Life Lessons from a Moron

I am a firm believer that you can take away lessons from almost all experiences in life. So today, I learned an important lesson from a particular moron. Let's rewind.

4:49pm, I'm getting ready to pack up and leave work. My cell phone rings, and the display is a 780 area code number that I do not recognize. The conversation goes a little like this.

Me: Hello?
Him: YO! WHO IS THIS?!
Me: *annoyed by this greeting* Who ARE YOU?!
Him: DON'T PLAY DUMB WITH ME! I WANT TO KNOW WHO THIS IS?!
Me: Who are you looking for?
Him: YO! DON'T MESS WITH ME! I WANT TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHY YOU'VE BEEN TEXTING MY GIRLFRIEND!
Me: I think you may have the wrong number...
Him: DON'T LIE TO ME. I WANT TO KNOW HOW LONG THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON. I'M SOOO ANGRY RIGHT NOW, DON'T MESS WITH ME!

This disjointed conversation goes on for a few minutes before I finally tell him he's an asshole and hang up.

The takeaway lesson: if you think your girlfriend is cheating on you, and you're going to confront someone about it, at least get the phone number right. Otherwise, that mistakenly identified person is going to call you out on the internets for being a complete douchetard. I wish I had goaded him on for a bit longer - I would've ended with "I don't know the first thing about your girlfriend, but I can tell why she cheated on you - because you're a faaacking moron!"

If you're feeling bored, feel free to call up this number (780-919-XXXX*) and tell him what a wonderful dirty time you just had with his girlfriend in the back of your Volkswagen, or the closet, or with your 16 best friends at a drunken frat party, or anything else your vindictive little minds can come up with. Hilarity will ensue, I guarantee.

And before I sign off, here's a timely photo that I recently took on a photowalk. I imagine the assclown protagonist of this story to look a little bit like this:



*Update Feb. 9/13 - It turns out that this whole episode was a prank call from one of my buddies using a phone spoofing website (generates a fake caller ID display), so I have removed the number, just in case some of you decide to take up the offer to harass that number. Note to all - Prank Calls are like one night stands - fun in the moment, but oh man, the very unintended consequences.

Muse with Band of Skulls, Live at the Saddledome

Anita and I caught the Muse show last night at the Saddledome. When I looked up my receipt (they were paperless tickets, so I had to figure out how we would actually get into the show), I was a little annoyed that I bought General Admission tix because I'm an old fogey that has no desire to stand for hours on end anymore. But after having experienced the show on the floor from right in front of the stage, I'm glad that I wasn't stuck sitting down on the sidelines.

First off, the opening act, Band of Skulls, surprised us with how good they were. I'd heard of them before, but had never sat down and really listened to their material. So getting a first hand introduction through a live show was the perfect way to sell me on them. They put on very minimalist show in terms of visuals - three piece guitar/bass/drum band, with little in the way of stage props or design - but made up for that in their funky beats, great harmonic vocals, a bit of blues, bone shattering drums, and a WHOLE LOT OF ROCK! Thoroughly enjoyed them.

Contrast that with the headliner, Muse, who's stage design was elaborate and multi platform, and incorporated a huge set of moving LED walls and panels suspended above and inset into the stage itself to create an incredible visual feast that matched the sonic assault they played to the delight of the thousands in attendance. I've heard from various sources that Muse puts on a hell of a live show, and this concert confirmed all that hearsay. In a word, AWESOME!















And a couple shots of Band of Skulls.




Photos taken with the Sony RX100. For those of you considering this camera, PULL THE TRIGGER. For a point and shoot, you can't beat this. Larger sensor than most of it's peers, incredible low light performance for a point and shoot, an abundance of manual controls, and a surprisingly usable set of high ISOs. All of the above photos were shot RAW at either ISO 1600 or 3200. No noise reduction done on any of them in post, and in fact, I added back some grain to a few to give them more of a concert feel. Buy it now!

Life Drawing at Sandy Hill

Took in the weekly life drawing session at Sandy Hill in Ottawa this past week. Fun times, even though I suck at drawing. All sketches done with a Pentel Pocket Brush ink pen, chalk and conte.











Completely unrelated, but for those of you in Calgary, and looking to shoot some film this weekend, contact me about Sunday - we're looking to do another edition of 'Digital Free Day.'

A Fine Day For Some Film Fun

I put together a Gakkenflex TLR last night, and took it out for a spin today on a little photo adventure with James in the Ogden area of Calgary. The camera takes about 2 hours to assemble, and seems to be hit and miss when it comes to focussing (very difficult to nail), but it takes fairly interesting photos with pronounced vignetting and blurring as you go out from the centre.

All photos shot on Konica VX 400 (expired in 1993).





























I'll do a more in depth review next time, going skiing tomorrow, must sleep now. G'night!

The Film Developing Virgin, Deflowered.

I finally worked up the motivation to develop my own black and white film at home. I shot a roll of Neopan 1600 at the Hannah Georgas show this weekend at the Republik, and processed it last night with minimal problems - no spills, no burns, no chemicals splashing in my eye. Win! Sadly, the film came out extremely grainy and underexposed, even when pushed a stop. Ah well. I still like the results. It's like your first car - total piece of crap, but you still love it.















In case you're interested - this was Fuji Neopan 1600 (shot at 3200) developed in Ilfosol 3 at 1:9 dilution. 12 minutes at 22 degrees C. Continuous agitation for the first 1/2 min, then 5 second inversion/ agitation every 30 seconds after.

Hannah Georgas, Live at the Republik

If you don't know who Hannah Georgas is, that's okay. I didn't either until I saw a print ad for her show the day before. She's a Canadian based singer/songwriter type, and while those seem to be a $0.10/12, she has a certain sound reminiscent of Feist, with a bit of Amy Millan-ish vocals mixed in as well. I don't feel like writing a full on review of the show from last night - just know that it was pretty good as long as you remembered to check your masculinity at the door (it's a good thing I'm such a girly man and have no problems in this type of environment). A 'Three Inches of Blood' show, this was not.

I liked the Republik as a choice of venue, it was large enough that you weren't packed in like sardines, but small enough to have a very intimate feel. Me thinks I may be hitting up shows here more often, regardless of if I know the band or not.

Mach vs. Food - The Live Squid!

I'm a bit of a sucker for eating weird food. If it's weird, and somewhere in the world people eat it, I'm probably going to want to try it. So when we watched an episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, in which he goes to Korea and eats a live squid at a fish market, I immediately said "We HAVE to do that when we're in Seoul later this year!" And that's how, on a frosty winter morning in January, we ended up at the Noriyangjin Fish Market in Seoul Korea, picking a squid out of a bucket, and watching the thing squirm around in its death throes prior to entering the cavernous abyss known as our mouths. Watch the vids, and be grossed out. Cause it was actually kind of gross. Seriously. The tentacles squirm and sucker to everything (the serving tray, your chopsticks, the top of your mouth) for long after they've been chopped up.

La Tour Eiffel... and a couple asses

Okay, so this isn't the promised start of photos from Vietnam, but they are pictures. That's a start, right? Plus, there are two really nice asses for you to check out (totally SFW too). For the film nerds: all photos shot with the Holga 120N on Ilford XP2 Super 400.







See, told you there'd be some nice asses to look at:




And for good measure, here's a goat, a car, and my sis-in-law and nephew. How's that for a completely random collection of photos.








And for the math nerds: This is my 333rd post to this blog.