The Atypical Tourist - Berlin in photos

We've been toying with the idea of moving to the downtown core for a few years now, and every hour long bus commute to work in the morning and evening just strengthens that desire. One would think that in this economy, the prices would be dropping in lock step with rising unemployment in the oil patch. So you'll excuse my 'spitting out coffee' level surprise when we were informed that prices were going up, and that a 1200 sq. ft condo in the East Village was just shy of $900,000. Double U, TEE, FAACKK?! This makes less sense than Trump leading the Republican race. Who are you 'more money than brains' people snapping up overpriced units? STOP IT. George needs to get out of suburbia, and you're not helping!

Anyways... how about some photos. Rather than bore you with just shots of touristy Berlin, I picked a random bunch that I thought were just neat things, shapes, patterns, and scenes from our week there. And beer. Because GERMANY! Enjoy.



Sunset on museum island.


A bunch of knobs. Which, fittingly, is what I think of you folks snapping up all the places I want to live in downtown... EFF YOU very much.




The East Gallery, featuring remaining sections of the Berlin Wall.


Sprinkled throughout Berlin are these old school analog photo booths. Pure MAGIC.












More knobs. STOP BUYING UP ALL THE PROPERTY, YOU JERKS.


Beautiful sunset colours... as seen from inside the depressing barracks of Dachau concentration camp...




Surf and Turf burger. A most literal interpretation.


Weissbier! Delicious nectar of the gods.


The imposing and beautiful blue walls of the Ishtar Gate, built by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar.

The Great Cultural Appropriation Debate

You may have heard about the University of Ottawa cancelling yoga classes earlier this week because apparently, Starbucks loving white folks practicing yoga may be considered culturally insensitive. Now I’m not a Hindu, so I can’t speak for how they feel about this, but being a person of colour living in a predominantly western society that has incorporated so many great cultural practices into its fabric, this is my take:

White folks practicing yoga is as much cultural appropriation as those same said white folks ordering take out Chinese food. (ie: It’s not; pull that political correctness stick out of your ass and get over yourselves).

The argument that western folks practicing yoga is ‘cultural appropriation’ stems partly from the fact that many yogis are skinny white girls in overpriced Lululemon pants that don’t understand the historical and spiritual significance of Yoga as a practice. And of course, there are the broader historical issues of centuries of racist subjugation and western colonialism. Obviously, I’ve dumbed down the argument for brevity, but I do get it.

But if our expectation is that in order to enjoy something, one must always learn the history and cultural context of it, and kowtow for all the past transgressions of our forebears, then you’d better get yourself some “Confucius says” and “Chinese History for dummies” books and get learnt, before you go for your next fill of General Tao’s Chicken or Shang Tsung Kung Pao Fried Rice. Because I hate to break it to you - there is NO historical Asian General, surnamed Tao, that had some secret chicken recipe that has mysteriously been passed down from generation to generation, ending up in your local faux Chinese take out haunt. So if you're white, and enjoy General Tao’s Chicken (whatever the frick that is), YOU’RE being culturally insensitive, assuming you subscribe to this strange measuring stick for what cultural appropriation is. (Also, Shang Tsung Kung Pao Fried Rice doesn’t exist, unless they’ve made a Mortal Kombat Kookbook I haven’t heard of).

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be culturally aware when we adopt practices from others. I’m saying that in our quest to be culturally sensitive, we also need to be a little bit pragmatic in picking our battles. If you’re going to do something that stems from another culture, be respectful of it, and that’s good enough. I don't mind if you get a Chinese character tattooed on your back, just make sure it doesn’t say “I like Opium” or "Nice railroad".

Cancelling ‘white people yoga’ because you think it’s culturally insensitive, is in and of itself insensitive - you are appropriating precious airtime, when there are far bigger issues facing the world today than your ‘white privilege I’m offended by everything’ attitude. If you really want to demonstrate your cultural sensitivity, do something to stop the spread of Islamophobia and the vitriol coming out of so many here at home. Maybe tell those folks to chill out and take a yoga class or something. Just sayin'...

