Render Time

2:39am - Abby contemplates getting a taxi home.

I've been working on some compositing work over the last few days. Haven't really seen much other than my bed, my computer, and maybe some other parts of the apartment. Tonight after getting up at 9:30am and working all day I decided at 9:00pm to let the computer do a few renders and escape out to a party.

Graham a friend of Abby is getting married next week. Instead of a standard bachelor party loaded with a night of poker and girls jumping out of cakes (could happen) his friends they threw him a party with the band and his band friends. The party resembled a jam session with alcohol and Thai food.

When I arrived the band was playing and singing reggae music. A nice groove that was easy to talk over. Good party music. As the night wore on the music became more experimental. I'm not sure I liked the feedback noises or even if those noises were on purpose but for the most part the small crowd seemed to have a good time.

Eventually, at around 3:40am, I managed to leave and take the bloor bus home. Landsdowne and Bloor is not a great place to be at 4:00am. There was a group of loud individuals at the nearby donut shop. I noticed an older man in the shadows at the bank waiting for the bus. He just off of work and was taking the vomit comet home. He started talking to me about the problems with kids these days and eventually the conversation turned into how America is going to take over the world by force because it's unemployment rate within the country was on the rise. Why? Because it's farming out the jobs to other countries to cut down on expensive production or management costs. The result? The States worrying about other countries (the same countries) being a threat because they have too much power.

All this political banter was a lot to take in so early in the morning. The old man had a point even if my brain could barely make out each street we drove by. The bus was packed. At 4:30 in the morning it had standing room only! I got home at 5:30am exhausted. Checked the computer. It was still working away. Fell asleep right away.

Raffle Roundup

Brook with a fat lip

I met up with Brook this morning. She is one of the people organizing the raffle to help out the two orphaned kids described on my web site. Go to the bagelhot website and check out the photo slave page. The raffle takes place at the end of the month. You probably have only a day left, if that, to get in on the action. To buy tickets call Brook. Her phone number is also on my web site.

Thanks to Kyoko and the Keg Steakhouse and bar there are two $25 Keg gift certificates, 2 bottles of BBQ sauce, and two bottles of Steak sauce for the raffle.

Hurray For Junk Food

Lunch with Leanna

Why is it that something that tastes so great is so bad for you usually? For lunch today I met up with Leanna. We both had a craving for McDonalds. There's something about eating a Big Mac. The melted cheese, the chopped up little onions, the precisely mashed burger meat, the shredded lettuce, I'm not really sure what it is about the burger that I crave every now and then.

Anyone who saw "Supersize me" might equate eating at McDonalds with the memories you had as a kid. I was one of those kids. I still have those little McDonalds figures that were made out of plastic that you put on the end of your spoon or on the tip of your pencil. I also still have the six boxes that came out for the Star Trek movie. The Happy Meals came with some weird toy and a random iron on. You too could show that you were a geek by ironing on your favorite department insigina and or character to your t-shirt.

It was way back when I was in grade three that the first McDonalds opened in our neighborhood. It was part of the newly placed Gerrard Square. McDonalds was huge. So much so that we even had a school trip to go visit the local restaurant and see how things worked behind the scenes.

Kind of like a magical ride to Disneyland, McDonalds showed us, via a small, yet informative, film how fries were thrown out after a certain time, how ordinary human beings could transform themselves into super McDonalds employees by going to Burger University, and how great it would be to work with a clown as a mascot. McDonalds was the happiest burger place around and a high tech marvel for the time. Machines that actually beeped when food was done. What would they think of next?

Since then McDonalds has been the source of bad stories ranging from cutting down rain forests, not using enough recycled material (they used to have foam containers), selling coffee that was way too hot, not being very healthy and the term McJob (a term meaning that the job goes nowhere). There's been a lot of McDonalds battering over the years with the "Supersize Me" documentary being one of the most recent.

Then there's the disappearance of the McRib sandwich (sort of like the failing of the Burger King Burger Buddies). The thing about the McRib sandwich was that between the bun there was a meat like thing that was in the shape of a small bunch of ribs but with no bones!

Now that I think about it I missed the March 17th shamrock shake this year. Do they even sell the green milk byproduct any more?

