What to do in case of a zombie apocalypse.

I got my taxes in and fixed the last thing that needed fixing on my mom's computer (for some inexplicable reason, her password was lost on her email and the final patches needed to be installed on her OS). I've been dubbing vhs tapes to dvd. Hopefully I can mine some of that material for daily videos (I've been a day behind for a few days now). Margaret suddenly realized that we had tickets for a steak night fundraiser for the school so we took her brother along and caught up on his stories from Toronto. Five minutes after arriving home we realized that the lectures about what to do in case of a zombie apocalypse was already starting at the library so William and I raced off there. Some good discussions of survival but we unfortunately missed half of the first speaker who discussed the metaphoric issues of zombies in the contemporary world from a sociology point of view.

Give a little gif

Last night at the student films, one of the students said she liked my ongoing short films on Vimeo. I told her that I'd just discovered animated gifs and might start making one second films instead.

Student films

Last night and tonight were the screenings of the fourth year film students. They were quite good. The event was at the Artesian on 13th.

Dentist day

I needed to have an old filling removed and replace today. The distraction of having a camera with me the whole time made the process seem quick and less obtrusive. It was interesting playing back clips along the way to see what was happening.I made THIS VIDEO.

Ramping up projects

Met with Rob today and figured out some revisions to the Rerun project which will hopefully included animated gif files to make it more versatile and fun. I met yesterday with Geremy Lague regarding his graduate work in flipbooks; I think that might connect as well. Yesterday I also met with Erik to re-engage with Sockvile.

Leesa Streifler

Nettie Saul and Leesa Streifler

My friend and colleague Leesa Streifler had her long awaited opening of her new paintings at the Art Gallery of Regina today. It was very well attended by the art community as well as by her friends. 

animated gif

I tried my hand at creating animated gif files today. I am certain to assign this to my animation students next time.

is it summer?

It went up to 28 degrees today. Took a reading break out on the hammock with the cat. William had his friends over for a water fight.

Mom's computer

My mom picked up a rather nasty virus in her computer recently. I began taking it apart to rebuild it. Figured the only way to be sure of a clean install is with a fresh hard drive.

Cousin David

My cousin David from Winnipeg is in town with his family this weekend. His son, about the age of William, is playing hockey in a tournament in Pilot Butte. I went to a game and we caught up a bit.

Film device

My Thursday city symphony film is late this week. It was snowing yesterday and I didn't feel like testing out my new contraption in that cold (see plan and device above). The video I made is just a test. I've got some more sophisticated thoughts on what to do with it from this point.

Field Trip

I went with William and another group to the MacKenzie Art Gallery for a field trip this morning. Originally Margaret was going but she was invited to the Mayor's lunch for the arts (in which the Mayor didn't attend this year because he is overseas boxing or something, although I wonder if this lack of priority comes out of his being told off at last year's lunch?). I continued having trouble with getting internet into my tv but did manage to (easily) get Netflix into my old tv through William's Wii.

public art proposals

We attended an unveiling of a dozen proposed new public art projects commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1912 Regina Cyclone. Most of the artists and selection committee were there (pictured above). Some good food.
All my work is slow. I've had some sort of sinus headache, I think from alergies, for days now. Also, the snails in the fish tank have survived. We counted eight tiny ones alive.

Hmmmmm?

I ran two errands today. One was to the bank to complain about the credit card they convinced me to get but now that it came it, it appears to have significant extra fees. Contrary to all the written information that came with it, the bank assures me that I am special and won't pay the fees. Hmmmm....

I also went to OTV and bought a device to get internet into my blue ray player. After looking at numerous options, one other seemingly knowledgeable customer suggested one device which would be very easy to use. It wasn't. I spent an hour working with it and it still doesn't work.Hmmmmm...

biscotti

Getting low on biscotti, baked a new batch. They won't last the whole summer. It gets really tough in July when they run low as I need the oven on for about 3 hours to do them all correctly.

Easter, the sequel

 William and Margaret did the caulking on the bat houses today. Just need paint and a hanging method now.
This evening, Gerda and Richard had everyone over for a one-week-after-Easter Easter dinner. Good food and only two conversations about the tax credit.

making...

All day: worked on building two bat houses.
All evening, mixed pangalactic gargle blasters at Sylvain's house party in preparation for conference patty this fall. Drank too many. Bed now.

