Filming begins on "Trailerpark Geocachers meet Bigfoot II"

Got together with the guys after work a few weeks ago to start filming on Trailerpark Geocachers meet Bigfoot II. We shot 3 and a half scenes. A pretty good day's work! It's always surprising how 3 minutes of video in a scene takes 2 hours to film. I use a lot of cuts for a lot of reasons (reason 1 - see George Lucas directing Jake Lloyd in Star Wars the Phantom Menace) and every one requires a small camera setup. We tried out the steadycam for the first time. Many thanks to Jim, the guest cameraman for the early afternoon shots. It looks like it might be twice as much work as the first film.

Trip and Grizz performed amiably, although we had to send Tripper out of the room for some of Grizz's scenes. He makes him laugh and wastes film(grin)!

We needed nun chucks for one scene and darned if I couldn't find my foam covered practice ones anywhere! The night before the shoot I phoned the freind who actually gave them to me for Christmas years ago to see if she still had hers (every time I'd go to her place I'd take them off the wall and fool around with them so she and my brother finally bought me my own pair) and it turned out that she was in the hospital at that moment giving birth. I asked her Mom, who was over watching the kids, if she knew where they were but no dice. I almost asked what hospital she was at(no, not really).... I waited outside Orleans Martial arts supply the next day and got an even better pair that what I had before!!!!!

We'll be shooting through September and October.. We have some Cameos this time around!

Here's some other Pre-production entries
Bazooka Test
Gopher Tunnel set
Gopher blue-screen popup test
Flamethrower test

My mom and the motorcycle cop.

I just got back from vacation. We spent a week up at Sandbanks provincial park at the Sand Dunes in a tricked out 39 foot trailer that would have made Ricky and Julian proud! My parental units were up at the park around the same time. My mom was driving up a few days before us and she was cruising along at 140 or so and passed a nice shiny white motorcycle with some lights on posts in the back. Right after she passed it she was tired of going fast and slowed down to 110 or so.. Just then the lights on the motorcycle behind her started to flash and the motorcycle cop she had just passed was pulling her over(grin).

He seemed incredulous that she had passed him when he was doing 130. He said stuff like:
"Wasn't I going fast enough for ya?"
"Are you mocking me?" etc.

Of course my mom didn't get a ticket. She never gets tickets. She starts to cry and the cop starts to feel bad and lets her off with a warning to slow it down.

I'm going to cry the next time I get pulled over and see if it works for me too!

Zartimus the deck monkey goes sailing.

I went sailing a couple of weeks ago. It was a blast! The last time I'd been on a sailing boat was back in the 8th grade at Camp Arawon. This one was a nice 28 footer, and we did a race. Came in 7th or 8th outta of 30 some boats. I went with Paul in my french class (it's his boat).
It was a pretty busy time to tell the truth. There's aways something to crank, or tie down, or pull, or get out of the way. I was the "Deck Monkey" and did the "Skirting" which means to pull the front sail flush with the side of the boat so it catches the wind just right. That sail is called the ginny or something like that. When you tack or jive the main sail boom goes swinging around the back and that front sail changes sides(taking anything in front of it - like you - with it) and you have to pull it down tight other wise it flutters and you don't go as fast as you should. When it's sailing right the boat is on like a 45 degree angle which is pretty wild.
I meant to track the speed with my GPS but I never had the time. They decided to change sails mid-race and when one of the guys was trying to stuff it down the locked forward hatch I went down in the galley to unlock it. It was like the crazy kitchen down there because the boat was on a 45 degree tilt. I walked along the floor and wall like spiderman and noticed that the starboard port holes were kind of underwater. Very weird...

I'll definitely go again if they need people. It was a blast!

I blew out one of my Crocs though. (exchanged them the next day). Something about shifting ones weight so as not to fall overboard and the one shoe just couldn't take it. In fact, it is so easy to fall overboard when you skirt it's funny! You change direction, you stay out of the way of the swinging boom and the whipping front sail and soon the boat is tilting 45 degrees on the opposite side so the deck is on a 45 when you scramble down to skirt the front sail and you then have to scramble back up high on the opposite side of the mast where it;s safe and nothing can really plow you overboard.

