Wellington – Day 4

Technically Wellington Day 0, but New Zealand Day 4 — you know what I mean…

Today could have been the day of not one, not two, but three hot breakfasts if not for my steadfast willpower. I had the usual made-to-order omelette, fruit, yogurt and pastry in my hotel before checking out and heading to the airport. As I entered the Koru Club in the Domestic Terminal at Auckland Airport not even an hour later I was surprised to find another hot breakfast buffet tempting me. I settled for a bottomless cup of long blacks instead.

After touching down in Wellington I was greeted at the gate by local power couple Derek Flores and Fiona Jane Malthus, who immediately asked me: “Wanna to go for breakfast?”

First I had to check in at The Intercontinental Hotel, apparently where visiting rock stars stay. I wonder if they use points too?

En route to breakfast (for Derek; lunch for me) we stopped for a video opp with Wellington’s biggest scandal. Shocking!

Wellington has gone Cuba Crazy! And the best breakfast on Cuba Street is at Fidel’s. Note that even though I made poor Derek pose on the ground by the front door no skulls were smashed as a result of this photo…

Another Wellington landmark is Bats Theatre, a kindred spirit to the Bad Dog back home?

After a quick walking tour covering three of the city’s four quarters my verdict was in. To quote The Fonz: Ayyy!

NeutrinoPlex Opens Tonight!

If you’re wondering why I haven’t written any new posts this week it’s because I’ve been desperately cobbling together the nuts and bolts for tonight’s opening of NeutrinoPlex at The Bad Dog Theatre on the Danforth.

Unlike previous incarnations of the show, our new run will nix the opening act of stand-ups and feature instead a special selection short films from around the city, across the country and from the deepest, darkest corners of the internet. It makes for a lot of extra work for yours truly but it will all pay off — in particular, patrons of tonight’s show are in for a very unique treat!

No need to squint at the text in the above graphic for details… You can download your very own full-sized souvenir flyer right here.

The Return of Second Cine! (Kinda)

A few of my loyal readers (I’m talking to you, Ed!) will remember a monthly night of short films I hosted at the Second City “Firemall” from 2002-2003. It was a nice little community-building event, but uneven attendance and mounting costs ultimately caused its demise. The show was to be reborn as Small Screen Heroes on Movieola, but the zero-budget pilot I produced never actually aired on the network.

But now, almost 4/10ths of a decade later, on the cusp of a Neutrino Video Project summer run, I’m happy to report that we’re accepting submissions for short films to open the show!

If you’re interested all you have to do is deliver a DVD of your fine work to this address:

Bad Dog Theatre
attn: Neutrino Shorts
138 Danforth Avenue
Toronto, ON M4K 1N1

You don’t need an authored DVD per se — a data disc with QuickTime, Windows Media, AVI, etc. will be fine. Just no VHS tapes, please — this is the 21st century, after all! And being the 21st century you’re also welcome to send links to your work online via my contact page.

We’re biased towards comedy but are certainly open to masterpieces of any genre. The only technical requirement is that your submitted film must have a total running time of 30 minutes or less — honestly, though, if your flick runs any longer than a couple of minutes it’d better have some pretty killer production values for us to consider it!

As a bonus, submitted films will also be considered by the Bad Dog Theatre for their MYSPAYZ PAYJ!!1! Submissions for the Bad Dog site will likely be ongoing, but the deadline for Neutrino consideration is Friday, June 1st at 10pm.