Just a perfect day

Couldn't have asked for a better day off today. Read some more of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell at Starbucks this morning (page 553!) then went for a long overdue walk along the Stanley Park seawall to play with my new digital camera (see above). It turned out to be a beautiful sunny day, so walked as far as Siwash Rock taking pictures of anything I could find. The poor old park is still showing the effects of the storms over the last month or so - lots of seaweed, fallen branks and chunks of the Seawall scattered over the path.
Christmas at Mum and Dad's was great too. Pretty stress free - I managed to get all of my gifts bought and wrapped nearly a week before. We also skipped the stocking stuffer gifts and donated to various charities instead. Lots of nice gifts - fancy smelly stuff from Yves St. Laurent, jPod by Douglas Coupland, slippers, plus a miniature painting by my Dad. Lots of fun having my nephew Jack around too. Caught the skytrain back late afternoon and fought my way down Robson Street where the Boxing Day sales were in full swing. Centipedes of fuzzy-hooded girls with shopping bags outside every store.
In any case, today was the perfect break between the Christmas holidays and going back to work tomorrow (ugh). I'm vegging out with a DVD tonight; The Descent, which looks good and nasty and icky. Not very Christmasy, but it looks like a good distraction.

Though it's been said many times, many ways...

Merry Christmas everyone! Be naughty or nice. Your choice.

Window in the Skies

Through some pretty tricky editing and a whole lotta archive footage, U2 has everyone from Bowie to Sinatra to The Who to The Clash singing their new single 'Window in the Skies'. Very cool. If you look reeeeally closely, you can see members of U2 in some of the audience footage.

I just thought of something...

George Clooney has a new movie out called The Good German.
Matt Damon has a new movie out called The Good Shepard.
Maybe Brad Pitt should come out with a movie about a cop and his dog called The Good German Shepard.

Sorry, bad joke.

Two guys, some spare time, and a lot of patience...

Here's another really cool stopmotion piece created by ... um ... Tony and Paul. For some reason, my favorite part is when Paul jumps out of the sand.

All hail the Duke of Cukes

Congrats to my Dad who has finally sold his greenhouse property and entered the world of retirement. For nearly forty years, Dad has grown cucumbers and tomatoes; first working for my grandfather in England and eventually owning his own business here in BC.
Weird as it sounds, cucumbers and tomatoes have always been around since I was a kid. Some of my earliest childhood memories involve the smell of sawdust, the scratchiness of cucumber plants and pretending that tomato stems were little green spiders. If it wasn't for Dad taking a new job as a greenhouse manager in 1978, we would never have moved from England to Canada. In 1980 or so, I remember my sister and I buying a T-shirt for Dad with the words 'The Duke of Cukes' on it. He was nice enough to actually wear it out in public a couple of times.
Anyway, congratulations on your retirement Dad... you deserve it.

Helmet girl

This past weekend I treated myself to another print by Camilla d'Errico. Cute isn't it? Goes very nicely with the one I bought earlier this year. Further proof that since starting at channel m, I am slowly becoming a young Chinese girl.
I picked it up at You & Whose Army, a very cool art/fashion/design store at 929 Denman Street. I love going in there every now and then to see what's new. Camilla has a number of prints for sale there at a very reasonable $20 each.

Drink, drink and be merry

Went to Back Alley Wineworks yesterday evening to bottle some wine that I was splitting with my sister and her friend Tim. A very good deal - 30 bottles for $110 (works out to about $3.66 a bottle!). Tried a sample and it was not bad at all. Apparently it will reach its prime in about five months, so I'll have to exercise some restraint and try not to drink all 10 bottles by then.
There's something really comforting about coming home after a long rainy winters day and having a glass of wine in the evening. God, I'm becoming pretentious in my old age.
Like the label design?

Mia M.I.A.

(left to right: Mia, me, Brenda, Rong and Joanne)

Here's me last Saturday at the channel m Christmas party with my workplace harem. By the way, this is a picture from the BEGINNING of the evening; in most of the later shots I look like a drunk Mr. Bean. Tequila is just plain evil.
Had a great time (I think) but was sad to say goodbye to Mia. The day before was her last day at channel m, due to convoluted work visa immigration govermental bureaucratic procedures, blah, blah, blah. In short, she has to return to Denmark until everything is sorted out (weeks? months? years?) and is then coming back to Canada. Was very sad to see her go; it's still strange coming in to the office without having our Danish den-mother around. Her little corner of the office seems so dull and quiet now.