Lots of fun though!

Le C in CBB

Had my french comprehension test today. It went very well, 56/65 - good for a C which is what I need. Heck, I missed the E by 3 points. The "E"(exempt) means they'll never have to test you again in your life. Heck I may take it again just for that. The bad thing is your last mark always counts so if you screw up and get a B, you'll be back to do it again..

Just one more C to go, the last one. The oral. The hard one...

When I get that maybe I'll start blogging in french! Muhahahahahaha!

A nice Bigfoot for the garden

I love adsense sometimes. It reads my google emails and gives me meaningful links at the right to click on.. I clicked on one today and got this. I want one.. no..

I NEED ONE!!!!

Who doesn't need a Bigfoot for the garden!

More funny avatars

I visit a lot of weird websites (for reasons that I will not go into) that have weird forums with weird people and one thing that is common across all these very different places is that everyone has to have a cool avatar. You know, an avatar, the cool graphic that represents your person on all these digital forums. Every time I see a cool one, I copy it and from time to time blog them. My favorite ones are the animated GIFs that play like a little thumbnail video.

It's pretty funny to see a comment posted by someone who has two geeky little kids dumb-dancing underneath his name.

Here's a small selection (personally, I like the buttcrack kitty-sniper).

Lawn Care 101 - The new neighbors

This morning I saw my semi-new neighbors (that I have not met yet) working on their lawn. Four hours later I took this picture. I looked a little while ago and they appear to have stopped.

What are they doing? It seems to take a long long time, like 4 or 5 hours. Are they cutting the grass with nail clippers? I don't think so because I've seen the guy cutting it with one of those neat manual push-mowers.

I'll have to go ask sometime soon ...

I like the little step seats though. I have one that my kid uses to get up on the toilet. Now I know I can also garden with it!

The Poop Crayon

Ever wonder why some restrooms at public facilities like movie theaters and restaurants don't have paper towels sometimes? They'll typically use air-dryers and no paper towels at all. One reason may be the odd appearance of the poop crayon from time to time.

Take the Orleans Cineplex for instance. They never had paper towels, until a change in management occurred, and the new management declared (as new management often does) "We MUST have paper towels in the bathrooms!".

Everyone had forgotten why there were no paper towels in the first place, but this question was soon answered the night some patron voided his bowels in the rest room (this typically occurs in the Men's room) and wasn't satisfied to leave it at that. This person(or persons) got some new paper towels ("Hey, they didn't have these before!"), fished Mr Poopy from the toilet bowel, swaddled it in paper towels and proceeded to paint a big poopy picture on the restroom wall.

Having worked at a theater as a teenager, I have no idea what I would have done if I had walked in during a restroom check and found some stupid ass kid painting on the wall with his own fecal matter (I'm assuming it was his own).

"Drop the poop crayon kid!"

There.. so now you know!

The lost digital watch

For the last few nights, I've been hearing a damned beep in my computer room every hour on the hour. I think it's the Suntro watch I broke and then misplaced (so much for unbreakable watches). It was the black one with the compass and barometric pressure analyzer. It was a cool watch. It was so big people would always ohh and ahh over it, like it was some big freakin diamond ring or something.

I sounds like it has miraculously repaired itself and I'm trying to look for it but I have to be in the vicinity for the chime and so far I've missed it every time.

It's probably still screwed up as I've changed the battery twice and it still acts up. I need a new watch. The cheap-ass one I bought as a stop-gap actually has hands that move and it ticks and keeps me up at night. With this stupid watch I have spidey hearing and it drives me nutzo. I want cold digital silence!

Anyone have any suggestions?

Canadian Guitar Festival 2007

A few weeks ago I went to the Canadian Guitar festival in Kingston. I've been there two years in a row now to help film it which is always a blast. There are times I wish I got into broadcasting as a profession, but heck, I picked computers and things have a way of working out.

I got to see some old friends I'm a fan of, and some new artists I've never heard of, but was totally impressed by. You can check the line-up out on the website. Brooke Miller was there playing cuts from her fantastic new CD (Yeah, I know I take too many pics of Brooke, but the camera loves her and she puts some up on her website and it makes me feel like a Rolling Stones photographer!).

