Archive for ◊ September, 2006 ◊

30 Sep 2006 Out On the Town
 |  Category: cameraphone, Out + About, USA  | Leave a Comment

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I did a boatload of walking yesterday afternoon, especially in Harlem, but I was content just to wander and take in my surroundings. Photowalking is sometimes an oxymoron: if I’m taking photographs I cover very little ground.

Usually what I try and do is get a feel for the area first on foot and shoot later, but the other reason why I didn’t take photos in Harlem is because I stood out like a sore thumb and felt very self-conscious. Everywhere I looked I saw excellent street photo opportunities, but I couldn’t bring myself to dig out the cameras because it called even more attention to myself. As a general rule I try my best to blend in, look nondescript, and thus go along undisturbed, but whenever I thought of taking a photo it wasn’t long before I changed my mind. And it wasn’t as if people were staring at me like I was an alien just arrived from outer space — a phenomenon I’ve experienced elsewhere — but I just felt intrusive taking shots of ordinary people engaging in ordinary activities in their Harlem neighbourhood. I’m not feeling bold that way these days, I suppose. It’s a good thing I don’t do this for a living, I’d starve.

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Last night after the New York Photobloggers event, LarimdaME and I were joined by another Flickrite, JimmyOK, and set off on a quasi-pub crawl around SoHo and NoHo, ostensibly as a bit of a photowalk for me. In the end we only made it to two places and barely took any pictures, but the conversation and company carried us into the wee, wee hours. These guys are, in a word, stellar people — I’ll look them up next time I’m in town.

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29 Sep 2006 Apple SoHo

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Two Apple stores in one day.

I’m attending a New York Photo Bloggers event at the Apple SoHo store. I’m watching the third presenter now, and he’s the funniest of the lot. (Apple has wi-fi here, too.) There were supposed to be eight presenters, but one of them got hit by a taxicab on his bike. He sent a text message to the New York Photo Bloggers moderator saying he was OK but still spitting blood… so definitely not speaking.

29 Sep 2006 An Apple a Day — or even 24 hours a day
 |  Category: cameraphone, Unabashed Geekiness, USA  | One Comment

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Posted from my PowerBook inside the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue. There’s free wi-fi, and the store is open 24 hours a day. I’d set up a tent and camp here, if I could. There’s plenty of music and security, too!

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29 Sep 2006 At Large in New York City
 |  Category: cameraphone, Travel, USA  | Leave a Comment

20060927U.S. border crossing: Rainbow Bridge
Wait time: 20 seconds
Questions: 2

I think I’m on a roll. No more Queenston-Lewiston crossings for me!

An unplanned pit stop was made in Pennsylvania, but nothing to get alarmed about. Helma fed me, I picked up some stuff I left behind last week, it’s all good.

I also picked up a toiletry bag I left two weeks ago along the New York State Thruway at the Scottsville service plaza near Rochester. Thankfully I stopped by when I did because the whole service plaza is shutting down their operations on Sep 29! I replaced everything else at CVS, but I had a bottle of Jil Sander Sport that I picked up in Germany last March and a fresh pair of contact lenses in there that aren’t so easily replaceable. I wanted to pick up the bag on the way back to Toronto last week, but most of these plazas are accessible from only one side of the highway and the round trip would’ve added probably at least 40 minutes if not more to my 9.5 hours of driving last week because the exits are so far apart.

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I do not recommend driving into or around Manhattan during rush hour if you’re a nervous driver or you don’t trust your own judgement. My car was wedged tight between an intimidating amount of steel in the afternoon, but that’s not really when I took these cameraphone shots. No, I’m referring to much later when I was trying to park in Harlem with lanes full of double-parkers, schoolbuses, and people in a hurry. Which was after I took an unwise turn and ended up on the ramp to the Madison Avenue Bridge that leads into the Bronx. Which was after a rather harrowing time trying to change lanes along the George Washington Bridge to make the exit to Harlem River Drive. But hey, all’s well that ends well!

Interestingly, not two hours before, I got a call from a friend in Scranton who I passed driving east on the 380 near Mt. Pocono.