Strange days

I haven't really read anything of any substance lately (usually just trashy crime thrillers and mystery novels) so it has been a nice change of pace to sink my teeth into a good substantial book again. I picked up Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell last weekend, a book that reviewers have compared to everything from works by Austen to Tolkien to Dickens. Apparently this is Susanna Clarke's first novel, taking her nearly ten years to write. It's set in 1806 during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and begins with Mr. Norrell, a reclusive magician, attempting to bring back the
Spirit of English Magic. It was quite a daunting book to actually start (it's about 1000 pages altogether!) but I'm already pretty engrossed, chipping away at it nearly everyday. It was the perfect book to read in Starbucks last Monday, during a wonderful snowy Vancouver day. Here's a great passage that really stood out that day:

'Snow began to fall; a few flakes at first - then rather more than a few; until a million little flakes were drifting down froma a soft, heavy greenish-grey sky. All the buildings of York became a little fainter, a little greyer in the snow; the people all seemed a little smaller; the cries and shouts, the footsteps and hoofsteps, the creaks of carriages and the slammings of doors were all a little more distant. And all these things became somehow less important until all the world contained was the falling snow...'

Cheval Noir

Cheval Noir is the portfolio site for Aya Kato, a talented 24 year old artist with a beautiful style reminiscent of a Japanese influenced Aubrey Beardsley. In addition to her illustrations, she has also created designs for Tshirts, iPod skins, window displays and a video for Tori Amos.
You can see her work here.

A whiteboard, some markers and a lot of patience

An incredible stopmotion piece created using a whiteboard and markers. Created by a guy at Minilogue.

Link found on Pixelsurgeon.

Christmas is coming...

Here's some frames from three Christmas ID animations I just completed for channel m. The first one was inspired by my nephew Jack and his cat Freddy. Don't they just make you want to say "Awwwww"?
Now before you go saying that I ripped off Starbucks' new Christmas look, keep in mind that I based the style on the Christmas animations that I have done for the last couple of years at channel m. Hey, maybe Starbucks ripped ME off - though I seriously doubt it.

Click on the pics to see them bigger.

Bond: The Beginning

The first time I went to a movie by myself was in 1983, back when Haney had it's own movie theatre. The double bill was Octopussy and Rocky 3. Hard to believe that 23 years later I'd still have another Bond movie to go to (and judging by the trailers I've seen lately, another Rocky movie). Can you believe that they let a 15 year old boy see a movie called Octopussy? Disgusting.
Earlier this week, on one of my rainy afternoons off, I went to see Bond number 21, Casino Royale. I guess I'm a little biased since I've always loved watching Bond movies. It's like that old saying about pizza and sex - even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.
Anyone expecting a typical James Bond formula pic however, will probably be disappointed. There's no Q, no Moneypenny, very few gadgets (what they do have, you can probably buy from Sony), and no huge volcanic lairs ruled by evil masterminds. I really didn't mind though - what they lacked in that department, they made up for in an interesting story, some great suspense, and surprisingly, some actual 'acting'. And of course, they did have some incredible stunts, sweaty villians with high cheekbones, and ridiculously gorgeous women with names like Vesper and Solange. Unfortunately, his new Aston Martin was hardly driven.
I also liked how the movie existed in it's own little universe, as if the other Bond movies didn't even exist. It's almost a prequel of sorts, explaining how Bond became a double-0 agent and a ruthless dispassionate killer. Daniel Craig was great in the part - very gritty, very cool, and actually funnier than I expected him to be:

Bartender: Shaken or stirred?
James Bond: Do I look like I give a damn?

Borat ... wawaweewah

Friday night I went to see Borat, or more precisely, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. It's not often you get such a vocal audience at a movie - lots of laughter, but also a lot of 'ewws' and 'no ways'. It's one of those movies that really pushes the envelope of good taste, but in it's own way, explores what makes the U.S.A. such a scary place to so many people. It relies heavily on the reactions of everyday people to the Borat character - after all, if you can't laugh at others, who can you laugh at? I'm not surprised that Sacha Baron Cohen is being sued by most of the people in the film.
Apparently, the cops were called on Cohen 91 times during the production of the movie.
All in all, it's a very funny, very offensive and sometimes revolting movie. The naked wrestling scene between Borat and his extremely overweight manager kinda summed up the whole thing for me. I laughed really hard, but I think I threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Visit Borat's official website here.