Andy Mckee was there (I'll be seeing him again in September in Cannington, and they're all booked for a Canada tour with Don Ross sometime in October). Del moved it from the Odessa fairgrounds this year to a new campground he recently purchased, so it's kinda like Trailerpark Boys do Winfield(grin) - but with style!.

They had some new guitar makers out this year and I'm reminded that I picked a luthier (Tony Karol)out at the last guitar festival to make me up a custom geeeee-tar! It should be done in December of this year! If you've never checked out this fabulous festival, check it out next year!

The "Kill Carriere" game - circa 1982 - Emily Carr Middle School

I used to get 'lightly' beaten up on a semi-regular basis at EMCS. I dunno exactly why, maybe it something I said, maybe it was the glasses, but several guys had this game they used to play called "Kill Carriere" (maybe it was just the iteration ?) It started halfway through the school year in Grade 8 and by April I was pretty tired of it so I planned a little episode to put a stop to it.

So, the lunch bell rang. I was informed by my three tormentors that the Kill Carriere game was indeed on that lunch-hour, and it was off to the races. I was always a pretty fast runner so I could keep ahead of them no problem, but I had no long distance gas and eventually they'd catch up to me and blammo! KILL CARRIERE! They'd leave me semi-beaten on the ground and I'd be late for the noon return bell.

This day was a little different however. The ice had melted in the little outdoor arena just west of EMCS and in front of the outdoor pool. I ran into it, all the way to the back. It had high wooden boards and chainlink fencing on all sides and I figured it would hide what was about to happen. No witnesses, no questions, no reprimands, = no trouble!

So they pretty much had me cornered near the goalie net in foot-deep snow, (not easy to climb the fenced walls in winter boots). So they came in to get me, 20 feet, 15 feet, 10 feet - and then out came the bullwhip!

I had this bullwhip back then you see ( well, it wasn't really a bullwhip, it was a hunk of rope covered in hockey tape that I made after seeing a whip lady at the circus and a few years afterwards, the Indiana Jones movie came out.. nuff said) and I had this little holder I made so I could clip it to the armpit of my big winter coat and carry it concealed.

CRACK! I hit one of them in the side of the head, WHOOSH, missed the other guy but he fell in the snow. The third guy had already started to run so I laid one on the guy on the ground who was picking himself up and trying to run after the 2nd guy. I chased them as far as the arena door and stopped. Coiled my hockey tape bullwhip up, snapped it into place inside my coat and walked out. They were no where to be seen and no one saw us.

The funny thing was, the guy who kinda scrambled away first, had turned around because he had no idea what I had just pulled out and tried to hit him with. When he saw it was a whip-like thing, he actually started to laugh as it was hitting his buddies and he yelled "Way to go Carriere!". sorta like a compliment (the psycho!). Then I started after him and he ran too.

I carried it around all the time after that. Once when we were skating at the Blackburn arena I had taken my coat off and left it and the bullwhip on the benches in the lobby and the handle was sticking out. As I came around the endboards on my skates I saw some grade 6's had found it and were trying hard to smack themselves with the 'towel snap'. I popped right off the ice, went in, grabbed it from them (little bastards) before a teacher saw it.

Ahh memories!

Roleplay fun in Government French class

I'm learning french for the workplace these days. This afternoon we split up in pairs and did role playing, or Joue du Role as they say in france. In today's scenario, one guy got to play the rotten deadwood employee(that's me), and the other guy got to play the fine upstanding boss who has to use his skills of negotiation to get the rotten employee to see the light and "get with the frickin program" before we hoof his ass outta here! (not possible in real life due to union regs, but I digress).
You have to use the polite french mood "Le conditionelle" for this. The "Would you, could you, should you" stuff that implies that something may happen but several factors could intervene and cause you to doubt the certainty of the outcome. Also the "subjunctive!" the "Il Faux que tu fasse..." (You MUST do this!") kinda stuff... It's all good! BUT BORING! So I decided to spice it up a bit for the afternoon. I've had some pretty difficult employees over the years, so there's plenty of material to choose from, but in the end I decided to take a page from one of my favorite books and even better movie!