What ever happened to the McDonalds support characters? Sure we know there's Ronald. But what ever happened to the Mayor McCheese, Big Mac (the police burger), the hamburgler, Grimace, the fry gobblins, or even birdie the early bird (who was introduced to sell breakfast at McDonalds)?

As a side note, according to Darryl, the Grimace used to have six arms. He then had his number of arms reduced to two so as not to scare any kids. I personally do not remember the scary version.

Video Object

Jessica and Darryl do a photo shoot for Video Object

Today's big thing was to hull a lot of my photo gear over to Darryl's. Darryl's new project of the day is a pod cast called "video object". click here to go straight to the VO site. It's a thing where Darryl and Jessica shoot something every week. So far it's been a whole two weeks! What will they come up with next? See for yourself.


Jessica shows Darryl who's boss.

Oh, by the way, if you thought this was a plug for checking out video object you would be right.

Photo Delivery Day

Leanna Spina, Make up artist, Pizza eater

After the hectic amount of work that comes taking a bunch of shots, sifting through pictures, burning them to DVD and CD for delivery, today's goal was to return the lens and drop off, at various places, the photos that I'd taken. First, it was off to the camera store, followed by a trip to Andrew Majtenyi's mailbox, then off to Leanna's place. Leanna, btw, is a great make up artist should anyone be looking for one send me an email and I'll pass it along.

Despite going to McDonalds twice (two different locations) for three sausage and egg McMuffins, two hash browns, and two drinks of orange juice, Leanna made me eat a slice of Pizza. She didn't use a funnel and plunger but she might have.

By the time I got home, sometime in the afternoon, it was time to take a nap.

I love this lens

Queen street, the once computer hang out from my youth, is now a fashion district.

Despite my spinal cord feeling weird from yesterday I made it a point out go out, enjoy the sun, mild weather, and shoot a huge gob load of pictures with the rented 70-200mm 2.8 VR lens. As it was the last day in my possession I wanted to get my entire $46 worth. The images seem sharper, crisper. The focusing speed is a lot faster (when using the camera's AF) and you can blur things in the background a bit more using the larger 2.8 aperture than my other slower but much lighter in weight 70-300mm 4-5.6 lens.


Hot Dog! Sausages for only $1.50!

What exactly is in one of these dollar fifty sausages anyway? More fat? As compelling to my stomach as they were I did not buy one. I'll have to go back later on in the week and see if they're still on sale.


The old City Hall clock tower

My back wasn't as in bad shape as it was yesterday. Perhaps my body is adjusting to the extra weight. Or maybe it's because I wasn't standing around in one place for so long.

Agh.. My Back!

Stephanie Ly from Calgary

Today's outing was to go to the Sport Compact Night (or SCN) show to meet up with Simon to get my 8x10 prints from him at the Playboy booth no less. There's the fun of seeing the pimped out cars, new car parts and of course the eye candy of the female persuasion.

As a bit of history this was the first year that this particular car show had made it's way to Toronto. Unlike the Performance World car show or the Speedorama show the SCN was only in town for a single day. The show overall seemed smaller in terms of the numbers of customized cars. Even the automotive displays showing off the new car tech seemed smaller in numbers. Perhaps to make up for it the show, just being there in the south underground convention centre, seemed louder, darker and filled with more car or beer model-type women.


Francine Dee imported from L.A.

The show had actually shipped some models in from the west cost. The largest import car model being Francine Dee, or so I was told. An enhanced girl to bring in the young rice boyz crowd perhaps. From LA, Alberta, even from the east, Quebec.


Maryse Oullet poses in front of her playboy cover display

Sure being a model at these shows probably pays pretty good coin. It's takes quite a bit of stamina. Would you want to stand around or in front of a bunch of dorky guys (and gals) have them hold you or stand next to you while their friend takes your picture? All this happening with music pumped out so loud from various sources that you can't hear anything anyone is saying without being right next to them yelling at the top of your lungs.


Ashley, a year after our photo shoot.

That said I bumped into my favorite model, and friend, Ashley. Although I could only hear about half of what she said I found out she was getting exhausted and still had four more hours to go. I bumped into her while looking for Simon and the alleged Playboy booth. I never did find the Playboy booth he mentioned. I found other model booths and displays.