Feeling a little two-dimensional

Here's a South Park version of me showing up for work at 6:30am. You can create your own version at South Park Studio.

Thanks to Chickadee for the link.

In other news...

By the way, did you hear that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got married on ... Oh, who cares...

Black Friday

Just wanted to apologize to anybody who happened to cross my path on Friday morning. Due to the heavy rains last week, mudslides spilled into our reservoirs, resulting in brown tap water for much of the Greater Vancouver area. Because of this, ALL downtown Starbucks were not serving drip coffee for risk of contamination. Can you imagine? Very hard to wake up for a rainy 6:30 shift without my morning Starbucks fix. I spent the whole morning feeling like I was in a scene from Trainspotting.
In any case, Starbucks was back in full service on Saturday, so I was able to put the tragic events of 11/17 behind me. We still have to boil our water for the next few days or so until things are back to normal. I managed to get through the rest of the weekend alright though. Saw Borat on Friday night (more about that later) and went to a house party on Saturday night where I hydrated with lots and lots of Smirnoff Ice. I'm back on weekend shifts from 12:00-8:30 which is kind of a drag, since there's not a lot to do, but since the weather hasn't been great, I don't feel like I've been missing out on much.

Office life

Last Friday I went to my Mum's long overdue retirement party. It's hard to believe that she worked at the same accountant's firm for 25 years! It seems that the days of working for the same company for such a long period of time are becoming a thing of the past. Career changes occur much more frequently nowadays and most companies just don't seem to last as long as they used to. But all in all it was a very nice night - it was obvious that everyone genuinely enjoyed having her around and that they were sorry to see her go. Of course there was the standard cringeworthy Powerpoint presentation along with the usual free alcohol abuse and helium sucking sing-a-longs. But I am glad that I went.
It also got me thinking about office environments and the people you spend your working life with. It's incredible sometimes how such a odd, disconnected bunch of strangers can co-exist when they need to. That's the appeal, I think, of shows like The Office (yes, both the British AND the American versions).
I suppose that I'm pretty lucky to be working with a very nice bunch of odd, disconnected strangers. In fact many of the strangers have become friends. After a couple of days off, I look forward to seeing the people I work with; catching up on their lives, recycling the same old stupid jokes, gossiping, flirting, and bitching about silly things. Enjoying what you do is one thing, but it's the people that you work with who keep you going. My sister described a recent bad spell in her work environment as a little like Lord of the Flies. Yes, I have days like that sometimes, but it's not THAT bad. I haven't found a pig's head on a stick in my cubicle lately.

November Rain (and no I don't mean the Guns 'n' Roses song)

Been a while since I've posted. No excuses really. I think that maybe the weather has affected my motivation. It's been back to the typical Vancouver November rain lately and I just feeling like hibernating when I get home from work and not even going near a computer. The walks home from work just haven't been the same with all those beautiful fall leaves now looking like soggy cereal. I've just switched over to weekend shifts too which means I've just plowed through working seven days straight. Bleah.
On the plus side I do get three days off in a row now. Yay.

For my Mum...

Here's a design that I used for a birthday card for my Mum last week. A lovely card for a lovely Mum.

The Departed

Yesterday, I went to see The Departed; Scorsese's take on the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs. I liked how he kept the basic framework of the original but added more motivation and depth to the characters. This was a much grittier and more character-driven film than Infernal Affairs, which was more stylish and action-orientated.
It also had all of the ingredients of a Scorsese movie - great use of songs on the soundtrack, it's opening voice-over, swooping cameras and sudden bursts of brutal violence. It also had great dialogue; characters that you really wanted to listen to between the action and suspense. The one thing I think he could have left out from the original was a subplot involving a romance with a police psychologist. It seemed kind of convoluted, slowed things down and didn't really go anywhere.
The performances were great too. I liked how Scorsese left Jack Nicholson's face in darkness for much of the beginning, just letting his voice do the acting. And as for Leonardo DiCaprio, nobody can do tortured anguish like he can. He's evolving into a tough looking guy - far removed from the pretty boy in Titanic.