Classmate Chuck started his boss spiel "I've called you in to speak to you about something that has recently come to my attention concerning your spotty attendance. Can you tell me a bit about it?".
"Mais oui! Certainment!" I said as I grabbed the front of my shirt and pretended to punch myself several times in the face(I made a big clap in front of my nose and spun by head back). My chair went flying and I fell off it under the table, spilling all my textbooks, my Becherelle, my Larousse! My french teacher on the other side of the room bolted upright in her chair (she's obviously never seen fight club - and the first rule about fight club is : We DON'T TALK ABOUT FIGHT CLUB!)

I scrabbled up from the floor begging Charles in french to stop hitting me! I grabbed my water bottle and sprayed water on my face and hit myself with it (not really, just pretend) and dragged my bag of stuff off the table on top of me onto the ground again. Charles looks a bit concerned and tells the teacher that "toute est correct!" then he proceeds to give me an excellent employee evaluation as I sit rocking in my now-righted chair trying to find a happy place.

No one wants to be my role play partner now(sigh).

Crocs....

I've resisted the urge to aquire this particular shoe until now, but the other night I finally caved and bought a pair. The word of mouth on these puppies is way too positive. On Sunday I blew out a pair of sandals again, replacing one of my muggled geocaches on the side of a small cliff, and needed some new footware. Plus, crocs are Canadian!
What remains to be seen is how my feet are going to react with this new type of foam rubber. Leather sandals fare better smell-wise but certain rubber ones coming into contact with my feet for an extended period of time can rival the scent of many a long-dead mammal I've found in the woods over the years. I've gotten much better about it in my old age, like, I don't wear desert boots without socks to work anymore (they used to have meetings at work about my feet)...

A word of caution. I walked out of SportCheck at first with the "Outdoor" version of Crocs. The ones with the adjustable velcro strap? They're crap! I walked out into the hallway at St-Laurent, threw my old sandals out in a nearby garbage can (I ran out of shoe goo at home to fix 'em up), and promptly blew out the velcro strap with one step. The velcro was cheaply sewn into the foam rubber - no thank you.

It was bad enough I had to dive into the damned garbage can in front of on-lookers to get my old broken sandals back, but now my almost 3 year old thinks it's ok to dig stuff out of department store garbage cans any old time you like. So I go back in the store, wait in line to have them say "Would you like to pick another pair?" Sure I said, but minus the velcro. I go look. Nothing but day-glo rave colours in my size. I had to get back in line, wait for the manager to issue a refund, and truck out to Orleans to the "other" sportchek who had one pair left.

Fast forward 2 days to tonight. I went sailing on a friend's boat. We tacked. The boat was pulled over on that 45 degree angle you get in a strong wind. I did some fancy footwork to stop from being thrown overboard - AND BUSTED THE STRAP my new pair of Crocs!

I can't win. I'm taking them back (but getting another pair still - I just won't go sailing with them)

STFU n00b!

I just like this picture...

Assbook

This is bad and I apologize in advance. I've waited an unknown number of days to blog this so as not to get caught(grin). Since completing my facebook registration a few months back, I've been adding people to my friends list and getting invites from people to add myself to theirs, etc., and sometimes I'll get an invite from someone and I don't really remember who they are at first. After a few emails, or a quick spin through their photo list, something usually clicks and I go "Oh yeah! Now I remember!". It happens with guys and girls, but in the case of the girls, it occurred to me that I could probably have my memory refreshed much quicker if there was a social networking website called "assbook" instead of facebook, because.. uhh.. well.. It was a part of the body I paid a lot of attention to in my female compatriots back in the day.

A pretty face and great personality aside, some guys like a women's legs, some guys like women's breasts. I know what I liked.

So I'll come clean, if you were female, and had a rear-end, I checked it out in great detail from varying distances. And I NEVER got caught. If there was an opportunity to get caught looking, I declined it and looked straight ahead. No way was I gonna let someone know I was doing it lest it be considered rude. I was a seripticious butt checker-outer (still am). I recall many a tight-jean-clad rolodex vision in my head. Nothing like 1980's tight denim. Loved those stirrup pants! I had some sort of remembered biological ratings system too! . WTF on that?