Eventually I found a nice quiet spot where I could work the cell phone and call him. I found out he had been there and had already left to go see the movie "V for Vendetta". Since I already paid my whopping $17 to get in and there was no way of getting back in without repaying, I opted to stay for the Bikini contest.

As with any function, be it a band, a political party gathering, a fashion show, any type of stage show for that matter, it's always good to get there early so you get a good vantage point. I made my way to the stage, which was being used by some rappers, about an hour before the actual contest. I was flanked by some loud short girls, yelling and shooting the odd picture with their cell phones and or pocket sized cameras.

The contest didn't start on time. Instead of 8:00pm, the show started at 9:30pm. The camera bag, monopod, and BFL (big f**kin lens) started to take it's toll on my spinal cord. That and the fact that I was cramped into a tiny space thanks to the loud girls and some guy behind me with a Canon rebel. At about 9:20pm some "kid", maybe in his late teens, started plowing through the crowd behind me and tried squeezing through the girls. He pushing and shoving pissed me off. If he would have asked to squeeze in front I probably would have let him but as he was being a dumbass pushy person, almost knocking one of the girls to the ground and literally stepping on another one all while knocking into my rented lens, I blocked him with my arm and told him that he wasn't going near to the stage and if he kept shoving I'd grab him by the neck and drag his ass to the back of the crowd.

Where do these kids come from? Is there no etiquette among photographers let alone people anymore? The contest went without incident. By the time I got home I was happy to dump the gear on the floor and go to sleep.

Andrew Majtenyi's Fall Winter Collection

First on the runway

It's been almost a week since fashion week ran it's course through the city of Toronto. Almost like an echo Andrew Majtenyi's fashion show featuring his 2006 fall winter collection followed up the fashion week. I was more impressed with Majtenyi's show than the fashion week shows at the Liberty Grand. Perhaps it's because I have a film background, or maybe I like entertainment. Majtenyi's show not only had some pretty amazing clothing (details on this later) but had some showmanship to boot.

I've heard that the showmanship, the video presentation, the stuntman on the ribbons, would be shunned here in North America by the media, where as in Europe it's taken for granted as would blend right in. True or not, to a certain extent I can believe it. The Liberty Grand with all it's sponsership didn't have any embellishments when it came to the runway shows. Models in, model out. Zip, zip, zoom.

In terms of budget I could see that adding extra interesting things would lengthen the nights if not the entire week. Instead of starting at 5pm and ending at 11pm, days would have to be longer for everyone or there would have to be less shows shown.


Peter Loung performs some acrobatics

I started today by renting a 70-200mm 2.8 Nikkor lens. It was only $40 + tax for the evening and weekend. I have to return it on monday morning. The actual price of the lens after tax, should someone out there want to get me something for christmas, is $2500. Just a few hundred dollars more than the Nikon D200 body.

I got to the Design Exchange at 2pm, about 6 hours before the actual show. There were a bunch of people keeping themselves busy by placing a white carpet-like substance down the runway, stuffing goodie bags (300 of them!), placing labels on seats, adjusting video gear and creating seat sections.

Somewhere upstairs in a small board room, small for having thirty odd people or more, the models were starting to arrive. As we, the photographers, weren't really allowed to go in while the whole changing thing took place, we were allowed in to shoot the behind the scenes, getting their make-up and hair done. It was like walking into a hive of busy bees.


Waiting for make-up

Upon closer inspection I noticed that some of them were veterans from Majtenyi's show last year and some were models from fashion week. I suppose like any industry you start getting familiar with the various faces that work within it. Even the photographers had that fashion week familarity about them. Later on when introducing myself I found out a lot of them were on the media platform with me that entire week. One photographer, Raymond, was standing behind me for two days. He recognized the back of my head I guess.

The runway room was packed. There were 300 seats and the number of people in the room counted in at 1051. Despite having the large group the show was pretty well organized. Unlike the craziness of fashion week, people at the Design Exchange looked like they were finding their seats. No dive bombing seats at this venue (read Max Macdonald's fashion week day one report on the Mackage show at JuicyStuff.ca).

