It's a (Joe) Mallozzi Christmas tradition! Dinner at one of my favorite restaurants - Au Pied de Cochon - with my sister and Daisy. But beware! It's not for the fainthearted! Akemi and I being affectionate. Les cromesquis - deep-fried morsels bursting with liquid foie gras. And, for Akemi - the mackerel. The French onion…
November 27, 2016: Sunday monkeys, pugs, and ghostly images!
Holy Macaroni! Is this possible? Could this be? The faintest glimmer of hope on my fantasy football horizon? Could my cellar-dwelling Snow Monkeys actually win this week and, alongside Ivon Bartok's Running Dead, be in a position to sneak into the playoffs next week with a win (coupled with a win by the Running Dead,…
November 26, 2016: Scripts! Saturday! A New You (and by You I mean Me)!
What a difference a script makes. I practically wrote Episode 304 over the course of a weekend, blazing through an astounding 32 pages in a single day! Compare this to the script I'm presently writing which has progressed at a somewhat less blistering rate of a page a day. In all fairness though, Episode 304…
November 25, 2016: Dark Matter Season 3 – Day 6 of 91!
One week down, eighteen to go! We are blazing through production on Dark Matter's third season - which is both exhilarating and terrifying considering there are still plenty of scripts still to be written. Thank goodness for weekends, the Christmas holidays and, later this season when we're up against it, the hours between 10 p.m. and 5…
November 24, 2016: Dark Matter Season 3 – Day 5 of 91!
This entry marks ten straight years of uninterrupted daily blogging. I celebrated today by going in to work! The only thing Akemi loves more than baking is baking for the Dark Matter crew. This morning, it was breakfast rum cake with butter rum glaze. First blocking! Our finished "not clock". An moment of reflection before the…
November 21, 2016: Dark Matter Season 3 – Day 2 of 92!
Today's unwieldy dialogue dump: "One of the anti-matter transducer feeds was compromised by an impairment in one of the particle accelerators." And you'll never guess who delivers the line. In a show's first season, the cast walks on eggshells, eager to please. In a show's second season, they become more relaxed and eager to collaborate.…
November 20, 2016: We’re adopting!
It might probably come as a surprise to many of you, but Akemi and I have been thinking about it for a while now. I'm not getting any younger, we have a lot of love to give and the time just felt right. And so, after much consideration, we submitted an adoption application and held our breath.…
November 8, 2016: Dark Matter behind the scenes goodies!
Great news! For me. I pushed through that pesky hitherto unyielding scene and made it to the top of Act II. Along the way, I finally got to write that pre-mindwipe Raza crew flashback scene. Oh, that's a keeper. The final look of "the chair", compliments of Lee Fitzgerald at North Front Studio. Now, all…
October 29, 2016: Dark Matter Episode 12, “Sometimes In Life You Don’t Get To Choose” deleted scene!
Things are ramping up big time as we approach production start on Dark Matter's third season. Although we don't go to camera until November 18th, we'll be kicking things off with a double-episode block shoot, so prep will start earlier - this Monday, October 31st to be precise. Veteran director Ron Murphy (who helmed Episode 106 [FIVE's…
October 23, 2016: Bar Buca pulls the old “Those people who came in AFTER you were actually here BEFORE you”!
One of my favorite episodes of Seinfeld involves the gang trying to get a table at a Chinese restaurant. They put their name on A list and, after being informed a table would open up in "Five, ten minutes", they proceed to wait - and wait...and wait. At one point, a guy breezes in, walks right…
October 16, 2016: My birthday celebration – the breakdown!
Woke up and liked/hearted/thanked all the well-wishers on Facebook, twitter, and instagram. Cleaned the dog poop off the patio (Note: I originally wrote "Cleaned poop off the patio" but ultimately felt it was advisable to be specific). Had lunch at Schmaltz Appetizing. Took a stroll. Picked up substitute birthday cake. Heard from two of my favorite…
October 15, 2016: Phasing the dog dislikers out of my life!
I was leaving the farmer's market when I ran into an old friend. It had been years since I'd seen her and, clearly, much had changed. She was married, had a son, and had just moved into a new house. "We should go out for dinner and catch up,"she said. "Great,"I said. I loved the…
October 10, 2016: Here we go again!
Well, after a fitful night's sleep, we woke up at 3:45 a.m. this morning so that we could catch the first Westjet flight to Toronto. Bubba and Lulu were even less happy about it than Akemi. We once tried taking the red-eye with Jelly in the mistaken belief that she would be tired and sleep…
October 10, 2016: Oof!
Oh, man, this is going to be a brutal 20 hours. My flight out of Toronto was delayed hour. I was seated across the aisle from a kid who cried through most of the 5 hours in the air. When she wasn't crying, her mom kept her entertained playing music videos without the benefit of earphones.…
October 9, 2016: Family Time! And socks!
Today, I celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with my mother and sister in traditional fashion, with a dim sum lunch and sushi dinner. Lai Wah Heen is, in my opinion, the best dim sum in the downtown area - and mom agreed. Pictured above: the lobster dumpling and the crispy pork belly. After dropping mom off at…