Last night felt like Christmas.

I went over to my friend Corrine's house on the spur of the moment. She had called to see if we wanted to roast hot dogs in her new fire pit. Over dinner, she explained that she had to arrange for her father to be put in a senior's home last month and to help him clean out his former apartment. He told her to do whatever she wanted with his stuff... including a collection of about 700 classical music records.

So, while we were over, Corinne told us to look through the records and take whatever we wanted. It was so much fun! I think we ended up bringing 50 records home - a mix of Gilbert & Sullivan, medieval choir music, and Peter Sellers stuff.

I can't wait to get home from my trip to London/Ethiopia (leaving tomorrow) to relax at home and listen to all of these records!

Just a reminder to all Canadian TIG members - today is the federal election. Please do make the time to vote.

Information on the candidates as well as ridings and polling locations is available through the CBC: Canada Votes Web Site, as well as many others.

I haven't had much time to search for other more youth oriented voting sites, but I do know that MuchMusic's MuchVote2004 has some lighter looks at the candidates.

I seem to be on an aboriginal video/film news kick this week... maybe it's because a friend of mine who runs the Saskatchewan International Film Festival for Young People is staying at my house while in Winnipeg for some meetings. She was gushing last night about her tour to the APTN offices yesterday. I hadn't realized before that the director/producer (?) for the station is a 22-year old woman!

In any case, I was cruising around online this morning and discovered the "National Geographic All Roads Project". It seeks to act as a platform for indigenous and under-represented minority-culture filmmakers to showcase their cultures to a worldwide audience.

The inaugural All Roads Film Festival will be held in Los Angeles October 22 to 24, 2004, and in Washington, D.C., October 28 to 30, 2004. The Festival will feature animation, music videos, feature-length films, documentaries, and shorts from around the world.

National Geographic is still accepting submissions of animated films. Submissions in other categories closed May 31 for the 2004 festival.

The All Roads Film Project will also award up to ten seed grants in 2004 to help indigenous or minority-culture filmmakers produce a film or video.

In a roundabout way, this then led me back to Canada, when I found that "Raven Tales" has been shortlisted for a completion grant from National Geographic. This is the first computer-animated film totally developed by a Canadian aboriginal team.

Very cool. Check it all out.

"Dog ends gunman's plan for shooting rampage"

Weird stuff out there in Toronto these days... gets me all choked up... sniff sniff. Sort of makes me want to get a dog.

I was happy today to hear about the launch of a new video training program for aboriginal youth in Quebec. Through the program, five young filmmakers will be taking a van packed with digital cameras, professional editing equipment and a screening room around to six aboriginal communities. In each community, they will provide training in everything from screenwriting to directing to camera operation to film editing.

Very cool!