After the show a mob of people went across the street to Ri, a downtown bar, to drink, socialize and eat. It was packed by the time I wrapped my gear and made my way over there. I couldn't tell which people were there from the fashion show and which people were regulars. On top of that I was exhausted.

We left at around 1:30am, for some reason the bar closed at midnight (what's with that?), and headed over to Swatow. Yea for food! By the time I got home it was around 4am. I booted up the computer to start going through the files converting them from RAW to jpeg and went to sleep.

Dancing in the street

Dancers lead a small parade along Gerrard street

After sleeping until 3pm, I didn't get to bed until 9am I was working on an article for Juicy Stuff, I finally managed to get out of the apartment around 7:15 to go meet up with Simon at the Pickle Barrel downtown. On my way to the streetcar stop I noticed a bunch of guys dressed up and beating drums. They seemed to be collecting in the shadows next to the local donut shop. Weird.

Not giving it much thought I, like a zombie on automatic, make my way to the corner. 10 minutes pass. No streetcar. Look up the street. Still no streetcar. Drums getting louder. There's a bunch of people walking towards me from the donut shop dancing. There's a horse and buggy following them. What the...?


There's a horse and buggy?

Since the traffic is now stopped thanks to this mini parade I decide to get in front by quickly walking down the street. Taking a few pictures I notice another photographer with a powerful flash (see top picture that's him). Hmmm.. what's going on? Later on, on the streetcar, I find out it was some thing to do with the NDP party. Supposedly Jack Layton was on the buggy.

Photo Slave

The "photo slave" - Crazy or Genius?

A few days ago I heard about two kids being orphaned and my friend, Brook, was trying to raise money for them. As money hasn't been very abundant in this blogger's wallet over the last few months the idea of giving money in any amount didn't sound too realistic. "There's how many days till rent's due?", as I look over into my change jar filled mostly with copper colored coins. Oh yeah... There's nothing like living on the edge of the abyss.

Someone once said that giving money is easy, giving one's time is more difficult. And so, like a lemming heading over the cliff, I decided to pick the difficult path and try to help out by donating my time. Initially, there was the idea of donating some of my junk to the raffle but somehow that seemed wrong.

Using the raffle as my personal garbage truck? The selfish part of me didn't really want to part with any of my laserdiscs anyhow. Who would even enter a raffle that had the prize being a pile of laserdiscs anyway? The point of the raffle is to make money not unload stuff.

Although there are certain names that pop up, that would take advantage of a situation such as this, I decided I didn't want to be grouped along with them. It makes me angry just thinking about people like that. There needed to be another solution. After a few days of mulling over things, how to earn money faster, how to win the lottery, how I could go about "fixing" things, I bumped into a girl that said "If only I could afford a photogrpaher." She thought my prices were way too high just from looking at some of my photos. I suppose my photowork just oozes "expensive". Won't argue with that... and hence the "Photo Slave" idea was born.

For more current information about the raffle (raffle news is still pouring in) and what the "Photo Slave" thing is all about go check out my site at www.bagelhot.com. I will update the site as I find things out.

Two burgers later...

My two burger with coney fries and grape drink dinner.

Today I woke up without a voice. That is my throat was sore. After effects due to the odd hours of fashion week and shooting the book launch with little sleep inbetween. I woke up to answer the phone. It was odd finding out I was talking without any volume. I might have screwed up a client meeting, photo session. Crap.

Putting the bad thought of losing a client to the back of my head I spent the rest of the day going through all the fashion pictures I shot. With 14 runway shows averaging about 300 shots each there were somewhere around 4000 pictures that I managed to widdle down to 96 for the Juicy Stuff week in review.

It took me until about 7pm to color correct, resize, label and upload them, when I realized I hadn't eaten anything since I started the process - about 8 hours. I decided to get outside and go to Lick's, the world's happiest burger place. Once there, I pigged out on meat products. Two meat burgers and some coney fries (fries with chilli). Lick's has a double patty burger (known as the hulk) but I figured if I couldn't eat it all I could always bring the extra burger home and eat it later.

The extra burger was inhaled along with the other food. I felt a bit full getting up to go home. Having a car would be good to wheel myself home. Probably not safe though as the food demanded my stomach pump the blood from my brain to help digest the food. I felt sleepy but managed to wobble the rest of the way home.

