Urban Vancouver

Ianiv & I set ourselves up in Dundarave for the Canada Day Fireworks. We got a fabulous spot early in the evening, and spent the night eating and reading until we lost the light. It wasn’t too long after that the fireworks began. Ianiv set up the tripod and took a lot of gorgeous shots. It was the perfect night for fireworks.

Click here to see the full image set.

Tags: canada day, fireworks, dundarave, west vancouver, vancouver

Our cats have a typical love/hate relationship. Nala dominates the house as the older female cat, but she’s naturally submissive so there’s never been a firm "dominant cat". Guinness loves Nala and wants to spend all his time with her, but as often wants to play with her or try to pin her down.

This moment is really one of those. A calm moment of kitty kisses followed by Guinness attempting to hit Nala in the face. He just can’t resist.

Tags: cats, guinness, nala, cat photos

I am not sure this commercial would entice me to buy a Ford model car, but it does make me quite proud of the creative team behind it. To whomever came up with the concept, and to the engineers and musicians to made it happen.

In the video, various car parts from the 2008 Ford Focus were made into musical instruments. And then played, orchestra style. The innovation behind a creation like that - amazing. (It’s not the first time this has been done - read here)

The ad was released earlier this year in the UK. Some info on the creative team:

• Ad by Ogilvy & Mather (London)
• Executive creative director Greg Burke
• Art director Dom Sweeney
• Music by Craig Richey
• Sound by Bill Milbrodt (great interview here)

Info via duncans.tv Tags: ford focus, bill milbrodt, music, car parts, advertising

b5media’s Entertainment channel has teamed up for a 24-hour blog-a-thon to support The Actors Fund.

The Great b5media Blog Off will begin on June 20th at 12:01am (in each writer’s respective time zone), to celebrate the summer solstice, which hasn’t occurred on any date other than June 21st since 1975 - this year it lands on June 20th. Writers for many of our sites (including me!) will be posting fresh news at least once per hour for a full 24 hours.

We are looking for guest posts on the 23 participating Entertainment sites, and also for charity donations to The Actors Fund. You can learn more here and here.

The Business channel at b5 is also participating in the Blog Off to support Accion International. You can read more here.

Tags: blog off, blogging marathon, b5media, charity, blogging drive

Last week, we drove from Vancouver to Banff to attend nextMEDIA and the Banff World Television Festival. I learned, on the long drive there and back, that I really love podcasts of stories. It really helped keep me awake on the drive. We listened to about 6 months of the Vinyl Cafe (though not all podcasts have stories, which was disappointing) and a book and a half by Cory Doctorow.

We arrived in Banff part way through the first day of nextMEDIA, but in time to catch a few good sessions. Jeremy & b5media were featured on Canada’s Digital Media Giants panel. It was also announced that b5media is a finalist in the Candian New Media Awards for Most Promising Company of the Year.

It was great to spend some time with Jeremy at the conference, as well as fellow b5ers Jeanne & Jyle Dupuis. We took a "b5 family" photo before Jeremy headed back to Toronto.

Jeremy had a good talk with Kris after speaking at nextMEDIA. Check it out:

The next few days we attended an endless stream of sessions and networking events at the Banff World Television Festival, including the Banff World Television Awards where Kim Cattrall was honored. Our hotel wireless was broken for our entire stay, so that put a bit of a damper on the ability to keep up with work and post timely news on the conferences. It definitely set me a few days back on my return.

The festival was aimed at the business side of the tv industry - for producers, executives, writers, etc. I learned a lot from attending the sessions - they had a great lineup of speakers, and I was only disappointed not to be able to attend more than I did. The networking events were also very well put on - we didn’t attend many after-parties, but the days themselves were full of networking breaks and the BBQ was the best of the bunch.

You can read some of my posts on the sessions I enjoyed the most here:

• Kim Cattrall Says Yes to “Sex and the City 2?
• David Hoselton Dissects House
• Hart Hanson’s Journey With Bones (my favorite session)

You can visit the full Flickr set here.

Tags: nextmedia, nm08, bwtf08, bwtv08, banff, television festival

I am a fan of the reality competition America’s Got Talent, primarily because I think the criteria are broad enough to really allow for more talent to be showcased. The audition stage, unlike with many reality competition shows, will showcase more good (vs bad) auditions.

Although I missed the show last night, Jeanne tipped me to the video of Kaitlyn Maher, who just turned 4 years old. She sang on the show and has now become the youngest contestant ever to get through to the next round.

I think Disney should hire her. Adorable. She even has a MySpace.

Tags: americas got talent, kaitlyn maher, child stars