TV dinner... lunch

The Pork and Chicken dish at Pho88 kind of looks like the Battlestar Galactica.

While visiting the old 'hood where my parents live I stopped by a restuarant I used to frequent, Pho88. I got my, back then, usual dish. It was then when I realized I hadn't watched much TV lately.

It's been a few days since I've watched any TV or rather DVD Television as I don't have reception or cable in my basement apartment. The last series I was engulfed in was the new battlestar galactica season one, a series I bought a friend for Christmas and immediately borrowed once he finished viewing it. I was quite impressed with the show. Good writing, interesting characters and sci-fi to boot.

I supppose there's the option of just subscribing to cable. There's a lot of times I'll visit someone with cable and end up watching crappy virtual reality shows or watch channels being flipped in case there is something on more interesting somewhere else.

Note: if you are a channel flipper and you've gone through all the hundred plus channels of crap at least three times in the last ten minutes then you should tell yourself there's nothing good on tv and do something more with your life (like watching a movie on DVD).

Sometimes it's good to just be a couch potato. As sad as it is, it is part of our north american culture, it gives us something in common to talk about at lunch, around the drinking fountain, and at work. Phrases like "almost there", "You came in that thing?", "I haven't felt him since..." and "At that speed will we be able to pull out in time?" have vastly different meanings if you didn't see Star Wars (episode 4).

I remember working at an ad agency and they told me they wanted some graphics that looked like the opening titles to the X-files. At that point I had never seen the X-files and had to tape it for reference. When talking to people that have watched the same movie or television show in a room with people that haven't you can actually seen the person who didn't watch the show get a blank expression and have their eyes glaze over. Kind of like talking to people that bake for a living about networking solutions using fibre optic technology. Huh what?

So until TV becomes 100% complete crap and we as a society find something better in common to do (like fix the ozone layer, feed the poor, train hamsters to move solar panels to face the sun) so we can talk about it later I suppose I will continue to try to watch the good TV shows and be entertained.

A Hot Dog today makes everything okay

Hot dogs and sausages on Queen street cheap cheap cheap

After feeling dupped into giving up real work for work that could be non-existant, I wondered along Queen street to continue with my on going hobby of photography. My spirits picked up when I saw that the "Street Meat of Queen Street" was on sale again.

Usually a sausage on a bun (with fixins) will run you about $3.00. For some reason, at the corner of Queen and Spadina, the prices have dropped by a dollar. Perhaps this is the result of the two or three vendors on the same corner competing for customers. It's also a possiblity that they are just buying cheaper, fattier meat.

The end result of that dollar off, whatever the the reasons were, perked my interest enough to pick one up. So obviously the cheapo pricing works on some people. After loading the bun with red peppers, corn relish, mustard, and onions I continued my trek down to yonge street where eventually I hopped on the streetcar to head for home.

David Trattles: Documentary Photographer

David Trattles tells tales of his worldwide adventures... with pictures.

I was invited to a gallery opening showcasing three photographers. Out of the three one particular photographer stood out. It wasn't because the photos were published in magazines or that they were any good. They weren't good. That would be almost insulting. They were great! The texture, the lighting, the composition, people's expressions and the surroundings all made the images captivating. It was the stories that David told that really gave the photos life.

His black and white prints of german cowboys, Elvis of the Yukon, Inuits riding the bus, cursing Newfoundlanders (that loved their wives), flamboyant dancers in New York, cheese rolling, women boxers in India, tomato fights, gave us a small window into the rest of the world. The stories were entertaining and emblished with his different accents while trying to immitate the various people he had met.

At one point there were about 12 of us in a 6x6 foot room listening in. It was like being a kid again listening to your wacky, but cool, uncle tells stories of his childhood or some such thing. Wonder and fascination come to mind when thinking about the whole experience.

It's heartbreaking to know that a photographer of this calibre and devotion, who has been published in various magazines, reaps the financial benefits similar to that of someone on welfare. That said to see David's photos up close go to the following link and if you like any of them buy a print or two it'll help finance his next work trip (as publications generally do not finance the trips very well) and allow him to eat.

www.DavidTrattles.com

note: some of the web site doesn't work but his email does as well as the pictures.

Toronto Trivia

The Old Toronto City Hall (there's a newer one across the street)

It was one of those days where I could have easily hibernated in my apartment working on some indoor photography. Only by getting a call from Michelle did I find out it was sunny and relatively warm outside. It was about 3pm when I convinced myself that I should go out to pay next months bills and maybe see what was going on downtown at the same time.