This thought comes about after being facebooked recently by an old female classmate, who I did not immediately recognize by her head shot(heck, it had been 20 plus years). After a few days it hit me and I recognized her. I also realized that had she sent a picture of her rear-end circa 1987 the recognition would have clicked immediately.

Again I apologize for this admittance. I'm a guy. We're like this sometimes.. (makes caveman sounds). And thanks for all the great memories!

P.S. to put this thing in perspective, I'll toss out this example. In the summer after grade 10, I was standing on the sidewalk with my friends Rob and Darryl one afternoon in July, and about , I dunno 200 meters away (lets call it two football fields) we saw a girl get off the bus. We all looked but the other guys did not know who it was. She had her back to us (and something else), and was wearing very tight jeans. The guys went "Who is that?"
"It's (insert name here)." I said
"No it isn't. You can't tell from here. What makes you think it's her?" Rob asked.
"Her butt..." I said.

And I was right. They were impressed.

Good thing Lisa doesn't read my blog!

Muhahahahahaha!

Foam sword fighting 101

When I brought 2 sets of foam play swords home on Sunday my wife was not impressed. She said (and I quote):
"When I saw those at Walmart I thought to myself, why do they make stuff like that? What kinda crazy person would buy something like that for their kids?"

She had a point.. I started to say..
"Uhh.." (I pointed at myself)
"It makes sense now" she said..

Let me set the record straight. I had been eyeballing these things for MONTHS! 3 years ago I made the same kinda thing out of duct tape and cut in half pool noodles! The kids and I would chase each other all around the house with them! It's F.U.N.!!! Try it!!!!

They're pretty well put together for a $4.97 sword. They can take a lot of abuse! And they do not hurt when you smack someone with them. Sure the neighbors look at me funny, especially the ones in the back that belong to that questionable quasi-cult religion on Innes road (just joking! I'm sure it's an actual cult.) when I'm charging around the grounds running after the kids poking them with my foam cutlasses.

But seriously! Check out the form and footwork on the kids! I took a bit of fencing in high school, Kendo in my 20's and read books about dual scimitar wielding dark elves , but look at them! They're naturals! The lunges, the crosses, the parries, the snaps! They rock!

Old "After the Fact" Band photos - Take 1

Since jumping on Facebook and reconnecting with people I hadn't seen in freakin ages, I noticed some of my old acquaintances in the music biz had put up old band photos of themselves back in the 1980's. They are hillarious! And so are mine!(god I was skinny back then!). I got the scanner out and popped a crap load on Flickr in various stages and re-incarnations of my 1980's 'serious amateur 'music career. Here's the first set. The photo up above was taken sometime in 1987 or 1988 at Ambiance Studios on Rideau street. It seems everybody recorded there back then. On this particular night the "Connection Band" had done the session before and the studio reeked of pot(they were obviously well-connected). Like I said before, a lot of people recorded there.

This one on the right is from 1985 on stage at Gloucester High School battle of the bands. The band is called "The Service"(they seemed to always let me name the band - the FOOLS!). Our singer looks like one of the guys from Duran Duran and we have no drummer, just a drum machine! Gotta love it! It never complains, gets drunk, throws fits or goes after people's girlfriends like the later version(grin). I'm in the early "Always look at my fingers" stage of my playing. That's my first electric guitar, a black Ibanez Roadstar Series II around my neck. At this show I believe we got a training bra thrown on-stage(the singer was very popular). I have some video of this show that I'll put up someday. It's something! (I can't remember if I vomited before this show)

This is a favorite pic of mine. It's my room circa 1985/1986. Check out the owl(you'll see him at every show) and my Boss pedals in my BCB-6 floorboard! I spent many hours sitting on the floor hunched over my guitar, practicing, because I did not take to it naturally like some people. If I didn't practice every day I would start to suck. I would also talk on the phone to people as I practiced, which didn't always go over well, but it could be done as long as you grunted and affirmed in the right places. I listened to many a disgruntled female complain about my male friends as I practiced my modes and just generally agreed with them(good advice to all men out there).

