Komodo

Crew screening of Komodo at the National Film Board.

A few months ago I was called upon to help in some compositing on a short (see previous post). My friend, Daniel finally finished the editing process. There was crew screening today at the National Film Board building complete with wine and cheese.

Here's a question for all you artsie fartsies out there. Why is it that wine and cheese at an art opening or film opening is always served? Why not beer and beernuts? Pizza and Coke? Brown cows and apple slices?

Is there some sort of historic significance of serving wine and cheese?

Darryl's Dance Party

Al Ridley poses at Darryl's Dance Party

Friday night at the Blue Moon (Queen and Broadview) Darryl Gold held a dance party/get together as a pre-Hard Liquor and Porn Party event.

For me dancing is more a spectator sport than something I would participate in. Mainly due to dance fear stemming from "not knowing how to dance" mixed with the fear of self expression (on the dance floor). At times I would rather get a tooth extracted than have to dance. A tooth extracted might be a bit more painful but it's over quicker and it's not like you have to do anything.

When I was a kid, it must have been between grades 3 and 5, before I started mucking around with computers (maybe it was around the same time), I took recorder lessons. My parents made me. They had to coax me into taking weekly lessons by offering me two dollars so I could go across the street to the silver snail. Back then that amount of money could buy me six to eight comic books depending on if they were new or used.

Logistically the recorder is a great starter musical instrument. It's relatively inexpensive, portable, and doesn't make as much racket as a set of drums early in the morning. Unfortunately the recorder is a wind instrument. As a kid that had asthma I thought my parents were nuts. I could never play long sequences without wheezing.

As with all music lessons (that I knew of as a kid) it's inevitable that at some point you, the music student, will have to perform in front of a mass of people as part of a music recital. I didn't know this at the time and became pretty good at playing "hot crossed buns", "mary had a little lamb" and the theme to "Star Wars". When I heard about the recital a wave of fear hit me like a ton of bricks. There was no way I was going up on stage. NO WAY.

My parents tried to bribe me by offering to buy me a football. I remember this vividly because it seemed like a really bad bribe. I didn't play football. I didn't want to play football. I didn't even want to own a football. My apologies to all the Americans out there but street hockey was more popular when I was a kid.

Where the heck did this football intel come from? Who are these people (parents)? My Dad tried pushing me toward the stage entrance I think I burst out crying. It think it was my mom that eventually said "You don't have to go.". Yes, she was the smart one.

All the way through high school the thought of public speaking was terrifying. Book reports, english essays, reciting Shakespeare, french classes. I stressed about all that stuff. Instead of taking music lessons I went into art class. It wasn't until doing a speech in university for a geography course that I managed to overcome my fear of being in front of a group of people.

Over time and a bunch of other presentations I've had to do I've manged to get over the whole stage fright thing. They say that if you imagine the people in front of you naked it's a way to get you through the stage fright. For me, just knowing what the heck you're talking about is good enough.

My dance fear is a lot like being afraid of public speaking/performing when I was young (minus the crying). I'll have to take dance classes some day.

Tooth Extraction Complete!

My pulled wisdom tooth.

After gleefully going to the dentist today I found that I had a tooth not only coming out, from being my wisdom tooth, but that it also had a cavity (see big hole in tooth). Brush your teeth kids. With a few pokes of a needle, I think it was to freeze my jaw, the dentist pulled the sucker out in record time.

There was a sharp pain while he was doing it but it was nothing compared to drinking the lemonade the other day. After the tooth extraction the dental assistant stuffed my mouth with gauze. She was about to throw out the tooth but I decided to hang on to it so I could photograph it later (and maybe stuff it under my pillow for the tooth fairy... uh yeah right).

