Did I mention the sushi?

Downtown one of my friends was having a fund raiser to find a cure for breast cancer. I had offered my services as photographer to record the night's event. Girls in lingerie, a guy on stilts dancing, and sushi made out of a marshmallow rice crispy square like recipe. It made for an interesting night of photography.


guy on stilts


Sushi candy

Morning photo shoot

The world of Sanjay Burman (click on photo to make bigger)

I had an idea to photograph a panoramic photo of the apartment but due to rescheduling and an enormous amount of people in the apartment on sunday I volunteered to come back and shoot the empty apartment today.

The last photo I did like this was of Emmanuel in his apartment before he moved. I like these photos even if there's a bunch of post work involved.

Fat Snow Flakes

A snowman a few doors north of the apartment.

Was snowing today. I figured I'd take some photos of the neighbourhood before I move.


Looking northward along Euclid toward College.


This photo almost has a postcard feel to it.

ToRD Gore Gore Girls versus Death Track Dolls

Land Shark of the Death Track Dolls puts the squeeze on Dust Bunny of the Gore Gore Girls

While the Death Track Dolls were pummeled by the Gores there were moments where the Death Track Dolls fans went crazy cheering on their team. One of the exciting moments was when Land Shark out skated Dust Bunny while competing for lead jammer.

For more coverage of this event (and photos) check out the Derby Nerd.

SpitFist

Spitfist

It's been a while since I was sandwiched in a mosh pit taking photos of a band. The dim light, the loud ear splitting speakers, the sticky beer soaked floor (with glass), the people jumping/dancing/standing in the way of a photo capture. This is the fun I've missed since I can't remember when.

It's definitely a different type of photography. Different from taking photos of skating girls zipping around a track, or photographing some thing outside. Inconsistent lighting, microphones and stands blocking the musician's faces, the odd fist pump blocking your view. This is what separates the great photos from the crappy ones. Timing and location is everything.


Spitfist on stage at the Garrision

As a few of the girls in the band are in ToRD I''ve heard of the band before but until now didn't get a chance to see them play. They're pretty awesome. I liked the "Meow" song. Being pretty impressed with their performance and thinking that I actually had a good time getting outside, I compared notes with other people in the crowd. The majority commented that this was the band's best performance ever. Really? Maybe this was a good time to see them then.


Alicia Marie, bass


Caitlin Watson, Drums


Dee Prescot, guitar


Stacey McCool, lead vocals

Captain Hill VS The Dinosaur

Captain Hill 'examines' the toy Dinosaur

Is it just me or are there companies that make toys for kids, then if the toy isn't successful they repackage the same toy for animals? Are manufacturing rules for making toys for animals less strict compared to making toys for human kids? If I buy a squeaky hamburger toy for a friend's five year child that was made for a dog is that toy going to decompose into hazardous chemicals compared to the human toy equivalent?

If so then I address the receiver of said hamburger to stop using it. Your boy has probably gotten too old for that toy anyway.

For the past week or so, Captain Hill has been gnawing away at the plastic cage (dubbed Space pod one) and making a huge racket. Almost like clockwork I'd be up at 4am wondering why the hamster chose that particular time to start munching. To fix this I bought a few hamster chew toys.

Some multi-coloured triangles made of lava rock and this dinosaur on wheels made of wood. The wheels actually work, the dinosaur can roll. The idea being that Captain Hill would work on the toys leaving the cage alone and make less noise. For all I know the hamster is just filing away the plastic to make a grand escape.

I've placed one triangle into the cage and for a night it stopped the gnawing the plastic. I woke up instead to the sound of rocks being thrown around. That's what I thought it was. I turned on the lights to find the triangle wedged into Captain Hill's mouth. The noise was from the Captain charging into the tube hole and bouncing back due to the triangle being wider than the tube opening. It must have been about an hour that passed before I stopped hearing the noise. Either the hamster had given up or I just fell asleep from exhaustion.

The next day the triangle wedge had disappeared and the plastic pod gnawing continued.

Tonight I have put the other two wedges into the cage along with the dinosaur. Will keep you updated.

Snowmageddon

The school bus that parks in front of my house

So there's this big snow storm that's been hitting people in the States (Minnesota, Chicago, to name a few) quite hard. I know this through my friends on facebook. The weather guy said Toronto would get 30 centimeters today. Schools have closed, businesses have told workers to stay at home, and I had to go back to the production office to pick up some gear that had been accidentally packed into luggage being shipped off to British Columbia.

It was time to break out the winter boots. In my case giant Sorels, boots that I don't wear much because they somehow managed to move my socks to the toe area where they bunch up into clumps leaving my feet bare.


Looking down Euclid avenue


Snow boots

I was kind of disappointed. The last time there was a big snow storm here in this city, the army was dispatched to help dig senior citizens out from waiting at bus stops. Snow levels were at least knee deep and cars that were parked on the streets were buried in snow and wouldn't be moved for days.

