Last blog for July. Where have the time gone to!! As always, I'm feeling a bit stressed as I have a ton of work going on. It should be good, but I'm feeling a bit worn out as I am also trying to finish up my portfolio site. Anyway, I've found another illustrator who has some awesome drawings. Linn's site is very girly-girly, but not in a bad way. ♥
posted by piperboy 11:45pm EST
One of the events during the World's Youth Day was the way of the cross, a moving passion play depicting the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. It was a spectacular sight as thousands of pilgrims flooded the streets of University Avenue, from Richmond to Bloor street. There were 14 stages and each depicting a part of Jesus's life. Being able to absorb all the energy from the enthusiastic crowd was amazing.
A revealling look at the life and death of a fashion icon, Gianni Versace. It cronicals his humble beginnings as an unknown to his rise to the top of the fashion world. It was interesting as there were interviews of Andrew Cunanan's father as well as Gianni's longtime boyfriend. It's an interesting look at the dark side of the fashion world. Interesting to watch. ♥
posted by piperboy 11:16pm EST
Today marks the beginning of the World Youth Day. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrams are expected to attend. They were initially expecting a million people to visit, so that means the catholic church will be losing about $25 million on this event.
Discovered this portfolio site that is pretty cool. I remember seeing his portfolio from last year's May1st Reboot project, his work is really impressive. ♥
posted by piperboy 11:01pm EST
To the East side.... Well, today was the last full day at our old office at 600 King Street West. Tomorrow we work half day and wait for the movers to move our stuff to the new building. Eventhough I don't care much about the company, I am kind of excited about the new space. ♥
posted by piperboy 10:45pm EST
My bag of tricks, well not quite, it's part of the many drawings that I've been doing for work. I'm feeling a bit exhausted from it all. The fact that after work I'm also working on my portfolio at home, is really draining mentally and physically. I don't know how long I can do this!! Some times I find it defeating to be in this line of work. The pay is lousy and yet we have to spend so much of our own time creating more work, luckily I enjoy doing what I do, I guess this is why I continue to do what I'm doing. ♥
posted by piperboy 9:13pm EST
I've heard amazing reviews for Princess Mononoko, an action packed anime, released in 1997. I saw it at the video store and decided to check it out. I have to say it was all that and more. It is refreshing to see traditional animation verses all the CGI stuff out there.
Although the movie was a bit gloomy, some of the action/battle scenes are quite impressive. This movie is made for multiple viewing indeed. ♥
posted by piperboy 1:30am EST
Feeling Nostalgic, I went to the video store on my way home from work and picked up the horror classic, Fright Night. The first time I saw this was probably in grade 9 or 10 and needless to say it freaked me out big time. Now that I'm a bit older and somewhat wiser, I can finally view it without hiding under a blanket. To my surprise, this film really stood the test of time. With the exception of cheesy FX, 80's music/fashions, I would say it's probably better than 90% of most horror flicks that get pumped out by the studios these days.
Clearly I am back to blogging regularly, cool♥
posted by piperboy 12:42pm EST
On May 22, 2002, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation jointly announced the selection of Beyer Blinder Belle, in association with Parsons Brinckerhoff, to conduct the urban planning and transportation study for Lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center site. They offer six different plans for the proposed site.
The designs are intended to address a broad range of needs from rehabilitating the city's downtown transportation infrastructure to replacing the massive office and underground retail space lost when the twin towers collapsed and five smaller buildings either collapsed or were severely damaged. ♥
posted by piperboy 12:42pm EST
Freedom of speech and expression is vital to the progression of our civilization. Without it will limit our growth and success. Here is an article about "well-intentioned hackers creating tools to help people circumvent web browsing controls in countries where the net is censored." Having lived in the free world for all my life, I have never really experienced total censorship before, so I can't begin to imagine having that right taken from me.
Today is a sad day for the arts world as we see the passing of one of the most respected photographers of our time. Yousuf Karsh died at age 93. During his career, he's taken portraits of some of the most powerful politicians, artist, and scientist of the 20th century. Most of all, he was a Canadian. ♥
posted by piperboy 9:40pm EST
The garbage strike is finally over. Hurray!! For the past 2 weeks the streets of Toronto, has been smelling rather funky. They say it'll take at least 2 weeks to catch up to the way it was. The union workers were forced back into work by the provincal legislature that will appoint an arbitriator to negotiate with the city and the union. It's too bad that the workers didn't get what they want, but who ever gets what they want from work. Just be glad they have a job that pays the bills.
Speaking of work, we'll be moving to a new office next friday. It's kind of exciting because we get to sit with other people instead. I haven't been to the new space so it would be a great surprise. I've heard a lot of good things about this space, there was an article in the "Report on Business" magazine about the architect that designed the space. ♥
posted by piperboy 11:18am EST
I honestly wish that summer is over, I am having such a crappy year, it's not funny. The bank has been screwing up my mortgage payments, right now I don't know when they are taking money out of my account, it's all a guessing game. I feel that I will never resolve my money or lack of money issues. My life is one drama after another.
They are hiring a new Creative Director, he starts next Monday, it's kind of weird because we are moving next week and the place that we are renting was his old office, Medium One. ♥
posted by piperboy 9:50pm EST
Hot, hot, hot. I wish it was winter!! I am having a really bad time adjusting to this extreme temperature. The humidity is draining all the energy out of me, I can't hardly keep awake these days. Anyway, I'm plugging away trying to finish up this portfolio. I'm aiming at finishing up near September. I'm doing tonnes of illustrations and hoping I can put some fashion stuff online soon. ♥
posted by piperboy 11:32pm EST
Back working on my portfolio. Done a whole bunch of drawings, pretty cool too. I wish I could just do this full time. ♥
posted by piperboy 9:56pm EST
This weekend, I rented Shallow Hal, and if you are reading this, let it be a warning that it's absolutely terrible. Only had a few funny moments and they were shown during the trailer. I really like Jack Black as a comedic actor, but he was terrible as well. Maybe I needed Tony Robbins to hypnotise me so I can pretend that I enjoyed it.
Monster's Ball was way better than SH although it was a bit slow at times. Although I do enjoy watching Billy Bob Thorton movies, I have to say that his characters are pretty much the same in all his movies. While we're on the topic of Billy Bob, his other movie The Man who Wasn't There was one of the better movies I've seen all year. It's dark and depressing, but was brilliantly presented. ♥
posted by piperboy 10:00pm EST
Fireworks! It's July 4th and I've been doing so many drawings, it's unbelievable. It is somewhat draining. I did tell my director that I like to do more, but it's a crazy amount
Also the latest casualty at work was a newly hired Creative Director. He was let go, apparently someone from Upper Management didn't like him. Although I only worked with him on one small pitch, he seemed nice and competent. I didn't see the reasoning to be justified, I think he did a great job with the new Fido redesign. ♥
posted by piperboy 9:34pm EST
Happy canada day!! Didn't do much today, laid around the house and then went to watch Minority Report . It was better than I'd expected, I was impressed by the way that Steven Speilberg's vision of the future, it was obvious that there was a lot of work involved in creating the individual elements and gadget for the film. The acting was alright, but the plot was kind of weak. It was kind of obvious who the villian was. Nevertheless, it was worth the $13 and very entertaining. ♥
posted by piperboy 12:32pm EST