Alright, queue the hate mail. It’s Friday, I’m not at work, and I’m ready to fight.

Things that irk me far more than they should

Things that irk me far more than they should: people that get on a busy elevator to go up one floor. I've stopped trying to hide my disdain, instead opting to grunt audibly and impatiently when these people hit the button ONE.FLOOR.UP. Today though, I discovered an even more irritating group of elevator jockeys. As I was rushing to an appointment, I was miffed when two able bodied ladies got on to go DOWN one floor. Are you KIDDING ME?! You won't even walk down a flight of steps?! I checked - they weren't using crutches, limping, or otherwise invalid. They were just FAACKING LAZY.

As I said, 'Things that irk me far more than they should'.

Moving on - check out some photos I shot this weekend, including a gigantic treated cow skull, portraits of Wayne and Sharon, and their two dogs Riley and Moe.















All photos shot with a Hasselblad 500CM and CF Zeiss Planar 80mm lens, on Kodak Tri-X 400. Souped in Rodinal 1+24, at 68 def. F for 7:30min.

The Tire Kicking Trolls of Kijiji

I posted a lens for sale on Kijiji this weekend for $350, which is over a hundred bucks in savings on a comparable brand new one. Mine is a few months old, and has been used once. I fully expected low ball offers in the $300 or so range, but some tire kicking troll emails me and asks if I am interested in $230, because he's not sure he would use the lens. Uh... then why in the FAACK are you looking to buy it?

I'm so tempted to email him back with, 'Yes, I am interested in $230. PLUS another $120. What I am NOT interested in, though, is your little story about why you won't use the lens, therefore somehow qualifying you for a discount. Because I give not one shit. Faack you very much.'

If you're going to try to haggle price, at least make your story original. Tell me how you need to save money for a pet goat for your little brother who has aspergers. Or how you were only able to raise $230 selling your collection of belly button lint. Cause while I would still ignore your lowball play, at least you can provide me with some entertainment as a trade off to your wasting of my time. Some sad excuse about how you don't actually need the item you clearly are interested in acquiring just makes me want to roundhouse kick you in the throat, Van Damme style.

Anyways, on to something far more relaxing. This is a stitched panoramic view from the top of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It was taken a couple years ago, but I never got around to doing anything with it until now. Click the photo to see it full screen, where you can see much more detail.

_a diatribe: Hong Kong vs. the Mainland _

May I present, a lengthy diatribe on the perils of ignorance, as it pertains to HK vs. The PRC.

A couple years ago, Anita and I were in the Seoul Tower as tourists, photographing the city skyline from above, when we overheard an ignorant mainland Chinese tourist run his mouth off to the customer service staff. He was giving the staff member shit for displaying a magnetic world map in which a Taiwanese flag magnet was shown over Taiwan. He asserted that Taiwan was not a country, but rather territory owned by the People's Republic of China. This statement belied not only the ignorance of his place in the world (Taiwan is most definitely NOT part of the PRC, as they have their own completely independent democratically elected government, laws, currency, economy, and most importantly, CULTURE), but was also completely irrelevant, given that he was lecturing a KOREAN customer service clerk about a Chinese territorial dispute, while at a tourist site in KOREA. The fool may as well have gone to Ikea to complain about his cell phone bill - the idea of relevance was COMPLETELY LOST on him.

And so you're thinking, why am I bringing this up now? Let me bring you back to the present, where mass civil protests are occurring and escalating in Hong Kong, calling on Beijing to grant full election freedoms to the citizens of HK, as they had been promised. China, being a communist country, does not afford political freedoms to their mainland citizens. Democracy is a foreign concept that is met with guns, tanks, and labour camp sentences. Hong Kong, on the other hand, is a special administrative region that enjoys far greater freedoms than the Mainland, leading to a discrepancy in expectations.