At Queen and Bay street, in front of the old city hall, you could hear what sounded like mexican fiesta music coming from across the street. Before walking over there I noticed that the old city hall was lit pretty nicely by the sun and the reflection of the sun off of the Eaton Centre's mirror-like windows. I decided to pull out the camera and take a couple of snaps before investigating what was going on across the street.

As a side note, a long time ago when I took urban geography, one of those summer school courses that your parents send their kids to to keep them out of trouble, I found out that the face of the architect of the old city hall had his face among all the other faces on one of the columns (the right one when you face the building, next to the main entrance).


The face with a moustache is the architect.

It's one of those obscure, but cool, Toronto things that not really that many people seem to know. That and that the old City Hall tower looks straight down Bay street on purpose.

After examining the old city hall building and documenting it witht he D70 I went across the street. The mexican music was part of some winter festival going on at Nathan Phillips Square (the public space in front of the new city hall). It was packed with people, both skating, and just wandering around looking at what appeared to be people dressed up as fat, naked (shaved) sheep. I didn't really get a good look or any good photos of the sheep people. Kids seemed to be entertained.

Getting outside turned out to be interesting. Who would have known? It just goes to show you that nothing interesting will happen to you if you don't get your ass out of the apartment from time to time.

Room with a view

Looking out of the old factory window at another factory

The space I've been sharing and using as a studio has a washroom with a large wall filled mainly with frosted windows. Somewhere in the center there's one window pane that's clear and looking out you can clearly see the smokestack on top of another factory across the street.

Although both buildings are no longer factories, they've been converted to offices and large studio spaces, I always thought it odd that they keep the smoke stack. Are they still used? Was it too expensive to tear it down? Is it part of some historic program the city has that keeps it intact?

Activator Boot

Typewriter - the longest word you can type using only the top letters on a qwerty typewriter.

After getting my D70 back from Nikon and spending quality time with the grandmother I got home and had the urge to type up a letter using my manual typewriter. It had been collecting dust since I first got it as a payment of sorts for helping someone move. Personally I think they were just too lazy to drop it off at a donation/charity drop box. As it was in pretty good shape and folding into a nice compact case I figured I'd save it from the landfill.

I love the name. The "Activiator 800T". When first reading the label I thought it read "activator boot". Huh? When buying this product, way back when it was new, the name probably reflected high end, state of the art technology. It almost sounds like it's allowing you to do work on the go. You can be active with the "Activator"! If it was called the "Activator boot". You could be doing work on the go with this typewriter because it, like a kick in the ass (boot), would be the thing to get you going. You were inspired to write if you bought this thing. Maybe I'm reading too much into the name?

In this day and age of high tech gadgetry and electrical gizmos it's kind of bizzare that you can type anything without using power. Of course the first thing I noticed was the amount of force you have to use on the keys just to strike the paper. You'd have to press even harder if you wanted the letter to be dark enough to read. After about half a page of typing my wrists were getting sore.

Another interesting thing we take for granted using modern keyboards is that you can type pretty much as fast as you want. Using the manual typewriter if you typed too fast the keys would jam into each other. A note to all those youngsters out there, that's the reason why the keyboard letters are laid out in such an odd order. The arrangement was to slow the typist down on purpose.

Once finished typing up the so called letter, mainly due to my hands cramping up, I decided to return to the modern era and fiddle with the D70. (see picture above). The dirt that used to be on the camera sensor is now gone thanks to the cleaning staff at Nikon repair. woo woo.

Sound Off

Looking down McCaul street from the Cinematheque at the CN Tower and the top of the OCAD building.

Like a small bug flying toward that zapper on the house porch I decided today to take in some art. When it comes to attending art exhibits and things it's usually a hit or miss with me. They always seem interesting at first glance but as you get nearer, just before you get zapped, you wonder how did you get there, and more importantly, how do you get out?

My friend Emmanuel told me about this "film thing" taking place at the Art Gallery of Ontario's cinematheque. The small side theatre of the AGO featured work done by Seoungho Cho, an artist flown all the way here from New York city. The event was free, took place at a good time (6:30pm), included film, and was free. Did I say it was free?

