Tonight I will be moving out 99% of the stuff left in my old apartment of six years. The rest of the job will be stamping on unneeded cardboard and taking down my shrine to Azeroth I had hidden in the corner of the store-room. Just kidding, that went down first. Anyway, while I will miss living with the most helpful nerd I've ever known I won't miss Pacific Point's massive seagull colony, the rear of the Atlantis Nightclub or the idiotic double parking lot key and magnetic lock system that made moving anything from car to apartment like breaking into the Pentagon in the Mission Impossible movie. I also won't miss the laundry card system that made me accumulate over $300 of loose change. Yeah yeah I could have actually spent every nickel, dime and penny I got back from buying Snapple and Coffee Crisps from that place around the corner but then I would have missed the fun of spending about five hours counting and wrapping change.

This is an amusing - or scary depending on how strong your stomach is - story about how Chinese restaurants in the Los Angeles area can't make the 'A' grade in food safety inspections and how Chinese patrons just don't seem to care. Read it in the LA Times >>

A group building a robot that must climb into space in order to lift the tether for the theoretical space elevator announced that the latest version reached 1000 ft from the ground climbing mid way to a balloon. Liftport said that the 18th prototype of their robot was able to climb a fibreglass thread and that they will continue tests until they can reach one mile from the Earth. More here >>

I've been moving the past week which is why I haven't made any posts. Evenings I've been packing, cleaning and moving stuff in small shipments to my parent's garage and to Sarah's place. I chose the bin method instead of hunting for cardboard boxes. A bit more costly but easier to move and store. So I've been at Home Depot a lot. Sarah's place is a bit small so I had to store my HP Laserjet and scanner. In their place I just brought home an HP 'all in one' printer - a Photosmart 2610 which combines faxing, scanning, photocopying, printing and photo printing. I haven't had a chance to print out a photo yet but the B&W printing and photocopying seem to work fine. Like all HPs it is pretty monochrome ugly and slightly more bulky than the Canon Pixmas I was also looking at. However, it was also the only printer at Futureshop that had an ethernet port so I could hook it into my mini home network. The photo is from the plastic bag packaging it came in, helpfully warning you not to use it as a baby helmet and also, I think, telling you not to sing with it on your head.

The image here is from a soldier guarding New Orleans' Superdome in the aftermath of the Katrina hurricane and subsequent flooding. What I like about the image (you can enlarge it) is how it looks like a screengrab from a futuristic apocalyptic movie. You have the soldier manning some unspecified weapon (a defense against alien invaders or zombies perhaps) in front of an imposing structure. Then behind him some evidence of destruction - the flooding and an abandoned car. It could be a science fiction movie but it is real. We know inside the Superdome people were fighting for their lives, were killing each other and dying while outside the military and law enforcement patrolled deploying advanced active denial weapons against a possible riot, shooting looters and otherwise imposing martial law as bodies floated in the streets. It seems like the future is coming so quickly our old science fiction tropes are no longer necessary.

Yesterday I had to take time off work to get my windshield replaced. I had picked up a chip while driving at high speeds through the Rocky Mountains, a chip that became a 15 cm crack during the next two days. So I took a $200 hit on the deductible with the insurance picking up the rest of the $600 or so cost on the Mazda's fancy wancy rain sensor equipped glass. My main lesson was: get the glass repaired right away.

I stuck around chatting to the guy who came by my apartment to do the work and learned a bit about the business. While I watched he took photos of the damage, submitted my claim through his cellular-wireless equipped laptop (he said he was going to get a cellular credit card processing machine this year), then scraped out my old glass and its old cement. Then he cleaned the new glass, applied cement, and popped it in. About an hour and a bit of work.

He makes six figures for as much as six visits a day. ICBC pays for more hours of work than it takes. Much of the profit that auto repair shops get is because of some error in ICBC's pricing for a part. There is no recycling for windshield glass (!). Many glass workers were grandfathered into certification last year unlike any new people who must take a four year apprenticeship.

I started buying tickets yesterday for the VIFF, something I usually dread because the online ticketing system has traditionally been unresponsive and hard to navigate. This time it looks like they've finally got the resources to do it right and the buying process was smooth (for those of you with VISAs). That's good because the in-person purchasing process is even more trying (and remember, I was a volunteer so I know the other side of it). This year I'm happy to endorse the online system. My old complaint that the movie descriptions pop up rather than go to a new page remains. What pop ups do is prevent you from passing on link to a friend. The only new negative so far is that they raised the prices by 50 cents all around. For future iterations I'm still hoping they incorporate something like a festival planner.

