(Soul II Soul’s track — arguably one of the best singles of 1989)

After about a week of laying low and working on various projects (except for the Summerlicious interlude), I decided to break the work-eat-sleep cycle and join in some meetups around town. On Thursday night after work, I took my houseguest Eve out to the Cadillac, a lounge in neighbouring Queen Street West to meet up with a bunch supporting a Burning Man fundraiser. Because of all the travelling I’ve been doing lately (28 days in a six week period!) I hadn’t seen the couchsurfing crowd in a long while.

Time to break out some Magners!

more…

In the YouTube description:

Humorous motivational speaker, Vinny Verell, has fun with The Secret. This is part of the video blog, Vinny Vents. Often called the Tony Soprano of motivational speakers, Vinny works with groups that want to laugh while they learn.

For those who’ve never been to Vancouver, here’s an aerial shot I took nine days ago that’ll give you an idea of the lay of the (so-called Lotus-)land. This is one of the better aerials I have of Vancouver — you can see the surrounding areas quite clearly and its location in relation to the nearest mountain ranges.

View Larger On White

Click for some notes in Flash, and if you’re in Flickr, feel free to add your own notes.

I went on a kitty litter run this evening and bagged this big fella at the CNE grounds. I had my camera with me (as usual) and wanted to test the capabilities of my new Sigma 24-60mm f/2.8. If I’d thought of this before I left the house, the tripod wouldn’t be left standing in the dining room… drat.

However, the Sigma did rather well, I think. Have a look at the lion shot more closely: View Larger On Black

It’s not tack sharp, but pretty good considering it’s handheld and I had nothing to lean against or put the camera on. Settings here (available for all my photos in Flickr if you click through — see properties on the right sidebar):

Exposure: 0.167 sec (1/6)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 24 mm
ISO Speed: 800

A couple more shots, less successful in the execution but slotted for more attempts with the tripod:

more…

Golden Shellback Waterproof Coating from gCaptain.com on Vimeo.

My apologies for the boring advertising in this video. The best bits are the devices being used underwater. This may not be a bad idea — remember the Waterlogging Incident of 2007 that resulted in buying a replacement digicam and an expensive film camera repair?

I come from a family of vain folk who’ve been dyeing over their grey hair even long after it became very obvious. (At least my dad stopped.) I wrote about that more than three years ago on a trip with David, and at the same time made a prediction that I’d have enough of my own grey stuff to make a bird’s nest by the time I reached 35.

I think I was right!

In the last year or so, I’ve been noticing patches of grey hair sprouting up all around my head in random places. Even my EYEBROWS are growing white hair. I set up the tripod and used the remote to try and capture some of it.

Oops. I hardly ever take self-portraits anymore, so I’m woefully out of practice. It’s all trial-and-error working with the remote and the newly-purchased tripod.

I converted this shot to black and white so it’s easier to see. I don’t know if I’ll end up eventually dyeing my hair — the last time I had colour in it was 2003. I feel like I’ve earned each and every one of these bits of white and grey.

When I took Beano to the vet in the spring, the first thing she noticed was how much white is now mixed in with his dark fur. Maybe Beano and I can commiserate about this current state of af(hairs) over some old-person tea with lots of milk!

* Ref.

I took this photo a week ago, in between a tasty lunch of Pajo’s fish and chips with my friend Lana and catching my flight back to Toronto. As we walked around the point, we spotted this fleet of boats leaving the marina and I figured they were whale watching boats (confirmed when they were close enough to us to read the signage).

Steveston (part of Richmond) is the only place in the Greater Vancouver area where there are whale watching tour companies. The next closest operate out of Victoria. If you’re lucky you can see whales (including killer whales) and dolphins from the ferries that run between the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.

I really liked this shot because of Mt. Baker (WA) in the background, though, but I had to use Photoshop to digitally cut through the haze to show the mountain properly: View Larger On Black

Remember how I was saying a couple of weeks ago that Max, Fancy and Rod’s cat, eats Tim Horton’s doughnuts? Well, he doesn’t just eat them, he doesn’t just go mad for them (beyond Thunderdome, haha), Max turns into a rabid feral beast at the very smell of one lingering in his presence.

I’ll show you in three frames:

more…

This is about as close as Xena would come to it, despite my coaxing.

Another excellent Craigslist purchase tonight, an Optex Tripod #T565. This is actually the first tripod I’ve ever bought. David’s is rusted at the mount, which is from the era which PREDATES mounting plates, believe it or not, so I can’t even replace it. (If you knew David, you would be nodding your head right now. I used to joke with him that I married an anachronism.)

The seller was also offering a Manfrotto ball head, but I think I’d be courting disaster if I used one of those. It seems like one of those things which sounds great in theory (more range! quick positioning!) but terrible in practice (uh oh! not locked properly! slipping mid-shot! camera + heavy lens falls over and takes down whole tripod!! does warranty cover this??).

I did my research online and found the tripod had everything I needed and a few features that didn’t quite qualify as needs but I found really useful: a carrying handle, position markers, and not one but two bubble levels. Additionally, the rubber grip is comfortable, both on the handle and the tripod itself, which adds to the weight but makes it sturdy.

The best part (even more than the price, which was unbeatable considering its pristine condition) is that the seller happens to be a fellow Pentax user! He also shoots with the Pentax K100D, plus he has the K10D and the K20D so he was able to answer my questions about whether it was worth going for the K20 or stick with the K10. (For the record, he confirmed what I’d suspected: the K20 wasn’t worth it.)

I gave him one of my Moo minicards and went on my merry way, looking forward to try out all the new bits of valuable information that came with my new tripod.

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

It’s an internet musical by the same guy who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly. Doogie Howser is singing!

Acts 1, 2, and 3 are available through iTunes.