The issue in and of itself is very complex and delicate (as politically charged issues tend to be). But yet, so many North American armchair commenters, after reading a single article on CBC and/or other news websites, are suddenly running their mouths off about how China owns Hong Kong, so they can do whatever they want, suck it up Hong Kong, blah blah blah. You know what that sounds like? An ignorant fool spouting off PRC territorial claims to a clerk who gives NOT ONE SHIT about your issues, in Korea. Don't do it. By opening your mouth, you confirm that you are ignorant of the facts, and even worse, ignorant of your own ignorance - you lack any understanding of the issue on even a surface level, let alone the tense and complex nature of the underlying relationship between Hong Kongers and 'mainlanders'. Shut your mouth and go back to commenting on Stephen Harper, or whatever issue du jour you're having that you can at least passably qualify as having some knowledge of. /End Rant.

Quick side note: after the mainland tourist in Korea faacked off to go be a douche somewhere else, I went to the display and removed the mainland Chinese flag altogether, and hid it in a separate display. So now, according to that map in Korea, the ONLY Chinese republic that exists is Taiwan. HA!


Seoul, as seen from the top of Seoul Tower.

LARPing GoT

Happy Canada Day! WOOOO!!! Oh what, that was yesterday? Yeah, you can thank Shaw for the belated greeting. Last night, we came home to a house lacking the internet, so I wasn't able to upload this until now. NOT ONLY THAT - when I discovered the internet was MIA, I decided to entertain myself by watching reruns of Game of Thrones. OH WAIT, I couldn't do that either because the cable was also dead. No problem, we'll just make a quick call to Shaw using our … FAACCK, Shaw home phone wasn't working either!!! #unimpressed

What the frick, Shaw?! I felt like we had re-entered the dark ages. Only, the dark ages would have been more entertaining, because while you couldn't watch Game of Thrones, you were pretty much live action role playing it. (LARPing GoT?) Shaw employees, be glad this isn't the dark ages, or your heads would be on pikes at King's Landing. #HeadsOnPikes

On to the photos. We spent the day out in Banff, taking in afternoon tea at the Banff Springs Hotel, eating dainties and drinking tea with our pinkies extended. #HoightyToighty

AMP Radio: The Dick and Jane School of Troll Broadcasting

Warning: Angry ranting ahead. Many of you have probably heard about that crap radio station in Calgary that burned $5000 recently (literally, they incinerated FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS in bills) as part of a 'social experiment.' And then as to be expected, they got all kinds of criticism and flak from all corners for that stupid shameful act, where that $$$ could have done actual good for society. And then one of the co-hosts responsible for the stunt posted some shit to facebook in response to critics that has me STEAMED.

Katie Summers wrote:

"Part of me is glad we burned the money. A week ago, all of the same people and all of the same charities in this city were just as in need. Only now, after an awfully tragic social experiment, are they the forefront of everyone's mind. Maybe this sparked a conversation we needed to have. Maybe this will convince everyone on their soapbox to go & donate to these charities. Animal rescue groups, children's hospitals, mental illness awareness... I know I'm going to. It won't be $5000, but it will be something."

GLAD THAT YOU BURNED THE MONEY?!! You think you "sparked a conversation" about donating to charities?!! FOR REAL?!! Rather than owning up to your tasteless actions, you make yourself out to be a champion for social equality?! YOU ARE NOT THE FUCKING HEROIC MARTYR IN THIS STORY! Burning money to raise awareness of charities in need is like killing a puppy on live TV to raise awareness for the SPCA. It's despicable, and to defend it in the name of social awareness is a fallacy to all the crusaders fighting for so many underfunded worthy causes.

But no. Thank you Katie! You're right, all of us DO need to get off of our soapboxes. We're such dumbasses, putting all that soap in all those boxes anyways. What other nuggets of wisdom did they teach you in the Dick and Jane school of troll broadcasting you somehow emerged from?