“I’m on my way to Newark Airport, and I saw you go by,” he said.

So much for incognito!

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I went out with LarimdaME and Ye Leen for some Italian on 9th, followed by some wicked (yet FREE!) views of the city from the rooftop bar of 230 Fifth, interspersed with some photowalking. When I get a connection that is more like high-speed rather than dial-up, I’ll upload those photos. For now, I’ll just have to content myself with uploading the low-res cameraphone pics to Flickr.

Oh, and speaking of free, I scored free street parking in Harlem!

29 Sep 2006 A Trickle of Internet
 |  Category: Unabashed Geekiness  | Leave a Comment

I’ve been away from broadband quite a bit lately, so I’ve not been emailing / ewriting / ecomment-responding as per usual. At the moment I’ve resorted to stealing bandwidth from the 10th floor of an old building in an old neighbourhood — one that I’m sure you’ve heard of but I’m still trying to upload photos of it so just take some wild guesses at this point — and currently the data stream has decelerated to a virtual trickle of internet. Maybe they’re on to me.

Sigh. Well, I might just have to go to bed without getting anywhere photo-wise. C’est la vie.

26 Sep 2006 Gratuitous Food Shot
 |  Category: cameraphone, Food + Drink  | 3 Comments

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Thai and Schezuan place, Bloor Street West, in the Annex. Sleemans Honey Brown. Bubble tea in asymmetrical glass. Squares of steamed rice. Green curry sweetened with pineapple. Other dish with heat level labelled as “I’m on fire” — definitely not mine. Dishes of wontons, spring rolls, salad not shown, but most heartily consumed. Appetites fuelled by a driving and walking tour of the city (as much of a tour as I can give after six months of residence, anyway), and a trip to the Eaton Centre Apple store.

Bon appetit!

26 Sep 2006 The Noisiest Tea Party Ever
 |  Category: The Ms, Videoclips  | One Comment

September 9, 2006
The Ms Backyard

Maddy organises a tea party, invitations all ’round. Maribeth nearly escapes. Today’s feature: muffins. Mayhem ensues.

(I didn’t edit this one, I just patched three takes together.)

25 Sep 2006 Cat Rescue – Part One
 |  Category: Critters + Creatures  | 5 Comments

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It’s been quite the day. Had lunch on Queen Street and walked by this cat sitting in a filled-in windowsill. After I took this photo, we noticed another young cat playing in the street and soon found out that both were strays after asking around the neighbourhood.

Turns out they’re from a family of at least 7 strays living in a fenced-in junkyard. The man who lives in the junkyard claims one cat and the rest he doesn’t look after — they don’t even have fresh water. Can’t tell whether he’s a squatter; the place doesn’t look livable — just rubbish and rotting vegetation. There’s even a bird in a cage out back.

The man was pretty ornery, and after some phone calls to local animal shelters and the Humane Society, we returned to his junkpile a few hours later with gloves and food and lured two of the strays inside Hugh’s carrying kennel. It took a while since they were wild, but eventually we managed to get them to the Humane Society. We plan to return and capture the rest of them (hopefully), but we’ll feed them in the meantime.

24 Sep 2006 Protected: The House of Fielding — Then and Now
 |  Category: House of Fielding, PWP-3  | Enter your password to view comments.

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24 Sep 2006 The Fruits of Angie’s Labour
 |  Category: Food + Drink  | 2 Comments

I met Angie, Helma and Hermann’s friend, for the first time on Monday after my impromptu boat trip around Lake Winola. Angie’s an ardent member of Hugh’s large fan club, who watched his videoclips and cheered him on. (Hugh will be greatly missed in YouTube, I’m sure.)

When I arrived, Helma and Angie were washing the mother lode of freshly picked wild mushrooms that Angie had braved life and limb for along a mountainside. For this reason, I made sure I took photos of the fruits of her labour. They were eaten in no time!

Angie, I’ve included links to the original files so you can download them in all their fungal glory! :)

wild mushrooms
(link to original size is here)

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L: original size
R: original size