This blog entry is for my friends that are in those sunny places around the world. While it's no where near the snow accumulation of Chicago or the iciness of Indiana it's somewhat annoying to wander around with the slush on the road.


Toboggan day instead of school also note the wipes on the car (smart)


not completely snowed in


Dundas street


Dim sum at T&T


Looking out at the Docks (next to the T&T parking lot)


Waiting for the bus


snow dozer



Back in the downtown core


Toronto cyclist

Go for Tuna

Mushroom broccoli tuna casserole

Last night I made a tuna casserole based on a recipe that I picked up in college. (Translation: It's fast and simple.) You can use whatever cheese you like. For today's ensemble I used Oka cheese from Quebec. I picked some up at the cheese store the other day. Last time I made this dish I used holandia, before that cheddar. If you're lactose intolerant you can forgo the cheese altogether.


gear

• pot
• casserole dish

ingredients

2 cups of uncooked macaroni
half a pot of water
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil (optional)

2 cans of campbell's mushroom soup
1 branch of broccoli
1 onion
1 cup of grated cheese
1 cup of sliced mushrooms
1 can of tuna


directions

1. add salt and oil into pot of water and bring to a boil.
2. add macaroni to water, turn down heat and stir.
3. when macaroni is soft empty water then pout the macaroni into casserole dish.
4. cut up broccoli and onion into bite sized pieces.
5. add broccoli, onion, grated cheese, tuna, mushrooms, and mushroom soup to casserole dish and mix with macaroni until everything is evenly distributed.
   
6. cover casserole dish and place in oven for 30 minutes at 400° C
7. take casserole dish out to cool, then serve.

Nuke Someone Happy

It's a far cry from one of those little cakes that your cousin made for you as a kid using a device that harnesses the immense power of a 100 watt light bulb but it is quicker. It's the microwavable chocolate mug brownie and there's a recipe floating around the ether of the internet.

One of my facebook friends had a scanned image of the directions on making this concoction. Was it real, would it taste okay, would it even be edible? Thanks to me, the "I'll try any food at least once guinea pig", this blog entry will not only tell you how to make one yourself but will then rate this uber quick dessert.

ingredients

4 tablespoons of flour
4 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of coca
1 egg
3 tablespoons of milk
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 teaspoon of vanilla


directions

1. pour ingredients into a mug and mix until smooth.
2. put in microwave.
3. set on high and nuke for 3 minutes.
4. when done take mug out of microwave, let mug cool, then eat.

Note: if the ingredients aren't mixed thoroughly there will be a bunch of crud on the bottom of the mug. To get around this you can mix the ingredients in a separate small bowl then pour into mug.


Critique

I would describe the resulting food as a dense chocolate sponge cake rather than a brownie. For the time it takes to make the "brownie", under 10 minutes if you have all the ingredients, it's not bad. Overall I would rate this as awesome college food right up there with instant cake mix. Not terribly great but not bad if you're in a rush to make something to squash a cake fix. With the world going GREEN is it even possible to get a 100watt light bulb anymore?

This is not a drill... It's a fire alarm

I woke up to a fire alarm. More precisely to the fire alarm right outside my bedroom door. It wasn't so much the loud, prolonged, ear piercing beep that got me out of bed. It did wake me up. What got me out of bed was that I couldn't understand what the artificial voice from the fire device was saying. I thought I heard "blah battery blah blah".

It took about 10 times listening to the garbled message at one minute repeating intervals to make me so perplexed that I got up out of bed to investigate. It should be noted that at no point did I make out the fire alarm saying "Fire" or "carbon monoxide".

Closer I just heard a louder "blah blah blah blah". I didn't even hear the word "battery" any more, just a shrill, annoying, loud (bordering on making your ears bleed) beep and some unintelligible voice. I was still tired from the party and the bus trip ride home from Hamilton, and watching the Merlin marathon I PVRed the day before. I was up until the sun came up. I'm guessing around 7am? Being 11:00am, it meant I had about four hours of snooze time.

We had a problem like this in the apartment went I first moved in. There is a fire alarm in the downstairs basement that had a low battery and it triggered the sound system the same way. My tired brain figured I'd go out and get a replacement battery since I didn't see or smell smoke.

I got dressed, went out to the grocery store (about a 15 minute walk both ways). Bought a couple of 9 volt batteries, some eggs, some sesame seed oil and soy sauce (it was on sale). Got back home, replaced the old 9 volt battery in the fire alarm, then went back to sleep.

That was pretty much my day as I slept until about 6pm. It turns out the fire alarm was saying "Low Battery... blah blah". The "blah blah" was in French "Pile something or other". My question is this. Why can't the device have a softer voice for changing the battery? Like the Majel Barret Star Trek computer voice would be nice. "Battery levels are low, please change batteries." Do you really have to be waken up to a noise akin to a piglet caught in a blender?