one of my all time favourite films. It was the very first DVD I ever bought and we've watched it again and again. I think we'll watch it again this weekend.

Speaking of funny Jaws parodies, do you remember the 1975 novelty song Mr Jaws by Dickie Goodman? Whether you do or not, here it is:

You can buy it and more novelty songs like it here.

Okay, now that we've seen something nerdy and sort of dumb lets tak a trip to the other end of the spectrum. While surfing I was introduced to an amazing video via Pistol Wimp. Check it out:

In a rare public appearance, photographer Gregory Colbert shares an astounding film from his exhibit, Ashes and Snow, and announces his new initiative, the Animal Copyright Foundation, which aims to collect royalties from companies using images of nature in their ad campaigns. For more than a decade, Gregory Colbert has traveled the world and collaborated with 40+ species to create "Ashes and Snow," a ground-breaking exhibition of more than 100 photographs and three films, housed in the Nomadic Museum. Colbert's extraordinary sepia-toned images reveal a rarely seen poetic beauty in man's relationship to the animal kingdom. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. at TED Talks Duration: 18:42)

More on Gregory Colbert and the Animal Copyright Foundation on Ethan Zuckerman's blog.

Hopefully there will be a way we can see the rest of this exhibit. Perhaps somehow Carol and I will find enough cash to travel to Tokyo to see the entire exhibit. It's not looking that way right now, but you never know.

We've hit a new low. This is absolutely the nerdiest thing I've ever seen. Although I'd like to learn how to play the Theremin.

From Canucks.com:

SHINING IN DALLAS
Roberto Luongo pitched a shutout in the NHL All-Star skills competition in Dallas Tuesday. He stopped all six skaters he faced in regulation, including Alexander Ovetchkin, to take the overall goaltenders competition.

More NHL All-Star Coverage

I'm looking forward to the game. A buddy is coming over to hang out and watch. I might record it and post some video of my personal highlights later tonight.

Oy the flashbacks. So trippy. I still love The Beatles. Carol bought me the 5.1 surround DVD version of the Love Album for Xmas. It sounds amazing.

Not only have I been blogging like mad here I've been writing at my other site, zombiefreak.com as well. After a redesign and some decisions on what exactly I want to do with that site it has been resurrected, re-animated if you will, as zombies are wont to be. It's new incarnation is explained best by the blurb at the top of the about page. It is as follows:

zombiefreak.com

All zombies all the time. If you love the horror genre, specifically zombies, as much as we do this is the place for you. Everything zombie related will be found in these pages. Our aim is for this site to become one of the top resources on the web for all things zombie.

That seems pretty focused to me. Those kind of sites have been the most successful for me (much unlike this blog which is just random weirdness). The old lunch site is a good example of a simple yet successful idea. I'm trying to post a little something zombie related every day. Anyway, bookmark zombiefreak.com and visit often. If you don't a zombie will come to your house and eat your brain.

There was an article on Digg.com today about the Deepest Pool in the World. At one point Nemo 33 is 108ft deep! Wow! Too bad it's in Brussels, Belgium. That looks really fun. More photos here in their gallery.

Wikipedia entry: Nemo 33

Remember Troy Hurtbise of the wonderful NFB documentary called Project Grizzly? I sure do. I have the VHS and DVD version of the doc. Anyhoo, the kookie scrap metal yard owner is back with a new suit called The Trojan which he claims bulletproof and explosive proof. He says he can make them for $2000 a piece and wants to sell to the armies of the world. Good luck Troy. He's so enthusiastic.

While watching Mr. Hurtbise in the above video the Medication Valse from that oh so unsettling film One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest began playing in my head. Click play below to hear it in your head too:



You can play the music over him talking as well. It kind of drowns him out a bit but I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

Here's a picture of Moosh that I took when we lived in Maple Ridge. She looks like she just got yelled at or beaten up (which has never happened). Perhaps she thought she was in trouble for murdering the stuffed toy beside her. Who knows. Whacky dog.

She's feeling better by the way. Thanks for all the good thoughts sent by folks.

