Pumpkin, Fugitive Fan

Pumpkin watches "The Fugitive" with me

After getting home from seeing Son of Butcher I watched a few episodes of "The Fugitive", an amazing show that was created by Roy Huggins the same guy that brought you The Rockford Files. Pumpkin sat next to me for a while it looked like he was watching the show as well.

A few years ago Global television aired the Fugitive in reruns at around 3am in the morning. I had watched the first episode ever which turned out to be the last episode to be aired where Richard Kimble actually finds the one armed man. D'oh! Despite the knowledge of how the series ended I watched the earlier episodes as Global recycled the show. Well written, character driven, with a touch of suspense, it was a great show that I tried to collect on laserdisc a long time ago. Although I don't think they ever released all the episodes from the four seasons that it aired. There were 30 shows a season bringing the totalto 120 episodes of pure enjoyment.

Now that CBS is releasing them on DVD I've started picking up the show. Although I wish they'd just bring out the whole series. Instead they're bringing out only a half season at a time. I'm almost finished watching the second volume of the first season.


Not enough action? Pumpkin falls asleep

Sons of Butcher

Sol Butcher (Dave Dunham)

I contemplated sleep. In fact after getting home from Hamilton and letting Pumpkin out I actually took a small nap. The thing running through my brain was I should really just stay at home and sleep. I really could use sleep. Then the other voice in my head told me to get my ass out of bed and go to the Bovine to see Sons of Butcher. "Why?" my sleepy side asked. "Because you like the band, you know one of the performers, and you may never seen the band perform again.". Good answer. The extrovert part of me won out. I got my lazy ass out of bed and grabbed a cab so I would get there early to get a good spot to shoot. The band was scheduled (according to facebook) to start at 9pm. It was 8:15pm.

Normally I like to arrive at an event that I'm shooting at at least an hour ahead of time. It allows me to survey the place and find a good shooting location. Plus I can take my time setting up and get to know people. I've shot at the Bovine before. It's a small venue but you're right up next to the stage if you get there early enough. There's room for about five or six people right at the front, a place where I'd have to be to take decent photos.

They didn't let people in until 9pm and my part of the line didn't get in until 9:30. As it turned out there was an opening band. That band didn't start until 10:30pm and that pushed Sons of Butcher to 11:20pm.


Ricky Butcher (Trevor Ziebarth)


The Sons of Butcher rock band




Doug Borski (Jay Ziebarth)


Christal Ballz (Chris Bell)










The performance was great! I'll have to make a note and ask what the fascination of Steve Perry songs with the band is one day. My extrovert side patted me on the back for getting outside.

Art Crawl in Hamilton

Melanie Gillis (studio owner) and Annie Ling (featured Hamilton photographer)

Every second friday of the month there's an art crawl in Hamilton. This month featured Annie Ling and her photos taken around Hamilton. What? Hamilton? Yes, Hamilton. Surprisingly there are some interesting things to be shot in Hamilton despite it being known as a small burb spewing factory crud in the air.

Annie had her photos projected on the wall from Mels' laptop. It was nice because you could see the photos large taking up the whole wall but at the same time you couldn't linger on any as each photo was up for only a pre set amount of time.


Carl looks at Mel's work


What the???

At one point I lent my camera to Jackie who was taking pictures until this guy pulled down his pants to moon her. She looked away but before he got to pull up his pants I took the camera from Jackie and shot this photo without looking through the lens (hence the blurriness) .


A gathering in Mel's studio kitchen

Eventually my stomach gave way to making me go look for food. So Trevor, Laine and I walked over to the Plucker where Trevor pulled a few strings to order me some food just five minutes before the kitchen closed. I ordered the coconut shrimp and the bison burger (with fires and gravy). I inhaled the shrimp before I thought to take out the camera. Yes, I was that hungry.


My burger at the Plucker


Trying to make a happy face with mustard

I slept over at Mel's on her couch. I think I got about two hours sleep total, between 4am and 6am. Not wanting to wake anyone I did a photo session with Seven, the cat of the house and stalked the cat as it made it's way into the living room (where I was).

I make things a bit difficult the cat kept moving around. I wanted to shoot with two flashes. One for the cat (tungsten) and one for the background (blue). It was a challenge to set up the two flashes while the cat was in one place because eventaully, at about the same time I was ready to take a shot, the cat would move. It took several tries to capture Seven in a way I thought looked interesting enough with the lights looking okay. I didn't want the blue light to dominate the photo just add color to the background.


Mel's cat, Seven


Seven in front of the window (all natural light).


Seven lit with artificial light (daylight from flash one, amber light for the background flash two)


Mel at Steve's for breakfast

Around 9am Mel and I went to the Plucker to eat breakfast only to find the pub wasn't open until 11am. We ended up at Steve's (some breakfast type restaurant). I ordered a standard two eggs with bacon and toast breakfast. I was pacing myself for dim sum at noon.


