Suffocation Danger Exists

Mill Woods Skate Park

Edmonton, Alberta

June 27, 2006

So, sue me. Americans are lawsuit happy. You know it. I know it. Lawyers certainly know it and they never fail to take advantage of it. But, it's certainly not their fault entirely. We citizens never miss a chance to blame someone else for our misfortune or negligence.

One byproduct of our litigiousness is the proliferation of amusing warnings stating the obvious and designed to protect against lawsuits. A recent favorite I found in my hotel room here in Edmonton. The in-room safe is about 14 inches wide and maybe 4 inches high. Comfortable enough to fit a laptop, but very little else. However, just in case, there's a warning on the inside panel that states, very simply, that "Suffocation Danger Exists." And, just as I was about to stick my head in there too. . .

World Cup Mania: We're nearing completion of the World Cup, the most prestigious tournament for the world's most popular sport; soccer. The sport has grown in the U.S. but at a "one-step-forward, two-steps-back" pace.

One recent fact caught my eye that puts into perspective how far behind the world we still are in adopting soccer: about 90 million people watched this year's Super Bowl. It's estimated that 1 billion people worldwide will watch the World Cup final on July 9. Perhaps the rest of the world knows something we don't.

Is the lens cap still on? Day One of shooting our TV commercial here in Edmonton went well. Sort of. Had a 4:45 a.m. start time this morning and we were pretty fried by the time we wrapped around noon. However, we got incredible stuff in the four scenes and things went very well, or so we thought.

Part two of the shoot started at about 5:30 this afternoon and when we arrived we found out that there'd been a problem with ALL the film from this morning and we have to re-shoot EVERYTHING tomorrow. They sent the film to process for the rush dailies and everything was red. Not sure if it was a film problem or a loading problem but it was definitely a big problem.

It's a director's worst nightmare and I wondered aloud if someone on the crew might be sleeping with the fishes tonight. It doesn't happen often but it does happen. So, tomorrow will be a morning re-shoot, then a long break, then an evening shoot for the second commercial that will go into the wee hours Thursday morning to take advantage of the long Edmonton twilight. Should be a long day.

We fly out at noon on Thursday and I'm looking forward to coming home to the family.