Today we cycled (yes, cycled) down to Battersea Power Station which is currently open to let you walk around. Sweet! Battersea is such a classic London landmark, but for years no-one has had any real idea what to do with it. Everyone wants it to stay there, but it's not an easy building to adapt to other purposes.

The present proposal is for the outer shell to be kept, small spaces to be added inside the walls and a park to be created around the site. Then behind the power station a new building is proposed, using ecological principles to minimise its carbon footprint; basically it's a tower like an old kiln, but built totally of glass - the direct sun causes the air inside to heat and rise, generating electricity and also automated cooling effects. It all looks very clever, and definately something to watch out for.

Oh, and happy Independence Day to all my American chums!

To help pre-celebrate tomorrow's Canada day, we went along to see Wall-E, the latest masterpiece from Pixar. I don't know how Pixar always make me think their movies will be a bit crap from the trailers, but they do. Thankfully the movie is wonderful. The story follows a garbage collecting robot as he scurries around a trash covered planet Earth sometime in the future. An inquisitive chap, Wall-E collects trinkets, repairs himself with parts from his fallen colleagues and has a pet cockroach. Yes, that's right. Pixar are so damn good these days they can make you emotionally connect not only with robots, but cockroaches. In fact for the first half of the film you hardly see a human at all and there is very little spoken - the epic scenes of abandoned cities full of garbage, with a futuristic sound track just fill you with wonder and sadness at the same time.

Wall-E is an ecological love story between two robots - one the red-headed step child of Number Five from Short Circuit, the other the evolved pinnacle of iPod style design. The film tells us the ultimate end point of our consumerist obsessions, but never preaches and offers a hopeful ending as the credits roll. It's a heart achingly beautiful movie, yet fun to watch. What more could you want?

Labels: movies

Yesterday was the Toronto Pride parade - the biggest gay pride parade in North America*. So as a brief stopover between Mathew and Micah's post wedding brunch (congratulations again!) and a Miette family barbecue I got the chance to wander through the thronged (and thonged) masses in the Toronto down-town. Quite the spectacle.

Thankfully my camera survived some folks throwing buckets of water from their apartment building onto the crowd so here are more photos of Toronto Pride.

*Also I believe it temporarily makes downtown Toronto hold the highest concentrations of rainbows in the world, so how come I didn't find any pots of gold? Pesky leprechauns.

We had a busy day yesterday, making pom poms, tying up a complicated system of ropes, putting things out, carrying things up stairs, taking photos, trying not to eat the delicious looking cupcakes. Mmm..

The main event is later today, so expect plenty more photos. In the meantime here are some of the setup. Here comes the bride....

After a long, boring flight (note to Air Canada - finish fitting your trans-atlantic planes with in flight!) I'm now in Oakville for the start of Mathew and Micah's wedding weekend. Lots to do and not enough cars to do it with, so there's a complicated schedule of car juggling going on (big thanks to the Johnson clan on that one).

And on an unrelated note I've finally gotten around to putting a photo up for vote in JpgMag in their 'Democracy' theme. Please feel free to head over there, check out my ace photo and then vote for me. See, I understand democracy - it's all about getting the masses to do stuff your way {;)

Labels: Competitions, flying, photos, Weddings