For those of you who don't know, we came close to losing Moosh this week. We thought she'd had a stroke when she fell off the futon this week and couldn't get up. When she did she was dizzy, her eyes were going her head was cocked to one side and she kept falling sideways. Luckily it was only vestibular disease which seems to be abating.

The vet said she thought Moosh would be okay in two weeks, but she's bounced back very quickly and is left with a bit of a wobbly walk and a slight head tilt at times. Better than the alternative. We thought our gal was taking her final ride to the vet, but not so. All is well.

They can fix anything in post. I love technology.

Kill me now.

I'd been seeing links to articles and videos advertising this film on sites I frequent. I got this particular one from Horror-Movies.ca. Since I liked Silence of the Lambs a lot and the subsequent sequels a little I thought I might as well check out the above trailer. I'm so glad that I am becoming a discerning consumer who does his homework.

My initial reaction: *yawn*. What a soulless unnecessary piece of prequel garbage. The actor playing Lecter is doing a horrendous Anthony Hopkins impression mixed with another odd accent that I can't quite nail down. Although the cinematography looks pretty I'm sure that's about it as far as anything worth seeing goes in this dog.

Do you think it might be a bit of a money grab? Perhaps, one last attempt to cash in on a successful franchise? Of course it is.

Hey studios! Here's an idea. Give a nobody filmmaker like myself the money you threw at this vacuous effort so people can see something a little more original. Then promote the crap out of my film like you would a 19th Mission Improbable with Tom Crazy and we'll have another hit but one worth seeing.

We've hit the wall of boring films enough times. Let's turn left and make something fun.

Meet a sheepdog who's afraid of sheep, but has a definite affinity for cows. Guiness may not be the hardest working farm dog, but her family loves her just the same. You can watch here video here:
Atom Films: Useless Dog

I'd have posted the whole video on my site but they only allow a preview with pop ups, so no thanks. The video is fantastic anyway. Anyone who has ever had any kind of relation ship with a dog will love this short film.

The picture pretty much sums up the road trip thus far. The smug looking jackass 'thumbs down' chick actually makes the whole picture. I'm sure what my creative mind sees isn't what she intended at all. Ptooi on the Sens.

Three eastern Canadian teams up, and three down. Leafs, Canadians and Senators all beaten by the Canucks. Luongo has let in only 2 goals in the last 101 shots! Go Bobby Lou!

The coolest thing about watching this road trip so far is being able to hear Canucks fans chanting "Go Canucks Go!" in every building. How friggin' cool is that?

Next up, Buffalo on pay-per-view tomorrow night. I doubt they'll hear much friendly chanting there. Even though the new logo looks like the banana slugs we find hiking here in beautiful Lynn Canyon Buffalo is an awesome team.

After the hard fought win tonight I'm not too sure what kind of gas the Canucks will have in the tank to be honest. The Sabres have had a day off and you can be sure they'll come to play (lookin' all sluggy). Vancouver could win, after all the Canucks are on a fairly decent roll so why not?

To celebrate these wins here's a little ditty by a guy who wants to make love to Vancouver Canucks. Kind of creepy but click play anyway:


How very Borat!

Sometimes the front page of YouTube has video worth watching. It's all fun and games until someone gets punched in the head.

Here's a link to their website: wickedawesomefilms.com

Tick tock, tick tock. It's now 5 minutes to midnight on the doomsday clock. Here's an article about why.

Kind of unsettling, but strangely enough my fear of nuclear annihilation isn't as great now as when I younger. In the 70's and 80's we lived with the constant threat of nuclear war between the USA and USSR as a result of the Cold War and arms race. Nothing happened then but it was fairly stressful to live with that kind of fear. Looking back on it, I'm not sure we were ever really that close to the end. Perhaps we all bought the hype, but savvier now we have a "prove it" attitude. Hopefully this jaded skepticism won't be our downfall. Maybe it's time to start paying attention again.

Yikes! One of my favourite directors Danny Boyle, who's work includes 28 Days Later, Trainspotting and Millions, is at it again. I posted before about his upcoming movie called Sunshine, then promptly forgot about it until I saw this trailer on ainitcoolnews.