It's not everyday I find something interesting to shoot with my Nikon 990 anymore. It's been relegated to taking pictures in macro mode or using my wide angle lens. Before I got the tooth from the assistant it was drenched in blood. The assistant washed it off to the PG rating you see above. The gauze is real. They gave me a wad to change the dressing over the course of the night. The metal floor is actually a metal tray I bought a while ago to serve cookies. I've never used it until now. The "blood" on the metal tray is actually food coloring to give the image a more fresh look. I lit the scene using my Nikon SB-800 speedlight with two FL-G2AWB +0.3EV filters on it to give the scene a more drab look.

Space Invaders

Space Invaders - the peg board

Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Another night that I'm exhausted yet can't get to sleep thanks to the waves of pain generated by the wisdom tooth that decided to grow into my mouth maybe 18 years or so late. Who would have thought that I'd be happy to know that I'll be visiting my dentist tomorrow? Pull it or plug it.

Procrastinating from doing a breakdown on a script, which by the way is due tomorrow afternoon, I decided to work on something less brain taxing. That being assembling a peg board I picked up a few days ago, the same day I picked up the Micronauts.

At the Silver Snail they had a few different peg kits. Made in Japan by some company (see box above) all the kits seem to be designed around creating graphics from various 70s and 80s video games. Super Mario, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Dig Dug to name a few. The later one I almost bought as I've always liked that game for some reason. I'm not sure why. Maybe because the characters are round or maybe inflating them till they blew up seemed cool. I really don't know. In the end it was the space invaders kit.

The kit contains 520 square pegs (100 pink, 110 yellow, 100 blue, 100 green, 110 red), two peg grids, two stands, and two plastic squares that let you attach the grids together. The pegs are designed so that you can't put a square peg in crooked (the holes are actually round). For more information you can click here to go to the japanese web site.

It's now about 6:23am. I'm going to try to go to sleep.

Rock Steady

Rock stacking

In my late and brief outing today from the apartment, I didn't get out until the sun was going down, I found myself on the beach looking at these rock sculptures (if you will). Someone actually spends time stacking rocks on top of one another.

As a hobby it would seem this is what your Dad might have told you to do as a kid to A) keep you out of trouble, and B) not spend any money on you. It's right up there with collecting used bottle caps, and or popsicle sticks, maybe even weeding the backyard. With the ability to record TV programs or play video games do kids get out there anymore to collect worms, bugs, eat dirt, trade bubble gum cards? Probably not.

It's just a matter of time before companies package nice cleaned up rocks and sell them as mini stacking kits. You read it here first. It would be like the "Pet Rock" procreated years later. Does anyone know if you can still buy Pet Rocks? Sounds like a question for Roger at Monster Records.

Labor Day

"Solidarity Sister!"

Monday. 8:30am. Headed out the door to meet up with Michelle at the Labor Day parade. She's part of the Canadian Media Guild (CMG) and was walking in the Labor Day parade. I figured I'd join her as a union brother (member of the IATSE 667 camera union). I can't say walking in the parade was completely to show solidarity for my union brothers and sisters. One of the pluses for walking in the parade was that it ended at the Canadian National Exhibition (the CNE). To be more accurate inside the CNE.

Admission this year was $12. It's not a lot really but when I think about the hundreds of dollars I'm going to be spending on the upcoming dentist bills well let's just say I've gone into cheapo mode. And to think I was going to fork out a few hundred bucks to go camping this weekend. Well in the end I guess I'm glad that didn't work out.

The CNE, for me anyways, marks the end of the summer while at the same time allowing me to reminisce of my childhood and my past visits to the Ex. Although there's no money tree (for some reason that display fascinated me as a kid) or Bolivia watch tower any more and the food is no longer as big as my head, there's still the air show, the animals, and the traditional exhibition food. Corn Dogs, crystalized ginger, tiny tom donuts, 99 cent spagetti, ice cream waffle sandwiches to name a few.


Sitting upside down on the CNE loop ride.

