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It's been a sleepless weekend. Friday morning we went to Saskatoon, as I mentioned that day. William was so excited about the trip that he bounded out of bed at 6:30, pumped (we needed to be there at noon, it takes a couple of hours to drive there). Saturday, William was even more eager since he had his Speed Racer Lego to build and thus woke at 4:30am, took a long time to lull back to to sleep, then woke again every hour until we got up shortly after 8am. Today William woke us up again at about 7:30, although the motives were not as clear. We were able to relax and read with him in bed for a while. This afternoon I took him to the Museum for some earth day activities. He got a chance to scrape a deer hide with a moose leg bone scraper, something I've not had a chance to do. The guy says he has a hard time getting brain (the source for lanolin, needed to soften the hide) since too many people have been eating them and there is a fear of them spreading BSE (he argues that there has never been a case of in with bison and they may be immune). Weather turned nasty today, freezing rain and some snow now.

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This afternoon I attended the screening of the fourth year film student projects, held at the MacKenzie Art Gallery. It's a bit funny seeing them, as these were students I currently know very little about. Most of them I never taught in a class, although I saw some projects and met most of them while I was department head. A couple of projects shine through. Jemma Gilboy's film "Seishi" began as a crude drawn-style animated film with parts of it in cut-out style. The story followed a girl driving a car with flashbacks of her attending a funeral. This really only required a handful of drawings, but had the right mood and tone. The car then drives off a dock and sinks into the sea. There is a new, more detailed sequence of drawings as she sinks and bubbles rise. Then she emerges as a mermaid, animated as doll-based puppets. Charming. Another project of note was "The Star" by Nils Sorenson and it consisted of a seven minute unbroken shot which moved gracefully around an old farm yard. The cinematography was near perfect, I was thoroughly impressed. The soundtrack was interesting, consisting of a well mixed selection of sounds including some near-voice noises. My sole criticism of the film is the inclusion of subtitles which tell us what this noise is saying, words from aliens from the Draculan Galaxy or something like that. The wordless film would certainly have been more mysterious and visual. Another nice moment was a conversation with Jared Peace, whom I've not seen in 3 years since he graduated. He was the brightest student to darken our halls in many years but he's not intending to return to grad school (I think he will eventually). I admitted to him that he intimidated me when I was teaching, by no fault of his own, just because I knew he probably knew a lot more about many of the films we were discussing than I did. I know I started teaching from background and personal opinion/gut instinct rather than from textbook that year as a result of these feelings. As well, I realized that a good student, and he was that as well, will find things to learn in every situation. He's back in Regina where, ironically, he didn't spend much time during his four years at school as he primarily commuted back to Saskatoon. I imagine I'll see him again.

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I had a meeting of the Quality End of Life research group in Saskatoon today. William had the day off of school so we all drove up there together. We got into town early enough to head to the Mendal Art Gallery where Chrystene thought that Rachelle Viader Knowles's new show would be open. However, it was not and the opening wasn't until eight. The security guard said that Rachelle was there so I sent my card back and she had us in to see the progress. She was having a bit of trouble with interference over the connectors between the dvd players and the monitors (which were surprisingly low tech old tvs rather than slick new sets like her last show). I'm cure they got it all sorted out, although it's not the stress you need 9 hours before an opening. Margaret and William connected up with Mike and also went to Lee Valley Tools (got the rechargeable hand warmers and the lamp switch I wanted) and to Toys R' Us (where William got the Speed Racer Lego he wanted). The meeting went fine, although Margaret got caught in traffic and was over an hour late picking me back up so I got to some heavy worrying. We ate at Fudruckers where many very fat people seemed to be enjoying their meals, and then hit McNally Robinson book story where I bought a Popeye collection of early comics (hard cover). We drove back again tonight (2 + hours each way, making me a bit tired now). We brought this new plastic lap table for William in the car so he could draw and Margaret gave him his new sketch pad and suggested that he draw a picture of Mike. He drew his picture on a Kleenex. Here it is, notice the whiskers:

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Talked on phone with Kodak reps today, confirming various details about yesterdays order. I was told by one guy in Vancouver that since I don't have an account, I would have to pay the $200 shipping bill on my order. I called the guy in Toronto to set up an account and after explaining the situation and that I don't have much need of my own account due to my association with the university for my regular business, he said he'd sort it out and I wouldn't pay shipping (I still recall that we ordered over $2000 worth of black and white film for Wheat Soup in 1985 so didn't have to pay shipping.) I posted my new video, chapter 2 of my "How To Be An Experimental Filmmaker" series. I watched the Ian Toews films that I have that will be shown next week at the Filmpool. I've been asked to write the program notes for it. Great work, I'm surprised at how well his "commercial" Landscape as Muse series fits into the rest of his body of short experimental films.

