Hello Stranger!

I have been without home internet for so long I had forgotten what it feels like to stream free TV episodes, or play Scrabble online in real time, or just get a little taste of good old fashioned internet porn. err, I mean just make a new post on my old blog. Not that there’s much to say, but damn it feels good to be back.

And on the homefront:

• I gots a new roommate
• I gots a growing garden
• I gots a new red mountain bike
• I gots only 5 months left of school
• I gots no landlord till August cuz she’s gone back to Portugal for the summer

So, things ain’t so bad now. Although I know they could get worse…. again!

 

Emma Dilemma

Emma Lee and her band at her PWYC Cameron House Wednesday night residency

For the past few weeks I have been spending my Wednesday evenings in the company of the divine Miss Emma Lee. She has a May and June residency at the Cameron House Bar, on Queen St. W., and each week she puts on an hour or so set of new songs, old favourites and a cover or two. She even dedicated one song in her set to yours truly this past week. I’ve made myself known to her as a mega-fan you see. And the best part is it’s all free (or PWYC, which is fine cuz she’s totally worth it!). I’ll upload a video clip I made the other night one of these days. But in the meantime if you have nothing planned this coming Wednesday eve you can find me anytime after 10:30pm worshipping at the feet of this brilliant songstress. See her now before her concert ticket prices go into orbit.

 

Wanna Screwdriver?

Robots at the Robot Bar. She orders a "screwdriver"...with hilarious consequences!

My recent lack of blog activity has been as much due to my school work overload as to my lack of a home web connection. But that situation will be remedied quite soon (I hope). I have a new roommate, who has replaced my old lifemate, and together I think we can scrape enough $$$ together to split a home internet connection. In the meantime have a gander at this brand new still from the new 3D Animation segment I am working on at college. It’s a group project although our 4 man group is more like 2 men working, and 2 men on retainer who never come in to work, we are getting a nice little animation underway. The scene is called “Wanna Screwdriver” and this still is from what we have put together so far. I modelled most of the back and front bar and the props, and I did the back walls and props too. I also came up with the overall concept and the course of action (ie: the character movement and the camera shots). And when it gets done…. it will be magic!!

 

In General… Things Kinda Suck Today!

Not much to write about today other than how sucky things are. So if you’re up for an earfull of complaining here goes:

• My love life just went down the tubes. And via an email no less.
• My project at school is not looking like it’s going to reach a cohesive conclusion anytime soon.
• My apartment rent increase has forced me to take in a roommate again. Now auditioning….
• My free home internet connection has officially dried up.
• My rear bike tire is wobbling.
• My car needs more repairs (and after I just dropped $700+ on the dang thing).
• My back hurts.
• I’m sick of eating pasta.
• My lottery numbers never come up.
• Jeopardy has been pre-empted on the CBC by hockey playoffs
• and I keep getting hounded on Facebook to reunite with old high school acquaintances. Ughhh!

Well, it could be worse. It could be raining.

 

How to Drag Your Training

How To Train Your Dragon

Yesterday we had an unofficial school field trip. We went to see an afternoon screening of the 3D IMAX version of Dreamworks’ animated film How To Train Your Dragon. In a word… astonishing. Exceptionally well animated. Just jaw dropping. But the funniest part was the group of us staying for all the credits an counting how many people worked on each aspect of the film. In a word.. . daunting!

 

My Animated Personality – Part Trois

Well, I haven’t been much of a blogger for much of April, but one excuse I have is that I had a special project due for a family function coming up this weekend, and that has taken up a fair bit of my time. I also still have pretty sporadic internet connection at home, and not much to write about, but using the animation project as an excuse allows me to segue nicely into presenting said animation for your viewing pleasure.

Does this post sound familiar yet? Well that’s cuz the first paragraph was lifted straight from my post last month about the 11 Second Club contest (which I di’int win BTW). But this time I am making a video presentation for my folks’ 50th Wedding Anniversary. There’s 5 parts to it and this is the first bit. The animated lead-in. It also doubled as a class project I submitted for extra marks. And if it makes you wanna go out and buy a Swiffer, then my work here is done.

 

More Memories

Myself (right) and younger brother at Centre Island. Yes you once could SWIM in Lake Ontario.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I am going through a lot of old photos these days. And I am not only getting a kick out of seeing photographic evidence of how young I once was, and how blonde I once was, but I also love how bad my parents were about composing a photograph. I say close to 90% of the photos in our family albums have half the pic taken up with the sky or the ceiling. It’s almost an anti-aesthetic aesthetic. Perfect for album covers. And speaking of album covers I am guessing that most of these pics were taken with 126 film which I recall, from my days working in the photofinishing trade, produced a square negative. And 126′s are/were also notoriously shitty cheap-o cameras. Thank heavens for digital!

 

Still Trying To Lose That Baby Fat

My exhibitionism began at an early age. 9 months it seems...

I have been going through lots of old family photos recently and scanning them into my computer. It’s a family project that will have me busy on and off for the next few weeks. But during the course of my scanning I’ve come across some old photos that are real doozies. There’s one of my older brother dressed as the devil (for Hallowe’en at the age of about 4) that is especially amusing because now he is a completely hard-line observant man of God who won’t even let his kids read Harry Potter cuz it’s too satanic. Oy! But anyway, this pic of yours truly letting it all hang out on the living room floor just screamed “put me on your blog!” So I did. Enjoy…

 

Where’s My Hassenpfeffer?!!

Bugs Bunny - Hasenpfeffer Episode

I had my Easter Bunny early this year. In a stew to be precise. I was out for dinner with some friends at Tati Restaurant on Wednesday evening to celebrate my pal Damian‘s birthday, and I saw rabbit on the menu and thought “why not?” I recalled that one of my most memorable meals was having hassenpfeffer in a small town in Germany some 20 odd years ago, and at that time I only ordered it cuz I remembered the infamous Bugs Bunny cartoon in which Yosemite Sam has to prepare a dish of hassenpfeffer for the king (and thus was chasing Bugs throughout the rest of the episode). Now in case you haven’t put 2 and 2 together yet, hassenpfeffer is a dinner entrée in which the main ingredient is rabbit. Hassen in German means “rabbit” and pfeffer translates to “pepper” and thus peppered rabbit is the dish in question. See how educational cartoons can be? Anyway the rabbit stew I had was flavoured with tomatoes and potatoes, and lots of other good stuff, and it was absolutely scrumptious. And filling. I had no idea rabbits had so much yummy meat on their bones. Hopefully no bunny lovers out there will be too too angry with me for this culinary escapade. But I’m sure that being a rabbit my little pal I had for dinner the other night probably wasn’t chock-a-block with steroids, fed his own relatives as protein meal, and killed with an electromagnet to the head. Think of that next time you’re ticking into a burger. Mmmmmm… burger. Gotta go now!

 

My Animated Personality – Part Deux

Well, I haven’t been much of a blogger for much of March, but one excuse I have is that I had a school project due for class this week, and that has taken up a fair bit of my time. I also still have pretty sporadic internet connection at home, and not much to write about, but using the animation project as an excuse allows me to segue nicely into presenting said animation for your viewing pleasure.

The clip above is my entry for the The 11 Second Club. If you visit the website you can find out all about how it works, but in a nutshell it is a monthly contest, open to all animators (amateur and professional), and the basic set up is you download an 11 second audio clip and then you have till the end of the month to produce an animation for it. It is judged by visitors to the site (so go and vote for me) and the winners get industry professional critiques. Our prof at school thought it would be an interesting challenge for us to tackle this month and I think he was right. Anyhoo… hope ya like it!