It wasn't until I sat down in the theatre while waiting for Emmanuel to arrive that I noticed all the "artsie fartsie" people wearing black rimmed glasses and black sweaters surrounding me. Past experiences of art horror rushed into my mind. All those "experimental" films that I saw years ago that actually might have been visually pleasing all had one thing in common. Really bad sound.

There's bad sound like dubbing the characters swearing in the breakfast club to saying "well, DAMN you" where the sound doesn't really match the lips then there's the really bad sound. The sound where you want to do violent things, throw up, pass out or maybe just get irritable.

It's almost like the artists went out of their way to find the crappiest pieces of recording equipment this planet has to offer then use them improperly on purpose. It's been proven that classical music does something soothing to people by affecting their brain waves. On the opposite end of the scale listening to most newby artsie films makes me irritable and annoyed.

Still this particular artist was flown in from New York. Obviously someone thinks his work is interesting enough. He did, after all, get a grant to do his first film to be shown at the theatre that night. Eventually Emannuel showed up and I told him my concerns about the impending doom, the audio track.

Emmanuel has this very positive way about him. I'm not really sure how to put it in words but he has a very optimistic aura that surrounds him like a bubble. Should you be lucky enough to have him as a friend the bubble engulfs you without you really realizing this. Next thing you know all is fine, your pessimistic attitude gone, and things don't really seem that impossible as before.

This put me at ease just before the cineamatheque guy got up on stage to introduce Seoungho. The introduction told us that Seoungho went to New York a few years ago (was it ten?) as a graphic artist and then somewhere down the line he switched to experimenting with film. After seeing his first film I thought maybe he should have experimented a little more with sound too.

Yes the movie had the most annoying sound track I have heard since those days long ago seeing those OCA film student movies. Although I do have to give him credit the sound samples were clearly recorded. I didn't hear any static unless it was intentional. From the TV tone generator sound (when you're watching color bars) to a dot matrix printer printing, the sounds he used made me annoyed and even angry.

As for visuals, let me start off by saying that we watched three movies before we left the theatre. The movies were only about 10 minutes each. It sounds short but if the footage only contains a thumb and index finger pulling on tape from a VHS cartridge making a tugging sound like nails on a chalk board, then throw in a butterfly loop that just happens to sync with the tugging sound, well it seemed way too long. When the credits rolled I actually noticed my hands clutching the edge of the seat and letting go.

The next film was a bit more interesting visually as it was from the point of view of a bar code reader. There were more things to look at than the VHS tape movie. That alone seemed a bit entertaining. The sound was a bit more irritating as it was the movie that featured the TV tone.

The third film had something to do with watching a water faucet with water coming out of it. The picture was edited to look like the vertical scroll on your TV wasn't adjusted. Being a playback operator this effect irritated me. I'm not sure how long the movie was cause I nodded off about two or three minutes in.

Before, I mentioned I had only seen three movies. It's because I fell asleep through the third so that one doesn't really count. The forth movie was something metallic spinning. It took me a while to figure out that it was a drill bit we were looking at close up. This was the movie that featured the on going dot matrix printing noise which was in sync to the rotating bit. When the credits rolled on this one we noticed some people wander out of the theatre. This was our big chance. We decided to make a break for the exit in the dark before the next film started.

Once out in the well lit hall I noticed that we were followed by a rather large crowd also escaping the next film's wrath. I kind of felt sorry for the artist but then I thought "Someone paid for him to come here." and there's people still in the theatre who probably love the stuff. The horrible feeling of guilt I had melted away. Being out of the theatre was like taking off a really small uncomfortable shoe. It really felt good to be outside.

How the West was won

Home made shooting gallery in the basement

Neil Hollands, a friend of mine, back in the days of multimedia and speaker support seemed to always come up with kooky ideas that I don't think anyone else, or a very select few, would dream up let alone go through with undertaking the task of actually bringing said ideas to fruition. Years later (ie. today) I have found that he's still active and creating these masterpieces.

For the western themed party, Westuvus, he put together a black light shooting gallery down in his basement. It was coin (loonie) operated even. When you fired the light gun at a target a shirt would puff up, a dish would spin, eyes would light up, and so on. It was pretty amazing.

Seeing work like this is, for me, is pretty inspirational as it's a movtivates me to get off my ass and work on something just for the fun of it.

I want to believe

Apartment, vacuummed even

Much like the sighting of a UFO, the sasquatch, or Nessie it seems that if I tell someone I'm going to clean my living space I get responses like "Yeah right", "Sure you go on and keep believing that.", "o-kaaay" (said the person as he/she slides across the wall and out of the room).