With all the attention being paid to global warming right now the premise of a mission to "reignite the sun" is definitely timely. The idea of a sci fi film without Earth being threatened by some (excuse the pun) half baked alien force is kind of refreshing. If the the rest of the film is like the trailer there'll be plenty of hot action and tense situations. I like scary.

Methinks not everybody makes it.

I'm looking forward to this one. You can see lots more video images and trailers via the movie's blog at sunshinedna.com.

I love Jimmy Norton of the Opie and Anthony show we listen to every day on XM Satellite Radio. However his cringe inducing humour is often quite fowl. What better way to ease people into Jimmy's stuff than with a clean as a whistle (yet still edgy) appearance on Letterman.

And I mean it too... I can't stop replaying this. I've gone completely mental... Up Butt Coconut... 'Tis this year's Hamster Dance. Remember that little gem from 1999? How can we forget?

Link stolen from Presurfer. Animation by Nathan Mazur ~ music by Parry Gripp. Check out Up But Coconut to leave them a message.

Wah wah wee wah! We watched this live last night. Too funny. I'm glad to see he won. Borat was awesome.

If you like this, check out Monkey Farm Frankenstein's debut album on Some Bizzare Records, available at www.hmv.co.uk - search for MFF.

The MFF vs The Evil Dead is composed of over 200 audio and video samples taken from the following films: The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness. NO OTHER ELEMENTS WERE USED.

From YouTube

I dislike DRM in all it's forms. If Hollywood had it's way your DVD's would most likely self destruct after 3 uses and you'd have to buy another copy for three more uses and so on.

What about fair use you ask? Ha ha! Laughs Hollywood. That just may go the way of the dodo bird. At least here in Canada anyway. Perhaps its time to get active and sign the online petition against Bill C-60. I have.

These entertainment corporations are there only to make money. They are NOT watching out for the artists nor do they care about the consumer other than how to push our buttons and lead us toward buying their products. Here's an article talking about just that:

Privately, Hollywood admits DRM isn't about piracy

In a nutshell: DRM's sole purpose is to maximize revenues by minimizing your rights so that they can sell them back to you.

Son of a ...

Along the same lines, if you want to see a fantastic film on just what the ultra-mysterious MPAA (Hollywood Ratings Board) is really up to check out This Film is not Yet Rated. Carol and I watched it this past weekend. Eye opening is an understatement.

Star Wars scenes redubbed with various James Earl Jones movies. That was 9 and a half minutes well spent. Thanks to the geniuses at akjak.com for this gem.

It's Hockey Day in Canada again. What does that mean? It means 13 hours of bliss for a rabid Canadian hockey fan like myself. Not all of the games are in HD this year so we don't get to bask in hockey clarity all day long. The important game (Canucks @ Leafs) is, but the other two are not. Boo CBC! That really sucks. You can get HD cameras to Nelson, BC for the yackety yack crap but not to Ottawa and Calgary for the games? What's up with that?

Anyway, here's the schedule:

Hockey Day in Canada 2007 TV Schedule (in PST)

09:00-11:00 - HDIC live on location (Nelson, B.C.)
11:00-13:30 - Montreal @ Ottawa
13:30-15:00 - HDIC live on location (Nelson, B.C.)
15:30-16:00 - Saturday Night (HNIC pregame show)
16:00-19:00 - Vancouver @ Toronto (Go Canucks Go!)
19:00-10:00 - Edmonton @ Calgary
10:00-10:30 - After Hours (Calgary and Camrose, Alta.)

So we'll be hearing the Hockey Night in Canada theme many times today. Due to overly enforced copyrights and some other legal problems surrounding Canada's second national anthem the only legal link to said theme is from CBC's site and in the rarely used Real Audio. If you have realplayer you can listen to the much loved and oft' heard Hockey Night in Canada theme [.ram]. However, if you don't have Real Player and want to listen you can download it or you're SOL. I'd love to post an MP3 version of the Hockey Night in Canada theme song here however it wouldn't be long before I'd get an email from CBC's legal folks asking me to remove it. Sorry folks.

Maybe one day CBC and the theme song's author will settle their differences and Canadians will be able to listen to and share this theme whenever we like.