Night of a hundred cakes

A ton of cupcakes ready to be eaten.

Tonight's gig was to shoot a book launch that featured a few writers and a whole mess of desserts. Someone said there were a hundred cakes. I counted twenty-one on the main table, with more in the kitchen and a random group of cake slices at each table. This didn't include the cookies, muffins, and other food readily available.


Some of the cakes offered.

As I was working I really didn't stop to eat any cake until near the end. The cake I had was moist, and fruity. Some kind of sponge fruit cake with four layers of cream. Definately not something you'd find in a box of cake mix.


Writer Sydnee Steele autographs her book "Seducing Your Woman"

Sick Day

Not much to report today. I've been catching up on my sleep and trying to get rid of this cold/flu thing. (Insert cough or wheeze here.)

Second City

Jennifer Gillespie plays a woman with psychic powers.

With more sleep under my belt and feeling pretty groggy I still managed to join Michelle at the Second City theatre her friend Jennifer perform with her improv troop. The nice thing about it was that it was free, you could take non-flash photography, and they were actually pretty funny.

Did I mention that it was free?


The comedy troop does a funeral scene

Fashion Week - Day 5

All I could shoot without getting my camera taken away.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! That said I'd also like to point out that it's day five of fashion week. There are no runway shows today at the Liberty Grand so it's a great day to sleep. The last four days have taken a lot of energy, shooting and sifting through pictures, then uploading them (with a freaking modem!). It's not that bad. During the uploads I've been able to cook a meal, usually a pork chop cause it's fast. Pork chops the official food for Derek's fashion week.

Tonight there was a big party featuring Ru Paul to go to in the evening. To prepare I slept through most of the day with cat naps, maybe getting up to answer the phone every now and then, print some DVD labels, and eat. I don't think the segmented sleeping works very well as I was still tired by the time I met Juliet, the producer, near the ultra resturant/club.

To answer dragonfly's question about Ru Paul.... She didn't show up on stage until about 1am, or maybe it was around 1:30am, I kind of lost track. The show was fun although it felt pretty short like 20 minutes. The security, a bunch of large, wide, men with pocket flashlights beamed light into the audience to see if anyone was taking pictures. If someone was caught with a camera they were ejected from the club.

I did see a bunch of cellphones being used to take pictures. I guess security couldn't be bothered with the low tech imaging gear. It was about 3:30am or so when I found myself in front of the second hot dog stand going home. The first one, located pretty close to the resturant cooked me up an italian sausage. The second vender located closer to university sold me a polish sausage. I got home and fell asleep immediately

Fashion Week - Day 4

Ashley MacIsaac opens for Pink Tartan

Thursday, the last day of the runway shows at the Liberty Grand. Today's favorite designers were Rudsak and Pat McDonagh. The last show to be seen at the main runway was for the designers of Pink Tartan.
They managed to get a huge turnout to view their fall winter collection.


Hounds tooth coat from the Pink Tartan collection

Weather it was to see Ashley MacIsaac do an opening number, the fact that it was the last runway show, or to see the actually clothing line, why people showed up in such large numbers is anyone's guess.

The big event that happened to me today was while shooting the Pat McDonagh collection my foot fell asleep. That's what happens when you stand in a confined space for five hours. Some point during the middle of the presentation I had to bend over to my camera bag to get more memory for my camera. I fell over almost taking out one of the photographers behind me. Luckily this happened between models. Both of us, me and the other photographer, didn't miss any shots. I shot the rest of the show with my weight on the good leg and the rest of my weight on the monopod.

By the end of the show I fell to the floor to rub my tingly foot. And to answer Kyoko out there who is probably going to ask... "No, I was not wearing my super socks at the time.". For those of you that don't know for christmas I got a pair of super socks (I can't remember the actually name but they're high tech socks). They're thick, and fit your feet like nothing else. Your feet actually feel great when wearing them. I wore them on wednesday. What a big difference they make.

Fashion Week - Day 3

Andy The-Ahn followed by the models of his show.

One of today's favorite designers was Andy. He had designed the interior of a FORD car (the official car of fashion week I might add) and as such had a large Ford presence throughout the show.