I attended another Praxis event last night - a last minute decision - which was to hear Vancouver-based screenwriter Simon Barry speak on how Hollywood works, how writers can break in and how he can manage to live in Vancouver and work on American shows and features. Barry is the writer of the Wesley Snipes action picture "Art of War" and recently adapted the Romeo D'Allaire book "Shake Hands With the Devil". Barry was very down-to-earth and a lot of what I jotted down wasn't covered in any of the screenwriting books I've read.

The main point which stuck with me is that screenwriting is a job and that the only time a screenwriter will be sacrificing is with their first script sale or sample. That getting your script read is more like a talent interview as it was concerned with the script itself. It is with that script that you get noticed which then you must parley into a career Barry said that the vast majority of Hollywood work was in development - creating stories, vetting stories, developing stories. Only a tiny minority will be produced so there is lots of work for those who are talented - even if the results don't show up on the screen.

The main trick for beginning writers is to get that first notice which means getting the proper agent and then making an impression IF it leads to meetings. (Obviously, only a strong writing sample will draw notice.) Barry stressed how many filters there were built into the studio system in order to screen out unworthy material. He said most writers do not properly research the proper channels in the submission phase.

As for how he can be based in Hollywood he said: 'no one even guesses' he is not in L.A. and if there is a meeting he can fly down the next day. This interview in Done Deal covers some of the same ground as in the seminar.

As it turned out a printing delay has placed the glossy VIFF book out of my hands until Sunday however I couldn't resist and went through the online schedule already. As a result, I have a preliminary schedule. My wallet can handle it but will my ass cheeks? That question will be answered in a couple weeks! I've scheduled thirteen movies and on one day I have three scheduled. See my schedule here (Excel spreadsheet) >>

While I was gone the Vancouver International Film Festival released their program guide for this year and I've only just been able to take a look at it. The past year saw a pulling away from their trademark Dragons and Tigers program and now most of their programming is looking at European and lesser-known American indies. Still, there are a few Asian films that look interesting. "Crying Fist" and "The Duellists" are the best known South Korean films opening here. The programmer Tony Rayns is also continuing to bring films from the emerging Chinese independent scene. A French psychothriller called "Cache" starring Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil has gotten good notices at the Toronto festival (Ebert has lots to write about TIFF here). I've been looking forward to the Canadian-Icelandic take on Beowulf directed by Sturla Gunnarson - "Beowulf and Grendel". I'll know more about what I'm going to see after I pick up a guide today. Of course, you can look online here >>

I am back in feature-filled Vancouver. Here are a collection of my thoughts gleaned from my weekl away. 1) The drive between Edmonton and Jasper is only marginally more interesting than the drive between Edmonton and Drumheller. 2) There are cool clothing stores in Whyte St. but where do the cool looking people go in Edmonton? 3) I can drive between Edmonton and Chilliwack without dropping my speed below 140kmph and still not get a ticket 4) The iPod and FM transmitter were made for long trips like this 5) The cruise control works fine but it also makes you fall asleep. 6) Have a cute co-pilot with you to keep you awake, work the iPod controls and keep you awake. 7) There are around 1500 kms between the outskirts of Edmonton and my home in Vancouver. 8) People in Edmonton don't fix the cracks in their windshield which makes me feel only slightly better about the crack in mine that I picked up along the way.

After being toured around Edmonton for a day, Sarah and I took a long and ultimately arduous trip three hundred kilometres south to visit the world famous Royal Tyrell Museum. It's most recently famous because Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie got a private visit in the previous week while he is shooting a Jesse James movie but it's usually well recommended as one of the best dinosaur fossil exhibits in the world. Since the turn of the century prospectors and then paleontologists have been unearthing impressive remains of beasties from the beginning of time to ours.

It does sound impressive but actually after a nearly three hour car trip we had ultimately lost our minds on the boring long highways of the Alberta countryside. All in all we were on the road for eight hours and spent hardly an hour in the museum. I took lots of photos of posed bones, read a few captions, rested in front of dioramic displays and then took in the surrounding Badlands. We were just in too rough a shape to really appreciate the place. The 12-year old in me that would have loved the museum I think was left on some rest stop a hundred kms back.