Granted one of the biggest sceptics would be Zee, my electrocuted lab partner, and room mate of years past. If anyone, he would be the one to not believe or comprehend my saying "I'm going to clean my apartment" as "I'm going to go to sleep" or "I'm going to optimize my hard drive". These are actions I have taken in the past and for Zee are things totally within my grasp of activities.

To pick up a vacuum, mop, broom, wear gloves to scrub tiles, or take a tooth brush (not current) to get guk out from around the sink faucet is rare. Very rare indeed. Zee has seen, first hand, the results of generations of pack rat activites or "saving", as some people like to call it. It's no wonder that his head fills with negativity and nay saying. Cheetahs don't change their spots after all.


bathroom - could be a set for Kubrick's 2001.

Much like the UFO there are times that I will clean (YES CLEAN) but usually it takes place when no one is watching or is present. I must be really bored, I am procrastinating from doing something else, or there's a female involved. The later is a great motivator and as sad as it sounds if it weren't for the opposite sex I'd probably be living my dream as a couch potato.

When your dream is to buy a TV projector to beam on the ceiling to watch movies without getting out of bed, and without leaning at odd angles you know you're taking couch potatoing to new levels. As an aside I haven't figured out the eating thing as I can't eat while lying down. Perhaps if you were in a hospital bed and the ceiling curved so that the image from the LCD projector bolted to your bed was always at a perpendicular axis to your eye line.... obviously you would need a conveyor belt to bring the food from a refridgerated or microwavable area so you wouldn't have to get up.... except to go to the bathroom. There's always the jar option (for doing number 1 at least)... but I digress.

Back to the cleaning entry...
I figured I should really have included a newspaper so you'd know the images were current but if big foot wasn't carrying the paper than why should I pay the dollar to try to convince you the reader.


Shelf organization at it's best.

In case you're wondering why the images are in black and white, the answer is two fold...
a) I wanted to capture the feel of the big foot photos (I suppose I could have shook the camera a bit to give it that blurry feel).
b) my D70, as of today, is in the shop (Nikon) getting it's sensor cleaned so I had to shoot this with the 990. The D70 doesn't take black and white images anyway.

I found out today that normal cleaning of the D70 costs $80. However Nikon (at least Nikon Canada) allows you to get your first cleaning for FREE. Woo Hoo! It's still a trek to get out there but it couldn't have better timing. The turn around time for a cleaning, for a non-NPS owner is 48 hours.

NPS stands for Nikon Professional Services. In order to take part in the NPS program you are required to own two PRO camera bodies and at least two PRO lenses. You also have to have a bunch of tear sheets to be considered for the title. Right now the only PRO digital body is the D2X. yikes.

Back to cleaning the apartment... Just so people don't think I've been possessed by some Molly Maid, my computer desk is still in it's current state of stuff heap-ness. I said I would clean I didn't say it would last more than a day.

It is possible that while visiting Cupcake for christmas she played some christmas music with brain washing encryption giving me urges to neatify my apartment. We'll never know.


Jingle Bells, Apartment Smells,
Make it nice and clean,
Use a scrubber and some soap
vacuum dust that's seen.

repeat first verse

Scrubbing all the surfaces,
making your face seen,
it's not in a mirror,
it's the toilet clean.

Dirt continued

The Toronto Skyline

I'm not really sure what it is but I've become obsessed with the cleaning of things. First the camera, then the bathroom, and now my apartment in general. Cleanliness is a subjective thing. For some, a messy room is a sock on the bed, for others it's the cockroaches complaining there's no room to walk around. My apartment is some where inbetween. Lots of socks, no vermin. I do have a stack of dirty laundry that seems to be growing an an exponential rate. I wonder if they make laundry baskets with wheels?

It's amazing how much junk accumulates on ones desk. CDs, business cards, pens, papers, tiny receipts, elastic bands, dry markers, compact flash containers, compressed air can, batteries, maps (antwerp and Toronto), printer manuals, music CDs, calendar, gum, space invaders peg board, charlie the tuna bobble head, envelopes, post-its, and a Manatee Protection Tip pamphlet. This is just from a precursory look next to my keyboard. Who knows what lurks under the layers of stuff? Oh hey, a waterproof battery container. I was looking for that a while ago. It seems the next thing to organize and clean will be my desk.