We miss you already James Brown. Still not buried but no longer on tour.

Shadow Company is a timely documentary about mercenaries by Canadian filmmakers Nick Bicanic, Jason Bourque and Remy Kozak. Jason and Remy spoke to me about this when we were working together on Daingerfield. As well as the traditional one on one interview, cameras were given to mercenaries themselves in various global hot spots. Also featured is a favourite of mine, the fearless Robert Young Pelton of the World's Most Dangerous Places books and TV series.

Not unexpectedly, the film appears to be getting some buzz from high places.

Here are a few quotes:

"Takes a thorough and balanced look at the use of private security forces in Iraq and raises serious policy questions,"
U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA)

"Shadow Company is a must-see film for anyone who is concerned about our military and our security being privatized."
Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)

”In addition to being extremely well-executed, I thought its even-handed tone was particularly sophisticated - encouraging an audience to consider the complexity of the issue, rather than the more exploitative depictions with which the subject is usually treated”
Edward Zwick - Director of "Blood Diamond", Glory, Legends of the Fall

There's also a review of the doc by writer John Defore in The Hollywood Reporter.

Way to go guys! I can't wait to see it myself.

There are a few more clips after the jump.

RAW Data: RAW Essence ... Robert Anton Wilson dead. Fnord.

The next film I am really looking forward to is Pan's Labyrinth by director Guillermo del Toro all I've heard about this film tells me that it's right up my alley. We're told it is absolutely NOT for children or the faint of heart.

Ooh! *Rubs hands together in evil glee* Here's the trailer:


The award winning mix of reality, fantasy and horror makes Pan's Labyrinth [wikipedia entry] an attractive film viewing option to someone who enjoys the darker side of things like me. I can't wait to get my horror loving claws into this one.

I created this dancing dude at this site. My little guy, Zoinx, looks like he's had polio or some horrible degenerative muscle disease. At least he's still attempting to dance with his cloned pals, even if it is to crappy techno.

And as my IMDb profile says, I worked on it. Yes, embarrassingly, I worked on The Wickerman. You may remember a blog post or two of mine on just that subject.

While working I had sneaking a suspicion that it was going to be bad. Boy was that feeling on the money. If you haven't seen it, you're best not to bother. I can still smell it and we watched it over two weeks ago. I think we're going to have to boil our DVD player or just toss it out.

Anyway to save you the cost of a rental someone has seen fit to edit together some of the worst scenes from this piece of dreck into a YouTube video. I have it right here. Enjoy, or not:


"My eyes! My eyes!"

I am so sorry. It's not even campy-funny-bad. It's just, well, bad.

I knew they could do it.

After winning a shoot out thriller last night the Canucks have won 7 games in a row. Outstanding considering their less than stellar start to the season. One cannot help but think that the Canucks amazing new star goaltender (pictured above) has just a little something to do with it.

I used to feel extremely uncomfortable with the fragile Dan Cloutier in net, but not so with Luongo. So, while ol' Danny boy is stinkin' it up in LA this year with the worst goals against average in the league as of this writing, we get to enjoy some solid net minding.

Watching Luongo play is a real treat.

In other Canucks news:


How does Nazzy spell relief? G-O-A-L!

Canucks captain, Markus Naslund, bumped his slump last night with a well earned goal as well. Thank the hockey gods for this one. He was looking mighty dejected although he never really gave up getting plenty of assists during his drought. Hopefully he'll be scoring like a maniac for the rest of the season. Markus

Go Canucks Go!

Check out this a new edit of an old Hinterland Who's Who on the reactions of spiders when given various psychoactive drugs. Thanks to Paul from RadioNL for tip.

What a doorknob. Showing off and karma took care of him. Nothing to do with the Canucks (who won again tonight.

Got this straight from Digg.

I woke up this morning to Carol telling me that it was snowing. Looking outside I saw that she wasn't kidding. A wet and heavy snowfall that's definitely sticking. Carol's working at the mall of the dead tonight and I've been thinking picking her up is not going to be much fun at all.