Liam and Noel meet the matchstick men

Here's a great video from Oasis to promote their new greatest hits CD. The song is 'The Masterplan' and the video is inspired by those wonderful matchstick men paintings by L.S. Lowry. These paintings, in turn, inspired Status Quo to write 'Pictures of Matchstick Men'. Status Quo, in turn, helped inspire the sound of Oasis. And the cycle of life continues...



And here's one of Lowry's paintings; 'Coming Out of School' painted in 1927. More about him here.

And on a lighter note...

My Halloween activities continued last night with a trip to a haunted village with my sister and nephew Jack (dressed up as a little crocodude). Had a great time trick-or-treating with him, riding the carousel and making him roar at strangers. He was a pretty brave little guy considering all of the scary noises, dry ice, and costumes (like witches on stilts) surrounding him. At his age, I probably would have wet myself. Mind you we didn't really celebrate Halloween in England when I was a kid. Instead we had Guy Fawkes Night where we watched fireworks and burnt effigies on huge bonfires. Much more wholesome.

If you go down to the woods today...

Halloween started early for me this year. This past Saturday, I went to the Vancouver International Film Centre to see a film called Rituals, part of their current 'Terror on the Tundra - Canadian Horror Classics' series. It's the first time the film has been shown on screen since 1977 when it was first released. It's never been released on DVD and is nearly impossible to find on VHS. I still remember seeing it on TV way back when(maybe the early 80s) and that it scared the crap out of me. It's still very scary, despite some pretty dodgy choices for the soundtrack music (hey, it was the 70s) and some poor lighting in some of the night scenes.
The plot is pretty basic; five doctors go on a hike in the Canadian wilderness and are terrorized by an unknown maniac. What makes it so different from your standard horror movie is that the hikers are five intelligent middle-aged men, not your stereotypical group of hormone-charged teens. Apparently the whole shoot was a hell of an ordeal for everyone involved. They shot it chronologically to add more realism to the physical and psychological changes in the actors. Also, the actors did all of their own stunts - falling down mountains, floating down rapids, fighting off swarms of bees. You can see them getting dirtier, growing more stubble and deteriorating right before your eyes.
The movie owes a lot to Deliverance, but is much more of a psychological horror film. Like The Blair Witch Project, much of the horror comes from the wilderness around them and how their relationships slowly break down during their ordeal. A very effective and very Canadian movie, with some truly frightening and disturbing scenes.
By the way, I love the poster (see above) for this - there's nothing really 'GOTHIC HORROR' about it. It's Canadian eh?

Psome pseriously pswirly psychedelic pstuff

Here's a website I just discovered for a designer/artist called Si Scott (even his name is kinda swirly). He has a wonderful portfolio of beautiful flowing artwork and typography. You can see it here.

Found on Kaliber 10000.

Remake/Remodel

Here's a great clip that I had to post - Roxy Music performing on a German TV show in 1973. This is the Roxy Music that I really love, before they started making slick make-out albums like Avalon. Remake/Remodel is a song that really goes over the top, giving all the guys in the band a chance to strut their stuff and show off. I love the part at the end where they all get to do their own quirky little solos.
Oh and check out Brian Eno on the keyboards, dressed like a gay vulture.

Which one are you?

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are
always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell

Another fine mess

Here's an incredibly ambitious Sony Bravia TV ad directed by Jonathan (Sexy Beast) Grazer. It used:

70,000 litres of paint
358 single bottle bombs
33 sextuple air cluster bombs
22 Triple hung cluster bombs
268 mortars
33 Triple Mortars
22 Double mortars
358 meters of weld
330 meters of steel pipe
57 km of copper wire
And no CGI!

It took 5 days and 60 people to clean up the mess. I guess they wanted to get their damage deposit back.

Hi-res version is here.
Lo-res version is here.

More Mew?

Ok, now I'm totally hooked on the Mew CD I bought last weekend. The guy has such an incredible voice. Great music to listen to when there's fog in the air and leaves falling around you. Here's their video for 'The Zookeeper's Boy'

Kasabian and Mew

I went to see Kasabian a couple of nights back at the Commodore. Their new album, Empire, is great. It has the kinds of songs that lend themselves to being sung with arms outstretched, backlit by spotlights and dry ice. They put on a really good show to a very enthusiastic crowd with lots of 'na-na-naaa' sing-alongs and shout-outs to the great city of 'Vancoovah'. They have a great video for their new single 'Shoot the Runner' on their website here.