Seriously, does anybody actually believe her justification that this publicity stunt gone wrong truly raised the profile for charities and social agencies? As if that was the original intent of this stupid 'social experiment' in the first place? If you do, please come to my house, my foot would be happy to give your ass a bit of re-educating. Because YOU.ARE.A.MORON (not unlike Katie 'I'm pretty much Jesus' Summers). Just making that clear, in case you didn't understand why I'm going to go all Professor Chuck Norris on you. It's likely because your moron-icity prevents you from realizing that fact. But don't worry, come over. It'll be quick and painful.

Holy FAAACK. I'm in a combative mood. /End rant.

We've seen so many degrees of poverty in our travels, it was difficult to pick photos to coincide with tonight's blog entry. I chose to go with ones I shot in Vietnam that don't necessarily depict abject poverty per se, but rather the realities of those living within the means of low income - these people do what they have to in order to survive and provide. Think of what $5000 could do for them? Or any of the folks living at the low income cutoff right here at home. Sigh...

Keep Calm and Dickhead On!

I'm particularly proud to say that I have PERSONALLY disappointed a distinguished (more like DICKstinguished) member of our provincial Legislative Assembly today. I excerpt the relevant portion of his email cc'd to me, below:

"I’m a bit disappointed that Mr Mach wasn’t interested enough to follow up on..."

Now the details of who this MLA is, or how he arrived at this statement aren't important, but if I were to draw an analogy, it would go something like this. Man goes to the Fire Department to report a robbery, gets upset when Fire Department explains that the Police are actually the proper place to register the report/ complaint, but they would at least be willing to help connect him with the Police. And then rather than going to the Police as one would expect, the man instead sends a snarky email to the Fire Department for not showing more interest in said robbery.

Good job, dipshitstick. Was basic comprehension not a part of your degree in Dumbassery?! BTW, how IS the Liberal Party of AB faring these days?* Like 5 farts in a strong breeze? Quelle Surprise! With Steinbergs (Arrested Development reference) such as yourself holding the torch, it's a wonder your political party hasn't been flushed like a runny deuce, let alone continue to have any representation in the Legislature at all. I wonder, what do you tell yourselves after each crushing electoral defeat? Keep calm and dickhead on? Cause that's the only way I can rationalize today's ridiculous misplaced condescending email...

Have a nice day, shitcan! Anyways, enough of me being snide and bitter. On to things that make me happy: BEER!!!

We took a free tour through the Widmer Brothers Brewery in Portland, saw their production facility, and drank some free beer samples. It was pretty awesome, considering the cost ($0).




Free beer tastings, and you keep the glass as a souvenir after!




Huge silos housing their barley malt.


Various barley and specialty malts used in their brewing processes.


Samples of their extruded bittering hops.


Quality Control!


Enormous fermentation tanks. Double walled, with glycol cooling sleeves inside to maintain temperatures.


One more photo, for scale.









*And just in case anyone mistakenly gets the impression that I'm a right leaning conservative, sorry, not so much. I'm merely taking a 'low hanging fruit' stab at the Liberals (and their pathetic 5 seat showing in the current AB Legislature) because this particular MLA thought he could get on a dick soapbox and expect to NOT face pushback.

Dickginas of the world...

I'm quite proud of my little self tonight. Instead of getting punched and walking away, I punched back... albeit, it was more of a snarky open palmed slap than a punch, but whatever. I stood up for myself.

Okay, rewind and let me set some context. I did not actually get in a fight. I've been having a pissing contest with the community association in my neighbourhood because 1) they are a bunch of dickginas, and 2) yeah, that pretty much sums it up. I can't come up with anything more intelligent than a portmanteaux involving both male and female genitalia. Anyways, back to the story. The community association essentially sent us a letter saying we owed them 30 bucks, and that they demanded we immediately pay them. No explanation about why, for what, how the amount was arrived at, etc. Turns out, they claim to have done a title search on our property to figure out who owned it since the previous owner didn't inform them that he sold, and figured they could just bully us into paying for it. So after two letters (with escalating amounts owed), I thought, screw this. I'm going to write a snarky letter pushing back, and see what comes of it. Well boys and girls, it turns out that all it takes to cow someone who is bullying you is to write a sarcastic passive aggressive letter demanding to see the legal authority for which something is being asked of you. Then they send back a very apologetic, "We have reversed the charges and your balance owing is now zero, sorry for any incovenience this has caused" response. That's great, eff you very much.