I sat down to tinker with this website some more and got and MSN Message from Mark of the Hollywood North Report leading me to a news story. Here's what it said:

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - The roof of BC Place has collapsed.

Callers to News1130 describe that it looked like a panel of the inflatable roof 'blew off', which led to the entire roof to cave inwards.

According to the BC Place website, there were no events scheduled to take place under the dome this weekend.

My response? "Holy shit!"

Mark then sent me some pictures as well. Here they are (I captioned the after photo and found the before through a Google search):





I'm thinking the title of this post should have been "Vancouver landmark goes BOOM" but I'll stick with what I have.

I'm sure there will be more photos. I'll post them as I get them. If the weather wasn't so crappy I would go take some of my own. If the snow is gone by tomorrow I will.

UPDATE [2:10 PM]: Here's a Vancouver Sun story with a great picture of the tear in the roof.

UPDATE [3:12 PM]: Update from CBC

UPDATE [4:17 PM]: News 1130's web site has more information.

UPDATE [4:32 PM]: Three videos from Gamegoof of the roof before, during and after the collapse after the jump.

In September of 2005 I went to the Vancouver International Film Centre theatre to hear Ray Liotta, star of Goodfellas, talk about acting and the movie business at The Film and Television Trade Forum. I took some photos, one of which I posted, and video there and pretty much forgot about it until now. Flash video, YouTube in particular, were still the wave of the future and not nearly as ubiquitous as they are now so I had no real practical way of sharing what I saw. Well here it is. A clip of Ray Liotta speaking candidly about his experience with the casting process of the iconic mobster film, Goodfellas. Enjoy:


Although small, it looks and sounds okay considering I shot it on my digital camera and not a video camera. Editing was an experience but it turned out acceptably. Not everyone can say they've done a film starring Ray Liotta. I should put it on my résumé.

UPDATE: I popped the video up on YouTube as well. It should get a few views.

Ever since we were children growing up in Canada, many of us were puzzled by a TV enigma. That of the Mr Dressup Show (sadly off the air as of September 2006).

This blog post is in no way any statement against Mr Dressup. He helped me to become the person I am today. Thank you Mr Dressup! It's purpose is to give those interested place to give their opinions as to those long unanswered questions.

If we watched Mr Dressup on CBC in the 1970's we have all asked ourselves the same questions at one time or another. Who is this Mr Dressup character really? Why did he just hang around his house all day long? Did he have a job? Did he have a significant other of any sort? If so why did we never see this person?

Was Casey some relative of Mr Dressup? If so, why did he and Finnigan live outside in the tree house? Were they there by their own free will or were they being kept there? Why did Casey's mouth not move when he spoke? Was Finnigan really whispering anything at all? Could he truly be a talking dog or was what he was "saying" just a figment of sick and tortured imaginations?

Who's aunt was Aunt Bird? Why did a bird, that talked no less, wear glasses and a feather boa? What was up with Alligator Al and that goofy hat? What the heck does ta-wit ta-woo mean?

Finally, what (or who) was really in the Tickle Trunk?

Perhaps together we can solve these riddles.

We miss you Mr Dressup.

Happy New Year all! This new skin is in part what I've been up to.

I looked at my site the other day and wanted to barf. No wonder I haven't been updating it. I'm still surfing and finding cool links. In fact I think I've learned more lately than at any other time. The web is growing so fast it has become even harder to keep up with, but I'm trying.

I don't want to become like my Mom. So out of touch with technology I become afraid of it. She won't even attempt sending an email. I love you Ma but you're missing out.

I can think of no better way to "keep up" than to redesign the look and feel of my site. So for the past few days I've been cramming and boning up on the latest in web design techniques. There are many new technologies and design ideas out there I hadn't been taking advantage of. The current Web 2.0 trend in design is interesting indeed. If you want to try out some Web 2.0 designing for yourself here's a how to design guide that has been helpful to me.

I got into action by first giving Carol's site a new look. After that my site was looking a little ragged in comparison so I spent the rest of my energy on polishing this tired old blog.

Maybe now that it looks a little prettier I may post more often.

After the last year in tech I'm excited to see what this year holds.

Away we go!