One of the opening bands, Mew from Denmark, was also very good. They reminded me a little of Sigur Ros - very atmospheric and glacial. Singer looked a little like a blonde Tom Hulce in Amadeus. I ended up buying their CD after their set at the show. It's called 'And the Glass Handed Kites'. How's THAT for pretentious? Or maybe something was lost in translation.

What about Bob?

Saw Bob Dylan last night with my Dad, my sister and her friend. Very good show, considering it can be kind of hit and miss with the guy when you see him live. His band was incredible, breathing new life into songs nearly 40 or more (!) years old. It's always a nice change of pace to go to a concert and see 'real musicians' sometimes. Songs like 'Tangled Up in Blue' and 'Like a Rolling Stone' will be around for ever. I'm glad he played 'All Along the Watchtower' for the encore; it has to be one of my favorites. As every year goes by, it makes more and more sense.
I must admit that, growing up as a teenager, I didn't really appreciate his stuff. Dad loved him, buying every album that he put out, while I was listening to, oh I don't know, stuff like Sigue Sigue Sputnik or Power Station. Kind of embarrassing really - maybe I just wasn't ready for good music yet.

Now that's a nice set of conkers

The beautiful Fall weather continues in Vancouver (thank-you global warming). The Fall always makes me nostalgic, particularly when I happen across the many horse-chestnuts littered around the West-End. They remind me of when I was a kid in England, playing conkers with other pasty-white boys with names like Gareth, Nigel or Gavin.
By the way, did you know that ex-Python Michael Palin was disqualified from the 1993 World Conker Championships for baking his conker and boiling it in vinegar? Well, now you do.
More about conkers here.

Some record-breaking sex and violence

Now why didn't anyone think of this before? This is a funny, gory motion piece using classic album covers. Directed by Ugly Pictures and animated by Man vs. Magnet. It takes a little time to download, but it's well worth the wait. You can view it here.

Found on motionographer.

Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolverine

Saw a couple of movies recently. Completely different, but both very good.
Firstly, there was Hard Candy, an incredibly well-acted movie about a 14 year-old girl who meets a sexual predator in an internet chatroom. Back at his place, she turns the tables on him and gets revenge in the MOST squirm-inducing way. Let's just say that if you're a guy, double ouch. Ellen Page as the Hayley was incredible, going from vulnerable to menacing in the blink of an eye. It's one of those movies, like American Psycho, that I enjoyed but find hard to recommend. People ask if you liked it and you go "Yeah, but..."
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it really seems like films seem to be obsessed with the idea of torture as entertainment, perhaps tapping into the American psyche of today. From horror movies like Saw and Hostel to TV shows like Lost and 24 (starring everyone's post-911 superhero Jack Bauer) we just can't get enough of seeing people held captive and abused in horrific ways. Even shows like Jackass and Fear Factor involve cringeworthy tests of human endurance. And of course, American Idol is a different kind of torture altogether.



The second movie I rented (coincidentally also starring Ellen Page) was X-Men: The Last Stand. I think the X-Men series is definitely one of the better comic book interpretations done recently and this one was no exception. There's always a lot more emotion and subtext than you expect. Plus you get see lots of stuff getting smashed and blown-up. The special effects were incredible. I particularly liked how they managed to make Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen look twenty years younger in the prologue. Really impressive stuff. The only downside was that they seemed to rush things, trying to wrap up way too many loose ends to complete the series. I imagine there'll probably be an extended directors cut in the near future. There usually is.

A word or two

I've always been a bit of a word geek. I'm addicted to cryptic crosswords, I love a bad pun or spoonerism, and I subscribe to Word-A-Day. I think it all started with my dad reading strange random words from the dictionary and telling us the definitions when I was a kid. For instance, next time you call someone a 'cretin' be aware that the specific meaning is 'deformed idiot of a kind found esp. in Alpine valleys'. So, be sure you're in an Alpine valley next time you use that one.
In any case, Polly M. Law, an artist in New York, has taken a handful of obscure words and made some quirky illustrations out of them. You can check them out here.