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I submitted my taxes today, will get a little bit back, but not as much as I spent today. I placed an order for over $4000 worth of film stock for my Grain and Modern projects. This order included a 1000 foot roll of 35mm colour reversal. That stuff costs about $2.50 per second. I bakes some mini-cheesecakes, gluten free, chocolate. I have to remember the timing for these mini-ones as I have no cheesecake recipe, so here is as good a place as any: one batch of batter makes 72 mini-cakes, bake for 20 minutes. I finished act 1 of my screenplay version of A Midsummer Nights Dream. I need to finish a draft in the next month or so.

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I worked on my taxes with my dad this morning (mostly I need him, but I do help him with the computer side of stuff as well). This afternoon I had my feet measured for some insoles to ease the pain. This evening I hung with William, went for a bike ride, visited the bulldog next door, did some reading, lego, etc. I designed a background for the next Warhol video, a 60s flower power sort of thing with a flower brush I designed. Here are a couple of frames.

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John Hampton, who is a student and works on the End of Life project, fell off a roof on Saturday night. I got word that he broke his back. I visited him in the hospital this morning and was greatly relieved to see he was recovering and likely to get out today or tomorrow. He'll have a brace, which I imagine is temporary until he heals, and they didn't do any surgery.
Janine's crit went well today, lots of talk about photography. I've agreed to do a photography course with her in July/August as soon as my sabbatical is over. I'm also doing a post-production course with Chrystene, so it will be back to work with a vengeance in less than 100 days.
My eye doctor got a binder full of contact lens sets today. I had to go in and try on a half dozen different shapes to find one that didn't give me double vision in my left eye. Not wearing one at all doesn't give me double vision; perhaps that is the option I should take.
It was hot today, really hot. 28 degrees, I wore my sandals and we lit our fire pit and roasted marshmallows.

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Last night after I blogged, around 10:30, Margaret and I put in season 3 of "Slings and Arrows", even though we had been up late the night before and were both really tired. Well, one thing led to another and, gripped in the story as we were, we watched all 6 one-hour episodes (46 minutes each), taking us until about 3am. This morning, as predicted, William bounded out of bed having remembered that I'd promised he could watch Speed Racer this morning. I left Margaret in bed, made a coffee, and watched and napped with William as he showed that some things run in the family - he watched 3.5 hours of this better-than-I-remember-it-to-be anime series from the 60s. This afternoon Margaret worked and I took William out to the Valley near Craven and we found crocus's growing and we went for a hike and yodeled.

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I finally put my new video together. I'm not completely happy with it, probably because it doesn't really look like I spent three days making it. Part of the final stage was creating the title sequence which I will use for all 13 episodes, deciding on fonts, recording all 13 episodes (each will contain 3 statements, I wrote over 40 so will have some to spare), and then making the video. I was actually delayed by not having a title for it, but having finished season 2 of "Slings and Arrows" last night, I was taken with the idea that this set will all have Shakespearean titles (these have not been chosen yet, so I'll be hitting the books). Enjoy.

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This morning Chrystene Ells did her crit presentation for the committee. It was very strong, I don't know where she'll be better suited to end up, as a teacher or as a filmmaker. She will certainly excel at either.
This afternoon I worked on my new web videos, but am still an hour from getting the first one finished. I'm a bit drained and will do it tomorrow. Margaret is waiting for me to watch Slings and Arrows with her, she is probably mixing drinks so I'd better go.

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This evening I went to the experimental Hungarian films, curated by Christina Stojanova at the Mackenzie. Very good show. I didn't voice any questions but as I digested them on the way home, the term "experimental" came to find and I realized that, while I thought that the program broke a certain amount of conventions, they maintains aesthetics that were consistent with mainstream cinema. The feature was done without dialogue, the storytelling was certainly unorthodox, and I was repeatedly surprised but the twists and turns and choices. This fulfills most requirements for experimentation that I can think of, but it is curious that the film looks mainstream. Images are composed and edited together to maintain the continuity of a consistent reality. The camera dollies around, using techniques more familiar to Hollywood than to the avant garde. It was a funny mix.