Who says music doesn't play a role in fashion? One of the memorable things about Andy's show, other than the clothing, was the use of Prince music. It's good to have high energy music that people know. Let's Go Crazy, Cream and Sheila E's Glamourous Life added life to the runway. Some of the photographers started moving the the music making it a bit difficult to use slow shutter speeds. The platform we were standing on flexed a little too much for my taste.

Fashion Week - Day 2

The Izzy Camilleri collection

After the first day of staking out ones photo territory day two would seem a lot easier. When I say stake out it's just that. In front of the runway there's a large stair like platfrom with enough room on each "stair" to hold a few photographers and videographers, maybe 6 to 8 across. Since there were 4 stairs that gives you room for about 24 to 32 people with their gear in total.

Part of the stair case had already been claimed by the major networks and publications supporting the show. Fashion File, CBC newsworld, National Post, Loreal, The Fashion Design Council of Canada, the Toronto Star, to name a few. Other spaces on the stairs were designated by marked off rectangular areas using white tape. Kind of like Les Nesman and his imaginary office on WKRP. These "areas" are reserved for a photographer, videographer on a first come first serve basis.

Get there early and the spot is yours. Get there late and you have to ask permission to shoot behind or next to the photographer that was there first. Overall the camera people are very helpful and friendly. It's like an unwritten rule of photography etiquette. Be nice to other people because at the next shoot you may find yourself needing help.

The big favorite collection of the day came from Izzy Camilleri. Sporting a lot of leather in a blade runner sort of style. I have to say that the girls wearing the outfits were pretty stunning. I may not know fashion but I know what I like. The pale make up was a good contrast to the dark black clothing. It presented a challenge shooting as you wanted to see details in the clothing without the skin being overblown.

The only thing that seemed odd was the model's hair style. What's up with that? It looked like a goose needed a place to dump on and found the model's head. I liked the slicked back part of the hair style but the hair forming a "J" on the forehead looked weird.

That's the thing about fashion and art, you can always find something that you can pick at. I'm sure somewhere there's some hair stylist that loved that look.

Fashion Week

The Mackage show at the Liberty Grand

It's the first day of Fashion week here in Toronto. What the heck is fashion week? Good question. I'm going to find out over the course of the next week as I take pictures of various events and parties for Juicy Stuff.

Follow the link to read the latest in Toronto fashion by Max MacDonald. As this will be an on going thing all week be sure to check back daily as my blog will be updated as well.

Prep time

Marc sits in front of some salmon congee at the Congee Queen

Sunday. The day of rest. At least that's what they say. For me it was a day to get a lot of things done. Mainly to get prepared for the upcoming week. Known here in Toronto as Fashion Week, it's a week of runways and other glamorous events that take place primarily at night. All night and all week. It's a smorgasbord of photographic opportunities.

Cleaning the lenses, camera, charging batteries, going over schedules, meeting times, and other notes are just some of the things I'm doing. That and I was toying around with a business card design for my friend Marc, who specializes in computer programming and phone solutions (see picture above).

We went for lunch at the Congee Queen (just west of Lawrence and Don Mills). It's too bad the resturant is so far. I could have congee everyday. Seems like that's my new favorite food.

Party with Bill

Bill Wrigley, artist, party host.

"How do you know Bill Wrigley anyway?" That's the question that people kept asking me all night. My answer was that I had just met him a few nights ago at another networking party hosted by G.A.T. (Girl about Town). Very personable, Bill invited myself and Emmanuel to his party because the day ends in a "Y". Actually I think the motivation was that he didn't want the party to be filled with just women.

No, we can't have that. So Emmanuel and I decided to go the the party to meet those poor lonely women lurking about all by themselves. We're nice that way.

The party took place at Bill's studio. I can't really remember the actual location in Toronto as we were driven up there by van. Not that we were hog tied and blindfolded. I suppose I just never really paid attention to where the van was going. It was near some train tracks if that helps with the visualization.

The ceiling had a bunch of wagons that resembled the great lakes. It was Bill's current art project. On the walls he had some drawings of the same wagons and a painting he did of a orange haired, elf-like, girl with big eyes. What impressed me with his work was that the lines in his drawings were all crisp and clean. There was a nice weight to the lines that varied depending on where it was in the image. It was almost like looking at comicbook art drawn by John Buscema (as opposed to the spidery thin lines, but ultra detailed work of Todd MacFarlane or Jim Lee).


