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.

I'm a Geek

Like I needed to take a computerized test to let me know I was a geek. Of course after taking the test I actually found out to what level I have achieved geekdom.

According to the site...
A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
My score: better than half in Geek, earning you the title of: Pure Geek.

It's not that you're a school junkie, like the nerd, and you don't really stand out in a crowd, like the dork, you just have some interests that aren't quite mainstream. Perhaps it's anime, perhaps it's computers, perhaps it's bottlecaps, perhaps it's all of those and more. Your interests take you to events and gatherings that are filled with people you find unusual and beyond-the-pale, but you don't quite consider yourself "of that crowd." Instead, you consider yourself to be fairly normal.


These are my results...
34% nerdiness, 78% geekosity, 39% dork points - Pure Geek

You can try out to see how well you do as well. There's a dating site attached to the questionaire but you don't have to sign up. click here