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th is almost over. Not a bad day actually; I went to a lecture that Gordon Pepper presented at the university about literacy in the digital age which primarily reviewed McLuhan and a couple of others. I'd never run across the idea that reading leads to individuality before. This evening we watched Inception. I borrowed it from the library last night. Coincidentally, I was flipping through the listings on the new cable I subscribed to and found it was just starting on Movie Central so I pvr'd it (as the dvd is likely scratched as any popular library disc tends to be). Much fun.

the horror!

Today I got digital cable. Also took William and his friend to the university for the presentation of Christina's Horror and Mysticism course projects  (Chris, Matt, and Amy - above). This evening we went to The Artist (finally). The ending to the Artist was not the ending that I was led to believe it would be after inadvertently reading a spoiler for it in Greg Klymkew's Facebook commentary. That made it a nice surprise.

Wirl-wind Saskatoon trip wraps up

Saskatoon today; lunch at a good noodle and gelato place, then a couple of art galleries and Paved Arts where we got a tour of the new renos from Riley Forbes, bought a new curved, single-piece shower rod, then drove home. William was up late last night watching BBC Kids (including Horrible Histories) and fell asleep in the car (again).

Saskatoon

Drove to Saskatoon late this afternoon. Stayed with Mike, had supper at Jerry's, saw the exhibition at the Mendel, swung back past Jerry's for gelato,  and took a dip in Mike's pool. Good day.

work

I've been running across numerous quotes of the same nature which suggest that there shouldn't be a rigid line between work and play, between activities you are forced to do and those you do of your free will. This is me at work today.... I think, unless I'm taking a break, I'm not too sure.

Easter hunt

William made a great score finding chocolate that the easter bunny left lying around. Sylvie liked playing with it too, batting items all around on the floor.

My birthday

I spent the majority of the day at home being frustrated over resolution issues on my video editing. This evening we had supper at my mom's: an early Easter as my sister has to leave town tomorrow.

Dying

 Our annual egg dying party drew more people than we had chairs.My sister Maureen is in town so we couldn't invite everyone to stay and eat, even thought that was feeling like the natural next step.

House being torn down

My schedule is a bit off today. I thought William had school but apparently he doesn't. His friend was walked over first thing by his dad who told us that our neighbor's house was coming down. We all went down there to gawk a bit. It was a terrible house that deserved to be demolished, although I did hear stories from the guy next door that this was pulled onto the lot from a farm as a place for constitutions workers to stay who were building this neighborhood. As such, it was a bit of history. My video is about it today.

New Metal

When on some binge buying, mostly at London Drugs of all places, this afternoon. Margaret and I went in search of a new toaster. Found one. (see counter over Margaret's shoulder). We also bought a new cappuccino machine and a new metal shelf.

It's Toast!

Our toaster is toast. It gave up a couple of days ago. Margaret was convinced we could open it up and fix it. When Ken was over for supper, they schemed together to pull it apart. It is really not made to be repaired. We had it over ten years so I guess it's time for a new one. I think I might fish it out of the trash to use for reflections. Love that chrome.

Laser films

Inspired by a film on Vimeo by Winnipeg filmmaker Scott Fitzpatrick, I tried running 16mm film through the laser printer. It worked much better than I though it would, actually creating legible images. Of course there is no semblance of registration so the image remains very abstract, but that's okay for me. The image to the side is one of the images I printed. It is made up of shrunken layers of one of Margaret's drawings as well as the text, in a 2 or 3 font, of the splice magazine article I wrote about Jason Britski. The film is about 15 seconds long but I ran it once normal, then left to right flipped, then I ran it in the projector backwards (in case the randomly created soundtrack was different) and flipped that one left to right as well so that there are four passes altogether. William came home from school as I was trying to get the (very rough) video transfer done and he was very interested in the idea of analog and digital technologies mixing.  HERE is the Video.

Shotgun Super-8 Festival

Berny Hi with duel super-8 projectors

The Shotgun Super-8 Festival went very well. I loved all the films. The film I made, which I'd not previewed, was okay. William and I narrated it live with a microphone, mostly improv, sitting on the floor in front of the screen. I think because he was there and I didn't have to project my voice, I felt very relaxed.