GUY movie

Just saw Crank the other night. This is a GUY MOVIE in capital letters. If you want violence, drugs, nudity and fast cars, well that all happens within the first five minutes. Jason Statham plays a hitman who has been injected with a poison that will kill him if his heart rate drops too much. Very fast, very violent and often very funny - kind of like a video game of a movie. Makes The Transporter look like Driving Miss Daisy. The kind of movie where:

1) If a guy falls off a tall building, he will land directly on top of the only car within in a five block radius

2) If a guy is attacked by a huge group of thugs, they will only fight him one or two at time, while the others stand around and watch

3) A guy can drive a car through stoplights, into a mall, and up an escalator while having a conversation on a cellphone.

Plus it made great use of Loverboy's 'Turn Me Loose' during a kitchen/back alley hatchet versus gun fight scene. So yeah, it was morally bankrupt, exploitive and stupid, but I still enjoyed it. Because I'm a guy.

Some food for thought

Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing... you are talking about the Internet, you are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This doesn't affect two-thirds of the people of the world.
- Jimmy Carter

Feric

This guy's work is incredible. His name is Eric Feng, A.K.A. Feric, and he has a really interesting illustrative style; very delicate, very precise, yet wonderfully natural and organic. You can check out more of his work at www.feric.com.

Some ad designs

Here's a series of ads I recently designed for channel m. I'm pretty happy with the way that they turned out. I wanted to design a look that was versatile enough for several types of shows, yet consistent in layout and design. Once I had the '24' design established, it was fairly easy to have the others fall into the same type of template. The bulk of the work was in choosing the right kinds of images and cropping out the characters in Photoshop.

Casino Royale (James Blond?)

The new James Bond movie, Casino Royale, looks like its going to be good. Pierce Brosnan is gone, and replaced by Daniel Craig who was great in Layer Cake. It looks like they're going for a more grittier, and realistic (for a Bond movie anyway) kind of action movie. More of a Bourne Identity kind of feel. Pierce Brosnan was good, but in the last couple of movies, the gadgets and sets were getting kinda ridiculous. I mean, an invisible car and a castle made out of ice? Come on...
I think it's a shame that they always try to rope these actors into a two or three movie deal. They should just mix it up all the time - have a different actor play Bond for each movie just to keep it fresh. Get someone like Clive Owen or Sean Bean.
In any case, you can view a great trailer for the movie here. The official website is here.

Imagine all the people...

There are days for conspiracy theories, finger-pointing and cynicism - but today is not one of those days.
Have a peaceful day everyone.

Naaaa naa-naa na-na-na-naaaa

Beautiful day today (as opposed to the miserable rainy one we had yesterday) so I went for a walk along the seawall. I usually go for a walk just about every other day, but haven't done so in nearly 3-4 weeks since I screwed up my back. I'm feeling the effects of it now, but it was definitely worth it. Was listening to my iPod and 'Hey Jude' came on by The Beatles. Just about the perfect song to listen to when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing in from the sea.
Above is a design I recently started in Illustrator. I hope to add more elements and textures and maybe play around with the colors more in Photoshop, but I'm happy with the way it's starting out. I've always loved The Beatles - as a kid I always had some form of Beatles poster pinned to my wall. They're kind of my aural equivalent of comfort food. I always feel better when I'm listening to them.

Sunshine on a cloudy day

This is why I love movies. After an extremely crappy day at work, I went to see Little Miss Sunshine, and for two hours I completely forgot what I was feeling crappy about. I don't think I've seen such a funny film about such depressing characters since About Schmidt. All of the characters were just about perfect, from Steve Carrell's gay suicidal Uncle Frank to Paul Dano's Nietchze-reading non-speaking angst-ridden Dwayne. I'm a big fan of Steve Carrell; for such a funny guy, I think he definitely has it in him to take on more dramatic roles. That said, he is REALLY funny when he runs! In fact, all of the actors were great - especially Abigail Breslin as the little girl Olive. It's a nice to see a road-trip movie that doesn't have horndog teens as the main characters for a change. So, if you're feeling like crap, this is a movie that is will make you feel crap-free for at least a couple of hours.

Sigmund says...

In the small matters trust the mind, in the large ones the heart.
- Sigmund Freud

Dad must be SO proud

A comment about cellphone etiquette. I'm sorry, but if you're talking loudly on your cellphone and I don't have my iPod on me, I AM going to listen to your conversation. Today at Starbucks, I swear to god I heard the following words from a guy on his cellphone: "Yeah, I was kinda dancin' and dry-humpin' the brides mom and then I backed into the wedding cake. Anyway man, I really should go - I'm here with my dad."
Cartoon courtesy of Too Much Coffee Man.