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Today I got my tax information all organized. I also met with Jess, a web designer who is going to fix the website I've been creating but have failed to figure out an interface for looking at the titles sorted different ways (over 100 of them). I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed that I couldn't find a simpler solution so that I could honestly say that I built my own site. Now it will be his with my content, although we will still go with a very simple aesthetic. It should be easy enough for me to update myself, or so that is the idea. Margaret was out again tonight, another Cathedral Festival thing.

William would like to start a blog. He would like to tell everyone this:
"I would like a blog because I am experimenting going to the different people's houses over and over again."

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I stayed home most of the day and broke ground on new projects. I have an adaptation of A Midsummer Nights Dream that has been on the back burner for a long time and I've begun typing the microscopic scrawls in the margins of the book into the screenwriting software. I have it visualized as a highly stylized, minimalistic Wheat Soup-like version. On that note, Margaret and I just watched the first 4 episodes of "Slings and Arrows", a funny television show about theatre with lots of Shakespeare goings on. I also recorded voice for the next set of 13 web videos, but the videos aren't made yet, sorry, those will be a bit late unless I get the hang of this time travel thing (see yesterday's blog).

281 my birthday

It's my birthday so I premeditatedly dove off of my reduced sugar diet I've managed to maintain for an entire week. Today began with Belgium chocolate in bed. I picked up William at lunchtime and took him to A&W where we each had a teen burger (I ate about 1/3 of his) and root beers. At supper, William wrapped me a can of Coke, so it only seemed right that I drink it. I baked a cheesecake, chocolate, and we had some of that later - although in my twisted reality, cheesecake IS a health food.
My horoscope in the Leader Post for the year reads: "You're so powerful this year that it's like you can control time itself. You learn and do more in the next year than many people would do in 10. Believe in your powers to exceed the norm. ..." Well that sure rocks.
So part of my time travel today was to run errands, pick up a hard drive and camera from work, wash the car, put gas in the car ($1.26 or so per litre), pick up issue 13 of Buffy Season 8 from the comic store (funniest issue ever, Xander hanging with Dracula), drank some of my expensive tequila and talked super-heroes with Gavin de Lint who stopped by with his three year old son Jack to drop off a book for Margaret, restocked my herbs, met with Christina at the university regarding Caroline Leaf and chatted about Warhol, did a phone reference for a student seeking a job, and got home in time to do some great work on my videos before William was out of school. Margaret came home with Terry, with whom I was chatting for a few minutes while Margaret went upstairs to print off a file from the computer from her. However, Margaret comes down and tells me she can't find any of her files. I come up here and find that Margaret's entire folder under the My Files is gone! I look in recycle bin and do searches in the computer and cannot find it. I figure I should re-boot and hope that it's just some glitch that will sort itself out, so I tell the computer to reboot. It tells me that I have After Effects running and, realizing that I'd not saved the really nice looking Warhol style piece I did on Gerri Ann Siwek, I hit cancel. I suppose I should have read the question of the screen more carefully, as the computer takes this to mean that it should continue to reboot and my file was lost. I grouched for a while then got back in the saddle (Gerri Ann is shot on William's spring horse), and I eventually find Margaret's folder, which had been moved inside a different folder. I do not understand why it did not appear with a search. I rebuilt my Gerri Ann video: see still below. I used a more feathered edge and lowered the contrast on the initial image, rather than increasing it as I've done on some others. Overall I like the effect of this altered approach. Some of the blue is going to be replaced with real images, something about death such as car crashes or dead buffalo if I can find something appropriate. I read with William for an hour then watched "Shoot em Up", a movie I'd never heard of before Kevin lent it to me a couple of weeks ago. It was fabulously funny. I watched half of it over again with Margaret right away afterwards. It owes a lot to John Woo and Quinton Terantino, but is definitely its own film, funny at every turn with death and mayhem that straddles both the absurd and the emotionally real. HIGHLY recommended for a fun evening (extreme violence warning).
I got 11 birthday greeting through Facebook! More than in real life!

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I worked on my videos first thing this morning and got my Jeannie Mah - Warhol piece done, as well as the preliminary work on my Jason Shabatoski video. This latter one requires me to insert a video file I have at work for it to be complete. He'll be done as a multiple panel video, nearly the same image four times. With Jeannie I began to pull one of the layers out of registration, like a misprint in a multi colour process. This brings me pretty close to my 15 minutes of famous set.
William and I ran errands today while Margaret was at work. I taught him what "disappointment" means. We did not find good white t-shirts to paint on at the store I thought they'd be at, then we didn't find a new supply of patio lanterns at Canadian Tire. Then we found both the Quinn the Eskimo store and the Old Fashioned Foods stores to be closed. When we got home we began watching Jason and the Argonauts today. It is just right for him, get him nervous about the fights, excited about the effects, and links to the Greek mythology that he's been interested in.