I think I'm going to start writing more letters going forward. Dickginas of the world, be warned. A snarky letter with your name on it just may hit your desk in the near future.

Anita and I celebrating after winning a plush toy on the midway at Stampede.

Quirky America

Religion and politics are generally topics I choose not to write about here, because we all know where that leads (finger wagging, hair pulling and other highly refined and sophisticated social behaviour)… oh don't pretend like you've never been tempted to shove your fingers in your ears and do the lalalalalalala while someone else was trying to convince you that Ketchup chips are WAAAAAAAYYYYAAAYAAAAYAAAY better than BBQ (they aren't). And that's not even a remotely controversial topic.

So in the wake of the Dark Knight Rises massacre in Colorado, I've chosen to not make an eloquent and well supported attempt to examine American culture surrounding gun control, for fear of it stirring up a serious debate. Instead, I'll just point out the absurdity of this contrast in the US:

Guns (responsible for 31,224 deaths in the US in 2007) = perfectly legal.

Kinder Surprise Eggs (responsible for an astonishing 6 choking related deaths worldwide between 1991 - 1998) = illegal. See this article for more info on how serious US border guards are about illegal Kinder Egg smuggling rings.

So the take home message is, murderous firepower to mow down masses of innocent movie goers? "HELLLLLLLL YEEEEAWWWWHHHH, we gots rights down here ya'll, don't you try and take away our freedom, ya freedom hating communist!" But chocolate covered eggs with a little toy inside? "Get the Tasers Jim, we gots us a smuggler to DEEEE-TAIN!"

*source of the stats quoted above come from Wikipedia. Now, I know, there's a strong possibility that these stats aren't fully referenced (don't believe everything you read on the interwebs). So take the death tolls (SIX vs. THIRTY ONE THOUSAND, TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR) with a very large grain of salt**.

**If you actually do question the validity of those very largely divergent stats, stop reading this blog and don't ever come back, cause you're a fucking moron. Thanks.


Photo totally unrelated to crap rant above. Taken during our fooding and beering adventure this past weekend at MKT.

The WTF Phone Message of the Month

I have the pleasure of owning a residential phone number that once likely belonged to an ethnic family... who also happen to be in a world of debt and appear to be on the lam. Because I get a SHIT TON of random phone calls from collection agencies hunting for some Mr. Avasi or something like that. And often, the calls start in a foreign language, only to switch to English after I annoyedly respond with "Sorry, you must have the wrong number." And I have occasionally even had the asshole callers accuse me of lying and that I am in fact this Mr. Avasi. Whatever.

But in the fairly regular routine of "WHAT THE FUCK?!" phone messages mistakenly left on my machine for Mr. Avasi, this recent voicemail message I received definitely takes the WTF cake to a whole new level. It takes the cake, puts an extra bit of icing on it, adds chocolate sprinkles, and then throws it in the face of your favourite politician during a mentally disabled fundraising event. Either this dude lives under a fucking rock, and that rock is buried in another mountain of fucking rocks where the concept of 'voicemail' is completely foreign, or else he's drunk, high, hallucinating, texting his mom, and eating a tuna sandwich all at once. Either way, I couldn't help but laugh, and then be annoyed, and then laugh again at the ridiculousness of it... have a listen.



Oh, and if you're reading this on a smart phone, you won't be able to access the embedded .mp3 I made of the voicemail. I don't know if this will work, but you can try clicking here to access it.

Windshield Flyer Dudes

To the dudes peppering my car on a daily basis with flyers on the windshield - I make a conscious effort to memorize your company and will actively boycott your goods or services, eff you very much.

Sincerely,
-Annoyed parking lot patrons.