So is there a full moon out? What's with this obsession to clean all of the sudden? Your guess is as good as mine.

There's Dirt Everywhere!

An old Mini Located behind the Rhino (resturant/bar on Queen street west).

The Hello software is acting up again and so I've had to resort to using the Blogspot default add a picture icon. As you may have noticed I've been getting behind on the blogging thing. Part of it is do to being busy trying to look for work and the other part is just not going out and taking pictures. WHAT? Not taking pictures? No, hell has not frozen over but my camera has been bugging me a bit with all the dirt that has collected on the sensor. It's annoying to have the odd dirt dot on pictures and the dust specs are so small you can't really see them on the sensor.

In an effort to keep the sensor clean I have been using an air blower with the camera upside down trying to get the dust, dirt, lint, or whatever the stuff is off the sensor and out of the camera body. It got to the point where the little particles became so annoying that I went to the camera store and bought some sensors swabs. Basically little squeegies for you camera.

It seemed to good to be true. For only $30.00 you could get a kit to clean your sensor. The kit contains three squeegies and some fluid that doesn't leave any residue. After reading the instructions about five or six times I gingerly applied the stuff to the sensor. The good news is that it got rid of the big particles of lint, dirt, whatever. The bad news is that it left a bunch of muck on the sensor. No residue my ass. It also did not get rid of the biggest piece of dirt which I think has been welded into place probably by moisture condensation. Also little hairs were left on the sensor from the swab fibres. Thankfully I managed to get the fibres off with the air blower.

I am bringing my camera into Nikon first thing monday which is really what I should have done in the first place. The only thing that stopped me was the turn around time being so slow. They took two months to fix my Nikon 990 and the cost was more than getting another 990 on ebay. If they can't clean it (for a hundred bucks) I'm going to have to look at buying a new sensor. Crap!

The product to be weary of is by American Recorder. It's the digital sensor cleaning kit. In all fairness they do have a warning to use at your own risk. As a user of the product I would like to warn anyone thinking about using it and tell them not to.

Office Mishaps

Bad day at work? Good thing you weren't here.

For some bizarre reason (and maybe to tie this text entry in with the blog picture) I started reading some reports on injuries at work. The most common injury in an office environment is falling. Here are the more common occurances...

- tripping over an open desk or file drawer
- bending while seated in an unstable chair
- tripping over electrical cords or wires
- using a chair or stack of boxes in place of a ladder
- slipping on wet floors
- loose carpeting
- objects stored in halls or walkways
- poor lighting

According to the same report office workers have 2 to 2.5 times the disabling injury rate of falls compared to non-office types. So I guess it pays not to work in an office environment if one wants to improve the odds of not falling and becoming disabled.

So to all you blog readers out there using a tiny table for a ladder/step stool, and you know who you are, stop using the tiny table.

Fun with Photo Shoots

Liz Andrejeva - Model

I've spent the previous few days prepping for today model shoot. Finding a studio space, moving a bunch of gear to the studio location, charging all the batteries I own, cleaning all the camera components. The later taking the most time as I tried to get rid of some dust on the sensor. What a pain that was.

Overall, pretty much everything fell together. After setting a date with the model to shoot I managed to find a make up artist. A Leanna Spina who just happened to be available. A studio space became available and volia instant photoshoot.

I met Leanna a while ago before at one of Darryl's Film Festivals. I'm really not sure what she was doing then but for some reason that fact that she was a make up artist stuck with me. It was later when Amanda recommended her that my brain clicked "Oh yeah, hey, I know her."

The photo shoot lasted about 5 hours with a small break in between. I got a few good shots in but I think my hit to miss ratio could have been better. I suppose that comes with experience.

ADDED NOTE: Oooh, hey, the photo's color scheme works with the new blog interface.

They seem innocent enough

Asha, person of 2, contemplates using her mind control over an unsuspecting adult.

Anyone who has kids will tell you, the single guy, that any kid can break the most determined adult. Even in Star Trek Picard told Riker countless times that kids were not his greatest area of expertise. The captain of a starship, the guy who survived the Borg. Move aside Cardassians, with a kid Picard probably would have said "three lights" within the hour.

How many times have you gone to a restaurant where the kid is running around, throwing food, and screaming like a banshee? For me it seems like a lot.There have been times where I wanted to go over and throttle the kid right after the parent who seemed to not even notice what was going on.