How embarrassing! I'm wearing the exact same sweater/jeans combination from Ambiance studios but this time in in the Men's John at the Trebas school of recording. There's good reverb in toilets and I tried to record there whenever possible(mainly at home). At the time we were slightly affiliated with a "manager lady" named Helen who taught at Trebas. She was very 'interesting' and had genuine expertise in the broadcasting and radio industry. She "managed" bands as a hobby and helped us get organized a bit but we generally didn't see eye to eye and disagreed a lot(I could do a whole blog post on her. What reminded me of her in this pic is that in one of the stalls there was some graffiti which mentioned her by name. It said "Helen (last name) is a big fat rhinoceros bitch!!". She must have failed the guy on some exam..

This is in Chris Williams basement(me and Chris actually). His sister was always taking photos of us, and she was really good I thought. This is our Billy Sheenan Steve Vai pose. Those guys did the same pose in an ad from D"Adarrio guitar strings.
Around the time this photo was taken we were practicing and the lights started to flick on and off (that was his parent's way of telling us to knock it off for a bit). Chris's sister raised Bunnies and her freind had brought a male bunny over to mate and they wanted us to shut up for about 20 minutes so they could get to it. The mal ebunny pole vaulted out of it's owners arms, landed on the female's head, straddling her the wrong way around (butt to head) and started jackhammering away. He soon realized his mistake, switched around before the female bunny knew what was happening (she had been minding her own business and suddenly this fucking rabbit falls four feet out of the air onto her head out of nowhere) and was done in about 15 seconds. When they say " Screw like bunnies" etc.. they mean it.. Oddly enough I recall similar stories from female human friends(grin)

And speaking of photos, soon after this one was taken, we did a show somewhere and I drove our light guy home that night, a guy from Canterbury High School named Dave. Dave was infatuated with our lovely girl lead singer Vanessa (whom you'll see in later blogs - we had a girl and a guy on singing duties). When I got to Dave's house he talked me into coming inside his parent's house to check out his new "Black Widow" speakers in his room, bla bla bla. When I was in his bedroom, I turned around and he was holding a camera and quickly snapped a photo or three of me "for his little sister". With the flashbulb popping and homophobia starting to set in, he assured me that she would get a kick out of me being inside their house at 2:00am because she saw me at a show we did at Cantabury and mentioned something to Dave. Awww.. A 14 year old with a crush on me!(blush - that or Dave wasn't what he seemed and the photos were for god knows what).

I jokingly suggested we take a photo of me at the foot of her bed as she slept to be really funny and he thought that would be great! (he was quite disapopinted when I told him it was really just a joke and I had to get the hell home).

Ahh Light man Dave. He sent Vanessa flowers the next show we did. I'm gonna look him up on Facebook!

Canada Day 2007

Canada day 2007! We went down to the hill and waited in line a lot! Got the kid's faces painted! We caught Don Ross on the main stage, got to see the Snowbirds go screaming by in the sky for a few passes and headed home for lunch to return to our secret spot that night near the old city hall to watch the fireworks!

Here's my Canada Day 2007 Flickr Photo page.

Brooke Miller concert - June 30th 2007

My friend Warren put on a cozy house concert featuring Brooke Miller and Don Ross the day before Canada day. What a great frickin idea that was! There were in town for the July 1st celebrations on the hill, why not take the opportunity to do a small show for a few of their biggest Ottawa fans! It turned out to be a sort of CD release party because she just received retail copies of her new CD and does it ROCK! I think it's gonna sell like BEER!

Don was there of course and played a few tunes, which is like going to a Sheryl Crowe concert and having Eddie Van Halen show up and do a few numbers just for fun(in my world at least(grin)). I took the oppertunity to practise my "sans flash" concert photography. I took about 300 pics of which only 17 or so turned out ok. You can see them here.

She did full band workups of most of the tunes which I ended up really liking. My favorite somg of hers is "Country from the Dome car", a tune she wrote while attending a music festival that took place on a train doing a cross Canada tour(Music on the rails or something). The dome car is the one with the big overhead windows on it.
Another tune I like a lot on there is "Hold on to it".

Go to her website and buy a pile! She rocks!