Love Hate Relationship

I'm in a Love Hate relationship with my iPhone 3G (I know, who the frack still uses one of THOSE? That's like someone I know who chose to buy a new Motorola Razr a couple years ago)... Anyways, the point is, the Love Hate thing has shifted pretty dramatically to the HATE side. It's like there was a general election called, and all the citizens of George-land surprisingly voted a HATE majority into power, leaving the LOVE supporters decimated, deflated, and without purpose.

In a nutshell, the phone barely manages basic functions like checking email. Don't even think about trying to launch google maps unless you've got nowhere to go for about 3 hours. And don't even get me started on how slow the fracking notepad is (who knew Notes was THAT intensive of an application). Now I don't want to be a sucker and buy an iPhone 4 knowing a refresh is just around the corner, but every day I go through this routine is another day I'm tempted to throw it out the window, and run it over repeatedly with a forklift.

Reading Room

Currently on the reading list: Affluenza, The all consuming epidemic - by John De Graaf et al. Check it out (you can get it at the library, rather than buying it). Re-examine your life's priorities (shopping BAD).

Oh, and donate to the Haiti relief efforts. It'll make you feel better than if you spend that 20 bucks on a shitty Michael Bay directed DVD (I know you're out there)...

Comrade G, over and out.

The End is NIGH

VERY EFFING NIGH. Seriously, Canon has filed a patent for a touchscreen dSLR. And no, it's not a touchscreen for the purposes of reviewing your shots, it's a touchscreen to replace the functionality of buttons and dials which you currently use to change aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and other important exposure settings. What the hell is wrong with tactile dials and buttons? You can operate them without having to take your eye away from the viewfinder. You CANNOT with a touchscreen. W-T-FUCK?! This is the camera snob in me coming out to play, but is there really someone out there who thinks taking your eye away from the viewfinder so that you can adjust exposure settings on your screen is convenient or conducive to shooting? Cause they make great point and shoots with that feature JUST.FOR.YOU! If you feel that the learning curve of figuring out the layout of buttons and dials on your camera is too much, then go buy one of those gimmicky Sony Cybershots or other entry level cams. Don't mess with advanced tools that already work, and work VERY well.

For more info, read the article below. But actually, the best part of the article is the debate in the comments between serious shooters and some dude who's obviously never used an SLR for any length of time (he espouses all kinds of reasons why a touchscreen would be great for an SLR, but yet the examples he comes up with are not situations or circumstances encountered by serious photographers).

Check it out here. Then go pray that this is just some junk patent filed to stop some other idiotic company from making a piece of shite like this a reality.

Fanboys piss me off

Nikon is about to announce the D3s at all of their worldwide events planned for Oct. 14/09. Queue the Canon fanboys and the 'but it doesn't do 1080p' rhetoric. Of course, this is going to sound like sour grapes coming from a Nikon shooter, but I fucking hate tech fanboys. And more importantly, I fucking hate the douchebag commenters on Gizmodo. Some loser who's never shot a picture that anyone gave a shit about is going on and on and on about how Nikon shit the bed because the D3s doesn't shoot 1080p video... cause that's what a photographer dropping 8000 grand on a camera (body only) wants - to become a film maker. If you want to shoot 1080p for serious video work, go drop a few grand on a real HD camera. Don't buy a Porsche and complain that it doesn't haul your tent trailer very well... you fucking morons. Such is the power of the internets - it unfortunately gives voice to those that should never be heard...

Now, before everyone goes off the deep end on me, I'm definitely not a Canon hater. I think both Nikon and Canon have their strong points, and certainly shortcomings as well. I actually think Canon got everything right with the 5D Mk II. So much so, that if I wasn't already so invested into the Nikon system, I may have considered switching brands if and when I was ready to go full frame.

I guess my point is that, no matter what Company A does, a fanboy of Company B will forever bash bash bash, without ever stopping to think about the shit coming out of their mouths.

And with that, I'm off before I manage to drop any more F-bombs. Sorry about the language tonight.

-G