Oh crikey...

Had to mention the passing of Steve Irwin AKA The Crocodile Hunter today. Very sad story of course, but honestly, was anyone really surprised?

Oryx and Crake (It's the end of the world as we know it...)

During my time off from work, I recently finished Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. It was definitely not the kind of book that I expected from her, which just goes to show what a talented author she is. It's a bleak story narrated by Snowman, the main protagonist, telling us of a post apocalyptic world in the not-so-far-future and how it came to be that way. It touches a lot on modern day science and our reliance on pharmaceuticals and genetically modified organisms. In particular, I liked the part about 'pigoons' which are essentially genetically modified pigs used to grow human-tissue organs for transplants. Pretty disgusting but not really that far-fetched. More and more so, technology seems to be in equal parts both a blessing and a curse. If pharmaceutical companies can create cures to new diseases, what's to stop them from creating new diseases to cure in order to make more money? After reading this book, it doesn't seem too outlandish - less science-fiction and more science-fact.

The Illusionist

Went to see The Illusionist a couple of nights back. A great movie - extremely lush and beautiful to look at with a good old-fashioned story. Try not to read the reviews or watch the trailers too closely - I find that they give just far too much away. It's set in turn of the century Vienna and the filmmakers do a wonderful job of capturing the feel of that time with sepia tones and, on some occasions, very subtle blurry vignette-type borders to the screen. I'd love to visit Vienna someday. The filmmakers also got a hold of the most expressive eyes in acting today - Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Rufus Sewell. Of course, Jessica Biel is pretty nice to look at too. Last time I saw her, she was being chased by a guy with a chainsaw.

Pittnapped

YouTube is great. Quality could be better, but there is a lot of good stuff on there if you search around. Here's Brad Pitt getting kidnapped on an episode of Jackass. So THAT'S how Angelina got a hold of him.

Abu Ghraib

Fall is on its way; it was sunny today but there was a definite chill in the air. Went to the beach anyway and did some reading. Bought a GQ magazine, which I don't usually buy - I mean I don't really need to know how to buy a suit or care what Kevin Federline is doing when he's not putting buns in Britney's oven. I guess I just wanted to look a little more manly down at the beach. I do live in the West End of Vancouver you know ...
They did have a good article about Joe Darby, the guy who exposed all of those photos and stories of abuse at Abu Ghraib. I found it pretty interesting that he had been promised anonymity and then all of a sudden Donald Rumsfeld mentioned his name on national television during the congressional hearings. At the time, Darby was sitting in a dining facility in Iraq with 400 other soldiers! Pretty unbelievable. The whole article is online here.

Amanda Church

Was tired of relaxing (is that possible?) and taking care of my aching back so decided to take the bus to Kits and visit the Bjornson Kajiwara gallery on West 3rd. I'm walking better than I was last week - not shuffling around like Frankenstein's monster like I was before. The crowd of villagers chasing me with pitchforks and torches was starting to become embarrassing.
I read about an exhibition by Amanda Church last weekend so thought I would check it out. Much of the exhibition was made up of paintings done on ceramic tile. Some looked like pages from a graphic novel, others like illustrations from books for disturbed children. She also had some very cool drawings that were collaged to give a very subtle 3d effect. I'm definitely going to have to visit galleries more often; there are so many talented artists and designers in Vancouver.
Anyway, it was nice to get out of my neighbourhood for the afternoon. I wandered down West 4th for a while, had a sandwich at Capers and watched the world go by.

Some good advice

'A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.'
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Author and Aviator

*Good advice eh? And no, I've never heard of him either ...

Little Wing

Not many posts recently, since I put my back out last week (just one of those freak-3-year-old-nephew-lifting accidents). One day I was a strapping young(ish) lad, and the next, a 90 year old man. Oh well, these things happen. On the plus side, I do have ten days off work and I'm getting a LOT of reading done.
In any case, here's an illustration that I did for myself earlier this year, Photoshopping one of my old photographs. I figured that it was about time that I had some of my own artwork hanging on my apartment walls. I also turned it into a nice Mother's Day card.