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William had a play date over today and I worked on my Warhol videos. I finished my overly complicated on on Allan Dotson, putting a montage of ultra-close ups from 1970s comic books into the background, breaking from the colour fields for the first time.Last night I watched episode 13, the final episode, of Jpod, the CBC television series based upon the Copeland novel of the same name that I read last summer. I've been really enjoying the show, even though they made a couple of the characters too soft and the series began a bit rocky. Perhaps it will find some other life. The episode seemed to be designed to be the final episode, with their division being canceled by the bureaucracy for no good reason. It was an apt jab at CBC. However, there was suddenly a cliff hanger closer that annoyed me, wish they were able to end it cleanly.

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I had another fever yesterday but I managed to have it break before I needed to go out to the MacKenzie Art Gallery for the Thursday night Warhol event. Last nigh, Dr. Christina Stojanova presented two long films, one by New York experimental filmmaker Jonas Mekas which was made up of 15 years of clips of Andy. The third film was a cool documentary in which some German filmmakers go to the town Warhol's family (Warhola) were from and where he often sent artwork. Until the late 80s, they were under the Soviets and were not allowed to know about decadent American art, so knew nothing about him (many paintings and drawings were damaged and thus discarded). Between the two, she played my one minute self portrait in the Warhol style I've been working on. Looked good.

Today I set up a Flickr account and posted 197 photos from my vacation to Mexico last week. I initially chose about 350 photos and compressed the appropriately, but then Flickr informed me that only 200 were allowed (I think this is a monthly quota, but true to form I didn't read the details).

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My fever broke around one in the morning. I'd gone to sleep reading/comparing Boewolf comics, one based on the Gaiman screenplay for the movie, the other based on the original text. There seem to be a lot of key differences, chiefly in the role of Grendel's mother who is slain in the original but lives and seduces both the old king and Boewolf in the other version. The old version seems to have him killing monsters that are unrelated to one another. I guess I would be better off reading the original, but who does that with movies and comics in such abundance? Anyways, as a result I was dreaming about fighting a dragon but things began changing, probably as the fever changed, and instead of a sword I had a needle and the dragon had become blurred into a mire of all living things so I knew I had to take care to poke the right spot. I awoke to find myself hot and needing to get rid of the hot water bottle and layers of blankets. An hour later, William woke up calling me and he wanted to snuggle so it was a strange night.
I created a playlist for the "She Said" videos so you can watch the who set in auto play, if that is of interest.

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The sniffles and running nose that I had throughout Mexico (never mentioned it as it didn't bother me much) seems to be erupting into a cold. I'm totally shivery and achy. I'm trying to tell myself I'm on sugar withdrawal as I've tried to cut down since yesterday. In fact, out of the fortune in groceries I bought yesterday, zero dollars were spent on coke. I've only eaten a few slices of ultra-dark chocolate that contains virtually no sugar. Why am I doing this to myself? To see if I can I suppose. I am waiting for a callback from the dietitian to discuss how to bring the tri-glyceride level in my body down and prevent my liver from shutting down in 30 years, and I know what they are going to tell me ("You drink HOW MUCH pop???!!!???). I hate water, so sue me.
We met with William's teacher today, things are generally fine but for a few emotional outbursts that are nearly inexplicable except perhaps he is moody when there is no sunlight, like his mother. I got some good writing done on my next series of Youtube videos, I should be able to prepare the next 13 all in advance but there might be a delay in the first episode.

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Another thing that William was really excited about, when trips to Mexico aren't exciting enough, was coming home to find that Paul had built a Lego castle with a drawbridge, just like William wanted.

Speaking of Lego, two packages arrived for us from Lego today containing replacements for all of the broken Bionicle parts that we've had, no charge. I was feeling rotten today. We needed groceries this morning (about $370 worth plus a run down to HMV to get the 2 disc "Sweeney Todd") and by the time those were put away and we'd eaten lunch, I was certain I was sick. I had booked the afternoon to do some writing, which I'd looked forward to, but couldn't get off the couch. I napped for a couple of hours then pulled myself up and to the computer where all I could muster was a couple of backlog Blogs (I should have the entire last week posted later tonight). Then I went to pick up William and the walk in the fresh air felt great - I had just been tired! Margaret worked all afternoon and evening so William and I watched some Munsters and he just got finished looking at castle Lego on their website (the music for the castle series on the Lego site is much more annoying that their other sets).