The Midway, the part of the CNE that sports the rides and games of skill and chance, was pretty expensive this year. For example, going on the ferris wheel was 6 coupons. Each coupon was $1. You could fly a helicopter around Toronto for the price of five rides on the wheel. The skill section, with maybe the exception of the balloon bursting everyone wins game, was and always has been a black hole for me and my money. I suppose the whack a mole game would be the other odd exception. Although winning by going against kids aged between 8 and 11 hardly seems fair and I'd end up giving the tiny stuffed toy to them anyway. Stupid teary wide eyed kids.


The "Superdogs" show.

Note that this year was the first superdogs show we've managed to attend. Every other year the line up has been huge on a overwhelming scale or we arrived just in time to miss the last show. I'm glad I don't have kids. I'd probably end up having to get my kid a dog after seeing this show.


Building Toronto's City Hall.

Every year there seems to be some odd exhibt of something or other. Last year it was metal sculptures that could fit within the eye of a pin. This year a bunch of cards stacked together to make up famous structures. It's right up there with the butter sculture of Elvis and the Titanic colliding with an cheese iceberg. There was also a butter sculpture of the mouse with the human ear attached to it. In hindsight I should have taken a picture of it as it was totally bizzare.


The Euroslide

And so ends another summer in Toronto. The sun will start setting earlier, the nights will get colder and soon the Christmas season will be upon us.

Brand Recognition

The noodle brand I've eaten since I was a kid.

Today I got up late. Really late. I think it was around 3pm. I decided I'd eat a bowl of noodles for breakfast/lunch/early dinner. Opening the cabinet I discovered I didn't have any. It wasn't a big surprise as I really haven't bought food in a few weeks. That's one of the nice things about working on movie sets. They feed you. I got dressed and went to Broadview and Gerrard (the local china town) to pick some up.

Since I was small I've always eaten a specific brand of noodles. To this day I still don't really know what company makes them or even what flavor they are. The noodles are flavor free but inside each package of noodles are two other plastic pacakges of stuff. One I think is onions and MSG, the other is a spicy meat like hot sauce. It may not even be meat. The noodle packaging I can identify by the red, white, and blue colors with the design of the bowl with steam coming out. There's another noodle this company makes that has a cow on it. I once bought the cow labeled noodles by accident.

I checked two stores for the particular brand. At the second store I noticed that there were only two boxes left so I bought them both. Each box contains 30 individual packages (as seen above). Had the company upgraded the packaging I might have had to try a new noodle.


Darryl packs the last few things to go to the new apartment.

I left the grocery store and went to Darryl's place to drop off his ass documentary pictures (see previous post). Darryl has been in the process of moving apartments over the last few days. His old apartment pretty much looked like it usually did minus the shelving. Wow there was a lot of stuff. This coming from the guy looking around his apartment at all the stuff and I'm not even moving.

Like a vietnam vet waking up with beads of sweat remembering images of the past, I found myself remembering all the times I've moved and all the friends that helped in the process. Thanks guys. I couldn't have moved all those times without you all.

Movie waiting

Waiting for the show to start.

After taking a nap I met up with Nancy, Michelle and Marc at the rainbow cinema to see the sequel to "the Transporter". Although the seats are cramped and narrow the price for admission is pretty inexpensive. $7.50 for an evening show. I met them outside the theatre (see above).

Without totally destroying the plot line of the movie I thought it was good until near the end. It was there that my suspension of disbelief was shattered. Sure there were other parts of the movie where you might say "Yea, like that's possible" sideways out of your mouth. I have to admit that the CG kind of took me out of the movie a few times. It wasn't as bad as the James Bond movie "Die Another Day", where Bond is parachuting over the melting ice, but some of the scenes in the Transporter2 looked really unrealistic. I thought the whole end sequence should have been replaced by a standard fight on the ground. It would have made the movie better and cost the production less.

Still it was a nice piece of entertainment to get my mind off my aching tooth.... and yes William is right... they should have stuck with the BMW car.