That said today I went over to Cupcakes place to help move some stuff around. They were making room for the new addition (to the family) and were getting the nursery ready for the next incoming. One of the jobs that popped up that wasn't really advertised when the call went out was to entertain the existing kid, Asha.

Moving boxes, taping up walls to paint trim, driving mom to home depot to get paint. These were pretty easy compared to the Kid. Asha, an adorable little person, with a big head and big eyes, like most kids, have a undefined amount of energy. Running back and forth, shaking up and down, squealing with glee, I was amazed that she could still have energy to ask people questions, play, and jump up and down some more.

After reading a tiny 10 page book to her about a mouse on a farm five times I got pretty tired. How do people find energy to entertain kids for so long? Lifting boxes and driving around town didn't seem that bad. Perhaps it's because when you're with kids you always have to be on your feet. They ask you questions you don't know the answers to and if you do you might not really know how to answer them in terms they would understand or that the parents would approve of.

The next time I see some kid in a restaurant that's quietly eating with it's parents, I think I'll tell the parents that they're doing a great job. Then, after leaving the restaurant, I'll be happy to be back to being single with no kids. Aaaah... the quiet.

Egg Sighting

A watched pot... blah blah blah

What a better way to spend a friday the 13th than waking up early and shooting eggs boil. Seeing water frozen in time is always an interesting thing to look at. In this case the pot looks like it was filled with a blob of hair gel.

The reason I was shooting eggs in boiling water was to work in my flash. I wanted to see how it operated under various conditions. What shutter speeds I could use and how fast it took to recharge for the next picture. As far as the subject mattter...I've been thinking about eating an egg salad sandwich for the past few days now.

TIP: Instead of using mayo in your sandwich try using the Lick's Guk.

As I didn't have any mayonnaise in the fridge I used the substance that seemed to resemble it the most (in my fridge) that being GUK. Since I didn't have any Lick's burgers. GUK was tested and came out a winner. Who knew?

Mister Fish

Mister Fish looks at me looking at him

My sleep schedule has finally evened out with me getting up at 4am and going to sleep at 7pm. It's still al little wonky but at least I'm getting the 8 or 9 hours of sleep in a row. The hilight of the day was to visit the friend that has to do taxes and shoot his fish while he sorted through the little pieces of paper.

I'm not really sure what the fish's name is. It's the same fish I shot last March. Last March as well as today I managed to get the name of the fish only to forget it almost instantly. Hey not every day can be packed with action, drama and bikini girls. This year I thought I'd try shooting Mr. Fish with less even lighting to give that more dramatic look.

When you watch movies and you're way down under water with a submarine it's pretty dark. This was the look I was trying to achieve. As the room with the aquarium was pretty well lit I had to use a fast shutter speed to make the aquarium dark. I then used my sb-800 to light the fish from the side. I forgot to bring my flash cables so I used the SB-800 in slave mode while covering the flash on my camera with my hand so you don't get any reflection in the glass.

After a few flashes which would normally stun most fish, I would think, Mister Fish just floated there looking at me (see above picture). As fish don't smile I wonder if he was pissed off, trying to pose, or wondering where the hell the fish food was.

BagelHot Up and Running

Yikes! How much time did I spend working on that?

Yesterday I worked on my web site for 14 hours straight (4am to 6pm). Mainly looking through my insano photo archives for photos to put up. Until I can find better ones the ones posted will have to do.

Well okay not all of my time was working on the web page I spent a few minutes toying with John's online magnet letter board (you can too just click on the following link).

To see the new web site and maybe a few new pictures go to http://www.bagelhot.com/.

NOTE: The web site has not been tested for microsoft explorer so you might get weird results.

It's a New Year!

Toronto Raptors play the Florida Magic at the Air Canada Centre

First I would like to say Happy New Year to all the folk out there reading this. For the last ten days I've been pretty much a hermit staying inside. Partially due to feeling like I was coming down with a flu, partially from not wanting to go out into the grey, cold, weather, and partially due to watching a bunch of TV shows I picked up on boxing day.

Not to say I haven't ventured out at all. I was lucky enough to get invited to Andrew Majtenyi's birthday party at the Air Canada centre where a bunch of us watched a Raptors basketball game. I've also been getting up at weird early hours (from working those weird night hours a few weeks ago). To keep myself occupied I've been going downtown to shoot.


New fallen snow around 5am


Old City Hall


Bay Street (notice the old city hall looks right down this street)