Emmanuel reacting to all the bottles of booze

For those of you who don't know these artists. They're comic book artists (and one of them is a guy that makes toy figurines). Not that I'm trying to comic book geek out all the readers or anything. I just used to read a lot of comics and the artists that seem to come up quite a bit back then were these guys.

The party had a very diverse group of people. Some were artists, some were public relations, some hair stylists, some dancers (if they weren't they should have been). Overall I met a lot of interesting people. No I didn't pick up any women. Sorry to get your hopes up.

See me and Wendy in Stereo by clicking here.

Darryl and Rob's Birthday Party

Rob Pincomb and Darryl Gold

After the car show I made my way downtown to Rob and Darryl's official birthday party, otherwise known as Zamboni day. Darryl's birthday is on the 9th. Rob's birthday is on the 11th. The Zamboni's birthday is on the 10th. Why do I know that?

Way back when, I think it was around 1993, I met Rob working on a CDrom with Darryl called the "Interactive Hockey Rulebook". That's when we found out that the anniversary of the zamboni is that day and now you know.... and knowing is half the battle...

Performance Car Show

A tiny Motorcycle that really works

On a last minute turn of events I met up with Simon, photographer to the Stars, and James (another photographer looking for fresh new talent - young female could be models). Together we went up to the Performance World car show to see "Simon's" girls and to see some of the souped up cars. Okay 90% for the girls, 10% for the souped up cars.

Like most car shows I've seen in Toronto there's a whole bunch of cars, some souped up (or "tricked out" I believe the term is nowadays) more than others and there's the "bikini" or women wearing something quite hot part of the show. Whoever equated girls and cars is a genius. On the car side the show was not too bad. There were a lot of cars to look at. Not so many customized cars from the 70s like last years SuperVan. In fact now that I think about it there really weren't any. Mostly 70s muscle cars and the odd nicely polished 50s vehicles.


Jayde a Performance World model

As for the girls in skimpy clothing? It was pretty lame. A competition that lasted under fifteen minutes with no real winner or maybe it was supposed to be a clothing fashion show for the Hustler clothing line? If it was it was way better than the Playboy fashion show last November. It actually started on time.

Overall the show was a pretty big disappointing event. Possibly because it was located all the way out near the airport. Yes that might be a contributing factor in this reporters poor review.

Darryl's Birthday

Darryl at the Future Bakery on Bloor and Brunswick

Although not as spontaneous as last years birthday, this year the cake was better quality, way better, than last years frozen cake from the local variety store. We also didn't have to worry about calling in the fire marshal.

So for those that don't know, it was Darryl's birthday today. You can wish him a late birthday greeting by going to the hard liquor and porn web site and emailing him from there.

Dangerous Burgers

Dangerous Dans (located on the north east corner of Queen and Broadview)

After dropping off mail for my cousin Dave at Carbon Computing I made my way to Dangerous Dans for a late lunch. DD is known for their insanely large meat filled burgers, one of them being the coronary burger, a burger that has the contents one would find on the Simpons TV show. Although the burgers are great, the onion rings are a bit on the soggy side.

Did I say the burgers were massive?

Glorothy Daze

Glorothy plays at Clinton's

The first thing that goes through your head is "Glorothy? What the beep is that?". Once you find out it's a band some of that questionable jolt goes away. Like a band needs to explain itself. As long as the band sounds good they could be called the "Porky piggy pushers" or "shoe" and get away with it.

I'll have to admit going to see a friend's band always comes with a bit of reservation. What if they play and they suck? Do you tell the friend? Will they remain your friend after giving a bad revue? Will my camera be intact or will it be smashed into small unusable pieces? Will the bad revue be taken badly causing the bad to break up and never play again?

Luckily the band did not suck. In fact, they were pretty good. I only wish I hadn't missed the first half hour. Glorothy's members are three guys in the animation industry who somehow found each other and found out that they all play instruments. They are as folllows...


Christos Katopodis - lead vocals, guitar


Norm Beaver - bass guitar


Derek Verdonck - drums

I suppose I'll have to watch out for them playing in the future. To see how their performance improves, and to see if they add any songs to their already long play list. Maybe their first album could be called "Blaze of Glorothy". uh yeah.