Tooth Decay

My wisdom tooth slowly growing in (right side) squishing my other teeth into one another. Obviously this picture was taken by my dentist and not by me.

!!!! WARNING !!!!
this blog entry might be a tad graphic
some readers may want to skip this

It's been months since my tooth has been causing pain. In the last two days or so the pain has been amplified to that of tearing one's thumbnail off. I know, I tried doing this when I smashed my thumb into a computer case a few weeks ago. The accident caused my thumbnail to be split in two with one side hanging onto some flesh. I figured pulling it off would be less painful in the long run than having the nail flapping in the wind over the course of a few days and eventually falling out on it's own.

Of course ripping one's thumbnail out is not as easy as it's cracked up to be. In the end, after a few minutes of tugging, and maybe ripping off a few millimeters, I gave up and wrapped it up using a few bandages. The point I'm trying to make is that my tooth has been way more troublesome on the pain scale than the thumbnail. Like someone was tapping a nail into your jaw slowly. Maybe it's because I can't reach the problem (as with the thumb) or maybe it's because it usually occurs while I'm trying to eat or drink something... activities I tend to enjoy under normal circumstances.

Last night, I was thirsty, I decided to drink the only drink I had in the fridge at the time. That being lemonade. I'd take a swig then my tooth would burst into pain. It would be like watching Kirk and Spock being worked over with the pain givers. Since I didn't want to waste any lemonade I continued drinking the stuff. Thirst quench, pain, thirst quench, pain... it was a continuous cycle as I kept drinking glass after glass of the stuff. I figured at some point the nerve receptors would get used to it and I could evenetually drink the liquid without noticing the bombardment of the waves of pain. Well that theory really didn't work (I realized this after about five cups).

Later on in the day after going out for the weekly dim sum spread I got some food lodged into the back of my mouth. The pain was not as bad as the lemonade experiment but it caused me to have a headache on the right side of my head. While the others went shopping I ventured off to see the family dentist.

Once at the office I made an appointment. The earliest I could be seen was this coming thursday at 3:30pm. At that point I went home to sleep off the pain which was getting worse to the point I almost blacked out on the streetcar going home.

At this point I'd like to just yank out the tooth or plug it up (if it's a cavity) and be done with it.

Stupid tooth.

Micronauts

The 2004 line of Micromen.

After the day of wrapping cables and checking in video equipment the show rented from Panavision I slept... a lot. When I woke up it was about 1:30pm. I went to the IATSE 667 office and pay my yearly dues and followed it up by heading over across the street to Monster Records. Roger, the proprietor of this fine establishment, showed be some pictures he took in Ireland mixed with some pictures of some action figures.

Yes, I blame him for re-introducing me to the micronauts, now known as micromen. A toy line I thought to be extinct, now resurrected by some japanese toy company. They have brought out new merchadise along with remakes of the old stuff. I might add that the old toy figures look exactly the same as they did back in the 70s. They didn't steriod them up like the american remakes of the star wars figures.

The cool thing about these action figures is that they have multiple joints for those action poses. They do not just bend at the hip, shoulders and neck. Wrist, ankles, knees, elbows, hips, upper torso. They also have multiple hands that are interchangable (no... there's no vulcan salute). Open hand, fist, pointing with two fingers, clutching hand, clutching hand with bendable wrist.

After looking through Roger's bookmarked toy catalog online I ended up at the Silver Snail (comic book store) where all Japanese toys were on sale. 10% off. Okay it wasn't a great sale, but it was all the excuse I needed to impulse buy a few figures. Along with the standard translucent micronaut figures they had Mark from Battle of the Planets (Gatchaman), Batman, cat woman, chun-li (street fighter), Alien versus Predator and my favorite a micronaut that climbs into a Godzilla suit, How cool is that?

As I look into the net I see rolling tumbleweeds travelling through an empty blackness as I think I've alienated most of my readers with my historic reminiscing of 70s toys.