One of the movies I'm looking forward to this summer is the sequel to the actioner "Pitch Black" which seems to have expanded into something a lot more ambitious in scale and in concept. You can read about the story here but, as far as science fiction films go, I'm equally interested in the production design. For far too long the science fiction epic has been mired in either the fantastical ("Star Wars"), the utopian ("Star Trek") or in the grimly near-futurish vision that developed out of the two Ridley Scott pictures ("Blade Runner", "Alien"). These recent stills from "The Chronicles of Riddick" show a production design that is neither of these. Take a look at this set. Brightly lit, curves, vaults, palatial, medieval. The last time I saw set design like this was in David Lynch's "Dune". Take a look at this nice set.

The first two and third photo were taken with the camera's maximum (but still compressed) 12mp resolution. The second photo was taken with the Fuji's macro mode (though cropped to 640x480). The fourth was in the black and white mode and the fifth photo was just an interesting juxtaposition of old and new.

Toyota has been going from strength to strength as the leading car manufacturer in the world with its commercial car lines and with its second generation hybrid car: the Prius which I'm seeing more and more of in Vancouver. Here you can see some of their concept vehicles. Yes, they are concepts and will never make it to the street but these are still some interesting dream mobiles. Also of note, Smart from Mercedez Benz is bringing over its distinctively modelled Smart Cars to Canada in the fall. These are pretty cute. The flagship model, like the Toyota PM concept, lacks a bit in the passenger and freight capacity but the newer Smarts, a coupe version, will be a bit more useful while looking futuuuuristic... See more here >>

I haven't had a digital camera for about two years so I recently picked up this new Fuji. It's an SLR-like 6MP camera that has some nice features. Below is a selection of some of the better snappies that I've taken the past week I've had it. The images have been reduced 50%. Here is one full version (1280x960).

This is a story you won't read in the wire services. This is a lengthy account of a 24-hour seige in Iraq on Tuesday in which a handful of coalition soldiers were trapped in a government compound by Sadrists. It is written from the POV of a U.S. woman soldier in her LiveJournal blog. Far from being a heroic account, it plainly relates the fear, stress, screw ups of the soldiers and their reaction to the inability of higher ups to extract them from the situation. Read it here >>

This is an amusing story about the Japanese actor Seizo Fukumoto, who is famous for being a "kirareyaku," which translates into "sliced-up actor." By his count he has died 20,000 times in various ways on screen, mostly in samurai and gangster films. Now he thinks the profession is a 'dying art'. Read it here >>

The agents on the first line of defense against terrorist threats against the United States are also among the lowest paid federal employees who incur big expenses living in America's largest cities. The story sounds a warning that FBI agents are vulnerable to bankruptcy and corruption. Read about it here >>