June 14/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
	New Pyroglyph Films.com Late last night I put the finishing touches on a new Pyroglyph Films website for my bud Dylan Couper. I was under pressure to get this done in time for his trip to Florida where he is filming a martial arts demonstration. This is a real change from the dark site I built him previously. This one has lots of white space for the content. It makes use of a great photo he took of a sunrise from out the window of his car one day. See it here >> Watching The Wire I've been watching the second season of "The Wire" to satisfy my craving for good cop shows and this one from HBO is pretty stellar. It's like a full hour of Homicide but in the HBO medium where characters are free to talk as blue as they want. Set in Baltimore, it's about the disparate members of a police investigation who have been dispersed to various sections after something bad went down (first season) and a criminal element who are also recovering from their scrape with the police. Unlike other cop dramas this one is very much into the lifestyles, language and the politics of the city. Unlike The Shield where gritty meant hardcore violent (which tended toward pulpy), the realism in The Wire is more in how they portray the characters. Very good acting and direction.

	June 13/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
	Hellboy screenshots Nazis and demons: a great combo One of the few comics that I buy sight unseen is any in Mike Mignola's Hellboy universe so you can imagine that I am absolutely thrilled that the movie adaptation is looking extremely faithful to the Mignola look. Hellboy is a series of stories about a demon fated to bring about the end of the world but chooses to work with an organization of paranormal investigators. The art is totally excellent with lots of great use of negative space and high contrast colour scheme. The Hellboy movie is by Guillermo del Toro, the director of some of the best looking horror-oriented film recently including Blade II, Chronos and The Devil's Backbone. From the look of the screenshots released in the past few weeks, del Toro has nailed the look. It helps that Mignola is the creative consultant on set I suppose. See more screenshots here >> Extremely busy This week has been one of those really busy times where work at my day job and work outside have totally slammed me. Things I am juggling now: Lady X script revisions (trying to cut down 17 pages to 7!), a new Pyroglyph website, final changes to the Fidgital video and a business brochure for a software company. Markus Naslund wins the Lester Pearson award It was a nice piece of news yesterday that Canucks' captain Markus Naslund was voted by his pears as the MVP this year (as opposed to the Hart trophy which is the MVP as voted by hockey writers). Naslund certainly was among the top players this year (edged out in points by fellow Swede Peter Forsberg). During the playoffs I think he ran out of gas, however. Next year Vancouver has to give him more support in secondary scoring.

	June 11/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
	Saul Bass.net A great tribute site to a great designer There's a discussion on Sk8 Jesus about fancy pants title sequences in film (with a starting point of discussion: Fight Club). It is generally agreed that the effect of heavy CG animation on title is becoming a bit stale (though I liked Fincher's last one with the titles alongside the buildings in Panic Room. I dug up my love for the great Saul Bass, designer extraordinaire who designed the titles for Spartacus, Vertigo, North by Northwest, and probably the only good thing about Scorsese's Age of Innocence. As well, he designed the logos for AT&T, United Airlines, and Minolta. An excellent site to peruse Saul Bass' work is Saul Bass.net >> NASA: Mars Rover launch video There's good video (despite being on Real Player) of the Mars Rover launch. Besides the usual view of the rocket taking off from the ground, there is great video from on board the rocket as it leaves the Earth, reaches orbit, jettisoning boosters as it goes along. In the Washington Post >> How wasted I am today Today I was so not awake that I poured my hot cereal into my coffee. Then when I poured my cereal out, it came with sugar lumps. Both tasted rather weird.

	June 10/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
	Giant Gambian rat I'll name her 'SARS' One of the animals linked to the recent outbreak of 'Monkeypox' in the American southwest is the exotic pet, the Giant Gambian Rat. I've been interested in these big rodents after hearing that they had been used in the remake of 'Ben' (which I didn't see). I came across this page where the owner is mourning his or her rat which died of the Corona Virus!! Stanley Cup Finals over: hockey pool result Despite having three players who survived into game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals, I placed sixth in my office pool with 68 points between all my players. It was a foregone conclusion as the first placer had a whopping 154 points, 58 points more than the second placer. My top point getter was the goalie Roman Chechmanek who was knocked out in the second round showing that in future pools, picking a goalie who goes far is the key. The New Jersey Devils won 3-0.

	June 9/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
	Criticism builds over unproven reasons for Iraq war The only evidence of WMD came from the coalition In the past two weeks pressure from critics of the Iraq war have been building on both sides of the Atlantic over the so far unproven reasons that made the U.S. and Britain launch their attack on Iraq. In the eight weeks since fighting ceased the coalition have not been able to produce any tangible evidence that Iraq had weaponized material for weapons of mass destruction. The Washington Post reports that Bush has begun to shift his reasoning for the war away from WMD. And in the New York Times today it was revealed that the top two al Qaeda in U.S. hands said that bin Laden had vetoed the idea of working with Saddam Hussein. Writing my Lady-X episode Yesterday I spent five straight hours writing Dylan Couper and my episode of Lady-X as a full screenplay draft. It represents my largest output since I finished that screenwriting course. Good productive day. Of course, it was blazing hot as well and I really should have seen some of it.

	June 8/03                                                                            More in weblog archive
	First two Lady-X episodes up Hee hee, this will be fun The first two Lady-X episodes are available for viewing on the Lady-X official website. They certainly set a standard at least for use of locations and props, something that Dylan and my episode have to meet. The first episode has a helicopter and the second episode has a submarine! View the Lady-X episodes here >> Previous blog here >>