Film Pick Up

35 mm film strips waiting to be put into my film binder.

The main goal of the day was to visit the photo lab to retrieve the film I had dropped off there on saturday. Ilford 100 ASA, black and white film. I noticed a long scratch across the entire length of the film and wondered if it was from my camera, the developers, or was the film bought like that?

The film was shot using my stereo Realist camera. The pictures are five perferations (sprocket holes) wide as opposed to the standard eight. When the camera goes off two images are recorded, one for your left eye, one for your right. There are many ways to view the resulting images in 3D. The method I use is to scan the two image and convert them into a single anagylphic image. You've probably seen stuff like this before. It's like a black and with image with green and red fringing.

For more examples have a look on my other, and mostly neglected blog, me3D.

A lazy sunday

Pumpkin pie, not Peanut looks off out the window.

Note: This blog entry has been changed to fix the error regarding the cat's name.

I spent the day lounging at Chris and Kyoko's. I was half asleep on the couch in the nice warm sun for what seemed like hours. The cat, Pumpkin Pie, was sprawled out on the chair beside me. It was a few hours before attempting to watch Free Enterprise and then the oscars. It felt good to have my brain shut down while Kyoko was busying herself with house chores and Chris was off biking the Leslie street spit.

A few hours later we attempted to watch "Free Enterprise". I had to stop it's play as Kyoko didn't get the movie. The movie was making her confused. I'm not really sure why. We ended up watching the less brain taxing Oscar awards.

Computer Troubles

"Is anybody home?"

Saturday. Let me start the blog entry off by stating I hate debugging computers. On the flip side I do enjoy helping people out. So I ended up spending a few hours (maybe six or seven) helping a friend out with his laptop. It was running pretty slow and had some viruses crashing some of the programs.

It got to the point where I was the only one left in the kitchen working on the computer. The others, my friend and his family went out to an art show with the kids. While installing software I noticed a weird sound at the door. When I looked up there was the family cat looking in at me. "Open the door Human!"

I decided it was time to leave. It was already 3:30pm and I had to drop off some film at the photo lab.

The Subway to Grandmas

Out the subway window

As a kid I remember wanting to look out the windows of the subway to see stuff whiz by. Maybe as a kid everything seems interesting, then as a weary adult things aren't that interesting. You seen it all or at least seem to have seen it all. What's the point of looking out the window? Have you ever noticed people walking around the city don't look up much unless they're new to the city?

As the Toronto subway is mostly underground there's not really a lot to see. Lights, tunnel and more tunnel. In the odd trek across town there might be the occasion where my youthful TTC subway adventures would take the subway (and me) outside. Years later, on the way to visit my grandmother, I notice I'm more busy just trying to stay awake I so don't miss my stop. The stuff going on outside the train usually goes by unnoticed. Today I made a point to look out. Yep not much has changed.


Interesting advertising (see anything geeky?)

In my boredom I did notice an Ad on the side of the subway car (see above). It's cheesy and normally I would have put it out of my mind but then I saw something and I thought "Are there any others that have noticed this?", followed by "Geez, I really AM a geek.".

If you draw your attention to the top left hand corner you'll see a post-it with a file number referring to the image of the women in her living room. You may have to double click on the image to enlarge it. Notice the serial number on the post-it is the same as the call sign for the Enterprise (of Star Trek The Next Generation). Oh yeah... I've got a lot of time on my hands.

Party Night

Some 30s outfits.

In my quest for doing and seeing different things I lucked out and got invited to a 30s wine and cheese party located in a lawyers office on Prince Arthur avenue. A number of vintage dresses adorned the walls of the office and a few models.


Leigh-Ann poses wearing a vintage 30s dress

There was also a cabinet containing objects made with Bakelite. These art deco products were in pristine condition. Most were little salt and pepper shakers, butter knifes and tiny containers. Bakelite for those of you that may not know was an early form of plastic. Very brittle. My 1951 Realist stereo camera has a lens cover made from Bakelite.

As the night progressed I made my way over to the gladstone for this months speakeasy. For more details check out the sister blog that I don't update very often.