Mel in front of her studio computer

Following breakfast we ended up at Mel's studio where she checked to see how trahed the place was from the previous night. Surprisingly it wasn't. While she checked her email I took a few shots around the studio with the nice mid-morning light.


Me at Mel's studio

Then back to Pluckers where we ordered some pineapple juice and eventually met up with Trevor. He was putting together a fish recipe for dinner. Eventually Mel left to shoot at the studio leaving Trevor and me with Laine who also dropped by for a bite to eat.


Trevor at the Plucker writing notes for his fish receipe

We, that is Trevor, Laine and I, left the Plucker to go pick up Trevor's recipe ingredients at the Farmer's market. While there I was impressed with the display of organic tomatoes. They were all evenly spaced. After the market I got on the GO bus to go back home.


Organic tomatoes at the Hamilton farmer's market


An odd sign in front of a church in Hamilton


Back in Toronto it's raining


A very well done ad campaign... and funny.


Pumpkin ready for food and wondering why I put him outside.

Upon arrival at home the cats were sleeping. When I walked into the living room they sprang to life. Genki came out from under the bed. Pumpkin wanted to go outside. Only once he found out the ground was still wet I don't think he wanted to stay out.

The Stem, Food Haven

Queen street east of Spadina

I was looking forward to meeting up with Emmanuel at the Stem today. A) because I was starving and B) because I haven't really been out doing social stuff for the last few weeks. It felt like that working on the project.

The last few days have been cold but sunny. I was starting to get jealous of Pumpkin going outside and basking in the sun while I worked away indoors in front of the computer. Today I would go out and see the sun, it was pretty exciting... until I looked outside and noticed the rain. According to the Wii weather channel it was also supposed to snow this weekend. Boo!


The Stem sign a beacon for food.

Even with the wet weather it was still good to get out into the cool fresh crisp non-fur air. At the sight of the Stem sign I could almost taste that warm crunchy BLT.


Emmanuel and our food


The food up close


At the Spadina Queen intersection


There's fog.

I got back home to let the cats out. Well Pumpkin anyway. Genki just stood in the door.


Pumpkin outside


Genki pokes his head out

Cat Activity

Genki jumping off the dresser

It's amazing how much energy cats can have when they're not sleeping. In fact in seems with Genki that he's either hidden under the bed sleeping or he's running around full tilt. I spent some time downstairs watching more episodes of "The Fugitive" and playing "Radiant Dawn", a newly acquired video game for the Wii.


Genki back on the dresser looking at Pumpkin


Pumpkin: Half asleep or plotting?

By the time I felt sleepy and wanting to pack it in I got up the stairs to find that the two cats had snuck up and were waiting for me. Pumpkin must have popped the door that wasn't totally closed allowing for both of them to invade.


The two cats sneak upstairs.

My cat allergies have become worse with the arrival of Genki. I'm finding it difficult to breathe today. With the project over I think I'll go outside for some fresh air even though it's raining.

Cat Scratch Fever

Pumpkin shows a tired Genki how pan handling is done.

With the exception of the faint meow from the basement and finding that Pumpkin was biting Genki the cats seem to be getting along fine. That is to say that Genki has found refuge under Kyoko and Chris' bed where as Pumpkin pretty much sleeps wherever he wants.


The look of fear.

Over the last few days Genki has been coming out for food so I see more of him. There would be days that I'd see a small head poking from around a piece of furniture staring at me if anything at all. Something else that has started recently (at least that has come to my attention) is that Genki will start scratching my apartment door like crazy. Meanwhile Pumpkin is generally sitting on the green couch. I noticed this last night while watching the Fugitive (season one, part two) on DVD.


Genki scratching the door to my apartment

In other news, I received a phone call this morning requiring last minute changes to the stuff I delivered the other day. The call came in at 10am. I went to sleep around 6am, a combination of watching the fugitive and playing with the Wii.

I managed to push through the changes on the computer and deliver the final animations to James. I am tired and will probably crash soon.

New Blue Boxes

Genki partly hides behind the main door to the outside

I woke up this morning to the sound of plastic tubs being tossed out of a truck then delivered to each house in the neighbourhood. I went outside to inspect the tubs, the cats followed. Genki stopped at the front door. He's still pretty scared of the outside. If I walked toward him he'd run back into the safety of the house.


We have new blue boxes.


"As ruler of this household I would like to inform you that I've eaten all the food out of that bowl"

Back online

Genki eats while watching Pumpkin inhale his food.

I managed to get my computer BIOS reset yesterday. Took it into a Toshiba dealership where they charged me $90. Overall that's not too bad but then on the Toshiba site there's a blurb where they aren't supposed to charge anything. Never the less I was happy to have my computer back up and running and with such a quick turn around.


Kiri didn't get much sleep.

I delivered the final revisions today then went for lunch at the GOOF (a chinese restaurant on Queen street east and Beach ave - the real name is actually the Garden Gate). Kiri joined me. She looked pretty tired and still had stuff on the project to go back to.