Always Awesome: Brian Cox

This guy's great in every single movie in which he appears. Don't believe me? Check out his imdb credits page, and watch every single one of his movies, and then tell me I'm lying.

Hero: Dr. Andrew Weil

Common sense health advice from one of the coolest people in medicine.

Dr. Weil's web site

Hero: The Iraq Study Group

President Bush: "Some reports are issued and just gather dust. And truth of the matter is, a lot of reports in Washington are never read by anybody. To show you how important this one is, I read it."

Q: “Mr. President, the Iraq Study Group described the situation in Iraq as grave and deteriorating. You said that the increase in attacks is unsettling. That won't convince many people that you're still in denial about how bad things are in Iraq, and question your sincerity about changing course.”

President Bush: “It's bad in Iraq. Does that help?” (Laughter.)

Source

Members of the Iraq Study Group

• James A. Baker III (co-chair)
• Lee Hamilton (co-chair)
• Lawrence Eagleburger
• Vernon Jordan
• Edwin Meese III
• Leon Panetta
• William J. Perry
• Charles S. Robb
• Sandra Day O'Connor
• Alan K. Simpson
• Robert Gates
• Rudy Guiliani

Iraq Study Group [Wikipedia]
Iraq Study Group [Amazon]

All About Pirates 2 Visual Effects

If you're at all interested in the visual effects in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," you simply must visit the new ILM web site. It's probably the single best, most well-designed how-to visual effects site I've ever seen.

Here are just a couple snapshots:
Spend some time there... there's a lot to look at.
Hey, I know that shot!

ILM and Pirates 2
http://www.ilm.com/theshow/

Hero: Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan (1934-1996), creator of "Cosmos," only the greatest science series ever on PBS. Amazon link.

Hero: mental_floss magazine

mental_floss magazine.

Hero: Flying Spaghetti Monster

His noodly appendage be praised.

Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
http://www.venganza.org/

My "Van Helsing" MacAddict Interview

Back in June 2004, MacAddict magazine published an interview with yours truly, covering my use of Macintosh and After Effects for the film, "Van Helsing." They also put together a sweet video interview, too. I just put the video online, so you can take a look. Kris Fong from MacAddict spent a couple of hours with me discussing OPN072, one of our visual effects shots from "Van Helsing." It was a lot of fun, and it was really great to show off some of the terrific features of After Effects. Sometimes it's really difficult to describe what I do for a living with just words. This video does a pretty darn good job giving you a glimpse into the type of work we do in the visual effects world, day in and day out. MacAddict interviews Todd Vaziri, for "Van Helsing" http://www.vfxhq.com/tvaziri/van.html

watch on youtube
Here's how the feature looked in the magazine, itself: http://www.vfxhq.com/overflow/macaddict/ What you couldn't see is the fact that the interview took place during the second to last week of production on "Van Helsing," and I was severely stressed. So were my office mates, Sean Mackenzie and Tia Marshall, who had to endure me yapping about my shot with Kris for a few hours, with all of the lights and cameras, and trying to get their shots done, too. So super thanks go to them for putting up with me, that day, and every day. Visual Effects by Industrial Light & Magic. "Van Helsing" (c) 2004 Universal Pictures.

This Blogy Thingy

Is it narcissistic to have a blog? You betcha. Would that opinion stop me from having one? Apparently not.

These pages will not be refreshed frequently, so if you're looking for daily musings, you'll be very disappointed.

However, if you're looking for infrequent yet sharp moments of brilliance, well, you'll still be S.O.L.

I'll be chatting about media, visual effects, stuff that I recommend, and whatever the heck is on my mind that I'd like to share with the world.

I just hope this blog doesn't drive anyone to a life of crime. Yes, that's my high watermark.