On the way back I broke every speed limit trying to make the passage of time and space move faster. We tried to look for a place to eat in Drumheller but since it was Sunday all the places were shuttered. Finally, in a little truckstop of a town called Three Hills we made a pit stop at one of those under-equipped Chinese buffets that dot the less travelled roads of Western Canada. I wolfed down spare ribs, egg noodles, fried rice and meat stuff lathered in brightly coloured sugar sauce while Sarah looked on in horror, unable to eat anything but rice and steamed vegetables. It was terrible but provided fuel enough to push on through. I can't see how anyone can not break the speed limit out of pure boredom on those prairie highways.

Many people who have watched the trailer of upcoming Tim Burton stop motion animated feature "The Corpse Bride" believe it is computer animated but actually, as this article in Editor Guild magazine reveals, it was done mostly with digital still photography. For the monumental 52-week shot the crew used 20 Canon EOS-1D Mark IIs to photograph each painstakingly posed scene. About a third of the way down the process of registering and shooting each frame is described. Read it here >>

After two days of travel Sarah and I arrived in the home of my brother, his wife and their newborn baby girl. Along the way we stayed at a cute (Sarah called it 'quaint') little cabin next to the Miette Hot Springs, one of three natural hot springs in the Rocky Mountains. The hot springs were, well, hot. Of the much vaunted animal life in Jasper National Park we managed to avoid running over one coyote, a chipmunk, an elk and assorted humans. This morning we woke up and saw an entire herd of mountain sheep cropping the grass beneath our window. Later, we were stalked by a mountain goat that was bent on breaking the law against approaching or feeding wildlife. A handful of German tourists pretended they didn't know we were warning them from antagonizing large ungulates with horns. The photo is of one fearless animal in its natural environment: the parking lot (click to see the human wildlife beside it) Collectively, we drove fifteen hours between Vancouver and Edmonton with four stops for gas (cheapest gas was in Hope - most expensive was in Kamloops) and some pee breaks. Without the help of the iPod the trip would have felt longer. My Mazda 3 equitted itself quite well - I could pass anyone I chose to - but the rough ride of its suspension made itself felt in my hands after around hour six. My ass is hurting a bit too.

For the past four days I've been loading music like crazy onto my new 20gb iPod Color Photo. This will have to do as a short review. The hardware is just beautiful. I like stroking it and the stroking wheel interface is marvelous. Anyone under forty will get it right away. Now the laborious part is ripping all of the CDs that I own into AAC format. I've been doing that whenever I've had a free moment and am almost done. I use Exact Audio Copy to rip and then I use iTunes to xfer onto the iPod. The iPhoto stuff is interesting too because it allows you to not only store photos onto your iPod but also show them off in a kind of cute pocket gallery again using the wheel. You can scroll through hundreds of photos like you are seeing your life flash before your eyes. My next step is to start generating playlists.

After standing in line for ten minutes at the local chi-chi grocery store, when I was coming outside this big dog that had been tied up in front of the entrance leaped out and grabbed my bagette. I started fighting it for awhile as people *LAUGHED* and then I gave up. Then as I stood waiting for the owner, this sophisti-fag came out, went *shriek* and started lecturing me on feeding bread to my dog. I said: "It's not my dog." He: "Don't you know not to feed other people's dogs without permission?" Me: "Are you the owner?" He: "Are you the owner?" Me: "Man, I'm waiting for the fucking owner because his dog ate my fucking bagette." Then the gay guy just waves me off and walks away. The owner came out a few minutes later and was dismayed. "Ohh... he's out of control." tuttut and paid me the three bucks. Everyone at the Starbucks nearby were entertained.
I hate downtown.

The year began with the tsunami disaster in SE Asia; Iraq is still a hellhole where hundreds can die in one day and now New Orleans is partially submerged by hurricane Katrina with thousands feared dead. This year isn't special but what is is the amount of media coverage given. Flooding hits Bangladesh yearly killing hundreds and sometimes thousands. Fires made thousands homeless in Spain last month. If you pay attention to all the news all the time, you get the impression that any day a large event, caused by humans or nature, is going to mess up your life. Actually, all it takes is a bad lane change on the highway to change your life. Try as I might today I can't summon up the "Don't worry, be happy" song while people beg for water in what is supposed to be the world's most powerful country. I asked my friend Dylan how he might prepare for the unknown? He showed me a picture of what he has in his survival kit. Count them. He has four knives! Mother of god! Is this the person I'm going to have to compete with when the zombies rise up?